Bob Mackin
Vancouver city councillor Sean Orr has raised more than $31,000 to pay for his defamation lawsuit against Mayor Ken Sim.
Orr, elected in 2025 for the socialist COPE party, filed the claim on March 10 in B.C. Supreme Court. He demands ABC Vancouver leader Sim pay damages for falsely and maliciously accusing him of distributing illegal drugs on Christmas Day. Sim made the allegation during a Feb. 6 meeting with Chinese-language media outlets.
“Sim used his platform and position as Mayor of the City of Vancouver to baselessly attack Orr’s integrity as a public official for his own perceived political benefit,” the claim states. “Sim’s conduct in that regard was malicious, highhanded, and callous, and has caused significant distress and harm to the plaintiff.”
COPE Coun. Sean Orr in 2025. (COPE)
Legal team
Orr has three lawyers involved: Arden Beddoes and Willam Stransky of the firm McEwan Cooper Kirkpatrick LLP are the representatives on the court filing. The third is Vyas Saran, who set-up the GoFundMe campaign. Donors of $100 each include ex-NDP MPs Libby Davies and Svend Robinson and former Vision Vancouver School Board chair Patti Bacchus.
The SueKenSim.ca domain was registered Feb. 28, the day after Sim’s awkward news conference where he didn’t directly answer questions from reporters, but mentioned 16 times that he apologized to Orr.
“To Orr’s knowledge, neither Sim nor [Coun. Lenny] Zhou have sought to retract or correct the initial publications and republications of the Feb. 6 statement or posted an apology on WeChat concerning the Feb. 6 statement, as republished in Zhou’s Feb. 19 recorded statement or otherwise,” the lawsuit said.
None of the allegations has been tested in court. Sim has 21 days to respond after he is served.
City hall demands payment
On March 5, theBreaker.news applied under the freedom of information law to city hall for a copy of the picture that Sim called the source of his mistaken allegation against Orr.
The request also seeks “related correspondence about the picture,” via email, messaging apps and SMS messages involving Sim, Zhou, chief of staff Trevor Ford and press secretary Taylor Verrall.
But, within five hours of Orr filing his lawsuit, the city’s FOI office sent an invoice for $135. It claims it will take 12 hours to locate, retrieve and produce records, then prepare them for disclosure.
The head of the public body, for the purpose of the FOI law, is Donny Van Dyk, the city manager that Sim hired last summer.
The civic election is Oct. 17.
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