Vancouverites are heading to the polls for a rare two-seat, city council byelection, and while ABC Vancouver’s majority doesn’t hang in the balance, there’s plenty at stake for every one of the local parties, including the ruling one. Read More
Dan Fumano: ABC is expected to have a significant financial upper hand in April’s two-seat council byelection. In the last municipal campaign, ABC spent almost double what OneCity, TEAM, COPE and the Greens spent combined.
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Vancouverites are heading to the polls for a rare two-seat, city council byelection, and while ABC Vancouver’s majority doesn’t hang in the balance, there’s plenty at stake for every one of the local parties, including the ruling one.
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Byelections are typically low-turnout affairs, even before accounting for a snap federal election overshadowing the municipal scene. But Vancouver’s first day of advance voting last Wednesday saw voters lined up in the rain around city hall, and by the end of the day, 45 per cent more votes had been cast than the first day of voting for the city’s last byelection, in 2017.
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The four civic parties not currently in control of Vancouver city council — the Greens, OneCity, COPE and TEAM — hope this early surge represents the electorate’s desire to send a message to ABC of dissatisfaction and desire for change in the April 5 byelection.
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But after ABC’s landslide victory in the 2022 municipal election, the reigning party is expected to have a significant financial and organizational upper hand over the rest of the field. In the 2022 campaign, ABC spent $2.098 million, which is almost double the $1.075 million that OneCity, TEAM, COPE and the Greens spent combined.
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The other parties describe this byelection as “a referendum” on ABC Mayor Ken Sim and his party, and rival candidates say they’re hearing on the campaign trail that many ABC voters from 2022 now have “buyer’s remorse.”
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Although ABC isn’t at risk of losing the balance of power on council in the byelection, the party seems serious about picking up both additional council seats to increase their majority to nine out of 11 seats. ABC has flown in Alberta-based political strategist Stephen Carter, a prominent veteran of several municipal and provincial elections, to run the byelection campaign.
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There is also a great deal on the line for Vancouver’s progressive parties, which face the prospect of being further diminished by the ascendancy of ABC, which has effectively supplanted the Non-Partisan Association as Vancouver’s centre-right, business friendly civic powerhouse.
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After the departure of OneCity Coun. Christine Boyle (who ran in last year’s provincial election and is now a B.C. NDP MLA and minister of Indigenous relations and reconciliation), and Green Coun. Adriane Carr (who resigned from council in January to spend more time with her family), council’s only non-ABC members now are Green Coun. Pete Fry and Independent Coun. Rebecca Bligh, who was elected with ABC in 2022 but ejected from the party last month.
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The Greens hope to reclaim the seat Carr held for the last 14 years. If they fail, they will be relegated to having Fry as the party’s sole member on council, the party’s lowest level of representation there since 2018.