Ken Sim’s $550,000 Question: Is Vancouver’s Public-Safety Plebiscite Really About Governing?

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There are few issues more important to Vancouver than public safety, open-air drug use and the city’s increasingly desperate struggle to respond to addiction and severe mental illness.

That is precisely why Mayor Ken Sim and his ABC Vancouver majority on City Council should be held to a higher standard than the one they have set for themselves in putting two non-binding plebiscite questions on the October 17 municipal election ballot.

The questions concern matters on which every Vancouverite has an opinion.

Plebiscite Questions

  • Open-Air Drug Use: Asks voters if they support the city strengthening its laws and bylaws to forbid open-air hard drug use (such as fentanyl, crack, meth, and heroin) in public spaces.
  • Involuntary Care Beds: Asks voters if Vancouver should formally request that the provincial government provide over 100 voluntary and involuntary mental health and addiction treatment beds within the city, specifically referencing the St. Paul’s Hospital site

The first asks whether voters support strengthening the city’s laws and bylaws to forbid open-air use of hard drugs — including fentanyl, crack, methamphetamine and heroin — in public spaces.

The second asks whether Vancouver should formally request that the provincial government establish a secure medical facility with more than 100 voluntary and involuntary mental-health and addiction treatment beds, potentially at portions of the former St. Paul’s Hospital site.

The questions passed during the emergency Council meeting held this past Thursday, August 13th, occurred amidst heated opposition.

Councillors Pete Fry (the Greens), Sean Orr (COPE) and Lucy Maloney (OneCity Vancouver) walked out of the impromptu Council meeting in protest.

Why, after nearly four years in office, does Mayor Ken Sim and his ABC Vancouver majority need a $400,000-to-$550,000 election-day plebiscite, roughly 4% to 6% the municipal election budget?

That is the question voters should be asking.

What Vancouver’s 2026 Mayoral Candidates Have to Say

The Mayoral candidates have exposed the political calculation differently.

Kareem Allam, the Vancouver Liberals candidate and Sim’s former chief of staff, has been particularly blunt. Allam argues that residents do not need another survey; they need a city government that actually acts. His central criticism is that Sim is spending public money asking permission to do things City Council can already pursue and that the Mayor can already raise directly with Premier David Eby.

Kareem Allam rejected Ken Sim’s public-safety plebiscite outright, calling it political theatre rather than a solution to Vancouver’s public safety issues.

Allam’s argument: Vancouverites do not need another survey about public safety.

“The people of Vancouver need a municipal government that actually delivers results. Ken Sim has had four years to address public safety and rather than conditions improving they have deteriorated.”

Allam also sees the plebiscite as a distraction from ABC’s record, describing Sim’s 2026 campaign as effectively “campaigning against his 2022 campaign.” Allam also questioned the wisdom of holding a referendum on matters that extend beyond the city’s jurisdiction and mandate, his most pointed criticism that …

“The Mayor’s job is about governing not campaigning: if Sim believes open-air drug use must be prohibited and Vancouver needs substantially more treatment capacity, the Mayor should use the powers and political relationships he already possesses rather than spend hundreds of thousands of dollars asking voters a non-binding question.”

Allam: “Residents don’t need another survey. They need a city that works.”

That is a devastating criticism precisely because it comes from someone who knows how Sim’s administration operates.

In a statement released following the plebiscite vote, COPE Mayoral candidate Stephanie Allen suggested there is public drug use …

“Because predators are being given free rein to kick people out of their homes for money for profit, abuse children, or sell poison drugs. If we want real public safety in Vancouver, we need to crack down on predators in our communities, both in the mansions and in the streets.”

Allen was sharply critical of Mayor Ken Sim and ABC Vancouver’s decision to spend as much as $550,000 putting two non-binding public-safety questions on the October 17 municipal-election ballot, characterizing it as an “expensive re-election gimmick” designed to “scapegoat the vulnerable” and distract Vancouverites from the record of the Sim administration.

Allen went on to say that …

“Ken Sim has had four years — and an overwhelming Council majority — to act on public safety, mental-health and addiction issues,” she told The Tyee. “Governments should address poverty and the mental-health and addictions crisis directly, while also drawing attention to less visible forms of violence, including gender-based violence,” describing public safety as a political “football” that can obscure the deeper social problems producing street disorder.

Allen isn’t arguing that Vancouver should simply tolerate open-air drug use.

Rather, she is challenging ABC’s method and motives.

Allen’s position is essentially: if ABC believes these measures are necessary, why hasn’t it acted during the four years it has controlled City Hall?

Pete Fry, the Green Party candidate and one of the Councillors who walked out of the emergency meeting in protest, has likewise challenged ABC’s approach to public safety. Fry’s broader position is that Vancouver’s problems require municipal leadership that combines enforcement with housing, mental-health and social services rather than reducing public safety to policing alone.

Fry’s objection is not to safer streets; it is to the false choice ABC presents between public safety and more comprehensive solutions.

Colleen Hardwick, a Mayoral candidate for TEAM for a Livable Vancouver, strongly opposes Mayor Ken Sim’s proposed public safety plebiscite, dismissing it as a costly political stunt and an expensive re-election gimmick.

Key Stances from Colleen Hardwick

  • Waste of Public Funds: Hardwick criticized the plebiscite — which is estimated to cost about half a million dollars — as an unnecessary distraction.
  • Ineffective Leadership: She stated that Sim and his ABC Vancouver majority had four years to address the addictions and public safety crisis but failed to deliver meaningful solutions.
  • Recovery-Oriented Approach: Instead of short-term political theatre regarding open-air drug use, Hardwick advocates for serious, lasting solutions focused on recovery and livability.
  • Council Authority: Echoing broader criticisms following the approval of the Vancouver public safety plebiscite, opponents note that the city already has the authority to adjust bylaws and address these issues without spending public money on a non-binding ballot question.

Colleen Hardwick, running again for TEAM for a Livable Vancouver, brings a different critique. Hardwick has repeatedly argued that municipalities must concentrate on their actual jurisdiction and that politicians should resist simplistic answers to complicated problems. As she has observed in discussing the Downtown Eastside and public safety, politicians can exploit fear and anger because frightened voters turn out. Her warning is especially relevant here: complex problems cannot be solved by slogans.

Rebecca Bligh, running for mayor with Vote Vancouver after being expelled from the ABC caucus, has emphasized that public safety must extend beyond a purely reactive police response. She argues for embedded health services, supportive housing and less bureaucratic access to addiction and mental-health care. Her position is particularly significant because she once sat inside Sim’s governing coalition and now offers an alternative to its approach.

“If Ken Sim wanted to do something about improving public safety, he could have done so as Mayor, Police Chair, and head of a majority Council. Instead, Vancouver has suffered a failure of leadership. Ken Sim has joined successive mayors and councils in doing too little for too long.

In case Ken Sim doesn’t know: strengthening the City’s laws is literally the Mayor’s job. A plebiscite to ‘strengthen the City of Vancouver’s laws’ to tackle open air drug use is pure political theatre – he’s making grand claims that he can’t execute and playing politics with people’s lives as a stunt.”

And William Azaroff, the OneCity Vancouver Mayoral candidate, has positioned himself as part of a broader progressive challenge to Sim, emphasizing housing, community and social supports rather than the punitive politics that ABC has increasingly embraced.

OneCity’s approach rejects the notion that public safety can be separated from homelessness, poverty, housing and access to treatment.

None of these candidates is proposing that Vancouver simply tolerate dangerous public behaviour.

That is the straw man ABC needs voters to believe.

The City of Vancouver Deserves Governing, Not Campaigning

There is a legitimate public-safety crisis in Vancouver. Pretending otherwise would be irresponsible.

But exploiting that crisis politically is equally irresponsible.

If Ken Sim believes public drug use should be prohibited, he should tell Vancouverites exactly how he intends to do it.

If he believes Vancouver needs 100-plus involuntary treatment beds, he should sit down with the premier and negotiate the agreement.

If he believes the old St. Paul’s site is appropriate, he should explain how a property already sold for redevelopment would be made available.

And if he believes these matters are urgent, he should have been doing all of this during the past four years — not two months before an election.

The $550,000 plebiscite is not the solution to Vancouver’s public-safety crisis.

It is a symptom of a government that has discovered, very late in its mandate, that asking voters whether they want something is considerably easier than actually delivering it.

Vancouverites deserve safer streets. They deserve treatment beds. They deserve a serious response to addiction and mental illness.

Most of all, they deserve a government capable of governing.

A Question Without A Policy: Ken Sim Doesn’t Know What He’s Doing

The first question asked in the plebiscite is perhaps the most revealing.

Voters are being asked whether they want Vancouver to “strengthen its laws” to prohibit public consumption of hard drugs.

But which laws?

When asked what specific bylaws ABC intends to change, Sim reportedly could not provide an answer. His response was essentially that the city would look at the laws after the plebiscite.

That turns democratic consultation upside down.

Normally, government proposes a policy, explains what it will do, tells citizens what it will cost and then asks elected representatives — or voters — to approve it.

Here, ABC is asking voters to approve a concept without telling them precisely what the concept means.

Worse, open-air drug consumption is not simply a municipal-policy vacuum waiting for Ken Sim to fill. Criminal law, prosecution, health care and much of the regulation of controlled substances lie with the federal and provincial governments. The province’s three-year decriminalization experiment has already ended, and small-quantity possession is once again illegal.

If the Mayor believes Vancouver needs stronger municipal enforcement against public drug use, he has had four years to bring forward a concrete bylaw.

For four years Mayor Ken Sim has enjoyed a bullet-proof Council majority.

As a Mayor with a Council majority, Sim has the authority to propose legislation.

What exactly has prevented him from acting?

On October 17th, voters will have the opportunity to decide whether Ken Sim and his team of  ABC Vancouver City Councillors have done their job.

Two non-binding questions costing half a million dollars should not be allowed to substitute for the answer.

#VanPoli | COPE Announces a People’s Audit of Ken Sim’s ABC Vancouver Civic Party

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This week COPE, The Coalition of Progressive Electors, and COPE’s Mayoral candidate, Stephanie Allen, announced The People’s Audit, COPE’s plan to open the books at Ken Sim’s City Hall, hold him accountable, clean up his mess, and deliver better public services for people.

We know a lot about what Ken Sim has done in power.

He turned a meeting room into a private gym, he tried to invest the city’s money in bitcoin, and he defunded affordable housing to the tune of $3.8 million that he gave away to for-profit developers.

Mayor Ken Sim gives the media a tour of his office space including his controversial personal gym at City Hall on June 26, 2024. Photo by Arlen Redekop /PNG

But there’s also a lot we don’t know yet.

Many decisions were made in secret, his 2026 austerity budget had almost no detail, hiding cuts to departments, staff, and programming.

We need to expose what has happened to our city, hear from everyone we can, and chart a path forward to clean up the mess.

We can open the books on Ken Sim’s City Hall.

We can expose the decisions made against the public interest, and who they serve.

Then we can transform the city to create public services that work, cut waste, and focus on making the city more affordable for people.

This is the work I’ve done professionally for the last several years. Working with organizations to guide transformation, creating alignment between promises made to the community and the day-to-day work. Creating a culture of integrity no matter the organization’s mission.

The steps are straightforward.

First, we listen to everyone, and review all the documentation. This allows us to find any bureaucratic absurdities, identify where rules are being followed — or broken — and address places where the system is not working.

Then, together with the team, partners, and community, we create a plan to clean it up, strengthen delivery, and build for the future from a solid foundation.

Then, we can turn the page on Ken Sim’s failed leadership.

I’m running for Mayor with COPE because we can take democracy back from the billionaires, make it affordable to build a life here, and make our city work for the people.

The People’s Audit Will:

  • Immediately Reverse Course on Ken Sim’s Disastrous Term and Restore the Renters Office, Reverse Cuts to Climate Programmes, and Increase the Empty Homes Tax;
  • Open the books on decisions made against the public interest, and put in new safeguards against lobbying and corporate influence;
  • Improve transparency and expose the problems at the city by talking with current and past city workers, city partners, and the public to improve service delivery and cut waste;
  • Review City AI data use policies, and investigate whether private city information was fed to American tech companies through LLMs;
  • Empower the Integrity Commissioner to hold politicians accountable, and update the city code of conduct to prioritize breaches of public trust.

We got this.

Stephanie Allen
COPE Candidate for Mayor of the City of Vancouver

#VanPoli | Vancouver Starved Its Parks — Then City Hall Declared the Park Board the Problem

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There is a remarkable piece of political chutzpah unfolding at Vancouver City Hall.

For nearly two decades, successive City Councils have failed to provide Vancouver’s parks, swimming pools, community centres, playing fields and recreation facilities with the sustained investment they require.

Now, after years of deferred maintenance and inadequate capital funding — funding that was approved by voters at each election in 2008, 2011, 2014, 2018 and 2022 — Vancouver City Hall has decided that the institution responsible for those assets, the Park Board, is the problem.

It isn’t.

City Hall is, as are all the Mayors and City Councils elected since 2008.

Mayor Gregor Robertson, who served as Vancouver Mayor from 2008 to 2018, cut Park Board funding

The modern history of this sorry affair begins with Mayor Gregor Robertson and Vision Vancouver, elected in 2008. Robertson’s administration inherited one of the world’s great urban parks and recreation systems.

Instead of establishing a long-term funding strategy to preserve it, the Vision Vancouver Mayor and Council imposed cuts.

In December 2010, the Vision Vancouver-led City Council approved more than $700,000 in reductions to the 2011 Park Board budget, with the consequences falling directly on parks: fewer flower beds, reduced lawn mowing and less street-tree pruning. Business in Vancouver subsequently reported that the cuts were visibly tarnishing the city’s parks.

The Park Board chairs during the opening years of the Robertson era — Raj Hundal in 2009 and Aaron Jasper in 2010–11 — were left attempting to manage an increasingly difficult financial situation. Constance Barnes chaired in 2012, Sarah Blyth from 2012 into 2013, and Jasper again in 2014.

And this is where the political responsibility becomes complicated.

John Coupar, who served as a Vancouver Park Board Commissioner from 2011 through 2018

From 2014 to 2018, the Non-Partisan Association controlled Park Board, with John Coupar serving as chair 2014–15, followed by Sarah Kirby-Yung in 2016, Michael Wiebe in 2017 and Stuart Mackinnon in 2018.

Yet the Mayor remained Gregor Robertson and Vancouver City Council remained ultimately responsible for the municipal purse.

The NPA cannot credibly claim it was merely an innocent bystander, although it fought like hell to have funding for Vancouver’s Board of Parks and Recreation increased. While the NPA controlled the Park Board, Park Board Commissioners found themselves unable to develop the political coalition necessary to force City Hall to repair the funding model.

Vision Vancouver cannot escape responsibility for the underfunding of Park Board.

Robertson’s decade at City Hall coincided with an increasingly obvious deterioration in the city’s recreation infrastructure. By the late 2010s, the Park Board was talking not about maintaining a healthy capital system, but about catching up.

Camil Dumont, left, and Stuart Mackinnon, right, Green Party of Vancouver, former Park Board chairs

Under the 2018–22 Park Board, Green Party chairs Camil Dumont in 2020–21 and Stuart Mackinnon in 2019 and 2022 presided over a system confronting the consequences of years of inadequate renewal.

Kennedy Stewart, elected Mayor in 2018, continued to cut Park Board funding during his term in office 

When Kennedy Stewart became Mayor in 2018, the political rhetoric changed, but the underlying financial structure did not. The Park Board remained dependent on City Council for the money required to maintain its facilities, monies that were not forthcoming during Stewart’s four years in power.

The numbers tell the story.

In 2022, the Park Board approved a staggering $539-million four-year capital plan, including $140 million for the Vancouver Aquatic Centre and $49 million for RayCam Community Centre.

Vancouver Is Awesome pointed out the fundamental problem: despite being an elected body, the Park Board does not have its own separate budget. It must request allocations from City Council.

In other words, City Hall controls the money and then complains about the consequences when the money isn’t sufficient.

After electing a majority ABC slate Park Board, Sim and Council tried to eliminate the Park Board

Then came Ken Sim and ABC Vancouver.

Ken Sim was elected Mayor in 2022 with an overwhelming mandate.

ABC also won six of seven Park Board seats. The chairs during this period tell their own story: Scott Jensen was elected chair for the remainder of 2022 and 2023; Brennan Bastyovanszky was elected chair for 2024; Laura Christensen chaired in 2025; and Tom Digby is the current chair in 2026.


December 5, 2023 Ken Sim calls press conference, announcing his intention to abolish the Park Board

In December 2023, Ken Sim announced his intention to abolish Park Board.

And here the hypocrisy becomes almost breathtaking.

Three of Mayor Ken Sim’s own ABC Commissioners — Bastyovanszky, Christensen and Jensen — broke with the Mayor, joined forces with Green Party of Vancouver Commissioner Tom Digby and opposed the abolition plan. Vancouver Is Awesome reported Bastyovanszky’s blunt assessment: Park Board had been underfunded by City Council, which is Council’s responsibility.

Former Vision Commissioner Aaron Jasper agreed, arguing that if the issue was maintaining parks and community centres, Sim needed to look at his own actions.

Mayor Ken Sim nevertheless proceeded, despite community backlash.

Mayor Sim’s disinformation argument was that the system was “broken,” that abolition would produce efficiencies and that millions could be saved.

Sim failed to point out responsibility for the maintenance of Vancouver’s parks and recreation system was — at the insistence City Manager Penny Ballem — transferred to the City and its crews, after which Ballem and City Hall ignored the needs of the community centres for necessary upkeep and maintenance.

Former Park Board chair Jasper weighed in with another obvious point: eliminating the Commissioners would save only their salaries — roughly $140,000 annually — while the staff, planners, horticulturalists, recreation professionals and maintenance workers would still have to exist.

That is not reform.

It is political theatre.

And the bill for decades of deferred investment continues to arrive.

According to a report released by Vancouver’s Auditor General Mike Macdonell this past February, 11 of our city’s community centres are in a severe state of disrepair.

The approved 2022 $539-million capital plan made a demand for renewal.

Vancouver’s aging aquatic facilities, community centres, playgrounds, playing fields and parks require billions in investment. At the same time, City Hall continues to make budget decisions that put pressure on Park Board services.

This is not an argument that every Park Board decision has been wise. It hasn’t.

The Board has suffered from political infighting, poor governance at times, and occasionally baffling priorities. Critics have legitimate grievances.

But those failures do not justify rewriting history.

The Park Board did not independently decide how much money Vancouver’s taxpayers would provide it.

The elected Mayors since 2008, and all Vancouver City Councils since 2008 did.

Vision Vancouver under Gregor Robertson failed to establish an adequate long-term funding model. The NPA-controlled Park Board proved unsuccessful in forcing the issue. Kennedy Stewart’s administration inherited the problem without solving it. Ken Sim’s ABC administration, for the past two years, attempted to turn the accumulated consequences into an argument for abolishing the institution.

That is the ultimate political sleight of hand.

Starve an institution. Watch its infrastructure deteriorate. Declare the institution incompetent. Then seize its powers.

That is precisely what Vancouver voters should reject come October.

And there is one final irony.

After spending years attempting to abolish the elected Park Board, Ken Sim reversed course in July 2026, announcing ABC Vancouver would run a full slate of Park Board candidates in the October election.

So, apparently the institution that Ken Sim once described as fundamentally broken is now worth fighting an election to control.

Vancouver voters going to the polls in October should remember that.

The Vancouver Park Board does not need Vancouver City Hall to dismantle it.

Vancouver Park Board needs Vancouver City Hall to properly fund it.

And after eighteen years of Mayors, Councils and political parties failing to do precisely that, Vancouver’s voters should ask a very simple question this October:

Who broke the Park Board — the Commissioners who requested necessary funding, or the politicians who control monies, yet refused to provide it?

#VanPoli | Mark Halyk for Park Board Commissioner | Vancouver Liberals

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Mark Halyk, a former Vancouver Park Board manager responsible for / transforming the concessions operated by the Board of Parks and Recreation, is running for the position of Vancouver Park Board Commissioner with the Vancouver Liberals.

 After spending more than a decade working inside the Vancouver Park Board as a senior leader in Commercial Services, Mark brings something increasingly rare to civic politics: real operational experience and firsthand knowledge of how the system actually works.

One of Mark’s proudest accomplishments during his tenure with Park Board was helping transform the concessions into a more financially sustainable model. Projects such as the partnership with Batch at Kitsilano Pool demonstrated how creative thinking and responsible public-private partnerships can revitalize public spaces while generating meaningful revenue to support parks and recreation programming.

Batch at Kitsilano Pool, the licensed Kits Beach concession stand, joint and patio — featuring great food

Mark — the must-elect candidate for Park Board in the 2026 Vancouver municipal election — believes that Vancouver’s Park Board can be both fiscally responsible and community-focused — a recreation and parks system in Vancouver that maintains pools, fields, community centres, and green spaces, while ensuring families in every neighbourhood across our city has access to modern, affordable recreation. Vancouver’s iconic amenities, including beloved destinations like Kitsilano Pool, deserve practical long-term planning that balances fiscal responsibility, climate resilience, and community access.

Today, VanRamblings features a ‘Hey Dad’ video, filmed by Mark’s young son — as you’ll see, an up-and-coming Spielbergian master of the cinematic arts — which will provide you with insight into the issues of concern to the must-elect Vancouver Liberals candidate for Vancouver Park Board, the entirely tremendous Mark Halyk.

As a follow-up to what Mark Halyk has to say above, in Wednesday’s VanRamblings post we will publish an indictment of current Mayor Ken Sim, and each of the civic administrations that have formed municipal government in Vancouver dating back to 2008, as each successive Mayor and Council has utterly failed to provide Vancouver’s parks, gardens, arboretum, swimming pools, hockey rinks, community centres, playing fields and community recreation facilities with the necessary sustained investment they require to function properly and in the interests of those of us who live in one of the twenty-three, diverse neighbourhood communities, who elect Vancouver’s next Mayor and Council each election cycle.