#munipoli Matters - ISSUE 50 - BC municipal election roundup
A snippet of municipal races going on across the West Coast of Canada
Welcome to another exciting edition of #munipoil Matters, where we go all in on covering the often under-reported area of municipal politics and local government.
I am ecstatic to have reached ISSUE 50 of this online newsletter. When I started this journey, I thought it would be a few months in between where I would write something; who knew I would have been able to expand into video interviews with people actually running for office.
Hopefully, even after this latest round of municipal elections in Canada and the US are over, I can continue to provide more interesting insight and updates in the municipal world.
BC ELECTION ROUNDUP
September 9 was the deadline for British Columbia municipal candidates to register to run in the October election. There is a complete list of candidates from a non profit group called CivicInfo BC, outlining who is running for mayor, councillor, school trustees, regional district and Island Trust directors.
Several positions were won by acclamation as no other candidates filed to stand for election. This includes Metro Vancouver cities such as Burnaby (Mayor Mike Hurley), Pitt Meadows (Mayor-elect Nicole MacDonald) and Port Coquitlam (Mayor Brad West).
Although there is a donkey "running" for mayor in Grand Forks, there are serious candidates running on serious issues. So here’s a quick rundown of some of the more interesting contests out in British Columbia.
Abbotsford: Two term Mayor Henry Braun is not seeking reelection, so the election is being contested by Councillor Ross Siemens, elected in 2014 but served the same role during 1986 to 1990, Troy Gaspar, D. Paul Pelikaan and Majit Sohi.
The only electoral slate running nominees for Council is the Abbotsford First Electors Society, with incumbents Kelly Chahal and Sandy Blue standing as their candidates.
Burnaby: Richard Lee, a former Liberal MLA representing Burnaby North, is seeking a council seat under the One Burnaby slate, which includes incumbent Councillor Mike Hillman. Incumbent Joe Keithley is a punk rocker for the Vancouver based band DOA who is representing the Burnaby Green Party.
Campbell River: Mayor Andy Adams is retiring and his position has five candidates looking to take over. Former mayor and current Councillor Charlie Cornfield, Councillor Kermit Dahl, former firefighter and two term councillor Larry Samson, Micheal Calhoun and lawyer as well as former 2018 Toronto mayoral candidate Saron Gebresellassi.
Coquitlam: Mayor Richard Stewart has been a staple of local politics in this suburban Vancouver municipality since 2001, where he is a former Liberal MLA. Stewart got elected to Coquitlam City Council in 2005, serving as mayor since 2008.
Stewart is facing Mark Mahovlich and Adel Gamar as his opposition. While Mahovlich doesn’t have much of a serious profile, it looks like Gamar has put some actual thought into his campaign for mayor. There are two Council seats available as only six of the eight incumbents seeking reelection.
Fort St. John: With incumbent Lori Ackerman not reoffering so there are three candidates looking to become mayor of this northern BC city of 22,000. Councillor Lilia Hansen, Christian minister and Conservative Party organizer Shannon Strange and Steven Labossiere, who owns a driving school, have put their names forward.
Gibsons: Mayor Bill Beamish is not seeking another term. Leslie Thomson, Phil Yeung and former school trustee and Gibsons councillor Silas White will be running.
Kamloops: After five years as Mayor, Ken Christian will not be seeking another term. He was elected in a 2017 by-election and won a full four year term in 2018.
Running for mayor are Ray Dhaliwal (who briefly served on Council from 2017-2018), Councillors Dieter Dudy, Arjun Singh and Sadie Hunter, as well as Reid Hamer-Jackson.
Kelowna: Mayor Colin Basran is seeking his third term since first getting elected in 2014. Basran will face former Chamber of Commerce president Tom Dyas, David Habib, Glendon Smedley and Silverado Socrates. Former councillor Ron Cannan is looking to rejoin the body once again, after his stint as a federal Conservative MP for Kelowna-Lake Country from 2006 to 2015.
Lake Country: Two term Councillor Blair Ireland was acclaimed as mayor, but my reasoning for including this district municipality is because they’re the only municipal government in BC that uses the ward system. The Carr’s Landing, Oyama wards and one at-large seat have their incumbent councillors acclaimed, while Okanagan Centre and Winfield will have contested races.
Langley City: Mayor Van van den Broek and Councillor Nathan Pachal will vie for the city’s top job.
Langley Township, Mayor Jack Froese’s retirement has led to a competitive four way race between Councillors Eric Woodward and Blair Whitmarsh, former councillor Michelle Sparrow and former BC cabinet minister and MLA Rich Coleman.
Maple Ridge: Mayor Mike Morden is being challenged by four other contenders, among them former federal MP Dan Ruimy. Ruimy served one term as a Liberal from 2015 to 2019 representing Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge in the House of Commons. Joining Morden and Ruimy are former councillor Corisa Bell, retired nurse Darleen Bernard and entrepreneur Jacques Blackstone.
Bell, who served on Maple Ridge Council from 2011 to 2018, also campaigned against the province’s HST, earning her an endorsement from one of BC’s most prominent anti-HST proponents: former premier Bill Vander Zalm.
Nanaimo: Mayor Leonard Krog, a former NDP MLA elected with 73% of the vote in 2018, is seeking another term and faces Tasha Brown, Brunie Brunie and Agnes Provost. Meanwhile, former federal Green MP Paul Manly is running for a council seat.
Manly briefly served in Ottawa when he won a 2019 by-election, becoming the second elected Green MP in Canadian history. He won again in the general election that same year, but lost his seat to the NDP in the 2021 election.
New Westminster: With Mayor Jonathan Cote retiring, three candidates have stepped forward to run for the mayor’s post: Ken Armstrong, an insurance defence lawyer running under the New West Progressive banner, Councillor Patrick Johnstone and Councillor Chuck Puchmayr, who is also a former BC MLA.
North Vancouver City: Mayor Linda Buchanan defends her title once again against Guy Heywood. Heywood, who was on Council from 2008 to 2014, ran unsuccessfully in 2018 and only lost to Buchanan by 401 votes with four other people on the ballot. This time Heywood is Buchanan’s only opponent.
North Vancouver District: Incumbent Mayor Mike Little is being challenged by Councillor Matthew Bond. Little won election as mayor with 60% of the vote in 2018 against a crowded field. As with the city race, Bond is Little’s only opponent this time.
Port Moody: Mayor Rob Vagramov is leaving after one term after what has been described as a ‘fractious’ term of council with councillors and mayor regularly at each other’s throats. Vagramov, who was 26 when elected in 2018, was also charged with sexual assault stemming from a date in 2015, but the charges were stayed when the mayor completed an alternative measures program.
Standing for the mayoral race are Councillors Meghan Lahti and Steve Milani. While Milani is just finishing up his first term on Council, Lahti has been on it since 1996.
Prince George: Two term Mayor Lyn Hall is retiring and six candidates have stepped forward to run in his place: Councillor Terri McConnachie, Adam Hyatt, legal assistant Lisa Mitchell, lawyer Roy Stewart, Christopher Wood and Simon Yu.
Prince Rupert: Mayor Lee Brain is not seeking another term. Four candidates are running to replace him: Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jason Hoang, former mayor Herb Pond and Chrystopher Thompson.
Richmond: I had previously written about this, but former MLA and cabinet minister Kash Heed has joined former councillor Derek Dang as part of the Richmond RISE slate, with the two of them being the only candidates for the new party.
There are also two former Olympians running for Council: current incumbent Alexa Loo, an Olympic snowboarder and Evan Dunfee, an Olympic race walker who won a Bronze medal at the Tokyo 2020 games. While there may be more action at the Council level Mayor Malcolm Brodie, who has been in office since 2001, looks to be a shoo-in for reelection.
Squamish: It’s another open mayoral race as incumbent Karen Elliott is not seeking a second term. Former Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) councillor Deanna Lewis-Kalkalilh, Councillor Armand Hurford and businessman Mike Young are running.
Surrey: Embattered Mayor Doug McCallum is the rare sitting mayor of a big city in Canada, because of a combination of contentious policy decisions and personal legal troubles, has attracted a slew of high profile candidates to run against him.
Those candidates are almost a who’s who of BC political heavyweights: former NDP MP and current MLA Jinny Sims, Councillor Brenda Locke (who previously was on McCallum’s slate), current Liberal MP Sukh Dhaliwal and former White Rock mayor, MLA and MP Gordie Hogg.
Including the mayor, each represents five different municipal parties running in this election. Others running for mayor include Amrit S Birring, Kuldip Pelia and John M Wolanski.
With four candidates with significant local profile, conventional wisdom would say McCallum is likely to lose. However, could this many candidates with enough of their own voter bases split the anti-McCallum vote so much that it ends up allowing the incumbent to sneak up the middle?
Vancouver: BC’s most prominent city certainly isn’t yielding the title of the most chaotic mayoral race in the province. Incumbent Kennedy Stewart, a former NDP MP who squeaked out a narrow win in 2018 with 28% of the vote, faces 14 other candidates in this election.
Stewart is now the standard bearer of Forward Together Vancouver…which includes his own wife, Jeanette Ashe, as one of its council candidates. What is also interesting is that the traditional centre right party, the Non-Partisan Association (NPA), is almost an afterthought since there are other parties that have taken up that political space.
The centre right political space has seemingly been taken up by Councillor Colleen Hardwick of TEAM for a Livable Vancouver and Ken Sim of ABC Vancouver. The NPA are still in the game, with Fred Harding as their mayoral candidate. There is also Mark Marissen, a former Liberal organizer who leads the Progress Vancouver slate.
More recognizable progressive parties like COPE, Vision Vancouver and Greens are not fielding mayoral candidates, turning their attention to the 10 seats on City Council. There would be one open seat as Hardwick is running for mayor.
Only Councillor Melissa De Genova is seeking reelection under the NPA banner. The three other councillors who were elected under the NPA, Rebecca Bligh, Lisa Dominato and Sarah Kirby-Yung, are now running under Sim’s ABC Vancouver. Like most of BC’s other municipalities, Vancouver has no ward system so there are some 60 candidates canvassing across the entire city running for council seats.
Victoria: The capital city is going to a new leader, as incumbent Lisa Helps is stepping down after two terms. There are eight contenders, but the most high profile names are Councillors Marianne Alto and Stephen Andrew. Out of the six remaining contenders, entrepreneur Brendan Marshall seems to have the most rounded out profile.
No matter who is the next mayor of Victoria, City Council will see the most massive turnover as only one incumbent, Councillor Ben Isitt, is seeking reelection. A group called the Vancouver Island Voter’s Association is running a slate of candidates.
West Vancouver: Incumbent Mary-Ann Booth is seeking reelection. She will face former mayor Mark Sager once again in a rematch from 2018, when Booth beat Sager by only 21 votes. For this election cycle, Councillor Marcus Wong and Teresa De Cotiis will also be on the ballot.
White Rock: Mayor Darryl Walker’s first term must have been a challenging one: he’s facing opposition from two sitting councillors, Scott Kristjanson and Erika Johanson as well as former councillor Megan Knight.
Cover photo courtesy of Niyazz/iStock/Getty Images Plus
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