Eleven parties.
One ballot.
On October 17, 2026 Vancouver elects a mayor, 10 councillors, 7 park board commissioners and 9 school trustees. Eleven parties and 9 independent candidates are running. Every party here is covered on the same ten issues.
EVERY PARTY, LARGEST SLATE FIRST
The parties running in 2026
Order here follows how many candidates each party is running, taken from the official City of Vancouver candidate list. It is not a ranking of anything else.
ABC Vancouver
The governing party, running the mayor and 23 more candidates
Vancouver Liberals
A party founded in 2025, running the second-largest slate
TEAM for a Livable Vancouver
The most detailed published platform on the 2026 ballot
OneCity
4,000 homes on city land, and no mayoral candidate
COPE
The left slate, running no mayoral candidate
Vote Vancouver
A centrist party built around Rebecca Bligh, with a 40-page policy document
Green Party of Vancouver
Pete Fry for mayor, with a housing plan built on faster approvals
Bright Future Vancouver
Free transit, 24 hour child care and a 21 day permit rule
Independent Parks Party
Five candidates, all for Park Board, and no published platform
TrueBlue Vancouver
A small conservative slate, mostly contesting the School Board
Affordable Housing
One candidate, for City Council
BY RACE
Who is contesting each race
Not every party runs for every office. Four parties are not running a mayoral candidate at all, and two are contesting a single race.
Mayor
One seat. The mayor chairs Council and holds one vote of the eleven around the table.
City Council
Ten councillor seats, elected across the whole city rather than by ward.
Park Board
Seven commissioner seats on the Board of Parks and Recreation.
School Board
Nine trustee seats on the Board of Education.
SIDE BY SIDE
Compare every party on one issue
These pages put all eleven parties next to each other on a single subject, with the source beside each position. They are the fastest way to see where the real disagreements are.
Housing
Council sets zoning, approves rezonings and development permits, and makes rental and tenant-protection bylaws under the Vancouver Charter. The province sets rent increase limits and tenancy law.
Homelessness and drugs
Council funds shelter sites, street cleaning and city outreach, and decides where supportive housing is approved. Health services, treatment beds and drug policy are provincial and federal.
Public safety
Council approves the police budget. The Vancouver Police Board, not Council, directs the police department. Fire and rescue services report to the city.
Transport
The city owns and designs its streets, bike lanes, sidewalks and parking rules. Buses, SkyTrain and SeaBus are run by TransLink, a regional body the city does not control.
Parks
Vancouver is the only major city in Canada with a separately elected park board. Its seven commissioners control parks, community centres, pools, rinks and beaches.
Schools
The Board of Education runs Vancouver public schools, sets catchment boundaries and approves the district budget. Teacher pay and the provincial funding formula are set by the province.
Taxes and budget
Council sets the property tax rate each year, approves the operating budget, and approves the multi-year capital plan that pays for buildings and infrastructure.
Climate
Vancouver has its own building bylaw under the Vancouver Charter, so Council can set energy and emissions rules for new buildings that other BC cities cannot.
Culture
The city licenses venues and events, sets noise and business rules, and funds cultural grants and spaces. Liquor licensing is shared with the province.
Child care
The city creates child care spaces through zoning, city-owned buildings and development contributions. Licensing, subsidies and operating funding are provincial.
How these pages are built
Every party gets the same pages, so the shape of a page never suggests that one party matters more than another. What differs is how much each party has published. Where a party has published nothing on a subject, the page says so and gives the date we looked, rather than leaving a blank. Pages with nothing sourced on them are kept out of search results until they have something.
A party's own website proves what the party claims, not that the claim is true. Those sources are marked. Candidate affiliations come only from the official City of Vancouver candidate list.