Vancouver votes to remove some baby change tables due to constant vandalism

A group of parents, caregivers and babies gathered at Vancouver City Hall on Tuesday morning to protest the lack of transparency concerning proposed cuts and fee increases.

This coincided with Vancouver City Council voting on the proposed Zero Means Zero 2026 budget.

“We’re here today because of the proposed cuts, which affect all of us in many ways, but namely through the removal of change tables and menstrual products in our bathroom washrooms,” Cheryl Noon said, who attended the protest along with her baby, Finley. “It just makes it a lot harder to be a parent in the city.

“It’s a proposal in the budget, because they have to cut so much money from the different facilities and maintenance that they’ve got. And so they’ve said that they will be removing change tables in high-vandalism areas. So families who live in areas that have people who are more likely to do graffiti and stuff in bathrooms will now be unable to change their child safely.”

In a memorandum to staff and council, City of Vancouver staff said there are currently eight sites where change tables cannot be made safe and kept in service, with other locations under review.

Those locations are: Rainbow Park, China Creek North, Van Tech Sports Field, Clinton Park, Oak Meadows Park, Connaught Park, Killarney Park and Sunset Beach Park.

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The city pointed to a third-party map as a resource for finding baby-changing tables at various locations.

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In a post on X, Vancouver city councillor Peter Meiszner said he wanted to provide some context about the decision to remove some change tables.

He pointed to the part of the report that stated approximately $520,000 was spent between 2023 and 2025 to repair damage from vandalism.

Of this amount, $56,000 is attributable to replacing baby change tables, according to the city.

The report also states that the city cannot conduct daily safety inspections to ensure that baby change tables are meeting safety standards.

“While approximately 600 change tables remain in place across city locations, a small number of change tables are planned to be removed from facilities (approximately five to six per cent) as they have undergone repeated vandalism and are no longer safe for use,” the report states.

But Noon says that the baby change tables is just a drop in the bucket and there are worries many other things will be cut or eliminated to achieve a Zero Waste Budget.

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Clara Prager, the civic engagement and advocacy manager with Women Transformers, which organized the event on Tuesday, told Global News that they wanted to make sure their concerns about the budget were heard.

“We don’t actually know the other details in the budget, it’s 300 pages shorter than previous years,” she said.

“So we’re worried that when the rest of the budget is actually published and council has already voted, there will be cuts much worse to things like community centres, library programming and other interventions the city has that actually make our city much more affordable for working families.”

Prager said maintenance and vandalism cleanup should be part of any city’s budget to proactively deal with these issues.

“We live in a notoriously hard city to raise kids in, and I think a lot of things in this budget will make it even harder,” she added.

At the meeting on Tuesday, councillor Lisa Dominato tabled an amendment, which passed unanimously, to replace the trashed tables with a more resilient product.

“We are going to be indeed replacing those baby change tables as needed, particularly in areas with high family use, but also looking at alternative materials, different models, different materials so that we can prevent less vandalism,” she said.