On Saturday, there are 161 municipal elections happening across British Columbia, and 21 in Metro Vancouver alone.

Over the last two months, CBC conducted seven mayoral debates for different Metro Vancouver municipalities, and profiled mayoral candidates in two other cities.

The debates are compiled below — along with a short description of why each municipality is one to watch during Saturday’s election night special.

Hopefully they provide some context about key issues in elections across the region — and maybe, a little bit of clarity for voters heading to the polls.

Vancouver

B.C.’s largest municipality by population is always closely watched on election night, and it will be no different this time around.

Incumbent Mayor Ken Sim with ABC Vancouver faces eight other candidates, including former councillor Colleen Hardwick, current councillor Rebecca Bligh and Sim’s former chief of staff Kareem Allam, who he’s currently suing for defamation.

But his fiercest challenger appears to be the Green Party’s Pete Fry, who has been the only continual opposition councillor the last four years.

While safety and Sim’s plebiscite on drug use have been dominant policy debates, an equal amount of time has been spent on whether ABC Vancouver’s majority rule has served the city well.

LISTEN | Candidates looking to unseat Sim as mayor:

This is Vancouver1:09:42Last chance to meet the candidates challenging Ken Sim for Mayor

Surrey

Meanwhile, in B.C.’s second largest city, Brenda Locke seeks a second term as mayor of Surrey, and is facing six challengers with other local political parties.

While Locke has faced controversy over her handling of the transition to the Surrey Police Service — which she fought an unsuccessful lawsuit over — and is up against well-known rivals like former mayor Doug McCallum and two-term councillor Linda Annis, no unifying ballot question has emerged, and a split vote among her opponents is quite possible.

WATCH | Surrey mayoral candidates’ debate:

Who will be the next mayor of Surrey?

Richmond

For 25 years, Malcolm Brodie got elected and re-elected as mayor of B.C.’s fourth largest city, often by very wide margins, but with his retirement, a new and more unpredictable era for Richmond is about to begin.

While there are seven people running for mayor, polls and pundits have shown this election to likely be a three-person race between former councillor Rob Howard, and current councillors Kash Heed and Alexa Loo.

All three have ties with the former B.C. Liberal Party (Howard and Heed were MLAs for them, while Loo was a candidate) so there is general agreement on policy issues.

But temperament, experience, and fallout from the backlash to studying a safe consumption site dominate the discussion, along with questions around whether Chinese Canadian representation is going to change in a city where people with ties to that country make up the majority of the population. 

WATCH | Richmond mayoral candidates square off:

Who will be the next mayor of Richmond?

Coquitlam

Like Richmond, Coquitlam is in for a shakeup at city hall, as longtime mayor Richard Stewart is calling it quits. And like Richmond, it’s uncertain who will be replacing him.

Four-term councillor Craig Hodge entered the race more than a year ago, and had Stewart’s endorsement. But fellow councillor Trish Mandewo entered just a few weeks before the deadline, and has played up her collaborative nature on council and former leadership of the Union of B.C. Municipalities.

Stewart retracted his endorsement of Hodge and gave it to Mandewo, adding an air of intrigue to the election.

Meanwhile, Madhavee Inamdar argues that both councillors have contributed to Coquitlam not reaching its full potential, and is hoping to get elected on an outsider label. 

WATCH | Intriguing Coquitlam mayoral race:

Who will be the next mayor of Coquitlam?

Delta

One of the fiercest election campaigns in Metro Vancouver began, in some ways, more than two years ago.

Dylan Kruger led a group that removed George Harvie as chair of Metro Vancouver and curtailed much of his ability to make certain smaller decisions at city hall without council approval. 

Kruger and Harvie are now running for mayor in a race centred around leadership and ethics, but they’re joined by former Surrey Police Board executive director Melissa Granum, who has argued for a complete turning of the page of council’s political culture.

WATCH | Delta mayoral race dominated by questions of leadership and ethics:

Who will be the next mayor of Delta?

Langley City and New Westminster

Two mid-sized urban municipalities with similar stories of a progressive mayor (Patrick Johnstone in New Westminster and Nathan Pachal in Langley City) with a majority on council, seeking re-election against an opposition councillor (Daniel Fontaine in New Westminster and Delaney Mack in Langley City) who talks about lower taxes and a greater focus on crime and safety.  

WATCH | Two mayoral candidates in New Westminster:

Meet the 2 mayoral candidates vying for the top job in New Westminster

In both cases, there’s a decent amount of personal conflict, as well. Mack has filed multiple code of conduct complaints and a legal petition for what she says is unfair personal treatment at the council table from her colleagues, while Fontaine and Johnstone have both apologized over their rhetoric towards their rivals.

WATCH | City of Langley mayoral race features personal conflict:

Who will be the next mayor of the City of Langley?

Langley Township and West Vancouver

Two larger suburban municipalities with similar stories of a mayor seeking re-election who has been in the middle of lawsuits or investigations over their four years in office.

But after that, there are less similarities between West Vancouver’s Mark Sager and Langley Township’s Eric Woodward.

WATCH | Questions over municipal debt in Township of Langley:

Who will be the next mayor of the Township of Langley?

Woodward is facing an opposition party in Langley Strong that has experienced councillors but is fielding a mayoral candidate, Jay Lundgren, who is completely new to politics. There, the focus is mostly on whether the township is taking on too much debt to fund new infrastructure projects. 

Meanwhile, in West Vancouver, former journalist Kirk LaPointe is challenging Sager, but so is councillor Sharon Thompson, who supported most of Sager’s agenda.

Leadership and character are part of the debate, but so is how much the district should have challenged Metro Vancouver on the the wastewater treatment plant controversy and the provincial government on housing targets. 

WATCH | West Vancouver mayoral race sees questions of character:

Who will be the next mayor of West Vancouver?