Vancouver mayor moves to abolish the city’s independently elected park board

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Vancouver’s mayor has moved to abolish Canada’s only independently elected park board, saying the only viable path forward for effective parks and recreation services is to move them under the purview of city council.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Ken Sim said he will put forward a motion next week asking the B.C. government to amend the Vancouver Charter to eliminate the requirement for such a body. It would also ask the province to ensure that no spaces designated as permanent public parks can be developed without a unanimous council vote and public referendum.

“The system is broken, and no amount of tweaking will fix it,” Mr. Sim told reporters. “The steps that we’re announcing today will allow us to manage our parks and recreation facilities more collaboratively, and in harmony with the city’s broader perspectives.”

The park board operates more than 250 parks and gardens, several golf courses and dozens of community centres with swimming pools, arenas and playing fields. But councillor and former park board commissioner Sarah Kirby-Yung, who participated in Wednesday’s news conference, said she has seen the “structural issues” of having two elected bodies in one city, citing as examples outdoor festivals for which organizers had to obtain two sets of permits, and a bike share program that required two legal agreements.

The mayor also mentioned a performance audit released by Vancouver’s independent Auditor General Mike Macdonell last month, who pointed out that the long-term strategic objectives of the park board aren’t in complete alignment with the city’s objectives.

Mr. Sim said the new streamlined governance approach will result in significant operational efficiencies, and will yield “millions” of dollars in savings that can be reinvested back into parks and recreation facilities.

Abolishing the seven-member park board was Mr. Sim’s first campaign promise during his run for mayor. He later walked that back, instead pledging to fix it from within, and his ABC party successfully fielded six park board commissioner candidates in the 2022 election.

Prior to Wednesday’s news conference, one of the commissioners, Laura Christensen, posted on the X social-media platform that she and two other colleagues were “removed” from the ABC caucus. She attached a screen shot of an e-mail from Mr. Sim’s chief of staff, Trevor Ford, telling her, Scott Jensen and Brennan Bastyovanszky that there is no need for them to attend the news conference or future transition planning meetings as they “have chosen not to support the mayor on the folding of the park board.”

Mr. Sim was accompanied Wednesday by the three other ABC commissioners: Angela Haer, Marie-Claire Howard and Jas Virdi.

Ms. Christensen told The Globe and Mail Wednesday that she was shocked to read the e-mail because it was the first she had heard on the issue.

“No one has spoken to me about abolishing the park board,” she said. “We campaigned on keeping the park board.”

Ms. Christensen added that while the board has its flaws, axing it is not the right answer. Having an independently elected governing body provides a lot of protection for Vancouver’s parks because city council has many competing priorities, she said.

Mr. Sim denied the removal of any of the ABC commissioners, but said it would not be “productive” for them to be at the news conference.

Tom Digby, the lone Green representative on the park board, lamented the potential loss of a place where “small-scale democracy” triumphs.

“It’s where they go to argue about dog parks and skateboard parks, and about the seawall getting smashed in by the rising sea level, and about pollinator corridors,” he said. If Mr. Sim “feels we don’t need that any more, then take it to a referendum.”

Aaron Jasper, who was on the park board from 2008 to 2014 and served as chair for four years, said Mr. Sim’s actions constitute a broken promise.

“A lot of people voted for change, with their fears alleviated by him making those kinds of proclamations: ‘We’re going to save it, we’re going to fix it and make it better,’” he said. “He needs to keep his word to Vancouver voters.”

Mr. Sim’s motion also calls for the creation of a working group to facilitate the transition of responsibilities from park board to city council. He estimated that it would take approximately six months for the matter to move through the legislature, before beginning work on a transition.

In recent years, the park board has debated whether to hold whales and dolphins in captivity at the local aquarium, what to do about coyotes attacking joggers at Stanley Park and whether to allow alcohol at parks and beaches.

When an otter terrorized koi at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, killing at least a half dozen of the prized carp, the park board removed the remaining fish and set a number of traps both on land and underwater in a frantic effort to capture the marauding otter.

And when homeless encampments sprawled across Vancouver parks, it became involved in one of the city’s most politically charged and intractable social ills.