Vancouver City Hall: Too Busy for Citizen Committees, but No Work for Staff?

At the Vancouver City Council meeting on December 9th, 2025, a report will be put forward proposing to cut ten out of eleven Council Advisory Committees – advisory groups consisting of members of the general public established by City Council to provide policy advice on a variety of vital subject matters. These committees include:

• 2SLGBTQ+ Advisory Committee

• Arts and Culture Advisory Committee

• Children, Youth and Families Advisory Committee

• Older Persons and Elders Advisory Committee

• Persons with Disabilities Advisory Committee

• Racial and Ethno-Cultural Equity Advisory Committee

• Renters Advisory Committee

• Transportation Advisory Committee

• Urban Indigenous Peoples’ Advisory Committee

• Vancouver Food Policy Council

• Women’s Advisory Committee

Out of the 11 Council Advisory Committees listed above, the report proposes to cut all but the Urban Indigenous Peoples’ Advisory Committee. Cutting these committees’ terms by a year is expected to save $161,100, or 0.007% of the City’s operating budget.

This report is consistent with what we have seen with Ken Sim and ABC in two ways. For one, ABC has proven that it is willing to achieve “Zero Means Zero” at all costs, even if it comes at the expense of rolling back progress for families, seniors, women, renters, transit riders, people facing food insecurity, and so on. Proposing to cut the Persons with Disabilities Advisory Committee on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities is a slap in the face to the community of people with disabilities.

For another, Ken Sim and ABC have always operated in a secretive and non-transparent manner. From the integrity commissioner’s finding that they have broken Vancouver’s code of conduct for hosting secret meetings to discuss City business, to ramming through their “Zero means Zero” budget without detailing where the cuts are coming from or listening to the profound public opposition, ABC has shown that they would rather make all the decisions in the back rooms of City Hall than in the eyes of the public. Eliminating committees makes it even easier for them to avoid scrutiny, especially ahead of a general election.

The report cites “intense Council meeting schedule […] and activities related to FIFA and the general local election” as the reason behind curtailing these committees. If City Hall is really going to be buried under a mountain of work, then why is Ken Sim and ABC firing city staff working hard to tackle important issues at the same time?

The day after the report about cutting committees was released, the Vancouver City Manager announced that 30 non-unionized staff would be fired. This is just a small fraction of the approximately 400 unionized and non-unionized positions that need to be fired in order to achieve “Zero Means Zero”. This would affect a variety of departments, such as Planning, Arts and Culture, Engineering, Finance and Supply Chain, and the Auditor General’s Office. Budget for the Buildings and Licensing department was frozen, which is effectively a cut when accounting for inflation.

City staff that are fired from these departments work on issues important to Vancouverites or the operations of the municipal government, including but not limited to public safety, safe walking and cycling infrastructure for our communities and major events like FIFA, improving public spaces and streetscapes, facilitating grants that install heat pumps to cool the homes of low-income seniors in a heat wave, providing financial and legal support to the municipal government, and so on. The work that these staff members do save lives, supports Vancouver residents and businesses, protect equity-deserving communities, and help build a more liveable city for everyone.

We should all be very worried about what the mass firing means – what it means for the City’s capacity to handle the upcoming crunch of public hearings and preparations for major event (such as FIFA), and what it means for the city’s long-term trajectory. What would our beloved city become if our public spaces and services are decimated, our neighbours can’t get around easily or safely, building permits take even longer to be processed, and City Hall operations are mired in dysfunction due to the lack of proper administrative support?

Please tell City Council how you feel about the cuts to Council Advisory Committees by either sending them a comment or requesting to speak. You can access both options from this Council agenda page. Make sure to select the proper agenda item (Dec 9 Council Meeting - Report 1: Change to Council Advisory Committees Term Dates.)

Also, stay tuned to my social media and website as we continue to break down the ramifications of “Zero Means Zero” and what we can do together to fight back for Vancouver.

Relevant News Articles:

CTV Article about the cuts to Council Advisory Committees (Dec 4th, 2025)

CTV Article about the first wave of City staff firing (Dec 4th, 2025)