COLLEEN HARDWICK CHOSEN AS TEAM’S MAYORAL CANDIDATE ALONG WITH THREE COUNCIL CANDIDATES

More Council candidates, along with School and Park board candidates, to be chosen in June

VANCOUVER (April 13) – Yesterday, TEAM for a Livable Vancouver members chose Colleen Hardwick as their candidate for Mayor and selected three candidates to run for City Council.

“For years now, Vancouver has been pushed off course. We have watched basic services deteriorate. We have seen neighbourhoods reshaped without meaningful consultation. We have seen safety decline, affordability collapse, and residents treated as an afterthought,” Hardwick said in her acceptance speech. “And every other party at City Hall has contributed to the culture that allowed this to happen.” 

A second meeting in June will choose more Council candidates, as well as candidates for the School and Park boards.

Hardwick served on City Council between 2018 and 2022, and was TEAM’s mayoral candidate in the 2022 civic election. She also ran for a Council seat in the 2025 by-election. 

Council candidates Peter Tu and Charles Kelly both have business backgrounds, while Kathleen Larsen has extensive academic qualifications and professional experience in urban planning.

TEAM’s candidates are all committed to listening to residents and ensuring they have a say in the development of their neighbourhoods. They’ll work toward TEAM’s goals of livability, affordability, democratic accountability, and public safety.

In contrast to the parties now represented on council, TEAM prioritizes the needs of residents and neighbourhoods over the demands of the development industry. 

More about the candidates

COLLEEN HARDWICK for MAYOR

The third generation of a family of civic leaders, Colleen has already had an impact on Vancouver’s operations. During her 2018-2022 term on City Council, she was instrumental in the creation of the office of the Independent Auditor General, whose reports are now revealing issues that otherwise would not have come to light.

The daughter of former city councillor Walter G. Hardwick and the granddaughter of Iris L. Hardwick, the first woman elected to the Vancouver Park Board, Colleen was TEAM’s mayoral candidate in 2022, and a TEAM Council candidate in the 2025 by-election.

She has a BA in Geography and Political Science from UBC in 1983, began a Master’s Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies at UBC in 2011, and continues to pursue her PhD in Applied Innovation.

From the mid-1980s to 2000, Colleen worked in the film industry, creating her own company, New City Productions, which produced dozens of film and TV projects. She was nominated in the Entrepreneurship category for a prestigious YWCA Women of Distinction Award, named one of the 13 Most Important People in the B.C. Film Industry by the Financial Post, and received a 40 under 40 Award from Business in Vancouver.

She also founded PlaceSpeak, a pioneering location-based community consultation platform designed to authenticate online public consultation to facilitate evidence-based decision-making and policy development. Since receiving the support of the National Research Council of Canada for technology validation in 2011, Colleen has continued to advance the platform’s technology and processes and is a frequent speaker on digital democracy.

Colleen has two daughters who live and work in Vancouver. As a grandmother of two, she is committed to ensuring future generations can continue to live in the city. She is married to well-known character actor Garry Chalk, and lives in Kitsilano.

CHARLES KELLY for CITY COUNCILLOR

Charles grew up in Ontario, and after graduating from Queen’s University with a history degree, served in the federal public service with responsibilities including advising on budgets, working on the Canada Mortgage and Housing Act, and consulting with provinces and cities on urban issues.

He also advised on the UN Conference on Human Settlements in Vancouver, and the Habitat Forum in 1976. That led many years later to his 2004 appointment as commissioner general for the UN World Urban Forum on Sustainable Cities, which Canada hosted in Vancouver in 2006. His duties included managing a $27-million budget and working with the Governing Council of 70 nations.

Charles has lived in Vancouver for 38 years and owned three businesses here, including popular Gastown pub The Blarney Stone. His 14 years owning and operating that business was a lesson in dealing with a facility overseen by the municipal police, fire services, health inspectors and the Liquor Control Board.

Charles has two grown children who were schooled in Vancouver, where he served as a soccer and baseball coach.

KATHLEEN LARSEN for CITY COUNCILLOR

Kathleen has been an active and enthusiastic member of TEAM for four years and was a TEAM Park Board candidate in the 2022 election.

Born in Vancouver and raised in Victoria, Kathleen moved back to Vancouver after receiving a BA from the University of Victoria with a double major in Urban Geography and Psychology. She then completed a Master’s program at the School of Community and Regional Planning at UBC and subsequently a Certificate in Urban Design from SFU in 2011.

After 26 years of professional municipal planning experience in the Lower Mainland as a Community and Heritage Planner, she moved  to Toronto from 2017 to 2020 where she was appointed by Toronto City Council to the Committee of Adjustment for Toronto downtown. On returning to Vancouver, Kathleen was appointed by Vancouver City Council in 2021 to her current position as a Director at the Vancouver Heritage Foundation.

On a personal note, she is a single parent to a now-grown daughter with a Master’s Degree who she says always presents a new fresh perspective and widens the lens! 

Kathleen has put her name forward to run as a Council Candidate in the 2026 election due to a very real feeling of desperation about the future of Vancouver.

As a TEAM Council Candidate Kathleen hopes to use her wide variety of professional experience and knowledge to advance the TEAM platform. She is committed to community representation and a planning-based approach and notes that it’s so important to not only listen but hear what the residents are saying.

PETER TU for CITY COUNCILLOR

Born in Taiwan with Shandong roots, and shaped by formative years in Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, and Canada, Peter has an international understanding of governance, pluralism, and civic belonging. He is fluent in English and Mandarin and conversational in Cantonese, which he hopes will serve as a bridge between institutions and the communities they too often fail to reach.

Peter’s background includes insurance, operations leadership, and entrepreneurship. At BCAA, he led a home claims team, helping reduce average claim resolution time by approximately 25 percent.

As founder and CEO of Selfology, a spa in Vancouver, from 2014 to September 2025, Peter built and led his business through one of the most volatile periods in recent history. During the COVID era, he managed a major operational pivot, built cloud-based systems, and dealt with licensing delays, permit complexity, compliance burdens, and administrative bottlenecks.

Peter Tu offers a different model of leadership: trilingual, systems-minded, publicly accountable, and forged in the realities of frontline problem-solving. He is not running to join the machinery, but to open it, explain it, and rebuild it in service of the public.