Mayor Kennedy Stewart launches new Forward Together party ahead of election

Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart (City of Vancouver)

Kennedy Stewart won his mayoral campaign in 2018 as an independent, and now he is hoping to repeat that under the banner of a new municipal party for the 2022 civic election.

The mayor of Vancouver announced today that he has launched a new party named Forward Together, which will amass a team of progressive-leaning candidates to fill city councillor seats.

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Over his term as an independent to date, without the clear backing along party lines from other councillors, Stewart at times struggled to push policies forward in city council.

On his updated personal website, now reframed as the party’s website, the key platform areas for Forward Together entail housing affordability, overdose prevention and homelessness, and COVID-19 recovery.

In his bid to be re-elected, Stewart continues to be the sole major mayoral candidate representing the centre-left to the left side of the political spectrum.

The other half of the spectrum, centre-right to right, is fairly split. The NPA’s John Coupar, A Better City’s Ken Sim, Progress Vancouver’s Mark Marissen, and TEAM’s Colleen Hardwick overlap in varying degrees for the same spectrum of voters.

This past weekend, the Green Party of Vancouver announced Adriane Carr would seek a fourth term as city councillor instead of a much-speculated mayoral campaign.

In the 2018 civic election, Stewart narrowly won his mayoral bid, just 957 votes ahead of Sim, who was representing the NPA at the time.

The upcoming civic election is scheduled for October 15, 2022.

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