Vancouver Liberals mayoral candidate Kareem Allam has kicked off his campaign by promising to "dream big again" and ensure the city lives up to its world-class potential.He argued that while Vancouver has a long history of ambitiousness, things have stagnated over the past decade."I'm running for mayor for one reason and one reason alone, and that's to bring young people back into the city of Vancouver," Allam told the crowd at the Bill Reid Gallery on Sunday, pointing out that the city has one of the oldest populations in North America. "We won't bring young people back until we also start to dream big again.".EXCLUSIVE: For municipal political parties, what's in a name?.Allam, who previously served as Mayor Ken Sim's chief of staff, went on to list a number of generational achievements in the city's history, such as the affordable housing surge of the 50s and 60s, the urban planning of the 70s, Expo 86, the public transportation explosion of the 2000s, and the 2010 Olympics."In the 2020s, under Kennedy Stewart and Ken Sim, it's not clear what our generation's legacy is," he lamented. "Today, it's increasingly clear to me ... that as a city we've lost our way — but it's more than that. For too many years, our city leadership has simply stopped daring to dream big. We will only win young people back by daring to reject the politics of incrementalism and daring to dream for a new reality set for today's times.".To achieve his goal, Allam said he'd roll back a number of Sim-era policies and turn decades of words into action.Among his top priorities are finally connecting downtown Vancouver with the University of British Columbia via SkyTrain and annexing the university endowment lands to create one single municipality."I believe that Vancouverites deserve a better mayor," Allam continued, taking aim at his former boss. "Ken Sim has missed more council meetings, more Metro Vancouver meetings, and more TransLink meetings than any other mayor in the history of Vancouver ... and even when he does show up for work it's not clear what he's doing."He claimed that in almost every area, the current government has failed to improve life for residents, and has in many cases made it worse."In a little under a year, Vancouver will to to the polls and make a choice," Allam concluded . "They will choose whether to continue the politics of incrementalism, or dare to dream big. I know that together, we can chart out a new course for our city."
