Kennedy Stewart would push for ward system of electing Vancouver City Council

Mayor Kennedy Stewart would push for a ward system of electing Vancouver City Council

Proposed City of Vancouver wards in the 2004 electoral reform proposal. (City of Vancouver)

If re-elected, Kennedy Stewart says he will make a new attempt to move away from the existing at-large system of electing Vancouver City Council and replacing it with a ward system.

Major Canadian cities such as Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Ottawa, Edmonton, Mississauga, and Winnipeg have ward systems for electing their representatives in municipal governments.

A ward is essentially a geographical riding, with a city councillor designated to represent that riding — just like provincial MLAs and federal MPs. Currently, City Council is elected by a single catch-all system of gauging voters across the city.

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The civic election platform of Stewart’s party, Forward Together, states they will “replace the at-large electoral system with neighbourhood constituencies where all neighbourhoods elect their own city councillor.”

Based on the typical ward system, at a bare minimum, this would mean Vancouver would be carved up into 10 geographical wards to fill the 10 city councillor seats.

A transition to a ward system was also a 2018 election promise of Stewart when he was running as an independent, but it did not gain traction during the term as he was not supported by the current City Council.

City Council’s recent separate decisions to approve the Broadway Plan and Vancouver Plan strategies of densifying neighbourhoods across Vancouver has some residents feeling they have not been heard in the process. TEAM For A Livable Vancouver, the party of city councillor and mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick, states they would rescind both plans, and re-do the strategies through a neighbourhood-based planning process.

In an email to Daily Hive Urbanized commenting on this platform promise by TEAM, Forward Together states they fully support the implementation of both plans, as “they will go a long way to helping us create the additional housing that our city needs while also protecting renters — and with Mayor Kennedy Stewart’s commitment to moving to a ward system with electoral constituencies, neighbourhoods will have councillors who are elected to represent their interests.”

TEAM’s platform also suggests they would be open to considering transitioning to a ward system, by “making City Council directly accountable to the voter by exploring alternative representative-government models.”

city of vancouver ward boundaries 2004 map

Proposed City of Vancouver wards in the 2004 electoral reform proposal. (City of Vancouver)

Nearly two decades ago, the City of Vancouver seriously considered transitioning into a ward system of 14 city councillors — two more city councillors than the existing system — to represent 14 wards. This includes two wards for the downtown Vancouver peninsula, four wards for the Vancouver Westside, six wards for the Vancouver Eastside, and two wards that partially overlap with both the Westside and Eastside.

In a 2004 plebiscite, Vancouver voters rejected the idea, with 54% (35,813) against and 46% (30,499) in support.

According to a June 2022 survey by Research Co., 58% of likely voters in Vancouver support the idea of abandoning the prevailing at-large system of selecting city councillors, and replacing it with a system of wards, where residents in a specific geographic area select their own city councillor.

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