Pete Fry is Vancouver’s mayor-elect. The first Green in the chair. Ken Sim, of ABC, is out. Saturday. Unofficial figures, the city, 18 October: Fry 98,494. The Vancouver Sun, with all voting places reporting: Sim 67,467. The official count, including the plebiscites, Wednesday 21 October, by 4 p.m. That is not the certified return. It is the overnight number.

CBC’s Justin McElroy: why Fry won, why Sim lost. In the province, sitting mayors usually win about 80 per cent of re-election races. Sim did not. In 2022 he took 51 per cent. On Saturday, around 34, on CBC’s count, a third of his base. ABC, which then took all of council, the school board and the park board, is left with one councillor: Mike Klassen. On the city’s lists, ABC is not on the Park Board and not on the School Board.

Vancouver, 25 years, a single Conservative at Ottawa, the NDP almost always in the province. Low taxes and toughness on crime can still win, Sim 2022, Sullivan 2005. Rarely. Fry called himself a progressive. COPE and OneCity could not endorse him outright. They knocked on doors. William Azaroff and Stephanie Allen pulled out in September, so as not to split the left. COPE’s line: “evict Ken Sim”. Hardwick, Allam, Bligh never caught fire. Fry was the change candidate almost by default.

Sim ran on safety and a property-tax freeze. Khelsilem, a former Squamish Nation councillor: the 2022 campaign, the centre; 2026, the right, attacks on the centre-left. Sim tied Fry to Sean Orr, of COPE, and old posts. CBC: Sim falsely said Orr had handed out drugs on Christmas Day. Orr took the most council votes, 83,038. Two plebiscite questions, public drug use and an involuntary-treatment site at the old St. Paul’s: the results, also on the 21st. We do not have them.

Fry, a two-term councillor, eight years at the Union of B.C. Municipalities. A mixed council, no majority: four Greens, four COPE, one OneCity, one ABC. “We can leave the parties at the door.” Sim phoned, conceded, offered help. The inauguration: 2 November. Next year’s budget, CBC says, will not look like the priorities staff have been writing for months. A provincial government that, also CBC, could look different in a week. That is a possibility, not a result.

Turnout: 209,214 ballots, more than 43 per cent, against 36 in 2022. More than 103,000 at the advance vote. Sim, at the Sheraton: a different direction, not just the mayor. To his boys: they will see more of dad. Fry, after the speech: “I love this city.” Optimism, Paul Wells’s rule. ABC’s money did not hold. The organisation did. Wednesday’s figures can move decimals. They do not move the chair.

Image: Another Believer, Vancouver City Hall, 24 December 2012, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The photograph is of the building, not Saturday night’s count.

Sources consulted: 4 reasons why Pete Fry is the new mayor of Vancouver — and 1 reason Ken Sim lost — CBC News; Vancouver Election Results: First Green mayor Pete Fry unseats Ken Sim — Vancouver Sun; Unofficial 2026 Vancouver Election results — City of Vancouver.