Mike O'Reilly

He has been a Kamloops city councillor since 2018 and was re-elected in 2022. He announced his run for mayor in October 2025 with the endorsement of two former mayors. He is one of six candidates for mayor of Kamloops in the general local election of 17 October 2026, standing against the incumbent Reid Hamer-Jackson.

Career

O'Reilly is president and chief executive of Comet Industries, a real estate holding and development company, CBC News reported in 2025. By his own account he has more than a decade of leadership in non-profit organisations: he has been president of the Kamloops Downtown Business Improvement Association and of the Kamloops MS Society, chair of government relations for the BC MS Society and a board member of the BIG Little Science Centre. He was first elected to Kamloops city council in 2018 and re-elected in 2022 with 10,626 votes, the third-highest count among the eight councillors elected. On 2 October 2025, a year ahead of the vote, he announced outside city hall that he would stand for mayor, endorsed by the former mayors Terry Lake and Ken Christian.

Positions

O'Reilly's platform, 'Kamloops First', has four parts: a 'campus of care' that would centralise shelter and support services, with community service officers moved into the business districts; the Build Kamloops programme of recreation facilities and new soccer fields; road connections and multi-use paths; and what he calls a responsible and predictable tax rate, with the company New Gold, which operates on the city's borders, brought into city taxation. He said in 2025 that chaos had been unleashed at city hall three years earlier and presents himself as a collaborative leader. Mel Rothenburger, editor of Armchair Mayor, calls him one of Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson's main detractors, at the forefront of council's obstruction of the mayor's efforts on street disorder, and asks what new approach he offers.

Summarised automatically from the linked sources. City of Kamloops · CBC News · Mike O'Reilly campaign site · Mike O'Reilly campaign site · Wikipedia · Armchair Mayor