Opinion: Defending Vancouver from billionaire greed and political takeover | Daily Hive

Opinion: Billionaires are buying elections and killing the planet, but in Vancouver we're fighting back

Sean Orr (COPE)

Written for Daily Hive Urbanized by Sean Orr, the candidate for COPE in the Vancouver City Council by-election in April 2025.

Around the world, billionaires like Elon Musk are buying politicians and elections to try to make governments work for only them instead of us.

It’s hard to find a problem in the world that can’t be traced back to the disproportionate political power of the super-rich. They’re corrupting our institutions, gutting our public services, and burning up the planet with climate change.

Here in Vancouver, that looks like Chip Wilson and Mayor Ken Sim.

Many people know that this multi-billionaire and lululemon founder owns the largest mansion in Vancouver and has some noxious opinions and strange views. Fewer people are aware of his growing empire of speculative real estate or of the role he played in putting Sim and ABC in power.

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In 2022, Wilson announced he was putting $380,000 into the Pacific Prosperity Network (PPN) with the stated intention of defeating “socialist” candidates at the municipal level.

While Wilson and his family members made max donations to ABC and Sim’s election campaign that year, the PPN poured money into right-wing organizing and communications. They even sponsored the film Vancouver Is Dying, a blatant propaganda film that punched down on the most marginalized and blamed them for their own plight. This helped create the conditions for Sim and ABC to win the last election.

After two and a half years, Sim and ABC’s mask is off.

Their signature campaign promise was to hire 100 new police officers and 100 new nurses. It was a cynical lie. They’ve hired 200-plus more police, adding approximately $90 million to the Vancouver Police Department’s annual budget, and barely any new health workers. Core public services have been cut back, and investment in vital infrastructure is woefully lacking; even green bin service has been reduced.

Sim and ABC have pulled off something unprecedented: they’ve raised property taxes at a record clip while reducing public services. Where did the money go?

Sim and his billionaire pals are in it for themselves and their developer friends. They only wanted to exploit the victims of our housing and drug poisoning crises to get themselves in power. It’s now clear they never had any intention of fixing Vancouver’s systemic problems.

They’ve alienated members of their own party, had members of the library, school and police boards quit or been dismissed, discriminated against their own Park Board commissioner, and expelled their own city councillor for having the temerity to stand up for supportive housing.

Sim tried to halt the work of the Integrity Commissioner, whips his candidates into line behind closed doors, and his office even pressured the beloved East Van Panto to rewrite their play! Is there anyone other than those with deep pockets and political power he can work with?

After two and a half years of muzzling non-profits, returning $3.8 million of empty homes tax to developers, scrapping the social housing commitment for Little Mountain, breaking campaign finance rules, kicking non-ABC councillors off key appointments, converting a meeting room at City Hall into a personal gym, and giving his buddy Chip Wilson his own official day — it’s become clear to many Vancouverites that Sim and ABC lack integrity.

Here’s the good news: Vancouver is alive. And people are ready to fight back.

At every door we knock on, at every event we attend, the message is the same: Sim and ABC don’t have their best interests in mind. We’re hearing a ton of buyer’s remorse from those who thought ABC was a big-tent, middle-of-the-road party.

People want a fighter at City Hall, someone who will hold Sim’s feet to the fire.

I am that fighter.

On Saturday, April 5, 2025, I’m asking for your vote for City Council. I will work every day to fight for housing, to protect public service, and to restore integrity to our municipal government.

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