Vancouver council delays integrity commissioner vote to September after turmoil at special meeting
Posted August 6, 2024 6:59 am.
Last Updated August 6, 2024 7:55 pm.
Turmoil at Vancouver City Hall continues, after a special council meeting that could have led to the suspension of all investigations by the integrity commissioner was postponed Tuesday.
Council approved a motion, brought forward by Mayor Ken Sim, to recess the special meeting until Sept. 25.
Sim pointed the finger at one of his fellow councillors as the reason behind the delay.
“Yesterday, Coun. (Pete) Fry — on a holiday Monday — sent an email to all of council and and senior city staff saying that he had filed a complaint with the integrity commissioner against an unknown number of councillors and potentially myself. This is despite the clear guidelines and expectations from the integrity commissioner that complaints remain confidential between the integrity commissioner and any named respondents,” the mayor said.
“His action has broken the expected confidentiality of the process. While I, and I have to assume other named councillors, have yet to be formally informed of any such complaint, given counc. Fry’s actions that clearly violates 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.”
Prior to the conclusion of the meeting, Fry, a Green Party councillor, took to X to take his own shots at the governing ABC Party, writing, “Watching ABC struggle to make quorum for the mayor’s special meeting to suspend the Integrity Commissioner – I cannot help but wonder if the attending councillors have read the recent IC report, and are ok with the behaviour they are tacitly endorsing.”
Fry tells 1130 NewsRadio that the work of the Integrity Commissioner is crucial because it presents a level of confidence in the public that rules are being followed.
“With the ABC, in the last two years, we’ve seen an erosion in people’s confidence and good governance and transparency and accountability,” Fry said.
The councillor says the Integrity Commissioner’s annual report for 2023 made recommendations to improve the clarity of the scope of the office with things like sanctions, and providing better information. He says the Integrity Commissioner knew what she was doing and was clear about the scope.
“It was really about providing more clarity through recommendations that she was putting forward, recommendations that have yet to be enacted,” Fry said. “Instead, we’re seeing this move just to get rid of the office altogether.”
Fry says the original motion was poorly constructed and “there’s not a lot of merit to the substance.” He says that ABC undermining the Integrity Commissioner’s work reflects poorly on themselves.
“If they didn’t have anything to hide, why would they want to suspend out the investigations?” he said. “I think it’s a bad look for them.”
The special meeting came just days after Commissioner Lisa Southern released two reports spotlighting the rocky relationship between Sim’s office and the Vancouver Park Board, which has led to integrity complaints from both sides.
The meeting was a rarity for city council in August, as bylaw changes were considered during a summer break period.
Council voted last month to freeze the Office of the Integrity Commissioner and launch an independent review, citing Southern’s annual report in which she said the scope of her office and its oversight over council are not always clear.
As that vote was made, Southern was in the midst of investigating two integrity complaints involving the mayor’s office and the park board — one from each side — including accusations of political interference and breach of trust.
Those reports were released Friday, ultimately dismissing the complaints, but highlighting the acrimonious relationship between the two sides as Sim and his ABC Vancouver-dominated council work to dissolve the Vancouver Park Board.
Sim said Tuesday that Fry’s decision to file a complaint and notify council of that was, in his opinion, another example of “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 purposefully or recklessly did not follow guidelines of the complaint process for maximum political theatre. It’s my opinion that Coun. Fry is willing to violate rules when it suits him, regardless of the impact it has on taxpayers and residents of Vancouver. This is demonstrated in the fact that he opposes a third-party, independent review on how to make the process better — a process that has seen multiple complaints dismissed as without merit or out of scope, a process in which the integrity commissioner has stated a clarity of scope would be helpful. A process that could — we’re adding up the numbers still — could have cost taxpayers a half million dollars to date, and counting,” Sim said.
“These are hard costs. These are costs of the commission, it’s the costs of legal costs, that the city’s taxpayers are going to be paying for. And this does not even count the time and effort of elected officials, support team members, and city staff. This is what happens when you try to change a system, a 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. Now, the voters of Vancouver have told us they’re sick of politics as usual. My team and myself were elected to fix broken processes and we remain committed to clarifying the scope and improving the construct of the integrity commissioner’s office, so the public can have confidence it provides value and appropriate recourse for legitimate complaints,” the mayor concluded.
In a show of opposition, Couns. Fry, Adriane Carr, and Christine Boyle did not attend Tuesday’s special meeting.
In an earlier statement posted to social media, Fry shared that the councilors would not “attend and indulge assault on local govt integrity. ABC can whip their own meeting size of 6.”
Boyle, in her own statement, affirmed the importance of the integrity commissioner.
“There is absolutely no justification for Mayor Sim & @Vote4ABC rushing to suspend her work, unless there is something more they’re hiding. And I won’t support it,” she stated on X.
“I won’t be at today’s Special Council Meeting. I disagree fiercely with suspending the work of the #IntegrityCommissioner. If Mayor Sim insists on forcing this through during summer break, he can get 5 of his own Cllrs to form quorum,” she added.
I won't be at today's Special Council Meeting. I disagree fiercely with suspending the work of the #IntegrityCommissioner.
— Christine Boyle (@christineeboyle) August 6, 2024
If Mayor Sim insists on forcing this through during summer break, he can get 5 of his own Cllrs to form quorum. @PtFry @AdrianeCarr & I won't be there. 2/4
City council voted to hit pause on all misconduct investigations on July 24, with councillors voting to pause the commissioner’s investigations, meaning any complaints received will only be picked up after a third-party review of the scope of the commissioner’s office.
The integrity commissioner is an independent officer on a two-year term at the City of Vancouver. The office is tasked with investigating a number of complaints, including those submitted about city council, and also advises the council regarding “ethical obligations and responsibilities.”
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–With files from Kier Junos
