Minutes before its scheduled time, Sylvester’s meeting was abruptly cancelled. In fact, not only was the meeting called off; the commission itself was soon to be history.
City hall has announced that with the VEC’s dissolution, it will launch a new “business and economy office” inside the city manager’s office, and will work with Invest Vancouver, a region-wide initiative created in 2019 to attract investment to Metro Vancouver.
But Sylvester sees the value of having an arm’s-length organization like the VEC instead of folding more work into the bureaucracy of the city manager’s office.
Just as the U.S. government under President Joe Biden is moving quickly to “transition to a clean economy and set up centres in cities to advance investment in green and creative businesses, we are dismantling our competitive advantage,” Sylvester said. “I swear I must be missing something here. It just doesn’t add up.”
Sylvester was not the only one publicly questioning the decision and calling for a more thorough explanation. Several local business leaders and professionals expressed concern and shock this week in public statements on social media, especially on LinkedIn.
The city hasn’t yet confirmed the one-time costs associated with the decommission, a city spokesperson said in an emailed statement, but “financial efficiencies were a consideration contributing to this decision and the budget savings are estimated to be $2 million per year.”
Last Thursday, 13 out of the VEC’s 23 staff members and two of the three contractors were notified their jobs were being terminated as part of the VEC’s decommissioning.
The city said that some of those 15 people affected by the job cuts may remain in their roles until mid-2024 while programs are wound down, while others will leave their roles “in the coming weeks.”
James Riley, CEO of Vancouver software company Lightspark, said he believes the VEC provided a good return on investment.
“Is it penny-wise and pound-foolish?” Riley asked. “You save $2 million bucks, great. But this was something that was stimulating the economy and attracting investment.”
The VEC introduced Riley’s company to international trade commissions, investors and partner companies, he said. The VEC was instrumental in Amazon and Microsoft setting up significant offices in Vancouver, Riley said, and helped connect made-in-Vancouver tech company Hootsuite with early investors.
The VEC was a key part of efforts by Vision, the municipal party in power from 2008 to 2018, to make Vancouver a hub for clean technology and innovation. Some supporters of the VEC and the broader green technology industry are affiliated with Vision, including Sadhu Johnson, who served as city manager under Vision and now is an adviser to Lightspark, and Sylvester, a former Vision board member.
Riley hopes Vancouver’s ABC-majority council didn’t decide to wind down the VEC because it’s viewed as “a legacy of Vision,” he said.
“If it’s being squashed for political reasons, that is a major mistake.”
Riley supported Sim in last year’s election, he said, and liked ABC’s campaign messaging about promoting a vibrant, business-friendly city. That’s why, Riley said, he and others in his industry felt “blindsided” by last week’s announcement.
Sim didn’t reply to a request for comment Tuesday sent through his communications director.
“The new business office we’re setting up will allow us to have more on-the-ground, direct relationships” with both small local businesses and major players in key sectors like tech, Klassen said. “It also perhaps gives council more control … to pivot where we need to … We evaluated this is a better way to direct those millions of dollars we’re currently spending. I estimate we’ve probably spent between $25 (million) and 30 million on the VEC in the last decade or so, and we have to be careful with the taxpayers’ dollars.
“Having VEC in a separate office, run by a separate staff and kind of two steps away from what was going on at city hall, I think that was probably not the way we wanted to go forward, because we’re a very business-focused council.”
