De Vries will be running against fellow councillor Karen Harper and Save Our Saanich candidate Rishi Sharma in upcoming local general election
Photo courtesy of Zac de Vries.
Zac de Vries is a UVic alum and current two-term District of Saanich councillor — the municipality in which most of UVic resides.
De Vries graduated from UVic in 2017 with a double major in political science and geography, and ran for council the year after. He has now served as a councillor for eight years. De Vries also works as a sector specialist in food and beverage processing with B.C.’s Ministry of Agriculture and Food.
On June 18, he announced his intent to run for mayor of Saanich in this fall’s municipal elections.
In his time as a councillor, de Vries has served on the Capital Regional District (CRD) board — which makes decisions on matters important to CRD residents across the region in a collaborative effort with member municipalities — and chaired the Capital Region Housing Corporation, a non-profit housing operator on southern Vancouver Island that operates 50 properties across eight municipalities at below-market rates.
De Vries said he was prompted to run for mayor after Dean Murdoch, Saanich’s current mayor, announced he would not be running for re-election this year.
“I think we’re in a really important moment where we’ve been making progress on these major issues, but there’s still so much more work to do. We know that there’s going to be at least three new councillors, with various retirements and the fact that two of us are running for mayor, and so I want to be able to provide leadership and assistance to these new councillors,” de Vries said.
Fellow Saanich councillor Karen Harper has also announced her intent to run for mayor.
De Vries said his focus will be on collaboration, both between council and the community. In recent years, Saanich politics have become increasingly characterized by division over land use and controversial projects such as the Quadra-McKenzie Plan (QMP). Many, such as the group Save Our Saanich, opposed the QMP, calling it “disastrous,” while others supported the plan, arguing it increases housing availability, includes protection for green spaces, and reduces car dependency.
Save Our Saanich will be running a candidate for mayor as well, Rishi Sharma.
“I think it’s important that we balance all these various interests…. The Saanich I grew up in is one in which young people could get a start, [where] families could put down roots, and seniors could age in place. That has become increasingly challenging for all generations,” de Vries said.
He emphasized a need for “a mix of housing and affordability to support residents of every incumbent stage of life,” and said that while conversations around planning for the future are difficult, they are necessary.
“There’s a lot of really important issues facing our community right now, whether it’s housing, transportation, affordability in general, as well as ensuring that we’re taking climate action and making sure our community is ready for the changing climate that we’re experiencing,” de Vries said.
At the conclusion of his interview with the Martlet, de Vries asked what issues students were facing on campus, thanked the UVSS for their advocacy work and for bringing student issues to council, and expressed regret that the majority of Saanich council did not support advocacy resolutions for a student food bank grant and reduced ferry fares for post-secondary students in March.
“I am a University of Victoria alumni. I ran for council the year after I graduated because I really felt like they weren’t considering the long-term interests of young people getting a start here, starting families, and that sort of thing…. I think that if we want a positive and strong future as a community, we need to ensure that young people can get a start here, and that is one of my top priorities,” he said.
Voting for the 2026 local general elections will be held on Oct. 17. The elections will include voting for new mayors and councillors, regional district directors, school board trustees, parks boards, and the Islands Trust. More information on this year’s local general elections can be found at elections.bc.ca.
