VANCOUVER—Two new political parties with different stances on housing are hoping to make a dent in Vancouver’s cluttered election campaign.

Yes Vancouver is focused on loosening zoning restrictions and allowing denser housing to be built across the city, while candidates with ProVancouver say they’ll work on eliminating the “toxic demand” they say is pushing housing costs out of reach of locals.

Yes Vancouver’s mayoral candidate is Hector Bremner, a Vancouver city councillor first elected as a Non-Partisan Association candidate. But Bremner left the NPA after the party’s board decided to not allow him to proceed as a mayoral nominee for their party over conflict of interest concerns.

Article Continued Below

Bremner and his supporters then formed Yes Vancouver. The party held a nomination meeting this weekend and will run five council candidates and one candidate each for park board and school board, as well as Bremner for mayor.

Ever since he was first elected in October 2017, Bremner has advocated for more supply as the sole solution to fixing Vancouver’s affordable housing crisis.

“The federal government and the provincial government are increasing taxes, increasing interest rates, they’re doing everything they can to slow down demand but it’s really not working,” Bremner said.

“The truth is in the Lower Mainland we have over 100,000 homes trapped up in approvals and those homes need to get to people and we need to get things done.”

Article Continued Below

ProVancouver candidates disagree. Rohana Rezel, the founder of independent news website ThinkPol.ca, recently decided to run as a city council candidate with the party. He joined Breton Crellin, a stonemason who recently spoke to StarMetro about his concern about homes being left empty in Metro Vancouver, and mayoral candidate David Chen.

Click to expand

“We know that we have a massive housing crisis and there seems to be a movement that’s claiming that we can build our way out of this housing crisis … when we know that the evidence is that there’s a massive amount of proceeds of transnational crime that’s distorting the housing market,” Rezel said, referring to a recent government report on money laundering in B.C. casinos, which pointed toward a connection to real estate transactions.

Rezel said he believes people in the real estate industry are behind a racist message targeting a ProVancouver event: on July 28, he posted a screen-capped Reddit post on his Twitter account that read, “Anyone up for IRL (in real life) trolling Rohana Rezel’s event in Kits tonight? Preferably someone who can do a good Apu accent.”

Rezel didn’t provide proof the poster is involved in the industry, only saying the same account often posts “pro-real estate information.”

In early May, realtors bought newspaper ads calling for those opposed to the NDP’s increased tax on homes worth over $3 million to attend a town hall meeting, even if the venue was full, prompting NDP MLA David Eby to cancel the event out of safety fears. Rezel said he had complained about the ad to the Real Estate Council, “but they said it’s a (Canadian) Charter (of Rights and Freedoms) right.”

Yes Vancouver’s suite of council candidates includes Brinder Bains, the owner of three Cobs Bread franchises; Glynnis Chan, the owner of a travel business in Chinatown; Stephanie Ostler, the owner of independent clothing store Devil May Wear; Phyllis Tang, a music teacher; and pharmacist Jaspreet Virdi.

Bremner is a former B.C. Liberal candidate who worked in Rich Coleman’s office, the former Liberal minister responsible for housing. Mark Marissen, a political strategist who was married to Christy Clark and has been deeply involved in past B.C. Liberal campaigns, is currently an “advisor” to Bremner’s campaign.

The Liberals have been heavily criticized for being slow to act on the housing file as prices spiralled out of control; like Bremner, Liberal ministers Mike de Jung and Coleman urged municipalities to allow more housing to be built, faster, to respond to the housing crisis.

Following the release of an explosive government report on money laundering in B.C. casinos earlier this month, Coleman came under fire for overseeing the elimination of an independent gaming crime unit in 2009.

But Bremner insists his party is a new entity that is going to be different than “mainstream” parties, like the NPA. He doesn’t think his association with the B.C. Liberals will harm his chances of winning over voters, and said more supply was the solution to tackling the risk of money laundering in real estate.

“When you provide the rate of return on investment as we do by artificially stunting supply in Vancouver, we create an environment where things like money laundering can occur,” he said.

Vancouver residents go to the polls Oct. 20.

Correction – Aug. 1, 2018: This article was updated from a previous version that misstated the name of a political party in Vancouver. In fact, it is Yes Vancouver.