Three Vancouver candidates describe online harassment targeting their race, religion and gender

Kareem Allam told The Tyee that the volume of hateful comments aimed at him for being Muslim and for having parents from Sudan and Egypt went beyond anything he had seen in years of political work. He has helped candidates including current Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim, former Surrey mayor Dianne Watts and former BC United leader Kevin Falcon win elections, and said he thought that experience had prepared him. He said the harassment intensified after high-profile Muslim American candidates won races in the United States and after he did a campaign interview with a Vancouver-based Muslim non-profit foundation. He told The Tyee the comments included racist slurs and had affected his sense of belonging and self-perception.

Andy Lin told The Tyee he responds directly to hateful comments rather than ignoring them, and that he made a social media video calling on people to stop the hate and focus on the election issues. He said harassment about his appearance, gender and sexuality was something he had prepared for, and added that people being insulted for physical attributes rather than their policies is a sign they are on the right track. He said the attention from people replying to hateful comments also brings more traffic to his posts about Bright Future Vancouver's platform. Lin is running for Vancouver City Council with Bright Future Vancouver.

Iona Bonamis and six other candidates filed a court challenge asking to have their names appear in both English and Chinese characters on the Vancouver ballot. The Tyee reported that a similar challenge was heard by B.C. courts during the 2022 election. Shortly before her interview with The Tyee, Bonamis found out she and the other candidates had won the case. She said racist comments on her social media posts had increased after she announced the challenge. She is running for Vancouver City Council with OneCity. The ballot name challenge is separate from the October 17 election itself; voters cast ballots on October 17 regardless of the outcome.

A 2020 research paper from the University of British Columbia's Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, which The Tyee cited, studied tweets sent to federal candidates during the 2019 federal election and found that 40 per cent of those messages were uncivil and 16 per cent were abusive. High-profile candidates, including party leaders, received most of the abusive messages. The paper found online harassment can reduce people's willingness to express political views, which the researchers described as a chilling effect on democratic participation. Women and racialized people were found to be more likely to censor themselves online out of fear of harassment.

The Tyee noted that Vancouver's integrity commissioner found Mayor Ken Sim had harassed COPE councillor Sean Orr on two occasions in 2025, and that ABC councillors, who form the majority on city council, refused to sanction Sim. The Tyee also reported that Sim is currently facing a separate lawsuit from Orr related to a February incident in which Sim and ABC Coun. Lenny Zhou told Chinese-language media that Orr had been photographed distributing illegal drugs, a claim Orr said is false. Both Sim and Zhou eventually apologized and said they had received misinformation, according to The Tyee. These are allegations and a civil lawsuit at this stage; no court or regulator has made a final ruling on them.

Kareem Allam told The Tyee he has also seen Islamophobic and racist comments on campaign videos for Muhammad Ahmad, who is also Muslim and running for Vancouver mayor with Bright Future Vancouver. The Tyee reported this as Allam's observation. Muhammad Ahmad is one of eight candidates running for mayor on October 17, 2026. His candidate profile on voche.me lists his campaign details.

Kareem Allam, Andy Lin and Iona Bonamis all told The Tyee that online harassment discourages people from running for office, which limits the range of voices in elected government. The Tyee noted that their city is growing more diverse and that having diverse candidates matters for representation. The three candidates offered different personal strategies: Allam spoke about the emotional impact; Lin described engaging directly with abusive comments; Bonamis said she ignores them for the sake of her mental health. The 2020 UBC paper The Tyee cited recommends changes to social media platform policies and to the way political parties support candidates facing harassment.

Voting day for the Vancouver 2026 municipal election is October 17. Advance voting places, voting-day locations, hours, and rules for voting by mail are listed on the City of Vancouver's election page and on voche.me's where-to-vote page at /where-to-vote. If the experiences these candidates described influence how you think about who to vote for, the candidate profiles on voche.me list each candidate's party, office they are running for, and campaign details.