City Coun. Sean Orr has filed a civil lawsuit against Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim over false allegations that the councillor had handed out illegal drugs.
The controversy began late last month, after a video circulated showing Coun. Lenny Zhou, making accusations that “some non-ABC councillors are drug users themselves.” He added, “On Christmas Eve, they openly distributed drugs.”
Zhou apologized for the comments, and Sim was quick to forgive, adding that Zhou had taken “responsibility for sharing information that was not accurate.”
But another video revealed that Sim himself had been the source of that information.
“We have a councillor, Sean Orr. Just this Christmas, he was handing out illegal drugs on Christmas Day to people on the streets,” said Sim — who was sitting directly next to Coun. Zhou — at a briefing in front of Chinese-language media on Feb. 6.
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Sim has been resolute in his regretting the comments, and apologized publicly and to Orr.
Orr says he doesn’t accept Sim’s apology.
In the civil claim filed March 10, the councillor says the mayor’s comments were “false and harmful to Orr’s reputation,” and Sim “acted deliberately, maliciously, and in bad faith.”
Orr is seeking general, aggravated, and punitive damages against Sim.
In an interview with CityNews, Coun. Orr says that he is going to court because the accusations have caused damage to him and his campaign.
He called the comments “a dark cloud over this election and in my life”.
“Ken Sim’s lies spread across Vancouver and its suburbs to this day, reaching potentially thousands of people in the Chinese community who have never heard his apologies and who may never even know he was lying,” Orr said.
“When I walk through my neighbourhood, or when I meet people out in the city in the community or visit City Hall, I wonder who they see, the counsellor they elected or the criminal their mayor invented. What are they thinking about me? Are they thinking I’m a criminal?”
The councillor says that the mayor did what he did to “divide,” and accused Sim of flippantly and recklessly spreading falsehoods.
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“We can’t allow elected officials to spread lies,” Orr said.
“How could the mayor of Canada’s third biggest city not appreciate that you can’t just look at a photo in passing and on that basis, accuse someone of being a drug dealer?”
UBC political scientist Stewart Prest says that the lawsuit might give Sim one strategic advantage — with the matter now before the courts, Sim can easily dodge more questions on the incident.
However, Prest shares Coun. Orr’s sentiment that Mayor Ken Sim’s accusations against Orr were meant to drive a wedge between the city’s population, and says he believes Sim should resign.
“He was doing it because he thought he could get away with it in that particular language format,” Prest claimed.
“I do think it speaks to a very cynical approach to politics. And I don’t know that Mister Sim can fully recover from this, given just the kind of meanness and political calculation on display there.”
Prest believes the incident could prove a liability for Sim’s ABC party in the upcoming municipal elections in October, adding that Sim made things worse in the days following the news of his comments by repeating the same pre-written apology numerous times when asked about the incident.
“Even among those who are broadly sympathetic to ABC and its goals, they have to be asking themselves, is this person and his limited communication skills actually the best champion for ABC heading into the election?” Prest added.
This is a developing story.
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