Vancouver watchdog finds internal meetings involving mayor’s party were improper

An investigation by Vancouver’s Integrity Commissioner has found that internal meetings involving Mayor Ken Sim’s ABC party amounted to improper, backroom decision-making.

Lisa Southern also examined text messages, from a senior ABC official to ABC park board commissioners at a separate party retreat, that threatened “appropriate disciplinary action” if they did not vote in accordance with “party values.”

A copy of the ruling was obtained by The Globe and Mail and will be posted on the city’s website Monday. Ms. Southern was acting on a complaint filed by Green Party city Councillor Pete Fry.

Mr. Fry said the activities revealed by the investigation are concerning. “Political staff and unelected ABC representatives are determining how our elected representatives should vote and that’s super-problematic.”

Leaked document shows new plan by Vancouver city council to alter the Downtown Eastside

Ms. Southern concluded that meetings held in 2023, at the mayor’s house and office as well as at another ABC leader’s house, violated city policy. The meetings were held to ensure that all park board commissioners supported the same policy and voting strategy.

The gatherings were held to discuss the removal of the temporary bike lane in Stanley Park and the creation of a synthetic turf field at Moberly Park in southeast Vancouver. When the official public vote was held on the bike lane in February of that year, Green Party commissioner Tom Digby noticed that all the ABC commissioners agreed to the removal without discussion, Ms. Southern noted.

“The Respondents effectively organized a voting bloc of Commissioners who strategically agreed ahead of time on how to deal with a specific matter,” she wrote. This denied … the public the opportunity to participate in the discussion – or at least observe it. It also meant that meeting minutes and other records did not record it.”

Ms. Southern said she doesn’t have the power to adjudicate or stipulate a penalty for the breach of the Vancouver Charter. That would have to be decided, if the case is pursued, by city council, the provincial ombudsperson or the B.C. Supreme Court. However, she said her report will be enough to help citizens understand the issues.

It’s a long-standing practice in Canadian and American cities that citizens get to watch civic decision-making made in public. There are open-meeting requirements for municipalities in all Canadian provinces and territories. In the U.S., “sunshine laws,” as they are frequently called there, are sometimes also applied to state and federal bodies.

When he campaigned for mayor, Mr. Sim said he didn’t believe in left or right and wanted to bring the city back together.

“I do believe our diversity of thoughts and lived experiences make us stronger,” he said in his victory speech on election night in 2022.

Unlike the meetings in 2023 on particular issues, Ms. Southern said that an ABC party retreat, held on Bowen Island in September of that year, did not constitute an improper meeting. Text messages at the retreat captured by commissioner Laura Christensen indicated that ABC leadership threatened to punish elected politicians who didn’t go along with the rest of the party.

(Ms. Christensen and two other commissioners elected with ABC were ultimately thrown out of the party in December, 2023, after they balked at Mr. Sim’s surprise announcement that he planned to get rid of the park board.)

The message at the party retreat, from an unidentified ABC leader, said: “You are expected to work and vote in alignment with your ABC caucus, maintaining party values. If you do not, you can explain yourself at the next ABC Board meeting. The Board reserves the right to decide on appropriate disciplinary action.”

Ms. Christensen now says she apologizes to residents of Vancouver for participating in something that eroded public trust. And she said she continues to have concerns about how the party continues to function, especially at city hall, where ABC maintains a majority.

“It’s unelected people directing people how to vote. And the fact that they have a rule saying everyone must vote together requires caucusing in private.”

Another of the former ABC commissioners said they weren’t allowed to leave the meetings without saying how they would vote.

“They’d trick us, with heavy-handed pressure tactics to get us to tell them how we would vote,” said Brennan Bastyovanszky.

The Integrity Commissioner said the Bowen Island retreat was a more-regular political meeting, more focused on general party business, not specific park-board votes.

“Nevertheless, I note that the ABC voting policy appears to have played a role in the Respondents’ failure to comply with the Vancouver Charter’s open meeting requirement,” she added.

“I am troubled by the fact that this policy may have led to regular ABC Commissioner meetings before public Park Board meetings to discuss and debate Park Board business.”

Ms. Southern noted in her report that the three remaining ABC park commissioners, Jas Virdi, Angela Haer and Marie-Claire Howard, ultimately refused to be interviewed or provide any additional documentation. They submitted their counter-arguments via lawyers.

In their lawyers’ submission, they argued that the meetings referred to were just general gatherings to explore everyone’s opinions on various issues, that the complaint had been filed past the allowable time limit, and that their “freedom of association” rights were being violated by the suggestion that the meetings were improper. They also argued that the integrity commission itself had become politicized and was wasting money on frivolous complaints.

“There was no attempt to dictate political outcomes or circumvent the democratic process. The gatherings were fundamentally discussions of policy amongst a political party rather than an exercise of municipal power,” Ms. Southern summarized as their argument.