Vancouver Progressives Take Power After Oct. 17 Election

Green Party of Vancouver mayoral candidate Pete Fry arrives as votes roll in on civic election night in Vancouver on Oct. 17, 2026. The Canadian Press/Ethan Cairns

Vancouver has elected a largely progressive city council, with the Green Party and the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) each winning four of 10 seats, alongside one councillor from OneCity Vancouver.

Green Party candidate Pete Fry was elected mayor, becoming the city’s first Green mayor. Fry, a two-term city councillor, was first elected in 2018.

Fry received 98,494 votes, or 47.8 percent, defeating incumbent Mayor Ken Sim of ABC Vancouver, who received 67,467 votes, or 32.7 percent, according to the city’s unofficial election results.

Advance voting also saw record participation, with more than 103,000 ballots cast over four days, surpassing the 65,127 advance ballots cast over five advance days in 2022 by about 60 percent, according to the city.

Green Party candidates Annette Reilly, Stephanie Smith, Camil Dumont, and Bridget Burns all won council seats.

COPE candidates Sean Orr, Chloe Leslie, Devyani Singh, and Solomon Yi-Kieran also won seats, while incumbent OneCity Vancouver councillor Lucy Maloney was re-elected.

Maloney, a former environmental lawyer, identified safer streets, affordable housing, and more arts and culture as platform priorities in an Oct. 13 social media post. She also said she had worked with non-ABC councillors to “push back on the worst elements of Ken Sim’s ABC agenda.”

COPE celebrated the results in a social media post that read “Evicted Ken Sim,” tagging Orr. Orr, also an incumbent councillor, like Maloney, had earlier posted, “Today is the day we evict Ken Sim.”

Sim’s ABC Vancouver retained just one council seat, won by incumbent Mike Klassen.

Klassen congratulated Fry on his election and thanked supporters for his own re-election, saying he was entering a “new chapter” while remaining committed to the city and its people.

Sim called Fry to concede and offered to help ensure a smooth transition. Fry said he greatly appreciated the offer.

ABC Vancouver’s loss of all but one council seat marks a dramatic shift from the 2022 election, when the party won eight of the 10 seats.

The new council’s ability to advance its agenda will depend on cooperation among the three opposition groups, which have their own platforms and priorities.

The shift extended to other elected municipal bodies. Green and COPE candidates won all seven Park Board commissioner seats, with Green winning three seats and COPE wining four. COPE won four of the nine school trustee positions, OneCity won three, and the Greens won two, according to the city’s unofficial election results.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.