On Saturday April 5, Vancouver will go to the polls in a municipal byelection. Two seats are up for grabs after Christine Boyle and Adrianne Carr resigned. Sean Orr, a working-class socialist, is the candidate of the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE). Socialist Alternative is active in COPE and we’re doing our part in this campaign to help get Sean elected.
Working-class people in Vancouver are asking themselves: who is this city for? Ken Sim and his mis-named ABC (“A Better City”) councillors want Vancouver to be a playground for the rich. It was already nearly impossible for working-class people to afford to live in Vancouver, and it’s only gotten worse since ABC was swept to power in the 2022 election and Ken Sim became the mayor.
Why ABC Sucks
If Ken Sim got his way, every old but affordable rental building in this city would be torn down and replaced with a glassy tower with units that rent for at least three or four times as much. He wants to sell public land, including parks and schools, to his private developer friends. He and ABC councillors voted to stop paying city workers a living wage. His council closed the city renters’ office that provided support for tenants to exercise their rights. He tried to shut down the city’s Integrity Commissioner’s Office, which is tasked with investigating complaints against city elected officials. ABC is currently under investigation by Elections BC, and so far, 10 percent of the more than $1 million raised by ABC in the 2022 election has had to be returned for violating fundraising regulations.
Perhaps worst of all, Ken Sim and ABC voted to stop all new supportive housing construction in Vancouver. Working-class people rallied at city hall to oppose this motion, and the vast majority of the 95 people who spoke in the meeting spoke in opposition. But the ABC majority on council passed it anyway.
During the 2022 election, Sim claimed that ABC was a sensible “middle-of-the-road” party, but since then the party has shown its true right-wing agenda and has haemorrhaged elected representatives, through expulsions and resignations. In late 2023, three of ABC’s six elected Park Board commissioners left the party after Sim and his ABC councillors passed a motion asking the BC government to abolish the elected Park Board, something that Premier David Eby later said he was committed to doing. In the summer of 2024, the chair of the School Board, Victoria Jung, resigned from ABC, citing concerns about “inner party workings.” In early 2025, City Councillor Rebecca Bligh was kicked out of ABC over her opposition to Sim’s plan to stop all supportive housing construction in Vancouver. Since the 2022 election almost a third of all of ABC’s elected representatives have either resigned or have been booted from the party.
Vancouver Can be a Working-Class City
It doesn’t have to be this way! The working class has a long history of independent organizing to make an impact on how this city is run. COPE has been around since 1968, when it was formed by a coalition of left-wing community groups and social justice activists together with the Vancouver and District Labour Council to be the voice of workers in city government. COPE was responsible for winning the first ever restrictions on rent increases in Vancouver, for establishing a hot meal program for youth, and for winning free transit for kids.
Today, working-class people in COPE are still fighting back to defend their city. In the 2022 election, they successfully elected Suzie Mah, a long-time union activist in the BC Teachers Federation, to the school board. Suzie has been fighting to defend schools from budget cuts and outright closures, and for a universal meal program for all students. Workers need to elect more COPE activists to city council to hold Ken Sim’s feet to the fire and further expose his anti-worker, anti-renter politics for all to see.
COPE and Sean Orr are running on affordable housing, an immediate 4-year rent freeze, real rent control that applies between tenancies, and free transit. These are things that working-class people and renters in Vancouver need today. These are common-sense policies that would be easily achievable if the super-rich paid their fair share. While other municipal parties pay lip service to affordable housing and better transit, COPE is the only party in Vancouver that refuses to compromise or make back room deals with the elites, because COPE is made up entirely by and for working-class people in Vancouver.
Renters need an immediate freeze on all rent increases today because of the unacceptable skyrocketing of housing costs that has already taken place. BC has a limited form of rent control, where there is a maximum rate that rents can increase each year, set by the BC government. But this only applies to a single tenancy: if landlords can figure out how to evict their current tenants, they can jack up the rents as much as they want after the tenants move out. COPE wants to close this “renoviction” loophole with vacancy control, so that rent increases are tied to the unit itself, including between tenancies.
COPE is fighting to end homelessness once and for all. In 2022, COPE Councillor Jean Swanson proposed a “mansion tax,” a small increase in property taxes that would apply only to the owners of the most expensive properties worth over $5 million and $10 million. If that money were spent to build public housing at shelter rates on city-owned land, it would end homelessness in under 3 years.
Real affordable housing means housing that people who work for minimum wage can afford to live in. The city is not going to get affordable housing by handing the keys to private developers to build more condo towers and expensive market rentals — that’s just throwing gasoline on the fire. Markets have consistently failed to produce affordable housing. Good quality publicly owned housing is needed, built by union labour and run democratically by communities. After all, it’s workers who build the housing in this city, so workers should be able to afford to live here!
Making transit free is a win for the climate and for making the city more livable for working-class people. COPE led the charge in 2019 to make transit free for everyone up to age 12, which was eventually extended across the province by the BC government. In 2023, Suzie Mah got a motion passed by the Vancouver School board endorsing Free Transit for teens up to 18. With cooperation from provincial and federal governments, there is no reason transit can’t be made free for everyone.
How to Evict Ken Sim
Ken Sim and ABC have rich friends who can bankroll their campaign. Working-class people don’t have rich friends, but they do have the advantage of numbers. The working class can take back this city from the likes of Ken Sim and Chip Wilson (owner of Vancouver’s most expensive property valued at $82,654,000)if enough people contribute what they can by volunteering and/or donating to support and help build COPE. There is an opportunity to ruin Ken Sim’s year by electing Sean Orr to city council. Advance voting takes place on Wednesday, March 26 and Tuesday, April 1, 8am to 8pm at City Hall. On election day, Saturday April 5, you can vote at local voting stations across the city.
No matter the results on April 5th, COPE will keep the momentum going to elect working-class representatives to city council, park board, and school board to evict Ken Sim in 2026. Socialist Alternative will continue to be a part of that fight!
