How it works

Each promise, meeting, motion, vote, party membership and term of office is stored with a link to the document it came from. A record without a source cannot be saved.

Select (the source icon) beside any fact to open its source record, fingerprint and archived copy.

We keep a dated copy of each source and, where available, an Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) link, so citations keep working if the original page moves or is removed.

Promises are taken word for word from platforms, candidate pages and other public statements. A short plain-language summary may accompany a quote, but the quote is always shown.

Promises are extracted automatically from each party's and candidate's own published platform and quoted word for word. Summaries and topics are generated by rule and may be imperfect; the quote is authoritative.

A promise is shown with a date only when the source itself states one, such as a dated page or a press-release date. Otherwise we show when our copy was saved ("copy saved"), which is not the day the promise was made.

A promise is published automatically only when every check passes: the quote is found word for word in our saved copy of the source, the source is the party's or candidate's own publication, the promise is for the body we track (City Council, not the Park Board or School Board; the BC Legislature, not a federal or municipal government), and it is a specific commitment. Anything else is held back and never shown.

For the BC Legislature we track the platform of the party with the most seats in the preliminary count (Conservative Party of British Columbia), as archived on October 27, 2026.

Motions, outcomes and individual votes are taken from the official minutes and records published by the governing body.

Party affiliation is recorded with dates, so each vote is shown with the party the person belonged to on the day of the vote.

A motion is linked to a promise only when it clearly advances or contradicts what was promised. Each link includes a written reason and is reviewed by a person before it counts.

Abstentions and absences are shown, but are not counted as votes for or against a promise.

Votes count from the date the promise was made, when the source states it. For an election promise whose source has no date, votes count from the start of the term the promise relates to (November 2, 2026 for the 2026 Vancouver election; Return Day, November 18, 2026, for the 2026 BC election), never from the day we saved our copy.

Promise statuses are calculated automatically from reviewed links and recorded votes. The same rules apply to every person and every party.

Election results are copied from the official results pages, with every candidate's name, affiliation and vote count as printed. We save a dated copy each time we update them.

On election night the count does not include mail-in, absentee and other ballots counted later (in BC, at final count). Until then, a district is shown as too close to call / awaiting final count when the gap between the first two candidates is no larger than the number of such ballots the election administrator lists for that district, or when no such number is published. In 2026 Elections BC had not yet published its list, so we use its list from the 2024 general election, which had the same 93 districts, and say so beside each figure.

The same rule is applied to every district. Nobody is shown as elected in a district that is too close to call; both leading candidates are shown the same way, in the order the results page lists them. After final count, every district is decided except a tie or a district the official results say is subject to a judicial recount. Those districts are labelled too close to call / judicial recount, and no one is seated there until a cited official result after the recount is archived.

Elected members are shown as taking office on the day the writs of election are returned (in BC, Return Day). If a later count changes a result before then, the earlier entry is removed and the change is listed as a correction.

We do not produce our own economic estimates. Where an independent organization has published an estimate about a motion or promise, we quote it and name the organization.

Portraits come from each person's party site or official campaign site, and logos from each party's official site. City of Vancouver images are not used, because the City's terms do not allow them to be displayed without permission. Every image links to a source record showing where and when it was collected.

Every person's photo is shown at the same size and crop, and every party's logo in the same size tile and the same single neutral colour. People without a photo on file are shown with their initials, and parties without a logo with their name.

Party colours come from each party's own branding (its logo or website), and each is kept on record with an archived source like any other fact. On the page, every party gets only the same small decorative square beside its name, with no colour value or link; nothing else uses party colour: not statuses, outcomes or backgrounds. Independents and parties with no colour on file get the same square in neutral grey.