Vancouver mayor’s former chief of staff, businessman file responses to Ken Sim’s defamation lawsuit

The former chief of staff and a local businessman have filed responses to Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim’s defamation lawsuit, alleging that Sim has a history of drinking at events.

In May, Sim filed a lawsuit against Kareem Allam and Alexander Tsakumis, stating that they defamed Sim when making “false statements intended to injure the plaintiff as a public official, in his role as mayor,” according to the claim.

Those statements were related to a rumour about the mayor shared online in November 2023.

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“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,” Sim’s 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 rumours sparked an investigation by the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner (OPCC), which “revealed no objective evidence of an interaction between members of VPD and the plaintiff of the sort described” in Tsakumis’ post on X (formerly Twitter), according to the claim.

Sim’s lawsuit alleges neither defendant apologized or retracted their allegations after the OPCC report came out.

Allam’s response, filed Monday, claims that nothing he said was defamatory and that the lawsuit should be dropped in full.

He says part of his job as Sim’s chief of staff was “to support and protect the mayor in political crises, including developing communications strategies to address issues as they arose.”

After hearing the rumour from another senior staff member, Allam says calling Tsakumis and telling him what he had heard was only part of regular consultation on what he saw as a potential crisis.

“[Allam] considered Mr. Tsakumis to be a reliable political advisor from whom the defendant could seek advice. At the time of the Telephone Call, [Allam] and Mr. Tsakumis spoke regularly,” said Allam’s response.

Allam says he and Tsakumis started the call for unrelated reasons, and Allam shared the rumour with Tsakumis but had “no direct knowledge of any of the allegations.”

Allam says Tsakumis, who he claims said he had already heard the rumour elsewhere, advised Allam that, if it was true, Sim should provide a mea culpa statement.

The response says Allam was fired “without cause” days after he first heard the rumour from the unnamed senior staff member, and Tsakumis posted on X about it 10 months later.

Allam says he “had no intention that the [phone call discussion] would be republished, and had no involvement with any posting on X.com by Mr. Tsakumis.”

Meanwhile, in Tsakumis’ response, also filed Monday, he denies Sim was defamed in his posts and accuses the mayor of having a history of drinking at a number of public events.

Sim’s “true reputation,” he says, is as a “politician and business man who occasionally consumes alcohol to excess,” including at events he attends in his capacity as mayor.

Tsakumis’ response details a list of dates and events between 2018 and 2024, at which he claims Sim was intoxicated.

Tsakumis pleads that the posts were shared as “matters of public interest.”

He denies that Sim suffered any harm from his statements.

Sim is seeking general damages, aggravated damages, costs, and an injunction prohibiting the defendants from making or sharing the defamatory statements further.

—With files from Emma Crawford and Sonia Aslam.