The Results of the 2025 Municipal Byelection

By Amelia Kondor

Vancouver had a municipal byelection on Saturday, April 6th. The byelection was called after city councilors Christine Boyle of OneCity and Adrian Carr of the municipal Green party left office (Kshatri). Boyle and Carr were both elected during the 2022 Vancouver Municipal election, an election which saw an ABC majority and Ken Sim elected as mayor (Kshatri). Sim and ABC were hoping to strengthen their majority in the byelection, running two candidates for the empty positions. Other parties running candidates included TEAM, headed by Colleen Hardwick, who ran for mayor in 2022, COPE, OneCity, and the Green party ("Long Lineups").

While municipal byelections traditionally have very low voter turnouts, this election had a voter turnout of around 15% which is "a 40 per cent increase from the 2017 byelection, when the turnout was around 11%. A total of 67,962 ballots were cast" (Kshatri). This unexpectedly high turnout combined with a decrease in polling stations and election workers (@jmcelroy.bsky.social) led to long wait times at voting places which "the city manager acknowledged . . . were ‘unacceptable'" (Ryan).

After all the rockiness of poll wait times, the election concluded with definitive victors. Lucy Maloney of OneCity and Sean Orr of COPE will be our next city councilors, garnering over 30,000 votes each. For some perspective, Colleen Hardwick, who got the next most votes, got just over 17,000. While ABC retains a majority on city council, the shift from their "landslide victory in the 2022 municipal election," as well as the high voter turnout could indicate a dissatisfaction in the city with Sim's leadership (Ryan). We will get a clearer picture of how Vancouverites feel about how their city council in the 2026 municipal election.

If you are reading this as it is released, that means we have another election very soon! If you are eligible, make sure you vote in the federal election on April 28th!

Works Cited

Kshatri, Shaurya. "Progressives Win Both Vancouver Council Seats in Byelection, Ruling ABC Party Loses Out." CBC News, 6 Apr. 2025. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-byelection-1.7503150.

"Long Lineups as Vancouver Voters Look to Fill Two Council Seats in Municipal Byelection - BC | Globalnews.Ca." Global News, 5 Apr. 2025, globalnews.ca/news/11117485/vancouver-voters-look-to-fill-two-council-seats-in-municipal-byelection/.

Ryan, Denise, and Joseph Ruttle. "Vancouver Byelection Results a Blow for Mayor Ken Sim's ABC Party." Vancouver Sun, 6 Apr. 2025, vancouversun.com/news/vancouver-byelection-results-sean-orr-lucy-maloney-mayor-ken-sim-abc-vancouver.

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