Please Advise! Why Does Sim Want to Muzzle the Integrity Czar?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

Vancouver's ABC party is losing members. Last week, school board chair Victoria Jung resigned from the party over the issue of transparency — Jung was concerned about Mayor Ken Sim's plan to suspend the work of the city’s integrity commissioner, Lisa Southern. (A vote on the plan has now been postponed until September.)

What's behind all this?

Signed,

XYZ

Dear XYZ,

Vancouver is now about two years into the ABC regime and the mayoralty of Ken Sim. What might a mid-term report card say? We could perhaps guess the teacher's comment: “Ken does not play well with others.”

It's not just Victoria Jung who has jumped ship, of course. The ABC-dominated park board fractured over Sim's plan to disband it.

Subsequently, the integrity commissioner was asked to respond to allegations of bullying directed at Sim by park board commissioner Brennan Bastyovanszky. Through a lawyer, Sim asked Southern to dismiss the complaint. Southern declined. (But ultimately found that Sim did not breach the code of conduct bylaw.)

In another incident referred to her, Southern ruled that Sim created a “discriminatory work environment” when he refused to allow park board commissioner and new mother Laura Christensen the opportunity to participate in a meeting remotely.

All of this makes Sim's move to suspend Southern's duties seem particularly sketchy. Sim claims the move was a response to Southern's own request for clarification of her mandate, an argument that's more self-serving than an automated checkout.

Green Party Coun. Pete Fry was among those pointing out that Sim was essentially responding to a kitchen fire with a fleet of water bombers.

“To suspend ongoing investigations, I think that's a whole other level that nobody had anticipated,” Fry said.

Still, can you blame Sim? In 2022 Surrey city council suspended the work of their integrity commissioner too.

Nobody really wants an integrity commissioner. You'd be a hypocrite to say otherwise. If it's Saturday night and your friends are going clubbing, do you invite an integrity commissioner? Please. You'd wait for the integrity commissioner to use the restroom and you'd bolt. Get in, losers, we're going to Club Malfeasance!

Integrity commissioners are about as popular as fact-checkers at a Trump rally. They're the people who interrupt your fish story with the precise measurements of your fish. They're the annoying people who respond to your claims with “Actually...” Even more annoying because, unlike the online amateurs, they're usually right.

Integrity commissioners are like car passengers who pointedly remind you that your chronic inability to remember names does not qualify you to use a handicapped parking space. Bah. Who wants that?

Still, Sim's plan to suspend the integrity commissioner's work has earned him some surprising enemies.

“Freezing the work of the integrity commissioner is democratic backsliding in action,” said Carson Binda, B.C. director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “It’s shameful for the politicians to pull the plug on accountability.”

That's gotta hurt. After all Sim's ABC party has done to battle the relentless tide of bike-loving hippies, they find themselves taking fire from the right. So ungrateful.

Last year Sim hired Harrison Fleming, a communications director who had previously worked with Jason Kenney and Doug Ford. Three months later he was gone. In that role, Fleming had proved himself to be a reasonable, sober communicator in the mould of Pierre Poilievre or Nelson Muntz.

Ironically, when the mayor complained over comments OneCity Coun. Christine Boyle made about Fleming, integrity commissioner Southern backed Sim. Sim lost another commission dispute with Boyle, though, so it would be no surprise if the mayor viewed Southern and her rulings the way Scooby-Doo villains view Shaggy and his pals.

The abortive hiring of Fleming certainly seemed like a political tell. Sim gives the impression he would love to take his foot off the brake and swerve right — perhaps pull up his shirt to reveal that life-size Elon Musk tattoo.

And maybe he will, once that meddling integrity commissioner is out of the way.