Kamloops, BC 2026 Municipal Election Candidates

Nelly Dever

• Accountability, communication & transparency: Runs on ACT principles: restore a culture of mutual respect and governance excellence at City Hall; tax dollars managed with respect and integrity; endorses in-house-first public service delivery and regular engagement with labour organizations.
• Fiscal responsibility: Champions 'Co-Build' public-private partnerships for large capital projects (new recreation facilities, complex infrastructure) to build on budget without the full burden falling on taxpayers; core services, public safety, water/waste utilities stay in public hands.
• Community safety & wellbeing: One of the Pivot Kamloops slate's four pillars; emphasizes community safety and wellbeing alongside economic vitality and decorum.

Lean assessment: Endorsed by the Kamloops & District Labour Council with a platform of in-house-first public services, Living Wage principles and public-sector worker protections; philanthropic (hospice) leadership background.

Ray Dhaliwal

• Community safety: Proactive policing and community engagement; publicly 'backs the RCMP'; wants a greater emphasis on tackling property crime and vehicle thefts, in part by pushing for more RCMP officers in the city.
• Fiscal responsibility & low taxes: Fiscal responsibility is a headline plank; pledges to keep taxes low and says he will take only half the mayor's pay, directing the rest to a local hardship fund.
• Affordable housing & community development: Commitment to creating affordable housing, investing in infrastructure, improving public services and environmental stewardship, pitched as 'bringing back the glory days' with an accessible, accountable, approachable mayor.

Lean assessment: Independent with a fiscally conservative, law-and-order platform: low taxes, backing the RCMP, proactive policing, and halving his own mayoral pay — market-and-order municipal conservatism.

Reid Hamer-Jackson

• Accountability & transparency (1st): Moved to top of his platform for 2026: open City Hall doors to public input, fewer decisions behind closed doors (land/legal/personnel aside), arguing you cannot get a safer community without accountability first since 'safety costs money, and money without oversight goes nowhere'.
• Community safety (2nd): Still a core goal — a safer community — but now sequenced behind accountability in his 2026 platform.
• Prosperity (3rd): Attainable housing and sustainable infrastructure framed as the work prosperity depends on; describes himself as having come to City Hall for citizens, not a career.

Lean assessment: Elected in 2022 as part of a provincial wave of centre-right mayors responding to crime and homelessness; platform of accountability, safety and prosperity with a populist outsider tone.

Kris Lloyd-Middleton

• Accountability & oversight: Would create a process to dismiss any councillor or mayor who fails to uphold office responsibilities, and hold city-sponsored organizations responsible for funds received and full contract performance.
• Infrastructure cost plan & developer subsidies: Says Kamloops is developing without factoring in long-term infrastructure upkeep costs, creating an untenable deficit; wants a growth plan that prices in upkeep and eliminates subsidies to multi-million-dollar developers — 'working people should not subsidize business'.
• Social justice & equity: Campaign grounded in human-rights/social-justice advocacy, focused on seeking justice for vulnerable residents and expanding avenues for working people to profit from their properties.

Lean assessment: MA in Human Rights and Social Justice, 25-year social-work/advocacy career, and a platform of equity, anti-corporate-subsidy fiscal reform and systemic accountability — the race's most progressive profile.

Mike O'Reilly

• Street disorder & homelessness: 'Campus of Care' model to centralize shelter and support services for efficiency and less neighbourhood disruption; would relocate Community Service Officer offices to the downtown core and Tranquille business district with a satellite in Valleyview.
• Recreation & sport hosting (Build Kamloops): Deliver the Build Kamloops program — including the arena multiplex and performing arts centre — to protect Kamloops' 'Tournament Capital' reputation; invest in new soccer fields on city land in Dallas and Brocklehurst.
• Transportation & connectivity: Advance major road connections in Juniper, Aberdeen and Pineview; build a Dallas-Valleyview multi-use connection off the Trans-Canada shoulder; quick-build 'micro-fixes' for cycling; pursue a regional trail network from Kenna Cartwright Park toward Tobiano with the TNRD.

Lean assessment: Business owner (downtown cafe, development company CEO), pro-Build Kamloops, pro-growth 'Kamloops First' platform emphasizing sustainable taxes, economic development and business-district policing — pro-business municipal conservatism in a consensus-building tone.

Ivory Winston

Lean assessment: Detailed issue positions are being verified — see the interactive tool above.