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#VanPoli | VanRamblings Endorsement Ballot for Vancouver School Board

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Voters in 2026 are being given the golden opportunity to wrest control of the Vancouver School Board away from the Greens, ABC Vancouver, and its right-of-centre predecessor, the Non Partisan Association, and place the decision making on Vancouver’s Board of Education firmly back into the hands of advocates for public education, the parents who have children enrolled in the school district, and the approximately 51,859 students who attend elementary or secondary school in Vancouver each and every day.

Do you know, there was a time not so long ago that …

  • The Vancouver School Board operated a volunteer programme on the Downtown Eastside and in Strathcona where immigrant parents — who spoke little or no English — were enrolled in a programme that afforded them an opportunity to support the goals of their children who are enrolled in the Vancouver school district. Now, this was a wildly successful programme. However, thanks to successive Greens, NPA and ABC Vancouver School Board administrations — that would be the folks we elected to Vancouver’s Board of Education — due to “cost cutting” measures (cuz the parents and volunteers and immigrant parents met in a school setting) — that invaluable programme no longer exists;

  • The Vancouver School Board (VSB) operates four standing committees.

    According to official VSB records, the names of these four committees are:

      • Education Plan Committee
      • Facilities Planning Committee
      • Finance and Personnel Committee
      • Policy and Governance Committee

    Additionally, the Board is occasionally supported by specific subcommittees or ad hoc groups, such as the Audit Committee, Advocacy Subcommittee, or the Food Framework Ad Hoc Committee.

    There was a time in the recent past when these committees — chaired by an elected School Board trustee — were active, and provided the union workers employed by the school district, parents who have children enrolled in Vancouver and students themselves to play a significant role, through these committees, in determining policy at the Board level, where the Board Trustee Committee Chairperson would report out at the regularly scheduled meetings of the Board, often moving motions that arose from various of the Committees’ discussions.

    Unsurprisingly, not so much anymore, as the last two terms of the Board of Education encouraged these very important committees to lay dormant, negating the opportunity for the public to be involved in Board decision-making.

The above are but two examples of how the two most recent Vancouver Boards of Education has wrested control of decision-making away from parents, students and CUPE staff employed by the Board.

In 2026, we call that: undemocratic or an unconscionable power grab by Board trustees, over the course of the last two terms of the Vancouver School Board.

With the support of voters who have turned up at the Advance Polls, or intend to vote on Election Day, this upcoming Saturday, October 17 — in what is widely regarded as a change election — the very real opportunity exists, at the Board of Education level — to once again, after so many years of “fiscal prudence (read: destruction of public education in the Vancouver School District) to restore democratic governance at the Vancouver School Board, where once again the voices of the public will be heard around the Board of Education table and, more often than not, acted upon.

Yes, we know the numbers above are out of order, but the candidate ballot numbers are correct.  

VanRamblings knows and has worked with each of the candidates running to become a Trustee around the decision-making table at the Vancouver School Board.

    • Dr. Krista Surgurdson is an academic researcher and educator, political staffer, mother, community organizer, parent advocate, friend, and spouse. She has a PhD in Sociology and worked as a health care researcher at Stanford University and as a research and writing instructor at UBC. Krista believes all Vancouver children, regardless of where they live or their economic or family circumstances, deserve to experience the best possible educational experience that Vancouver schools can provide. Krista has been working her butt off these past weeks and months to become a VSB trustee, because she wants to be a part of putting children and families at the centre of decision-making around Vancouver’s Board of Education table.

    • Rory Brown is an educator with 15 years experience teaching at the secondary school level in Vancouver, has in the past served as President of the Vancouver Secondary Teachers Association, and now teaches the next generation of teachers, at BCIT and UBC. Rory — who has rarely missed a meeting of the Board, in years — would bring a wealth of knowledge to the School Board table, not the least of his myriad skills a deep understanding of labour relations — critically important to a Board, where the VSB administration is too often given to fighting every grievance filed by an employee of the Board, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars before the Labour Relations Board, often in losing causes for the VSB administrators — and even more importantly, Rory’s dedication to promoting the cause of public education on behalf of students enrolled in the Vancouver School District.

  • Suzie Mah is fighting for an education system where everyone has the ability to raise a family in this city and has the right to the best educational experiences.
    A retired teacher and union organizer for more than 30 years, Suzie has taught every grade from Kindergarten to Grade 12, including non-graduated adults. Suzie, perhaps better than any other trustee, knows what our students needs are, and understands our public education system. As a VSB Trustee since 2022, Suzie has held the line and fought back against ABC’s callous agenda — and won for students. Since being elected, Suzie has played a pivotal role in seeing life-saving defibrillators placed in schools, worked to save school meal programmes threatened by cuts, led the fight for free transit for teens, and opposed ABC Vancouver’s war on democracy, and their handouts of city land to private developers — every step of the way.

    • A four-term Vancouver School Board trustee, and former VSB Chairperson, during his terms in office — because Christopher is so dedicated to his work on behalf of students, particularly learners with disabilities or diverse abilities — that he completed studies in educational leadership and an M.Ed (’25), focusing on inclusive education and learning disabilities within UBC’s Faculty of Education — having earlier completed an Honours Bachelor’s degree at UBC. Both degrees inform Christopher’s approach on Board policy issues, oversight and Board governance, where his academic works helps to provide strategic direction to ensure that the VSB continues to provide K-12+ public educational opportunities for ALL learners, especially those who are vulnerable for whatever reason. Given his depth of experience, the fact that he completed two degrees at UBC while serving as a Vancouver School Board trustee, all the while serving as a Chartered Account and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of BC (ICABC) — and working as the longest serving Auxiliary police offer with the Vancouver Police Department — for which he received the Exemplary Peace Officer Service Award in November 2019, presented by the Governor General of Canada, Christopher is a must, must, must elect.

  • Derrick O’Keefe is, quite simply, one of my favourite people in the world, heartbreakingly bright and articulate, someone we met a quarter century ago when Derrick and his friend Charles Demers published Seven Oaks magazine, Vancouver’s best ever, most  thought-provoking political journal. Derrick O’Keefe will fight for fully funded, high quality education for ALL students – regardless of learning needs. As a parent of two school-aged boys, he has seen up-close how the system is failing under Ken Sim and ABC Vancouver’s cuts. Bringing his experience in advocacy for public education and his work as a journalist and writer, Derrick will fight for the needs of the many ahead of the wealthy few. He understands that in order to empower the next generation to fight for their communities, we need universal meal programmes, affordable and accessible childcare, and public land that is used for the public benefit.

  • Sherry Breshears, parent advocate, educator and education researcher, is running a campaign rooted in a straightforward conviction: every student deserves an inclusive, well-resourced public education system, and families should have a meaningful voice in decisions affecting their children. Breshears holds a degree in Education from the University of British Columbia. Through her experience as a parent, she became increasingly involved in advocating for the educational support her own children and other students needed. She has served with Vancouver’s District Parent Advisory Council (DPAC) and the Inclusive Education Working Group, working to make schools more responsive to students with diverse learning needs. Breshears’ campaign emphasizes equity, inclusion and transparency in school-board governance, and is focused on ensuring that students have access to the resources and opportunities they need to succeed, families to be heard, and teachers and school staff to be treated with dignity and respect.

  • Steve Cardwell, a former Superintendent with the Vancouver School Board, is running for trustee with OneCity Vancouver. With more than four decades in education, Cardwell brings extensive experience in classroom teaching, school-district leadership and post-secondary education. In 2010, he became superintendent and chief executive officer of the Vancouver School Board, a position he held for five years. Cardwell holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of British Columbia, as well as a doctorate in Educational Leadership from Simon Fraser University. Cardwell is campaigning to strengthen student well-being, support teachers and school staff, and protect inclusive, welcoming neighbourhood schools. He also advocates transparent School Board governance and keeping public school properties in public hands. Cardwell’s candidacy offers voters a trustee with first-hand knowledge of the Vancouver school system, combining experience in educational leadership with a commitment to strengthening public education for students, families and communities.

  • Ishi Dinim, throughout his life, has involved in himself in advocacy as a way of bringing himself to this Earth, while setting a community activist example for his two teenage daughters. As a student at Emily Carr University, Ishi was elected to the Board of Governors. Later, Ishi joined the Vancouver School Board’s District Parental Advisory Council (DPAC). Ishi has spent nearly 10 years as an activist member of DPAC, six of those years as a general member and the last three as an Executive Member. This decade of experience with the VSB provides Ishi with an informed perspective on issues facing our public education system, and knowledge of how the VSB functions, which will allow him to understand and properly address such issues. Ishi Dinim believes in strong, thriving public education in Vancouver. He is passionate about student well-being and believes every learner should feel safe enough to be their whole self at school. He also believes we have a responsibility to protect and improve upon school land and other public assets for generations to come. Healthy public schools must meet the diverse needs of our communities, and Ishi Dinim will work to ensure that the VSB is properly staffed, and has the needed resources and supports to meet the learning needs of every student.

#VanPoli | COPE | Restoring Funding to the Vancouver Public Library

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Vancouver’s Libraries Are Closing.
Ken Sim and ABC Vancouver Had Money for FIFA. Enough Said.

Want to know what Ken Sim’s ABC Vancouver administration thinks is essential? Look at what it is willing to spend money on — and what it is willing to let disappear.

For FIFA, there was $13.4 million.

For hospitality packages, suites and lounges surrounding the 2026 World Cup, Vancouver City Hall found the money. The City says the packages were purchased as assets that could be resold to offset World Cup costs. Fine. Let’s accept that explanation.

But ask Ken Sim’s administration to keep neighbourhood libraries open seven days a week and suddenly we are talking about budgets, constraints and difficult choices.

Apparently, in ABC Vancouver’s vision of a world-class city, FIFA deserves a suite while Vancouver’s children can wait outside the library on Monday.

That isn’t a budgetary footnote.

It is a statement of priorities.

And Vancouver voters should remember it come voting day October 17, 2026.

Ten Vancouver Public Library branches are closed on Mondays.

Other branches have reduced hours. The Vancouver Public Library Board has made clear that restoring Monday service would require additional funding, and COPE Councillor Sean Orr has repeatedly pushed City Council to restore the lost hours and move toward seven-day-a-week library service.

Orr calls libraries “vital community hubs.”

He is right.

In fact, he may be understating their importance.

A public library is one of the few places left in Vancouver where you can walk through a door without being expected to spend money.

Think about that.

Vancouver is increasingly a city of private spaces. Coffee shops want you to buy coffee. Restaurants want you to buy food. Entertainment venues want your admission fee. Commercial workspaces want your membership.

The public library wants nothing from you except that you come in.

You can read.

You can study.

You can use a computer.

You can access the Internet.

You can borrow books.

You can attend a programme.

You can bring your child to story time.

You can sit quietly.

And you don’t have to buy anything.

That is what public means.

For young families, libraries are an essential piece of the social infrastructure of a city.

Children’s story time at the Britannia Public Library on Vancouver’s east side

In a city where housing, childcare, food and virtually every form of recreation are becoming more expensive, the library offers parents something increasingly rare: a place where their children can learn, play and discover without another bill arriving at the end.

For children growing up in small apartments, the library can provide something their homes cannot — space to read, study and concentrate.

For teenagers, it can be a safe place after school.

For students, it can be a quiet place to work.

For newcomers, it can be a gateway to language learning, information and civic life.

And for seniors, the library can be much more than a place to borrow books.

It can be a place to go.

A place to meet people.

A place to use technology.

A place to read newspapers.

A place to participate in community life.

For an isolated senior, that can be enormously important.

And yet this is the public service Ken Sim & ABC have allowed to become less accessible.

COPE Council candidate Chloe Leslie has argued that Vancouver must be a city that works for ordinary residents rather than simply for those who can afford it.

The library debate is a perfect illustration of that principle.

Because when you reduce library hours, you don’t inconvenience everyone equally.

A wealthy professional with a home office, high-speed internet, a private collection of books and the ability to drive across the city can shrug.

A single parent working irregular hours cannot.

A senior without a car cannot.

A teenager whose home isn’t conducive to studying cannot.

A newcomer without reliable internet cannot.

A person experiencing poverty cannot.

Cuts to public services are never merely cuts. They determine who gets access.

And that’s why the FIFA comparison matters.

This is not about suggesting that the City literally handed Ken Sim’s friends $13.4 million in tickets. It didn’t. The World Cup expenditure involved hospitality packages purchased through the tournament’s official hospitality provider, with the intention of recovering costs through resale.

But that doesn’t change the fundamental political question.

When ABC wants something badly enough, the money appears.

When the administration wants Vancouver to shine on the international stage, millions can be committed.

But when residents ask for the doors of their neighbourhood libraries to remain open?

Suddenly there are constraints.

Apparently Vancouver can afford to host the world.

It just can’t afford to keep the library open on Monday.

That is not leadership.

It is a question of priorities.

And it is a question Vancouver voters should answer this fall.

Mayor Ken Sim has repeatedly presented himself as the Mayor of a modern, ambitious, internationally recognized Vancouver.

Wonderful.

But a world-class city isn’t defined by FIFA hospitality suites.

It is defined by the quality of life of the people who live there.

A genuinely world-class city makes sure a child can access a book regardless of family income.

It makes sure seniors have places to gather.

It makes sure newcomers can learn.

It makes sure students can study.

It protects public spaces where people aren’t required to consume.

And it keeps those spaces open when people actually need them.

Seven days a week.

Sean Orr has put that principle before City Council.

Chloe Leslie has made equitable public services part of her campaign.

Now every candidate seeking a seat at City Hall should be asked the same question:

Will you vote to restore Vancouver’s lost library hours and make seven-day-a-week service the standard across the city?

No slogans.

No vague promises.

No “when finances improve.”

Yes or no.

Because the library is not a luxury.

It is one of the foundations of a civilized city.

And on October 17, Vancouver voters will have an opportunity to decide whether Ken Sim and ABC Vancouver’s priorities reflect the city they want to live in.

If you believe Vancouver should be a city where public institutions are strengthened rather than diminished, where children and seniors matter as much as FIFA, where public space remains public and where access to knowledge isn’t determined by your income, then the choice is clear.

Vancouver doesn’t need another four years of ABC’s version of “world-class.”

It needs a City Hall that understands the meaning of the word public.

On October 17, vote ABC Vancouver out.

And then open the library doors.

Seven days a week.

#VanPoli | COPE Candidate for Mayor, Stephanie Allen, Withdraws from Race to Become City’s Next Mayor

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Full text of COPE’s candidate for Mayor Stephanie Allen’s speech to a press conference delivered Sept. 2nd in Helen Gutteridge Plaza at Vancouver City Hall.

Good morning,

I offer my acknowledgement of the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations, to their peoples who have stewarded these lands for 1000s of years. I offer my commitment to working in good relations towards our collective liberation from colonial systems.

Today, I am here together with my colleagues and loved ones to announce that, for the good of all people living in Vancouver, we have decided as a team to withdraw my candidacy for Mayor of Vancouver.

In May, our membership nominated me as part of a slate to win the City — to evict Ken Sim and ABC and achieve a COPE-led democratic socialist municipal government.

For now, we have not been able to achieve all of our goals.

But this movement isn’t about me or about COPE.

It’s about the people of Vancouver.

And the people need us to defeat this right-wing government and reduce the harm being done by the sociopathic system we’re up against.

So while I am announcing the end of my campaign for Mayor, I am also here today to recommit to our common fight for Vancouver.

Ken Sim and ABC must be evicted on October 17th.

That’s why I am strongly encouraging the other mMayoral candidates in the race to also do the right thing, show integrity, and narrow the Mayoral field to the person best positioned to evict Ken Sim.

Earlier this year, COPE and progressive parties struck an agreement to limit candidates and create a path towards a single Mayor. We have come to the moment where we at COPE have made our decision.

It has been the privilege of a lifetime to stand as the Mayoral candidate for COPE, a party with the deepest history of fighting the power of the super rich and showing up for the poor and working class people in our city.

COPE is a party dedicated to telling the truth. We are a diverse cohort of shared purpose. We have the lived experience, academic accomplishments, systemic analysis, and practical knowledge to examine the problems facing our city at the root cause level and to craft policies that will create lasting solutions.

But just as importantly, we at COPE have the love to care about the struggles that families, seniors, youth, working people and ALL those who have been pushed to the margins are going through, and we can see how much worse it’s getting for everyone.

We will not put our egos ahead of doing the right thing for Vancouver.

We know that it is mission critical to have one Mayor on the progressive side and that it has to be the person best positioned at this critical hour, to win the election.

We need a majority progressive Council, School Board, and Park Board to undo the damage done by this bad Mayor and the bad Mayors that came before him.

By stepping aside, we are showing to the people of Vancouver that we have heard you, that we will put you first, and that our commitment is to the long haul. Our movement will keep going, we will never give up the fight for a free and just society grounded in principles of care and community over greed and inequality.

Vancouver, we are here to do the right thing for you and we will keep doing the right thing. Getting a progressive majority on Council will have a direct positive material impact on the lives of people in our city.

And while we do that vital harm reduction through our existing electoral systems, we will stay relentless in dreaming up replacement systems. Ones that are restorative of people and planet, not extractive and exploitative. Ones that value life over profit, care over consumption, and healing over abuse and punishment.

The super-rich are planning our extinction. It’s obvious now. They don’t care about us, about the future generations to come, the climate, wildlife and natural habitat. All they see are ways to squeeze humanity and nature for the sake of piling more billions into their vaults.

You take care of your neighbours. It’s been an honour to speak to so many people over these last months who understand the threat facing our city, and our world. You have shared with me your stories, your frustrations, and your dreams of better.

Local shopkeepers, non-profit leaders, co-op housing members, people working in the gig economy, those who have and are being displaced from homes they love, advocates and organizers.

YOU are the ones with the solutions.

You have done the work to get food to the households that need it, help people recover from addictions and get the therapeutic support they need.

You are the ones who put in all the work to develop affordable homes, protect women and children fleeing violence, and care for seniors on low incomes. You make sure kids are protected from the cruelty in our society.

You also make this city cool with your dedication to the arts and culture scene in this city, with comedy festivals, activating parks and event venues with live music, theatre, and visual arts productions.

It is we, the people, who have the power. We always have, and we always will. Promise me, you’ll never lose sight of that.

So, as I leave the Mayoral race I want to say:

To Vancouver, you are worth fighting for … and this building, City Hall, is your house. Do not vote for anyone who would disrespect you or take you for granted in your house. Send ABC a message that their politics of division and selling out to the super rich are done.

To my fellow candidates, and the COPE staff, volunteers, and membership, thank you for the trust you put in me to carry our message to the city.

For your dedication to a better world, and for showing up everyday challenging yourselves and all of us to dream of a better future for our city. Despite all the things, I have never served alongside a better group of people anywhere. We’re in this now, I’m not going anywhere, we still got this ‘cuz we got each other.

To my friends and supporters, my family, my husband …  thank you for being there with your calls, texts, donations, hugs, so many hugs …and showing up when I didn’t expect you but absolutely needed you. Doing this work was only possible because of your love and care.

To our ancestors, all those who came before us and fought for us to have the freedoms we have now, freedoms you never saw, thank you for what you sacrificed and for dreaming of a better world for us.

To the future generations, we won’t let you down. We will stop climate change, eliminate poverty and homelessness, and make love and compassion the foundation of the structures that govern our lives.

In solidarity, and dedication to an affordable and just city and for a better world, I offer my sincere appreciation and love.