Pete Fry defeats Ken Sim to become Vancouver's first Green mayor

VANCOUVER · Pete Fry has been elected mayor of Vancouver, decisively defeating incumbent Ken Sim and becoming the first Green candidate to lead a major Canadian city. The two-term city councillor led Sim by more than 16,000 votes as of late Saturday night, with his Vancouver Greens party sweeping to a commanding victory across council and park board seats. Fry told supporters it was overwhelming to receive the news and pledged to get to work immediately for the city. "Putting your trust in me and my team here, we’re not going to let you down," Fry said. "We love the city a lot, and we’re here to work for the city, to fight for the city."

In his concession speech, Sim acknowledged the voters' decision and offered his support to the mayor-elect. "Tonight the people of Vancouver, they have made their decision and while it isn't the decision we wanted, its one we really have to respect and that's democracy," Sim said. "Make no mistake about it, Pete has my unwavering support, I will help him any way I can so he can succeed, so Vancouver can succeed." He later referred to Fry as "my mayor" and said being elected to the office was the highlight of his life.

The election marks a sharp reversal from the 2022 municipal election, when Sim's ABC Vancouver party swept to power, electing every single council candidate it ran. Early results from Saturday suggest ABC Vancouver could be reduced to just one councillor, with no representation on the city's park or school boards. The Green Party elected its full slate of four city councillors: Annette Reilly, Stephanie Smith, Camil Dumont, and Bridget Burns. All three of the party’s Park Board commissioner candidates were also elected. Other candidates winning seats on council were COPE’s Sean Orr, Chloe Leslie, Devyani Singh and Solomon Yi-Kieran, as well as OneCity’s Lucy Maloney. Colleen Hardwick of TEAM was projected to finish third in the mayoral race, while Kareem Allam of the Vancouver Liberals was on track for fourth place. Fry emerged as the unified voice of progressive candidates after OneCity candidate William Azaroff and COPE candidate Stephanie Allen withdrew from the mayoral race to avoid splitting the left-leaning vote.

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Pre-election polls had suggested the race was neck and neck between Sim and Fry. Sim ran a campaign that sought to cast the election as a referendum on public safety, adding two plebiscite questions asking voters if they supported new bylaws to ban public drug use and if they supported adding an involuntary treatment facility. Results from those non-binding plebiscites are not yet available. Fry has said the question about banning open-air hard drug use was a "very bad idea."

As mayor, Sim faced criticism that he was too political, launching code of conduct complaints against opposition councillors. Fry has described himself as "the only consistent opposition" to Sim on council over the past four years. The Greens ran on promises of affordable homes and transportation, sustainable growth, and community safety. The party pledged to lift a moratorium on new supportive housing projects that Sim introduced and to audit the Vancouver Police Department.

Andy Yan, director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University, said ABC tried to frame the election around crime and public safety, while other parties focused on housing and social supports. He sees the election as an outgrowth of a deeper question about the rising costs of both living in and running Vancouver. "It’s a shift from really the role of growth to now the question of maintenance in Vancouver, how do you maintain the city," Yan said. He pointed to a recent Auditor-General’s report that found 73 per cent of Vancouver recreation centres are in poor or very poor shape.

Fry was born in Dublin and moved to Vancouver when he was two. His mother is long-time Vancouver Liberal MP Hedy Fry. He studied at Simon Fraser University and was self-employed as a graphic artist for more than 30 years before entering politics. He first got involved locally in 2006 and has said he is most proud of creating Vancouver’s first renter’s office and delivering on a ban of the sale and discharge of consumer fireworks. Voters in Vancouver will head back to the polls in six days to choose a new provincial government.

With files from Global News, CBC News and The Globe and Mail