The Case for Abolition

Why we believe the Islands Trust's planning authority should be returned to accountable, general-purpose local government.

The Islands Trust is a regional land-use authority layered on top of the regional districts that already provide local government to the Gulf Islands. Its statutory mandate is to "preserve and protect" the Trust Area[1] — and it restricts where islanders can build and whether they can offer short-term rentals, backed by the enforcement and penalty powers documented across this site.

Islanders elect local trustees — but islanders never voted to create this regime. It was imposed by the province in 1974, and its founding structure placed a provincially appointed majority of general trustees over the islands.[2]

Our position is straightforward: planning authority belongs with accountable, general-purpose local government — not a separate, single-purpose body whose statutory object elevates one goal over all the competing needs of the people who live here, and whose decision-making, as the examples we document show, has been inconsistent from island to island and over time.

Sign the petition. Join the campaign. Help us document every example.

References

  1. Islands Trust — Overview ("preserve and protect" mandate) ↩
  2. BC Legislature Hansard, May 28, 1974 — Islands Trust Act debate (founding structure: elected local trustees, appointed general trustees) ↩