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Demolition of the Vancouver Aquatic Centre has been halted until at least Nov. 3 after the group fighting to preserve a 50-metre pool in the facility rebuild was granted an interim injunction in the B.C. Court of Appeal.
The ruling means the City of Vancouver and Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation must stop all work currently underway on the inside of the building to prepare it for exterior demolition.
Protecting Our Vancouver Aquatic Centre (POVAC) society, along with its director and park board candidate Jon Girard, argued in their application that delaying the demolition until after a new Park Board was elected in the Oct. 17 municipal elections would give voice to the Vancouver electorate.
“It will not matter which park board candidates [voters] choose if the Aquatic Centre is substantially demolished before the inaugural meeting of the new board,” it said.
The Nov. 3 injunction expiry date is one day after the first meeting of the new Park Board. A new Park Board could overturn the decision of the previous Park Board to approve the 25-metre design.
The project to rebuild the 52-year-old Vancouver Aquatic Centre became a hot button issue last year when the promised 50-metre replacement pool was shrunk to one half the size.
The Vancouver Aquatic Centre closed to the public on June 30, 2026. (Hunter Soo/CBC News)
The public backlash has made the pool a plank in the election platforms of the five major municipal parties, four of which have pledged to rebuild the Aquatic Centre 50-metre pool. That includes incumbent mayor Ken Sim’s ABC party, under whose administration the half-sized pool was conceived and approved.
In her decision, Madame Justice Gail Dickson said she accepts that the appellants would suffer irreparable harm if the demolition was to continue, despite City of Vancouver lawyers arguing that delaying the demolition will increase costs.
“The extent of the risk of lost opportunity posed by the ongoing work at the Aquatic Centre between now and Nov. 3 is unclear on the evidence,” she said.
POVAC and Girard have appealed a lower court decision that found it “reasonable” for the Park Board and the City of Vancouver to deliver a shrunken pool at the Aquatic Centre after voters were led to believe funding they approved in a 2022 plebiscite was for a 50-metre pool.
The appeal has yet to be scheduled.