Vancouver Park Board seeks legal advice over dissolution motion

As the Vancouver Park Board mulls a legal challenge over the mayor's plans to dissolve the elected body mid-term, the board chair says it may be unconstitutional according to legal advice he has received.

Mayor Ken Sim announced last December that he would ask the province to get rid of the elected park board, which has existed since 1888, and transfer its responsibilities to the city.

The move prompted some of the park board commissioners elected under Sim's ABC Vancouver slate to defect and serve as Independents, with a majority of the board subsequently voting to continue their work in defiance of the mayor's plans.

While Sim's request is now under consideration by the province, the chair of the park board says that it retained an independent lawyer who advised the board it could file a constitutional challenge against Sim's decision.

"Never in Canadian history has an elected body been dissolved without something, like, replacing it," board chair Brennan Bastyovanszky told Amy Bell, guest host of CBC's On The Coast.

"And so the legal authority at the provincial level is not absolute."

The legal opinion, which was shared with CBC News by Bastyovanszky, was prepared by lawyer Elliot Holzman from the firm Martland and Saulnier.

While the park board set aside about $20,000 for legal advice, according to Bastyovanszky, he says the cost of the constitutional opinion was around $5,000.

It states that the park board may be able to argue that Sim's decision to dissolve the park board mid-term could be in violation of the Charter's protections of freedom of expression and the freedom to form associations.

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David Eby says the City of Vancouver must engage with First Nations over its plan to shift governance of parks and green spaces to city council, and must detail how the changes will affect staff.

"Abolishing an elected governing body mid-term removes [an] expressive activity, and the effect is to disenfranchise more than a hundred thousand citizens who voted in the last election for seven Parks Board Commissioners, and it disenfranchises the seven Commissioners who were elected to serve out a four-year term," reads part of the opinion.

The document also states that the park board could seek an injunction to pause any provincial legislation on the matter until after it is decided in court, potentially until the next municipal election scheduled in 2026.

Only large city with elected board

Vancouver is the only large city in Canada with a separately elected park board. 

While council is in charge of setting the parks budget and approving a capital plan, oversight of the city's 240-plus parks and dozens of recreation facilities falls to seven elected park commissioners and separate park board management. 

The province has ultimate authority over the powers granted to cities, however, and would have to amend legislation in order for Sim's request to be granted.

"What the mayor is proposing to do is a massive, massive violation of our rights," Bastyovanszky said.

The park board chair says that, depending on the nature of the proposed challenge, it could be filed by the board itself or by a Vancouver voter who feels that their rights have been violated by Sim's decision.

Over 170,000 people voted in Vancouver's municipal election in 2022.

Sim's office declined to comment when reached by CBC News. Park board commissioners allied to his ABC party and the Municipal Affairs Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.