Fry and Sim face off in Vancouver mayoral race as rivals reject spoiler label

Vancouver mayoral candidates Ken Sim and Pete Fry each view the other as their main rival for City Hall. Recent polling suggests the race is indeed shaping up as a contest between incumbent Sim and two-term Green councillor Fry, but three other prominent candidates reject the label of spoiler. Municipalities across British Columbia vote Saturday, when Vancouver’s race culminates.

Kareem Allam, Sim’s former chief of staff and now a litigation adversary, is running with the Vancouver Liberals, which is not affiliated with the federal party. In an interview Tuesday, Allam said pollsters do not always get it right and municipal elections are particularly difficult to poll. Vancouver’s at-large system, he said, has its own tricks and nuances.

The City of Vancouver says more than 103,000 people have voted in advance, 60 per cent more than the roughly 65,000 who voted over five advance-voting days in 2022. Sim, running for a second term with centre-right ABC Vancouver, said he would be the first to admit he did not get everything right during his tenure, but believes he can lead the city in the right direction. In an interview Wednesday, he said his administration had accomplished significant things, but there was much more work to do.

Other candidates include Rebecca Bligh, a two-term councillor who helped elect Sim with ABC Vancouver in 2022 and is now running with Vote Vancouver, and former councillor Colleen Hardwick, the TEAM candidate. Allam, Hardwick and Bligh reject the suggestion their campaigns could split the centre or centre-right vote. Hardwick said Tuesday the question is not left versus right, but who City Hall serves. Bligh said she is running to govern for Vancouver’s ignored middle class and that polling has not changed her campaign. “It’s anyone’s race,” she said Wednesday.

Fry, the son of longtime Liberal MP Hedy Fry, has acknowledged benefiting from a narrower progressive field after William Azaroff of OneCity Vancouver and Stephanie Allen of COPE Vancouver withdrew. After ending his candidacy, Azaroff appeared at City Hall with Fry, who praised him for running a serious campaign that raised real issues, including housing, small business and affordability. Fry said Tuesday that people were excited to support a viable alternative to Sim and reset the city. He added that Azaroff’s withdrawal recognized him as the person best suited to defeat Sim.

Bligh describes herself as a progressive candidate with a centrist platform. Allam said he believes he is drawing votes equally from Sim and Fry. The candidates’ platforms all emphasize quality-of-life issues, including affordability and public safety. Sim has promised a zero per cent property tax increase.

The ballot also includes two non-binding plebiscite questions on public safety. One asks whether voters support strengthening city laws to forbid open-air hard-drug use in public spaces, which is already illegal in B.C. The other asks whether the city should ask the province to convert portions of the former St. Paul’s Hospital into a “secure medical facility” with more than 100 involuntary-care beds. Hardwick called the questions a “populist election tactic,” while other critics say they are unrealistic.

Sim said strengthening the city’s health bylaw, which regulates conduct such as smoking in common areas, would let officers issue tickets or confiscate drugs without making arrests. He said the involuntary-care question is about asking the province to meet its accountability to people who pose a risk to their own safety or that of others. Fry supports managing drug use in public spaces, but differs from Sim in believing people should be diverted to supervised consumption sites or shelters.

Fry’s platform focuses on housing, transportation and the economy. He said people should be able to have a good life in the city. Bligh said Sim’s property-tax freezes protect wealthy landowners and undermine critical services. She said she would work with the federal government to make use of city-owned land and provide free transit for youth. Hardwick said effective city planning is key to Vancouver’s livability. She wants 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. In May 2025, Sim filed a lawsuit alleging Allam falsely accused him of drinking and driving. Sim also faces a defamation lawsuit from councillor Sean Orr, filed after Sim falsely accused 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.

This report by Marissa Birnie of The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 15, 2026.