Vancouver's Youngest-Ever Councillor: Solomon Yi-Kieran, 21, Puts Transit First

VANCOUVER — When the new Vancouver City Council is sworn in on November 2, it will have its youngest-ever councillor: Solomon Yi-Kieran, 21. Yi-Kieran ran for council with COPE Vancouver and won the seat with just over 60,000 votes, campaigning on better transit: extending SkyTrain to the University of British Columbia (UBC), building covered benches at every bus stop, and creating dedicated bus lanes.

From student politics to city hall

Yi-Kieran turned 21 the day before the municipal election on October 17. They grew up in both Canada and China — spending time in Victoria, Courtenay, Nanaimo, Vancouver, Tianjin and Kunming — and are fluent in Chinese. They went on to study history at UBC with the goal of becoming a teacher. As a student, Yi-Kieran got involved in student politics, serving as vice-president external of the student union, and led a campaign for the UBC SkyTrain that gathered 15,000 petition signatures, produced a unanimous council motion with Councillors Sean Orr and Lucy Maloney for the city to re-endorse the line, and included a rally and a protest marking the 18-year delay of the project. Yi-Kieran also worked with climate organizers across Canada to lobby the federal government and secure $40 million for youth climate jobs through the Youth Climate Corps.

First priorities: transit

Yi-Kieran says their passion for transit comes from two places: their father is a bus and HandyDART driver, and they are a transit user. “As a younger person, I use transit, and almost everyone I know uses transit basically daily. Most younger people cannot afford a car,” they said. In the short term, Yi-Kieran wants to get started on ensuring every bus stop in Vancouver has a covered bench: “We are in a city where it rains 40 per cent of the year. Forty-one per cent of seniors use transit, so it is an accessibility issue.” They also want to roll out priority bus lanes on several major streets — something council has already approved but has yet to implement.

Longer term, Yi-Kieran wants to work with Mayor-elect Pete Fry, TransLink and other municipalities to deliver transit improvements. But they stress that COPE's biggest priority is affordable housing and bringing down the cost of living and rent, with platform promises including bringing back the Renters Office, tripling the empty homes tax, creating affordable public housing and co-ops, and taxing the wealth in mega-mansions.

New council sworn in November 2

Since the October 17 election, Yi-Kieran says COPE's councillors-elect have gotten straight to work researching motions, onboarding, and meeting with Mayor-elect Pete Fry and other city councillors. “I feel very optimistic about this council's ability to work together,” they said.