NPA’s Hector Bremner wins Vancouver council seat, vows to fix housing crisis

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Vancouver’s newest city councillor says voters have sent a clear message about the City’s current leadership.

After unofficial results were released, NPA candidate Hector Bremner had more than 27 per cent of the vote. Bremner is young, pro-development and campaigned on a commitment to fix Vancouver’s housing crisis.

“We need to build the housing people need, where they need it, how they need it and at the speed they need it. And it’s been a failure up until now to address that,” Bremner said after declaring victory.

“It’s been ten years of inaction and I’m looking forward to getting to work.”

Anti-poverty advocate Jean Swanson (21 per cent) Green candidate Pete Fry (20 per cent), and housing advocate Judy Graves (13 per cent) were next-closest.

Vision Vancouver’s candidate for councillor, Diego Cardona, came in fifth, a disappointing result for Mayor Gregor Robertson and his party.

“Tonight’s results are not what our team hoped for,” Robertson said in a statement on Saturday, acknowledging that there is much work to do on major issues facing the city.

Hector Bremner has refuted suggestions the left vote was split among several candidates, leaving him to sweep to victory for the right-leaning NPA.

Instead, he says voters were sending a message to the mayor and Vision Vancouver.

“I think it’s a very clear statement, I mean you can’t deny it.”

“Because it was pretty clear that we had a very powerful message, we had the right message. People have been deeply concerned about being priced out of this city.”

“I’m not coming to city hall just to play partisan politics. Partisanship isn’t going to solve problems like homelessness.”

Vancouver School board results favour Greens

The Green Party of Vancouver had a big win in the race to replace the Vancouver School Board. The last school board was fired for failing to balance its budget.

On Saturday, Green Party candidates were the three highest-polling candidates for school trustee positions. Vision Vancouver will have three trustees, one less than on the former board. The NPA will have two trustees, which is one less than on the previous board. OneCity will have one school board trustee.

Despite all of the controversy that dogged the last school board, four former trustees managed to get re-elected.

One of those is Green Party trustee Janet Fraser.

“Greens do politics differently, we’re not as partisan as some of the other parties. We like to work collaboratively, we like to look at the idea and not necessarily who puts it forward,” she says.

The NPA’s Lisa Dominato was elected to one of the nine school board trustee positions. She says the election results are a slap in the face to Vision Vancouver.

“I would day so, I think the results speak for themselves.”

Voter turnout was lower than election officials had hoped for. Just 10.99 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot.