Wife of Mayor Kennedy Stewart to run for Vancouver City Council

Jeanette Ashe (left) and Kennedy Stewart (right). (@JeanetteAshe/Twitter)

Jeanette Ashe is the latest individual in Vancouver mayor Kennedy Stewart’s inner circle to add their name to the civic election ballot.

It was announced today on the City of Vancouver’s deadline to apply to be a candidate that the wife of the mayor will be running for Vancouver City Council under his Forward Together party.

Ashe is the chair of the political science department at Douglas College and a senior research fellow at King’s College, London. Up until very recently, she was also a board director of Atira Women’s Resource Society, which is one of the largest not-for-profit housing operators in BC.

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“I’m proud to call Yaletown home. During the last two years, I saw first hand the huge challenges and massive changes the pandemic brought to all our lives – but especially the most vulnerable in our community,” reads a statement by Ashe.

“As part of Forward Together, I will fight hard every day for what matters the most to people. That means building housing with complex care, expanding overdose prevention sites, and building public washrooms. It means opening more affordable childcare spaces in our community and tackling climate change through the fully funded Climate Emergency Action Plan.”

Ashe also ran for the BC NDP in the Vancouver-Quilchena by-election in April 2022, which was held to secure Kevin Falcon, the new leader of the BC Liberals, an MLA seat and allow him to take on the role as head of the opposition. Falcon won by a landslide of 59% (6,200 votes) versus Ashe’s 24% (2,590 votes).

In late August, Forward Together also announced Alvin Singh, the director of communications for the City of Vancouver’s Office of the Mayor, will run for City Council.

This brings Forward Together’s number of candidates to seven, including the incumbent mayor and six city councillor candidates. Stewart ran in 2018 as an independent but formed his own party early this year after struggling to push policies forward without the backing of Council Council throughout his term in office.

The party has not named any candidates for the Vancouver Park Board and Vancouver School Board.

The civic election is scheduled for October 15, 2022.

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