THE ORR REPORT: Reflecting on the Budget Battle, the DTES Plan, ABC’s misplaced priorities - and looking ahead to 2026

Last year at this time I was working late shifts in the dish pit during the Holiday rush. In late January I met up with Jean Swanson and friends to start collecting signatures for my nomination with COPE … and now it’s already been more than eight months at my new job. 

There have been some late nights at City Hall, for sure, but it’s an honour to work hard fighting for Vancouver from inside the halls of power. 

It’s not easy to change these colonial institutions of the status quo. I’ve learned a lot, and I’m proud of the work I’ve done together with the support of COPE’s growing membership and the wider community. 

Budget Battle 

November saw an unprecedented fight back against Ken Sim’s brutal and chaotic cuts. A record 631 people signed up to speak to City Council on the Budget. The overwhelming majority were opposed. Ken Sim ignored their voices and his billionaire-backed party pushed through the austerity Budget anyway. I even heard the mayor say the whole thing was a waste of time. 

While Chip Wilson gets a $10,000+ tax break on his mega-mansion (and tax breaks on every single property in his real estate speculation empire) the rest of us will be paying more for parking tickets, event permits, and countless other fees. Don’t be fooled: when ABC say they did this for “regular Vancouverites”, remember they voted down my amendment that would have given people who own homes valued at less than $3 million a tax rebate while taxing those who can afford it. 

ABC’s misplaced priorities laid bare

Unlike ABC’s approach of making us all pay for their tax cuts to their super-rich pals, throughout my first eight months on Council I’ve brought forward motions that would expand the tools City Hall has to make life more affordable for working people in Vancouver. I’ve tried to reverse ABC’s library cuts, I passed a motion to make housing a human right, I tried to fully fund SRA conversion fees, I tried to make it possible for renters to buy their own buildings and for the city to have the first right of refusal when an apartment comes on the market. 

I honoured a frontline harm reduction worker and friend, tried to increase the Empty Homes Tax and remove loopholes to fully fund affordable housing, I closed a loophole in the Tenant Relocation Policy, was the sole vote against a $1 million sign that says Vancouver, voted against a retroactive increase to the police budget, and passed a motion to make it easier for renters to to hold landlords accountable for high temperatures. 

In December it felt like ABC were flooding the zone. Lot’s of important votes that seemed to fly under the radar. One was basically a bailout for developers because of a dip in asking rents. Developers say they can’t get anything off the ground, so we let them redefine below market rental (BMR) percentages, get rid of Transportation Demand Management (TDM), gut the Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs), and adjust vital Development Cost Levies (DCLs). I was the lone vote against. 

Then just days later, ABC voted against making it easier to build social housing across the city. They claimed that this kind of blanket pre-zoning was problematic, even though they just voted in favour of a blanket pre-zoning for the Broadway and Cambie Plans. In reality, they don’t want poor people on the West Side and they pretty much said as much. To be fair, I was concerned that the definition of social housing here remains vague. Only 30% of it was required to be at HILs, or housing income levels. This means rent is typically "rent-geared-to-income" (RGI), meaning about 30% of the household's gross income. Staff however were confident that this is just a minimum, and often it’s as high as 64% HILs, and that the prezoning is needed to move projects along faster to be eligible for federal funding. Alas it was not to be. This vote by ABC was particularly damning considering what happened next. 

DTES Plan 

For days, we heard from hundreds of residents and frontline service providers who shared their heartfelt concerns and constructive suggestions. NOT A SINGLE PERSON SPOKE IN FAVOUR OF THIS PLAN. We heard from 240 academics who are experts in displacement and gentrification saying that’s exactly what this plan is. 

I moved an amendment to refer the plan to staff so that more time could be taken to properly consult and respond to the issues raised by urban Indigenous people, Japanese Canadians, SRO residents, drug users, the unhoused, frontline service providers, non-profit housing organizations and many more. ABC defeated my amendment and passed the plan anyway. 

Fears of a speculative land rush, a mass sell-off of private SROs, and rewarding decades of land banking by ABC’s donors abound. Looked at together with the pause on supportive housing, Operation Barrage, a leaked memo looking to ‘return’ Indigenous people out of Downtown Eastside, the “don’t call them street sweeps” daily removal of personal items, the aforementioned vote against the social housing initiative, voting against a grant to the DTES Community Land Trust, voting against fully funding SRA conversion fee waivers, voting against the Right of First Refusal, voting against increasing the Empty Homes Tax to fund affordable housing, and magnified with concerns around FIFA, and you start to see a theme emerge: Some will say “Ken Sim hates poor people” but it’s clear that ABC has no desire to improve the material conditions of working class people in this city.     

I’ll always fight for the most marginalized in our communities. You can listen to my closing comments on the DTES here. I’ve remained outspoken on FIFA as I joined fellow councillor Rebecca Bligh calling for a collaborative human-rights based approach to the games. At this press conference, I raised concerns over rising fascism in the U.S. and what that means for World Cup fans and players. Of course, our mayor travelled to Washington DC to see Trump get a made up Peace Prize. Sigh.  

Onward to 2026

In the New Year I’m going to keep my foot on the pedal. That will include looking for ways to curb speculation like these tax breaks we give to developers who make community gardens (which do nothing to tackle systemic issues around food access). I’ll continue to advocate for sex workers who are seeing funding drastically cut. I’ll continue to prioritize road safety, like the motion I passed to collect better data after fatal crashes. I’ll fight for libraries, arts groups, and small businesses. I’ll continue to show up for labour, who are uniting to say ‘No’ to unchecked wealth inequality.    

And I’ll continue to fight for the city we need. A Vancouver for all, not just those who can afford to live here. For homeowners seeing their services slashed and fees increasing, for renters facing another year of rent increases, and for families fearing being priced out of the city they love. 

But I can’t do it alone. I need your help. 

In the by-election, we showed what People Power can accomplish. To finish the job in 2026, we’re going to need to keep scaling up this movement. Ken Sim and ABC won’t give up power without a fight, and they’ll have millions in donations from the billionaires who back them. 

Municipal donations are capped annually. Ken Sim and his backers have a rolodex of rich donors who give a max donation every year. We expect ABC’s going to spend around $3 million next year. We can beat them with $500,000. 

If you can chip-in before the end of 2025, donate here. 

The other thing you can do now to make sure we evict Ken Sim in 2026 is sign up to volunteer. To defeat Ken Sim and elect a government that can begin to undo the damage, we’re going to organize the biggest ground game Vancouver has ever seen for a municipal election. There’ll be a role for everyone, and it will be a lot of fun. You can sign up to volunteer here. 

Thank you for your support, feedback, and for paying attention to what goes on at City Hall. It’s an honour to do this work. 

Here’s to fighting to win in 2026. 

We got this.