READY, SET, VOTE!
/TWO CITY COUNCIL SEATS UP FOR GRABS
Be Sure To Vote On April 5
On Saturday, April 5 Vancouverites will turn out to vote for two new city councillors, to fill vacancies left by the resignations of OneCity’s Christine Boyle and the Green’s Adriane Carr. ABC, COPE, the Green Party, OneCity, TEAM, and six Independent candidates will compete, making a total of thirteen candidates for the two seats.
The West End Journal reached out to the parties and candidates to request the official head shots and a brief bio and statement of issues. The following is what we received in time for our March issue. Read through the list (in alphabetical order by party) or click on the party name immediately below the candidate’s statment to be taken directly to their website.
You’ll find voting information on the City of Vancouver website here and can find the candidate’s nomination paperwork here.
An all-candidates meeting will take place on Wednesday, March 26 at 6:30 p.m. at the West End Community Centre. Stay tuned for further details.
ABC / COPE / GREEN PARTY / INDEPENDENT / ONECITY / TEAM
ABC
ABC candidates Ralph Kaisers (left) and Jaime Stein (right) with Mayor Ken Sim.
Candidates Ralph Kaisers and Jaime Stein
Ralph Kaisers is a Sergeant with the Vancouver Police Department. He is currently the President of the Vancouver Police Union and the BC Police Association.
Throughout his 34-year career in law enforcement, Ralph has belonged to a number of associations and societies, including the Canadian Police Association, BCWLE (B.C. Women in Law Enforcement), Out on Patrol (a B.C. non-profit society serving 2SLGBTQ+ law enforcement), and PMBA (Police Mutual Benevolent Association).
In 2021, he was awarded the Governor General’s Order of Merit of the Police Forces, which recognizes exceptional merit, contributions to policing and community development.
He and his wife currently live in Vancouver, where they raised their three children.
Jaime Stein is a passionate leader and community builder, committed to enhancing the health, economic prosperity and education of British Columbians.
Stein has a distinguished career in the tech industry, working with global brands such as Hootsuite, BroadbandTV, ICUC and Taplytics. A journalist by training, Jaime’s experience in digital dates back to 2008 as Head of Digital Media at the Canadian Football League.
He continues to contribute to his community as a Board Member for CLEAR (Canadians for Leading Edge Alzheimers Research) and the Canadian Shaare Zedek Hospital Foundation. He previously served as the Co-Chair of the Global Advancement Board for the Rotman School of Management.
He currently lives in Vancouver with his wife and three children.
Jaime Stein, Ralph Kaisers and the ABC Vancouver team are committed to thinking outside the box to create new solutions for Vancouver.
Improving Public Safety: We’re investing in public safety resources and taking bold action to address the mental health and addictions crisis. A safer Vancouver requires strong partnerships between the community, law enforcement, mental health workers, and all levels of government.
More Housing, Faster: We’re taking real action to make housing more affordable and get more homes built, faster, while ensuring we have the infrastructure in place to support them.
Spending Tax Dollars Wisely: We’re modernizing the City’s financial operations, implementing cost-saving initiatives, introducing new technologies to streamline services and putting a strong focus on core services.
Open for Business: Our goal is simple - less red tape, more opportunity. We’re making Vancouver a place where businesses can open faster, grow easier and succeed in the long run.
Creating Vibrant Communities: We want to create a city that feels alive - a place where people want to live, work and play. This is about making Vancouver a place where things happen - where we celebrate our culture, support businesses and create unforgettable experiences for locals and visitors alike.
Building Healthy Neighbourhoods: Investing in infrastructure upgrades and making it easier for everyone to lead active, fulfilling lives.
COPE
Sean Orr.
Candidate Sean Orr
Sean Orr is a writer and housing activist who has been writing about Vancouver politics for 20 years.
Unlike the rich insiders who typically run for office, Sean Orr has spent his life in the trenches of the real world - scrubbing dishes, landscaping, and working to pay the bills.
In office, Sean Orr's first priority would be fighting for housing - pushing for housing that is affordable for people to actually live in, cracking down on local and global investors driving up the cost of housing, closing the loopholes that landlords use to jack up rents, and fighting for a public housing program that can both end homelessness and build permanently affordable housing for every income level.
If elected, Sean Orr is going to expose Ken Sim and ABC for what they are doing to our city, hold their feet to the fire, and build a movement to evict Ken Sim in 2026.
Green Party
Annette Reilly.
Candidate Annette Reilly
Annette Reilly is an award-winning filmmaker, health advocate, and mother of two, living in East Vancouver.
As a working mother and renter, Annette is keenly aware of the challenges of raising a family in an increasingly unaffordable city. She is motivated by her concerns about the environment and her desire to protect Vancouver’s people, culture, and natural beauty. With a background in film and extensive volunteer advocacy for young adults with cancer, Annette believes Vancouver deserves evidence-based decision-making, transparency, and integrity in local governance.
Annette’s platform focuses on three key pillars. First, she is dedicated to creating healthy communities by ensuring Vancouver’s neighbourhoods are vibrant, sustainable, and accessible. Every resident should have access to green space, active transportation, and essential services. Annette envisions a city where families can thrive in healthy, supportive environments.
Second, Annette is committed to transparency and accountability in local governance. She believes Vancouver’s residents deserve ethical leadership and that the ABC/Sim government must be held accountable. Decisions made at City Hall should prioritize integrity and responsible governance, benefiting the entire community, not just a select few.
Finally, Annette is a strong advocate for housing for everyone. She is fighting for stronger tenant protections, more affordable housing, and improved maintenance standards in Vancouver’s housing market. Annette is determined to address the housing crisis by ensuring all Vancouverites—regardless of income—have access to safe, secure, and affordable housing.
Annette Reilly’s dedication to her community, her values, and her commitment to building a more equitable and sustainable Vancouver make her a powerful advocate for change.
Independent
Karin Litzcke.
Karin Litzcke
Karin Litzcke is driven to run for city council with a view to changing the way politicians, bureaucratic functionaries, theorists, and residents interact on contentious topics.
Decision-making at the city has acquired a tone of contempt for ordinary people and the kind of life they want to live in this city. There is a war on the single-family home, the form of housing to which a preponderance of people aspire at some time in their lives. And there is a war on the car, which, for many, is a practical necessity for modern life.
These and other unresolved — and growing — tensions in Vancouver suggest we need councillors who will directly challenge the hypnotic repetition of certain mantras that make us believe there is only one way forward: “density” and “climate change” being the most pervasive.
Densification is not getting us to affordability. Instead, a series of “plans,” made by previous city councils and being regarded today as if they are set in stone, have set off a frenzy of land speculation that is creating wide-spread home insecurity and degrading the quality of life in Vancouver.
Karin will challenge the plans, the densification narrative, and seek a moratorium on tower-building.
Karin is 66, and a lifelong Vancouverite. Together with her husband, she owns a house in Strathcona, where they raised their two children. Karin has an extensive record of community involvement in food co-ops, in her professional life as a dietitian, as an involved parent in inner city schools, and more. Karin has also been the family member of a drug addict, and thus understands the damage that enabling addiction can do.
Karin can be found on X here.
RECENTLY ANNOUNCED: The other Independent candidates are Jeanifer Decena, Guy Dubé, Charles Ling, Gerry McGuire, and Rollergirl. These candidacies were announced shortly after our deadline and The West End Journal was unable to contact them in time to request their contributions to this page. You can find the full list of candidates and their contact and other information here.
OneCity
LUCY MALONEY
Candidate Lucy Maloney
Born in Melbourne, Australia, Downtown Vancouver is Lucy Maloney’s chosen home.
After pursuing a career in environmental law with Victoria, Australia’s environmental regulator, and later in business, Lucy focused on raising her family. Following a renoviction, she started to bike with her children to school, and discovered the extraordinary importance of the municipal government.
So she started to advocate for safe routes to school for her kids, and kids across Vancouver, serving as Chair of the Lord Roberts PAC, with the Vancouver DPAC, and as a fighter for safe streets with Vision Zero Vancouver.
In Ken Sim, we’ve got a mayor that barely shows up for work while our city falls behind — and who makes immensely damaging decisions when he does show up.
You can count on Lucy to use her training and her drive on day one, fighting for the issues you care about.
Homes you can afford: Ken Sim has been delaying the implementation of a motion that would allow us to build more social housing, faster. Lucy will fight to get that motion implemented.
Renter protections you can trust: Under ABC, renters don’t trust our renter protections. Lucy will move to bring back the Renter Office, with a specific mandate to enforce our protections.
Crime prevention, not just enforcement: People deserve to feel safe in their neighbourhood. Under Ken Sim, all we’ve got is enforcement - with no prevention. Lucy will fight to get crime prevention services implemented.
Safe streets: Lucy has fought for safer streets for everyone for years. She will bring that expertise and drive to City Hall.
Lucy Maloney has a Bachelor of Laws & a Bachelor of Arts (Environmental Science) and a Master of Business Administration.
The OneCity website is here.
TEAM
Candidates Colleen Hardwick & Theodore Abbott
Colleen Hardwick is a former Vancouver City Councillor (2018-2022) and was TEAM’s Mayoral Candidate in 2022.
Colleen was born, raised and educated in Vancouver. The Hardwick family has provided civic leadership in the City for three generations. Her father, Dr. Walter G. Hardwick, served on city council from 1968 to 1974 and is known as the ‘Father of False Creek.” Her grandmother, Iris L. Hardwick, was one of the the first women elected to the Vancouver Park Board (1956-1960). Colleen obtained a B.A. in Geography and Political Science at the UBC in 1983, and a Master’s Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from UBC in 2011.
Colleen hardwick and theodore Abbott.
From the mid-1980s to 2000, Colleen worked in the film industry and progressed through the ranks to create her own company, New City Productions, which produced dozens of film and TV projects in the region. During this period, she was nominated in the Entrepreneurship category for a prestigious YWCA Women of Distinction Award, named one of the 13 Most Important People in the B.C. Film Industry by the Financial Post, and received a 40 under 40 Award from Business in Vancouver.
Circling back to her urban geography roots while working on a planning project in 2010, Colleen sought to consult with residents online within specific neighbourhood boundaries. When she could not find a solution, she set out to invent one. The result is PlaceSpeak, a pioneering location-based community consultation platform designed to authenticate online public consultation in order to facilitate evidence-based decision-making and policy development. Since receiving the support of the National Research Council of Canada for technology validation in 2011, Colleen has continued to advance the platform’s technology and processes, and is a frequent speaker on the subject of online citizen engagement.
Colleen has two daughters, who live and work in Vancouver, and is a grandmother of two, and is committed to helping ensure that future generations can continue to live in Vancouver. She is married to well-known character actor Garry Chalk, and lives in Kitsilano.
Colleen’s Key Issues
Affordability: “As the mother of two millennials and now grandmother of two elementary school aged children, I am acutely aware of the pressure to leave Vancouver. The affordability crisis is the product of 15 years of misguided management of the City. This is why I pushed for a Baseline Review back to 2008 when I was on city council from 2018 to 2022. This is why I pushed for housing data to inform the Housing Vancouver Strategy. This is why I successfully brought in an Auditor General with independent oversight. My motion for Strengthening Representative Democracy in the City of Vancouver spoke to the need for accountability for residents.
Democracy: “Democracy in the City of Vancouver is under siege with Ken Sim and ABC. The attempt to dismantle the Integrity Commissioner speaks volumes about their lack of ethics. Centralized decision-making from the Mayor’s Office is autocratic and unacceptable. Ken Sim’s vendetta against the elected Park Board is profoundly undemocratic and masks the true intent of transferring control of park land to the City’s Real Estate Department. If I am elected to city council, I will shine a light on what is broken. My background, knowledge and experience is needed to inform the future direction of the City.
Theodore Abbott was born and raised in East Vancouver, and is a fourth generation Vancouverite with a deep commitment to the city and its people. As a community organizer and urban researcher, he has extensive experience working alongside residents to push back against policies that reduce Vancouver’s livability.
Theodore’s background in urban studies has shaped his understanding of Vancouver’s transformation into an unaffordable city. His academic work - focused on urbanization, housing policy, land use and social change - has been complemented by hands-on experience advocating for tenant protections, affordability and stronger neighbourhood representation. Theodore is also the host of the podcast On Site Report, which explores various urban issues in Vancouver.
After graduating from Capilano University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies in 2024, Theodore has worked to empower communities, challenge top-down planning decisions and fight for a city that puts people first. He’s running for city council to bring transparency, accountability and real solutions, while ensuring that the future of Vancouver is shaped by those who call it home.
Theodore’s Key Issue:
Housing: “Housing affordability is the number one issue for me. People are getting renovicted and demovicted — including seniors on fixed incomes and families with children — from apartments with reasonable rents and buildings that are in fine condition. It’s clear that Mayor Ken Sim and his ABC supermajority are focused on serving the interests of big real estate development companies, and not the interests of renters in Vancouver. The new high-rise condo towers being built along Davie and Robson require that land to be rezoned, which has had a knock-on effect of making the surrounding land more expensive, which means higher property taxes. And, the building owners pass those higher taxes to renters in apartments and small business owners who lease space in those buildings. Yes, we need more housing, and I am very pro-housing, but it’s got to be done right. We have the capacity under existing zoning to increase housing supply, which won’t drive property taxes through the roof. If I’m elected to city council on April 5, I’m going to fight to ensure that the voices of residents, especially renters, are heard at city hall.
The TEAM website is here.
