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Caught making 'a malicious set of lies,' Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim offers no answers

Dan Fumano: What unfolded Friday, on camera, was one of the more bizarre exchanges in recent Vancouver political history.

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Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim is refusing to explain why and how he came to falsely and publicly accuse a rival politician of handing out illegal drugs last Christmas.

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Instead, the mayor issued a surreal and baffling series of non-answers when confronted by reporters Friday, demonstrating a surprising lack of preparation given the release of a damning video one day earlier, and days of swirling questions before that.

This week’s bizarre political drama began Tuesday. Vancouver’s four councillors from outside the mayor’s ABC party issued a statement blasting Sim’s ABC colleague Coun. Lenny Zhou for sharing “inflammatory and harmful misinformation” in a Chinese-language video posted online the week before describing the non-ABC councillors as drug-users and dealers. Within hours, Zhou retracted the comments and apologized, and Sim thanked his ABC colleague “for acknowledging his mistake and taking responsibility for sharing information that was not accurate.”

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Then, on Thursday, it was revealed that Sim himself had publicly — and inaccurately — made a similar claim before Zhou. In an on-the-record briefing to Chinese-language media at city hall on Feb. 6, Sim accused city Coun. Sean Orr of distributing illegal drugs, The Canadian Press reported.

In a video of the briefing published online Thursday by CityNews, Sim says, in English into a row of microphones: “We have a councillor, Sean Orr, just this Christmas, who was handing out illegal drugs on Christmas Day to people on the streets.”

“So, if you like getting free illegal drugs, you probably don’t like me or ABC because we fight against that,” Sim said.

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Orr was unaware of Sim’s Feb. 6 accusation until a CP reporter played him a recording Thursday. Orr immediately said it was patently false.

Reached Friday, Orr told Postmedia News he wasn’t even in Vancouver last Christmas, and said, for the record, he has never distributed illegal drugs, last December or ever.

Orr said Sim phoned him Thursday after the video of the mayor’s Feb. 6 comments was published. Sim offered an apology, Orr said, but little accountability. Orr said he asked Sim on the call where he got his information, and the mayor declined to answer.

Orr’s positions on drug policy are outside of what some conservative-minded voters might support. But his views are also far from secret.

“Obviously, I support harm reduction, and I’m calling for a regulated, safe supply,” Orr said Friday. He also supports low-barrier supportive housing where people who use drugs can live, as well as treatment options for people who want to stop using.

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For years before Orr was elected to council in a 2025 byelection, he generated a public profile with his commentary on social issues, in local publications and on his own social media accounts. His public Twitter account history is full of often-irreverent, sometimes confrontational discussions about drug policy, as well as comments about his own drug use.

Orr said this week that he doesn’t currently use drugs other than alcohol and caffeine, but he has used other drugs in the past.

Asked whether he planned to launch a defamation lawsuit against the mayor or file a complaint with the city’s integrity commissioner, Orr said he was considering all his options.

Green Coun. Pete Fry said Sim and Zhou’s conduct deserves censure.

“The fact that Ken would so cavalierly throw a councillor under the bus with a malicious set of lies, and so cavalierly allow Lenny Zhou to take the fall,” Fry said. “It definitely says a lot, in that one video, about the kind of leader Ken has been.”

Fry and Orr both, separately, compared Sim with U.S. President Donald Trump, in using misinformation for the purpose of dividing and scaring people. Both councillors said they worry what this episode might portend for this year’s municipal election.

Zhou declined Postmedia’s interview request Friday, replying by text message that he was busy in a meeting. Zhou didn’t reply to a subsequent message asking whether he had issued any correction or retraction on WeChat, the Chinese-language social media platform where he made the original accusation.

Orr represents COPE, the most left-wing party on Vancouver council. He has publicly supported the Drug User Liberation Front, a harm reduction organization whose leaders were convicted last year on drug trafficking charges after they purchased illicit drugs that they tested for safety and sold, at cost, to 43 members of a “compassion club” of drug-users.

There are certainly voters in Vancouver, both Chinese-speaking and otherwise, who disagree with Orr on these issues. If Sim wanted to let those voters know that Orr and COPE aren’t for them, the mayor could have described the councillor’s public positions and statements honestly, without spreading a very specific and demonstrably false story.

Instead, Sim now faces blowback, as he dodges accountability and questions.

The Mayor’s Office declined Postmedia’s request for an interview Thursday afternoon or Friday, and declined to provide any written response.

Reporters confronted Sim on Friday at an unrelated public event, and asked him about the matter. What unfolded next, on-camera, was one of the more bizarre exchanges in recent Vancouver political history.

Over about 3 1/2 minutes, Sim answered every question the same way and used versions of the word “apology” 20 times, according to CityNews reporter Joe Sadowski.

After Sim informed reporters that he had contacted Orr to apologize, a reporter asked how the “mistake” happened. Sim, not answering the question, replied: “You know, at the end of the day, I called Coun. Orr, and I did apologize for my comments.”

Another reporter followed by asking if Sim planned to repeat the same thing over and over again. The mayor didn’t directly answer her question, but indirectly confirmed her suspicion was well-founded, saying: “You know, I truly believe that I apologized. Look: I called Coun. Orr and I apologized for my comments.”

Asked what he would do to rectify the matter with the Chinese community, Sim said — again — that he had apologized to Orr.

Asked why he had shared misinformation with the Chinese community, Sim replied that he had apologized to Orr.

The exchange went on like this for a while, as shown in a video posted online by CTV reporter Isabella Zavarise.

At one point, Sim said: “It’s a matter between Coun. Orr and myself.”

That statement, and Sim’s strange string of non-sequitur non-answers, seems to suggest the mayor doesn’t believe the people of Vancouver, whichever language they speak, deserve any kind of explanation about what happened.

dfumano@postmedia.com

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