- Election day
- Saturday, October 17, 2026
- On the ballot
- 1 mayor and 6 councillors
- Confirmed candidates
- 11, 2 running for mayor, 4 currently in office
Oak Bay is the region's clearest test of what a council does with provincial housing legislation in a low-density, heritage-heavy municipality: almost all of its land is single-family, its housing stock is among the oldest in the region, and it is bordered on two sides by Victoria and Saanich. Density, tree canopy, and how the municipality funds aging infrastructure are the questions that keep returning to this council.
Everyone confirmed to be running in Oak Bay 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 Oak Bay. For voting places, advance voting and the official candidate list, see Oak Bay's own election page.
Who is running in Oak Bay
Returned the questionnaire Declined to take part No reply yet
Candidates for mayor
- Questionnaire returned. Holland, Sam
- Declined to take part. Murdoch, Kevin
Candidates for council
- No questionnaire returned yet. Braithwaite, Hazel
- No questionnaire returned yet. Gleeson, David
- No questionnaire returned yet. Green, Cairine
- No questionnaire returned yet. Helme, Roxanne
- No questionnaire returned yet. Moore, Will
- No questionnaire returned yet. Paterson, Esther
- Questionnaire returned. Starkweather, Sarah
- Questionnaire returned. Sweeney, Karin
- Questionnaire returned. Weller, Katerina
Oak Bay by the numbers
The Oak Bay 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
36%
of confirmed Oak Bay candidates have returned the coalition questionnaire: 4 of 11, with 7 still outstanding.
- 40% across the region: 85 of 214
- 6th of 13 municipalities by reply rate
- 66 questions asked, 54 graded
Grades in Oak Bay
Every published letter held by a candidate in Oak Bay, counted once per candidate per topic: 28 grades across 4 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.
| Grade | Grades awarded |
|---|---|
| A | |
| B | |
| C | |
| C- | |
| F |
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 Oak Bay, 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.
| Topic | Grades awarded, by letter |
|---|---|
| Transit | |
| Housing | |
| Climate | |
| Arts | |
| Rolling & cycling | |
| Walking | |
| Governance |
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.
| Standing | Candidates |
|---|---|
| Newcomer | |
| Incumbent |
Wondering how a candidate earns a letter grade, or how someone gets onto this list? The FAQ has answers.