Burnaby and Port Coquitlam mayors win re-election by default

Burnaby mayor Mike Hurley (left) and Port Coquitlam mayor Brad West (right). (Mike Hurley/Brad West)

The 2022 civic election is just over a month away, but the dust has already settled for two major seats in Metro Vancouver’s systems of municipal government.

By default, as of late Friday afternoon, Burnaby mayor Mike Hurley and Port Coquitlam mayor Brad West have effectively won their re-election.

They are both acclaimed for a second term as they are running unopposed, based on the application deadline of 4 pm for all prospective candidates to file their nomination.

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In 2018, Hurley ousted longtime Burnaby mayor Derek Corrigan, winning 26,260 votes against the incumbent’s 20,333 votes. Hurley was previously the assistant fire chief of the city.

Based on a late 2021 survey by Research Co., Hurley’s approval rating nearly a year ago was hovering at 51% — lower than Vancouver mayor Kennedy Stewart’s 57%, but higher than Surrey mayor Doug McCallum’s 30%. McCallum had the highest disapproval rating of 54%, followed by Stewart at 32% and Hurley at 28%.

When asked whether the mayors deserve re-election, 48% of respondents agreed for Hurley, 37% agreed for Stewart, and 28% agreed for McCallum.

In Port Coquitlam, West overwhelmingly secured his mayoral seat in 2018 at the age of 33, earning 86% of the votes (10,236). Four years after being first elected as mayor, he remains highly popular in his community.

West was previously a Port Coquitlam city councillor for three terms from 2008 to 2018, and he won his first election at age 23 — amongst the youngest to ever secure a seat in BC municipal office.

West issued a statement through his Twitter account this morning in reaction to his victory by acclamation, which he says was a surprise, and is the first-time ever in Port Coquitlam’s history.

“Serving as your Mayor has truly been the greatest honour of my life — and every day I’ve done my very best and worked as hard as I can to be worthy of that honour. I love Port Coquitlam and its people. I want to sincerely thank the people of Port Coquitlam for your trust and confidence in me — and for the privilege of serving as your Mayor again,” wrote West.

“While there won’t be an election for Mayor, I will still be working hard to be earn your support, trust and confidence. That’s not something that happens just during an election, it’s what I work towards every single day.”

1/Thank you, Port Coquitlam!

Yesterday at 4 pm, the deadline passed for candidates to submit papers to run in the upcoming municipal election – and for the first time in our city’s history, I have been acclaimed Mayor for another four years as no other candidate came forward pic.twitter.com/i9qbMCzsy7

— Brad West (@BradWestPoCo) September 10, 2022

2/Serving as your Mayor has truly been the greatest honour of my life – and every day I’ve done my very best and worked as hard as I can to be worthy of that honour. I love Port Coquitlam and its people.

I want to sincerely thank the people of Port Coquitlam for your trust

— Brad West (@BradWestPoCo) September 10, 2022

3/and confidence in me – and for the privilege of serving as your Mayor again. I am incredibly proud of what we have accomplished over the last four years and I am very excited about what’s to come.

— Brad West (@BradWestPoCo) September 10, 2022

8/While there won’t be an election for Mayor, I will still be working hard to be earn your support, trust and confidence. That’s not something that happens just during an election, it’s what I work towards every single day. That means I want to hear from you!

— Brad West (@BradWestPoCo) September 10, 2022

In total, including Hurley and West, 13 mayors of Metro Vancouver’s 17 largest municipal governments are running for re-election.

The four major mayors who are not running for re-election are Jack Froese of Langley Township, Jonathan Cote of New Westminster, Bill Dingwall of Pitt Meadows, and Rob Vagramov of Port Moody.

The most highly contested mayoral race is in Vancouver, where there are at least nine candidates (the City of Vancouver has yet to produce a final list at the time of writing), with the major candidates being incumbent mayor Stewart of Forward Together, Ken Sim of ABC Vancouver, Colleen Hardwick of TEAM For A Livable Vancouver, Mark Marissen of Progress Vancouver, and Fred Harding of the Non-Partisan Association. This is down from the 21 mayoral candidates on Vancouver’s 2018 civic election ballot.

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

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