SEAN ORR’s Campaign Launch Speech

The Wise Hall - Feb 12th, 2025

I’ve been on this stage before. But this is VERY different context. Don’t worry I’m not going to shave my head or dive off it… Well maybe I will, depending on how this speech goes.

How awesome was the response by the community to rally behind the Wise Hall? This is the people's venue and THIS is the people's campaign!

The vibes are immaculate. We’ve got the real swagger!

I’m a little nervous, not gonna lie. But not as nervous as ABC and Ken Sim are right now!

Because if there’s one thing you should know about me, I won’t be intimidated by the powerful.

For example…

In 1983 the Queen visited New Westminster BC. My mom took me to see her. 5 year old Sean was confused about all the hype. When the Queen was walking towards us I ducked under the barrier and walked right up to her and asked: “What’s your name?”

Turns out her name was Elizabeth.

…In the early 2000s I was a bit of what’s known as a “culture jammer.”

I would often deface ads that I thought were problematic. One time I was walking past The Bay on the way to the Skytrain (because go transit!) and I saw an ad for Polo Ralph Lauren Cool. A cologne ad featuring a very skinny, scantily clad woman.

I took out my sharpie and added U-N to make it say “UNCOOL.”

Well, I got caught.

And I was slammed up against the glass by security guards and the first thing I said to them was “No, YOU’RE under arrest!”

I was charged with mischief, but the two security guards couldn’t prove that the window had to be replaced so it didn’t count.

In reading the decision the judge said in a very heavy Scottish accent “I think it would be decidedly UNCOOL if you were to get a criminal record over this.”

…Then there were the Olympics. I was kind of into the Situationists, (where’s Joel, he knows) and I thought I would make the whole thing about how it was a giant SPECTACLE, so I marched alongside the Black Bloc with a big sign that said “Bring Back Crystal Pepsi”.

This was funny because The Olympics were sponsored by Coke and no other competing logos were allowed anywhere near the venues. (The anarchists were not amused).

Then I was writing for a blog called Beyond Robson where I made humorous quips about the local news. But something happened. I stopped making jokes because it was no longer funny. The things I was writing about in 2005 were the exact same problems as in 2015 and now again in 2025.

My friends have been priced out. My neighbours are dying from poisoned drugs. Homelessness is increasing. Climate change is spiralling out of control with forest fires, heat domes, and record high temperatures.

We are at a pivotal time.

This political moment has been seized on by the far right and fueled by oligarchs.The thread that connects all of these problems is the disproportionate political power of the rich.

People like Elon Musk are buying off politicians to shape the world in their own image. They’re exploiting workers, driving up the costs of housing, and burning up our planet.

They are scapegoating immigrants, trans kids, and drug users. But for them, the system isn’t broken, it’s working as designed.

Our millionaire Mayor was installed by billionaire backers like Chip Wilson for a reason.

Ken Sim is in power to serve the elite.

Look, I don’t have to tell you how bad Ken Sim and ABC are… but I will!

Firing the integrity commissioner, breaking election finance rules, pausing supportive housing, removing our view cones, and trying to add gas into new buildings. He promised to rein in spending at the mayor's office but then boosted his office budget to $1.5 million, converted a meeting room at City Hall into a personal gym, He killed the living wage, he killed the renters office, he killed social housing at Little Mountain, he lied about it, and then tried to kill the parks board. He even got the beloved East Van Panto to rewrite their play!

I WILL SAY THIS… He has accomplished one thing no mayor ever has. He BOTH raised property taxes and DECREASED services!

Where did the money go?

..But it doesn’t have to be like this.

VANCOUVER DOESN’T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS.

We are ALL struggling.

Now is not the time for 'nice.' Now is the time to fight.

We have to fight for eachother, for people who are being targeted, scapegoated, or left behind.

We need to fight injustice everywhere.

We have to fight for our neighbours who are dying from poisoned drugs.

In 2024, more than six people a day in BC died from poison drugs. We know safe supply works.

SHAME on any politician who plays into this far-right hysteria blaming harm reduction for the problems caused by prohibition.

We need to fight for our neighbours who use drugs, not abandon them to die. We know how to save their lives. We need to fight for it.

We need to fight for a climate defense strategy- we need to get serious about protecting vulnerable people from heat waves, freak storms, and the climate chaos that is already here.

We need to smash our climate targets, while making people’s lives better.

We need to lead the world by example by pushing for fully funded and free public transportation that connects every corner of this city and region.

We need to fund the expansion of LENDING library systems like tool libraries and bike libraries and recycling systems like FreeGeek to minimize waste.

We need to use our voice at the city of Vancouver as an amplifier on the world stage for ecological justice, and fight like hell to move the world towards a stable climate.

We need to fight the encroaching power of the billionaires in our politics. Democracy matters.

Ken Sim’s elitist politics, his billionaire-backed politics, they don’t care about democracy.

The oligarchs don’t control our future, we control our future.

Vancouver is not just a city for the rich.

We need to take democracy back from the billionaires. We can fight back, and we can win.

Now. Housing.

In healthcare, everyone in Canada knows, if you let the free market rip, if you deregulate and let middlemen and profiteers go wild, the cost of healthcare skyrockets. In the US- I have friends in the US- if they get hurt, they don’t go to the hospital. They’re afraid of the cost of the doctor.

That’s what happens when you take an essential service and give it over to profiteers.

The same is true for housing, and it’s what's happened in Vancouver.

We have the “US Healthcare system” of housing in Vancouver.

Investors, middlemen, landowners, and profiteers are making their living stealing from us on the housing market.

They’re taking something we all need, they’re putting themselves in the middle of it with nothing but their wealth, and they are using that position to exploit us.

The housing market is not broken, it’s working as designed.

We need a public housing system in Vancouver. We need to fight for housing. Permanently affordable housing, that’s owned by the public as an asset. With shelter-rate units that can end homelessness, and affordable units for every income level.

According to the most recent census, over 2/3rds of people in Vancouver can’t afford the market rate apartments that are being built. People who love this city, our friends, are getting their rents jacked up, they’re getting robbed by their landlords, and they’re getting pushed out of town.

Vancouver doesn’t have to be like that.

Tenants are being ripped off. Tenants work all day to pay down the mortgages of their rich landlords. That’s the housing system.

They’re literally lords.

Landlords use loopholes to jack up rents and they evict people without cause. People who live in decent, affordable apartments in neighbourhoods that they love are being kicked out so their landlord can tear down the place and put up a new building with huge rents. That’s happening all down the Broadway corridor, and it’s happening all across the city.

Vancouver doesn’t have to be like that.

Homelessness is not natural. It’s created by human beings and it can be ended by human beings.

We have thousands of people who are homeless in Vancouver right now. A study from the US said that for every $100 rent goes up, homelessness increases by 7%.

The same housing system that sucks up our income to pay the mortgages of the rich makes our neighbours homeless. People sleep on the street while empty units sit above them- safety deposit boxes in the sky for the global super-rich.

Vancouver doesn’t have to be like that.

Between 2016 and 2021, Vancouver lost 47,000 units of housing with rents under $1000. When those units are lost, they don’t come back.

We need a movement to fight for permanently affordable public housing, we need to protect existing affordable stock with vacancy control, and we need to have the city buy old units and turn them to public housing with a right-of-first-refusal.

We need new legal protections for tenants against evictions and rent increases, and we need a tax on the wealthy - a MANSION tax- to have Vancouver pay their part in ending homelessness.

We need to allow all forms of housing including social housing in neighbourhoods like Shaughnessy that were established to exclude renters, exclude the poor, and exclude people of colour.

We need to orient our city around making housing affordable for people to actually live in.

We have to fight for housing.

If we fight for housing, we can win. Just yesterday in Seattle a big majority of residents voted for a ballot measure that puts a tax on big corporations to fund social housing. We can do that here too!

We can do this.

This city belongs to us. Not billionaires. Not investors.

Being in Vancouver means something to us, and we’re going to fight for it.

Vancouver is not for sale. Ken Sim, you will fail in selling us out. We will fight for housing. We will fight for justice. We will fight YOU and your billionaire friends. And we will win.

And when we win, just like 5 year old Sean, I’m going to march right up to city hall and ask the mayor: What’s your name?

AND THEN I’LL HAND HIM AN EVICTION NOTICE!

We can do this. But I need your help.

It’s not about me. It’s about us. It’s about what we can do together.

Together we can take democracy back from the billionaires.

Together we can un-rig the system.

Together we can fight for housing.

Together we can evict Ken Sim.

Together we can build the city we need. A city for everyone. Not just the rich.

Vancouver doesn’t have to be this way.

I believe in you. I believe in us. We got this.

Let’s go.