Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim is planning to eliminate the city's sustainability and climate department under the guise of a push to prevent increases to property taxes in his proposed "Zero Means Zero" 2026 budget.
Canada's National Observer learned about the planned cuts from sources familiar with internal conversations; the information was then corroborated by opposition city councillor Pete Fry. Opposition councillor Lucy Maloney confirmed that council had received a proposal for cuts to the city's planning, urban design and sustainability departments but no further details. Under the alleged proposal, Vancouver would gut its entire sustainability and climate team and move staff to other departments, lay them off or see some quit outright.
Critics warn the decision could spell the end of Vancouver's decades-long reign as a world leader in urban climate and sustainability and imperil its environmental agenda. The city has also faced devastating climate impacts in recent years, including 117 deaths directly linked to the 2021 heat dome.
"It's 100 per cent ideologically motivated," said Fry, a councillor with the city’s Green Party. "What is incredibly frustrating about this is the lack of integrity or courage for them to come out and say what it is they're intending to do. They're trying to be sneaky with this, and it will blow up in their face."
Sim and his team have been unusually spare on details about the cuts proposed in their upcoming budget, Fry said.
Typically the mayor's office gives councillors a detailed budget proposal outlining specific cuts before they vote on it. This time, they have made public a 20 page document with broad outlines of their spending plan but offered few details. The document does not spell out any plan to cut the sustainability department. A spokesperson for the city said in a statement in response to questions from Canada’s National Observer that it is "in the early stages” of budget planning.
“No staffing or organizational decisions have been made, and it is too early to comment on specific changes. Any adjustments will follow a careful process that considers operational needs and employee impacts," the spokesperson added.
If approved, the proposed budget could eliminate nearly 400 full-time jobs and reduce funding to community services, arts and culture, real estate, planning, facilities management, finance and supply chain support. The document lumps planning, urban design and sustainability together as a line item and collectively cuts their funding by 14 per cent.
The police force is the only department to see a substantial increase in funding, receiving an extra $46.2 million.
"I'm concerned that by cutting environmental programs, we're mortgaging our future," said Lucy Maloney, a councillor with One City. That includes the city's commitment to fighting climate change, but also improving residents' ability to adapt to climate disasters like extreme heat and wildfire smoke. Some of those measures — like increasing shade and tree canopy — also have benefits like providing shaded public space.
A memo prepared by city staff last year for the mayor's office noted that investing in climate action can lead to "significant avoided costs in the future," with each dollar invested yielding a return of about $12 in cost savings. That document notes that the city allocated $79.6 million in the 2025 budget to ensure it could achieve the municipality's climate targets.
Vancouver receives significant federal funding for its climate initiatives, with the Green Municipal Fund — which is supported by Natural Resources Canada — noting it is supporting a number of sustainability-linked projects in the city. In 2023, the federal government contributed $18.9 million to the municipality's rainwater management strategy, which falls under the municipality's sustainability efforts.
"We've been the envy of so many countries in terms of having a city government that has really attracted some of the best and the brightest on sustainability," said Shauna Sylvester, founder and lead convener of Urban Climate Leadership. Eliminating the city's sustainability department — and the anti-environment agenda the decision signals — will cause a "brain drain" at the city government, she said. The City of Vancouver employs nearly 10,000 people.
Cutting the city's sustainability program could also harm its booming green jobs sector, she said. A 2024 survey by the city found Vancouver had about 64,000 green jobs — more jobs than the healthcare, utility and wholesale trade sectors combined. The city and broader region has also seen an increase in development and manufacturing of green technologies such as heat pumps and energy storage systems, according to Statistics Canada.
The construction industry has also widely supported the city's efforts to eliminate gas heating in new buildings, with dozens of businesses pushing the municipality to keep the rules after ABC councillor Brian Montague, with support from Sim, tried to pass a motion to eliminate them.
"The greenest city label has been a very good label, or brand, for Vancouver and I think you'd lose that," if the city cuts its sustainability department, said Sylvester. "Vancouver stands to lose economically. It's obviously going to lose environmentally. We're going to lose talent. And we are going to lose global position and brand."
