Ken Sim's party relied on Signal messaging app, says ex-official
Investigation finds ABC politicians broke Park Board open meetings law in 2023.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim’s former campaign manager and chief of staff said the ABC Vancouver party’s reliance on a secret messaging app only accelerated after winning the 2022 election.
Kareem Allam was reacting to a Feb. 21 report by the integrity commissioner that found the six Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation commissioners elected under the ABC banner broke the open meetings law. They gathered privately for meetings in Sim’s house in February 2023 and on the Signal messaging app in May 2023 that should have been held in public.
In an interview, Allam called Signal, which allows users to automatically delete messages, the primary method of communication throughout the 2022 campaign.
“There are multiple Signal chat groups that we were using. Once elected, once sworn-in, the practice of that Signal chat group did not cease,” Allam said. “It’s become obvious now that, since my [February 2023] departure, the use of those Signal chat groups continues on.”
Allam admitted that there were at least two occasions in which he was personally aware of Signal chats used for caucus meetings in violation of the open meeting law, which originated in 1881.
Integrity commissioner Lisa Southern’s report said a meeting of four commissioners constitutes a quorum and should be held in public. She found the six commissioners and an ABC party representative used Signal to discuss park board business outside of and during park board meetings, including motions about the Stanley Park bike lane and Moberly Park upgrades.
“Messages beginning on Feb. 13, 2023, and continuing for a few days after, referred to scheduling regular sessions about a week before public Park Board meetings to ‘discuss any issues ahead of [Park Board] meetings.; The items for discussion the week before the March Park Board meeting included those that aligned with ABC campaign promises and future Park Board agenda items.”
Comm. Laura Christensen provided Southern with examples of a quorum on Signal Chat. Christensen said that the Signal Chat group was renamed ABC PB Caucus. An unnamed city councillor and unnamed member of the mayor’s political staff were removed and a different ABC representative added. The group was also used to discuss issues without involving Green Party Comm. Tom Digby, the only non-ABC politician elected in 2022.
Christensen, Brennan Bastyovanszky and Scott Jensen left ABC in December 2023 to sit as independents when Sim announced he wanted to end the elected park board.
The remaining ABC commissioners, Angela Haer, Marie-Claire Howard and Jas Virdi, did not respond to Southern’s letters. Southern was advised last September that they hired a lawyer.
When they did respond, they asked for the complaint to be dismissed. They denied breaching the open meetings principle, called the complaint out of scope and a waste of taxpayers’ money and claimed their actions were protected by Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Southern rejected their defence.
“The integrity commissioner has been the one sole and singular tool that has inflicted some modicum of recourse for the public,” Allam said. “They should have political consequences, whether now or then in the ballot box.”
ABC’s use of Signal was originally exposed by ex-commissioner Sarah Blyth-Gerszak from a seat in the public gallery at the first meeting after Sim’s bombshell announcement.
Blyth-Gerszak photographed Howard communicating, on a group called Transition Team, with Comm. Angela Haer and ABC staffer Christy Thompson.
theBreaker.news asked under the freedom of information law for copies of the Transition Team messages. The city responded Feb. 13, 2024 to say records no longer existed and, if they did, they would not be released because they did not relate to city business.
theBreaker.news complained to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) under a new section of B.C.’s public records law that includes a fine of up to $50,000 for someone convicted of wilfully concealing, destroying or altering any record to avoid complying with an FOI request.
Instead of investigating the obvious violation, OIPC investigator Ryan Graves said in November that he forwarded the complaint to the adjudication queue.
theBreaker.news is appealing.