B.C. Votes 2022: Election results for Victoria and Vancouver Island

Voters have elected sitting councillor Marianne Alto as the new mayor of British Columbia's capital city.

Alto defeated seven other candidates to replace two-term Victoria mayor Lisa Helps, who chose not to run for a third term.

Alto won more than 55 per cent of the vote and Stephen Andrew came second with 36 per cent.

Ben Isitt, the only incumbent running for a council seat, was not re-elected.

Jeremy Caradonna, Susan Kim, Matt Dell, Krista Loughton, Dave Thompson, Christopher Coleman, Stephen Hammond and Marg Gardiner will make up the brand new council in Victoria.

The housing crisis in Victoria was the central issue of the campaign; there are few places in B.C. that have been affected more acutely than Vancouver Island and the Capital Regional District.

From university students living in vans to a frustrated resident building a houseboat out of recycling bins and road signs, the lack of places to live has been making headlines over the past four years.

A key issue for the race was how mayoral and council candidates would vote on the Missing Middle Housing Initiative, a contentious plan to rezone all single-family properties to allow for multi-family add-ons, something the next set of city leaders will make a decision on early in their term.

'Solid and calm and dependable'

Alto, who supported the missing middle initiative before the election, said housing would be her top priority. She said being elected was an endorsement of the path the former council was on.

"I hope that it means that much of the work that I've done in the last 11 years, though sometimes not as extreme or noticeable, has been appreciated as something that's solid and calm and dependable," she said.

"Sometimes in municipal politics, that's what you want. You want somebody you can rely on. And I hope that this vote is an appreciation for the fact — and I'll take it — that people can rely on me doing what I say."

Saanich

In Vancouver Island's largest municipality, the District of Saanich, former three-term councillor Dean Murdock narrowly defeated incumbent mayor Fred Haynes. 

Aside from housing, road safety and the possibility of amalgamating with other municipalities were top of mind in the mayoral race.

Colin Plant, Susan Brice, Zac de Vries, Judy Brownoff, Mena Westhaver, Nathalie Chambers, Karen Harper and Teale Phelps Bondaroff were elected to council seats.

Langford

Incumbent mayor Stewart Young — seeking his 10th term in office in Langford — was defeated by challenger Scott Goodmanson.

Goodmanson, an independent candidate, won with 53.1 per cent of the vote, while Young received 45 per cent of the vote.

Young's council candidates under the Community First Langford slate were soundly defeated by another slate called Langford Now.

Colby Harder, Mary Wagner, Keith Yacucha, Kimberley Guiry, Mark Morley — all Langford Now candidates — took five of six council seats. Lillian Szpak was the lone incumbent to be re-elected.

Nanaimo

In Nanaimo, incumbent mayor Leonard Krog handily won Saturday's election with 66.4 per cent of the vote.

Tasha Brown came in second with 22.5 per cent and Agnes Provost was third with 4.2 per cent of the vote.

In 2018, Krog, a former MLA, won with three times the votes of his closest competitor.

Twenty-nine people rant for eight council positions, with incumbents Sheryl Dawn Armstrong, Ben Joseph Geselbracht, Ian Thorpe, Erin Colleen Hemmens and Tyler James Brown re-elected, while Hilary Eastmure, Janice D. Perrino and Paul Manly won the other three seats

Courtenay

Further north on Vancouver Island, Bob Wells was re-elected as the mayor of Courtenay.

Wells received 56 per cent of the vote while two-term councillor Erik Eriksson received 30.8 per cent of the vote.

Aaron Dowker was third with 12.8 per cent.

Voters in Courtenay had 15 candidates to choose from for council. Incumbents Doug Hillian, Will Cole-Hamilton, Melanie McCollum, Wendy Morin and David Frisch were re-elected, while Evan Jolicoeur took the sixth seat.