The Hot Pink Paper Campaign:

In the lead-up to the municipal election, WTC runs deep engagement with community groups and organizations to identify priority issues for women, girls, and gender non-conforming people in Vancouver. We prioritize hearing from groups who are often excluded from democratic processes and who face systemic oppression in our city.

​This engagement shaped eight evidence-based policy priorities. During the 2022 Vancouver election, we asked candidates for mayor and council if they’d pledge to implement these policies if elected. All candidates who make up our current council, including Mayor Sim, enthusiastically committed to implementing our policy asks.

Read the campaign background and policy briefs to learn more about our policy asks and the data-driven process behind the HPPC.

The community organizations and residents that helped shape these policies count on WTC to hold council to their HPPC commitments. Tracking how councillors are voting on decisions that impact equity-deserving communities—and whether they’re following through on their promises—is important because:

Equity-deserving communities need accountability from elected leaders. Council regularly makes decisions that impact communities who are often overlooked by institutions of power. Unfortunately, these communities are all too accustomed to politicians making promises they don’t keep. Local government decisions don’t always receive the same level of scrutiny as higher levels of government, but we believe they should.

Local government systems are challenging to navigate. It can be difficult to know where and what to look for to determine whether your elected officials’ actions match their words. Equity-deserving groups face additional barriers to participating in these systems. We give them tools to make their voices heard, including by amplifying their priorities through this campaign and through our Watch Council program.

Equity requires action. It’s easy to say you support equity in theory, but taking meaningful action when it’s not politically convenient is more challenging. Working with elected officials throughout their term––and reminding them of their commitments––helps keep the focus on the needs of marginalized communities.

We analyzed council’s voting record on issues related to the HPPC policy asks from October 2023-September 2024. Because voting on agenda items isn’t the only way elected leaders exercise power we also occasionally looked at public statements, as well as questions or comments in council meetings.

The purpose of the HPPC is to centre the voices of communities who face barriers to having their concerns and priorities heard at city hall. Therefore, WTC members and partner organizations play an important role in determining which issues are included in our analysis.

While the decisions we’ve looked at here aren’t an exhaustive list, they provide an important snapshot of council’s actions on our policy asks––a snapshot our community believes is worth highlighting. In some cases, we’ve considered a single vote closely related to the HPPC; in others, we’ve highlighted a series of decisions and considered how, on balance, our council’s track record aligns with their HPPC commitment.

After the election, WTC met with councillors from each party to discuss how they can move their HPPC commitments forward and established that we would assess their progress based on three criteria:

1. Centering those most impacted. Do policies address the needs of those who experience intersecting layers of oppression and incorporate community-driven solutions?

2. Adequate resourcing. Are commitments accompanied by the funding needed to secure tangible outcomes within a reasonable period?

3. Alignment with HPPC goals. How closely do policy decisions mirror the language and goals of the eight commitments laid out in our pledge?

Using these criteria, we asked whether each party’s track record aligned with:

• Meaningful progress — showing leadership and taking courageous action toward their HPPC commitment.

• Maintaining the status quo — piecemeal adjustments and small or symbolic steps, which may be beneficial but don’t address the root issues or respond to equity-deserving communities’ priorities.

• Moving backwards — making decisions that actively harm equity-deserving communities or that block, delay, or water down opportunities to take meaningful action toward their HPPC commitment.

When we included multiple decisions in our analysis, we consider how the record of each party fits into this framework across their decision-making. If council hasn't made a decision this year that relates to our HPPC policy, or if we don’t have enough information, we'll note that in the progress report too.

Vancouver is unique because it has political parties at the local level. WTC is a non-partisan, issue-focused organization. We work with all individuals across political parties who are interested in progressing the issues most important to equity-deserving communities.

Local government systems don’t require elected officials to vote with their political party. Nonetheless, we’re only aware of a handful of times that members of the same party haven’t voted together along partisan lines.* While individual members of a party may not have been present for each decision we’ve tracked, in the absence of a public statement to suggest otherwise, we assume they stand with the decisions of their caucus colleagues.

*For a notable exception, see the climate emergency commitment section.