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Global News
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Global News
A Better Calgary Party to endorse some Communities First candidates to avoid vote split
One of Calgary's three political parties won't be running a full slate of candidates in the upcoming election, in an effort to avoid splitting conservative voters. The A Better Calgary Party (ABC Party) held a one-time 'bypass vote' amongst its members to determine whether to run a candidate in certain wards. 'We felt that for the sake of Calgarians, we need to stop splitting the vote,' ABC Party executive director Roy Beyer told Global News. ABC Party members voted to refrain from running a candidate in five wards across the city: Ward 1, Ward 4, Ward 7, Ward 10 and Ward 13. The incumbents in those wards include Sonya Sharp, Sean Chu, Terry Wong, Andre Chabot and Dan McLean. However, Sharp has announced her intention to run for mayor and it remains unclear if Chu will seek another term, after telling reporters this term would be his last back in 2021. Story continues below advertisement Beyer said Sharp's endorsement is based on her work as a councillor and not for her candidacy for mayor. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy The ABC Party's endorsements of incumbents include candidates of Communities First, the other centre-right party formed by Sharp, Wong, Chabot and McLean. 'You just need eight council members,' Beyer said. 'If we can get there between us and others, we will have a true conservative coalition or centre-right coalition and that's the goal here.' Communities First declined to comment when asked by Global News on Monday. Lori Williams, an associate professor of policy studies at Mount Royal University, said it's too early to tell whether the endorsements could stand to benefit the Communities First party. 'It could help them,' Williams said. 'But the affiliation with or the endorsement of a further right political party could potentially hurt them amongst those who are not interested in ideology or parties, or are much more moderate in their conservatism.' The Calgary Party, the third party on this year's municipal ballot, said it plans to run a full slate of candidates in the election. Its mayoral candidate Brian Thiessen said he feels it's important for a party to run candidates in each of the city's 14 wards. Story continues below advertisement 'I think Calgarians deserve the right to vote for policies of the party, so if you don't run in certain wards, you're depriving Calgarians the right to vote on your policies,' he said. 'I think if Communities First or A Better Calgary has good policies, they should run in every ward and let Calgarians decide.' According to the ABC Party, all other incumbents including Mayor Jyoti Gondek received a no vote from the members, and the party will move forward with nominating and supporting challengers including in the mayoral race. 'People like Wong got a vote, or Sharp, their voting records don't necessarily scream conservative,' Beyer said. 'But our people said, 'No, overall we still see them as good candidates,' and we want to see that we avoid vote splitting.' Gondek has announced she is running for re-election as an independent, while former councillors Jeromy Farkas and Jeff Davison are also vying to become Calgary's next mayor without party affiliation. The ABC Party said it will announce its nominated candidates in Wards 2, 9, 12 and 14 'in the coming days.' The nomination deadline for candidates is on Sept. 22, and Calgarians head to the polls on Oct. 20.
Vancouver Sun
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Vancouver Sun
Despite voters' rebuke of Vancouver's ABC party, new towers will still grow higher and more dense
Article content The dominant centre-right ABC Party was hammered in last month's Vancouver byelection, with its two candidates coming in a dismal sixth and seventh. Article content Article content Despite voters electing two progressive candidates April 5, the direction of council is not about to change regarding the pace and scale of mega-highrise projects in Vancouver, the most dense city in Canada. Article content The two newcomers, COPE's Sean Orr and OneCity's Lucy Maloney, voted along with ABC and the rest of council on April 22 to approve the Jericho Lands official community plan, which gives the go-ahead to arguably the biggest housing development in the city's history. Article content Article content 'It's going to be beautiful and add so much to the area. It's going to be such an amazing contribution,' said Maloney, speaking of the 65 residential buildings, mostly in the 25- to 60-storey range, proposed by MST Development Corp. for the half-empty former military base in Point Grey. Article content A watchdog group, the Jericho Coalition, has proposed an alternative vision for the Jericho Lands: of mostly six-storey apartment blocks. But when CBC radio host Stephen Quinn asked Maloney if she would have been open to supporting a 'happy medium' of density for the Jericho Lands, she said it's too late. Article content 'Other areas have been bearing the burden of accepting all the population growth. I guess it could have been lower levels of density if we'd been building low-rise apartment buildings in every neighbourhood of the city for decades. But we haven't,' said Maloney, a self-described 'environmental lawyer' who works with the mining company BHP Billiton. Article content Article content Newly elected Coun. Orr, who describes himself as a Communist and dishwasher, also voted for the Jericho Lands official plan. His emphasis has been on affordability and protecting renters, including those being displaced by the 500-block Broadway highrise plan. Article content Despite the historic significance of the Jericho Lands project, three members of ABC were absent for the vote: Mayor Ken Sim and councillors Brian Montague and Peter Meiszner, as well as Rebecca Bligh, who was recently dismissed from ABC. Article content Article content Erick Villagomez, who teaches at UBC's school of community and regional planning, predicts little resistance from the two new councillors, or from Bligh and the Green member of council, to the 'monotonous' direction dictated by the ABC majority, particularly in regard to high density. Article content In Villagomez's analysis, the two new council members are 65 per cent aligned on the major issues with ABC, which has been pro-tower and often criticized for ignoring citizen input and reducing demands on developers to provide community benefits.
Vancouver Sun
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Vancouver Sun
Despite voters' rebuke of Vancouver's ABC party, new towers will still be higher, increase density
Article content The dominant centre-right ABC Party was hammered in last month's Vancouver byelection, with its two candidates coming in a dismal sixth and seventh. Article content Article content Despite voters electing two progressive candidates April 5, the direction of council is not about to change regarding the pace and scale of mega-highrise projects in Vancouver, the most dense city in Canada. Article content The two newcomers, COPE's Sean Orr and OneCity's Lucy Maloney, voted along with ABC and the rest of council on April 22 to approve the Jericho Lands official community plan, which gives the go-ahead to arguably the biggest housing development in the city's history. Article content Article content 'It's going to be beautiful and add so much to the area. It's going to be such an amazing contribution,' said Maloney, speaking of the 65 residential buildings, mostly in the 25- to 60-storey range, proposed by MST Development Corp. for the half-empty former military base in Point Grey. Article content A watchdog group, the Jericho Coalition, has proposed an alternative vision for the Jericho Lands: of mostly six-storey apartment blocks. But when CBC radio host Stephen Quinn asked Maloney if she would have been open to supporting a 'happy medium' of density for the Jericho Lands, she said it's too late. Article content 'Other areas have been bearing the burden of accepting all the population growth. I guess it could have been lower levels of density if we'd been building low-rise apartment buildings in every neighbourhood of the city for decades. But we haven't,' said Maloney, a self-described 'environmental lawyer' who works with the mining company BHP Billiton. Article content Article content Newly elected Coun. Orr, who describes himself as a Communist and dishwasher, also voted for the Jericho Lands official plan. His emphasis has been on affordability and protecting renters, including those being displaced by the 500-block Broadway highrise plan. Article content Despite the historic significance of the Jericho Lands project, three members of ABC were absent for the vote: Mayor Ken Sim and councillors Brian Montague and Peter Meiszner, as well as Rebecca Bligh, who was recently dismissed from ABC. Article content Article content Erick Villagomez, who teaches at UBC's school of community and regional planning, predicts little resistance from the two new councillors, or from Bligh and the Green member of council, to the 'monotonous' direction dictated by the ABC majority, particularly in regard to high density. Article content In Villagomez's analysis, the two new council members are 65 per cent aligned on the major issues with ABC, which has been pro-tower and often criticized for ignoring citizen input and reducing demands on developers to provide community benefits.
CBC
06-04-2025
- Politics
- CBC
City official apologizes for voting delays in Vancouver byelection
Social Sharing Vancouver's city manager is apologizing for the voting delays in Saturday's byelection, after residents faced up to hours-long waits to cast their ballots. The long cues backlogged polling stations across the city, leaving hundreds of people still in line after polls closed at 8 p.m. PT, and delaying results past midnight. The issue was likely largely driven by a January council decision, brought forward by staff, to cut the number of polling stations in half and the number of people staffing them by nearly two-thirds. Paul Mochrie, Vancouver's city manager, on Sunday apologized to voters impacted by what he called unacceptable voting delays in the byelection, especially after a record turnout for advance voting and mail-in ballots. WATCH | Long lines frustrate Vancouver voters: High turnout and 62% staffing cut lead to major lines in Vancouver byelection 16 hours ago Duration 1:53 Long lineups were reported at polling stations across Vancouver on Saturday as voters cast ballots in a two-seat city council byelection. In a statement Saturday afternoon, a city spokesperson attributed the delays to 'significantly higher voter turnout.' Justin McElroy breaks down what led to the lengthy waits. "We made a number of assumptions in planning for this election, around vote turnout, distribution, capacity to process votes," he told CBC News on Sunday. "Clearly, from what we saw yesterday, those assumptions were flawed, and we did not have sufficient resources to process the turnout that we received." In total, 67,962 ballots were cast in the byelection, for a voter turnout of about 15 per cent — a 40 per cent increase from 2017, when the turnout was around 11 per cent. Following an inquiry by CBC News, the City of Vancouver said there were 25 polling stations staffed by 265 workers Saturday, down from 50 stations and 631 workers in 2017. Overall, the city's budget for the byelection increased from $1.5 million in 2017 to $2 million for 2025. Mochrie said the election planning fell entirely on civil servants, and not to elected officials, and acknowledged that the turnout was higher than what officials had planned for. He said the next step is to get the councillors-elect sworn in, which he estimated will happen later this month or early in May. Councillors-elect look ahead The byelection was a chastening result for the city's ruling ABC Party, which still maintains a majority on council but whose candidates finished a distant sixth and seventh in the preliminary count. Progressive candidates Sean Orr, of the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE), and Lucy Maloney, of OneCity Vancouver, instead took the top spots. Orr, a housing activist, landscaper and dishwasher, had previously run with VOTE Socialist in the 2022 election. He told CBC News he was blown away by having received the most votes in the byelection, and called it a humbling experience. "It just confirmed what I thought about Vancouverites — that they care about the city, we care about the city, we care about integrity and we care about each other," he said. Orr and fellow councillor-elect Maloney said they would push back on Mayor Ken Sim and ABC's agenda. In particular, the two mentioned a recent move to freeze construction of new supportive housing in the city, as well as a motion to bring back the option of natural gas heating in new homes in the city, which ultimately failed. "It just shows how dissatisfied people are with Ken Sim and ABC, and the direction they're taking in our city, that people were prepared to go to so much trouble to stand in line and participate in our democracy yesterday," Maloney said on Sunday.
