Kelowna, BC 2026 Municipal Election Candidates

Tom Dyas

• Public safety: 'Treatment First' approach: end the current model at the downtown Outreach Urban Health site; expand detox, treatment and recovery capacity; push for mandatory compassionate care; add 75 new frontline public-safety positions (RCMP, bylaw, firefighters)
• Homelessness: Points to 180 tiny homes established with 125 people moved in

Lean assessment: Business-background incumbent campaigning on a 'safer streets' enforcement-plus-treatment platform; tough-on-disorder positioning.

Ron Cannan

• Public safety: Challenging Dyas from the right on crime and social disorder; Dyas has attacked Cannan's council voting record on safety measures

Lean assessment: Former federal Conservative MP; polling as the leading challenger to Dyas from the right.

Andrew Uitvlugt

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

Mohini Singh

• Public safety: Backs continued investment in policing and firefighter staffing so every neighbourhood has officers and response times it can count on; cites council budgets that added 11 RCMP officers and 8 firefighters in 2025–2026.
• Housing affordability: Supports more rental and family-scale homes that fit existing neighbourhoods — backed 20 new rental homes on Lawson Avenue but voted against a 25-storey downtown tower deemed out of scale for its block.
• Taxes / fiscal stewardship: Positions herself as a careful guardian of residents' tax dollars: voted against a 35% council pay increase (April 2024) and voted to withdraw Kelowna from the regional economic development commission (July 2026) as wasteful spending.

Lean assessment: Runs as an independent with a fiscally conservative, resident-first platform: tax-dollar caution, opposition to council pay raises and regional spending, pro-police/fire investment, and support for established businesses and farmers — tempered by community-service advocacy.

Maxine DeHart

• Public safety: Work with RCMP and Bylaw Services on theft, break-ins and property crime; press senior governments for action on chronic offenders, more prosecutorial resources, and mandatory care facilities; support mental-health professionals responding to crises.
• Housing and support: Work with government, developers and community partners to increase attainable housing; support the Tiny Homes initiative pairing safe housing with support toward permanent housing.
• Local economy: Support businesses of all sizes and economic diversification; support growth at Kelowna International Airport as a jobs/tourism/investment driver; advocate a focused, city-led approach to economic development.

Lean assessment: Runs as an independent with a pro-business platform (hotel-industry career, Chamber of Commerce ties, decades covering local business); priorities lead with policing, prosecutions and economic development rather than redistribution.

Gord Lovegrove

• Sustainable transportation / transit: Signature policy focus: sustainable transport researcher who has promoted a hydrogen-fuel-cell tram-train (light rail) concept for the Okanagan Valley to address population growth, congestion, emissions, and highway fatalities.
• Environment / floodplain protection: Voted against the controversial Kelowna Springs golf course land swap (March 2026), citing the environmental cost of paving over a floodplain (per CBC via fogolf.com).
• Regional fairness / governance: Has pushed for fair, rotating RDCO board appointments so every councillor gets a chance to serve (May 2025).

Lean assessment: Independent whose academic profile is sustainability-oriented (sustainable transport research, votes against environmentally costly deals), which is a green-leaning stance, balanced against his business-engineering background and support for growth-related infrastructure.

JC Rathwell

• Crime / public safety: Pledges to cut crime 50% in his first year via a two-wave plan: 24/7 police/bylaw monitoring of the worst repeat offenders, plus new bylaws (no sleeping in public, no shopping carts), and bylaw pickups of people passed out from drug use into treatment cells and before a judge.
• Homelessness: Argues Kelowna does not have a homelessness problem but a drug and 'soft-on-crime' problem; supports strict enforcement and mandatory treatment or jail for repeat offenders, and criticizes harm-reduction-led approaches.
• City spending / council compensation: Proposes cutting the city manager's salary from ~$380,000 to $100,000 and raising councillor pay from under $60,000 to $100,000 so working business owners can afford to run for council.

Lean assessment: Law-and-order populist independent: pledges strict enforcement and jail/mandatory treatment, uses 'woke' and 'plandemic' rhetoric, attacks incumbents and city management, and frames himself as the business owner's anti-establishment candidate.

Nikki Csek

• Public safety: Public safety first: better lighting, relaunched neighbourhood watch, full enforcement on repeat offenders, freeing police from paperwork, and real recovery pathways including involuntary care; says supportive housing and harm reduction 'cannot be our main approach.'
• Responsible spending: Push for a full budget review in partnership with staff; council as stewards of every resident's dollar — 'nothing should be off the table and every dollar must be effective.'
• Housing and infrastructure: Densify where it makes sense but calls stopping new single-family neighbourhood planning a mistake; fund long-range plans, renew older neighbourhoods, and protect water for the long term.

Lean assessment: Independent business-owner candidate with Chamber of Commerce leadership background; platform leads with enforcement on repeat offenders, budget discipline, and involuntary care — a fiscally and socially conservative-leaning mix for a business-sector candidate.