All candidates

Esquimalt municipal election, 2026

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Election day
Saturday, October 17, 2026
On the ballot
1 mayor and 6 councillors
Confirmed candidates
14, 2 running for mayor, 4 currently in office

Esquimalt is small and almost entirely built out, which makes nearly every housing decision its council takes a decision about changing an existing street rather than opening a new one. It borders Victoria, shares its transit corridors, and holds the naval base and the working harbour, so land use, employment, and shoreline questions arrive at this council together in a way they do not elsewhere in the region.

Everyone confirmed to be running in Esquimalt in the 2026 municipal election. Each of them is sent the same questionnaire on transit, housing, climate, arts, and the rest of what a council decides, and a candidate's own page shows how each of their answers was graded. To compare them against each other and against the region, use the full scorecard filtered to Esquimalt. For voting places, advance voting and the official candidate list, see Esquimalt's own election page.

Who is running in Esquimalt

Returned the questionnaire No reply yet

Candidates for mayor

Candidates for council

Esquimalt by the numbers

The Esquimalt field as numbers: who has replied, how that compares with the rest of the region, and how the grades fall here once they are published. Every figure is counted from the same data the list above is built from. No candidate is named in this section; for how one person answered, open their page from the list.

Questionnaire replies

79%

of confirmed Esquimalt candidates have returned the coalition questionnaire: 11 of 14, with 3 still outstanding.

  • 40% across the region: 85 of 214
  • 1st of 13 municipalities by reply rate
  • 66 questions asked, 54 graded

Grades in Esquimalt

Every published letter held by a candidate in Esquimalt, counted once per candidate per topic: 77 grades across 11 candidates here. Only the 7 topics the coalition grades are counted — General and Healthcare access carry no graded question, so no letter is ever awarded in them.

Distribution of published letter grades in Esquimalt
Grade Grades awarded
A Excellent 20 26%
B Good 32 42%
C Mixed 12 16%
C- Weak 5 7%
F Poor 8 10%

Grades by topic

The same grades, split by the topic they were awarded in. Each bar is one topic's full set of grades in Esquimalt, so the segments read left to right from the best mark to the worst. A topic with nothing published here yet is left out rather than drawn empty.

Distribution of published letter grades by topic in Esquimalt
Topic Grades awarded, by letter
Transit A 3B 5C 1C- 1F 1
Housing B 4C 1C- 1F 5
Climate A 4B 4C 2C- 1
Arts A 2B 6C 1F 2
Rolling & cycling A 7B 2C 1C- 1
Walking A 2B 4C 5
Governance A 2B 7C 1C- 1

Incumbency

Grouped by whether a candidate holds elected office now, used to, or is standing for the first time. Incumbency is role-specific on a candidate's own row — a sitting councillor running for mayor is not the incumbent mayor — and those two land in the same bucket here.

Confirmed Esquimalt candidates by incumbency
Standing Candidates
Newcomer 9 64%
Incumbent 4 29%
Former Incumbent 1 7%

Wondering how a candidate earns a letter grade, or how someone gets onto this list? The FAQ has answers.