Mike Hurley

Mike Hurley has been mayor of Burnaby since 2018. In that time, housing costs have become completely unaffordable for regular working families. The Metro Vancouver region is one of the most expensive places to live in Canada, and Burnaby is part of that problem. Rental availability is near zero and what's available costs more than most people can manage. I understand mayors don't control interest rates or provincial housing policy, but local zoning decisions and permitting timelines are fully within city hall's control. I don't see Burnaby leading with the urgency this crisis demands. The city keeps growing upward but not affordably.

Burnaby has seen massive development but the affordability picture for regular families hasn't improved — if anything it's gotten worse. Renters in areas like Metrotown have been displaced by redevelopment while the new units coming in are priced for investors, not families. Mayor Hurley has been in office through this transformation and city hall's response on protecting residents has been too cautious. Burnaby is one of the most expensive places in Canada to rent. We need leadership that puts residents ahead of developers.

Mike Hurley has served as Mayor of Burnaby since 2018 and was re-elected in 2022, making him one of the longer-serving mayors in Metro Vancouver. His tenure has been defined by a significant shift in Burnaby's approach to density and urban development — a city that long resisted intensification has, under Hurley, moved toward embracing it, particularly around the Metrotown area and near SkyTrain stations. The Metrotown rezoning has been the most consequential and contested initiative of his mayoralty. Burnaby approved large-scale redevelopment that will dramatically increase housing supply in one of Metro Vancouver's major commercial hubs. The Broadway Subway extension, now operational, has increased pressure on surrounding neighbourhoods and made transit-oriented density both more viable and more urgent. The tension in Hurley's record is between the pace of development and its affordability outcomes. Burnaby has added significant rental renter protections — among the stronger municipal renter policies in BC — but critics, including tenant advocates, argue the rate of displacement in redevelopment areas has not been matched by sufficient affordable replacement units. The city has also developed renter protection policies that require developers to provide right-of-first-refusal to displaced tenants, though enforcement has been uneven. Burnaby's growth trajectory is one of the most aggressive among BC municipalities, and Hurley has presided over it with evident intention. Whether the city's renter population benefits proportionately from that growth remains the central unresolved question of his tenure. Reviewed as a Burnaby resident who believes the city's growth should be matched by an equal commitment to protecting the people who already live here — and who expects those two goals to be pursued with equal urgency.