Category Archives: Vancouver Votes 2026

#VanPoli | COPE Announces a People’s Audit of Ken Sim’s ABC Vancouver Civic Party

#VanElxn 2026, #VanPoli Civic Politics, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2026, , , , , , , , , , ,

This week COPE, The Coalition of Progressive Electors, and COPE’s Mayoral candidate, Stephanie Allen, announced The People’s Audit, COPE’s plan to open the books at Ken Sim’s City Hall, hold him accountable, clean up his mess, and deliver better public services for people.

We know a lot about what Ken Sim has done in power.

He turned a meeting room into a private gym, he tried to invest the city’s money in bitcoin, and he defunded affordable housing to the tune of $3.8 million that he gave away to for-profit developers.

Mayor Ken Sim gives the media a tour of his office space including his controversial personal gym at City Hall on June 26, 2024. Photo by Arlen Redekop /PNG

But there’s also a lot we don’t know yet.

Many decisions were made in secret, his 2026 austerity budget had almost no detail, hiding cuts to departments, staff, and programming.

We need to expose what has happened to our city, hear from everyone we can, and chart a path forward to clean up the mess.

We can open the books on Ken Sim’s City Hall.

We can expose the decisions made against the public interest, and who they serve.

Then we can transform the city to create public services that work, cut waste, and focus on making the city more affordable for people.

This is the work I’ve done professionally for the last several years. Working with organizations to guide transformation, creating alignment between promises made to the community and the day-to-day work. Creating a culture of integrity no matter the organization’s mission.

The steps are straightforward.

First, we listen to everyone, and review all the documentation. This allows us to find any bureaucratic absurdities, identify where rules are being followed — or broken — and address places where the system is not working.

Then, together with the team, partners, and community, we create a plan to clean it up, strengthen delivery, and build for the future from a solid foundation.

Then, we can turn the page on Ken Sim’s failed leadership.

I’m running for Mayor with COPE because we can take democracy back from the billionaires, make it affordable to build a life here, and make our city work for the people.

The People’s Audit Will:

  • Immediately Reverse Course on Ken Sim’s Disastrous Term and Restore the Renters Office, Reverse Cuts to Climate Programmes, and Increase the Empty Homes Tax;
  • Open the books on decisions made against the public interest, and put in new safeguards against lobbying and corporate influence;
  • Improve transparency and expose the problems at the city by talking with current and past city workers, city partners, and the public to improve service delivery and cut waste;
  • Review City AI data use policies, and investigate whether private city information was fed to American tech companies through LLMs;
  • Empower the Integrity Commissioner to hold politicians accountable, and update the city code of conduct to prioritize breaches of public trust.

We got this.

Stephanie Allen
COPE Candidate for Mayor of the City of Vancouver

#VanPoli | Vancouver Starved Its Parks — Then City Hall Declared the Park Board the Problem

#VanElxn 2026, #VanPoli Civic Politics, Environment, Park Board, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Votes 2026, , , , , ,

There is a remarkable piece of political chutzpah unfolding at Vancouver City Hall.

For nearly two decades, successive City Councils have failed to provide Vancouver’s parks, swimming pools, community centres, playing fields and recreation facilities with the sustained investment they require.

Now, after years of deferred maintenance and inadequate capital funding — funding that was approved by voters at each election in 2008, 2011, 2014, 2018 and 2022 — Vancouver City Hall has decided that the institution responsible for those assets, the Park Board, is the problem.

It isn’t.

City Hall is, as are all the Mayors and City Councils elected since 2008.

Mayor Gregor Robertson, who served as Vancouver Mayor from 2008 to 2018, cut Park Board funding

The modern history of this sorry affair begins with Mayor Gregor Robertson and Vision Vancouver, elected in 2008. Robertson’s administration inherited one of the world’s great urban parks and recreation systems.

Instead of establishing a long-term funding strategy to preserve it, the Vision Vancouver Mayor and Council imposed cuts.

In December 2010, the Vision Vancouver-led City Council approved more than $700,000 in reductions to the 2011 Park Board budget, with the consequences falling directly on parks: fewer flower beds, reduced lawn mowing and less street-tree pruning. Business in Vancouver subsequently reported that the cuts were visibly tarnishing the city’s parks.

The Park Board chairs during the opening years of the Robertson era — Raj Hundal in 2009 and Aaron Jasper in 2010–11 — were left attempting to manage an increasingly difficult financial situation. Constance Barnes chaired in 2012, Sarah Blyth from 2012 into 2013, and Jasper again in 2014.

And this is where the political responsibility becomes complicated.

John Coupar, who served as a Vancouver Park Board Commissioner from 2011 through 2018

From 2014 to 2018, the Non-Partisan Association controlled Park Board, with John Coupar serving as chair 2014–15, followed by Sarah Kirby-Yung in 2016, Michael Wiebe in 2017 and Stuart Mackinnon in 2018.

Yet the Mayor remained Gregor Robertson and Vancouver City Council remained ultimately responsible for the municipal purse.

The NPA cannot credibly claim it was merely an innocent bystander, although it fought like hell to have funding for Vancouver’s Board of Parks and Recreation increased. While the NPA controlled the Park Board, Park Board Commissioners found themselves unable to develop the political coalition necessary to force City Hall to repair the funding model.

Vision Vancouver cannot escape responsibility for the underfunding of Park Board.

Robertson’s decade at City Hall coincided with an increasingly obvious deterioration in the city’s recreation infrastructure. By the late 2010s, the Park Board was talking not about maintaining a healthy capital system, but about catching up.

Camil Dumont, left, and Stuart Mackinnon, right, Green Party of Vancouver, former Park Board chairs

Under the 2018–22 Park Board, Green Party chairs Camil Dumont in 2020–21 and Stuart Mackinnon in 2019 and 2022 presided over a system confronting the consequences of years of inadequate renewal.

Kennedy Stewart, elected Mayor in 2018, continued to cut Park Board funding during his term in office 

When Kennedy Stewart became Mayor in 2018, the political rhetoric changed, but the underlying financial structure did not. The Park Board remained dependent on City Council for the money required to maintain its facilities, monies that were not forthcoming during Stewart’s four years in power.

The numbers tell the story.

In 2022, the Park Board approved a staggering $539-million four-year capital plan, including $140 million for the Vancouver Aquatic Centre and $49 million for RayCam Community Centre.

Vancouver Is Awesome pointed out the fundamental problem: despite being an elected body, the Park Board does not have its own separate budget. It must request allocations from City Council.

In other words, City Hall controls the money and then complains about the consequences when the money isn’t sufficient.

After electing a majority ABC slate Park Board, Sim and Council tried to eliminate the Park Board

Then came Ken Sim and ABC Vancouver.

Ken Sim was elected Mayor in 2022 with an overwhelming mandate.

ABC also won six of seven Park Board seats. The chairs during this period tell their own story: Scott Jensen was elected chair for the remainder of 2022 and 2023; Brennan Bastyovanszky was elected chair for 2024; Laura Christensen chaired in 2025; and Tom Digby is the current chair in 2026.


December 5, 2023 Ken Sim calls press conference, announcing his intention to abolish the Park Board

In December 2023, Ken Sim announced his intention to abolish Park Board.

And here the hypocrisy becomes almost breathtaking.

Three of Mayor Ken Sim’s own ABC Commissioners — Bastyovanszky, Christensen and Jensen — broke with the Mayor, joined forces with Green Party of Vancouver Commissioner Tom Digby and opposed the abolition plan. Vancouver Is Awesome reported Bastyovanszky’s blunt assessment: Park Board had been underfunded by City Council, which is Council’s responsibility.

Former Vision Commissioner Aaron Jasper agreed, arguing that if the issue was maintaining parks and community centres, Sim needed to look at his own actions.

Mayor Ken Sim nevertheless proceeded, despite community backlash.

Mayor Sim’s disinformation argument was that the system was “broken,” that abolition would produce efficiencies and that millions could be saved.

Sim failed to point out responsibility for the maintenance of Vancouver’s parks and recreation system was — at the insistence City Manager Penny Ballem — transferred to the City and its crews, after which Ballem and City Hall ignored the needs of the community centres for necessary upkeep and maintenance.

Former Park Board chair Jasper weighed in with another obvious point: eliminating the Commissioners would save only their salaries — roughly $140,000 annually — while the staff, planners, horticulturalists, recreation professionals and maintenance workers would still have to exist.

That is not reform.

It is political theatre.

And the bill for decades of deferred investment continues to arrive.

According to a report released by Vancouver’s Auditor General Mike Macdonell this past February, 11 of our city’s community centres are in a severe state of disrepair.

The approved 2022 $539-million capital plan made a demand for renewal.

Vancouver’s aging aquatic facilities, community centres, playgrounds, playing fields and parks require billions in investment. At the same time, City Hall continues to make budget decisions that put pressure on Park Board services.

This is not an argument that every Park Board decision has been wise. It hasn’t.

The Board has suffered from political infighting, poor governance at times, and occasionally baffling priorities. Critics have legitimate grievances.

But those failures do not justify rewriting history.

The Park Board did not independently decide how much money Vancouver’s taxpayers would provide it.

The elected Mayors since 2008, and all Vancouver City Councils since 2008 did.

Vision Vancouver under Gregor Robertson failed to establish an adequate long-term funding model. The NPA-controlled Park Board proved unsuccessful in forcing the issue. Kennedy Stewart’s administration inherited the problem without solving it. Ken Sim’s ABC administration, for the past two years, attempted to turn the accumulated consequences into an argument for abolishing the institution.

That is the ultimate political sleight of hand.

Starve an institution. Watch its infrastructure deteriorate. Declare the institution incompetent. Then seize its powers.

That is precisely what Vancouver voters should reject come October.

And there is one final irony.

After spending years attempting to abolish the elected Park Board, Ken Sim reversed course in July 2026, announcing ABC Vancouver would run a full slate of Park Board candidates in the October election.

So, apparently the institution that Ken Sim once described as fundamentally broken is now worth fighting an election to control.

Vancouver voters going to the polls in October should remember that.

The Vancouver Park Board does not need Vancouver City Hall to dismantle it.

Vancouver Park Board needs Vancouver City Hall to properly fund it.

And after eighteen years of Mayors, Councils and political parties failing to do precisely that, Vancouver’s voters should ask a very simple question this October:

Who broke the Park Board — the Commissioners who requested necessary funding, or the politicians who control monies, yet refused to provide it?

#VanPoli | Mark Halyk for Park Board Commissioner | Vancouver Liberals

#VanElxn 2026, #VanPoli Civic Politics, BC Politics, Kareem Allam, Park Board, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Liberals, Vancouver Votes 2026, , , , ,

Mark Halyk, a former Vancouver Park Board manager responsible for / transforming the concessions operated by the Board of Parks and Recreation, is running for the position of Vancouver Park Board Commissioner with the Vancouver Liberals.

 After spending more than a decade working inside the Vancouver Park Board as a senior leader in Commercial Services, Mark brings something increasingly rare to civic politics: real operational experience and firsthand knowledge of how the system actually works.

One of Mark’s proudest accomplishments during his tenure with Park Board was helping transform the concessions into a more financially sustainable model. Projects such as the partnership with Batch at Kitsilano Pool demonstrated how creative thinking and responsible public-private partnerships can revitalize public spaces while generating meaningful revenue to support parks and recreation programming.

Batch at Kitsilano Pool, the licensed Kits Beach concession stand, joint and patio — featuring great food

Mark — the must-elect candidate for Park Board in the 2026 Vancouver municipal election — believes that Vancouver’s Park Board can be both fiscally responsible and community-focused — a recreation and parks system in Vancouver that maintains pools, fields, community centres, and green spaces, while ensuring families in every neighbourhood across our city has access to modern, affordable recreation. Vancouver’s iconic amenities, including beloved destinations like Kitsilano Pool, deserve practical long-term planning that balances fiscal responsibility, climate resilience, and community access.

Today, VanRamblings features a ‘Hey Dad’ video, filmed by Mark’s young son — as you’ll see, an up-and-coming Spielbergian master of the cinematic arts — which will provide you with insight into the issues of concern to the must-elect Vancouver Liberals candidate for Vancouver Park Board, the entirely tremendous Mark Halyk.

As a follow-up to what Mark Halyk has to say above, in Wednesday’s VanRamblings post we will publish an indictment of current Mayor Ken Sim, and each of the civic administrations that have formed municipal government in Vancouver dating back to 2008, as each successive Mayor and Council has utterly failed to provide Vancouver’s parks, gardens, arboretum, swimming pools, hockey rinks, community centres, playing fields and community recreation facilities with the necessary sustained investment they require to function properly and in the interests of those of us who live in one of the twenty-three, diverse neighbourhood communities, who elect Vancouver’s next Mayor and Council each election cycle.

#VanPoli | An Insight into the Top 3 Candidates Seeking the Mayor’s Office in Vancouver in 2026

#VanElxn 2026, #VanPoli Civic Politics, Housing, Kareem Allam, Park Board, Politics, Vancouver, Vancouver Liberals, Vancouver Votes 2026, , , , ,

There are only three serious-minded candidates seeking to become Vancouver’s next Mayor in the 2026 Vancouver civic election: COPE’s Stephanie Allen, the Vancouver Liberals’ Kareem Allam, and the Green Party of Vancouver’s Pete Fry.

Today we’ll turn our focus to those three outstanding candidates for civic office.

First up, the true change candidate in 2026, COPE’s Stephanie Allen, who is running on a platform committed to re-establishing the Renters Office; increasing the Empty Homes Tax; set to follow the lead of Montréal’s municipal government in establishing a programme that would — with the aid of senior levels of government — purchase purpose-built rental apartment buildings across the city, converting these buildings into permanently affordable public housing and housing co-operatives; in an age of increasingly powerful storms, forest fires, heat domes, and other extreme weather events, develop and implement a climate defense strategy; work towards fully-funded and free-to-ride public transit for all, starting with the expansion of free public transit for youth under the age of 18; support the expansion of active transportation and Vancouver’s cycling infrastructure; establish a lobbyist registry; protect and empower the office of the Integrity Commissioner; prioritize citizen participation in decision-making at City Hall; expand and democratize the City’s Advisory Committees; make public access to City Council chambers easier; improve livestreams of City Council meetings; and, overall, improve and transform transparency of governance at Vancouver City Hall, because democracy matters.

Given her years of service to the people of British Columbia in her role as a well-respected, ‘can do / get ‘er done‘ Vice-President of BC Housing — committed to the construction of social and affordable housing across our province — a Mayor Stephanie Allen would hit the ground running on her first day in office, as she works with Council towards transforming civic governance by putting power back into the hands of those of us who call Vancouver home, and not the billionaire class all Mayors of Vancouver this century have dedicated their political lives to bringing to fruition, at your expense and amoral degradation.

Just wait till you see and hear Stephanie Allen at next month’s and October’s Mayoral debates, those must-attend civic forums set to take place in neighbourhoods across our city. We guarantee Stephanie Allen — that mesmerizing voice, a powerful and resonant voice that envelops you — will simply knock your socks off, as the candidate of change you have longed for at the head of Vancouver’s civic government, ready to serve you each and every day, to make your life easier, better and more fulfilling — because that’s what an elected Mayor and Vancouver City Council committed to change for the better can and will do for you.

Make sure you read the Vancouver Liberals’ platform of change that will enhance your quality of life

What is the change that the Vancouver Liberals’ candidate for Mayor, Kareem Allam, the peerless, achingly intelligent and capable beyond all human understanding candidate for Mayor of our fair city, and his first rate slate of Council and Park Board candidates — and soon to announce School Board candidate slate — are committing to you, should the Vancouver Liberals form government following election night, this upcoming autumn evening, Saturday October 17th.

Kareem Allam and the Vancouver Liberals are committed to extending the Millennium Line to UBC

In a century when very little of consequence has occurred in Vancouver — other than serving the avaricious interests of developers and their unwholesome, phallocentric commitment to building unlivable towers across our city while displacing residents from their affordable homes — finally, in Kareem Allam, we have a candidate for Vancouver Mayor whose sole interest is serving your interests, and the interests of your family, neighbours, friends and associates, your extended family, your co-workers and everyone, every single person you care about.

The Vancouver Liberals have committed to making $1.35 billion available through Vancouver’s well-funded capital budget — citizen approved monies that are readily available for construction purposes — in an investment over the next four years of a Vancouver Liberals-led civic administration that would renew the city’s aging parks and neighbourhood community recreation centres, reverse an unconscionable Park Board funding decline that began with the election of a Vision Vancouver civic administration in 2008 — monies that have never been restored to the Park Board budget — protect Vancouver’s elected, independent Park Board, build a new aquatics infrastructure, including a 50-metre Olympic size pool, as well as construct community pools in neighbourhoods across our city, and finally — after citizen capital expenditure approval at the polls in 2008, 2011, 2014, 2018 and 2022 — build the long-awaited, egregiously overdue Marpole Community Centre, which would be the first new community centre approved by a Vancouver civic administration in more than 20 years.

Having worked with the federal and provincial governments in senior policy implementation positions, as well as working in Metro Vancouver regional civic governments in a ‘can do’ administrative capacity, there is no individual seeking the Mayor’s office in 2026 who is more qualified, who better understands the intricacies of civic government decision-making and implementation strategy than the achingly bright and monumentally well-qualified Kareem Allam.

When Kareem Allam tells you he’s going to get something done you’ve been longing to see done at the municipal governance level, you can take it to the bank Kareem Allam is 100% guaranteed going to deliver for you, to get that project completed on time and under budget, for all the citizens of Vancouver.

A Kareem Allam-led Vancouver City Council will: restore public library hours; keeps annual property tax increases to 3.8%, or less — rather than the 26% property tax increase implemented by Ken Sim and ABC Vancouver over the past four years; ban foreign travel for Councillors and staff; focus on accountability, affordability, public safety, by delivering results people can actually see in their communities; promote transparency at City Hall by reducing the cost of Freedom of Information requests; put a referendum before the people of Vancouver at the next civic election, asking us if we want neighbourhood representation (sometimes called a ‘ward system’) at City Hall — as is the case with every village, town and city in every province and territory outside of British Columbia.

Remove all parking meters in front of beaches and community centres throughout the city; crack down on Bitcoin ATMs that are commonly linked to money laundering, fraud, organized crime, and drug trafficking; support proper staffing, long-term funding, and transparent deployment planning to ensure firefighters have the resources they need to keep Vancouver safe; work to ensure the Millennium line extension to UBC begins construction next year; protect local businesses during transit expansion by reducing property taxes by 50% during construction; deliver an effective food security programme in Vancouver (which VanRamblings will write about next Monday); and, reduce taxes on medical clinics.

On Day One, a Vancouver Liberals’ administration commits to reversing Ken Sim’s cruel ban on supportive housing to ensure our most-vulnerable citizens receive the supports they need to live a safe, secure and fulfilling life; tackle Vancouver’s rat problem, because rats are a major reason for the spread of disease and are a public health risk to citizens; introduce a tree canopy strategy in every neighbourhood across our city that is not treed, where our city’s west side is treed, and our east side neighbourhoods are not.

Bring back our city’s once thriving Festivals scene by legislating affordable policing for all community events; stop Ken Sim’s cynical plan to sell off our parks; protect Vancouver’s industrial land to keep jobs in Vancouver; create North America’s first Artist Land Reserve; modernize zoning and business rules to support small businesses, and the next generation of Vancouver’s economy, building a city where innovation is encouraged, not regulated out of existence.

Maybe this whole hopey changey thing that both COPE’s Stephanie Allen and the Vancouver Liberals’ Kareem Allam are promising is just a bit too much.

Maybe, the people of Vancouver don’t want a woman as Mayor — uh, yeah, we do! — or, maybe, the people of Vancouver don’t want some random Muslim-appearing guy, no matter how qualified he seems to be, as our city’s next Mayor.

Again, uh, yeah, we do!

Maybe we just want another white-appearing guy sitting in the Mayor’s chair.

After all, Vancouver has had 41 Mayors since it’s founding, and only one of those Mayors — and man, oh man did the first non-white guy to be elected Mayor of our city prove to be a bust (yeah, we’re talkin’ about you, Ken Sim) for those of us who give a good gall darn about our city.

What a walking disaster this Sim guy turned out to be.

Maybe Vancouver voters want to play it safe, maybe we don’t want change, maybe we have no interest in getting things done, maybe we could give a good gall darn about the state of our parks and recreation system, and we don’t care at all about the unhoused — yeah, that’s the ticket (not!) … like, get a job, will ya — maybe we simply want another kind of good lookin’ white-appearing guy.

How bad could it be, really?

No question: Pete Fry has name recognition. Eight years on Council, on the evening news almost every night, a good-spirited guy.

Look at the reassuring picture of the smiling Green guy in the photo above. Like, who wouldn’t want to cast their ballot for this warm-hearted guy?

Plug-in solar panels on your balcony to offset your electricity bills and power the myriad electrical devices in your home. Licensing mini electric shuttles in the downtown area. Bring back the Renter’s Office. Restore lifeguards at key Vancouver beaches. Hire a city comptroller to ensure transparent budget efficiency, and asset management. Enact a landlord licensing by-law to flush out bad landlords.

Restore essential postal services in Chinatown. Amend the Vancouver Charter to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in municipal elections. Protect the Champlain Heights forest trail network. Bring back the Stanley Park bike lane. Strengthen Vancouver’s code of conduct legislation to restore public trust in decision-making at Vancouver City Hall. Phase out in-sink garbage disposals. Build more public washrooms across the city. Build a Japanese Canadian interpretive centre at Hastings Park. Re-introduce a Vancouver by-law that would forbid the use of methane gas to heat new buildings. A lobbyist registry. Climate action.

The decision is yours to make.

Come early October when Vancouver’s municipal election advance polls open, or during the course of Election Day on Saturday, October 17th, cast your ballot for the Mayoral candidate — and a few of the folks s/he is running with — who you believe represents your best interests, who will build the city in which you want to raise your children, make a living for yourself and your friends and neighbours, and when the time comes, retire in, to live out your life in peace.

Take back your power! Your vote is critical to building the city you love!