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The quick read: The three candidates for Kelowna's mayor — incumbent Tom Dyas, challenger Ron Cannan and Andrew Uitvlugt — squared off at the Mary Irwin Theatre this week. With advance voting resuming Saturday, the race is now a straight choice between the incumbent's record and the challenger's promise to audit it.

Kelowna's mayoral race got its first real head-to-head this week, and the contrast could not be clearer.

Incumbent Mayor Tom Dyas, challenger Ron Cannan and fellow candidate Andrew Uitvlugt took the stage at the Mary Irwin Theatre for a candidates' forum — three men, one chair, and a city deciding whether it wants more of the same.

Dyas is running on his record and a "safer streets" platform: 75 new frontline public-safety positions over the next term — RCMP officers, bylaw staff and firefighters — plus more detox and treatment services.

His campaign has gone on the attack, claiming in campaign videos that Cannan voted against public-safety measures.

"He voted against the RCMP officers. He voted against the bylaw. He voted against the firefighters," Dyas said.

Cannan calls that characterization disingenuous.

His version: the vote was against overall budget spending — government growing at twice the rate of the city — not against police or firefighters, and he supports investing in safety once existing resources are properly assessed.

"Just adding more officers maybe is not the best answer. It's how they're deployed," Cannan said, promising a town hall with the business community on smarter deployment.

In a one-on-one interview this week, Cannan pitched himself outright as the change candidate: a sweeping review of city spending, a different approach to homelessness and crime, and a reset in relations with senior governments.

That spending-audit promise is the heart of his campaign — and the sharpest dividing line in the race.

The backdrop is Commerce Avenue, where business owner Gerald Goertsen told reporters his building has been vandalized repeatedly — lavender plants ripped out, door handles tied shut with a plastic bag while his vehicle was broken into.

"It's not safe to be here anymore, and something needs to change," Goertsen said.

He is not alone. Frustration among downtown and industrial-area businesses over crime and social disorder has been building for months.

Here is the choice Kelowna gets to make: the incumbent's answer is more — more officers, more positions, more spending — while the challenger's answer is to first ask whether the money already being spent is working.

Advance voting resumes Saturday, October 10, then continues October 14, 15 and 16, with general voting day on Saturday, October 17.

Polls are open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and voters elect one mayor, eight councillors and four school trustees.

Kelowna, your move.

Sources: Castanet; Global News, October 2026.