Ken Sim defends public safety plebiscite, promises 50-metre VAC pool if re-elected | Daily Hive

Sarah Kirby-Yung and Ken Sim. (Hanna Hett/Daily Hive)

Ken Sim is seeking re-election as Vancouver’s mayor, with public safety once again at the heart of his campaign.

In August, prior to the municipal campaign period starting, Sim and his ABC Party voted to have a public safety plebiscite at the Oct. 17 election, where Vancouverites will answer two questions: one on stricter laws regarding open hard drug use, and one on using the old St. Paul’s Hospital as a mental health facility with involuntary care beds.

Other than public safety, ABC Vancouver’s platform has two pillars: “restoring Vancouver” and “raising Vancouver.”

Its promises include things like a second consecutive annual property tax freeze, ending parking fees at beaches and community centres, new public swimming pools, and 4,200 rental homes on City-owned land.

Daily Hive Urbanized sat down with Ken Sim and ABC Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung, who is also seeking re-election in the upcoming Oct. 17 election, to chat about their growing pains in their first term, the challenges Vancouver faces, and how they plan to govern for the next four years — if they get another chance.

The past four years of governance

Sim and ABC Vancouver won a landslide victory in 2022, with an emphasis on addressing crime, public safety, and public disorder issues. Their platform had 93 election promises, ranging from climate action to public safety to childcare.

Sim acknowledges that they didn’t manage to accomplish what they had initially set out to achieve.

“When we came into office, we had some pretty big expectations,” he said. “We came in with a mandate to change.”

“I will be the first one to admit that I underestimated the challenges that we would be facing, and the size of the problems we would be facing.”

He said when they saw the City’s finances, “it was horrendous.”

Sim said that the municipal reserves were at $33 million when they entered office.

“And on a city budget of approximately $3 billion, when you have the operating and the capital, there was no safety [net] whatsoever.”

He said that they are not “throwing the previous administration under the bus,” pointing out that they had had to deal with the COVID pandemic during that term.

Sim said his administration had to build up the city’s reserves and fully fund the police department and fire department. He also mentioned that they increased investment in the city’s sidewalks after years of flat funding and worsening pavement conditions.

“This was the size of the challenges that we’re facing, and so it took us a couple of years to fix the foundation and fix the finances. And now we’re able to build off that,” Sim said.

He added that he entered City Hall believing that he could do so with a business mindset.

“I was wrong, I really was.”

He said that they had to learn how to play the game of politics, at a municipal, provincial, and federal level.

“It took us two years to figure out the reward system when you’re working with other individuals and the bureaucracy or other political parties or Victoria or Ottawa,” he said. “At the time, you think that everyone’s driving in the same direction for the best interest of all the people and all that. And that hasn’t been necessarily our experience. Politicians get rewarded on how they think people are going to vote. It’s unfortunate.”

Public safety plebiscite

A major conversation of the municipal election campaign period has been the public safety plebiscite, driven by Sim and ABC Vancouver.

In August, they introduced a policy paper that proposed putting two advisory questions on the ballot, with the reasoning that the City of Vancouver should seek a direct public mandate on issues that span both municipal and provincial responsibilities.

The ABC majority council voted through the plebiscite at a heated special council meeting, held during Council’s scheduled summer break.

When voters fill out their ballot, they will also have the opportunity to select yes or no on two questions related to public safety.

The first is whether they are in favour of the City of Vancouver strengthening its laws to forbid open-air hard drug use in public spaces.

The second is whether the City should formally ask the provincial government to convert portions of the old St. Paul’s Hospital, or a similar site, into a secure medical facility that provides acute voluntary and 100-plus involuntary care beds.

While these plebiscite questions have been met with criticism, Sim said that he’s heard from Vancouver residents who have said that they are happy to have this opportunity to express their opinion.

“And that spans the political spectrum. This is not a left versus right, socio-economic, whatever. The vast majority of people feel that they don’t feel safe in the city.”

But critics and political opponents have pointed out that hard open drug use is already illegal, that the old St. Paul’s facility isn’t suitable for a mental health facility, and that City Council could have taken these actions without the plebiscite.

“We hear that all the time, and we love to correct the record,” said Sim.

He said that the current practice for dealing with open hard drug use is, effectively, nothing. Police officers could see someone using hard drugs in an open space, then arrest them, charge them, confiscate the drugs, file a report, and bring it to the Crown. Sim said this could take one or two officers anywhere between half an hour and their full shift.

“So administratively, it just doesn’t happen. It’s very cumbersome.”

He said that the idea behind the plebiscite question is that the City would instead pass a bylaw that allows the City to issue a bylaw infraction ticket and confiscate the drugs (but without a fine).

“We don’t have to arrest anyone, which is a game changer there, because these shouldn’t be arrestable offences,” he said.

Sim added that if they see an individual come up on a regular basis, it would trigger a healthcare response.

“We get to ask the question: Is this person you know at risk, serious risk to their own safety, or pose a risk to the safety of others, or are they at risk of serious deterioration or death?”

If that’s the case, he said that person could be detained under the Mental Health Act, which allows a physician or nurse practitioner to assess someone and admit them involuntarily to health care if they are experiencing severe mental health issues and pose a risk to themselves or others.

While people have pointed out that the old St. Paul’s Hospital building is now owned by a private developer, is not seismically safe, and there is general opposition to having such a facility in the downtown core, Sim asserts that it is a viable option.

He pointed out that involuntary care is already widely used in the province, but people are released shortly after without getting adequate care. He said there are already about 70 beds in the old St. Paul’s that are used for involuntary care.

“So, this narrative around ‘Well, we’re not set up; you have to retrofit everything.’ No, that’s actually not true because we currently have those beds. And so this is as close to a turnkey solution as possible. Now, the province, they can do whatever they want. We’re putting it out as a recommendation.”

Sim said they have already gone to the provincial government with these requests, which is why they decided to see if they could get a city-wide mandate through the plebiscite questions.

He said that a violent random attack in September 2024 — where an individual attacked a man and left him with a severed hand and killed another — was “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

This individual, Brendan Colin McBride, had more than 60 interactions with police documented throughout Metro Vancouver.

After this attack and murder, Sim said they went to the Province and asked for involuntary care beds.

“And the Province actually agreed, and they committed to providing 400 beds of involuntary care. To date they have provided about 200, but not a single one in Vancouver for the people of Vancouver, and so we’ve been working on this. We’ve tried every avenue.”

Sim said the plebiscite is a way to send a strong message to the Province if the majority of voters vote yes.

“But this myth that we haven’t done anything until now is completely ridiculous. We’ve been working on this ever since we started.”

Ken Sim’s plan to get housing built

Sim said that between November 2022 and July 2026, they approved almost 60,000 homes of all types, including supportive housing, social housing, non-market housing, market housing, missing middle, townhomes, and condos.

“And the reason so many were approved is we made it easier. We changed a lot of systems in the City of Vancouver to speed up the permitting process,” Sim said.

ABC Vancouver says they reduced regulatory red tape, with about 1,850 pages cut, as well as relaxed the view cone policy and reviewed the city’s shadow policy.

Sim said they passed the Official Development Plan (OCP), which reduces the requirement for holding public hearings for new builds if they already comply with the OCP.

But he said due to “tough economic times,” approved projects are not translating to shovels in the ground.

Sarah Kirby-Yung pointed out their development viability report, which they created to support housing projects in actually getting off the ground. It includes deferring development cost charges (which are fees the City collects to fund infrastructure), so that developers can pay them later when they have cash coming in.

“And those measures have really very tangibly unstuck some projects,” said Kirby-Yung. “Because of those changes, they actually are proceeding and moving forward with construction.”

She added that they’ve advanced multiplexes to fill in the missing middle and are working on pre-approved designs. She said that single egress stairs (which allow for more space in multiplexes to go towards the actual homes) are “probably one of the single biggest game changers in terms of bringing in achievable missing middle housing in neighbourhoods.”

“People can’t live in an approval,” Kirby-Yung said. “What are the other tools we can look at so that we can get those approvals actually to construction? Is it that you get a reduction in fees? Is it further around the timing of payments? We are very willing to flex and to look at those things, and we will continue to do it.”

ABC is also promising to build 4,400 rental units on city-owned land. Earlier this year, City Council approved several major rental housing projects, but non-ABC city councillors rejected it, concerned that City-owned land was being used to build only market rental housing, instead of using the sites for affordable housing.

Jobs and economy

Sim pointed out that “the other side of the affordability equation” is jobs and the economy.

“You can have an abundance of low-cost housing, let’s say, but if you don’t have jobs, it doesn’t matter.”

He said they are making it easier for businesses to set up and succeed, and pointed out various events his council has supported, like Web Summit, the FIFA World Cup, extending the Granville Pedestrian Zone (something they promised to bring back next summer if they’re elected), and a fireworks show on B.C. Day-long weekend.

“We can do our part, and sometimes we step out of our lane,” said Sim.

He pointed out things like a zero per cent property tax increase and working on speeding up permitting. But he said the biggest thing the City can do is work on public safety.

“If people don’t feel safe coming to your shop, you won’t have anyone working in your shop, and you won’t have any customers, and that’s a complete waste of time […] so that’s why public safety is such a big deal.”

Sim said that they’ve stepped out of their own lane by supporting an event like Web Summit, even though the City itself didn’t get any direct revenue from it.

“We landed Web Summit. It’s a three-year programme at least. We think in year three, which is coming up, there could be as many as 40,000 delegates that visit the city of Vancouver. It’s going to generate approximately $500 million of economic activity for the city.”

Similarly, he said that the City of Vancouver committed $5 million to hosting the FIFA World Cup, and while they didn’t get any revenue, he said it was a huge “branding opportunity” for them.

Park Board promises

The ABC platform promises to remove parking fees at Spanish Banks and Jericho Beaches, as well as community centres.

“When you put these fees on these community amenities that are supposed to be for the people, it’s problematic. If you have someone who has a lot of money, that’s one thing; they don’t even think about it. That’s not the norm, and even a $2, $3 or $5 fee will drive a lot of decisions when people are struggling to put a meal on the table.”

While these fees were approved during their party’s tenure, Sim pointed out that the decision was made under the Park Board’s authority.

“We need to win a majority so we can affect these changes,” he said.

Another one of ABC’s promises is to build a 50-metre pool at the Vancouver Aquatic Centre, which is currently slated to be rebuilt with a 25-metre pool.

Park Board Staff had concluded that a 50-metre pool could not be accommodated within the existing building footprint alongside the other planned aquatic amenities while meeting the required standards. They said that a 50-metre pool would require a redesign with a larger building footprint, which would significantly increase construction costs.

Losing a 50-metre pool to a 25-metre pool has been highly controversial, with a community group and pool users even taking it to the Supreme Court of British Columbia, due to the fact that replacing the pool was a plebiscite question in the last municipal election.

While the Court dismissed the challenge, on Oct. 13, the B.C. Court of Appeal temporarily halted any further demolition of the current Vancouver Aquatic Centre until Nov. 3, 2026.

Despite the challenges to building a new facility with a 50-metre pool, Sim promised to “make it happen.”

“Look, it’s very clear that the people of Vancouver want the 50-metre pool, so I just want to be very, very clear,” he said. “I’m personally committed to delivering that pool within the budget as well.”

Sim said there are a lot of either Vancouver- or B.C.-based companies who “would be more than enthusiastic to build a pool.”

“There’s a narrative around ‘well, you need a couple extra feet,'” He said. “It’s a couple extra feet. We can come up with solutions here. This isn’t rocket science.”

Daily Hive Urbanized asked if it was legally too late, to which Sim said: “No. Look, do we have shovels in the ground yet?”

SkyTrain to UBC

Shortly before Daily Hive Urbanized interviewed Sim and Kirby-Yung, a video of former mayor Kennedy Stewart surfaced, with Stewart saying that a SkyTrain to UBC was “so close” and that Sim “basically had a gift sitting on his desk to get that done.”

Kirby-Yung called it “ridiculous.”

“The business case has been funded. The business case is currently being reviewed. We all have to wait for the business case to determine the alignment and the final costs around that.”

She said they are waiting for the business case “just like everybody else.”

“And the answer honestly is a pinball back and forth between the provincial and the federal governments, who say we’re waiting for the business case; we’re waiting for the other for funding. Vancouver is committed. We are committed, and [Stewart’s] comments are just ridiculous.”

With files from Kenneth Chan

You might also like: