A staff report that goes before Vancouver city council next week says the date of a byelection to fill two council seats will be April 5 — if council decides to immediately appoint a chief election officer.
Planning for a byelection has been in the works since Christine Boyle won the Vancouver-Little Mountain riding in the October provincial election. Boyle was a OneCity councillor at the time of her victory.
Now staff can add another available council seat to the byelection ballot after Adriane Carr resigned Jan. 15. The staff report, set to go before council Jan. 21, was posted on the city’s website shortly after Carr filed her resignation letter with the city clerk.
The city’s communications department said Thursday the addition of another councillor vacancy to the ballot will not translate to additional costs for the byelection, which is being budgeted for $2 million.
The Vancouver Charter states that a byelection must be held to fill a vacancy or vacancies, if the person or persons holding office resigns prior to Jan. 1 in the year of a general local election.
The next civic election is scheduled for Oct. 17, 2026.
Council is likely to confirm the April 5 date next week since the report includes a recommendation to appoint a chief election officer. The Charter also states that council must appoint a chief election officer as soon as practicable after a vacancy occurs.
The officer then must call a byelection within 80 days, which in this case has been recommended to be April 5, which is a Saturday. The first day of advance voting would occur during spring break in March.
Colleen Hardwick
Carr’s announcement Wednesday has reignited many of the civic political parties’ campaign teams, with former councillor Colleen Hardwick declaring in an email that she will seek a nomination for one of two spots with Team for a Livable Vancouver.
Hardwick served on council from 2018 to 2022 and was responsible for pushing her colleagues to hire an independent auditor general. Hardwick made an unsuccessful run for mayor in the 2022 election, finishing third with 16,769 votes behind Kennedy Stewart and Ken Sim, the city’s current mayor.
Carr’s party issued a news release shortly after the longtime councillor told reporters at city hall that she was leaving her post. The Green Party of Vancouver opened its nomination process the same day Carr resigned.
The party will hold a nomination meeting Feb. 5.
OneCity, COPE
Coun. Pete Fry, who is now the Greens’ lone representative at city hall, told reporters Wednesday that the party will run one candidate, with OneCity confirming via email that it will do the same.
The rationale is that the two parties, which have worked together, want to give each other a chance at victory. OneCity has only ever held one seat in at city hall, while the Greens once had three representatives in the chamber — Carr, Fry and Michael Wiebe.
Tanya Webking and Shawn Vulliez, co-chairs of COPE, said in an email that the party plans to run one candidate. Jean Swanson was the party’s last serving councillor, from 2018 to 2022.
COPE previously held a majority at city hall in 2002.
“COPE will be contesting the byelection to fight for the working class, against rampant demovictions, for better tenant protections and for real solutions to homelessness and the housing crisis,” they said. “COPE will hold Ken Sim and his billionaire backers to account for his disastrous record.”
The mayor previously told BIV that his ABC Vancouver party would run at least one candidate in the byelection. ABC Vancouver currently holds eight of the 11 seats on council.
Voter turnout
During her news conference Wednesday, Carr pleaded with people to cast a ballot in the byelection, knowing that byelections are notorious for poor voter turnout. Only 11 per cent of voters turned out for the byelection in 2017.
The bulk of the $2-million cost for the byelection is for an election office ($740,000) and voting equipment and technology ($600,000), according to the staff report.
The City of Vancouver spent $4.4 million to prepare and run the 2022 general election, which saw a voter turnout of 36.3 per cent.
Some key dates for this year’s byelection, if council agrees to the April 5 date:
• Feb. 3, candidate packages available.
• Feb. 18-28, nomination period.
• Feb. 28, declaration of candidates.
• March 7, random ballot name order draw.
• March 26, April 1, advanced voting days at city hall.
• Late April, early May, oath of office for elected candidates.
