Vision, Greens, NPA and OneCity all win seats in Vancouver School Board byelection

The results are in: no party will have a majority on Vancouver's school board. 

With all the polls reporting in Vancouver's byelection, three candidates have been elected with the Green Party, three with Vision Vancouver, two for the Non-Partisan Association and one with OneCity.

The NDP government announced in August there would be an election to replace the school board trustees, who were collectively fired by the previous B.C. Liberal government in 2016. 

Six of those fired trustees ran in this election, and four of them — the Green's Janet Fraser, the NPA's Fraser Ballantyne, and Joy Alexander and Allan Wong of Vision Vancouver — have been elected.

Others elected were Judy Zaichkowsky and Estrellita Gonzalez for the Green Party, Lisa Dominato for the NPA, Ken Clement for Vision Vancouver, and Carrie Bercic for OneCity.  

"I really think OneCity's message .. .it really resonated with everyone I spoke with. "We were not part of the big parties, and that's something that spoke to them," said Bercic.

The breakdown of councillors leaves questions over who will ultimately be voted chair of the school board, and whether a stable coalition will emerge to make decisions.

But both Bercic and Vision Vancouver trustee Joy Alexander were hopeful all nine members of the board could work together.

"When we were doing this election campaign, we got to talk to each other quite a bit, and I think we were all quite delighted by the fact we had similar ideas, and I think we all thought we could work together quite well. So I think we're probably all looking forward to a good year," said Alexander.

​In total, 19 people ran for the nine positions.