• Politics

Residency of three mayoral candidates becomes flashpoint in Victoria race

Three of the eight people running to be Victoria's next mayor do not live in the city, according to the City of Victoria's own Declaration of Candidates — a fact that came to light at the campaign's marquee debate on Sept. 27.

The City's official list for the Oct. 17 general local election shows incumbent Mayor Marianne Alto and candidate Gregoor Miller as residents of Saanich, and candidate Mike Harris, widely seen as one of Alto's two main rivals, as a resident of Langford ¹.

The arrangement is legal. B.C.'s Local Government Act allows people who do not live in a municipality to run for office there if they own property or have another qualifying interest in it, as a non-resident property elector, and the province's 2026 Candidate's Guide to Local Elections confirms a prospective candidate must be either a resident elector or a non-resident property elector of the jurisdiction, not necessarily a resident ². Candidates must simply be Canadian citizens, at least 18, and B.C. residents for six months before registering ².

Residency raised at debate

The issue became a live one at the Victoria Downtown Residents Association's mayoral debate at the Vic Theatre on Sept. 27, which drew about 400 people, roughly half of them watching virtually, according to a Times Colonist report published Oct. 5 ³. Only three of the eight mayoral candidates — Alto, Harris and Bruce McGuigan — were invited, because they were the only ones who had completed a required candidate questionnaire by the deadline ³.

Harris was scheduled to appear but pulled out beforehand, saying in a statement to the Times Colonist that some of his interactions with another candidate had become "increasingly concerning and at times hostile," going beyond "the normal disagreement and competitiveness you expect during an election," and that as a result he "decided it was better not to attend." He did not name the candidate ³.

McGuigan told the Vic Theatre audience that during a previous debate he had told Harris he had "no business running [for mayor] from Langford," and that Harris has little knowledge about Victoria and his campaign amounts to "empty promises" ³.

Harris addressed his address directly in his own words in a Times Colonist candidate questionnaire published Oct. 2. "I currently live in Langford," he wrote. "My professional and community connections, however, extend throughout Greater Victoria, and my work in real estate has given me direct experience with Victoria's housing market, neighbourhoods, businesses and residents. Victoria is the economic and cultural heart of our region, and the decisions made at City Hall affect people well beyond municipal boundaries" ⁴. Harris, a real estate professional with Century 21 Queenswood Realty and a former CEO of YellowBlue Canada, was the 2024 BC Conservative candidate in Langford-Highlands, finishing behind the NDP's Ravi Parmar ⁴¹.

Victoria's own candidate profile guide, by contrast, states that Harris "live[s] in downtown Victoria" in a biographical passage that appears to have been drawn from a template shared with Alto's profile, underscoring how differently the residency question is being framed by different campaign materials ⁵.

What the record shows

Victoria News reported in mid-September that among the mayoral candidates are "the incumbent Marianne Alto, fellow Saanich resident Gregoor Miller and Langford's Mike Harris," while the remaining five — Lyall Atkinson, Darren Gervais-Harrison, Christopher Hanna, David Johnston and McGuigan — are Victoria residents ⁶. Victoria Buzz's candidate guide separately noted that "the City's declaration lists Alto as a resident of Saanich" and that "candidates are not required to live in the municipality where they are running," while Harris "is still listed as a Langford resident on the City's candidate declaration" ⁷.

Alto, first elected to council in 2010, has been mayor since 2022 and is seeking a second term, with housing, community safety and community wellbeing as her stated priorities ⁷. Neither Alto's nor Harris's campaign has addressed the residency question beyond the exchange at the DRA debate and Harris's written answer to the Times Colonist.

The three candidates were also invited to a separate televised debate on Sept. 30, hosted by the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce in partnership with CHEK Media at CHEK's studios, as part of a two-debate series covering Victoria and Saanich mayoral races ⁸.

With voting day less than two weeks away, the residency question has not been shown to have shifted the contest's dynamics, but it has given Alto's and Harris's rivals a new line of attack over who can credibly claim to speak for the city on Oct. 17.