Here's how many times Vancouver's mayor has been absent from a vote at council

Vancouver's mayor has been absent for nearly a third of votes at public council meetings since taking office, data shows.

The City of Vancouver's database on voting records shows that members have voted on 777 items since being sworn in on Nov. 7, 2022. Mayor Ken Sim has been marked absent 222 times, including during the vote on one of his most significant campaign promises.

He is the second-most absent member of council after ABC's Rebecca Bligh, who has missed 290 votes. The third-most absent is ABC's Brian Montague, who missed 127 votes. ABC's Lenny Zhou has only missed nine.

But how important is it for the mayor, in particular, to show up in council chambers and cast his vote? How many absences are too many? Are there more or equally important things that pull the mayor away?

Stewart Prest, a lecturer in political science at UBC, says the questions are worth asking, even if the answers are not straightforward.

"I think when we start to get to the range of missing one vote in three, it's worth asking the question of whether the mayor is actually showing up to do the job that he was primarily elected to do," he said.

With a supermajority on council, the mayor's vote isn't needed to push forward the agenda that his ABC slate was elected on. However, Prest says voting in and of itself is only a very small part of public meetings, which are opportunities for the mayor to hear feedback from constituents, debate with the opposition, and to tell the public and his colleagues where he stands on an issue and why.

"The mayor is elected, first and foremost, to represent Vancouverites at council and if, if the mayor is missing in action for a significant amount of those deliberations – even apart from casting the vote – if the mayor is not there to offer his perspective, then there may be the at least the appearance, if not the reality of not doing a crucial part of his job," Prest told CTV News.

The role of the mayor is different from that of a councillor, and there are responsibilities that pull Sim away from meetings, Prest notes, saying attending announcements, events or meetings with other levels of government are examples of some of the demands on any mayor's time.

Sim declined an interview Thursday, but in a statement said his other responsibilities are as important as voting at council.

“As mayor, my priority is to serve the best interests of our city and its residents. While voting is an important aspect of governance, it's equally important to balance my duty as mayor with my responsibilities beyond the chamber," he wrote.

"I will continue to serve Vancouverites faithfully in my role and I will always prioritize attracting talent, investment, and opportunities for Vancouver alongside that of my governance obligations."

During the term of the previous mayor, there were 3,674 votes and Kennedy Stewart was marked absent for 581 – a rate of about 15 per cent when compared to the current mayor's 30 per cent.

Prest points out that Stewart, unlike Sim, had a "strategic imperative" to cast a vote because there was no majority on council.

"Every meeting really mattered because the outcome was always in doubt," he said.

Also, as an independent, Stewart could not be confident that his opinion or agenda would be advanced if he was not there, meaning attending was crucial if he wanted to try to build a majority and "have his voice heard."

Sim does not need to show up and vote for tactical reasons, Prest noted.

"That strategic imperative of being there for every vote is perhaps not there. But the deliberative democratic imperative is still there," he said.

"The mayor is still elected to represent constituents, to voice opinions and to exercise a leadership role at council. And to take that for granted, to assume other members of ABC can do it just as well in his absence, at a certain point, the question becomes: Well, why do we need Mayor Sim?"

Green Party Coun. Pete Fry noted there has been a "significant increase" in the budget for the mayor's office since ABC took power, including additional staff who could "do a lot of the work" for Sim.

"A lot of stuff happens with the ABC majority in the backroom, and I think that probably allows him to phone it in, or not attend, as would be the case," Fry said.

"But I think in the interest of democracy and accountability to the public, we should probably endeavour to be there for as many votes as we can."

Asked about his comparatively impressive attendance record, Zhou told CTV News he's "proud of being one of the people working really hard" on council – but defended the mayor's work ethic.

"I can tell you, the mayor is working even harder than me," Zhou said. "I can guarantee the public, you have a mayor working really hard every day for our residents." 

While the public database does record the number of votes from which an official was absent, there is no straightforward way to see how many meetings an official has missed. Requests for leaves of absence are presented as motions to council and usually unanimously agreed upon. When they are requested and when they are recorded in the minutes, the reasons are either "civic business" or "personal reasons." The term civic business, Prest says, doesn’t really help the public understand much about what their elected officials are doing when they are not at meetings.

The data only includes meetings up to Feb. 28, and does not reflect Sim's absences from two public hearings, one council meeting and one committee meeting since. During one of those meetings, a motion was put forward to sanction the mayor for behaviour that the city's integrity commissioner found was discriminatory toward a park board commissioner.

But without knowing more about when and why the mayor or any other councillor was absent, it becomes difficult to judge whether – or to what extent – missing meetings is a problem.

"Transparency can be an important way to ensure that accountability is continuing and for voters to understand that they are – not to put too fine a point on it – getting value for their money," Prest said.

With files from CTV News Vancouver's Martin MacMahon