Ken Sim has become an increasingly unpopular mayor. Unfortunately, he stands a good chance of being re-elected.
How can this be? Division among progressive forces.
To have any chance of success, Vancouver’s three progressive political parties – COPE, Vancouver Greens, and OneCity — must all get behind one mayoral candidate. To do otherwise will split the progressive vote and let Ken Sim come up the middle.
Vancouver’s three progressive parties seem to agree with me. It turns out that, very quietly, they have been negotiating on election strategies for months. Unfortunately, it’s becoming apparent that finding unity could be challenging.
OneCity got into the mayoral election game early. Last December 1st, they announced a nomination contest for their party leader and mayoral candidate, with a winner to be chosen in February. Amanda Burrows, Executive Director of First United Church, and William Azaroff, CEO of Brightside Homes, entered the race. On February 11th Azaroff was elected by OneCity members.
In the meantime, on Friday January 30th Vancouver Green’s Councillor Pete Fry announced his intention to run for mayor.
My partner Penny and I went to his launch party that evening. The room was packed and you could feel the energy in the air. I was very positively surprised to see the large number of COPE members in the room, including COPE’s very popular City Councillor Sean Orr. When Sean got to the stage and spoke, he asked for any OneCity members in the audience to raise their hands. There was not one.
COPE also publicly welcomed Fry as a candidate, referring to the early phase of the mayoral race as “The People’s Primary” – a chance for progressive parties to publicly debate their ideas and ideally to choose a unity candidate.
It appears that OneCity was busy elsewhere. On February 17th, without consultation and to the surprise of both COPE and the Greens, Azaroff held a press conference to announce OneCity’s “proposal for unity” – a plan to hold a Progressive Primary within 45 days. They gave COPE and the Greens three days – until February 20th at 11:30 am – to decide if they would participate.
It was outrageous. A completely disingenuous move with no attempt whatsoever to really build unity.
COPE and the Greens immediately responded, questioning the timing and the details of the proposed primary. Requirements would see the progressive mayoral candidate chosen only by already registered members of the three parties, not through an open, transparent process. Notably, the proposal’s deadline for each party to sign up new members had already passed.
Two days later, Fry announced that he was rejecting the OneCity proposal, calling it autocratic.
OneCity’s actions give rise to the suspicion that they are more interested in taking over the progressive banner than in truly coordinating efforts with COPE and the Green Party. Unless OneCity steps back from trying to unilaterally control everything, it’s hard to see how any unity could be achieved.
The door had been opened for Sim to be re-elected. This is very unfortunate.
One saving grace may be that there are other municipal parties which will also be opposing Sim and ABC.
Sim’s former chief of staff, Kareem Allam, has registered the Vancouver Liberals and announced his intention to run for mayor. As of now, three other former ABC elected representatives have joined Allam’s team, which should make for an interesting dynamic in the election.
TEAM Vancouver will also be running candidates, although it’s not yet clear if party founder Colleen Hardwick will once again enter the contest to be elected mayor or whether TEAM will chose someone else. TEAM differs from ABC – promoting more moderate development strategies, liveable neighborhoods, and proper consultation with residents.
Ken Sim has had his day. Still, his developer-friendly voters could split between sticking with him and his ABC party and going forward with Allam’s Liberals. Election success remains up for grabs.
In the 2002 municipal election, Vancouver’s progressives coordinated their efforts and Larry Campbell, running under the COPE banner, became mayor — beating the Non-Partisan Association’s Jennifer Clarke 58% to 30%.
If wiser minds prevail in the weeks and months ahead, and Vancouver’s three progressive political parties are able to collaborate on presenting a unified voice and coalescing around a single, mayoral candidate, they have a good chance of repeating that success.
Daily atmospheric CO2 [Courtesy of CO2.Earth]
Latest daily total (February 28, 2026): 429.60ppm
One year ago (March 01, 2025): 427.04ppm
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