Mayor Ken Sim to boycott Metro Vancouver Regional District | Daily Hive

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim (Daily Hive)

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim is taking a tough stance against Metro Vancouver Regional District, announcing he will boycott his participation in the regional government.

“Metro Vancouver’s governance is broken. Moving forward, I will not be attending Metro meetings and supporting a system that lacks accountability,” said Sim in a statement to Daily Hive Urbanized today.

This follows recent controversies over the stipend pay that elected officials in the region’s municipal governments receive for attending each regional district meeting to deliberate and make decisions. Richmond city councillor Kash Heed also stirred some attention this week when he indicated he would not accept stipends for future meeting participation.

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Stipend pay for regional district meeting attendance has been a longstanding practice. It is completely separate and in addition to the salary that these elected officials receive for their main duties under their respective municipal government.

A similar stipend pay structure also exists for TransLink’s Mayors’ Council meetings; however, there is now some growing criticism of the recent increases in such extra pay in both regional authorities.

Additionally, a growing number of municipal officials across the region are voicing frustration over the recent steep increase in household fees to cover the regional district’s rising capital and operational costs, with the regional district’s fee increases exceeding those imposed by individual municipal governments.

This particularly relates to the escalating capital costs of the $3.86 billion troubled North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant, and the high cost of the $9.9 billion Iona Island Wastewater Treatment Plant, which would be the single most expensive infrastructure capital project in the Lower Mainland, even exceeding the cost of transportation infrastructure projects. It should be noted that the Iona Island plant project includes a $3.5 billion contingency fund/risk reserve.

“Metro Vancouver’s lack of good governance and transparency needs to be addressed. I applaud Councillor Kash Heed’s principled stand in declining his meeting stipend. Metro Vancouver’s costs to taxpayers and Vancouverites are out of control. We need real, meaningful change more than ever,” continued Sim.

Boardroom at Metro Vancouver Regional District’s headquarters office. (Metro Vancouver Regional District)

For 2025, the regional district will have a combined budget of $3.2 billion, including $1.464 billion for operating costs and $1.768 billion for capital project costs. The 2025 operating budget is more than double the 2015 operating budget of $657 million. In 2020, the operating budget was $1.02 billion.

In late 2024, the regional district’s board directed regional district staff to identify potential cost efficiencies and savings. Recently, the regional district has greatly expanded its mandate of directly financing and building new affordable housing, and it created the regional economic investment and attraction agency of Invest Vancouver. The existence of the recently created regional Invest Vancouver agency was part of the City of Vancouver’s rationale for its recent dissolution of the municipal agency, the Vancouver Economic Commission.

According to the regional district, in 2025, residents will pay an average of $875 annually per household for the services provided by the regional government, including average annual costs of $510 for sewerage/liquid waste, $200 for drinking water supply connections, $71 for solid waste/landfill, $63 for regional parks, $7 million for air quality initiatives, $4 for regional planning, and $20 for various other regional district services.

Municipal governments work with the regional district to access bulk supplies and services for water supply needs, sewerage treatment, and solid waste disposal.

The cost escalation related to the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant has resulted in average household fee increases of $590 per year for the North Shore sewerage area (District of West Vancouver, District of North Vancouver, and City of North Vancouver), $150 per year for the Vancouver Sewerage Area (City of Vancouver, UBC, and parts of Burnaby and Richmond), $80 per year for the Lulu Island Sewerage Area (most of Richmond), and $90 for the Fraser Sewerage Area (most other areas of Metro Vancouver).

Further rate increases can be expected for the Iona Island Wastewater Treatment Plant project, particularly for households within the Vancouver Sewerage Area, which is the plant’s service area.

Sim’s comments contrast sharply with those of his counterpart in Burnaby.

“We still believe that Metro Vancouver at $875 a month per average household is still very good value for money and what we deliver for the region, the critical services we deliver day in and day out,” Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley told media during an on-site construction tour of the North Shore plant on Wednesday.

“Metro Vancouver does an excellent job day in and day out delivering the critical services that are needed for this region.”

Metro Vancouver Regional District headquarters office at Metrotown in Burnaby. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Hurley was appointed as the new chair of the regional district’s board of directors last year, after Delta City Council removed George Harvie from the position over an unspecified loss of confidence in their mayor. Hurley was confirmed to fill the key role by the board.

This board, which governs the regional district and makes key policy decisions, is represented by 41 board directors representing 21 municipal governments in Metro Vancouver, Electoral Area A (mainly comprised of UBC/UEL), and the Tsawwassen First Nation. Nearly all board directors are mayors and city councillors of a municipality.

The City of Vancouver has seven seats on this board, which are currently filled by Sim and his ABC Vancouver party colleagues in City Council, including Lisa Dominato, Rebecca Bligh, Sarah Kirby-Yung, Mike Klassen, Lenny Zhou, and Peter Meiszner.

Sim drew attention in Fall 2024 when he removed Green Party city councillors Adriane Carr and Pete Fry, as well as former OneCity councillor Christine Boyle, from various regional district bodies — including Carr from the board — and the associated extra pay that comes from meeting stipends. They were replaced with Sim’s ABC colleagues, continuing a governing representation strategy previously made by Gregor Robertson’s Vision Vancouver-majority City Council.

Decisions made by the regional district’s board and committees are based on weighted votes, with each director or member receiving voting power based on a formula that considers the jurisdiction’s residential population.

For instance, out of 145 total weighted votes on the board, directors representing the City of Vancouver hold a combined 34 votes, giving them 23.4% influence, including five votes allocated to Sim. However, Vancouver’s influence has declined in recent decades as faster-growing communities, particularly Surrey — which now has 29 weighted votes — have gained more proportional representation relative to Vancouver. It should also be noted that TransLink’s Mayors’ Council uses a weighted voting system for its own decisions.

To date, Sim’s attendance in board meetings has been low, continuing the attendance practice of his predecessor, Kennedy Stewart.

metro vancouver regional district board weighted votes

Based on the population in the 2021 census, these are the weighted votes of each local government jurisdiction in the board of directors for Metro Vancouver Regional District. (Metro Vancouver Regional District)

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