One of the campers at the Occupy Vancouver event is running for mayor of the city.

I ran into Darrell Zimmerman, a perennial protester and political gadfly, while taking a tour of the tent city that emerged on the lawn of the Vancouver Art Gallery.

"I'm going to be the only homeless candidate in this election," Zimmerman told me.

He likes waving around a toy lobster to highlight Vision Vancouver councillor Heather Deal's decision to tweet a photo of leftovers from a lobster feast at a Federation of Canadian Municipalities meeting in Halifax. The meeting mostly focused on homelessness.

"The main message is enough is enough," Zimmerman said of his campaign. He's promoting free transit, which he suggested will "save the planet".

Darrell Zimmerman discusses his campaign to become mayor—and shows off his tent.

Zimmerman, a saxophonist, is a veteran of several tent cities. He described the one at the art gallery as "upper quality", with more students and none of the crackheads that he has seen at other tent cities to protest homelessness.

In the video, he speaks openly about his bipolar condition, which he blamed for an outburst at a Vancouver park board meeting last year.

Zimmerman also mentions in the video that an East Hastings Street family drop-in centre where he takes his five-year-old son was recently closed because the province cut off the money. "The gaming grant funding did not come through."

Follow Charlie Smith on Twitter at twitter.com/csmithstraight.