Vancouver finally did it … and not a moment too soon!
Last month, in a major political move, current Mayor Ken Sim and Vancouver City Council began to dismantle one of the signature climate policies of the Green Left, Liberal/NDP Gregor Robertson era: the notorious ban on natural gas.
Gregor Robertson, a former NDP MLA in British Columbia, then Mayor of Vancouver (2008-2018), and now a Mark Carney Liberal MP and cabinet minister, was once the darling of the Green Left.
Unlike most Canadian municipal politicians, however, Robertson was (and still is) a Green Left true believer, not merely a virtue-signaller. It was late in his tenure as mayor, in 2016, that the Robertson-led Vancouver city council passed a collection of regulations that directly affected affordability and consumer choice. They called the framework “Energize Vancouver.”
The key feature of Energize Vancouver? Restrictions aimed at phasing out natural gas in city buildings – a policy Vancouver was among the first Canadian municipalities to adopt. Vancouver’s anti-natural gas position was notably more aggressive than any other Canadian city. The result was as predictable as it was destructive: more bureaucracy, higher construction costs, fewer consumer choices, and yet another obstacle standing between ordinary Vancouverites and affordable housing.
Specifically, the natural gas ban was enacted by By-Law 14578, part of a roughly ten-year effort, beginning in 2016, to phase out natural gas use in new commercial and large residential buildings in Vancouver. To accomplish this, Vancouver had to create its own municipal building code, a highly unusual move in a province where virtually every other municipality simply chooses to follow the less radical BC Provincial Building Code.
Banning natural gas in new builds increases housing and construction costs, strains electrical grids, reduces consumer choice, and disproportionately burdens lower- and middle-income families who rely on affordable and reliable natural gas for heating and cooking.
Robertson retired from municipal politics in 2018, but the council continued to “lean Left” for four more years.
Eventually, political winds do change – even on Canada’s “left coast” – and Ken Sim and his centre/centre-right municipal political party, ABC Vancouver, swept the left-wing council from office in the 2022 municipal election.
After an unsuccessful 2024 attempt to reverse Robertson’s anti-natural gas policies (due in part to last-minute defections within the ABC caucus), Mayor Sim tried again to repeal Robertson’s gas ban in May 2026 – this time with resounding success.
Mayor Sim introduced the repeal Motion 8 on May 13 and it was debated at the city’s Finance and Services Committee on May 20 and 21. The motion passed at council on a largely party-line 7–4 vote, with Mayor Sim’s ABC Vancouver councillors supporting the measure and councillors affiliated with green and progressive parties voting in opposition.
To understand the significance of Mayor Sim’s victory in rolling back Robertson’s natural gas restrictions, it helps to look at the language City Council itself used to justify the move. The motion was bluntly titled “Eliminating Regulatory Barriers to Housing Affordability Through Alignment with the Provincial Building Code” – a striking admission from a city long known for layering costly climate regulations onto housing construction.
The motion read like an indictment of Vancouver’s own policy failures. Council acknowledged that Vancouver is “among the most unaffordable housing markets in the world,” while also admitting the city remains the only municipality in British Columbia with its own standalone building code. Industry stakeholders warned that “limiting options for water heating will increase costs to residents and hurt affordability,” and council further recognized that municipal regulations should not “unnecessarily contribute to the cost of delivering housing.” In other words, even Vancouver City Council could no longer ignore the growing reality that ideological climate policies were colliding head-on with economic common sense.
The motion then directed city staff to “pause the Energize Vancouver By-law implementation through non-enforcement as a specific means of addressing affordability in the city in advance of the review by staff, and inform strata owned buildings of this change as soon as possible” and further directed staff to “bring back a bylaw repeal report for By-Law No. 14578, to align with baseline provincial standards and restore the ability of Vancouverites to choose a hot water heater replacement that best suits their needs.”
This action effectively brings an end to the Gregor Robertson-era natural gas ban, which had been gradually phased in since 2016. A victory for common sense and for energy affordability in Vancouver – finally!
Congratulations to Mayor Sim and ABC Vancouver for having the courage and tenacity to stand up to green extremists and their allies at Vancouver City Hall.
Vancouver voters should re-elect Mayor Sim and his ABC coalition, and not let the Green Left regain power.
And municipal leaders of Canada, take note!
This is what real policy change looks like: repealing harmful policies outright when they are driving up costs and making life harder for ordinary residents.
The lesson is simple: focus on affordability and, where the votes exist, repeal failed policies rather than merely amending them or tinkering around the edges. And while you’re at it, end the virtue-signalling too.
When Green Left politicians seize political power, they often prioritize ideological climate activism over economic growth, consumer choice, and the everyday concerns of ordinary people.
“Energize Vancouver” should never have become Vancouver’s official policy in the first place. Now that its knee-jerk, and potentially disastrous, anti-natural gas agenda has been rolled back, voters should be wary of those seeking to revive similarly reckless, costly, and irresponsible policies.