kelownaelections.ca

Daniel Gordon Fritter

Candidate for Councillor

Background

Daniel Gordon Fritter is a Kelowna-based journalist and publisher. He is the owner of Calibre Publishing and publisher of Calibre: The Canadian Firearm Magazine, a publication with a circulation of approximately 10,000 per issue based in Kelowna, BC.

Fritter's career in publishing spans more than two decades. He worked as an editor at RPM Motoring Monthly (2003–2008) and LC Media Inc. (2009–2012) before founding Calibre Publishing in 2012. He also wrote for Canadian Auto Press (2005–2006) and studied at the University of British Columbia (2005–2010).

Beyond publishing, Fritter is president of Lane Filter British Columbia, a motorcycle lane-filtering advocacy group he has led since 2017.

Fritter has appeared as a national firearms-policy commentator, including a February 2023 interview on CBC's Daybreak South discussing federal firearms legislation.

No prior campaign filing or elected-office record was located for Fritter. (Public-source pass, 2026-09-13)

2026 Campaign

Fritter is running for Kelowna city council with the tagline "A Kelowna we can be proud of," citing the future of his children as a motivating factor.

His stated policy priorities include transitioning Kelowna from the RCMP to a municipal police force to increase accountability, reduce crime, and curtail vagrancy and open drug use. He is also advocating for re-orienting the city's transportation plan, improving affordability, supporting jobs, and indexing short-term rentals to long-term vacancy rates.

Fritter's campaign presence consists of a Facebook page ("Daniel Fritter for City Council") and his personal LinkedIn profile. No dedicated campaign website was located.

He was listed among the 37 confirmed councillor candidates by Castanet and on the City of Kelowna's unofficial nomination list.

Campaign site: https://fritterforkelowna.ca/

Social media:

In an undated ForChange Kelowna candidate questionnaire, Fritter reiterated his platform (transition to a municipal police force by 2032, more BC Housing projects, at-grade rail and light rail, large-format events) while adding background and figures. He stated that he studied forensic psychology, was invited to testify before the federal Standing Committee on Public Safety, and served four years as president of the Joe Rich Sportsman's Association. He cited Kelowna's crime rate as 24% above the provincial average and 56% above the national average, and said congestion rose 10% in 2023–2024. These figures are his own statements and have not been independently verified.

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

Given both labour and material costs comprise the bulk of cost inputs, and that Kelowna has already cut DCCs by 25% until 2028, I would focus on ensuring that what gets built in Kelowna is what our market needs. That means I’d be wary of accepting even as many variances as previous city councils have granted, because the code exists to ensure the end product is liveable. And while variances around things like reduced parking are often sold as environmentally friendly or density-driving measures, more often than not they end up doing little more than reducing developers’ costs, while ensuring the end product is more suitable for short-term rental than anything else — which in turn just decreases affordability. By contrast, I would try to seek a better balance between rental and freehold developments, more mixed-use commercial/residential projects, ensure that occupied homes slated for re-development are not taken off the market prematurely and the site left barren, vacant, and useless for a year or more, and index the price of municipal short-term rental licenses to Kelowna’s average long-term rental costs.

2. Public safety

Despite having one of the largest RCMP detachments in Canada, and our policing costs having risen by over 80% since 2020, our crime rate is still over 50% higher than the national average, which in turn has led to significant challenges with regard to recruitment and retention within the Kelowna RCMP. To address this and provide greater oversight of spending, one of my priorities would be to transition Kelowna to a municipal police force before the existing RCMP contract expires in 2032. Municipal police forces offer more staffing flexibility, face fewer recruitment challenges, and, as a result, comparator municipal forces have vacancy rates 2-3x lower than the Kelowna RCMP’s, with 2-4x less attrition/turnover. It would also provide greater authority to build formal partnerships with health and social services and expand alternative response models.

3. Homelessness & the supervised consumption site

Not being an expert on addiction issues, I have to defer to Interior Health’s expertise on the matter, and (unfortunately) accept that it is a necessary harm prevention measure. However, I believe it should be relocated, as our community is also facing an employment crisis, and the site’s current location is preventing a large amount of what should be Kelowna’s most productive and vibrant commercial space from reaching its economic potential. It’s also simply too close to City Park, and has had a deleterious effect on the park’s use by the public in general, and kids specifically. In terms of the homelessness issue, Kelowna needs to increase the number of partnerships it has with BC Housing dramatically to provide low-income and supportive housing projects. As it stands, we have one project slated to deliver just 40 spaces by 2029, while Kamloops has six projects ongoing to deliver over 600.

4. Taxes & budget

Like anyone, I’d say the taxation level’s probably a little high, given the value most taxpayers receive in the form of infrastructure and managing our issues. One area of the budget I would like to more closely examine falls under the category of Enabling Services, which is a large and nebulous department tasked with providing everything from communications to IT to fleet services, with a budget of well over $100M and the largest staff at almost 260 — roughly a third of which are management. Meanwhile, the transportation department has 82.5 employees, transit 3.5 employees, and the partnership office (responsible for things like establishing the aforementioned partnerships with BC Housing to alleviate the homelessness crisis) just 7. Solving some of the issues that have become so pronounced in recent years, like homelessness, crime, and traffic congestion may require some compromise be found within areas that do not deliver direct results for Kelowna residents.

5. Growth & infrastructure funding

The expansion of the bridge to incorporate the proposed sixth lane, which I would propose be used for an at-grade light rail system for commuters that would run north along Water St., and cut east around Prospera Place to join the CN railbed adjacent to the rail trail, continuing along that path to the airport. A second crossing is extremely likely to find traction with the province, and widening Highway 97 poses a litany of issues, but we nonethless need to solve the issue of congestion — and the bridge is the largest pain point for commuters. At-grade light rail along the aforementioned route minimizes road crossings, and would provide commuter service from West Kelowna to downtown, to the commercial areas off Enterprise, to UBC, to YLW, providing the best “bang-for-buck” in terms of moving commuters, tourists, and students, having the biggest impact on congestion along Highway 97, and opening up new areas for rezoning and development to increase housing affordability.

6. Transit & getting around

Although a light-rail commuter line is, as stated, the potential infrastructure project I am most enthused about, even the best possible timeline for its delivery means more needs to be done to reduce congestion in the near-term. Given just over 3% of trips in Kelowna are completed by bicycle, with motor vehicles making up the vast bulk of trips, I would prioritize improvements to the road network, but only after revamping the Transportation Master Plan. The prescriptive document that informs all transportation-related decisions within the city, the existing Plan is too broad in scope, and while it’s laudable that it has achieved 12 of the 16 stated goals, I would argue that a transportation plan that is achieving its stated goal of “improving health” while neglecting to make any progress towards goals like “supporting livable communities” and “enhancing travel affordability,” and outright failing even more core goals like “fostering a growing economy,” and “optimizing travel times” isn’t a transportation plan at all.

7. Downtown & the local economy

Step one in addressing the faltering local economy is to have a plan. Currently, the city does not have one: Our economic development services are fulfilled by the RDCO’s Central Okanagan Economic Development Commission, under the premise that as the largest city in the Central Okanagan, the commission’s work must necessarily include Kelowna. But that ignores the fact that the commission’s responsibility is to the region, not the City of Kelowna. So I would begin by requiring the city to create its own economic development plan. Additionally, regarding downtown, I would have shade sails installed during the summer months to make Meet Me on Bernard venues more hospitable, and use city venues and event planning resources to host larger-format festivals to drive growth into existing industries in the area: A week-long Wine Festival to further establish Kelowna as Canada’s wine destination, and a similarly large-format festival incorporating boat and air races, and a vintage and hypercar automotive concourse to leverage the businesses thriving in those sectors, with the aim of helping them grow and create jobs. As beautiful and vibrant as Kelowna already is, a rock concert in the parking lot of a stadium in decline should hardly be the highlight of a summer event schedule.

Registered campaign links

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

Financial agent: Self

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