NPA's Hector Bremner elected to Vancouver council as Green candidates top school board race

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      The NPA's Hector Bremner has emerged victorious in Vancouver's council by-election race, thanks to a split on the left.

      The former political aide to the B.C. Liberals' Rich Coleman won by 3,109 votes over his nearest opponent, independent candidate Jean Swanson.

      Bremner was 3,613 votes ahead of the third-place finisher, Green candidate Pete Fry.

      After all 48,645 ballots were counted, Bremner had only 27.83 percent. But with four other candidates winning more than 10 percent, it was easily enough to capture the council seat vacated by Vision Vancouver's Geoff Meggs.

      Jean Swanson called for a mansion tax and a rent freeze during the campaign.
      Yolande Cole

      The NPA candidate ran on a platform of increasing supply to address the city's housing crisis. Bremners victory means that his centre-right party will have four members on council.

      There is one Green (Adriane Carr), five Vision Vancouver councillors, and Vision Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson, which means the balance of power won't change.

      The Vision Vancouver council by-election candidate, Diego Cardona, came in fifth place with just 11.26 percent of the vote. Ahead of him was the city's long-time tenant assistance coordinator, OneCity's Judy Graves, who ended up with 13.17 percent of the vote.

      Collectively, Swanson, Fry, and Graves collected 26,349 votes, which was nearly double Bremner's total of 13,372.

      The Greens' Judy Zaichkowsky attracted the second-most votes for school board.

      Coming in sixth was Sensible Vancouver candidate Mary Jean Dunsdon, a.k.a. Watermelon, with 3.62 percent of the votes.

      In the school board race, the Greens had the top three vote getters: Janet Fraser and political newcomers Judy Zaichkowsky and Estrellita Gonzalez.

      Zaiwchkowsky is an SFU professor in the Beedie School of Business and Gonzalez owns a wellness centre.

      The Greens' Estrellita Gonzalez is one of four political newcomers to be elected to the Vancouver school board.

      Three Vision Vancouver candidates were also elected: Joy Alexander, Allan Wong, and Ken Clement.

      Alexander and Wong were members of the previous board that was fired last year by then education minister Mike Bernier. Clement is a former Vision Vancouver trustee who was narrowly defeated in the 2014 election. 

      The NPA's Lisa Dominato was elected in her first run for the Vancouver school board.

      Two NPA trustees, newcomer Lisa Dominato and former trustee Fraser Ballantyne. Dominato is the chair of the Kettle Society and is the former director of student wellness and safety with the Ministry of Education.

      And for the first time in Vancouver history, a candidate with OneCity, Carrie Bercic, has been elected as a trustee. Prior to the election, Bercic declared that she had attended every school board meeting since 2014.

      OneCity's Carrie Bercic is the first member of her party who's ever been elected.

      The last chair of the board, Vision Vancouver's Mike Lombardi, was defeated, as was the other Vision candidate, Theodora Lamb.

      Former NPA trustee and one-time school board chair Christopher Richardson also lost, as did two other NPA candidates, Rob McDowell and Julian Prieo.

      The second OneCity candidate, Erica Jaaf, came 12th, slightly ahead of Lombardi, and COPE's only candidate, Diana Day, was 15th.

      The only independent candidate to attract more than 10,000 votes for school trustee was 20-year-old Adi Pick, who was the youngest person in the race.

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