01 October 2026
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
VANCOUVER LIBERALS RELEASE 148-POINT SERIOUS PLAN TO BUILD A THRIVING CITY.
Download The Full Platform Here
With provincial election campaign underway, Kareem Allam also highlights five areas where Vancouver needs a new partnership with Victoria
VANCOUVER, BC — 01 October 2026 — The Vancouver Liberals released their full 148-point platform for Vancouver today, setting out detailed commitments for City Council, the elected Park Board and the Vancouver School Board.
The platform covers housing, affordability, economic growth, public safety, city services, parks and recreation, transportation, climate, childcare, schools, government accountability and support for vulnerable residents.
And with British Columbia now in a provincial election campaign, Vancouver Liberal mayoral candidate Kareem Allam says the moment offers another opportunity: getting the next provincial government committed to Vancouver's priorities.
“Vancouverites should know exactly what we intend to do if we're elected,” said Allam. “That's why we've put forward 148 specific commitments that people can hold us accountable for.”
“But municipal government can't do everything alone. Some of the biggest challenges facing Vancouver cross jurisdictional lines. With a provincial election happening one week after our municipal election, this is an opportunity to get commitments from the people who want to govern British Columbia as well.”
The Vancouver Liberals' platform is built around a straightforward idea: a city should work for all of us.
Among its commitments, the Vancouver Liberals will:
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Build more housing faster and protect co-op, non-market and supportive housing.
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Cancel plans for a second City Hall and prioritize investment in community centres, pools, parks and other public facilities instead.
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Hire 400 additional unionized frontline workers to improve basic city services.
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Make completing SkyTrain to UBC Vancouver's top transit priority.
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Restore the Vancouver Economic Commission and make it easier to start and grow businesses.
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Invest $1.35 billion in parks, pools, rinks and community centres.
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Keep the Park Board elected.
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Target the financial networks behind organized crime and the toxic drug trade.
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Develop a new six-pillar approach to addiction, mental health, housing and prevention.
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Expand childcare close to home and on school grounds.
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Protect school mental-health and special-education services.
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Strengthen transparency and accountability at City Hall.
The 148 commitments are detailed in the Vancouver Liberals' full platform, A Serious Plan to Build a Thriving City.
FIVE PRIORITIES FOR A NEW VANCOUVER–PROVINCIAL PARTNERSHIP
Last week, the Vancouver Liberals released a five-point economic agenda for the provincial election, calling for provincial action on major economic and infrastructure priorities affecting Vancouver.
Today, the Vancouver Liberals are identifying five additional priorities from their broader platform where action by the next provincial government will be essential.
1. A NEW VANCOUVER ACCORD
More than 25 years ago, Vancouver, British Columbia and Canada created the Vancouver Agreement because they recognized that no single level of government could solve the challenges facing the Downtown Eastside.
That remains true. But the problems have changed.
The original agreement confronted an open drug scene, unsafe SROs, poverty and neighbourhood decline. Today, Vancouver is also dealing with fentanyl, methamphetamine, a toxic-drug crisis, increased homelessness and increasingly complex mental-health and addiction needs.
That is why the Vancouver Liberals have proposed a new six-pillar approach, updating the old four-pillar model by adding housing and early intervention for youth mental health alongside prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement.
The Province has recently brought governments and community partners together again through former mayor Larry Campbell. A Vancouver Liberal government would build on that work by calling for a formal new Vancouver Accord between the City, Province and federal government.
The Accord would establish clear responsibilities, sustained funding and measurable outcomes for housing, treatment and recovery, mental health, the toxic-drug crisis, SRO conditions, public safety and economic revitalization.
“The original Vancouver Agreement recognized that these problems don't fit neatly within one government's jurisdiction,” said Allam. “Twenty-five years later, the challenges have changed, but that hasn't. We need a new agreement built for the problems Vancouver is facing today.”
2. TREAT INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE AS THE PUBLIC-SAFETY AND PUBLIC-HEALTH CRISIS IT IS
The Vancouver Liberals will declare intimate partner violence a public-health and public-safety crisis and develop a victim-survivor-led action plan with frontline organizations.
The City, however, cannot build an effective response by itself.
The Vancouver Liberals are calling on the next provincial government to continue implementing the recommendations of B.C.'s independent review of intimate partner and sexual violence, establish consistent standards across police, Crown, health and other provincial systems, and provide stable funding for frontline organizations supporting survivors.
Vancouver will also seek provincial partnership on better coordination, prevention, safe housing and services for people escaping violence.
“Someone fleeing violence shouldn't have to figure out which level of government is responsible for helping them,” said Allam. “The system should work around the person who needs help, not the other way around.”
3. FOLLOW THE MONEY AND ATTACK ORGANIZED CRIME UPSTREAM
The Vancouver Liberal public-safety plan shifts attention higher up the criminal supply chain.
A Vancouver Liberal government will fund 15 additional VPD financial-crimes investigators to trace criminal proceeds and target the people profiting from the drug trade rather than concentrating enforcement only on street-level activity.
The Vancouver Liberals will also take action against Bitcoin ATMs, unregulated currency exchanges and predatory financial businesses being used to move illicit money.
But financial crime does not stop at Vancouver's boundaries.
The Vancouver Liberals will ask the next provincial government for stronger provincial enforcement and coordination against money laundering and organized crime, implementation of outstanding anti-money-laundering reforms, and the legal tools municipalities need to regulate high-risk financial businesses.
“We need to keep dealing with crime on our streets, but we also need to ask where the money goes,” said Allam. “If we want to disrupt organized crime, we need to follow the money all the way to the people at the top.”
4. REFORM METRO VANCOUVER AND MAKE REGIONAL GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABLE
Vancouverites pay for Metro Vancouver every month through municipal taxes and utility bills, yet regional government receives far less public scrutiny than City Hall or the Province.
The Vancouver Liberal platform commits a Vancouver Liberal administration to leading reform of Metro Vancouver, seeking an independent audit and working with other municipalities to reduce waste and improve accountability.
The Vancouver Liberals will ask the next provincial government to make the legislative changes necessary to reform Metro Vancouver's governance and strengthen independent oversight of major regional capital projects.
“Regional government makes decisions involving billions of public dollars,” said Allam. “People paying those bills deserve the same expectation of transparency, scrutiny and accountability that they have for every other level of government.”
5. REMOVE ANY BARRIERS TO CHILDCARE ON SCHOOL GROUNDS
The Vancouver Liberals will move ahead with before- and after-school childcare at every Vancouver school site that can accommodate it.
We will ask the next provincial government to make it easier for school districts across British Columbia to do the same, by expanding capital support for childcare on school grounds and making childcare planning a standard part of new schools, major expansions and seismic replacements.
148 COMMITMENTS, AND A PLAN TO DELIVER THEM
The five provincial priorities are only part of the Vancouver Liberals' broader platform.
The 148-point plan includes commitments ranging from housing and affordability to filling potholes, expanding library and community-centre hours, protecting industrial jobs and arts spaces, rebuilding aging recreational facilities, improving public washrooms, expanding the tree canopy, reforming permitting, protecting renters and co-ops, improving transportation and strengthening public schools.
“Our platform is deliberately detailed,” said Allam. “People have heard enough broad promises from politicians. We want Vancouverites to be able to look at what we've promised, point to it four years from now and ask us whether we did it.”
Vancouver's municipal election takes place October 17, 2026. The provincial election follows one week later on October 24, 2026.
“That creates an unusual opportunity for Vancouver,” said Allam.
“We have a plan for what the City can do on its own. And where we need the Province, we're going to be very clear about what we're asking for.”
The Vancouver Liberals are an independent municipal party and are not affiliated with any federal or provincial political party.
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