It’s not often that the internal politics of the board of directors for local organizations becomes headline news.
But when it involves the board of directors for the biggest funded department (policing) in the biggest B.C. municipality (Vancouver), things become a bit different.
And so it was the last 72 hours for the Vancouver Police Board, with
the resignation of Faye Wightman and the various allegations and concerns she raised about the politicization of the board in a
series of
interviews.
Most people will view the story through the lens of whether they support Mayor Ken Sim and the increases to the city’s police budget — now more than $400 million a year — but in reality it’s three different stories.
The first is personal: Wightman accused Sim’s chief of staff Trevor Ford of attending private meetings and trying to direct changes on the board.
For his part, Ford told Metro Matters that any private meetings he attended, he was invited to by the board, and denied trying to influence the board. But it’s the
second time in two months that he’s been publicly accused of being heavy handed in private meetings, and it’s rare for political staffers to find themselves in the centre of stories.
The second story is political: Wightman argued that the board member appointed by council, Lorraine Lowe, was compromised from being independent because the organizations she runs — formerly the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden and soon the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre — are reliant on city funding, so she wouldn’t cross Sim.
“Her job needed to ensure there was a good relationship and yet she's on the police board,” said Wightman.
Lowe has certainly been
complementary of Sim, but
governments appointing supporters to boards is a longstanding — if often derided — tradition. It’s just most of those organizations don’t receive the scrutiny the VPD does.
But the third story is structural and provincial in nature: all police boards in B.C. are chaired by the local mayor, and Wightman said she came to believe that created an inherent conflict of interest for Sim that he didn’t do enough to absolve himself of.
“A police board is not to be political. It is not supposed to be driven by or in any way have politics interfere with its decision-making,” she said.
It’s why
mayors have continually asked the province to reform the Police Act to change the regulations around mayors chairing boards, and why an all-party provincial committee
made the same recommendation in 2022 (you can read the report
here).
The province hasn’t done anything about that recommendation yet, but there are plenty of people hoping they do.
After all, following this week’s stories about Wightman, Squamish Nation councillor Khelsilem
tweeted: “In an ideal world, Mayors would not chair Police Boards, and the Province would fund their budgets instead of city councils.”
One of the 53 people (as of this writing) who pressed Like?
Trevor Ford.
