As 2022 draws to a close, we’re looking back at the top 10 Burnaby news stories of the year.
Yesterday, we remembered the tragedy of Muska Behzad, who was killed by a dump truck while walking home from school.
Today, we recap the year’s number No. 2 story with a look back at the 2022 municipal election and campaign in Burnaby.
Minor changes to city council
This year’s municipal election on Oct. 15 saw changes to the Burnaby council table but a paltry voter turnout.
Former firefighter Mayor Mike Hurley, independent, went unchallenged for the mayor’s seat and was acclaimed to his position.
With the retirement of two long-time city councillors, Dan Johnstone and Colleen Jordan, there were at least two seats up for grabs.
Burnaby voters elected three new councillors, including one from new centrist political party One Burnaby.
The NDP-aligned Burnaby Citizens Association gained a supermajority at the council table, with six councillors elected: incumbent Couns. Pietro Calendino, Sav Dhaliwal, Alison Gu and James Wang, along with newcomers Couns. Maita Santiago and Daniel Tetrault.
The party has had a stronghold on Burnaby politics for decades.
Gu won the most votes, with a little more than eight per cent of the vote (17,342 votes total) and more than 4,000 votes ahead of second-place Wang. Santiago is the Lower Mainland’s first Filipino city councillor.
Former councillor Mike Hillman, who sat as an independent before founding One Burnaby, was ousted in favour of running-mate, former BC Liberal MLA for Burnaby North, Richard Lee.
Voter turnout in Burnaby was particularly low at 19.78 per cent (down from 32 per cent in 2018), with 32,251 voters showing up to the polls out of 163,076 registered voters.
School board sweep
The BCA swept school board, meaning the Green Party lost its sole school trustee.
BCA candidate Mikelle Sasakamoose won election as trustee, becoming the first elected Indigenous politician in the City of Burnaby.
All three parties, BCA, Greens and One Burnaby, ran on similar platforms including densifying the city, supporting more active transportation and creating a city housing authority. In its first two months, council has continued the pro-development bent seen in previous years.
