This morning the British Columbia Court of Appeal granted an interim injunction prohibiting the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation from proceeding with demolition work at the Vancouver Aquatic Centre until November 3, 2026. Hammers down. Tools down. Effective immediately.
Interim injunctive relief is among the hardest things to win in any court. The bar is high, and it is meant to be. We met it.
What the Court ordered
Justice Dickson, sitting in chambers, allowed the application brought by Jon Girard and the Society. A complete halt. Not a partial one. Not a slowdown.
- All demolition work stops. Interior demolition, stripping, site preparation — all of it. The injunction took effect the moment it was pronounced, and the City's counsel confirmed they understood it.
- The building is protected as it stands. The pool basins, the interior structures, the exterior — none of it can be taken apart before the new Park Board sits.
- Until November 3. The day after the newly elected Park Board's inaugural meeting.
When the next board takes its seats, it will have a building in front of it — not a demolition site.
Hazardous materials
The Court said it did not yet have enough evidence about hazardous-materials work to decide that question. Instead, it gave the City and the Park Board leave to apply to vary the injunction to permit removal of hazardous materials without compromising the building — on two days' notice to the Society.
Justice Dickson remains seized of the matter, meaning any such application comes back before her.
If that application comes, we will read it closely. Genuine abatement that leaves the building intact is one thing. "We have to take the wall down to get at the asbestos" is another. Hazardous material is hazardous when it is disturbed. And any work that would have to be undone before the doors could reopen narrows the very choice this order exists to protect. We will respond accordingly.
No undertaking
A party seeking an injunction is ordinarily expected to give an undertaking in damages — a promise to cover the other side's losses if the order turns out to have been wrongly made. A volunteer non-profit cannot give that promise against a municipal demolition contract, and we told the Court so plainly.
The Court made the order anyway. The Society is not on the hook for the City's claimed costs of the delay.
Why it matters
The City told the Court this was political and that the Court should stay out of it.
Our answer: the issue has been political since 2022, and not because of us. We were never asking the Court to decide the future of this pool. We were asking it to leave that decision to the board Vancouver is about to elect.
That is what it did. Renovate it, reopen it, or carry on as planned — the options are real, and now they belong to the people's representatives rather than to a demolition schedule.
Three weeks ago we wrote that it is better to do something than nothing. Hundreds of you chipped in when the Society's account sat at zero. This is what something looks like.
Now it comes down to Saturday
This is momentous. It is not the finish line.
The injunction buys time. It does not reverse anything. On November 3 it ends, and unless a majority of the new Park Board is willing to revisit the 25-metre decision, the demolition picks up where it stopped.
The Court has kept the choice open. Only a majority on the next board can make it. Seven seats; four is a majority. That majority is decided on Saturday, October 17.
As a reminder, we (Jon Girard & Mayeli Alvarez) are running in this election. If you are unsure of who to vote for, we previously recommended the following excellent choices in our October 5th, 2026 publication.
Be aware of any and all parties now jumping on board to secure votes. With four days to go, everyone wants to be seen standing next to this pool. Judge them by the record, not the platform.
On September 28, ABC Vancouver promised a 50-metre pool at the Aquatic Centre redevelopment. ABC held six of seven Park Board seats from the 2022 election until December 2023. Its mayor and Council majority govern the City of Vancouver — the respondent that scheduled demolition for October 1, opposed this injunction in court last week, and still intends to pursue a volunteer society for its legal costs on the lower court's ruling. In the Society's view, a 50-metre promise made three weeks before an election, by a party whose City was in court arguing the demolition should proceed, is not one it intends to keep.
Last Updated: October 13th, 2026
With thanks,
Jon Girard Managing Director, PROTECTING OUR VANCOUVER AQUATIC CENTRE SOCIETY
PROTECTING OUR VANCOUVER AQUATIC CENTRE SOCIETY (S0083228) is a registered non-profit organization dedicated to democratic accountability and voter rights. The appeal (Court of Appeal File No. CA51872) arises from the judicial review (Case No. S-263492) brought pursuant to the Judicial Review Procedure Act.
