Vote on halting Vancouver integrity commissioner's work deferred as opposition boycotts council meeting

Wearing a baseball cap and addressing an empty chamber, Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim moved to recess a rare summer council meeting where a vote to halt the work of a municipal watchdog was the sole item on the agenda – saying the actions of a political opponent gave him “no choice.”

Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, all of the councillors who are not members of Sim’s ABC majority announced their intention to boycott the vote.

“It’s their motion, it’s their business,” said Green Coun. Pete Fry, who did not attend along with fellow opposition councillors Adriane Carr and Christine Boyle.

“If they want to pass this they can show up and do it.”

The motion, if passed would have suspended the work of the city’s integrity commissioner pending the outcome of a third-party review of the office’s work.

After seemingly scrambling to make quorum by having ABC councillors attend remotely, Sim moved to have the meeting adjourned until Sept. 25. Six members need to be present in order for a meeting to proceed.

'Political theatre'?

Sim laid the blame on Fry, saying the councillor sent an email on the B.C. Day holiday informing the mayor, council and senior city staff that he had submitted a new complaint to the commissioner. This, Sim claimed, breached the confidentiality that is presumed and promised during the complaint process.

“Given councillor Fry’s actions that clearly violate the currently defined process I have no choice but to recommend a recess for this meeting out of an abundance of caution until this break from established protocol is dealt with,” Sim said.

“It is my opinion that these actions demonstrate how an office that is intended to provide an avenue for genuine concerns to be appropriately dealt with is continuing to be politicized. I also find it deeply disappointing, very troubling but not unexpected given past actions. Coun. Fry either purposely or recklessly did not follow guidelines of the complaint process for maximum political theatre.”

For his part, Fry said he sent the email as a courtesy and did not violate confidentiality because he did not disclose either the substance of the complaint or who it was filed against.

The commissioner’s most recent report

The brief meeting came after Lisa Southern, the integrity commissioner, released a report Friday detailing the findings of her investigation into two complaints park board commissioner Brennan Bastyovanszky made against the mayor.

Both complaints were ultimately dismissed, but the report did note an apparent unwillingness of Sim and his senior staffers to respect the confidentiality of the process.

When Southern first informed Sim about the complaint she says she asked him to refrain from discussing the matter with staff.

The mayor, chief of staff Trevor Ford and senior advisor David Grewal “asserted they were not bound by confidentiality in the circumstances and the code of conduct bylaw did not give me authority to direct them not to discuss these matters. The respondent copied counsel for Mr. Ford and Mr. Grewal, as he continued to do throughout the investigation," the report says.

Fry accused the mayor of recessing the meeting in order to avoid discussing the findings of Southern’s most recent report, which he described as “damning” and as exposing “very unsavoury goings on” in the mayor’s office.

Sim refuted allegations that his party was trying to halt Southern’s work in order to prevent her most recent report or the results of other investigations from coming to light.

What’s next?

The mayor maintained that the independent review is being called off in order to clarify the commissioner’s role and make the complaints process more efficient and effective.

“This is what happens when you try to change a system. The system uses its old tools and tricks to stop change. Some councillors would rather grandstand in the media versus getting the job done to improve city hall,” Sim said.

Sim suggested that the current process is too costly and time consuming. Time spent filing and responding to complaints, and money spent on legal fees, he said, could be better used to do “a lot of other great things.”

Asked if he adjourned the meeting because the report into Bastyovanszky’s complaints was now public, Sim maintained that he is still committed to launching the third-party review and following the “best practice” of suspending the commissioner’s work when council reconvenes in the fall.

Sim did not explain exactly why Fry’s email necessitated a delay of the vote but did say he hopes to have a “robust” discussion of the matter in September that includes the three opposition councillors.

Until council votes on the amendment to the bylaw, the integrity commissioner will continue her work.

'Botched cover-up'?

Bastyovanszky was at city hall and spoke to reporters about the integrity commissioner’s investigation into his complaints, growing emotional when talking about the toll the process took on him. He was elected with the mayor’s ABC party but now sits as an independent.

He characterized the calling of a special council meeting during the summer for the purpose of amending a bylaw that would halt the integrity commissioner’s work as a “botched cover-up,” calling his former party members “cowards” and accusing them of trying to suppress the report on his complaints.

“The timing is super suspicious,” he said.

“The things they were trying to cover up have come out, so now there’s no rush.”