Vancouver’s Punk City Councillor Dominates Municipal Election │ Exclaim!

Vancouver had its municipal elections over the weekend (October 17), and Sean Orr — the city councillor with a block punk past — not only got elected, he was the top vote-getter among all city councillors.

According to unofficial results published by the City of Vancouver, Orr earned a preliminary tally of 83,038 votes. That puts him comfortably in the lead, with the Green Party’s Annette Reilly trailing with 78,476. (Reilly is also a member of the entertainment industry, as she’s a filmmaker and actor who appeared in Netflix’s The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.)

Vancouver elects 10 city councillors in total, who serve a four-year term. Orr was elected in April 2025 in a by-election as a representative of the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE). He subsequently feuded with now-ousted mayor Ken Sim after the mayor spread false information that Orr was “handing out illegal drugs on Christmas Day to people on the streets.”

Orr is the lead vocalist of Vancouver block band NEEDS. They’ve been inactive since 2023, but they don’t seem to have broken up.

COPE, Green and OneCity candidates have formed a progressive supermajority on on Vancouver City Council. The Green Party’s Pete Fry, who had previously been a city councillor, was elected mayor.