ABC removes Councillor Rebecca Bligh from governing party

What happened: ABC Vancouver, the governing party at city hall, reduced their majority on city council last week in a Valentine’s Day break up with Councillor Rebecca Bligh. 

“It has become clear that [Bligh] is not aligned with the shared priorities and team-oriented approach that defines ABC Vancouver,” ABC President Stephen Molnar said in a statement announcing the split on Friday.

“Time and again, Councillor Bligh has shown that she is not a core value fit with ABC Vancouver. Rather than working with caucus to find common ground and advance solutions, she has chosen to put her own views ahead of the collective work of the team,” Molnar explained.

• The statement didn’t provide any specifics or examples of what those unaligned views or priorities were. A spokesperson for ABC Vancouver did not respond to Vancity Lookout’s follow-up questions by the time of publication.

Speaking to reporters later that day, Bligh said she’d been informed of the decision in a “pretty one-way conversation,” with Mayor Ken Sim earlier that same day, according to CBC. 

"I would have assumed, or hoped, that a productive conversation about where we are not aligned in terms of policy would have happened ahead of this discussion, and it didn't," she said. 

• Bligh added she was disappointed but not surprised by the decision. 

Bligh will continue in her role as a city councillor and sit as an independent, she said.

Background: Bligh has a history of following her personal values when it comes to political party alignment. First elected as a city councillor with the Non-Partisan Alliance in 2018, Bligh quit the NPA the following year to sit as an independent due to what she called a far-right takeover of the party's board, according to the Vancouver Sun. 

• Bligh, along with former NPA councillors Lisa Dominato and Sarah Kirby-Yung, then joined the newly-formed ABC Party for the 2022 election. 

However, there have been disagreements within the party since 2022, as ABC has used their majority in city government to make some big moves. 

Long time coming: While not directly addressed in ABC’s statement, Bligh’s formal split with the party comes after dissenting from some of her party colleagues on a couple of motions over the past six months.

Most recently – in response to Mayor Ken Sim’s plan to halt the construction of net new supportive housing in Vancouver – Bligh attempted to get input from the provincial government (who fund and operate these projects through BC Housing) on the implications of that idea before council votes on it at the end of February. 

• However, Bligh’s motion for provincial input was delayed to late February on procedural grounds by ABC Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung. Bligh said the delay meant council wouldn’t get input from the province until after voting on Sim’s motion, making it “moot,” according to the Vancouver Sun. 

Bligh, along with ABC councillors Lisa Dominato and Peter Meiszner, also voted against an ABC-led motion that would have ended Vancouver’s ban on natural gas for heating and hot water in new construction builds. Bligh switched her vote after getting more information on the proposal. 

Bligh also said she took issue with ABC’s attempt to suspend investigations by the city’s integrity commissioner, calling it a “targeted conspiracy,” in a CBC interview on Tuesday.

• ABC councillors, including Coun. Lenny Zhou, who introduced the amendment, attempted to walk back that idea and postponed making a decision until April 9, 2025.

“While we may be elected within a party, we are expected to think and use critical thinking… That is what I have done at every single decision, even if it meant ruffling feathers or breaking rank,” Bligh said, according to CTV. 

Party exodus: In the 2022 election, ABC Vancouver successfully elected 17 representatives to city council, park board, and school board, plus winning the mayor’s office. 

However, now in the second half of their term, the party has lost five of those elected officials, including Vancouver School Board Chair Victoria Jung, and three park board commissioners, all of whom left ABC after the party attempted to change governance structures, at the park board, and with the city’s integrity commissioner, respectively. 

• All four of those former ABC members were on hand for Bligh’s media availability outside city hall on Friday, applauding after Bligh finished speaking, according to the Vancouver Sun.   

Halting new supportive housing, asking the province to eliminate the elected park board, and suspending investigations by the city’s integrity commissioner were not part of the party’s 2022 election platform, according to BIV. 

Leadership questions: “Mayor Ken Sim has abandoned the core principles that brought me to ABC in the first place, and while this was not my decision, I think it’s the right direction for me and for our city,” Bligh said on Friday, according to Global. 

“I joined ABC because Mayor Ken Sim told us he wanted a diversity of opinions at the table. By his actions today, Mayor Ken Sim has shown that was never the case,” Bligh said on social media.

“Under [Sim’s] leadership, it’s more top-down, ‘this is what we’re going to do,’ and everyone has to get on board. If those are the core values that ABC now stands for and represents then I think it’s fair to say I’m not a core value fit,” Bligh told CBC on Tuesday.

“Some people say politics changes people… I don’t know if that’s the case in this instance, but what I do know is the values we ran on with ABC are no longer the values I see ABC reflecting in their policies,” Bligh explained, according to CTV. 

• Bligh isn’t the only councillor to have issues with Sim’s leadership. In January, Green Party Coun. Adriane Carr resigned in part due to her loss of trust and confidence in Sim, citing incidents that occurred in private council meetings.

What it means: Bligh removal from ABC brings their majority on city council down to six councillors, plus the mayor. That’s still a comfortable majority to pass motions, particularly with two council seats being empty until the April 5th by-election. 

Thought-bubble: Based on their desire for a “strong, united team,” ABC seems to have favourably weighed removing a councillor whose support they couldn’t necessarily depend on, and put a potential voice of dissent outside the party’s intra-council channels, despite the risks of creating a new opponent at city hall.     

• It’s part of a continuing trend of ABC, and Mayor Ken Sim specifically, making opponents and enemies of former party representatives.  

Bligh’s removal also functions to send a message to the rest of the caucus about keeping the party line. ABC Coun. Lisa Dominato also supported Bligh’s attempt to get more information from the province on the supportive housing file, and voted against the ABC majority on the gas ban. 

Looking ahead: Going forward, it will be intriguing to see if Dominato — on issues where she may be at odds with ABC and the mayor, like halting supportive housing builds – will continue to speak and vote at council based on her personal values and perspectives, or if Bligh’s removal will have a chilling effect and reinforce party discipline. 

If it’s the former, and Dominato continues to oppose some of ABC’s moves, it would be a challenging situation for ABC’s leadership. Not acting could embolden further dissent, while doubling-down on another expulsion could meaningfully chip away at ABC’s council majority, and significantly raise the stakes of the upcoming by-election.