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

COPE

12 candidates across 3 contests · Official site ↗ · 12 elected (official results)

Commitments · 163

Housing and land use 49

  • Make closing the vacancy loophole — which allows landlords to raise rent as much as they want between tenants — the first legislative priority.↗
  • Stop the sale of public land and use it instead for public benefits including public housing, built in every neighbourhood in partnership with provincial, federal, host nation, and non-profit partners.↗
  • Support, protect, and expand co-op housing; fight to renew leases for existing co-ops; prioritize building new co-ops on city-owned land; and advocate for other levels of government to make generational investments in co-op housing.↗
  • Support the development of community-led land trusts to protect land from speculative development and create permanently affordable housing.↗
  • Give tenants the legal right to collectively bargain through tenants unions.↗
  • Continue to increase the Empty Home Tax, apply a partial vacancy tax to empty new builds previously exempted, increase enforcement, and close loopholes.↗
  • Investigate and regulate REITs and other large institutional investors flowing capital into Vancouver's housing market.↗
  • Establish maximum indoor temperature standards for rental units and require landlords to keep buildings safe and habitable during heat waves.↗
  • Create a landlord registry to track rents and identify landlords who repeatedly violate the law.↗
  • Strengthen the Tenant Relocation and Protection Policy (TRPP) and apply it city-wide and across all types of rental housing, requiring developers to coordinate redevelopments so displaced renters get access to a same-sized, accessible unit in their neighbourhood.↗
  • Leverage city-owned land for swing-site housing for displaced tenants, with that land later serving as co-op or public housing.↗
  • Mandate that land held by faith-based or other non-profit groups must offer right of first refusal to another non-market user before selling to the private sector.↗
  • Re-establish the renters office with new enforcement powers; if blocked, use the councillor's own office as a de facto renters office.↗
  • Build new shelter-rate housing and advocate for other cities, the province, and the federal government to participate in ending homelessness in BC.↗
  • Reverse the current ban on supportive housing in Vancouver.↗
  • Implement a right-of-first-refusal policy giving the city first priority to purchase existing apartment buildings going up for sale, in order to convert them into public housing.↗
  • Reinstate the Renters Office with new enforcement powers.↗
  • Establish a binding tenants rights by-law.↗
  • Build on the Tenant Relocation and Protection Policy (TRPP) to protect tenants from displacement.↗
  • Use the Standards and Maintenance by-law to keep rental units safe.↗
  • Triple the Empty Homes Tax and close loopholes used to keep homes empty.↗
  • Fix the loophole in the Broadway Plan that denies hotel-project renters the right to return to the new building.↗
  • Bring a motion asking staff to identify city-owned land within 5 km of hospitals and to partner with senior levels of government to build affordable workforce housing for healthcare workers.↗
  • Negotiate, secure, and build 20,000 or more units of truly affordable homes in Vancouver.↗
  • Bring a motion to reconcile the pause on the Community Housing Fund with active housing targets, and seek to add it as an urgent motion at LMLGA.↗
  • Close the vacancy loophole that allows landlords to raise rent without limit between tenants, as the first legislative priority.↗
  • Stop demovictions by preventing demolition of dense, livable housing during the housing crisis.↗
  • Purchase apartment buildings and convert them into permanently affordable public housing and co-operatives.↗
  • Introduce a progressive property tax of 1% on assessed value over $5 million to fund ending homelessness.↗
  • Continue increasing the Empty Home Tax, apply a partial vacancy tax to empty new builds previously exempted, increase enforcement, and close EHT loopholes.↗
  • Create a landlord registry to track rents and enforce compliance against landlords who repeatedly break the law.↗
  • Restore the renters office with new enforcement powers, using the councillor's own office as a de facto renters office if Council blocks restoration.↗
  • Leverage city-owned land to provide swing-site housing for displaced tenants, later usable as co-op or public housing.↗
  • Finance the construction of permanently affordable public housing through taxes on wealth, mansions, and empty lots, bonds, and advocacy to senior governments.↗
  • Place a penalty on land-banking for profit to incentivize development without displacement and eliminate vacant lots.↗
  • Tax non-resident investors to fund affordable housing for Vancouver residents.↗
  • Establish a Landlord Registry to track landlord activity and impose meaningful penalties for profit-driven violations of tenant law.↗
  • Protect tenants' right to organize into unions and require landlords to bargain with tenant unions in good faith.↗
  • Enshrine tenant rights in strong Vancouver bylaws or laws rather than relying on weak policies.↗
  • Restore the Renters Office, enforce it to act against non-compliant landlords, pursue the strongest tenant protections in Canada, perform repairs on neglected apartments and bill landlords, and enable conversion of rental apartments to co-ops.↗
  • Preserve, leverage, and expand Vancouver's public lands for public benefit, and implement a city-wide public land trust for democratic community control.↗
  • Use city-owned land as swing-site housing for displaced tenants, with sites later serving as co-op or public housing.↗
  • Finance construction of permanently affordable public housing through taxes on wealth, mansions, and empty lots, bonds, and advocacy to senior governments.↗
  • Place a penalty on land-banking for profit to incentivize development without displacement on vacant lots.↗
  • Tax non-resident investors to fund affordable housing for Vancouver residents.↗
  • Establish a Landlord Registry to track landlord activity and impose penalties for wrongdoing for profit.↗
  • Protect tenants' right to organize into unions and require landlords to bargain with tenant unions in good faith.↗
  • Enshrine tenant rights in Vancouver law rather than weak policies such as the TRPP.↗
  • Preserve, leverage, and expand Vancouver's public lands for public benefit and implement a city-wide public land trust for democratic community control.↗

Governance, consultation, and accountability 20

  • Affirm Vancouver's opposition to the genocide in Gaza.↗
  • Join Burnaby and Powell River in committing to the Apartheid-Free Communities pledge.↗
  • Take all actions to withdraw Vancouver from any municipal contracts that support or empower apartheid and genocide.↗
  • Recognize the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association (ACLA) framework of Anti-Palestinian Racism.↗
  • Introduce an Acceptable Use for AI Policy governing AI tool use by all elected officials, staff, and city employees, requiring privacy safeguards, disclosure of significant AI use, and consequences for elected officials who break the rules, including preventing sensitive resident information from being fed into unapproved AI systems.↗↗
  • Bring a motion to City Council calling for a Ranked Choice Ballot for future mayoral elections.↗
  • Explore possible amendments to the ODP regarding how staff interpret public comments and how changes in use for social housing projects trigger public hearings.↗
  • Bring a motion asking Vancouver to join the Elect Respect campaign.↗
  • Limit nominated candidates to up to five for City Council, up to four for School Board, and up to four for Park Board.↗
  • Conduct a 'People's Audit' — a 360-degree review of city operations engaging the public and city staff to identify service delivery problems and cut waste.↗↗
  • Establish a lobbyist registry and push fossil fuel and big business lobbyists out of City Hall.↗
  • Increase time for public comment at Council, allow follow-up questions, and hold Town Hall-style meetings throughout the city.↗
  • Protect and defend the Integrity Commissioner's office and work, and restore integrity oversight at City Hall.↗↗
  • Restore door-to-door voter enumeration (voter registration) in Vancouver.↗
  • Eliminate the extra municipal vote currently available to non-resident property owners in Vancouver elections.↗
  • Push the province to implement civic voting rights for Permanent Residents.↗
  • Expand and democratize advisory committees, improve public access to Council chambers, improve and disseminate Council meeting livestreams, and improve overall governance transparency.↗
  • Commission a worker-led audit interviewing current and former city workers, partners, and the public to improve service delivery and reduce waste.↗↗
  • Enhance the independence of the Auditor General and provide sufficient resources for needed investigations.↗↗
  • Work across City Council, School Board, and Park Board to use public assets for the public good and grow Vancouver's social infrastructure.↗↗

Transportation, streets, and public space 17

  • Present an advocacy motion on excessively bright vehicle headlights to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference in Edmonton in June 2026.↗↗
  • Recommit to a vision for a Central Waterfront Precinct that prioritizes world-class pedestrian connections and active transit hubs.↗
  • Improve transit accessibility and reliability through more routes, lower fares, more dedicated bus lanes, higher service levels, reduced bus bunching, and restoration of cut routes including the 17 and 25.↗
  • Support active transportation and cycling infrastructure including protected bike lanes and flexible reflective bollards, and work with groups like Vision Zero and HUB Cycling to improve safety.↗
  • Work toward fully-funded, free-to-ride public transit, beginning by expanding free transit to youth under 18.↗↗↗
  • Pilot fare-free bus routes in Vancouver.↗↗
  • Provide free transit on election days, holidays, and around major community events.↗↗
  • Push to integrate the Compass Card system with micro-mobility as part of a path toward a unified public transit system.↗↗
  • Close gaps in the city-wide cycling network and expand protected bike lanes, including a new Broadway bike lane.↗↗
  • Improve lighting and safety protocols for transportation corridors in public parks.↗↗
  • Provide funding and space for community bike repair and recycling initiatives to improve access to affordable bikes.↗↗
  • Continue fighting to bring HandyDart under public control to improve service quality for people with disabilities.↗↗
  • Introduce an affordable low-income transit pass for people earning less than $40,000 per year.↗↗
  • Reduce speed limits on high-risk streets.↗
  • Undertake road upgrades and establish permanent school zones.↗
  • Take action to address ultra-bright headlights that increase road risk.↗
  • Expand protected left-turn infrastructure, prioritising areas of greatest need.↗

Schools, students, facilities, and education governance 15

  • No cuts to VSB programming, no school closures, and no sale of public school land.↗
  • Keep AI out of Vancouver schools by signing onto the PACES (Parents for AI Caution in Educational Spaces) pledge.↗
  • Bring a motion to the School Board to stop the elimination of the district-wide librarian mentor teaching position (1.0 FTE District Teacher Librarian) for the 2026–2027 school year.↗
  • Bring a motion to the School Board to increase additional hours for supervision aides for the 2026–2027 school year.↗
  • Bring a motion to the School Board to reinstate 3.0 FTE SSB staffing for the 2026–2027 school year.↗
  • Bring a motion to the School Board to require Teachers Teaching on Call to cover resource teacher absences from day one, rather than day two.↗
  • Bring a motion to the School Board to reinstate 1.0 FTE Teacher of the Visually Impaired and 1.0 FTE Hospital Homebound Teacher for the 2026–2027 school year.↗
  • Bring a motion to the School Board to fully designate the City of Vancouver food grant for school meals for the 2026–2027 school year, restoring over $160,000 in meal funding.↗
  • Bring a motion to the School Board calling for consideration of reallocating administrative and managerial office budgets to support resource teachers and inclusive education.↗
  • Mandate renewable energy sources on all new VSB builds and major renovations.↗↗
  • Properly fund inclusive education for students with diverse learning needs.↗↗
  • Facilitate Indigenous educational practices within VSB school programming.↗↗
  • Ensure no child is hungry by establishing a universal breakfast and lunch program at Vancouver School Board.↗↗↗
  • Fund school mental health counsellors instead of school liaison officers to prioritize student safety and well-being.↗
  • Adopt recommendations from the BC Human Rights Commission to respond to and fight racism in VSB schools.↗↗

Social policy, health, and community services 15

  • Ask Vancouver Coastal Health and the City to prioritize a local PrEP clinic in the Qminity building in collaboration with HiM.↗
  • Bring a motion to Council on supporting and improving food recovery in the city.↗
  • Expand affordable childcare spaces, with emphasis on $10/day spaces in Vancouver.↗
  • Expand existing health and affordable meal programs, establish community kitchens, and expand community gardens, seed sharing, food storage, and skill-sharing training to build food sovereignty.↗
  • Support peer-assisted care teams (PACTs) to respond to mental health crises as an alternative to police.↗
  • Apply a disability justice lens to city policies, systems, services, funding, and structures.↗
  • Track and report on childcare spaces, both private and public, to ensure targets are being met.↗↗
  • Accelerate before-and-after school childcare spaces at elementary schools across the city.↗↗
  • Restore the sex worker safety planning position that was previously cut, and support front-line services that protect sex workers from violence and exploitation.↗
  • Expand support for sex worker safety and create policy ensuring sex workers can work in safe environments, including the right to safe exit from the industry.↗
  • Deploy emergency shelters, supportive programming, meal programs, tiny house villages, respite day spaces, and storage for unhoused residents to urgently address homelessness.↗↗
  • Expand VanWifi city-wide, prioritizing currently under-served areas.↗↗
  • Conduct an Affordability Audit for Families to identify cost pressures on Vancouver families, create a strategy using public power to fill market gaps, deliver affordable children's programming, and lower everyday costs.↗
  • Fund pools, recreation facilities, and public services adequately.↗
  • Integrate and coordinate the network of community gardens to grow local food and increase access to growing space.↗

Parks, recreation, and natural spaces 12

  • Strengthen the independence of the Park Board and deliver high-quality services and programming at pools, parks, and community centres.↗
  • Steward green spaces to be more resilient to the climate crisis and improve the well-being of Vancouver residents.↗
  • Strengthen the independent elected Park Board, increase collaboration between the Park Board and City Council, and make more of Vancouver's 'temporary' parks permanent.↗
  • Increase funding for pools, recreation facilities, and public services.↗
  • Prioritize growth of green spaces and parks, especially in dense areas where amenity density has not kept pace with development.↗↗
  • Upgrade playgrounds and parks in neighbourhoods that are being left behind.↗↗
  • End the developer tax break associated with gravel pit dog parks and low-quality community gardens.↗↗
  • Build more public pools across the city and honour the 2022 plebiscite by building a new 50-metre pool in Vancouver.↗↗
  • Train and hire lifeguards and swim instructors needed to keep pools staffed, reduce queues, offer swimming lessons to meet demand, and keep beaches safe.↗↗
  • Integrate and coordinate the network of community gardens to grow local food and increase access to growing space.↗
  • Grow the urban forest canopy to 30% by 2050, prioritizing climate-resilient native species.↗↗
  • Increase biodiversity in public parks by planting native species and supporting healthy local ecosystems.↗↗

Climate, environment, and resilience 12

  • Develop a Climate Defence Strategy to upgrade infrastructure, empower communities to prepare for climate events, and apply circular economy initiatives and tool libraries.↗
  • Implement a moratorium on AI data centres in Vancouver.↗
  • Break the jurisdictional gridlock in False Creek to enable environmentally and socially responsible management of the urban inlet.↗
  • Bring a motion committing to climate targets through food recovery measures.↗
  • Block any future attempt by the current mayor to re-allow burning methane gas in new buildings, and support retrofitting electric heat pumps in existing buildings.↗
  • Support circular economy initiatives and move aggressively toward a zero-waste economy through tool libraries, community repair programs, free stores, and electronics repair and recirculation programs.↗↗↗
  • Re-join the "Sue Big Oil" lawsuit to hold large fossil fuel companies financially accountable for climate costs.↗↗↗
  • Invest in tool libraries, circular economy initiatives, and zero-waste programs as part of the Climate Defence Strategy.↗↗
  • Invest in local food production and create systems to reduce food waste to protect the food system from climate disruptions.↗↗
  • Help communities prepare for climate events and disasters including heat waves, snow storms, and atmospheric rivers.↗↗
  • Use Vancouver as a platform to push for climate justice provincially, federally, and globally, aiming to meet and exceed IPCC climate targets.↗
  • Upgrade public infrastructure and housing to protect the city and save lives during future climate events.↗↗

City finances, taxation, and service delivery 7

  • Introduce a progressive property tax of 1% on residential property value above $5 million to generate revenue directed at ending homelessness.↗
  • Fight for libraries, city-wide tenant protections, tripling the Empty Homes Tax, and universal meal programs for students.↗
  • Work on a motion to tax the wealthy using the Municipal Energy Value Assessment (MEVA) mechanism.↗
  • Support the motion to restore the City's Living Wage policy.↗
  • Conduct an Affordability Audit for Families to identify cost pressures and create a strategy using public power to fill market gaps, create affordable children's programming, and lower everyday costs.↗↗
  • Appoint a team to conduct an Affordability Audit identifying areas of growing cost of living, city levers to lower costs, new targets, and a path to a more affordable city.↗↗
  • Advance an emergency transitional budget to stop and reverse changes made at the city under the previous administration.↗

Arts, culture, libraries, and civic life 6

  • Establish a Cultural Land Trust to increase long-term security of tenure of space for cultural and arts purposes in BC through ownership and stewardship of land and buildings.↗↗
  • Increase funding, hours, and wages at the Vancouver Public Library; support library worker representation on the VPL board; and push for library expansion rather than cuts.↗↗
  • Expand library hours to seven days a week and provide libraries with funding for mental health workers and better working conditions.↗↗
  • Support the growth of tool libraries, libraries of things, and Vancouver's circular economy.↗
  • Develop a Vancouver Arts and Cultural Spaces Strategy that leverages city-owned land for arts venues and encourages use of vacant commercial spaces for performance and arts.↗
  • Create a Vancouver Arts, Culture, and Creative City Navigator to support arts organisations, festivals, and venues and facilitate the city's arts and culture goals.↗

Public safety and emergency services 5

  • Support infrastructure to reduce suicide risk, including barriers on bridges and high-risk areas, and programs to intervene and support people in crisis.↗↗
  • Make Vancouver a Restorative Justice City by endorsing and funding the Restorative City framework.↗↗
  • Restore the sex worker safety planning position and support front-line services that protect sex workers from violence and exploitation.↗
  • Expand support for the safety of sex workers, create policy ensuring safe working environments, and include the right to safe exit from the industry.↗
  • Establish community safety programs to steward protests and community events with public safety captains, without expanding VPD budgets through overtime and overpolicing.↗↗

Economic development and local business 4

  • Create a Vancouver Local Business Office to help small businesses navigate permits, rules, and resources.↗↗
  • Support new and existing worker co-ops with waived fees, expedited permitting, and city support.↗↗
  • Support business license reforms to make it easier for start-ups to launch, including allowing businesses with different licensing requirements to share space.↗↗
  • Push for changes to commercial tenancy agreements, including standardized leases, negotiation rules, landlord responsibilities, and protections against catastrophic rent hikes for small and local businesses.↗↗

Indigenous relations and reconciliation 1

  • Address anti-Indigenous racism in institutions, support development of Indigenous land trusts, and ensure Indigenous voices are reflected at City Hall, in line with UNDRIP.↗
Stances · 14
Candidates

City Council

Elected4

Park Board

Elected4

School Board

Elected4

Source coverage

145 sources discovered from www.votecope.ca — 14 platform, 91 release, 2 candidate.

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