A controversial motion by Vancouver’s mayor is going before city council again Thursday after dozens of registrants spoke out against it Wednesday.
Mayor Ken Sim has framed his motion on ‘Alignment with the Provincial Building Code’ as eliminating red tape and barriers to housing affordability, but critics say it will set the city back on climate policy.
Stand.Earth Climate Campaigner Sunil Singal says Sim is attempting another run at his November 2024 attempt to bring back natural gas as a heating option in new construction.
That year, 142 people showed up at City Hall to speak on the item. Ultimately, council was split five for and five against, meaning the proposal failed.
On Wednesday night, council heard from 118 people.
Singal says he suspects the motion was designed to avoid catching the public’s attention.
“This motion came just before a long weekend when people were rightly expecting that they wouldn’t have to come out and re-litigate this debate where Vancouver staff and builders and residents and health practitioners have all said that gas in buildings is not only bad for our health, it is bad for the climate,” Singal explained.
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He says using electricity instead of natural gas reduces long-term energy bills, and both the provincial and federal governments have applauded Vancouver’s 2016 move to phase out gas heating and hot water in most buildings, which came into effect March 1, 2025.
“It begs the question: if Vancouver builders, businesses, health practitioners, and thousands of residents oppose this, and the province and feds are telling the city that Motion 8 doesn’t support affordability, who is Ken Sim accountable to?”
Singal claims ABC councillors met with FortisBC lobbyists around the time council would be entitled to re-litigate the ban.
“It appears as though Ken Sim took the first opportunity he could get to try and gut the green building policies again,” said Singal.
1130 NewsRadio has reached out to the Mayor’s office for comment on critics’ claims.
Singal says Wednesday was a “highly emotional day” filled with testimony from all kinds of people.
“It’s not only climate advocates and people who are concerned about climate, but it’s people who are concerned about affordability. It’s a lot of people who are renters — half the city are renters, and they don’t get the choice of how they heat and cool their home. Many of them don’t have the current opportunity to have cooling, which heat pumps do and gas furnaces cannot do.”
Sim’s motion says, “Even modest percentage increases in construction costs can translate into significant increases in rents and home prices, particularly in a high-cost market such as Vancouver, compounding affordability challenges for residents.”
But Signal says most builders he’s heard from only want the rule to remain consistent.
If passed, the motion would direct staff to bring back a bylaw repeal report to restore “the ability of Vancouverites to choose a hot water heater replacement that best suits their needs.”
Singal says residents and council members have already been firm on the matter.
“If there are ways that the city can reduce pollution in the city that directly impacts people’s lives, they should do it,” he said.
“The good news is that it reduces our energy bills. So it’s not an affordability motion, it’s an anti-climate motion.”
Council reconvenes Thursday at 3 p.m.