Sean Orr Is Fired Up to Grill Ken Sim

In a weekend byelection to fill two vacant city council seats, Vancouver voters coalesced behind progressive candidates: OneCity’s Lucy Maloney and democratic socialist Sean Orr of the Coalition of Progressive Electors, or COPE, whose 34,448 votes topped the polls.

Orr, a political freshman who campaigned successfully on a promise to “grill Ken Sim,” had not even been sworn in before he was publicly smeared by the mayor. On Wednesday, Mayor Sim held a press conference to denounce social media posts made by Orr years ago: comments, Sim claimed, that “can be only viewed as incendiary or hateful by the Jewish community.”

The smoking gun turned out to be a 2021 post in which Orr, responding to an antisemitic remark, tweeted: “Everyone knows Vancouver City planners are controlled by a secret cabal of Jews who have a bunker in the earth’s core fml.”

This transparently bad-faith attack was dismissed as disingenuous by many, including the grassroots group Independent Jewish Voices. It was supported, however, by the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, which said it was “deeply disturbed” by Orr’s comment, as well as when he “falsely accused” the state of Israel of genocide in Gaza, demanding an apology and full investigation.

“This is their alleged evidence of Sean’s wrongdoing,” said COPE in a statement. “That he stands up for people who are being harmed.”

“It's unfortunate that this was taken out of context and misrepresented,” said Orr in a statement posted to X. “My platform called out antisemitism by name and committed to fighting it, along with Islamophobia and other forms of racism.”

Reached Thursday during orientation for his new position, Orr declined to comment further, directing The Tyee to the statement on COPE’s website. Just prior to his first big political controversy, however, Orr spoke with The Tyee about his landslide byelection win, adjusting to his role at city hall, and staying true to his democratic socialist roots.

He’s still the same guy, for the most part. Asked if he’d like to be addressed by his new title, Coun. Sean Orr, the first-term representative demurred.

“It’s actually councillor-elect Sean Orr,” he replied, laughing.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Tyee: So what actually happens after you get byelected? Do you get a congratulatory call from the shadow mayor of Vancouver, Justin McElroy? Or a cool windbreaker? What are you doing this week?

Sean Orr: It’s been a lot of interviews the first couple days, some media appearances. I went to city hall, and there happened to be a press conference, so I sat in on that. I shook hands with Mayor Ken Sim and some of the other councillors, and then I was grateful enough to have Pete Fry show me around the council offices.

This is the workout room, and over here is...

He showed me where it was, the private gym, so that was interesting. It's a big adjustment. The whole thing has just been super humbling. Having people line up for three hours to cast a vote, and to top the polls, I'm blown away by Vancouver. It's a lot of processing and figuring out the next steps, what to do now, and when do I get sworn in? That kind of thing. Do I have to do a bunch of briefings and get, you know, initiated into these halls of power?

There's got to be some kind of robed ceremony that happens in a dark corridor. I'm basically thinking of the Stonecutters episode of The Simpsons.

Or the Vatican when they put the black smoke or the white smoke through the chimney or something.

You finished 36th in the last election, and then first in this one. First! When did this race start to feel winnable for you?

I think there were multiple levels to it. Seeing the campaign and how dedicated and committed they were, sticking to the message, but also having a lot of freedom to do things outside the box. Getting an ad during the Canucks game... getting invited to go up during Wolf Parade, for example, and then to introduce them. Little things like that, where it's like, whoa, we're building this momentum.

Having a commercial during the Canucks game is big. That’s how Alpine Credits makes their money.

Then, of course, knocking on doors on Main Street and people saying, yeah, you got my vote. It's like, OK, wow, this is really happening. Our message was resonating with people: focusing on the disproportionate political power of billionaires, especially with what's going on in the States, and people being able to connect those dots to what's happening here, and Ken Sim. So I just think that it's partly the campaign that we ran, and partly the political moment that we're in.

I do think that the politically engaged electorate really helped. People are nervous right now. The lines were very long! Now I know turnout played a role, but it was still only 15 per cent of voters. Somehow that spike translated into two-, three-hour waits. Later we learned that staffing for this election had been reduced. By the end of the night, I was seeing the “Stay in line!” messages and tweets you normally see during U.S. elections, in red states, and it really evoked that same odour of voter suppression. Is that fair to say?

I don't think the city staff really thought that there would be a big turnout, and I trust them that they thought the mail-in votes this time would have ameliorated some of those concerns in advance, in terms of long lines. But I just don't think anyone really would have been able to predict this kind of populist movement to get a socialist elected. I don't think people realized, also, the visceral reaction people have to Ken Sim as well. I just don't see — what's the famous quote? “Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence.”

I'm not calling city staff incompetent. I'm just saying they just didn't fully realize the tone of the electorate. At the same time, it was hard to see people walk out of that lineup, and it was hard to hear stories of people with disabilities not knowing that they could skip to the head of the lineup, and people being dehydrated in the lineup, and the community coming and giving people water. It did feel very much like a U.S. election, in that sense. There was this bonding together of community to get that message out, to stay in line. It was quite a day. It was quite emotional.

I feel like failing to anticipate this kind of turnout, or these lines, already speaks to being a little bit out of touch with your electorate. But then, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that ABC’s two candidates did quite poorly. You know, finishing sixth and seventh on the ballot, and neither surpassed the 10,000 vote number. What would you attribute that to?

I mean, it's tough, in a byelection, to get people to come out for an incumbent anyway. So they had that going against them from the beginning. I think their tactics — not turning up to debates — really hurt them. I think Ralph Kaisers using his police email to send out messages hurt them. I think the practice of putting out signs on property owners’ lawns who might not have consented to it really hurt them. So I think there was a culmination of those kinds of things that really mobilized people.

Is it an accurate reflection of the entire electorate of Vancouver? I don't know. I still think 2026 will be a lot closer, and I think if Jaime [Stein] decides to run again, I think he'll do much better.

I feel like there's a little bit more optimism among progressives now for 2026, not just because of how this election went, but also because of the co-operation that we saw among the leftist parties. After the 2017 byelection, there was a lot of concern that progressives would run 20 candidates again, sharing the vote like the means of production. But in February we learned that the city's four progressive parties had struck this clever deal to run three candidates, including you running for COPE instead of Vote Socialist. You said that might happen. But how did it happen?

I can only really speak to Vote Socialist and COPE. That's all I was really privy to. But it happened over a long period of time. It was a lot of meetings. There's a lot of people who had left COPE, who felt like the organization wasn't listening to them or, for whatever reason, just felt dissatisfied with the executive. We met many times with COPE, and it seemed that those fears had been allayed. We began to look at the possibility of bringing those two sides together, and we did. The democratic socialists of Vancouver were instrumental in getting out the vote. They knocked on doors with us. It was good to see.

Vote Socialist was instrumental in sticking to that message and saying that we can have a socialist elected to council. And I think COPE saw that and saw our relative success. I know you said we were 36th but I mean, we were a brand new party, and we gained 13,000 votes. I think COPE saw that and realized that we have much more in common and that we were better off joining forces.

It's nice to hear you still refer to yourself as a socialist. I was afraid that maybe representing COPE meant that you're just a regular-degular progressive now.

No, I think it's important to embrace that, to not be afraid of that. I mean, you've got Paul Ratchford on Twitter highlighting these screenshots where I said I'm a communist, but I was actually just trolling Chip Wilson when he put up the sign that said David Eby is a communist. I just think so many people don't know what that is, so it’s like, hey guys, David Eby is not a communist, I should know, I am one. But I’m definitely more of a democratic socialist. I think it's important. It’s also a lesson to other jurisdictions, other parties, federal party, you know, NDP... I think they can see that running a bold left-wing campaign is not something to shy away from. It can be done.

I know that housing was a big priority for your campaign. I'm wondering what you see yourself doing to address the issue during this term while progressives remain a minority. What do you think you can do?

I think I can reverse the pause on supportive housing. It was a huge part of our message. We were consistent on that, that we saw it as kind of cruel and vindictive and the wrong approach, that it would increase homelessness, and increase people overnighting in parks and things like that, and that using it as a kind of bargaining chip to force other municipalities to build supportive housing wasn't the right way to go about it, and it was actually probably having the opposite effect. So I think we were consistent on that. I think if I bring that back, the vote will be different. We have an opposition of four now. Lisa Dominato voted against it before, so it just takes one other councillor to see the light there. I think that's doable.

Do you think... we might see maybe a more aggressive electorate in terms of pushing for rights as tenants and renters? I'm thinking of something like the housing coalitions in Barcelona, where a co-ordinated people’s movement managed to get their activist leader elected mayor. It seems Vancouver’s conditions might spark something similar, but nothing on that scale is really happening.

Yeah. I think part of it, also, is that Ken Sim killed the Renter Office. I think that's another thing that we can get back. I know Lucy Maloney was very adamant that that would be her first order of business. And of course, I would second that motion and support that all the way. Throughout the campaign, I mentioned that my office would be a renter's office, and I would use my status as a councillor to move those discussions forward, give credence to those movements and be a megaphone for those movements.

And if people take to the streets to protest what's going on with housing in this city, are you going to be out there with us?

Absolutely. I like how you said “with us.”

Oh yeah, I gave it away. I’m poor.

I'm not going to forget where I came from, absolutely, in the streets fighting for those things, because it takes both those fights. Electoral politics is just one facet of that struggle. If we need anything, we have to fight for it. That's the only way things have ever really been done. Having somebody on the inside certainly helps, but also not forgetting that it's a popular movement.

It's so rare that a self-avowed socialist, or even a really outspoken leftist, gets elected. But what so often happens next is that they assimilate into the neoliberal culture of the moment, and there's not a lot of movement in that movement.

I just can't really see myself becoming a part of that. It felt very weird to be even at city hall yesterday. It’s gonna be something that I have to adjust to. But I also understand that there's not a lot that can be done in these 18 months, that it's a foot in the door to really get a progressive council in 2026. It’s gonna be a steep learning curve, for sure. And it's an intimidating place. You know, city hall is a colonial instrument of power, and I have to constantly remind myself of that and not kind of be swept up by it.

One more, back to the long lines: Several people have pointed out that city staff never really had to defend their reason for cutting election workers by 62 per cent because councillors never really pushed them on it during the meeting. I think a lot of voters are annoyed by that. Is that something that maybe even that level of disagreeability we can expect from the “Grill Ken Sim” candidate?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. We're going to make sure that never happens again.