Pete Fry says he would be the 'antidote' to Ken Sim if elected Vancouver mayor

Pete Fry is running for mayor of Vancouver, saying he wants the city to reach its “very best.” A two-term city councillor and the Green Party of Vancouver candidate, he told Daily Hive Urbanized that residents are struggling with quality of life and a sense of belonging. He said he hears on doorsteps that many people “just don’t like Ken Sim,” and sees himself as the strongest alternative to the incumbent. The municipal election is on Oct. 17.

Fry said poor governance, a lack of transparency and weak accountability underlie many of Vancouver’s problems. Citing the Vancouver Charter and Local Government Act, he said the city is supposed to conduct itself in a particular way, and he does not see that happening. He criticized ABC Vancouver for moving to suspend the Integrity Commissioner and for what he called the party’s “inappropriate relations with the police board.” He said the Vancouver Police Board learned about Task Force Barrage, an effort to tackle organized crime in the Downtown Eastside, through a media announcement.

### Fry’s response to attack ads

Fry’s main mayoral opponents are incumbent Ken Sim of ABC Vancouver, Rebecca Bligh of Vote Vancouver, Colleen Hardwick of TEAM for a Liveable Vancouver and Kareem Allam of the Vancouver Liberals. ABC Vancouver attack ads have targeted Fry more than the other major candidates, questioning some of his past council votes. Fry said the ads are not accurate representations, but also cast him as an alternative to Sim. He said many voters dislike Sim’s leadership style and what he represents, so being portrayed as Sim’s adversary also positions Fry as the “antidote.”

Fry voted against a motion Sim brought to council directing city staff to use all available tools to prevent an Overdose Prevention Site (OPS) from opening at 900 Helmcken. Fry said he wanted the site to proceed because it was a health facility and access to health care is a right under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He said there was a clear need given existing street disorder and drug use outside the facility. The provincial government ultimately cancelled the site after strong backlash from nearby residents and businesses.

Fry said he had proposed a framework with rules and conditions for OPS operations and supportive housing. He said such services should be recognized as health services, while being managed so they do not attract street disorder. He proposed keeping the area outside clean, providing washrooms and offering space for people to be intoxicated so they would not leave supervised consumption and stumble around the street. He said the 900 Helmcken facility was large enough to support those measures.

He also voted against extending the Granville Street Pedestrian Zone after the FIFA World Cup ended. Fry cited transparency and accountability, saying council was called to an emergency meeting during its summer break and given an emergency motion without knowing its subject. There was no agenda and only two days’ notice, he said. In the preceding days, he had spoken with people from the downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association, who also did not know what the motion concerned. The extension carried a $5-million price tag. Fry said the city should not spend that amount on a “back-of-the-napkin” idea from the mayor.

Fry, like several other mayoral candidates, called the public safety plebiscite “a cynical, get-out-the-vote play.” Voters will be asked whether they support strengthening city bylaws to prohibit open-air use of hard drugs in public spaces, and whether they support asking the province to convert parts of the old St. Paul’s Hospital into a medical facility with acute voluntary and involuntary care beds. Fry said the plebiscite is non-binding, the new St. Paul’s Hospital already has 100 promised secure care beds, and the old hospital site is owned by a private developer. He also said open-air drug use is already illegal and that taking drugs away “is not going to fix” people.

Fry argued that confiscation would not lead to sudden abstinence and recovery; instead, people could become more desperate to obtain drugs and engage in risky behaviour to raise money for replacements. He said this could lead people to use alone, increasing overdose and death risks. He added that people carrying drugs for a dealer could face violence from gangs controlling the drug trade if police confiscated the drugs.

### How Fry would address housing

The Broadway Plan was approved during Fry’s first term on council. It permits much greater density around Broadway across six square kilometres and 500 city blocks, roughly bounded by 1st Avenue to the north, Clark Drive to the east, 16th Avenue to the south and Vine Street to the west. Fry said ABC amended the plan during his second term to be more aggressive about new construction and to erode tenant protections in the name of building faster. He said the changes have not produced construction starts: the city has processed many rezoning proposals and “moved lots of paper,” but new homes are not being built at a meaningful scale.

Fry acknowledged that construction has been held back by a slow economy, U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, federal policies to reduce immigration and the foreign buyer ban. Presales have slowed, making projects harder to finance; most banks require about 60 per cent of a project’s units to be presold before financing it. Fry sees an opportunity in wood-frame construction, which could support B.C. communities reliant on forestry and shaken by Trump’s tariffs on Canadian forestry products.

He said he would scale up four-to-six-storey wood-frame buildings across the city, using a single-egress staircase that creates more usable floor space. Fry said wood construction is cheaper and faster and can produce more liveable, ground-oriented spaces with larger units. He said residents who may not want a 28-storey tower on their block could accept a couple of six-storey apartment buildings. Smaller buildings cost much less to construct, he said, so developers would need to borrow less to get projects started.

Fry said lenders are becoming wary of costly 28-storey concrete-and-steel towers, which can cost tens of millions of dollars to build. He said no one wants to live in or buy them and developers are going underwater. He suggested learning from the now-cancelled Villages Plan to advance wood-frame construction. Council cancelled the plan in July 2026 after strong public opposition. It would have allowed residential buildings up to eight storeys in 17 areas, mostly low-density, single-family neighbourhoods, and added about one million square feet of retail and restaurant space across the commercial cores of those 17 villages.

Fry said commercial streets such as Dunbar and West 10th are already struggling and should be “fixed” before the city introduces more competition. He also said the Villages Plan did not reflect the distinct character of different communities and neighbourhoods.

### Supporting renters

The Vancouver Greens platform proposes bringing back the Renters’ Office, which an ABC-majority council closed in January 2023 because of low use, after it handled about one call a day. Fry said its intended role was broader and included tracking permits. For example, if a landlord evicted tenants for renovations but did not carry out the work, the office could cross-reference the records.

More than 50 per cent of Vancouver residents rent, Fry said, and the city has a responsibility to make policies responsive to renters, enforce maintenance standards and tenant relocation and protection policies, and communicate with renters. He said the city maintains open communication with developers and groups including the Urban Development Institute, the Urban Land Institute and Landlord BC, whose members have access to planning staff and council. Renters do not have the same access, he said. He argued that city policy should reflect renters’ experiences and account for affordability and displacement.

### Streets and transportation

Another Vancouver Greens platform commitment is to convert 11 per cent of Vancouver’s roads for pedestrians, cyclists and green space. Fry said the city is adding substantial housing density through plans such as the Broadway Plan without providing enough parks or other public space. Public spaces matter when people are expected to live in smaller units, he said, and Vancouver’s small geographic area and density make the old idea that everyone should have a car impractical. He wants better transit and infrastructure for cycling, rolling and walking.

Fry said the plan is not a war on cars. He questioned whether private use of public space for parking should carry more value, noting that drivers do not necessarily pay for that space in every neighbourhood.

### Jobs and the economy

Asked about jobs and the economy, Fry criticized Sim and ABC Vancouver for continuing to portray the city as “dying.” Former journalist Aaron Gunn’s film *Vancouver is Dying*, about the city’s drug crisis, was released during the 2022 municipal election cycle. Fry said the narrative does not help attract capital, businesses or jobs, and makes residents feel badly about their city while making Vancouver seem frightening to outsiders. He said the city needs to move past it and look at how to attract investment.

Fry pointed to Vancouver’s talented people, scenery and access to the Pacific Ocean, saying the city has the foundations for a more vibrant economy. The Vancouver Greens would invest in a municipal navigator service to help small businesses succeed and address community safety and street cleanliness. Fry also said the City of Vancouver makes $800 million in annual procurements and should prioritize local hiring.

### What Fry means by community safety

Fry deliberately uses “community safety” instead of the “public safety” language used by other mayoral candidates. He said public safety framing can alienate people by suggesting “us versus them,” while community safety takes a more holistic and compassionate approach. People on the street are often least safe from bad drugs, theft and mental health issues, he said. He added that this does not discount real safety concerns: small businesses are suffering thefts and people have been assaulted.

Fry said the exposure and vulnerability of people on the streets magnify wider safety concerns. If the city can manage those conditions, provide greater stability and help people stay connected to reality, he said, overall concerns about public safety may decline. He said the city should better support people who are unhoused and prevent problems from escalating into major street encampments. That means providing places to go and spend time, including daytime shelters, drop-in spaces and storage for unhoused people, with the city taking a larger role in supporting those operations.

Fry said mayors often point to another level of government to take responsibility, but eventually the responsibility rests with the city. Proactive investment could address problems before people become entrenched on the street, he said. He cited his work with vulnerable families in the Downtown Eastside, who faced difficulties related to food insecurity, addiction recovery, poverty and children’s early learning challenges.

He added that responding later to homelessness and addiction is costly, bringing more demands for fire services, engineering, sanitation and police. Thoughtful investment early, he said, could mitigate those growing downstream costs.