Ken Sim declines Pete Fry’s one-on-one debate bid on the steps of Vancouver City Hall

The Story

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim will not take part in a one-on-one debate proposed by Green mayoral candidate Pete Fry this week on the steps of City Hall, after Fry issued his challenge on Oct. 9.

Fry said in a news release that “Vancouverites deserve a mayor who shows up and answers their questions,” and asked Sim to meet him at City Hall so voters could “hear us debate our records and our plans for the next four years.”

ABC Vancouver campaign manager Trevor Ford said Sim would not participate, pointing to the mayor’s record of already taking part in six debates and forums with Fry and other candidates for mayor. Ford said Sim is focused on reaching voters in the final days of the campaign, including a phone town hall on Thursday evening focused on the public safety plebiscite.

In an interview Tuesday, Fry said he was disappointed Sim declined. He said previous debates and forums had not allowed for what he described as a healthy exchange between candidates.

Fry said he is concerned that “attack ads” from ABC are providing voters with misinformation about him and his campaign, which includes four Green council candidates. He disputed ABC’s claims, including allegations linking him to COPE Coun. Sean Orr and some controversial social media posts Orr had made before he was elected to council in the April 2025 byelection.

Fry also said he wanted the chance to “refute” “unsavoury and serious accusations” made by Sim and his team in what he described as a debate format. In his comments, he cited hearing from a person who said ABC canvassers told them Fry was distributing drugs.

The campaign dispute comes alongside legal and political tensions involving Orr. Orr is currently in a legal dispute with Sim after Sim falsely accused Orr of “handing out illegal drugs on Christmas Day to people on the streets,” a comment Sim made at a Feb. 6 news conference with Chinese-language media before later apologizing to Orr.

Sim and ABC colleagues have added two plebiscite questions to the election ballot for the Oct. 17 vote. One asks whether voters are in favour of Vancouver strengthening laws to forbid open-air hard drug use in public spaces such as heroin, meth, fentanyl and crack. The second asks whether Vancouver should formally ask the province of B.C. to convert portions of the old St. Paul’s Hospital, or another similar site, into a secure medical facility that would provide acute voluntary and 100-plus involuntary care beds for people considered a serious risk to themselves or others due to severe substance use and mental health disorders.

Fry and other non-ABC candidates said they oppose the plebiscite, arguing police already have the power to arrest people who use drugs in public. They also cited the estimated cost of $400,000 to $550,000 as another reason for opposition.

As an alternative, Fry and the Greens said their response to public safety concerns includes the creation of a CROW (Community Response Outreach Workers) Team: a new 24-hour, non-police, non-medical mobile response team intended to handle non-emergency calls involving people experiencing homelessness, street-level addiction, public intoxication and mental health crises. They also said they would create an Office of Community Safety to coordinate the city’s approach to safety across departments.

The evidence provided also includes polling snapshots and voting status heading toward the Oct. 17 election. A Leger poll reported that 23 per cent of respondents supported Fry versus 19 per cent for Sim, and a Canada Pulse Insights survey reported Fry at 28 per cent and Sim at 27 per cent. Thousands of voters have already cast ballots at advance voting stations by Oct. 17.