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Vancouver approves non-binding drug plebiscites that mayor-elect Pete Fry disavowed
Vancouver approves drug plebiscites
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns
Voters in Vancouver have voted by about two-thirds in favour of two plebiscite questions proposed by the city's outgoing mayor on drug use, despite ejecting him from office in the same election.
The City of Vancouver says about 137,000 people voted in favour of stronger laws on open-air hard-drug use, and about 136,000 voted for the city to ask the province to provide "100-plus" involuntary care beds in the city.
But the plebiscite questions were non-binding and mayor-elect Pete Fry said during the campaign that he did not think that putting them on the ballot was necessary, criticizing the questions as cynical and lacking details.
Fry has said he supports managing drug use in public spaces, but differs from outgoing Mayor Ken Sim in believing people should be diverted to supervised consumption sites or shelters.
Sim had said a "yes" vote would have given the city a stronger mandate to deal with drug use in Vancouver.
Fry convincingly defeated Sim in the Oct. 17 vote, which also saw progressive parties sweep Sim's ABC party out of all but one council seat.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2026.
Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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Why has B.C.'s snap election caught both main parties unprepared?
B.C. snap election catches both sides unprepared
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
When a snap election is called, at least one side would normally be prepared.
But that hasn’t been the case in British Columbia, resulting in a provincial election campaign like no other, political watchers say.
The campaign has seen interim B.C. Conservative leader Lorne Doerkson going without media availabilities on several days, including on Tuesday and Wednesday in the home stretch, ahead of Saturday's final voting day.
The NDP has meanwhile pivoted its messaging from focusing on U.S. President Donald Trump, to affordability, to the need for a stable majority.
And campaigning has also been notably muted with relatively few large-scale rallies, although both major parties have events scheduled this week.
Even the NDP campaign bus, which was adorned with Eby's smiling face in 2024, is an anonymous-looking coach, devoid of slogans.
Hamish Telford, an associate professor of political science at the University of the Fraser Valley, said he had noticed the "lack of preparation."
"This is especially surprising since the NDP called this election. You would think, if they were going to call a snap election, that they at least would be prepared, and that they would obviously catch the Conservatives off guard," said Telford.
"This was an election of their making, and they are not entirely ready for it," he added.
Telford said the NDP had initially been anticipating Eby running against Kerry-Lynne Findlay, a divisive and unpopular leader of the Conservatoves. But Findlay resigned and was replaced by Doerkson.
Eby called the snap election anyway.
Telford said he would have advised the NDP not to go through with it.
"They should have called the election off, but evidently things were too late, or they had built up too much momentum and couldn't stop themselves." said Telford.
Angelo Isidorou, who is chief strategist for the Conservatives, said snap elections can be messy compared with fixed-date polls.
"In this case, this is what makes this very unique … not only is it a snap election, but it was an election that took place at the same time as municipal elections, which never happens. So, it was all very chaotic," said Isidorou of the Oct. 17 municipal polls across B.C.
He said the "biggest difference" between a snap election and a fixed-date election is the "predictability."
"It's difficult being in Opposition because you don't know when the election is going to come, and when an election is called, you only have maybe over a week to recruit candidates and get them on the ballot because there's a deadline. When there's a fixed election, you can predict all of this," said Isidorou.
"In this case, it wasn't, and I think what surprised me the most is really how not prepared the NDP was," said Isidorou, adding that otherwise, the NDP would have fielded a full slate of 93 candidates in every riding.
Elections BC said the NPD was one short of a full slate, after failing to nominate a representative in Peace River North.
But vetting may have suffered in the rush to field candidates.
While the Conservatives managed to fill their 93-riding slate, two candidates have since been disavowed by the party.
Jordan McIntosh, the 18-year-old former Conservative candidate for Vancouver-Strathcona, was dumped last Thursday over online posts that included saying Hitler killed "lots of Jews" not because he "hated them specifically" but because there were so many of them.
Another candidate, Joachim Agou, was ejected from the party earlier this month for online comments saying the driver of a car that rammed a pro-Palestinian protest group in Switzerland should have "reversed too."
Political scientist Michael Prince said the election has "elements of some really unusual features."
He said it was puzzling to see parties still fall into the trap of recruiting inappropriate candidates.
"They haven't really thoroughly vetted their history of social media posts," said Prince, the Lansdowne professor emeritus of social policy at the University of Victoria.
"We've seen, particularly on the Conservative side, candidates that have been removed by the leader or have stepped down very quickly," he said. "So, that's kind of the new unusual, but it's been something that's unfortunately pretty typical over the last several elections."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2026.
By Nono Shen | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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Lower courts' reasoning 'neuters' Emergencies Act, government tells Supreme Court
Courts' reasoning 'neuters' Emergencies Act: feds
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
The federal government says the courts engaged in "second-guessing with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight" when they ruled it lacked legal justification to use the Emergencies Act four years ago to quell protests.
Lawyers for the government make the argument in a submission seeking a Supreme Court of Canada hearing of the federal case for invoking the emergencies law to deal with protest actions in the national capital and at key border points.
The top court is slated to rule Thursday on whether to grant the government leave to appeal.
For about three weeks in January and February 2022, downtown Ottawa was filled with protesters, including many in large trucks that blocked streets around Parliament Hill.
While many protesters demonstrated against COVID-19 health restrictions, the "Freedom Convoy" protests also attracted some with a variety of grievances against then-prime minister Justin Trudeau and his government.
Trucks also jammed key border crossings to the United States, including routes at Windsor, Ont., and Coutts, Alta.
On Feb. 14, 2022, the government invoked the Emergencies Act, which allowed for temporary measures, including regulation and prohibition of public assemblies, the designation of secure places, direction to banks to freeze assets, and a ban on support for protest participants.
It was the first time the law had been used since it replaced the War Measures Act in 1988.
In a Feb. 15 letter to premiers, Trudeau said the federal government believed it had reached a point "where there is a national emergency arising from threats to Canada's security.''
The Public Order Emergency Commission, which carried out a mandatory review after the act was used, concluded in early 2023 that the federal government had met the very high legal standard for using the law.
The Trudeau government's move was also scrutinized in Federal Court.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and several other groups and individuals argued that Ottawa lacked sound statutory grounds to deploy the emergency measures.
The government said the steps taken to deal with the turmoil were targeted, proportional and time-limited, and complied with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Richard Mosley, the Federal Court judge who heard the case, concluded the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act did not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness — justification, transparency and intelligibility — and was not supported in relation to the relevant factual and legal constraints.
Ultimately, there "was no national emergency justifying the invocation of the Emergencies Act," Mosley said in his January 2024 ruling.
In January of this year, a three-judge panel of the Federal Court of Appeal unanimously affirmed that ruling.
The Court of Appeal said that as disturbing and disruptive as the blockades and the "Freedom Convoy" protests in Ottawa could be, "they fell well short of a threat to national security."
In its written submission requesting a Supreme Court hearing, the government says the Federal Court and the Court of Appeal "applied the wrong principles on judicial review."
The courts should have asked whether — based on the information available at the time — federal officials acted reasonably in concluding a public order emergency existed, the submission says.
"Instead, they asked, with the benefit of hindsight, whether there were reasonable grounds to believe that a public order emergency existed."
In the end, both courts applied their own view of what was reasonable, the government says.
"This non-deferential approach hamstrings governments' ability to respond effectively to future crises, neuters the Act" and conflicts with the Supreme Court's administrative law rulings over the years, the submission says.
"It amounts to second-guessing with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight," the government adds.
"In the end, no one disputes that emergency measures should be a temporary means of last resort. But that does not mean those measures should be available only in the most dire and extreme circumstances."
In its submission to the Supreme Court, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association says the government should be denied leave to appeal because it is attempting to relitigate "the same issues and arguments the Court of Appeal dismissed."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2026.
By Jim Bronskill | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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