Ken Sim: the record of a first term, promise by promise and finding by finding

Ken Sim is number 54 on the mayoral ballot and the only candidate with a record as mayor to judge. He won in 2022 with a majority of the vote and a Council majority for his party, ABC Vancouver. Four years later his term has produced completed projects, changed promises, two integrity investigations and two defamation lawsuits, one filed by him and one filed against him. This profile takes each in turn, with a source for every claim listed at the end. His full research page, with 45 sources, is at voche.me/candidates/ken-sim.

Five evictions, one degree, one company

Sim was born in Vancouver on October 18, 1970, to parents who had immigrated from Hong Kong. He has said his family rented and was evicted five times while he was growing up, and that his office keeps street signs from every place he lived. He attended Magee and Sir Winston Churchill secondary schools and graduated from UBC’s Sauder School of Business in 1993 with a commerce degree in finance. He holds the FCPA and FCA accounting designations.

In 2001 he co-founded Nurse Next Door, a home health care company, and later co-founded the bagel chain Rosemary Rocksalt. His campaign describes other business investments that voche.me has not itemized.

Lost by 957 votes, then won by 36,000

Sim first ran for mayor in 2018 for the Non-Partisan Association and lost to Kennedy Stewart by 957 votes. He then left the NPA and founded ABC Vancouver. On October 15, 2022, he won with 85,732 votes, 50.96% of the total, a margin of 36,139 over Stewart. He was the first challenger to defeat a sitting Vancouver mayor since 1980 and the first person of colour to hold the office. ABC also won a majority on Council.

The 2022 promises, four years on

100 police officers and 100 mental health nurses. Council funded the plan in November 2022. The Tyee reports the officer target was met; the Vancouver Police Department says 408 officers were hired between November 2022 and September 2026 while 319 left. The nurse half changed. In a 2023 interview Sim described a mixed mental health workforce of 58 people instead of 100 nurses.

Abolish the elected Park Board. In December 2023 Sim moved to ask the Province to dissolve the board. On July 13, 2026, ABC announced it would stop seeking abolition and run Park Board candidates instead. In September he told Vancity Lookout he would make no structural change in a second term while still disagreeing with the governance model.

100,000 trees. Daily Hive, using City figures, reported 7,725 trees planted and 7,468 removed from 2023 to 2025. Figures for 2022 were unavailable and 2026 was incomplete when it reported.

Property taxes. Increases of 10.7% in 2023 and 7.5% in 2024 were followed by a freeze for 2026, approved with a $2.39 billion operating budget on November 25, 2025. The City projected an average 4.2% rise in utility fees the same year.

Faster permits. The City reports single-detached permits taking 160 days on average in 2025, down from 250 in 2022, and mid-rise development permits taking 9.8 months in 2025, down from 18.1 in 2023. Those are the City’s own measures.

Supportive housing. In February 2025 Council paused City contributions to new supportive housing and shifted support toward renewing existing buildings. Sim argues other municipalities and the Province should carry more of the load. Several challengers at the September 8 debate at UBC, which he did not attend, said they would reverse the pause.

The citywide Official Development Plan was adopted on March 31, 2026, though it implements the Vancouver Plan drafted before his term. The Villages Plan, his proposal for more housing around neighbourhood centres, was rejected by Council 10 to 1 on July 28, 2026.

Two investigations by the integrity commissioner

Private meetings, August 2025. The City’s integrity commissioner found that Sim and ABC councillors breached the Code of Conduct by discussing City business in private party meetings with enough members present to form a quorum, before the public votes on a Climate Justice Charter report and on Moberly Park funding. The report found breaches in two of seven instances examined. Sim replied that “caucusing is a normal and accepted practice at every level of Canadian democracy.” Because so many members were named, Council could not reach quorum to consider sanctions.

Harassment of a councillor, May 2026. An independent investigator found that Sim misused the influence of his office and harassed Councillor Sean Orr through an April 2025 press conference and an October 2025 social media post that presented Orr as antisemitic. The report said the criticism amounted to a personal call-out of Orr rather than protection of Vancouver’s Jewish community. Sim disagreed with the findings and said he was standing with the Jewish community. On June 2, 2026, the six ABC councillors voted against any sanction, the four other councillors voted for one, and Sim did not vote because of his conflict of interest. The vote did not reverse the findings.

Two defamation lawsuits

Orr against Sim. In February 2026 Sim told a Chinese-language media briefing that Orr had distributed drugs. On March 3 he issued a written apology saying he had referred to a photograph without verifying it and that the remarks were untrue. Orr sued. The Canadian Press reports Sim’s defence disputes that the remarks harmed Orr’s reputation and describes the briefing as a closed event. A trial date of January 31, 2028 has been set. No court has ruled.

Sim against Allam and Tsakumis. In May 2025 Sim sued his former chief of staff, Kareem Allam, now a rival mayoral candidate, and the businessman Alexander George Tsakumis. The claim says Allam told Tsakumis in November 2023 that Sim had been stopped by police while driving impaired and released without charge, and that Tsakumis published the rumour on X. An outside police review led by Abbotsford’s police chief called the rumour baseless. Allam denies defamation and says he had no part in the post. No court has ruled.

The 2026 campaign

ABC launched its platform on September 21. The commitments: a further property tax freeze in 2027 followed by increases at inflation; five renewed community centres, connected to $400 million already in the capital plan; a new centre in River District; a rebuilt Vancouver Aquatic Centre; more childcare; swimming lessons at school; stronger City rules against open drug use; and a request to the Province for secure treatment with at least 100 involuntary-care beds. Two of those questions go to voters as plebiscites on the same ballot.

ABC’s advertising attributes a 17% fall in violent crime from 2023 to 2025 to its policies and attacks Pete Fry’s police funding votes. The Tyee’s review found the ads mix a task force launch with a later funding vote and that crime trends have more than one cause.

What is still unknown

The campaign has not published which services or fees would change to support a 2027 tax freeze, the current net staffing totals for the officer and mental health commitment, or funded delivery dates for the community centres, childcare spaces and Aquatic Centre. His research page lists as an open question what he would change in response to the integrity findings; he has not published an answer. He was at 30% of decided voters in both the August Research Co. poll and the September Justason poll; the details are on the polls page.

Image: David Fitzgerald, Collision via Sportsfile, CC BY 2.0, 2024, cropped and composed with text by voche.me.