Christine Boyle wins MLA seat, triggers Vancouver City Council by-election

Christine Boyle projected to win MLA seat, setting the stage for a Vancouver City Council by-election

Christine Boyle. (BC NDP)

Sitting Vancouver city councillor Christine Boyle is projected to win the race for the seat of MLA in the riding of Vancouver-Little Mountain.

Winning the seat for the BC NDP, Boyle has secured 13,010 votes (61.7%) at the time of writing at 8:37 pm. Currently, 14 of the 15 final voting day ballot boxes and three of the four advance voting ballot boxes have been counted.

This gives Boyle a commanding lead over former Vancouver Park Board commissioner John Coupar of the Conservative Party of BC, who is trailing behind with 6,456 (30.64%).

The only other candidate vying for a seat in this riding is Wendy Hayko of the BC Green Party, who has secured 1,607 (7.63%).

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Prior to today, during the six-day advance voting period, Vancouver-Little Mountain already saw a 26% turnout, based on 10,708 advance voters out of the total number of registered voters, as of October 7.

Following a redrawing of the provincial riding boundaries in 2023 by Elections BC, the Vancouver-Little Mountain riding is technically a revived riding from absorbing some of the geography of the previous geographical areas of Vancouver-Mount Pleasant, Vancouver-Fairview, Vancouver-False Creek, Vancouver-Langara, and Vancouver-Kensington. Furthermore, Vancouver-Little Mountain is the renaming of Vancouver-Fairview.

George Heyman of the BC NDP, the BC Minister of Environment and Climate Change, is the outgoing MLA for Vancouver-Fairview. He decided not to pursue re-election.

The city of Vancouver is now represented by a total of 12 MLAs, representing an increase of one MLA compared to the 2020 provincial election.

Boyle’s victory is not only significant for provincial politics, but also municipal politics.

By becoming the MLA for Vancouver-Little Mountain, Boyle will vacate her seat as a Vancouver city councillor, which will trigger a Vancouver City Council by-election within the foreseeable future.

“I ran for office in Vancouver to take action on our housing crisis: to ensure that my home remains a city for young people, for seniors, for families, for artists and for workers,” wrote Boyle in an op-ed for Daily Hive Urbanized in August 2024.

“What I’ve seen as a City Councillor is that the housing status quo isn’t working. While I have the greatest respect for the hard work of municipal staff and policymakers, we need major change — and fast.”

Christine Boyle. (BC NDP)

Boyle was first elected as a city councillor in 2018 under the OneCity Vancouver party, and then re-elected in 2022. She has been a prominent figure for OneCity, as the party’s only elected member following the 2018 civic election and one of two elected members from the 2022 civic election, with the other member being Vancouver School Board trustee Jennifer Reddy.

Historically, by-elections held to fill vacated Vancouver city councillor seats have been rare.

Just three by-elections have been held in the City of Vancouver over the past four decades — 1985, 1992, and 2017.

The most recent by-election was held in early July 2017, after city councillor Geoff Meggs of Vision Vancouver resigned to become the chief of staff for the then-new BC NDP provincial government led by John Horgan.

The swearing in of the MLAs is expected to take place sometime in November 2024 at the earliest.

The by-election to fill Boyle’s seat in City Council is likely to be held sometime in the first quarter of 2025.

Based on the Vancouver Charter, City Council is required to make an appointment to fill the role of chief election officer “as soon as possible after a vacancy occurs.” It also states that the chief election officer is required to set a date for the by-election within 80 days of their appointment, which must be held on a Saturday.

The 2017 by-election date was set for October 14, 2017 — approximately three and a half months after Meggs vacated the City Council seat. Vision Vancouver was unable to hold onto the seat; Hector Bremner of the YES Vancouver party went on to win the by-election with 13,372 votes — ahead of independent Jean Swanson with 10,263, Pete Fry of the Green Party of Vancouver with 9,759, Judy Graves of OneCity with 6,327, and Diego Cardona of Vision Vancouver with 5,411.

Currently, the ABC Vancouver party has a majority in City Council with its hold on eight of the 11 seats, including Ken Sim’s mayoral seat.

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