After questioning the integrity of Vancouver’s independent integrity commissioner, ABC councillors voted Tuesday against sanctioning Mayor Ken Sim for harassing COPE Coun. Sean Orr.
Jamie Pytel, a lawyer appointed by integrity commissioner Tracey Lee Lorenson to review complaints from Orr, had called for sanctions in the form of a written apology from Sim.
Pytel’s report detailing her investigation concluded that Sim broke the city’s code of conduct for councillors and the mayor on two occasions.
According to the report, the first incident happened on April 8, 2025, when Sim held a press conference in Vancouver City Hall with representatives from local Jewish organizations and alleged Orr had made antisemitic posts on social media in 2021, before he ran for office.
The report identified a second incident on Oct. 4, 2025, when Sim posted allegations to X that Orr had attended a protest affiliated with Samidoun, a designated terrorist group in Canada. Sim’s post also called on councillors to condemn antisemitism.
Following a seven-month investigation in which Pytel, a lawyer with Kingsgate Legal, interviewed Sim and Orr and reviewed their submissions, media coverage, press releases, social media posts and an audio recording of Sim’s press conference, the final report was released in mid-May.
She found Sim had violated the city’s code of conduct by holding a press conference organized by his office regarding an issue outside of his duties as mayor.
Pytel also found Sim personally attacked Orr when he suggested Orr was antisemitic and may incite hate or violence while in office.
Pytel said Orr was not told in advance about the press conference and so he wasn’t able to be at the event to refute Sim’s characterizations.
Pytel also found Sim’s social media post was a continuation of his harassment of Orr, suggesting Orr was in favour of both antisemitism and a terrorist entity.
She answered council’s questions about the report Tuesday, after which they voted against applying sanctions to the mayor.
“The code of conduct is enforced in the public interest; it’s not personal to me,” Pytel said. “It’s part of upholding the code of office.”
Sim could have called police if Orr represented a public safety issue, she added.
Pytel also noted that Sim acknowledged in his interview that he has previously contacted the integrity commissioner’s office “when in doubt.” She wrote that Sim could have asked the commissioner if holding a press conference was an appropriate response to concerns from some members of the Jewish community that Orr was antisemitic. But he did not.
ABC's Brian Montague questions the investigation
During council’s questioning of Pytel, ABC Coun. Brian Montague, a former officer with the Vancouver Police Department, submitted motions allowing him to ask Pytel three rounds of questions about her report, instead of one.
Montague asked why Pytel did not interview witnesses, as he would have if this had been a criminal police investigation. Pytel noted in her report that interviewing witnesses was unnecessary due to the public nature of the incidents under investigation.
Montague also asked if she investigated the protest Orr attended, which Pytel stated was outside her role as investigator of a code-of-conduct complaint.
“I mentioned in my report that it’s not appropriate for me to be assessing the nature of that event, just the actions by your council members with respect to the code of conduct,” Pytel said.
Montague moved to not approve sanctions for Sim and instead receive the report as information.
“I have serious concerns about the investigation itself — I’m not even sure I should use that word anymore,” said Montague.
He criticized Pytel for not meeting council before presenting the report and not interviewing police or investigating who organized the protest Orr attended. Pytel should have reviewed other people’s video of the rally and interviewed witnesses, he said.
Pytel told council those were all outside the scope of her investigation.
Montague said: “In my experience investigations should be peer reviewed to avoid what I mentioned earlier, which is investigation bias and tunnel vision.”
His motion passed as all ABC councillors present, including Montague, Sarah Kirby-Yung, Lenny Zhou, Lisa Dominato and Peter Meiszner, voted in favour.
Couns. Orr, Pete Fry, Rebecca Bligh and Lucy Maloney voted against the motion.
In her statement before voting, Bligh pushed back on Montague’s characterization of Pytel’s investigation and accused him of the unconscious bias he pinned on Pytel.
“What I’m hearing here is there’s very strong bias towards not understanding both sides of what’s been found here,” she said.
Bligh noted Pytel, not integrity commissioner Lorenson, conducted the investigation. That was due to a change made to the commissioner’s role by the current council “because of the unhappiness with the previous process. And now it sounds like there’s unhappiness with this pro…
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