Kelowna Council Compass

Who made this

This guide was made by a Kelowna resident as an unpaid volunteer project. It is not paid for by anyone and is not connected to any candidate, campaign, slate or party. It has no ads, no tracking scripts and no cookies.

Research and drafting were done with the help of an AI assistant and reviewed by a person. Quotes were checked against the linked pages where those pages could be read. Every candidate was held to the same rules, set out below. No candidate was contacted, and nobody paid for or asked for a placement.

The four candidates without placements are not penalized. No public position could be found for them on any of the five topics.

Missing a source? Anyone, including candidates, can submit a publicly available source: a news article, campaign page, recorded council vote, forum or debate recording, or published questionnaire. Each submission is checked against the same rules as everything else, and positions change only when the source supports it. Disagreement without a public source cannot be used.

How placements were made

Each candidate was assessed from public sources: council votes, campaign sites, news coverage, forum answers and the ForChange Kelowna questionnaire. Each source moves the candidate toward one end of a topic, scored from -1 to +1, and the strength of the evidence is shown as strong, some or thin. The two ends of each topic are defined here.

How the topics were chosen. A topic needed four things: council has real power over it (the budget, zoning, bylaws, transportation spending); candidates visibly disagree on it in 2026 coverage, forums and questionnaires; it has two defensible ends; and enough public evidence exists to place most candidates. Issues that fail one test, such as wildfire preparedness (nearly everyone supports it) or the performing arts centre (few candidates have spoken), are on the Other issues tab. Police and homelessness overlap, but are kept separate because one is about how many officers there are and who responds, and the other is about treatment and housing. The list reflects judgment, and other reasonable lists exist.

Worked example

Ron Cannan on taxes and spending: he voted against the 2025 budget, the 2026 budget and the 10-year capital plan, and his platform says 'Taxes down'. Recorded votes plus a platform line make the evidence strong, so he scores +0.7 (toward holding spending down) with strong evidence. At the other end, Tom Dyas voted for the 2026 budget (4.4% increase) and says 'now is not the time to start over or stop investing in our community', so he scores -0.3 (toward spending more on services) with strong evidence. A candidate with only one forum answer on the same topic would score near the middle or toward one end with thin evidence, shown as a pale marker.

Evidence strength

Strong evidence means recorded votes on the issue, or detailed, specific commitments that agree across several sources. Some evidence means several clear public statements, or a platform page plus a forum answer. Thin evidence means one forum answer or website page, or membership of a slate.

Limits you should know about

Evidence and sources

• Every placement is the guide's reading of public coverage, campaign sites and questionnaires, and sources are linked on each card so you can disagree. A card's short blurb uses the candidate's own words where available; the longer notes on how a placement was reached are in the collapsed section and are the guide's wording, not the candidate's.
• Phrases such as 'compassion with accountability' are scored by what a candidate would actually do, not by the phrase. Backing mandatory care or more enforcement moves a candidate toward the enforcement end of homelessness and public safety; backing supportive housing or harm reduction moves them toward the housing end; with no concrete action they stay near the middle or unplaced.
• Many of the fuller answers come from the ForChange Kelowna questionnaire, run by a volunteer group that later recommended eight council candidates. A candidate who did not answer it can look thinner here for that reason alone.
• Incumbent votes come from news reports of council meetings, not the official minutes, and some budget items were debated line by line.
• Quotes were taken from news coverage and campaign pages. Check the linked page before repeating one.

Slates and overlaps

• Slate placements (BRACE) lean on the slate's published priorities more than on each member's own words, and most have thin evidence. BRACE named different members in July and August before the four now on the ballot, so the slate formed late.
• Nikki Csek is CEO of the company that owns KelownaNow, one of the outlets used for sources here.

Law and context

• Street-disorder questions are legally constrained in BC. The BC Court of Appeal held in Victoria v. Adams (2009) that a city cannot ban overnight sheltering in parks when there are not enough shelter spaces, although cities can still regulate where and when. In June 2026 the BC Supreme Court ruled that Victoria had the authority to pass bylaws restricting overnight sheltering in designated parks, and did not decide the Charter question. This guide has not checked Kelowna's own bylaw, so a candidate's promise on enforcement may be narrower in practice than it sounds.
• Municipal races in BC are non-partisan and parties are not on the ballot. A card shows a Party history line only where the guide found that the candidate ran for, held office for, or held a role in a federal or BC provincial party. A candidate who only sought a nomination or ran as an independent gets no line. No line does not prove there is no history: Elections Canada and Elections BC records could not be searched directly.

What the guide shows

• The Priorities line on a card lists the headings or issues a candidate names on their own site, VoteMate profile or ForChange questionnaire, in their own words. It shows emphasis, not a position, and an issue missing from the list does not mean the candidate opposes it.
• A quiz match compares your position with each candidate's on every topic you both have. By default each topic counts equally. If you mark topics as mattering most, those count double. Doubling a topic where a candidate's evidence is thin also doubles that uncertainty, so check the evidence strength shown with each match.
• The five topics often line up, but they are separate questions. A candidate can sit at different ends on different topics, so the guide does not combine them into one score or label.
• This is not a voting recommendation, and it does not predict how anyone would vote on future issues.

Not placed

These candidates have no placement because no public position was found on any topic. They still have cards in the candidate picker on the Chart tab. Brady Rogers and Brian Rogers are two different candidates.

Official City of Kelowna candidate page

Changes

Updates are dated so changes are visible. Positions change only when a new public source supports it.

• Oct 3, 2026. First public version: 40 candidates, 36 with at least one placement.