Vancouver mayoral candidates Ken Sim and Pete Fry view each other as their main rival in the battle for City Hall.
But while recent polling suggests the mayoral race is indeed a faceoff between incumbent Sim and two-term Green Councillor Fry, there are three other big-name candidates who reject the label of spoiler.
Kareem Allam — Sim’s former chief of staff turned litigation adversary — is running with the Vancouver Liberals, which is not affiliated with the federal party.
“The pollsters don’t always get it right. Municipal government is also the hardest level to poll. It’s got its tricks and nuances, especially in an at-large system,” he said in an interview Tuesday.
The Vancouver race culminates Saturday, when municipalities across British Columbia go to the polls.
Interest in the Vancouver race appears high. The City of Vancouver says more than 103,000 people have voted in advance, up 60 per cent from roughly 65,000 voters over five advance days in 2022.
Sim, who is campaigning for a second term as mayor with the right-of-centre ABC Vancouver, said while he would be the first to admit he didn’t get everything right during his tenure, he believes he can lead the city in the right direction.
“We’ve gotten some pretty significant things done, but there’s way more work to do,” he said in an interview Wednesday.
Other candidates include Rebecca Bligh, a two-term councillor who helped get Sim elected with ABC Vancouver in 2022 and is now running with Vote Vancouver, and TEAM candidate Colleen Hardwick, a former councillor.
Allam, Hardwick and Bligh all rejected the notion their candidacies could split the centre or centre-right vote.
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“The question is not left or right. The question is about who we are serving at city hall,” Hardwick said Tuesday.
Bligh said she was running to govern for Vancouver’s ignored middle class, and polling did not change how she campaigned.
“It’s anyone’s race,” she said in an interview Wednesday.
Fry, son of longtime Liberal MP Hedy Fry, has acknowledged benefiting from the narrowing of the progressive field, after the withdrawals of William Azaroff from OneCity Vancouver and Stephanie Allen for COPE Vancouver.
After ending his candidacy, Azaroff appeared at City Hall with Fry, who praised him for running a serious campaign that “raised real issues” such as housing, small business and affordability.
“I think folks are excited to be able to talk up a viable alternative to Ken Sim as the mayor of Vancouver and really reset,” Fry said in an interview Tuesday.
He added that Azaroff’s withdrawal was recognition that he was the person best suited to defeat Sim.
Bligh said she’s a progressive candidate with a centrist platform. Meanwhile, Allam said he believed he was taking votes from Sim and Fry equally.
The candidates’ platforms all emphasize quality-of-life issues, including affordability and public safety. Sim’s promises include a zero per cent property tax increase.
The election ballot also includes two plebiscite questions on public safety.
The non-binding questions ask voters if they’re in favour of the city “strengthening its laws to forbid open-air hard drug use in public spaces,” which is already illegal in B.C. The other asks if the city should ask the province to convert portions of the old St. Paul’s hospital into a “secure medical facility” with 100-plus involuntary care beds.
Hardwick called the questions a “populist election tactic,” while other critics said they aren’t realistic.
Sim said strengthening the city health bylaw — regulating conduct such as smoking in common areas — would allow officers to issue tickets or confiscate drugs without arrests. The involuntary care question, he said, is about asking the province to fulfil its accountability to people who pose a risk to their own safety or others.
Fry said he supports managing drug use in public spaces, but differs from Sim in believing that people should be diverted to supervised consumption sites or shelters.
His platform focuses on housing, transportation and the economy. “Folks should be able to have a good life in this city, he said.
Bligh said Sim’s property tax freezes protect wealthy landowners and undercut critical services. She said she would work with the federal government to leverage city-owned land and provide free transit for youth.
Hardwick said the key to livability in Vancouver is effective city planning. She said she wanted to repeal the city’s official development plan and re-establish neighbourhood planning offices
Allam said he wants to bring youth back to Vancouver by improving affordability through jobs and housing, and investing in parks and community centres.
He said his platform cuts across ideologies, and distanced himself from Sim, who filed a lawsuit in May 2025 alleging Allam falsely accused him of drinking and driving.
Sim faces his own defamation lawsuit from councillor Sean Orr, filed after falsely accusing Orr of distributing illegal drugs in comments to Chinese-speaking reporters.
Trials in both cases are far off.
For now, the focus is on the ballot box.
“I think people will be surprised at the results,” Allam said.
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