“We’re not going to let the bullies win. And that’s why we came out and said enough’s enough,” said Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim in a mid-term review interview with Daily Hive Urbanized on Monday.
He was referring to the threats of violence he and his family have received from people who disagree with him.
This past Halloween, hateful graffiti defaced his garage door, with English and Chinese messages that made violent threats against him and his family.
There was an incident where protesters came to his house, causing his teenage son to feel afraid to come home, necessitating a police response.
And there was even a bomb threat called to his house.
“We had a bomb threat, so you have to call your family and say, ‘Get out of the car right now!’” said Sim. His family waited on the side of the road until the Vancouver Police Department’s (VPD) Emergency Response Team arrived and provided the safe all-clear.
“Regardless of people’s political, you know, points of view, I don’t think it’s right for that to happen to anyone.”
Sim says one of the five things he wants to accomplish during his time in office is to groom and recruit future leaders for the city, but such incidents only discourage people from participating in civic politics and discourse.
“When stuff like that happens. It stops people from wanting to actually serve, and we all suffer because of it,” the mayor told Daily Hive Urbanized.
“While it’s been really tough on the family, that’s probably the most disappointing thing. We all grew up here, we know that that’s not what Vancouver or Vancouverites are all about. That’s not what Canadians are all about… There’s a very small segment and you just can’t let the bullies win.”
Steps taken to address public safety
According to Sim, ABC has “actioned” over 70% of the 94 of the platform commitments they made in the October 2022 civic election.
“Some things are a little slower, but still have positive impact,” he said.
Some of the most controversial commitments, particularly for certain activist groups, centre on ABC’s tougher-on-crime strategies compared to those of Sim’s predecessors, including strategies that focus on enhancing policing resources. While broader public safety considerations drive such strategies, some of ABC’s most fervent critics have slammed Sim and the party for their measures that may appear to target individuals who are experiencing homelessness, mental health issues, and opioid addictions, as well as some controversial organizations that claim to offer supports to these individuals.
According to Sim, they have reached their target of hiring 100 new VPD officers, although this figure has fluctuated from retirements.
When it comes to ABC’s platform of hiring 100 mental health workers, Vancouver Coastal Health revised the plan to 58 workers with a range of specialized training. So far, they have hired about 35 with the City providing funding support.
They have created the first-ever Indigenous Crisis Response Team and doubled the resources for the VPD’s Car 87/88 program of pairing non-uniformed police officers with a mental health worker in an unmarked police vehicle to respond to non-emergency calls. Sim says of the roughly 2,000 calls that they have received, over half have been rerouted to healthcare responses instead of the conventional police response.
“Even though we didn’t hit the numerical goal, that initiative has had a big impact,” said Sim.
“As a City, we’ve exhausted almost all the tools that we have”
But Sim says the City of Vancouver is now running out of options within its jurisdictional powers to meaningfully address crime and public safety issues.
“As a City, we’ve exhausted almost all the tools that we have,” Sim told Daily Hive Urbanized. He says that even in a hypothetical scenario where the provincial and federal governments provided the City with $1 billion to address the issue, the municipal government would gladly take it, but it would not necessarily address the issues.
“I’m not suggesting this by the way, but you can have police officers on every single block, and it’s not going to get to the root cause,” continued Sim.
“If someone is episodic, and it’s not a criminal issue, but it manifests into a criminal issue where someone gets harmed, the only thing that happens is we apprehend that suspect a little faster.”
He says the City has had a great working relationship with Premier David Eby’s provincial government on addressing public safety, including the most recent decision to establish a community policing centre in the Gastown area.
But beyond providing the necessary resources to address some of the symptoms of the issues, Sim says they are at the mercy of senior governments to actually tackle the root causes of the issues.
The mayor says mandatory involuntary care with treatment for people who have significant mental health or addiction issues is necessary, and this approach is something Eby has voiced support for recently. Sim points to the provincial government’s September 2024 announcement to create over 400 mental health beds at new and expanded hospitals by modernizing about 280 outdated beds and adding more than 140 new beds, which are all part of BC’s new involuntary care approach.
“Those [beds] are going to get ramped up pretty soon, and that helps us address it,” said Sim.
“These challenges didn’t start two weeks ago or even two years ago. They started 40 years ago, and we have a lot of stuff to unwind.”
When it comes to bail reform, the onus is on the federal government to end the never-ending rotating door of people who have picked up numerous charges, but then are almost immediately released from custody into the street. Sometimes, they re-offend within hours or days.
“We will never arrest our way out of a situation,” said Sim of the current predicament without major bail reform to improve public safety and keep repeat and violent offenders off the streets.
“We have some individuals that have been arrested or had interactions with police officers, six, seven, eight hundred times… There’s no point in even arresting people.”
2025 by-election and Park Board abolition
As the city faces an imminent by-election in early 2025 to fill a Vancouver City Council vacancy, there is a possibility of growing political tensions. Over the coming weeks, Christine Boyle of the OneCity Vancouver party will be leaving her city councillor seat to fully take on her new role as the MLA for the riding of Vancouver-Little Mountain and the new BC minister of Indigenous relations and reconciliation, under the BC NDP.
“We’re looking for the best candidate possible to run and to be in that chamber,” said Sim on ABC Vancouver party’s strategy for the by-election.
“I think the bigger issue is we want smart and hardworking people that give a damn about this city here is going to do the right thing. And if we have that person there, I actually don’t care who that candidate is.”
The forthcoming year could also be particularly pivotal for the municipal government, as Eby has pledged to follow Sim’s request to amend legislation relating to the Vancouver Charter to abolish the Park Board’s elected commissioners and transfer the governance responsibilities over Vancouver’s parks and recreation system to the mayor and City Council.
Eby previously promised to change the legislation after the provincial election. Sim noted there may be more information to share in the coming weeks.
Under the newly formed provincial cabinet, the premier now holds the duties, powers, and functions previously held by the BC minister of municipal affairs when it comes to strategic relations and consultations with local governments, local government organizations, and others.