Ken Sim of the ABC party wins Vancouver mayoral election

Ken Sim of ABC elected new mayor of Vancouver

Ken Sim (ABC Vancouver)

The results of the 2022 Vancouver civic election are coming in, and Daily Hive is able to report Ken Sim has been projected as the new mayor of Vancouver.

Sim of the ABC Vancouver party has effectively unseated Forward Together’s Kennedy Stewart, who was first elected into the mayoral office in 2018.

As of 10:30 pm, Sim has secured 26,278 votes, ahead of Stewart at 15,595 votes. At this point, 52,735 ballots at 48 of 106 voting places have been counted.

The second time is the charm for Sim, who narrowly lost to Stewart in the 2018 civic election by only 957 votes.

Moreover, Sim’s ABC party has secured a majority of the seats in all three elected bodies: Vancouver City Council, Vancouver Park Board, and Vancouver School Board.

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Sim has also become the first Asian and Chinese-Canadian mayor of Vancouver. For a city where one in five (about 20%) of residents identify as ethnic Chinese, this is a groundbreaking milestone in Vancouver’s history for the representation of its largest visible minority group.

Compared to the rival parties, ABC’s campaign platform had a far greater emphasis on addressing crime, public safety, and public disorder issues, especially in the context of Chinatown’s issues and anti-Asian racism.

This is in addition to the major issues of housing affordability, homelessness, the mental health and opioid overdose crisis, and transportation, of course.

It marks a remarkable political shift in Vancouver’s political landscape, with the residents of Vancouver voting for their first centrist/centre-right mayor in nearly two decades — when Vancouverites voted in 2005 for Sam Sullivan of the Non-Partisan Association (NPA).

In the weeks leading directly up to the election, various surveys showed Sim making major gains against Stewart, who initially led the pack in surveys conducted in the early summer.

Sim ran in a race with a total of 15 mayoral candidates — down from 21 in 2018.

Sim graduated from the Sauder School of Business for the University of British Columbia, worked as an accountant at KPMG and investment banker at CIBC World Markets, and is the co-founder and owner of both Nurse Next Door and local bagel shop Rosemary Rocksalt.

Prior to becoming the mayor of Vancouver, Stewart was the Member of Parliament for the federal NDP in Burnaby South, and a political science professor at Simon Fraser University, where he is currently “on leave” according to the university’s listings. Stewart’s wife, Douglas College political science professor Jeannette Ashe, joined him on the 2022 campaign trail as one of Forward Together’s candidates for City Council.

Tonight’s outcome follows five days of advance voting, and a full day of voting earlier today. A total of 82 polling stations across Vancouver were scheduled to be open between 8 am and 8 pm, but six locations saw their operating hours extended until as late as 9:05 pm due to operational delays and disruptions.

For the latest results and updates of the outcome, check out Daily Hive’s Election Hub.

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