We explore the various meetings, personnel and parties that overlap between Ken Sim's ABC Party and Nicola Wealth after the rezoning of Myron Manor.

The overflow room at City Hall was hot and stuffy on the evening of Friday, July 24th, where tenants and supporters of the Myron Manor Collective were corralled in to watch the rezoning hearing late into the night. We gathered in that uncomfortable room to hear part of the 13 hours of deeply personal stories, intelligent insight and words to affirm the belief that nothing good comes from destroying people’s homes for profit.

Speakers went until after 11 PM, but we often had to pause the proceedings as Vancouver City Council had a difficult time maintaining quorum on that Friday night. Different Councillors' zoom screens kept going black, as they had better things to do than listen to the truth from people who are experiencing the violence of Vancouver’s real estate market.

As a source has since told us, it turns out that at least three ABC councillors – Sarah Kirby-Yung, Mike Klassen, and Peter Meizner – were attending the Dr. Peter Centre’s annual Pride Kickoff Cocktail evening on July 24th, for a charity which provides services for people living with “HIV, hepatitis C, substance use and mental health challenges, and housing instability.” Sarah Kirby-Yung even returned to City Hall chambers wearing her cocktail dress. 

The Dr. Peter Centre, funnily enough, wrote one of a handful of letters in support of the rezoning of 75 East 8th Avenue.

The Dr. Peter Centre has benefited from charitable events and volunteer hours from Nicola Wealth and its employees. Even beyond this, Tassan Sung – wife to Nicola Wealth’s Executive Vice Chair of the Board and President of Institutional, David Sung’s – sits on the board of the Dr. Peter Centre and Dr. Peter AIDS foundation.

Ken Sim and his ABC party have acted as the servants of development since entering City Hall after getting elected, but in what places are those plans laid? When elected officials find themselves in the same rooms, sitting on the same boards, and invited to the parties, we may wonder what rubbing shoulders with Nicola Wealth and their most vocal supporters did for the vote for the demolition of Myron Manor. We won’t know what was said in those rooms, but there have been many opportunities and collegial connections between the ABC Party and Nicola Wealth.

Baby’s First Campaign Contributions

The most direct support from Nicola Wealth employees to the ABC Party comes in the form of  campaign donations. Records provided by Elections BC document that in 2021, John Nicola, the founder and former CEO of Nicola Wealth for over 30 years, donated $1200 to Ken Sim, which is the maximum legally allowable donation amount.

But the biggest Nicola Wealth supporters of Ken Sim and ABC appear to be the Sung family. From 2018 to 2022, Elections BC records show David Sung donating $4900 to Ken Sim and ABC. They also show a Tassan Sung, David’s wife, giving $2500 to ABC in 2022, and two names matching their children’s names are associated with donations totalling $5000. At the time of these donations, David and Tassan’s children were not yet teenagers.

Hopefully Councillors Kirby-Yung, Klassen, and Meizner got the chance to thank the Sung family at the Dr. Peter’s Centre Pride Event on July 24th.

A Charitable Gift to Youth in Need

Tenants of Myron Manor and their supporters were surprised to learn on the first night of the public hearing for the rezoning of 75 E 8th that one of the letters of support for Nicola Wealth’s hotel project originated from Covenant House Vancouver. This would seem to be at odds with its stated mission to support “young people, age 16–24, who are experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness, youth who are experiencing human trafficking, and youth in need.”

This letter, written by Covenant House Vancouver CEO Deb Lester, details how Nicola Wealth – and the Nicola family in particular – have helped Covenant House Vancouver. This includes financial support, volunteer hours, and John Nicola serving on their Board of Directors. Perhaps recognizing the hypocrisy of supporting unhoused youth while also supporting a rezoning proposal that is slated to destroy the homes of nearly 40 tenants including children, Lester does not offer a single word on the merits of the proposal. Instead, she provides a grovelling account of the ways that Nicola Wealth “have helped change people’s lives for the better in our city.”

How much “better” have people’s lives been under the combined influence of high-earners, capital managers like Nicola Wealth, real estate developers and Ken Sim and the ABC-dominated council? The case of Covenant House Vancouver CEO’s support of Nicola Wealth’s plans for displacing Myron Manor’s children and families points to the intriguing entanglements of municipal party politics, revolving doors across public and private sectors, and vested interests playing out even in much needed “nonprofit” programs addressing youth homelessness and economic precarity.

And given this need and the very real crises of affordable housing and tenant displacement, it remains all the more pressing that we critically query the “compassionate” collaborations between ABC politicians and nonprofits working toward contradictory ends. Notably, Sarah Kirby-Yung’s husband, Terry Yung has also sat on the Board of the Covenant House Vancouver since January 2024. Terry Tung was a longtime Vancouver Police Department officer and now NDP MLA.

On the Clock at City Hall

While there are a lot of cross-sector ties and common pastimes between the families of Nicola Wealth and members of the ABC party, we also know that they sometimes conduct meetings during work hours with Nicola Wealth associates.

ABC Councillor Mike Klassen’s publicly available calendar for March 7 2024 shows a meeting between Nicola Wealth and ABC Councillors Peter Meiszner, Mike Klassen, Lenny Zhou, and Brian Montague. And as the tenants of Myron Manor began to organize against the redevelopment of their homes, Sarah Kirby-Yung had a meeting on February 9 2026 titled “Nicola Wealth Projects Update.” 

ABC councillors have also had meetings with Sophie Perndl. Perndl has had several positions in the development industry during her career, including working for the Pooni Group for 12 years. The Pooni Group is the same real estate development company that has faced scrutiny for its financial and personal connections to Ken Sim and ABC. 

Perndl now runs her own consulting firm focused on assisting clients “navigate the complex world of development approvals.” The tenants of Myron Manor know her as the representative for Nicola Wealth who has, as a legal filing by Arvay Finlay LLP documents, made misleading claims about the rezoning process for 75 E 8th. Publicly available calendars show at least two meetings between Perndl and ABC councillors. 

There is likely no clear grounds to claim there is a conflict of interest in the vote for the rezoning of 75 East 8th Ave. But there are a series of shared events, mutual connections, and financial contributions that paint a picture of how truly close the real estate industry is to the ABC Party.

This connection becomes especially concerning when paired with, as we noted in a previous newsletter, the observation that Sarah Kirby-Yung has previously held a senior executive role with Destination Vancouver, and has attended their yearly holiday luncheon events during her City Council tenure. Destination Vancouver wrote a letter in support of the rezoning and provided one of the few public speakers to support. When pressed on her past role as a hotel lobbyist at a public hearing for another hotel development project, Kirby-Yung got defensive, stressing that “all councillors come from different walks of life.” Noted. 

On April 15, 2025, ABC voted unanimously to pass the Hotel Development Policy which allows for corporate speculators to replace rental housing with “hotels” in dozens of neighbourhoods throughout Vancouver. At the same meeting they also unanimously approved a directive to city staff to continue consulting with Destination Vancouver on zoning policy. Working with hotel lobbyists appears to be a ‘walk of life’ that Kirby-Yung is happy to continue down. 

Ken Sim and the ABC-majority City Council’s vote to rezone 75 E 8th Ave for the development of a hotel is ultimately unsurprising. ABC’s tenure has, of course, had devastating consequences for Vancouver’s working class tenants. But their actions are also deeply personal for the tenants of Myron Manor.

Legal and political institutions under capitalism work to serve the interests of those with the most money and capital. While we might expect to see these links as occurring behind-closed-doors, this investigation of ABC and Nicola Wealth reveals how they often hide in plain sight. From donating the legally maximum amount to politicians to frequenting the same charity galas, these political and financial elites continue to look out for each other’s interests. And we will continue to remind Nicola Wealth and whoever is elected at the upcoming election on October 17th that the Myron Manor Collective is HERE TO STAY.