Check out my 2023 Annual Report breakdowns for the City of Vancouver and rest of BC.

For this analysis, I’m excluding those parties that reported no donors in 2023. Some had cash in the bank but it was often a trivial amount.

For each party, I copied over their total assets, total liabilities and accumulated surplus from their balance sheet. These give a sense of the financial health of the organization. Basically, how much cash do they have in the bank (or could have if they sold any furniture they claim, though most assets were liquid). I also recorded their income, expenses and revenue. Plus the number of donors who gave $100 or more, the number who gave under $100 and the number of anonymous donors (ie those who gave under $50 to a collection box at an event).

Additionally, I’ve collapsed civic and school board returns into these columns. This may result in some small donors being counted twice. For example, you could give $99 to OneCity’s city council race and their school board race and appear as a donor twice but your name wouldn’t be reported.

You can access all the annual reports directly from Elections BC here.

Vancouver

Let’s start with Vancouver.

Both Progress Vancouver and Forward Together are now officially deregistered. This means we don’t have their annual reports but we can see their contribution data. Forward had 24 donors provide $17,248.45, while Progress had 25 donors provide $13,500.

First, the obvious. ABC dominated fundraising. They raised over half a million dollars in a non-election year. That’s more than all their rivals combined (even including the two deregistered parties). It’s down slightly from the $590,000 they raised in 2023 but it’s still an impressive haul.

Beyond that, OneCity showed a solid performance, which is unsurprising given their byelection result. TEAM and COPE raised similar amounts, though COPE had more than double the number of small donors. COPE also had over 500 anonymous donations, although this accounted for a mere $2200 in revenue (average $4 donation) so this is basically just pocked change collected from a large number of events.

The Greens were obviously struggling compared to the other parties that contested the byelection. They had fewer donors and raised less. So while they marginally improved over 2023, the trend was clear and the party’s byelection performance was basically foretold by the numbers.

Notably, despite its impressive fundraising, ABC’s bottom line was actually not significantly higher than its competitors. After its hefty expenses, the party only posted a net revenue of $53,000. OneCity and COPE nearly matched that with tighter operations. Digging into the income statement, we see ABC spent over $230,000 on “professional services,” another $65,000 on fundraising events, $35,000 on research and data, $28,000 on accountants, and $25,000 on IT. On the other hand, TEAM and the Greens were much harder done by, netting just under $30,000 each.

As a quick aside, you can probably tell the three other corpses on the local political scene: NPA, Vote Socialist and Vision Vancouver. It’s not surprising that the Socialists have largely disappeared here, given Sean Orr’s move to COPE. Similarly, Vision and NPA were soundly rejected by voters in 2022. Nevertheless, each of the parties had a few faithful donors but that wasn’t enough to keep any in the black.

Perhaps the most surprising graph though is the final one. Tallying up each party’s accumulated surplus, we see that OneCity had the healthiest account balance at the end of 2024. Over $120,000 in the bank, more than ABC’s $99,000. TEAM, COPE and the Greens each had modest war chests as well, with COPE slightly ahead of that pack. Compared to 2023, OneCity effectively doubled its reserves. Year-over-year, COPE did even better, increasing their balance from $15,000.

These numbers didn’t guarantee ABC’s loss. They still had a substantial number of donors, nearly as many as OneCity, and raised a boatload of cash (even if they spent a wild amount of it on contractors). We do still see OneCity and COPE’s strengths here, similar to 2023. We also see that TEAM and the Greens lack a deep well of support, even if TEAM has relatively generous supporters.

The next report to watch for will be the byelection fundraising and expense reports.

Outside Vancouver

Next, we’ll look at the fourteen parties outside Vancouver that reported donations in 2024. This includes the following parties (divided by municipality):

• A Better Maple Ridge. The party of Maple Ridge Mayor Dan Ruimy.
• Burnaby Citizens Association (BCA), Burnaby Greens and One Burnaby. BCA is the dominant force in Burnaby while the latter elected councillor Richard Lee.
• Community First, New Westminster Mayor Patrick Johnstone’s party, and the New Westminster Progressives, who elected two councilors.
• Contract for Langley. Township of Langley Mayor Eric Woodward’s party.
• Langley Together. A party in the City of Langley whose sole donor, Bert Chen, is also their financial agent who lives in Sidney.
• One Richmond, who elected two councillors; Richmond Community Coalition (RCC), who elected one councillor and RITE Richmond, who elected three councillors. Note that Richmond United and Richmond RISE (who both elected one councillor) did not report raising any money and Mayor Malcolm Brodie is an independent.
• ParentsVoice runs candidates for school boards and elected three in 2022.
• Safe Surrey Coalition was Doug McCallum’s party and has two current councilors. Surrey Connect is Mayor Brenda Locke’s party and has four councilors. Surrey First was Dianne Watts’ party and has two councilors.

In 2023, the money was in Surrey. Brenda Locke’s Surrey Connect raised over $300,000. In 2024, the money moved to Eric Woodward’s Contract with Langley as his party nearly doubled its fundraising.

Despite the fundraising slowdown, Surrey Connect remains one of the wealthiest political parties in the province (only Contract with Langley has more cash in its bank accounts). Notably, the main opposition Surrey First ran a deficit in 2024. Despite these numbers, Surrey First did edge out the mayor’s party in the number of donors.

New Westminster is the only municipality where the mayor, or dominant political force on council, is falling behind. This is the second year in a row that the (right-leaning) Progressives have out-fundraised the mayor’s (left-leaning) party. When you look at their donor base, however, it’s clear that the Progressives are relying on slightly more large donors than Community First.

In Burnaby, BCA remains strong, although One Burnaby posted similar income from slightly fewer donors. Notably, One Burnaby is sitting on a sizeable debt of almost $30,000.

Richmond remains a complicated place where the three parties each raised about $10,000, with the Community Coalition falling slightly behind. RCC is also in a tougher spot with the least total assets.

Finally, ParentsVoice reported 50 donations of $10 to its campaigns in 50 different school districts. It’s quite possible each of these was made by the same individual. In any case, the party ran a significant deficit and has a trivial amount of current assets.

Missing from 2024’s fundraising efforts was Delta Mayor George Harvie’s Achieving for Delta. The party is sitting on $32,000 in assets but raised no money and spent a mere $228 in 2024.

In this analysis, we’ll only be looking at those parties that reported contributions in 2023. We’ll also be restricting our look to contribution data. Those wanting to dive deeper into the financial health of their local parties can find the 2023 Annual Returns published on Elections BC’s website.

The data show that the parties in BC’s second-largest city, Surrey, could give Vancouver a run for their money. Mayor Brenda Locke’s Surrey Connect, like Ken Sim’s ABC, is well ahead of her competition with over $300,000 in contributions in 2023. Past mayor Doug McCallum’s Safe Surrey Coalition, meanwhile, raised $130,000 and Surrey First $32,000. In addition to the mayorship, Surrey Connect has four seats on council, while Safe Surrey Coalition and Surrey First each hold two.

Outside of Vancouver and Surrey, Township of Langley Mayor’s Contract with Langley party was the most successful, raising over $135,000 in 2023. Woodward was elected in 2022 with 42% of the vote and five of the six candidates on his slate were elected to council. The other elector organization in Langley in 2022 was Rich Coleman’s Elevate Langley Voters Association. Coleman placed third for mayor and their candidates placed behind a number of independents for council. While Elevate Langley filed an annual return, they reported no revenues or expenses (besides a bank charge) and have less than $2,500 in net assets.

In Burnaby, the Burnaby Citizens Association maintains its dominance over the city’s political scene, raising $76,500. The Burnaby Greens and One Burnaby, who each elected a councillor in 2022, raised $3,400 and $790, respectively.

In 2022, Patrick Johnstone received 42% of the vote and was elected Mayor of New Westminster with his Community First elector organization. Alongside him, four of his six candidates were elected to council, while the centre-right New Westminster Progressives elected two councillors. Nevertheless, the Progressives raised over $33,000 in 2023, while Community First raised $13,000. Notably, the New West Progressives defeated Community First in a school board by-election earlier in 2024.

The stakes are lower in Richmond, where Richmond Community Coalition led the pack with $22,000 in 2023 donations. RITE Richmond raised $8,900 and ONE Richmond raised $2,400. Malcom Brodie has been an independent mayor of the city since 2001, routinely defeating his challengers by wide margins. On council, Richmond Community Coalition’s Chak Au topped the ballots in 2022 but the other two candidates on his slate fell far behind as voters opted for incumbents. RITE Richmond elected three candidates and ONE Richmond elected two. Richmond United (not to be confused with the local soccer club or the British football club) and Richmond RISE also both elected one councillor.

Only one party fundraised in Delta where Mayor George Harvie’s Achieving for Delta raised just shy of $12,000. The only party outside of Metro Vancouver to raise money for a council race was in Kelowna where 2022 council candidate Chris Williams donated $1,250 to his party, Spirit Alliance. Williams and his running-mate placed a distant 20th and 24th in the race for eight seats on Kelowna City Council.

Finally, ParentsVoice BC raised just over $7,000 in 2023. In 2022, the party ran candidates for a number of school boards across the province on a platform that largely targeted SOGI policies. Two ParentsVoice candidates were elected in Nechako Lakes and one in Chilliwack. The majority of their 2023 donations came from one individual, Don Nightingale a member of the Conservative Party of Canada’s national council, who donated $5,000. He made eight donations of $625 to separate campaigns (donors were limited to $1,324 per campaign): Vernon, Central Okanagan, Chilliwack, Surrey/White Rock, Delta, Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows, Coquitlam and Nechako Lakes School Districts. The party received on additional $50 donation to their Central Okanagan campaign and another $100 in Chilliwack. In Nechako Lakes, the party raised $2,449.

Note: For this analysis, we’ve combined donations to Vancouver City Council and Vancouver School Board races.

ABC Vancouver was well ahead of the pack with $590,000 in donations, an amount that rivals the fundraising of the BC Conservatives provincially. The runner up, OneCity, raised $150,000 and leftist stalwarts COPE raised $65,000. Past mayor Kennedy Stewart’s Forward Together party raised almost $42,000, while the Greens only raised $34,000 despite having the second largest caucus in the city. Colleen Hardwick’s TEAM for a Livable Vancouver raised $29,000, while Vision Vancouver struggled along with $11,500. Vancouver’s longest serving political party, the NPA, raised a mere $1,025 from three donors – two of whom gave $500 and one who donated $25. Vote Socialist raised $1,500 from four donors.

Despite ABC’s commanding fundraising lead, they relied on fewer supporters than their opponents. ABC reported 565 donors, 498 of whom gave at least $100. In fact, 69 ABC donors gave the maximum to both the party’s City Council and School Board races or $2,648 total and 155 gave $1,324 (the max to one of the two campaigns).

OneCity, meanwhile, had 833 total donors, 420 giving under $100 and 413 giving $100 or more. COPE also had an impressive 478 donors. The remaining parties had fewer than 200 donors.

The average ABC donor gave just over $1000. The next most-wealthy donors were for Forward Together, who donated $310 on average.[1] The names of donors who give $100 or more are reported publicly. Anonymous donations are only permitted for donations of $50 or less that are made via a donation box at an event (or similar).

The balance sheets and income statements can give us a sense of the financial health of each of the parties. The following charts show their accumulated surpluses (assets minus liabilities) as of December 31, 2023 and their revenues for 2023.

The accumulated surpluses show us that despite the wide fundraising advantage, ABC and OneCity ended 2023 with similar reserves ($79,000 versus $66,000). Most other parties had more modest amounts of $15-30,000 in the bank.

The big standout, however, is Forward Together’s nearly $270,000 debt. This is entirely due to accounts payable by the campaign. Notably, Forward Together’s 2023 income was healthier than their contribution data suggests as the party received $133,000 in transfers from Kennedy Stewart’s campaign funds. The party also collected $3,000 in consulting fees and from a Canada Post refund. However, that fundraising was clearly not sufficient to cover their debts.

Among COPE’s liabilities is a loan to former city councillor Tim Louis. Louis gave the party an interest-free loan of $26,000 in 2002, to be paid back by 2025. Only $2.623.96 of that is outstanding. No other parties reported any outstanding campaign loans.

On the revenue side, ABC Vancouver finished 2023 well ahead of all its competition. Vision Vancouver and the NPA ran deficits for 2023 of $15,000 and $7,600, respectively.

Most parties reported some advertising activities in 2023, which includes commercials, social media ads and even printing promotional materials such as pamphlets and buttons. ABC reported spending nearly $27,000 on advertising, more than double the total of all other parties. Vision spent $4,000; OneCity $3,500; Vote Socialist $1,400; Greens $1,000; COPE $900 and TEAM $600. Forward Together and the NPA did not advertise in 2023.

Only ABC and COPE reported fundraising events. The ABC Studio 54 Dance Party was held in November and attended by 396 people. In February, COPE’s Year of the Rabbit Dinner sold 124 tickets. Their May, “Leave them Kids Alone!” concert fundraiser to stop school closures sold 87 tickets. They sold 76 tickets to their August summer backyard party. And they ended the year with the “ABC is a Drag” drag show fundraiser, which sold 122 tickets.

Takeaways

ABC Vancouver and OneCity are clearly best positioned to compete in the byelection that is almost guaranteed by Christine Boyle winning the Vancouver-Little Mountain BCNDP nomination. ABC has an incredible fundraising lead over all of its opposition and it has a respectable donor base. It also faces a divided opposition as COPE clearly still has some life left in it, meaning the presumptive OneCity byelection candidate will need to fight to make their case to carry the progressive torch.

Other parties are clearly going to struggle if they intend to continue. Forward Together’s deep debts aren’t covered by their revenues. Vision, the NPA and Vote Socialist also ended the year in a dire situation.

Finally, TEAM and the Greens are arguably mirrors of each other. TEAM has no elected caucus members and many likely assumed its support would evaporate after the election. However, a modest group of donors is keeping the party alive. The Greens, by contrast, have representation on each body and are effectively driving the Park Board following the schism in the ABC caucus. This political success hasn’t motivated their donor base, however, and they’ll need to rebuild their operations if they intend to compete in the upcoming byelection. Importantly, TEAM has double the cash in the bank compared to the Greens.

In a future post, we’ll look take a quick look at the returns of other parties in BC, outside the City of Vancouver.

[1] Technically the average Vote Socialist donation was $372 and the average NPA donation was $342, but we’ve excluded those above due to the small number of donors.

Mayor Sim announced his plan to bring a motion to Council to call on the province to amend the Vancouver Charter to remove the elected Park Board on December 6, 2023. At that time, he told The Vancouver Sun’s Dan Fumano, “The province is not going to be surprised.” While he didn’t say whether the province supported his move, he claimed to have been discussing the issue with the province.

Under BC’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, Cambie Report requested all briefing notes relating to the Vancouver Park Board prepared by the province’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs dating back to Ken Sim’s inauguration in November 2022. We also asked the City for all briefing documents relating to the Vancouver Park Board prepared for the Mayor or the Mayor’s Chief of Staff.

In response, we received just one record from the two bodies: On December 8, 2023 (two days after Sim’s first public announcement) the Municipal Affairs Ministry prepared a note for Premier David Eby. There were no records in the Mayor’s Office.

The note for the Premier mentions Sim’s intention to abolish the elected Park Board. While large portions of the discussion are redacted, the note states that ministry staff “will have to undertake significant research” into the impacts and implications of the request.

While Sim may have had conversations with the provincial government, the lack of formal briefing notes in the Ministry’s office suggests the issue never raised to the level of a serious proposal that warranted internal consideration until it was announced publicly.

Despite the lack of records from the mayor’s office, Sim announced his proposed motion via a press release on the City of Vancouver’s letterhead.

Cambie Report will be requesting further records, including correspondence, to shed more light on the nature of the discussions that went into the plans to abolish the elected board.

We’ll have at least one more article on political party financing later this week, where we look at other the other parties in Metro Vancouver and what that might tell us about the races to watch.

Who had to file and when

The big change in rules came on December 1, 2022 last year. At that point, elector organizations seeking to raise funds to run for office had to register with Elections BC. Prior to that, Watson tells us that organizations could have received a contribution but if they received no contributions between December 1 and 31 and “did not register until 2022, they would not need to file a 2021 annual financial report.”

Elections BC maintains a current list of registered elector organizations. Using the Wayback Machine, we can see the list as of December 22, 2022. That list only includes A Better City, COPE, Greens, OneCity and TEAM as registered. Forward Together with Kennedy Stewart (then Team Kennedy Stewart) may have submitted its paperwork and only been listed later.

It’s plausible then that a party (like those that didn’t file a report like Vision, NPA and Progress) may have avoided the disclosure requirement simply by not accepting any contributions in the month of December.

While reports were due for those organizations that registered prior to December 31 by March 31, they have until May 2 to file their reports if they pay a $500 late filing fee. The consequence for not meeting the filing requirements is steep. The party would be “deregistered and may not apply to re-register until after the next general local elections.”

What the reports include

The biggest challenge in interpreting the financial reports turns out to be their extremely limited period of applicability. Because the rules changed on December 1, most of the donations parties received in 2021 did not have to be disclosed in the annual filing. Rather those will be included with the election financing report that is filed after the October 15, 2022 elections.

The reporting period for annual financial reports is from the time of registration to the end of the calendar year. When elector organizations registered, they provided us with their contribution information since the last report was filed. This contribution information is not included in the elector organization’s annual financial report, per the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act. These contributions will be included in the elector organization’s election financing report, which will be filed with Elections BC following the 2022 General Local Elections. 

If an elector organization received contributions to a non-campaign account before December 1, 2021, it would not require disclosure. However, they would not be able to use this money to pay for any election expenses

Andrew Watson, Elections BC

Prior to December 1, Watson says “there were no restrictions to non-campaign accounts.” However, only funds in campaign accounts can be used for election expenses and parties can’t accept contributions to non-campaign accounts anymore.

So each of the parties – particularly the legacy ones that elected candidates in 2018 like COPE, OneCity and the Greens – undoubtedly received some number of contributions prior to registering and we won’t know anything about those donations until after the election. However, the value of those accounts should still appear on the party’s balance sheet.

This is how OneCity, who raised $36,000 from reported contributions, can have $130,000 in its campaign accounts. The bulk of that money was either raised earlier in 2021 or even remaining from earlier fundraising efforts.

This also implies that information on the income statement is solely limited to that period between the party’s registration and the year end. That is, the only campaign expenses we see are also only those from the final month(s) of the year. So we don’t know entirely whether, for example, COPE in fact ran a deficit throughout the entirety of 2021.

Finally, Watson confirms that “the park board, council and mayor for the City of Vancouver are all part of the same election campaign,” and therefore share a campaign account.

Errors in filings

As we noted, a number of filings seemingly had mistakes. Notably A Better City’s balance sheet was seemingly incomplete (see image) and the contributions on their income statement didn’t include contributions for both council and school board campaigns. On COPE’s report, “JEA SWANSON” reportedly donated $1243 to their school board race, which exceeds the annual donation limit.

Watson says Elections BC publishes reports on the website as they are filed. “We review reports for compliance with applicable legislation and may request a supplementary report be filed to resolve any issues that are identified. Amended reports are published on our website.”

We’ll periodically check back to see if there are changes or additional reports filed.

This is the first year we’re able to have this level of insight into local political funding, which is on par with the reporting requirements for provincial political parties.

Frances Bula has a great piece in The Globe and Mail looking at the state of each of the registered parties in the City of Vancouver, but let’s dig a bit more into the numbers.

The following chart summarizes the financial details from each party’s balance sheet and statement of income and expenses on their annual returns.

There’s far more we can look at from the financial sheets but these columns give us a good sense of the position of each of the parties. The accumulated surplus is their net assets minus their liabilities, in other words its how much money they were sitting on as of December 31, 2021. More money means more staff, ads and ability to fight the election. The total revenue tells us a bit about how strong their fundraising is and total expenses tells us how tight of a ship they’re running.

Ken Sim’s A Better City Vancouver and OneCity Vancouver are both sitting on over $125,000, COPE has $35,000, Colleen Hardwick’s TEAM has $30,000, and Kennedy Stewart’s Forward Together and the Greens each have about $16,000.

Despite COPE’s relatively strong financial position (the third most assets), they actually ran a deficit in 2021. Meanwhile, A Better City Vancouver and Team Kennedy Stewart have by far the strongest fundraising operations – and there’s an order of magnitude difference between them.

Vision Vancouver, the NPA and Progress Vancouver don’t seem to have filed annual reports. Progress launched in late October 2021 from the ashes of Yes Vancouver. Vision and the NPA have also both been around for years (the NPA is potentially the oldest continuous political party in Canada after the federal Liberals). It’s unclear why these three parties seemingly flouted the rules. VOTE Socialist also didn’t file, but they only formed in the past couple weeks.

According to the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act, annual reports were due by March 31. A party can file up to 30 days late but is subject to a $500 fine. We’ll be following up with Elections BC to learn why a party may not have filed and what consequences they may face if they don’t file.

Breadth of support matters as much as depth of pockets

While the top-line fundraising numbers tell one story, it’s just as important to look at how many donors each party has, as a small number of wealthy donors might not mean as much on election day when they each only get one vote.

For 2021, an individual could give up to $1,239.18 to an elector organization per campaign. So if a party is running candidates for city council and school board, you could donate up to $2478.36 to that party (half to the council race and half to the school board). Presumably a party could also raise funds for its Park Board nominees but no elector organization seems to have raised funds for those races in 2021. (We’ve confirmed that parties pay for their park board campaigns out of their council funds). The only party that didn’t raise funds for school board in 2021 was Forward Together.

In their annual reports, each party has to provide the number of donors who gave under $100, the total value of those contributions, the total value of contributions from donors who gave over $100 and the names (and donation amounts) for every donor who gave over $100.

For this table, we’ve combined the donors to council and school board (this may double count some of the small donors). The number of donors who gave more than $100 was calculated from a list of 2021 campaign contributions for council and school board races downloaded from elections BC’s website (it does not double count donors).

In terms of large donors, A Better City was well ahead of its competitors both in terms of number of donors and amount of donations. While OneCity had a respectable number of large donors, they were dwarfed in contributions from those donors by A Better City, Forward Together Team and even the Greens, who had about a quarter as many donors. This means those other parties received far more maxed out donations whereas OneCity had an average donation of about $300 (among those who gave more than $100).

Despite their candidates’ strong performance in 2018, the Greens had a mere 44 small donors – just 28 for their council campaign – though their fundraising was partially saved by the larger donors (albeit only 26 of them). Similarly, Colleen Hardwick’s revitalized TEAM posted most of its fundraising through a smaller number of larger donors.

And true to form, COPE raised a respectable amount from smaller donors (all 244 gave to their council campaign) but they lagged behind everyone else in larger contributions. Even their larger donors only gave an average of $164.

These new disclosure rules came into effect on December 1, 2021 and include requirements for elector organizations to register with Elections BC, disclose campaign contributions and file annual reports. The rules set out that elector organizations must “disclose all campaign contributions not previously reported” and elector organizations are “no longer permitted to accept contributions to their non-campaign accounts.” We’ll be following up with Elections BC to clarify whether these rules mean every contribution in 2021 should have been reported as the database of campaign contributions doesn’t show any party receiving funds prior to October 2021 and most don’t start posting until November or December. Presumably those parties that existed prior to the fall (COPE, OneCity and the Greens) received contributions in the first ten months of the year.

Are elected officials supporting their elector organizations?

Political parties are required to disclose the names of anyone who gives more than $100 to the party, so there’s lots we can learn about the type of support each party has garnered from the wealthiest Vancouverites.

For now we’re going to focus our attention on those who were elected under a party banner and what they’re doing to support that party’s re-election bid.

Mayor of Vancouver, Kennedy Stewart earned $178,473 in 2021 and city councillors took home between $89,886 and $103,216, depending on their specific responsibilities (Jean Swanson earned the least and Sarah Kirby-Yung the most). Despite these salaries, which are at and above the median household income for the City of Vancouver, only three members of council donated to their parties in 2021.

Adriane Carr gave $1339.18 to the Greens (the max to the school board campaign and $100 to council), Jean Swanson gave $1243 to COPE’s school board campaign[2] and Christine Boyle gave $100 to OneCity’s council campaign.

Councillors Rebecca Bligh, Lisa Dominato and Sarah Kirby-Yung sat as independents in 2021 (Bligh left the NPA in late 2020 and the other two left in April 2021). The NPA didn’t file a return so we don’t know if Melissa de Genova donated to her party.

Colleen Hardwick did not donate to TEAM for a Livable Vancouver, which launched in September 2021 and Kennedy Stewart didn’t give to his vehicle either. Nor did Greens Michael Wiebe and Pete Fry opt to support their party’s re-election bid.

School Board trustees took home around $32-34,000 in 2021, so we might reasonably expect fewer donations from those officials. COPE’s Barb Parrott gave her party’s council campaign $200. The only other person that we know donated was former NPA Trustee Oliver Hanson who donated $500 to A Better City’s council campaign. The three NPA trustees left their party shortly after their councilmates in April, though none have formally declared for A Better City.

Greens Stuart Mackinnon, Estrellita Gonzalenz and Lois Chan-Pedley and OneCity’s Jennifer Reddy seemingly didn’t donate to their parties.

Park Board Commissioners are the lowest paid elected officials in Vancouver, receiving $18,743 per year or $23,428 as chair (for 2022). The only Commissioner who donated to a party was John Irwin who gave $190 to COPE’s council campaign and $206.27 to Forward Together with Kennedy Stewart. Last month Irwin decided to cross the floor from COPE to Vision Vancouver.

As mentioned previously, the parties may not have reported contributions received prior to the rules coming into force on December 1. So it’s possible that other elected officials did donate (or donated more) to their parties in the first ten to eleven months of 2021.

Whether elected officials should be expected to donate to the political party that got them elected is open to debate. PolitiCoast looked at the provincial practices using 2018 data and found that BCNDP MLAs were by far the most likely to donate the max to their party.

With smaller salaries, its unsurprising that local politicians are seemingly less likely to give to their parties. Nevertheless, in an era of smaller donation limits, municipal political parties are going to be looking for every dollar they can to run a fully-funded campaign. If they can’t convince the people wearing their jerseys to donate, how are they expecting to win over the masses?

Notes

[1] One of the frustrating things about pulling these numbers together is there are some pretty apparent errors in each of the returns. Notably, A Better City Vancouver didn’t sum up their balance sheet in the correct boxes and neglected to add up the contributions they received for the two races and report that as their total revenue. TEAM meanwhile reported one donation of $1199 to their school board campaign (by Elizabeth Murphy) but then say they received $1239 in contributions of $100 or more and none from donors who gave under $100 for that race. We’ve done our best with the data we have.

[2] The COPE return lists a “JEA SWANSON” that we’ve assumed is a typo and was from Jean Swanson. It’s also unclear why this donation is above the allowable limit.

This post was updated on April 21 to include additional information about Elections BC’s rules for electoral organizations.

In an email on June 10, 2020 from Iain Dixon of the City’s Law Department to then City Manager Sadhu Johnston, Dixon wrote that:

The Law Department has not been consulted with respect to whether [Cllr Wiebe] is in a conflict or not but we do have some concerns that he may be.

Iain Dixon, City of Vancouver Law Department

Johnston forwarded the email to Cllr Wiebe on June 11th and Wiebe declared a conflict on a vote relating to patio permits at that day’s Council meeting.

Johnston again forwarded the email from legal to Cllr Wiebe on September 21st, following the release of a statement where Wiebe claimed:

“In advance of the votes, I asked for advice from City management and my understanding was that the patio policy would be broad and citywide, benefitting all of Vancouver’s restaurant sector, as well as breweries with tasting rooms and even common public spaces, and that the policy doesn’t specifically benefit me over other operators.  I was also informed that it is up to me to determine whether I can participate with an open mind in the votes.”

Councillor Michael Wiebe, The Georgia Straight, September 21, 2020

The votes in question occurred at Council meetings on May 12 and 27 and a Committee meeting on May 13. Each related to a motion from NPA Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung that resulted in the Temporary Expedited Patio Permit (TEPP) Program that was created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. TEPP allowed qualifying restaurants and bars to expand their patio to facilitate physical distancing.

Cllr Wiebe is the owner/operator Eight 1/2 Restaurant and The Portside Pub, which both were ultimately granted permits under the program.

At the May 13 committee meeting, Cllr Wiebe moved an amendment that was ultimately adopted to change the wording of Cllr Kirby-Yung’s motion from “direct staff to prepare options and report back as soon as possible…” to “direct staff to work directly with business operators to identify immediate patio seating options…”. One June 2, one day after the program launched, Eight 1/2, along with 87 other businesses, applied for a permit and on June 4 was one of the first 14 restaurants to be granted a license.

NPA member Michael Redmond initiated a complaint over Cllr Wiebe’s votes in late June 2020 and in July Mayor Kennedy Stewart commissioned lawyer Raymond Young, QC, to investigate and report on the alleged conflict of interest. In September 2020, it was reported that that independent investigation had determined that “it would be appropriate for Councillor Michael Wiebe to resign his seat on Council.”

Today, following our freedom of information request to the City of Vancouver, Cambie Report is releasing that report to the public.

In his report, Young concludes:

Despite apparently being knowledgeable about conflicts of interest, on May 13th Councillor Wiebe put forward the amendment “staff work directly with business operators to identify immediate patio seating options.” Councillor Wiebe had to know that he was a business operator. His proposed and passed amendment enabled Councillor Wiebe to wear two hats when dealing with city staff: that of the Council member and that of the business owner. This was a clear conflict of interest situation that he deliberately set in motion. This conflict of interest cannot be viewed as an inadvertent action.

Raymond Young, QC

Young continues on to note that Michael Wiebe corresponded with city staff using his personal email address on preparing the application for Eight 1/2 Restaurant.

Young argues that Wiebe is not saved by an exemption from conflict of interest rules where “an interest is held in common with the electors of the city in general” as “the TEPP benefited less than 10% of restaurants and bars in the city.”

In his September 21 statement in the Georgia Straight, Cllr Wiebe said

I am deeply distressed to learn that the Investigation into the Code of Conduct complaint had concluded without my knowledge and without allowing me to provide fulsome information. I have requested that the Investigator provide me with an opportunity to give my input and evidence.

Councillor Michael Wiebe, The Georgia Straight, September 21, 2020

However, Young notes in the report that Wiebe was notified about the complaint by the Mayor on July 7. Young then emailed Wiebe on July 23 to ask for a meeting to discuss the complaint, saying in part:

I would be happy to discuss the issues with you and would be curious to know WHY you did not disclose your specific pecuniary interests in your seconding and voting on the patio restaurant issues. Please feel free to bring your lawyer along.

Raymond Young, QC to Councillor Michael Wiebe by email, July 23, 2020

To which, Wiebe replied:

I would be happy to meet in person to explain my votes, yet I am a little concerned with the tone of your email. For context, I had legal advice in the council chambers on the votes in question and did on multiple occasions declare a conflict of interest on patio and related votes because of my restaurant and related businesses.

Cllr Wiebe to Mr Young by email, July 23, 2020

Young didn’t follow up until August 16 when he asked for clarification and proof of that advice and those declarations; however, he received no reply from Wiebe and instead proceeded to seek the list of conflict of interest declarations made by Cllr Wiebe from the City Clerk.

There is nothing on the official records to show that Councillor Wiebe sought and/or received legal and or other advice during these meetings or that he made his personal pecuniary conflict known to the public. To date, Councillor Wiebe has not provided additional information.

Raymond Young, QC

Ultimately, Councillor Wiebe rejected the findings of the report and has maintained the votes were in good faith. Council did not vote to remove him and Mr Redmond has now proceeded with several fellow electors to launch a challenge in the Supreme Court of BC to remove Wiebe from office. That trial is ongoing, though Justice Steeves has already ruled that this report is inadmissible as evidence.

You can hear more of our analysis on this report, including a deeper look at Young’s analysis of whether Wiebe was saved by holding a common interest with electors, in the latest episode of the Cambie Report.

Since June 10, 2019, the page has spent nearly $38,000. For comparison, this is more than the BC Federation of Labour, PressProgress and the BCGEU spent in the same period.

The Facebook Ad Library includes the amount spend on “ads about social issues, elections and politics” since June 10, 2019.

The BC Rental Project’s ads have been critical of delays in approving housing projects at Vancouver City Council, claiming “rental housing providers are being taxed out of the city,” and of the BCNDP’s promise to build 114,000 affordable homes in ten years. The page claims fewer than 3000 homes have been built so far.

Between $3500 and $4000 was spent to sponsor one video that claims governments are saddling rental projects with “years of red tape, endless consultation and millions of dollars in added fees” and instead asks governments to “work with rental housing providers” to build additional housing.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the BC Rental Project’s claims and policy goals, the fact the people behind the page have been spending tens of thousands of dollars trying to shape public opinion on these questions is worth some scrutiny.

The BC Rental Project is a campaign consisting publicly of a website and a Facebook page that was launched in December 2018, shortly after Vancouver’s most recent municipal election. Their Facebook page describes itself as “an initiative aimed at solving the root causes of our housing crisis by advocating for more rental options in BC.”

The page has just over 8000 likes but its videos have been seen hundreds of thousands of times. One video has been viewed almost 1 million times.

Their current main effort is a petition calling for the BC Government to “immediately implement policies that incentivize the creation of new rental housing and allow existing rental operators to efficiently manage and repair our existing and aging rental housing stock.” The policies called for in the petition are largely tools to incentivize rental housing construction by the private sector. Specifically, tax rebates for the construction of new rentals and exempting all development lands slated for housing from the increased School Tax and increased 5% property transfer tax.

The Project’s website and Facebook Page do not state who is behind the initiative or where it’s funding comes from. No public address is given and no individuals are named. There is the option to donate to the project via PayPal though. There are seven admins to the page, though Facebook doesn’t publish their names.

The group released a “Municipal Rental Scorecard” in November 2019 that graded various Metro Vancouver municipalities. Vancouver was given a D for its policies, while the City of North Vancouver earned an A. New Westminster received a D- for “decisions which have impacted property rights of rental owners.”

When the scorecard was released, Adrian Crook, a former independent council candidate and co-founder of Abundant Housing Vancouver (Crook is no longer a involved with AHV), did a round of media as the initiative’s spokesperson, including an op-ed in The Georgia Straight and an appearance on The Lynda Steele Show on CKNW.

Adrian Crook speaks in all four videos that have been released on the page.

I reached out to Crook for comment on the BC Rental Project, specifically asking who is behind the initiative and where its funding is coming from. He would only say that the people involved are “rental housing providers, renters, advocates” and declined to comment further.

Following the release of that scorecard, the BC Rental Project was part of a coalition called “Partners for Rental Housing” that released a technical report in December 2019 entitled “Making Rental a Reality: The residential rental tenure zoning tool and its implications for land use planning.” The Partners for Rental Housing also included the BC Chamber of Commerce, as well as the Chambers of Greater Langley, Langley and Parksville, the Surrey Board of Trade, LandlordBC and UDI – the urban development institute, who self describe as the “premier voice of the BC real estate development industry.”

In January 2019, Carman Benoit walked through in a Facebook post how she discovered that Mike Wilson, a political consultant, was one of the page’s admins. Wilson worked for Christy Clark’s 2013 provincial election campaign, as well as briefly as Hector Bremner’s campaign manager and later for Crook’s campaign (as well as fellow independent candidate Wade Grant).

Under the provincial Lobbyist Transparency Act, anyone who is paid to communicate with government officials in an attempt to influence decisions is required to declare details of their lobbying efforts in an online registry. Despite its petition to the Government of BC, the BC Rental Project is not registered in the provincial Lobbyist Registry.

I asked the Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists if a page like the BC Rental Project should be registered and was told that as long as the campaign is being run by “genuine volunteers”, that is people who are not receiving any form of payment, then they would not be required to register. This holds true even if the money for the ads comes from a third party.

In other words, an organization or company can seemingly avoid the requirement to register in the lobbyist registry so long as they can find a volunteer willing to run the ads on their behalf.

The BC Rental Project’s most recent ad ended on September 23, 2020, shortly after Premier John Horgan called a snap election. During an election, individuals and organizations that campaign or advertise during the campaign must register with Elections BC and can only accept funds from BC residents to use on the campaign. The BC Rental Project is not currently listed as a registered Third Party Advertising Sponsor.

Prior to the official start of the 2018 municipal elections, developer Peter Wall spent $85,000 on billboards in support of Hector Bremner’s mayoral campaign. Those ads, and the money behind them, were a source of controversy that plagued Bremner’s campaign.

As ever, it seems, money will find a way.

Note: Adrian Crook supports Cambie Report on Patreon.
Story updated to note that Adrian Crook is no longer involved with Abundant Housing Vancouver

As part of the City of Coquitlam’s proposed 2020-2025 five year financial plan, the city is looking to take in nearly 12% of its revenue from “municipal land sales.” This follows from a 2010 council policy that seeks to achieve several objectives, including providing an immediate return to Coquitlam residents.

Looking at last year’s plan, Coquitlam had raised $154 million from municipal land sales between 2015 and 2018 and projected to raise $35-40 million every year from 2019 to 2023.

Doing a quick search of a couple other community’s financial plans (Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey), I couldn’t find any others budgeting for significant revenues from land sales. Coquitlam is in the midst of developing Burke Mountain, which likely accounts for a large portion of these sales (read more on the land development updates from the City’s website).

Whether or not this is a good return for the City is up for Coquitlam voters to decide. I do find it interesting thought to consider the relative amount of debate over the even hypothetical possibility of the City of Vancouver selling off some of its land versus the incredible amount of land being sold in a community just down the road.

Most of the region have been on a break for much of March, and are returning this week to get back to regular business. Because of the size and scope of Vancouver issues, we’ve decided to divide this issue into a Vancouver specific, followed by a rest of the region edition.

Is Rental 100 Going on Ice?

Councillor Swanson has a motion coming to council that could see a major component of Rental 100 terminated. She has quite vocal allies in Councillors Carr and Fry. The motion calls, in effect, for the suspension of the DCL waiver component of the program.

As has been heavily covered in previous Cambie Report episodes, notably Rental 100 101, one of the major components of Rental 100 is a Development Cost Levy waiver offered in exchange for ensuring that initial rents are limited to no more than an amount set by the City each year. For 2019, the waiver is set out as follows:

The program is responsible for greatly increasing the number of rental units built in Vancouver, and is seen by many housing advocates as vital to long term affordability. Councillor Kirby-Young has indicated strong support of the program, and it’s believed that Councillor Boyle agrees.

On the other side of the coin, other housing advocates believe that the DCL waiver represents a sop to developers. That the waiver is in fact a subsidy to developers, and given the feelings towards developers, it is a given that they are quite upset at that thought. Further, they believe that because the city has not become more affordable, that the program is a failure. Finally, critics argue that the rates set, while below market rates, are hardly affordable.

Realistically, the answer likely lies somewhere in the middle. The DCL waiver component of Rental 100 is quite weak. While the subsidy is quite low, ranging from as low as $10,000 per unit to $20,000 per unit, the benefit is also quite low. Comparing 2019 rent caps to similar rental in condo buildings around Vancouver demonstrates a savings of ~$200-$300 per month. At that savings, it would take several years for a resident to receive the subsidy value in savings. Making matters worse, the rent cap is only applied to the first renter, if they should move, the rental company can set the next rent at whatever the market allows.

It may be that switching the waiver to instead require a number of truly affordable housing units as part of the development. This program is in place in the Moderate Income Rental Housing Pilot Program (MIRHPP), where 20% of the residental floor area is made available to moderate income households. The MIRHPP is a program that both Councillors Carr and Fry have indicated they support. That said, programs are not plug and play, simply because it may work with one program does not mean it will work with the other.

One aspect that is entirely unclear is whether or not Rental 100, as it stands, can exist without the DCL waiver. To date, researchers at the Cambie Report (Namely Patrick), have only been able to identify one project, still in application stage that has opted out of the DCL waiver. That DCL waiver significantly improves developers financing efforts, and is considered by some to be integral to “making the math work.”

Council has been fighting over Rental 100, through individual project applications and townhalls, since they came into office. This appears to be the first chance for Council to really debate the issue as a whole, and it will be interesting to see how council falls on the issue, albeit, some on council may wish to wait until the staff report comes forward this winter with options to improve the program.

The question for Council this week is, should the program be essentially suspended until the staff report comes in, or should they continue to operate the program as usual for the rest of 2019 or until another solution presents itself.

What else is on the agenda?

Staff will be presenting the Housing Vancouver Annual Progress Report and Data Book. This is always an interesting read, and should be quite informative for the Rental 100 debate that will follow.

Staff Reports:

• Recommendation to continue funding the Off-Site public art display at 1100 West Georgia Street in partnership with the Art Gallery. Funds come from the Georgia Street Public Art Reserve, which is funded primarily from funds generated by the approval of the Shangri-La development.
• 2018 Financial Statement
  • The city had a surplus of $381m in 2018 bringing the accumulated surplus to $7,608m
  • The surplus is primarily driven by higher than anticipated development fees
  • The “Sunshine List” of employees earning greater than $75k per year, this is a rather long list.

Council Motions:

• Swanson: Support for Adequate Funding for Legal Aid
  • Given the announcement of $4 million in new funding from the Province, matched by a similar amount from the Legal Services Society, averting a looming strike, this motion may simply be withdrawn.
  • This is a motion calling on the Province to increase funding
• Wiebe: Shore to Shore Greenways Plan
  • This builds on Councillor Wiebe’s earlier motion on watershed management, including a staff report to refresh the 1995 Vancouver Greenways Plan and seeks to build options for Council to expand the greenways of the city
  • Councillor Wiebe appears to be the Green Councillor
• Swanson: A motion to increase shelter and housing options
  • Build a business case for housing all homeless people in Vancouver to be used to lobby the Federal and Provincial governments, explicitly timed with the Federal election
• Hardwick: Review of SNC Lavalin relationship with the City
  • This motion is back again! Hardwick is using the SNC Lavalin controversy to push a motion that would seek to slow the Broadway subway by forcing numerous staff reports be developed before any further approvals come forward.
  • Essentially all of what Hardwick is asking for is already public knowledge, as an example, she is concerned about SNC Lavalin or Bombardier having proprietary technology that would force the subway extension to contract with them, which on multiple occasions staff at TransLink, or the CEO of TransLink himself, have said is not the case.
• Swanson: Re-conceptualizing the City’s Rental 100 Program
  • Essentially, this motion seeks to do two things, non-controversially, it seeks to make the Winter 2019 staff report on Rental 100 include more robust options.
  • As written above,this directs Legal Services to draft By-Law changes which would terminate the component of Rental 100 that allows developers to have some development costs waived for making their rental buildings monthly rent conform to a city dictated maximum.

Public Hearing April 2nd:

• The 12th Avenue and Stephens Street rental application.
  • This is a Rental 100 project that seeks to bring a number of rental townhouse units into the West side.
  • The DCL waiver for these 14 units (6-3Bed, 5-2Bed) is $178k, though if built to current zoning, the City would only receive $42k in DCL’s
  • As of this writing, the City has received 4 correspondences for the townhall, all opposed. Reasons given are: Too Many People, Not Enough Parking.
  • One correspondent noted this development could work if it were near a SkyTrain station and boy do I want to have a chat with them about the Broadway subway!
  • Best Quote: “Entire neighbourhoods have been ravaged and destroyed by the combined factors of COV misguided priorities… as well as the greed of real estate salespeople”
• 1303 Kingsway and 3728 Clark Drive
  • Six story mixed use with 54 rental units at the location of the current Cedar Cottage Pub.
  • Unit breakdown: 16 studio, 18 1-Bed, 14 2-bed, 6 3-bed.
  • DCL waiver is just over $1 million
  • The existing coffee shop and pub are to be retained

Public Hearing April 4th:

• Townhouses at King Ed and Manitoba
  • 1.2 FSR to be sold not rented. This will presumably not be controversial.
• Townhouses at 52nd and Oak
  • 1.2 FSR to be sold not rented, although there are 5 detached houses on the property today that are all being rented out, presumably displacing those occupants.
• Townhouses at 28th and Ash
  • Starting to feel like a broken record.
• Townhouses at 48th and Oak
  • This is a trend.

Vancouver Parks Board – April 1st

The Parks board will be having the presentation of the annual Stanley Park Bright Nights Firefighters Burn Fund, because that’s a thing!

The notable motion at Parks Board this week is from Commissioner Irwin, and is calling for an expansion in the size of Crab Park to be provided by the Port of Vancouver. The proposal calls for the parking lot west of the park, and adding a new pedestrian overpass from Columbia Street.

As things stand, the parking lot is very underused. There is speculation that the physical footprint that the Port requires is in process of being downsized through a combination of better use of rail and expansion of Ashcroft as an inland port to better manage container traffic.

Below is a rough approximation of the land being considered by the motion.

Vancouver School Board – not meeting this week.

Once again, this is a pilot project we have ongoing, layout, structure, content, any feedback you have would be much appreciated. If you’d like, leave a comment, or email at cambiereport@gmail.com

Outreach and responses

Megan and I reached out to each of the candidates for mayor and city council by email and some were followed up with by direct messages or mentions on Twitter.

At the time of publication, we haven’t received responses from any Coalition Vancouver or NPA candidates. Vision is still in the process of finishing their answers and Vancouver 1st’s mayoral candidate Fred Harding hit submit without giving any other answers.

You can see all answers in raw format here. Apologies if it’s difficult to view (particularly on a mobile device). You can download it to Excel if that’s easier to work with.

Most of the responses came from progressive candidates but Megan says “the responses to the questions vary wildly in depth of understanding of the issue and commitment to equity in their approaches.”

Overview

Megan was unfortunately too busy to schedule an interview for the podcast so I asked her to share some thoughts with me for this blog post.

She told me that she found council candidates to generally provide “more considered and serious answers” than mayoral candidates who often opted to provide “overarching statements about supporting inclusion.” She also noted that most candidates were adopting (or co-opting) the language used by feminist/anti-racist/reconciliation movements “without naming the systems of privilege and power that will continue to marginalize and oppress the communities represented in this survey.”

This is a good reminder that the the hyper-polarization of politics has obscured the complexity of our lived realities. While a candidate might present sophisticated insights about how racism shows up in environmental and housing policies, they also felt that permanent residents should not have the right to vote.

Megan Lau

Megan was encouraged that a majority of candidates who responded:

• Support a basic income project
• Support the establishment of an Office of Equity + Inclusion at City Hall
• Are in favour of granting permanent residents the right to vote
• Support making Vancouver a Sanctuary City

Specific responses

On specific candidates, Megan found Kennedy Stewart’s answers to be unsatisfactory. Similar to his performance at the housing debate I moderated, he seemed to try to use questions to get back to his broader platform promises, rather than tackling the issues. The other main progressive mayoral candidate, Shauna Sylvester, unfortunately didn’t complete the survey citing time constraints.

Megan was most impressed by Taqdir Kaur Bhandal’s answers, both for her quick reply (she was one of the first) and her “thorough and well-researched answers with specific interventions, policy solutions, and examples.” Honestly, this shouldn’t be surprising. I’ve met Taq (full disclosure, Taq was a patron of the show) and she’s a PhD student at the Social Justice Institute at UBC. This survey is squarely in her wheelhouse.

For example, when asked what she would do to make Vancouver feel safe and welcoming for Muslim communities, Taq writes in specific terms:

– Support the work of the Cultural Communities Advisory Committee. For example, they are going to be hosting the first Islamic History Month in October 2018 at the Vancouver Public Library
– Increase signage in diverse languages including Arabic
– Increase access to city services in diverse languages
– Public education campaigns to promote intra and inter cultural dialogue and community building

Taqdir Kaur Bhandal

Finally, Megan highlighted as well COPE and OneCity’s responses as “the most interesting and complex.”

Read the full answers here

If I have more time later this week, I’ll try to reformat the answers in a more usable format. Or if someone wants to take that work on for me, feel free to email me at ian@bushfield.ca

Thanks to all the candidates who took the time to share their views on these issues.

In particular, the concerns of equity-seeking groups are often overlooked in these discussions. And as a podcast hosted by three white dudes, we make a conscious effort wherever we can to help amplify others’ voices.

Toward that end, we were approached a couple weeks ago to help spread the word about a survey developed by Megan Lau in collaboration with many others, to see where candidates for Vancouver mayor and council stand on issues that affect indigenous peoples, people of colour, people living with disabilities, women and the LGBTQAI2+ community.

Candidates: We encourage you to take this survey.

We’ll release the results here closer to the election and we’ll bring Megan on the podcast to talk us through her findings. The more of you who answer, the more we’ll have to talk about.

Thanks to everyone who takes the time to fill it out.

There are rumours Vision Vancouver might be scrambling to get a new mayoral candidate by tomorrow’s nomination deadline or that the board may opt to throw its support behind one of the independent candidates for mayor, namely Kennedy Stewart or Shauna Sylvester.

At last night’s Housing Policy Forum, I got a chance to ask Vision council candidate Diego Cardona for his reaction to Chief Campbell’s decision and I asked Shauna Sylvester whether she’d accept the support of Vision or if she was actively seeking it out.

Unsurprisingly, both were cagey on what’s coming next.

Nevertheless, rumours continue to swirl. Andrea Reimer‘s name was on everyone’s lips last night as people are speculating whether she will take a pass on her new role at Harvard to come back to local politics and run as the mayoral candidate for Vision Vancouver.

Complicating the issue is that outgoing Vision councillors Kerry Jang and Tim Stevenson have thrown their support behind Kennedy Stewart.

Reimer, who was a guest on our first live show, would definitely enter the race as a front-runner, although that would mean further dividing the progressive vote.

We should know later today or tomorrow what Vision’s ultimate plans are.

Finally, our interview with Ian Campbell is available for Patrons. Since he’s no longer running, we won’t be releasing a public cut but I think there was still a lot of interesting content in there, particularly as we spoke to him only days after the Federal Court of Appeal ruling quashing the approval of the expansion of the TransMountain pipeline.

Many on Twitter are pointing out that 44% of City of Vancouver renters are paying greater than 30% of their incomes on shelter already, and this pushes that number higher. It will likely result in displacing people, and those that it doesn’t displace will cause limited budgets that will have repercussions throughout the region as further cutbacks in household budgets on goods and services hit.

To be clear, the province can stop this without legislation. The Residential Tenancy Act sets out the limitations on rent increases. Part 3 outlines the rent increases allowed and section 43(1)(a) establishes that the annual rent increase cap will be calculated in accordance with regulations established by the Ministry. The established annual calculation is inflation plus two percent, and so inflation has been calculated as having been 2.5%. The Ministry simply needs to recommend a change in regulations to the Lieutenant Governor and could, in theory, reduce that cap to inflation plus one percent, or go so far as to place a one year freeze.

Before going forward, I want to note that I am largely in favour of the Ministry taking some form of proactive action here, presumably reducing the amount to inflation plus 1%, but that as we all know, the issue is far larger.

The rents that people in Metro Vancouver pay today are no longer linked to income the way a fluid city with reasonable vacancy rates and lower rental rates would be. Tenure is now the best indicator of how much someone pays in rent. This means that those that have had stable jobs for a number of years are likely to be as close as a renter can come to being comfortable in Vancouver, while someone with unstable income, or someone who had to leave the region and recently came back, is forced to pay through the nose regardless of income. Did you move into your apartment greater than 3 years ago? You’re probably getting a steal of a deal compared to what it could rent for today. Forced to move, for any reason? Say goodbye to that sweetheart deal.

There are winners and losers in any government policy change, and a reduced annual cap for 2019 would have one set of clear winners: current renters who will not move in 2019. The losers would be the landlords, though I’m sure few will shed tears, but also potentially those that have to move, in the event that a change in regulation puts a chill on new rental coming into the market.

If the province drops the rental increase cap from 4.5% to 2.5%, it’s probably unlikely to meaningfully change whether someone creates new rental housing, but it could present a chill to the market. Just as changing the rent cap does nothing to help the person that has to move or comes into the region seeking work, they will be saddled with whatever rental rate landlords can get away with.

The meaningful change that will help all renters is ample supply of rental, whether through private investment and building or comprehensive public investment, as well as improvements to rental regulations.

There are strides being made to that end. AirBnB regulatory enforcement has come into effect and seems to be increasing supply, though it remains to be seen how much. Empty homes tax may not necessarily be forcing rental conversion, but it’s putting a lot of money in the city’s pocket to use for various social housing initiatives, and already we have mayoral candidates calling for the tripling of the tax, less than one year into its existence. The rental incentives program in the city has significantly expanded the rate of purpose built rental growth, from near or at zero per year to a few thousand per year. There are over 40,000 units of housing under construction in Metro Vancouver, presumably a significant amount of that will be converted into investor owned rental, or see people leave the rental market to move into condos that they have bought, freeing up space. The universities are gearing up to do their part, there could be as more than 5,000 new student housing spaces in Metro Van within five years, freeing up rental supply for others. There is some hope on the horizon.

The 4.5% increase cap is only truly a cap if, in its absence, landlords would be able to freely raise rents further. If market rental rates continue to hover around the same level, or drop, landlords that opt for a 4.5% increase will simply see their tenants move elsewhere for lower rent. This is a necessary protection, but also one that only applies where the market is continuing to rise. Even in my own personal case, where we are now going to pay an additional $75 per month starting in November, we’re already looking at other rental options because it’s risen above where we want to pay. If rental rates start to fall because of all of the impacts above, landlords would simply not be able to raise to the cap due to market forces.

It is possible that the 4.5% cap can be reduced, and that advocacy and letter writing can do that. It’s also possible, if not probable, that dropping it won’t have a significant impact on the business metrics of bringing more rental on the market. So do advocate for this if it’s your jam, but don’t lose sight of the important things that will help all renters.

We’re in the big stretch of a municipal election, and this issue can be part of an argument for comprehensive changes at city hall. Parties are vying for your vote, and each have different ways to help.

COPE would give rental tenure to the unit not the renter, meaning rent couldn’t substantially change between tenants, and then go one step further and freeze that rental rate in place. This may have the effect of freezing the introduction of new rental units, but it would certainly help current renters.

OneCity wants to tax the profits on housing speculation and use the money gained to build affordable housing, while at the same time undertaking a comprehensive rezoning of the city to allow mid-rise buildings in most of the city. This windfall could build substantial below market housing options owned by the city, while also enabling the private sector to build plenty of housing.

Yes Vancouver wants to do what OneCity says, except without the taxation lever. There would certainly be a substantial growth in supply, albeit privately owned. This could be considered the “pure market solution” and would likely have a substantial benefit over the long term.

Vision’s mayoral candidate has pledged to triple the empty homes tax, creating a windfall that could help the city build a substantial amount of below market housing. They’re also proposing city wide rezoning to allow for duplexes and other single family + housing types. Not as ambitious as OneCity, but all within the city’s powers, unlike OneCity’s windfall tax which would require provincial support.

Shauna Sylvester wants to use city owned land to substantially build city run housing, some at market and some below market. The basket of market housing would cover the costs of building the below market housing, while fast tracking approvals for purpose built rental buildings.

Ken Sim has said that the NPA would enable two secondary suites instead of one. This would legalize a number of suites while also potentially enable a small amount of rental to come on market very quickly as some buildings wouldn’t require substantial renovation to open a new door. While not ambitious in the long term, it could create a short term jolt of new rental.

More platforms are coming and even those listed above will evolve and build on their platforms over time.

My advice to those up in arms about the 4.5% increase? Take the anger, send an email to Minister Selina Robinson’s office, MAH.minister@gov.bc.ca, and then keep that anger going and write municipal parties about what you want to see from Vancouver to keep pushing the conversation in this municipal election.