Kareem Allam

Kareem Allam is the Vancouver Liberals’ mayoral candidate, number 56 on the official ballot. He managed ABC Vancouver’s 2022 campaign and served as Ken Sim’s first chief of staff. He founded the Vancouver Liberals on July 3, 2025, and leads the party.

He was born in Vancouver in 1979 to parents who had immigrated from Cairo. His family moved between Canada and Egypt during his early years before settling in Richmond. He studied history at Simon Fraser University. In a July 2026 interview he described his father as a former Egyptian army general and his grandfather as a Sudanese activist.

He has worked on political campaigns since 2000, when he helped Canadian Alliance candidate Joe Peschisolido win a Richmond seat. He later worked for Alliance leader Stockwell Day, on Dianne Watts’s 2005 Surrey mayoral campaign, and as deputy campaign manager for Kevin Falcon’s 2011 BC Liberal leadership bid. Outside politics he has worked for Terasen Gas, now FortisBC, the Vancouver Board of Trade and Fraser Health, and he co-founded the consulting firm Fairview Strategy, according to a 2023 BCBusiness profile.

After ABC’s 2022 win he became the mayor’s chief of staff in November 2022 and left in February 2023, after three months. Neither he nor the mayor’s office gave a reason at the time. Mayor Sim later sued him and others for defamation; that case is recorded in the accountability section below.

He said in June 2025 that he was considering a mayoral run and launched the Vancouver Liberals the following month. He told Vancity Lookout in July 2026 that he decided to run himself after failing to find another candidate to support.