THE ORR REPORT: Fighting to stop Ken Sim’s ‘trust me bro’ Budget cuts

I tried everything I could to stop Ken Sim’s reckless property tax gimmick last week at Council. 

ABC pushed it through anyway. 

Here is a quick play-by-play, why it matters, and what’s next for our fight to stop ABC’s cuts and evict Ken Sim. 

A few months ago, Ken Sim and ABC passed a motion to direct staff to look at different scenarios for next year’s Budget. Each scenario called for lower property tax increases than the 6 or 7% City staff reported would be necessary just to maintain current levels of public services. 

This motion informed the City’s Budget survey process, the annual means by which residents can share their input into the most important decision we have to make every year as a City Council. Hundreds if not thousands of people responded, sharing their feedback. 

In a normal year, all that public feedback would then inform the next steps for staff as they prepare the Budget presentation to Council in late November. 

But with an election coming up next year and ABC’s brand in the toilet, Ken Sim instead brought forward his “Zero means zero” gimmick of a motion. 

Ignoring all that public input and pushing through $100 million of cuts sight unseen is just wildly irresponsible. The only thing Ken Sim built into the wording was some weak, non-binding language of “prioritizing” the maintenance of “core services.” As I said at Council, if a pet store was on fire and I said I was going to prioritize saving puppies - would you take that to mean no puppies were going to be harmed? 

We fought this cynical motion as hard as we could. 

Over 2000 of you sent in letters to the Mayor and Council opposing the cuts. 

When the debate came to Council last week, I tried to get him to define what exactly he meant to prioritize when it comes to our vital public services. 

First, I moved an amendment to try to add some meat to this claim of prioritizing maintaining core services. My amendment enumerated a number of vital public services that need to be at the core of our work as a municipal government and that need to be explicitly protected from cuts, including: Fire and Rescue Services, Emergency Management Initiatives, Street Repairs and Maintenance, Public Washrooms, Recreation Facilities including Public Pools and Gyms, Community Centres, Garbage and Recycling Services, Food Security Initiatives, Reconciliation Initiatives, Climate Change and Climate Mitigation Initiatives, Democratic Engagement, Parks and Maintenance, Homelessness Services, The Leisure Access Program (LAP), Community Grants, Arts & Culture Initiatives, Seniors Programs and Child Care Supports.

Ken Sim and ABC voted this amendment down. 

Next, I moved an amendment to restore the original staff recommendation of reasonable property tax increases that would ensure we maintain *all* our vital public services. They voted that down too. 

Then, I moved to defer the motion until after the City Budget survey results had been reviewed and released - so that public feedback could be considered by Council and staff. Common sense! But ABC voted that down too. 

Finally, I moved an amendment that would have directed staff to prioritize cuts to the Mayor’s Office and its bloated communications budget. Surely the place to start with cuts would be that $1.55 million line item? The Mayor and ABC voted that one down as well. (No, Sim did not recuse himself from voting on his own office’s hefty budget.) 

The Mayor seemed to be saying, ‘Cuts for thee, but not for me.’

Alarmingly, the brand new city manager said we as Councillors would not be getting a line-by-line breakdown of what services will be on the chopping block before the vote on the 2026 Budget in December. 

Ken Sim’s cynical move is already causing alarm, anxiety, and uncertainty - and it will inevitably cause real material harm through cuts to services. It’s just not possible to slash $100 million through salaries alone. The math isn’t mathing. 

As I said on CKNW the other day, ‘Trust me bro’ is not a plan. The idea that ABC can just arbitrarily slash $100 million out of the Budget without any important services getting hurt is a bunch of baloney.

Ken Sim and ABC have, on average, raised property taxes in three years as much as Mayor Stewart raised them in the preceding four years. Sim was elected on a promise that he would go “line-by-line” through the Budget to find savings. He broke that promise as fast as he hopped on that jet to Qatar for his junket to watch the World Cup, and he’s proceeded to burn through your money while squeezing public services for years. 

Also at Council, I raised concerns about, and voted against, a motion to bring in a VanStat pilot program. This is explicitly inspired by US jurisdictions using methods that led to racist policing practices like ‘stop and frisk,’ and we all need to be extra vigilant against creeping authoritarianism right now. 

Speaking of which, Ken Sim’s clumsy and chaotic unilateral attempt to abolish the democratically-elected Park Board is off the tracks again, just like the Stanley Park mini-train he swore was all fixed. Sim is upset the Province has set some reasonable terms and conditions in the event Sim decides to go ahead with a costly referendum to do this thing nobody asked for. He never had a mandate to abolish the Park Board. In fact he campaigned on not abolishing it, then wasted years trying to do it. I know COPE is already hearing from lots of great candidates looking forward to running to be new Park Commissioners in 2026. It’s time for Sim and ABC to just take the ‘L’ and move on from this weird sidequest. 

There was some good news at Council last week too! 

My motion for greater accessibility at Council got watered down by amendments but still included some important language. This is basic stuff, but needs to be prioritized. Working people shouldn’t have to wait all day to know when they will be speaking to Council. And especially for all those who work and/or have care responsibilities, people should have the option of pre-submitting recorded audio of their remarks to Council. 

In other good news, a motion co-submitted with Councillor Maloney to push higher levels of government to fund and build the Skytrain extension out to UBC was passed unanimously. 

Next up from me at Council: I have a motion coming up at the end of this month on protecting scarce affordable housing in the DTES. More details on that soon! 

In addition to all those important debates and meetings at Council, I’ve been keeping up a busy schedule of meetings with community groups and events. I also gave some uncontroversial remarks at a big rally demanding an end to the genocide in Gaza. Hopefully the current tenuous ceasefire leads to real justice on the ground, and hopefully the Mayor and ABC will finally join me in condemning ongoing war crimes in the Middle East. 

On Thanksgiving Sunday, there was a full room at the 411 Seniors Centre for a COPE event at which I spoke alongside Seattle author and organizer Jonathan Rosenblum and Air Canada workers VP Henly Larden (CUPE). There were great questions and a lot of good discussion about organizing for transformative change. 

At this event, we talked about how Zohran Mamadani’s incredible campaign in NYC has mobilized something like 50,000 volunteers. They’ve raised the bar pretty high, but we’re working hard to scale up to finish the job of evicting Ken Sim and ABC. 

The by-election showed what hundreds of dedicated volunteers can accomplish. Organized people can beat organized money. And have fun while doing it. To that end, mark your calendar because COPE is throwing an “Evict Ken Sim Party” on Friday, Oct. 24 to celebrate the fact we’re now just one short year away from the next election. Stay tuned for details!