Kelowna, B.C. Man Brady Rogers Wins City Council Seat After Campaigning With “I Barely Want to Do This” Signs

Brady Rogers told Kelowna he didn’t want the job. Kelowna gave it to him anyway.

The 33-year-old won a seat on Kelowna city council in Saturday’s B.C. municipal election. He finished fourth of 37 candidates with 12,635 votes, according to the City of Kelowna’s unofficial results.

His campaign signs said “I barely want to do this.” His website was even more blunt.

“Do I enjoy politics? No. Do I know what I’m doing? No. But am I qualified? Also no.”

He’s not quite the clueless candidate his signs made him out to be, though. He’s a former automation engineer who runs a Kelowna manufacturing business with his wife.

The signs that went viral

Rogers’ signs looked nothing like the usual smiling-candidate-and-slogan lawn sign.

One showed him in a “Dadlife” T-shirt, looking unimpressed, under the words “I BARELY WANT TO DO THIS,” with an “Under 60!” starburst beside his head. Another read “Just trying to pay my rent.” A third announced “Brady Rogers for Mayor,” then took it back: just kidding, city council.

The joke spread well beyond Kelowna during the campaign. A reel about it passed 100,000 views. Mandi Jung, an American teacher who posts about politics as @MandiFromtheInternet, shared it and called it the “most millennial thing ever.” Media in Canada and the U.S. started calling.

“It’s been crazy seeing that reel take off,” Rogers told Castanet in September.

Going viral again after the win

The win brought a second wave of attention.

Since Saturday, posts with his two signs side by side have circulated widely on social media. Most of them lead with the same contrast: a man who said he wasn’t qualified finished fourth. Entertainment site Dexerto picked up the story, taking it well beyond B.C.

Most of those posts leave out the part about him being an engineer.

How fourth place won a seat

Kelowna elects its eight councillors at large, so candidates run citywide instead of in wards. Every voter gets the same ballot and can vote for up to eight people. The top eight win.

Rogers didn’t need to finish first. He needed to be in the top eight out of 37. He finished fourth, 1,165 votes ahead of Les Bellamy, who took the last seat.

He finished ahead of a 15-year councillor

Rogers placed ahead of two returning councillors, Rick Webber and Mohini Singh. He also finished ahead of Maxine DeHart, who was first elected in 2011 and was running for a fifth term. DeHart came ninth with 11,165 votes, 305 short of a seat.

The top eight were elected. Results are unofficial until certified.

Five of the eight seats went to newcomers. Kelowna Capital News reported it’s the first time since 2011 that more than half of council is new. Davis Kyle, 29, finished second. He told the Kelowna Daily Courier he won by door-knocking with a big volunteer team and small donors.

Mayor Tom Dyas was re-elected with 19,451 votes, beating former MP Ron Cannan by 969. About 31% of eligible voters cast a ballot.

Who is Brady Rogers?

The slacker act was a bit, and Rogers has said so.

He told Global News the “unqualified” line was tongue-in-cheek and that he has relevant experience. He worked as a robotic automation engineer for four years. He and his wife then started The Rogerie, a downtown Kelowna business that turns locally recovered plastic waste into new products.

He grew up in Kelowna and campaigned under the name Brady the Creator.

“I’m really good at solving problems and I also care about problems,” he told Castanet.

Why he ran

A boardwalk got him into politics.

The public walkway along the waterfront at the Hotel Eldorado kept closing. Rogers started digging into why, and his posts on the dispute between the city and the hotel’s owners built a big following. He told Castanet that’s what pushed him to run. He hadn’t planned to run this year.

When he launched in September, he said voters don’t need “another person pretending every complicated problem has an easy answer.” Instead of promises, he campaigned on questions:

• How can city growth benefit the public?

• Are developers paying an “appropriate share” of infrastructure costs?

• How can transit make life more affordable for households?

• What would future development in North Glenmore need to deliver for the city?

• How should the city protect the public interest when private property and public rights collide?

He also talked about housing affordability, homelessness and pressure on small businesses.

Did going viral help him win?

It certainly didn’t hurt. With 37 names on the ballot, being the one people had already seen online is an advantage.

But there’s no way to know how many votes the signs brought in. Rogers was also running on real local issues, and the boardwalk dispute had built him a following before any sign went up. The results show he won, but they don’t say why people voted for him.

Do you need qualifications to be on council?

No. B.C. doesn’t require a degree, political experience or professional credentials to run for council. Candidates have to be at least 18, Canadian citizens, residents of B.C. for at least six months, and not disqualified by law.

Rogers’ “not qualified” line was a joke. His résumé includes engineering work and running a manufacturing business.

“I guess I’m on council now”

Rogers celebrated the way he campaigned.

At 11:30 p.m. Saturday, he posted a low-key selfie saying he guessed he was on council now and would be doing that for the next four years.

He also told the Kelowna Daily Courier he didn’t take the campaign lightly. He said he’s looking forward to the job and wants to “lend a new perspective” on council.

Kelowna’s results are expected to become official by Oct. 21.

Sources

• City of Kelowna, Kelowna Votes 2026: Unofficial election results: https://www.kelowna.ca/our-community/news-events/news/kelowna-votes-2026-unofficial-election-results

• Brady Rogers campaign website: https://bradythecreator.com