kelownaelections.ca

Brady Rogers

Candidate for Councillor

Background

Brady Rogers (filed as "Brady J Rogers"; legal name "Brayden John David Rogers" per Elections BC) is the co-owner of the Rogerie, a recycling studio in Kelowna that turns plastic waste into consumer products.

Rogers moved to Kelowna in 2019.

Rogers's LinkedIn profile describes him as a "robotic automation engineer working on impossible problems" and lists education at the University of Cambridge (2018).

The Rogerie began as a farmers' market booth and grew to sell products in over 50 stores across Canada and the United States. The company won the people's choice award at Accelerate Okanagan's OKGN Angel Summit.

In 2021, the Rogerie partnered with McDonald's Canada to turn remaining single-use plastic straws into 15 upcycled trays for an art program.

Rogers estimates the company diverted over 13,000 pounds of plastic waste from landfills in 2025.

The Rogerie faced eviction from its Orchard Park mall location in 2022 due to a commercial lease matter and subsequently relocated to a downtown Kelowna storefront.

No prior elected office or Kelowna council campaign has been found.

2026 Campaign

Rogers filed as a last-minute candidate on September 11, 2026, the nomination deadline.

The September 13 CivicInfo candidate entry did not list a campaign website. A later iNFOnews interview linked his public Instagram campaign videos and reported his reasons for running; its coverage supersedes the earlier no-social/no-statement search result.

iNFOnews interviewed Rogers about his humorous campaign videos and local issues. He said: “I am not an experienced politician. The benefit of that is I’m not in it to make it into a career or anything like that, I really genuinely just think I can do some good here.” He linked his interest in council to videos he posted about the Hotel Eldorado boardwalk controversy.

The September 28 bounded indexed-news and published-decision sweep identified no candidate-attributable misconduct finding. BC Court Services Online civil and traffic/criminal party-name searches were not completed because the public form presented an image-text security challenge; BC corporate-registry search was also not completed. This is not a finding of no litigation or controversy.

In an undated ForChange Kelowna candidate questionnaire, Rogers described a notably self-effacing approach, writing that he "barely want[s] to do this" but feels a duty to run. He said he does not have "much of an agenda," describing himself as a problem-solver who wants to "ask hard questions" and find root causes rather than promise immediate change. On homelessness, he questioned whether the City actually has a plan versus "headlines and political posturing." On development, he asked whether residents are seeing enough benefit from rising land values and whether developers contribute a fair share to infrastructure. On transparency, he said the public should have a clearer picture of "who truly owns the city" and how development is happening fairly.

At the third Castanet election forum (Revelry Kelowna, October 1, 2026), Rogers described himself as an engineer, creative, small-business owner and new father, born in Williams Lake. On affordability, he said he has been researching a return to land value taxation — the norm in B.C. until its 1984 removal and one he said UBCM and cities such as Victoria and Vancouver are now advocating — as a lever to shift the tax burden toward those who can afford it; he also argued a stronger transit network could let families go from two cars to one, or one to none. On policing, he said he is open to evaluating a different model, citing a figure of about $4 million a year for a fully equipped RCMP officer, but would be hesitant about the City building and managing its own force. He named homelessness as his top issue, wanting both a long-term plan and immediate steps — including responding to open drug use in a way that moves people away from struggling business areas — alongside longer-term addiction treatment. The $4-million officer figure is as stated by Rogers and has not been independently verified.

Note: Rogers is a distinct candidate from Brian Rogers, who is separately running for Kelowna council.

Questionnaire responses

Answers to the standardized Kelowna Elections questionnaire, sent in identical form to every councillor candidate. Published verbatim; received 2026-09-21.

1. Housing affordability

I want to make useful housing easier to build, particularly along transit corridors, and substantially expand permanently affordable options like co-op and non-profit housing. I’m willing to accept greater density, height and reduced parking requirements where the infrastructure supports it, but I’m skeptical of broadly reducing DCCs without evidence that doing so actually produces enough additional homes to justify shifting infrastructure costs elsewhere. Kelowna currently has a temporary 25% DCC reduction through September 2028, so I’d want to measure what we actually get for that money.

2. Public safety

I don’t see enforcement and prevention as competing ideas: we need police, fire and bylaw resources to respond effectively when people are unsafe, while recognizing that policing cannot solve mental illness, addiction or homelessness. I’d support investments based on measurable outcomes on both sides, with police focused on crime and dangerous behaviour and health and social agencies equipped to address the problems they’re actually designed to solve. The goal should be fewer people victimized by crime and fewer people reaching the point where they’re repeatedly interacting with police.

3. Homelessness & the supervised consumption site

I would not approach the consumption-site renewal ideologically: I’d want to see the evidence on overdoses, neighbourhood impacts, treatment connections and what would happen if the service disappeared or moved before deciding on renewal. More broadly, homelessness isn’t one problem with one solution; I’d continue expanding pathways from the street to shelter, transitional housing and permanent housing while pushing the Province for adequate mental-health and addiction treatment. Kelowna’s rapid safety-net housing is an interesting model to build on because it combines housing with supports and is explicitly intended as a bridge into permanent housing.

4. Taxes & budget

I don’t think a tax increase is good or bad simply because of the percentage; the question is what residents receive for the money and what happens if we don’t spend it. I’d protect core services and infrastructure and look hard for spending that produces poor measurable value, but I wouldn’t promise arbitrary cuts before seeing where they would actually land. It’s also important context that property taxes fund only about one-fifth of the City’s total budget, so the billion-dollar headline doesn’t mean Kelowna homeowners are being handed a billion-dollar bill.

5. Growth & infrastructure funding

Growth should pay a meaningful share of the infrastructure it requires through DCCs and other growth-related tools, while the City aggressively pursues senior-government funding and uses debt appropriately for long-lived infrastructure. My highest priority would be transit infrastructure, particularly the connections between the city, UBCO, the airport and the Gateway area, because transportation infrastructure can simultaneously address congestion, affordability, and future growth. The Hollywood Road extension and future regional transit centre already make that corridor particularly important.

6. Transit & getting around

My priority is transit, specifically making it realistic for more Kelowna households to go from two cars to one, or from one car to none, while reducing traffic. That means frequent, reliable service on major corridors, good connections between neighbourhoods and major destinations, and walking and cycling infrastructure that makes those transit trips actually usable. I’d measure success not just by ridership, but by whether fewer households feel they have to own a car for every adult.

7. Downtown & the local economy

As a downtown business owner, I want downtown to be somewhere people actually want to spend time: safe, clean, interesting, walkable and full of independent businesses, public spaces and things to do. That means addressing dangerous and disruptive behaviour when it occurs while also dealing with the homelessness, addiction and mental-health problems that enforcement alone can’t resolve. I’d also focus on the less glamorous things that make downtown work, like cleanliness, accessibility, public amenities, events and making it easier for small businesses to survive there.

Follow-up responses

Answers to the follow-up questionnaire on three live campaign issues, sent in identical form to every candidate. Published verbatim; received 2026-09-28.

1. Audible bird-scare devices ("bird cannons")

I can certainly imagine bird cannons near residences would be quite disruptive, and it sounds like some regulation may be reasonable. My first instinct would be to talk to the agricultural landowners using them and understand what they actually need. Are there less disruptive tools available? If firing hours were limited, are particular times of day especially important for crop protection? I'd also want to hear directly from affected residents. I think the best approach is to involve both sides and come up with limits that meaningfully reduce the disruption without accidentally making it impossible for farmers to protect their crops.

2. Prospera Place / MNP Place operator and transparency

I'm not entirely familiar with this issue, but at first glance I think the City should release as much information as it legally can. I strongly believe in government transparency, treating the public as involved members of the decision-making process, and holding decision-makers accountable. At minimum, I'd want the evaluation criteria, weighting, scoring and rationale for the selection made public, along with the final agreement once it's signed, subject to any information the City is legally required to keep confidential. If something can't be released, I'd also like the City to clearly explain why.

3. Highway 97 right-of-way protection

I'd want to see a lot more information before weighing in too strongly. My immediate concern is induced demand: adding highway capacity can attract additional vehicle trips, so simply adding another lane doesn't necessarily provide the long-term congestion relief we might expect. Kelowna clearly has significant traffic-flow problems already, and I'm not convinced yet that widening Highway 97 is the best solution. I'd want to compare the projected cost and long-term travel-time improvement from widening against serious investment in transit, intersection improvements and other ways of moving more people through the corridor. Our transit system has a lot of room for improvement, and making it a genuinely competitive alternative to driving could reduce the number of cars that need to use Highway 97 in the first place. That said, I wouldn't want to close off the option prematurely. Protecting a future right-of-way isn't the same thing as deciding to build it. It may turn out that the best long-term solution involves better transit, targeted highway improvements and other measures together. I'd want the evidence before making that decision.

Registered campaign links

From the official candidate registration record; presence here is not an endorsement.

Financial agent: Self

← Back to all candidates