Kennedy Stewart's Forward Together unveils full platform

Kennedystewart/Twitter

Forward Together incumbent mayor Kennedy Stewart has outlined the full platform for his Vancouver team less than two weeks before Vancouverites head to the polls for the civic election.

This is also the first platform for the brand new municipal party. Stewart won in 2018 as an independent and announced in April of this year he would be forming a new party to run in October.

The four promises are Building a Vancouver for All of Us, Making Vancouver Safer and Healthier, Tackling the Climate Emergency, and Investing in Our Communities.

Some of the specific promises in the platform include adding 50 new public washrooms across the city, pursuing making Chinatown a UNESCO heritage site, a new Filipino community centre, allowing bars to remain open until 3 am, and a new “Office for the Night Time Economy,” which he says will focus on keeping vulnerable residents safe.

As well as to “pilot free parking studies for hard-hit commercial zones like Chinatown and Punjabi Market.”

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Many of the items in the full platform have been revealed already as he and the other mayoral candidates try to tempt voters in recent weeks through election announcements.

Among the items already put forward as an incentive for re-election is a new Health and Addictions Response Team (HART), which would expand the mandate of the 311 phone hotline to serve as the dispatch of a new mobile team to handle non-emergency addictions and mental health response.

Stewart also revealed his plan to combat the housing affordability crisis through the construction of 220,000 homes in 10 years.

Our platform is about building a Vancouver for all of us.

We’re the only party committed to significantly increasing affordable and rental housing, building 6,000 new childcare spaces, and extending the strongest renter protections in 🇨🇦 across the city.https://t.co/plSDWOAYqv

— Kennedy Stewart (@kennedystewart) October 4, 2022

His party’s five-point housing platform aims to drastically increase new supply and introduce new permitting efficiencies and protections.

Kennedy outlined those efforts last month and also included a plan to modernize the public hearing and permitting process to be more efficient and inclusive and create new specialized project approval teams for Jericho Lands, the old St. Paul’s Hospital, and other large impact projects.

Watch: Daily Hive sits down with the mayoral candidates to talk about the DTES

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It also promises to prioritize funding for women fleeing violence and Indigenous-led projects and to “maintain the Empty Homes Tax at no less than five per cent to discourage speculation.” Read more here.

The civic election is scheduled for October 15, 2022; however, you can vote in advance voting ahead of that day. Find more details here.

Daily Hive will provide ongoing coverage leading to the October 15 civic election. Click here to access our civic election hub for the latest.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article misnamed the municipal party. It has since been corrected to Forward Together.

With files from Kenneth Chan