A record 71 candidates are vying for a seat on City Council, in the 2018 Vancouver municipal election, along with 21 Mayoral candidates, and 33 candidates apiece for Vancouver Park Board and Vancouver School Board.
Advance polls open on Wednesday, October 10th and close one week later on October 17th. Election day 2018 voting will take place from 8am til 8pm on Saturday, October 20th. We oughta know the final results of the current Vancouver civic election and our new civic governors, shortly after 10pm.
Those setting about to cast their votes at their local polling station will be faced with a randomly organized, non-alphabeticized ballot, with some 158 names on it, and will vote for one Mayoral candidate, 10 candidates for City Council, 9 candidates for School Board, and 7 candidates for Park Board.
The Google Map above was created by Christopher Porter, a proud dad and husband, on his Canadian Veggie blog — Mr. Porter refers to himself on his Twitter feed as a “runner, cyclist, urbanist, and data nerd software engineer (he’s currently employed as a senior software developer at New Hippo Health) — is himself weighing in on the current Vancouver civic election.
The clearly highly technically-skilled Mr. Porter has also created expandable and easy-to-read Google maps on his site for where each of the candidates running for School Board and Park Board reside, and in which neigbourhood within our city each may be found at home. We’d say it’s very much worthwhile for you to consider surfing to Mr. Porter’s informative and readable Canadian Veggie site, both for the maps, and to read an opinion on election goings-on other than what you read on VanRamblings.
Later this week, VanRamblings will adopt the format of Mr. Porter’s Vancouver Election 2018 Primer post to weigh in as he has on the civic parties in this election (we like his work, but we’re not particularly thrilled about his, what we consider to be, ageist commentary on COPE candidates for City Council, Jean Swanson and Anne Roberts … still and all).
Here’s the Vancouver Sun on the Mayoral and Council candidates running for office in the Vancouver civic election, replete with pictures and bios.
Simon Fraser University professors Shauna Sylvester and Kennedy Stewart (the latter, who recently resigned his Burnaby South Member of Parliament seat) are the nominally left-of-centre, progressive independent candidates for Mayor with the highest profiles, most funding, and best organized campaigns. According to the recent Canseco poll, Stewart has secured 23% support from voters, with 19% registering support for Shauna Sylvester.
Sylvester and Stewart’s right-of-centre mainstream party Mayoral competitors are Vancouver Non-Partisan Association’s Ken Sim — sitting at 14% support among Vancouver voters — followed by ProVancouver’s David Chen (11%), the Coalition Party’s Wai Young (8%), Yes Vancouver’s Hector Bremner (5%), and Vancouver First’s Fred Harding (3%).
At best, the remaining independent, non-affiliated candidates for Mayor, woefully underfunded and with little public profile, would have to be considered also-rans in the 2018 Vancouver Mayoral sweepstakes — including COPE-affilated John Yano, and NPA-affiliated Jason Lamarche.
At the last minute, a confused, and as one of the commenters on the video above wrote, “out of touch” Mayoral candidate, IDEA’s Connie Fogal, a retired lawyer — railing against City Hall’s Empty Homes Tax (which Kennedy Stewart says he’ll triple should he become Mayor), and the province’s speculation tax — threw her hat into the ring. We know not why.
Restore Vancouver’s Steffan Ileman obviously thought better of entering the race — his name is nowhere to be found on the ballot. Candidates for Vancouver’s newest civic party, Reclaim Vancouver — which recently announced to much foofaraw on the steps of City Hall: nowhere to be found on the civic election list. In both instances, we’re all the better for it.
There are a handful of fairly well-known, relatively high profile independent candidates who have submitted nomination papers, set to run for a seat on Vancouver City Council. VanRamblings’ two favourites are mediator and well-respected longtime politico, Rob McDowell, and city hero and Overdose Prevention Society founder, Sarah Blyth — both of whom VanRamblings will enthusiastically endorse as must-elect candidates for City Council.
Wade Grant of the Musqueam Indian Band, who once served on the Vancouver Police Board; former NPA Park Board candidate, Ken Low; Green Party member running as an independent (cuz she’s got something to say), Françoise Raunet; 5 Kids 1 Condo’s Adrian Crook; and our favourite of all, current Vancouver Park Board Commissioner Erin Shum, who her constituents love (and for good reason).
