WATCH: Fry says progressives 'united' as he assumes role of de facto coalition leader

At the beginning of August, there were three progressive mayoral candidates in Vancouver — COPE's Stephanie Allen, OneCity's William Azaroff, and the Greens' Pete Fry.

Now, only the latter remains.

Just over a week after Allen ended her campaign, Azaroff followed suit in order to fulfill a promise the three parties made to ensure only one progressive mayoral candidate was on the ballot come October.

Following Azaroff's announcement on Tuesday, Fry wasted no time in assuming his position as de facto leader of the coalition.

"This has been a really difficult decision to make, but we are united in our values — Stephanie and COPE, William and OneCity, me and the Greens," Fry said. "We share a lot of the same values, and we are united in the sense that we do need to get rid of Ken Sim."

He argued that "there's absolutely nothing stopping us from working to achieve — within the limits of the Election Finance Act, of course — a better City Hall."

When asked whether he would consider expanding the coalition to include the Vancouver Liberals, Fry said he's always "happy to meet with Kareem [Allam]," but that they may not share similar values.

"I'm confident that I share values with OneCity and COPE," he added. "I'm not really sure where Kareem's values lie when it comes to policy and that kind of thing."

Fry made it very clear that sacrificing progressive values in order to expand the coalition include to non-progressive parties was not a tradeoff he'd be willing to make.

Allan agreed, explaining that she believed "values have to be the thing that we live and die for — particularly when it impacts people’s lives so significantly."