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The byelection showed the public’s frustration with Vision after almost a decade of “inaction” on issues like housing affordability, Bremner said Sunday.

Political observers talked, both before and after the council byelection, about the city’s left-leaning vote being split between three progressive candidates: the Green Party’s Pete Fry, OneCity’s Judy Graves and Jean Swanson, an independent.

But each of those three earned more votes than Vision candidate Diego Cardona, who finished fifth.

Vision was established 12 years ago and has been the city’s governing party for most of the last decade, with the last three municipal elections bringing victories for Vision’s mayoral candidate Gregor Robertson and three Vision-majority councils.

But many voters now believe Vision has under-delivered, a sentiment Robertson himself highlighted in an emailed statement after the byelection.

” Vancouverites are frustrated — particularly around housing affordability — and they expect more from us. We’re working hard to deliver solutions, but last night’s results show us there’s much more work to do,” said Robertson. “I heard that message loud and clear, and our party heard that message loud and clear.”

The support earned by Graves, Fry and particularly Swanson was noteworthy. Swanson, a longtime anti-poverty activist from well outside the world of mainstream big-party politics, finished second, with her 10,263 votes trailing Bremner’s 13,372, but enough to make it a respectably close race and roughly double the votes cast for Vision’s Cardona.