The Island That Left Still Gets the Bill

Bowen Island incorporated as a municipality in 1999 and runs its own planning department, yet the Islands Trust Act still compels it to levy a Trust tax its council cannot appeal. That levy has risen 52.8% in three years — and Bowen's own mayor has now put a 46-page challenge to the formula on the table.

In 1999, Bowen Island did what no other Trust island has managed: it incorporated as a municipality, took over its own land-use planning, and stopped paying for the Local Trust Committees that govern the other islands.^[1] It did not stop paying the Islands Trust.

Under section 47 of the Islands Trust Act, the province requisitions Bowen's share of the cost of Trust Council, the Executive Committee, and Islands Trust Conservancy administration, apportioned by property value across the trust area. Section 49 makes the amount "a debt due by the municipality to the government" and obliges council to levy a property tax to recover it.^[2] There is no appeal. As Bowen's then-municipal trustee Michael Kaile told residents in 2019: "Current legislation provides for no independent appeal process of the annual levy."^[3]

The bill is escalating. The Trust's own approved budgets show Bowen's levy at $391,260 in 2024/25, $460,000 in 2025/26, and $528,690 in 2026/27 — increases of 13.1, 17.6, and 14.9 per cent, or 52.8 per cent in three years.^[4][5][6] Since 2017/18, when the levy was $242,680, it has more than doubled.^[3] Over the same two recent cycles, the general levy on unincorporated islands rose 8.3 and 8.9 per cent — roughly half Bowen's pace.^[5][6] And the approved figures were the moderated ones: the January 2026 draft proposed a 32.5 per cent jump, to about $609,000, before Trust Council cut it back.^[7]

Bowen's elected officials have said what the numbers imply. "A 32 per cent tax levy from a government body approaches lunacy," Mayor Andrew Leonard said in January 2026. "In five years, we've seen the Trust's tax impact to Bowen residents nearly double."^[7] Councillor John Saunders asked the question the Trust has never structurally answered: "Are we 32 per cent better in the services we're getting?"^[7] This is not new sentiment. Council unanimously demanded a requisition review in 2019,^[3] and in the 2022 election, 78.8 per cent of Bowen voters — 1,364 to 367 — endorsed renegotiating a formula the municipality says has never been reviewed since incorporation.^[8] In February 2026, Leonard published a 46-page analysis arguing Bowen "may be paying as much as twice the amount necessary" on some items through administrative cost allocations, and council unanimously resolved to pursue the issue. His framing was careful: "The goal isn't to have Bowen residents pay less. It's to ensure they're not charged twice."^[9]

Fairness requires the other side of the ledger. Bowen's escalation is partly a Trust-wide revenue story — grant funding collapsed from roughly $429,000 to $69,000, the provincial grant has sat frozen at $180,000, and Trust Council trimmed the draft before adoption.^[6][7] Per household, the average Bowen home pays $185–195 a year, well under half the $465–470 paid on unincorporated islands, precisely because Bowen is exempt from planning costs.^[10] The Trust's CAO has said the organization is open to a formula review.^[9]

But that is the point. The one island that built its own local government still cannot see, contest, or appeal what a body it largely left charges it — and the 2026/27 budget passed 16–8 only after trustees debated refusing to pass it at all.^[11] A quarter-century without a formula review is not oversight. It is inertia with a tax number attached.