Vancouver City Council by-election planned for early April 2025 | Daily Hive

Vancouver City Council by-election to fill two councillor seats planned for early April 2025

City of Vancouver 2022 election voting location at the Vancouver Public Library in downtown Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Vancouver residents will head back to the polls in early Spring 2025 to fill two vacant seats in Vancouver City Council.

In a new City of Vancouver staff report released this afternoon, the general voting day of the civic by-election is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, April 5.

This is based on the expectation that City Council will endorse City staff’s recommendation to appoint City Clerk Katrina Leckovic as Chief Election Officer on January 21, during its first scheduled public meeting of 2025. At this meeting, Council will deliberate on planning for the by-election and receive formal resignation notices from two city councillors.

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OneCity party councillor Christine Boyle resigned on December 12, 2024, shortly after being elected as the MLA for the riding of Vancouver-Little Mountain under the BC NDP. She also now holds the cabinet position of the BC Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation.

Then today, on January 15, 2025, Green party councillor Adriane Carr also resigned, ending her civic political career after 14 consecutive years in office. Carr provided a desire to spend more time with her family and frustration with the ABC Vancouver-led City Council and Mayor Ken Sim as reasons for stepping down halfway through the four-year term.

Under the Vancouver Charter, a by-election to fill both city councillor seats must be held on a Saturday within 80 days of the Chief Election Officer’s appointment.

This is the tentative schedule for the 2025 by-election:

February 3: Candidate information packages available
February 11: Advance registration ends
February 18: Voters List — Public inspection period begins
February 18 to 28: Nomination period
February 28: Declaration of candidates
March 7: Random ballot name order draw
March 10: Declaration of election by voting
March 18: Mail ballot package available
March 26: Advance voting day at Vancouver City Hall (8 am to 8 pm)
April 1: Advance voting day at Vancouver City Hall (8 am to 8 pm)
April 5: General voting day (8 am to 8 pm)
April 9: Declaration of official election results

The Green and OneCity parties are expected to field candidates to at least maintain their status quo representation in the chamber, while ABC aims to expand its supermajority further. At this early stage, no potential candidates have been named or identified by any party.

ABC holds eight of the 11 seats in Vancouver City Council, including the seat of the Mayor. With the resignation of Boyle and Carr, Green party city councillor Pete Fry is currently the lone member of the opposition in the chamber.

According to City staff, this by-election is expected to cost the municipal government $2 million, including $740,000 to establish an election office, $150,000 for election workers, $55,000 for voting places and supplies, $40,000 for vote by mail operations, $240,000 for communications, $600,000 for voting equipment and technology, and $175,000 for a contingency fund.

Currently, the municipal government is planning to operate 25 voting places on the general voting day of April 5, including 24 community centres and one City facility.

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November 2022 photo of Vancouver City Council, following the October 2022 civic election. (City of Vancouver)

By-elections in Vancouver are rare, with the last by-elections held in 2017, 1992, and 1985.

The 2017 by-election was held on October 14, 2017 — approximately three and a half months after Vision Vancouver councillor Geoff Meggs vacated the city councillor seat to become the chief of staff for the then-new BC NDP provincial government led by John Horgan.

The Vision Vancouver-led City Council was unable to hold onto the seat in the 2017 by-election; Hector Bremner of the YES Vancouver party went on to win the by-election with 13,372 votes — ahead of independent Jean Swanson with 10,263, Pete Fry of the Green Party of Vancouver with 9,759, Judy Graves of OneCity with 6,327, and Diego Cardona of Vision Vancouver with 5,411.

The 2017 by-election had a cost of $1.5 million, and the voter turnout was 10.99%.

In contrast, the October 2022 general civic election cost $4.4 million, and it had a voter turnout of 36.3%.

Vancouver residents will return to the polls for the general civic election on October 17, 2026 — about 18.5 months or 560 days after the by-election.

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