Ken Sim defends his record and asks for another term as mayor

Editor’s note: This is our last mayoral candidate profile as part of our Vancouver municipal election coverage. You can read our other stories on Muhammad Ahmad, Stephanie Allen, William Azaroff, Kareem Allam, Colleen Hardwick, Pete Fry, and Rebecca Bligh.

Ken Sim is sticking to his guns. In a rare hour-long sit-down interview with Vancity Lookout, the incumbent mayor defended his approach on a variety of controversial and important issues during his first term.

He also made his pitch to Vancouver voters, asking the public to choose him in October. Sim said he wants another four years as mayor to continue his ABC Party’s work on public safety, affordability, and infrastructure.  

“Now's not the time to change direction. We have a lot of traction, and we are going in the right direction,” Sim said.

He explained it took longer than expected to figure out how bureaucracy works. One element of that was how the city and park board function as distinct but overlapping parts of the municipal government. “It’s amazing how problematic the corporate governance structure of the elected park board is,” Sim said.

However, he’s now promising to keep the park board in place if he’s re-elected this fall, in an effort to “provide certainty” to Vancouverites. 

“While I personally think it would run better if we did not have an elected park board … [if] I'm in office over the next four years … there will be no change in the elected park board structure,” he told Vancity Lookout. 

Sim said he has no regrets about how he approached the park board in his first term, though he wished for a different outcome.

While ABC elected six park board commissioners as part of the party’s decisive sweep of the 2022 election, Sim’s decision in late 2023 to attempt to abolish the elected board led three of those commissioners  — Scott Jensen, Laura Christensen, and Brennan Bastyovanszky — to leave the party. 

Over the next two and a half years, those ex-ABC commissioners successfully blocked many ABC initiatives, priorities, and participation at the park board level. Bastyovanszky and Jensen are now running for the Vancouver Liberal Party, headed by Sim’s former chief of staff Kareem Allam.  

Sim was unable to get outright approval from the province to dissolve the board, saying Premier David Eby left him hanging out to dry. “Unfortunately, sometimes the elected officials and different levels of government that you rely on don't keep their word,” Sim said of Eby.

If Sim is true to his word, and he’s re-elected, the park board will remain as it is for the next four years. 

Sim and ABC made a signature announcement in early 2026 that they would include $400 million to renew and replace five community centres in the upcoming 2027-2030 capital plan. Sim said it was “the biggest investment in the history of Vancouver when it comes to community centres,” adding that his party is “focusing on the things that Vancouverites want.” 

It’s an investment that got broad support, but there were disputes with the park board and opposition councillors over the details, specifically, who should pick the community centres that would be renewed under the new capital plan. 

Sim and ABC picked Roundhouse, Kensington, Dunbar, Hastings, and Kerrisdale, while the park board’s 2022 planning document identified Renfrew as a higher priority than all the other sites aside from Kensington.  

They also included funding for a new outdoor pool at Sunset Park near Punjabi Market, and improvements at Britannia Community Centre.

Sim emphasized how ABC’s freeze on city-controlled property tax increases for 2026 would improve affordability. He also promised to keep the policy in place in 2027 if he’s re-elected. “Not only is it no additional cost, it also provides certainty and stability to families that are struggling,” Sim said, arguing that the policy would benefit both homeowners and renters. 

However, those savings would amount to only a few hundred dollars for most homeowners, and property taxes are the city’s primary source of revenue. In 2025, the 3.9 per cent property tax increase translated to an additional $149 in tax for a median single-family homeowner, according to the Tyee. However, those savings increase relative to a home's assessed value, meaning those who own the most expensive housing will see the biggest savings from the tax freeze. 

Sim says the policy also benefits renters, because they would have to pay for higher property taxes through increased rent. However, rent increases on current tenants are capped by the province at just over 2 per cent, limiting a landlord’s ability to charge more rent if property taxes go up. There’s also no mechanism to ensure that a renter would receive a rent reduction due to the landlord’s savings.

Sim said affordability also drove ABC’s move to scrap climate policies that banned natural gas use in new buildings and would have established emissions reporting guidelines for some buildings. 

Sim said he was told by city staff that reversing those policies would not “in any way affect the rate of change of the climate,” and would add additional costs for property owners. “We are all environmentalists, but what we won't do is something that has zero impact on the environment, but has additional costs for families,” he said. 

As we reported at the time, many groups, including landlord and homeowners associations, said the changes wouldn’t result in significant savings. Meanwhile, buildings are the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Vancouver, contributing nearly 60 per cent of the total, according to the city.

When discussing housing, Sim focused on his personal experience growing up as a child of immigrants who “didn’t have a lot coming here. We got evicted five times. We were renters,” he said, pointing to street signs, which line the far wall of his office, showing all the places he lived. 

“I got the benefit of understanding what it's like to live going from place to place. Seeing your parents worry about whether or not they're going to make rent or where we're going to live,” Sim shared. 

In terms of policy, Sim said he wants to build housing of all types. “You need balance. I don't think you can solve a housing crisis by only focusing on one group,” he said. The city’s current 10-year housing targets, approved by Sim and ABC in 2024, set goals to build 81 per cent market housing and 19 per cent non-market housing. 

At the same time, Sim said he completely supports — and would continue — his government’s policy that paused net-new supportive housing developments. 

In February 2025, Sim brought a successful motion to pause city funding and support for new “low barrier supportive housing for individuals experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness and with severe mental health challenges and/or substance use disorders.”

That pause went into effect in August 2025, and included carve-outs to allow new supportive housing for seniors, women and families, and youth ageing out of care, as well as in-stream and replacement projects. 

“The humanitarian crisis can't be solved if Vancouver's doing all the work,” Sim said, standing up behind his desk to emphasize the city’s high number of supportive housing units compared to the rest of Metro Vancouver. 

“If you're homeless, is that a Vancouver issue, or is that a social issue that affects this whole region? … Where is the rest of the region on this?” Sim asked rhetorically, referencing how Vancouver has 77 per cent of Metro Vancouver’s supportive housing units and only accounts for 25 per cent of its population.

To lift the pause, Sim said he’d need to see the province create a secure medical treatment facility in Vancouver and align with a new “good neighbour” policy that ABC will release as part of its campaign. The party did not provide further details on the policy at the time of publication.

Sim also shared a list of eight properties he classified as supportive housing locations with a “high degree of street disorder.” The list included Granville Villa, Hotel Canada, Luugat, Metson Rooms & Shelter, Murray Hotel, Saint Helen's, The Osborn, and West Hotel. 

However, the facilities Sim listed are a mix of supportive housing, single-room occupancy hotels (SRO), and, in one case, a shelter. Three of the SROs are located in the Granville Entertainment District and have been the subject of dispute between Sim and the province, with Sim demanding those SRO residents be moved out of the area, and the province working to relocate the tenants and close down the sites, according to the Vancouver Sun. 

Further, Sim claimed these buildings “are run by operators that are not properly resourced but also have ideological stances that are counter to what we are trying to do in the City.” Six of those buildings are operated by two housing non-profits, Community Builders and PHS Community Services Society.

Sim said other supportive housing sites are good, like the Dunbar Apartments, which opened in 2011 on Vancouver’s west side, because it’s “run really well, and people are set up for success,” he said.  

Meanwhile, homelessness in the region hit a record high of 5,200 people in 2025. Over half those were in Vancouver, up 12 per cent from 2023, according to the city. Sixty-nine per cent of the people in Vancouver said they had been here for ten or more years.  

Sim has also advanced several policies to build market housing on city-owned land, which is one of the city’s most valuable resources. While Sim and ABC’s attempt to create a government-owned developer failed, that work led to rezoning approvals for two market housing projects on city-owned sites earlier this year. A similar rezoning of a third site, the 2400 Court Motel, will be considered by the next council. 

The goal with these large rental projects is to create long-term revenue to pay for city priorities, which could include non-market housing. However, the situation could have a downside for affordability if the city is incentivized to keep rents relatively high to generate revenue. The pricing of those rental units would be targeted at households making between $90,000 to $194,000 per year. The median after-tax household income in Vancouver is just under $80,000, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

Sim makes no secret of his support for the city’s emergency services. Sim’s office is filled with photos, plaques, and memorabilia featuring the police and fire departments, including a photo of a police boat that hangs right above his desk. 

“When we first came into office, we were short about 100 police officers, so we've right-sized it,” Sim said. The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) employed 1,452 officers as of 2025, up from 1,348 officers in late 2022. 

The VPD’s budget increased by over 30 per cent during Sim’s term. Sim said that’s a reflection of inflation, competition for qualified officers, and the high number of events and protests that occur in Vancouver. The city’s overall budget did increase by approximately 27 per cent over the same period.

Overtime costs also jumped by 50 per cent over Sim’s term, going from $26 million in 2022 to $39 million in 2025, which the VPD says is due to a lack of new recruits, according to the Vancouver Sun. In an effort to help the VPD’s training and recruiting process, Sim’s government approved $1.2 million in city spending for a new VPD-run training academy out of the Woodward’s building in Gastown.

Sim said the city is now fully funding policing for the first time in 15 years, pointing to the clearing of encampments, improved morale among VPD officers, and a decline in violent crime over his term. Violent crime reports did decrease steadily between 2023 and 2025. However, statistics for the first half of 2026 show violent crime is trending up again, according to BIV. 

As a member of the police board, Vancouver mayors like Sim are tasked with providing civilian oversight of the VPD. However, when asked by Vancity Lookout, he could not name any specific occasions when he opposed a police funding request. In a follow-up email, Sim said that “as a [police board member] we have very robust conversations around funding for the VPD and what budget packages should be brought to Council,” but didn’t provide any examples.

Lorraine Lowe, another police board member who is now running as a city council candidate with ABC, said there’s a perception that the VPD gets a blank cheque every year from the city, according to CBC.

Task Force Barrage, a $5 million police initiative to crack down on gangs and violent crime in the Downtown Eastside, was moved forward in 2025 without proper approval from the police board or city council. Faye Wightman, a police board member who resigned in 2024, citing political interference from the mayor’s office, said she believed Sim was circumventing the board, according to CTV.

Sim said the city needs that extra policing to respond to “very, very sick people on the street” who should be in hospitals or involuntary care, but currently aren’t getting the treatment they need. 

Sim called reactive policing a “band-aid,” but claimed the city has no other tools to deal with people experiencing mental health and addiction challenges. “Until the province gets serious on helping really sick people, we are going to have to continue to do more of this.” 

“If people don't want more police on the streets … we need the province to step up, or we're going to have to react,” Sim said.

As the final act of this council term, Sim and ABC called an emergency meeting to approve two plebiscite questions for inclusion on the ballot in the October election. 

The first asks whether voters want the city to strengthen its laws around hard drug use in public, while the second asks if voters want the city to ask the province to create a secure medical facility in Vancouver to provide voluntary and involuntary care “for individuals posing a serious risk to themselves or others due to severe substance use and mental health disorders.” 

When Vancity Lookout asked why a plebiscite is necessary to create a bylaw, Sim didn’t answer the question directly but said it’s about re-establishing social norms, comparing it to the city’s existing bylaw that prohibits smoking within a certain distance of a building. 

“We didn't have the ability to do this [bylaw], up until about nine months ago, because of the federal rules around [decriminalization],” Sim said, referring to a pilot project in B.C. that exempted possession of small amounts of illicit substances from the criminal code. The pilot expired in January 2026.  

ABC did provide more details about the bylaw, saying it would take the form of a ticket and a fine. The city would track how many tickets are given out, and individuals who receive a certain number of tickets may be referred to medical care. 

“We can identify people that might be going through some significant substance use challenges, and we can refer them to a medical health professional to get them assessed … it's better than leaving people on the streets,” Sim said.

Sim confirmed he’s already formally requested that the province establish involuntary care beds in Vancouver, while the province recently announced it would open two new involuntary treatment centres in Surrey and Prince George.

Sim said the plebiscite is about sending a message to the province and the next city council.  

“It takes a lot of guts to actually have the conversation because you get vilified [in public and on social media]. And we want to provide a safe space for all the residents of Vancouver to have their voices heard,” Sim said, comparing it to ABC’s recent successful campaign to oppose the relocation of an overdose prevention site in Yaletown. 

The plebiscite is a clear marker of Sim and ABC’s election plan to make this campaign about public safety. But the biggest question in the voting booth will be whether Vancouverites have liked what they’ve seen from Sim over the past four years and want to sign up for another term.