There are now only two weeks to go before Vancouver voters choose their next mayor, and on Friday five candidates running for the city’s top job faced questions about public safety, the economy, housing and how city hall should operate. The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade debate gave incumbent Mayor Ken Sim and challengers Colleen Hardwick, Rebecca Bligh, Kareem Allam and Pete Fry an opportunity to outline their priorities and draw differences between their campaigns. Ken Sim Sim, the incumbent and ABC Vancouver mayoral candidate, defended his administration’s record while acknowledging there is still work to do. He pointed to what he described as progress on public safety, including funding for 100 new police officers, more than 50 mental-health workers and the Vancouver Police Department’s Task Force Barrage, which targeted crime in the Downtown Eastside. He also highlighted changes to city hall, saying more than 2,000 pages of bylaws had been removed, processes had been digitized and the number of business-licence categories had been reduced from nearly 600 to fewer than 100. Sim said the time required to approve a business licence application has dropped from 16 weeks in 2022 to two days. “My focus as mayor is simple: Safer streets, a stronger economy, and a city that works,” Sim said. Public safety was a major focus of his campaign message. Sim is supporting a plebiscite on whether the city should strengthen its bylaws to prohibit the use of hard drugs in public spaces. He argued the change would allow police to issue tickets and confiscate drugs without having to arrest someone. Sim also called for the provincial government to provide voluntary and involuntary care beds for people dealing with addiction and mental illness. Colleen Hardwick Hardwick, running with Team for a Livable Vancouver, focused heavily on fiscal discipline, economic development and reducing what she described as unnecessary bureaucracy at city hall. The former city councillor said her business background has shaped her approach, arguing that Vancouver needs to examine its spending, establish priorities and measure performance. She said permitting and other municipal processes have become too complicated. “Permitting should not be an endurance sport,” Hardwick said. Hardwick said she would simplify building and business-permitting processes, establish service standards and reduce administrative burdens. On planning, Hardwick said her first 90 days would include repealing the official development plan passed in March. She argued it takes a centralized, top-down approach and said neighbourhood planning should have a greater role. Rebecca Bligh Bligh, a two-term Vancouver city councillor and former president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, focused on the city’s finances, relationships with other levels of government and services for businesses. She criticized the city’s budget approach, arguing that a zero-per-cent property tax increase does not necessarily mean the overall financial burden has been reduced. Bligh pointed to projected user fee increases and the use of money from the city’s property endowment fund as examples. She also criticized Sim directly, saying his administration has not delivered the leadership Vancouver needs. Bligh proposed property taxes indexed to inflation and stable, predictable increases over a four-year term. For businesses, she proposed a small-business concierge service that would provide one point of contact to help business owners navigate city hall departments, permitting requirements, costs and timelines. She also said homelessness and street disorder require co-ordinated action between the city, province and health authorities. Bligh proposed a leadership table involving the mayor, premier and Vancouver Coastal Health to address the issues. Kareem Allam Allam, running for the Vancouver Liberals, made housing and economic development central to his campaign. He argued that young people are leaving Vancouver because of the cost and availability of housing, a lack of jobs and concerns about front-line services and public safety. Allam said Vancouver’s building code creates an additional layer of complexity and proposed replacing it with the provincial building code. He also argued that too many city departments have a role in approving projects. “There are now 12 departments in the City of Vancouver that have a veto on your project,” Allam said. He wants approvals and permitting brought into a single department. Allam also proposed bringing back the Vancouver Economic Commission, protecting industrial land and pursuing an innovation corridor connected to UBC. On public safety, Alam argued the city needs to focus on organized crime and money laundering as well as street-level disorder. He cited concerns about illegal currency exchanges and bitcoin ATMs and said the city should act on reports previously sent to council by Vancouver police. When asked what would define his term four years from now, Allam said he would measure his success by whether Vancouver’s average age had become younger. Pete Fry Fry, the Green Party of Vancouver candidate and a two-term city councillor, focused on transparency, street disorder and support for small businesses. He criticized the current city budget for being much shorter and less detailed than previous versions. Fry said a key priority in his first 90 days would be returning to a more detailed budget so residents and businesses could see where money is being spent. He also proposed a “business navigator” that would give businesses one point of contact at city hall. On public safety, Fry proposed creating a 24-7 non-police outreach team to respond to non-emergency situations involving people in crisis. He also mentioned that he would repeal the ban on supportive housing and repeal the ban on overdose prevention sites. Fry also wants expanded daytime services and an Office of Community Safety working with police, fire, business licensing and permitting officials. Fry said the city needs to take greater responsibility for street disorder rather than waiting for the province to solve the problem. “The buck stops here,” Fry said. “We need to figure it out here. As a city, we can’t keep pointing the finger and waiting for somebody else to do it.” The five candidates will now enter the final two weeks of the campaign, with public safety, housing, economic development and the future of city hall remaining central issues in the race.
