Vancouver’s newest city councillors say their decisive byelection victories have given them a mandate to push back on the “harmful policies” and “worst ideas” championed by Mayor Ken Sim and his ABC party.
The unofficial results show COPE’s Sean Orr and OneCity’s Lucy Maloney each received more than three times the votes than the candidates running under the mayor’s banner. Both spoke to CTV News Sunday, after a byelection that saw thousands standing in hours-long lines to cast their ballots.
The willingness to wait, Orr said, shows how committed voters were to bringing change to City Hall.
“People stood in line for three hours to really send a message to Ken Sim and ABC that what they’re doing isn’t working,” Orr said.
“I’m so proud of Vancouver for sticking it out, waiting in line for three hours and showing that they care, that Vancouver means something to us.”
While Sim and his party still have a majority on council, the relatively dismal showing for ABC’s candidates is something Maloney agrees reflects a dissatisfaction with the status quo.
“It’s really a decisive victory for progressives in in Vancouver. The people of Vancouver have made their views very strongly felt about the performance of this mayor and his party. They have said loud and clear that ABC and Ken Sim have been moving in the wrong direction,” she said.
Despite the fact that Orr has been a fierce and vocal critic of the mayor the new councillor-elect says he can imagine a path forward – if Sim sees the byelection as a wake-up call.
“The people of Vancouver sent a message that they’re unhappy. I think if he listens to that, if he pays attention to that, then then we can get along great and we can, work to reverse some of his really harmful policies,” Orr said.
One policy in particular that Orr says he will push to have reversed is the mayor’s “cruel and vindictive” move to limit new supportive housing units in the city. That particular policy caused a fracture within the mayor’s party that ended in the ouster of Rebecca Bligh who now sits as an Independent.
“I think we can reverse the pause on supportive housing. I think that was a misstep,” Orr said. “My first priority is to get that overturned, because pausing supportive housing means more homelessness in our communities.”
Orr said he’s been welcomed and congratulated by nearly everyone on council, with the exception of the mayor and Coun. Brian Montague.
Like Orr, Maloney says one of her top priorities is addressing the housing and homelessness crises.
“Ordinary Vancouverites are really confused about why we’re making so little progress on these key issues. Tenants struggling to pay their rent – it’s like a dark storm cloud hanging over their heads,” she said.
“We need to improve tenant protections, and we need to address our homelessness crisis. Ken Sim and ABC are moving in the opposite direction.”
The first motion Maloney plans to bring forward is to reinstate the city’s renters’ office, which Sim and council shuttered early in their term.
Maloney is also optimistic that she and her non-ABC councillors will be able to harness the momentum of the byelection to impact policy.
“We’ve already made great progress pushing back against ABC for their worst ideas,” she says.
Sim has not responded to a request for comment from CTV News and has not issued any statements or posted to social media since the unofficial results were announced.
With files from CTV news Vancouver’s Kevin Charach
