Election Digest Vancouver 2026
| Est. 12,026 HE | |

ABC Vancouver

Leader Ken Sim · 24 candidates across 4 contests · Official site ↗ · 1 elected (official results)

Housing and land use 14

  • Continue reducing red tape, delays, and costs at City Hall to bring more housing to market and increase vacancy rates.↗
  • Launch an Affordability Action Plan within the first 100 days.↗
  • Support purpose-built rental housing, market entry housing, co-ops, and other innovative housing forms to create more choices at different price points.↗
  • Use incentives that lower the cost of building housing without transferring those costs to Vancouver taxpayers.↗
  • Continue working with provincial and federal governments to secure Vancouver's fair share of funding for social and middle-income housing.↗
  • Continue driving toward a 3-3-3-1 permitting framework while maintaining publicly reported service standards for housing approvals.↗
  • Expand combined development/building permits, digital approvals, and pre-approved designs, and identify additional permit categories suitable for accelerated or automated review.↗
  • Build on multiplex reforms to make townhomes, rowhouses, multiplexes, and family-sized apartments easier to build across the city.↗
  • Expand the City's catalogue of pre-approved housing designs, including family-oriented fourplexes and sixplexes.↗
  • Review regulations that make three-bedroom and family-sized homes disproportionately expensive to build.↗
  • Give the Vancouver Housing Development Office a strengthened mandate to identify underused City-owned properties that can support housing, using long-term leases and partnerships to create market rental, strata, and co-op housing while retaining public land ownership.↗
  • Explore a temporary Start Building Vancouver program that reduces or defers eligible City fees for approved housing projects that begin construction within a defined period, with enhanced incentives possible for purpose-built rental, family-sized, and below-market homes.↗
  • Accelerate implementation of housing around rapid transit, major corridors, and neighbourhood villages to allow more residents to live within walking distance of shops, childcare, parks, schools, and transit.↗
  • Pursue partnerships with employers, unions, non-profits, and senior governments to create housing for essential workers, leveraging City land and additional density where appropriate to make projects financially viable.↗

Parks, recreation, and natural spaces 9

  • Begin an audit and select the next five community centres for restoration, within the first 100 days.↗↗
  • Rebuild the Vancouver Aquatic Centre with a 50-metre pool, at cost.↗
  • Rebuild or revamp 5 community centres for $400 million.↗↗
  • Deliver the River District Community Centre.↗
  • Revamp and invest in recreational facilities, including more pools, rinks, and ice time.↗
  • Create a playground improvement fund.↗
  • Rebuild and renew community centres across Vancouver.↗
  • Provide free swimming lessons for levels 1–3.↗↗↗
  • Confirm two new swimming pools at Sunset Park and Marpole Community Centre.↗

Social policy, health, and community services 6

  • Establish a "Three Strikes and You're Out" accountability framework for supportive housing operators, with escalating enforcement up to business licence revocation after three qualifying strikes.↗
  • Deliver the Vancouver Agenda to provincial and federal governments and work alongside all levels of government to secure involuntary care beds in Vancouver and a secure facility at St. Paul's or another site, within the first 100 days.↗
  • Double the City's current childcare spaces commitment to 4,000 new spaces.↗
  • Expand after-school programming.↗
  • Advocate for 100 or more involuntary care beds in Vancouver.↗
  • Require non-profit oversight and a good neighbour agreement for all public housing with street disorder issues.↗

Economic development and local business 6

  • Implement a One-Stop Business Desk to streamline support for businesses within the first 100 days.↗
  • Allow restaurants and bars to stay open later.↗
  • Revitalize Granville Street and its pedestrian zone and continue efforts to bring people downtown.↗
  • Establish a new era of cooperation between the City and major events, along with a new funding model for those events.↗
  • Help restaurants and bars operate with later hours.↗
  • Create a vibrant entertainment district and downtown core.↗

City finances, taxation, and service delivery 6

  • Audit City Hall's core services to identify redundancies, protect taxpayers, and publicly share the audit results, within the first 100 days.↗
  • Deliver a property tax freeze for residents and businesses.↗
  • Ensure taxpayer dollars are spent only on municipal responsibilities.↗
  • Freeze property taxes in 2026 and 2027.↗↗
  • Keep future property tax increases tied to inflation.↗
  • Pass a 0% property-tax increase for the 2027 budget.↗

Public safety and emergency services 6

  • Remove dangerous encampments from parks and public spaces.↗
  • Continue investing in police and mental health nurses.↗
  • Ban open-air hard drug use in public spaces.↗
  • Give police a streamlined tool to seize hard drugs.↗
  • Mandate provincial drug consumption sites be located away from schools and parks.↗
  • Put two public-safety plebiscite questions on the October 2026 ballot.↗↗↗

Governance, consultation, and accountability 5

  • Start a monthly "ask me anything" session with the Mayor, including relevant Council and City representatives, to ensure transparency at City Hall.↗
  • Launch and implement a Good Neighbour Policy within the first 100 days.↗
  • Make City Hall permitting faster and easier.↗
  • Create a strict performance-based action committee to set better metrics for families.↗
  • Expand department head meetings (VANSTAT) to weekly check-ins.↗

Transportation, streets, and public space 4

  • Continue to prioritize investments in roads and sidewalk repairs and renewal.↗↗
  • Remove pay parking at beaches and community centres and mandate a city-wide universal parking app.↗
  • End residential parking permit fees.↗
  • Invest a record $104 million in roads and sidewalks.↗

Schools, students, facilities, and education governance 3

  • Advocate to ensure provincial school tax revenue collected in Vancouver is directed to Vancouver schools.↗
  • Bring swimming lessons into the school day.↗
  • Increase teaching assistance by investing in classrooms.↗

Arts, culture, libraries, and civic life 1

  • Protect free, family-friendly events and community festivals city-wide.↗↗

Mayor

Not elected1

128 sources discovered from abcvancouver.ca — 6 platform, 2 release, 29 candidate.

  • ⚠ sitemap.xml unavailable (HTTPError)
  • ⚠ index page /media unreadable (HTTP 403)
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  • ⚠ index page /priorities unreadable (HTTP 403)
  • ⚠ 95 source(s) carried over from the previous run (not re-found this time)

Discovery enumerates sources; commitments and stances are decided at extraction. Each line above links to its source page.