\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
![\"Green](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/6ad4afd8b08489d862dbf907jpeg.jpg\")
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGreen Party of Vancouver mayoral candidate Pete Fry hugs his mother Hedy Fry on civic election night in Vancouver, on Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026.THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Ethan Cairns<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s paid a lot of attention to city politics ever since he was very young. And so, he knows what he wants and he knows how to build bridges,\u201d she said in an interview Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe knows how to work with disparate groups and he knows how to find common ground and that, I think, is going to be his strength. It\u2019s going to a tough job, but he\u2019s a hard-working guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pete Fry will become the city\u2019s first Green mayor after a massive election turnout on Saturday saw progressives take nearly all the seats on city council, the park board and the school board.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fry, who was first elected as a councillor in 2018, will be working with Greens and candidates from the Coalition of Progressive Electors, or COPE, each taking four seats out of 10, and OneCity Vancouver claiming a ninth seat for the left-of-centre camp.<\/p>\n
The business-friendly ABC Party was decimated, with Ken Sim ousted from the mayor\u2019s office and only one councillor elected.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was a stark turnaround from 2022, when ABC won seven seats on council.<\/p>\n
Hedy Fry said that while she was around to offer her son advice if he asked for it, she never gets involved in provincial or municipal politics, so that she can work with whichever group comes to power.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very proud of my son,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
He did this on his own steam without any help at all from me.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the results from Saturday night make it clear that Vancouver voters wanted change and she told her son that its important he not betray the trust that has been placed in him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s what it\u2019s about, trying to do your best to help and to make things better,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
While no single party will have a majority on the new council, the progressive parties have already demonstrated an ability to work together, with COPE\u2019s Stephanie Allen and OneCity\u2019s William Azaroff ending their mayoral campaigns to give Fry a better chance.<\/p>\n
Hedy Fry said her son has been building bridges with the people around him since a young age, after growing up in a household that encouraged forming opinions on issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s always been the tallest boy in his class ever since he was in kindergarten, and they always called him the gentle giant because he always kind of tried to make peace and bridge gaps,\u201d she said\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think he can do that. I think that it\u2019s going to be a hard job for sure, but I think he can do that.<\/p>\n
Preliminary results show Fry won handsomely with more than 98,000 votes, about 31,000 ahead of Sim, while the turnout of 209,000 was up 36 per cent compared with four years ago.<\/p>\n
Green and COPE candidates won all seven commissioners\u2019 seats on the Park Board, while Green, COPE, and OneCity candidates won all nine school trustee positions.<\/p>\n
COPE\u2019s Sean Orr, a socialist council incumbent who is suing Sim for defamation after the mayor falsely accused him of handing out illegal drugs, was the top vote-getter on council with more than 83,000 votes.<\/p>\n
He celebrated by sharing a meme on social media showing him staring down Sim with laser eyes.<\/p>\n
Richard Johnston, a professor emeritus in political science at the University of British Columbia, said the municipal elections across the province were largely a \u201cbad year for incumbents\u201d and that those who were re-elected, tended to lean more to the left.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, that also suggests that in addition to a kind of general anti-incumbent bias, there actually was an ideological tone to the swing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He suggested this group of councillors in Vancouver may be more aligned than some of their predecessors and will be able to work together, calling them a \u201cpretty pragmatic crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said voters are focused on wanting results.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to believe that many of these, if not most, but I would hope most, even all, have absorbed the ethos that honestly, we should focus on the urban issues, in particular the issues that we think we can deliver directly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs opposed to being nuclear weapons free or properly aligned on Palestine, or all the sort of things that progressives can easily get diverted to, or have in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the group is likely going to have to \u201cstomach\u201d things like the provincial government\u2019s interest in involuntary care for people with drug addictions and mental health concerns, but could also make progress on issues like housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The inauguration for the winners is Nov. 2, more than a week after the upcoming provincial election on Oct. 24.<\/p>\n
Johnston said the ability for Vancouver\u2019s new progressive council to get things done could be influenced by who takes office in Victoria, suggesting a Conservative government provincially will not be sympathetic to priorities of a progressive municipal council.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would mean that to the extent that any reasonable agenda does require support from senior governments, they\u2019re unlikely to see it from a Conservative government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 18, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VANCOUVER \u2013 Hedy Fry is no stranger to election nights after more than three decades representing her riding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":938879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":["post-938878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/938879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}