Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim will make his first trip to Ottawa next week since elected in October 2022 and will be joined by city councillors Lisa Dominato and Mike Klassen in meetings with senior government officials.
Sim’s office was still confirming details Thursday of the trio’s itinerary but the mayor told BIV that the focus will be on emphasizing the need for the federal government to address housing, infrastructure, public safety and transit.
“We have a lot of asks, and we do have a new prime minister who's finding his way,” Sim said. “So it's a great opportunity, and we want to make sure that as he's finding his way, that we put in that little extra effort to make sure that Vancouver's voice is heard.”
Sim’s visit will come less than two weeks after a new session of Parliament opened, with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government committed to an ambitious agenda that focuses on improving Canada’s economy and making life more affordable for Canadians.
Sim will get more insight into whether the federal government’s agenda aligns with his administration’s requests during the three days of meetings, which run from June 3-6.
BIV spoke to the mayor Wednesday about his upcoming trip. What follows is a condensed and edited version of the interview.
You were elected back in October 2022 and you have yet to make an official trip to Ottawa to meet with federal government officials. Why is that?
Well, we've had a lot of stuff going on in the city of Vancouver, and we've had the [now former] prime minister [Justin Trudeau] and a series of ministers come to Vancouver. So you balance those things, and the timing, and it’s just worked out that way.
OK, but previous mayors, including Kennedy Stewart and Gregor Robertson, have made it a priority to go to Ottawa to meet with government officials. Why hasn’t it been a priority for you?
We've been running at 100 miles an hour, and so we've been rolling up our sleeves getting a bunch of work done. We have worked with the Prime Minister's Office. I've met with Trudeau multiple times across this great city of ours. And I've even met Mark Carney a few times before he was prime minister. So this is a long-awaited trip, but we've had tons of interactions with the Prime Minister's Office beforehand. There's not a lot to read into this.
What have you put at the top of your list to discuss with officials in Ottawa—your top priority?
I think there's about eight of them tied for number one, but bail reform for repeat offenders and infrastructure dollars. A good example would be the extension of the subway out to UBC. When you look at bail reform for repeat offenders, that's something that we asked the previous administration—the previous prime minister—on multiple occasions. We didn't have any movement. So we're going to make a personal plea to Ottawa to make that happen.
On bail reform, the federal Liberals promised during the election campaign to “toughen the Criminal Code and make bail laws stricter for violent and organized crime, home invasions, car stealing, human trafficking, including and especially for repeat offenders.” Is that what you're looking for?
Yeah. We have multiple, multiple, multiple interactions with it seems like the same individuals. And as a city, we don't have the tools to deal with these individuals because we use our tools, but then they just get released again with no consequences whatsoever. So if we want to make meaningful change in how we do things, we need the federal government to step up and really look at bail reform for repeat offenders, or we're all wasting our time.
When you talk about getting more money for infrastructure, you mentioned extending the subway to UBC. But can you provide some examples of what other types of infrastructure requires investment from the federal government?
We have a $500-million capital [budget] deficit. There's $300 million that needs to be put into sidewalks, as an example. The federal government has mentioned that they want to have a meaningful impact on housing. Well, how do you do that if you don't have the infrastructure, the plumbing, the community centres, the streets, you name it? We need all that stuff. The City of Vancouver wouldn't have the resources to cover that. So we need the feds to step up.
During the federal election campaign, Mark Carney said he committed to “build, baby, build” when it comes to housing. But the Liberals also promised to cut municipal development charges in half for multi-unit residential housing while “keeping municipalities whole.” What's your understanding of that? And do you agree with cutting development charges in half?
Well, once again, we have an infrastructure deficit, so someone has to pay for it. So if the federal government wants to build housing, and they want to cut all these development charges and monies that go into infrastructure, then where's that money going to come from? We would be happy not to charge that stuff because we catch all the political flack for it. We'd love for the federal government just to take it all over. That would be great. We would be doing cartwheels.
So you’re saying advancing housing is directly connected to more spending on infrastructure?
When we look at what we need to do as a city, we need to speed up the permitting process, work on zoning issues, getting people permits and making it easier to build homes in the city of Vancouver. What we need—from a contribution level—is we need senior level sourced dollars to pay for the infrastructure that's going to come with the building of homes.
You’ve got about 17 months until the next civic election. So what do you think the Carney government can practically do in that time frame to assist your administration in your priorities? Any quick hits?
A quick hit is they could kind of cut us a cheque—that would take two minutes [laughs]. They can also commit to the UBC extension, they can also start the ball rolling on bail reform for repeat offenders. These are things that they could literally start next week if they really wanted to.
One of your predecessors, Gregor Robertson, is now Canada’s housing minister. Any plans to meet with him during your trip?
I’ve already seen him at about three or four events before and after he was elected. We have each other’s personal numbers. We've spoken in the past. It's not a big deal. I can always pick up the phone with Gregor.
What do you think of having a former Vancouver mayor—who used to repeatedly call on the federal government for more housing dollars and infrastructure—now serving as Canada’s housing minister?
It's great. He has the lived experience of being a mayor dealing with the challenges that we're dealing with. And so if he's genuine with respect to what he said back when he was mayor, and he's now the housing minister and he wants to solve this issue, this should be a very short conversation, and one that will be positive in nature.
He's acutely aware of Vancouver's challenges, and now he's in a position in Ottawa where he can help Vancouver. So we have a lot of high hopes for him in his new role.
What do you make of Gregor Robertson’s comments to the press that he wants to protect homeowners’ equity while still making housing affordable? Where do you stand on that?
Look, what we want to do is create an environment where we can build more housing in Vancouver—from supportive housing, social housing, missing middle and regular housing, as well. What we're going to do as the City of Vancouver is we're going to speed up the permitting process so we are not the bottleneck.
We're going to create an environment where it's easier to build. And then we're going be looking at senior levels of government to help with the infrastructure, because it aligns with their policies.
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