Stephen Hammond

Evidence vintage (summary). Verified 1 Sep 2026 against the fully developed 2026 campaign site, priorities and biography pages, City biography, current and legacy Facebook identities, 6 Jul launch coverage, authored motions and four-year council record.

Web, campaign & socials (checked 1 Sep 2026). Campaign site · Priorities · Current Facebook campaign · Legacy Facebook page · Instagram—current activity not verified · City biography

Profile. Stephen Hammond is a first-term Victoria councillor, lawyer by training, professional speaker, consultant and author focused on workplace harassment, discrimination, bullying and human rights. He holds a BA from the University of Manitoba and a JD from Osgoode Hall, was called to the bar in 1988 and remains a non-practising member of the Law Society of British Columbia. He has lived in Victoria since 2005 and has served on the boards of Our Place Society, Gorge View Society, the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre and the Western Institute for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, while volunteering as a Big Brother mentor. First elected in 2022, he has been one of council’s most consistent dissenting votes on budgets, land-use changes and public-safety questions. For voters, that gives him a clearly differentiated record; the test is whether opposition is paired with a complete, fiscally workable alternative.

2026 campaign and social verification. votestephenhammond.ca is a current, authorized re-election site with detailed biography, priorities, endorsements, donations, volunteer functions and a new Facebook page. The programme is organized around three commitments: a safer city, including visible police, bylaw enforcement, recovery-oriented health services and safe parks; taxes people can afford, including a spending review, core-infrastructure priority and reserve protection; and housing that works for Victoria, including an OCP review, neighbourhood input, thoughtful densification, renter protection and stronger compensation when redevelopment displaces long-term tenants. The current Facebook page is visibly campaigning in 2026. The older StephenHammond4citycouncil page still carries 2022 branding. No current X, Bluesky, Threads, TikTok or YouTube campaign identity is linked from the website, and the previously listed Instagram account could not be verified as a current campaign channel.

Sources. 2026 campaign site, priorities, campaign biography, 6 Jul launch coverage, City biography, council motions, voting records, CBC and Times Colonist reporting.

Current-platform note. The new site gives voters a much clearer 2026 programme than the July snapshot. It commits to a spending review and reserve protection but does not specify a multi-year residential tax cap, savings target, debt ratios, protected reserve floor or programme-by-programme review method. Its housing and safety commitments are concrete in direction but do not include unit targets, permit standards, staffing, service hours or costs. Existing marks below are retained pending the 11 Sep lock; the new tenant-compensation and spending-review language should be included in that crosswalk.

📋 Accountability. Opposed every budget, which is a consistent record rather than a gap. No permit benchmark mechanism in four years despite a red-tape posture. ❌ on managed competition removed in v1.8 for having no source.

Guiding philosophy. "The job of council is not to run the city, but to ensure the city is run well."

12-topic rescore, 2 Sep 2026. Scored in full on the new template against Program v1.10: Stephen Hammond · Council · inc. All 55 cells filled. n = 10 scored, mean 1.300, internal band C. The C is an internal proposal. Marks: Close 2.0 on daytime-sheltering enforcement (M33) and on tenant compensation (M9 cluster); Partial+ 1.5 on the tax hold-the-line (M66) and on council remuneration (M79c–f); six Partial 1.0. No Opposed cell anywhere, and no sourced action contradicting a 2026 sentence was found, so the incumbent cap was never triggered. Thirty-nine dashes.

Corrections this pass, both against interest to the July record. (1) The 6 Jul 2023 business-security cost-spreading motion he moved is M28b's own instrument, not M71 — it is now a shown 📋 Record line on the M28b row, with his verbatim reason: "It's a great burden, a great expense, and my motion was just to spread that out, so that where you've got problems, the whole city as a whole will come and help with that security a little bit" (Global News, 6 Jul 2023). (2) The 30 Jul 2026 tenant-compensation amendment he moved and carried unanimously was not carried by any matrix in July; it now scores the M9 cluster at Close 2.0. The 11 Aug accountability finding predicted exactly this and it has been actioned.

Newly verified roll-calls, all on non-paywalled sources. Missing Middle NO, 26 Jan 2023, carried 6–3, named against with Coleman and Gardiner, with his line at the table: "I think Councillor Caradonna is quite right that this is not a silver bullet that addresses affordability" (Storeys, 27 Jan 2023). Daytime-sheltering motion he moved, 18 Jul 2024, passed 8–1, Kim alone opposed (Victoria Buzz). Graffiti / spray-paint motion he moved, 21 May 2026, Caradonna and Dell opposed, Loughton absent (Victoria News). Amalgamation ballot question NO, 25 Jun 2026, carried 5–4, opposed with Caradonna, Gardiner and Thompson, on the reported ground that there should be a meaningful vote — i.e. binding, not an opinion question (Victoria News). That NO must not be read as opposition to M81, whose own endpoint is a binding referendum.

Platform date discipline. votestephenhammond.ca publishes no lastmod, no copyright year and no dated posts on its policy pages, and /sitemap.xml 404s. Newest dated item on the site is the 10 Apr 2026 op-ed on /news under a "Campaign Updates — Coming Soon" placeholder. Every platform cell is therefore dated lastmod n/p, retrieved 2026-09-02. Site is authorized (financial agent named in the footer). Site map as at 2 Sep 2026: home, priorities, about, get-involved, news, testimonials, contact — seven pages, all read.

Evidence gaps that are worth more than any re-judgement. He has no published Livable CRD submission — his row shows a dash in all nine policy columns as at 2 Sep 2026. That questionnaire is 66 questions, 54 graded, and would directly answer transit, housing, climate, arts, cycling, walking, healthcare and governance: seven of the twelve topics currently dashed on his card. Also unread: a CFAX 1070 interview on his candidate priorities including city services and homelessness (13:15, no transcript); two campaign videos on /priorities covering taxes and housing, two of the five doors, no transcript; the 10 Apr 2026 Times Colonist op-ed on the $175K curling-club grant, paywalled, which could move M65; the 2026 Facebook campaign page, not machine-readable this pass. The Victoria Urban Food Table expects to publish its own Victoria council questionnaire and answers by 28 Sep 2026. VoteMate has no 2026 profile for him and his 2022 profile carries "This candidate hasn't added promises to VoteMate", so there is no questionnaire evidence from that source either.

FOI source located — and it exposes a figure error in the Program. The public source for the release behind M28 is Global News, 11 Aug 2023: he obtained VicPD call data by FOI and published it, saying "Unfortunately, this data shows what many Victoria residents, businesses, and visitors already know: a relatively small number of shelters and parks where people shelter create a disproportionate number of police calls for service." Reported figures: 19 shelter and encampment locations account for about 25% of all police calls; 9,363 shelter-and-park calls in 2022; more than 29,000 over 2020–22; Rock Bay Landing alone 3,337 over three years. Row 9 of his card is now a shown 📋 Record line, the seventh. Action on the Program, not on his card: M28 currently reads "about 24% of 2022 police calls from 19 addresses". The published report says about 25% of all police calls at 19 shelter and encampment locations, and 9,363 is the 2022 shelter-and-park subtotal, not the base. Correct M28's wording before that figure appears in voter-facing material — it is the kind of number that gets checked in public.

Channel note. The 2023 coverage records that he published the FOI through a social-media post, so an account used for policy material exists even though no X, Bluesky, Threads, TikTok or YouTube campaign identity is linked from the 2026 site. Check it for 2026 content before the 11 Sep lock.

Figures. 9.34% residential and 4.78% business on a 7.28% aggregate for 2026 are independently confirmed (Victoria News, 11 May 2026); Gardiner, Kim and Hammond were the three opposed, with Kim opposing for the opposite reason. 35.52% cumulative is his campaign's own figure and must not be stamped as an ACTW number.