Vancouver South

Vancouver South lies in the southeastern corner of the city between Cambie Street and the Burnaby border, extending from roughly 41st Avenue south to the Fraser River. The riding takes in the neighbourhoods of Sunset, Victoria--Fraserview, and Killarney, along with portions of South Cambie and Champlain Heights, and is among the most culturally diverse federal ridings in Canada.

Candidates

Harjit S. Sajjan (Liberal) -- Born in the village of Bombeli in Punjab, India, Sajjan immigrated to British Columbia with his family as a young child. He served eleven years as a Vancouver Police Department officer specializing in gang crime investigation while simultaneously pursuing a military career with the British Columbia Regiment. Rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, he deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina and completed three tours in Kandahar, Afghanistan, receiving the Meritorious Service Medal and the Order of Military Merit. First elected in Vancouver South in 2015, he was appointed Minister of National Defence and sought re-election to that post.

Wai Young (Conservative) -- Born in Hong Kong, Young immigrated to Canada at age four and grew up in Vancouver, attending Killarney Secondary School before graduating from UBC with a degree in sociology. She completed post-graduate work in mass communications at Simon Fraser University and urban planning at BCIT. She spent over thirty years working with community organizations in Vancouver, including co-founding the Canadian Immigrant Settlement Sector Alliance. She served as the Conservative MP for Vancouver South from 2011 to 2015 and sought to reclaim the seat.

Sean McQuillan (NDP) -- A graduate of Langara College's Studio 58 theatre program, McQuillan was an active member of IATSE Local 891, serving on its audit, governance, and human rights committees. He campaigned on affordable housing, pharmacare, and the protection of co-operative housing leases in the riding.

Judy Zaichkowsky (Green Party) -- The Green Party candidate for Vancouver South, Zaichkowsky was a professor and community advocate who campaigned on environmental sustainability and access to post-secondary education.

Alain Deng also ran for the People's Party.

About the Riding

Vancouver South is home to the Punjabi Market on Main Street between 48th and 51st Avenues, one of the oldest South Asian commercial districts in North America and among the first places outside South Asia to feature Punjabi-language street signs. Though the market's commercial vitality had been challenged by suburban migration to Surrey and Delta, it remained a landmark of the community's deep roots in Vancouver. Victoria--Fraserview and Sunset are among the most linguistically diverse neighbourhoods in the country, with Cantonese, Punjabi, Tagalog, and Vietnamese widely spoken alongside English. Marine Drive serves as a major commercial corridor with big-box retail, and the River District, a large residential development at the riding's southeastern tip along the Fraser River, was bringing thousands of new homes to the area. The Canada Line's Marine Drive and Langara--49th Avenue stations connect the riding to downtown and the airport. Immigration policy, family reunification processing times, housing affordability, and infrastructure investment were central issues heading into the 2019 campaign.