ABC's lone survivor: Vancouver City Councillor Mike Klassen on his re-election | Daily Hive

ABC's lone survivor: City Councillor Mike Klassen on his re-election and Vancouver's political reset

Mike Klassen/submitted

Mike Klassen is preparing for a very different role in Vancouver City Council, moving from being part of the ABC Vancouver majority to being the party’s only re-elected member — and acknowledging that the party’s approach to governing helped turn voters away.

In an in-depth, post-election interview with Daily Hive Urbanized at Vancouver City Hall on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, Klassen reflected on the outcome of the election, saying ABC failed to adequately communicate its accomplishments and faced criticism that it was not listening to residents.

“I think that we did a poor job of communicating any achievements. And then, I think the criticism that we became too partisan is a fair one. And so, my personal approach is always to be very collaborative,” he said.

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He also agreed that the effort initiated by outgoing mayor Ken Sim to abolish the separately elected Vancouver Park Board commissioners consumed far too much time and political capital. What began as a push for a single clear point for governing and public accountability for Vancouver’s parks and recreation system became a rallying issue against ABC, he said, with considerable energy spent on negotiations with the provincial government. It ultimately led nowhere — despite all the time and energy already spent over the span of almost two years — by the time it fizzled out in October 2025.

However, Klassen credited his own re-election this month partly to sustained door-to-door campaigning and relationships developed over decades in Vancouver.

“The elections come down to just hard work. I was out early on in the door canvassing that we started back in the spring, and I told everybody I was going to be very committed to that process and was pretty unrelenting in terms of trying to connect with community,” said Klassen.

“And of course, as just somebody who’s been around in the city, grew up in the city, I’ve built up a lot of connecting tissue with different groups and community members over the years.”

With 57,922 votes, Klassen secured the 10th and final seat on City Council — just behind the 57,924 votes of new Green Party of Vancouver city councillor Bridget Burns and ahead of the 55,100 votes of ABC candidate Joyce Gillespie.

Out of 146 voting locations across the city, Klassen had the most votes among all city councillor candidates in 41 of those locations.

“There’s no one answer, and I sort of say with complete humility that I am incredibly grateful for the support that I received,” said Klassen when asked what potential contributing factors led to him being the only re-elected ABC city councillor.

His successful candidacy in the 2022 civic election under ABC was not the first time he tried to run for office. In the 2011 civic election, under the Non-Partisan Association and carrying the momentum he enjoyed from running his CityCaucus blog during the 2010 Winter Olympics, he secured the 13th most votes among the City Council candidates — just 780 seats behind the Green’s Adriane Carr, who secured the last seat in the chamber.

“I’ve been a kind of an avowed team player, always saying to people, ‘If you support me, please support the team.’ This is a team sport,” said Klassen.

Now, he wants to work with Mayor-elect Pete Fry and the incoming city councillors, drawing on a friendship with Fry that stretches back more than 30 years.

He wants to support the new city councillors in overcoming the steep learning curve, which he says was something he also did for COPE City Councillor Sean Orr and OneCity City Councillor Lucy Maloney after they won the April 2025 by-election.

He said he would support worthwhile proposals while challenging measures that he believes fail to deliver sufficient public benefit.

On the City’s spending, given that Fry and other city councillors have indicated that the 2027 property tax increase will not be set at zero, as previously proposed by ABC, Klassen said an inflation-level property tax increase could be justified. But larger increases would require a convincing explanation.

He also expressed openness to discussing supportive housing and a restored City-operated Renter’s Office — provided that the supportive housing comes with adequate services, and the City-funded office assisting renters demonstrates its value.

“If we are going to move forward with and be able to build and supply new supportive housing, there has to be commensurate wraparound services. None of us want to have the kind of spillover impacts on neighbourhoods because we weren’t able to keep that in control. There are some success stories, so let’s build upon the success stories and try and make sure that the ones that haven’t worked so well get addressed,” he said.

Public safety remains a top priority. Klassen said the strong support for the public safety plebiscite’s two proposals reflected residents’ concerns more effectively than ABC’s civic election campaign did. He wants the incoming City Council to consider how it responds to open hard drug use in public spaces and works with the provincial government, while recognizing that some situations require a response other than police.

Klassen also wants to preserve work on childcare permitting, support for seniors, and assistance for businesses. But his broader concern is that there could be a push to have the City take on more responsibilities that he believes belong to the provincial and federal governments, while struggling to focus on the municipal basics of maintaining streets, sidewalks, and community and recreational facilities.

For businesses and developers worried about the dominant makeup of the new City Council and where they fit on the political spectrum, Klassen urged patience, while warning that further regulatory hurdles could make an already difficult construction market worse.

“Well, let’s let the new Council show what it’s able to do,” he said.

He also discussed the future of Hastings Park and the PNE, where Klassen said his continued involvement as the PNE’s chair of the board of directors had not been discussed. He sees opportunities for more sports, entertainment, and family activities at the PNE fairgrounds.

Klassen expressed clear support for extending SkyTrain to UBC, keeping the Vancouver Whitecaps FC in the city, and advancing the proposed Major League Baseball bid. While acknowledging that important details remain unresolved, he described major league sports as a source of civic pride, community excitement, and optimism.

That optimism, he said, will guide his next term.

“And so, I’ll always, always be the perennial optimist about our city,” said Klassen.

For clarity, accurate context, and brevity, the following is an edited and condensed version of the remaining questions and answers from Daily Hive Urbanized’s interview with ABC city councillor Mike Klassen, with some related responses grouped by topic:

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: What is the clearest message voters sent to ABC? Did ABC become a different party in government from the one voters elected in 2022?

MIKE KLASSEN: I think you could surmise that the promise was a big tent centrist party. And you know, that takes a lot of work.

I think we had to do a number of things that probably created some immediate concern. The high property tax increase at the beginning was a response to a whole bunch of factors — an eight per cent plus inflation rate, a drained contingency fund, and the police and first responder budgets being depleted and not meeting needs for many years. You heard all the arguments.

City Hall had also drifted very heavily over the course of probably 15 years into non-core responsibilities. That’s something that, again, I think we have to reconcile. The new Council is talking about again going back to that approach of taking on things that are very much the domain of the provincial and sometimes federal government.

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: Did ABC change its approach after the poor April 2025 by-election result? Was there a pivot?

MIKE KLASSEN: A pivot? There was certainly an attempt at a pivot for sure. I mean, the mayor himself would tell you that. He decided that the approach that he was using originally probably wasn’t working.

He talked a lot about how he wanted to be an accessible mayor, and he didn’t sort of subscribe to the formalities of how one comports himself in office. People talked about how he dressed, and he decided that [after the by-election], ‘If that’s what I need to do, I’ll do it.’ He made those changes among other things, of course.

It wasn’t just sort of appearances, but I think as a party, we had to make some changes, but it probably was not clear enough and not communicated well enough.

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: How much room was there within ABC to disagree with the mayor’s office?

MIKE KLASSEN: Caucus politics is a very important part of the job, so having the ability to speak bluntly and challenge ideas — it was there. That opportunity always was there. You didn’t always win the arguments, but sometimes, if you brought some ideas forward, you got heard.

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: What comes next for ABC? What role do you want to play in rebuilding the party now that you’re the only public face of it?

MIKE KLASSEN: I’ve been involved behind the scenes for the most part or out front with local government political movements for a few decades. There was a time when I was a columnist, where I was more looking from the outside in, but I feel that governing from the middle is something that ABC aspired to do and is always where the pendulum ultimately swings.

I would like to think that the really great people that ran with us don’t lose interest in serving the public. Many of them stepped away from good careers to give back to the city, so I think the signal that we’re sending is: stay involved, stay a part of the community, and help us over the next four years. With your ideas and your energy, try and make Vancouver a better city.

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: How does your governing style change now that you’re transitioning from being part of a majority to essentially being the opposition?

MIKE KLASSEN: It’s certainly going to be a different political environment in the chamber. I’ll still bring what I hope is a thoughtful approach to governing. If good things come forward from this Council, I’ll be the first to cheer it on and cheer it loudly. If there are things that I think don’t fit with my priorities and what I see as having appropriate public benefit, then I’m going to be asking some harder questions.

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: Do you have any concerns about the incoming Council’s spending priorities?

MIKE KLASSEN: So, we have to be honest with ourselves. This is why core infrastructure, street sidewalks, and community centres got into a low state of repair. It wasn’t because we didn’t want them to be better, but because we simply had focused on other priorities.

So again, this is what the new Council has to decide. Do they want to build a great city, or do they want to take on and re-establish priorities that really are meant for the other levels of government?

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: A definitive majority of voters supported the public safety plebiscite’s proposals. What is your take on that result?

MIKE KLASSEN: Just over 207,000 people completed the plebiscite out of about 210,000 who voted, so about 2,000 didn’t fill the ballot out, and the “Yes” result was over two-thirds, which in any vote would be a very strong mandate.

I feel that it tapped into how the public is feeling about those issues better than perhaps ABC did. The lesson that we take away from that is: what do we do next?

There were really two components: Do we take a sterner view on open hard drug use in the city? Do we change the way we enforce those laws and those bylaws, and are we serious in terms of working with the province and how we can get them to be focused on this?

The reason I think this is so important is because you know that this scourge of fentanyl use, substance abuse, and mental health is affecting communities right across not only British Columbia, but right across the country. It’s most acute and visible in the Downtown Eastside, but it is also in other communities and consuming a huge amount of resources.

I think that the public levels of frustration — and also, you know, actual anxiety about being in some of our neighbourhoods — is understandable. We see a lot of elderly people in addition to those who are very vulnerable.

I talked to people who had been bloodied on the street living down there that were just going about grocery shopping […] The state of affairs is unacceptable; we need to get serious about this, and it’s why I’m really proud of the work that I did in supporting recovery by groups like Together We Can. I made sure that any of their requests for permitting got top priority and that our permitting department understood that they were saving lives by making sure that kind of stuff got fast-tracked.

Mayor Ken Sim during ABC’s press conference on Aug. 13, 2026, announcing the public safety plebiscite during the October 2026 civic election. (Kenneth Chan)

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: Mayor-elect Fry and the incoming City Council have made it clear they don’t intend to react to the public safety plebiscite results. Are you concerned about potentially maintaining the status quo on what we’re seeing in the streets?

MIKE KLASSEN: There is a risk that we’re going to face the status quo. Mayor-elect Fry has talked about creating a community safety team of some kind. But you have the park rangers who currently don’t have actual bylaw enforcement authority under their mandate.

I actually served on a policing review task force through the Union of B.C. Municipalities. There are a lot of interesting ideas there. A community safety officer designation was one of the better ones.

If you remember the crews who wore red jackets that used to exist as part of the Downtown Van BIA, they were kind of shuffled aside for political reasons […] First of all, we kind of need non-policing responses in many of these cases, but we have to really devote some resources to it. However, that will cost money, and it’s money that we would probably want to rely upon from the provincial government. But we know the provincial government is facing a bit of a political financial situation of its own.

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: The ABC majority decided to dissolve the City’s Renter’s Office and rejected Pete Fry’s attempts to restore it, repeatedly citing very low usage of the services provided. How would you approach the new City Council’s intent to restore this office for assisting renters?

MIKE KLASSEN: All I would probably ask in return is to make sure that we look at the return on investment on this. The criticism of the original Renter’s Office was that it was serving about one person a day and it was fully staffed, so it was costly.

We have to just make sure that if we are going to expend resources on something like that, we have to look at whether it makes better sense for us to keep working with external agencies like Tenant Resource & Advisory Centre. Maybe give them more support and allow them to do what they do firsthand, rather than bringing it in-house.

I think I won’t get very far on that discussion with them, but all I would ask for is accountability to Vancouver taxpayers on that.

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: What would you say to those in the business community who are worried that the incoming City Council will be hostile to their interests?

MIKE KLASSEN: I think that the anxiety is understandable given some of the political rhetoric from the campaign.

I think that there will be a steep learning curve for a number [of new city councillors]. When I came on Council, there were already people there in the ABC team and as well on the Green councillors that had been on for a term already.

This is a much larger group that is going to get the training and the briefings that they need to understand the role that they’ve been elected to. I hope that they understand their fiduciary responsibility pretty quickly. It’s a lot to learn.

I’ve always said that as a city councillor, you need to have about a passing knowledge of at least a thousand issues. It’s from community-based stuff, it’s housing priorities, it’s policy, it’s little issues that you’re trying to help, it’s the fires you’re trying to put out in communities […] it just runs the gamut. That’s sure to keep our new councillors very busy, trying to get up to speed in a lot of those things.

But once the new Council has sworn in and starts to understand their roles, they’ll probably understand that they kind of need to support housing development in this city.

They can do it in their own way, but you know the people we’re talking about are the people who build our homes. We need to make sure that there’s a kind of holistic approach to things.

I think there’s an important balance, and I think the industry itself needs to understand that part of the message that we got from the voters is that there was some pushback on whether it was the Broadway Plan or multiplexes […] The kind of construction levels, the pace that we’ve been doing right now, has had some political consequences, so we need to kind of ask where can we keep going to make sure that there’s a little bit more harmony with the voters.

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: What practical improvements would you like to see made for businesses?

MIKE KLASSEN: Well, we’ve started down the path of trying to reduce permitting times and make that work more supportive, certainly for builders and housing development. What I heard from people on the campaign trail is that we haven’t gone far enough there. We have more work to do in terms of regulatory streamlining.

That’s just one part of the business community, but it’s a substantive part of it.

If I’m reading the headlines correctly, we’re going into a very, very difficult period for housing construction and development. That means a lot of the people that were doing those jobs — the pipe fitters, the people that swing hammers, the people that do drywall, all of the construction trades, all of the supply chains, [and] all of the companies that provide all the materials — they’re all going to be taking a hit right now because of that. It’ll impact our economy, and that’s something we don’t want to see.

Mayor-elect Fry ran a small business of his own at one time, so I think he understands that we need to keep businesses in our city and let them know that we’re on their side. But if we start layering on a whole bunch of new priorities that are expensive, that’s going to be a very hard thing to achieve.

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: Where do you see opportunities to work across party lines?

MIKE KLASSEN: It’ll probably come as a surprise to most of the public, but the vast majority of Council decisions are supported unanimously. There are going to be unique issues that are going to divide us perhaps more along political lines.

I think there is a pretty unified approach to making sure that we have a vibrant city, including strong arts and culture. I’ve invested and been actively interested in music and culture in general in our city. That’s something that I think we need to get creative [about] because the amount of money the city can provide itself is very limited, and anything that we spend will mean we have to take it away from someplace else.

I think we’re all very interested in supporting new housing initiatives, whether they’re below market or market. But we have to continue to make sure that housing gets built, and that it will meet the needs of a growing city. That’s going to be increasingly hard right now.

The marketplace is in a really tough spot for a lot of external reasons, and internally, you know, the paradigm has kind of shifted away from the pre-sale condo. We built a lot of rental, but the cost per square foot is still very high and the more regulations and requirements we put on this housing just either slow it down or increase the cost. So, we have to continue to be really efficient.

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: Have there been any discussions on having you continue your role as the board chair of the PNE?

MIKE KLASSEN: I just had my last board meeting yesterday, and I have not discussed involvement going forward. If there is a new board chair, I’ll be sure to work with them in terms of transitioning and giving them all the help they need to succeed.

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: What opportunities do you see for the PNE, Hastings Park, and the closed Hastings Racecourse site now that horse racing has come to a permanent end? Do you see the PNE eventually growing its event facilities footprint into the racecourse area?

MIKE KLASSEN: Well, I’m still on paper as the board chair, so I’m only speaking for myself when I say this: I’m really bullish on Hastings Park, and I’m really bullish on making sure that sports, family entertainment, and activities that bring community together always become a part of that space. We’re so lucky to have it.

The racecourse property, how it ends up being planned and developed over time, is really up to our imaginations. I know that the whole Whitecaps discussion really kicked off a whole set of discussions. The provincial government ending its support of horse racing led to that change there, but could you imagine?

I mean, we have a fair bit of ageing infrastructure. The Livestock Building and the Forum Building all have huge potential as venues for a range of activities.

Of course, we have made a significant investment with the Freedom Mobile Arch amphitheatre. It is truly, I think, a global gem as a venue, and you don’t build something like that there, that is at that level of quality, and not expect something great to build up around it.

freedom mobile arch pne amphitheatre opening night june 5 2026

Nighttime lighting of Freedom Mobile Arch, the new PNE amphitheatre, as seen on June 5, 2026 during the grand opening celebration. (Kenneth Chan)

You might recall that I was able to get a fair bit of funding for the skateboard park, which is one of the best skate parks in Canada. But it was getting very tired and a bit worn out, so that refurbishment funding is now part of our capital plan.

There are new partnerships to be announced that will be revenue-generating. You’re aware of the digital sign district that we created for that to bring in some more revenue as well, but I think what we’ll start to hear more about is that kind of creative vision for where the PNE goes for the next generation and so I’m excited for it.

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: Many big acts have played at the PNE since it opened and after it was used for the FIFA World Cup Fan Festival. That never happened with the old amphitheatre. Would you say that Freedom Mobile Arch is working as intended in terms of generating more revenue for the PNE?

MIKE KLASSEN: I think yes. It’s not a huge amount of revenue, but remember we have to pay down the debt to build it. So between that and over time, there is a forward-looking plan that will bring net positive revenue for the amphitheatre to keep it going. So I think there are more details to be announced on that plan in the coming weeks.

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: What is next for the plan to redevelop and expand Playland into a theme park?

MIKE KLASSEN: I have not heard a lot of discussion about it. There’s about a 15-year-old master plan that talks about that. We did the Thunderbolt coaster ride that was a part of the investment.

Preliminary conceptual site plan of the Playland redevelopment and expansion project. (PNE)

Preliminary conceptual artistic rendering of the Playland redevelopment and expansion project. (PNE)

Let’s see. I think the business case will have to be made for all of those things. One of the things that really came up was public transit to the northeast corner of our city — that Hastings Corridor and that connection to the North Shore. All of those things are kind of hanging in the balance right now.

We’ve got Bus Rapid Transit going to North Burnaby, to the North Shore, and to Phibbs Exchange. I think that there needs to be a strong case to be made to eventually get better with people through the area.

I think what we did during the World Cup, the Route 11 express bus that came back and forth from 29th Avenue Station and Rupert Station, was really successful. I’ve spoken to Kevin Quinn and his team at TransLink, and they understand that that was a pretty successful model that maybe we need to deploy for other times of high activity at the PNE.

translink 11 fifa world cup fan festival express bus

TransLink’s No. 11 FIFA Fan Festival Express bus at SkyTrain’s Renfrew Station. (Kenneth Chan)

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: Mayor-elect Fry wants to establish a binding project timeline for senior governments to advance the UBC SkyTrain extension. What are your thoughts on that approach and what else can the City do to help guide that project to getting construction started?

I worked quite closely with the folks at UBC behind it, and they explained to me how much they needed it, and how much work was underway.

I think about half of the funding for the business plan has come in so far. I think the province has stepped up. I think the feds are still yet to come to the table. I’m not entirely clear on where the gap is, but there’s money needed to finish the business plan. Once the business plan is done, then you have a really good way of sort of scoping how things could go.

But, you know, the statistics are quite remarkable. I mean, we’re talking a conservative estimate of 50,000 new housing units that will take place on that line when built, and that the terminus at UBC would probably be the busiest station in the entire region. So the numbers don’t lie, and I’m using their term, which is the “brain train.”

When you connect all of that education […] It’s way more than just getting kids to the university. It’s employment, it’s housing, and it’s also keeping all of the intellectual properties and all the different important work that happens at UBC, connected to the city. And it ranks up there as a project of national significance for us — to grow our metropolitan economy here.

DAILY HIVE URBANIZED: How high on your agenda is keeping the Vancouver Whitecaps in the city and attracting a Major League Baseball team?

MIKE KLASSEN: I would consider it pretty high. And the reason is that you need to continue to build enthusiasm, excitement, and hope. And a home team and a major league really does do that.

It’s why I’ve been so excited to see the growth of the PWHL at the PNE. There are constant discussions about other sports coming in here, both in women’s and men’s sports.

And I was really happy that people who understand major league sports took a look at the MLB proposal that was brought forward by that group and said this is the real deal. Like, this is a serious thing. This wasn’t just somebody goofing around. So I hope they still feel as excited about bringing forward that and feel that they can get the kind of support from City Hall that they’re going to need to make sure that thing moves forward.

In terms of the Whitecaps, I think those negotiations are still kind of in flux right now. It seems to me that their mindset has moved away from looking into building a stadium on the Hastings Racecourse site. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t an opportunity at or by BC Place to keep the team going here. I mean, we have a huge, strong fan base here. They deserve to be heard. I don’t think the city wants to be the missing piece.

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