Meet Our Candidates
Vancouver Municipal Election 2022
VOTE Socialist is delighted to introduce our candidates. All three are long-standing advocates who have demonstrated their commitment to social movements in the city. We know they will use their elected office to act with the urgency required and to amplify grassroots demands for the systemic change we need.
BALLOT # 108
Sean Orr for City Council
“I’ve been writing passionately about politics in Vancouver for almost 20 years and it feels like a feedback loop. It’s time for radical change to get at the root of the structural problems in this city, and VOTE Socialist has that energy,” said Sean Orr – a writer, musician, artist, student, dishwasher, and activist living and working in the unceded Coast Salish territories of Vancouver, B.C.
Known for his acerbic wit and fiery rants in his Scout Magazine column Tea and Two Slices as well his on-stage antics as frontman in the hardcore band Needs, Orr is the son of Northern Irish immigrants who instilled in him a fierce humanism. From housing, failed drug war policy, our long history of racism, climate change, to holding our media and elected representatives accountable – Orr brings a raw yet informed energy to everything he does, and City Council will be no different.
BALLOT # 307
Dr. Karina Zeidler for School Board
“I am running for VOTE Socialist because I believe that together we can build a different society, with a different way of relating to all people, where all levels of government strive to meet the needs of everyone, not just property owners and investors,” said Dr. Zeidler, who has been a family doctor in East Vancouver for the last 8 years after having graduated from UBC School of Medicine.
A committed socialist since the 1990s, Dr. Zeidler is inspired to run by the Sewer Socialists of the 1920s, who won popular support for cleaning the water in cities in order to get rid of cholera. She is a founding member of Protectbc.ca, an advocacy group for Covid safety that wants to clean the air and get rid of Covid-19. This includes bringing back the mask mandate for schools. She, her partner and her two children live in the Cedar Cottage neighborhood, on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Coast Salish peoples. She firmly supports the Land Back policies demanded by Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island.
BALLOT # 206
Andrea Pinochet-Escudero for Park Board
“I am running for the Board of Parks and Recreation because as a frontline worker I have seen the transformative potential of recreational programming that is truly accessible,” said Andrea Pinochet-Escudero, a Hospital Employees’ Union member and housing and mental health support worker. “For my clients who cannot afford housing, free recreational and educational programs through our community centres, along with access to pools, ice rinks, and gyms, are lifesaving public services. We urgently need to see them expanded all across Vancouver.”
Pinochet-Escudero is a Chilean who came to Canada as a refugee from the right-wing dictatorship that ruled Chile until 1990. Raised by a single parent, some of her earliest memories are of protest marches and running with her mother to evade police repression in the streets of Santiago. Once in Vancouver, her family was able to be part of forming and running cooperative housing developments – an option which she believes needs to be available for current residents as well as future waves of refugees. As a socialist activist for over 25 years, Pinochet-Escudero has been an integral part of Latin American solidarity and social justice efforts in Vancouver. A mother of two young children, Pinochet-Escudero is seeking to become the first Chilean-Canadian elected to municipal political office in Vancouver history.