Dan Fumano: In poignant final council meeting, Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim and most of his party say goodbye and good luck

As Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim presided over his final city council meeting, he subtly broke with protocol.

Partway through Tuesday’s session, council’s only public meeting falling between the Oct. 17 election, which saw Sim and his party ABC decisively defeated, and the Nov. 2 swearing-in ceremony for the new council, the outgoing mayor dropped the honorifics. Instead of addressing councillors formally, as he did during meetings over the past four years, as “Coun. Kirby-Yung,” “Coun. Dominato,” “Coun. Fry,” and so on, Sim did away with the titles and just called them “Sarah,” “Lisa,” and “Pete.”

Sim did not appear to intend any disrespect by the change. On the contrary, it seemed like a gesture of warmth and appreciation for his colleagues, including the political rivals against whom his party campaigned — sometimes quite aggressively — in recent months.

Four years ago, there was a similar spirit of cross-party collaboration, after Sim and ABC’s landslide 2022 election win. Unlike city council’s last majority party, the centre-left Vision Vancouver, Sim and ABC gave some key roles on boards and organizations to councillors from outside their own team. In those early days of the council term, ABC talked about being “post-partisan.”

The good vibes didn’t last forever.

By the term’s halfway point, Sim stripped the non-ABC councillors of those extra roles and pay, opting instead to keep the posts for his own party’s members. Tensions between members of different parties boiled over in meetings, as tends to happen as a council term goes on.

Cracks also appeared inside ABC. In 2023, 2024, and 2025, a series of politicians elected with ABC either resigned from caucus or were ejected, after finding themselves out of step with Sim’s surprise policy directions on abolishing the elected park board, halting the municipal ethics watchdog’s work, and freezing supportive housing construction.

When the Vancouver election campaign period began in September, Sim was involved in two acrimonious and simultaneous defamation lawsuits. In one, the mayor is the plaintiff suing his erstwhile chief of staff-turned-mayoral rival Kareem Allam, and in the other, Sim is a defendant in a lawsuit filed by Coun. Sean Orr. Both cases are ongoing.

The mood was more friendly this week at City Hall. Before Tuesday’s meeting started, Sim even shared a friendly embrace with Orr, who was re-elected along with three council newcomers from his left-wing COPE party.

Asked later about his chat with the COPE councillor, Sim said, “You know, bygones be bygones. … While I may disagree with some of the politics of what Sean supports — I’ve been very clear about that — here’s another individual who stepped up to serve the community. He’s doing what he believes is best for the residents of Vancouver, so why can’t we celebrate that?”

During Tuesday’s meeting, the outgoing councillors took turns addressing the room. ABC Couns. Lisa Dominato, Sarah Kirby-Yung, Lenny Zhou, and Peter Meiszner, all of whom failed to win a second term, and Vote Vancouver Coun. Rebecca Bligh, who was elected with ABC in 2022 but ran for mayor this year against Sim with her new party, praised the work of other councillors and city staff, wished their successors well, and thanked voters for the privilege of serving. Outgoing ABC Coun. Brian Montague, who did not seek re-election, attended but did not speak.