Dan Fumano: ABC Vancouver councillors refuse, again, to reprimand Mayor Ken Sim after investigation

Vancouver city councillor Brian Montague. Photo by Jason Payne /PNG

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Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim will not face any discipline after an investigator found he breached the city’s code of conduct by harassing an opposition councillor. The mayor’s ABC party colleagues used their majority on council Tuesday to vote against sanctioning their leader.

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ABC Vancouver Coun. Brian Montague used the meeting to criticize the investigative report, and said council has lost confidence in the office of the integrity commissioner, the independent agency responsible for investigating complaints about elected officials.

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“I think the office doesn’t have the confidence of council, which is a problem,” Montague said later. “The role of the integrity commissioner’s office is to make sure council runs smoothly and effectively and works together, and that’s clearly not happening.”

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In past years, ABC brushed off reports from the commissioner finding party members, including the mayor, had breached the city’s code of conduct.

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In 2024, the party made a widely condemned attempt to halt all of the office’s investigations. After public backlash, ABC reversed course and allowed the commissioner’s work to continue.

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During Tuesday’s meeting, Montague roundly criticized the work of the lawyer appointed by the integrity commissioner’s office to investigate a complaint about Sim. The investigator’s report, which was released last month, found Sim breached the city’s code with actions that amounted to harassment of Coun. Sean Orr, who represents the rival COPE party.

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The investigation, after a complaint last year filed by Orr, found Sim harassed the COPE councillor by holding an April 2025 news conference at city hall in which he suggested Orr was antisemitic and would incite violence. The report said Sim thus misused the influence of the mayor’s office.

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Sim continued that harassment again last October, the investigator wrote, with a social media post suggesting Orr supported terrorism.

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Orr denied all of those allegations.

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When the report was made public last month, Sim said he disagreed with its findings.

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During Tuesday’s meeting, Montague peppered Jamie Pytel, the Edmonton lawyer hired to conduct the investigation and write the report, with questions. He raised several concerns about the quality of her work and the office’s overall effectiveness.

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Montague, who spent 28 years as a Vancouver police officer before being elected to council in 2022, criticized Pytel’s investigation for, among other things, failing to interview witnesses or speaking with police.

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“In my professional opinion, I don’t believe this came remotely close to meeting the level of being an investigative report,” Montague told council.

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Pytel, appearing by video call, said Montague’s questions related to matters outside the scope of her investigation, which was limited to the public statements made by the mayor, how and where he made them, and how the code of conduct applied.