Vancouver Park Board may have case to challenge dissolution under Charter: lawyers

Legal advice retained by the Vancouver Park Board says it has grounds to challenge its abolishment under The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms — potentially delaying the process until the next municipal election.

In December of 2023, Vancouver city council approved a motion, asking the provincial government to dissolve the Park Board and shift its responsibilities to the council.

In January of 2024, Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim said the change was long overdue.

He said the elected 135-year-old Park Board has done “amazing work” and adds the transition has “nothing to do with the people or the love and care that they — the elected Park Board — show, we are talking about a broken city.”

“This move will bring Parks and Recreation under the direct oversight of city council. This aligns the management structure for our parks and recreation with how it’s done in literally every single city in Canada, and with the exception of Minneapolis, every single city in North America,” Sim said.

In February, Park Board commissioners retained Martland & Saulnier attorneys for advice on challenging the legislation.

In an opinion document submitted to Park Board commissioners this week, lawyers argue that the “unprecedented” dissolution of the board “before the end of the current [municipal] term in 2026” could be a violation of the Charter.

The lawyers say the Charter protects freedom of expression and the political process falls under that protection.

“Abolishing an elected governing body mid-term removes that expressive activity, and the effect is to disenfranchise more than a hundred thousand citizens who voted in the last election for seven Park Board Commissioners and it disenfranchises the seven Commissioners who were elected to serve out a four-year term,” the document said.

In January, former ABC Vancouver-turned-independent Park Board Commissioner Laura Christensen told CityNews she’s disappointed that Sim has continued with his plan to dissolve the Park Board, calling the move “undemocratic.”

Christensen said it wasn’t Park Board reform she, or ABC, campaigned on.

“If that had been the case, I would not have run with ABC, or run for the Park Board, in my case,” she added.

When she was asked to run for ABC Vancouver, Christensen says the party stood for “good governance and pragmatic decision making.”

“Unfortunately, I really haven’t seen that to date. A lot of the decisions have been hasty, poorly thought out, and really, I don’t think are in the best interest of the city,” she explained.

The lawyers say the Park Board has a strong case for an interim injunction to stay the effects of the abolishment legislation until a trial on Constitutional issues can be had.

They say a voter could step forward to allege that their rights are being infringed upon, or that Park Board Chair Brennan Bastyovanszky could make the claim.

“This may have the effect of enjoining the legislation until the next municipal election in the fall of 2026.”

Tom Digby, a Park Board Commissioner, tells 1130 NewsRadio that given all the commissioners and Bastyovanszky were reportedly voters in the last election, any one of them could qualify to make the claim.

He says because Mayor Sim approached “abolishing the Park Board without any plan or without any strategy,” he believes the board will have a solid chance of challenging.

“Any basic lawyer worth their salt can easily read what was written in the [advice document] …that there’s very fundamental constitutional rights that voters have to the preservation of their expectations — which was a four-year term for the elected Park Board.”

He’s confident that one or more citizens of Vancouver will bring forward a challenge. In any case, Digby says the public should have the opportunity to voice their opinion on the abolition of the board.

“There seems to be no reason to abolish the elected Park Board. We are well organized; we’re on budget; we’ve got that. We’re having good discussions with the public as we always do, and as we have for 134 years.”

In March, Premier David Eby said no legislative changes to the Park Board would begin until after the provincial general election scheduled for Oct. 19.

–With files from Charlie Carey.