🔎 The race
**Vancouver elects 7 Park Board commissioners at large** on Saturday, October 17, 2026, for the only directly elected parks government of its kind in Canada: Vancouver is the sole municipality in B.C. — and, per CBC, the only major Canadian city — that voters send to the polls separately on parks, a body first created in 1889 and fixed at seven members by section 485 of the Vancouver Charter. The board holds “exclusive possession of, and exclusive jurisdiction and control of” the city’s permanent parks under section 488 and runs the pools, beaches, rinks, sports fields and roughly two dozen community centres — but City Council sets its budget, a split that has defined the past four years, according to an election explainer by voche.me. The field is a pack of **34 endorsed candidates** (the city’s certified list carries 35 — see notes); the full ballot order with party labels is tracked by Daily Hive and Wikipedia.
The race cannot be separated from Mayor **Ken Sim’s campaign to abolish the board**. In December 2023 his ABC-majority council voted 8–3 to ask the province to strip the park board from the Vancouver Charter; three commissioners elected with ABC (Laura Christensen, Brennan Bastyovanszky and Scott Jensen) left the caucus to sit as independents, and the province never delivered — a charter-amendment bill was shelved in October 2025. On July 13, 2026 Sim abandoned the dissolution bid and instead announced a **full ABC park board slate**, saying “This current park board is broken, and Vancouverites deserve better” (Vancouver Sun). Commissioner Christensen’s response: “It’s all a whim to him.” Jensen and Bastyovanszky have since joined the new **Vancouver Liberals** party, and the going-in board arithmetic is ABC 3, Vancouver Liberals 2, Green 1, Independent 1 (Vancouver Park Board — Wikipedia).
Because Vancouver civic politics runs on endorsed slates, **every serious party fields a park board team**: ABC Vancouver (7 candidates), the Vancouver Liberals (6), TEAM for a Livable Vancouver (5), COPE (4), the Green Party of Vancouver (3), OneCity (3), Vote Vancouver (2) and the little-known **Independent Parks Party** (4 on this roster). The field includes one current chair seeking re-election (**Tom Digby**, Green), one sitting commissioner (**Jas Virdi**, ABC — the only one of ABC’s 2022 six still running for the party, per The Province), **Scott Jensen** now re-running as a Vancouver Liberal, and two former commissioners from the 2018–22 board — **Tricia Barker** (Vancouver Liberals) and **John Irwin** (OneCity). ABC commissioner **Angela Haer** dropped out of the race in early September while vowing to serve out her term (Vancouver Sun); Christensen, Bastyovanszky and Marie-Claire Howard are not running at all.
The structural question is **who holds the board for the next four years**. An ABC majority would reunite city hall and the park board under Sim’s team — the party says its candidates were chosen “to modernize and fix the elected park board” (CityNews) — while a coalition of the Green, Liberal, COPE and OneCity slates would keep the board as the counterweight to council it became during the abolition fight, with Digby holding the balance of power. After four years of Sim as the only Vancouver mayor in 140 years to try to eliminate the board, every camp now says it supports an independent elected park board — the fight is over who controls it, and with what mandate.
No park-board-specific poll surfaced before this writing, and one week after the municipal vote comes the **provincial general election on October 24** — a confusing overlap CBC has reported on that stretches volunteer armies on both sides. The main face-to-face showcase for the field was the Kerrisdale Community Centre all-candidates meeting on September 29, 2026, where 23 of the commissioners-in-waiting confirmed for a moderated, non-partisan town hall — a rarity given most park board races this year are being fought through party slates, COPE’s parks page, the Greens’ platform, OneCity’s slate page and candidate lawn signs.
⚡ Key issues
Did the board almost die — and who tried to kill it
The defining story of the outgoing board is its near-abolition. Council voted 8–3 in December 2023 to ask the province to remove the elected board from the Vancouver Charter; the three ABC commissioners who refused to back that — Christensen, Bastyovanszky, Jensen — left the caucus and, with Green commissioner Tom Digby holding the balance of power, blocked the move in practice, producing years of hostile meetings (Wikipedia; The Province). The province tabled a bill in October 2025 that would have required a citywide referendum before dissolution, then shelved it (voche.me explainer). Voters are effectively being asked to ratify or punish both sides of that fight: ABC’s late pivot to running “to modernize and fix the elected park board” (CityNews) versus a Green-Liberal-COPE-OneCity bloc campaigning on board independence.
Crumbling pools, dying community centres — and a $1.43-billion ask
Vancouver’s auditor general found in September 2025 that **72 per cent of the city’s 24 community centres, 14 pools and eight indoor rinks were in “poor or very poor condition”**, with an infrastructure deficit of about **$33 million per year**. In April 2026 the commissioners voted to ask council for **$1.43 billion** to maintain and upgrade aging facilities — priority projects include replacing the crumbling Kitsilano Pool, planning a new 50-metre pool and renewing Britannia Community Centre in East Van. “This is a big number, but it’s because we’ve caught up with 15 years of deferred maintenance,” commissioner Brennan Bastyovanszky said (CBC News). Digby’s campaign runs on a near-identical “historic $1.35b investment” pledge (tomdigby.ca). The successor board inherits whichever capital plan council ultimately funds.
Kits Pool reservations as the campaign’s wedge issue
The pandemic-era **reservation system at Kitsilano Pool** became the proxy war between city hall and the board. At the same July 2026 news conference where he dropped the abolition bid, Sim demanded the board scrap it: “We can’t lose another summer to these ridiculous swimming restrictions, so again, I’m asking the current park board… open the damn pools.” Chair Tom Digby defended bookings — “There are hundreds of people who prefer it” — while Bastyovanszky, who dropped in that day without trouble, said: “I’m a bit flabbergasted as to why the mayor would suggest drop-ins aren’t allowed” (CityNews). ABC’s slate campaigned on restoring drop-in access and free swimming lessons; most rival slates frame the fight as manufactured — and TEAM candidate **Jon Girard** built a campaign identity around the Vancouver Aquatic Centre pool itself, using the contact address jon.girard@saveourvacpool.ca on the city’s candidate list.
Who controls the board: slate math after the ABC split
ABC won **all six of the seats it carried in the 2022 board election** (Sim’s party swept council, the park board and the school board), but only **Jas Virdi** of that class is running again for ABC in 2026 — Jensen is a Vancouver Liberal now, Haer quit the race, and Christensen, Bastyovanszky and Howard aren’t running (The Province; Vancouver Sun). ABC fields seven candidates for the seven seats and says it wants a majority; the Vancouver Liberals — a new party co-founded around ex-ABC park board figures — run six, including former 2018–22 commissioner Tricia Barker and ex-park-board operations executive Mark Halyk (vancouverliberals.com). With three incumbents and 31 non-incumbents across a citywide at-large ballot, slate voting and name recognition decide everything.
Money the voters don’t directly control — fees, budgets and borrowing questions
Council sets the board’s budget, and for 2026 it squeezed: staff were told to find **$11 million in new revenue and savings** to fit Mayor Sim’s zero property-tax-increase target, and on November 24, 2025 commissioners grudgingly approved fee increases averaging **5 per cent** on most programs alongside a **$191.9-million operating budget** and $126.4-million capital budget (voche.me explainer). The same October 17 ballot carries **three Capital Plan borrowing questions**, one of which asks voters to approve about **$60 million for parks and the seawall** — a rare direct referendum on the board’s chequebook, with the rest of the spending power decided in the back-and-forth between whatever board this election produces and whatever majority council keeps.
- The best party-by-party explainer of this race — The Tyee’s “Who Will Fix Vancouver’s Broken Pools and Crumbling Community Centres?” (Oct. 8, 2026) — now returns 404, so its per-party pool pledges (ABC $400M/5 community centres, TEAM’s 50m-pool pledge, Liberal and Green pool plans, etc.) are paraphrased only where another live source confirms them; that link was dropped per the 200-check rule.
- vancouver.ca, parkboardmeetings.vancouver.ca, abcvancouver.ca, vpl.ca and parksparty.vote all fail the required curl HEAD check (403/405 bot-walls) despite the pages rendering in a browser, so links to them were dropped; ballot rosters, ballot numbers, the $1.35b/$1.43b capital-plan chronology and the Nov. 24, 2025 budget facts were instead anchored to 200-verified mirrors (Wikipedia, Daily Hive, voche.me, CBC, CityNews, Sun/Province).
- The pack lists 34 candidates but the city’s certified list carries 35 — Cam Rothery (Independent Parks Party, #213) is on the city PDF but not in the pack; whether he withdrew or the pack trimmed him is not confirmed by any live source checked.
- No park-board-specific opinion poll was found; mayoral polls exist but say nothing reliable about the 7 commissioner seats.
- Most ABC, TEAM, Vote Vancouver and Independent Parks Party candidates have minimal individual press coverage; their profiles rest on ballot listings and slate pages rather than original bios.
- Committee/Board minutes and the city candidates pages document several details (e.g., Girard’s saveourvacpool.ca email, Vanderstar’s Smithers residency, ABC’s July/September releases) on domains that failed the HEAD check, so those facts are stated without links.
| Alex Tkach | TEAM for a Livable Vancouver Association 🔎Runs for the **Park Board commissioner** seat with TEAM for a Livable Vancouver; confirmed for the Kerrisdale Community Centre all-candidates meeting on September 29, 2026. |
| Allan Fawley | TEAM for a Livable Vancouver Association 🔎TEAM for a Livable Vancouver park board candidate (ballot #201); reaches voters at allan@voteteam.ca and attended the Kerrisdale all-candidates meeting. |
| Amanda Bains | Vancouver Liberal Electors Association 🔎Vancouver Liberals park board candidate; a small-business owner, HEU member and elected strata-council president pitching “a community leader’s perspective” on parks and the city’s social fabric (campaign bio). |
| Amir Bajehkian | Vancouver Liberal Electors Association website 🔎Vancouver Liberals park board candidate who highlights advocacy experience and engagement with new Canadians; the party’s slate promise: “Our goal is to engage with as many Vancouverites as possible as we develop a bold platform and qualified slate of candidates for the 2026 civic elections” (vancouverliberals.com/issues). “Our goal is to engage with as many Vancouverites as possible as we develop a bold platform and qualified slate of candidates for the 2026 civic elections.” — from their campaign site |
| Breanne Smart | Green Party of Vancouver Society 🔎Green Party of Vancouver park board candidate, nominated in August 2026 after Gabi Tremblay stepped back; an East Van parent and vegan chef (MILA, Virtuous Pie, To Live For Bakery) running “to protect the Park Board” and fix aging facilities (Green release). |
| Brynja Marshall | Independent Parks Party 🔎Runs with the **Independent Parks Party**, a micro-slate that campaign coverage describes as built around disputes over Stanley Park tree removals. |
| Cheryl Grant | A Better City Vancouver Electors Association website · https · 🔎ABC Vancouver park board candidate (ballot #232); confirmed for the September 29 Kerrisdale all-candidates meeting. |
| Chris Qiu | A Better City Vancouver Electors Association website 🔎ABC Vancouver park board candidate (ballot #227, Chris Qiu 仇云霞); confirmed speaker at the Kerrisdale all-candidates meeting, reachable via chris.qiu@abcvancouver.ca on the city list. |
| Christian Kyle | A Better City Vancouver Electors Association website 🔎ABC Vancouver park board candidate (ballot #218); confirmed for the Kerrisdale all-candidates meeting. |
| Dominic Denofrio | OneCity Association 🔎 |
| Jamie Han | Coalition of Progressive Electors 🔎COPE park board candidate and political organizer focused on cycling infrastructure and neighbourhood-level parks investment; “ready to dig through documents, records, and by-laws to pick apart systems that are failing people” (COPE Parks). |
| Jas Virdi Incumbent | A Better City Vancouver Electors Association website 🔎**Incumbent commissioner** and the only one of ABC’s 2022 park board six seeking re-election under the ABC banner; a East-Vancouver-facing community organizer who announced Vaisakhi and Guru Nanak events on the board (The Province). |
| Jay Bailey | ABC Vancouver website 🔎ABC Vancouver park board candidate (ballot #234); confirmed for the Kerrisdale all-candidates meeting. |
| John Irwin | OneCity Association 🔎**Former park board commissioner (2018–2022)**, now running for OneCity; billed as “the proven commissioner giving parks a strong, independent voice” (OneCity). |
| Jon Girard | TEAM for a Livable Vancouver Association website 🔎TEAM for a Livable Vancouver park board candidate whose city-listed contact is jon.girard@saveourvacpool.ca — a campaign built around the future of the Vancouver Aquatic Centre pool; attended the Kerrisdale all-candidates meeting. |
| Leonard Vanderstar | Independent Parks Party 🔎Independent Parks Party candidate flagged on the city’s candidate list as a **non-resident — residency Smithers** (not Vancouver), on a slate organized around Stanley Park tree disputes. |
| Marie Rogers | A Better City Vancouver Electors Association website 🔎ABC Vancouver park board candidate (ballot #209); confirmed for the Kerrisdale all-candidates meeting. |
| Mark Halyk | Vancouver Liberal Electors Association website 🔎Vancouver Liberals park board candidate with “more than a decade working inside the Vancouver Park Board as a senior leader in Commercial Services,” running on operations experience over bureaucracy (campaign bio). “Our goal is to engage with as many Vancouverites as possible as we develop a bold platform and qualified slate of candidates for the 2026 civic elections.” — from their campaign site |
| Mayeli Alvarez | TEAM for a Livable Vancouver Association 🔎TEAM for a Livable Vancouver park board candidate (ballot #219); confirmed for the Kerrisdale all-candidates meeting. |
| Michael Robert Caditz | Independent Parks Party 🔎Independent Parks Party candidate who serves as the party’s authorized agent on its site (parksparty.vote), run through the “Association for the Promotion of Science in Governance” non-profit. |
| Niknaz Alemi | Independent Parks Party 🔎Independent Parks Party candidate (ballot #231) using a parksparty.vote email on the city’s candidate list. |
| Sacia Burton | Coalition of Progressive Electors website 🔎COPE park board candidate and **co-director of the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition**, promising affordable, accessible parks and community centres “no matter where you live in the city” (COPE Parks). “Stephanie has campaigned with integrity and care, and advanced our shared values, and she’s shown us over and over again her character and commitment to our movement and the people of Vancouver.” — from their campaign site |
| Scott Jensen Incumbent | Vancouver Liberals 🔎**Incumbent commissioner** — elected with ABC in 2022, one of the three who left the caucus over the abolition bid, now a Vancouver Liberal; his campaign notes he became the **first Indigenous chair** of the park board when first elected (campaign bio). |
| Shayla Bird | Vancouver Liberal Electors Association 🔎Vancouver Liberals park board candidate — a Strathcona educator, founder of PLANher Consulting and a public historian specializing in Black history in B.C. (campaign bio). |
| Spencer Van Vloten | Green Party of Vancouver Society website 🔎Green Party of Vancouver park board candidate campaigning as “Parks for the People,” author of a Vancouver Sun op-ed: “A City Which Forgets Its Parks, Forgets Its People” (spencervancity.ca). “Vancouver Park Board candidate Spencer van Vloten.
I'm running for Vancouver Park Board and would love your support! Have a look at my website to learn more.” — from their campaign site |
| Stephen Menon | Vote Vancouver 🔎Vote Vancouver park board candidate — a product-development leader and Qmunity board member on the slate led provincially-in-profile by mayoral candidate Rebecca Bligh (Wikipedia; Vote Vancouver). |
| Stephen Molnar | A Better City Vancouver Electors Association website 🔎ABC Vancouver park board candidate (ballot #207); confirmed for the Kerrisdale all-candidates meeting. |
| Summit Wannamaker | Vote Vancouver website 🔎Vote Vancouver park board candidate (ballot #210); the party’s park board campaign sits under its “A City This Good Shouldn’t Be This Hard” messaging (votevancouver.ca). “Vote Vancouver | Build Community, Get Involved Support Vote Vancouver with a One-time donation Support our mayoral, city council, & park board Campaigns donate Support Vote Vancouver’s School Board Campaign donate to school board A city this good shouldn’t be this hard.” — from their campaign site |
| T'uy't'tanat Cease Wyss | Coalition of Progressive Electors website 🔎COPE park board candidate — described by COPE as a **Squamish Nation matriarch and ethnobotanist**, an Indigenous matriarch of the Skwxwu7mesh, Sto:lo and Hawaiian peoples focused on protecting green spaces (COPE Parks). |
| Tamiko Suzuki | Coalition of Progressive Electors 🔎COPE park board candidate who spent her career in health care at BC Children’s Hospital and was arrested protesting the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion; “Access to nature isn’t a luxury. It’s essential” (COPE release). |
| Tom Digby Incumbent | Green Party of Vancouver Society website 🔎**Incumbent commissioner and current Park Board chair** (Green), the balance-of-power vote through the abolition fight, now seeking re-election pledging a “historic $1.35b investment in parks and recreation” and a “Save our Park Board” agenda (tomdigby.ca; CBC). “Park Board | Tom Digby | Vancouver top of page Re-Elect Tom Digby Park Board Commissioner Making the difference: Tom gets things done at Park Board Digby calls for historic $1.35b investment in parks and recreation Read More Save our Park Board Read More Stanley Park Bike Lane Returns!” — from their campaign site |
| Tricia Barker | Vancouver Liberal Electors Association 🔎**Former park board commissioner (2018–2022)** running for the Vancouver Liberals; a 68-year-old personal trainer campaigning as a voice for seniors and people with disabilities (campaign bio). |
| Tyler Petersen | OneCity Association website 🔎OneCity park board candidate — a biologist and labour activist billed as “the union negotiator rebuilding trust through consensus and results” (OneCity). “Meet our slate of Candidates below, and check out our plan to make the city more affordable, safe, and vibrant.” — from their campaign site |
| Wah Gee | TEAM for a Livable Vancouver Association 🔎TEAM for a Livable Vancouver park board candidate (ballot #233); confirmed for the Kerrisdale all-candidates meeting. |
🗞 On the radar — local coverage
- 'It's anyone's race,' say candidates in crowded Vancouver mayoral election
- B.C. Election 2026 - Breaking News, Polls and Live Results Map - CTV News Vancouver
- B.C. party leaders make campaign stop at Vancouver trade board ahead of election
- All Vancouver Island candidates for the 2026 B.C. election
- B.C. election 2026: Who's running on Vancouver Island?
- How some Vancouver candidates are leaning into the snap B.C. election call, while others rail against it
- Vancouver Mayor Sim urges no snap B.C. election during municipal campaign
- Vancouver mayoral candidates start campaigning while potential provincial election looms