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From dishwasher and punk rocker to city councillor: Sean Orr’s unique path to City Hall
COPE's openly socialist councillor discusses his professional transition, his political role models, the state of the city, and much more.
Nate Lewis & Stephen Smysnuik
May 09, 2025
Good morning,
Nate with you today. I recently went for lunch at Chance Cafe. After my sister highly recommended Chance's bao, I was on a mission for a new bun spot (with enduring love for the New Town Bakery on Cambie). As always in matters of taste, she was correct. The BBQ pork was particularly delicious, if a little bit pricey.
I rarely visit that stretch of Commercial, south of 18th, and I was struck by just how serene and lived-in that area is. Everywhere I looked along the shady plant-filled streets there were parents outside cafes with strollers and dogs, school-aged kids on their break, and people playing ping-pong in their animation studio.
There’s still some industrial space as well, with a commercial bakery and a sizeable art gallery, alongside every trendy small business you could imagine. More than anything, it felt settled, like the newer buildings had integrated into their surroundings over time, and everything was in harmony.
But it also got me thinking about what we want out of our neighbourhoods, the nature of development, the balance of continuity and renewal, and the threat of gentrification. I’m sure there are so many stories from people who live on and near this four-block strip of how the area has grown and changed into the tranquil model of urban living it appears as today.
We’re hoping to put together some niche neighbourhood profiles over the summer, so if any readers have stories about the history of this area (or other unique spots), we’d love to hear from you.
But enough about that, today we’ve got an in-depth profile on newly-elected Vancouver city councillor Sean Orr from freelancer Stephen Smysnuik.
Let’s get to it!
– Nate Lewis, Vancity Lookout
PS - If you find this newsletter valuable, please consider forwarding it to your friends. New to the Lookout? Sign-up for free.
If you want to get in touch, drop me a line at [email protected].
WEATHER
Friday: 15 🌡️ 10 | ☁️
Saturday: 13 🌡️ 8 | 🌧️
Sunday: 13 🌡️ 7 | 🌧️
Monday: 12 🌡️ 7 | 🌧️
VANCOUVER NUMBERS
📃 31: The number of people laid off this week by Rennie Group, the prominent Vancouver-based real estate marketing firm. The company’s 25 per cent cut in staffing comes in response to “structural” and “unsustainable” shifts in the real estate industry, according to Rennie’s president. [LinkedIn, TheBreaker]
💸 $2.5 million: The amount a former City of Surrey finance clerk allegedly took from the city through fraud between 2017 and 2024. [CBC]
INSIDER
From dishwasher and punk rocker to city councillor: Sean Orr’s unique path to City Hall
Header images from COPE, formatting by Vancity Lookout
By Stephen Smysnuik
Sean Orr, one of Vancouver’s two new city councillors, had a backup plan if he didn’t win his seat. He’d simply go back to his day job as a dishwasher.
In fact, it wasn’t until he actually won his council seat – in a landslide victory on April 9 – that he ultimately gave his notice and put in his final shift at Published on Main, before beginning his new job as a municipal legislator.
This kind of thing almost never happens. People rarely, if ever, go straight from the dish pit to political office. It’s nothing against dishwashing – or service and labour work of any stripe – but there’s typically little overlap between the jobs.
So, what more potent example of a vibrant democracy is there than a self-identifying democratic socialist, elected to municipal government at the top of the polls, spending his final night as a civilian toiling in the underground kitchen of one of Vancouver’s trendiest restaurants? The symbolism is delicious.
But symbolism aside, Orr said he just loves the work.
“I love the energy,” he said. “You're under this immense stress. You're, like, pushing your body to the limit, trying to go as fast as you can. It's dependent on you, but it's also dependent on the whole team and creating systems... which is kind of in line with politics. It's all very system-oriented, right? It's about seeing the big picture – not just reacting – and seeing how things could be better. If you just do this step, then this step, then this step, then the whole thing can be better for everyone.”
Sean Orr during a quiet, tidy moment in the dishpit / @copevancouver (Instagram)
We’re sitting at a table in Granville Square, a short walk from his apartment in Gastown, two weeks after his victory. The sun is beating down, almost oppressively, while Orr explains his perspective on the core struggle that Vancouver is currently grappling with.
“We're definitely at a turning point,” he said. “I think we've seen it become this kind of luxury resort for the one percent. I've used that line a few times. The UN Special Rapporteur for Housing called it an apartheid city, and it's very much a city of dualities. It’s always been this city of dualities. That's not going to change in the near future, but I think there are enough people to remind ourselves that there's a lot worth fighting for here.”
And today, under the beating Vancouver sun, sitting at the base of the building that once housed the Vancouver Sun, we see Orr in transition – a man grappling with his new reality.
Before this campaign, he was primarily known through his online presence. Now, he’s materializing in the flesh – at community events, “popping in” as they say, revealing the face we can place to the name. A man who’s never had a desk job is now afforded his own office with two computer screens and a landline telephone. His election means he’s now making a city councillor’s base salary of $104,180 — which, for a punk rocker hospitality worker with no children and no mortgage, can be a life-changing sum.
“It's more money than I've ever seen in my entire life,” Orr said. “It feels weird. I have that impostor syndrome kind of thing – but it's like, no, I worked hard and, if I'm gonna do this work, I have to be healthy too. I have to take time for myself, be grounded. A part of that is just not worrying about fucking rent and bills.”
Orr was fundamentally elected on the promise that he would hold Mayor Ken Sim accountable. That promise was summed up perfectly in one of COPE’s campaign slogans – “grill Ken Sim” – which went viral after the party posted a photo of Orr barbecuing hotdogs at a community cookout, wearing a red apron bearing the phrase. It turned out to be the right message, at the right time, from exactly the right person.
Sean Orr grilling at aforementioned COPE event / @copevancouver (Instagram)
Prior to the election, Orr was known – on social media, and in his writing for Scout Magazine – for his acerbic, witty, and often confrontational idealism, espousing socialist ideals at a time of growing disparity in the city. That principled yet easy rapport is part of why, after running for VOTE Socialist in the 2022 general election, COPE (the Coalition of Progressive Electors) tapped him to challenge Sim’s ABC Party in April’s by-election.
“I feel like there's just something really refreshing about a person who is not one of these polished, political test tube babies who's been practicing their Obama impression since they were eight years old,” Shawn Vulliez, COPE’s co-chair, said.
“One of the things that is amazing is just seeing how much [this victory] meant to people, not just here in the city, but from elsewhere. When you stand up and fight against mayors like Ken Sim and the billionaires who back him. I've been brought to tears multiple times seeing what this win meant to people. You feel so inspired to keep up the fight and push to win,” Vulliez said.
That underdog story is another factor in why Vancouverites overwhelmingly voted Orr into office, just a few years after the centre-right ABC swept into City Hall, winning the mayor’s office and every council seat they ran for.
Kareem Allam, a political strategist and former chief of staff for Sim’s office, says by-elections are almost always a referendum on the incumbents or the governing party —and who better to send a message to our millionaire mayor and ABC than by electing a self-described socialist.
“Campaigns are a battle of contrast and Sean Orr is the exact opposite of Ken,” Allam said. “Ken is wealthy. He lives in a big house. He’s a very successful businessman. And Sean Orr is at the opposite end by every metric.”
In other words, Orr is as outsider an elected official as you’ll find in this city – scruffy, artistic, funny and, especially, non-compromising.
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“A lot of it [for me] was, showing the left that you can run a bold campaign and be openly socialist, and talk about Palestine, talk about the police, talk about, you know, harm reduction and safe supply, and not to shy away from those things,” Orr explained. “[I] try not to court voters by moving towards the right and not capitulate or move towards the center. Part of the end goal is showing people that it's possible.”
Orr’s campaign seemed to awaken a particularly virulent strain of radical progressiveness that the city hasn’t seen represented on this ABC-dominated council. Orr cites Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbin, and Jean Swanson, the latter his most-recent COPE predecessor on city council, as the political figures he looked up to most. But Orr leaned further into themes of class struggle than Swanson ever did in her campaigns.
“Sean was pretty aggressive, but it wasn't bombastic in tone. The message was rooted closely [in] what he believed in, but it was presented in a very accessible way,” Allam said.
What made Orr’s campaign effective, according to Allam, was his ability to rally the upper-middle class of the city to his message, targeting billionaires without offending people who bought modestly priced condos in the Aughts and are now millionaires.
“He went after the problems in our society and the consequences of crony capitalism, but he didn't attack people [who] were benefiting from the system. He understood, I think, that even people who were comfortably middle class five years ago don't feel that way anymore,” Allam said. “My view is if [these people] felt threatened by Sean, he wouldn't have won. He didn't threaten those people.”
Orr comes from a very political family. His grandfather was an MP in Northern Ireland in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, and Orr says his family would hold “intense conversations” at the dinner table.
Orr grew up in Surrey and moved to the West End in 1999. He was active in Vancouver’s punk scene, which he describes as being “inclusive” and “a political space and a safe space to be weird.” He studied geology at UBC, where he says he was radicalized to the plight of the Palestinian people. It was during this time that he learned the concept of socialism, which, intuitively, he had previously understood as “common sense.”
“We should just have radical compassion,” Orr said. “We should just have empathy. We should have a social safety net. There should just be justice. These are all good things. Like Sesame Street taught me that, right? These are just basic tenets that we should all agree to.”
It was also a time when his peers were fleeing Vancouver for other cities like Montreal and Berlin, a common thing for creatives who felt limited by the West Coast’s offerings and costs. He stuck around and started writing, first for Beyond Robson and then eventually Scout Magazine, writing about city life, and veered more heavily into politics after the 2016 US election.
He credits the late Andrew Morrison, Scout’s founder and editor-in-chief, for pushing him to refine his arguments to be more palatable to the website’s audience.
“[Andrew] would say, ‘You can't say that,’ or, ‘Are you sure you want to say this?’” Orr remembers. “He’d call me in and be like, ‘Are you feeling OK?’ because sometimes, you know, I struggle with mental health. There were a couple times where he said, ‘You should take a break, you’re getting too caught up in things.’”
Through it all, Orr sat on the periphery of socialist political movements and organizing happening around the city, separating himself in a “quasi-journalistic” way, in order to stay informed and feel the heat of it, which in turn fed into his writing and his music.
Orr co-founded the punk band NEEDS with Glenn Alderson, founder of Beat Route and, later, Range Magazine, after Orr’s previous band, Taxes, went belly up.
“The politics were always embedded very deeply [in the music], I would say more from a global-issues standpoint, though local issues came into play,” said Devin O’Rourke, the drummer, and Orr’s bandmate, in NEEDS. “The problems we have here are not unique to Vancouver in a lot of ways. So I think he was speaking a lot about the philosophy of it all.”
NEEDS – which Orr describes as “weird, screamy art-punk” – has released two LPs, which feature titles such as “Stop Getting Second Helpings at the Shit Buffet” and “The Only Good Condo is a Dead Condo.” Orr, who’s naturally reserved in his daily life, is heard shredding his vocal cords to bits throughout.
“Anyone who's seen a NEEDS show is blown away with how much of a lunatic he is on stage, and how rowdy he gets,” O’Rourke described. “Then after the show, he's just the quiet, nice, put-together guy he's always been. He just has this switch that flips in him, where, I think, he gets on stage and takes on this completely different persona. It's not acting. It's just like a part of his brain that he’s somehow able to access.”
But it was more than just Orr’s ability to perform for a crowd that drove his political success. He seems to understand intuitively how to capture the public’s attention. It helped that his message was, for better or worse, on trend.
The by-election happened against the backdrop of Canadians grappling with an existential threat to the country’s sovereignty from U.S. billionaires Donald Trump and Elon Musk. COPE tied those themes together locally by contrasting Orr against Sim’s cozy relationship with Vancouver’s own outspoken billionaire, Lululemon founder Chip Wilson.
“We have these out-of-control, hyper-rich billionaires who have more money than they can ever spend, who are using their influence to enrich themselves through the political process, and they're trying to make governments work for them instead of regular people,” Kareem Allam observed. “We knew this was happening in [the 2022 municipal election], but the way that happened in the United States, and how it's affecting people now in Canada, was really brought front and center for a lot of people.”
Sim’s ABC Party, among other municipal parties, is still under investigation by Elections BC for possible contraventions of campaign financing rules in the 2022 election. Investigation findings have yet to be released.
Orr says there’s been a “groundswell of discontent” in how Sim has conducted himself in office – all this talk of “swagger,” shotgunning beers in public, and converting a City Hall meeting room into a gym, while, at the same time, “brutally sweeping people off the streets” and increasing the police budget. “I think [Sim and ABC are] deeply out of touch in a lot of ways, and we were able to stick to that message and hammer that home,” Orr said.
At the time of our interview in late April, Orr said he’s only interacted with Sim once, a few days after the by-election.
“He shook my hand and said, ‘Let's work together. We're all on the same team.’ And then the next day, he held a press conference saying I was anti-semitic and I haven't seen him since. He's been on personal leave,” Orr said.
Sim’s press conference, which included the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver (JFGV), came a day after JFGV and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs released a joint statement condemning what they alleged was an anti-semitic social media comment made by Orr in 2021. Orr responded, saying the comment was intended as sarcasm to condemn another commentor’s anti-semitic dogwhistle.
“It's unfortunate that this was taken out of context and misrepresented," Orr said of his 2021 comment. "[COPE’s] platform called out anti-semitism by name & committed to fighting it, along with Islamophobia and other forms of racism," he said, according to CBC.
When asked about the press conference, a spokesperson for Sim declined to comment, writing, “the Mayor and the Mayor’s Office are focused on supporting the community in the aftermath of the April 26 tragedy and preparing for the Day of Mourning and Remembrance today. That remains our sole priority right now.”
Orr’s criticism of police, specifically the Vancouver Police Department, has also sparked hostile reactions. The Vancouver Police Union and ABC Councillor Brian Montague, a former VPD officer, have criticized Orr for his past social media statements about police. They say Orr’s anti-cop comments are “disgusting” and are promoting violence against police.
“Yes, there [were] some remarks when I was a private citizen but now that I’m a councillor things are going to be different… in terms of inciting violence, I think that’s absurd,” Orr said of the critiques of his past criticism of police, according to Global News.
“I think a lot of people underestimated Sean in our campaign, and now I think we have opposition research being done by multiple levels of conservatives,” COPE’s Vuillez said. “So I think, like the federal and provincial conservatives, have their teams working on trying to turn Sean into something they can use against, you know, their political opponents.”
Orr has even received death threats. Orr jokes that years of Twitter “prepared me for this,” but the truth of it is, the threats have been wearing on him. Yet he also understands that, outside the extreme cases, this sort of reaction is part of what he signed up for.
“There's been kind of a hysteria since we won in certain circles, and I think that contributed to why it's escalated to death threats,” Vuillez said.
“This is a popular movement that is not about me. It's about what I represent, and the people who are struggling,” Orr said. “Every day, they're fighting just to make ends meet. They're fighting to, you know, find a place to sleep.”
For Orr, the way to really ‘grill’ Sim might have to happen outside of City Hall. “I think it's doing it outside, boosting those movements and playing politics like Ken does,” Orr said.
I asked Orr directly if he was comfortable playing politics in the new world he now operates within. “That's where I'm most comfortable, playing politics,” Orr replied, but he disagreed with the assertion that it’s ‘fun’.
“I wouldn’t say it's fun. It's like life and death for people, right? I'm privileged that it's not necessarily life and death for me. But yeah, I'm not in it because it's a game. I'm in it because this is deadly serious for so many people.”
Comment Corner
Have some thoughts on this story? Want to share some insight with the Lookout community? Share your opinion in our Comment Corner and it could be featured in future newsletters.
THE AGENDA
🏊 The park board announced that New Brighton and Second Beach outdoor pools will open for the summer on May 17, with Kits and Maple Grove pools expected to open in mid-June. They recommend pool users make advanced reservations for the May openings, which will be available starting May 14. [Park board, Showpass]
🌆 Vancouver-based developer Holborn Group is proposing a massive new two-block project downtown on West Georgia between Dunsmuir and Seymour, including the former Dunsmuir House location. The proposal includes a three-tower development, with one of them exceeding 1,000 feet, or about 80 storeys – which, if built, would be the tallest building in Canada outside of Toronto. For comparison, Vancouver’s current tallest tower, the Shangri-La, is 659 feet. Holborn is also proposing to build and gift the city a 378-unit social housing tower on the Downtown Eastside as their community amenity contribution for the West Georgia project. [Urbanized, Vancity Lookout]
🚨 Vancouver Fire Rescue Services (VFRS) is issuing an urgent reminder to ensure all dwellings are equipped with working fire alarms after they responded to a call in Kerrisdale this week at a home with no fire alarms. Firefighters found seven students inside the house, who were unaware that the attic and roof were on fire above them, VFRS said. Luckily, no injuries were reported. [VFRS]
🍛 On Wednesday, city council voted to restore $325,000 in funding to the VSB for their school food programs for the 2025/26 school year. The Vancouver School Board had previously been told city funding would be stopped after the current school year in anticipation of new provincial and federal food program funding. Councillors also amended the motion to ask for more clarity on how new funding will be distributed. [COV]
🚓 Increased police presence in the Downtown Eastside, including “parking and lingering,” is deterring drug users from accessing harm reduction services like supervised consumption and overdose prevention sites (OPS), according to community organizations and advocates. Qualitative research conducted in Vancouver in 2017 found that routine policing around OPS sites deterred participants from accessing those sites, while a Vancouver Police Department spokesperson called that claim a “ridiculous false narrative,” in this case and said the VPD encourages people to use these sites. [The Tyee]
🚧 A new separated biking and walking path around Science World is under construction and will open later in May, the city said in an update on Thursday. The much-used area has been closed since early February when cracks were found in the East False Creek deck. [COV, Global]
EVENTS GUIDE
Lapu Lapu BBQ and Potluck Fundraiser | May 10 | Quinit Boxing East Van (1351 Grant St.) | Filipino BBQ, music, and raffle, with proceeds benefitting Filipino BC’s Kapwa Strong Fund | More info
Mother’s Day Market at Junction Public Market | May 10 & 11, 12 pm - 5 pm | 200 Granville Street | Featuring chocolate tasting, painting workshops, tarot card readings and live entertainment | Free
Climb for Nature | May 10, 10 am | BC Place | Join the World Wildlife Fund’s family-friendly stadium stair climbing challenge, benefitting their ecosystem regeneration program | Register (Fee + minimum fundraising amount is $40-$70)
Chinatown Matriarchs Day | May 10, 1-4 pm | Chinatown Plaza (180 Keefer) | Enjoy a senior’s mini market (cash only), garland workshop, and musical performance | Free (more info)
Trey Helten Memorial | May 10, 11 am - 4 pm | 159 East Hastings | A space for people to share their memories of Helten and sing karaoke. The Tyee has more on Helten’s impact in the community and the ways that people are honouring him.
Vancouver Comic Con | May 11, 11 am - 5 pm | Heritage Hall on Main | Special guests, door prizes, and free comics for kids! | Door tickets $5
Whitecaps vs. LAFC | May 11, 4 pm | BC Place | Catch the league-leading ‘Caps at home before they hit the road for two weeks | Tickets $41+
Hong Kong Fair | May 11, 11 am - 7 pm | The Shipyards (North Vancouver) | Experience Hong Kong culture through performances, immersive exhibits, workshops, and over 80 booths | Tickets $3.50
Garden Tea Festival | May 17, 10 am - 5 pm | Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden | Honouring the diverse cultures and traditions of tea | Tickets $14
Indie Sleaze Dance Party | May 24, 10 pm | The Birdhouse | Serving millennial nostalgia all night long | Tickets $11
Spring Strings | May 25, noon or 4:30 pm | VanDusen Botanical Garden | A contemporary cello concert in a fecund spring setting | Tickets $32
Sophia's Forest | May 29 - June 1, 2025 | Studio T at SFU Woodwards | A chamber opera exploring the inner life of an immigrant girl | Tickets $55+
FOOD
Three Vancity Lookout restaurant reviews you may have missed
Bali Thai is the definition of hidden gem
The term hidden gem, but this authentic Indonesian restaurant squirreled away in International Village deserves more attention
At Collective Goods, French food comes with a playful side
The neighbourhood spot embraces the traditional side of French cuisine, without forgetting it can be fun
Perfect paella at Casa Molina
Spanish restaurant Casa Molina is experimenting with Spanish food in a good way. But it's what they've done with rice that makes it worth a visit.
VANCOUVER GUESSER
Google Maps
About 40 per cent of you correctly identified last week’s Guesser as being in Cambie Village, with many people writing in to say it’s the St. Mary’s Ukrainian church, community centre, and seniors’ housing society. Well done, as always, folks.
For this week’s Guesser, can you tell me what road this is?
Is it... |
COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS
This year’s annual fireworks displays in English Bay will be an all-Canadian affair [CityNews]
First look at this newly daylighted creek at Spanish Banks [Reddit]
The PNE has announced their summer concert series lineup, featuring Leon Bridges, Marianas Trench, and many more [PNE]
We were recently rated the happiest city in North America, but couldn’t quite crack the top 10 worldwide. I guess there’s always something to complain about 🙃 [Happy City Index]
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