‘I owe it to my city’: Green Coun. Pete Fry is running to be mayor of Vancouver

After months of speculation, Vancouver Green Party Coun. Pete Fry is making a run for the city's top job.

City Councillor Pete Fry wants to be Vancouver’s next mayor.

The two-term councillor with the Green Party—and one of Mayor Ken Sim’s biggest critics—said it’s a natural next step.

“I owe it to myself,” Fry said. “I owe it to my city to make this decision.”

The news won’t come as a surprise to many who follow municipal politics.

Last Fall, Fry hinted he was considering a mayoral bid, but needed to make sure his wife was on board.

Fry said he’s received support from community members, and from staff at the City of Vancouver who have reached out, encouraging him to run.

“I take this pretty seriously,” he said.

Fry is the lone Green voice on council, after the city’s longest serving councillor, Adrianne Carr, resigned last year.

When asked if becoming the city’s top politician was one of his goals after winning a council seat in 2018, Fry said, “absolutely not.”

“I really love being a councillor, but what I see today is, we elected a guy with no experience who was planning to run the city like a business,” he said.

“And that turned out, I believe, quite disastrously.”

Integrity commissioner, mayor’s gym

An effective opposition voice, Fry credits himself with halting the mayor’s office from eliminating the Integrity Commissioner, and revealing the internal goings on at city hall, such as when Sim converted a board room into his personal gym.

“Finding the mayor’s secret gym was a bit of a joy,” he said.

“But also, I think, an important illustration of the kind of culture that has permeated city hall.”

Asked how he’d address that culture both within council and at a staff level if elected, Fry said he’d prioritize accountability and transparency, while playing to councillors’ strengths.

“That, to me, is what leadership is about,” he said.

“I want them to succeed because if they succeed, our city succeeds. I feel that same way about our staff, where the morale at the City of Vancouver is very debilitated at this point.”

Fry said part of why staff morale is low is due to the success of Sim’s ABC party in freezing property taxes with the “Zero Means Zero” budget.

Around 400 staff jobs are expected to be cut.

“I honestly believe that this job requires a great deal of empathy,” he said.

“We have a very complicated city. We have a lot of competing needs. And it matters that we lean in and meet people where they’re at and try to figure out what’s going to work for our city.”

Left coalition?

Fry now joins mayoral candidates Sim, Kareem Allam with the Vancouver Liberals, Rebecca Bligh with Vote Vancouver, and either Amanda Burrows or William Azaroff, who are both running for the OneCity mayoral nomination.

When asked about another progressive candidate entering the race, Fry said that in September, The Green Party of Vancouver, COPE and OneCity had discussions about whether to limit the number of candidates they run, with the hopes of electing a progressive council majority and mayor.

“I think COPE and the Greens are generally in agreement that it might be an opportunity to explore having a progressive primary, as we’re calling it, and see who might emerge at the top,” he said.

In a statement to CTV News, OneCity board member and nominations committee co-chair Matthew Wigmore said the party welcomes Fry to the race.

“We’re focused on delivering results for people in Vancouver, a city that reflects who they are and where they want to live,” Wigmore said.

“We remain committed and present at ongoing unity talks with COPE and Vancouver Greens, and will share an update as soon as it becomes available.”

When asked how he differentiates himself from the other candidates, Fry pointed to his elected experience.

“I have a pretty good depth of knowledge on the mechanics of local government, and specifically how the City of Vancouver works,” he said,

“I think I have a head and shoulders advantage over anybody to that capacity.”

‘Care for the city’

As for his campaign platform, Fry said it will be formed in the near future, but that his policies will revolve around community services that intersect with safety, public infrastructure, poverty reduction and small businesses.

Sim’s ABC party has prioritized a zero per cent property tax increase, cutting red tape for businesses, and investing in public safety, which included approving a $50 million funding boost to the Vancouver Police Department in 2025.

Fry believes that the conversation around public safety needs to be reframed.

“The narrative from ABC has been that core services are cops, fire, potholes, that kind of thing,” he said.

“I believe that core services are actually more about the care for the city.”

Fry has been a staunch critic of the VPD-led Task Force Barrage that tackled crime and street disorder on the Downtown Eastside.

He said the $5 million initiative did not solve all the issues it set out to address, adding the city needs to take a more proactive, thoughtful, and fiscally responsible approach.

“We’re responsible for what happens in our city,” he said.

“Full stop.”