Solomon Yi-Kieran, 21, to become youngest councillor in Vancouver history

Solomon Yi-Kieran turned 21 the day before Vancouver voted. When the new city council is sworn in on Nov. 2, they will be the youngest person ever to hold a council seat in the city, according to Daily Hive Vancouver.

Yi-Kieran ran for COPE Vancouver in the Oct. 17 municipal election and won with just over 60,000 votes. The councillor-elect is a transit user whose father drives both buses and Handy-Dart vehicles, and the campaign pledges reflected that: a covered bench at every bus stop, dedicated bus lanes and a push for the UBC SkyTrain extension.

In the near term, Yi-Kieran wants to launch the project to install covered benches across the city's bus stops. They also want to roll out priority bus lanes on several major streets, a measure council has already approved but not yet put in place, Daily Hive reported. In making the case for the benches, Yi-Kieran said 41 per cent of seniors use transit. Over the longer term, they hope to work with Mayor-elect Pete Fry, TransLink and other municipalities to improve service.

Yi-Kieran pointed to their student years at UBC, where they studied history with plans to become a history teacher and ran for vice-president of external affairs of the student union. They cited leading a UBC SkyTrain campaign that collected 15,000 petition signatures, and writing a unanimous council motion with Councillors Sean Orr and Lucy Maloney for the City to re-endorse the project. They also cited helping secure $40 million for youth climate jobs through the Youth Climate Corps. These accomplishments are Yi-Kieran's own account. They grew up in both Canada and China and are fluent in Chinese.

Transit is not where COPE puts its greatest weight, though. Yi-Kieran said the party's biggest priority is affordable housing and bringing down the cost of living and rent. The platform includes tripling the empty homes tax, building affordable public housing and co-ops, taxing the wealth held in mega-mansions and bringing back the Renter's Office.

COPE also strongly opposes AI data centres and has held town halls on how residents can speak to council about them.

Ahead of the Nov. 2 swearing-in, the party's councillors-elect have been researching motions, going through onboarding and meeting with Fry and other councillors.