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Vancouver’s big tent party is getting bigger.
Armor Valor, a former OneCity council candidate, has announced that he will be running with the Vancouver Liberals, who are led by Kareem Allam, Mayor Ken Sim’s former chief of staff.
Valor, who was one of OneCity’s 11 confirmed council nominees, didn’t make the party’s final list of four candidates after a membership vote.
Valor is a cook at Children’s Hospital and a Hospital Employees’ Union member as well as a former business owner and former board member of Filipino BC.
He joined the Liberals due to some of the party’s policies, including expanding the Skytrain to UBC, the Liberals’ proposal to increase frontline workers to expand core city services, and its promise to enact a ward system to better represent the city in government.
“Frontline workers are the heart of services in our communities, and we need to be able to support them to see our parks, libraries, pools, and community centres thrive,” said Valor in a release. He’s also hoping to be an advocate for young people looking to stay and thrive in the city. “Local governments should be doing whatever they can to reduce red tape to support local businesses and support young people in taking the initiative of starting a business that serves their community.”
Valor’s nomination with the Liberals is interesting in that it’s yet another strong progressive voice on Allam’s team. Valor joins council candidate Jessica Walton, a former federal NDP campaign manager, on the left side of Allam’s team.
The Vancouver Liberals are also the political home of Michael Wu, who ran with the BC Conservative Party in 2024, and former BC Liberal cabinet minister Moira Stillwell. Both Wu and Stillwell are running for council with the Liberals, as is former ABC member and VSB trustee Victoria Jung.
So yeah, it’s a big tent. The argument could be made that by trying to appeal to everyone, the party is losing out on not focusing on a specific group or a specific message. But the reality is that the only way that the party wouldn’t be pigeonholed as “ABC 2.0” would be if it grabbed other voices that can widen the tent on the merits of its platform (which, to be fair, runs across the political spectrum).
“Kareem understands that it’s not about finding other like-minded people; it’s about finding representation of different opinions and creating policies that work,” said Valor. “Representation matters, and Kareem and the team understand that a government that works is a government that represents working people.”
Added Allam: “We’re not going to be successful as a party in living up to our promise of bringing young people back if we don’t have young leaders like Armor around our table. I’m deeply impressed with the breadth of the skill, knowledge, and experience this young man brings; today our team got much stronger.”