It’s election day in Vancouver, with voting taking place between 8 a.m. and 8 pm.
Voters can cast their ballots at any of the city’s 85 voting places, which can be found here.
Interest in the race is high, as a record-breaking 103,000 people voted in advance — up 60 per cent from roughly 65,000 voters over five advance days in 2022.
The vote will determine, among other things, who will lead the city for the next four years. In the running are incumbent Mayor Ken Sim (ABC Vancouver), Pete Fry (Green Party), Kareem Allam (Vancouver Liberals), Colleen Hardwick (TEAM for a Livable Vancouver), Rebecca Bligh (Vote Vancouver), Muhammad Ahmad (Bright Future Vancouver), Amauri Caliman (Independent), and Scott Gilbert (Independent).
Voters will also elect the 10 members of Vancouver City Council — with candidates from ABC, the Greens, COPE, OneCity, and others competing for seats — as well as seven Park Board commissioners and nine Vancouver School Board trustees.
The election ballot includes two plebiscite questions on public safety and three Capital Plan borrowing questions.
Ken Sim (ABC Vancouver):
Sim, the incumbent mayor, is campaigning for a second term as mayor with his right-of-centre ABC Vancouver party. He says while he would be the first to admit he didn’t get everything right during his tenure, he believes he can lead the city in the right direction. Part of his platform includes the promise of a zero-per-cent increase in property taxes. Earlier this month, he announced a plan for his first 100 days, should he be elected for a second term.
Pete Fry (Green):
Three-term councillor Fry, son of longtime Liberal MP Hedy Fry, has a platform focusing on housing, transportation, and the economy. “Folks should be able to have a good life in this city,” he has said.
Kareem Allam (Vancouver Liberals):
Allam, Sim’s former chief of staff, says he wants to bring youth back to Vancouver by improving affordability through jobs and housing, and investing in parks and community centres. He said his platform cuts across ideologies. Allam has distanced himself from Sim.
Rebecca Bligh (Vote Vancouver):
Bligh is a two-term councillor who helped Sim get elected with ABC Vancouver in 2022 and is now running with Vote Vancouver. She says she is running to govern for Vancouver’s ignored middle class and calls herself a progressive candidate with a centrist platform. She says Sim’s property tax freezes protect wealthy landowners and undercut critical services. Bligh says she would work with the federal government to leverage city-owned land and provide free transit for youth.
Colleen Hardwick (TEAM for a Livable Vancouver):
Hardwick is a former councillor who says the key to livability in Vancouver is effective city planning. She says she wants to repeal the city’s official development plan and re-establish neighbourhood planning offices.
A poll published Oct. 9 suggests a tight race for mayor, with Fry holding a one-point lead over Sim among decided voters.
The Canada Pulse Insights poll, done exclusively for CityNews and OMNI TV, puts Fry at 28 per cent and Sim at 27 per cent, within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
Allam trails in third at 19 per cent.
Among decided voters who say they will definitely vote or have already cast a ballot, Fry leads Sim by the same narrow margin, 29 per cent to 28 per cent.
Hardwick sits at 13 per cent among decided voters, followed by Bligh at seven per cent.
All five mayoral candidates’ platforms address quality-of-life issues, including affordability and public safety.
The Canada Pulse Insights poll found the top concerns among Vancouver voters are split along ideological lines, with Canada Pulse Insights CEO John Wright saying it is “very apparent there are two different streams going head-to-head here.”
“You’re going to have Pete Fry, who has a group of people who are more about the environment, more about ethics, more about accountability, more about affordability, more about housing,” he said.
“That’s a very distinct agenda.”
On the other hand, he says, those constituents supporting Sim are distinctly different.
“Affordability is the most important issue to them, but then it’s crime, it’s municipal taxes, it’s accountability for the bottom line; they’re more meat-and-potato issues,” Wright said.
“Those tend to be factors where people will get out more so and vote. If they’re older voters, they oftentimes own homes and they are taxpayers, and they need to get out and vote because they take it more seriously. So it’s a different group of people.”
Public safety
The election ballot includes two plebiscite questions on public safety.
The non-binding questions ask voters if they’re in favour of the city “strengthening its laws to forbid open-air hard drug use in public spaces,” which is already illegal in B.C. The other asks if the city should ask the province to convert portions of the old St. Paul’s Hospital into a “secure medical facility” with 100-plus involuntary care beds.
Hardwick called the questions a “populist election tactic,” while other critics said they aren’t realistic.
Sim said strengthening the city’s health bylaw — regulating conduct such as smoking in common areas — would allow officers to issue tickets or confiscate drugs without arrests. The involuntary care question, he said, is about asking the province to fulfil its accountability to people who pose a risk to their own safety or others.
Fry said he supports managing drug use in public spaces, but differs from Sim in believing that people should be diverted to supervised consumption sites or shelters.
Capital Plan borrowing
The election ballot includes three questions relating to Capital Plan borrowing. They centre on: transportation and street infrastructure; community-serving and civic-essential infrastructure; and parks and open public spaces infrastructure.
It’s not just Vancouverites casting their ballots on Saturday; there are votes happening all across the province.
Residents in all B.C. municipalities — like Surrey, Richmond, Burnaby and Abbotsford — are also voting for mayor and councillors.
CityNews has you covered for the 2026 Municipal elections on Saturday October 17th.
Join us starting at 6pm for full coverage from races around Metro Vancouver.
We will have reporters across the region to cover the results, and expert panellists to break it all down. Watch live on CityNews 24/ 7.
— With files from The Canadian Press
