Newly elected Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»city councillors Sean Orr of COPE and Lucy Maloney of OneCity were officially sworn in Tuesday at city hall.
Orr and Maloney took the oath of office in the council chamber before family, friends and an audience that included Musqueam Indian Band Chief Wayne Sparrow, Fire Chief Karen Fry and former councillors Peter Ladner, Ellen Woodsworth and Jean Swanson.
Both councillors then participated in their first council meeting.
Their first questions concerned the city’s new hotel development policy report, which was the one major agenda item before council Tuesday morning. The topic occupied all of council’s attention until the lunch break.
Maloney requested the report be deferred to another meeting because she and Orr weren’t immediately able to view an amendment from Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung that requested several additions to the policy.
The reason: the two councillors’ email addresses hadn’t been set up yet.
“I feel ill-equipped on the spot to deal with it, and I would like this item to be deferred to a future meeting so that we have a proper chance to consider the implications,” said Maloney, whose efforts to do so failed in a 5-4 vote, despite the support of Orr and councillors Pete Fry and Rebecca Bligh.
Kirby-Yung’s amendment included adding increased height and density for future hotel developments on West Second Avenue, changes to the community amenity contributions policy for rezonings and supporting “diverse and affordable hotel options.”
'A balanced approach'
Orr and Maloney then had a brief break, where they spoke to media, before going into an in-camera meeting and resuming the public business of council in the afternoon. A public hearing was scheduled for 6 p.m.
“We've started very intensely, and I think it was a good experience,” Maloney said of her first meeting. “We're glad to be here. I know it's been a rush. We could have waited for longer to be sworn in, but we want to be able to contribute to having a balanced approach to all the issues that become come before council.”
Orr described the amount of information he’s absorbed from staff in preparing him for the job as a councillor as drinking water from a fire hose.
“I actually thought it was quite enjoyable,” he said of the morning session. “I look forward to getting more stable and figuring out the technical stuff and the procedural stuff, and just getting the ground underneath me.”
The meeting agenda included the official results of the April 5 byelection, which saw Orr top the polls with 34,448 votes and Maloney collect 33,732.
The byelection was called to fill vacancies left by Christine Boyle (who is now a BC NDP cabinet minister) and Adriane Carr (who retired to spend time with family).
Orr and Maloney join a council dominated by Mayor Ken Sim and his six ABC Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»colleagues. Fry represents the Green Party and Bligh, who was recently expelled from ABC, now serves as an independent.
Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver
The byelection was seen by many voters as an opportunity to assess Sim’s administration since his party won a landslide in the October 2022 general election. ABC’s candidates Jaime Stein and Ralph Kaisers finished a distant sixth and seventh in a 13-person race.
Sim did not attend Tuesday’s swearing-in ceremony, with the city clerk telling council that the mayor was on a leave of absence for personal reasons. Sim congratulated Orr in person April 7 at a chance meeting at city hall.
Two days later, Sim joined the Jewish Federation of Greater Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs to condemn Orr’s social media posts from 2021 and 2023 that they say were antisemitic.
Orr’s party has since issued a news release saying Sim had “cynically collaborated with this bad-faith attack based on misinformation in an attempt to divide us and distract from his own failures.”
The party described Orr as “a consistent voice of opposition to fascism, antisemitism and all manner of bigotry as part of his role as a writer, advocate and public figure in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»for over two decades.”
The party did not apologize for Orr’s posts on the X social media platform, including one from Aug. 31, 2021, in which he wrote "everyone knows Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»city planners are controlled by a secret cabal of Jews who have a bunker in the earth's core fml.”
In response, Orr posted last week that in 2021 he was being sarcastic in quoting comedian David Cross “while condemning antisemitic dogwhistle” on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“I was defending Karm Sumal [co-founder of Daily Hive] against the claim he was a ‘globalist shill,’” he wrote. “I have been outspoken over the years opposing all forms of racism including antisemitism.”
Orr said it was “unfortunate that this was taken out of context and misrepresented.”
'All Pigs Must Die'
His social media posts regarding policing have concerned the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Police Union.
Sgt. James Hubert, acting president of the union, pointed to posts Orr made before he was elected, including one in January 2021 that said, “All Pigs Must Die,” which is also the name of an American metalcore supergroup.
Orr has repeatedly referred to police as “pigs” in his posts and been public about his calls to “de-fund” the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Police Department. He has also been active in anti-poverty, anti-demoviction and pro-affordable housing protests.
Orr was one of the community members pushing back a police line on East Hastings Street in April 2023 when the city-led operation to clear sidewalks of tents and people escalated over a week.
Hubert wasn’t aware that All Pigs Must Die is a band, but doesn’t believe Orr wrote those words understanding that all readers would be aware of that. He called the post reckless and dangerous.
“I think that's probably the vast majority of the public's take [on the post] is that it is referencing basically killing police officers,” he said.
“It's pretty clear to us, and I think the public as well, that even if it was a name of a band, he's using it in sort of a sarcastic and also dangerous manner. Words matter, and clarification of your words matter.”
In recent weeks, a Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»police officer in the Downtown Eastside was set on fire and another officer was slashed in the leg. One officer had bloody saliva spit in his mouth after arresting a woman.
Policing is a challenging enough job, Hubert said, without people using words that he believes can incite violence against officers.
“I have no problem meeting with Sean Orr myself and having conversations with him and saying, ‘I get it — you don't like the police,’” he said. “But there's limits here with what you can say.”
'Absolutely willing to work with VPD'
Asked about his posts regarding policing, Orr said:
“I think you can support the VPD and defund the VPD at the same time. Defund doesn't mean abolish the VPD. In terms of what I've said politically before, yeah, I think that our budget needs to be looked at. And I think in order to fund communities properly, that we need to look at that budget for sure, but absolutely willing to work with VPD.”
On the concern from the police union about inciting violence, Orr said:
“There was some remarks when I was a private citizen, but now that I'm a councillor, things are going to be different. I'm not going to speak to any specific things. I’ve been critical of the police — absolutely. In terms of inciting violence, I think that's absurd.”
Of the 450,492 registered voters in Vancouver, 67,962 voters cast ballots in the April 5 byelection. Voter turnout was 15 per cent. The next public council meeting is April 16.
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