Frances Bula, running as a OneCity Vancouver Council candidate in the 2026 civic election
After a career spent observing Vancouver City Hall from the press gallery, journalist Frances Bula is attempting something entirely different.
In 2026, Ms. Bula is seeking a seat on Vancouver City Council, as a candidate with OneCity Vancouver. As is stated on OneCity’s website, “Frances’s candidacy marks one of the most significant transitions in recent Vancouver civic politics — a reporter who spent years scrutinizing elected officials is now asking voters to entrust her with public office.”
VanRamblings wholeheartedly supports Frances Bula’s candidacy for Vancouver City Council. We believe Frances Bula, who we have long known and respected, to be a must-elect at the polls, in our upcoming October civic election.
As Frances has written — the information also to be found in OneCity Vancouver literature — Ms. Bula’s career in journalism spans more than four decades.
According to her own biography, Frances Bula began her reporting career in southeastern B.C. in 1983, the very day a province-wide general strike began. From those beginnings in community journalism, she gradually developed a lifelong fascination with cities, and the political systems that shape them.
The Journalist Who Helped Interpret Vancouver City Politics
Frances Bula has spent so many years explaining Vancouver to itself that, for many residents, it is difficult to imagine the city’s civic conversation without her.
For more than three decades, Ms. Bula has occupied a unique place in Vancouver public life: part journalist, part historian, part urban anthropologist, and part translator of the often bewildering language of municipal politics.
Frances Bula’s career in journalism spans more than four decades.
The defining chapter of her career began in 1994, when she started covering Vancouver municipal politics and urban affairs.
Over the course of the following years, Ms. Bula became one of the most respected and recognizable civic-affairs reporters in British Columbia. At the Vancouver Sun, where she spent approximately two decades as a staff reporter, she covered City Hall, education, housing, transportation, homelessness, development, infrastructure, drug policy, and nearly every other issue that defines urban life.
One pivotal moment in Frances Bula’s life came in 1998-99 when she received the prestigious Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy, after which she spent a year studying housing and homelessness issues, producing a major series and a documentary project that deepened her understanding of urban poverty and housing policy. Housing would become a central theme of her journalism.
Frances Bula Leaves the Vancouver Sun, to Re-Invent Her Journalism
In 2008, Ms. Bula left the Vancouver Sun, to become one of British Columbia’s most prominent freelance journalists, writing extensively for The Globe and Mail, as well as contributing to publications ranging from BCBusiness, Canadian Architect, Canadian Business, Western Living to The Guardian, and more.
Among Ms. Bula’s most influential post-Sun work was her column Urban Fix in Vancouver Magazine where from 2008 through 2015 she explored the challenges facing Vancouver as it grappled with growth, affordability, transportation, density, neighbourhood change, and urban planning, all while profiling a broad cross-section of political leaders, planners, community advocates, developers, architects, and the overlooked civic actors who influence how cities evolve, her work examining those in power and how power operates in urban environments.
Vancouver. Culture, Diversity, and Civic Life
Ms. Bula has long championed the idea cities are fundamentally about the citizens who reside in the city, and the communities in which they live.
Ms. Bula’s writing has highlighted Vancouver’s multicultural character, examining how immigrant communities shaped Vancouver neighbourhoods, transforming the city over time, reporting on Chinatown, the Punjabi Market, Richmond’s Asian communities, and Metro Vancouver’s changing demographics.
Similarly, Frances Bula has long possessed a deep interest in, and consistent supporter of, Vancouver’s cultural institutions and artistic life, her writing regularly exploring the connections between culture, public space, and civic identity.
Ms. Bula is also a supporter of the Vancouver International Film Festival, reflecting a broader interest that extended beyond politics, as she focused on film, the arts, and cultural expression, over the years emphasizing and prioritizing the importance of cultural institutions in creating vibrant, livable cities not solely about infrastructure, but about creativity, diversity, public life, and community.
Why Politics? What Frances Bula Hopes to Accomplish in Elected Office
The obvious question surrounding Frances Bula’s candidacy is simple: Why leave journalism for politics? Ms.Bula has offered a straightforward answer.
As she recently told journalist Kenneth Chan in the Daily Hive …
“Journalism was my service to the public for decades. Now I want to do public service more directly.”
After decades documenting problems and analyzing solutions, in 2026 Frances Bula has decided that she wants a direct role in civic decision-making.
In her run to secure a seat on Vancouver City Council, in her campaign literature Frances Bula has emphasized housing, livability, transparency, and effective governance, as well as fighting for civic improvements that will make Vancouver function better for residents. Few candidates in Vancouver history would arrive at Vancouver City Hall with as deep an understanding of municipal governance and the institutional knowledge about how Vancouver City Hall operates.
Based on her writing and public statements, several priorities appear likely to define Frances Bula’s approach to public office.
- Housing will almost certainly be central. Throughout her career she has treated housing affordability as Vancouver’s defining challenge;
- Advocating for evidence-based policy making, drawing lessons from successful initiatives elsewhere;
- Ms. Bula has also expressed an interest in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of municipal government. Her own experiences navigating the permitting process while building a laneway house provided first hand exposure to the frustrations many residents experience when dealing with City Hall;
- Balancing growth with livability, recognizing Vancouver must accommodate more residents while preserving the qualities that make neighbourhoods attractive;
- Strengthening public trust in local government through transparency, accountability, and thoughtful decision-making.
For 30-plus years, Frances Bula sat inside Council Chambers, notebook in hand, watching elected officials wrestle with the complexities of governing a rapidly changing city, observing the administrations of multiple mayors, political parties, planning movements, housing booms, and civic controversies, chronicling their triumphs and failures, ambitions and unintended consequences.
Few people understand Vancouver’s civic history as comprehensively as she.
Now, Frances Bula wants in, to step into the story she once covered.
For decades, Vancouver residents relied on Ms. Bula to explain City Hall.
In 2026, VanRamblings endorses the candidacy of Frances Bula for Vancouver City Council, as she asks the residents of our city for the opportunity to serve.
The journey — from reporter to candidate, from observer to participant — may prove to be one of the most intriguing civic stories Vancouver has seen in years.
VanRamblings asks you to vote for Frances Bula for Council this October.
