Bob Mackin
The Mayor of Vancouver is suing his former chief of staff.
It also blames them for his ABC political party’s poor showing in the April 5 by-election, when Ralph Kaisers and Jaime Stein finished last among party affiliates. Left-wing candidates Sean Orr (COPE) and Lucy Maloney (OneCity) won the two vacant seats.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim (Mackin)
“The defamatory words, or words similar to the defamatory words, were republished anonymously in by-election flyers distributed to the voting public, in or around March and April 2025,” said Sim’s lawsuit. “This included delivery of election flyers to homes in Vancouver, which flyers included the following statement: Mayor Ken Sim had a DUl suspiciously ‘cleared’ by the VPD and subsequently poured millions of dollars into their budget, which is a major conflict of interest and likely corruption.”
Sim alleges that Allam told Tsakumis in November 2023 that Sim drove while intoxicated, had been stopped by Vancouver Police officers and let go without arrest. It alleged Allam told Tsakumis with the intention that he would publish the statements.
In a Nov. 23, 2023 post on X, formerly Twitter, Tsakumis alleged that police pulled Sim over on 4th Avenue close to his Point Grey home, but did not book him. “Why? How? If true, he should resign. Immediately.”
Sim also alleges Allam told Anne Fournier, an ABC member, in June 2024 that he received a phone call from a person in the Mayor’s Office stating Sim had been pulled over by police for driving under the influence “and that the individual in the mayor’s office and a VPD officer had taken care of it.”
In February however, the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner (OPCC) cleared Sim of the drunk driving allegations, but refused to release its report “redacted or otherwise.” OPCC said Sim was not the target of its investigation. Instead, it focused on the conduct of Vancouver Police officers.
None of the allegations has been tested in court and neither defendant has filed a formal statement of defence.
In an interview, Allam said he intends to vigorously defend himself and called Sim’s lawsuit “nothing more than a page out of Donald Trump’s book, and Vancouverites aren’t going to buy it.”
“This is nothing more than a cheap distraction by a mayor who, for the last two-and-a-half years, has failed Vancouverites at every single turn,” said Allam.
Allam managed Sim’s winning 2022 election campaign and was chief of staff until February 2023. He previously told theBreaker.news that he believes he was fired from the $150,067-a-year job for expressing concern about an alleged incident involving Sim.
Tsakumis called Sim’s lawsuit “baseless, meritless and vexatious.”
“This has nothing to do with the law, this has everything to do with Ken Sim exacting political revenge,” Tsakumis said.
“My legal team will look forward to seeing Ken Sim at trial, under oath.”
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