Vote Vancouver party announces first nine candidates to run in civic election | Daily Hive

Rebecca Bligh. (Vote Vancouver)

The municipal political party of sitting Vancouver city councillor Rebecca Bligh has officially confirmed its first nine candidates for the October 2026 civic election.

Over the past weekend, Vote Vancouver unanimously endorsed candidates to run in each of the three chambers of municipal governance, along with Bligh as the party’s mayoral candidate.

“Vancouverites want City Hall to get things done, and this team has a track record of delivering change,” said Bligh, founder of Vote Vancouver, in a statement.

“Our data shows voters are looking for change this fall. With Vote Vancouver, you’re not just voting out the current mayor and team, you’re voting for competent representatives.”

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Bligh was first elected to City Council in the 2018 civic election with the Non-Partisan Association, before briefly becoming independent mid-term. Ahead of the 2022 civic election, she joined Mayor Ken Sim’s ABC Vancouver party and was subsequently re-elected — before being ejected from the party in early 2025. Since Fall 2024, she has also served as the president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

Within City Council, Vote Vancouver’s candidates include small business owner and Vancouver Pride Society president John Boychuk, B.C. Centre for Disease Control public health scientist and University of British Columbia adjunct professor Rebecca Hasdell, scientific researcher and seniors’ advocate Bhavna Solecki, and entrepreneur and the former film commissioner of the Vancouver Economic Commission Geoff Teoli.

For Vancouver Park Board, their candidates so far entail wildland firefighter Summit Ambeault-Wannamaker, regulated industries policy advocate Amee Barber, and product development leader and Qmunity board member Stephen Menon.

And as for the Vancouver School Board, one candidate has now been confirmed at this time — post-secondary education manager and Surfrider board member Amarys Joseph.

According to a release, Vote Vancouver was founded to push a “big-tent, centrist” perspective and to “promote pragmatic fiscal and social policies to address service wait times at City Hall, stabilize property taxes and business license fees, as well as to improve safety conditions for nearly 750,000 residents.”

With about five months to go before the civic election, this is already shaping up to be a crowded race, with mayoral, city councillor, Park Board commissioner, and School Board trustee candidates from ABC, Vancouver Liberals, TEAM For a Livable Vancouver, OneCity Vancouver, Green Party of Vancouver, and the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE).

The three left-wing/progressive parties — OneCity, Green, and COPE — have also reached an agreement to set caps on the number of candidates they can each run in each chamber, with a combined total of up to 13 candidates overall for each party. As well, all three parties have agreed to work towards selecting the “best” left-wing/progressive mayoral candidate, which could result in two of the candidates dropping out as the election nears.

Last week, the Vancouver District and Labour Council publicly endorsed OneCity mayoral candidate William Azaroff and urged Green mayoral candidate and sitting city councillor Pete Fry and COPE mayoral candidate Stephanie Allen to drop out.

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