Dan Fumano: Here's what will — and won't — likely change quickly with Vancouver's new left-wing mayor and council

Vancouver’s new left-of-centre government will likely quickly start reversing some changes made over the past four years by the right-leaning ABC Vancouver party. But, the mayor-elect says, that doesn’t mean all vestiges of ABC’s time in office will disappear as fast as the party’s hold on council.

In an interview on Monday, two-term Green Coun. Pete Fry, who defeated incumbent ABC mayor Ken Sim over the weekend, detailed some moves he described as “low-hanging fruit” after his new council — with four Green councillors, four from COPE, one from OneCity, and just a single re-elected ABC representative — is sworn in on Nov. 2. That could include reversing the freeze on new supportive housing implemented last year by ABC, restoring the city’s previous ban on natural gas heating in new buildings that ABC lifted earlier this year, and reopening the renter’s office at City Hall that ABC shuttered in 2023.

Other changes from the last four years of ABC’s council majority, including key personnel decisions, are not likely to be reversed — at least not immediately.

Back in 2008, when Vision Vancouver swept to power as a new left-leaning force in municipal politics, one of their first major actions was firing the long-serving city manager and replacing her with the party’s pick. That move broke with a long-standing tradition of a non-political, non-partisan city manager, but ever since then, when a new party comes into power in Vancouver, city hall watchers wonder: How long before the city’s senior bureaucrat gets turfed?

Vancouver’s current city manager, Donny van Dyk, was selected for the role by Sim’s office last year to replace Paul Mochrie, the long-serving municipal bureaucrat who held the role when ABC came to power in 2022. Despite the fact that van Dyk was ABC’s pick, Fry said he has no intention of firing the bureaucrat just for the sake of making change.

“Donny is quite capable and professional,” Fry said. “Obviously, there will be a change in direction” and city council’s directions for how van Dyk will lead the city bureaucracy, Fry said, but “it’s not my style” to come in and clean house.

Similarly, Fry said he has a “great relationship” with Vancouver Police Chief Steve Rai, who took over the department’s top job last year.

During this year’s election campaign, ABC Vancouver attacked Fry and the Greens, as well as COPE and OneCity, for what they described as a lack of support for police and public safety. Fry acknowledged, “There’s maybe a little tension over the new council-elects, and what that might look like” when it comes to dealing with the police department.

But, the mayor-elect said, “We want to assure the hard-working men and women of the Vancouver Police Department, that just because we’re not ABC and I didn’t come in with the police union endorsement, that doesn’t mean I don’t have the police’s back.”

Another major change during ABC’s term was the launch last year of the VPD’s own police academy in the Downtown Eastside’s Woodward’s building, after decades of relying on centralized training through the Justice Institute of B.C. in New Westminster. Fry was critical of the move to open the new training facility, and voted last year against committing $1.2 million of city funds for it.

But, Fry said Monday, he doesn’t plan to try to shut down the academy now that it’s operational, swearing in its first class just last month.

“I have to go into it with an open mind, but, I mean, it’s there, it’s a sunk cost. I’m not about to just arbitrarily undo something,” Fry said.

As with any new council, one of the first major jobs will be considering next year’s municipal budget. Usually, Vancouver’s council approves the annual operating budget every December, which means new councillors have a relatively short amount of time to get up to speed before the first budget after an election. Council can, however, defer budget decisions to the first quarter of the following year.

Fry said he aims to get the 2027 budget approved before the end of this year, but they might delay the decision if need be.

Either way, Fry said, his “very first order of business” will be getting more detailed information about the city’s finances, after he frequently complained over the past year that he didn’t have the level of detail he wanted about the 2026 budget, the final one of ABC’s term, which slashed spending to freeze property taxes.

Until he gets those details, Fry said, it’s hard to answer what exactly his council’s first budget will look like.

Fry also pushed back on the idea ABC tried to promote during the campaign, that his mayoralty would mean another surge in homeless camps in parks and city streets, as Vancouver periodically saw during past council terms.

“If we’re going to prevent tent cities and open drug use, then we need to actually deliver on some services,” Fry said. “The reality is that every thinking, observing Vancouverite is concerned with folks who are unhoused and unwell on our streets, and that’s just being a good human at the end of the day. We all recognize it’s a problem, and under my mayorship and administration, that is going to be a priority that we immediately start working on.”

Fry said he’s eager to collaborate on that with whoever is in power in Victoria after this weekend’s provincial election.