Bob Mackin
A last-ditch effort for oversight of Vancouver city hall’s FIFA World Cup 26 planning failed at a Vancouver city council committee meeting on Feb. 25, when Mayor Ken Sim used his ABC majority to say it was too late.
Coun. Rebecca Bligh, a former ABC member who wants to defeat Sim in the October civic election, and COPE Coun. Sean Orr unsuccessfully proposed the FIFA Public Safety and Local Readiness Working Group to the Standing Committee on Policy and Strategic Priorities.
Coun. Rebecca Bligh at the Feb. 25, 2026 council meeting. (City of Vancouver/YouTube)
Bligh said it was not about creating another layer of bureaucracy. She wanted to get all security and safety management partners together with business improvement associations, hospitality organizations and community stakeholders to ensure the event succeeds.
“It is about alignment, and alignment that I’m hearing does not exist,” Bligh said.
Leaders of two downtown business improvement associations — Landon Hoyt of Hastings Crossing and Elise Yurkowski of Gastown — spoke in favour of the proposal.
“While there have been periodic meetings between BIAs and the host committee, there has not yet been adequate coordination across departments, and many questions that we have in those meetings are going unanswered,” Hoyt said. “Key questions about safety resources, community communication strategies and direct support for local businesses remain unanswered.”
Chantelle Spicer of the B.C. Poverty Reduction Coalition said it took nearly two years for her group to finally meet on Feb. 21 with host city committee staff.
“It is clear that there are ways that earlier consultation and engagement with those most likely to be impacted by FIFA could have led to reduced harm,” Spicer said.
How they voted
ABC Coun. Brian Montague, a retired Vancouver Police officer, said he would have happily supported the motion had it been tabled a year or two ago. But, with 108 days until the first of seven matches at B.C. Place Stadium and the tournament-long Fan Festival at Hastings Park, staff have “absolutely no capacity to take on incremental new work.”
The motion was rejected 6-3 by Montague, Sim, Mike Klassen, Peter Meiszner, Sarah Kirby-Yung and Lenny Zhou.
Bligh, Orr and Lucy Maloney (OneCity) voted in the minority. Pete Fry (Green) and Lisa Dominato (ABC) were absent.
Anti-ICE motion melts
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim at the June 11 one-year countdown to FIFA 26. (Mackin)
At the same meeting, a rare show of dissent among the usually whipped ABC caucus.
Meeting chair Klassen deemed “out of order” the motion by mayoral candidate Fry and Orr seeking a letter to federal officials to ban U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from Vancouver during the World Cup.
“U.S. agencies have zero jurisdiction, zero authority to conduct law enforcement in Canada,” Montague said to Klassen. “The premise of the motion that U.S. enforcement will show up and be deployed is fundamentally incorrect and inaccurate.”
On Feb. 23, Sim issued a public statement that said ICE is neither legally able to operate in the city nor is it welcome. On the same day, VPD Chief Steve Rai wrote to council to call the motion fear-mongering.
“Let me be unequivocally clear: ICE is not being deployed, nor have they been invited or approved, to participate in security oversight for FIFA 2026 Vancouver,” Rai said.
Fry challenged Klassen’s decision. A two-thirds supermajority was required to debate the motion, but it fell one vote shy.
ABC’s Kirby-Yung, Dominato, Bligh, and Meiszner joined Fry, Orr and Maloney. Klassen, Montague, Sim and Zhou voted in the minority.
ICE is here
The U.S. is not among the teams drawn to play in Vancouver. It could make an appearance in one of the two knockout round matches.
U.S. Consul Gen. Shawn Crowley was at the council meeting, but did not speak.
A statement provided to theBreaker.news by the U.S. Consulate in Vancouver, on behalf of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit, said HSI agents are deployed at U.S. diplomatic missions in Canada, including Vancouver.
They do not carry firearms nor do they conduct operations in Canada. Instead, they “collaborate closely with our Canadian partners on joint criminal investigations involving narcotics, weapons smuggling, human trafficking and human smuggling. HSI also investigates child exploitation and continues to successfully identify and help rescue minor victims in both the U.S. and Canada.”
Missed opportunity
Fry and Orr could have instead called World Cup security officials to testify before council.
Less than a year before the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, the head of the RCMP-led security operation appeared at a public meeting of city council.
Bud Mercer of the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit provided an unclassified briefing on July 7, 2009, focusing on the threat of protesters to disrupt the Games.
His fear did come true when an opening night, anti-Olympics protest blocked streets and delayed the arrival of VIPs at the B.C. Place Stadium ceremony. The next morning, riot police were needed to quell the rampage by a mob of dozens of masked and hooded vandals clad in black.
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