The City of Vancouver is inching closer to dissolving the Park Board despite hitting a minor snag.
Last week, the B.C. Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs announced the next step in dissolving the Vancouver Park Board at the request of Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim.
B.C. Minister of Housing Christine Boyle announced that a referendum would be held to determine the future of the Park Board.
“To strengthen protection for permanent parks, the legislation would require a unanimous vote of Vancouver council, along with an assent vote, for removing a permanent park designation. As requested by the City, permanent parkland being transferred to First Nations would be exempt from the assent vote,” the ministry said in a statement.
Sim took exception to the exemption and shared his concerns in a statement on Tuesday.
“In a press release last week, the Province stated that the City of Vancouver requested an exemption from the ‘assent vote’ (referendum) for any parkland transfers to First Nations. To be clear, neither I nor City Council have ever formally requested any provincial changes of this nature. Had the Province shared with us this legislation in advance, we would have made our position clear,” Sim said.
Sim added that the City values the relationships it has fostered with the Musqueam Indian Band, Squamish Nation, and Tsleil-Waututh Nation, “and remain committed to working together on shared priorities in the spirit of reconciliation.”
We asked the Province what it felt about Sim’s comments, and B.C. Premier David Eby said the government is more than happy to accommodate the mayor’s request.
“This is legislation that was important for the mayor,” Eby said yesterday.
“We’ve done our best to bring it forward and to meet the various and sundry requests of the mayor and council, as well as the administration of the City of Vancouver. If he doesn’t want that section in the bill, that’s okay with me. And we’ll pass — this is his bill, this is for him, and it’s for his Park Board issue in his city. And so we’ll work with the mayor to address that concern. I don’t have any issue with that.”
In response, the City of Vancouver said it’s encouraged to hear that the Province is open to amending the legislation.
How did we get here?
The mayor’s quest to abolish the Park Board publicly began in late 2023, as confirmed by Daily Hive Urbanized in an interview in December of that year.
“Make no mistake about it, as long as I’m mayor of Vancouver, parks will always be parks, and golf courses will always be golf courses. We’re going to ask the provincial government to actually strengthen the protections,” Sim told Daily Hive Urbanized at the time.
“The only thing that would pass is something that’s so glaringly obvious to everyone. Aside from that, the bar is going to be set way higher than what it is now. So for people who are worried about parks not being parks, they should be applauding this,” he added.
Council approved the process to axe the board about one week later.
In March 2024, Eby committed to scrapping the board after the election.
While there was some pushback against the move, notably from Vancouver City Councillor Pete Fry, it appears that the referendum is now the only obstacle standing in the way of Sim’s vision.
With files from Kenneth Chan
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