Vancouver Is in the Middle of a Socialist Surge

Vancouver’s housing crisis formed the backdrop to COPE’s victory. More than of the city’s households rent. In 2021, approximately 39 percent of renter households spent at least 30 percent of their income on shelter, while roughly one-quarter were in core housing need: their homes were unaffordable, unsuitable, or inadequate, and they could not afford acceptable alternatives. The problem extends beyond the poorest residents. Even relatively well-paid workers can struggle to find housing near their jobs, while homeownership is increasingly out of reach for younger people. Economic insecurity has become a defining feature of everyday life in the city.half

ABC Vancouver came to power promising to address the problem by speeding up approvals and building more housing. Its administration can point to real increases in housing approvals and rental development. But more construction hasn’t made Vancouver affordable for many of the people who need homes.

In September 2026, a found that more than five thousand completed condominiums across Metro Vancouver remained unsold, with an estimated value of $4.45 billion. The chasm between new housing and what people can afford was stark. Mayor Ken Sim’s city council also shuttered the Vancouver Renters Office, which provided resources and information on tenant rights and how to navigate the legal system.report

Homelessness also increased in Vancouver under ABC. In contrast, COPE’s platform called for the city to acquire existing apartment buildings and convert them into permanently affordable public housing and co-ops. It also proposed a tax on properties worth more than $5 million to fund efforts to end homelessness, tripling the Empty Homes Tax, as well as stronger tenant protections. It put housing and care at the center of its strategy to respond to the city’s interlocking problems.

That emphasis was particularly significant in the Downtown Eastside, where COPE has historically maintained a strong base. The neighborhood has been at the center of Vancouver’s overlapping problems of poverty, housing insecurity, and drug poisoning. Its residents have endured these conditions through successive governments that have promised to restore order without providing the necessary housing and care.

On Election Day, volunteers knocked on more than ten thousand doors. The campaign gave voters a positive vision of the city, championing socialized housing, public grocers, and expanded public services like Wi-Fi, libraries, and washrooms. Its “Fight for Vancouver” platform set out a high-level road map.reportedly

The slogan, “Evict Ken Sim,” aimed at the outgoing right-wing mayor, became a meme, appearing in art, on buttons dotting the city, and on campaign merch like T-shirts. COPE’s younger candidates, including , Vancouver’s youngest-ever city councilor, and Chloe Leslie, brought passion and vitality to the party’s communications. Rather than imitating Zohran Mamdani’s style, they drew on Vancouver’s own culture, making high-energy, often playful social media videos.Solomon Yi-Kieran

The new council has an opportunity to reverse some of ABC’s policies and pursue shared progressive priorities. But a progressive majority is not the same thing as a socialist government, and the parties will not necessarily agree on how to use their power. COPE’s platform went much further than the Greens’ on important questions of public ownership and the role of municipal government. Its proposals for public acquisition of housing and taxes on high-value properties went beyond simply making private development easier.

The question is how much of this agenda COPE can persuade its coalition partners to adopt. Will the new council commit to a more ambitious public housing program? Will it restore tenant protections and supportive-housing investments? Will it redirect resources toward public services?

Just as important is how COPE will maintain its independent political identity while participating in a governing coalition. Building a movement from outside city hall can be easier than sustaining it once its representatives become responsible for budgets, compromises, and the day-to-day operations of government.

COPE’s members now have to decide how to use their electoral mandate. They can negotiate for improvements inside the council while continuing to organize tenants, workers, and neighborhoods to demand more from the new administration. The two approaches can complement and strengthen one another: COPE’s ability to mobilize people outside city hall may determine how much it can achieve inside.

The challenge will be to keep the routines of municipal government from displacing the organizing that made the victory possible. Sean Orr, first elected in a 2025 by-election, has demonstrated that he can be a serious legislator as well as an organizer; COPE’s new batch of councilors can draw on his experience as they orient themselves to the workings of city hall.

The coalition also faces a profound public safety challenge. Ken Sim’s council majority put two nonbinding on the ballot: one asked whether the city should toughen laws against open-air hard drug use in public spaces; the other asked whether the city should push the province to create a secure medical facility with voluntary as well as one-hundred-plus involuntary beds. Voters both questions by roughly 68 percent.plebiscitesbacked

COPE and the Greens putting the question to a vote, but the results largely refute any claim that the new progressive majority has a clear mandate to counter these proposals. It is very likely that some of the same people who voted for COPE voted yes to the plebiscites. Vancouver has been at the center of Canada’s overdose crisis, and the incoming council will be responsible for addressing conflicting expectations about the best way to respond to visible street-level poverty, public drug use, and complex mental health and addiction challenges.opposed

COPE will have to demonstrate that an approach rooted in housing, harm reduction, and public services can address residents’ concerns without abandoning its commitments to the people most affected by the crisis. The election does not resolve these questions. It makes them more urgent.

One part of COPE’s rebuild was reconnecting members with the party’s history. Organizers made a slideshow of its victories since its founding in the 1960s, giving members a sense of that history and purpose. From declaring Vancouver a nuclear-weapon-free zone to Sean Orr establishing an arts and culture land trust, COPE exists in a long line of struggles for better housing, care, and socialism in the city.

On October 17, the members gathered in a packed auditorium had good reason to pop champagne bottles, sing, and celebrate. They had done something many thought impossible. Socialism was back in Vancouver.