Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim suing 2 people, including former chief of staff, for defamation
Posted May 23, 2025 9:06 pm.
Last Updated May 23, 2025 9:18 pm.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim has filed a defamation lawsuit against two people, according to a Notice of Civil Claim filed with the BC Supreme Court Friday.
Kareem Allam — his former chief of staff — and real estate developer Alexander George Tsakumis are alleged to have defamed Sim when making “false statements intended to injure the plaintiff as a public official, in his role as mayor,” according to the claim.
The statements are related to a rumour about an alleged incident about a year and a half ago.
“In or around November 2023, Mr. Allam told Mr. Tsakumis that the plaintiff had driven his motor vehicle while intoxicated and had been stopped by Vancouver Police Department (VPD) officers,” the claim reads.
“He also told Mr. Tsakumis that the VPD officers let the plaintiff go without booking or citing him for any offence.”
Sim alleges that Allam made the statements in order to have Tsakumis share them with others and on social media.
The suit then claims that Tsakamis shared the statements on X on Nov. 23, 2023.
“I want you to know how he got away with being pulled over drunk. It’s about time he answered for it. Right after he was elected, (I believe January of [2023]), our illustrious mayor was pulled over by the VPD for drunk driving,” the X post read, according to the lawsuit.
“He was neither booked, nor cited in any way. The Vancouver Police essentially let him go. Why? How? If true, he should resign immediately.”
An investigation by the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner (OPCC) “revealed no objective evidence of an interaction between members of VPD and the plaintiff of the sort described” in Tsakumis’ post on X, according to the claim.
The lawsuit alleges neither defendant apologized or retracted their allegations after the OPCC report came out.
According to the claim, Sim is seeking general damages, aggravated damages, costs, and an injuction prohibiting the defendants from making or sharing the defamatory statements further.
— With files from Sonia Aslam and Renee Bernard.
