Five candidates for Vancouver mayor lay out plans for residents and businesses | Daily Hive

From left to right: Vancouver Liberals mayoral candidate Kareem Allam, Vote Vancouver mayoral candidate Rebecca Bligh, Green Party of Vancouver mayoral candidate Pete Fry, TEAM For A Livable Vancouver mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick, and ABC Vancouver mayoral candidate Ken Sim; Greater Vancouver Board of Trade's session with the five leading Vancouver mayoral candidates on Oct. 2, 2026. (Greater Vancouver Board of Trade)

Vancouver’s five leading mayoral candidates offered sharply different plans for reducing public disorder, controlling the escalating cost pressures of the City of Vancouver, and getting residential and commercial development projects back on track and approved faster, during a joint session with Metro Vancouver’s business community on Friday, Oct. 2, 2026, held by the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade (GVBOT).

Mayor Ken Sim defended his ABC Vancouver-led municipal government’s record and asked for more time to continue its work, while the other four mayoral candidates proposed vastly different approaches.

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This GVBOT session — ahead of the civic election on Saturday, Oct. 17 — featured incumbent Sim of ABC, sitting city councillor Pete Fry of the Green Party of Vancouver, political strategist Kareem Allam of the Vancouver Liberals, sitting city councillor Rebecca Bligh of Vote Vancouver, and former city councillor Colleen Hardwick of TEAM For A Livable Vancouver.

Each candidate separately outlined their priorities and answered questions about what they would do in office.

Several candidates referred to GVBOT’s June 2026 survey of its members, highlighting concerns about permitting delays, paperwork, property taxes, and street and public space conditions due to public disorder.

ABC Vancouver mayoral candidate Ken Sim

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Ken Sim, Oct. 2, 2026. (Greater Vancouver Board of Trade)

Sim said his administration had not accomplished everything it intended and acknowledged that some decisions had been imperfect. But he argued that ABC had made substantial changes and should receive a second term to continue them.

His pitch centred on improving public safety, strengthening the economy, and making the municipal government more responsive to businesses and residents.

Sim pointed to funding for 100 additional police officers, the addition of more than 50 mental health workers, the creation of the Vancouver Police Department’s (VPD) new District 5 to better improve policing operations on the Downtown Eastside, and the launch of Task Force Barrage to target organized crime.

He also cited work in Chinatown and Gastown, efforts to improve the Granville Entertainment District, and investments in fire services, community centres, roads, and sidewalks. He highlighted Vanstat, a system intended to hold departments accountable for their performance.

Public safety remained the central theme of his remarks. Sim argued that the ability to attract customers to Downtown Vancouver, sustain businesses, and provide a good quality of life depends on people feeling comfortable in public spaces.

“You can’t have a thriving city if you don’t feel safe,” said Sim.

“You can’t have a strong downtown if businesses and families do not want to come downtown, and you can’t call it compassion when vulnerable people are left suffering without the care that they need, and that’s why I’m going to keep doing the work with my ABC team.”

He urged voters to support the civic election’s two public safety plebiscite questions on improving enforcement against the public use of hard drugs, and advocating for the provincial government to create a secure medical treatment facility somewhere in Vancouver for people with severe mental health and addictions issues, including at least 100 involuntary care beds and additional beds for voluntary care.

Sim argued that leaving people in crisis on sidewalks is not compassionate, and criticized a situation in which police, firefighters, and paramedics repeatedly respond to emergencies involving the same people without resolving their need for care.

When asked how the plebiscite would produce practical changes, he said a reinvigorated bylaw approach would allow police to issue tickets and confiscate drugs being used in public without having to arrest people. He contrasted that with what he described as a lengthy process involving an arrest, charges, a report, and referral to prosecutors. In his view, a bylaw would provide a simpler enforcement option and help re-establish expectations about behaviour in public spaces.

Sim also used restrictions on cigarette smoking near building entrances as a comparison, arguing that public use of hard drugs should not be accepted as an unavoidable part of city life.

During the question period for Sim, he acknowledged that public disorder had increased, attributing it to the BC NDP-led provincial government’s policies, gaps in health care, and public drug use. His proposed response combined continued support for police and fire services with pressure on the provincial government to provide treatment.

On the economy, Sim drew on his experience with operating bagel shops — Rosemary Rocksalt — in Vancouver, saying he understood how frustrating the municipal government’s permit and licensing processes could be.

He said his administration had worked through application backlogs, removed more than 2,000 pages of bylaws, adopted new online and digital processes, and eliminated unnecessary steps. Sim said that over the past four years, nearly 600 business licence categories had been reduced to fewer than 100, while the time to approve a business licence application had fallen from 16 weeks in 2022 to two days. He presented those figures as evidence of progress, while acknowledging that further improvements were needed.

He also promoted 2026’s zero per cent property tax increase as an accomplishment of his administration.

At one point, Sim singled out Fry for criticism, asserting the Green mayoral candidate and sitting city councillor had opposed funding more police officers, Task Force Barrage, the property tax freeze, and continuing Granville Street’s temporary pedestrian zone after the FIFA World Cup.

He argued that those disagreements reflected a broader choice between continuing ABC’s direction and returning to earlier approaches of the municipal government.

When asked what meaningful change he hoped to demonstrate after another four years, Sim said he wanted Vancouver to become known for successfully addressing street disorder, rather than for the crisis in the Downtown Eastside.

Green Party of Vancouver mayoral candidate Pete Fry

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Pete Fry, Oct. 2, 2026. (Greater Vancouver Board of Trade)

Fry presented himself as an experienced city councillor with a background in small business and a willingness to challenge the current administration’s decisions.

He said he had spent eight years on Vancouver City Council and, before entering municipal politics, had worked throughout his career either running or working at small businesses.

Fry described the pandemic as a major challenge during his first term, but pointed to efforts to support businesses through public plazas where liquor could be consumed and changes intended to give restaurants and bars more operating flexibility.

During the current term, he said, his role had increasingly become one of scrutinizing the ABC-led City Council and questioning how decisions were made.

He pointed to his opposition to Sim’s previous proposal to eliminate the separately elected body of Vancouver Park Board commissioners, his criticism of the City’s handling of the integrity commissioner, and his objections to Sim’s earlier proposal to put City treasury funds into Bitcoin.

Budget transparency was a major part of Fry’s argument. He criticized what he described as a reduction in public budget detail, comparing a recent annual budget document being a small fraction of the length of documents for past budget cycles.

If elected, he said one of his first priorities would be obtaining a detailed account of spending, changes in fees, and the implications of the 2026 property tax freeze. He supported keeping property tax increases in line with inflation, but declined to promise a freeze himself.

On public safety, Fry proposed a team of non-police outreach workers available 24/7 for non-emergency situations. The new Community Response Outreach Workers (CROW) Team would be a non-medical mobile response team to attend non-emergency calls regarding people experiencing homelessness, perceived street-level addiction, public intoxication, and mental health crises.

The goal would be to help people before a situation escalates to the point of requiring police intervention. The CROW Team would be accompanied by expanded daytime services and shelters, access to toilets, and places where people could get off the streets and connect with support.

He acknowledged that businesses need more assistance with handling public disorder, vandalism, and concerns about the safety of staff and customers.

Fry also proposed creating a new Office of Community Safety to coordinate police, firefighters, other first responders and City departments, including those responsible for business licensing and permits. He said that coordination would help the City address problems involving particular physical locations more promptly.

He identified implementing the CROW Team as an early priority, alongside reversing restrictions on supportive housing and overdose prevention sites (OPS).

Fry argued that Vancouver’s municipal government needs to take greater responsibility for what it can address directly instead of waiting for senior governments to act.

“We need to figure it out here as a city. We can’t keep pointing the finger and waiting for somebody else to do it,” he said.

At the same time, he said supportive housing and OPS facilities should face new operating regulations to help ensure they address their impacts on surrounding neighbourhoods.

“You have more conditions right now to open a bar or restaurant in the City of Vancouver, yet we don’t put conditions on how we operate social services in the City of Vancouver, and I think that needs to change so we can manage the impacts on the streets,” said Fry.

For businesses, Fry proposed creating a new Business Navigator Office, which would serve as a consistent point of contact at City Hall, helping business owners work through the municipal requirements across different departments. When asked how this would differ from an existing Business Assistance Office, he emphasized having one contact who could help with the range of requirements an applicant encounters.

He also promised faster approvals when a property’s use changes, noting that businesses can spend months paying rent while waiting for permission to proceed with change of uses and renovations.

Another priority would be protecting small businesses from property tax increases associated with the redevelopment potential of their sites. Fry warned that an expiring relief program could expose businesses to higher bills because their properties are valued for what could eventually be built there.

Vancouver Liberals mayoral candidate Kareem Allam

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Kareem Allam, Oct. 2, 2026. (Greater Vancouver Board of Trade)

Allam opened by recalling his work as GVBOT’s policy director 15 years ago. He zeroed in on the need to attract and retain younger residents, arguing that Vancouver’s housing costs, employment opportunities, public services, and safety are all part of the same problem.

He was the ABC campaign manager during the 2022 civic election, and briefly served as the chief of staff for Sim’s Mayor’s Office early on in the term, up until February 2023. He also previously served as the manager for the various campaigns of Kevin Falcon, Erin O’Toole, and Dianne Watts.

His broader argument during the session was that each generation depends on the next, and that losing young people weakens the city’s future. He said Vancouver needs to offer younger residents the conditions to build careers and families, while sustaining the services that older generations will eventually rely on.

Housing approvals were a central target of his proposed reforms.

Allam pledged to replace the City’s separate building requirements with the BC Building Code, which is the provincially regulated code followed by all other municipal governments in the province. He argued that the City’s additional rules under the Vancouver Building Code add time and cost to housing construction and small business projects. During the question period, he identified that change as a priority for his first 100 days.

He also proposed bringing approval responsibilities into a single consolidated City department. He said 12 departments currently have the ability to block a project, leaving applicants to work through a complicated series of decisions. When asked whether consolidating those functions meant City staffing cuts, Allam said he was proposing to bring existing staff with approval responsibilities into a single department.

Allam also wants the City to review older bylaws and remove conflicting requirements. He argued that successive layers of rules can leave applicants caught between departments, citing different expectations for windows under energy-efficiency and fire-safety requirements.

His economic proposals focused on connecting the University of British Columbia (UBC) more closely with Vancouver’s business community.

Allam called for extending SkyTrain’s Millennium Line from Arbutus Station to UBC, and asking the provincial government to bring UBC and the University Endowment Lands into the City of Vancouver through amalgamation. He also proposed an innovation corridor connecting university research with businesses and investors, with the aim of turning research into companies and employment.

Bridgitte Anderson, the president and CEO of GVBOT and the moderator of this session, noted that SkyTrain expansion and municipal amalgamation would require the support and approval of the provincial government, and asked what Allam would prioritize within the City’s control.

Allam responded that provincial governments had long wanted Vancouver’s municipal government to take greater responsibility for the UBC and UEL area and said he would be a willing partner. Currently, the UBC campus is self-governed by the university’s administration, while the UEL receives municipal services from the B.C. Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs, with the minister serving as the de facto mayor of the UEL.

Another priority would be seeking funding from the provincial government to remove the Dunsmuir and Georgia viaducts and build a new replacement surface road network, which would advance mixed-use residential and commercial developments and new public spaces identified under the City’s Northeast False Creek Plan. He argued that the area should make a greater contribution to Downtown Vancouver rather than remain dominated by surface vehicle parking lots.

Allam promised to restart the Vancouver Economic Commission and protect industrial land so small businesses have places to operate and expand.

He also called for renewed investment in parks and recreation facilities. He asserted that the Vancouver Park Board’s share of the overall municipal government budget had fallen from 16.5 per cent to 7.9 per cent, and pointed to families travelling to facilities elsewhere in Metro Vancouver for sports tournaments as evidence of a need to improve what is available within Vancouver’s municipal boundaries.

On public safety, Allam argued that enforcement needs to reach the people profiting from the drug trade, with greater attention to money laundering and the financial operations of organized crime.

“We need to start going after the Tony Soprano level of the crime food chain. We’re not going to make progress by just attacking the street level disorder,” said Allam.

When asked how voters should judge his record after four years, Allam reiterated his focus on younger residents.

“I can be measured by one thing, that the average age in Vancouver has gotten younger, not older,” he said.

Vote Vancouver mayoral candidate Rebecca Bligh

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Rebecca Bligh, Oct. 2, 2026. (Greater Vancouver Board of Trade)

Bligh presented herself as a candidate who could rebuild relationships across governments, while treating housing, transportation, public safety, and economic growth as connected challenges.

She said a number of former Vancouver mayors, city councillors, and other civic leaders from different political backgrounds had already endorsed her, arguing that their support reflected her ability to work across political divisions.

Bligh pointed to her eight years with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, including two years as the national organization’s president, and her experience meeting with senior government officials to seek investment in housing and infrastructure. She argued that the relationship between Sim and Premier David Eby had deteriorated and was holding Vancouver back. Building productive relationships with Victoria and Ottawa, she said, is a central responsibility of the mayor.

Much of the session with Bligh challenged the finances behind the City’s property tax freeze.

She said such a property tax freeze depended on more than $40 million in projected fee revenue, arguing that a zero per cent property tax increase can shift the burden elsewhere rather than reduce what residents and businesses pay overall.

The City’s pay parking rates were one example. Bligh said higher rates had discouraged people from parking in Downtown Vancouver, and cited a projected $14-million shortfall in parking revenue.

She also criticized what she described as plans to withdraw almost $80 million in equity from the City’s Property Endowment Fund over three years. In her view, public assets intended to preserve long-term wealth should not be used to cover short-term financial pressures.

Her alternative would tie property tax increases to inflation and provide forecasts covering her four-year term. She argued that businesses need predictable costs rather than sharp shifts between large increases and a freeze.

Bligh said businesses had experienced property tax increases of close to 23 per cent over the past four years under the ABC-led City Council, and that property owners needed clearer explanations of how City finances would be managed going forward.

She also proposed creating a new Small Business Concierge to help owners understand the requirements involved in expanding seating, changing their offerings, and/or making other adjustments. Rather than leaving an owner to contact numerous departments independently, the concierge would explain which drawings and permits are needed, what the process should cost, and how long it should take. That would help businesses make decisions before committing money.

On homelessness and street disorder, Bligh called for stronger partnerships on mental health and support services, alongside coordinated policing and bylaw enforcement.

She identified reversing ABC’s restrictions on enabling net new supportive housing as a priority for her first 100 days, arguing that people need stable accommodation with services to help them manage their lives. She distinguished that model from single-room occupancy (SRO) accommodation and argued that treating supportive housing as a political dividing line makes the City’s problems harder to resolve.

“I will treat it as a problem to solve, not a fight to win,” she said.

Bligh also proposed walking through Downtown Vancouver with the premier and senior Vancouver Coastal Health leadership early in her term, then establishing a plan with clear responsibilities and a way to hold each party accountable.

She argued that direct involvement from political and health leaders was needed, rather than appointing another task force or passing responsibility elsewhere.

Another early priority would be identifying five City-owned sites for affordable housing through the federal government’s Build Canada Homes program. She argued that private development alone would not deliver the level of affordability Vancouver needs.

Her transportation proposals included free TransLink public transit passes for young people (between the ages of 13 and 18), which she presented as a way to reduce household expenses and make it easier for youth to get around.

She also proposed creating new secure bicycle storage facilities in underused EasyPark facilities to support commuting in Downtown Vancouver, along with new public-private investment in new transportation routes, including a “green marine transportation network” — introducing more battery-electric passenger ferry services, building on the expected launch of CIRQL Ferries’ services linking Coal Harbour with Bowen Island and the Sunshine Coast.

TEAM For A Livable Vancouver mayoral candidate Colleen Hardwick

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Colleen Hardwick, Oct. 2, 2026. (Greater Vancouver Board of Trade)

Hardwick framed her second mayoral candidacy as an effort to fundamentally change how the City sets priorities, spends money, and makes decisions — all drawing on her experience in business and as a city councillor from 2018 to 2022.

Mentioning that she was a GVBOT member and a previous participant in the organization’s Trade Accelerator program, she said she had spent more than 35 years starting companies, raising capital, managing budgets, and creating jobs.

She pointed to her work in film production, technology, and digital public consultation. Hardwick said her film company had been responsible for $100 million in production and that she later raised $5 million in venture capital for a technology business.

“I’ve made payroll, I’ve raised money, I’ve negotiated contracts, I’ve dealt with government regulation, and I’ve lived through recessions and survived,” she said.

Hardwick argued that experience had taught her to ask what an organization is trying to accomplish, how much it costs, and whether there is evidence that its approach is working.

She said she applied the same questions during her term in City Council, when she successfully pushed for and created an independent municipal Auditor General, a review of City finances going back to 2008, and more detailed budgets showing individual expenditures.

Her overall argument was that the City needs a major reassessment of its operations, rather than another list of promises layered onto the existing system.

“Vancouver needs a turnaround. Everyone in this room knows what that means. When costs keep rising, processes become more complicated, and performance isn’t keeping pace, you go back to fundamentals,” said Hardwick.

“You examine the numbers, you establish priorities, you measure performance, you eliminate inefficiency, you invest where investment is needed, and you hold management accountable for results. Your own member survey reads remarkably like a turnaround plan.”

She described her proposed reforms as reviewing costs, establishing clear priorities, measuring results, eliminating inefficiency, and making investments where they are justified. She argued that better financial management should be judged by the value residents receive, rather than simply whether spending is reduced.

Hardwick’s most immediate planning pledge was to repeal the citywide Vancouver Official Development Plan (ODP) within her first 90 days. As a requirement of legislation by the provincial government, the ODP was adopted unanimously by City Council in March 2026, but she argues that it was pushed through by cancelling years of community planning and gave residents too little influence over how their immediate neighbourhoods would change.

Hardwick argued that the work of City staff and residents who had spent years developing neighbourhood area plans should not be overridden by a centralized approach. She wants neighbourhood planning restored and residents to have a greater say between elections.

She also criticized the approach taken in the City’s Broadway Plan, Rupert and Renfrew Station Area Plan, and the Jericho Lands ODP, describing them as decisions imposed from above rather than developed around neighbourhood-level participation. In addition to taking the axe to the citywide ODP, her party would also repeal these five area plans.

On business approvals, Hardwick argued that growing administrative complexity had been a problem for many years, extending beyond the current makeup of City Council. She said additional City staffing and layers of process had too often made applications more difficult, despite being presented as ways to simplify them.

Her proposed response would be to streamline procedures, set service standards, and track performance without relying on more staff.

“We will make Vancouver easier to do business in. Permitting should not be an endurance sport,” she said.

“We’ll simplify processes, establish service standards, reduce unnecessary administrative burdens, and measure performance. Because, as everyone in this room understands, time is money. We will also make economic development a serious priority again.”

Hardwick also argued that Vancouver needs an economy less dependent on real estate, with stronger efforts to attract jobs and investment in other sectors. She identified technology, life sciences, critical minerals/mining, film and television production, digital media, tourism, and trade as areas where Vancouver and B.C. have strengths. She also raised the availability of suitable business space, particularly industrial space.

She made a point that the municipal government should concentrate on maintaining roads, sewers, parks, and community and recreational facilities, alongside police and fire services, before taking on additional responsibilities.

Hardwick emphasized that a mayor cannot change the City’s direction alone, pointing to TEAM’s City Council slate and its experience in law, governance, economic development, planning, and housing.

Hardwick also described her reasons for running as personal, pointing to her children and grandchildren in Vancouver and the importance of the city left to future generations.

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