Sam Sullivan has served in elected public office in Vancouver, British Columbia Canada. He has been the 38th Mayor of Vancouver (2006 to 2009) and a Vancouver City Councillor from 1993 to 2005. He accepted the Olympic flag at the 2006 Turin Olympics before a TV audience of 1 billion and helped prepare the city for the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. He has also served in the British Columbia Parliament as a Minister of Communities, Sports and Culture with Responsibility for Translink(2017) and as a Member of the Legislative Assembly representing Vancouver False Creek (2013 to 2020). He has served on numerous governmental committees including Chair of the Vancouver Police Board, member of the Metro Vancouver Regional District and Translink.
Sam Sullivan is the recipient of Canada’s highest civilian award, the Order of Canada on account of his work in the non-profit sector.
Sullivan founded the Sam Sullivan Disability Foundation which has raised $20 million and supported quality-of-life initiatives for 10,000 people with disabilities. He has also founded several Quality of Life non-profit societies that continue to serve people with disabilities across Canada, in the United States and elsewhere throughout the world. This includes the Disabled Sailing Association (22 Chapters) including the design, manufacture and world distribution of the Martin 16 sailboat; the BCMOS Wilderness Access Program (8 Chapters) including the co-invention, production and world sales of the Trailrider; the Tetra Society (30 Chapters) which provides voluntary assistive devices, the Vancouver Adapted Music Society and the musical group Spinal Chord (keyboards, vocals) as well as the Disabled Independent Gardeners Association.
Sullivan founded the Global Civic Policy Society. Through this he organizes seminars that encourage and prepare people for civic leadership and hosts a speaker series called the Public Salon that has been attended by over 20,000 people. He is championing the revival of the BC aboriginal trade language Chinook Wawa and has translated recordings of elders and hosted several public learning events. He organizes a group of volunteers who are transcribing handwritten documents of early Vancouver including Vancouver City Council minutes from 1886 to 1896. He has also produced over 25 videos on history and public policy issues in British Columbia which have been viewed over 1 million times.
Sullivan is an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.
Sullivan serves as Honourary Major in the BC Regiment of the Canadian Armed Forces.
