A study of how the Islands Trust actually works, built from its own record.

How often do meetings go behind closed doors — and is the Trust unusually secretive?

952 of 2,265 meetings (42%)

Out of. 2,265 minutes documents, every Trust body, 2008–2026

About 4 meetings out of every 10 close their doors to the public for part of the meeting. That sounds high. But when the same count is run on three regional districts — the kind of government that would take over if the Trust were abolished — the Trust comes out at the LOW end, not the high end. Three of the four governments measured close their doors more often than the Trust does.

CRD's 45.0%, RDN's 51.3%, Cowichan's 56.1%, Bowen's 59.4% AND NOW SCRD's 88.9% all sit ABOVE the Trust's 42.0% — SIX of seven non-Trust bodies measured so far show a higher closed-session share than the Trust (CVRD's 73.1% is the seventh, no longer the highest); the Trust sits at the LOW end of this seven-jurisdiction range, not the high end, more clearly than before this pass. SCRD is now the single highest closed-session share measured anywhere in this study — higher than CVRD, which held that position through five prior comparators — and Bowen, the one comparator that is a full municipality under its own elected council rather than a regional-district committee, still sits well above the Trust too. This SUPPORTS the study's standing finding that the Trust sits at the open end of the range and every regional-district-style comparator measured runs more closed, not the reverse.

The most important caveat. RDN's and SCRD's figures both rest on corpora under two years long (RDN 2018-2019; SCRD 2024-2026, SCRD's own span even shorter and more recent) — both are the least statistically stable numbers in this row and should not be read as either jurisdiction's typical long-run rate without more years of data this pass could not acquire (a confirmed eSCRIBE-migration floor in both cases, not a fetch failure). Cowichan's own corpus, while spanning ten years overall, is MISSING 2019-2022 entirely (see ACQUISITION.md §3) — its 56.1% describes 2017-2018 and 2023-2026 only, not a continuous decade.

Sources. docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/minutes-m1b-in-camera.json (query M1b@1 lib@2026-09-03.1, computed 2026-09-03) · docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/comparator-crd-m1b-in-camera.json (query M1b@1 lib@2026-09-03.1+comparator-adapter@2, computed 2026-09-03) · docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/comparator-rdn-m1b-in-camera.json (query M1b@1 lib@2026-09-03.1+comparator-adapter@2, computed 2026-09-03) · docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/comparator-cvrd-m1b-in-camera.json (query M1b@1 lib@2026-09-03.1+comparator-adapter@1, computed 2026-09-03)

Do trustees ever vote against each other, or does the Trust just rubber-stamp things?

337 defeated (1.6%); recorded disagreement on 2.4% of votes

Out of. 21,620 recorded votes (“motions”) across 2,265 meetings

Out of every 1,000 votes the Trust takes, about 16 are defeated and about 24 show a trustee formally recorded as opposed. That is a small share. But set beside the regional district with the closest comparable minutes, it is bigger, not smaller: that comparator's minutes show a defeated vote in only 2 of every 1,000, and not one single recorded disagreement in ten years of meetings. The Trust's minutes show more visible disagreement among its own members than the comparator's do, not less.

This row has been rewritten twice as comparators were added, which is worth knowing in itself. Across seven bodies the recorded-dissent share runs: Comox Valley 0%, Sunshine Coast 1.7%, Islands Trust 2.4%, Cowichan Valley 3.5%, Capital 7.6%, Nanaimo 8.3%, Bowen Island 11.6%. The Trust sits third from the bottom: it records less visible disagreement than most comparable bodies, but not the least. Both figures below it rest on thin evidence — Comox Valley's 0% across ten years is far more likely a minute-taking convention than genuine unanimity, and Sunshine Coast's covers only 36 meetings. The sharpest single comparison is Bowen Island, the same island now governing itself, whose minutes record dissent nearly five times as often as the Trust's. An early version of this page said the Trust records MORE disagreement than its comparators; that rested on the Comox Valley figure alone and was wrong. CRD's, RDN's, Cowichan's, Bowen's and SCRD's defeated-shares (1.9%, 2.0%, 1.6%, 1.4%, 0.6%) all sit reasonably close to the Trust's own 1.6% (SCRD's is the furthest below, but still under 1 percentage point away) and are markedly higher than CVRD's 0.2%; on this specific figure, five of six non-Trust bodies look MORE like the Trust than CVRD does, the opposite of what a simple 'Trust vs everyone else' framing would predict; this table draws no evaluative conclusion from that, per rule 3, but the number itself is worth reading carefully rather than assuming the Trust is always the outlier.

The most important caveat. LTC minutes since about 2019 record 'It was MOVED and SECONDED' with no names; dissent is recorded there only as 'Trustee X opposed', so the recorded-dissent share is a floor and named-vote rates are computed for Trust Council only.

Sources. docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/minutes-m2b-throughput.json (query M2b@1 lib@2026-09-03.1, computed 2026-09-03) · docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/comparator-crd-m2b-throughput.json (query M2b@1 lib@2026-09-03.1+comparator-adapter@2, computed 2026-09-03) · docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/comparator-rdn-m2b-throughput.json (query M2b@1 lib@2026-09-03.1+comparator-adapter@2, computed 2026-09-03) · docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/comparator-cvrd-m2b-throughput.json (query M2b@1 lib@2026-09-03.1+comparator-adapter@1, computed 2026-09-03)

Do applications get stuck, coming back to meeting after meeting without a decision?

15.7% of files show up at 3 or more separate meetings

Out of. 1,538 distinct application files named in the minutes

Most applications the Trust handles — about 7 in 10 — are named in the minutes on only one or two meeting dates before they are done. About 1 in 6 keeps coming back for three meetings or more; the single longest-running file in the whole record, a Galiano rezoning, was named at 35 different meetings over more than ten years. Against the regional district comparator with a usable count, the Trust's files move through FEWER meetings before they are done, not more.

Capital and Nanaimo regional districts: not computable — 0 application-file identifiers found.

The most important caveat. This is a proxy: an appearance is any mention, not a deferral. A rezoning legitimately appears at receipt, community information meeting, public hearing, three readings and adoption (4–8 meetings); a development permit normally at one or two. Compare within a type, never across types.

Sources. docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/minutes-m2c-deferral-chains.json (query M2c@1 lib@2026-09-03.1, computed 2026-09-03) · docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/comparator-cvrd-m2c-deferral-chains.json (query M2c@1 lib@2026-09-03.1+comparator-adapter@1, computed 2026-09-03)

How long does it take a bylaw to go from first reading to becoming law?

273 days, typically

Out of. the middle value (median) of 212 Trust bylaws with both a first reading and an adoption date, out of 551 distinct bylaws seen

Half of the Trust's local bylaws that reach adoption take longer than about nine months from first reading to becoming law; half take less. Regional district comparators show much shorter medians — but this is the one measure in this study we will not let stand as a simple comparison, because it is not a fair one. See the caveat below before repeating this number against any comparator.

The most important caveat. ★ The single most important caveat on this row, carried forward from the CVRD entry and now confirmed a fifth time: none of the comparator bylaw populations is matched by subject to the Trust's. The Trust's 551 LTC bylaws are overwhelmingly OCP/zoning amendments tied to individual land-use applications. Each comparator's own bylaw count is that body's FULL output — budget, tax-rate, service-establishment, borrowing, procedure and fee bylaws mixed in with land-use rezoning bylaws. This matters MOST for Bowen of all comparators: a regional-district Board at least splits business between a Board and an electoral-area committee, but Bowen's Council IS the whole municipality — water, sewer, fire, parks, finance, personnel AND land use bylaws all pass through the same 153-bylaw count, with no land-use-only subset available to isolate; SCRD's own 31 bylaws carry the same caveat, sharpened by the same EASC-barely-publishes-minutes finding noted throughout this table (SCRD's own land-use-only committee record is too thin to isolate a land-use-only bylaw subset from). Reading any of the day-counts below as 'Bowen/SCRD approves land use N times faster than the Trust' is exactly the unfair comparison rule 3 warns against; nothing published from this table should make that claim without first isolating each comparator's own land-use (rezoning/OCP) bylaws specifically, which no pass has done yet.

Source. docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/minutes-m4a-bylaws.json (query M4a@1 lib@2026-09-03.1, computed 2026-09-03)

How long do Trust meetings actually run?

2.8 hours, typically; 26.5% run past 4 hours

Out of. 1,028 recorded meetings with a finished transcript, 2021–2026

Half of Trust meetings run under about 2 hours 48 minutes; half run longer. About 1 meeting in 4 runs past the 4-hour mark. The longest single meeting on record ran 9.41 hours. There is no published measure of "typical" meeting length for a comparable body anywhere in Canada, so this number is reported on its own, not against a benchmark.

The most important caveat. A recording is one stream file, not necessarily one meeting: Trust Council sessions span days and appear as several recordings; a meeting whose stream restarted appears as two recordings; a recording may start before call-to-order and run past adjournment.

Source. docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/transcripts-meeting-length.json (query 2026-09-03.1, computed 2026-09-03)

Who does most of the talking at a meeting?

only 30.9% of all speech is confidently tied to a named official

Out of. 2,578 hours of speech across 1,027 meetings

Of everything said at a Trust meeting, only about 3 words in 10 can be confidently pinned to a specific named trustee, chair or staff member by voice. Of that named speech, the great majority — about 9 in 10 — is trustees and the chair, not staff. The rest of all speech, about 7 words in 10, is not confidently attributed to anyone by name; most of that is the public, and officials the voice-matching system did not recognise.

The most important caveat. Public speakers are only labelled by hand (role 'public'), so 'unlabelled' contains most public speech and any official the voiceprint did not recognise.

Sources. docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/transcripts-attribution-coverage.json (query 2026-09-03.1, computed 2026-09-03) · docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/transcripts-m3a-floor-share.json (query 2026-09-03.1, computed 2026-09-03)

Do members of the public actually get to speak, and how much time do they get?

533 of 1,028 meetings (51.8%) have a findable public-comment period

Out of. 1,028 meetings with a finished transcript; 945 public-comment periods found within them

A findable public-comment period — a "town hall" or "delegations" section — turns up in about half of all meetings searched. Where one is found, it typically runs under 5 minutes and takes up about 4.2% of the whole meeting's speaking time. This is a search for the WORDS a chair uses to open public comment, not a read of the agenda, so it is a floor, not an exact count.

The most important caveat. The marker is a phrase search, not the agenda: a chair who opens town hall without one of the phrases, or with a phrase Whisper mis-heard, is missed (see marker_yield_pct); a chair mentioning 'town hall' in passing with a cue-like word can open a false span.

Source. docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/transcripts-m3c-public-participation.json (query 2026-09-03.1, computed 2026-09-03)

What does current zoning actually let someone build, island by island?

19,213 homes allowed by right; up to 26,749 counting secondary suites and similar add-ons

Out of. 18,446 of 21,521 zoned parcels (85.7%) across the twelve islands with a resolved zoning rule

This is not a measure of how the Trust behaves — it is a plain count of what its own zoning bylaws currently allow, parcel by parcel, on each of the twelve islands measured. Coverage is uneven: on Denman and Hornby, the rule is resolved for essentially every zoned parcel; on Thetis, only about 1 parcel in 17. See "what is missing and why" below for why Thetis is so low.

The most important caveat. A resolved rule is a floor, not a ceiling: several bylaws grant extra density through a map or schedule this study could not test parcel by parcel, so the true maximum on some islands is higher than the number shown here.

Source. docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/density-coverage.json

When the Trust enforces its bylaws, is it mostly about the environment, or about how people house themselves?

148 housing-related matters (19.4%) vs. 72 environmental matters (9.4%) — about 2.06× as many

Out of. 764 enforcement matters found in the minutes and transcripts, of which 502 (65.7%) could not be sorted into either category

The Trust's job, by law, is to "preserve and protect" the environment. Where this study could tell what a bylaw-enforcement matter was actually about, it was about twice as likely to be a dwelling or short-term-rental matter as an environmental one. But that "where it could tell" matters: nearly two-thirds of everything tagged as bylaw enforcement in the record could not be sorted into either bucket at all. And the Trust's own enforcement process only responds to complaints — it counts what neighbours choose to report, not what the Trust would prioritise if it went looking on its own.

The most important caveat. The Trust's own bylaw enforcement process is complaint-driven: 'with the new trust council policies and with some policies adopted by local trust committees... we're ensuring that there's a narrow focus to investigations so it's all set out in policy... and it's always been the case that we can't take a broad approach anyway, just by judicial decision... the new policies the trust council has adopted are making it clear that bylaw officers are to limit their investigations on the property to the complaint received unless... it involves... concerns about health and safety... [or] a development permit area... or set back from water.'

Source. docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/enforcement-e1-subject-mix.json (query e1-subject-mix@2026-09-03.1, computed 2026-09-03)

Withdrawn: “The Islands Trust is markedly more open than the regional district that would replace it.”

The first version of this comparison used one regional district. On that single comparator, the Trust looked far more open than the government that would replace it. Then this study measured two more regional districts. With four governments measured side by side, that conclusion does not hold up.

Caught by. Our own check, the same day: this study's own rule is to measure against more than one comparator before drawing a conclusion, and the second and third comparator changed the answer.

Source. docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/benchmark-table.json

Withdrawn: “The Hornby Island official community plan is missing from the Trust's own site.”

The link this project had on file used an older, retired Trust web address. The plan itself is live, at a renamed address, on the Trust's own site.

Caught by. Our own automated link-check, which tests every document link this project holds against the Trust's live website on a schedule.

Source. docs/a11y-audit (accessibility audit, document id 453)

Trustees talking about how the Trust itself functions

9,889 passages — not a finding, a reading list.

Out of. found by a computer word-search across 708 meetings and 35 named speakers, out of 20,774 candidate passages the search looked at

A computer program searched every meeting for named trustees and the chair talking about the Trust's own capacity, its process, its mandate, or how it is run — phrases like "we never get to" or "staff capacity" or "this process." It found 9,889 matches. That is not a finding. It is a reading list. A computer search cannot tell the difference between a trustee complaining that the Trust is broken and a trustee explaining, calmly, how a normal process works. A person has to read every one of them, in context, and sort them by hand before any number drawn from this list can be called a finding.

Source. docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/transcripts-m5a-self-assessment.json (query 2026-09-03.1, computed 2026-09-03)

A named party's enforcement matter, discussed in open session

55 cases — not a finding, a reading list.

Out of. of 77 total matches where a named party's bylaw-enforcement matter was discussed in open session; 22 of those were an application made to fix an existing enforcement problem, and are counted separately

The Trust's own enforcement policy says a complainant's information should stay confidential. A computer word-search found 55 times when a specific person's or property's bylaw-enforcement matter still came up by name in an open, public part of a meeting. That is not a finding of unfair treatment. A word-search cannot tell whether the person affected already knew, had agreed to have it discussed, or was never told at all. Every one of these 55 cases needs a person to listen to the recording before any claim is made about it.

Source. docs/trust-function-study/results/2026-09-03/fairness-f1-enforcement-open-session.json (query 2026-09-03.2, computed 2026-09-03)