A Vancouver city councillor who wanted to temporarily suspend the work of city hall’s integrity commissioner attempted Wednesday to rescind his amendment from July after citing pushback from citizens since he announced his intention.
But ABC Coun. Lenny Zhou was unable to rescind his amendment to suspend Lisa Southern’s work because he and his ABC colleagues are now the subject of a complaint from Green Party Coun. Pete Fry.
A vote on rescinding the motion would put the ABC politicians in conflict because the complaint from Fry is before Southern’s office. None of the ABC councillors, nor Fry would discuss the nature of the complaint, citing privacy reasons.
Zhou was also told by city clerk Katrina Leckovic that a motion to rescind would not be in order because Wednesday’s meeting — dubbed a special meeting and called by Mayor Ken Sim — was “an irreversible action.”
That action, or meeting, was to deal with potential amendments to the code of conduct bylaw, which Southern uses to guide her work. No action was taken on the amendments because Zhou pivoted to defer discussion until a meeting scheduled for April 2025.
An independent review, however, that examines the scope of Southern’s office is expected to happen sometime before April 2025 — but the commissioner’s work will not be suspended, as Zhou and Sim emphasized in a later interview with Glacier Media.
“We're going to let the integrity commissioner proceed as is,” the mayor said. “There's not going to be a pause or anything. So everyone can take a deep breath, and it's all good.”
During the meeting, Zhou said he heard “loud and clear” from residents that temporarily suspending or pausing Southern’s work wasn’t the right course of action.
“And I agree with them,” Zhou said.
Sim: “I echo the comments of councillor Zhou 100 per cent and I too have heard from Vancouver residents that a pause [in Southern’s work] is not something that they want.”
'Unobstructed review process'
Discussion about the integrity commissioner’s role surfaced at the July 24 meeting of council when ABC Coun. Brian Montague raised concerns about the scope of Southern’s office.
At the time, Montague pointed to Southern writing in her 2023 annual report that that the scope of her role in providing oversight of the conduct of council and advisory board members “is not always clear.”
Southern made recommendations for amendments to the code of conduct bylaw to mitigate her concerns, but they had yet to go before council for adoption or discussion.
“I'm concerned that what I feel is a fairly significant issue around scope and authority and jurisdiction raised by the integrity commissioner's office itself hasn't been addressed,” Montague said in introducing his motion for an independent review of the scope of the office.
Zhou then successfully tabled an amendment to Montague’s motion to suspend Southern’s work until the review is completed, arguing it was “best practice” to take such an approach.
“It is crucial to have an unobstructed review process,” Zhou said at the time. “Pausing ongoing investigations will prevent any potential conflicts or overlaps that might arise if the current operations of the integrity commissioner are found to be out of scope or misaligned with the best practice.”
Fry told Glacier Media after Wednesday’s meeting that he respected Zhou’s decision to attempt to rescind his amendment, saying it was a reflection of his character.
“He has a great deal of integrity, and perhaps realized it was a mistaken attempt to suspend this office,” Fry said. “I think he took a lot of personal flack for it.”
Bastyovanszky, Jensen, Ford, Grewal
What happens at the meeting in April 2025 remains an open question, with the possibility that councillors could be subject of complaints at the time, and therefore not able to vote on matters related to Southern’s office.
At the time of the July meeting there was rampant speculation via social media that ABC politicians wanted to suspend Southern’s work because she was investigating complaints against them.
Southern released an investigation report Aug. 2 that concerned two complaints from park board commissioner Brennan Bastyovanszky against Sim over park board matters.
On the same date, Southern released a separate report based on a complaint from Sim’s chief of staff Trevor Ford and the mayor’s senior advisor, David Grewal. The complaint was against Bastyovanszky and park commissioner Scott Jensen.
Bastyovanszky and Jensen were members of ABC Vancouver until Sim announced he wanted to abolish the elected park board. Both lengthy reports can be read via sections of the city’s website and park board website.
'Political or policy decisions'
In Southern’s 2023 annual report, recommendations she made for amendments to the code of conduct bylaw included modifying language related to politics.
“Our understanding is the intention of council in establishing the office was for the integrity commissioner to oversee the ethical conduct of council and advisory board members, not to scrutinize political or policy decisions,” she wrote.
Another recommendation was for council to consider the feasibility of amending the code of conduct bylaw to include “sanction provisions for reduction in remuneration and/or restriction from holding roles that enhance remuneration in appropriate circumstances” when a breach of the bylaw is found.
Southern, a lawyer, was retained in January 2022 as the city’s first-ever integrity commissioner. She then took on the same role for the park board. Her staff includes lawyers Deanna Brummitt and Michael Oland.
