Here are the candidates for Vancouver mayor and council

In Vancouver's last election, voters were asked to choose between 71 candidates for 10 city council slots, a record number for the city and the biggest ballot for local voters in Canada.

It's not quite as long this year — but it's close. 

15 people are running for mayor, 59 people are running for council, 32 for park board and 31 for school board in Vancouver, with Mayor Kennedy Stewart and all 10 councillors seeking re-election.  

Election day is Oct. 15, with advanced voting days on Oct. 1, 5, 8, 11 and 13. More information can be found on the city's website. 

CBC News will be profiling all 10 political parties in Vancouver ahead of the election.

Here is the list of candidates for mayor and council.

Forward Together (mayor + 6 candidates) 
The name of the new party led by Mayor Kennedy Stewart, who is seeking re-election. Jeanette Ashe, Tesicca Truong, Russil Wvong, Dulcy Anderson, Hilary Brown and Alvin Singh are its council candidates.

ABC Vancouver (mayor + 7 candidates) 
Ken Sim is the candidate for mayor, while current councillors Rebecca Bligh, Lisa Dominato and Sarah Kirby-Yung are seeking re-election and are joined on the ballot by Mike Klassen, Peter Meiszner, Brian Montague and Lenny Zhou

TEAM for a Livable Vancouver (mayor + 6 candidates) 
Coun. Colleen Hardwick is the candidate for mayor. Its council candidates are Cleta Brown, Sean Nardi, Param Nijjar, Grace Quan, Stephen Roberts and Bill Tieleman. 

Progress Vancouver (mayor + 5 candidates) 
Political strategist Mark Marissen is its candidate for mayor. Its council candidates are David Chin, Mauro Francis, Asha Hayer, May He, Morgane Oger and Marie Rosa.

Non-Partisan Association (mayor + 6 candidates) 
Fred Harding is the NPA's candidate for mayor. Coun. Melissa De Genova is seeking re-election and is joined on the council ballot by Elaine Allan, Cinnamon Bhayani, Ken Charko, Morning Lee and Arezo Zarrabian.

Green Party (5 candidates) 
Current councillors Adrianne Carr, Pete Fry and Michael Wiebe are all seeking re-election and are joined on the ballot by Devyani Singh and Stephanie Smith. 

COPE (4 candidates) 
Coun. Jean Swanson is seeking re-election and is joined on the ballot by Breen Ouellette, Nancy Trigueros and Tanya Webking. 

OneCity (4 candidates) 
Coun. Christine Boyle is seeking re-election and is joined on the ballot by Iona Bonamis, Ian Cromwell and Matthew Norris.

Vision Vancouver (4 candidates) 
Honieh Barzegari, Lesli Boldt, Stuart Mackinnon and Kishone Roy are Vision's candidates. 

VOTE Socialist 
The name of a new political party without a mayoral candidate. Sean Orr is its candidate for council, and it is also running a candidate for school board and park board. 

Affordable Housing Coalition 
The name of a party running Eric Redmond for council. It is not running any other candidates for mayor, council, school board or park board. 

Independents running for mayor (10 candidates) 
Leona Brown, Golok Buday, Ping Chan, Ryan Charmley, Mike Hansen, Imtiaz Popat, Francois Raunet, Satwant Shottha, Dante Teti, Lewis Villegas. 

Independents running for council (11 candidates) 
K.R. Alm, Mark Bowen, Dominic Denofrio, Amy (Evil Genius) Fox, Marlo Franson, Tim Ly, Jeremy Mackenzie, Amie Peacock, Kyra Philbert, Ragini Rankin, Lina Vargas.

No ward system

The number of candidates running for Vancouver council has always been high compared to elsewhere in British Columbia.

But municipal elections across B.C. usually see a much longer ballot than anywhere else in Canada for one simple reason. 

Of the 53 largest municipalities in Canada, the only ones where voters directly elect all the councillors for the entire city are in British Columbia. Large cities in the rest of the country elect some or all of their councillors in neighbourhood districts, usually known as wards. 

Vancouver has the power to independently change its electoral system, but voters rejected a change to a ward system in 1996 and 2004, largely due to concerns that councillors would focus too much on hyper-local issues at the expense of prioritizing the entire city. 

Mayor Kennedy Stewart believes the ward system would be "much better" for Vancouver.

Stewart promised in the 2018 election to institute voting reform in Vancouver but decided against it after determining there weren't the votes on council to make it happen. However, he said he would try again if re-elected in October with a more supportive council. 

"Every community would have a local representative, just like we have at the federal and provincial level, which brings a lot of accountability to politicians," he said.

"An at-large system really dilutes that, especially in a city of 700,000 people."