There are many valid reasons not to reelect Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim: his past efforts to invest city tax dollars in cryptocurrency; his eagerness to shovel money to the almighty police department at the expense of other city services; and a repugnant scheme to relocate Indigenous people from downtown Vancouver to their so-called home communities, among others.

But his most recent blunder, a blatant falsehood he spread about an opposition councillor at a news conference with Chinese-speaking reporters, is the last straw. Sim, who leads the ruling ABC party, accused COPE Coun. Sean Orr of distributing illegal drugs to people on the streets on Christmas Day. Orr, as it turns out, was not even in Vancouver at Christmas and denies ever having distributed drugs. 

Nonetheless, Sim’s lie was amplified and even further exaggerated by ABC Coun. Lenny Zhou. Speaking in Mandarin in a video on WeChat, a social media platform where many Chinese Canadians get their news, Zhou laid out his objection to supportive housing and stated all four opposition councillors are drug users and distribute drugs. 

Both ABC council members have apologized for spreading disinformation, which Sim claims originated with a photo he thought showed Orr peddling drugs. Maybe. In a news conference this week, Sim wouldn’t identify who supposedly showed him the picture and admitted he didn’t bother to verify it. 

Orr wasn’t buying the apologies. He rightfully characterized the remarks as “character assassination” and likened his two ABC colleagues’ dive into the disinformation smear game as American-style far-right politics. Hard to argue with that. 

Slandering your opponent, even to a narrow audience, says a lot about character. The readiness of Sim and Zhou to spread lies is far worse than any harebrained policy they might propose or past controversial decisions they have made. If a politician is caught spreading disinformation once, there’s a better than even chance they have done it before and escaped undetected.

Sim and Zhou were likely banking on the chance their allegations would never hit the mainstream English press. But as mainstream media outlets increasingly hire bilingual reporters, this is becoming a riskier bet. 

Politicians like Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim and Coun. Lenny Zhou who spread lies about a colleague for political gain undermine trust in our political system. They don't deserve our respect or votes.

This type of behaviour adds to the toxic soup of disinformation targeted at influencing political outcomes at all levels of government, some of which is even more difficult to detect. My colleague Rory White has written extensively about shady digital guns for hire in Eastern Canada running anonymous social media ad campaigns cleverly disguised as grassroots organizations. 

Sometimes, the shadowy campaigns, such as the one in Caledon, Ont., appear to be fronts and shills for deep-pocketed developers. However, other operations, such as KICLEI’S push to convince municipalities to drop their net-zero ambitions, traffic in flat-out disinformation. And unlike remarks made to non-English language reporters, which occasionally leak to a broader audience, finding out who is funding the anonymous campaigns is extremely difficult.

Sim and Zhou are not the first politicians to be caught spreading lies or making inopportune remarks to non-English media. Days before the spring federal election, Liberal MP Paul Chiang stepped down as a candidate after suggesting at a Chinese-language news conference that one of his opponents should be turned in to the Chinese consulate for a bounty. Before that, another federal Liberal candidate who was set to run against former NDP leader Jagmeet Singh was shamed into stepping down after posting on WeChat that she could beat Singh, noting he is of “Indian descent.”  

Disinformation spread by local politicians like Sim and Zhou, whom most Canadians still trust, poses a greater danger than just the reputational damage that may have been inflicted on one city councillor. The more disinformation is allowed to circulate, the less we believe that what we hear and read is the truth and the less faith we have in all our governments. 

There are indications that foreign interference is already making an impact.

A former BC MP claims election meddling by China cost him his seat in the 2021 federal election. Kenny Chiu, a vocal critic of China, says propaganda and lies were widely circulated on WeChat to discredit him — an apparent premonition of things to come. And the CBC reports that in 2024, misinformation about Canadian institutions was being spread by suspicious bot accounts on social media and pro-Modi news outlets in India. The CBC’s analysis “identified several posts containing misleading and inflammatory comments about the Khalistan movement — which advocates for an independent state for Sikhs — and Sikh Canadians in general that were recirculated by suspicious accounts.”

Politicians have long tailored their messages to play to the crowd. But you’d like to think they stop short of spreading outright lies about their opponents. Sim and Zhou have proven their ethical bar is too low — they do not deserve our support. 

© National Observer