Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim sues former chief of staff for defamation

Jon Azpiri · CBC News

· Posted: May 23, 2025 9:20 PM EDT | Last Updated: 7 hours ago

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim has filed a suit against 2 people, including his erstwhile main of staff, implicit alleged defamatory comments that claimed helium had been pulled implicit by constabulary for driving nether the power and utilized his presumption to screen it up. 

According to a announcement of civilian assertion filed successful B.C. Supreme Court Friday, governmental strategist Kareem Allam, who had worked arsenic Sim's run manager and main of staff, told Alexander Tsakumis, a section businessman who is progressive on social media, that the mayor was pulled implicit by Vancouver constabulary aft driving portion intoxicated, and officers let him go without being booked oregon cited for his actions. 

The assertion says Allam told the communicative to Tsakumis successful November 2023, little than a twelvemonth aft Allam was terminated arsenic Sim's main of staff, "with the intent that Mr. Tsakumis could people the statements to others, including connected the internet."

It alleges Allam told a subordinate of Sim's ABC Vancouver enactment that idiosyncratic successful the mayor's bureau told him that Sim had been pulled implicit by constabulary for driving nether the influence, and the mayor's bureau staffer and a VPD serviceman had "taken attraction of it."

The suit claims Tsakumis posted a connection on X connected Nov. 23, 2023, accusing the politician of driving drunk and utilizing his power to avoid consequences. 

It alleges Allam and Tsakumis made the comments "with malice, knowing them to beryllium false, oregon successful reckless disregard to the information of the statements," and they "intended and expected" that others would republish the defamatory language. 

The suit says the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner (OPCC) investigated pursuing Tsakumis's societal media post, and the VPD's main constable issued a study that concluded the OPCC probe recovered "no nonsubjective grounds of an enactment betwixt members of the VPD and [Sim]" as described successful the post.  

It said the main constable "further concluded the substance to beryllium baseless and that Mr. Tsakumis irresponsibly utilized the X.com level to dispersed a rumour communicated to him by Mr. Allam."

Speaking to CBC News Friday, Allam said he plans to "vigorously defend" himself. 

"It is simply a substance of nationalist grounds that I was not the root of these rumours," Allam said. 

A spokesperson for Sim says the politician volition not remark connected the suit but confirmed its existence.