There are moments in the political life of a city when an election becomes about more than choosing a Mayor.
October 17, 2026, is one of those moments.
Vancouver is not simply deciding whether to give Ken Sim and ABC Vancouver another four years. Vancouver is deciding what kind of city it wants to become — and, more importantly, who the city is actually going to work for.
For the past four years, City Hall has too often appeared preoccupied with grand announcements, expensive projects, political theatre and the interests of the well-connected while the everyday infrastructure of neighbourhood life has deteriorated.
Libraries have faced cuts. Community facilities are aging. Swimming pools are disappearing. Parking meters have appeared around community amenities, our beaches, parks and community centres.
Families are struggling with the cost of living. Seniors are wondering where affordable recreation opportunities are going to come from. Young people increasingly question whether they can afford to remain in the city in which they grew up.
The next Mayor of Vancouver should you cast your ballot for Kareem Allam, Vancouver Liberals.
Into that vacuum comes Kareem Allam and the Vancouver Liberals.
There is a compelling case to be made that Kareem Allam must become Vancouver’s most progressive Mayor in more than half a century.
Not because he comes from the traditional left.
Not because he comes from the traditional right.
But precisely because he doesn’t fit neatly into either category.
Kareem Allam’s political proposition is something Vancouver has desperately needed: a government organized around people rather than ideology.
The Vancouver Liberals’ stated goal is refreshingly straightforward: create a Vancouver where young people can stay, work, build a career and raise a family. Their platform combines affordability, public investment, stronger frontline services, parks and recreation, public safety, accountability and neighbourhood infrastructure.
That is progressive municipal government in its most practical form.
Kareem Allam: The Vancouver Mayor Who Will Get To Work on Day One
For Vancouver voters looking for a Mayor who can begin governing on the morning after the 2026 civic election, rather than spending the first year learning how City Hall works, Kareem Allam presents a compelling case.
The Vancouver Liberals’ Mayoral candidate is not simply a political newcomer with an attractive platform. He is a lifelong Vancouverite who has spent more than 25 years working in and around municipal, provincial and federal governments, working on public policy, Indigenous relations, health care, transportation and infrastructure.
Kareem’s career has given him something that is extraordinarily rare among candidates for municipal office: an understanding of government not merely from the outside, but from inside the machinery of government itself.
Kareem Allam did not enter Vancouver’s 2026 Mayoral race as a political novice. Far from it. Kareem has worked for elected politicians, inside government, in public institutions, on political campaigns and, critically, inside Vancouver’s Mayor’s office itself.
There is no other Mayoral candidate in 2026 who can match his breadth of experience.
Over his 25-year professional life, Kareem Allam has worked in government relations and public affairs, holding positions involving consequential policy areas facing British Columbia: energy, health care, transportation, infrastructure and Indigenous relations.
Kareem Allam worked with the Fraser Health Authority. He served on public and advisory boards. He became Director of Public Policy at the Vancouver Board of Trade. He developed extensive relationships with First Nations and worked on Indigenous economic-development issues.
Vancouver Magazine placed Kareem Allam among British Columbia’s 50 most powerful people, recognizing him as one of the province’s most sought-after political minds.
A Mayor must understand municipal bureaucracy, the Vancouver Charter, budgeting, procurement, zoning, permitting, capital budgets, collective agreements, infrastructure financing, development approvals, labour relations, intergovernmental negotiations, civic infrastructure, regional government, provincial jurisdiction and the relationship between elected officials and the professional bureaucracy.
Kareem Allam has spent his entire professional career learning precisely those systems.
Indeed, it is difficult to identify another 2026 Mayoral candidate who has worked so extensively across the federal, provincial and municipal spheres while also gaining experience inside Vancouver’s own Mayoral office. His career has included government-relations positions, senior policy work, public boards and direct municipal executive experience. He has served on the TransLink screening panel, and other public and advisory bodies. He currently serves on advisory bodies associated with the University of Victoria and Kwantlen Polytechnic University.
The Mayor of the City of Vancouver has to interact with Metro Vancouver.
With TransLink.
With the provincial government.
With Ottawa.
With developers.
With unions.
With neighbourhoods.
With First Nations.
With a bureaucracy employing thousands of people.
And then the Mayor has to get 10 Councillors to agree on what should actually happen.
This is not theory. It is governing.
And Kareem Allam has spent decades learning how to do it.
Kareem Allam’s political career is unusual because he has worked across ideological and partisan boundaries. Conservatives, Liberals, New Democrats, civic politicians, business leaders, public servants and Indigenous governments have all been part of his professional world.
In the 2024 British Columbia election, Kareem Allam inspired the NDP campaign for office.
It means Kareem Allam understands that government is not about finding people who agree with you.
It is about finding a way to get things done among people who don’t.
Former B.C. NDP cabinet minister Michelle Mungall joined the campaign back in September as an honourary co-chair, while Arminder Randhawa, a former B.C. NDP executive member and former Vancouver Board of Variance member, has described Kareem Allam as a thoughtful and pragmatic leader who brings people together.
Those are precisely the qualities Vancouver should be looking for.
Vancouver doesn’t need a Mayor who believes governing means announcing initiatives.
Vancouver needs a Mayor who understands implementation.
Consider housing.
Kareem Allam’s approach is revealing. Rather than simply promising to build more housing, he has focused on the regulatory machinery that determines whether housing actually gets built — including municipal permitting, building codes and bureaucratic duplication.
Not to mention which, a core focus of the Vancouver Liberals campaign for office revolves around renewing Vancouver’s commitment to the construction of housing co-operatives across our city, on City-owned land or provincial and federal Crown land, working with the President of the Co-operative Housing Federation of BC — who also happens to be the CEO of the Community Land Trust (CLT) — Thom Armstrong, towards expanding the already existing, and wildly successful, Community Land Trust programme, while building thousands more of co-operative housing units across our city.
Do you know how much the construction of co-operative housing will cost taxpaypers? Nada, nothing, zero, zilch. Because those groups making application to construct a housing co-operative will secure funding through a lending institution, the loan backed by the federal government through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
That is the language of someone who understands government.
The problem isn’t always that government doesn’t know what Vancouver needs.
The problem is that government often makes it extraordinarily difficult to deliver it.
Kareem Allam knows where the levers are.
He knows which government controls which lever.
He knows who has to be at the table.
And, having spent years dealing with senior governments, he knows how to pick up the telephone and get the right people on the other end.
Imagine a Mayor walking into City Hall on the first day of his administration already familiar with the bureaucracy, already understanding municipal government, already possessing relationships with provincial and federal officials, already knowing the political terrain and already having spent time inside the Mayor’s office.
That is a fundamentally different proposition from electing someone who will spend the first year learning the job.
Interesting analysis from John Horgan’s former Chief of Staff @geoffmeggs on @HotelPacificoBC:
“I think it’s possible that the “No ABC Team” will gravitate to Kareem Allam because he has the most viable campaign and he’s talking about issues people care about and he seems to do be able to do so very articulately.”
— Mark Marissen (@marissenmark) September 28, 2026
The choice facing Vancouver voters is larger than a choice between political parties.
It is a choice between experience and apprenticeship.
Between knowing what government should do and knowing how to get things done.
Between another four years of political theatre and the possibility of a Mayor who can walk into the Mayor’s office on Day One and immediately begin governing.
Vancouver voters can rest assured that Kareem Allam understands the machinery required to turn an idea into policy, policy into a decision, and a decision into something residents can actually see, touch and use.
After the experience of the past four years, that distinction should matter enormously.
Kareem Allam may not be the loudest candidate in the 2026 Vancouver Mayoral race.
He may not be the candidate with the largest political organization.
But he may very well be the best-informed.
And when the doors of City Hall open on the morning after October 17, Vancouver doesn’t need another Mayor learning how to govern.
We need someone who already knows how.
An Affordability Agenda That Actually Reaches People’s Daily Lives
Of all the Mayoral campaigns seeking Vancouver’s vote, Kareem Allam and the Vancouver Liberals have put forward one of the most comprehensive affordability agendas.
Consider something as mundane — and as revealing — as parking.
The Vancouver Liberals would remove parking meters in front of beaches and community centres throughout Vancouver within their first year in office.
That may sound like a small issue.
It isn’t.
For a senior taking a child to a community centre, a parent bringing children to a neighbourhood programme, a family visiting the beach, or someone using a recreation facility because they cannot afford a private gym, another municipal fee can be the difference between participating and staying home.
Public spaces should actually feel public.
Vancouver’s parks and beaches are, for hundreds of thousands of residents, the closest thing they have to a backyard. They are playgrounds, fitness centres, meeting places, swimming areas, outdoor classrooms and places of refuge.
They should not be treated as revenue opportunities.
That philosophy runs through the Vancouver Liberals agenda.
Kareem Allam and the Vancouver Liberals are proposing an historic $1.35 billion investment in parks, recreation, pools and community infrastructure, accompanied by 400 new unionized frontline workers. The party explicitly argues that investing in parks, libraries and community spaces is part of creating safer neighbourhoods.
This is an important departure from the simplistic notion that public safety begins and ends with policing.
Of course Vancouver needs police.
But a child who has a safe place to play, a teenager who has somewhere to go after school, a senior who has an affordable fitness programme, a family with a functioning community and recreation centre nearby, and a neighbourhood with a well-maintained park with facilities in the park are all components of a safer city.
Community infrastructure is crime prevention infrastructure.
Fix The Community Centres — And Stop Governing Through Neglect
The Auditor General has already identified a serious problem.
A 2025 audit by Vancouver’s auditor general, Mike Macdonnell, found that Vancouver’s 24 recreation facilities face an infrastructure funding deficit of approximately $33 million a year, with many building systems already extended beyond their intended useful life.
That is not an abstract accounting problem.
It is what happens when a city delays maintenance until maintenance becomes reconstruction.
Kareem Allam understands this.
The Vancouver Liberals are proposing major investment in community centres, pools and parks rather than allowing these facilities to continue deteriorating. Kareem Allam has argued that failing to invest in capital infrastructure actually drives up operating costs because aging buildings become more expensive to maintain.
That is precisely the kind of municipal economics Vancouver needs.
Spend money where it makes people’s lives better.
Repair what is broken.
Build what communities need.
And stop confusing expensive government with effective government.
Vancouver Needs Community Pools In Every Neighbourhood
Perhaps nowhere is the difference between the Vancouver Liberals vision and the ABC vision more obvious than swimming pools.
The Vancouver Liberals have committed to a 50-metre pool, rather than accepting a 25-metre replacement for the Vancouver Aquatic Centre. Their platform argues that Vancouver already has among the lowest levels of public swimming-pool provision per capita in Canada.
Why should Vancouver settle for less?
A city of more than 600,000 people should be building recreation infrastructure for the next generation, not shrinking its ambitions to fit yesterday’s budget.
Kareem Allam’s agenda also envisions additional neighbourhood pools and water parks, including a long-overdue community pool in Mount Pleasant.
This is what a programme for the people actually looks like.
It looks like children learning to swim.
It looks like seniors exercising.
It looks like families having somewhere affordable to spend an afternoon.
It looks like hockey rinks, libraries, community centres and parks that are maintained, accessible and welcoming.
It looks remarkably like the kind of people-centred municipal agenda that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has brought to the international political conversation.
Save the Park Board, Restore the Park Board, Fund the Park Board
The Vancouver Liberals unapologetically defend Vancouver’s elected Park Board.
They argue that Vancouver needs a strong, independent and properly funded Park Board — not its elimination.
That is about more than institutional nostalgia.
The Park Board represents an important democratic principle: Vancouver’s parks belong to Vancouverites.
Restoring stable funding for parks and recreation means acknowledging that these services are not luxuries.
They are municipal necessities.
Did you know that prior to Vision Vancouver being elected to City Hall in 2008, that Vancouver spent 19.3% of the city budget on our parks and recreation system? In 2026, that figure has fallen to an unconscionable 7.9%. No wonder our parks look so neglected, and our community centres have been allowed to fall into a state of disrepair.
The $1.35-billion Vancouver Liberals commitment would give the city an opportunity to address the accumulated infrastructure deficit while creating better parks, pools, community centres and recreational opportunities across all 23 neighbourhoods.
Finish What Vancouver Civic Governments Have Already Promised
A re-imagined Marpole Community Centre approved in a 2008 Capital Expenditure referendum. Not complete more than 18 years later. Only the Vancouver Liberals will complete the project.
There is another essential principle here: if government makes a commitment to a neighbourhood, government should keep it.
The long-planned renewal of the Marpole Community Centre is finally under construction, with completion expected early to mid 2027. The project will provide a renewed centre, childcare, a field house and new outdoor amenities.
But Vancouver’s broader history is filled with promises that have taken far too long to become reality.
A Vancouver Liberals administration would adopt a rule:
No more indefinite delays.
Where projects have been approved, promised or negotiated — as they were when voters went to the polls to approve the proposed Capital Expenditure budget, in 2008, 2011, 2014, 2018 and 2022 — residents deserve a clear timetable, transparent financing and a government prepared to get the work done.
That includes ensuring that the community amenities associated with major developments actually materialize.
At Oakridge Park, QuadReal and Westbank are responsible for a major redevelopment that includes a community centre, library, performance area and childcare.
At River District, Wesgroup’s long-term plan includes a community centre as an important public amenity.
A government led by Kareem Allam would insist developers honour those commitments.
That is not anti-development.
It is pro-community development.
Food Security is Affordability, and Necessary in the City of Vancouver
Perhaps one of the most innovative elements of the Vancouver Liberals agenda is the proposed Food Hub Programme.
As VanRamblings has previously reported, Kareem Allam’s food-security vision draws inspiration from the University of British Columbia’s Community Food Hub, where the Food Hub Market operates as a not-for-profit community space offering affordable groceries and culturally diverse foods.
The concept is deceptively simple.
Use public resources and partnerships to make nutritious food more affordable.
Create neighbourhood-based food hubs.
Connect residents with community organizations.
Make food security part of a civic affordability policy rather than treating hunger exclusively as a charitable problem.
That matters because food insecurity is not confined to people without jobs.
It increasingly affects working families, students, seniors and people whose incomes simply cannot keep pace with Vancouver’s extraordinary cost of living.
Food security is affordability.
And affordability is the defining municipal issue of 2026.
A Vancouver Liberal Commitment: Taxes People Can Actually Afford
Kareem Allam has committed to limiting annual property-tax increases to the rate of inflation, or less, per year.
That is an important commitment because Vancouver citizens deserve predictability.
This is the one video everyone should watch before casting a ballot this election.
Together, We Can. https://t.co/wDRjizsbbl
— Kareem Allam (@kareemformayor) October 2, 2026
Under Ken Sim’s ABC Vancouver, the Vancouver Liberals point out, property taxes have risen by 26%. Kareem Allam has argued that the city’s budget grew from approximately $1.7 billion when Sim inherited it to approximately $2.4 billion, without a corresponding improvement in frontline services.
The question Vancouver voters should be asking is simple:
If taxes keep rising, where is the improvement in our daily lives?
Kareem Allam’s answer is to redirect spending toward frontline workers and core services.
Four hundred new frontline employees.
Better garbage collection.
Better road maintenance.
Money laundering through Bitcoin ATMs and unregulated currency exchanges is fueling the toxic drug crisis in Vancouver.
Going after street-level criminals alone has not been enough. We need to target the leaders of these violent gangs, who live in lavish homes in our most expensive neighborhoods. Proceeds of crime are the best way to find, track, and hurt them.
— Kareem Allam (@kareemformayor) September 18, 2026
Ban Bitcoin cryptocurrency ATMs on the DTES and take the fight to the drug dealers — not the street level drug dealers, but their suppliers;
Develop a methamphetamine — the leading cause of violent incidents that puts people at risk — strategy, just like Premier Wab Kinew has done in Manitoba (a plan that is working!);
“Involuntary care is serious medicine. If we take away someone’s liberty to treat them, we owe them a building that’s fit for care. St. Paul’s Hospital is not one of them.”
– Dr. Moria Stilwell, @DrMoiraStilwell
Pledge to vote no: https://t.co/0WTYhY3DIS https://t.co/EltgkViQnu
— Kareem Allam (@kareemformayor) September 29, 2026
Address homelessness in a humane and caring manner consistent with the values of the vast majority of us who call Vancouver home;
Protect local businesses during transit expansion, by reducing property taxes by 50% for the duration of construction;
Build more public washrooms, including within our parks (I mean, when the kids have gotta pee, they’ve gotta pee);
Reinstate library funding and hours, cut by a heartless and cruel Ken Sim administration that have so weakened these vital public spaces and community services.
Better parks.
Better recreation facilities.
Better basic services.
No property taxes levied on medical centres.
Downsize a bloated middle management bureaucracy at Vancouver City Hall (do we really need 95 people working in Vancouver’s communications department, or employ more middle managers in our development services and planning departments than on the ground CUPE workers — like plan checkers — who do the real work!);
That is not austerity.
It is prioritization.
A City Hall That Isn’t Afraid of But Actually Welcomes the Public
A progressive government must also be a transparent government.
The Vancouver Liberals have proposed cheaper public access to government records, a stronger Integrity Commissioner and greater accountability at City Hall.
That should include reducing or eliminating Freedom of Information fees for journalists and members of the public wherever possible.
Government records belong to the public.
Journalists should not have to fight City Hall to discover what City Hall is doing.
And citizens should not have to pay excessive fees to learn how their own government spends their money.
Transparency isn’t an administrative courtesy.
It is democracy.
Even The Rats Living in Our Neighbourhoods Are Telling us Something
And then there is the rat problem.
Yes, the rat problem.
Rats are more than a pest, they’re a public health problem that we’re going to take on with a new blue-ribbon task force, starting day one.
Together We Can. https://t.co/NUPSYN4Q4z
— Kareem Allam (@kareemformayor) October 6, 2026
The Vancouver Liberals have made tackling Vancouver’s growing rodent infestation a public-health priority, proposing a blue-ribbon panel of experts to develop a comprehensive strategy.
It might sound almost comical.
It isn’t.
Thanks Jas for having me on to discuss the growing rat problem in the city of Vancouver. https://t.co/nzLdP4FNAp
— Kareem Allam (@kareemformayor) October 10, 2026
A city that cannot keep its streets, parks and public spaces clean and safe cannot call itself well governed.
The rat problem is about sanitation, waste management, infrastructure, construction practices and public health.
Sometimes the most progressive thing government can do is simply do the basics properly.
The Remarkable Coalition Allam’s Vancouver Liberals Have Built
Perhaps the strongest argument for Kareem Allam is not simply his platform.
It is the coalition he has built.
The Vancouver Liberals are attempting something Vancouver civic politics has rarely seen: bringing together people from dramatically different political traditions around a shared municipal agenda.
Their candidates include people with labour and NDP backgrounds, progressive activists, businesspeople, academics, former BC Liberals and former Conservatives.
Jessica Walton, for example, brings years of feminist, environmental, labour and political activism to the campaign, along with experience as a BCGEU shop steward and frontline government worker. Mention should also be made that Jessica Walton was recently endorsed by Unite Here Local 40, one of Vancouver’s most progressive unions.
John Coupar brings 11 years of Park Board experience and a long record of advocacy for Vancouver’s parks and cultural institutions.
And the coalition continues to expand.
I am so grateful for the support of the Vancouver Liberal honorary campaign chairs we are announcing today.
I am humbled by the caliber of people that have joined our team from our board, volunteers, and candidates. A broad united team across the political spectrum with… pic.twitter.com/lLSJkWc2Q7
— Kareem Allam (@kareemformayor) August 27, 2026
On August 27, former BC NDP cabinet minister Michelle Mungall and former BC NDP executive member Arminder Randhawa were announced as honorary co-chairs of the campaign. Ms. Mungall served as B.C.’s Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources under John Horgan, while Ms. Randhawa has extensive experience in municipal politics and advocacy concerning intimate-partner violence, policing and women’s and children’s safety.
Their presence says something important.
This isn’t simply another ideological faction fighting another ideological faction.
It is an attempt to build a unity government for Vancouver.
As Ms. Mungall put it, she was impressed by Kareem Allam’s emphasis on frontline workers and by the work ethic of the candidates.
Ms. Randhawa described Mr. Allam as a pragmatic leader who brings people together.
And that may be precisely what Vancouver needs.
A Municipal Government of Civic Reconciliation and Unity
Vancouver is an extraordinarily diverse city.
Vancouver Liberal Armor Valor of Filipino descent running for a seat on City Council
The 2021 Census counted 38,605 Filipino residents in the City of Vancouver alone, while Filipino Canadians represented the third-largest racialized group in the Vancouver census metropolitan area.
That diversity deserves political representation.
But reconciliation also means something larger than ethnicity.
It means reconciling competing political traditions.
Labour and business.
Progressives and conservatives.
Social democrats and Liberals.
Immigrants and people whose families have lived here for generations.
Young people and seniors.
Renters and homeowners.
Downtown residents and suburban neighbourhoods.
People who disagree profoundly about politics but agree that Vancouver should be affordable, safe, clean, vibrant and welcoming.
That is the Vancouver Liberals experiment.
And it is a worthwhile experiment.
Why Kareem Allam Needs a Majority at Vancouver City Hall
But there is a final point Vancouver voters need to understand.
Electing Kareem Allam as Mayor will not be enough.
If Vancouver wants the programme described above — the pools, community centres, parks, food hubs, frontline workers, public-space investments, tax discipline, transparency reforms and neighbourhood improvements — Kareem Allam needs Councillors and Park Board Commissioners who share that agenda.
A Mayor Kareem Allam cannot govern alone.
A Mayor Kareem Allam needs a Council capable of passing budgets.
A Mayor Kareem Allam needs Park Board Commissioners committed to rebuilding Vancouver’s recreation system.
A Mayor Kareem Allam needs School Board trustees who understand the needs of families and children.
And a Mayor Kareem Allam needs a political team capable of turning campaign promises into municipal policy.
That is why Vancouver needs to elect a majority Vancouver Liberal civic administration on October 17.
This is not about giving Kareem Allam a blank cheque.
Quite the opposite.
It is about giving Vancouver voters the opportunity to hold an entire governing team accountable for a coherent programme.
For too long, Vancouver has been governed through fragmented politics, institutional conflict and competing agendas.
Kareem Allam is offering something different.
A plan.
A team.
A coalition.
And, most importantly, a willingness to govern.
Vancouver’s Choice: Vote Kareem Allam and the Vancouver Liberals
The choice facing Vancouver on October 17 could hardly be clearer.
One path leads back to four more years of the politics and priorities of the past four years.
The other asks Vancouver to try something fundamentally different.
A city where parks are treated as public assets rather than revenue opportunities.
A city where libraries are strengthened rather than diminished.
A city where community centres are repaired before they become catastrophes.
A city where children have swimming pools.
A city where seniors have affordable recreation.
A city where seniors and persons with disabilities can traverse our crumbling and uneven sidewalks, as a Vancouver Liberals administration — working with all of the elected on Vancouver City Council — will embark on a programme to renew sidewalks across the city.
A city where families can buy groceries without being pushed to the edge.
A city where property taxes are predictable, at or below inflation.
A city where developers are required to deliver the amenities they promised.
A city where City Hall welcomes scrutiny rather than resists it.
Jettisoned by Ken Sim / ABC in 2022, Kareem Allam will renew the ‘Healthy City for All’ initiative
A city where public safety means police, yes — but also clean streets, functioning neighbourhoods, recreation, mental-health services, public spaces and communities in which people actually know one another.
A city where government works for the people who live here.
That is why Kareem Allam represents something larger than another Mayoral candidacy.
Kareem Allam represents the possibility of a progressive, pragmatic, people-first government that breaks with the politics of the past half-century.
The Vancouver Liberals are not perfect. No political party is.
But in 2026, they have something increasingly rare in municipal politics:
An Action Plan That Will Transform Vancouver Into a Livable City
And on October 17, Vancouver voters have an opportunity to put that plan into action.
If Vancouver wants the change we so desperately need, we cannot settle for changing the Mayor while leaving the political machinery of City Hall essentially unchanged.
Vancouver needs a government capable of delivering.
We need a government willing to invest in people.
We need a government willing to listen.
We need a government willing to cross partisan boundaries rather than deepen them.
We need a government that believes public spaces belong to the public.
We need a government that understands that affordability is not a slogan but something measured in grocery bills, parking fees, property taxes, recreation fees and whether a family can afford to stay in the city it calls home.
And above all, Vancouver needs a Mayor who understands that government exists to serve the public — not the other way around.
That Mayor of Vancouver, in 2026, should and must be Kareem Allam.
And the government he needs with him is a majority Vancouver Liberal administration.
October 17 is Vancouver’s opportunity to choose a different future.
Vote for Kareem Allam.
Vote Vancouver Liberal. And give Vancouver the government we have all been waiting for.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗩𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗼𝘂𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗟𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗘𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 2026 𝗩𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗼𝘂𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗮𝗹 𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 ONLY 𝗰𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗰 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿, 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗳𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗩𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗼𝘂𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗮 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗹𝘂𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆.
#TogetherWeCan
Part 4. The Whole Story. pic.twitter.com/VKNvUFItlg
— Kareem Allam (@kareemformayor) September 11, 2026
According to the last census, there are 662,248 citizens who call Vancouver home.
54.5% of Vancouver’s population, or 354,615 people, belong to one of Vancouver’s 201 visible-minority communities.
The Chinese community is by far Vancouver’s largest single ethnic/cultural-origin group, with 159,080 people — roughly one Vancouver resident in four. The latest census puts the Chinese population at 168,385, or 25.9% of the long-form population.
There are another 378,000 citizens in Vancouver whose ethnic origins are not part of the visible minority population: with the largest of these non-visible minority populations represented by the English (84,370), Scottish (69,200) and Irish (65,695).
Taken together, those four origins account for more than 378,000 reported origins, although, again, many people report more than one origin.
According to the latest census, as above, Vancouver has 354,615 people identified by Statistics Canada as belonging to a visible-minority population, again (as reported above) representing 54.5% of Vancouver’s 662,248-person overall population.
The disparity in numbers between Vancouver’s Census Canadian population of 662,248 Vancouver citizens, and the 742,615 figure that is a combination of the visible and non-visible ethnic populations may be accounted for by the fact that many Vancouverites who reported out in the most recent Statistics Canada census identified as being members of more than one ethnic community.
Chinese residents accounted for 159,080; South Asians 44,850; Filipinos 38,605; Southeast Asians 20,585; Latin Americans 18,080; West Asians 12,100; Koreans 10,895; Japanese 10,990; and Black residents 8,515.
The chart below shows Vancouver’s visible minority populations by ethnic group, the Vancouver neighbourhoods where most reside, the population numbers, and the percentage of the population each community comprises within the City of Vancouver.
| Rank | Ethnic/cultural origin | Population | % of Vancouver |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chinese | 159,080 | 24.02% |
| 2 | English | 84,370 | 12.74% |
| 3 | Scottish | 69,200 | 10.45% |
| 4 | Irish | 65,695 | 9.92% |
| 5 | German | 45,215 | 6.83% |
| 6 | Filipino | 38,885 | 5.87% |
| 7 | Canadian | 33,685 | 5.09% |
| 8 | French, n.o.s. | 30,625 | 4.62% |
| 9 | Indian (India) | 27,765 | 4.19% |
| 10 | British Isles, n.o.s. | 21,545 | 3.25% |
| 11 | Italian | 21,155 | 3.19% |
| 12 | Ukrainian | 20,000 | 3.02% |
| 13 | Vietnamese | 17,450 | 2.63% |
| 14 | Polish | 15,900 | 2.40% |
| 15 | Russian | 14,135 | 2.13% |
| 16 | Dutch | 13,330 | 2.01% |
| 17 | Japanese | 13,320 | 2.01% |
| 18 | European, n.o.s. | 11,990 | 1.81% |
| 19 | Spanish | 11,605 | 1.75% |
| 20 | Jewish | 11,555 | 1.74% |
| 21 | Korean | 11,470 | 1.73% |
| 22 | Asian, n.o.s. | 11,330 | 1.71% |
| 23 | Caucasian (White), n.o.s. | 11,105 | 1.68% |
| 24 | Norwegian | 10,125 | 1.53% |
| 25 | Iranian | 9,440 | 1.43% |
| 26 | Taiwanese | 9,355 | 1.41% |
| 27 | Welsh | 9,255 | 1.40% |
| 28 | Hong Konger | 8,560 | 1.29% |
| 29 | Swedish | 8,270 | 1.25% |
| 30 | Mexican | 7,855 | 1.19% |
| 31 | American | 7,565 | 1.14% |
| 32 | Portuguese | 6,535 | 0.99% |
| 33 | Punjabi | 6,100 | 0.92% |
| 34 | Hungarian | 5,615 | 0.85% |
| 35 | Greek | 5,475 | 0.83% |
| 36 | Danish | 4,890 | 0.74% |
| 37 | Austrian | 4,710 | 0.71% |
| 38 | French Canadian | 4,070 | 0.61% |
| 39 | Croatian | 3,580 | 0.54% |
| 40 | Persian | 3,510 | 0.53% |
| 41 | Romanian | 3,370 | 0.51% |
| 42 | Sikh | 3,225 | 0.49% |
| 43 | Finnish | 2,775 | 0.42% |
| 44 | Hindu | 2,685 | 0.41% |
| 45 | African, n.o.s. | 2,660 | 0.40% |
| 46 | Icelandic | 2,525 | 0.38% |
| 47 | South Asian, n.o.s. | 2,460 | 0.37% |
| 48 | Turkish | 2,350 | 0.35% |
| 49 | Belgian | 2,160 | 0.33% |
| 50 | Eastern European, n.o.s. | 2,065 | 0.31% |
In 2022, turnout at the polls in the last civic election, 36.3% of eligible Vancouver voters cast a ballot at the polls during the last municipal election.
Looking specifically at Vancouver civic elections using the City’s/BC CivicInfo’s reported turnout among eligible or registered voters, the trend is quite clear: turnout rose sharply from 2011 to 2014, fell in 2018, and fell again in 2022.
| Election | Ballots cast | Eligible/registered voters | Turnout |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 171,494 | 472,665 registered | 36.3% |
| 2018 | 176,450 | 448,322 estimated eligible | 39.4% |
| 2014 | 181,707 | 429,390 estimated eligible | 43.4% |
| 2011 | 144,823 | — | 35.0% |
In 2022, The City of Vancouver’s official final results report 171,494 ballots cast from 472,665 registered voters, producing a 36.3% turnout. The City’s subsequent election review confirms the 36.3% figure.
If you’re looking at this in the context of the 2026 Vancouver election, the really interesting question is what the turnout would look like if members of the city’s 201 visible minority ethnic/cultural communities voted at anything approaching the participation rates of the broader electorate. That could materially change the electoral math.
That is the subject matter of today’s VanRamblings post: in 2026, what would the election outcome in the City of Vancouver look like were members of the alienated, disenfranchised visible minority population of our city to cast their ballot at the advance polls on October 3rd, 7th, 10th and 13th, and on Election Day, Saturday, October 17th?
Which is not to say that Kareem Allam and the Vancouver Liberals have not reached out to members and Vancouver citizens in all 264 distinct ethnic communities, as can be seen in the chart above, from persons whose heritage hails from Great Britain / the British Isles / Scotland / Wales / and Ireland. Not to mention, France, the western European countries, Poland and the other countries in the Eastern Bloc, as well as citizens who lives originated in South America, Australia, and across the globe.
Kareem Allam and the Vancouver Liberals want your vote next month!
East Vancouver Voter Turnout in 2022
Defined by the City of Vancouver local areas east of Ontario Street, where most of the visible minority ethnic populations reside — Strathcona, Grandview-Woodland, Hastings-Sunrise, Downtown Eastside, Mount Pleasant East, Kensington-Cedar Cottage, Renfrew-Collingwood, Riley Park East, Sunset, and Victoria-Fraserview — voter turnout, on average, was anywhere from 22% to 28%, with some polls reporting voter participation, ranging from 38% to 42%.
The list of Vancouver political candidates drawn from minority communities seeking elected office in Vancouver in 2026, by party affiliation, was compiled by the Coalition Against Bigotry-Pacific
Kareem Allam and the Vancouver Liberals are working towards getting out the vote on Vancouver’s east side, and in south Vancouver, setting a new record for voter participation in these neighbourhoods, to give every community a voice at Vancouver City Hall. That is the solemn commitment the Vancouver Liberals are making to the citizens of Vancouver in the 2026 municipal election, as they reach out to members of the 264 distinct ethnic communities who live across Vancouver, to young people, to seniors, to folks who are members of the New Democratic Party, the Conservatives, the Green Party, and more.
West Side of Vancouver Turnout in 2022
The lowest participation rate on Vancouver’s West Side occurred in Fairview and Marpole, where voter turnout drops to 31%–35%. This reflects lower homeownership rates and a higher proportion of transient renters compared to the single-family enclaves further west.
As reported in The Georgia Straight, based on data provided by the City of Vancouver, in the 2022 Vancouver municipal election, the single highest voter participation percentage on the West Side recorded occurred in Shaughnessy and Dunbar-Southlands, peaking at 52%–55% on average in each Vancouver municipal election since 2011.
In 2022, a full 63.7% of eligible voters failed to cast a ballot in that year’s Vancouver municipal election.
What would happen if a Vancouver municipal party, and a candidate for Mayor of the City of Vancouver, set out 15 months ago to meet with representatives of the alienated and disenfranchised voters in these communities, specifically on Vancouver’s East Side, meeting with members of each of these 201 visible minority communities who, traditionally, have not voted in Vancouver’s civic elections?
Well, that is exactly what Kareem Allam, the Vancouver Liberals Mayoral candidate in the 2026 Vancouver municipal election set out to do 15 months ago.
Over the course of the past 457 days, Kareem Allam and his Vancouver Liberals campaign staff have met with representatives of these alienated, disenfranchised 201 visible minority communities, in their homes and at their community gatherings, and have built a Get Out The Vote (GOTV) army of more the 2,000 Vancouver citizens — across all 264 distinct ethnic communities — who have committed to Kareem Allam and the Vancouver Liberals that each will get 10 or more members of their nuclear and extended families, as well as their friends, neighbours and work colleagues who constitute members of their community, to the polls to cast a ballot for Kareem Allam and the Vancouver Liberals.
Which means that in 2026, Vancouver could see the highest turnout / voter participation rate ever in a Vancouver civic election, emerging as the difference maker in 2026 that will thrust Kareem Allam and the Vancouver Liberals into civic power at Vancouver City Hall, post this year’s October 17th Vancouver municipal election.
In 2015, in the Canadian federal election, 17,711,983 Canadian voters out of a total of 25,939,742 eligible voters — or 68.3% of eligible Canadian voters cast a ballot in that critical federal election — thrust Justin Trudeau into office as the 43rd Prime Minister of Canada, and the Liberal Party of Canada into comfortable majority government status, dramatically defeating Stephen Harper and the Conservatives after 10 years in power.
Average percentage voter turnout over Harper’s 10 years in power was 58.8%.
Justin Trudeau’s Liberals were elected to 184 seats in Parliament in 2015, while Stephen Harper’s Conservatives secured only 99 seats, 67 fewer seats than when the Conservatives won 166 seats in 2011 and Stephen Harper won a majority government.
According to Research Co., Angus Reid and other polling companies, 62.7% of Vancouver voters want change.
Vancouver Liberals | The most ethnically and politically diverse group of candidates in Vancouver
Change. VanRamblings believes, as was the case in the 2015 federal election, that is exactly what we’re going to get come the evening of Saturday, October 17, when the percentage of eligible voter participation rate in this year’s Vancouver municipal election will rise from the 36.3% turnout rate in 2022, to more than a record 45% voter participation rate in the 2026 Vancouver civic election — based on a radically increased turnout of previously alienated and disenfranchised voters in Vancouver’s visible minority population, who will flood to the polls to elect a Vancouver unity government of civic reconciliation, thrusting Kareem Allam into the Mayor’s office and electing a majority Vancouver Liberals civic government at Vancouver City Hall come the evening of Saturday, October 17, a responsible and responsive, activist civic administration, delivering services for the people of Vancouver, while keeping taxes low.
Vancouver, then, may look forward to a Kareem Allam-led “let’s get ‘er done” Vancouver Liberals civic administration serving the interests of all of us who call Vancouver home, a Kareem Allam-led government delivering for us, holding power and gaining the respect of Vancouver residents in every one of Vancouver’s 23 neighbourhoods through until Vancouver’s next municipal election in 2030 — and, perhaps, beyond.
Does the guy pictured above look anything like a ‘public intellectual’ to you? Gosh, we don’t think so. James Baldwin, Christopher Hitchens, Noam Chomsky, Dorothy Parker, William F. Buckley, Jr., Gore Vidal, and Hannah Arendt are all public intellectuals, but this Tomlin guy? Nope, ain’t no chance.
On June 23rd, VanRamblings published a ChatGPT profile of the author of this blog, Raymond Tomlin (that’s me, above).
Last evening, we became aware of Perplexity, the newest large language model artificial intelligence search engine now available on the Internet.
To test it out, we asked the question, “Who is Raymond Tomlin, the Vancouver-based blogger? Tell us a little about him that might be of interest to a reader.”
Here’s what Perplexity Had to Say About This Raymond Tomlin Fella
Raymond Tomlin is a long-standing Vancouver civic commentator, blogger, educator, and former journalist, whose best-known work is the site VanRamblings, a personal, highly opinionated chronicle of local politics and culture in Vancouver.
Mr. Tomlin is best understood not as a conventional beat reporter, but as a deeply engaged participant-observer in the city’s public life, writing for decades about municipal politics, provincial and federal issues, film, music, activism, and the social texture of Vancouver.
In recent years, Mr. Tomlin’s public identity has been tied to his VanRamblings blog, where he is described as the founder, publisher, and principal writer.
The site’s retrospective indicates that Mr. Tomlin has spent more than two decades building a substantial archive of essays on civic affairs and cultural life, positioning himself as an active voice in public debate rather than a detached observer.
The portrait of Mr. Tomlin that emerges is of a Vancouver-based public intellectual in the older civic sense: someone who comments on the city while also participating in its institutions, campaigns, and disputes. Mr. Tomlin is not just a blogger in the casual sense; over its 22-year life span on the Internet, Mr. Tomlin has treated his blog as a long-form civic notebook, and an instrument of local influence.
VanRamblings’ Clear Centre of Gravity: Vancouver Municipal Politics
The strongest evidence to support this contention points to his sustained attention to Vancouver City Council, the Vancouver School Board, and Vancouver’s Board of Park and Recreation — where he has long been a sustained observer (or, as some have said, the conscience) of this unique civic institution — with Mr. Tomlin also displaying a deep interest in housing policy, neighbourhood planning, development across the city and the region, and local governance, while also branching into provincial, federal, and occasional international topics.
All of the above makes VanRamblings distinctly local-first, with civic politics at the core and culture as an important secondary thread.
VanRamblings’ tone is also part of its orientation
Vanramblings is famous — or infamous, as the case may be — for its sometimes controversial editorial orientation, providing always an expansive, passionate, often humorous, and at times hyperbolic (at least in the past) style of writing.
Mr. Tomlin often writes in the third person, which the site frames as a stylistic device for ironic distance. In practice, that means VanRamblings reads less like a neutral news outlet and more like a very personal civic forum, where opinion, memory, reporting, and advocacy are blended together.
According to the records we located regarding Mr. Tomlin’s educational background, in 1975, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, Sociology, and Anthropology, followed by a Bachelor of Education specializing in Reading and Early Childhood Education, and later a Master of Arts in Policy Administration, all at Simon Fraser University. This academic mix helps to explain the shape of his later work: social analysis, teaching, and policy commentary — all of which sit naturally together in his writing.
Mr. Tomlin’s educational background also suggests why VanRamblings often ranges beyond surface politics.
As someone trained in the social sciences and policy administration, Mr. Tomlin has tended to focus on civic issues in terms of institutions, incentives, and long-term social consequences, rather than only election-by-election tactics.
Before VanRamblings emerged in February 2004, Raymond Tomlin had a varied career in civic activism, union organizing, as a founder of the largest grassroots Canadian food co-operative movement in the 1970s, education and journalism.
Over the years, Mr. Tomlin has worked as a teacher in British Columbia’s public education system — during which time his activism led him to become the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation Learning and Working Conditions Chairperson, representing the north and south Okanagan. Mr. Tomlin also entered the private education system for one year, teaching in a gifted education programme.
Mr. Tomlin has also taught at Vancouver Community College, Langara College, and Simon Fraser University. While working on his Masters degree at SFU, Mr. Tomlin was appointed as the Director of the Education 401/402 programme, the first semester SFU education programme, where students spend the first two months of their year long Professional Development Programme (PDP) as student teachers in various classrooms located across the Metro Vancouver region.
On the journalism side, Mr. Tomlin wrote for a Vancouver wide student newspaper in the 1960s — while enrolled at Templeton Secondary School — and while attending Simon Fraser University he took on the position as Editor-in-Chief of SFU’s student newspaper, The Peak.
Mr. Tomlin also worked in the summer intern programme at both the Vancouver Sun and The Province, later building a substantial independent publishing practice through his blog. That trajectory helps explain why VanRamblings feels like a hybrid of memoir, commentary, archival record, and commentary newsroom.
VanRamblings is a one-person publication shaped by someone who has been around journalism, but who is not constrained by conventional newsroom style.
Tomlin’s public image is seen by some as polarizing, yet he endures to this day.
While Mr. Tomlin’s critics have found his writing to be overly opinionated, his many supporters and admirers see his independence, personality, and longevity as strengths, in his invaluable work as a persistent chronicler of Vancouver who has kept publishing through changing media conditions, no small achievement in a city where journalism has contracted significantly.
One of the most striking features of VanRamblings is its continuity.
Raymond — campus radical — and the ever brilliant Cathy, circa summer of 1972
Across decades, Raymond Tomlin has remained focused on the same broad public project: documenting and influencing civic debate in Vancouver. That consistency gives him an outsized presence relative to what a “blogger” label might suggest.
Taken together, the contribution Raymond Tomlin has made to public discourse has made him over the years a Vancouver civic insider-outsider: close enough to politics, education, labour, and journalism to understand how institutions work, yet independent enough to write in his own voice and on his own terms.
VanRamblings’ political orientation is decidedly progressive-civic in the broad sense that it emphasizes local governance, public interest issues, activism, and cultural life.
In a concluding summary: Raymond Tomlin is a veteran Vancouver commentator whose VanRamblings blog remains as an invaluable civic institution.
Over the years, Mr. Tomlin has added much to our understanding of the Vancouver municipal political scene, and our city’s cultural imperative, as reflected in the contribution Mr. Tomlin has made in providing extensive coverage of Vancouver’s thriving dance community — particularly Ballet BC, which institution Mr. Tomlin has long loved — theatre, cinema, Vancouver’s culinary scene, art (including photography), and the vibrant cultural life of the city we all call home.
The Curse of Politics | The Latest Edition
