Mayor Ken Sim’s former chief of staff Kareem Allam to seek party’s mayoral nomination

Vancouver has a new civic party — the Vancouver Liberal Electors Association, or what the founders of the fledgling entity more commonly refer to as the Vancouver Liberals.

The main person behind the party’s registration with Elections BC is Kareem Allam, who is the only contender — so far — to become the Liberals’ mayoral candidate in the 2026 civic election.

Allam ran ABC Vancouver’s successful civic election campaign in 2022 and served as Mayor Ken Sim’s chief of staff until he was fired in February 2023. Neither the mayor’s office nor Allam have released details on the departure.

Allam is currently embroiled in a lawsuit filed in May by Sim, who also names longtime municipal politics enthusiast Alex Tsakumis. The notice of claim alleges Allam and Tsakumis defamed the mayor in comments related to an alleged impaired driving incident.

Both Allam and Tsakumis have filed responses disputing Sim’s claims.

BIV reported June 9 that Allam, who is currently a partner with the Richardson Strategy Group, was strongly considering a run for mayor, but had not named a party.

'I don't anticipate losing'

In an interview Friday, Allam emphasized again that unless someone else steps up who he believes would be more suitable for the job — he has spoken to some high-profile people in Vancouver — that he will be on the ballot in 2026.

In the meantime, he said, he plans to seek the Vancouver Liberals’ mayoral nomination and run a full set of candidates for council, school board and park board. He expects to take the summer and early fall to build the party before an official launch.

“The board of directors of this party, which is in the process of being formed, they're going to put me through a process,” Allam said.

“I don't anticipate losing [the nomination], but there is a formal process to become the formal candidate. I expect to have that all sorted out very shortly. I've reached out — and I will be continuing to reach out — to people right across the city to join me.”

He said the decision to name the party the Vancouver Liberals came after a brainstorming session with what he described as his team, which includes former elected officials and ex-political staffers.

The common thread was they all had connections to the BC Liberals, with Allam having run Kevin Falcon’s leadership campaign in 2022.

“We're all BC Liberals, and some of us voted NDP, some of us voted Green, some voted Conservative in the last [provincial] election,” he said. “That's how we all know each other. So I said, ‘Why don't we just call it Vancouver Liberals?’”

Allam’s allegiance to the BC Liberals ended in the October 2024 election when he publicly supported the provincial NDP. He told BIV that he voted for Liberal Leader Mark Carney in the April federal election.

'Best and brightest'

Allam acknowledged the Liberal brand can have both negative and positive connotations, depending on a person’s politics and where someone might stand provincially and nationally when it comes to casting a ballot.

The longtime BC Liberals changed their name in 2023 to BC United, a party that paused its campaign in the 2024 provincial election because of lack of support and the growing popularity of the Conservative Party of BC.

At the federal level, the Liberals were expected to be wiped out in the April election, but Carney's arrival rebuilt the brand and led to the party holding on to power in Ottawa.

“I am not Christy Clark, I am not Kevin Falcon, I'm not Andrew Wilkinson, I'm not Gordon Campbell,” Allam said, referring to previous BC Liberal leaders, two of whom were premiers.

“I want the best and the brightest from the New Democratic Party, from the Green Party, from the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party to come together and start wrestling some of these bigger issues.”

One of those big issues for Allam is attracting young people to Vancouver.

“The average age of a Vancouverite is 50 years old,” he said. “Young people are not moving to Vancouver because of two reasons: we’re not finding the jobs for them and we're not building the housing that they need.’

Added Allam: “We have a planning department in the City of Vancouver that's only interested in one thing — winning international design awards in Monaco and Cannes, in New York and London. There's only one award that I care about, and that's getting young people to move back to Vancouver.”