Vancouver council opts not to reprimand Mayor Ken Sim

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Vancouver’s ABC-majority council has decided against the municipal integrity commissioner’s recommendation to formally reprimand ABC Mayor Ken Sim for excluding a politician from an important meeting while she was home with her newborn baby.

Council did implement another of the commissioner’s recommendations, seeking human-rights training for the mayor and councillors.

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At Tuesday’s council meeting, ABC councillors said the mayor made a mistake in December when he failed to provide a reasonable opportunity for parks commissioner Laura Christensen to take part remotely in the meeting.

After reading about the meeting in The Vancouver Sun, a member of the public filed a complaint to Vancouver’s integrity commissioner, Lisa Southern. Southern investigated and found that although Sim did not deliberately discriminate against Christensen, he created a “discriminatory work environment” by excluding her.

The commissioner recommended council impose sanctions for Sim’s breach of the code of conduct — tell him to write a public letter of apology to Christensen, formally reprimand the mayor, and arrange for council members and mayor’s office staff to receive training on human rights obligations.

Sim apologized by phone to Christensen after the report was delivered Feb. 21, but did not provide a written apology until three weeks later, on Monday of this week and after Green Coun. Pete Fry announced he planned to raise the matter at council. Fry introduced his motion Tuesday, acknowledging the mayor’s public apology and proposing council issue the formal reprimand and seek human-rights training.

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ABC Coun. Lisa Dominato proposed amending Fry’s motion to remove the reprimand for the mayor.

“Getting more women involved in public life and running for office is critically important to a strong democracy and something personally important to myself,” Dominato said. “That takes a culture of openness and continuous improvement, a willingness to learn and get better.”

Fry and the other two councillors not affiliated with ABC supported following the commissioner’s recommendation for a written reprimand, but the ABC councillors outvoted them.

ABC Coun. Rebecca Bligh said, “It is unequivocal that there was an error made in how this meeting was facilitated.”

But, she argued, a “punitive letter” would not solve anything, but only “amp up the politicization of this particular issue.”

“As an elected official in the City of Vancouver, there is no policy around maternity leave,” Bligh said. “There is no framework, there’s no guidelines. I suspect we will need to endeavour to also change that, and I can commit to doing that.”

Sim did not attend Tuesday’s meeting, as he had a previously scheduled absence for civic business, said spokesperson Zoë Frankcom. But, she added, even if Sim had been able to attend, he would have recused himself from the decision on Fry’s motion because the rules do not allow participation in matters where there is a direct personal interest.

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Christensen, who attended the meeting with her now-four-month-old daughter Madeleine, said afterwards she was disappointed council’s ABC majority decided against the reprimand.

A reprimand would have had no real impact on the mayor or his ability to do his job, Christensen said, but would have been “a symbolic gesture of council recognizing the seriousness of this.”

Christensen, who was elected with ABC in 2022 but has sat as an independent since December, was glad the mayor publicly apologized this week, she said, although “it was long overdue.”

Still, she said, she was glad to see the discussion at council Tuesday.

dfumano@postmedia.com

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