Bob Mackin
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim is promising to visit the People’s Republic of China if re-elected in October.
He made the announcement at the Chinese consulate’s Lunar New Year reception on Jan. 31 at the University of British Columbia.
“We intend to, after the election, do our first formal, official visit to China,” Sim said beside Coun. Lenny Zhou, who translated his speech into Mandarin.
From left: Vancouver Chief of Staff Trevor Ford, Vancouver Coun. Lenny Zhou, Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie, Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim, Acting Consul-Gen. Zeng Chi, MP Taleeb Noormohamed, NDP MLA Paul Choi and NDP interim leader Don Davies. (Credit: Dawa News/WeChat)
The trip would stop in Beijing, Shanghai and “the Greater Bay Area,” which encompasses Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau.
Sim made the announcement just over two weeks after Prime Minister Mark Carney went to Beijing and declared Canada the “strategic partner” of Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party government.
Foreign interference
Sim won by a landslide in 2022. Five months later, the Globe and Mail reported on a leak from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service that said China’s Consul-Gen. Tong Xiaoling discussed a strategy to replace Mayor Kennedy Stewart with a Chinese-Canadian candidate.
Stewart had favoured a friendship city relationship with Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
In March 2023, Sim scoffed at the newspaper report. “If there is proof of this, I’d be as mad as hell as everyone else,” he said.
Before his official campaign launch in 2021, Sim appeared with Chinese diplomats and leaders of groups that support the CCP at a Vancouver event promoting the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. It was just a week after China freed Canadian hostages Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.
The Jan. 28, 2025-released final report of the Hogue Commission called China “the most active perpetrator of foreign interference targeting Canada’s democratic institutions. The PRC views Canada as a high-priority target.”
Strategic subsidy
On Feb. 4, Sim’s ABC Vancouver caucus is expected to rubber-stamp Zhou and Coun. Sarah Kirby-Young’s “Honouring the Horse: Saving Vancouver’s Iconic Lunar New Year Community Gala in Chinatown” motion.
They want to give the Chinese Benevolent Association (CBA) a “one-time extraordinary grant” up to $60,000 to hold a Year of the Horse gala banquet on Feb. 22 in the former Floata Seafood Restaurant. The Cantonese banquet hall shut down last fall due to a lease dispute with city hall, the landlord at Chinatown Plaza.
The motion also proposes a $4,490 in-kind grant for three days rent.
CBA, the Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations and the Canadian Community Service Association are the big three business and cultural coalitions in B.C. that support the Chinese consulate’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, an arm of the CCP.
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