All Veto, No Toolbox: Gambier's Duplicate Government

Gambier Island, a Howe Sound community of roughly 150 year-round residents with no central road network, carries a full second layer of government — two elected trustees, Islands Trust planning staff, an Advisory Planning Commission, and provision for a Board of Variance — that holds veto power over land use but could only write letters when the island needed a dock repaired or internet delivered. Its flagship "targeted" bylaw review has run since September 2022 and was still in public consultation in mid-2026, with no adopted bylaw and a survey deadline of August 31, 2026.

Gambier Island sits in Howe Sound with around 150 long-term residents, a population that swells to more than 800 in summer as its recreational properties fill.^[1] There is no central road network; the island is reachable only by passenger ferry, water taxi, or private boat.^[1] For ordinary local services, Gambier belongs to Electoral Area F of the Sunshine Coast Regional District.^[1]

On top of that sits a second, special-purpose government. The Gambier Island Local Trust Area has its own two elected trustees — currently Joe Bernardo and Kate-Louise Stamford — operating within the Islands Trust and its planning staff.^[2] It has a working Advisory Planning Commission, whose input helped shape the current draft shoreline rules.^[3] There is provision for a Board of Variance as well: the governing framework requires local trust committees to appoint one.^[4] That is a full planning apparatus — trustees, staff, commission, board — for a year-round community of roughly 150 people.

The trustees are elected, and that matters: this is not an unaccountable body. But in 2022, both Gambier seats were filled by acclamation — Bernardo and Stamford were declared elected without a contested vote.^[5] In fairness, acclamation is a lawful election outcome, and small communities across BC struggle to field candidates under any governance structure.

What can this apparatus actually do? Its authority is land use — the power to zone, designate, and refuse. When Gambier's deteriorating New Brighton dock needed attention in 2020, the local trust committee's response took the form of advocacy letters: one from the Gambier LTC to the Sunshine Coast Regional District board on August 12, 2020, and one from Islands Trust to the provincial Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure and the federal Minister of Transport on October 2, 2020.^[6][7][8] Docks and marine infrastructure genuinely sit with regional, provincial, and federal governments, so writing rather than building is arguably the correct lane for a planning-only body — the criticism here is about mandate design, not misconduct. The same pattern held for connectivity: in November 2023 the Gambier LTC wrote to the Ministry of Forests in support of the Connected Coast Project and access to high-speed internet in the Gambier Local Trust Area — infrastructure the Trust cannot deliver itself.^[9][8]

Meanwhile, the work that is squarely the Trust's — keeping the island's land-use bylaws current — has moved slowly. The Gambier Official Community Plan and Land Use Bylaw "Targeted Review" has in-person engagement recorded since September 1, 2022, at the Gambier Island Community Hall.^[3] By mid-2026 it was still in public consultation, now focused on a draft Shoreline Development Permit Area proposal, with an online survey deadline of August 31, 2026 — nearly four years in, with no adopted bylaw yet.^[3] The review's scope also reaches onto private land: its target areas include "Forest Ecosystem Protection – Consideration of policies and regulatory tools to both encourage tree and forest ecosystems on public and private land and modernize protections."^[3] The project webpage identifies no specific documented harm — no clearing or forest-loss statistic — that necessitates new authority over private owners' trees.^[3]

Two things cut the other way. Part of the review's length reflects process the committee deliberately added: capacity funding in 2023 for Squamish Nation engagement, which produced a 2024 engagement summary — a reconciliation step, not administrative drift.^[3] And the shoreline proposal is out for public comment through three information sessions and a survey, informed by environmental best practices and the island's own Advisory Planning Commission, rather than adopted unilaterally.^[3]

The case Gambier makes is not that anyone did anything wrong. It is that a small island with no road network carries a duplicate layer of government holding hard veto power over land, while the things residents most visibly need — a dock, an internet connection — lie entirely outside its reach, and its core bylaw file has run four years without an end date. The question is not whether Gambier's trustees do their jobs; they are elected and evidently engaged. It is whether anyone designing local government today, and asking islanders first, would build this.

^1]: [Wikipedia — Gambier Island ^2]: [Islands Trust — Gambier Island Local Trust Area ^3]: [Islands Trust — Gambier Island Official Community Plan and Land Use Bylaw Targeted Review ^4]: [Islands Trust — Gambier Advisory Commissions & Board of Variance ^5]: [CivicInfo BC — Islands Trust 2022 general local election results ^6]: [Islands Trust — Gambier LTC letter to SCRD Board re: New Brighton Dock (Aug. 12, 2020) ^7]: [Islands Trust — letter to Ministers re: New Brighton dock, Gambier Island (Oct. 2, 2020) ^8]: [Islands Trust — Advocacy Letters index (Gambier) ^9]: [Islands Trust — Gambier LTC letter of support for the Connected Coast Project (Nov. 23, 2023)