Doctor and former B.C. provincial minister to run for Vancouver City Council | Daily Hive

Doctor and former longtime BC Liberals cabinet minister to run for Vancouver City Council

Moira Stilwell (Vancouver Liberals)

A medical doctor and longtime cabinet minister under previous provincial governments led by the BC Liberals will be running for a seat on the Vancouver City Council in the October 2026 civic election.

Moira Stilwell announced her candidacy today under the new Vancouver Liberals civic party.

She was the MLA for the riding of Vancouver-Langara from 2009 to 2017, when she decided not to seek re-election. During her time in provincial office, she held cabinet roles including the Minister of Advanced Education and Labour Market Development, Minister of Regional Economic and Skills Development, and Minister of Social Development.

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Prior to politics, she held key roles in local healthcare, such as the medical director for breast health at BC Women’s Hospital and the head of nuclear medicine for St. Paul’s Hospital, Surrey Memorial Hospital, and Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre. She was also the chair of the B.C. and Yukon division of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, and taught radiology at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

After leaving politics nearly a decade ago, Stilwell is now throwing her hat back into the ring because “people are telling me every day that something isn’t working. The rising cost of housing, food, childcare, and transportation are becoming crushing. People feel unheard. That needs to change.”

“One thing in medicine, you know, a patient comes in very ill, you don’t know what’s wrong with them, you make your best diagnosis and start to treat. And then you watch and see what happens. And if the patient is not getting better, you regroup and say, what did I miss? Do I have the right diagnosis? Let’s do this. That cycle is often missing in politics and that’s why people do not understand why things aren’t getting better,” she said.

Stilwell took issue with the fact that Vancouver residents and businesses are paying significantly more in municipal taxes and fees following the mayoral terms of Kennedy Stewart and Ken Sim, yet appear to be receiving far less in return in terms of services. She also raised concerns that the infrastructure supporting a physically healthy city is deteriorating — not only community and recreation centres and parks, but also the most basic infrastructure, such as pedestrian sidewalks.

“We need to be going in the other direction in big ways. We owe it to our kids and our grandkids to leave them a better, healthier city,” she said.

She also aims to prioritize economic and job growth, and believes that a key strategy will be a campaign proposal by Kareem Allam, the Vancouver Liberals’ mayoral candidate, to amalgamate UBC and the University Endowment Lands (UEL) with the City of Vancouver — bringing it under the municipal government’s jurisdiction to unleash economic synergies.

As previously reported by Daily Hive Urbanized, amalgamating the UEL with Vancouver’s municipal government and extending SkyTrain’s Millennium Line from Arbutus to UBC are key priorities for Allam and the party.

“A thriving city that attracts people to come here should be a jobs generator. Skilled people with knowledge and entrepreneurial ambitions can choose any city in the world. We need those people to come here to Vancouver and generate economic activity and good-paying jobs that we all want and need,” said Stilwell.

“Right on our doorstep lies UBC, one of the best research universities in the world. But it’s not connected enough to the main part of the city where the jobs and businesses are. We need to connect Western Canada’s largest research centre, UBC, with Western Canada’s largest employment centre, downtown Vancouver, so that the entrepreneurs who live here and want to come here can create jobs and build businesses. We need to incorporate UBC into the city of Vancouver, build transit out to it now, and build job-creating lands and innovation spaces in close proximity so that we can get the most possible economic benefit out of UBC.”

On the political spectrum, the Vancouver Liberals are being positioned as a centrist party, and they are not affiliated with the provincial and federal parties of the same name.

Three sitting elected officials who were formerly with the ABC Vancouver party have also joined the Vancouver Liberals, including Scott Jensen, who will seek re-election in the Vancouver Park Board, and Vancouver School Board trustee Victoria Jung, who will seek election in Vancouver City Council. Brennan Bastyovanszky has yet to indicate whether he will run for City Council or seek re-election as a Park Board commissioner.

Earlier this month, the Vancouver Liberals announced that entrepreneur and longtime RCMP auxiliary constable Michael Wu, as well as political strategist, government copywriter, and self-described socialist and environmentalist Jessica Walton, will also run for City Council under the party.

“If this wasn’t a big tent, inclusive party, I would be worried. We need diverse viewpoints to generate the best ideas and deliver real solutions,” said Stilwell.

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