Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim has publicly apologized after he alleged that an opposition city councillor publicly handed out illegal drugs.
Sim made the accusations against COPE Councillor Sean Orr in a briefing for Chinese-language reporters in the city in early February. He suggested the alleged behaviour had occurred on Christmas Day.
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Orr has denied the allegations, telling reporters he was not even in Vancouver on the date in question.
“My comments were wrong,” Sim said in front of reporters on Tuesday.
“And I do want to be very clear that was my mistake.”
He says that he apologized to Orr directly last week and wanted to extend that apology to residents, city staff, and council colleagues.
Sim also admitted that he did not verify an image he had seen that made him believe Orr was handing out drugs.
“I can tell you this has been a great learning experience for me,” Sim said.
“Two things I’ve learned here are one, making sure if photos like this come up, there’s a higher standard that must be met before you make comments. And I own that.”
The second thing Sim learned, he said, is about making mistakes.
“People make mistakes. Leaders make mistakes. I think that’s just a fact of life. However, how you deal with those mistakes after you make them, I’m here to today to own up to that mistake that I made and unreservedly apologize for it.”
The Tuesday press conference was the second time Sim directly responded to reporters’ questions on the matter.
Last Friday, Sim held an unrelated media availability, but answered all questions on the situation with the same words: “I called Sean Orr, or Coun. Orr, and I apologized for my comments.”
Orr had said last week that he was not ready to accept Sim’s apology.
Shortly after Sim’s press conference, Orr answered questions from the media at Vancouver City Hall, where he said that Sim’s apology must be followed by actions aimed at rebuilding trust.
He calls the images, which he believes could be the ones Sim mentioned, “vile, disgusting images,” and criticized the mayor’s office for hiring people who follow social media accounts that share such images.
According to Orr, he knows of one account that has shared similar images in the past.
“It got banned. It was called Vancity News 1,” Orr said.
“There is an active police file about this account, which has made death threats against me.”
He says that the images could spread that far speaks to a “toxic media in general” and thinks the development is concerning beyond its implications in Vancouver.
“It just feels like a big coordinated sort of attack. And we are seeing that across the board. We are seeing that play out across the continent in terms of these very, very organized, all far-right sort of accounts that are really sort of driving the agendas here,” Orr told reporters.
He says that voters care about this incident, and he has never seen anything like this.
“I can’t think of a time where a mayor just came out and lied about another colleague.”
He says he asked Mayor Sim where he got the image or the information from, but did not receive a response during their private conversation.
Orr also says that he is still considering pursuing legal action in this matter.
