---
title: "Pete Fry calls public safety plebiscite a 'cynical gimmick' and outlines first council priorities"
description: "In a CityNews interview, mayor-elect Pete Fry said the two public safety plebiscite questions are non-binding and a gimmick to drive turnout, and named his first priorities: a full budget, reversing the supportive housing ban, and reversing the supervised consumption site ban."
canonical_url: "https://voche.me/news/pete-fry-plebiscite-priorities-october-21"
last_updated: "2026-10-22T21:55:50.692Z"
---

Mayor-elect [Pete Fry](/candidates/pete-fry) told CityNews Vancouver on October 21, 2026 that the two public safety plebiscite questions on the municipal ballot are non-binding. He called them "a cynical election gimmick to drive folks to the polls" and described the vote as "just a temperature check." CityNews' Sarah Jones spoke to Fry the day before plebiscite results are expected to be released.

Fry said the new council has clear priorities regardless of the plebiscite outcome. His first item is to request a full budget so the council can make informed decisions. He named three other immediate priorities: reversing the previous council's ban on using city land or money for new supportive housing, reversing the ban on supervised consumption sites, and working on community safety.

**Community safety: VPD support and new non-policing measures**

On community safety, Fry said he will support the Vancouver Police Department while introducing responses for people in crisis that do not involve policing. He said the police do not want to be doing that work and that the city needs to provide daytime shelters and access to toilets for unhoused people. He said dealing with community safety is part of what the city needs to solve because "the buck stops here in the City of Vancouver."

On drug use in public, he noted it is already illegal under the Controlled Substances Act, and that the city's task is to manage how it responds to people who are unhoused and on the street.

**Working with a council of four parties**

The new council has no party with a majority: five Greens including the mayor, four COPE, one OneCity, and one ABC. Fry said the Greens and COPE have had a good working relationship for some time, and that he took a mentoring role with COPE councillor Sean Orr when Orr joined by by-election. He described OneCity councillor Lucy Maloney as "a dear friend."

On ABC's Mike Klassen, the only ABC member to win a council seat, Fry said: "Mike and I go back decades and I'm going to be leaning on Mike in a big way, because Mike's got a lot of knowledge from the last four years." Fry plans to rely on Klassen's experience at Metro Vancouver and on council.

Fry said he wants to build a culture at city hall where councillors set aside party colours and focus on what is good for Vancouver. He called partisan politics "a malignancy in the function of a local government." He has been a city councillor for eight years and a director on the Union of BC Municipalities for eight years.

**Tracker and next steps**

Two of Fry's stated priorities, reversing the supportive housing pause and reversing the supervised consumption site ban, are recorded in his promise tracker on this site. Voters who want to follow these commitments can check the tracker at [/candidates/pete-fry](/candidates/pete-fry) once the new council is sworn in on November 2.

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