Resources

Below is a list of candidate forums, debates and town halls ahead of the October 17, 2026 Vancouver municipal election. This list will be updated periodically.

Click here to learn more about FIRST UNITED’s positions, and to see a list of questions you can ask candidates.

The Great East End Town Hall All Candidates Meeting
Monday, September 28 6:00pm – 9:00pm
Britannia Community Centre, Gym D
Meet you Park and School Board Candidates

FSGAC Mayoral Candidate Town Hall
Monday, September 28 6:30pm – 8:30pm
Holy Trinity Anglican Church

Candid Candidates: 2026 Vancouver Election
Tuesday, September 29 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Creekside Community Centre Multipurpose Room 4
Meet your Vancouver mayor & council candidates

Park Board All Candidates Meeting
Tuesday, September 29th, 7:00 – 9:00pm
Kerrisdale Community Centre

Last Candidate Standing
Thursday, October 1st, 7:00pm
York Theatre
Game show style debate

City council candidates town hall
Friday October 2nd, 6:30-8:00pm
Carnegie Community Centre Theatre on main floor
Dinner and Q&A with candidates, asking what they would do fo rthe DTES

Mayoral Mixer: A Conversation with the Candidates
Monday October 5nd, 7:00pm-8:30pm
Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre, SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
Hosted by The Tyee and SFU Public Square

Past Events

The Great East End Town Hall All Candidates Meeting
Monday, September 21 6:00pm – 9:00pm
Britannia Community Centre, Gym D
Meet you Park and School Board Candidates

Metro Vancouver Alliance 2026 Municipal Election Assembly
Wednesday, September 23, 7 :00pm – 9:00pm
St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church

Council All Candidates Meet and Greet
Saturday, September 26 9:00am -12:00pm
Cedar Cottage Neighbourhood House
Meet you candidates

The next municipal election is scheduled for October 17, 2026. As a respected leader and community advocate in the Downtown Eastside, FIRST UNITED is mobilizing communities to engage in the election.  

See a list of upcoming candidate forums, debates, and town halls here.

What we’re mobilizing for 

We encourage our supporters, allies, and communities to attend candidate forums, debates and events and query candidates about the following issues: 

Zoning and Housing

When it comes to housing, the municipalities can decide what type of housing can or cannot be built and where. For example, in 2025 Council voted to freeze the construction of net-new supportive housing within Vancouver, and changed the zoning within the Downtown Eastside Oppenheimer District (DEOD) to decrease the proportion of social housing units required in new builds in the area. These types of choices can either improve or worsen the affordable housing crisis Vancouver and much of BC has been experiencing for years.  

We encourage you to ask the following question to candidates:  

What zoning changes will you propose to increase non-market housing, and what resources will you put towards the development of non-market housing? 

What we would like to hear from candidates: 

• Commitment to reverse zoning changes to the DEOD and restore higher proportions of social and shelter-rate housing 
• Prioritize zoning of affordable and supportive housing projects 
• Maximize the amount of social and shelter-rate housing required for inclusionary zoning buildings 

Harm reduction and saving lives

Substance use and addiction are health issues. As such, the provincial government has significant jurisdiction over healthcare policy and access, but as we’ve seen this year the City can use its powers of zoning and bylaw development to halt life-saving spaces like overdose prevention sites. Municipal governments, while limited in their powers to affect the availability or accessibility of healthcare, do hold influence with the provincial government and can lobby for interventions. 

We encourage you to ask the following question to candidates: 

With overdose prevention sites being challenged and critics of harm reduction becoming more vocal, what is your plan to maintain evidence-based models? 

What we would like to hear from candidates: 

• Overdose prevention sites will not be blocked. 
• Commitment to providing and enabling spaces to be used for detox and voluntary treatment services 
• Lobbying the provincial government for increasing voluntary treatment and detox spaces and funding so people can access help immediately instead of waiting weeks 
• That enforcement will not be punitive and perpetuate cycles of poverty through the issuance of tickets that individuals can’t afford to pay 

What we’re endorsing 

Women Transforming Cities has asked us to publicly endorse and sign on to two issues as part of their policy requests to candidates. We have endorsed the following: 

Housing Access

Will you commit to expanding access to non-market and climate-resilient housing options to reduce housing waitlist times, including: 

• Increasing co-op, social, and supportive housing in every neighbourhood by partnering with the non-market housing sector to proactively change zoning rules that delay non-market homes and make rents more expensive, within the first year of your term. 
• Prioritizing non-market housing on public land and demanding senior governments provide substantial, long-term funding to enable deeply affordable units. 
• Improving tenant safety during extreme heat by advancing building retrofit initiatives that provide low-carbon cooling, especially for low-income tenants. 

Public Washrooms

Will you commit to addressing the gap in essential hygiene infrastructure by increasing the availability of accessible, maintained, 24/7 washrooms, including:

• Installing prefabricated public toilets, like Portland Loos, in high-need areas, or setting up porta potties as a stopgap where needed. 
• Increasing funding for existing City and Park Board washroom maintenance and upgrades, especially in under-resourced neighbourhoods. 
• Partnering with DTES service providers and other levels of government to sustain and expand peer and non-profit-supported hygiene facilities such as mobile washrooms, staffed washrooms, showers, and laundry facilities, with safer options for women and gender-diverse people. 

The creation of this document was requested by our partners at EcoTrust, whose values align on this work to create more equitable and sustainable communities.

Calendar

Join us in preparation for the winter season as we work through a justice-focused Advent and Christmas calendar, created by Rev. Lauren Sanders, Spiritual Care Manager (Prairie Band Potawatomi/mshkodéni bodewadminwen, Kickapoo Nation of Kansas/kiikaapoa, African American/Black).

Together, we’ll learn and work through ways to respond to Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action 59 and 60.

The calendar runs from November 29 to January 5 and features daily actions that we can participate in together. This important work is part of our commitment to putting reconciliation into action.

Click here for the 2026 Advent and Christmas Calendar

Bosho, Lauren nŤėshnēkas. Ote ke xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) eťtēŤayan. Mshkodani bodéwadmi mine kiikaapoa nŤēbenŤagwïs. My name’s Lauren, and I’m the Spiritual Care Manager and Chaplain for First United.

How’s your spirit today?

Whether you are celebrating a new lunar year with the vibrancy and passion of the fire horse, or spending time in reflection and prayer during Ramadan or Lent, this is the season of breathing deeply and engaging creativity.

We will lift our grief up during this season of Ramadan and Lent. With all of the horrors going on in the world right now, art can be very healing so this year, we will revisit First United’s grief art challenge. Let us explore the complicated feelings and emotions of the cycles of grief.

This is a feelings wheel (click the image and save to download). I made this one. There are many other kinds. Gloria Wilcox is known as being the pioneer of this tool. She made hers as a visual aid that helped folks acknowledge and communicate about their feelings and work towards change.

Using the feelings wheel and watching (or listening) to our grief vlog, I wonder what feelings you feel as you paint. I wonder what you feel when you are faced with the craziness and urgency of problems near you and across the globe. I wonder where you recognize grief.

Art Challenge

Lent is a time of prayer and fasting and a time to explore new spiritual practices. One of the most basic spiritual practices that humanity has is our feelings and emotions.

To help us explore and work through complex emotions that accompany grief, Lauren Sanders, Indigenous Spiritual Care Chaplain, is hosting an art challenge for the Lenten season.

You’re invited to join in this weekly practice as Lauren shares her own painting process and guides us through some “wondering questions” around grief. Feel free to comment your answers to the questions. You can also share your painting on social media with the hashtag #PourOutGrief.

All videos will be posted here. Check back every Wednesday to see the latest one!

Week 1: Grief

Week 2: Denial, Shock, Numbness

Week 3: Pain, Guilt and Shame

Week 5: Isolation, Loneliness and Processing

Week 6: Testing

Week 7: Acceptance

Land Acknowledgement

Words of Welcome and Explanation

Fear Not The Pain

Gathering Prayer
~A Celtic Prayer – David Adam
(We all read the bold together.)
From chaos and emptiness,
From loneliness and lifelessness,
All: Come, Creator, Come.
From void and shapelessness,
From the abyss and awfulness,
All: Come, Creator, Come.
From fearfulness and hopelessness,
From weakness and dreadfulness,
All: Come, Creator, Come.

Fear Not The Pain

Psalm 22

Fear Not The Pain

Litany of Comfort for Blue Christmas By Debra Faulk

(We all read the bold together.)

All around us are bright lights and merry messages
Yet in our heart not all is joyful
There is grief with the loss of relationships,
Those we love, no longer with us because of death
Those we have loved who are estranged from us
Those we love, yet experience a diminishment of intimacy
There is grief with the loss and change of relationship,

Grief, bittersweet for it is a consequence of the presence of love
This season brings forth many feelings

All: We find comfort in naming these feelings; we find some peace in being together

All around us are bright lights and merry messages
Yet in our heart not all is joyful
There may be pain in our bodies,
Physical pain as a natural outcome of aging
Physical pain that presents itself in illness
Pain in the body that forces us to change and imposes limitations

Pain, bittersweet for physical experience includes both pain and pleasure and
This season brings forth many feelings

All: We find comfort in naming these feelings; we find some peace in being together

All around us are bright lights and merry messages
Yet in our heart not all is joyful
There may be anger and regret with the memories we hold,
Anger with past experiences of hurt or abuse,
Regret of our own actions that may have cause hurt to others,
Anger that life has not turned out as we imagined,
Regret for what we might have said or done,

Anger and regret, bittersweet in presenting the possibility for healing and forgiveness,
This season brings forth many feelings

All: We find comfort in naming these feelings; we find some peace in being together

All around us are bright lights and merry messages
Yet in our heart not all is joyful
There may be uncertainty that accompanies transition and change,
Uncertainty of what the future may bring with changes,
Uncertainty of direction or purpose after retirement or change of vocation,
Uncertainty when changing residence, by choice or necessity,

Uncertainty, bittersweet for change, a constant in life, let’s us know we are alive, and change along with
This season brings forth many feelings

All: We find comfort in naming these feelings; we find some peace in being together

All around us are bright lights and merry messages
Yet in our heart not all is joyful
There may be a sense of hopelessness,
Hopelessness in the face of so much violence and suffering
Hopelessness with attempts to heal our aching world and ourselves
Hopelessness in witnessing what we have not managed to accomplish

Hopelessness, bittersweet for its longing reminds us of our capacity for hope and the human spirit’s tenacity and courage that rest deep within each of us as
This season brings forth many feelings

All: We find comfort in naming these feelings; we find some peace in being together

All around us are bright lights and merry messages
Yet in our heart not all is joyful
There is loneliness,
Loneliness when we find ourselves alone after being long-partnered,
Loneliness when we are separated from loved ones,
Loneliness when we move to a new community and struggle to find our way,
Loneliness that never seems filled even with good company,

Loneliness that is an ever-present aching in the heart,

Loneliness, bittersweet for it is felt only when we have known connectedness and
This season brings forth many feelings

All: We find comfort in naming these feelings; we find some peace in being together

All around us are bright lights and merry messages
Yet in our heart not all is joyful
We know grief and pain,
We know anger and regret,
We know hopelessness and loneliness,
We know all these feeling, we name them, we live them for such is the human experience
That love presents us with the possibility of being hurt, with the grief of loss,
That connection holds the potential of loneliness and uncertainty,
That forgiveness can begin to heal anger and regret

That being alive is a courageous act in which we engage all of our emotions and
This season brings forth many feelings

All: We find comfort in naming these feelings; we find some peace in being together

Ritual of Lighting Candles

Fear Not The Pain

Sending Words

Adapted from Enid A. Virago

Friends, go in peace.
Hold in your heart the certainty
That the spirit of life is with you always.

When your heart is torn asunder
Or when you soar with sweet joy,
You are never alone, never apart,
From the spirit that resides within us,
That guides our lives and cherishes us always.

Take comfort.
Blessed be.

Fear Not The Pain

Toast Talks are a series of information sessions during which members of the FIRST UNITED team offer updates, insights, and information about our work to our communities of faith, volunteers, donors, stakeholders, and friends. To make sure you never miss out on invitations to Toast Talks, subscribe to our emails.

Toast Talks Summer 2026

The Toast Talks recording will be uploaded here following the event. Register here for Summer Toast Talks, happening on August 13.

Here is the digital version of our Summer 2026 First Things First newsletter:

Toast Talks are a series of information sessions during which members of the FIRST UNITED team offer updates, insights, and information about our work to our communities of faith, volunteers, donors, stakeholders, and friends. To make sure you never miss out on invitations to Toast Talks, subscribe to our emails.

Toast Talks March 2026

Here is the digital version of the of our 2025 Annual Report:

Toast Talks are a series of information sessions during which members of the FIRST UNITED team offer updates, insights, and information about our work to our communities of faith, volunteers, donors, stakeholders, and friends. To make sure you never miss out on invitations to Toast Talks, subscribe to our emails.

Toast Talks November 2025

Here is the digital version of our Fall 2025 Newsletter:

“For many years, Indigenous children were taken from their families and communities and forced into Residential Schools. Others were separated through Day Schools, the Sixties Scoop, and ongoing systems that disrupted language, culture, family and belonging.

We remember the children who never came home. We honour Survivors, families, and communities who continue to carry these experiences.

Truth and Reconciliation calls us not only to remember the past, but to ensure that these harms are never repeated, denied, or forgotten.

What is needed for a better future?

What helps us build a world where every child is valued, every culture is respected, and every community can thrive? Share your answers with us.”

– Rev. Lauren Sanders, Spiritual Care Manager

On this year’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we invite you to put reconciliation into action in one of the following ways:
1. Reflect on Rev. Lauren Sanders’ question: “What is needed for a better future? What helps us build a world where every child is valued, every culture is respected, and every community can thrive? Share your answers with us at [email protected].”
2. Attend a local Truth and Reconciliation event (listed below)
3. Learn and unlearn through the resources provided in our 2026 justice-themed Advent calendar that explores ways to respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action 59 and 60.

Below is a list of local Truth and Reconciliation events:

Cleansing the Path: Cedar Medicine, Ancestral Wisdom, and Truth in Action
Mon, Sept 28 from 6:00pm – 7:30pm
Vancouver Public Library – Kitsilano Branch – 2425 MacDonald St.

Smudging Traditions with Elder Marvin Delorme
Tues, Sept 29 from 3:30pm
Vancouver Public Library – nə́c̓aʔmat ct Strathcona Branch – 370 E Hastings

Orange Shirt Day Commemoration Event
Tues, Sept 29^th from 4:30pm – 6:30pm  

Intergenerational March to Commemorate Orange Shirt Day
Wed, Sept 30 from 11:45am – 3:00pm
UBC Vancouver Campus – 1956 Main Mall

MONOVA: Museum of North Vancouver
Wed, Sept 30 from 10am – 5pm
115 West Esplanade, North Vancouver
Pay-what-you-can

National Day for Truth and Reconciliation – Indigenous-led events
Wed, Sept 30 at 9:00am
Arts Umbrella, Granville Island – 1400 Johnston St

National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Day Event
Wed, Sept 30 from 12:00pm – 3:00pm
Grandview Park

Rev. Lauren Sanders, Indigenous Spiritual Care Chaplain, has written a blog in honour of National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Rev. Sanders shares about the truth-telling and truth-listening aspects of truth and reconciliation, and how art—one of the key forms of communication—requires everyone to be a truth-listener.

Art is storytelling, and art is one of the oldest forms of truth that there is. We see art everywhere. When there are archeological digs or when you’re in Indigenous sacred spaces, there’s art. That art is telling a story, and that story tells the truth.  

When we are journeying on this truth and reconciliation journey, it is vital that we look at songs, dances, and all art forms as part of ways to speak truth, hear truth, learn truth, unlearn truths that we don’t need anymore, unlearn lies, and relearn truths that we’ve forgotten about. 

Truth-telling and truth-listening happen together in an open dialog. The truth hits hard, shining light on places within us and around us that we would rather not see or be seen. Allowing those hard truths to confront the lies we have believed takes humility, self-awareness, and courage. As we work to fully accept those hard truths, we realize that telling the truth is also very difficult. Telling hard truths also requires humility, self-awareness, and courage. The vulnerability of both the truth-teller and the truth-accepter is the beginning of trust. Only from that trust can reconciliation be built. 

When we experience art, we have feelings about it. Feelings are the deepest and first way we encounter what we think of as spirit. Our body reacts, our mind reacts, and everything within us reacts when we feel feeling. With art, you’re supposed to feel feeling. That art tells us: this is the artist’s truth. You can like it; you can not like it. You can feel some way about it. But that was the point of the artwork. To feel some way about it. 

When we encounter the hard truths from artwork, particularly Indigenous artwork, we all need to give ourselves space to internalize it and have it become a vital part of us in a way that allows the truth to become ours. The story isn’t to be usurped or subsumed. The truth in the story becomes our common humanity, our connection that breathes solidarity into being… again. In some creation stories, we were all one. We became fractured into “I only” through colonization, systemic oppression, and genocide. Listening to hard truths, whether through art or other means, moves us toward each other. 

This National Truth and Reconciliation Day, I invite you to join us in reflection with the following questions: 

When you’re looking at public art, what do you feel? What are some hard truths? What are the lies you believed? 

Casey Stainsby, Student Pastor, and Rev. Lauren Sanders, Indigenous Spiritual Care Chaplain, hand-painted a maple tree at the FIRST UNITED Spiritual Care office. The tree will be adorned with paper maple leaves designed by FIRST UNITED staff. On each maple leaf, staff wrote a commitment to dignity, belonging, and justice for truth and reconciliation.

“There’s no limits to what could happen with the money,” said a City Councillor recently.

Oh goodness, don’t we know it.

The City is exploring the idea of selling naming rights of parks and public spaces to corporations in an effort to reduce a $500 million infrastructure deficit.

In a world where we’re constantly bombarded with advertising and branding, and massive corporations are constantly vying for our eyes, do we really need to let that infiltrate BC’s natural beauty and public spaces?

But more than that, this initiative appears to be at odds with reconciliation…The City is proposing further profiting from the possession of stolen lands. The City was designated a “City of Reconciliation” in 2014. We invite staff, Councillors, and the Mayor alike to reflect on what selling naming rights for stolen lands means in this context. Is selling the naming rights to stolen lands based in reconciliation?

Look, we understand the need to pay for things. And we understand the benefits to partnering with the corporate sector to achieve goals. And as such, we’d like to offer some insight and constructive feedback to our public sector colleagues on the issue.

We’re currently redeveloping our site into an 11-storey purpose-built facility with four floors of community services and seven floors of affordable housing for Indigenous people (operated by Lu’ma Native Housing Society). The price tag for our four floors of services: a whopping $37 million, of $92 million for the whole building.

FIRST UNITED isn’t a massive organization; our operating budget just crept over $5 million this year. We’re well underway with our fundraising efforts for our new building, but that doesn’t detract from how ambitious it is for an organization of our size.

But we made a deliberate choice when we launched our capital campaign: We chose to not sell naming rights to rooms, spaces, or the building itself. This is actually highly unusual in the fundraising and philanthropic space.

All of the spaces in our new building will be named after Indigenous and spiritual roots of the land and Indigenous leaders rather than donors. And because we know that recognition can be meaningful, instead of naming rights, donors have the opportunity to offer dedications for the spaces they help to fund. But those rooms will be known by their Indigenous-based name first, not by the dedication. And that makes a big difference.

For us, this dedication policy is a core component to putting reconciliation in action.

The neighbourhood we serve is comprised of about 30-40% Indigenous People. The soil we’ve built into is stolen, never-ceded, ancestral land that is not ours. To create a space that is grounded in dignity, belonging, and justice, we decided that it was more important to recognize and honour the history of the land than the names of corporations or wealthy donors.

Our relationship with Indigenous Peoples and our journey through and to reconciliation are more important than money. These are our values, and we’re choosing to live them, regardless of the expense. We believe it is possible to have your actions align with your values, especially when it comes to managing your pocketbook.

We invite the City to reflect on their values regarding the allocation of existing funds. We continue to see the Mayor’s office and Vancouver Police Department’s budgets climb without issue or much in the way of “creative” fundraising. It just happens. It’s dismaying that our public spaces—and opportunities for righting wrongs of colonialism—not given the same type of prioritization for a City of Reconciliation.

Be brave, City of Vancouver. Take a note out of our playbook. Live the values you say you have. And if nothing else, it might not be a great look for your sponsors as you evict houseless residents from these newly-renamed parks.