Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee regular meeting, December 1, 2021

[0:00:04] Voice 23: Sir, good morning, everyone in the room, and good morning to everyone online across the

[0:00:10] Voice 23: Salish Sea.

[0:00:11] Voice 23: And that, of course, is a good reminder for all of us that we live in the Coast Salish

[0:00:17] Voice 23: Territory broadly.

[0:00:20] Voice 23: Many, many nations that have been here since the beginning of time.

[0:00:25] Voice 23: And down here in Victoria today, we're in the Lugankwin Territory, and in the Songhees

[0:00:32] Voice 23: Esquimalt lands particularly a very historic place Victoria lots of stories to tell here

[0:00:40] Voice 23: and it's an honor and privilege to be able to be here and work here and live here it's an amazing

[0:00:46] Voice 23: place with a rich history and I encourage everybody to learn more about the place that we

[0:00:53] Voice 23: live so my name of course for the public joining us electronically is Peter Luckin I'm the chair

[0:01:02] Voice 23: violence just counsel i'm just going to quickly go through my list of everybody that's here give

[0:01:09] Voice 23: us a wave we've got a very full agenda today and so want to proceed as smoothly as we can

[0:01:18] Voice 23: so i got janine dodge from main island dave maude from main island laura beshaken denman

[0:01:27] Voice 23: Michael Cale, Bowen Island, Grant Scott, Hornby, Dan Rogers, Gambier Keats, Laura Patrick, Salt Spring, myself on Thetis Island,

[0:01:39] Voice 23: Laaxon, Penelope Territory, and Sue Holland-Fance, thank you, Doug Fenton, also from Bowen Island, Doug Fenton, Thetis Island,

[0:01:51] Voice 23: found dead morrison north pender island case longer ice gabriela jane wolverton daliano

[0:01:58] Voice 23: and kate louise stanford gambier keats on the uh on online in the electronic world we have uh

[0:02:05] Voice 23: trustee peter grove salt spring island uh tim peterson um yeah thank you uh tim peterson uh

[0:02:12] Voice 23: Laskiti Island. Get my screen back here. Thank you. Alex Allen, Hornby Island,

[0:02:21] Voice 23: Tahira Rockefeller, Galeano Island, David Critchley, Denman Island, Lee Middleton,

[0:02:29] Voice 23: Saturna Island, Paul Brent, Saturna Island. You guys are sitting next door to each other. How

[0:02:34] Voice 23: handy is that? Peter Johnson, Laskiti Island, and Scott Colburn, Gabriola Island. So good morning,

[0:02:43] Voice 23: everyone. And so absent today would be Cameron Thorne, South Pender. I

[0:02:49] Voice 23: don't think so. Cameron

[0:02:51] Voice 23: Thorne, South Pender. Steve Wright, South Pender. And Ben McConkie, North Pender. If I left anybody

[0:03:01] Voice 23: out, I apologize, but I think I captured everybody. So good morning, everybody. It's great to be here

[0:03:08] Voice 23: in this hybrid meeting, seeing all of you here,

[0:03:13] Voice 23: but also seeing those that are participating electronically.

[0:03:16] Voice 23: It works.

[0:03:17] Voice 23: As the CAO said yesterday, it's a bit of a small miracle

[0:03:20] Voice 23: to pull all this technology together and make it work,

[0:03:22] Voice 23: but it is working, and there's lots of things to learn as we go.

[0:03:27] Voice 23: Two of the things to learn from yesterday,

[0:03:29] Voice 23: try to have the microphone close to you and speak clearly.

[0:03:33] Voice 23: And when I'm asking you to raise your hand and to vote,

[0:03:37] Voice 23: It has been suggested that those of you on camera,

[0:03:40] Voice 23: hold your hand up close to the camera so that we can clearly see it.

[0:03:44] Voice 23: Cause sometimes it's hard to see the hand in front of your, your body. So, um,

[0:03:48] Voice 23: that would be terrific. So if you don't mind,

[0:03:52] Voice 23: we will continue with our agenda where we left off yesterday.

[0:03:57] Voice 23: And, um, we are at item the select committee

[0:04:02] Voice 23: update, which is an item, uh,

[0:04:06] Voice 23: where am I now? Right there at item five. There is no printed material attached to this,

[0:04:17] Voice 23: but I'm going to turn to the chair of the select committee, Lee Morrison, to advise us.

[0:04:24] Voice 23: Over to you, Lee Middleton. Who did I say? Oh, that was strange.

[0:04:31] Voice 23: strange

[0:04:32] Voice 38: good

[0:04:33] Voice 23: morning everybody more coffee morning

[0:04:38] Voice 1: uh no you created a hybrid committee

[0:04:41] Voice 1: member there that um i think some people would be quite impressed with i hope but anyway thank you

[0:04:47] Voice 1: um so as as far as the uh the the the update today is brief with a an item that i've been

[0:04:55] Voice 1: asked to put out there for some discussion so firstly the progress of

[0:05:04] Voice 1: the of the governance and and management review the consultants have been hard at

[0:05:09] Voice 1: work they pretty well completed their interviews by my understanding they may

[0:05:13] Voice 1: have one or two left to conduct but they're basically entering the drafting

[0:05:20] Voice 1: phase of of their work and we learned at our last committee meeting that basically

[0:05:30] Voice 1: the the report will be ready for distribution February 1st so the timing

[0:05:38] Voice 1: was dictated previously by the select committee meeting of February 7th which

[0:05:44] Voice 1: was originally scheduled in order to give executive time to receive the

[0:05:49] Voice 1: report and then themselves place it on the agenda for the march um council meeting um but what was

[0:05:59] Voice 1: uh the discussion at our last committee meeting however it's very important that the the committee

[0:06:04] Voice 1: members not receive privileged access to the report for so firstly the committee members are

[0:06:09] Voice 1: simply the stewards of the process they're not in any way guiding the content of the review and so

[0:06:15] Voice 1: So nor did they want to be seen as receiving the report in some kind of in-camera session

[0:06:21] Voice 1: and then after that forwarding it on.

[0:06:23] Voice 1: So when the report is received, the committee wanted it to be the case that all trustees

[0:06:30] Voice 1: received the report simultaneously.

[0:06:31] Voice 1: So as soon as the consultants give the final draft February 1st, the committee wanted all

[0:06:38] Voice 1: trustees to receive the report at that time.

[0:06:41] Voice 1: So, we were going to meet in January to fine-tune some of that, and we didn't know 100% that February 1st would be the completion date we do now.

[0:06:52] Voice 1: So, we basically have a meeting in January, and then we would receive the report at our February 7th meeting.

[0:06:59] Voice 1: now it has subsequently been pointed out that what that effectively does is it

[0:07:05] Voice 1: releases the report to the public on now we know February 1st and there hadn't

[0:07:15] Voice 1: really been much discussion around what would that look like would it be

[0:07:19] Voice 1: formally introduced would it be you know just left to people people who know that

[0:07:26] Voice 1: they can look at publicly available agenda packages to to find and so several uh trustees

[0:07:32] Voice 1: have have approached uh me and i think other members of the committee over the last few weeks

[0:07:37] Voice 1: to say is there some plan around the public release of of the report um because right now

[0:07:45] Voice 1: it's sort of a default release to the public and so um what has been you know what some people i'm

[0:07:53] Voice 1: i'm just being open with with the facts of what people have brought forward because i think it's

[0:07:57] Voice 1: healthy we just have an open discussion about this um is to say can the report not be received

[0:08:04] Voice 1: by all trustees and a period where they're allowed to sort of digest and understand the material

[0:08:11] Voice 1: understand what's being recommended um or or what what the results of the review are

[0:08:17] Voice 1: have a chance to talk to the consultants who who we believe are attending the

[0:08:23] Voice 1: March Council meeting currently my belief is Marianton F. Flumian and James

[0:08:30] Voice 1: Roche will be attending the meeting in March and so that's basically I guess a

[0:08:37] Voice 1: point open for for discussion in terms of what the preference would be we would

[0:08:45] Voice 1: would obviously fine-tune this at our meeting in January, but I know that there's divergent

[0:08:52] Voice 1: opinions, and it's been suggested that trustees have a chance to be able to weigh in here and

[0:08:58] Voice 1: express their view on what might be an appropriate release, appropriate plan for release to the

[0:09:06] Voice 1: public. There's no question that the report will be released to the public. I think what's the

[0:09:11] Voice 1: the question here is is there going to be a window whereby trustees can um digest and ask questions

[0:09:17] Voice 1: of of the of the consultants prior to release so uh the two schools of thought are when trustees

[0:09:23] Voice 1: get it so does the public versus the idea that there's a period of time where trustees can learn

[0:09:29] Voice 1: the content talk about the content and question the the consultants on the content prior to its

[0:09:36] Voice 1: released to the public so um with the pleasure of the chair i'm not sure if you wanted to entertain

[0:09:44] Voice 1: discussion on that point chair or or what what your pleasure is um as we said i agreed that we

[0:09:53] Voice 1: would sort of put those facts out there and just put put the uh the point out that there there's

[0:09:58] Voice 1: maybe some divergence of opinion that we we could either talk through here or we could talk through

[0:10:04] Voice 1: at our january meeting and arrive at a conclusion to put forward for um for the public release of

[0:10:12] Voice 1: the report then so i i'm at your pleasure here chair as to how you want to proceed

[0:10:18] Voice 23: thank you lee and so perhaps it would be this would be an opportunity for uh trustees to

[0:10:23] Voice 23: perhaps ask a question or chime in on the topic that you've raised and what they uh they think

[0:10:29] Voice 23: because it would be appropriate and so if it's all right with council i'll just entertain that

[0:10:34] Voice 23: opportunity so if you can raise your hand um i'll i'll try my best to manage the speakers list better

[0:10:42] Voice 23: than i did yesterday and i see um dan rogers so far and online i'm seeing peter grove uh peter

[0:10:51] Voice 23: Mayor Johnson um okay so Dan Rogers why don't you start us off uh

[0:10:56] Voice 21: thanks uh Trustee Milton

[0:10:58] Voice 21: um and I appreciate you putting this open for discussion I actually have a question before I

[0:11:03] Voice 21: express any um views on this but my question is can you just this I'm a little confused about

[0:11:10] Voice 21: what the January 10th meeting is intended I I appreciate you guys have been uh shepherding

[0:11:16] Voice 21: the process all the way through here and i could can see that and you've met i've watched a lot of

[0:11:22] Voice 21: the meetings and you've had you've had procedural meetings where you've set out the process and how

[0:11:26] Voice 21: it's going and and that's all uh what but the the the agendas as set out in your agenda or at least

[0:11:33] Voice 21: the topic for january 10th is discussion of findings and that makes me a little concerned

[0:11:43] Voice 21: I'm concerned that the findings are going to be out there before the report is put on the table.

[0:11:49] Voice 21: And I wondered if you could provide some clarity of what that the intention of that meeting, if it was a process one, that's fine.

[0:11:56] Voice 21: But, you know, that's fine. That's what the committee is supposed to do.

[0:11:59] Voice 21: But what does discussion of findings mean? Because that sounds like the content is going to be on the table for discussion.

[0:12:06] Voice 21: So maybe you could clarify that for me, please.

[0:12:08] Voice 1: Sure. Thank you, Vice Chair Rogers. That is a good question.

[0:12:11] Voice 1: Yeah, that's sort of a holdover, I think, from where we were sort of forecasting to the future as to how the work of the consultants might occur.

[0:12:24] Voice 1: And there was basically a commitment by the consultants that there will be no surprises, no bombs, as it were,

[0:12:31] Voice 1: that this will be something that everyone can have a general sense of expectation around what they've talked to them about

[0:12:37] Voice 1: would end them and that there'll be nothing can kind of that they would give

[0:12:46] Voice 1: a general overview at the before they release the the final draft thickly

[0:12:53] Voice 1: inform really

[0:12:55] Voice 21: you're breaking up so maybe you might want odd content

[0:13:01] Voice 1: sir

[0:13:03] Voice 1: yeah

[0:13:07] Voice 23: we're only getting what you're saying there Lee perhaps you've got a

[0:13:10] Voice 23: greater traveling cost of your internet connection.

[0:13:16] Voice 1: Okay.

[0:13:17] Voice 1: Turn

[0:13:17] Voice 23: your video off.

[0:13:19] Voice 1: I'd love

[0:13:19] Voice 23: to see you, and perhaps it'll carry the audio better.

[0:13:24] Voice 23: Video off.

[0:13:24] Voice 23: Sure.

[0:13:25] Voice 1: Yeah, no problem.

[0:13:27] Voice 1: I've got monitoring tools here, and the connection shows as good at my end,

[0:13:31] Voice 1: but I will turn the video off.

[0:13:36] Voice 1: So I guess I'll make a briefer summary, basically,

[0:13:40] Voice 1: that the discussion of findings was intended to kind of preview in broad

[0:13:46] Voice 1: scope what the report would contain. As we've gone along and the consultants

[0:13:51] Voice 1: have basically come up with their their conclusions which they'll draft, we were

[0:13:59] Voice 1: clear as a committee that we obviously had no role in either shaping or

[0:14:03] Voice 1: commenting on their conclusions. It was a report that would go to trust counsel

[0:14:08] Voice 1: council and so we didn't want to have any session where it was you know could be inferred that we

[0:14:14] Voice 1: were trying to shape or or guide the conclusion so in january i don't believe that there will be

[0:14:22] Voice 1: any um

[0:14:39] Voice 23: okay yeah so turn out uh it seems in the meetings i've been in with lee he has these little

[0:14:46] Voice 23: outages and then they return here he comes okay

[0:14:52] Voice 1: i can you hear me back now i i've got signal again

[0:14:55] Voice 1: it looks like okay great yeah yeah

[0:14:57] Voice 23: 10 or 15 seconds there

[0:14:59] Voice 1: okay yeah if that happens i have

[0:15:01] Voice 1: another network i can switch to but this one has generally been okay but there may be a freighter

[0:15:06] Voice 1: the visibility is so low this morning it's impossible to see um so basically that i'll

[0:15:12] Voice 1: just jump to the conclusion i don't believe that is now relevant to our agenda on in january

[0:15:18] Voice 1: January. The consultants have their conclusions. They've not shared them. They've said their

[0:15:25] Voice 1: preference is to share them in a fully documented and evidentiary supported way, and that would

[0:15:31] Voice 1: be in the final report. So basically, you will receive the conclusions when we receive

[0:15:37] Voice 1: the conclusions as the committee members. So there will be, effectively, there'll be

[0:15:42] Voice 1: no discussion of of the findings in january i think it will simply be a procedural discussion

[0:15:48] Voice 1: now uh depending on what we talk about today um how much we need to talk about in january just

[0:15:56] Voice 1: in terms of how the report is is uh released and handed off to uh to um uh council thank you lee

[0:16:06] Voice 23: i'll go to the next speaker uh peter grove and then uh peter johnson thank

[0:16:11] Trustee Grove: you can you hear me

[0:16:12] Trustee Grove: all right yes good um two things firstly with regard to the release of the report um it

[0:16:20] Trustee Grove: absolutely must go to the trustees before it goes public and we have to be in a position to be able

[0:16:25] Trustee Grove: to answer questions um and i do appreciate the fact that it's not going to the um select committee

[0:16:31] Trustee Grove: before it goes to the trustees i think that's very healthy but um it must come to the the trustees

[0:16:37] Trustee Grove: before it goes public my other question was with regard to the interviews um who is being

[0:16:42] Trustee Grove: interviewed i know nothing about it thanks uh

[0:16:48] Voice 1: well all trustees were interviewed uh almost all i

[0:16:52] Voice 1: think that we're about to conclude that or they're about to conclude the the list of all trustees um

[0:16:58] Voice 1: and then trustees put forward a selection of individuals they felt would be uh helpful um

[0:17:05] Voice 1: or useful research contacts, and then depending on the direction of the research that the

[0:17:14] Voice 1: consultants were going, they chose from that number. I know they interviewed just a subset

[0:17:19] Voice 1: of who were provided and who they were. I don't know. I know some examples, but we don't have a

[0:17:27] Voice 1: full list.

[0:17:29] Trustee Grove: Thank you. I have not been interviewed, and I have not been asked for a list of

[0:17:34] Trustee Grove: of appropriate people to be interviewed on salt spring island i have heard second hand about

[0:17:40] Trustee Grove: people who have been asked on salt spring and i have to say they're good people people who i like

[0:17:46] Trustee Grove: but they very much represent a particular point of view um and which is worrying to me and so i'm

[0:17:54] Trustee Grove: very concerned about how you're getting your feedback and information from salt spring that's

[0:17:58] Trustee Grove: what i have to say thank you um

[0:18:01] Voice 1: without embarrassing you peter uh you have been interviewed

[0:18:05] Voice 1: the consultants interviewed you i saw the uh the that much in terms of the progress through uh

[0:18:12] Voice 1: um through the interviews of the consultants so i'm not sure what's wires across there but um

[0:18:19] Voice 1: we show that we well

[0:18:21] Trustee Grove: i'm i'm not embarrassed at all um but all i can tell you is i have

[0:18:25] Trustee Grove: absolutely no recollection of of that process however my second uh point still stands i was

[0:18:31] Trustee Grove: not asked um for suggestions as to who else might be interviewed on the island well

[0:18:37] Voice 1: like again you

[0:18:37] Voice 1: were every every trustee was sent a request to to to transmit um names for the consultants to

[0:18:46] Voice 1: consider um in their um in their um interviewing now i shouldn't maybe be so definitive i wasn't

[0:18:53] Voice 1: I didn't send the information out and I wasn't the author of it, you know, to your due respect.

[0:18:59] Voice 1: I mean, maybe you did not receive that.

[0:19:01] Voice 1: But my understanding was that all trustees did receive that request in sort of an overview of the questionnaire that they would be, that would guide the interview.

[0:19:15] Voice 1: My understanding is that went to everyone.

[0:19:17] Voice 1: Now we can check with the consultants and see if there's an error in their record that they didn't actually speak with you or didn't actually request of you contacts, but certainly the intent was that they did, and the results, there's just one trustee that their records that they've shared show that they have not currently spoken with, and I believe the interview is imminent.

[0:19:43] Voice 1: but they do show you as having been interviewed so that would obviously need to be clarified with

[0:19:50] Voice 1: them which

[0:19:51] Trustee Grove: we I would appreciate that and also to send me the results of that interview if possible

[0:19:57] Trustee Grove: thank you

[0:19:59] Voice 23: so certainly there was a sort of a self-serve option about providing that information

[0:20:06] Voice 23: and maybe that might have been done differently but certainly worthy to inquire of the consultant

[0:20:12] Voice 23: to be sure that peter was or was not interviewed um thank you peter peter johnson over to you

[0:20:18] Voice 23: i

[0:20:19] Voice 15: don't remember receiving an invitation to or a suggestion i sent people other than myself to

[0:20:25] Voice 15: be interviewed my main point is i don't think it's difficult for trustees to say

[0:20:30] Voice 15: i just received a report i've got a life other than being a trustee i'll get back to you in a

[0:20:36] Voice 15: few days after i read it so i don't see any problem with all of us receiving it at the

[0:20:41] Voice 15: the same moment the public does thank you okay

[0:20:46] Voice 23: thank you peter uh laura patrick no

[0:20:50] Trustee Patrick: uh no thank

[0:20:51] Trustee Patrick: thank you lee for your update and uh yeah no i i support uh the the trustees receiving the report

[0:20:58] Trustee Patrick: and having an opportunity to digest and and ask questions of the consultants to understand and uh

[0:21:03] Trustee Patrick: um and i did as you said that two of the consultants would be present in the meeting

[0:21:09] Trustee Patrick: but you didn't say eric vance the land use one and i know i i think that would be important that

[0:21:14] Trustee Patrick: he be included because of his expertise okay

[0:21:19] Voice 1: fair enough i'll push pass that along to to

[0:21:23] Voice 1: the consulting team that they that it's uh suggested that eric attenders as well i can't

[0:21:30] Voice 1: i think he lives in maple ridge so i don't see that as being a problem um

[0:21:36] Voice 23: the cao who's the staff

[0:21:37] Voice 23: uh representative on the committee um would like to advise us on something thank

[0:21:42] Voice 22: you mr chair as

[0:21:43] Voice 22: you're discussing how um this report will be received publicly i just want to indicate that

[0:21:48] Voice 22: we don't know the substance of the uh outcomes and we don't know whether there's any discussion

[0:21:54] Voice 22: around staff levels or staffing or any of those which would um i would suggest be in camera

[0:22:02] Voice 22: matters and there may not be but there may be and so i just point that out in terms of receipt if

[0:22:09] Voice 22: there was something substantial around that that is one of the means by which you go in camera to

[0:22:13] Voice 22: receive that information thank you thank you uh deb martin

[0:22:18] Voice 23: um

[0:22:19] Voice 18: can i just get a clarification on

[0:22:20] Voice 18: that so how would we like what is the process by which we would um define like receive it in a way

[0:22:27] Voice 18: that we can define if it needs to go in camera or not without having to sit on it for a week while

[0:22:32] Voice 18: we decide that and get it out to people because my concern is that we receive it in from the

[0:22:37] Voice 18: consultants we do some analysis whether it has to be in camera or not who's doing that and then how

[0:22:44] Voice 18: long that is before we actually all see it would be the the question do

[0:22:49] Voice 23: you have an answer for that

[0:22:50] Voice 23: to you

[0:22:50] Voice 22: um well you could just all receive it in camera at a trust council meeting and then uh have

[0:22:58] Voice 22: those discussions and that'll be an opportunity for trustees to review it and um the staff will

[0:23:03] Voice 22: have a chance to to review it as well and give you good advice thank you

[0:23:08] Voice 18: sorry

[0:23:09] Voice 22: so

[0:23:10] Voice 18: my follow-up

[0:23:11] Voice 18: on that would be that that that's what i would suggest because i would worry about that as well

[0:23:15] Voice 18: that we receive it in camera and and i guess it would be trust council so that we're all receiving

[0:23:20] Voice 18: it and then um then we have a chance to go over it and talk and you know yeah

[0:23:24] Voice 23: sure um so i'm just

[0:23:26] Voice 23: going to go to paul brent but just remind everybody that a motion would turn into action and then

[0:23:32] Voice 23: and indeed the desires of council

[0:23:33] Voice 23: would be expressed in that way.

[0:23:34] Voice 23: So Paul Brent over to you.

[0:23:36] Voice 27: All right, just like a little bit of clarification

[0:23:39] Voice 27: that if we discuss staff levels that has to be in camera.

[0:23:43] Voice 27: So I just wasn't aware of that,

[0:23:46] Voice 27: whether we said maybe we should increase

[0:23:49] Voice 27: the number of planning staff

[0:23:50] Voice 27: or maybe decrease the number of planning staff as trustees

[0:23:54] Voice 27: that this should, which I think I've certainly seen that

[0:23:59] Voice 27: in an open meeting.

[0:24:00] Voice 27: I just didn't realize now that a change or any discussion about staffing levels is to be in

[0:24:08] Voice 27: camera. So could I get some clarity on that so that we don't make a big mistake here?

[0:24:15] Voice 25: Sure.

[0:24:16] Voice 22: Are you prepared to respond? Yeah, I think general discussions around staffing have been

[0:24:21] Voice 22: had in public. Though I will point out that the Islands Trust is a flattened up organization that

[0:24:28] Voice 22: if you speak to it um there's some positions that are only that position and in the past um there

[0:24:36] Voice 22: have been instances where we speak about um one function or another and that would effectively

[0:24:40] Voice 22: mean that employee is retained or not retained and i don't know whether any of that's going to

[0:24:46] Voice 22: be in this report or not but um certainly it's um there are some considerations of staffing and how

[0:24:52] Voice 22: the organization's um going to function so i just i can't say all things because i don't know yet

[0:25:00] Voice 22: but certainly there's an element whereby uh some sensitivity around staff and and labor relations

[0:25:06] Voice 22: would be a part of this because it's an overall review of the of the organization okay but it's

[0:25:12] Voice 27: a discussion it's not a decision document it's a discussion document all

[0:25:18] Voice 23: right so i've got some

[0:25:19] Voice 23: more hands up i'm going to go to those that haven't spoken once already so case long rice

[0:25:23] Voice 23: Michael kale Dan Rogers and Laura Patrick okay

[0:25:28] Voice 26: I'm just trying to understand the

[0:25:30] Voice 26: issue around staffing it is a report that's gonna be a wide-ranging report on

[0:25:34] Voice 26: a lot of topics are we proposing that we go into an in-camera meeting and with in

[0:25:41] Voice 26: relationship to one aspect potentially of the report so we're going to take the

[0:25:47] Voice 26: whole report to receive it in in under the auspices of the Community Charter

[0:25:54] Voice 26: act i guess right but why do we have to have the whole report in that capacity can we not extract

[0:26:03] Voice 26: issues that are required to be uh received in confidence so i'm just i'm not clear on this

[0:26:10] Voice 26: and if we review the whole document in camera and then we provide comments

[0:26:19] Voice 26: what's the purpose of that what what would we do in march then and i'm assuming this would

[0:26:24] Voice 26: to be before March.

[0:26:26] Voice 26: Well, I think that would

[0:26:27] Voice 23: get to be...

[0:26:28] Voice 23: I'm just

[0:26:28] Voice 23: not clear on the...

[0:26:28] Voice 23: I think the

[0:26:29] Voice 26: details of that have yet to be determined.

[0:26:31] Voice 26: Yeah, the rationale for the in-camera,

[0:26:33] Voice 26: I'm not quite clear on,

[0:26:34] Voice 26: other than maybe somebody has to look at it,

[0:26:38] Voice 26: see if there's anything around that.

[0:26:40] Voice 26: I guess it's regarding...

[0:26:42] Voice 26: And then make a decision on whether it goes into camera.

[0:26:46] Voice 26: To me, it's...

[0:26:48] Voice 26: To me, it's just a report.

[0:26:50] Voice 26: I don't see why it can't go to the public

[0:26:53] Voice 26: as well as the trustees at the same time.

[0:26:54] Voice 26: And if we have a meeting and talk about it, are we going to be suggesting changes or what?

[0:27:00] Voice 26: So what's the purpose then?

[0:27:04] Voice 26: I just don't understand that.

[0:27:10] Voice 23: I would just say, and CEO, you can help me out here, that we certainly wouldn't want to really analyze or dissect the report and have that discussion within an in-camera meeting because you've asked the perfect question.

[0:27:25] Voice 23: Who's going to do that?

[0:27:26] Voice 23: There shouldn't be anybody doing that.

[0:27:27] Voice 23: That report should be received in its entirety, and I agree, should be received by Trust Council and public as close together as humanly possible.

[0:27:36] Voice 23: And personally, I would see that report coming to an in-camera session and then being, if not immediately, very briefly, shortly after, be released to the public with a press release, as opposed to being just dropped into the universe with no judgment or commentary.

[0:27:56] Voice 23: Here's the report.

[0:27:58] Voice 23: don't because you're right we need to maintain and respect the integrity of that report and

[0:28:05] Voice 23: the reporting of the consultant um but i think that there is we have no idea what's in the report

[0:28:12] Voice 23: it and we do have a responsibility to uh respect the staff and the financial integrity of the

[0:28:20] Voice 23: organization in my mind uh do you have a follow-up or ceo does that sound close enough okay thank you

[0:28:27] Voice 23: you have a follow-up otherwise i'll go to the other speakers i mean we

[0:28:30] Voice 26: hire these contractors

[0:28:32] Voice 26: and they are qualified contractors they're aware of a relationship that staffing relationships that

[0:28:39] Voice 26: absolutely might

[0:28:40] Voice 26: be impacted by a report i can't i guess maybe i'm working on faith that they will

[0:28:45] Voice 26: be cognizant of this issue in their report because they're not going to be

[0:28:50] Voice 26: writing a report that's going to identify people they said that they would make it such that it

[0:28:55] Voice 26: would not be identifiable so i i have faith in that respect

[0:28:59] Voice 23: okay um although i will say that

[0:29:02] Voice 23: in my time we often receive professional reports with errors and emissions and it's not unreasonable

[0:29:10] Voice 23: to think that that might happen in this case and i have a lot of respect and confidence in

[0:29:14] Voice 23: the consultant i can just tell you that um so my speaker's list um michael

[0:29:20] Voice 19: kale uh chair in

[0:29:22] Voice 19: In an attempt possibly to frame something that might look like a motion,

[0:29:27] Voice 19: the wording I would suggest along these lines is that the governance review report

[0:29:34] Voice 19: is received by the committee members and all trustees February 1st in confidence

[0:29:42] Voice 19: and be received in camera with the consultants at the March council meeting

[0:29:50] Voice 19: meeting, and then subsequently released within a week of that council meeting, if I may suggest.

[0:30:00] Voice 19: Yes. In the spirit of trying to be helpful, that might be an acceptable framework for for this.

[0:30:06] Voice 19: That

[0:30:06] Voice 23: is a lovely framework. But I want to ask a question is how is it that of the CEO, how is it that trustees could receive a report in confidence outside of a formal

[0:30:20] Voice 25: meeting in camera formal meeting?

[0:30:27] Voice 38: i

[0:30:36] Voice 22: haven't run into a lot of situations where you have an in-camera matter that's

[0:30:39] Voice 22: um out for an extended period of time ahead of time but i expect that it would just be

[0:30:45] Voice 22: an early preparation of an in-camera agenda for a subset you know and

[0:30:53] Voice 22: it would just be six weeks

[0:30:54] Voice 22: hence or or whatever so

[0:30:57] Voice 23: um you see that the potential is there that we wouldn't be going

[0:31:01] Voice 23: going afoul of something that might actually be viable.

[0:31:04] Voice 22: I

[0:31:04] Voice 23: don't think it would be a foul.

[0:31:05] Voice 22: You might want to contemplate,

[0:31:07] Voice 22: is it a good idea to have an in-camera matter

[0:31:11] Voice 22: in situ for six weeks or a month?

[0:31:14] Voice 22: I'm just not, I don't have a ton of experience with that.

[0:31:18] Voice 22: To be frank, so whether that's a practice

[0:31:20] Voice 22: you want to undertake or not,

[0:31:21] Voice 22: that's something for you to discuss.

[0:31:23] Voice 23: So a follow-up remark there, Michael Cahill.

[0:31:27] Voice 19: So if it's felt helpful, we put a date of February the 1st.

[0:31:31] Voice 19: If it's felt that is too long a period prior to the March meeting, I'm sure no one would object if it was two to three weeks.

[0:31:43] Voice 19: If it is felt that that shorter period might assist the issue of confidentiality or allay any concerns of confidentiality.

[0:31:53] Voice 19: I wasn't raising, I'm raising this as a framework

[0:31:57] Voice 19: for a motion in a way to bring this discussion

[0:32:00] Voice 19: to some conclusion.

[0:32:02] Voice 19: And the spirit of what I said was,

[0:32:06] Voice 19: everybody gets it, it's held,

[0:32:09] Voice 19: it's private and confidential.

[0:32:11] Voice 19: It is then as discussed,

[0:32:13] Voice 19: brought out properly at our trustees meeting

[0:32:16] Voice 19: and then subsequently released.

[0:32:18] Voice 19: Okay.

[0:32:19] Voice 19: And if a shorter period is felt advisable,

[0:32:23] Voice 19: So be it.

[0:32:24] Voice 23: Okay, so in terms of a framework,

[0:32:26] Voice 23: can I ask you to write that down, provide it to Laurie,

[0:32:30] Voice 23: and then we can get that up on the screen.

[0:32:32] Voice 23: And then while you're doing that,

[0:32:34] Voice 23: or if you just wanna talk to her and get it dictated

[0:32:37] Voice 23: or something, it's up to you.

[0:32:38] Voice 23: Laurie, what works best for you?

[0:32:40] Voice 23: I think you'd like to see it in print.

[0:32:42] Voice 19: I think with your permission, I will.

[0:32:44] Voice 19: My talking would be infinitely better than my writing.

[0:32:46] Voice 23: So are there any other thoughts on this topic here?

[0:32:49] Voice 23: I'm gonna just go over to my speakers list actually.

[0:32:51] Voice 23: I noticed another couple of hands up.

[0:32:53] Voice 23: Laura Beshek, and I'll add you.

[0:32:54] Voice 23: Dan Rogers?

[0:32:58] Voice 21: Thanks for that.

[0:33:02] Voice 21: I do agree with both Trustee Morrison and Trustee Kale on this,

[0:33:08] Voice 21: that it's a framework where we can do that.

[0:33:14] Voice 21: And, Kasey, I recall in the last select committee meeting,

[0:33:20] Voice 21: there was a question about, well, what are we going to do on February 10th?

[0:33:24] Voice 21: and there was a the commentary well we can provide some you know some clarification if there's areas

[0:33:29] Voice 21: that are confusion or or whatever in terms of that and it seems to me that should be the trustees

[0:33:34] Voice 21: doing that so i i i don't think it should be six weeks i think probably a couple of weeks and i my

[0:33:41] Voice 21: my proposal would be that we that we re we receive it we consider it in camera at the outset

[0:33:49] Voice 21: set of the march meeting like the very beginning we go in camera um instead of and and then we can

[0:33:56] Voice 21: and then it can be released once we've had a chance to discuss it with the with the consultants

[0:34:01] Voice 21: get any questions answered and it can be released almost i would think almost immediately i mean

[0:34:07] Voice 21: a week is fine but frankly by that time the staff and the trustees will have had it for a couple at

[0:34:14] Voice 21: least a couple of weeks so we should be ready to go with whatever is in there so i don't think we

[0:34:19] Voice 21: need to wait another week and i i don't want the optics to be that we're delaying the release of

[0:34:25] Voice 21: this thing i think we should get it out as soon as we can um i frankly do believe that we should

[0:34:31] Voice 21: receive it and make initially in camera because we don't know what's in it with the greatest respect

[0:34:36] Voice 21: to trustee langaris um we don't know what's there and and there could be some sensitive

[0:34:42] Voice 21: of employee or structural issues that we should think about before um and and be prepared for

[0:34:49] Voice 21: before it's released um so i sort of like the structure i would suggest that we have a provided

[0:34:57] Voice 21: to trustees perhaps by february i'm randomly picking a date the 21st that way it gets on to

[0:35:05] Voice 21: the it gets to the executive committee usually that would probably be somewhere near the end

[0:35:10] Voice 21: of february beginning of march for trust council to be put into an in-camera package and it would

[0:35:16] Voice 21: then be in the in-camera package as well but you'd already had it might have some context attached to

[0:35:21] Voice 21: it from the from the senior staff at that point about what this might mean and whether indeed

[0:35:26] Voice 21: there are any considerations around that and and then we can have our in-camera meeting at

[0:35:33] Voice 21: right at the outset of trust council in march and then come out and and have it ready to go

[0:35:38] Voice 21: and release so i think that there's a framework there that i can see working so

[0:35:43] Voice 23: thank you for

[0:35:44] Voice 23: framing that a little bit better in terms of a process that the executive committee often

[0:35:49] Voice 23: manages this meeting agenda creation i have a speaker's list um and i see that there's

[0:35:55] Voice 23: more questions that have arisen from this but we also i just want to

[0:35:59] Voice 23: this is an important conversation absolutely but i'd also like to recognize that we have a

[0:36:05] Voice 23: potential motion that's been prepared and whether or not council, you want me to continue through

[0:36:11] Voice 23: the speaker's list, which anybody can make a motion at any time. And trustee Kale has

[0:36:16] Voice 23: indicated that he has a motion. Can we just go to the motion and then we'll continue the

[0:36:21] Voice 23: conversation? Any objections? Is that an objection, Tim Peterson? No. Okay. So let's go to the motion

[0:36:34] Voice 23: and Laurie you have that you can put that up on the screen so everybody can

[0:36:38] Voice 23: see it including the electronic people and and then trustee kale I'll ask you

[0:36:45] Voice 23: to read it out are

[0:37:12] Voice 41: you able to share

[0:37:15] Voice 25: that as well

[0:37:16] Voice 38: or maybe

[0:37:25] Voice 23: somebody closer to

[0:37:26] Voice 23: the screen right there oh there you go beautiful yeah

[0:37:32] Voice 19: responding to the uh uh comments made i i think

[0:37:37] Voice 23: can you speak to the microphone as well

[0:37:39] Voice 23: sorry

[0:37:40] Voice 19: responding to the comments made we did say february the one could be substituted for

[0:37:44] Voice 19: february the 7th to shorten the time period yeah so uh maybe that could read uh it does

[0:37:52] Voice 19: um that the governance review report be received by committee members and all trustees february

[0:37:59] Voice 19: the 7th in confidence and be received in camera with the consultants at the march council meeting

[0:38:07] Voice 19: for release within a week of that march council meeting or immediately following

[0:38:14] Voice 19: it is fine. Immediately. No, immediately following. Please leave it as immediately

[0:38:21] Voice 19: following, Laurie. Thank you. Yeah.

[0:38:23] Voice 19: So I'd leave that as a standing. So

[0:38:25] Voice 23: do I have a seconder for

[0:38:26] Voice 23: Trustee Kale's motion? Anybody? Oh, Janine Dodds has got her hand up. Thank you, Janine.

[0:38:33] Voice 23: So do you wish to speak further to your motion, Trustee Kale?

[0:38:38] Voice 19: No, I think the spirit of this

[0:38:40] Voice 19: motion is to set up a framework which hopefully we can agree upon fantastic and

[0:38:47] Voice 23: trustee dodds

[0:38:48] Voice 23: is a seconder used to speak to it okay so i'm going to uh call for those that wish to speak

[0:38:54] Voice 23: to the motion and i see trustee kale

[0:38:57] Voice 21: who said oh thank

[0:39:03] Voice 23: you trustee langer eyes

[0:39:04] Voice 38: yeah yeah yeah

[0:39:06] Voice 23: i bet i'm better looking

[0:39:08] Voice 38: so

[0:39:09] Voice 23: trustee langer eyes trustee peterson trustee johnson

[0:39:13] Voice 23: Go ahead, Trustee Langerheis.

[0:39:15] Voice 26: Thank you for that.

[0:39:16] Voice 26: I'm not quite sure what is meant by in confidence.

[0:39:22] Voice 26: To me, that implies in-camera meeting.

[0:39:35] Voice 25: So let's ask the Director of Legislative Services,

[0:39:37] Voice 25: what would be the phrase that would reflect the intent?

[0:40:17] Voice 23: Is that satisfactory to the administration,

[0:40:21] Voice 23: what we've got up on the screen?

[0:40:23] Voice 23: Okay, thank you very much.

[0:40:24] Voice 23: that certainly thank you for that question uh trustee long rice uh trustee peterson

[0:40:33] Voice 28: yeah thank you chair so i i have a concern about the process that we're discussing here um

[0:40:42] Voice 28: and of course it's you know we're into hypotheticals about what may or may not be in

[0:40:47] Voice 28: in the report but my concern is that if there are things that we receive in the report in confidence

[0:40:53] Voice 28: evidence um you know it just is does that mean we're setting us up ourselves up for the

[0:41:00] Voice 28: possibility of of releasing a redacted report to the public no um because i i i have serious

[0:41:08] Voice 28: concerns about that so if that's not the case then thank you

[0:41:12] Voice 23: yeah i looked at stuff i can't see us

[0:41:16] Voice 23: possibly ever doing that yeah i'm getting confirmation over there thank you for that

[0:41:21] Voice 23: question though peter johnson to me i

[0:41:25] Voice 15: oppose this resolution to me there's no reason when we receive

[0:41:30] Voice 15: a report if it's about staffing that's not our discussions that's if somebody writes a letter

[0:41:35] Voice 15: about staffing levels that's not kept confident uh whatever the report says has to be made public and

[0:41:42] Voice 15: i don't see any advantage other than over abundance of caution and an inclination to secrecy

[0:41:49] Voice 15: to go through this process if the reports consultants feel that every second or every

[0:41:56] Voice 15: fifth staff member should be removed or the number should be doubled that has nothing to do with what

[0:42:02] Voice 15: we discuss and what we decide and i just don't see that there's any advantage and there's huge

[0:42:09] Voice 15: disadvantage to being so conservative and secretive so i'm going to vote against this

[0:42:15] Voice 15: Thank

[0:42:17] Voice 23: you, Peter Johnson. Laura Patrick and Grant Scott.

[0:42:22] Voice 23: Oh,

[0:42:23] Trustee Patrick: no, thank you, Michael. I'm very much in support of this motion.

[0:42:29] Trustee Patrick: And just on November 1 at the Select Committee, when Mr. Vance gave a highlight of his report, he said what would be in it.

[0:42:37] Trustee Patrick: One was staffing. He talked about amount, type, allocation.

[0:42:41] Trustee Patrick: So we do have an indication that it's going to be covering that.

[0:42:44] Trustee Patrick: I think it's important that we be able to understand and I think this is an opportunity

[0:42:48] Trustee Patrick: to understand what the information means and hear from the consultants that the select committee has

[0:42:53] Trustee Patrick: had more opportunity to have that interface and we have not and this gives us all equal

[0:42:57] Trustee Patrick: ground to have the information going forward so I support this motion all

[0:43:01] Voice 23: right thank you

[0:43:04] Voice 23: director trust area services do you have a remark to add from a procedural perspective go ahead

[0:43:11] Voice 17: just simply around the word immediately following if you wish to have a news release or something

[0:43:15] Voice 17: else the word immediately might raise expectations that we can't produce you know if you make a

[0:43:19] Voice 17: decision i can't we can't necessarily have a news release ready to go within hours of the meeting

[0:43:23] Voice 17: that can be challenging to achieve so just want to offer that up if that's your expectation we

[0:43:28] Voice 23: would normally have a press release associated with anything that we would send out unless there

[0:43:34] Voice 23: was some expectation that we would do it differently and i don't necessarily i would

[0:43:39] Voice 23: which suggests that there wouldn't be a qualitative measure added to that

[0:43:42] Voice 23: other than we'd be happy to receive the report.

[0:43:46] Voice 25: Okay, Grant Scott?

[0:43:49] Voice 12: Yes, I'm concerned that I'm going to get this document on February 7th,

[0:43:55] Voice 12: and I presume other people will be aware that I have that document,

[0:44:02] Voice 12: and they're going to come up to me and say,

[0:44:05] Voice 12: what's in this governance document?

[0:44:06] Voice 12: Because it's a very important document coming out from the trust,

[0:44:09] Voice 12: and I'm not allowed to say anything.

[0:44:12] Voice 12: i gotta say no i'm sorry i can't say anything to you until after the march 10th meeting so i'm

[0:44:18] Voice 12: really concerned about my position as a trustee on hornby island people coming up because this

[0:44:23] Voice 12: is a really important issue this whole governance thing so i i kind of like what what you're trying

[0:44:29] Voice 12: to do but i i don't like the idea of this conference what i would like to do i thought

[0:44:32] Voice 12: the earlier discussion i'd like to for us to get it two weeks ahead of time before it's released

[0:44:38] Voice 12: get it so I can digest it

[0:44:41] Voice 12: before it goes out to the public

[0:44:43] Voice 12: so I'll be able to answer those questions

[0:44:45] Voice 12: and at the same time it goes out to the public

[0:44:47] Voice 12: because a press release

[0:44:49] Voice 12: goes with it, boom it's gone

[0:44:50] Voice 12: but I don't get the need

[0:44:53] Voice 12: for the confidentiality

[0:44:54] Voice 12: in between there

[0:44:56] Voice 12: so I'll just leave it at that

[0:44:58] Voice 12: so I think I'm saying I'm going to

[0:45:01] Voice 12: oppose this

[0:45:02] Voice 23: Thank you Grant

[0:45:03] Voice 23: I understand your difficulty

[0:45:07] Voice 23: and if it's all right with council, I would just say that I will not comment on it to the public.

[0:45:15] Voice 23: And the reason I will not comment on the public is because if I have any misunderstandings

[0:45:20] Voice 23: of the written report before I hear from the consultant and before I hear the questions

[0:45:25] Voice 23: that you may all have, I may misinterpret it. And that would be a jeopardy.

[0:45:32] Voice 12: No, I'm assuming on the set of that first meeting, we would meet with the consultants.

[0:45:37] Voice 12: they would be there we will not meet with the consultants until march council

[0:45:41] Voice 23: that that that's

[0:45:45] Voice 23: the dilemma so thank you um i don't want to sway anybody's decision um but uh at this point uh i

[0:45:54] Voice 23: see uh trustee brent has his hand up on line there and uh and trustee middleton has his hand up

[0:46:01] Voice 23: and nobody else in the room and so then perhaps we'll go to the vote trustee brent yeah

[0:46:07] Voice 27: so i just

[0:46:07] Voice 27: Well, one of the things I noted is that there was, we were uncomfortable with the term in confidence. And yet that term is part of part of the code of conduct that we just voted to pass yesterday. So I think in confidence is pretty clear. It's in confidence. So, but I have some questions.

[0:46:29] Voice 27: do we discuss all reports that we receive if there might be some element of of impact on

[0:46:37] Voice 27: staffing in camera number one number two the stantec report which was a report in respect of

[0:46:44] Voice 27: uh our planning department had um

[0:46:48] Voice 40: i think your voice interview

[0:46:54] Voice 27: excuse me let

[0:46:56] Voice 27: me finish please

[0:46:57] Voice 27: yeah but could i please finish

[0:46:59] Voice 23: without interruption didn't hear you paul you dropped out and after you

[0:47:04] Voice 23: said stantec we didn't hear anything after that okay

[0:47:08] Voice 27: so the stantec report um i don't know if it

[0:47:12] Voice 27: was received in camera but it did talk about staffing levels and the fact that in their view

[0:47:18] Voice 27: the staffing levels were higher than what they would have thought was appropriate and i want to

[0:47:23] Voice 27: to know if the Fraser report was received in camera, because that recommended after receipt

[0:47:31] Voice 27: of the Stantec report that staffing levels should be increased by 25%. So I'm just seeking as to

[0:47:37] Voice 27: whether all of these previous reports and any other reports are received in camera, if indeed

[0:47:42] Voice 27: there is the possibility of an impact on staffing levels up or down. Just a question of staff.

[0:47:50] Voice 23: Yeah, there aren't many people in the room that might remember that. But David Mahler

[0:47:54] Voice 23: is looking. And it may take us a moment to get to that. But let's hold that question. David is just

[0:48:01] Voice 23: doing a quick look and he may or may not be able to find that information. And in the meantime,

[0:48:07] Voice 23: I'm going to go to Lee Middleton.

[0:48:12] Voice 1: Thank you, Chair. Procedurally, I think this motion is helpful

[0:48:16] Voice 1: to the committee for the simple reason that if we don't release the report by default to the public

[0:48:23] Voice 1: When we receive the report as the committee and wanting to strictly maintain the transparency that the committee is in no way shaping the results of the review and or editing the document, we would need to then engage in a cascading series of in-camera agendas.

[0:48:47] Voice 1: because our responsibility is to basically say the report is received as per terms of contract

[0:48:54] Voice 1: and that concludes our work obviously if the report is to then go to trust council the

[0:49:04] Voice 1: executive is the gateway to council's agenda so it would have to go to executive where presumably

[0:49:09] Voice 1: would have to be protected in camera as well and then it would go to trust council as an in-camera

[0:49:15] Voice 1: item. So this motion by council basically allows our committee to not be bound by

[0:49:24] Voice 1: that procedure and directly receive the report simultaneously to all trustees

[0:49:30] Voice 1: and have it automatically be on the agenda for trust council, which normally

[0:49:35] Voice 1: as a committee we couldn't do. So for that reason it's actually

[0:49:39] Voice 1: it's actually helpful regardless of the um the principle of immediate public disclosure or

[0:49:46] Voice 1: otherwise um so i just wanted to make a mention of that from a procedural perspective it is helpful

[0:49:54] Voice 23: thank you lee and i've got an indication from david mahler that

[0:49:58] Voice 23: just remind council he's very quickly looked for an answer and he has something to offer yeah the

[0:50:04] Voice 11: The Stantec report was received in public meeting in March of 2007,

[0:50:09] Voice 11: and the Fraser report was in public meeting in December of 2007.

[0:50:14] Voice 11: Very good.

[0:50:15] Voice 23: And, of course, how that ended up, the decisions were made,

[0:50:19] Voice 23: we wouldn't know at this time.

[0:50:20] Voice 23: Okay, so that's for your information.

[0:50:22] Voice 23: Not seeing any other hands up,

[0:50:24] Voice 23: I think I will call the vote on the motion that's up on your screen.

[0:50:29] Voice 23: And I'm just going to ask for you to raise your hands as we did yesterday.

[0:50:33] Voice 23: I'm a little bit more organized today,

[0:50:34] Voice 23: in. I've got a checklist I'm working with. I learned this from staff, by the way.

[0:50:40] Voice 23: And so if you all raise your hands, please, in favor. Those in favor of the motion on the camera,

[0:50:52] Voice 23: keep them up there. Thank you, Deb, for keeping that. Okay, and on the screen, just keep those up.

[0:51:02] Voice 23: Not quite as organized there as I'd like, but that's okay.

[0:51:19] Voice 41: Okay

[0:51:20] Voice 23: very good then so lower your hands and those opposed those opposed on camera keeping your hands

[0:51:33] Voice 23: up. Okay so that motion carries and thank you very much trustees. So I just quickly turn back

[0:51:42] Voice 23: to Lee Middleton. I think we've received your update at this point and made a decision. Is

[0:51:47] Voice 23: there anything else you'd like to report or are there any other questions from uh council not

[0:51:54] Voice 23: seeing any of the oh dan rogers has another question i

[0:51:58] Voice 21: i just want to say i'm not going

[0:52:00] Voice 21: to not trying to dictate what the select committee does that's their job but i would urge you to

[0:52:04] Voice 21: reconsider what you might be doing on january the 10th as opposed to discussing the findings so um

[0:52:11] Voice 21: given the motion we just passed but i'll leave your business to you as to decide what how to

[0:52:16] Voice 21: to do that thank you right thank you very much that then anybody

[0:52:20] Voice 23: else i don't see hands up on

[0:52:22] Voice 23: screen i don't see any hands up in the room so thank you very much for counsel um and uh apologies

[0:52:29] Voice 23: for any delays that i may have caused in getting us through the agenda here so we are now at the

[0:52:35] Voice 23: administrative services uh section and um the first item on that administrative services uh section

[0:52:45] Voice 23: is, of course, our consent agenda items.

[0:52:50] Voice 23: And I just want to acknowledge the chair of the Financial Planning Committee,

[0:52:54] Voice 23: Peter Grove, and Director of Trust Area Services, Julia Maub,

[0:52:59] Voice 23: for all her work, and, of course, the Financial Planning Committee.

[0:53:02] Voice 23: So we've got items 6.11, 6.12, 6.13 to be received for information by general consent.

[0:53:11] Voice 23: Is there any, does anybody wish to discuss any one of those three items?

[0:53:19] Voice 23: No, then I will then take it that those items be received by a council as presented in the report.

[0:53:30] Voice 23: So we're going to go straight now to discussion items of 6.2.

[0:53:34] Voice 23: And the first item is the Director of Administrative Services report.

[0:53:41] Voice 23: report. Julia Mobs, good morning. Thank you for joining us, and thank you for all your dedication

[0:53:46] Voice 23: and work to the Islanders Trust. Over to you.

[0:53:50] Voice 16: Thanks, Chair. Good morning, Council. It's good

[0:53:52] Voice 16: to see you all again in person. It's been a long time. Very briefly, this is a pretty standard

[0:53:58] Voice 16: report coming from my department. You can see that we continue to support the Financial Planning

[0:54:02] Voice 16: Committee in their financial oversight for the organization. One of those big tasks, of course,

[0:54:07] Voice 16: is the draft budget which we'll be reviewing today. The finance team does continue to be

[0:54:13] Voice 16: very busy with contract administration so you'll see we've got a number of procurement processes

[0:54:18] Voice 16: that have been completed and are underway. There is a fair amount of contractor work that is

[0:54:24] Voice 16: happening this year largely due to lots of grant funds that were being received at the trust.

[0:54:30] Voice 16: Section number three, employee services and human resources. That is always the longest section of

[0:54:36] Voice 16: this report. We do tend to have a very busy human resources department, lots of firing competitions

[0:54:43] Voice 16: on the go. That's reflected here. I won't go into the details, but information of new staff members

[0:54:49] Voice 16: and changes in the staffing is reflected there. And of course, the shortest section,

[0:54:54] Voice 16: information services, item number four, certainly not reflective of a lack of importance of the work

[0:55:01] Voice 16: that they do. There's lots of projects that they're working on. One of the projects we're

[0:55:06] Voice 16: seeing today is completion of our first hybrid council meeting, which I think is going quite

[0:55:11] Voice 16: well. And they continue to support us with all our technology needs. That's all I'll say in

[0:55:17] Voice 16: relation to my report, but I'll take questions if there are any.

[0:55:20] Voice 23: Thank you very much, Director.

[0:55:21] Voice 23: Any questions for the Director? On the floor here, not seeing any. On the screen,

[0:55:29] Voice 23: also not seeing any. Excellent. Well, now we move into the weighty material ahead of us,

[0:55:35] Voice 23: which will be the proposed 2022 2023 budget to trust council i'll remind council that at 6.2.2.4.2

[0:55:45] Voice 23: there are a number of additional items which you would have received last night and i'm trusting

[0:55:50] Voice 23: that you've all got them and really want to thank laurie for with everything else you do you've got

[0:55:56] Voice 23: those out too thank you and um and so with that said i'm going to turn this over to uh director

[0:56:04] Voice 23: Director of Trust Area Services. And you'll defer to the Financial Planning Committee Chair if you

[0:56:08] Voice 23: so wish. And then we're going to go into our break at 10.30 or thereabouts, and then proceed

[0:56:15] Voice 23: with the details, which begin at 6.2.1, unless it seems like we've got plenty of time and we want to

[0:56:23] Voice 23: chip off some of those before we go to our break. So, Director Mobbs, over to you.

[0:56:26] Voice 23: all

[0:56:29] Voice 16: right so the budget session outline is on page 149 of the agenda package uh we had three

[0:56:36] Voice 16: hours allocated to this initially i think we might be down to uh two hours now but we'll do what we

[0:56:40] Voice 16: can uh the plan today is to walk council through the details of the operating and capital budget

[0:56:47] Voice 16: and then i will pause to take questions from trustees i'll then be turning things over to

[0:56:52] Voice 16: director marler director of local planning services to speak to the local trust committee

[0:56:57] Voice 16: projects that are receiving funding in this draft budget and then respective staff members will

[0:57:02] Voice 16: speak to the strategic plan projects that are under their purview and after each section we'll

[0:57:07] Voice 16: pause for questions as well and once we've completed the full information out you know

[0:57:13] Voice 16: we'll turn things back to council for discussion and debate and decisions that might need to be

[0:57:19] Voice 16: made for adding things into the budget or removing sections. The goal of today's session is to get to

[0:57:25] Voice 16: to a place where council is comfortable enough with the draft budget that a resolution can be

[0:57:30] Voice 16: passed to approve the budget for public consultation. So whatever decisions are made

[0:57:35] Voice 16: here today will be reflected in the draft budget, and that will move forward to public consultation

[0:57:40] Voice 16: in January and February next year. So as usual, before I dive into the details of the budget,

[0:57:46] Voice 16: I would like to provide the chair of financial planning committee with an opportunity to speak

[0:57:52] Voice 16: to the draft budget as well as the CAO. So I'll see if Peter Grove would like to say a few words.

[0:57:59] Trustee Grove: Yes, thank you very much. First of all, a couple of thanks. First of all, for my ever-increasing

[0:58:05] Trustee Grove: appreciation and respect for Julia and what she does for us with a calm and collected and

[0:58:13] Trustee Grove: sensible approach. Also, I want to acknowledge my vice chair, Paul Brent, who's always there to

[0:58:20] Trustee Grove: to support what's going on and fill in where I fall out, as it were, and the Committee

[0:58:29] Trustee Grove: as a whole.

[0:58:30] Trustee Grove: It's really supportive and helpful.

[0:58:33] Trustee Grove: In thinking about this year's budget, I went back to the last—

[0:58:37] Trustee Grove: You're

[0:58:38] Voice 23: going to have to remember to speak directly to your microphone because the last

[0:58:42] Voice 23: sentence you said was completely verbal.

[0:58:46] Trustee Grove: And I can't remember it other than I think I was saying very nice things about people.

[0:58:49] Trustee Grove: people. In thinking about this budget, I went back and asked staff for information about

[0:58:58] Trustee Grove: the last 10 years. And over the last 10 years, our income has increased from property taxes

[0:59:11] Trustee Grove: by 17%, or an average of 1.17% a year. And I have to say, it's an overall approach that

[0:59:19] Trustee Grove: that does not seem unreasonable today at all.

[0:59:23] Trustee Grove: Spending, we have spent quite a substantial amount of money

[0:59:27] Trustee Grove: from reserves and whereas some people are critical of that,

[0:59:31] Trustee Grove: I see that as being proper and correct

[0:59:33] Trustee Grove: in that we returned to the community monies

[0:59:36] Trustee Grove: that we, for which they were taxed

[0:59:38] Trustee Grove: and for which we have not had expenditures.

[0:59:42] Trustee Grove: So it's totally reasonable to have used those reserves

[0:59:46] Trustee Grove: in my view.

[0:59:47] Trustee Grove: you the staffing has increased over those 10 years by approximately 10 people none of whom

[0:59:56] Trustee Grove: were from the planning department I think that

[1:00:00] Trustee Grove: That's fair that you should know that, and I don't mean to debate it, but it's just information

[1:00:05] Trustee Grove: that we should have at the back of our minds.

[1:00:09] Trustee Grove: The original draft budget for this year came in at a 12% tax increase, which our committee

[1:00:15] Trustee Grove: felt was quite excessive.

[1:00:19] Trustee Grove: We've been working at it with Julia and now presenting a budget which shows a 4.6% poverty

[1:00:26] Trustee Grove: tax increase, which I think we can live with, or I can anyway.

[1:00:30] Trustee Grove: and I hope you will agree.

[1:00:31] Trustee Grove: So that is all I have to say at this point.

[1:00:34] Trustee Grove: Thank you very much, Chip.

[1:00:37] Voice 25: Back

[1:00:38] Trustee Grove: to the director.

[1:00:40] Voice 16: Okay, I'll see if our CAO wants to say a few words as well.

[1:00:46] Voice 22: I don't.

[1:00:47] Voice 22: You carried away Julia.

[1:00:48] Voice 22: Thanks very much.

[1:00:53] Voice 16: Okay.

[1:00:54] Voice 16: So we'll dive right into the budget material.

[1:00:57] Voice 16: We start on page 150,

[1:00:59] Voice 16: which is the Budget Assumptions and Principles document.

[1:01:03] Voice 16: This document was reviewed by Trust Council in September,

[1:01:06] Voice 16: and that is to make sure that the foundations upon which the budget is built are considered

[1:01:11] Voice 16: sound by trust council before we actually draft the budget for fpc's review in october so i won't

[1:01:17] Voice 16: go into the individual items that are in this report again because you've seen it i will simply

[1:01:22] Voice 16: highlight two items that i believe were excluded in the previous report or have changed so that

[1:01:28] Voice 16: That first item is on page 151, revenue item number one.

[1:01:33] Voice 16: That relates to application fees and sales.

[1:01:36] Voice 16: So historically, that amount had been estimated in the budget based on historical actuals, actual averages, and volume trends as provided by the Director of Local Planning Services.

[1:01:48] Voice 16: With the new model fees bylaw that was approved by Trust Council, there's an expectation that fees at the local trust committee level will be changing.

[1:01:56] Voice 16: As I understand it, currently all local trust committees have received this new model fees by-law and have passed resolutions to move forward with adopting new fees.

[1:02:06] Voice 16: I think almost all of them have.

[1:02:09] Voice 16: So we needed to change how we budget for this amount.

[1:02:13] Voice 16: So we've still included an estimate of application volumes and then multiplied that by the revised fees that are expected to come in from local trust committees.

[1:02:22] Voice 16: We have made the assumption that local trust committees will set their fees at the 20% lowered amount from what's in the model fees bylaw.

[1:02:32] Voice 16: That's a conservative approach, and certainly we'll be adjusting that estimate as we get actual resolutions from local trust committees.

[1:02:41] Voice 16: The other item that I will speak to is on page 155, that is expense item number 19, elections expense.

[1:02:49] Voice 16: expense. So I think the report reviewed by Council in September failed to include this important

[1:02:54] Voice 16: item. But of course, next fiscal year is an election year. And so we do need to include

[1:02:58] Voice 16: funding for that. And so we do have funding levels of about $141,000 included in the draft budget.

[1:03:06] Voice 16: So I'll pause for a moment to take questions on the Assumptions and Principles document.

[1:03:10] Voice 23: Thank you. On Assumptions and Principles, Deb Morrison.

[1:03:14] Voice 23: Thank

[1:03:18] Voice 18: you very much. Just a quick comment on page 151, number one. I'm really happy to see this in here and just want to ask a question about how we're continuing to collect information about the basically to track the cost of applications relative to this policy.

[1:03:41] Voice 18: And I don't know if you can answer this or if Director Marler can answer this, but I know that we had passed motions prior to this to have the tracking done, but that they were dated and there was an end date on them.

[1:03:53] Voice 18: And I just, I would like some assurance that there is a tracking method to continue to monitor this so that we have some understanding of how successful we are at actually doing cost recovery.

[1:04:04] Voice 18: Yeah,

[1:04:08] Voice 11: the tracking that was done for the applications, that has stopped, and we've gone back to doing

[1:04:15] Voice 11: the audit approach, where we would pick certain applications and track those.

[1:04:29] Voice 23: And do you have a follow-up question?

[1:04:31] Voice 18: Yeah, if I can just get some reasoning for why we are not tracking the cost of all

[1:04:35] Voice 18: applications.

[1:04:41] Voice 11: The reason we're not tracking the staff time against every application is it's just simply

[1:04:49] Voice 11: a very involved process with the current software that we have.

[1:04:57] Voice 11: The planners are working on multiple applications and multiple projects for multiple local trust

[1:05:04] Voice 11: committees.

[1:05:04] Voice 11: So it's not a matter of having, you know, three or four items on the screen that they can check off as you go through them.

[1:05:12] Voice 11: It's more like 30 or 40 and it can get really confusing.

[1:05:18] Voice 11: So for that reason, it's just not very efficient.

[1:05:21] Voice 11: If we want to do that, I think, you know, we can do that with the current system.

[1:05:26] Voice 11: It's just the staff time to do it is quite expensive.

[1:05:31] Voice 11: expensive. We would need, I think, a new software package that makes it much easier for staff to do

[1:05:37] Voice 11: that.

[1:05:39] Voice 23: Okay. Thank you, David. Thank you for the question, Deb. Any other questions on assumptions

[1:05:43] Voice 23: and principles? I see Trustee Brent and Trustee Rogers.

[1:05:50] Voice 27: I just want, I'm reluctant to do this

[1:05:53] Voice 27: because every time I ask Julie a question, questioning some figures of hers, I'm always

[1:05:58] Voice 27: wrong but i'm going to ask again it may not be precisely but i heard from our learned chair

[1:06:05] Voice 27: that we've had a 17 increase in property taxes proposed property taxes

[1:06:10] Voice 27: in the last 10 years so i compared uh what i think i believe our tax

[1:06:19] Voice 27: requisition draw is proposed for this current budget at somewhere about 7.8 million dollars

[1:06:26] Voice 27: So that includes our general property tax levy and it's from page 217 as against the property taxes collected in 2012 slash 2013 fiscal year.

[1:06:40] Voice 27: So that would be 10 years ago. And that was approximately six point one million dollars.

[1:06:47] Voice 27: So that was five point nine million general one point six five million Bowen Island.

[1:06:52] Voice 27: So I get a 28% increase in taxes, not 17%.

[1:06:56] Voice 27: So I'm just wondering, it's a pretty big difference.

[1:07:01] Voice 27: And I'm wondering if yet again, Julia, I'm wrong.

[1:07:05] Trustee Grove: And those figures came from me, information which I believe I'd had from Paul, and I'm

[1:07:13] Trustee Grove: quite prepared to believe that I'm wrong.

[1:07:15] Trustee Grove: So that would be an average of 2.8% increase every year for the last 10 years.

[1:07:20] Trustee Grove: and uh yeah i don't it's not worth spending too much time on it and if i'm if i'm incorrect i

[1:07:25] Trustee Grove: apologize you

[1:07:27] Voice 23: know let's maybe turn to the director for clarity on uh approximately who's

[1:07:33] Voice 23: right who's wrong so

[1:07:35] Voice 16: i haven't actually looked at the comparison from uh 10 years ago uh so i don't

[1:07:41] Voice 16: have that information on hand certainly i can generate that number and i would hope it would

[1:07:44] Voice 16: be correct and i can provide that to the trustees if they wish okay

[1:07:49] Voice 23: so perhaps some later reporting

[1:07:52] Voice 23: in march we might have some clarity on that or at fpc would actually be the most appropriate place

[1:07:58] Voice 23: but thank you very much thank you for the question paul and uh thank you peter

[1:08:02] Voice 23: uh any other speakers um uh dan rogers on um assumptions i'm sorry i

[1:08:09] Voice 21: just i just wanted to

[1:08:10] Voice 21: follow up on i'm sorry it's a bit disjunctive on trustee morrison's question um which was about the

[1:08:16] Voice 21: tracking it i know we just got a fairly large grant and i understand it's going to be involved

[1:08:23] Voice 21: in the planning function and changing the software out is the expectation that with the new software

[1:08:30] Voice 21: with that large grant that that will be able that that kind of an exercise will be will be much more

[1:08:37] Voice 21: efficient and simpler to do yeah

[1:08:43] Voice 11: that's a potential outcome of it it's not wasn't the focus

[1:08:47] Voice 11: of the grant the grant was focused more on the property information system that we use that's

[1:08:53] Voice 11: about 20 years out of date and also it's an in-house product so the idea is that we go to

[1:09:00] Voice 11: something that is more off the shelf that is common in most local governments and tracking

[1:09:07] Voice 11: of applications would be part of that.

[1:09:09] Voice 11: I just don't know what that's going to look like.

[1:09:12] Voice 11: Depends on the actual software that we end up with.

[1:09:17] Voice 23: Thank you.

[1:09:19] Voice 23: Anything else on assumptions and principles?

[1:09:22] Voice 23: Otherwise we'll move to the next item on the agenda.

[1:09:25] Voice 23: Back to you, Director Mops.

[1:09:29] Voice 16: So before we get into the nitty gritty

[1:09:32] Voice 16: of the budget draft review, as it stands right now,

[1:09:35] Voice 16: we will take a moment to acknowledge the journey

[1:09:37] Voice 16: that the draft budget has traveled before it arrived

[1:09:40] Voice 16: at the council table here.

[1:09:42] Voice 16: So there's a briefing that summarizes that journey

[1:09:44] Voice 16: with FPC on page 158.

[1:09:47] Voice 16: In short, the first draft of the budget

[1:09:49] Voice 16: was reviewed by Financial Planning Committee

[1:09:51] Voice 16: at their October meeting.

[1:09:52] Voice 16: It reflected an 11.88% tax increase

[1:09:56] Voice 16: to local trust areas generally

[1:09:57] Voice 16: and a 24.4% increase to Bowen Island municipality.

[1:10:02] Voice 16: So fair to say that those are significant tax increases

[1:10:05] Voice 16: when compared to recent years at the Islands Trust.

[1:10:08] Voice 16: us. A number of factors contributing to that, the first being an increase in the size of the

[1:10:14] Voice 16: overall budget, which is fairly standard. But the single largest contributing factor was the fact

[1:10:19] Voice 16: that the first draft of the budget included zero dollars from a surplus draw. So at the time,

[1:10:25] Voice 16: we didn't have a financial forecast for the current year. There was no expectation that

[1:10:30] Voice 16: there would be any excess funds in the general revenue surplus fund to use in the budget to

[1:10:36] Voice 16: to offset planned spending.

[1:10:38] Voice 16: So Islands Trust does have a history

[1:10:40] Voice 16: of including surplus funds in the budget

[1:10:42] Voice 16: to balance planned spending.

[1:10:43] Voice 16: And without that surplus draw,

[1:10:45] Voice 16: there were higher than typical tax increases.

[1:10:50] Voice 16: So there were a number of changes that FPC made

[1:10:52] Voice 16: at their October meeting to account for some of that.

[1:10:55] Voice 16: They passed a resolution for council committees

[1:10:58] Voice 16: to hold all of their meetings electronically

[1:11:00] Voice 16: with the exception of one in the fiscal year.

[1:11:02] Voice 16: They also passed a motion that executive

[1:11:04] Voice 16: or recommendation that executive committee

[1:11:06] Voice 16: hold two-thirds of their meetings electronically.

[1:11:10] Voice 16: They passed a motion for council,

[1:11:13] Voice 16: or sorry, recommendation that council

[1:11:15] Voice 16: hold two of its meetings electronically,

[1:11:18] Voice 16: or two meetings in person and the remainder electronically,

[1:11:20] Voice 16: which I believe aligns with the resolution

[1:11:23] Voice 16: that council made yesterday.

[1:11:25] Voice 16: So that's excellent.

[1:11:27] Voice 16: As well, they deferred two phases of a project

[1:11:31] Voice 16: related to local government development application process

[1:11:34] Voice 16: processing that we've received a grant for. So the grant monies for that project will cover

[1:11:40] Voice 16: the local planning services components of that project, will not cover components related to

[1:11:45] Voice 16: the Islands Trust Conservancy and bylaw enforcement. And so FPC made the recommendation

[1:11:50] Voice 16: that those phases of the project be removed from the budget. So the revised draft budget 142 FPC

[1:11:58] Voice 16: again in November, it did have lower tax increases reflected as a result of those changes.

[1:12:03] Voice 16: So it was sitting at 9.7% tax increase for local trust areas and a 16.1% increase for Bowen Island Municipality.

[1:12:12] Voice 16: At that time, staff had identified that there were likely to be some excess funds in the general revenue surplus fund to the tune of $182,000 that could potentially be used in the draft budget.

[1:12:23] Voice 16: And so Financial Planning Committee passed a resolution to use those funds to offset spending, as well as to use $36,000 from the local trust committee project-specific reserve fund.

[1:12:34] Voice 16: And both of those things are reflected in the budget.

[1:12:37] Voice 16: A number of other projects were also removed from the draft budget by Financial Planning Committee at their November meeting.

[1:12:44] Voice 16: And a list of those projects is included in the agenda at page 160.

[1:12:48] Voice 16: 160. So the total amount that was removed is $248,000. Thank you, Lori. The list is on the

[1:12:55] Voice 16: screen. So where projects had a business case, those business cases have been forwarded to Trust

[1:13:01] Voice 16: Council for information. So although the draft budget doesn't reflect those projects anymore,

[1:13:07] Voice 16: we felt it was prudent that Council have all the information related to the projects to decide if

[1:13:11] Voice 16: they agree with Financial Planning Committee's recommendation to remove those from the budget.

[1:13:16] Voice 16: we will not be speaking specifically to those projects that were removed today

[1:13:20] Voice 16: but i would suggest that if council would like to hear about any of those projects specifically

[1:13:25] Voice 16: we can accommodate accommodate that at the end of the budget review

[1:13:33] Voice 16: any questions so far on the journey the budget has taken thanks

[1:13:46] Voice 12: julia i'm i'm wondering obviously

[1:13:48] Voice 12: about the hornby island uh fifteen thousand dollars for the ocp review uh we've got an

[1:13:54] Voice 12: incredibly active advisory planning committee and they need this to be able to complete this

[1:14:00] Voice 12: now everybody's got the same situation in their island but there's incredibly changes going on

[1:14:04] Voice 12: we have nothing in our ocp about first nations uh this short all the issues that are going on

[1:14:10] Voice 12: we have a very very active and effective uh post um advisory planning committee and they need

[1:14:18] Voice 12: i'm sorry and they need this money uh to be able to further that and complete this project so i

[1:14:23] Voice 12: I would ask you to put this back in.

[1:14:25] Voice 12: If there's issues that need to be resolved,

[1:14:27] Voice 12: then let's work through those,

[1:14:29] Voice 12: but don't take the money out of there.

[1:14:30] Voice 12: If there's something we need to do to make it the way it should be,

[1:14:34] Voice 12: then let's discuss that,

[1:14:35] Voice 12: but let's not take it out of there completely, please.

[1:14:39] Voice 12: So my request is to put that money back in the budget.

[1:14:42] Voice 12: All

[1:14:44] Voice 23: right, thank you, Grant.

[1:14:46] Voice 23: So I've got a couple of other people on my speakers list,

[1:14:49] Voice 23: so there will be an opportunity for amendments to the budget.

[1:14:53] Voice 23: Julia, thank you for nodding.

[1:14:55] Voice 23: and that time will be coming up to uh uh have that discussion a little too

[1:15:01] Voice 12: early there yeah

[1:15:02] Voice 23: let's finish this report and maybe we'll go for our break and come back from our break and start

[1:15:07] Voice 23: the real the debate of it so i'm going to continue uh oh did you have an answer for

[1:15:12] Voice 23: grant on any of the topics that he touched on briefly uh

[1:15:17] Voice 16: not really so the decision was or

[1:15:19] Voice 16: the recommendation is coming from financial planning committee and i agree with the chair

[1:15:22] Voice 16: there's the space later in the agenda to put forward motions for change perfect thank you

[1:15:27] Voice 23: so kate louise stanford and then scott colburn i

[1:15:32] Voice 30: just want to make a comment as part of the

[1:15:35] Voice 30: financial planning committee that when we were looking at potential reductions during i think

[1:15:41] Voice 30: the second session that we were focusing on areas that would most um affect the bowen island

[1:15:49] Voice 30: and municipality and how we could reduce that tax increase for them so that was one of the focuses

[1:15:58] Voice 23: okay thank you kate louise uh scott colburn on the line there yes thank you for the work um oh i sorry

[1:16:15] Voice 37: uh i have a question about the surplus and i i've seen a report through financial planning

[1:16:20] Voice 37: committee in the past about and and chair grove mentioned it earlier about the surplus largely

[1:16:26] Voice 37: um being made up of funds from projects uh that were either rolled over that didn't the spending

[1:16:33] Voice 37: didn't um match what was originally budgeted and so that goes into the surplus is that sort of an

[1:16:38] Voice 37: accurate reflection of what that surplus is and and from a from an administrative point of view

[1:16:44] Voice 37: thank you scott

[1:16:46] Voice 37: julia uh

[1:16:48] Voice 16: so yes that is correct the uh the accumulated surplus funds that are

[1:16:53] Voice 16: held at the trust are made up of um historical annual surpluses that are generated so where a

[1:17:00] Voice 16: budget is set and uh we do not spend that full budget in any given year any money that is uh was

[1:17:06] Voice 16: taxed and not spent rolls over into the surplus fund uh that surplus fund um sits there it's

[1:17:12] Voice 16: invested um it is used uh to offset some planned spending in many many budget years

[1:17:18] Voice 16: but yes that's how it's generated it's money that is taxed for and received that is unspent

[1:17:23] Voice 16: i would suggest that historically the largest areas where we tend to underspend our salaries

[1:17:29] Voice 16: expense and projects all

[1:17:33] Voice 23: right yeah thank you i've got a number of other speakers on the list

[1:17:36] Voice 23: and there's possibly the ceo's hand goes up and i'm not

[1:17:38] Voice 23: sure no um but just for clarity for a

[1:17:41] Voice 23: moment here. I would like to ask, and being one of the longer-term memories on council,

[1:17:46] Voice 23: there was a period a number of years ago where I think we actually put money into the surplus

[1:17:51] Voice 23: because we had insufficient. So it's not completely from unspent funds. Can you help me with that

[1:17:58] Voice 23: recollection?

[1:17:59] Voice 16: Yes, thank you for that. So there are instances where money is intentionally put

[1:18:03] Voice 16: into accumulated surplus. So what I just spoke about is where monies were not intended to be

[1:18:09] Voice 16: deposited into the surplus fund but certainly if a council in any given year determines that

[1:18:14] Voice 16: the balance in the surplus fund is insufficient a budget line can be included in any given year

[1:18:20] Voice 16: to actually requisition funds for the purpose of depositing it into surplus fund without spending

[1:18:25] Voice 16: so thank you chair all

[1:18:27] Voice 23: right thank you and i now think the cao does have a remark um

[1:18:31] Voice 22: and julia can

[1:18:33] Voice 22: and refine this thought, the accumulated surplus is the underspend on some projects that weren't

[1:18:42] Voice 22: completed in some areas, but also, as you point out, a number of any other underspending throughout

[1:18:50] Voice 22: the trust area, staffing, for instance, and other elements. And

[1:18:54] Voice 22: what percentage that is,

[1:18:55] Voice 22: is a good consideration, because if you think of it's unspent, if it's 90% unspent project dollars,

[1:19:02] Voice 22: There are implications associated with that, rather than unspent things that are less controllable,

[1:19:09] Voice 22: absence of some staff, and those things.

[1:19:11] Voice 22: So it's a combination of those two things that leads to the surplus.

[1:19:14] Voice 22: Thank you.

[1:19:16] Voice 23: So I'm going to go to Dan Rodgers, and in case longer, I should—

[1:19:19] Voice 21: Sorry, I just wanted to—the term I've been using in the Financial Planning Committee

[1:19:24] Voice 21: is the surplus surplus.

[1:19:27] Voice 21: And that's a bit redundant, but it sort of means the unintentional surplus.

[1:19:31] Voice 21: We have an intentional surplus, and I just want to make sure everybody's clear on that, which is what the minimum, I think it's 20 percent, is that we have to maintain.

[1:19:39] Voice 21: What really I think Trustee Colburn's asking about is that we often are over that, and it's that surplus surplus that is as a result of all the things the CAO and yourself have talked about.

[1:19:51] Voice 21: So that's the way I view it anyway.

[1:19:54] Voice 21: Thanks.

[1:19:56] Voice 21: Would you concur with that?

[1:19:59] Voice 16: Yeah. So any balance in the accumulated surplus is generated those two ways,

[1:20:03] Voice 16: either an intentional deposit or underspending. But yeah, certainly, you know, we do plan to have

[1:20:08] Voice 16: a certain level in surplus. And if it comes in over and above the planned level, it is generally

[1:20:14] Voice 16: as a result of that underspending against the budget. The term I use is excess surplus,

[1:20:21] Voice 16: a little less redundant than surplus surplus.

[1:20:23] Voice 16: plus thank

[1:20:24] Voice 23: you perfect so i've got case longer action paul brent yeah

[1:20:29] Voice 26: thank you for that the

[1:20:30] Voice 26: ceo actually clarified for me that there's two situations one is where we have no control over

[1:20:36] Voice 26: it which is staffing issues that arise throughout the year but the one we do have control over is

[1:20:40] Voice 26: projects but the funding for each year we also oversubscribe i think we think we say we're going

[1:20:47] Voice 26: to do all of this and we can't and i think we know it's been said we can't do it all so that's

[1:20:53] Voice 26: That's how we're creating surplus, by our own decisions on our projects for each tax year.

[1:21:00] Voice 26: And that's a problem, I think.

[1:21:01] Voice 26: I think that needs to be dealt with.

[1:21:04] Voice 23: Thank you.

[1:21:04] Voice 23: And Trustee Colburn, if your hand is still up, leave it up and I'll come back to you.

[1:21:09] Voice 23: Otherwise, you'll lower it.

[1:21:10] Voice 23: And Trustee Brent, you're next on my list.

[1:21:13] Voice 27: Yeah, just in terms of a little history on the surplus, there was a time when it was felt,

[1:21:18] Voice 27: and I believe absolutely legitimately that we didn't have enough money on hand to safely carry

[1:21:26] Voice 27: us through from the time we start our fiscal year April 1st to when we receive our tax requisition

[1:21:33] Voice 27: property tax requisition which we'll call mid to later July so in 2006 slash 7 there was a 10 and

[1:21:43] Voice 27: and a half percent tax increase on LTAs in 2007, 2008.

[1:21:49] Voice 27: It was a 15% tax increase in that year.

[1:21:52] Voice 27: And in 2008, 2009, a 12% tax increase.

[1:21:57] Voice 27: So those are huge tax increases.

[1:21:59] Voice 27: The corresponding ones on Bowen were 10.8% in 06,

[1:22:07] Voice 27: 25% in 07 and 14% in 08.

[1:22:11] Voice 27: And so, yeah, there were very, very significant

[1:22:13] Voice 27: increases so that we would not ever have to borrow as we all know we have a revenue borrowing bylaw

[1:22:20] Voice 27: so in case we run out of money to fund that gap from when our fiscal year starts and when we

[1:22:26] Voice 27: receive our tax things we've got that we've never had to use that or at least certainly not in the

[1:22:30] Voice 27: last 15 years so there's a little history on it if that's helpful thanks thank

[1:22:37] Voice 23: you paul that is

[1:22:38] Voice 23: helpful appreciate the facts um anybody else on um the budget changes um at 6.2.3 uh paul brent

[1:22:52] Voice 23: i'll get you to lower your hand and i'll ask julia mobs to continue uh

[1:22:58] Voice 16: thanks mr chair i i will just

[1:22:59] Voice 16: briefly note a break is scheduled for 10 30 which is four minutes away on my clock i can guarantee

[1:23:05] Voice 1: you

[1:23:05] Voice 16: i can't get away or can't get through this material in that amount of time uh would you

[1:23:10] Voice 16: like me to continue or to take a break and then begin um

[1:23:14] Voice 23: well council i think the break is at our

[1:23:16] Voice 23: discretion you want to go for a break now and we'll come back in 15 minutes is what we have

[1:23:21] Voice 23: scheduled and then that'll give julia an unhurried uh relaxed opportunity to present the bulk of

[1:23:28] Voice 23: her material so let's come back in 15 minutes which would be um 20 minutes before um 11.

[1:23:37] Voice 23: Is that right?

[1:23:39] Voice 23: Yeah.

[1:23:40] Trustee Grove: And before we go, Chair, if I may just say, I've been checking on numbers, and Paul Brent, as always, is quite correct.

[1:23:47] Trustee Grove: The average property tax increase over the last 10 years has been 2.7% a year.

[1:23:54] Trustee Grove: In that same period of time, the CPI index has gone up an average of 2.1 a year.

[1:24:00] Trustee Grove: So those are the numbers, the corrected numbers, as far as I'm aware.

[1:24:05] Trustee Grove: Thank you.

[1:24:06] Trustee Grove: Thank you, Peter.

[1:24:07] Voice 23: okay let's come back at 20 minutes to uh 11.

[1:24:44] Voice 38: thank

[1:24:45] Voice 23: you so everybody you heard we're now back to recording and streaming and now welcome and

[1:24:52] Voice 23: everybody that's joining us electronically both trustees and members of the public

[1:25:00] Voice 23: and we are in our administrative services section of our agenda discussing the we've had the

[1:25:07] Voice 23: introduction to the budget and um we are now at item 6.2.2.3 no sorry 2.4 which is the draft the

[1:25:19] Voice 23: draft budget uh overview and um i'm going to turn this to director julia mobs who's responsible for

[1:25:27] Voice 23: managing the financial affairs and uh appreciate all the work that you do julia over to you

[1:25:34] Voice 16: Thanks, Mr. Chair. So the briefing that talks about the draft 2023 budget starts on page 206

[1:25:43] Voice 16: of the agenda package. We used to call this document the budget overview and highlights

[1:25:48] Voice 16: document. I thought the term highlights was maybe a little too positive for financial information,

[1:25:56] Voice 16: so now we just call it the budget overview. So the first part of this briefing talks a little

[1:26:02] Voice 16: bit about the former budget draft which i've already spoken to in previous sections so i won't

[1:26:07] Voice 16: speak to that there's also a list of questions for trustees to ponder as we work through the budget

[1:26:13] Voice 16: debate so certainly the list of questions there is not an exhaustive list there's many many things

[1:26:19] Voice 16: that need to be considered as you make decisions about the draft budget but these questions were

[1:26:25] Voice 16: provided simply to provoke some thought to get the brain juices flowing as we move into decision

[1:26:30] Voice 16: decision-making. So I will start the budget overview, the details of that in the comparison

[1:26:37] Voice 16: to previous fiscal years, which is at the bottom of page 207. When we look at the draft 2023 budget

[1:26:43] Voice 16: and look at how it compares with previous budgets, we see an approximate 4% increase over the

[1:26:51] Voice 16: approved operating budget for fiscal 2022. The largest contributing factors there are an increase

[1:26:57] Voice 16: Increasing communications costs, elections expense, office lease costs, salaries expense, an increase in training with the hope that we're moving more into more of a post-pandemic era, as well as an increase in trustee remuneration.

[1:27:11] Voice 16: When we compare the draft budget to previous actual spending, which is a little bit more representative, we see an increase of about 16% when we look at the most recently completed fiscal year.

[1:27:26] Voice 16: so that's fiscal 2021 so that's two years of separation fiscal 2021 versus fiscal 2023

[1:27:32] Voice 16: and again most of the factors i've just mentioned are the driving forces behind that increase as

[1:27:38] Voice 16: well as increased staff travel and an increase in staff salaries and wages so we don't have

[1:27:46] Voice 16: included in the budget numerical detail column for the current year financial forecast but comparing

[1:27:51] Voice 16: Comparing the draft 2023 budget to the current year financial forecast can also be helpful.

[1:27:57] Voice 16: So when we do that comparison, we see an approximate 5% increase over the current year forecast, and that's in our operating budget.

[1:28:05] Voice 16: And we see an approximate 6% reduction in planned spending.

[1:28:09] Voice 16: And again, that's because the current fiscal year has a lot of grant funds and a lot of projects on the go with consultants.

[1:28:15] Voice 16: And so

[1:28:16] Voice 16: next year's draft budget is seeing a reduction in that area.

[1:28:20] Voice 16: So that's a high-level summary of how the draft budget compares to previous years.

[1:28:24] Voice 16: Without cover, we can dive into the nitty-gritty details of the draft budget.

[1:28:29] Voice 16: The detailed info begins on page 209 of the agenda, for those still following along.

[1:28:34] Voice 16: And we start with a discussion of planned revenues.

[1:28:37] Voice 16: So planned revenues are planned to the extent that's required to pay for planned spending.

[1:28:42] Voice 16: So we're revenue sources from things like grants, investments, and application fees do not cover planned spending.

[1:28:50] Voice 16: We then look to taxation primarily as a revenue source.

[1:28:54] Voice 16: So the draft increase to local trust areas is 4.61%.

[1:28:59] Voice 16: This is exclusive of non-market change dollars.

[1:29:03] Voice 16: That amounts to about $326,000.

[1:29:05] Voice 16: dollars uh there's an increase a draft increase of 10.4 percent to bowen island municipality

[1:29:12] Voice 16: which equates to about thirty two thousand dollars in the budget to thirty two thousand

[1:29:17] Voice 16: dollar increase uh the value of the levy is three hundred and forty four thousand dollars and that

[1:29:23] Voice 16: is uh compared to three hundred and twenty nine thousand dollars that was received in the most

[1:29:27] Voice 16: recent non-pandemic budget year which is 2019-20 special tax requisitions are also included in the

[1:29:36] Voice 16: the draft budget. The only one we've got so far in the budget for next year is for the continued

[1:29:42] Voice 16: work of SWFA. There's a budgeted amount of $75,500, which is consistent with the last few fiscal

[1:29:50] Voice 16: years. Total grant revenue in the draft budget is $768,000, which is a sizable amount. It's made up

[1:29:59] Voice 16: up

[1:30:00] Voice 16: a number of different grants. Of course, we have our ongoing annual unrestricted grant from the

[1:30:05] Voice 16: province of BC coming in at $180,000, which is in line with historical values. The continued work

[1:30:12] Voice 16: of the Conservancy on Species at Risk also has some grant funding to the tune of $213,000 in the

[1:30:19] Voice 16: budget. There's also been a $367,000 grant that's been approved for Islands Trust for work next

[1:30:30] Voice 16: year as part of the Local Government Development Application Processing Initiative. So this is a

[1:30:37] Voice 16: grant that will be coming to us from the UBCM. It's to help improve processes for land use

[1:30:43] Voice 16: applications at the trust. And this is the piece that I'd mentioned previously, whereby the project

[1:30:50] Voice 16: has some other phases attached to it or proposed to be attached to it for the conservancy and by

[1:30:55] Voice 16: law enforcement. And those phases of the project do not have funding in the draft budget. And if

[1:31:01] Voice 16: that work is going to go forward, it will either need to be funded by taxation or deferred into a

[1:31:07] Voice 16: future year. There's an $8,000 amount for contingent grant revenue in the budget. That line is there

[1:31:14] Voice 16: simply so that we've got something to put some unanticipated grant monies towards as they are

[1:31:20] Voice 16: approved in the fiscal year. Under other revenue sources, we see a discussion of fees and sales

[1:31:27] Voice 16: for land use applications. So that's set at $311,000 in the budget, which is an increase

[1:31:33] Voice 16: over what we've seen historically. Typically, we're looking at the mid $100,000 range. And again,

[1:31:38] Voice 16: that's because we've revised the methodology for that estimate, as we previously discussed.

[1:31:44] Voice 16: and investment in other income is budgeted again at low amount of $30,000 reflective of

[1:31:50] Voice 16: lowered interest rates that we've seen as a result of the pandemic. As I mentioned previously,

[1:31:57] Voice 16: there is some surplus funding included in the draft budget. It's not quite to the extent that

[1:32:03] Voice 16: we've seen in previous fiscal years. So the current budget for the current fiscal year has

[1:32:08] Voice 16: just over half a million dollars in surplus funds. The draft budget for next year has just over

[1:32:14] Voice 16: $200,000, so it's a fairly significant drop. $182,000 as a draw from the General Revenue

[1:32:21] Voice 16: Surplus Fund is included in the draft 2023 budget. At the direction of Financial Planning Committee,

[1:32:27] Voice 16: the allocation of that surplus draw is put first towards projects that Bowen Island Municipality

[1:32:32] Voice 16: will benefit from, and then the remainder, which is about $90,000, is allocated to offset a portion

[1:32:38] Voice 16: of elections expense. And there is a breakdown of that surplus allocation in the agenda

[1:32:44] Voice 16: the, at the end of this briefing. There's also a plan draw of just over $36,000 in the local

[1:32:51] Voice 16: trust committee project specific reserve fund, again, at the direction of FPC. And that's not

[1:32:56] Voice 16: specifically allocated to any one particular project. It's simply allocated to LTC projects

[1:33:01] Voice 16: in general. An additional amount of approximately $41,000 is being drawn from the special property

[1:33:08] Voice 16: tax requisition fund. And that's for some SWFRA projects at the direction of the Salt

[1:33:12] Voice 16: for that and local trust committee and that drop from surplus has no impact on taxation as

[1:33:17] Voice 16: it is separate from the general budget as it's a special special levy work so what are these planned

[1:33:24] Voice 16: revenues paying for what expenditures are included in the budget there's a discussion of that that

[1:33:29] Voice 16: begins on page 211 as is standard here at the trust the largest expense item in our budget

[1:33:35] Voice 16: remains staff salaries and expense so that comes in the draft budget at 5.6 million dollars

[1:33:41] Voice 16: which is representative of almost 60% of our total draft budget.

[1:33:49] Voice 16: So previous fiscal year, it was $5.5 million in the budget,

[1:33:52] Voice 16: and it's now just over $5.6 million.

[1:33:56] Voice 16: That is planning to pay for 59.1 full-time equivalent staff members

[1:34:01] Voice 16: in next year's budget.

[1:34:03] Voice 16: That does include a proposed addition of a 0.6 FTE position

[1:34:08] Voice 16: for the Islands Trust Conservancy Board.

[1:34:10] Voice 16: So that's a fund development specialist, which is budgeted at approximately $52,000.

[1:34:16] Voice 16: There is a business case for this proposed staff position attached to the Islands Trust Conservancy Board budget request, which is included in the agenda as well.

[1:34:25] Voice 16: And I think the Islands Trust Conservancy Board chair will be speaking to that a little bit later.

[1:34:32] Voice 16: So the other components influencing staff salaries, again, the things that we see every year, some of which are outside of our control.

[1:34:39] Voice 16: There is a planned 2% wage increase for all BCGEU staff. I will note that is an estimate only. The master agreement for union staff expires at the end of this fiscal year, and we don't yet have the new agreement.

[1:34:55] Voice 16: So there is potential for that amount to change, and I would suspect that if it is going to change, it would come in at an amount higher than 2% based on conversations that I've seen out there, as opposed to at 2% or lower.

[1:35:11] Voice 16: We also, every year, have a number of staff, union staff, who move up steps in their range.

[1:35:17] Voice 16: So there's 41 union staff that will move up steps in their range next year, and they are afforded a 3% increase per step.

[1:35:26] Voice 16: There's an up to 1.5% effective wage increase included for excluded staff.

[1:35:31] Voice 16: That's based on performance, and that takes effect each year in July.

[1:35:35] Voice 16: That's reflected in the draft budget.

[1:35:37] Voice 16: Staff overtime is reflected at historical norms at about $51,000,

[1:35:41] Voice 16: and the benefit expense that the Islands Trust pays to the province

[1:35:46] Voice 16: for the processing and administration of our salaries and benefits

[1:35:50] Voice 16: is included in the draft budget at 25.4%, which is historical levels.

[1:35:56] Voice 16: We usually hear pretty late in the budget cycle from the province what the new benefit rate is

[1:36:00] Voice 16: going to be, and we'll update that as we receive it. And that accounts for $1.1 million of the

[1:36:08] Voice 16: total salaries expense. So on page 212, there's a discussion of trustee remuneration. As you know,

[1:36:16] Voice 16: there's a policy that guides how trustee remuneration will be calculated. That policy

[1:36:21] Voice 16: has seen no changes over last year and it has been implemented as a standard.

[1:36:27] Voice 16: So there's been a 2% increase for CPI, no changes in population figures at this point

[1:36:33] Voice 16: as we don't receive those till next year.

[1:36:36] Voice 16: Adjustments have been made for the number of folios in each local trust area.

[1:36:39] Voice 16: That's information that comes to us from BC Assessment as usual.

[1:36:43] Voice 16: We've made adjustments for health premiums and employer health tax remains at 1.95%.

[1:36:49] Voice 16: and we continue to pay trustees for their attendance at council committees.

[1:36:55] Voice 16: Trust council expenditures, I've mentioned budgeted under the assumption that the majority

[1:36:59] Voice 16: of meetings will be held electronically with only two in person, and so the budget reflects

[1:37:05] Voice 16: $54,000 for council meetings. It might be that council costs per meeting are reduced if we

[1:37:12] Voice 16: continue to see a large number of trustees who voluntarily attend electronically,

[1:37:16] Voice 16: electronically. But at this point, we don't know what that might look like.

[1:37:22] Voice 16: I've already mentioned briefly, Executive Committee is planning to hold two thirds of

[1:37:26] Voice 16: their meetings electronically. So we've got reduced spending there over previous years,

[1:37:29] Voice 16: we've got $5,000 in the draft budget for that. LTC direct expenses needs review. So this amount

[1:37:37] Voice 16: is included in the draft budget at historical amounts. But it does require some review as we

[1:37:43] Voice 16: we move to sort of a new hybrid meeting model for trustees and gain an understanding of what

[1:37:49] Voice 16: that might look like. And we'll be updating that figure as we move through the budget cycle.

[1:37:53] Voice 16: For now, it's reflected at historical amounts of $68,000. Local Trust Committee project expenses.

[1:38:01] Voice 16: So this is where we've seen a bit of a change from recent fiscal years, whereby we have

[1:38:07] Voice 16: more local trust committees submitting business cases and requests for funding. That is largely

[1:38:14] Voice 16: because we've requested it of local trust committees so projects that are over five

[1:38:18] Voice 16: thousand dollars we've asked for business cases to be submitted so that council can

[1:38:22] Voice 16: consider the projects it helps to alleviate some of the unfairness or perceived unfairness with the

[1:38:30] Voice 16: way that local trust committee projects were funded previously whereby there was a large pot

[1:38:35] Voice 16: and it was almost a first come first serve kind of a thing where local trust committee could dip

[1:38:39] Voice 16: into the pot at the start of the fiscal year and it's drained throughout the fiscal year and those

[1:38:44] Voice 16: coming forward towards the end uh may not have funding left available so there's 164 000 in

[1:38:51] Voice 16: local trust committee projects i apologize there's a typo in this briefing there it says 257 should

[1:38:56] Voice 16: be 164. and there's a list of those projects there totaling 138 000 and then on top of that is 26 000

[1:39:05] Voice 16: to account for smaller projects that might come forward in the air and that's where we get to the

[1:39:08] Voice 16: $164,000 total.

[1:39:12] Voice 16: We will be going through, or I should say Director Marler will be going through those

[1:39:17] Voice 16: projects individually once I've gone through my section.

[1:39:22] Voice 16: Island Stress Conservancy expenses, exclusive of salaries, is about $650,000, and the Conservancy

[1:39:28] Voice 16: Board, as usual, has met and put forward an official budget funding request.

[1:39:34] Voice 16: So all of the information for their budget request is also included in the agenda package

[1:39:38] Voice 16: for the information of trustees.

[1:39:40] Voice 16: Some of the most significant changes are an increase in property management costs to account for increased covenants and nature reserves that the Conservancy is managing, as well as that 0.6 full-time equivalent staff member that I mentioned previously.

[1:39:57] Voice 16: Office leases for next fiscal year are increasing. I think it's $18,000 or $20,000. That's because we're seeing an increase in office lease costs.

[1:40:06] Voice 16: So our Gabriela office in particular has a new landlord, and our lease term was up, and so it was time for renegotiating, and we're seeing an increase in that lease, which is the primary driver for the change, as well as some changes in our Victoria office lease.

[1:40:21] Voice 16: The insurance market is not changing, and we continue to see rising costs in that arena.

[1:40:30] Voice 16: So we have a budgeted amount of $192,000 versus current fiscal of $185,000.

[1:40:36] Voice 16: That's based on actual proposed insurance amounts that have come forward for renewal.

[1:40:41] Voice 16: We are continuing to look into whether or not insurance with MIBC makes sense for us.

[1:40:46] Voice 16: But for the next fiscal year, we've renewed with our existing insurers.

[1:40:51] Voice 16: Legal costs are budgeted at historical levels.

[1:40:55] Voice 16: This is a hard one to budget for, you know, so we look at sort of where historical actuals lie and what we see trends might be.

[1:41:04] Voice 16: And we've decided at this point in the budget cycle to continue to budget at historical levels of $265,000.

[1:41:11] Voice 16: Software support and licensing has dropped by about $25,000, largely because the current budget had a significant project

[1:41:19] Voice 16: of Microsoft Office Update of $30,000, which is now excluded.

[1:41:24] Voice 16: Included in that is some GPS locator systems for staff

[1:41:27] Voice 16: that are working in remote locations, increased costs for software

[1:41:30] Voice 16: that allows our tech team to support staff who are working remotely,

[1:41:36] Voice 16: as well as some graphic design tools that are proposed

[1:41:39] Voice 16: by the communications staff.

[1:41:41] Voice 16: That's kind of the bulk of the things that are in there.

[1:41:45] Voice 16: Computer hardware and software is coming in at $52,000,

[1:41:48] Voice 16: included in that is an increase in costs for the purchase of new trustee machines. So with the

[1:41:55] Voice 16: elections coming up, we do usually have a refresh in the machines that are given to trustees. And

[1:42:02] Voice 16: that amount is included at $15,000 and makes up part of that 52. The remainder is for mainly for

[1:42:09] Voice 16: staff computer refreshes, which are on a sort of a rotating lifecycle. Contracted services mainly

[1:42:16] Voice 16: mainly pays for specialized areas in the budget. That's $48,000. And the bulk of it actually is for

[1:42:22] Voice 16: things like payroll processing, human resource services that we pay to PSA. There is a proposed

[1:42:28] Voice 16: reallocation of those amounts to put them into different budget lines, which we're planning to

[1:42:33] Voice 16: do for future budget iterations. There's also $10,000 included in there for FOI assistance at

[1:42:39] Voice 16: the request of the legislative team. Strategic plan projects are listed on page 215, amounting

[1:42:47] Voice 16: to about $210,000. So these projects, staff will speak to those individually on behalf of their

[1:42:53] Voice 16: committees as soon as I'm done my section here. And so there will be an opportunity to ask

[1:42:58] Voice 16: questions on those. And there's business cases as well for each of these projects that are included

[1:43:03] Voice 16: in the agenda. Operational projects, there's two of them in the draft budget for next year. The

[1:43:09] Voice 16: The most significant one is the project that's being funded by the UBCM grant.

[1:43:14] Voice 16: That's $367,000, and we'll speak to that as well.

[1:43:18] Voice 16: And there's also $6,500 that's proposed for an electronic document management project.

[1:43:26] Voice 16: And the surplus fund, after we've included in the budget the $182,000 from the general revenue surplus fund,

[1:43:33] Voice 16: is expected to come in right at the minimum balance required by policy.

[1:43:37] Voice 16: and staff will continue to update estimates of that number as we move through the budget cycle

[1:43:42] Voice 16: to see if there's additional funds that council may wish to use. So numbers that support the

[1:43:50] Voice 16: detail in that briefing start on page 217. I won't speak to those specifically as I've already spoken

[1:43:57] Voice 16: to specific items in review of the briefing but I will happily take questions on anything I've

[1:44:03] Voice 16: that mentioned thus far that's

[1:44:11] Voice 23: the first hand i see up anybody else grant scott go ahead michael

[1:44:19] Voice 19: julie if i may just uh looking at that page 217 and this is following up on a conversation we've

[1:44:26] Voice 19: had already that you will make available to uh trustees the doc that that uh that spreadsheet

[1:44:34] Voice 19: sheet including projections for the balance of the current fiscal year which I think we

[1:44:41] Voice 19: both agreed is missing from this page 217.

[1:44:48] Voice 16: Yes so we did in an attempt to reduce the volume of

[1:44:53] Voice 16: numbers on this particular page did accidentally remove the columns showing actual spending for

[1:45:01] Voice 16: fiscal 2020-21 you'll notice there's a fiscal year there that's missing there's also the forecast for

[1:45:08] Voice 16: fiscal 2021-22 which is the current year is also not reflected there we'd received feedback that

[1:45:14] Voice 16: the page was too busy and so we were trying to call and in that culling deleted those two columns

[1:45:20] Voice 16: which are important and you know I would agree should be included so absolutely future agendas

[1:45:27] Voice 16: will include this information and if trustees wish to see it

[1:45:31] Voice 16: I can send that out.

[1:45:34] Voice 23: Okay, thank you very much, Julia. So I'm just

[1:45:37] Voice 23: going to mix this up a little bit to give fair and equitable

[1:45:40] Voice 23: attention to those online. And so I'm going to go to

[1:45:44] Voice 23: Peter Johnson next and then Grant Scott, Alex Allen, Jane

[1:45:48] Voice 23: Wolverton, David Critchley. And the Lord be shaken.

[1:45:56] Voice 15: My turn?

[1:45:57] Voice 23: Yes, sir. Peter Johnson.

[1:45:59] Voice 15: I just want to point out to trustees

[1:46:00] Voice 15: These are concerns that I have that have expressed that if new fee schedules are adopted by local

[1:46:10] Voice 15: trust committees, I think that the number of applications will drop drastically, and

[1:46:15] Voice 15: that's not in the budget as far as I know.

[1:46:18] Voice 15: Thank you.

[1:46:21] Voice 23: Thank you, Peter.

[1:46:23] Voice 23: So, Grant Scott?

[1:46:25] Voice 12: Thank you.

[1:46:26] Voice 12: I ask you to go to page 173.

[1:46:30] Voice 12: Could you put that one up there, please?

[1:46:33] Voice 12: It's about the Hornby Island, $15,000 to support the APC to do revisions to the OCP.

[1:46:43] Voice 12: The APC has been incredibly active the last couple of years, so this would support them to complete this very important work for Hornby.

[1:46:51] Voice 12: I don't have to make the case for what's going into it, but if you look there at the bottom, you'll see there's $12,000 there for consultant,

[1:46:58] Voice 12: consultant, $1,000 for the mapping part of it,

[1:47:01] Voice 12: and $2,000 for communications to get it out to the public

[1:47:04] Voice 12: all over the course of next year.

[1:47:06] Voice 12: If you look at the alternatives,

[1:47:07] Voice 12: alternative one is just not practical.

[1:47:09] Voice 12: From the planner's point of view,

[1:47:11] Voice 12: they simply don't have time.

[1:47:12] Voice 12: They have enough time just dealing with LTCs

[1:47:16] Voice 12: and the applications that come in.

[1:47:18] Voice 12: And the last option on minor amendments,

[1:47:22] Voice 12: that won't work either.

[1:47:23] Voice 12: They need to do this as one project, get it done,

[1:47:27] Voice 12: and then because we've got other things we want the apc to do so we really i'm really asking you

[1:47:31] Voice 12: to support putting this fifteen thousand dollars back in the budget thank you all

[1:47:39] Voice 23: right thank you

[1:47:40] Voice 23: i'm going to now go to alex allen yes

[1:47:47] Voice 42: thank you chair um and ditto to what my fellow trustee scott

[1:47:52] Voice 42: said um do we is this where we can also talk about the budget requests or just just what uh director

[1:47:57] Voice 42: Director Moves has talked about recently.

[1:48:04] Voice 23: So on

[1:48:05] Voice 42: the

[1:48:06] Voice 23: present draft budget overview that we've seen,

[1:48:09] Voice 23: but certainly, Julia,

[1:48:12] Voice 23: are we prepared to move into that area discussion as well?

[1:48:17] Voice 16: So right now I'll be taking questions on anything that's been reviewed so

[1:48:21] Voice 16: far.

[1:48:21] Voice 16: We do intend to have director Marler speak to the local trust committee

[1:48:24] Voice 16: projects and questions to be asked at that time.

[1:48:27] Voice 16: then we'll look at strategic plan projects and then it will be time for a comment and debate

[1:48:32] Voice 42: okay well i have something like what you just were talking about i was just wondering um

[1:48:36] Voice 42: you know it's great that you're thinking of recycling and repurposing computers for

[1:48:42] Voice 42: trustees i i wonder why that's not thought about it as staff as well it's a difference between

[1:48:47] Voice 42: refreshing and repurposing and then i think well it's it's four years you know how much are we

[1:48:52] Voice 42: exactly saving by repurposing just the trustee software and not yours and then um i do like the

[1:49:02] Voice 42: fact that one of your questions that you proposed at the beginning was about leaving space in the

[1:49:07] Voice 42: budget based on the outcome of the governance review so how would that space be allocated

[1:49:14] Voice 42: if there was such a request um

[1:49:19] Voice 16: so maybe i'll address the first question or comment that you

[1:49:21] Voice 16: made about computer refreshes so we do have at the trust sort of a rolling life cycle refresh

[1:49:28] Voice 16: program for staff computers it is a four-year program we do often push it to five years

[1:49:34] Voice 16: where machines are working well and we're feeling that staff are well supported

[1:49:39] Voice 16: when computers are handed back to the technology team and staff are issued a new computer

[1:49:45] Voice 16: those computers are not disposed of they are kept on hand and are recycled for various purposes

[1:49:50] Voice 16: So we do have a loaner pool of computers at the trust.

[1:49:53] Voice 16: So if a staff member has a broken computer that's getting fixed and they need to access a loaner, these older computers would supply the loaner pool.

[1:50:01] Voice 16: Also, oftentimes, staff may have a desktop computer working in the office.

[1:50:06] Voice 16: If they are traveling and need a computer to take with them, they would draw from that loaner pool.

[1:50:10] Voice 16: So we do use those older computers in some capacity, and we do

[1:50:14] Voice 16: push the four-year limit as much as we can.

[1:50:17] Voice 16: yes we are considering uh repurposing the trustee computers if they are functioning well

[1:50:21] Voice 16: um i have promised mark van bakel that i would acknowledge um his lack of support for this

[1:50:28] Voice 16: approach uh it is a less supportable model in terms of issues with computers so of course newer

[1:50:34] Voice 16: computers are going to have less issues for trustees impact their work in less capacity and so

[1:50:40] Voice 16: So discussions are ongoing.

[1:50:43] Voice 16: We'll see where that lands.

[1:50:44] Voice 16: To your second question about making space for the governance review and the budget,

[1:50:49] Voice 16: I think one of the ways that could be accomplished is to leave space in the budget in terms of dollars

[1:50:57] Voice 16: and tax increases to potentially implement any recommendations of the governance review.

[1:51:03] Voice 16: So if council determines that a 5% tax increase is palatable for next fiscal year,

[1:51:10] Voice 16: Maybe what's included in the budget for specific items will get us to a 4% increase.

[1:51:14] Voice 16: So you've got a 1% increase that's remaining that could potentially be used to fund alternative things.

[1:51:20] Voice 16: But largely how that's done would be the will of council.

[1:51:24] Voice 23: Thank you, Director Mods.

[1:51:26] Voice 23: Just want to make a note.

[1:51:27] Voice 23: Actually, Trustee Rogers has just reminded me just to provide regrets from Trustee Morrison.

[1:51:32] Voice 23: She's had to look after herself this morning.

[1:51:36] Voice 23: She'll be back with us later.

[1:51:38] Voice 23: It's all fine.

[1:51:42] Voice 23: My next speaker, I believe now, is Jane Wobleton, and then David Critchley and Laura Byshekin.

[1:51:49] Voice 29: My question is at the bottom of page 215, where it says that surplus funds and the general

[1:51:56] Voice 29: revenue surplus fund have been estimated at $1.63 million versus the minimum required

[1:52:02] Voice 29: under policy of $1.63 million.

[1:52:08] Voice 29: So that's not a mistake.

[1:52:10] Voice 29: stake. You're just saying that the surplus funds are basically even.

[1:52:20] Voice 16: Yes, that's right. So with

[1:52:22] Voice 16: the draw of $182,000 from the general revenue surplus fund, we would anticipate that the

[1:52:28] Voice 16: balance remaining in that fund would be $1.63 million, which is exactly where the policy minimum

[1:52:33] Voice 16: is. We're right on the edge then. We would be right on the edge at the end of fiscal 2023 after

[1:52:42] Voice 16: the 182 000 draw thank

[1:52:47] Voice 23: you jane uh david pritchley and then louis vachon oh and scott colburn thank

[1:52:54] Voice 34: you uh my questions are related to the computers as well trustee computers and uh some some of

[1:53:04] Voice 34: which has been answered but uh after first of all start by expressing some alarm at the idea that

[1:53:12] Voice 34: computers are only good for four years and then we essentially throw them out or

[1:53:18] Voice 34: put them into some sort of reserve pool. I would have hoped that we could keep these things going

[1:53:25] Voice 34: for longer than that, because here we are trying to model better, greener living, and we are

[1:53:33] Voice 34: becoming just ordinary consumers in conceding that these are very disposable items with a very

[1:53:42] Voice 34: limited lifespan so my question then is what upon what data do we rely uh to take a policy

[1:53:51] Voice 34: that would have us exchange all trustee computers every four years do we have to accept that four

[1:53:58] Voice 34: years is the practical lifespan of a piece of electronic equipment these days thank you

[1:54:06] Voice 34: So

[1:54:09] Voice 16: that four-year figure largely aligns with sort of the warranties and supportability of the machine from external providers.

[1:54:21] Voice 16: We do have Mark VanBakel here who would be better placed to speak to the details of that.

[1:54:28] Voice 16: So I'll turn it over to him.

[1:54:30] Voice 16: For my remarks, I would suggest that moving beyond that four-year capacity is certainly doable.

[1:54:36] Voice 16: You know, I'll acknowledge that currently I'm using a computer that's outside of the four-year window.

[1:54:40] Voice 16: It has some glitches, but it works.

[1:54:44] Voice 16: The supporting staff through sort of glitchier computers is the risk here.

[1:54:51] Voice 16: So I'll turn it over to Marco and Bakel for his comments on that.

[1:54:55] Voice 14: Thank you, Julia.

[1:54:55] Voice 14: So, yes, I share your concerns about disposable technology, but I also have to consider the supportability over time and cost.

[1:55:07] Voice 14: So the reality of the situation is there's more at play than just the hardware itself.

[1:55:13] Voice 14: There's software as well.

[1:55:15] Voice 14: The operating system is transitioning to Windows 11, and that would happen during midterm.

[1:55:20] Voice 14: So that creates elevated costs.

[1:55:23] Voice 14: we would end coordination from our perspective because we would have to gather the equipment

[1:55:31] Voice 14: midterm and re-image the equipment. That imaging where I build a new driver collection for that

[1:55:40] Voice 14: operating system has associated costs with it. That has time associated with bringing it into

[1:55:47] Voice 14: the office. That has coordination time for you individually or the trustees of the day.

[1:55:53] Voice 14: The warranties on those devices wear out or run out after four years.

[1:55:59] Voice 14: That means that anything that breaks after that point is a replacement because we can't afford to service it.

[1:56:07] Voice 14: There's no cost effectiveness in servicing these devices.

[1:56:11] Voice 14: So we would be picking up a new device.

[1:56:13] Voice 14: That would be a new image as well.

[1:56:16] Voice 14: we would get a new driver collection for each of those new devices whether we standardize around

[1:56:23] Voice 14: a new device that's two images that i now support while we have an active trust council which is

[1:56:30] Voice 14: a more complicated support model again i this goes on and on it's a deep rabbit hole of support

[1:56:37] Voice 14: and it's hard to relate but if if it helps you make a decision i can provide you with

[1:56:43] Voice 14: a broke a broken down item list of every support impact associated with trying to maintain these

[1:56:50] Voice 14: devices for four more years thank

[1:56:57] Voice 23: you mark thank you julia um i'll move on to the next unless you

[1:57:01] Voice 23: had a further question i'll go to laura bushekin uh

[1:57:06] Voice 10: thank you so i just have a question about the

[1:57:08] Voice 10: LTC project expense numbers. If I look at the top of page 213, it has LTC project expenses are

[1:57:20] Voice 10: budgeted at $257,000 for LTC projects with funding requests already submitted. But below that,

[1:57:30] Voice 10: there's a list of them and the total doesn't come to 257 000 it comes to 138 500 and on page 219 in

[1:57:42] Voice 10: the actual budget the number for the ltc projects is 164 5 000 which would be the 138 500 plus the

[1:57:54] Voice 10: unknown amount of $26,000. So I'm just trying to figure out what the actual amount is in the

[1:58:01] Voice 10: budget for the project expenses. And maybe the $257,000 includes the business cases that

[1:58:10] Voice 10: have since been removed. Do you follow all that?

[1:58:18] Voice 16: Yes, so I did follow that. The first number you

[1:58:22] Voice 16: refer to at the top of page 213 is a typo that is a number that reflects a former version of

[1:58:30] Voice 16: the budget so that number should read 164 500 which would agree to the numerical detail in

[1:58:37] Voice 16: the budget and would also agree to the breakdown on page 223. you're absolutely correct that the

[1:58:44] Voice 16: The list there on page 213, the $138,500 added to that is about $23,000 or $26,000

[1:58:52] Voice 16: for the unknown projects that might come forward, which is how we get the $164,000.

[1:58:57] Voice 16: Thank you.

[1:58:58] Voice 16: Thank you.

[1:59:01] Voice 23: Scott Colburn.

[1:59:03] Voice 37: Thank you.

[1:59:04] Voice 37: I have two points to make.

[1:59:05] Voice 37: I just want to circle back on the laptop piece.

[1:59:08] Voice 37: And I'm wondering, I think among the many surprises in this job over this term,

[1:59:13] Voice 37: getting a new laptop on that first you know first big meeting was one of them I didn't expect that

[1:59:19] Voice 37: or to be perfectly honest wanted and I believe the roundtable discussion we had at that time

[1:59:23] Voice 37: there were a lot of people there could you not make it optional so people who require that device

[1:59:27] Voice 37: to to do this function and I'm also I'm conscious of the fact that that amount of 15,000 is exactly

[1:59:33] Voice 37: what Hornby needs for an OCP review which I would think would have a broader impact on the preserve

[1:59:37] Voice 37: and protect mandate. So I also just want to, so that's a more common and a question if Mark is

[1:59:43] Voice 37: putting together a set of options, I think making it optional for people. We all have a lot of tech

[1:59:49] Voice 37: in our lives and I have not used the PC. So that's a piece of unused potential there that could be

[1:59:55] Voice 37: better utilized. I want to turn to page 215 in the agenda package.

[2:00:01] Voice 37: The bullet under business cases,

[2:00:04] Voice 37: outlining rationale for each funding request.

[2:00:06] Voice 37: No plan is currently in place by staff

[2:00:08] Voice 37: to bring forward a business case

[2:00:10] Voice 37: for the reconciliation action plan implementation.

[2:00:12] Voice 37: However, TC may request that one be submitted

[2:00:14] Voice 37: for the next budget review if desired.

[2:00:16] Voice 37: Two questions, when does that outline?

[2:00:20] Voice 37: So which budget review is that now or then?

[2:00:22] Voice 37: And I would ask that if budget space is being made

[2:00:27] Voice 37: for variables such as the governance and management review,

[2:00:29] Voice 37: you, I would suggest and ask for input on whether or not budget space can be reviewed for something

[2:00:35] Voice 37: as important as a reconciliation action plan. Go ahead, Julia.

[2:00:45] Voice 16: So certainly at the request of

[2:00:47] Voice 16: Trust Council, an official business case for the reconciliation action plan money can be brought

[2:00:52] Voice 16: forward. I would suggest that what's in there now largely is what creates that space that Trustee

[2:00:57] Voice 16: Colburn is talking about. There's many, many things that come up during a fiscal year that we can't

[2:01:03] Voice 16: plan, you know, in relation to our First Nations relationship building. And so it can be hard to

[2:01:10] Voice 16: allocate specific funds at the start of the fiscal year. And we want to create space to be able to

[2:01:14] Voice 16: support those relationships as they change and develop. Certainly, if more information is

[2:01:19] Voice 16: required, we could make that request to staff. And we've got some hands waving.

[2:01:27] Voice 22: Thanks, Julian. Thanks for the question. The point here is this. Less is reconciliation a

[2:01:34] Voice 22: a single project that is undertaken on a yearly basis for analysis and more is it an ongoing

[2:01:41] Voice 22: function of the organization.

[2:01:43] Voice 22: So up till now, over the last three or four years, it's been a discrete item that's debated

[2:01:48] Voice 22: and dollars put forward, though I would suggest, again, the dollars are modest here.

[2:01:53] Voice 22: I think the future of the Islands Trust is to have those elements baked throughout the

[2:01:57] Voice 22: organization in various pieces.

[2:01:59] Voice 22: is um discrete projects like the heritage overlay mapping you know that's something that you know is

[2:02:05] Voice 22: contemplated um discussed and approved but ongoing reconciliation work is is now more of a line item

[2:02:12] Voice 22: as opposed to something that's um discrete so that's why you see that wording and i believe

[2:02:16] Voice 22: that's the rationale for it thank

[2:02:18] Voice 23: you i believe that uh that has filled my uh speakers list so uh

[2:02:27] Voice 23: Julia, where would you like to take us now?

[2:02:29] Voice 23: Yes, you've got numerical budget details next.

[2:02:33] Voice 16: So I won't speak to the numerical budget detail.

[2:02:36] Voice 16: It's just the numerical representation of the information that's already been presented.

[2:02:41] Voice 16: So unless there's specific questions there, I would suggest that Director Marler take some time to walk through the details of the local trust committee projects.

[2:02:48] Voice 23: Great, thank you.

[2:02:49] Voice 23: And so are there any questions on the numerical detail?

[2:02:54] Voice 23: No.

[2:02:55] Voice 23: Okay, so then this is our opportunity to move into the business cases.

[2:02:58] Voice 23: David Mahler, are you going to pick this up from here?

[2:03:01] Voice 23: Do you want to take the microphone at the front there?

[2:03:05] Voice 11: Yeah, this is good. I think I won't be too long.

[2:03:07] Voice 11: I just want to start on page 213 of the agenda package.

[2:03:13] Voice 11: I just want to go through quickly, with not too much detail,

[2:03:18] Voice 11: on the Local Trust Committee's budget request

[2:03:22] Voice 11: and then turn it over to the Chair of the Regional Planning Committee

[2:03:26] Voice 11: committee to talk about those requests so at top of page 13 you'll see the five items that

[2:03:34] Voice 11: have been requested from trust committees three from salt spring one from denman one from gambia

[2:03:39] Voice 11: the gambia one is their ocp this is an ongoing project so the 17 000 requested would continue

[2:03:47] Voice 11: that work into the next year the denman ocp lub housing is also an ongoing project and that item

[2:03:58] Voice 11: That item is $13,000 and will continue into next year.

[2:04:05] Voice 11: The Saltspring on CDF Zone is a relatively new project.

[2:04:11] Voice 11: There have been discussions on Saltspring for quite a while about getting this work

[2:04:16] Voice 11: done and the need for it.

[2:04:18] Voice 11: This particular one would address a strategic plan item, which the Regional Planning Committee

[2:04:25] Voice 11: has is to develop bylaws for CDF so one option here is that Salt Spring can take the lead

[2:04:32] Voice 11: and then this information could then be used as a model for other local trust areas so the

[2:04:38] Voice 11: regional planning committee is definitely interested in watching this one the Ganges

[2:04:43] Voice 11: village phase two this is a continuing project that started this fiscal year and the last date

[2:04:50] Voice 11: in the housing action program is a new project uh there has been some actions uh undertaken

[2:04:57] Voice 11: but this is pulling it together to get the program started so those are the

[2:05:02] Voice 11: the the ltc projects that are over five thousand dollars um so there's any questions on those

[2:05:10] Voice 11: before i go to regional planning committee's uh projects are

[2:05:15] Voice 23: there any questions for

[2:05:16] Voice 23: David, Director Mahler, not seeing any, but David, maybe I'll just ask a question here,

[2:05:23] Voice 23: because I know there's some interest in proposing amendments in this, and I presumed it would be in

[2:05:29] Voice 23: this section at 6.2.2.4.2. What is your expectation there to address those?

[2:05:36] Voice 11: You're thinking the HOMB and those items? Whatever else?

[2:05:41] Voice 11: Yeah, I think if the trustees are interested in doing that, I'm fine with that.

[2:05:47] Voice 11: from my perspective um yeah the hornby is is not included i will comment though that uh it is a

[2:05:55] Voice 11: priority excuse me let's

[2:05:57] Voice 25: touch on those and

[2:05:58] Voice 23: when they're brought up let's go to the director to

[2:06:00] Voice 23: keep your flow going here at the moment yeah so over to the director of regional uh planning

[2:06:05] Voice 23: services no uh regional planning committee the chair yeah

[2:06:13] Voice 23: oh sorry yeah i

[2:06:15] Voice 10: just got a promotion

[2:06:15] Voice 10: I just

[2:06:16] Voice 23: got a promotion now.

[2:06:16] Voice 10: Okay. Thank you. So, I mean, they're here before you. There's

[2:06:22] Voice 10: several projects that the regional planning committee is hoping to carry out. So there's

[2:06:35] Voice 10: the heritage overlay mapping of $74,000. This is phase two. This is already underway with

[2:06:40] Voice 10: if I'm saying it correctly, a company that's working for us.

[2:06:46] Voice 10: And this really is, you know, when you talk about where's the money

[2:06:50] Voice 10: for the Reconciliation Action Plan, it is really seeded

[2:06:54] Voice 10: and threaded throughout the whole budget because this is certainly

[2:06:57] Voice 10: a big part of that.

[2:06:59] Voice 10: So that's here.

[2:07:00] Voice 10: Then there's the $50,000 for the Groundwater Sustainability Science Program.

[2:07:05] Voice 10: This is part of the Freshwater Sustainability Strategy.

[2:07:08] Voice 10: strategy. And this is really a continuation of work that's been going on on some islands. And

[2:07:13] Voice 10: this is to make sure it's spread throughout the whole trust area. There's the formatting

[2:07:18] Voice 10: and publication of the freshwater sustainability strategy for $6,000. And I believe that is,

[2:07:31] Voice 10: is oh and the housing actions uh workshop so this originally was as you can see it might be

[2:07:40] Voice 10: confusing in the um in the business case this was originally about hiring a consultant to do a

[2:07:47] Voice 10: report and some model bylaws and what we were feeling is we've already had this happen

[2:07:52] Voice 10: twice with shoreline issues and model density and it didn't actually um supply model bylaws

[2:08:01] Voice 10: And there hasn't been uptake.

[2:08:02] Voice 10: And so this is really something that came out of discussions between myself and staff.

[2:08:07] Voice 10: And it's a little bit of a different approach.

[2:08:09] Voice 10: And it's bringing together staff to workshop together some draft model bylaws to support housing options.

[2:08:22] Voice 10: So it's more open and it's a little more innovative and creative.

[2:08:26] Voice 10: of its staff who've been working on the islands they know what ltcs are doing they can bring

[2:08:33] Voice 10: their expertise from say working on the main island project for housing and other housing

[2:08:39] Voice 10: projects and they know i think of what is needed and could be supported on the islands and they'll

[2:08:44] Voice 10: work together to draft something up so it's about breaking down the silos between different regions

[2:08:50] Voice 10: and make sure staff are working together.

[2:08:52] Voice 10: So, and that's at $10,000.

[2:08:55] Voice 10: So, those are the RPC projects.

[2:08:58] Voice 10: There are a number, of course, as you know about,

[2:09:00] Voice 10: that have been cut out,

[2:09:03] Voice 10: mostly to do with the freshwater strategy.

[2:09:05] Voice 10: And I will also say it's just the way the agenda has worked out.

[2:09:12] Voice 10: We'll be looking at the freshwater sustainability strategy later,

[2:09:16] Voice 10: and we will hopefully be adopting it

[2:09:18] Voice 10: and looking at it and learning more about it.

[2:09:21] Voice 10: And so it's a little bit of, you know,

[2:09:23] Voice 10: it's the cart coming before the horse,

[2:09:24] Voice 10: but that's how it ended up happening.

[2:09:29] Voice 10: So this is, you know, this is the budget

[2:09:32] Voice 10: where this freshwater sustainability strategy

[2:09:34] Voice 10: should be launching.

[2:09:39] Voice 10: And I'll leave it at that.

[2:09:41] Voice 10: Thanks.

[2:09:42] Voice 10: Open to questions or questions for staff

[2:09:44] Voice 10: about any of these projects.

[2:09:46] Voice 23: Okay, thank you, Director.

[2:09:47] Voice 23: So maybe just ask if there's any questions for the chair of the regional planning committee and the director of local planning services with respect to this.

[2:09:59] Voice 23: And I'm just going to say this. I recognize that this may be the first opportunity that many trustees have had a chance to see

[2:10:08] Voice 23: the entire budget package.

[2:10:10] Voice 23: It's certainly been a financial planning committee. And so there may be some questions that you have about business cases.

[2:10:15] Voice 23: And, of course, we have a new business case that's included that you've seen yesterday.

[2:10:20] Voice 23: I want to provide the opportunity for those questions about the business cases and also provide the opportunity for the most recent business case to be summarized to you.

[2:10:31] Voice 23: And so I'm going to look to staff about how it is you want to unfold that piece of it, or you just want to go to questions on the present business cases, or do you want to introduce a new business case so it can be judged in light of the others?

[2:10:43] Voice 23: and maybe

[2:10:46] Voice 11: questions on the existing ones first yeah

[2:10:49] Voice 23: very good then so uh trustees i see a few

[2:10:52] Voice 23: hands up i see uh trustee colburn trustee allen trustee su allen fast okay in that order

[2:10:59] Voice 37: thank

[2:11:00] Voice 37: you and i just want to take an opportunity to express my gratitude to to staff um it's so much

[2:11:06] Voice 37: respect and and learned a lot uh sometimes we can argue about the structure processes and

[2:11:11] Voice 37: and legislation, but I really want to express my gratitude.

[2:11:17] Voice 37: I have a question, we talk about silos

[2:11:19] Voice 37: and we've got different regional planning offices.

[2:11:23] Voice 37: I note that the Northern office,

[2:11:25] Voice 37: I know the tagline of the trust is preserving

[2:11:28] Voice 37: protected islands on the Salish Sea.

[2:11:29] Voice 37: I think maybe the Northern trustees may agree with me.

[2:11:33] Voice 37: The tagline could be,

[2:11:35] Voice 37: we don't have staff capacity to do that right now.

[2:11:38] Voice 37: that's and it's it's a function that somewhat of where the staffing is it's a function somewhat of

[2:11:44] Voice 37: the nature of the islands themselves and some of the overdue project work but looking at this list

[2:11:49] Voice 37: and looking at the items that are coming to you a little bit later because they've been moving at a

[2:11:54] Voice 37: different pace depending on which offices they're in is there an equity issue here and a breaking

[2:11:59] Voice 37: down of silos approach needed because the work is moving through different areas of the trust

[2:12:05] Voice 37: at different rates depending on staffing levels

[2:12:07] Voice 37: and the word of the year capacity.

[2:12:16] Voice 25: So that's a great

[2:12:18] Voice 23: comment, and there's obviously a question

[2:12:21] Voice 23: that I don't know that we necessarily have an answer for that.

[2:12:25] Voice 23: CEO Hotsimpiller, over to you.

[2:12:28] Voice 23: We would

[2:12:29] Voice 22: hope that there's practical inequalities

[2:12:34] Voice 22: based on circumstance, I expect.

[2:12:37] Voice 22: Let's look at the times we're in over the last 18 months,

[2:12:40] Voice 22: and they've affected different regions differently but our whole premise of reorganizing our how we

[2:12:46] Voice 22: do this work is to let is to make things equitable and that is to take long-range projects and not

[2:12:53] Voice 22: have just the ones in the southern region or salt spring or something get attention

[2:12:57] Voice 22: but to have a dedicated group of people who's working on those matters and i would suggest that

[2:13:02] Voice 22: it's starting to work um we are seeing projects that have been sitting around for years getting

[2:13:07] Voice 22: picked up off the table um gambiero cp um um there's some other examples so i'm sensitive to

[2:13:14] Voice 22: that but um also aware that uh yeah we're having some challenges in the northern office um with uh

[2:13:20] Voice 22: um with staffing we're very aware of that um we're we're we don't want it to be an endemic um

[2:13:28] Voice 22: position and we're actively trying to reorganize or redeploy staff to lessen that um if you're

[2:13:35] Voice 22: feeling it thank

[2:13:37] Voice 23: you for that remark and then does david director marla have anything to

[2:13:41] Voice 11: add to that

[2:13:41] Voice 11: yeah yes i

[2:13:42] Voice 11: do um so the the most recent situation obviously is the the two vacancies in the north

[2:13:48] Voice 11: with the planners and part of the discussion was how do we address that how do we fill that until

[2:13:54] Voice 11: we can hire the new planners and get them trained and one of the things that we did is we said we're

[2:14:00] Voice 11: not going to um take away the regional planning team in other words one option was to reassign

[2:14:06] Voice 11: some of those people to get that work done and we said no we're going to protect those people

[2:14:11] Voice 11: because that is the intent of having that regional planning team and we looked at other alternatives

[2:14:16] Voice 11: including is the capacity in the other offices in the local planning team to assist could we

[2:14:23] Voice 11: We have them take on some of the applications and we have our planning technician who we

[2:14:30] Voice 11: have on a temporary assignment to take on high level work to assist.

[2:14:35] Voice 11: So we are looking at it outside of the office.

[2:14:39] Voice 11: It wasn't just Heather, you have to figure this out.

[2:14:42] Voice 11: It was the three regional planning managers and myself working together to figure out

[2:14:47] Voice 11: what is the best option for the short term.

[2:14:50] Voice 23: Thank you, David.

[2:14:52] Voice 23: Before I go to the next speaker, which would be Alex Allen, I just want to note that Julia

[2:14:56] Voice 23: Mobbs mentioned at the beginning of her presentation, which may have not been picked up, is that

[2:15:03] Voice 23: this process that we're in now is highly refined to where it was a number of years ago, and

[2:15:07] Voice 23: the business case model that we now have does provide that opportunity to create that equity.

[2:15:12] Voice 23: And certainly there's other regional issues that come into play here, but the objective

[2:15:16] Voice 23: is to provide that equity for the judgment of business cases that come forward on an equal

[2:15:21] Voice 23: basis from LTCs. And that's why I asked about how we can insert this most recent business case in

[2:15:28] Voice 23: order to be sure that it can be judged in fairness against the others that are before us. So thank

[2:15:34] Voice 23: you for that. And thank you for those answers, David and CAO. Alex Allen, over to you.

[2:15:39] Voice 42: Thank you, Chair. I just have three questions. 4.2 regarding the website design.

[2:15:47] Voice 42: on page 225.

[2:15:51] Voice 42: There's staff has overspent the existing website budget.

[2:15:55] Voice 42: Then there's this whole waterfall of due to this,

[2:15:59] Voice 42: due to that, due to this, due to that.

[2:16:00] Voice 42: So can you say that in one line or less,

[2:16:04] Voice 42: what exactly that, what is the, why it was overspent?

[2:16:08] Voice 42: That's question number one.

[2:16:10] Voice 42: Number two, the bottom of that page,

[2:16:11] Voice 42: the executive committee considered,

[2:16:13] Voice 42: but did not recommend a business case

[2:16:15] Voice 42: for an engagement planner, sorry, planner position

[2:16:20] Voice 42: What was that engagement regarding what and the final one is on Swipa.

[2:16:27] Voice 42: I understand I've read that they have unspent funds and surplus budgets.

[2:16:33] Voice 42: I was just curious to see how much unspent funds they have in their current budget.

[2:16:40] Voice 42: Thank you.

[2:16:40] Voice 23: Alex Allen, so there's two areas there and I'll ask Director Frey to address the first question.

[2:16:46] Voice 23: question. And then the SWPA, of course, the chair of SWPA is here, but maybe that's a financial

[2:16:53] Voice 23: director of administrative services can better answer that. Thank you. Over to Claire Frater,

[2:16:58] Voice 23: Trust Area Services.

[2:17:01] Voice 17: Thank you very much for the question. With regard to spending on the website,

[2:17:05] Voice 17: we did see some overruns relating to particularly, we had intended to rely on administrative staff

[2:17:10] Voice 17: to help build the new site, and then found that that administrative time was really being devoted

[2:17:15] Voice 17: into administration of zoom meetings so needed to bring in contract support to help us with those

[2:17:20] Voice 17: additional activities so that was part of the explanation that is part of the explanation the

[2:17:24] Voice 17: other piece was we had approved some elements of the website and then as it was rolled out

[2:17:28] Voice 17: there were some unintended um additional features that we found necessary to to accommodate um so

[2:17:35] Voice 17: there was a combination of both of those factors that led to some overruns um and then with regard

[2:17:40] Voice 17: to the second question around the business case for an engagement planner position this was um

[2:17:45] Voice 17: put forward as a staff proposal for an additional position to support and coordinate engagement

[2:17:51] Voice 17: generally at the islands trust to have sort of have a coordination function to support

[2:17:56] Voice 17: the planning delivery and evaluation of engagement thank

[2:18:00] Voice 23: you very much director

[2:18:02] Voice 23: frader so um director mobs do you want to address this with a question uh

[2:18:07] Voice 16: yeah absolutely so each

[2:18:08] Voice 16: year that there's a special requisition um and i'll speak in particular to salt spring island

[2:18:12] Voice 16: in the SWPA program.

[2:18:13] Voice 16: That's what we're talking about here.

[2:18:15] Voice 16: So in previous years

[2:18:16] Voice 16: where a special requisition

[2:18:18] Voice 16: has been levied

[2:18:20] Voice 16: against Salt Spring Island

[2:18:21] Voice 16: local trust area

[2:18:22] Voice 16: and remains unspent,

[2:18:24] Voice 16: that goes into a specific reserve fund

[2:18:26] Voice 16: that is reserved

[2:18:27] Voice 16: particularly for projects

[2:18:29] Voice 16: of the Salt Spring Island

[2:18:30] Voice 16: local trust committee

[2:18:31] Voice 16: because it was requisitioned

[2:18:33] Voice 16: from that local trust area only.

[2:18:35] Voice 16: So the anticipation

[2:18:36] Voice 16: at the time this budget was drafted

[2:18:38] Voice 16: was that there'd be about $41,000

[2:18:39] Voice 16: that would be sitting

[2:18:40] Voice 16: in that reserve fund

[2:18:41] Voice 16: that could be used for particular projects.

[2:18:45] Voice 16: I'm hearing from staff there may be a shift in that figure.

[2:18:48] Voice 16: There may actually be some unspent funds from the current year

[2:18:52] Voice 16: that would flow into next year,

[2:18:53] Voice 16: and so we may end up seeing an increase in the amount

[2:18:56] Voice 16: that's drawn out next year for work.

[2:18:58] Voice 16: It's simply just a shift in the timing of planned work

[2:19:01] Voice 16: that's resulting in that.

[2:19:03] Voice 16: So hopefully that answers your question.

[2:19:05] Voice 42: Can I follow up with something?

[2:19:07] Voice 42: Yes, please.

[2:19:08] Voice 42: please. Yeah, Juliet, so that's why I don't know, I'm really totally ignorant when it comes to

[2:19:14] Voice 42: accounting, but so if it's a requisition, a tax requisition, and then there's surplus funds,

[2:19:19] Voice 42: and then there's more, you know, there's a lot of money from previously not spent,

[2:19:22] Voice 42: would that not be just a decrease in the tax requisition? Would that not go that route, or

[2:19:27] Voice 42: I'm just curious.

[2:19:30] Voice 16: So that is an option. If there's money that's unspent, it can be used in the next

[2:19:36] Voice 16: fiscal year to offset the special levy in that fiscal year this discussion was brought to the

[2:19:42] Voice 16: salt spring island local trust committee and i think happened at the council table maybe about

[2:19:47] Voice 16: a year ago and the decision was made to request a special requisition at normal historical amounts

[2:19:53] Voice 16: and use those reserve funds for particular projects that were water related okay thank you

[2:20:03] Voice 23: Vice Chair, Laura Patrick, who's also the chair of the SWPA, would like to add an additional

[2:20:10] Voice 23: remark. I see your hand up there, Trustee Critchley.

[2:20:13] Trustee Patrick: Just in regard to SWPA, we just

[2:20:16] Trustee Patrick: have a consultant that literally just started like a week or two weeks ago that is looking at

[2:20:21] Trustee Patrick: this, and there is a potential that there could be a change in that, but the early days.

[2:20:26] Trustee Patrick: Okay,

[2:20:28] Voice 23: so on my speaker's list now is Sue Ellen Faust, Laura Patrick and David Pitchley,

[2:20:33] Voice 23: and I'm going to go to Sue Ellen Faust next.

[2:20:35] Voice 31: Sue Ellen Faust Thank you.

[2:20:36] Voice 31: My question relates to when trustees can make motions about changes to this draft budget.

[2:20:44] Voice 31: Exactly because I keep hearing the word later and I heard 6.2.4.2, which is

[2:20:49] Voice 31: what I think

[2:20:50] Voice 31: we're on.

[2:20:51] Voice 31: So that's great.

[2:20:55] Voice 31: so i'm hearing yes from the chair so this is the time to make those motions um the second question

[2:21:01] Voice 31: i have is uh about the freshwater reporting that financial committee recommended to take out

[2:21:08] Voice 31: um would now be a time that i could make a motion to put that 15 000 back in because we don't hear

[2:21:16] Voice 31: about them until later in the agenda as the chair of the committee uh remarked i don't want to wait

[2:21:23] Voice 31: for that and missed the opportunity to make that motion to put that back in can you advise me sure

[2:21:30] Voice 23: so what i would like to see is we were going to answer the questions about what we know that's in

[2:21:34] Voice 23: your package i think it would be appropriate to hear about the business case that is new and hear

[2:21:40] Voice 23: that and then at that juncture i think would be the opportunity to put things back in or take

[2:21:46] Voice 23: things out as council wishes and so if you don't mind just holding off on those motions for an

[2:21:51] Voice 23: orderly understanding of where we're at i think that would be helpful and if there's any counter

[2:21:57] Voice 23: thoughts on that i'd be happy to hear it and i see a counter thought from trustee scott

[2:22:02] Voice 12: no i don't want to counter anything i'd just like you to point at me when my time comes up because

[2:22:06] Voice 12: i'm sitting here patiently not knowing point when don't worry i'm not going to miss you all right

[2:22:12] Voice 12: thank you so

[2:22:12] Voice 31: does that mean chair that after 6.2.4.2 that's what the number i should be looking

[2:22:19] Voice 31: looking at?

[2:22:20] Voice 23: Well, not after, but in.

[2:22:21] Voice 31: In. Thank you.

[2:22:23] Voice 23: Yeah. Okay. So Laura Patrick.

[2:22:29] Trustee Patrick: Okay. I just wanted to, I know the Coastal Douglas Fir Project that was referred to that

[2:22:34] Trustee Patrick: David had said it's relatively new. It is not relatively new. It's over two years old.

[2:22:39] Trustee Patrick: And I wish Deb Morrison was here because it's just through the process of where it started.

[2:22:45] Trustee Patrick: It was started on contiguous forest cover being what was sort of the interest, but through

[2:22:51] Trustee Patrick: through our understanding of climate change,

[2:22:53] Trustee Patrick: our concerns with everything,

[2:22:54] Trustee Patrick: it's sort of moved into the wild,

[2:22:56] Trustee Patrick: sort of, it did move into the wildfire resiliency.

[2:22:59] Trustee Patrick: And I think that's something we all have concerns about.

[2:23:02] Trustee Patrick: So this is, while it might sound like a Salt Spring project,

[2:23:05] Trustee Patrick: it does seem broader.

[2:23:07] Trustee Patrick: I also think there is lots of,

[2:23:09] Trustee Patrick: I do hear and feel for the Northern office.

[2:23:13] Trustee Patrick: And I think there's a lot of opportunity in the housing work

[2:23:17] Trustee Patrick: to be better coordinated and more efficient

[2:23:19] Trustee Patrick: across the trust the the different groups that are working on it okay

[2:23:26] Voice 25: thank you so David Critchley

[2:23:27] Voice 25: yes

[2:23:33] Voice 34: thank you um trustee Patrick has just spoken slightly to the topic of concern that I have

[2:23:41] Voice 34: that is to the coordination of matters uh throughout the trust area dealing with housing

[2:23:49] Voice 34: Just to start off, I will note that housing, and particularly affordable housing, is of

[2:23:57] Voice 34: deep concern throughout the trust area.

[2:24:00] Voice 34: And I note that on this, within the requisitions for the budget, there are several matters

[2:24:06] Voice 34: that deal with housing.

[2:24:08] Voice 34: There's one from Salt Spring that's specific, a new one pending from Gabriola, and there

[2:24:16] Voice 34: There is the regional or local planning services general request, or I guess it's a specific request, but for model bylaws and so forth.

[2:24:29] Voice 34: My concern is that we have this scattergun approach, and it's not efficient in looking at affordable housing throughout the area.

[2:24:39] Voice 34: you my impression is that the trust oversells to the public its ability to do much about affordable

[2:24:50] Voice 34: housing there are some simplistic sort of suggestions that we could um we could rezone

[2:24:58] Voice 34: every every property so that where where a property has the right to build one house we

[2:25:04] Voice 34: say two houses uh we could legalize all things which are currently illegal i i don't favor those

[2:25:12] Voice 34: sorts of things but there are limited number of options that we have for affordable housing they

[2:25:18] Voice 34: should be set out comprehensively it could be a model bylaw but aside from that i'm not convinced

[2:25:25] Voice 34: that we can do a lot, at least in terms of projects.

[2:25:32] Voice 34: Yes, we can respond to applications that are presented

[2:25:37] Voice 34: by charitable organizations usually for affordable housing.

[2:25:43] Voice 34: So my concern and the question then is,

[2:25:48] Voice 34: specifically to the Salt Spring request for a project,

[2:25:54] Voice 34: Director Marler, could you explain or enlarge upon how important this would be for the trust area generally?

[2:26:06] Voice 34: Could the project be shaped in such a way that it would have broader utility throughout the trust area?

[2:26:15] Voice 34: area um yeah I'm just concerned about that if you could speak to that about how practical it is to

[2:26:24] Voice 34: embark upon uh a fairly expensive project like this for one uh local trust committee thank you

[2:26:33] Voice 34: assuming

[2:26:36] Voice 11: we talked about the housing actions program

[2:26:43] Voice 34: there's one for Salt Spring and there's

[2:26:47] Voice 34: There's, of course, others that are pending.

[2:26:50] Voice 34: There are, I think, three in total.

[2:26:53] Voice 34: But I'm specific about the Salt Spring one and how the scope could be enlarged

[2:27:00] Voice 34: or perhaps it already is sufficiently broad that it would be of use throughout the trust area.

[2:27:05] Voice 34: I'd like some comment on that.

[2:27:07] Voice 11: Okay.

[2:27:08] Voice 11: So just taking a step back, the local trust committee's area of responsibility is land use planning.

[2:27:15] Voice 11: planning so every every local trust area has its own LCP land use bylaw and they have unique uh

[2:27:23] Voice 11: requirements so Salt Springs going to be different to North Pender or any other Island for that

[2:27:28] Voice 11: matter so you know the work that they're proposing under the housing action program is specific to

[2:27:35] Voice 11: the Salt Spring requirement that doesn't mean that some of the things that they're proposing

[2:27:39] Voice 11: housing might be transferable to other trust areas so there's definitely a learning opportunity there

[2:27:45] Voice 11: but to work together so if you want if you're talking about the larger action of housing

[2:27:52] Voice 11: generally and that is working with the regional districts the province housing providers and I

[2:28:00] Voice 11: think there is a commonality there for sure but that is not Lange's plan that's coordination or

[2:28:06] Voice 11: some other term. There could be land use planning in that. If you were to do a coordination

[2:28:15] Voice 11: similar to Swipper, for example, it may be coming out of that that the local trust committee

[2:28:22] Voice 11: is tasked to amend its LCPs to do something, and the regional district will update some of

[2:28:28] Voice 11: its bylaws to do something, or BC Housing or the province would have some takeaways as well.

[2:28:35] Voice 11: so that to me is where the um the true ability of the trust um under that coordination

[2:28:42] Voice 11: which is a council um authority as long as it relates to the preserve and protect mandate

[2:28:49] Voice 11: to the trust there's definitely something that could be considered and i think that

[2:28:53] Voice 11: is part of the crux of some of the um proposals coming forward uh to do just that uh there's a

[2:29:01] Voice 11: an rfd on that from salt spring and gabriela that considers that approach to doing things

[2:29:09] Voice 11: so i guess what i say is that because look trust me this have only the authority of languages

[2:29:14] Voice 11: planning that the best opportunity outside of that trust council delegated authority

[2:29:21] Voice 11: is really to learn from each other and um and figure out a way to share that information

[2:29:32] Voice 23: Thank you. So that concludes my speakers on questions on the topics that are business cases, etc., that are in here already.

[2:29:40] Voice 23: And so I'll turn to staff to make sure I'm on the right course here.

[2:29:44] Voice 23: I think this would be the opportunity to introduce the new business case that we've seen just recently, give it a summary.

[2:29:50] Voice 23: And then I think that is then the opportunity for me to point to Grant Scott and others to look for amendments to the budget.

[2:29:58] Voice 23: And so is that.

[2:30:00] Voice 23: Would that be correct, Director of Administrative Services and Director Mahler?

[2:30:07] Voice 16: I think if Council wishes to have review of the late item right now, that could be accommodated.

[2:30:14] Voice 16: We have reviewed the LTC projects and the RPC projects at this point.

[2:30:19] Voice 16: We still need to have staff information out on Trust Programs Committee projects as well as the Executive Committee and Conservancy budgets.

[2:30:26] Voice 16: budgets. So it may be that all the information should be provided to council before debate

[2:30:33] Voice 16: takes place.

[2:30:34] Voice 23: Fully understood. And so that still resides under 6.2.2.4.2, the business cases.

[2:30:41] Voice 23: So then let's wrap up the regional planning services portion of this, and then let's hear

[2:30:46] Voice 23: from the other uh areas and then indeed we can judge all of this uh in equity um together so

[2:30:56] Voice 23: david mauler over to you for the

[2:30:57] Voice 25: new uh business case or

[2:31:03] Voice 23: whomever yeah can you just remind me the

[2:31:05] Voice 23: page number and i'll just note that you know at 12 minutes before our break obviously we're going

[2:31:11] Voice 23: to extend this conversation until past lunch after town hall and delegation so be prepared

[2:31:19] Voice 25: OKAY. THE FLOOR IS YOURS, DIRECTOR MAHLER.

[2:31:23] Voice 25: OKAY. I DON'T HAVE IT.

[2:31:34] Voice 11: YEAH, I DON'T HAVE IT IN FRONT OF ME.

[2:31:37] Voice 41: THIS IS IN OUR

[2:31:38] Voice 41: E-MAIL, IS THAT RIGHT?

[2:31:39] Voice 11: IT CAME

[2:31:39] Voice 41: IN OUR E-MAIL, YES.

[2:31:44] Voice 11: JUST GIVE ME A MINUTE.

[2:31:48] Voice 25: AND DIRECTOR, THE CHAIR OF THE LTC IS ALSO AVAILABLE TO YOU AS A RESOURCE.

[2:31:54] Voice 25: mr

[2:32:05] Voice 40: chair i

[2:32:06] Voice 11: don't have it in front of me are

[2:32:09] Voice 15: we now going to hear the the new business cases

[2:32:16] Voice 25: yes that is correct i

[2:32:18] Voice 15: i thought that that it was recommended that we could here's the rest

[2:32:23] Voice 15: of the budget before we introduce and make any decisions on those

[2:32:27] Voice 23: no i think the director was

[2:32:30] Voice 23: indicating that we still needed to hear on the other business cases from the other areas of the

[2:32:36] Voice 23: the trust area services and others.

[2:32:39] Voice 23: And so I think we're wrapping up the land,

[2:32:43] Voice 23: the regional planning services business cases at this point.

[2:32:49] Voice 23: But it's one way or the other.

[2:32:52] Voice 23: It seems to me to be obvious following the conversation

[2:32:54] Voice 23: that we've been having around housing

[2:32:56] Voice 23: that we should follow through with this.

[2:32:58] Voice 23: The CEO, did you want to make a remark?

[2:33:00] Voice 23: Yes, I do. Thank you.

[2:33:02] Voice 22: So because of the volume of material here

[2:33:04] Voice 22: and all the numbers,

[2:33:05] Voice 22: we're not going to be able to go through the line-by-line of your business case.

[2:33:08] Voice 22: So it's an introduction of the concept and then questions and queries

[2:33:12] Voice 22: and what are we doing here, but we would respond to all of those

[2:33:17] Voice 22: just because there's so many business cases. So that's the underlying

[2:33:20] Voice 22: premise.

[2:33:21] Voice 23: Thank you. So

[2:33:22] Voice 22: we're on the right

[2:33:22] Voice 23: course. So are we deferring

[2:33:24] Voice 23: to the chair of the LTC to introduce this business case?

[2:33:28] Voice 23: Yeah, I'm okay with that. Thank you very much.

[2:33:35] Voice 21: And I'll also

[2:33:37] Voice 21: defer as appropriate

[2:33:38] Voice 21: to Trustee Colburn, who's

[2:33:40] Voice 21: probably more intimately

[2:33:42] Voice 21: I want to just remind

[2:33:44] Voice 21: perhaps folks

[2:33:45] Voice 21: that aren't on FPC won't know this.

[2:33:48] Voice 21: This particular item was

[2:33:50] Voice 21: actually on the FPC agenda

[2:33:52] Voice 21: for October and November,

[2:33:54] Voice 21: but the business case was not actually

[2:33:56] Voice 21: present.

[2:33:58] Voice 21: The LTC had not had an opportunity

[2:34:00] Voice 21: to review the business case until its

[2:34:02] Voice 21: meeting last

[2:34:03] Voice 21: Thursday, but the

[2:34:06] Voice 21: The request was present as an application for funding for the Housing and Biocultural Advisory Committee.

[2:34:20] Voice 21: It's a bit of a unique approach to planning on the island.

[2:34:25] Voice 21: It's a result of, I'll say, two and a half years of engagement by volunteers,

[2:34:32] Voice 21: years by both the APC and another group on the island with recommendations that were made to the

[2:34:36] Voice 21: APC and to the uh and to the and then through the APC the housing APC to the local trust committee

[2:34:43] Voice 21: to create a a consultation committee a group that would provide over a longer period of time

[2:34:51] Voice 21: a series of recommendations to the local trust committee so it's a bit different than most of the

[2:34:57] Voice 21: the types of projects that we see coming out of the many local trust committees, but it

[2:35:05] Voice 21: was adopted by two of the three trustees there, myself and Trustee Colburn, as a potential

[2:35:13] Voice 21: way forward to provide a more holistic view of how to develop on Gabriola.

[2:35:18] Voice 21: We didn't see the business case until last Thursday, and so the local trust committee

[2:35:25] Voice 21: voted at that time that while the recommendation from FPC had been to seek a special tax requisition

[2:35:35] Voice 21: as the way forward and use the process to seek a special tax requisition, which involves public

[2:35:43] Voice 21: consultation before that's done, and then approval by the local trust committee and the trust council,

[2:35:49] Voice 21: and the request was to give us the funding the request from the ltc is to provide the funding

[2:35:55] Voice 21: for this year and uh and then a lot to allow it because the advice from staff was to provide to

[2:36:03] Voice 21: get the special tax requisition in place for next the next big budget cycle would be uh challenging

[2:36:11] Voice 21: if not impossible uh from an administrative point of view and that would give at least

[2:36:16] Voice 21: the project an opportunity to get off that has been in the works for a couple of years

[2:36:20] Voice 21: to get off the ground um and allow the project then to find a way to fund its its way going

[2:36:27] Voice 21: forward with the idea that it would probably seek the the consent of the community for

[2:36:32] Voice 21: special tax requisition so that's the project that's a summary of what's in front of you

[2:36:37] Voice 21: um it's a uh a a a a a project that is of course ambitious it's a little bit different than than

[2:36:48] Voice 21: others we see it as a way or at least some of us from the local trust committee i don't want to

[2:36:53] Voice 21: speak for trustee long rice who has a different view um that it uh is that it a way forward of

[2:36:59] Voice 21: taking a more holistic approach to planning around not just housing but how that that all interacts

[2:37:05] Voice 21: with the biocultural of the island.

[2:37:08] Voice 21: I see Trustee Colburn's hand is up,

[2:37:10] Voice 21: so he may want to add to that as an introduction.

[2:37:14] Voice 23: Sure, thank you.

[2:37:15] Voice 23: And I also want to note that Peter Johnson's hand is up,

[2:37:18] Voice 23: and I'm not sure if that's residual or he had some other remark,

[2:37:21] Voice 23: but perhaps while we're in the midst of the presentation of this,

[2:37:24] Voice 23: we'll continue.

[2:37:25] Voice 23: Thank you, Trustee Johnson, for lowering your hand.

[2:37:28] Voice 23: And so I'll go to Trustee Colburn,

[2:37:30] Voice 23: and Peter, if I need to come back to you, just put your hand back up.

[2:37:35] Voice 37: Thank you very much for that.

[2:37:37] Voice 37: again the timing of when this appears to you is is out of our hands the the capacity um of of the

[2:37:43] Voice 37: northern office i brought that up i just want to be aware of that it's unfortunate that it's coming

[2:37:47] Voice 37: this way but this is this is the way that we're operating um thank you to the chair for for that

[2:37:52] Voice 37: overview some some really important things to note in this this is not a housing project

[2:37:59] Voice 37: fpc financial planning committee referred it back to us saying the housing project

[2:38:02] Voice 37: project. To give it its proper name, it's the Biocultural and Housing Diversity Program.

[2:38:06] Voice 37: This started as a project with the trust mandate embedded within it in numerous ways, beginning

[2:38:15] Voice 37: with the Coastal Douglas Fir Toolkit. That's incorporated into the operating structure

[2:38:20] Voice 37: of this project. Water preservation, watershed protection, available water for any residential

[2:38:27] Voice 37: use. That's embedded in the project and the work of the people who put this together.

[2:38:31] Voice 37: other this is an islands trust mandate driven approach i want to make that completely clear

[2:38:39] Voice 37: the word housing is short-circuiting some things in these conversations folks and i coming from

[2:38:45] Voice 37: outside this i've only even known of the islands trust for six years i'm having trouble wrapping

[2:38:50] Voice 37: my head around this approach that's been taken before this first nations have been um saved a

[2:38:57] Voice 37: a seat at the table throughout this process.

[2:39:00] Voice 37: The Housing Advisory and Planning Commission

[2:39:01] Voice 37: has a seat for Sonamik First Nation.

[2:39:04] Voice 37: It has been involved in discussions

[2:39:06] Voice 37: that we've had regularly

[2:39:07] Voice 37: as part of our relationship building.

[2:39:08] Voice 37: And it's borne fruit in active work

[2:39:11] Voice 37: in terms of creating housing agreements

[2:39:12] Voice 37: that are in line with our reconciliation declaration.

[2:39:16] Voice 37: That is work that should be

[2:39:17] Voice 37: and will be shared throughout the trust area.

[2:39:21] Voice 37: And in looking at how we're doing this next phase,

[2:39:24] Voice 37: we're attempting to expand the people

[2:39:27] Voice 37: who have a say early on in the process and the people who've had the most say in this are the

[2:39:32] Voice 37: residents of gabriola this project is grounded in public engagement because the working group

[2:39:37] Voice 37: that put it together first of all they volunteered their time in excess of 75 000 in terms of what it

[2:39:44] Voice 37: would actually have cost they did that work for a year and more so the idea that we can do this work

[2:39:51] Voice 37: for free you can only do that for so long until the volunteers say hey wait you're not being

[2:39:56] Voice 37: respectful so we need to fund this properly that's why this case is getting to you it's grounded in

[2:40:03] Voice 37: what the trust is supposed to be doing forest forest contiguous forest protection groundwater

[2:40:09] Voice 37: protection reconciliation and relationship building with first nations and housing options

[2:40:15] Voice 37: and residential use just residential use what's having the biggest impact how can we move things

[2:40:22] Voice 37: around and the last point i want to make and i'm not going to argue for this later you know i i

[2:40:27] Voice 37: I hope someone brings forward this motion to include this.

[2:40:30] Voice 37: There is a piece of this project that's happening right now,

[2:40:33] Voice 37: and it's a density diversion program, really.

[2:40:37] Voice 37: It's part of the outreach that the Housing Advisory Plan Commission volunteers did.

[2:40:42] Voice 37: One of the most shocking pieces to me of the information that came back

[2:40:46] Voice 37: was that 58% of property owners would voluntarily give up density

[2:40:50] Voice 37: to a density bank that exists in the OCP,

[2:40:52] Voice 37: but has never really been used or fleshed out how it works.

[2:40:55] Voice 37: They would give that up in order to move that into the density bank and to protect and conserve and to use the tools that are at a proposal to actually preserve and protect.

[2:41:05] Voice 37: That program is continuing, whether or not you fund this or not.

[2:41:08] Voice 37: This is a piece of how we respond in a holistic way to the issues that face islanders and the ecosystems and our responsibility to do things with justice at the forefront of our minds.

[2:41:21] Voice 23: Thank you very much for the introductory remarks to both of you for the business case.

[2:41:27] Voice 23: certainly if somebody makes a motion to bring that forward at some point here not right now

[2:41:32] Voice 23: then there would be opportunity to debate the merits of that and inclusion in the budget i

[2:41:37] Voice 23: would propose but i'm going to look towards the director of administrative services

[2:41:41] Voice 23: about the other business cases which have been you've raised it i mean trust area services and

[2:41:47] Voice 23: administrative services and others and so they're certainly in the package and so perhaps we should

[2:41:54] Voice 23: entertain questions or for clarity on those business cases but I'll turn it over to you

[2:41:59] Voice 23: to tell me how you'd like to see that unfold.

[2:42:02] Voice 16: Yeah so we've given the opportunity for local

[2:42:05] Voice 16: trust committee projects and regional planning committee projects to be spoken to so council

[2:42:10] Voice 16: has full information on those. I would suggest the same opportunity be afforded to trust programs

[2:42:14] Voice 16: committee executive committee and the conservancy board.

[2:42:18] Voice 25: Thank you. So trust area services would

[2:42:22] Voice 25: Would you like to lead off on your suite of business cases?

[2:42:28] Voice 17: Thank you, Chair.

[2:42:29] Voice 17: I'm happy to speak to Trust Programs Committee's two business cases.

[2:42:33] Voice 17: One, the first is on page 240 of your agenda, which is the Stewardship Education Program

[2:42:40] Voice 17: request.

[2:42:40] Voice 17: It's for $17,500, and essentially it's to continue the work the committee's been undertaking

[2:42:45] Voice 17: with regard to stewardship education in two particular areas.

[2:42:49] Voice 17: One is to continue a mailing that we are initiating this year to new property purchasers with information about the Islands Trust and the area they're moving into.

[2:42:59] Voice 17: And then the second component would be to have associated webinars on topics to yet be selected by the committee, but likely would be connected to the materials in that package, potentially for audiences such as professional practitioners that advise new residents, but to be determined by the committee.

[2:43:18] Voice 17: and then the second was relating to secretariat services and the continuation of that program

[2:43:23] Voice 17: which is for fifteen thousand dollars and essentially that is to continue the ongoing

[2:43:28] Voice 17: program directed by the secretariat services policy to support the coordination of coordination

[2:43:34] Voice 17: groups that function in the area to bring together various parties that wish to discuss

[2:43:41] Voice 17: matters of interest to the islands it's a slight increase over the previous year reflecting the

[2:43:47] Voice 17: feedback received from the coordination groups to trust programs committee that's it that's it for

[2:43:56] Voice 17: trust programs committee okay

[2:43:58] Voice 23: um so we are at 12 and i know that probably there's hot lunch waiting

[2:44:02] Voice 23: for us but i'd just ask if there's any questions for the director on her business cases otherwise

[2:44:07] Voice 23: i would suggest we recess for lunch and then we will have delegations in town hall and we'll resume

[2:44:14] Voice 23: this conversation at that point are there any questions at this time for the director of trust

[2:44:18] Voice 23: area services i see trustee allen on the line sorry

[2:44:26] Voice 42: i'm confused when are we talking about

[2:44:28] Voice 42: these particular cases like in more detail are we not having a specifically the gabriola business

[2:44:35] Voice 42: case is that it have you finished discussing it or is this going to be followed up after lunch

[2:44:40] Voice 23: okay well there's certainly opportunity to follow up i there is not an intention to go through each

[2:44:46] Voice 23: of the business cases in detail they were provided in your package the opportunity is now and

[2:44:52] Voice 23: however, to ask questions or clarity on those.

[2:44:56] Voice 23: If the new business case from Gabriela is moved to be included in the budget

[2:45:01] Voice 23: or other items are moved to be included in the budget,

[2:45:05] Voice 23: at that time we could debate the merits or seek more clarity on those as they come forward.

[2:45:12] Voice 23: Okay, thank you.

[2:45:14] Voice 23: So any questions for the director?

[2:45:17] Voice 23: I'm not seeing any, so thank you, Claire.

[2:45:21] Voice 23: Claire. Let us recess for lunch. Let's come back at, I believe, one o'clock. In fact, I note that

[2:45:27] Voice 23: lunch is scheduled from 12 to 12.50, and that's giving you 10 minutes to get back up here,

[2:45:33] Voice 23: because we want to respect those that are joining us with the delegations in town hall and be here

[2:45:38] Voice 23: in a timely fashion. Council, thank you very much for a great morning, and let's have lunch

[2:45:43] Voice 23: and come back at one o'clock shortly.

[2:45:51] Voice 41: for lunch. Whoops.

[2:45:57] Voice 23: I had a horrible lunch.

[2:45:59] Voice 23: So thank you, council. Apologies for the delay.

[2:46:03] Voice 23: That was my fault. And let us now continue into our public section of our agenda,

[2:46:12] Voice 23: our delegations and town hall. And I want to thank those that are here in person and those

[2:46:20] Voice 23: that are here online, and I'm presuming that everybody is where they should be.

[2:46:26] Voice 23: My name is Peter Luckum. I'm the chair of the Honest Trust Council. I'm elected on Thetis Island

[2:46:31] Voice 23: in the Lacs and in the Penelope Territory. And today we are here in Lgonkin speaking territory.

[2:46:38] Voice 23: And as I've mentioned earlier today, right here in the heart of the Songhees and Esquimalt peoples,

[2:46:46] Voice 23: peoples. Victoria Inner Harbor is a historic landmark on the coast here for First Nations

[2:46:52] Voice 23: people. The largest clam garden on the southern coast, an amazing place, and I think we all need

[2:47:00] Voice 23: to take the opportunity to reflect on the history of this place and those opportunities.

[2:47:07] Voice 23: I'm just going to quickly, respectfully, go around the table and just introduce,

[2:47:14] Voice 23: give a wave out to the folks that are with us for the town hall

[2:47:19] Voice 23: portion of our council meeting. I'm going to start

[2:47:23] Voice 23: at the far end here now. Kate Louise Stanford from Gambier Island.

[2:47:27] Voice 23: Jane Wolverton from Galliano Island. Case Longerice from

[2:47:31] Voice 23: Gabriola. Deb Morrison from North Pender. Doug Fenton

[2:47:35] Voice 23: from Thetis Island. I don't know why I'm doing that

[2:47:40] Voice 23: today. Sue Ellen Fast from Bowen Island, councillor also

[2:47:44] Voice 23: Also on Bowen Island Council, Laura Patrick of Salt Spring Island, Dan Rogers on Keats Gambier, Grant Scott, Hornby Island, Michael Kale, Bowen Island and Councillor in Bowen Municipality, Laura Bershak on Denman Island, David Maude, Main Island, Janine Dodds from Main Island also.

[2:48:05] Voice 23: And online with us today, I have Peter Grove, South Spring Island, Tim Peterson, Lestiti Island, Alex Allen, Hornby Island, Tahira Rockefeller, Galliano Island, Lee Middleton, Saturna Island, Paul Brent, Saturna Island, David Critchley, Denman Island, Scott Colburn,

[2:48:35] Voice 23: on gabriola island and peter johnson also on liskiti island i think i caught everybody

[2:48:42] Voice 23: and we oh cameron no uh i have regrets from cameron thorne and steve wright both of south

[2:48:49] Voice 23: pender island and also ben mcconkey of north pender island and together we make up trust

[2:48:55] Voice 23: council i want to thank each and every one of you for being here and sharing your wisdom and

[2:49:00] Voice 23: thoughts jane wolverton you have a remark yes

[2:49:03] Voice 29: i just noticed in the chat they're saying that

[2:49:05] Voice 29: there's no camera on the on you guys oh

[2:49:09] Voice 23: that's unusual um perhaps staff will get that sorted out

[2:49:13] Voice 23: it should be focused on my but obviously it's hung up so um

[2:49:22] Voice 23: they are troubleshooting that logic situation it's worked flawlessly up to this point but let us

[2:49:29] Voice 23: continue so our first delegation today then will be at 7.11 page 266 of your package

[2:49:37] Voice 23: and it's the gulf island alliance but actually i'm remiss i just want to introduce our staff

[2:49:43] Voice 23: that are here today ceo russ hotson pillar laurie foster executive assistant supporting all this

[2:49:51] Voice 23: activity that's going on here along with our technical staff carmen teal legislative services

[2:49:55] Voice 23: Services Manager, David Mahler, Director of Local Planning Services, Claire Frater, Director

[2:49:59] Voice 23: of Trust Area Services, and Julia Mobs, Director of Administrative Services, as well as our

[2:50:06] Voice 23: technical staff, Mark Van Beekle and others.

[2:50:10] Voice 23: All right.

[2:50:11] Voice 23: Golf on the Alliance, Draft By-law number 183, Trust Policy Statement and Affordable

[2:50:17] Voice 23: Housing.

[2:50:18] Voice 23: And who is our representative here today?

[2:50:21] Voice 23: And are they online with us?

[2:50:24] Voice 23: oh there you are susan yates thank you susan um please the floor is yours thank you mark

[2:50:34] Voice 5: first of all may i thank laurie foster for the incredible support she has given us

[2:50:41] Voice 5: over the last few years as a delegation thank you so much dear trustees please accept these

[2:50:50] Voice 5: comments on behalf of the gulf islands alliance on the islands trust policy statement draft by

[2:50:56] Voice 5: law number 183, specifically on the issue of affordable housing. Gaius admits that the

[2:51:03] Voice 5: inclusion of affordable housing should be removed from three high-level sections of the trust policy

[2:51:09] Voice 5: statement. Present Contacts 1.3, Islands Trust Object and Meaning 1.4, and Affordable Housing

[2:51:17] Voice 5: Part 6. We have two reasons why we believe affordable housing should be removed from the

[2:51:23] Voice 5: the above-mentioned three areas. First, affordable housing is outside the legislative object of the

[2:51:31] Voice 5: Islands Trust, thus making directive policies particularly challenging to formulate and

[2:51:37] Voice 5: implement. If there cannot be strong directive policies, the purpose of including affordable

[2:51:42] Voice 5: housing raises undue expectations. Second, deep and abiding solutions to the affordable housing

[2:51:49] Voice 5: crisis fall within the authority of the provincial and federal governments, and the Trust's best

[2:51:55] Voice 5: position to support this is with advocacy. The affordable housing crisis is currently being

[2:52:02] Voice 5: approached from the supply side. Provide more housing, and the problem will be solved.

[2:52:08] Voice 5: Yet, over several decades now, the supply of affordable housing remains woefully inadequate

[2:52:15] Voice 5: adequate in all areas of bc never mind the trust area while housing and land prices continue to

[2:52:21] Voice 5: rise dramatically the demand side factors that boost housing prices keep land prices high and

[2:52:29] Voice 5: make affordable rental and home ownership impossible for so many people include low

[2:52:34] Voice 5: interest rates that enable borrowers to take on bigger mortgages commodification or housing bought

[2:52:41] Voice 5: as investment, preferential tax of principal residences offered to owners of more than one

[2:52:47] Voice 5: home, low and declining property taxes as a share of assessed value, and allowing short-term

[2:52:54] Voice 5: vacation rentals where long-term rentals should be supported. It is only the provincial and federal

[2:53:00] Voice 5: levels of government that can seriously address most of these forces, particularly the

[2:53:06] Voice 5: the commodification, and the treatment of housing primarily as an investment.

[2:53:12] Voice 5: There's virtually nothing in the directive policies for local trust committees and island

[2:53:16] Voice 5: municipalities to support locally appropriate implementation to create or provide affordable

[2:53:23] Voice 5: housing. The three directive policies, and I'm not going to read them out here because you have

[2:53:29] Voice 5: them in front of you, but those three directive policies, they don't create affordable housing

[2:53:36] Voice 5: in the numbers that we need.

[2:53:39] Voice 5: Local trust committees can identify locations

[2:53:41] Voice 5: for density increases,

[2:53:43] Voice 5: but that doesn't translate into affordable housing

[2:53:46] Voice 5: unless an applicant comes forward

[2:53:48] Voice 5: with an affordable housing proposal.

[2:53:51] Voice 5: And these few and far between applications

[2:53:53] Voice 5: cannot come close to meeting affordable housing demands.

[2:53:57] Voice 5: Identifying appropriate floor area and lot coverage

[2:54:00] Voice 5: for residential development is definitely beneficial

[2:54:03] Voice 5: beneficial for minimizing greenhouse gas emissions,

[2:54:06] Voice 5: reducing natural habitat loss and maintaining local character.

[2:54:11] Voice 5: But again, they don't translate into

[2:54:13] Voice 5: increased stock of affordable and available housing.

[2:54:17] Voice 5: The directives that could have the most

[2:54:19] Voice 5: impact are the advocacy statements in Sections 6.2, 3, 6.27 and 6.28.

[2:54:28] Voice 5: These are comprehensive statements and they include strong language for

[2:54:32] Voice 5: environmental protection, but they focus on advocacy, a good intent, but not something

[2:54:37] Voice 5: that actually guarantees affordable housing. As citizens in the trust area, all of us can demand

[2:54:44] Voice 5: that the provincial and federal governments address and remediate the demand side problems

[2:54:50] Voice 5: of the housing crisis, including create and purchase more public land, stop loans to private

[2:54:56] Voice 5: developers, provide grants to non-profit sectors, subsidize affordable homes, peg affordable housing

[2:55:03] Voice 5: through average wages, commit to purpose-built eco-designed public and social housing, intervene

[2:55:09] Voice 5: in the commodification of housing by corporate landlords. In the trust area we're now aware of

[2:55:16] Voice 5: the impacts of short-term vacation rentals on the supply of long-term affordable housing. It hurts.

[2:55:23] Voice 5: Regulating and limiting the number of short-term rentals helps to ensure the integrity of island

[2:55:28] Voice 5: neighborhoods. But we know that even strong regulations to limit STVRs do not necessarily

[2:55:34] Voice 5: provide conditions for long-term rentals. I'm going to skip a little bit here, just because

[2:55:41] Voice 5: you have it in front of you. Given that the housing market has been hijacked by global capital

[2:55:48] Voice 5: and the insatiable appetite of the global market and recognizing that the trust's jurisdictional

[2:55:54] Voice 5: mandate for affordable housing is very limited, Gaia suggests a few changes to the following

[2:56:00] Voice 5: sections of the trust policy statement. 1.3, present context, and I won't go into the details

[2:56:07] Voice 5: because you have them there. 1.4, islands trust object and meaning. And part six, sustainable and

[2:56:14] Voice 5: and resilient communities in the trust area.

[2:56:19] Voice 5: Council members, we trust that you will attend

[2:56:21] Voice 5: to the concerns in this submission.

[2:56:23] Voice 5: We will continue to review and comment

[2:56:25] Voice 5: on the trust policy statement

[2:56:27] Voice 5: as it progresses through to final adoption.

[2:56:31] Voice 5: So finally, the Gulf Islands Alliance,

[2:56:33] Voice 5: I am here representing them,

[2:56:35] Voice 5: is a nonprofit grassroots organization

[2:56:37] Voice 5: dedicated to the protection of the natural environment

[2:56:40] Voice 5: and habitats of the trust area.

[2:56:42] Voice 5: area. We support the Islands Trust Federation in achieving its legislative object. We sometimes

[2:56:49] Voice 5: also submit constructive criticism with the intent of strengthening the work of Trust

[2:56:55] Voice 5: Council, and we always appreciate the work you do. Thank you.

[2:57:00] Voice 5: Thank

[2:57:03] Voice 23: you, Susan, for your presentation today and making the journey here to Victoria. And

[2:57:11] Voice 23: And I actually realized that I didn't make some opening remarks with respect to this public participation aspect of this.

[2:57:21] Voice 23: And it's not in light of what Susan has just said, which has been very respectful and kind.

[2:57:26] Voice 23: Thank you. But just want to say that as the chair of this committee,

[2:57:30] Voice 23: I'm committed to ensuring that all people who speak at this meeting are treated fairly and respectfully.

[2:57:35] Voice 23: And the language we use will reflect that no form of discrimination is acceptable or tolerated.

[2:57:41] Voice 23: We will all take responsibility to create a safe, inclusive environment for everyone to participate and be respected.

[2:57:49] Voice 23: Members of this committee may call a point of order if a speaker's language is not respectful.

[2:57:55] Voice 23: The chair may mute the speaker and ask that their language be adjusted before continuing.

[2:58:01] Voice 23: Comments that include criticism or attacks on other people are considered discriminatory and not allowed.

[2:58:07] Voice 23: loud. All comments should be accurate and direct. I thank you all very much for making

[2:58:13] Voice 23: this a safe environment for all of us. And just also want to recognize that all council

[2:58:19] Voice 23: members as per public health order are wearing masks, and that's our requirement in our workplaces,

[2:58:26] Voice 23: and let's be sure that we're wearing them properly. Thank you. Okay. Let us move on

[2:58:34] Voice 23: to the next speaker. Do you have a question for the last delegate?

[2:58:37] Voice 26: Yes, I do. Actually. Okay. Yeah. The presentation talks about the trust policy statement. But the way I understand it, that's not really a reflection of the strategic plan, having provisions such as the development of model bylaws related to housing.

[2:58:58] Voice 26: Am I correct in that assumption?

[2:59:03] Voice 23: So is that a question for the delegate or a comment?

[2:59:06] Voice 23: Well,

[2:59:07] Voice 26: it's a question for a delegate, because it's talking about a trust policy statement.

[2:59:11] Voice 26: I just wanted to verify that it's not related to the strategic plan provisions that relate to support for local trust committees in housing.

[2:59:21] Voice 5: No, it's not related to that. It's strictly related to the policy statement.

[2:59:26] Voice 5: Thank you, Kate. And of course, it occurred to me as I was looking over this earlier that I need to get back to the Gulf Islands Alliance directors and say, we should be sending this to Islands 2050.

[2:59:35] Voice 5: Yeah.

[2:59:37] Voice 5: Super.

[2:59:38] Voice 23: Thank you for bringing it to us, and thank you for the question, Kate.

[2:59:42] Voice 23: So let us now continue with our next speaker, just making sure I'm not missing any hands.

[2:59:49] Voice 23: And David Donison, your presentation extended the Coastal Douglas fur zone.

[2:59:55] Voice 23: own. You now have the floor and your presentation is.

[3:00:00] Voice 23: up on the screen for us uh

[3:00:02] Voice 36: thank you very much so thank you chair luckman and thank you trustees

[3:00:06] Voice 36: excuse me it's a privilege to be on your agenda today and to have the opportunity to share this

[3:00:12] Voice 36: presentation and to speak with you about some of my favorite things next slide

[3:00:16] Voice 40: please please allow

[3:00:22] Voice 40: me to share

[3:00:23] Voice 36: how much i enjoy living in the islands trust area and to be surrounded by my favorite

[3:00:26] Voice 36: forest type the coastal douglas fur zone our forests are magnificent i'm a recent resident

[3:00:33] Voice 36: of Salt Spring, drawn here by its natural beauty. Rumor has it that local Gulf Islands tradition

[3:00:38] Voice 36: suggests that it could take decades until some of my fellow islanders accept me as a local,

[3:00:42] Voice 36: and perhaps not even then. But I'm committed to roll up my sleeves and help out where I can,

[3:00:47] Voice 36: like measuring this Douglas fir and adding it as the very first Douglas fir tree from Salt Spring

[3:00:51] Voice 36: to be included on the BC Big Tree Registry. The tree that you see here currently ranks as the

[3:00:56] Voice 36: 28th largest Douglas fir in the province, and though I know the Gambier Giant is larger,

[3:01:01] Voice 36: This tree is still something that we can all be proud of.

[3:01:05] Voice 36: Next slide, please.

[3:01:08] Voice 36: It's the range of the Coastal Douglas fir zone or CDF zone that I would like to bring to your attention today.

[3:01:13] Voice 36: The definitive resource on the Coastal Douglas fir zone is the book Ecosystems of British Columbia, published by the BC Ministry of Forests.

[3:01:22] Voice 36: Chapter 5 of that book covers our Coastal Douglas fir zone.

[3:01:25] Voice 36: The very first thing that you read in that chapter is this short section on the slide regarding location and distribution.

[3:01:32] Voice 36: The CDF zone does not stop at the border. The text is clear. And the U.S. Forest Service, from the other side of our border, has long acknowledged this same point.

[3:01:41] Voice 36: Please allow me to quote from the definitive 1973 U.S. Society of American Foresters resource, Natural Vegetation of Oregon, Washington.

[3:01:50] Voice 36: This is actually still in print. On page 89, we find the observation that,

[3:01:54] Voice 36: that, eventually the Puget Lowlands may be recognized as a separate vegetative zone similar

[3:01:59] Voice 36: to the Coastal Douglas fir zone found in British Columbia.

[3:02:02] Voice 36: The authors go on to note, its close relations with this zone are obvious.

[3:02:08] Voice 36: They then go even further by observing that many of the Puget Lowland communities also

[3:02:13] Voice 36: appear related to those found in the Willamette Valley, possibly some ecologists who grouped

[3:02:17] Voice 36: them together.

[3:02:18] Voice 36: In other words, the experts in this field have recognized for decades that the CDF zone

[3:02:23] Voice 36: zone extends for hundreds of kilometers south of our border. It's of even further relevance

[3:02:28] Voice 36: that this endorsement from the U.S. Forest Service came three years prior to the B.C. Forest Service

[3:02:33] Voice 36: adopting Criena's biogeoclimatic system to guide its forest management policies and decisions.

[3:02:40] Voice 36: The U.S. Forest Service thus provided one of the very first formal acknowledgments of the importance

[3:02:44] Voice 36: of this work. Next slide, please. In 2008, Madrona Environmental Services conducted an extensive

[3:02:55] Voice 36: of review of the ecosystems within the BC portion of the Coastal Douglas fir zone.

[3:02:59] Voice 36: The Islands Trust was involved in both years of the project and actually provided a significant

[3:03:05] Voice 36: portion of the funding for the second year of the activity and a small portion for the first year.

[3:03:09] Voice 36: The map you see here appears to be one of the first iterations of a map that unfortunately

[3:03:14] Voice 36: has since been altered by others in what has been an artificially constrained description of

[3:03:21] Voice 36: the coastal Douglas fir zone. Madrona however was clear that the range of the CDF zone

[3:03:28] Voice 36: was limited was not limited to Canada even where others have cited their

[3:03:33] Voice 36: report or not. Madrona recognized that only the northernmost tip of the CDF zone

[3:03:38] Voice 36: is in Canada and their report was limited to the study area as they outlined in this map.

[3:03:44] Voice 36: Next slide please. A year ago the Islands Trust initiated a fact sheet campaign.

[3:03:50] Voice 36: This fact sheet campaign included individual fact sheets for each trust area.

[3:03:55] Voice 36: Unfortunately, though, the very first statement on these fact sheets, in fact, the very first fact on these fact sheets, is nonfactual.

[3:04:02] Voice 36: The stated range of the Coastal Douglas Fir zone is incorrect.

[3:04:05] Voice 36: The actual range of the CDF zone is much larger than what is stated here.

[3:04:09] Voice 36: Next slide, please.

[3:04:12] Voice 36: On this slide, we can see how those organizations that assisted with the development of these fact sheets

[3:04:16] Voice 36: have actively broadcast the same non-factual information on the extent of the CDF summer.

[3:04:22] Voice 36: As a recent update, however, very recent, I would like to acknowledge that just two days ago,

[3:04:28] Voice 36: on Monday of this week, following an email that I sent to Raincoast Conservation Foundation almost

[3:04:32] Voice 36: four weeks ago, ahead of submitting my slides for this presentation, on this exact subject,

[3:04:39] Voice 36: citing these exact same references, and of course following the public posting of my slides,

[3:04:45] Voice 36: raincoast has published a web article that formally and publicly acknowledges how extensive

[3:04:49] Voice 36: the cdf zone is and then it does not abruptly end somehow with the canadian canada u.s border

[3:04:57] Voice 36: next slide please our nafta tree uniquely included a mandate to consider environmental impacts across

[3:05:04] Voice 36: the three nations canada the u.s and mexico this commitment launched the commission for

[3:05:10] Voice 36: environmental cooperation whose first major activity was to provide a homogenized ecosystem

[3:05:14] Voice 36: system classification for all of North America. This classification is represented in the map

[3:05:21] Voice 36: you see on the slide here. BC's biogeoclimatic ecosystem classification was a key resource for

[3:05:27] Voice 36: this harmonization activity. After 15 years of effort, as of 2011, our joint Canada-U.S.-Mexico

[3:05:35] Voice 36: Commission for Environmental Cooperation formally incorporated the totality of our

[3:05:39] Voice 36: our Coastal Douglas Spur Zone along with the Puget Lowlands and the Willamette Valley into

[3:05:44] Voice 36: a consistent ecoregion.

[3:05:48] Voice 36: With the advent of climate change, there is increasing interest in leveraging our Coastal

[3:05:54] Voice 36: Douglas Spur Zone definition and including the incredible body of information and research

[3:05:59] Voice 36: we have to better understand how climate change will impact our forests.

[3:06:03] Voice 36: This particular study was conducted to do just that.

[3:06:06] Voice 36: The first phase of the study represented an intensive effort to use climate data to specifically apply our CDF zone definitions throughout the Pacific Northwest.

[3:06:16] Voice 36: That effort thus resulted in one of the most accurate range outlines yet of the extent of the CDF and specifically using our definitions that we have here in BC.

[3:06:27] Voice 36: see. As the figure illustrates, the study identified that the heart of the coastal

[3:06:31] Voice 36: diversifier zone is the area around and just south of Olympia, Washington, some 200 kilometers south

[3:06:37] Voice 36: of our Gulf Islands, and well on the other side of the Canada-U.S. border. Next slide, please.

[3:06:44] Voice 36: I'd like to thank you for allowing me to speak today. As I close this presentation, some of you

[3:06:49] Voice 36: may still be wondering why I felt this was such an important topic to bring to your attention.

[3:06:54] Voice 36: Thus, allow me to try and underscore why this matter is worthy of your consideration and time

[3:06:58] Voice 36: today. One of the admirable elements of the original Islands Trust new draft policy was a

[3:07:05] Voice 36: commitment to utilize the best available science and best available mapping. That proposed

[3:07:10] Voice 36: commitment unfortunately is not echoed in the Island Trust's fact sheet campaign. The material

[3:07:15] Voice 36: I presented today is just the tip of the iceberg with respect to the body of knowledge that supports

[3:07:19] Voice 36: the broad range of the CDF zone. Just like this picture from from Galliano, our Douglas fir trees

[3:07:25] Voice 36: have broad reach. Please allow me to offer some further insight from the International Union for

[3:07:32] Voice 36: Conservation of Nature, or IUCN. The IUCN is the global authority on the status of the natural

[3:07:38] Voice 36: world and the measures needed to safeguard it. Regarding the importance of transnational

[3:07:42] Voice 36: ecosystems, and sorry for the big words, like our CDF zone, the big words are harder to say than

[3:07:50] Voice 36: and read. The IUCN published a book on this subject as part of its best practice guidelines.

[3:07:56] Voice 36: That publication is titled Transboundary Conservation, a Systematic and Integrated

[3:08:02] Voice 36: Approach. Quoting from that publication, approximately one-third of all terrestrial

[3:08:08] Voice 36: high biodiversity sites straddle national land borders. For this reason alone, there's compelling

[3:08:14] Voice 36: need for neighboring states to collaborate in conservation. With the island's trust's declared

[3:08:19] Voice 36: climate change emergency. It makes sense that rather than promote a non-existent discontinuity

[3:08:24] Voice 36: in the range of the CDF zone, that we should look to share knowledge and cooperate on our

[3:08:28] Voice 36: shared force with our southern neighbor. Now, after I'd submitted this presentation

[3:08:33] Voice 36: and the slides for inclusion on today's agenda, it was brought to my attention that a year ago,

[3:08:38] Voice 36: one

[3:08:39] Voice 1: of the members

[3:08:39] Voice 36: of the Island Trust's CDF Science Working Group brought this exact same

[3:08:43] Voice 36: subject to the Trust's attention. In so doing, they noted how promoting an artificially small

[3:08:48] Voice 36: small area for the CDF zone could undermine the Trust's initiatives.

[3:08:52] Voice 36: After reading that well-written letter, my first thought was that I'm late to this conversation.

[3:08:57] Voice 36: Yet perhaps not.

[3:09:00] Voice 36: That letter was delivered one year ago from one of the Trust's own science advisors and

[3:09:04] Voice 36: is now posted on the Trust's website where I found it and obviously anybody else could

[3:09:08] Voice 36: do the same.

[3:09:10] Voice 36: And yet nothing has been done to correct this.

[3:09:13] Voice 36: Addressing this issue I would propose is long overdue.

[3:09:17] Voice 36: Let's respect our natural environment and not make it out to be something that is not or overly constrained the actual dimensions.

[3:09:23] Voice 36: Thank you for your time, and I look forward to any questions.

[3:09:28] Voice 23: Well, thank you very much, David, for bringing this to our attention again.

[3:09:34] Voice 23: Not you, but the information itself.

[3:09:37] Voice 23: So thank you. So I'll just go to trustees and ask if there's any questions of the delegate.

[3:09:41] Voice 23: And if you can show your physical hand in the room or on the screen, electronic hand or physical hand, it'd be fine.

[3:09:49] Voice 23: No, I'm not seeing any hands up. So you've obviously provided us some information to digest. And there's no doubt. Where's David Critchley? Oh, okay. David Critchley, over to you.

[3:10:03] Voice 34: Yes, thank you for your interesting and informative presentation. I'm wondering, at first I thought, well, okay, what's the point of all this? Because our jurisdiction is very limited and we're only going to preserve and protect what we can within our jurisdiction.

[3:10:21] Voice 34: But you, at the end, raised a couple of, I think, important points about shared knowledge and that the artificially small zone could undermine the effort for conservation.

[3:10:33] Voice 34: I think those are valid points.

[3:10:34] Voice 34: But in terms of this transnational ecosystem, what sort of cooperations or actions might the islands trust take vis-a-vis our colleagues in Washington State and Oregon that would help us to preserve and protect?

[3:10:53] Voice 34: Do you have any thoughts on that?

[3:10:56] Voice 34: Or perhaps this is something that you haven't really considered.

[3:10:59] Voice 34: It's

[3:11:00] Voice 36: a very good question.

[3:11:03] Voice 36: And I probably could have considered it more, but I think the cooperation on the Salish Sea, which is a provincial level, obviously, just as a starter, minimally is a good foundation or avenue to have these conversations.

[3:11:23] Voice 36: I mean, we're all aware that the San Juans are, you know, literally right out the window here, and, you know, what happens to us affects them, and what happens to them affects us, so mentally, I would think that would be something that the Islands Trust could leverage, possibly through the province, and I'm trying to recall.

[3:11:48] Voice 36: Paul, I think it was an Islands Trust Forum

[3:11:52] Voice 36: where representatives from Western Washington University

[3:11:56] Voice 36: were present speaking to climate change

[3:11:59] Voice 36: and our shared ecosystem.

[3:12:05] Voice 36: Clearly, they have an interest,

[3:12:07] Voice 36: they're local, they're in Bellingham,

[3:12:09] Voice 36: they're straight east from my doorstep here,

[3:12:14] Voice 36: as well as obviously UVic and UBC.

[3:12:17] Voice 36: So we have a lot of folks that are interested in this environment that are actively working in this area.

[3:12:23] Voice 36: We have phenomenal resources in our universities and they are here regularly.

[3:12:29] Voice 36: Some of them were born here. I think I think the Islands Trust, actually, because of, if you will,

[3:12:34] Voice 36: its unique stature has has an invitation to the party to speak more broadly

[3:12:43] Voice 36: and to other levels of government and not leveraging universities and others.

[3:12:47] Voice 36: I hope that answers the question.

[3:12:50] Voice 23: Very good.

[3:12:51] Voice 23: Thank you for the question and the answer.

[3:12:54] Voice 23: And just note that we do have actually a standing relationship with the San Juan County Council.

[3:13:00] Voice 23: It's just a trans-border protocol, for want of a better word.

[3:13:05] Voice 23: And certainly these are avenues that we should explore.

[3:13:08] Voice 23: Deb Morrison, over to you.

[3:13:10] Voice 18: Yeah, one thing I would just add to that conversation is there is the Pacific Coast Collaborative,

[3:13:15] Voice 18: which is bc washington oregon and california that are the governor-led initiatives and inside that

[3:13:24] Voice 18: there is the significant potential for this type of collaborative work so that would be a really

[3:13:29] Voice 18: good option too thank you for your presentation it's really helpful thank

[3:13:32] Voice 23: you any other questions

[3:13:35] Voice 23: for the delegate i see trustee colburn yeah

[3:13:39] Voice 37: thank you for this and thank you for the presentation i

[3:13:41] Voice 37: just want to draw attention for this delegation and others that there's a disposition of delegations

[3:13:46] Voice 37: agenda item for Thursday and that's when we discuss and potentially put forward motions

[3:13:50] Voice 37: related to the delegations that gives us a day to sort of take some of this in do some research

[3:13:54] Voice 37: and if there's any suggested motions or recommendations that could move this work

[3:13:57] Voice 37: forward that that is the opportunity for us to do that so thank you very much for this

[3:14:01] Voice 37: presentation and the background work I learned a lot um

[3:14:05] Voice 23: sure thank you for that Scott and indeed

[3:14:07] Voice 23: seek advice from staff for options was uh for that sort of work rather than specific work

[3:14:16] Voice 23: um let us now go to our next delegation thank you david for joining us today and the next

[3:14:22] Voice 23: delegation is uh stand daughter if i want to say but stand earth uh this is regarding pollution

[3:14:28] Voice 23: from vessel exhaust gas and cleaning systems and this is anna barford and um anna thank you for

[3:14:35] Voice 23: joining us today i'm sorry we didn't get a chance to talk the other day but we've been bouncing back

[3:14:41] Voice 23: and forth there so i'm really pleased to see you at council and bringing this presentation to us

[3:14:45] Voice 23: over to you well

[3:14:47] Voice 43: thank you so much i am very excited to be here so my name is anna barford

[3:14:51] Voice 43: my pronouns are she her um i am the canada shipping campaigner with stand earth and i'm

[3:14:57] Voice 43: here to talk to you today about vessel pollution um so can i get the next slide please so pollution

[3:15:05] Voice 43: starts from a source and here our source is the use of heavy fuel oil and heavy fuel oil is a

[3:15:12] Voice 43: bottom of the barrel fossil fuel. It is viscous by definition, it's very difficult to clean up

[3:15:16] Voice 43: when it's spilt, and it's heavily polluting when it's burnt. And two policies should actually

[3:15:22] Voice 43: prevent its use because of its high sulfur content. However, both contain the same loophole

[3:15:28] Voice 43: but allow compliance with a fuel mandate, with a clean fuel mandate, through exhaust gas cleaning

[3:15:33] Voice 43: systems, more commonly called scrubbers. Can you get the next slide please? And what scrubbers do

[3:15:41] Voice 43: What they do is basically turn an air pollution problem into a water pollution problem. They pull seawater in, rinse the exhaust plume after it's gone through the engine and is propelling the ship forward.

[3:15:55] Voice 43: And then the naturally basic seawater collects sulfur by becoming very acidic and that is dumped straight into the ocean.

[3:16:03] Voice 43: through that process. It also picks up some carcinogenic PAHs and heavy metals and all sorts

[3:16:09] Voice 43: of really nasty things from that exhaust. And this is a relatively new problem. In 2008, there were

[3:16:17] Voice 43: only three of these systems operating in marine vessels. But now, as of 2020, we are well over

[3:16:23] Voice 43: 4,000. And that number continues to climb as installations continue with exhaust gas cleaning

[3:16:28] Voice 43: systems into marine vessels. Our neighbors at the Port of Seattle are very concerned about

[3:16:35] Voice 43: this waste stream. They have negotiated a pause on dumping in the entirety of the Puget Sound

[3:16:40] Voice 43: and have themselves stopped allowing dumping while ships are at berth, based on findings from the

[3:16:46] Voice 43: Washington State Department of Ecology that wastewater does not meet local water criteria

[3:16:50] Voice 43: for acidity or for metals. And it's my understanding that local water quality criteria

[3:16:56] Voice 43: is based a lot on shellfish, so on aquaculture,

[3:17:00] Voice 43: but as well as wild harvest by locals.

[3:17:03] Voice 43: California, it's worth noting,

[3:17:05] Voice 43: is sticking to the fuel mandate

[3:17:06] Voice 43: and making scrubbers sort of obsolete in that jurisdiction.

[3:17:09] Voice 43: So if I can get the next slide.

[3:17:12] Voice 43: Now, this is a big, scary heat map of where dumping happens.

[3:17:16] Voice 43: And all that I really want for you to understand

[3:17:19] Voice 43: from this map is that anywhere a ship is traveling,

[3:17:23] Voice 43: where it's propelling itself in shipping lanes,

[3:17:25] Voice 43: that's really where the dumping happens. This isn't a problem that's strictly at birth. This

[3:17:29] Voice 43: is the most problem that's strictly in the middle of the ocean. In fact, most commonly this is in

[3:17:34] Voice 43: territorial waters and particularly in shared water bodies. And so if we can go to the next

[3:17:39] Voice 43: slide. In the local context, Vancouver is the fourth most dumped upon port in the world. And

[3:17:49] Voice 43: so what that means is that ships are using scrubbers and dumping along the way to and

[3:17:53] Voice 43: from the port and that has ongoing impacts for oysters that need more basic water so they can

[3:18:00] Voice 43: form shells as a shellfish as well as for larger mammals like orcas and southern resident killer

[3:18:05] Voice 43: ales that already have a very high contaminant burden and all those metals and phs are beginning

[3:18:11] Voice 43: to add up and have significant impacts and i will note in this map that the line

[3:18:17] Voice 43: is the Canada-U.S. border. There's no delineation of the coastline of Vancouver Island

[3:18:25] Voice 43: as there is on the U.S. side just because of data. And in all of Canada's waters, there's over 100

[3:18:34] Voice 43: million tons of this wastewater being dumped per year as of 2019 numbers. And so what we're asking

[3:18:42] Voice 43: and really sort of raising the alarm on this is this is a problem that is a little new and it can

[3:18:47] Voice 43: cause some serious problems if it's not addressed and if we can go to the next slide so while scrub

[3:18:58] Voice 43: so while scrubbers do pull sulfur out from the air plume

[3:19:02] Voice 3: and

[3:19:03] Voice 43: dump it into water as acidic waste

[3:19:06] Voice 43: and because they enable the continued use of heavy fuel oil they lock in high emissions of

[3:19:11] Voice 43: particulate matter of black carbon otherwise known as soot which is a powerful climate forcer

[3:19:17] Voice 43: and greenhouse gases as well

[3:19:19] Voice 43: because scrubbers have an energy demand.

[3:19:22] Voice 43: So this is actually the reason

[3:19:23] Voice 43: that California disallowed scrubbers

[3:19:25] Voice 43: is that they've said,

[3:19:26] Voice 43: we need to stick to the fuel mandate

[3:19:28] Voice 43: and that scrubbers are not equivalent

[3:19:30] Voice 43: and they're not as good as what can be done

[3:19:33] Voice 43: with just cleaner fuels that are already on the market.

[3:19:36] Voice 43: So now if we go to the final slide or the next slide,

[3:19:42] Voice 43: I understand that a lot of this

[3:19:44] Voice 43: does not fall strictly within your jurisdiction,

[3:19:46] Voice 43: but I think it does fit within your ongoing

[3:19:48] Voice 43: going advocacy. And so I ask for you to pass a resolution calling on Transport Canada to take

[3:19:54] Voice 43: action on both air pollution and dumping from vessels, including stopping allowing the use of

[3:19:58] Voice 43: scrubbers, as has done California already. Because this is pollution that actually we can prevent.

[3:20:05] Voice 43: And in this case, that's really worth it. So I'll stop there and ask, I think there's probably time

[3:20:11] Voice 43: for questions, and I hope there are a few.

[3:20:22] Voice 23: I'm sorry, we're having a little technical

[3:20:24] Voice 23: difficulty with the camera going on here um i was distracted um um and i thank you for your

[3:20:31] Voice 23: presentation indeed um uh let's go to questions from trustees i have my own question but maybe

[3:20:36] Voice 23: another trustee might answer that in advance so i'm just looking for a show of hands in the room

[3:20:41] Voice 23: and i'm seeing one hand up on this screen which is trustee brent so i'm going to go to trustee brent

[3:20:48] Voice 23: Yeah,

[3:20:50] Voice 27: great presentation. Thank you very much. I'm shocked that Vancouver, being such a tiny port relative to world-scale ports, has the fourth highest dumping pollution. Do you know why that is?

[3:21:05] Voice 43: uh so that statistic is from the international council on clean transportation's global

[3:21:12] Voice 43: assessment and what they found and was that it was cruise ships primarily that were causing that

[3:21:17] Voice 43: dumping and so we did get a bit of a reprieve in the last couple years but victoria now is booked

[3:21:23] Voice 43: a record number of cruise ships for 2022 and we expect vancouver to do the same and so that

[3:21:27] Voice 43: dumping should start right back up again so vessel type and scrubbers some subscribers dump more than

[3:21:35] Voice 43: others and so we expect the vessel type and scrubber use is what's contributing to that

[3:21:40] Voice 43: um as well as well we may actually have to ask the port that but really what i'd like to ask

[3:21:45] Voice 43: them is why they're not banning it thanks

[3:21:48] Voice 27: great answer appreciate it any

[3:21:52] Voice 23: other questions in the

[3:21:53] Voice 23: room here uh case longer s yeah

[3:21:56] Voice 26: thank you for the presentation that's a scary information you

[3:21:59] Voice 26: provided i'm curious about the difference between cruise ships and all of the other

[3:22:04] Voice 26: transport ships that move into vancouver uh saying that it's because i my sense is that there'll be a

[3:22:11] Voice 26: lot more non-cruise ships moving to van into vancouver area than cruise ships and yet they're

[3:22:17] Voice 26: doing a predominant amount of dumping it's quite surprising so are these other trans uh forms of

[3:22:23] Voice 26: transport dumping their their waste basically in international waters or just just trying to

[3:22:32] Voice 26: understand why the difference between the two yeah

[3:22:35] Voice 43: uh cruise ships were early adopters of scrubbers

[3:22:38] Voice 43: and so there are just more consistent scrubbers installed on cruise ships and

[3:22:45] Voice 43: which is part of the reason why there's more cruise ships with scrubbers.

[3:22:50] Voice 43: They were the first, which isn't to say that the other ships are not catching up.

[3:22:54] Voice 43: There's also a higher energy load with cruise ships

[3:22:57] Voice 43: because they are luxurious experiences that require lots of lighting and heating

[3:23:02] Voice 43: and food making.

[3:23:05] Voice 43: And so there's a higher energy demand, which comes with fuel load.

[3:23:08] Voice 43: And so that also contributes to why they are dumping more.

[3:23:12] Voice 43: And cruise ships also tend to linger.

[3:23:14] Voice 43: They don't get in and out quickly part of the past part of the experience is to hang out in beautiful waters.

[3:23:20] Voice 43: And so because cruise ships linger, that also can cause more.

[3:23:26] Voice 26: This is a follow up. So the anchorages don't contribute a lot of this.

[3:23:33] Voice 26: So

[3:23:34] Voice 43: that's an interesting question.

[3:23:36] Voice 43: Anchorages certainly do contribute.

[3:23:38] Voice 43: tribute. If a ship is burning heavy fuel oil while they're at anchor, which there's nothing

[3:23:44] Voice 43: to prevent them from doing, they would be using a scrubber and so they would be dumping.

[3:23:49] Voice 43: But the majority of dumping happens while ships are underway. So there was analysis done as

[3:23:56] Voice 43: follow-up to that Vancouver being number four, which looked at the benefits of shore power in

[3:24:01] Voice 43: Vancouver. And what they found was that it only prevented 5% of the dumping within one nautical

[3:24:08] Voice 43: mile so that's for those familiar with Vancouver that's kind of just about out to Stanley Park

[3:24:13] Voice 43: but not into much into English Bay because most of the dumping happens as the ship is underway

[3:24:20] Voice 43: getting started turning that engine on turning it off and navigating into and out of berth.

[3:24:25] Voice 23: Very good not seeing any of the hands up my question is around the fuel and I apologize

[3:24:33] Voice 23: if I missed this in your presentation but and also if I don't understand it properly but I

[3:24:38] Voice 23: I understand that the ships, the container ships and tankers and the like that come into the port are required to burn a low sulfur fuel.

[3:24:47] Voice 23: And so I wonder what the impact on that is, burning a low sulfur fuel.

[3:24:53] Voice 23: But I think the one thing that is a really big issue for the vessels that anchor is they're running generators 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

[3:25:01] Voice 23: And in fact, the Paul, the gray smoke on the horizon is sometimes just phenomenal.

[3:25:06] Voice 23: phenomenal. And is that also processed in the same way, or is there some processing associated

[3:25:13] Voice 23: with what I consider to be the diesel generators that are on board, but it might be that it uses

[3:25:17] Voice 23: the heavy fuel oil as well? Can you comment on that?

[3:25:20] Voice 43: Sure. Yeah. So I'll start with your first

[3:25:22] Voice 43: question. There is a low sulfur fuel requirement. Scrubbers are a way for ships to get around that.

[3:25:29] Voice 43: So they're the exception. They're what's called a post-combustion technology. And California,

[3:25:35] Voice 43: California, at least, has determined that they're not equivalent and said, yeah, you have to stick to the low sulfur fuel.

[3:25:41] Voice 43: So what ships are doing is they're getting around the low sulfur fuel requirement by using a scarper and allowed to burn the heavy fuel oil with a high sulfur content and turning an air pollution problem into a water pollution problem.

[3:25:54] Voice 43: And in terms of what's happening at anchorages, there's no rule one way or another what they're burning.

[3:25:59] Voice 43: They may be using a diesel generator or an auxiliary engine, but if they're using heavy fuel oil, there certainly is, or there certainly should be a scrubber operating.

[3:26:10] Voice 23: Okay, thank you very much for that.

[3:26:12] Voice 23: Not seeing any other hands up here, and I want to thank you very much for bringing this information to council, and we'll move on.

[3:26:21] Voice 43: Thank you so much for having me.

[3:26:22] Voice 43: yeah

[3:26:23] Voice 23: so the next uh delegation here is the saturn island rate payers and residents association

[3:26:29] Voice 23: regarding budget and feedback process and i believe it's maya reed boland is here to

[3:26:35] Voice 23: present to us today welcome back to council maya

[3:26:38] Voice 35: reed thank you peter and um thank you for having

[3:26:43] Voice 35: me and i'd like to say um prompted by a previous speaker thank you to laurie for her very efficient

[3:26:50] Voice 35: responses and organization of these matters so thank you. So I am on the CERA board and for

[3:27:00] Voice 35: several years we would respond to the request for public feedback usually at the end of January,

[3:27:07] Voice 35: February and write a letter saying you know we've looked at the budget we think it's too high xyz

[3:27:13] Voice 35: said and of course it was just sort of deafening silence and this year by some fluke i realized

[3:27:20] Voice 35: that the budget was in preparation in early october and took a look at it and took a look

[3:27:28] Voice 35: at a variety of them um you know the the input from the financial committee to the trustees and

[3:27:37] Voice 35: the whole process and i thought gee february is way too late there's no point in february

[3:27:44] Voice 35: in passing any remarks on any of this so um that's what brought me to this so i'm glad to

[3:27:52] Voice 35: have this opportunity to speak to you on behalf of the saturn island residents and taxpayers

[3:27:57] Voice 35: association um slide number two please okay so i have a couple of key points to make and they're

[3:28:07] Voice 35: connected. The timing of your request for public feedback on the budget makes no sense. It's too

[3:28:15] Voice 35: late. Because of the above, it has no chance of having any impact. Because of this, I would ask

[3:28:23] Voice 35: you to listen to and act on the survey from February 2021. Overwhelmingly, 71% of respondents

[3:28:33] Voice 35: respondents wanted a decrease or no change.

[3:28:37] Voice 35: So my question to you is why not skip

[3:28:39] Voice 35: the usual survey and use last year's results now?

[3:28:44] Voice 35: So you can see on this presentation, the questions that were asked

[3:28:49] Voice 35: resulted in 71 percent wanting wanting no increase.

[3:28:55] Voice 35: 20 percent wanted an increase and 9 percent didn't know.

[3:29:00] Voice 35: So let's go to the next slide, please. What impact do the survey results have on the final

[3:29:10] Voice 35: 2021-22 budget? I would argue none, absolutely none. The survey ran from the end of January

[3:29:17] Voice 35: to February the 7th, which is extremely late in the budget cycle. The budget was finalised on

[3:29:25] Voice 35: march the 11th 19 working days later and this really provides no opportunity for people to

[3:29:35] Voice 35: consider debate propose reductions increases anything by then the budget is baked basically

[3:29:42] Voice 35: the survey was completed by 941 members and you can see the results of the survey online

[3:29:48] Voice 35: next slide please so feedback for last year's budget review the survey results were overwhelmingly

[3:29:58] Voice 35: in favor

[3:30:00] Voice 35: of decreasing or no change the budget expenditure increased by 10 percent the surplus funds were

[3:30:08] Voice 35: used to reduce this to 3.2 percent tax increase so again going back to my previous slide what

[3:30:14] Voice 35: did did that feedback survey have any impact i would argue no next slide please this is just a

[3:30:23] Voice 35: presentation of question number three which was kind of foundational and i've shown it to you

[3:30:29] Voice 35: earlier which was what budget principles do you support and the options were keep them the same

[3:30:36] Voice 35: keep them the same and decrease those three together add up to 71 percent

[3:30:43] Voice 35: increase taxes to allow new programs 20 next slide please same presentation we can just

[3:30:52] Voice 35: reflect on this for a moment next slide please going through the other questions in the survey

[3:31:02] Voice 35: the same balance of do not increase the budget do not increase our taxes was consistently maintained

[3:31:12] Voice 35: high 60s to 70 percent consistently said i don't want an increase please do not increase

[3:31:20] Voice 35: or decrease the budget or should i say please decrease the budget so you can look at this this

[3:31:27] Voice 35: This was one on local planning use.

[3:31:31] Voice 35: And actually, question number eight is a bit of a classic example.

[3:31:35] Voice 35: I draw your attention to question number eight, which was rather confusingly presented and was not well understood.

[3:31:46] Voice 35: and several comments drew attention to the fact that this was a loaded question or it was a

[3:31:53] Voice 35: question which was presented in a way which made it difficult to to um you know to really give your

[3:32:00] Voice 35: opinion so um it was would you still support this no in terms of your support for increased funding

[3:32:09] Voice 35: for long-term planning work would you still support this if it meant less funding for

[3:32:13] Voice 35: application processing resulting in slower application processing times.

[3:32:18] Voice 35: I can't understand how a question like that can exist in an online survey.

[3:32:23] Voice 35: Next slide, please.

[3:32:26] Voice 35: So regional programs consistently 71% wanted decrease or remain the same.

[3:32:33] Voice 35: Next slide, please.

[3:32:36] Voice 35: Questions 11 to 13, IT conservancy and climate change.

[3:32:41] Voice 35: 59% wanted a decrease or no change.

[3:32:44] Voice 35: 35 percent wanted an increase. Question number 12 again was rating 1 through 11 options

[3:32:55] Voice 35: which were in support of climate change. They were very very different in scale and it was a very

[3:33:03] Voice 35: mixed bag so it would have been quite difficult it was quite difficult and some people just dropped

[3:33:09] Voice 35: out of the survey at that stage and there were many comments, sorry there were no comments allowed

[3:33:17] Voice 35: on this section and certainly there was no option to say none of the above. So okay let's move on to

[3:33:27] Voice 35: the next slide please. This is something that's quite important. So for many years or for several

[3:33:34] Voice 35: years, the use of the surplus fund has been used to avoid increasing tax. Staff have warned that

[3:33:46] Voice 35: drawing on surplus funds as a buffer to avoid increasing tax is unsustainable. Despite warnings,

[3:33:54] Voice 35: this practice has continued. In March 2021, the recommended amount of surplus funds to be held

[3:34:02] Voice 35: was reduced and you can read those minutes it was reduced from 25 percent to 20 percent

[3:34:09] Voice 35: as a creative way to enable a draw on the surplus funds despite the fact that the surplus fund

[3:34:17] Voice 35: kitty was being reduced next slide please um okay i'm just about at the end yes so to come back to

[3:34:31] Voice 35: my initial point uh the feedback process uh you know beginning at the end of january early february

[3:34:38] Voice 35: for a budget to be finalized in march is too late in my my opinion the crd by example had a similar

[3:34:46] Voice 35: budget timeline and cycle and they have been asking for public input and feedback through i

[3:34:53] Voice 35: think the beginning of november so my question to you is why not skip the usual survey and use last

[3:35:00] Voice 35: last year's results to guide you. 71% wanted a decrease or no change. 20% wanted an increase.

[3:35:09] Voice 35: Furthermore, I would say that this year, staff have warned that there is no money in the surplus

[3:35:15] Voice 35: fund. So that practice cannot continue. And finally, I'd like to remind all of you of some

[3:35:24] Voice 35: Some numbers that I came across the other day, the median income in the Gulf Islands at something like $11,000, $12,000, $13,000 per year is a third of that for the rest of British Columbia.

[3:35:37] Voice 35: And I would argue that pushing up your expenditure by 10%, 12%, 16% in the current economic climate and in a region where median incomes are low is perhaps not ideal.

[3:35:55] Voice 35: good practice and you should really examine the projects and undertakings that you are putting

[3:36:01] Voice 35: into that budget um thank you for your time so

[3:36:08] Voice 23: thank you maya reid for your presentation and

[3:36:10] Voice 23: coming to council um i'll turn to trustees to ask us with any questions of the delegate

[3:36:18] Voice 23: not seeing any hands raised so i want to thank you very much for your presentation and drawing

[3:36:25] Voice 23: our attention to this and we'll move on to the next delegate the next delegate is uh jennifer

[3:36:31] Voice 23: margerson uh friends of the gulf islands uh petition at 7.15 and um jennifer welcome to

[3:36:39] Voice 23: council and the floor is yours are you there jennifer um

[3:37:05] Voice 41: okay

[3:37:06] Voice 23: it might be beneficial for us

[3:37:09] Voice 23: to move to the next delegate until we get Jennifer's connection restored if that's all right

[3:37:17] Voice 23: I'll look to Lori okay let's go with the next delegate who's here in person

[3:37:24] Voice 23: um so uh won't be necessary to reply on the technology um and we'll come back to Jennifer

[3:37:30] Voice 23: uh Michael Sketch uh constructed criticism on the current implementation of Alistair's governance

[3:37:35] Voice 23: and remedy for compliance with the federation structure established in the act so michael

[3:37:42] Voice 23: sketch welcome back to council and i'll turn the floor over to you thank

[3:37:47] Voice 49: you council council is

[3:37:49] Voice 49: last council meeting i asked that my rewrite of the trust policy statement or a functional

[3:37:57] Voice 49: equivalent replace current draft by law 183 today i ask that direction be given to staff

[3:38:06] Voice 49: to implement the federal governance established in the Act.

[3:38:12] Voice 49: Until recently, a defining sentence similar to

[3:38:16] Voice 49: the Islands Trust is a federation of special-purpose local governments

[3:38:21] Voice 49: was prominently published.

[3:38:25] Voice 49: The provincial government website concurs,

[3:38:29] Voice 49: introducing the Islands Trust as the Islands Trust is a federated body.

[3:38:34] Voice 49: But on today's Trust website, the word federation has been omitted, and the Islands Trust is

[3:38:45] Voice 49: described as a special-purpose government.

[3:38:48] Voice 49: Some say the simpler language is in the public interest, lest the public be confused.

[3:38:56] Voice 49: But why would the public be confused?

[3:38:59] Voice 49: An Islands Trust communications specialist could devote an explanatory paragraph to federal

[3:39:06] Voice 49: governance, then explanation as to trust implementation, before answering an introduction

[3:39:16] Voice 49: to federal governance. The overview is that Islands Trust governance takes its statutory lead

[3:39:24] Voice 49: from both Canadian national and provincial regional district federal governance models.

[3:39:32] Voice 49: models. Federal governance is two-level and hierarchical, loosely put for Canada, Ottawa

[3:39:41] Voice 49: and the provinces, for British Columbia, regional district boards and the municipalities, for

[3:39:49] Voice 49: the Islands Trust, Trust Council and the local trust areas. That's the statute.

[3:39:58] Voice 49: statute. Now for Islands Trust implementation. I argue that for decades the Trust hasn't

[3:40:07] Voice 49: embraced federal governance at all. I'll call it a reverse federal governance. Governance

[3:40:14] Voice 49: is upside down. We say no to provinces who assert independence from the Canadian Federation.

[3:40:22] Voice 49: We say no to municipalities who would dictate terms of a regional growth plan to the Regional

[3:40:29] Voice 49: district board. But for the trust, the local planning service has come to take precedence

[3:40:36] Voice 49: over both trust council and the trust area services administration. Witness the local

[3:40:44] Voice 49: planning service accounts for 75 percent of the trust budget. Witness the pattern of local

[3:40:51] Voice 49: planning services initiatives agreed by council without serious deliberation. Witness that the

[3:40:59] Voice 49: The staff person responsible for Council's policy statement, bylaw 17, is the director

[3:41:05] Voice 49: of local planning services, not the director of trust area services.

[3:41:10] Voice 49: The consequence of reversed federal governance is that the checks and balances attributed

[3:41:17] Voice 49: to hierarchical federal governance are lost.

[3:41:21] Voice 49: The extremes of conflicting interests in local planning services will not be softened by

[3:41:27] Voice 49: trust area services.

[3:41:30] Voice 49: Absent effective trust area oversight, the potential for delivery of in-house,

[3:41:37] Voice 49: arm's-length expert advice from trust area staff to the local planning service is lost.

[3:41:46] Voice 49: How has the trust got federal governance so wrong? I think history was definitive.

[3:41:53] Voice 49: In the trust beginnings, land use planning was done by the regional district,

[3:41:58] Voice 49: district, then the trust, then the minister, and finally back to the trust.

[3:42:04] Voice 49: Once securely in-house, the local planning service grew ever more influential, while

[3:42:12] Voice 49: the trust area's service remained in the wings.

[3:42:16] Voice 49: It was 1989 before the trust policy statement was legislated.

[3:42:21] Voice 49: The trust object and policy statement were and are the instruments of federation.

[3:42:29] Voice 49: It should have been time for the trust to shoulder its federal governance responsibility.

[3:42:37] Voice 49: But in that historical context, land use planning administration was the focus,

[3:42:43] Voice 49: not implementation of federal governance. Failure of the current and proposed trust policy

[3:42:52] Voice 49: statement to effectively implement trust areas policies in day-to-day local area trust business

[3:42:59] Voice 49: is exacerbated by the lack of trust area services oversight—the lack of federal governance.

[3:43:09] Voice 49: While staff advice and local area decisions may rely on trust area policies, they need not.

[3:43:17] Voice 49: A profound failure of current trust governance.

[3:43:23] Voice 49: Councillors, yours should be a watershed term.

[3:43:28] Voice 49: there is a palpable resolve to correct the path of the trust to encourage the potential of the act

[3:43:37] Voice 49: although neither were invited by the islands trust act there are two elephants at the trust policy

[3:43:44] Voice 49: stable table one the need to rewrite draft policy statement bylaw 183 in order that the bylaw

[3:43:54] Voice 49: law directly informs the day-to-day business of trust bodies with trust area policies.

[3:44:01] Voice 49: And the second elephant, the need to implement a two-level hierarchical federal governance

[3:44:08] Voice 49: with oversight of local area land use planning by expert staff in disciplines which guide

[3:44:17] Voice 49: rural environmental land use planning on islands as opposed to planning for mainland urban

[3:44:24] Voice 49: and urban growth.

[3:44:27] Voice 49: Cooperating, the elephant trunks have been far too effective

[3:44:31] Voice 49: at vacuuming trust area policies

[3:44:35] Voice 49: before they could do their job of preserving and protecting.

[3:44:41] Voice 49: In anticipation, thank you for deliberating, council,

[3:44:45] Voice 49: and addressing these matters so important

[3:44:49] Voice 49: to effective trust area governance.

[3:44:52] Voice 49: Thank you.

[3:44:52] Voice 49: Thank

[3:44:54] Voice 23: you very much, Michael.

[3:44:55] Voice 23: Are there any questions for the delegate?

[3:45:00] Voice 23: I'm not seeing any. So thank you very much, Michael, for coming to council today and bringing your presentation.

[3:45:07] Voice 23: So we're going to double back here now to Jennifer Margason, Friends of the Gulf Islands petition. Is Jennifer online now?

[3:45:21] Voice 8: Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me?

[3:45:25] Voice 8: Yes, we can.

[3:45:26] Voice 31: oh i

[3:45:26] Voice 8: i thank you so much and i just want to thank

[3:45:32] Voice 31: i

[3:45:32] Voice 8: just want to thank lori and maple for trying to assist me through the difficulties of getting in

[3:45:38] Voice 8: i'm not sure why i've had so much trouble today so anyway um thank you um to uh chair luckham

[3:45:46] Voice 8: and the trustees and the trust staff for giving me the opportunity to appear before you as the

[3:45:52] Voice 8: delegation um and i've really uh found all the delegations very informative so thank you to those

[3:45:59] Voice 8: folks too um so um friends at the gulf islands is a collaborative effort by those who love the gulf

[3:46:08] Voice 8: islands and wish to see their rural character maintained not overdeveloped or urbanized and

[3:46:15] Voice 8: their fragile ecosystems respected and protected we include voices from denman gabriola salt spring

[3:46:22] Voice 8: maine north and south pender and galliano on november 2nd 2021 just a short while ago

[3:46:30] Voice 8: we delivered a first installment of 500 signatures on a petition to the trust council respectfully

[3:46:37] Voice 8: asking that the trustees and the staff of the islands trust give clear priority to the

[3:46:43] Voice 8: protection of the natural environment in the revision of the trust policy statement and in all

[3:46:50] Voice 8: land use decision making we encourage the islands trust to carry out its mandate to preserve and

[3:46:57] Voice 8: protect during these times of ever increasing development pressures and the climate crisis

[3:47:04] Voice 8: we believe that in order to do this the islands trust must prioritize the environment over

[3:47:11] Voice 8: overdevelopment. Our objective is to share information throughout the Gulf Islands and

[3:47:17] Voice 8: with all BC residents generally about how well the Islands Trust is carrying out its mandate.

[3:47:23] Voice 8: The Gulf Islands, one of British Columbia's natural wonders, are in crisis due to overdevelopment,

[3:47:31] Voice 8: deforestation, freshwater depletion, pollution, foreshore degradation, and climate change.

[3:47:38] Voice 8: Hope that the islands will survive as a rural area, distinct from the urban centres that surround them, is fading fast as people pressure mounts and the health of both land and marine ecosystems deteriorates.

[3:47:55] Voice 8: The Islands Trust, the unique local government created by the BC Legislature in 1974 to stop unrestrained development and protect the islands for all British Columbians, continues to approve more development despite widespread water shortages, repeated warnings of unsustainability, and a large number of yet-to-be-developed lots throughout the archipelago.

[3:48:22] Voice 8: goal. You are currently considering amending the policy statement, the document that is supposed

[3:48:29] Voice 8: to protect the islands into the future. Unfortunately, the new draft document is full

[3:48:36] Voice 8: of contradictions, conflicting objectives, and escape clauses. Most notably, it no longer makes

[3:48:44] Voice 8: environmental protection a top priority. Social, economic, and environmental goals

[3:48:51] Voice 8: are on an equal footing just like in any unprotected area. I am here today to

[3:48:59] Voice 8: highlight the presentation to you of the first 500 signatories of our petition.

[3:49:05] Voice 8: The petition requests that the Island Trust Policy Statement effectively

[3:49:10] Voice 8: implement the following policies. One, that the Islands Trust's top priority is

[3:49:17] Voice 8: is to protect the natural environment of the islands and surrounding waters and to preserve

[3:49:23] Voice 8: rural character. Two, that no further rezoning be allowed in areas where overall ecosystem health

[3:49:31] Voice 8: is threatened or where the quality or quantity of freshwater supplies for already approved

[3:49:38] Voice 8: development may be adversely affected. Three, that all decisions relating to more intensive use of

[3:49:47] Voice 8: land and water be guided by independent up-to-date scientific data and

[3:49:54] Voice 8: traditional indigenous practices and I would also just add to that last point

[3:50:00] Voice 8: local knowledge the petition can be found on our website friends of the Gulf

[3:50:08] Voice 8: Islands WordPress comm and I will close with that and thank you very much for

[3:50:15] Voice 8: your attention to this any questions um

[3:50:20] Voice 23: so thank you jennifer uh for coming today and bringing us

[3:50:23] Voice 23: your uh petition and um indeed are there any questions from any trust council looking around

[3:50:31] Voice 23: the room i'm not seeing any at the moment so you've obviously uh provided us with sufficient

[3:50:38] Voice 23: information at this time so i want to thank you very much and we're going to continue on now

[3:50:42] Voice 23: Now we're going to go to town hall, okay?

[3:50:47] Voice 23: So we're going to go to town hall now.

[3:50:49] Voice 23: And, of course, in this hybrid meeting environment,

[3:50:55] Voice 23: this will be my next new challenge,

[3:50:56] Voice 23: is managing those that are coming in electronically to the town hall.

[3:51:01] Voice 23: So I'm seeing hands being raised,

[3:51:03] Voice 23: and thank you very much for raising your hands.

[3:51:05] Voice 23: And so just to remind everybody to be respectful of each other,

[3:51:10] Voice 23: friends and neighbours and others that are listening,

[3:51:12] Voice 23: and speak to the issues, not people.

[3:51:15] Voice 23: And, of course, Island Trust Council, as was pointed out,

[3:51:20] Voice 23: was one of the delegations.

[3:51:21] Voice 23: It has a federated body, has a federation influence,

[3:51:25] Voice 23: and local issues are not necessarily able to be affected by council

[3:51:32] Voice 23: as the LTCs are autonomous bodies.

[3:51:35] Voice 23: So I'm going to go through the speakers list here.

[3:51:38] Voice 23: I recognize David Courtney as our first speaker,

[3:51:41] Voice 23: and Mavis Underwood will be the next one.

[3:51:45] Voice 23: So David Courtney, can you say hi and welcome to council?

[3:51:55] Voice 23: Are you there, David?

[3:52:05] Voice 23: Okay, I'm going to move along

[3:52:09] Voice 23: unless I see an immediate solution to the next speaker.

[3:52:13] Voice 23: We'll come back to you, David.

[3:52:14] Voice 23: So Mavis Underwood, let's elevate Mavis to a speaker

[3:52:20] Voice 23: and hopefully we're not having a tech problem.

[3:52:24] Voice 23: Mavis?

[3:52:25] Voice 23: uh

[3:52:25] Voice 45: i'm unmuted i think can you hear me

[3:52:28] Voice 45: okay good um as you've heard my name's mavis underwood i'm

[3:52:33] Voice 45: from the community of sayout which is part of the wasanich nation my mother and father were

[3:52:38] Voice 45: geraldine and george underwood of sayout and my dad spent his life in the saltwater territory of

[3:52:44] Voice 45: the wasanich peoples uh he was a fisherman a harvester and also a commercial fisherman

[3:52:49] Voice 45: he also fought for freedom and independence in world war ii and both of my parents were very

[3:52:55] Voice 45: committed to hard work and family and this upbringing has influenced my efforts in social

[3:53:01] Voice 45: change today i wanted to express um that i am glad for this opportunity as short as it is to be here

[3:53:09] Voice 45: today i think it's very imperative that right now before you go too much farther that you start to

[3:53:16] Voice 45: make acknowledgements and recognition in your policy your strategic planning with respect to

[3:53:23] Voice 45: indigenous first nations and your intentions in our territory i think most people are educated

[3:53:29] Voice 45: to the facts now that this is unseated first nations land and marine territory and there's a

[3:53:36] Voice 45: significant history of of that active activity and life on the gulf islands and i think that

[3:53:44] Voice 45: the UNDRIP now compels us to work differently and to be more open and transparent in how we work

[3:53:53] Voice 45: as well as the recommendations of truth and reconciliation I believe it's an important

[3:53:59] Voice 45: priority to be respectful in how we work together to make sure that before you go too far in

[3:54:06] Voice 45: development that you actually look at how do you consult and how do you have informed consent and

[3:54:14] Voice 45: participation of indigenous first nations in what you do i think that um it's important now that we

[3:54:22] Voice 45: uh begin to express the supreme court's decisions that fuel indigenous first nations activation of

[3:54:30] Voice 45: rights we've had supreme supreme court decisions reinforcing douglas treaty rights as well as

[3:54:39] Voice 45: marine territory rights through the signage and bay marina decision and that operates throughout

[3:54:45] Voice 45: our marine territory we've never given that up we've never surrendered it so i think that that's

[3:54:53] Voice 45: very important for the honest trust to to understand that in the exercise of our governance

[3:55:00] Voice 45: you need to govern with us we need to hear that expressed in policy and procedure and in working

[3:55:07] Voice 45: working relationships, your hiring practices, your economic development, and the very serious

[3:55:13] Voice 45: infrastructure concerns that you have coming forward with respect to water and sewage disposal.

[3:55:20] Voice 45: So that's pretty much the extent of what I wanted to say, except that I also think it's

[3:55:28] Voice 45: imperative that there be a greater effort to protect and acknowledge the settlement,

[3:55:35] Voice 45: the ancestral remains that are in the Gulf Islands, protect them, and also express that history to the public about those findings.

[3:55:48] Voice 45: It's also important that those settlement sites be protected in a very good way,

[3:55:56] Voice 45: working with Indigenous First Nations culturally, so that it's not just lip service,

[3:56:03] Voice 45: that we don't just operate in an indigenous practice or knowledge that you actually work

[3:56:09] Voice 45: with indigenous first nations and i'm asking that there not be any further development in

[3:56:15] Voice 45: the catchment of the island's trust without full consultation and informed consent dialogue and

[3:56:21] Voice 45: input in relationships with some participation of a strategic indigenous oversight committee

[3:56:28] Voice 45: there should not be any approval of policy and procedure until there's more appropriate open

[3:56:36] Voice 45: and transparent consultation and review occurs to the satisfaction of impacted indigenous first

[3:56:42] Voice 45: nation governments and i'm specific for myself i'm really speaking about wasanich and say out

[3:56:49] Voice 45: involvements but i believe that other indigenous first nations have expressed the same concerns

[3:56:56] Voice 45: concerns that there's some some kind of lip service going on to your relationships with us

[3:57:01] Voice 45: but certainly not to the extent that we're asking so um with that um i think my time is up but i

[3:57:09] Voice 45: just wanted to put that on the table haishka haishka hayla uh

[3:57:15] Voice 23: haishka cm uh made us underwood

[3:57:17] Voice 23: thank you very much for your uh wise kind words here today and reminding us of uh

[3:57:26] Voice 23: the territory that we are, the unceded territory that we are in, and reminding us of, and I'm

[3:57:33] Voice 23: speaking to council as much as anyone, our commitment to reconciliation and working and

[3:57:39] Voice 23: collaborating with First Nations, and really appreciate and thank you for your words today.

[3:57:44] Voice 23: And we, I certainly hope and can commit to wanting to rise to those standards and that request that

[3:57:52] Voice 23: you've made and uh let's have more dialogue let's work together and uh and change the situation that

[3:57:59] Voice 23: we're in so thank you very much again uh made us underway i'm really pleased that you joined us

[3:58:03] Voice 23: today i'm going to move to our next speaker now i'm going to come back around to david courtney

[3:58:10] Voice 23: have we managed to get you online over to you yeah david uh maybe your phone is muted or the

[3:58:23] Voice 23: device you're on is muted in some fashion sometimes unplugging the device works and

[3:58:29] Voice 23: replugging it i'm going to come back to you again in a moment if you can get that resolved uh i'm

[3:58:37] Voice 23: going to i'm now going to go to jacinthe eastwick from gabriella island and jacinthe welcome to

[3:58:44] Voice 23: counsel over to you

[3:58:46] Voice 13: yes um good afternoon um thank you for um the preceding um presenters

[3:58:57] Voice 13: and the town hall so far uh i was most impressed by um david dennison um the gulf island alliance

[3:59:06] Voice 13: presentation, and very much with Ms. Bolin from the

[3:59:12] Voice 13: Residence and Ratepayers Association of, I think it was

[3:59:17] Voice 13: TXEDA. All of this is encompassing a little bit of what I would

[3:59:23] Voice 13: like to say to you. Be careful what you are budgeting for.

[3:59:28] Voice 13: It's unfortunate that we do not have yet the report from the

[3:59:32] Voice 13: Select Committee because I believe that special projects were one of the 13 items that they had

[3:59:41] Voice 13: selected as having an input, you know, requiring some look after. I wanted to also mention to you

[3:59:51] Voice 13: that in 2018 the Gabriela Island Local Trust Committee completed a full review of

[4:00:00] Voice 13: of the housing policy of the OCAP.

[4:00:04] Voice 13: This was the previous local trust committee.

[4:00:07] Voice 13: This current trust committee has completed

[4:00:11] Voice 13: the last building block,

[4:00:13] Voice 13: which is to create some sort of multi-dwelling

[4:00:18] Voice 13: affordable housing, which I believe the Gulf Island Alliance

[4:00:25] Voice 13: has expressed exactly actually.

[4:00:28] Voice 13: I'm surprised with Susan Yates and myself sometimes

[4:00:30] Voice 13: times are not on the same page, but we are. This is a provincial and a federal jurisdiction.

[4:00:36] Voice 13: Your role is to put into OCPs policies and let people apply and see if they fit what your

[4:00:47] Voice 13: limitations and settings, where your water is, et cetera, et cetera. Which brings me back to,

[4:00:56] Voice 13: Instead of giving $77,000 to Gabriola to have a sort of independent think tank, give it to an OCP review to add into the OCP the Water Sustainability Science Program data that has been collected for Gabriola.

[4:01:16] Voice 13: Let's introduce that into the OCP, let's have the maps in there, and let's as a community

[4:01:23] Voice 13: discuss whether or not we wish to urbanize Gabriola or not according to that map, or

[4:01:30] Voice 13: do we want to increase the carrying capacity by technical means, technological means.

[4:01:38] Voice 13: means okay we haven't had that talk on Gabriela and I think that we've had enough about housing

[4:01:46] Voice 13: for the time being it's been five years now we want to talk about nature water forests

[4:01:54] Voice 13: for sure we want to talk about something else thank

[4:01:58] Voice 23: you your time is up so thank you very much

[4:02:01] Voice 23: and thank you for cutting me off there when you were finished so thank you for coming today

[4:02:04] Voice 23: and bringing our attention to that matter and we'll certainly consider that in our budget

[4:02:10] Voice 23: deliberations um our next speaker on the list i'm going to try one more time with david courtney

[4:02:17] Voice 23: we've done everything we can at our end to make sure that you can be heard and so just go to you

[4:02:23] Voice 23: once again david you now

[4:02:34] Voice 31: he's muted now

[4:02:35] Voice 23: he's muted so unmute yourself david you're there david i

[4:02:40] Voice 23: I think we've promoted you to panelist.

[4:02:46] Voice 38: Now

[4:02:46] Voice 23: unmute yourself, David.

[4:02:49] Voice 23: Oh, there you are.

[4:02:51] Voice 23: Is that him?

[4:02:51] Voice 23: No.

[4:02:57] Voice 23: Okay.

[4:02:57] Voice 23: Well, I'm going to continue on with Brian Young and leave it with staff to help me try and figure that out.

[4:03:06] Voice 23: Brian Young, can we promote Brian Young?

[4:03:08] Voice 23: And, Jacinthe, can you lower your hand, please?

[4:03:12] Voice 23: Brian Young.

[4:03:15] Voice 24: Thank you, Trustee Luckham.

[4:03:17] Voice 24: Brian Young, I am the chair of Transition Salt Spring.

[4:03:20] Voice 24: Thank you, Trustees, for permitting me the opportunity to speak today.

[4:03:25] Voice 24: I'm basically speaking in support of a budget item that would see the retention of a fire ecologist and a round table as a part of the CDF process you're currently engaged in.

[4:03:38] Voice 24: Transition Sul Spring wants to speak in support of that budget item.

[4:03:41] Voice 24: And now is the time to be doing this kind of work for a couple of reasons.

[4:03:46] Voice 24: One, there's a lot of misinformation being spread in the community about forests, a presentation

[4:03:52] Voice 24: that many trustees would have seen, would have seen that the claim that the Coastal

[4:03:57] Voice 24: Douglas fir is not endangered, mostly because it is migrating northward, which I find a

[4:04:03] Voice 24: dangerous argument to follow.

[4:04:06] Voice 24: Secondly, we're in uncharted waters when it comes to climate change and this environment,

[4:04:11] Voice 24: particularly with respect to how fire is behaving in this environment.

[4:04:16] Voice 24: Mitch Sharon, local fire captain here in Salt Spring, has seen firsthand how fire is changing in its behavior.

[4:04:25] Voice 24: So we very much would advocate for the retention of a fire ecologist in support of the CDF project.

[4:04:32] Voice 24: What's great is there are a number of synergies here.

[4:04:34] Voice 24: the salt spring fire rescue is also looking to do some fire work and i'm very happy to announce that

[4:04:40] Voice 24: that we are announcing that we received a hundred thousand dollars from environment climate change

[4:04:46] Voice 24: canada to do a project in the lake maxwell watershed to look at uh basically replicable

[4:04:53] Voice 24: treatments on the land for helping to augment the fire resistance and the watershed resiliency

[4:04:59] Voice 24: resiliency and that very important zone which has, as you know, provides potable water for

[4:05:04] Voice 24: 3000 people and a host of natural amenities. So that project will involve working with

[4:05:11] Voice 24: the Conservancy locally, North Salt Spring Water District, a local NGO and we would really

[4:05:17] Voice 24: like to be working closely with the Islands Trust on this as well. So, to have some help

[4:05:23] Voice 24: on the Lake Maxwell aspect of that through the retention of a fire ecologist would be

[4:05:28] Voice 24: be a great way for us to work together. And we look forward to sharing with the other trustees

[4:05:34] Voice 24: in the other areas, the lessons we learn around what we can do in similar ecosystems across this

[4:05:40] Voice 24: region. We are flying blind and that's not to blame anybody. We are in a new territory with

[4:05:46] Voice 24: respect to the impacts of climate change. So there'll be a lot of lessons learned that we

[4:05:51] Voice 24: will be very eager to share with the trustees on an ongoing basis as we learn them. I think that's

[4:05:57] Voice 24: all I have to say for now. I'd be happy to entertain questions. This short deputation is

[4:06:03] Voice 24: in many ways a follow-up to the delegation provided by Ruth Waldick some months ago,

[4:06:09] Voice 24: who's a fellow director with Transition Salspring. Thank you very much.

[4:06:15] Voice 23: Thank you very much for your presentation today. We're still working on David Courtney's

[4:06:22] Voice 23: connection here, and in the meantime, I'm just going to go to Toby Elliott as our next speaker.

[4:06:34] Voice 23: toby are you there oh all right so then uh i'm gonna then go to the number that's there and if

[4:06:46] Voice 23: you could advise us who are the last four digits or three seven three five of the phone number

[4:06:52] Voice 23: hello

[4:06:55] Voice 47: can you hear me

[4:06:56] Voice 23: yes perfect

[4:06:59] Voice 47: uh this is shauna doll from uh thank you for taking my call

[4:07:05] Voice 47: um this is the first trust council meeting following cop 26 i felt like i should call

[4:07:11] Voice 47: call in to speak to the role of trust in pursuing meaningful climate action from here on out.

[4:07:16] Voice 47: This feels particularly pertinent considering the real-life climate consequences folks across

[4:07:21] Voice 47: Allen's Trust area and throughout BC have experienced over the last six months.

[4:07:26] Voice 47: The COP26 meeting demonstrated how important local action will be in addressing the climate

[4:07:30] Voice 47: and biodiversity crises. This is not to say that collaborations between jurisdictions are not

[4:07:35] Voice 47: important. See the sharing and unified efforts to pursue stronger environmental protection are

[4:07:39] Voice 47: certainly valuable but within the jurisdiction of the trust one of the most valuable things to be

[4:07:44] Voice 47: done increasing adaptive capacity is maintaining natural ecosystems particularly forests wetlands

[4:07:49] Voice 47: and kelp beds gulf islands forests in particular have been found to have exceptional carbon

[4:07:52] Voice 47: sequestration capacity and these forests stabilize slopes between storm water runoff yeah don't

[4:08:01] Voice 23: shauna doll is it is it that you there can i just ask you to speak a little slower your signal is

[4:08:06] Voice 23: It was very broken, almost difficult to hear what you're saying.

[4:08:11] Voice 23: Should we speak?

[4:08:13] Voice 47: Sure.

[4:08:14] Voice 47: I'm going to go to a different room because I have – where did I leave off?

[4:08:19] Voice 25: I don't know what's the answer.

[4:08:23] Voice 47: Can you hear me now?

[4:08:28] Voice 23: That's much better.

[4:08:30] Voice 23: It is much better?

[4:08:36] Voice 23: I can't hear you now.

[4:08:40] Voice 47: Okay.

[4:08:40] Voice 47: Sorry.

[4:08:41] Voice 47: There's a bit of a delay.

[4:08:44] Voice 47: Basically, what I'm saying is that intact forests are extremely important for ecosystem

[4:08:50] Voice 47: system services and mitigating climate change and speaking to Mavis Underwood's presentation

[4:08:55] Voice 47: earlier these are extremely valuable coastal territories and finally these natural places

[4:09:02] Voice 47: are good for us and they protect us and make us happy and even though there's thousands of studies

[4:09:06] Voice 47: proving this fact most of us already intimately know that these forests and natural places are

[4:09:11] Voice 47: extremely important to our well-being so I've spent the last two months drafting articles and

[4:09:16] Voice 47: organizing a webinar series featuring local scientists to explore the environmental challenges

[4:09:20] Voice 47: currently faced by BC's coastal communities and local decision makers. And even assembling these

[4:09:26] Voice 47: resources has been to make science and local knowledge accessible and provide potential

[4:09:29] Voice 47: pathways toward climate action. So if I had to summarize my ask to the Island Trust today,

[4:09:35] Voice 47: it would be that in the face of climate change consequences, which have been felt in the global

[4:09:38] Voice 47: south for many years, and we're only now starting to manifest those in this province, is that every

[4:09:44] Voice 47: decision uh trust makes from here on out includes asking the question will this accelerate or slow

[4:09:50] Voice 47: climate and ecological breakdown thank you okay

[4:09:56] Voice 23: thank you for uh uh coming into town hall today

[4:09:59] Voice 23: shauna i'm sorry your connection wasn't so great but certainly going a little slower was helpful

[4:10:05] Voice 23: i'm going to go now i i i don't know if we've got david courtney yet did you get that email

[4:10:11] Voice 23: I just forwarded to you yeah he's looking for a phone number and so Toby Elliott would be our next

[4:10:18] Voice 23: speaker I

[4:10:21] Voice 7: think you can hear me now yes okay

[4:10:24] Voice 7: thank you thank you trustees for holding another

[4:10:28] Voice 7: town hall I'll make this short I did send an email in support of the motion put forward by

[4:10:35] Voice 7: trustees Patrick and Colborne that'll be discussed tomorrow this is the call to the province to

[4:10:41] Voice 7: to establish an Islands Trust Housing Authority-type entity

[4:10:45] Voice 7: that would help the Trust develop housing solutions

[4:10:47] Voice 7: across the Islands Trust area.

[4:10:50] Voice 7: I've been involved at various levels on Gabriela Island,

[4:10:53] Voice 7: working towards housing equity and diversity

[4:10:57] Voice 7: on behalf of renters and residents who can't buy into property,

[4:11:01] Voice 7: but nevertheless are committed community members

[4:11:04] Voice 7: and want to continue to live in their communities.

[4:11:07] Voice 7: communities. And I was chair of the Housing Advisory Planning Commission as we undertook

[4:11:13] Voice 7: a community engagement in 2020. And out of that, we developed what we thought was a pretty good

[4:11:19] Voice 7: program, which you've discussed in executive committee, the Gabriela Biocultural and Housing

[4:11:24] Voice 7: Diversity Program, because we recognize that without recognizing people and the environment

[4:11:31] Voice 7: and the interrelated and interconnected nature of these two spheres

[4:11:36] Voice 7: that they can't be separated, you can't address one

[4:11:39] Voice 7: and solve either one separately.

[4:11:42] Voice 7: They have to be addressed together.

[4:11:44] Voice 7: And so we saw that our LTC was basically challenged

[4:11:49] Voice 7: to be able to address the housing issues in our community.

[4:11:53] Voice 7: And this is probably reflective of the Islands Trust as a whole.

[4:11:56] Voice 7: And so if the islands that you live on are not feeling the pinch

[4:12:01] Voice 7: of the housing and workforce crisis yet it probably will happen and so we need to really

[4:12:07] Voice 7: work on a systems level solution and so I really strongly believe that a housing authority that

[4:12:14] Voice 7: would be specifically tasked to deal with this challenge and sort of take the burden off of

[4:12:19] Voice 7: your LTCs and staff and elected officials which they're dealing with so many complex issues right

[4:12:25] Voice 7: now and you're doing a great job but I really believe that some additional help is needed.

[4:12:31] Voice 7: so thank you so much thank

[4:12:34] Voice 23: you very much for uh joining us today that uh is the last of the

[4:12:39] Voice 23: speakers on my speakers list i believe and um therefore i would like to go back to our agenda

[4:12:47] Voice 23: we have about 25 minutes before our break oh oh

[4:12:51] Voice 23: david courtney did we manage to get david

[4:12:55] Voice 23: oh perfect okay so let's hear from david courtney thank you for reminding me sorry so david are you

[4:13:13] Voice 23: there you're muted i see that it's muted at your end at this time that's better yeah i think i'm

[4:13:34] Trustee Patrick: oh sorry um i know david is from salt spring he sent me an email and asked me to forward it to

[4:13:41] Trustee Patrick: all trustees uh so i can i can do that all

[4:13:44] Voice 23: right so thank you david um laura patrick has just

[4:13:47] Voice 23: advised that you sent her an email with the content of what you want to say and she has

[4:13:52] Voice 23: committed to forward that to trustees so thank you for trying to join us i apologize that for

[4:13:58] Voice 23: whatever difficulty is out there we're unable to connect with you today um and so thank you for the

[4:14:05] Voice 23: email through uh laura patrick um i'm going to continue on with our agenda um that um we're in

[4:14:14] Voice 23: the midst of the budget uh conversation and indeed we certainly heard some feedback with respect to

[4:14:19] Voice 23: that um and we'll continue until three o'clock until we get to our break and so um we heard uh

[4:14:28] Voice 23: before the before lunch that from uh trust area services with respect to their uh business cases

[4:14:35] Voice 23: and now maybe i'll i'll take uh director mobs as lead on the other areas that we should um

[4:14:44] Voice 23: hear from that i believe it is executive committee and administrative services

[4:14:48] Voice 23: So please assist us with who we should direct the conversation to to inform council.

[4:14:57] Voice 18: And I apologize, but can we get a page number just to reorient ourselves?

[4:15:02] Voice 23: We are on the section which begins with page 224.

[4:15:06] Voice 23: That's 6.2.2.4.2.

[4:15:10] Voice 23: And for your benefit, we heard from local planning services and those related.

[4:15:16] Voice 23: We heard about the new business case from Gabriola.

[4:15:20] Voice 23: We heard from Trust Area Services.

[4:15:22] Voice 23: And now there's perhaps two more areas we need to hear from.

[4:15:27] Voice 23: Summaries.

[4:15:30] Voice 23: Director Mobs.

[4:15:32] Voice 16: Yes, I believe we left off having heard from the Regional Planning Committee as well as Trust Programs Committee about their projects that have funding in the budget.

[4:15:41] Voice 16: it. So on page 224, there's a briefing that speaks to some of the work that Executive Committee is

[4:15:47] Voice 16: overseeing. If the CAO or Vice Chairs would like to speak to any of that, we certainly can.

[4:15:52] Voice 16: Otherwise, we could move into discussion of the Islands Trust Conservancy Board requests.

[4:15:59] Voice 23: Perfect. And that's the next item on our agenda outside of this area. So that'll be fine.

[4:16:05] Voice 23: So CAO Hudson-Pill, do you want to speak on behalf of the Executive Committee projects?

[4:16:11] Voice 22: Certainly. Briefly, we've discussed the Reconciliation Action Plan implementation.

[4:16:16] Voice 22: That's basically the same amount of sort of administrative funds that were there in the last number of years.

[4:16:23] Voice 22: History and Heritage Grants has gone down from what was previously contemplated in the budget, as I understand it,

[4:16:32] Voice 22: and the same with application sponsorship.

[4:16:34] Voice 22: sponsorship. Communications, there's an increase in budget proposed to respond to demand for

[4:16:40] Voice 22: communications about the trust. This is something I spoke to in my CAO comments. In fact, there was

[4:16:47] Voice 22: a more robust request of trust counsel we thought probably wasn't timely when we looked at the

[4:16:51] Voice 22: increase in the budget that seemed apparent with the lack of surplus available and the other

[4:16:59] Voice 22: competing interests um this assists in some ways and also assists with the delivery of the

[4:17:05] Voice 22: um engagement program for the policy statement um the the website um i think we're you know i

[4:17:14] Voice 22: looked at claire but i think we're in the maintenance phase of the website so um it

[4:17:17] Voice 22: can't be left as it is there there needs to be some minor work um this policy you know that

[4:17:24] Voice 22: the substantial amount of the money that you've allocated for the policy statement that we

[4:17:28] Voice 22: We used this year.

[4:17:29] Voice 22: This is some follow-up funding that's needed to work through that project.

[4:17:33] Voice 22: And essentially, that's it for the executive committee work.

[4:17:38] Voice 22: All right.

[4:17:39] Voice 23: Thank you.

[4:17:39] Voice 23: Quickly done,

[4:17:40] Voice 22: but I apologize.

[4:17:41] Voice 22: So

[4:17:41] Voice 23: if there's any questions on any of those financial requests,

[4:17:45] Voice 23: I'd be happy to hear those.

[4:17:46] Voice 23: And the CEO or the vice chairs and myself might be able to answer.

[4:17:49] Voice 23: I'm not seeing hands here.

[4:17:52] Voice 23: And I'm not seeing any on the screen.

[4:17:55] Voice 23: green. So I apologize. So here we, you know, we have two additional sections at 6.23 and 6.24

[4:18:05] Voice 23: with respect to the Salt Spring Island LTC special property tax request, which obviously needs to be

[4:18:11] Voice 23: considered in the budget. And it's been approved by the LTC. And we also have the

[4:18:15] Voice 23: Island Stress Conservancy budget requests before us. I think I just want to maybe go through those

[4:18:22] Voice 23: in sequence is the appropriate thing, and then ultimately we'll be maybe going for a break

[4:18:26] Voice 23: and then we'll be coming back, and I think then would be the time for amendments. Is that

[4:18:30] Voice 22: appropriate? Well, we do have a scheduled guest to speak on the freshwater

[4:18:34] Voice 22: strategy at 3 o'clock, so

[4:18:37] Voice 23: how you negotiate that. We're pushing later and later

[4:18:42] Voice 23: into the day, folks, but let's just do the best we can. It does seem

[4:18:46] Voice 23: that we should hear these other budget requests at this time.

[4:18:52] Voice 22: yes

[4:18:52] Voice 23: and i don't know how in depth uh so

[4:18:54] Voice 23: i'm going to turn back to what uh i'm going to turn back to

[4:18:57] Voice 23: the director um this is your section of the agenda and 6.2.3 seems to be the next item

[4:19:12] Voice 16: 6.2.3 i believe is the special requisition from salt spring island local trust committee 75 000

[4:19:19] Voice 16: 500 for the continued work of swifa i would suggest that because that item is a special

[4:19:24] Voice 16: requisition item it can be discussed perhaps after the conservancy board which is in the

[4:19:29] Voice 16: the general budget i think the order of that was a little mixed up in this agenda all

[4:19:33] Voice 23: right so thank

[4:19:33] Voice 23: you very much for um that clarity so then let us go to the island's trust conservancy board budget

[4:19:38] Voice 23: request and over to the chair of the island's trust conservancy kate lou stanford thank you

[4:19:48] Voice 23: page 258 thank

[4:19:50] Voice 30: you chair lockham i'd just like to thank the island's trust conservancy staff for

[4:19:55] Voice 30: We're working so hard to reduce our budget as much as we could.

[4:19:59] Voice 30: The board did look at several reduction options, including one in-person meeting in a year out of six,

[4:20:08] Voice 30: and looking at how we could just delay our software upgrades in support of connecting with the rest of the Islanders Trust.

[4:20:18] Voice 30: So our requests here are we're looking at generally,

[4:20:23] Voice 30: Generally, we're looking at increases to match or include our species at risk grants commitments for a total of $213,500.

[4:20:34] Voice 30: And then an increase to property management budget for $6970.

[4:20:38] Voice 30: And that is as part of our formulas that we had agreed to last year to reflect how as we gain more properties, property management costs do increase.

[4:20:56] Voice 30: And we've also increased somewhat accommodate for additional travel needs because some of our new properties are quite remote.

[4:21:05] Voice 30: mode. The biggest request we have, or the biggest change we have, is a request for a 0.6 FTE for a

[4:21:18] Voice 30: fund development specialist. In February of 2020, the ITC passed a fund development strategy.

[4:21:25] Voice 30: This strategy was based on work done with staff and the board in consultation with fundraising

[4:21:31] Voice 30: raising experts from the land conservation arena. This is part of a long-term move to build our

[4:21:35] Voice 30: fundraising capabilities. At the center of the strategy is strategic charitable giving, which

[4:21:41] Voice 30: is the most effective opportunity to realize funding sources for the type of projects the

[4:21:47] Voice 30: Conservancy takes on. This type of fundraising requires a very specific skill set that isn't

[4:21:53] Voice 30: the same as communications expertise. Why are we so intent on this position right now?

[4:22:03] Voice 30: fund development or charitable giving is at a particularly opportune time

[4:22:08] Voice 30: and we're in a very specific place in southern british columbia

[4:22:13] Voice 30: for there's a significant shift of generational wealth in an aging population particularly

[4:22:21] Voice 30: in southern bc ideally this type of fund development should be in place several years ago

[4:22:28] Voice 30: we want to make up for the delay and lost opportunities the current temporary staff

[4:22:37] Voice 30: member has begun to work on groundwork and this is a temporary staff person that's

[4:22:43] Voice 30: working part-time for communications and fundraising they where they can they've begun

[4:22:51] Voice 30: groundwork in fund development by promoting the itc through willpower.ca and speaking to wealth

[4:22:58] Voice 30: managers. And you can see the level of work that's increased in this area that's just beginning to

[4:23:05] Voice 30: be increased in this area in the ITC report on page 479 of our package. Yesterday, council members

[4:23:14] Voice 30: spoke to taking more action on an expanded provincial financial contribution to the

[4:23:19] Voice 30: Islands Trust. The Conservancy is one of the most promising areas for this particular question to

[4:23:28] Voice 30: be advanced to the province and feedback from the province has indicated that we need to demonstrate

[4:23:33] Voice 30: we're developing all possible financial alternatives on our own first and this is what

[4:23:39] Voice 30: this position would help to do the fundraising direction is a long-term investment that will

[4:23:46] Voice 30: support better conservation opportunities for all the islands in the trust area

[4:23:50] Voice 30: and goes a long way to fulfilling the mandate the itc is here to support your vision of island

[4:23:57] Voice 30: in conservation and a permanent 0.6 FTE for fund development specialist is the next necessary step

[4:24:05] Voice 30: in the evolution for the conservancy. I could go on and talk about how this impacts on our

[4:24:13] Voice 30: communications current position, but if there's any questions or if Manager Emmings would like

[4:24:22] Voice 30: to step in with any additional uh comments she's on the line as well well

[4:24:28] Voice 23: thank you i want to

[4:24:29] Voice 23: acknowledge manager kate emmings who's joined us online and do you have any additional remarks to

[4:24:34] Voice 23: supplement the chair's um presentation i

[4:24:39] Voice 4: think the only thing i would add is that we have been really

[4:24:41] Voice 4: um enjoying having the additional capacity that we've had just within the last few months

[4:24:46] Voice 4: in fund development and we're actually starting to see some good results from that so i would be

[4:24:52] Voice 4: very pleased to see that continue into the next fiscal year and i will just leave it at that and

[4:24:56] Voice 4: i'm here for questions if you have any thank

[4:25:00] Voice 23: you very much kate um are there any questions for the

[4:25:03] Voice 23: chair or the uh the manager of the honest trust conservancy uh dan rogers sorry

[4:25:09] Voice 21: i'd be very

[4:25:10] Voice 21: interested to hear about results that the manager just indicated said that we've had some good

[4:25:17] Voice 21: good results. Because obviously, if there are some tangible, measurable results that you've

[4:25:23] Voice 21: received already, then that's great news. And I'd like that helps us. So have there been some?

[4:25:31] Voice 4: So what I can say, of course, whenever you have things like this, that's the danger of me saying

[4:25:36] Voice 4: there are tangible results is that a lot of it is confidential until such a time as it comes to

[4:25:42] Voice 4: fruition. But we have been having conversations with folks who are interested in putting ITC in

[4:25:48] Voice 4: their wills for example um and those types of things materialize of course very far into the

[4:25:54] Voice 4: future and um i think what i can tell you is that we've had you know at least five of those

[4:26:01] Voice 4: conversations in the last little while and that has really been as a result of having additional

[4:26:05] Voice 4: capacity the other piece is that we've been able to connect in with planners for um who do this

[4:26:13] Voice 4: type of work advisors who do this type of work and those connections have been very helpful as well

[4:26:18] Voice 4: in terms of making those connections one

[4:26:23] Voice 21: more question and you have a follow-up question yeah

[4:26:26] Voice 21: different topic i note under salary and benefits um uh the there's a large it it actually the

[4:26:35] Voice 21: approved budget the islands trust contribution is actually a hundred thousand dollars lower i guess

[4:26:38] Voice 21: my question is that i see it's paid for by the star grant so is all of that money related to

[4:26:44] Voice 21: the sar work and if the sar grant happened to not be there in a couple of years that presumably

[4:26:50] Voice 21: those salaries and benefits would then come off the books is that sort of the idea i just want

[4:26:56] Voice 21: to make sure we're not committing to an extra hundred thousand dollars in salary and benefits

[4:27:01] Voice 21: that even if the funding wasn't there um

[4:27:05] Voice 4: i'm sorry is this related to the added position or is this

[4:27:10] Voice 4: related to the budget as a whole no

[4:27:12] Voice 21: it's the top top line item on page 259 yes it's a budget as a

[4:27:16] Voice 21: whole i just noticed the approved budget for last year for salary benefits 582 uh

[4:27:24] Voice 38: trust contribution

[4:27:26] Voice 21: this year is contemplated to be 483 and the total budget is 608. i guess i'm just trying to make

[4:27:33] Voice 21: sure to understand that that the uh that the uh the the budget for the the salary is all related

[4:27:42] Voice 21: to the sar grant work and if that that's three years i believe or two and a half years whatever

[4:27:48] Voice 21: it is and that theoretically those salary and benefits would come up might come off the books

[4:27:54] Voice 21: if there was no other funding found for it i just want to make sure i'm understanding that correctly

[4:27:58] Voice 21: um

[4:27:59] Voice 4: i think that would be the case unless council wanted to continue those programs outside of that

[4:28:05] Voice 4: funding envelope thank

[4:28:06] Voice 23: you okay thank you so i recognize david critchley and paul brent

[4:28:13] Voice 34: thank you chair um yeah i have similar concerns uh to the one that was raised by trustee rogers

[4:28:20] Voice 34: and that is uh in terms of the business case here it isn't it in my view doesn't set out

[4:28:27] Voice 34: a business case in the way that I would expect, especially for this sort of a position where

[4:28:33] Voice 34: we're looking at this person to, in effect, make money for the Conservancy. So there's a net

[4:28:41] Voice 34: benefit. We hire somebody for X dollars. And if we're hiring a salesperson, which I guess

[4:28:49] Voice 34: essentially this person is, they're selling the public or certain members of the public on the

[4:28:56] Voice 34: idea that they should be making donations or provisions in wills so to hire that salesperson

[4:29:02] Voice 34: you need some show of what the expected returns are and i'm not seeing that anywhere here

[4:29:09] Voice 34: you know talked about five conversations possibly in the last little while but

[4:29:15] Voice 34: i would certainly prefer to see something that shows what has happened during the the experimental

[4:29:22] Voice 34: period to show that it is a possible a positive benefit. So I'm concerned is the proposal here is

[4:29:35] Voice 34: for a full-time equivalent in this job description. Is there not an intermediate stage of

[4:29:45] Voice 34: having somebody on a temporary a continued temporary basis or a contract basis so that

[4:29:52] Voice 34: that we can see if there really is a net benefit

[4:29:54] Voice 34: to adding staff in this way.

[4:29:58] Voice 34: That's my question.

[4:29:59] Voice 34: Thank you.

[4:30:01] Voice 23: and who would like to answer that question generally um

[4:30:07] Voice 30: so it's a good question trustee

[4:30:10] Voice 30: critchley uh with fundraising um it is a somewhat a sales position and i'm speaking from

[4:30:18] Voice 30: experience with uh classic fundraising as opposed to major gifts um um but when you're talking about

[4:30:27] Voice 30: major gifts, it isn't strictly sales. It's a long-term development with relationships to

[4:30:34] Voice 30: particular donors. There's no guaranteed payoff, but the possibility of return is much higher than

[4:30:44] Voice 30: any other particular form of fundraising that we have access to. So I've spoken to several

[4:30:52] Voice 30: several fund development specialists at the university level where they look at gifts and

[4:30:58] Voice 30: the millions. And they are quite clear that you do need a specialized form of expertise.

[4:31:06] Voice 30: And they also said that you want to look at a long-term plan. So temporary short-term positions

[4:31:15] Voice 30: wouldn't necessarily provide you the accurate results that you could see on a more long-term

[4:31:20] Voice 30: basis. This is a direction that the Island Trust Conservancy has been looking at for several years

[4:31:27] Voice 30: and building towards allowing that extra capacity. We are very successful. In some ways,

[4:31:35] Voice 30: we're almost too successful in our ability to gain more properties and management. By looking at

[4:31:44] Voice 30: at major gifts as conservation opportunities,

[4:31:50] Voice 30: we can potentially augment maintenance

[4:31:53] Voice 30: of particular properties by having specialized funds

[4:31:56] Voice 30: that people can donate to.

[4:31:58] Voice 30: So there's all sorts of possibilities,

[4:32:01] Voice 30: but you do need to have that upfront time.

[4:32:04] Voice 30: This is not a full-time position, it's a 0.6 FTE.

[4:32:10] Voice 30: So that is what we're asking for.

[4:32:12] Voice 30: And I don't know if Kate wants to further anything

[4:32:15] Voice 30: that I haven't answered.

[4:32:17] Voice 4: No, I think you accurately would have said what I would.

[4:32:21] Voice 4: When we look at this, because as chair,

[4:32:25] Voice 4: well, ITC chair Stamford has indicated,

[4:32:28] Voice 4: it's really a long game when it comes

[4:32:30] Voice 4: to looking at planned giving.

[4:32:33] Voice 4: We often lean into the research for this

[4:32:35] Voice 4: and all of the research that we've seen

[4:32:37] Voice 4: and that we're aware of tells us that in order

[4:32:40] Voice 4: to um to have this type of funding in place you do need to let people know that you are available

[4:32:46] Voice 4: to receive gifts you need to do the legwork in terms of talking with professionals who help

[4:32:52] Voice 4: people through the wills and estates process and that that kind of those kind of conversations do

[4:32:58] Voice 4: help to support that type of giving okay thank you just

[4:33:06] Voice 23: follow up with that did you say you had

[4:33:09] Voice 23: a follow-up on that yes

[4:33:13] Voice 34: i just uh i did recognize that it was a 0.6 uh full time a full time but uh

[4:33:20] Voice 34: is it it is also as i understand then a permanent position it's not something that will just run for

[4:33:28] Voice 34: one year or other period of time but is rather for indefinite duration is that correct yes that's

[4:33:36] Voice 30: what we're looking at is a permanent position as the type of expertise, the type of work that's

[4:33:43] Voice 30: done is long-term.

[4:33:46] Voice 23: Okay. Thank you, David, for the question and the answers. I'm going to go

[4:33:50] Voice 23: to Paul Brent and then Jane Wolverton and Doug Fenton.

[4:33:55] Voice 27: Hi, thanks. I'm just wondering, I think

[4:33:58] Voice 27: I heard a statement indicating that this was a really good time to be soliciting. And I'm wondering

[4:34:07] Voice 27: where the data is that supports that because from what I know and it's probably not nothing like

[4:34:13] Voice 27: what you know but uh charitable uh giving is is very uneven right now generally it's down

[4:34:20] Voice 27: and uh where charities are seeing um response is where they're on the front lines so that's

[4:34:27] Voice 27: sort of the first point second point is when we talk about university fundraising which I'm very

[4:34:33] Voice 27: familiar with one of the great things they have is they have a pool of graduates that

[4:34:40] Voice 27: again over the long term are a great source of potential donations and the third thing is we

[4:34:48] Voice 27: talk about how it's a great opportunity now but that this is a long game so i don't i i there's

[4:34:55] Voice 27: some inc there's incongruencies there in terms of of some of the information maybe but the most

[4:35:03] Voice 27: most important thing is where do we get the data that says that uh things are booming because i

[4:35:08] Voice 27: know some other conservancies uh they aren't doing so well right now because um of the general

[4:35:14] Voice 27: economy thank you thank you over to the chair the

[4:35:18] Voice 30: the reason why i say it's a good time now

[4:35:20] Voice 30: is again it's that long-term game you have to be able to build the relationships and and have the

[4:35:27] Voice 30: opportunity for people to consider their wills and their charitable giving options now. The actual

[4:35:35] Voice 30: return may not come for several years, but when it does come, it can be quite significant.

[4:35:44] Voice 30: Of all the fundraising opportunities, this is the most effective for conservancies.

[4:35:50] Voice 30: and it's again thinking of whether or not you're looking at one year or six months this is more

[4:35:59] Voice 30: three to five to ten years when i speak to friends that i know that are are at the university level

[4:36:09] Voice 30: yes they they have their former students to work with but they look at when they look at the

[4:36:15] Voice 30: islands trust they're looking at not only residents that live within the islands but there is a fairly

[4:36:23] Voice 30: high interest and desire for british columbians as a whole to support the islands trust conservancy

[4:36:31] Voice 30: and the lands that we consider um valuable it has a potential to work beyond the initial circle of

[4:36:40] Voice 30: the islands trust so that's where we're looking at a bigger picture um actually one of the people

[4:36:46] Voice 30: that i speak to is a person that has property on one of the islands here and would love to be

[4:36:55] Voice 30: able to look at deeper the type of population that would support fundraising in the islands

[4:37:04] Voice 30: its trust area so there is a specific knowledge there um i think if you could talk to other

[4:37:10] Voice 30: experts that know more about plan giving major gifts they could look at the advantages and this

[4:37:17] Voice 30: is the expertise and the advice that we've had from uh fundraisers that are in the conservation

[4:37:24] Voice 30: arena okay

[4:37:28] Voice 23: thank you i'm going to move on now to jane wolverton and doug fenton and i i think

[4:37:34] Voice 23: likely it will be time for us to go for our break.

[4:37:37] Voice 23: Quite honestly, I'm a little worried

[4:37:39] Voice 23: about the remaining portion of our agenda today.

[4:37:42] Voice 23: So please, let's be succinct.

[4:37:44] Voice 23: Jane Wolverton.

[4:37:50] Voice 29: Sorry.

[4:37:51] Voice 29: I just wanted to support what Kate Louise has been saying

[4:37:55] Voice 29: and the experience that we had

[4:37:56] Voice 29: with the Galliano Conservancy Association.

[4:37:59] Voice 29: There were long-term relationships

[4:38:01] Voice 29: that resulted in very significant donations.

[4:38:05] Voice 29: But those were relationships that were built

[4:38:08] Voice 29: and maintained over a period of time.

[4:38:11] Voice 29: And I think this is a different kind of fundraising

[4:38:14] Voice 29: and it does require that kind of attention

[4:38:16] Voice 29: and using the knowledge that other conservancies have

[4:38:22] Voice 29: and other major giving initiatives have acquired.

[4:38:29] Voice 23: Thank you, Jane.

[4:38:30] Voice 23: Doug Fenton.

[4:38:31] Voice 20: Thank you.

[4:38:33] Voice 20: Yeah, I just wanted to speak in support of,

[4:38:35] Voice 20: I think in my three years now on the board,

[4:38:37] Voice 20: that's been an amazing journey watching how this works it's definitely sort of not your

[4:38:45] Voice 20: traditional business sense at all and it's truly about that whole evolving relationships over a

[4:38:54] Voice 20: longer conversations consistency in the hall of that and try to follow things up and the busier

[4:39:01] Voice 20: the conservancy gets and the more successful it gets the more becomes harder to manage it like

[4:39:08] Voice 20: we used to in the past because you can't be doing it off the side of your plate you actually need

[4:39:13] Voice 20: somebody focusing on this and um so i strongly believe that this is the time to do it we've got

[4:39:22] Voice 20: some opportunities that have come to fruition in the last year or two and then there's more

[4:39:27] Voice 20: in the immediate future um so it's yeah i totally think that we are at a good time to take this on

[4:39:36] Voice 20: and we would see the fruition over time if we embrace it thank you okay

[4:39:42] Voice 23: thank you doug um

[4:39:45] Voice 23: so one last speaker and you're cutting into our break uh michael kale yes

[4:39:51] Voice 19: i understand the concept

[4:39:52] Voice 19: except about long-term.

[4:39:54] Voice 19: However, this does add an extra 0.6 of EFT.

[4:39:58] Voice 19: What I don't find in front of us is this,

[4:40:01] Voice 19: given the amount of material which is available

[4:40:04] Voice 19: and research on this subject,

[4:40:07] Voice 19: I don't see any expectations

[4:40:12] Voice 19: of what we might receive dollar-wise in terms of giving

[4:40:16] Voice 19: on a most optimistic scenario,

[4:40:18] Voice 19: scenario, a regular scenario, and a leased scenario.

[4:40:22] Voice 19: So there are no figures in front of us saying, if we employ this person, we can reasonably

[4:40:29] Voice 19: expect this form of return over a period of time, and as I said, research is available.

[4:40:35] Voice 19: So therefore, subsequent meetings of this group in years to come, when they're looking

[4:40:41] Voice 19: to evaluate whether or not this move was a success or not, have nothing to benchmark

[4:40:47] Voice 19: mark themselves upon so i'm afraid i don't think this is a business case made i think this is a

[4:40:54] Voice 19: case of employ someone and see how it goes and i'm not sure that that meets the criteria for

[4:41:00] Voice 19: approving so i i find it incomplete okay

[4:41:05] Voice 23: thank you michael um i am going to ask that we go to

[4:41:09] Voice 23: the break now i'm also going to ask let's try and come back at 3 15 i realize that it's going

[4:41:14] Voice 23: to cut you three minutes short but we've got a lot to do to continue advancing this budget so let's

[4:41:21] Voice 23: uh break come back at 3 15. thank you council okay council thank you for returning to the table

[4:41:46] Voice 23: um we have a guest that's joining us and i believe is here now i'm going to turn to

[4:41:54] Voice 23: david mahler this is in his section draft freshwater sustainability strategy

[4:41:58] Voice 23: that'd be and uh and maybe you could give us an expectation of the timing here as well david

[4:42:06] Voice 23: and then we're gonna have to get back to the budget director the

[4:42:14] Voice 11: floor is yours okay thank

[4:42:18] Voice 11: you and uh yeah timing wise i think it'll be about uh 10 minutes 10 minutes of presentation

[4:42:26] Voice 11: and then questions and answers after that so i would just like to take a few minutes excuse me

[4:42:34] Voice 11: to just introduce this to you and just introduce Kirk as well.

[4:42:40] Voice 11: The freshwater strategy RFD is on page 318 of the agenda package,

[4:42:46] Voice 11: and this fulfils Trust Council's strategic plan item number 204, which is to do a freshwater

[4:42:54] Voice 11: sustainability strategy. I just want to remind Council that this was a multiyear project.

[4:43:00] Voice 11: It was started about a couple of years ago, and we received a significant grant application, grant money, that enabled us to pull a lot more of the information, a lot more of the work forward and do it all as a single project.

[4:43:18] Voice 11: So the work has been done by Econics, which is a company that provides demand management planning, demand forecasting, but also watershed management and communication services.

[4:43:32] Voice 11: And it was founded by Kirk Stinchcombe and he's back here today.

[4:43:38] Voice 11: So he's the founder and managing director of Econics.

[4:43:42] Voice 11: I'll just give you a little bit of background.

[4:43:44] Voice 11: Graham Kirk has formal education in environmental management and he has worked as a manager of

[4:43:51] Voice 11: operational policy with BC Ministry of Environment's Water Stewardship Division. He's also a special

[4:43:58] Voice 11: advisor to University of Victoria's Polish Water Sustainability Project and vice chair of a Chicago

[4:44:05] Voice 11: based Alliance for Water Efficiency which is a non-profit organization which is dedicated to

[4:44:12] Voice 11: advocacy for the efficient and sustainable use of water in north america so kirk and his team

[4:44:19] Voice 11: econics was hired by the islands trust under contract to develop this fresh water sustainability

[4:44:27] Voice 11: strategy for the trust area and the work has been very involved in a lot

[4:44:32] Voice 11: of focus group engagement

[4:44:34] Voice 11: including elders from first nations and a lot of discussions with staff so i'm going to let kirk

[4:44:42] Voice 11: how to explain more of what the product what the freshwater strategy is and then once he's done

[4:44:48] Voice 11: that we can open the floor for uh questions and answers so just like to welcome care here thank you

[4:45:01] Voice 41: great

[4:45:01] Voice 33: thank you well uh thanks for giving me a few minutes in your very busy schedule to talk

[4:45:09] Voice 33: to you about this project uh interestingly i've been working on this project with islands trust

[4:45:13] Voice 33: for over a year now and this is the first in-person meeting so and I

[4:45:18] Voice 33: think probably the

[4:45:19] Voice 33: last meeting on this project or at least so we hope. I'd like to acknowledge the other team

[4:45:24] Voice 33: members from Islands Trust, Marissa Chadwick-William who I think is on video and Lisa as well who

[4:45:32] Voice 33: contributed greatly to the project. So as David alluded to we do this kind of work a lot we work

[4:45:40] Voice 33: work with local governments all over Canada on water sustainability challenges and help them

[4:45:45] Voice 33: with planning. And we've worked with many of the regional governments in British Columbia as well,

[4:45:52] Voice 33: including lots of your regional districts that share borders with you. So we've been at this a

[4:45:58] Voice 33: long time, but I have to confess, I was quite nervous about this project at the start,

[4:46:02] Voice 33: mainly because we kicked it off right in the throes of, you know, kind of the first lockdowns

[4:46:07] Voice 33: with COVID. And I realized we were going to have to do the entire project virtually. And it's the

[4:46:12] Voice 33: first time we'd ever done that. Usually we get together in a room like this and we're able to

[4:46:17] Voice 33: converse and share ideas and share passion. I was quite nervous about doing it virtually.

[4:46:21] Voice 33: But I have to tell you, at the end of the day with this project, it was actually

[4:46:26] Voice 33: uniquely collaborative. It worked out very, very well. And that's a testament to the people that

[4:46:33] Voice 33: that were involved, I think, you know,

[4:46:34] Voice 33: and just the degree of passion about this issue

[4:46:37] Voice 33: that we've got in the Atlas Trust area.

[4:46:40] Voice 33: So, you know, we had like the staff team,

[4:46:44] Voice 33: Narissa and William, Lisa, just, you know,

[4:46:46] Voice 33: tremendous amount of engagement from them,

[4:46:48] Voice 33: which made my job easier.

[4:46:49] Voice 33: And I hugely appreciate that.

[4:46:51] Voice 33: And I also want to thank trustees, Patrick Bushekin

[4:46:55] Voice 33: and Stanford for your contributions.

[4:46:59] Voice 33: Trustee Bushekin is not here, I guess.

[4:47:02] Voice 33: There you are.

[4:47:02] Voice 33: yeah sorry like I say first in-person meeting I'm remembering that so nice to meet you in person

[4:47:08] Voice 33: finally um but the three of you also really dug in and helped a lot and that's unusual you know

[4:47:14] Voice 33: usually I don't get that degree of uh input from the elected folks on the project that I'm working

[4:47:18] Voice 33: on so so that was unique um uh Lisa led a parallel process with um some indigenous cultural knowledge

[4:47:25] Voice 33: holders who provided input to the project and that is without question the the deepest level of

[4:47:30] Voice 33: of input on Indigenous perspectives

[4:47:33] Voice 33: that I've ever had in a project.

[4:47:34] Voice 33: I've been doing this for over a decade.

[4:47:36] Voice 33: So I hope that's a sign of things to come.

[4:47:38] Voice 33: And I'm certainly taking what I've learned

[4:47:39] Voice 33: from Lisa and those other knowledge holders

[4:47:41] Voice 33: and bringing into other work that I'm doing.

[4:47:43] Voice 33: So anyway, I won't go on too much longer,

[4:47:46] Voice 33: but I do want to just say that, you know,

[4:47:47] Voice 33: it was a really successful project

[4:47:49] Voice 33: in terms of the process from my point of view.

[4:47:52] Voice 33: And as David alluded to,

[4:47:54] Voice 33: it was 100% funded by the provincial government.

[4:47:56] Voice 33: So it didn't cost us trust anything.

[4:47:58] Voice 33: So another plus.

[4:48:00] Voice 33: The strategy itself, you know, we've tried to design it to, you know,

[4:48:06] Voice 33: fundamentally address the inevitable challenges that you have in the future

[4:48:10] Voice 33: with water sustainability.

[4:48:12] Voice 33: You know, the documents in your package, and I won't go into the detail,

[4:48:18] Voice 33: but it has aspects that deal with groundwater science,

[4:48:21] Voice 33: with surface water science, with using that better information

[4:48:26] Voice 33: to inform planning.

[4:48:28] Voice 33: It has a number of components that deal with Indigenous perspectives on water and with working with First Nations and Indigenous organizations more effectively in the future, coordinating with other agencies.

[4:48:42] Voice 33: And a section on outreach, which was identified as a big need that came up again and again in the project that we need to do better with engaging with residents about water.

[4:48:51] Voice 33: um the the structure of it's designed to mesh well with your um your standard business planning

[4:49:00] Voice 33: and budgeting processes so uh it's designed to kind of fit seamlessly into the way that we do

[4:49:04] Voice 33: work and that's again thanks to william and narissa for kind of guiding us in that direction

[4:49:09] Voice 33: in terms of the structure and uh importantly because i know budget is a big concern it's

[4:49:14] Voice 33: designed to be scalable meaning that you can ramp up effort or decrease effort depending on budget

[4:49:20] Voice 33: availability. So I know that that's going to be important to you given the discussion you're

[4:49:25] Voice 33: having after I go. Lastly I'll just say that I think like if anything the last week's events

[4:49:34] Voice 33: with weather have demonstrated just how significant water challenges are going to be in the future.

[4:49:41] Voice 33: You know in this case we had too much water but over the summer we didn't have enough water and

[4:49:47] Voice 33: there's a you know there's an old adage which some of you have probably heard it's becoming

[4:49:51] Voice 33: an old adage now but if if uh if climate changes the shark waters the teeth right and um you know

[4:49:58] Voice 33: we're certainly seeing that and uh and we're gonna see more of it so i hope we've developed

[4:50:02] Voice 33: the strategy um that will position islands trust to be successful with uh with these challenges

[4:50:07] Voice 33: going forward so thanks again for the opportunity to come today and david do i have time for a

[4:50:12] Voice 33: question or two or what's the go through

[4:50:14] Voice 23: the chair okay thank you for uh coming and making

[4:50:18] Voice 23: a presentation and the work to assist us in this area and i'll just ask a council if you have any

[4:50:24] Voice 23: questions for the presenter and any online i'm not seeing any oh there we go kate sue helen fast

[4:50:39] Voice 31: um i can't get a mic i think you might need to turn yours yeah

[4:50:43] Voice 23: your mic has to go off thank you

[4:50:45] Voice 23: sir thank

[4:50:46] Voice 31: you um i just have a quick question about the um reporting the freshwater reporting

[4:50:51] Voice 31: reporting program and how, I'm wondering what is meant by this reporting program and

[4:51:00] Voice 31: how important is it to the ongoing strategy?

[4:51:04] Voice 33: Thanks. That's a good question. So you might

[4:51:07] Voice 33: notice that that was sort of highlighted a bit in the structure of the document,

[4:51:11] Voice 33: which maybe is what drew your attention to it. And so that was a deliberate choice. We had some

[4:51:17] Voice 33: back and forth about whether we should just sort of have that as a component of the outreach

[4:51:20] Voice 33: program or whether it should be highlighted. And the decision was to highlight it because

[4:51:25] Voice 33: for a few reasons, one of which is that, you know, Islands Trust is already doing some really good

[4:51:30] Voice 33: work in terms of improving the knowledge about water resources, William's work, which I'm sure

[4:51:35] Voice 33: all of you are familiar with. And so it's a really good opportunity to tell people about that.

[4:51:41] Voice 33: Secondly, it ties into this theme that we have through the whole project where again and again

[4:51:45] Voice 33: and we were hearing from trustees, from staff, from stakeholders,

[4:51:48] Voice 33: from other agencies, you know, we need to do a better job

[4:51:53] Voice 33: of telling people about what's going on with water.

[4:51:55] Voice 33: And so that state of water reporting is seen as an important vehicle to do that.

[4:52:00] Voice 33: It's not a particularly high-cost item.

[4:52:03] Voice 33: You know, it will really lean on the work that's already being done

[4:52:05] Voice 33: and just package it up for public consumption.

[4:52:11] Voice 23: I'm sure. Follow-up, and then Deb Morrison.

[4:52:15] Voice 31: Just a quick follow-up.

[4:52:17] Voice 31: And it's one of the things I think that's in our budget discussions.

[4:52:21] Voice 31: So I'm wondering, do you see the report, the water, the freshwater reporting as a way of

[4:52:29] Voice 31: getting more grant money?

[4:52:31] Voice 31: Because I noticed that this project so far has attracted quite a bit of support from

[4:52:36] Voice 31: the province, 180,000 so far.

[4:52:38] Voice 31: Thank you.

[4:52:40] Voice 33: Good question.

[4:52:41] Voice 33: Maybe.

[4:52:42] Voice 33: I can't speak for the province.

[4:52:43] Voice 33: It's the, we were lucky in that the funding that we got for this phase of the project as well,

[4:52:48] Voice 33: some other work that's been going on in parallel, was funded through a program that was really a

[4:52:53] Voice 33: COVID response. It was one of many programs that I launched last year to try and, you know,

[4:52:58] Voice 33: restart the economy. So it was kind of like a one and done, but I can tell you that there's a bunch

[4:53:03] Voice 33: of people that have been involved with that funding program that are really logging hard

[4:53:07] Voice 33: to get more of it. And I think, you know, I can't say whether this particular project would get

[4:53:12] Voice 33: funded or not but it's certainly from my experience it would be a great candidate

[4:53:16] Voice 33: uh you know if if people are bringing sort of uh you know excuse the analogy but you know shovel

[4:53:21] Voice 33: ready projects forward to the province they're they're much more likely to succeed in this one

[4:53:26] Voice 33: certain shovel ready so to speak yeah

[4:53:28] Voice 18: okay

[4:53:30] Voice 23: thank you and deb morrison thank

[4:53:33] Voice 18: you um i think it's

[4:53:35] Voice 18: great to see this strategy it's really lovely to see it all tied into one space um one of the

[4:53:41] Voice 18: the things I think that I would love to hear your comments on is for the implementation. I'm always

[4:53:47] Voice 18: thinking about the implementation of these. It's great to have the report. I want to know how it's

[4:53:50] Voice 18: going to hit the ground. I'm in the room, by the way, just over here. And so I really, really wanted

[4:54:00] Voice 18: to know how you see the implementation aspect of governance. So the Islands Trust is a land use

[4:54:10] Voice 18: sort of, I don't want to say land use only because that bugs me that term, but

[4:54:15] Voice 18: land related organization. And I worry the implementation is actually not something we

[4:54:25] Voice 18: should be seeking grants for, but that the province should be doing and asking us to be

[4:54:29] Voice 18: collaborating with. And so from that perspective, can you talk a little bit about why this is the

[4:54:34] Voice 18: island's trust implementation effort as opposed to the province or other partners okay

[4:54:42] Voice 33: so there's a

[4:54:43] Voice 33: few a few angles to what you're asking it's a complex question um so purely on the issue of

[4:54:50] Voice 33: of sort of coordination of implementation we did dedicate a section in the strategy to kind of how

[4:54:55] Voice 33: that would roll out and we're recommending some new forums uh including a working group with

[4:55:00] Voice 33: provincial agencies that doesn't currently exist um so so that's you know we do have some tangible

[4:55:06] Voice 33: recommendations about how to progress that. I don't think that's really your question though.

[4:55:11] Voice 33: Your question is, shouldn't the province be doing this work? So I spent a few years working for the

[4:55:19] Voice 33: provincial government in operational policy. I still have very good connections there. I'm

[4:55:22] Voice 33: on the phone with them regularly. So I'd like to think I have a pretty good idea of how things work

[4:55:26] Voice 33: there. I'm going to be super blunt. If you are waiting for the provincial government to do this

[4:55:31] Voice 33: work, you're going to be waiting for a long time. It's not that they are asleep at the switch.

[4:55:36] Voice 33: they're doing, there's a lot of great people that are doing really good work, but they are spread

[4:55:40] Voice 33: very thin. And a lot of their attention goes to water allocation, just the act of issuing water

[4:55:46] Voice 33: licenses. That's where the lion's share of effort goes. And the issues that you're dealing with are

[4:55:52] Voice 33: much broader than that. You know, you're dealing with saltwater intrusion, you're dealing with

[4:55:55] Voice 33: water quality, you're dealing with, you know, groundwater, you're dealing with planning,

[4:55:59] Voice 33: you know, so many different aspects that the province isn't going to touch. So I don't think

[4:56:04] Voice 33: you're really taking over their responsibilities but I think with this strategy you'd be moving

[4:56:08] Voice 33: into a increasingly into more of a coordination role of trying to herd these other agencies along

[4:56:12] Voice 33: which I do think is is consistent with the mandate that's my take

[4:56:17] Voice 23: anyway okay thank you very much for

[4:56:19] Voice 23: the question and the answer so um unless there's any further questions council this is an RFD and

[4:56:26] Voice 23: there is two motions here one to receive the report and then the second to uh make a request

[4:56:33] Voice 23: to the regional planning committee so um is there anybody prepared to make those motions

[4:56:39] Voice 23: uh there's the chair laura beshaken over to you uh

[4:56:43] Voice 10: yes thank you um i move that

[4:56:47] Voice 10: islands trust council received the freshwater sustainability strategy

[4:56:51] Voice 10: to

[4:56:51] Voice 23: have a secondary doug fenton thank you is there any discussion on receiving this report

[4:56:57] Voice 10: i would just say a couple of words and most of it has been said but i want to thank everyone

[4:57:03] Voice 10: everyone who participated on the steering committee in particular, and all of RPC who helped

[4:57:10] Voice 10: shepherd this process through, it was a very deep process. I'm always aware when we talk about

[4:57:18] Voice 10: water, there's so many metaphors we use, and so much language is reflective of water, but it really

[4:57:24] Voice 10: was a deep process in both in terms of the discussions we had and the multi-stakeholder,

[4:57:31] Voice 10: a multi-partner way of working on the steering committee we had such a variety of people and

[4:57:38] Voice 10: everyone worked together really really well and uh kirk and his team uh and our staff just did

[4:57:44] Voice 10: amazing work uh so uh i learned a ton by being part of it and um in the end of course the

[4:57:51] Voice 10: regional planning committee was happy with what we came up with and um received it as a committee

[4:57:59] Voice 10: So now we're requesting that Trust Council do the same.

[4:58:02] Voice 23: Thank you.

[4:58:04] Voice 23: Okay, thank you.

[4:58:05] Voice 23: Any speakers on the motion?

[4:58:07] Voice 23: Not seeing any, I'll call the vote.

[4:58:09] Voice 23: All those in favor?

[4:58:10] Voice 23: Oh, David Critchley.

[4:58:13] Voice 23: Some reason I didn't see you up there.

[4:58:15] Voice 23: David Critchley.

[4:58:16] Voice 34: Thank you.

[4:58:18] Voice 34: Thank you.

[4:58:18] Voice 34: I don't want to waste any more time, but just for future reference,

[4:58:22] Voice 34: Robert's rule says that a motion to receive is out of order because it's a waste of time.

[4:58:29] Voice 34: I'll just refer to that.

[4:58:31] Voice 34: I would agree with you.

[4:58:33] Voice 23: I'm going to call the vote on the motion. All those in favor? That carries. For some reason, David, they end up in our agenda. So I'll bring that up with the Executive Committee next time we meet with them. Thank you, sir. So there is a second motion.

[4:58:50] Voice 23: Well, I'm going to turn to Laura Beshaken.

[4:58:53] Voice 23: Well,

[4:58:53] Voice 10: just because I'm the chair of RPC, I'm feeling happily responsible for it.

[4:58:58] Voice 10: I move that Islands Trust Council request that the Regional Planning Committee add to its work program the development of an Islands Trust Freshwater Sustainability Strategy policy document and recommendations for implementation of the Freshwater Sustainability Strategy.

[4:59:14] Voice 23: So it's moved and seconded by Jane Wolverton.

[4:59:16] Voice 23: Thank you, Jane.

[4:59:18] Voice 23: Any, you wish to speak to the motion?

[4:59:20] Voice 23: No.

[4:59:20] Voice 23: Well,

[4:59:21] Voice 10: just briefly that this is the piece that will,

[4:59:25] Voice 10: what was the thing my colleague, Trustee Morrison said,

[4:59:28] Voice 10: we'll look at how it's gonna hit the ground.

[4:59:30] Voice 23: Yeah, for sure.

[4:59:32] Voice 23: On the motion, Case Longrise.

[4:59:36] Voice 26: Yeah, so this proposal then is it-

[4:59:39] Voice 26: Can you speak directly to the microphone?

[4:59:41] Voice 26: A 10-year plan?

[4:59:41] Voice 26: Are we committing ourselves, can you hear me now?

[4:59:45] Voice 26: That's better.

[4:59:45] Voice 26: Okay, good, yes.

[4:59:47] Voice 26: Anyway, I just know that the chief administration

[4:59:49] Voice 26: author comments, it says for the next 10 years.

[4:59:53] Voice 26: So are we planning to create a plan

[4:59:57] Voice 26: for 10 years of work on this?

[5:00:00] Voice 26: or is this

[5:00:00] Voice 26: just the starting point of deciding the term of this this project David Mahler is

[5:00:07] Voice 23: prepared to answer that microphone off somewhere uh thank you Russ

[5:00:18] Voice 11: okay so Council has received the strategy the next step now is for Council to determine how

[5:00:24] Voice 11: it would like to implement that strategy so the policy work that the regional planning committee

[5:00:29] Voice 11: committee will do will be essentially an outline of the next x years it could be 10 years

[5:00:34] Voice 11: I imagine

[5:00:35] Voice 11: it will be more specific for the near term and more general ideas conceptual further out and

[5:00:42] Voice 11: that will help to guide Council on what it should do in a strategic plan it will be likely a policy

[5:00:49] Voice 11: of Council which means Council can amend it at any time thank

[5:00:54] Voice 23: you any further discussion uh Laura

[5:00:57] Voice 23: patrick i

[5:00:59] Trustee Patrick: was going to say it's also an opportunity when we go into the the larger public engagement

[5:01:03] Trustee Patrick: about the trust policy statement that there'll be some hopeful you know conversations on water that

[5:01:09] Trustee Patrick: would be related you know that the two come together flow together sorry i had to get that

[5:01:14] Trustee Patrick: pun in there for

[5:01:14] Voice 23: you very good thank you any further discussion are you ready for the vote

[5:01:22] Voice 23: looks like it okay all those in favor hands

[5:01:26] Voice 25: down any opposed none

[5:01:30] Voice 23: opposed so that carries

[5:01:35] Voice 23: unanimously um so i just uh want to end this one and move on so i want to thank you kirk for coming

[5:01:41] Voice 23: today and i'd be remiss and i also want to thank you for acknowledging the uh the staff that have

[5:01:47] Voice 23: INVOLVED, WILLIAM SHULBAH, LISA AND NERISA. THANK YOU.

[5:01:53] Voice 23: ONE OF THOSE MENTAL MOMENTS.

[5:01:55] Voice 23: VERY KIND WORDS AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR DEDICATION TO THE ANSWER.

[5:01:59] Voice 23: AND YOU TOO, WILLIAM. LOOKING GOOD UP THERE ON THE CAMERA.

[5:02:04] Voice 23: OKAY. THANK YOU, CHAIR.

[5:02:06] Voice 23: YES. HE SAID THANK YOU.

[5:02:08] Voice 23: OH, I SEE. OKAY.

[5:02:11] Voice 23: WE'RE NOW GOING TO DOUBLE BACK HERE TO THE BUDGET.

[5:02:16] Voice 23: I had a little huddle with the

[5:02:18] Voice 23: Director of Administrative Services there about this budget.

[5:02:23] Voice 23: And ostensibly, everything that we need to know about the recommended budget from the

[5:02:30] Voice 23: Financial Planning Committee is in the package, and presumably you've read it.

[5:02:35] Voice 23: And what I would like to do, bear with me a moment, what I'd like to do now is go to

[5:02:40] Voice 23: potential amendments, inclusions, or exclusions as you see fit.

[5:02:43] Voice 23: it however are there any questions on anything that we haven't touched on that is uh um that

[5:02:52] Voice 23: got your interest so questions about anything we haven't touched on and then i'd be looking to you

[5:02:58] Voice 23: for amendments so i'm recognizing scott colburn initially no

[5:03:06] Voice 37: sorry i was um i was getting ready

[5:03:08] Voice 37: to make a motion so i'll open the floor to questions

[5:03:10] Voice 23: sorry you might be okay so if there's

[5:03:13] Voice 23: no questions then thank you council and i appreciate your um your uh allowing me to

[5:03:20] Voice 23: advance this um given the shortage of time that we've ended up with so therefore i'm now looking

[5:03:28] Voice 23: for those who want to propose amendments for approval by council on the current budget and

[5:03:33] Voice 23: so i'm going to go recognize scott colburn laura be shaken uh grant scott and you know i'll just

[5:03:43] Voice 23: ask for some discretion grant you have to get away fairly shortly yeah so um if well it's up

[5:03:51] Voice 23: to council as to how you want to handle that i think um are you okay for the moment okay good

[5:03:57] Voice 23: then so let's go with scott colburn lord be shaken and then grant scott um and i think that's got

[5:04:04] Voice 23: everybody so far okay

[5:04:07] Voice 37: i emailed this to laurie foster i move that trust council include the

[5:04:11] Voice 37: Gabriel, a local trust area, biocultural and housing diversity program in the draft budget

[5:04:15] Voice 37: and public consultation process for fiscal year 2022-23. I just heard that Grant Scott has to

[5:04:23] Voice 37: leave, and I'm very conscious of the fact that there's another Hornby request. We should not

[5:04:28] Voice 37: group these together. We should do them one at a time as discrete items.

[5:04:32] Voice 23: No, you're right. I think

[5:04:35] Voice 23: that's important. I'm just going to ask you one thing, Scott, and I know I'm applying a lot of

[5:04:39] Voice 23: pressure. It's my fault. Just slow down a little bit on speaking to the motion so that we can hear

[5:04:43] Voice 23: them, and I'm presuming staff have the printout of this, and we'll get them up on the screen,

[5:04:49] Voice 23: but just speak them slowly for the public's benefit.

[5:04:51] Voice 37: Of course. That trust council include

[5:04:53] Voice 37: the Gabriola Local Trust Area Biocultural and Housing Diversity Program in the draft budget

[5:04:59] Voice 37: and public consultation process for fiscal year 2022-23.

[5:05:05] Voice 23: All right. Do I have a seconder for the

[5:05:07] Voice 23: motion i have a seconder and dan rogers thank you dan i wish to speak to your motion sir i did

[5:05:14] Voice 37: earlier in the interest of time um residential use we um get out of the mindset of of housing

[5:05:23] Voice 37: as being something that's not in our toolkit because we're limiting our ability to protect

[5:05:27] Voice 37: ecosystems cultural heritage sites and this project sets forth a way to include first nations

[5:05:33] Voice 37: as participants if if they choose in the early stages of a program and and I want to thank

[5:05:42] Voice 37: everyone for the debate thus far and I stated my argument earlier in in the introduction to this

[5:05:50] Voice 37: late item again capacity issues in northern office I raise that as an equity issue and and

[5:05:55] Voice 37: I appreciate the time and attention that trust council is giving this given all these challenges

[5:06:01] Voice 37: challenges thank

[5:06:04] Voice 23: you very much Scott so I'm going to now ask for speakers on the motion on the floor

[5:06:09] Voice 23: I see Laura Patrick no

[5:06:14] Trustee Patrick: I really uh I grateful Scott for your your terms this morning because

[5:06:20] Trustee Patrick: uh Salt Spring we've been we've been following Gabriella we've followed in that uh uh taking

[5:06:25] Trustee Patrick: this complete look at housing this isn't just about we're not saying before this is housing

[5:06:29] Trustee Patrick: housing, how we're the impacts of housing. I can tell you, I take the ferry when I go

[5:06:34] Trustee Patrick: over to Pender Island for meetings in the morning and it's construction trucks. I had

[5:06:41] Trustee Patrick: to wait for three ferries for 10 concrete trucks pouring one foundation of a house last

[5:06:48] Trustee Patrick: week, 10 trucks coming over from Vancouver Island for one foundation. So the residential

[5:06:55] Trustee Patrick: Incidential use is a good term, and I thank you for offering that one.

[5:07:01] Trustee Patrick: This is complex, and there are opportunities for efficiencies, yes,

[5:07:07] Trustee Patrick: and we're going to have to be able to look at that somehow,

[5:07:10] Trustee Patrick: but I support this project.

[5:07:12] Voice 23: Thank you.

[5:07:13] Voice 23: Any other speakers on the motion?

[5:07:16] Voice 23: Case long or ice?

[5:07:18] Voice 26: Okay, thank you.

[5:07:19] Voice 26: Yeah, I'm not in support of this motion.

[5:07:21] Voice 26: I'm not in support of this motion.

[5:07:23] Voice 26: motion. I can understand what the intent is to a certain degree, but the report itself is not

[5:07:29] Voice 26: clear to me as to how it would actually operate, who would actually be involved, who's committed

[5:07:34] Voice 26: to it, you know, like as an Island Plus Conservancy committed. I think it's premature to be taken on

[5:07:42] Voice 26: at this point in time. The whole, this whole report came out of the survey, three surveys

[5:07:48] Voice 26: asking on affordable housing, water, and biodiversity.

[5:07:54] Voice 26: What were the concerns of the community?

[5:07:57] Voice 26: They replied, there were 1,100 responses,

[5:08:01] Voice 26: but not necessarily 1,100 individuals who responded.

[5:08:06] Voice 26: If each survey was completed by,

[5:08:09] Voice 26: each person only completed one survey,

[5:08:11] Voice 26: there would be 1,100 respondents on Girola.

[5:08:15] Voice 26: So it's not a quarter of the population.

[5:08:20] Voice 26: Also, the biodiversity project is not didn't come out of that survey per se.

[5:08:27] Voice 26: It came out of the report and the recommendation from the people who created the report, but not the community.

[5:08:35] Voice 26: The community hasn't weighed in on this concept. And I think they should.

[5:08:40] Voice 26: I think they should have an opportunity to speak to it.

[5:08:42] Voice 26: um what's the other point i had another couple other points on it well i i had some issues with

[5:08:53] Voice 26: the report report itself i did do a report on an assessment my own it was presented to the

[5:08:59] Voice 26: trust committee back in i think june or may there was no response to it um basically it was just

[5:09:08] Voice 26: received that's fine you know i just gave my assessment i had concerns so i think it's

[5:09:14] Voice 26: premature i think this concept should be taken back to the community and it's also asking for

[5:09:19] Voice 26: a 10-year commitment basically you know and the idea that we're going to increase our budget

[5:09:26] Voice 26: by 70 000 this year through general revenue and then go to the local people for the special tax

[5:09:34] Voice 26: requisition that was never discussed with the community so my preference would be take it back

[5:09:42] Voice 26: to the community have a full discussion and then move forward if need be on a special tax requisition

[5:09:49] Voice 23: okay thank you thank you case any other speakers on the motion uh peter grove

[5:09:57] Trustee Grove: i suppose as a point of order is rather than anything else when people make their motions

[5:10:01] Trustee Grove: i'd like to know what the total dollar effect is um so that we know what we're talking about

[5:10:05] Trustee Grove: and i want to remind everyone that seventy thousand dollars represents one percent

[5:10:10] Trustee Grove: of our tax bill, so it's just something to bear in mind as these things go through as we look at

[5:10:18] Trustee Grove: them. Thank you.

[5:10:19] Voice 23: So thank you for raising that. I was wondering that myself and wondered whether

[5:10:23] Voice 23: not that number was going to come up in a further motion pending the advancement of this particular

[5:10:28] Voice 23: motion, but anyway, you're correct in that number. So anybody else on the motion? Michael Kael,

[5:10:35] Voice 23: Doug Fenton

[5:10:35] Voice 23: Just

[5:10:36] Voice 19: perhaps by way of clarification, and I think Councillor Lundgren has raised some very

[5:10:41] Voice 19: valid points, which it is not covered, by the way, in this motion. I gather year one is in

[5:10:47] Voice 19: the region of £70,000-plus, which will be funded by Island Trust. Subsequent to that,

[5:10:56] Voice 19: over the next period of time, however many years, the funds will be raised locally on Island

[5:11:03] Voice 19: by requisition because that is i mean i i think we if i if i've got it wrong someone please tell

[5:11:09] Voice 19: me but i would the the motion is is there's lots of things that i don't need

[5:11:15] Voice 19: to be clear

[5:11:15] Voice 19: which aren't stated so for clarification if someone could help me

[5:11:19] Voice 23: sure and perhaps that's

[5:11:21] Voice 23: in the business case um i don't recall now about either uh the mover might like to speak to that or

[5:11:27] Voice 23: the chair of the ltc or the

[5:11:30] Voice 25: director i'll

[5:11:32] Voice 21: speak to it yeah that's the intention

[5:11:35] Voice 21: the intention

[5:11:36] Voice 21: is is rather than because we as i stated earlier today the advice was we couldn't

[5:11:44] Voice 21: get to a special tax requisition in this fiscal in order to get it in the budget in march as a special

[5:11:50] Voice 21: tax requisition because of the administrative complexity of doing that so the intent is

[5:11:56] Voice 21: it's funded for a year and then the intent would be

[5:11:59] Voice 21: to move forward with a special tax reposition.

[5:12:03] Voice 23: Right, thank you.

[5:12:04] Voice 23: And is there any other discussion here?

[5:12:07] Voice 23: Doug Fenton and then Jane Wolverton.

[5:12:11] Voice 20: Yeah, I think I'm not in favor at,

[5:12:16] Voice 20: I sort of have mixed feelings,

[5:12:18] Voice 20: but I think this is a step in the right direction

[5:12:23] Voice 20: but it's premature in our evolution

[5:12:25] Voice 20: as far as trust council and the overall approach

[5:12:30] Voice 20: in our budgetary constraints at this point in time.

[5:12:33] Voice 20: So I think that the fact that our legislation has us

[5:12:38] Voice 20: as local trust committees sort of in the advocacy role

[5:12:42] Voice 20: for affordable housing, and my question to this,

[5:12:46] Voice 20: and I couldn't find the answers to it,

[5:12:48] Voice 20: is where does the regional district sit

[5:12:51] Voice 20: sort of with the local government?

[5:12:53] Voice 20: act why are they not taking the lead as opposed to um trust council budgeting this at this point

[5:13:02] Voice 20: in time i think once again the whole overall sort of conversation is shifting in the right direction

[5:13:09] Voice 20: but i'm not sure that we should be at the driver's seat we should be advocating for what we are

[5:13:15] Voice 20: there for and that's looking at and providing leadership and guidance around the sort of

[5:13:21] Voice 20: ecological footprint and the equal justice matters that are associated with our challenges

[5:13:26] Voice 20: and i'll leave it there thank you okay

[5:13:30] Voice 23: thank you doug um i'm presuming that you didn't need

[5:13:34] Voice 23: an answer to the one question about the regional districts you're just making a comment there

[5:13:37] Voice 23: with the their absence okay thank you so jane wolverton hello patrick i'll get you um

[5:13:43] Voice 29: i also

[5:13:44] Voice 29: think that this is a little premature I was as I as I read the proposal as I got

[5:13:53] Voice 29: confused about how it was actually going to move ahead and so when I look at the

[5:13:58] Voice 29: objectives the objectives look fine but there's no measure of success or

[5:14:04] Voice 29: indication of how those might be achieved and when I see the word insure

[5:14:10] Voice 29: uh in objectives i i i get concerned because i i don't know that we can ever ensure

[5:14:18] Voice 29: that growth will be managed or that there'll be a recovery of the uh of our endangered uh coastal

[5:14:24] Voice 29: douglas fur and so on um so i i think as some people have said it's a good start but i think

[5:14:32] Voice 29: more work needs to happen um before i can see supporting this thank

[5:14:39] Voice 23: you jane uh paul brent

[5:14:41] Voice 23: and then laura patrick again again

[5:14:47] Voice 27: i'm i'm a proponent of affordable housing but i am

[5:14:51] Voice 27: extremely worried about the fact of putting money into this and then seeing a special tax

[5:14:58] Voice 27: requisition fail so this would be throwing good money into an uncertain and potentially bad

[5:15:05] Voice 27: situation so i'm not in favor yeah

[5:15:13] Voice 23: we lost the last part of it there i

[5:15:17] Voice 27: just said i'm uh

[5:15:20] Voice 27: because of the uncertainties of a future special tax requisition i am not in favor

[5:15:30] Voice 23: i think we got

[5:15:32] Voice 23: Got it. I am not. I assume the next two words are in favor.

[5:15:36] Voice 23: Correct.

[5:15:38] Voice 23: Thank you, Paul.

[5:15:40] Voice 23: Laura Patrick, and then perhaps I'll call the vote.

[5:15:44] Trustee Patrick: The success for the special tax requisition takes an investment of time and energy to be there.

[5:15:49] Trustee Patrick: I know SWPA, it was two years of work before SWPA even went to a special tax requisition.

[5:15:54] Trustee Patrick: And we do know that the Northern Islands are needing extra resources.

[5:16:00] Trustee Patrick: I'm just saying resources, not even extra ones.

[5:16:02] Trustee Patrick: But remind you that the local trust committees were enabled and entrusted with the responsibility through the Local Government Act to direct the location, density, and form of all housing.

[5:16:12] Trustee Patrick: Zoning, subdivision, and other land use bylaws are powerful and foundational tools that we can use to proactively achieve diverse and sustainable supply of housing and to curtail residential development that is out of step with climate action and equity needs.

[5:16:27] Trustee Patrick: So we've got to start somewhere.

[5:16:30] Voice 23: Thank you, Laura.

[5:16:31] Voice 23: So I just want to recognize David Critchley, speaking a first time, and then I'll come back to Dr. Holburn.

[5:16:39] Voice 34: Thank you very much.

[5:16:41] Voice 34: I speak against this motion, primarily on the grounds that have been expressed by Trustee Brent.

[5:16:48] Voice 34: I think it would be very imprudent for us to put forward $70,000 as essentially bridge financing only to find the project completely fail when that community may vote against the continued funding of the project to bring it to fruition.

[5:17:09] Voice 34: So I think it's very risky money. I am also deeply concerned when one half of the local representation on that island does not favor it.

[5:17:21] Voice 34: I think that is of great concern. And also, I'm concerned overall about the size of this budget, and I'm looking for ways to decrease it, not increase it. Thank you.

[5:17:35] Voice 34: thank

[5:17:37] Voice 23: you and just for clarity the local community doesn't

[5:17:41] Voice 38: vote

[5:17:42] Voice 23: on the tax requisition that's up to

[5:17:44] Voice 23: the ltc to advance it to council and council approves it um scott colburn thank you for

[5:17:53] Voice 37: making that last point um you're attempting to you want to know what the outcome is before you

[5:17:58] Voice 37: change the process you want to know what the outcome is before you change the process and

[5:18:03] Voice 37: have different people at the table. This grew out of community work. This grew out of public

[5:18:10] Voice 37: engagement. And thank you for the debate today. Some of the points that have been raised to vote

[5:18:16] Voice 37: against this, you're projecting into the future. You want to know an outcome that follows the same

[5:18:20] Voice 37: old process and gets the same old results. Sooner or later, you're going to have to step into a

[5:18:26] Voice 37: different place. And there is a little bit more risk involved. I'd rather have it come from the

[5:18:31] Voice 37: community and come from people who who care deeply about its ecosystems and its inhabitants

[5:18:37] Voice 37: and the islands trust mandate that this project grew out of that and uh i'm confident in it i'm

[5:18:43] Voice 37: confident it's a good investment for this year even if it doesn't cut dummy gum from it we're

[5:18:48] Voice 37: doing something this year that comes from the community that has been positive beneficial

[5:18:50] Voice 37: results thank you for the debate everybody thank

[5:18:54] Voice 23: you scott uh without an oh i see uh to hear a

[5:18:58] Voice 23: Rockefeller. Go ahead.

[5:19:01] Voice 3: Oh, thanks. I just wanted to support this because even though I know our

[5:19:05] Voice 3: budget is very, it's big and needs cutting, it's an innovative project and we don't see a lot of

[5:19:12] Voice 3: those. And I think it's an opportune time to give something a chance that will actually maybe

[5:19:16] Voice 3: address our housing and environmental crisis. Thanks.

[5:19:20] Voice 23: Thank you, Jane. I would like to call

[5:19:23] Voice 23: the vote. All right. Thank you. So I'm going to call the vote on the motion on the floor.

[5:19:30] Voice 23: All those in favor, please raise your hands online and in the room.

[5:19:35] Voice 23: All those in favor.

[5:19:48] Voice 23: Okay, so that fails.

[5:19:52] Voice 23: And so, well, no, all those opposed.

[5:19:55] Voice 23: I'm sorry about that.

[5:20:00] Voice 23: Okay, so indeed, that motion fails.

[5:20:05] Voice 23: Thank you, Scott.

[5:20:06] Voice 23: So, Scott, did you have a further motion, or was it predicated on the advancement of this first one?

[5:20:13] Voice 23: No,

[5:20:13] Voice 37: I think it's very important to move to the Hornby item and Grant Scott.

[5:20:17] Voice 37: Again, the Northern Office of the Disciples is advancing some of this work, and I would defer any time to Grant.

[5:20:26] Voice 37: What was the final vote? It's really hard to follow votes. Is there a number?

[5:20:33] Voice 23: I will admit I don't have the exact number here, but it was a clear majority.

[5:20:40] Voice 37: Thank you.

[5:20:44] Voice 23: Yeah. Thank you. So, all right. Thank you. So, I'm going to ask Laura Bershagan if I could allow

[5:20:54] Voice 23: Grant Scott to step forward because he has another engagement to attend to. Thank you, Laura. Grant

[5:20:59] Voice 23: Scott, over to you.

[5:21:01] Voice 12: Thanks very much. I'd like to turn to page 173. Can you put that up there,

[5:21:08] Voice 12: please? And this is the project that we'd like to put back on the agenda. I guess I should just

[5:21:14] Voice 12: make the motion right peter and then people absolutely don't blah

[5:21:18] Voice 12: blah okay so i'd like to

[5:21:20] Voice 12: move that to fifteen thousand dollars for the hornby h2o epc uh project be put back into the

[5:21:31] Voice 12: 2223 budget and did you

[5:21:36] Voice 23: submit that to laura laurie at all no okay so laura you're typing

[5:21:41] Voice 23: so we'll wait to get that on the screen and then once it's on the screen i'll look for a secondary

[5:21:57] Voice 40: Okay.

[5:21:59] Voice 23: And I'll just acknowledge that Trustee Allen has seconded the motion, and there it is on the screen for us in the room. We'll get that on the screen for everybody else. A little bigger, obviously, would be great.

[5:22:22] Voice 12: It doesn't matter.

[5:22:32] Voice 40: Okay. It doesn't matter.

[5:22:50] Voice 31: Okay. They just added the word draft back in.

[5:22:54] Voice 31: Okay.

[5:22:56] Voice 23: So then do

[5:22:58] Voice 12: you wish to speak to your motion?

[5:23:00] Voice 38: Yes,

[5:23:00] Voice 12: please. Thank you. If you go to page 173, you'll see there, just to give you a little bit of background, our ETC has been very active in the last two years.

[5:23:12] Voice 12: They've done a lot of very good work back around to this project.

[5:23:16] Voice 12: And right now, they're looking at revisions that we need to do in our official community plan and the land use bylaws around some key components.

[5:23:27] Voice 12: components one is the first nations element because we don't have anything there's nothing

[5:23:31] Voice 12: in our ocp about first nations which is absolutely unbelievable and and we're looking at short-term

[5:23:37] Voice 12: vacation rentals and water and we i i really believe that that this project will not only

[5:23:43] Voice 12: be assistance to hornby but it'll all i think it'll also be assistance to other uh i think

[5:23:49] Voice 12: we'll learn a lot regionally from it that other local trust committees will be able to use uh

[5:23:53] Voice 12: what we're going to learn i think it's uh so i'm asking you to support it and it's uh by the way

[5:23:59] Voice 12: 0.2 percent of the budget for this year so um yeah i'll leave it at that thank you okay

[5:24:07] Voice 23: thank you um

[5:24:09] Voice 23: does this pardon me so it's moved and seconded by trustee allen um trustee allen do you wish

[5:24:14] Voice 23: to speak to the motion yeah

[5:24:17] Voice 42: just can i just add it for any amendment just to add

[5:24:21] Voice 42: community plan review at the board review if that's okay grant sure

[5:24:25] Voice 12: yeah

[5:24:26] Voice 42: um yeah they say we

[5:24:30] Voice 42: should have a ocp review every five years we had ours back in 2014 um we've got these really huge

[5:24:36] Voice 42: issues on our island that are not going away um the four issues as you read i hope you did read

[5:24:43] Voice 42: the business case uh short-term rentals housing first nations and raw um yes if you look at the

[5:24:50] Voice 42: timeline it's april 2022 to march 2023 which goes into another term but these issues are so

[5:24:58] Voice 42: huge on hornby island that um i'm hoping whoever is going to be at the uh helm as the next

[5:25:05] Voice 42: trust committee you know obviously you recognize if they are members of our community these are

[5:25:11] Voice 42: huge things that that they will still have to bring them up and um so we don't ask for much

[5:25:19] Voice 42: Hormey Island at this level here and I'm just hoping that you'll support this. Thank you very

[5:25:24] Voice 42: much. Thank

[5:25:26] Voice 23: you, Alex. Are there other speakers on the motion? Okay, so Deb Morrison, let me get

[5:25:34] Voice 23: the list going here now. Deb Morrison, Kate Lee Stanford, Shulon Fast, and Laura Beshaken. Go ahead.

[5:25:41] Voice 23: ahead.

[5:25:44] Voice 18: Thank you. I'm

[5:25:46] Voice 18: going to speak in favor of this motion. This case to me is clearly laid out

[5:25:52] Voice 18: and it seems to be core work that we do as a mixed blend of both the local government act

[5:26:00] Voice 18: and our trust act responsibilities. So this seems really critical that we are doing this and

[5:26:09] Voice 18: And yeah, so I'll just leave it at that.

[5:26:12] Voice 18: I'm in support of it.

[5:26:13] Voice 23: Okay, thank you, Deb.

[5:26:14] Voice 23: So I've got on my speakers, that's Kate-Louise Stanford, Sue Ellen Fast, Laura Bishakin, Case Longerice, and David Critchley.

[5:26:23] Voice 23: So go ahead, Kate-Louise Stanford.

[5:26:27] Voice 30: I'm sitting on the fence.

[5:26:29] Voice 30: Gambier Island Local Trust Committee has been trying to get their OCP going for almost eight years.

[5:26:36] Voice 30: A very similar scale at this point.

[5:26:41] Voice 30: We did do a request for hiring a contractor to do similar work for this year, and there's nobody available.

[5:26:52] Voice 30: This could very well fall back on regional Northern Ireland regional planners again.

[5:26:59] Voice 30: We have, through the Regional Planning Committee, we have the new regional planning team that has prioritized certain OCPs.

[5:27:09] Voice 30: I know Hornby is a priority.

[5:27:12] Voice 30: I'm not sure how this will impact their other OCP priorities.

[5:27:19] Voice 30: I just feel that we have this plan in place.

[5:27:22] Voice 30: We barely implemented it.

[5:27:24] Voice 30: but a lot of the things that the Hornby trustees have said

[5:27:30] Voice 30: are also things that the Gambier Island OCP

[5:27:34] Voice 30: was supposed to develop.

[5:27:37] Voice 30: So I'm just not sure if this is doable,

[5:27:39] Voice 30: given the challenges that we're facing right now

[5:27:42] Voice 30: for resources in the Northern office.

[5:27:47] Voice 23: I would like to hear from the other speakers.

[5:27:48] Voice 23: Are you wanting to rebut?

[5:27:53] Voice 23: So was there a question in there

[5:27:55] Voice 23: that you need to have answered?

[5:28:00] Voice 23: go

[5:28:02] Voice 12: ahead thank you i'd just like to point out on the bottom of page 173 the point there i think

[5:28:09] Voice 12: it's very clearly stated that this the staff and this is put together by our um our regional

[5:28:15] Voice 12: planner right um heather power and as he pointed out option one is they they don't have the staff

[5:28:22] Voice 12: uh either locally or in the regional planning team and it would be uh in in often the future

[5:28:28] Voice 12: sometimes so this is a way for us to get it done in the short term okay thank

[5:28:33] Voice 23: you and your mask if

[5:28:34] Voice 23: you don't mind uh thank you kate um sue ellen fast lord be shaken case on grace david quicksway

[5:28:42] Voice 31: thank you i don't have a lot to say i'm the local uh chair of the local trust committee

[5:28:47] Voice 31: and uh i will say though that um this island appears to me just in the past three years that

[5:28:54] Voice 31: i've been going there to have been going through enormous changes and uh i don't find anywhere to

[5:29:01] Voice 31: stay when i go there i can't stay overnight because there is nowhere legal um as far as i

[5:29:07] Voice 31: can tell um partly just because it's completely overwhelmed with change and uh i would say growth

[5:29:16] Voice 31: and new owners and all kinds of problems about water

[5:29:21] Voice 31: and the other First Nations issues

[5:29:25] Voice 31: in terms of where the ferry comes in, significant issues.

[5:29:29] Voice 31: And I think for a healthy community to continue,

[5:29:33] Voice 31: their official community plan needs to change

[5:29:36] Voice 31: at the same rate as some of the changes

[5:29:38] Voice 31: that I've been seeing.

[5:29:39] Voice 31: So I'm in support.

[5:29:42] Voice 23: Thank you, Sue Ellen.

[5:29:43] Voice 23: Laura Beshaken?

[5:29:45] Voice 10: Yeah, I'm on the fence about this, too.

[5:29:48] Voice 10: I'm tending to vote in favor because I think this is a good project.

[5:29:53] Voice 10: It's focused.

[5:29:54] Voice 10: You've got a great APC that will get the work done and build on work they've already done.

[5:30:00] Voice 10: uh and it should happen but my concern about this is more systemic uh similar to what trustee

[5:30:06] Voice 10: stamford was talking about and so i i'm leading actually to a question i think for director marler

[5:30:13] Voice 10: um we're in this transition between an old way of doing things delivering planning and a new way and

[5:30:22] Voice 10: And OCP reviews now are supposed to be going through the regional planning team, but they're full, their work program is full.

[5:30:35] Voice 10: So this seems like the old way that it's being done separately.

[5:30:40] Voice 10: And I guess it just leaves me very confused for an LTC wanting to do an OCP or an LUB review.

[5:30:48] Voice 10: How is it supposed to happen?

[5:30:49] Voice 10: So that we can be making thoughtful, consistent, and effective decisions about resources in terms of planning service delivery.

[5:31:03] Voice 23: Thank you. David Marla, do you want to respond to that, please?

[5:31:07] Voice 11: Yeah, thank you. And listening to this, this is the reason why we need a policy of council

[5:31:14] Voice 11: Council on how we're going to fund and have a strategic approach to doing the LCP reviews.

[5:31:21] Voice 11: You've got 20 official community plans, and it's impossible to do them every five years,

[5:31:26] Voice 11: so we need a better approach to doing that. So it's partly demand or need or interest

[5:31:34] Voice 11: by the local trust committee, but there are other considerations too. We don't have that

[5:31:39] Voice 11: framework right now uh hopefully we will in the next year but for now we don't okay thank you

[5:31:46] Voice 26: david case longer ice yeah i'm speaking in favor of this motion this is clear it's short term and

[5:31:53] Voice 26: it is very clearly the link to our mandate at the local government level around meeting a community

[5:32:00] Voice 26: need and it appears that it's well supported by the apc so i'm fully in

[5:32:05] Voice 23: support of it thank you

[5:32:08] Voice 23: case now David Critchley did you lower your hand I did just to get it out of the way but

[5:32:13] Voice 34: no I still

[5:32:14] Voice 34: wish to speak thank you go ahead so thank you I may be regarded as somewhat of a budget hawk here

[5:32:23] Voice 34: from previous remarks but in this instance I'm fully in favor of this expenditure the reason is

[5:32:31] Voice 34: I see Hornby, which is our sister island to Denman, of course, I see it as an island in crisis from a distance, from an island that has roughly a similar number of permanent residents to Denman, roughly 1,000, 1,200 round figures, but that grows to something like 8,000 to 10,000 in the summertime.

[5:32:59] Voice 34: time is putting an enormous burden on that community as well as our ferry system and I

[5:33:08] Voice 34: don't know that an OCP review is going to ultimately resolve any of these things it

[5:33:13] Voice 34: certainly won't be in the short term but if there is any community that can benefit from a review of

[5:33:18] Voice 34: a sufficient community plan Hornby is it when we look at a triaging system for for communities in

[5:33:27] Voice 34: in crisis, I think it highly qualifies because, to me, it's either it's in the intensive care unit

[5:33:38] Voice 34: and it's about to go on the ventilator, just to put it very bluntly. Thank you.

[5:33:44] Voice 34: Thank you.

[5:33:45] Voice 23: All right, then. I'm not seeing any other speakers at this time,

[5:33:49] Voice 23: but Michael Kael has just put his hand up, so we'll give Michael Kael a last chance here.

[5:33:53] Voice 23: well

[5:33:54] Voice 19: of course it's another expense but i'm all for it it's totally focused it's got obvious

[5:34:02] Voice 19: community involvement and i wish them well with it because it's obviously a priority so good luck

[5:34:10] Voice 19: so with

[5:34:11] Voice 23: that are you ready for me to call the vote okay let's call the vote all those in favor

[5:34:16] Voice 23: please raise your hands. It's a little slow, I know, but we got to do it. Scott Colburn.

[5:34:40] Voice 23: In the room, can lower your hands. Sorry.

[5:35:07] Voice 23: Scanning the room here. So I'm not seeing

[5:35:09] Voice 23: Peter Grove. Oh, there you are, Peter Grove. Thank you. For some reason, I'm not seeing you

[5:35:13] Voice 23: on my screen okay so then uh lower your hands please and so those opposed please raise your

[5:35:20] Voice 23: hands i'm not seeing any hands raised opposed so that carries um thank you very much um all right

[5:35:32] Voice 23: then so now let's uh move on to uh laura beshaken for your uh amendment okay

[5:35:40] Voice 10: i move that the

[5:35:42] Voice 10: the Freshwater Sustainability Reporting Program

[5:35:44] Voice 10: with a budget of $41,000 be included

[5:35:48] Voice 10: in the Islands Trust 2022-2023 draft budget.

[5:35:52] Voice 10: And I did get

[5:35:54] Voice 10: this to Laurie earlier.

[5:35:57] Voice 10: And if you want to look at this,

[5:35:59] Voice 10: the business case is on page 161

[5:36:02] Voice 23: in your package.

[5:36:03] Voice 23: We'll get a seconder to the motion, Doug Fenton.

[5:36:06] Voice 23: Thank you.

[5:36:07] Voice 23: You wish to speak to your motion?

[5:36:09] Voice 10: Yes, I do.

[5:36:12] Voice 10: This was originally in the draft budget

[5:36:15] Voice 10: and FPC took it out.

[5:36:17] Voice 10: It also originally,

[5:36:20] Voice 10: the Freshwater Sustainability Strategy

[5:36:23] Voice 10: had several activities for this,

[5:36:27] Voice 10: which would be the launch year next year.

[5:36:29] Voice 10: And that plan was already pared down

[5:36:34] Voice 10: because staff had originally submitted a business case

[5:36:38] Voice 10: that included a whole other piece,

[5:36:39] Voice 10: which was a freshwater stewardship outreach plan,

[5:36:43] Voice 10: which is still a very good idea.

[5:36:46] Voice 10: But given the concerns about the budget,

[5:36:48] Voice 10: staff looked at the priorities and said,

[5:36:51] Voice 10: you could put that aside reluctantly.

[5:36:55] Voice 10: But this piece, the reporting piece, is the most important.

[5:36:59] Voice 10: So what we had is already a pared down ask.

[5:37:03] Voice 10: And it isn't just making a pretty document.

[5:37:06] Voice 10: It involves hiring a co-op student for the summer who will work closely with William and Marissa and can do also some just associated work to help get this freshwater strategy launched.

[5:37:20] Voice 10: But we'll be pulling together information from disparate sources and different kinds of information, which is one of the reasons we wanted this strategy in the first place is that information is all over the place.

[5:37:33] Voice 10: and there's so many players working on fresh water and nobody not nobody but there's many

[5:37:38] Voice 10: different ideas of what the trust can and can't do and what the information is and what it means and

[5:37:42] Voice 10: how we can use it in a land use planning format so the this is what the report will be about and

[5:37:50] Voice 10: it will have mapping and it one of the main reasons we want this reporting is to uh help

[5:37:59] Voice 10: new trustees or us understand not only what's happening on our island and in our ltc area

[5:38:07] Voice 10: but make decisions about the next strategic plan future budgets because if we're going to

[5:38:14] Voice 10: implement this freshwater sustainability strategy we need to understand what we're doing and we need

[5:38:20] Voice 10: to keep putting in the strategic plan and in the budget and to do that we need to do so wisely

[5:38:25] Voice 10: And a report like this will be invaluable for trustees.

[5:38:29] Voice 10: Also, it will put staff on the same page.

[5:38:31] Voice 10: It can be shared with partners, with community members.

[5:38:35] Voice 10: Funders will see it.

[5:38:36] Voice 10: We got $190,000 of funding for this.

[5:38:40] Voice 10: This could be seen as $40,000, $41,000 of matching funds to actually move it forward

[5:38:47] Voice 10: and to keep also public and community groups engaged.

[5:38:51] Voice 10: engaged. Another thing is this is a big climate action piece. We have removed the climate change

[5:38:57] Voice 10: indicators from our budget. This is a look at a particular, very crucial and vulnerable

[5:39:08] Voice 10: climate, shall we say, indicator, which is the state of freshwater, and really focus on that.

[5:39:14] Voice 10: So when our constituents say, what are you doing about climate change? Do you even know what's

[5:39:19] Voice 10: going on. This is something that we can do. So it's also the basis for a forum, which is planned

[5:39:29] Voice 10: for the next fiscal year. This is the core information that will go forward to be reported

[5:39:35] Voice 10: on in that forum. So if we don't have a budget item, staff is going to have to do some of the

[5:39:42] Voice 10: work. They're going to have to answer questions for new trustees and bring things forward for

[5:39:46] Voice 10: the next budget and they'll be doing it off the side of their desk and it'll be cutting into their

[5:39:51] Voice 10: other work this needs to be done thoroughly in consultation with with other staff members

[5:39:57] Voice 10: and overseen by regional planning committee uh so um yeah i think i still could say more but um

[5:40:06] Voice 10: i think i will leave it up well just one more thing is that this will help us attract additional

[5:40:15] Voice 10: funding or is likely to i can't say for sure because it demonstrates we're willing to do the

[5:40:20] Voice 10: work uh so i will leave it at that thanks

[5:40:26] Voice 23: um okay thank you so speakers on uh the motion

[5:40:33] Voice 23: now and doug fenton you were the seconder if you wish to speak to it i'll give you the first

[5:40:36] Voice 23: opportunity and i'm just going to make a list here yeah i just i speak in favor

[5:40:41] Voice 20: of this i think

[5:40:41] Voice 20: Laura I covered all of the points but I was concerned about that I this is a part of this

[5:40:48] Voice 20: puzzle that we've just we're so happy about having concluded we need to we need to take that step and

[5:40:55] Voice 20: we need to do this work and maybe we should continue to look for more grants and more

[5:40:59] Voice 20: opportunities since that's the government's thing now to find you know sort of the water and

[5:41:06] Voice 20: maybe flood emergencies soon too um just other opportunities that might help us

[5:41:11] Voice 20: cover some costs over time but this is an important piece and yeah i'm happy to uh see us

[5:41:19] Voice 20: going down thank you uh

[5:41:22] Voice 21: the chair stepped out for a second sue allen fast was next on the list

[5:41:26] Voice 31: thank you i'm going to speak in favor of this motion um i think climate change has been projected

[5:41:32] Voice 31: for, well, 30 years, something like this.

[5:41:36] Voice 31: We've also known about water issues

[5:41:38] Voice 31: in the islands for a long time.

[5:41:40] Voice 31: And I think this is the time to implement it.

[5:41:44] Voice 31: The report sounds like who cares about just a report?

[5:41:49] Voice 31: But what I see it as is sort of a baseline.

[5:41:52] Voice 31: It's half of it is a co-op student to support

[5:41:55] Voice 31: and make a lot more field worker work possible.

[5:41:58] Voice 31: I see it as a collaborative tool.

[5:42:03] Voice 31: For example, Bowen Island Municipality has something between 40

[5:42:08] Voice 31: and 50% of our residences are on well water,

[5:42:11] Voice 31: but we know almost nothing about them.

[5:42:14] Voice 31: The province has worked with, I guess, Bowen Municipal staff

[5:42:19] Voice 31: to identify an unused well.

[5:42:22] Voice 31: Now we have an observational well as of like a year

[5:42:24] Voice 31: and a half or something.

[5:42:25] Voice 31: and really we know very little and we have very little as far as I know very little back and forth

[5:42:33] Voice 31: with the province whereas a report like this would allow us a way to talk to the province over a long

[5:42:39] Voice 31: term and to make sure that our water is well managed I see it as a way to do outreach we've

[5:42:46] Voice 31: got a hunger on Bowen should I say a thirst for people wanting to know more about water and how

[5:42:53] Voice 31: how they can conserve it, and whether they need to worry about it, what they can do.

[5:42:56] Voice 31: It'll help us protect our ecosystems from industrial logging and things like that.

[5:43:02] Voice 31: If we can make a case, we have information.

[5:43:04] Voice 31: We don't have any information at the moment.

[5:43:08] Voice 31: So anyway, I like the idea of baseline reporting that happens every four years and forms every term.

[5:43:13] Voice 31: I see benefits to Bowen and benefits to collaborating.

[5:43:17] Voice 31: I see a kind of ongoing updated report that will allow us to collect collaborating funding partners over the years.

[5:43:29] Voice 31: And I like that as well.

[5:43:32] Voice 31: And it's a problem.

[5:43:33] Voice 31: This freshwater supply and quality is a problem that's been identified for years.

[5:43:39] Voice 31: years, it's going to be going even more difficult in the future.

[5:43:47] Voice 31: So I really think that this is an important long-term way to address this core issue.

[5:43:56] Voice 31: Thank you.

[5:43:58] Voice 23: Thank you.

[5:43:59] Voice 23: So on my speakers list, I have Laura Patrick, Peter Johnson, Deb Morrison, Dan Rogers, if

[5:44:05] Voice 23: I'm not mistaken.

[5:44:07] Voice 23: I just want to make a note.

[5:44:08] Voice 23: I know when you're passionate about something, you want to speak to it effectively.

[5:44:13] Voice 23: We do need to be succinct.

[5:44:15] Voice 23: We've got some guests in the wings here that wish to address council, and that's important

[5:44:21] Voice 23: to our subject also, that we need to hear from them.

[5:44:25] Voice 23: But I would like to conclude this debate before we go to our speakers, and then we'll pick

[5:44:30] Voice 23: up the rest of the budget tomorrow when there'll be an opportunity to make any further amendments.

[5:44:34] Voice 23: amendments. So, Laura Patrick, Peter Johnson, Deb Morrison, Dan Rogers.

[5:44:40] Trustee Patrick: I'm not going to speak in favor of this, and the main reason is that, you know, this project is

[5:44:46] Trustee Patrick: shovel-ready, and if a grant becomes available, that this could be made available for that.

[5:44:51] Trustee Patrick: I think the emphasis needs to be made. We've done a lot of science over the last year,

[5:44:55] Trustee Patrick: major, major, three years, major investment into the science that we've done, but that science

[5:45:02] Trustee Patrick: hasn't been translated yet to the tools that we need that can inform and make our uh the support

[5:45:07] Trustee Patrick: the decisions that we need to be making and that work should be done we have to kind of catch up on

[5:45:12] Trustee Patrick: putting uh that science into play into the decisions that we make every time where the report

[5:45:19] Trustee Patrick: may have helped a bit but that's not that's not going to be helping our daily decisions

[5:45:24] Trustee Patrick: so um and also the data from our science does inform the allocation and licensing program of

[5:45:31] Trustee Patrick: the province so that's you going to help them do the tools that they need to do and we need the

[5:45:35] Trustee Patrick: tools to help us make the the decisions and i think this should be just put off a year thank

[5:45:41] Voice 23: you peter johnson and then deb morrison can

[5:45:44] Voice 15: you hear me i'm being vacuumed around perfect oh good

[5:45:49] Voice 15: um i find it really hard to know what twenty thousand dollars needs to be why twenty thousand

[5:45:55] Voice 15: dollars needs to be sent on publication and sharing certainly it could be dumped onto the

[5:46:00] Voice 15: website and trustees can let people who are clamoring for more information know so i'm

[5:46:06] Voice 15: going to find this very difficult to support because of that uh huge expense that i see

[5:46:13] Voice 15: little need for thank

[5:46:14] Voice 23: you thank you um deb morrison dan rogers lord was shaken all right

[5:46:25] Voice 18: so i'll try and be brief but i'm also having a little trouble tracking today so um one of the

[5:46:32] Voice 18: I'm not going to speak in favor of this at the time, again, not to say that I don't think

[5:46:37] Voice 18: this is important in the long run, just that I actually, a lot of the arguments that have

[5:46:43] Voice 18: been made are well-grounded arguments, but we're not talking about not addressing freshwater

[5:46:51] Voice 18: here.

[5:46:52] Voice 18: What we're talking about is not addressing this aspect of the freshwater strategy.

[5:46:57] Voice 18: And so, wrapped up in my comments and my sort of reluctance to support this at the moment is also a question about, given that, if I remember correctly, water was the number one strategic plan principle, I need to understand why core planning, like, my assumption is that core planning staff are on the strategic plan work.

[5:47:23] Voice 18: like they're working on implementing the strategic plan.

[5:47:26] Voice 18: So there is actually effort behind implementing the strategic plan.

[5:47:30] Voice 18: Is that correct?

[5:47:31] Voice 18: Could I just get clarification on that?

[5:47:38] Voice 11: Just to clarify, you mean the strategic plan in relation to the freshwater?

[5:47:43] Voice 11: Yeah, well, there's different pieces to it,

[5:47:45] Voice 11: but the work that Narissa has been doing has been quite that, yeah.

[5:47:51] Voice 18: Yeah, thank you very much.

[5:47:53] Voice 18: So just my point being then that it's not that we are not doing anything

[5:47:57] Voice 18: on the freshwater strategy.

[5:47:59] Voice 18: that we're just not doing this component potentially okay

[5:48:05] Voice 25: thank you on

[5:48:07] Voice 23: the next speaker

[5:48:07] Voice 23: then dan rogers yeah

[5:48:11] Voice 21: um what trustee morrison said and i'll channel my inner trustee critchley

[5:48:18] Voice 21: which is to be a budget hawk we we financial planning committee made some very significant

[5:48:25] Voice 21: cuts to the budget and it was identified this one of reporting but we're doing lots and lots

[5:48:31] Voice 21: lots of water work. We have full-time employees. We have a planner who's developing specific plans

[5:48:39] Voice 21: for two LTCs at least, and other work would be the model elsewhere. We're doing some more science

[5:48:46] Voice 21: at $50,000, and we're doing the cultural work as well. I agree with Trustee Patrick. It's not that

[5:48:53] Voice 21: it's not important. It's just that this could be something that we could look at again in a year,

[5:48:58] Voice 21: so i'm not going to support this okay

[5:49:01] Voice 23: thank you laura be shaken and if we're ready i'd like to

[5:49:04] Voice 23: go

[5:49:04] Voice 10: okay i'll just very briefly answer the question about the forty thousand dollars

[5:49:08] Voice 10: i think the whole point is that just dumping something on a website is almost not worth the

[5:49:14] Voice 10: time to do that uh the way something is written and presented and distributed is is key for it

[5:49:20] Voice 10: it to have meaning, to be usable, to have legs.

[5:49:25] Voice 10: This is something that will last for four years

[5:49:29] Voice 10: and then be updated every four years.

[5:49:32] Voice 10: So it needs to not just be something

[5:49:34] Voice 10: that's dumped on a website.

[5:49:37] Voice 10: And this is also, it's a flagship report.

[5:49:40] Voice 10: It's how we proudly step out and say,

[5:49:43] Voice 10: this is the work we've been doing.

[5:49:45] Voice 10: doing. And it's also a reference to numerous things that we want people to use it. We want

[5:49:53] Voice 10: Islanders to be aware. We want trustees to use it. So investing in professional writing, editing,

[5:50:00] Voice 10: layout, and distribution is important. And originally the staff came forward with a lower

[5:50:05] Voice 10: amount for that. And it was RPC that gave feedback saying, actually, we need more money for that.

[5:50:12] Voice 10: So just needed to explain that.

[5:50:14] Voice 23: Thank you very much.

[5:50:16] Voice 23: Not seeing any other speakers.

[5:50:18] Voice 23: I'm going to call the vote on the motion on your screens there.

[5:50:22] Voice 23: All those in favor, please raise your hands.

[5:50:26] Voice 40: Bear with me.

[5:50:43] Voice 41: And on the screen.

[5:51:03] Voice 41: I

[5:51:06] Voice 23: just want to make sure I get this right.

[5:51:07] Voice 23: Okay, so now lower your hands, please.

[5:51:10] Voice 23: And those opposed.

[5:51:15] Voice 40: Okay.

[5:51:50] Voice 23: I just had to make sure that I was catching everybody.

[5:51:52] Voice 23: And I think I've got it.

[5:51:53] Voice 23: So I'm just going to tally this up.

[5:51:55] Voice 23: bear with me a second to help me out Carmen I've got 11 in favor and I've got and I've got 11

[5:52:17] Voice 23: against no so okay I'm gonna have to do roll call on this one as the smartest thing to do here

[5:52:31] Voice 23: um so Janine um well actually in the room is relatively easy uh get me in the alphabetical

[5:52:42] Voice 23: list oh well that i don't know yeah i don't know about procedure okay i'm just going to do roll

[5:53:00] Voice 23: call folks

[5:53:01] Voice 38: okay

[5:53:04] Voice 31: we're going to do a roll call

[5:53:05] Voice 23: i'm going to do roll call now um and so just say

[5:53:08] Voice 23: yell out uh in favor or against okay alex allen in

[5:53:13] Voice 42: favor paul

[5:53:15] Voice 23: brent opposed lord be shaken

[5:53:26] Voice 23: Scott Colburn, in favor, David Critchley, opposed, Janine Dodds, Sue Ellen Fast, in favor,

[5:53:42] Voice 23: Doug Fenton,

[5:53:44] Voice 31: Peter

[5:53:46] Voice 23: Grove, opposed,

[5:53:49] Voice 40: Peter Johnson, Peter Johnson, no vote from Peter Johnson.

[5:54:02] Voice 23: and I see you

[5:54:02] Voice 40: so

[5:54:06] Voice 23: raise your hand if you're in favor I can't hear you raise

[5:54:12] Voice 23: your hand if you're opposed he's opposed

[5:54:18] Voice 23: Michael kale

[5:54:19] Voice 38: case

[5:54:23] Voice 23: longer ice Peter Lockham is opposed I'm afraid David

[5:54:29] Voice 23: Maude Ben McConkie is not in attendance Lee Middleton opposed

[5:54:37] Voice 1: Deb

[5:54:39] Voice 23: Morrison Laura

[5:54:42] Voice 23: Laura Patrick.

[5:54:43] Voice 23: Opposed.

[5:54:44] Voice 23: Wow.

[5:54:46] Voice 23: Tim Peterson.

[5:54:49] Voice 23: In favor.

[5:54:52] Voice 23: Tahira Rockefeller.

[5:54:54] Voice 40: In favor.

[5:54:55] Voice 23: Dan Rogers.

[5:54:56] Voice 23: Opposed.

[5:54:58] Voice 23: Scott Grant.

[5:55:00] Voice 41: In favor.

[5:55:06] Voice 23: Kate Louise Stanford.

[5:55:10] Voice 23: Cameron Thorne is not in the room, I believe.

[5:55:13] Voice 23: And Jane Wolverton.

[5:55:16] Voice 23: Thank you.

[5:55:17] Voice 23: And Steve Wright is out of the room.

[5:55:20] Voice 23: Let me tally.

[5:55:29] Voice 23: Okay.

[5:55:30] Voice 23: Okay, so I've got 13 opposed to 10 in favor.

[5:55:46] Voice 23: Okay, well, so you said you had 11, 4, and 12 against?

[5:55:50] Voice 41: So at the

[5:55:51] Voice 23: end of the day, it fails.

[5:55:55] Voice 23: And I'll give you both of those pieces of paper, and we'll reconcile that.

[5:55:59] Voice 23: But it does fail.

[5:56:01] Voice 23: Okay, thank you, everybody.

[5:56:04] Voice 23: And now, if you please, we have some guests that are going to address us on what I believe

[5:56:15] Voice 23: is Section 9.22, correct me if I'm wrong, a presentation on the upcoming water licensing

[5:56:22] Voice 23: deadline for existing non-domestic groundwater.

[5:56:25] Voice 23: This is a really important section, and we're really glad that these folks have been here.

[5:56:28] Voice 23: and I thank the guests for hanging in there

[5:56:33] Voice 23: while we had our debates.

[5:56:34] Voice 23: And I'll go to Jane Wolverton for a point.

[5:56:38] Voice 29: Are we able to make more motions after the guests?

[5:56:42] Voice 23: Yes.

[5:56:42] Voice 23: Okay.

[5:56:43] Voice 23: Oh, time allowing, it's 4.30.

[5:56:45] Voice 23: I'm going to be cutting into your dinner break,

[5:56:47] Voice 23: but we will also continue tomorrow morning.

[5:56:50] Voice 23: It's important that we get this work done.

[5:56:54] Voice 23: So now who's going to introduce our guests?

[5:57:01] Voice 48: I believe that's me, Chair.

[5:57:04] Voice 23: i'm sorry i believe yes thank

[5:57:08] Voice 23: you william thank you for bringing this to us and thank and again

[5:57:11] Voice 23: thank you to the guests and uh thank you for being patient while we finished our dates

[5:57:16] Voice 23: yeah a

[5:57:17] Voice 48: little bit ironic to come after that um so um uh i would like to take this moment to

[5:57:24] Voice 48: thank our um our guests from the um from the province from the ministry of forest and lands

[5:57:31] Voice 48: resource operations and rural development as well as the ministry of environment climate

[5:57:35] Voice 48: change strategy um i believe we'll have ted white from flinro and uh julia beirard anucci from

[5:57:44] Voice 48: ministry environment and we also have kelly uh melancholic on the line and i believe

[5:57:51] Voice 48: and megan wainwright as well who reached out earlier to islands trust to ask for assistance

[5:57:58] Voice 48: and coordination in providing outreach to the Islanders

[5:58:03] Voice 48: with respect to existing non-domestic groundwater licensing.

[5:58:10] Voice 48: And just for the information of the trustees

[5:58:13] Voice 48: across the Island's trust area,

[5:58:15] Voice 48: there's over 12,000 registered groundwater wells.

[5:58:20] Voice 48: And as I see it now, just from the G wells registry,

[5:58:25] Voice 48: and maybe my colleagues from the province can correct me

[5:58:28] Voice 48: if it's if it's correct but i just did a query for licenses um like of those of those wells

[5:58:34] Voice 48: that are registered the licensed wells are only 75 wells so that's um about half of half of a

[5:58:42] Voice 48: percent of of wells that are um that are have non-domestic licensed um um as um in the in

[5:58:52] Voice 48: registry and it's it's difficult to know how many wells are being used non-domestically out there

[5:59:01] Voice 48: and the province has done some work on on addressing that through mapping um also uh with

[5:59:08] Voice 48: targeted outreach and they'll speak to that so without further ado i'll turn it over to the

[5:59:12] Voice 48: province i'm not sure who's going to go first here hello

[5:59:18] Voice 2: it's ted white speaking and i'm going to

[5:59:21] Voice 2: lead off i haven't been able to turn my camera on it said the host turned off my camera um can

[5:59:29] Voice 2: continue that way or not anyway my name is ted white i'm the director of uh premier director of

[5:59:36] Voice 2: water management branch and the controller of water rights and julia bradenucci is also with

[5:59:43] Voice 2: me and i'd just like to acknowledge that both julia and i are coming to you today from the

[5:59:49] Voice 2: the unceded territory of the Lekwungen-speaking people,

[5:59:52] Voice 2: currently the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations,

[5:59:54] Voice 2: where we both live, work, and get the opportunity to...

[6:00:01] Voice 2: do good work on water and that's something we both are quite passionate about and what I would

[6:00:08] Voice 2: like to do if you're okay going to slide two I'm going to give a bit of an overview of the

[6:00:14] Voice 2: groundwater licensing kind of why it's important and then I believe Julia is going to follow up

[6:00:19] Voice 2: with the engagement and how how we're engaging users but what I'd like to do is start with

[6:00:27] Voice 2: start with the why groundwater licensing we get asked this quite often so in 2016

[6:00:35] Voice 2: the former water act was updated to be now the water sustainability act and there were a number

[6:00:41] Voice 2: of key enhancements in that but really the key one was that groundwater was brought into the

[6:00:46] Voice 2: bc water management system and licensing was required this was done really to reflect that

[6:00:54] Voice 2: growing demand that we see across British Columbia, and as Islanders, you understand this,

[6:01:01] Voice 2: you know, the demand, climate change, and then environmental needs. So the government

[6:01:11] Voice 2: believed and agreed with this and brought in the Water Sustainability Act and the requirement for

[6:01:15] Voice 2: licensing. And a couple of key things I'd like to highlight about the groundwater licensing

[6:01:21] Voice 2: licensing is that the way it was brought into the system,

[6:01:27] Voice 2: it includes the same priority system as surface water.

[6:01:31] Voice 2: So it reflects, you can get your data first use reflected,

[6:01:36] Voice 2: and this helps reduce conflict during times of scarcity.

[6:01:38] Voice 2: So when people, we have our priority system

[6:01:41] Voice 2: and it allocates how you have access to license

[6:01:45] Voice 2: or permeate water.

[6:01:47] Voice 2: It allocates specific volumes to a use.

[6:01:53] Voice 2: which are attached to land and a particular type of use.

[6:01:57] Voice 2: And so that helps provide certainty to users and manages against overuse.

[6:02:02] Voice 2: So we don't see people being able to just divert and take all the water they may want for something that's not supported through the license.

[6:02:14] Voice 2: It helps protect the environment.

[6:02:16] Voice 2: So it's a way that we can look at balancing demands for human use, demands for the environment, gets that off there.

[6:02:27] Voice 2: And really one of the things that bringing licensing into the system does is it protects businesses and livelihoods.

[6:02:34] Voice 2: People have invested a lot of money in developing their access to groundwater.

[6:02:39] Voice 2: water and prior to the WSA there was no guarantee that you you know someone couldn't come in beside

[6:02:47] Voice 2: you and just with a bigger pump and take that water which you you've been using so it helps

[6:02:53] Voice 2: provide some an orderly allocation that allows you to have more certainty by getting that access

[6:03:00] Voice 2: may I have the next slide please so transitioning so we really have to recognize that

[6:03:10] Voice 2: that people who developed their access to groundwater

[6:03:12] Voice 2: before the WSA came into effect,

[6:03:15] Voice 2: so before February 29th, 2016,

[6:03:18] Voice 2: you know, they did that in,

[6:03:21] Voice 2: within the, legally within sort of the scheme

[6:03:25] Voice 2: of the way water was managed and regulated at that time.

[6:03:28] Voice 2: So there was a transition provision put into the Act

[6:03:31] Voice 2: to allow those existing users to apply

[6:03:35] Voice 2: apply and get a streamlined approach to be licensed and brought into the system so this

[6:03:43] Voice 2: is for existing non-domestic groundwater users and we emphasize non-domestic in this one and

[6:03:51] Voice 2: I'll get a couple notes here to speak to that but so existing non-domestic groundwater users

[6:03:56] Voice 2: need to apply for a license before March 1st 2022 so just three months out to benefit from

[6:04:05] Voice 2: these transitional provisions domestic water is really that water you use at home you know for

[6:04:11] Voice 2: your pets in garden you know up to a thousand square meters about a quarter of an acre

[6:04:17] Voice 2: the wsa authorizes groundwater use for this domestic use without need for a license so if

[6:04:23] Voice 2: you have a ground domestic well you can register it and that's completed but if the um the march

[6:04:33] Voice 2: deadline is regarding all other groundwater users so the non-domestic are using it for

[6:04:38] Voice 2: you know commercial purposes irrigation supporting light industry a business what have you

[6:04:46] Voice 2: so they if they're using water from a well or dugout they can come in as an existing user and

[6:04:53] Voice 2: get these streamlined provisions next slide and we'll talk to a little bit about what the benefits

[6:05:00] Voice 2: So if you apply before March 1st, if you qualify and you apply, you're permitted to continue to use the water until a license is issued.

[6:05:11] Voice 2: If a person does not apply, they are not legally allowed to use the water anymore. They have to stop until they apply for a license.

[6:05:22] Voice 2: If they do apply before March 1st, they get to obtain a priority date that reflects that the groundwater was first used.

[6:05:29] Voice 2: used, so that is they can provide information that says when they developed that access

[6:05:34] Voice 2: and when they used it from, and it helps with that. Securing that access I spoke to earlier,

[6:05:42] Voice 2: giving that certainty. If they don't apply before March 1st, they'll be treated as a

[6:05:48] Voice 2: new user and the priority date will be from the date they apply usually. Before March

[6:05:56] Voice 2: March 1st there's a greater likelihood that they'll be issued a license as I said we wanted

[6:06:00] Voice 2: to really provide the streamlined approach which brings people into the system whereas if you don't

[6:06:06] Voice 2: apply before March 1st there's a chance that water or application may be refused particularly where

[6:06:13] Voice 2: water is scarce and where there's a you know risk of it already being fully allocated and again as

[6:06:21] Voice 2: islanders you understand the value of water and this is something we really want to get

[6:06:26] Voice 2: out to people is that not only are there benefits such including like application fee is waived

[6:06:37] Voice 2: generally no additional studies to prove water availability no fines for ongoing use of water

[6:06:42] Voice 2: like if people don't don't apply before march 1st there is an application fee generally going to be

[6:06:48] Voice 2: additional studies required to prove up the supply and risk of being fine friendly since use of water

[6:06:53] Voice 2: so trying to really we're trying to drive home that there's benefits to coming in before march

[6:06:59] Voice 2: 1st and after march 1st many of those benefits or all those benefits are gone and there's a higher

[6:07:06] Voice 2: risk to that user i think that's that's the end of the portion i'm going to present i'm going to

[6:07:15] Voice 2: to turn over to my colleague Julia for the next slide.

[6:07:19] Voice 46: Good afternoon everyone. So you're probably

[6:07:22] Voice 46: wondering so how do people find out about this? Well the communication on this this change in

[6:07:28] Voice 46: in the law has been ongoing really since 2015. However what I'm going to do is really focus in

[6:07:33] Voice 46: on some of the the work that we've been doing in the last two years as we as we approach the

[6:07:40] Voice 46: the deadline. First and foremost, we have been able to hire some additional staff to provide

[6:07:48] Voice 46: one-to-one assistance to applicants. We certainly have heard over the years that it can be

[6:07:52] Voice 46: an easy online process for some and a very challenging process for others. And so we have

[6:07:59] Voice 46: additional staff and I'll provide information later on how to reach those staff. We have also

[6:08:06] Voice 46: put out more recently additional resources so there's brochures online

[6:08:11] Voice 46: that are easy to access and sort of step out the process and information there's

[6:08:16] Voice 46: a how to actually apply for a license YouTube video out questions and answer

[6:08:21] Voice 46: document and also further clarification on livestock watering and dugouts which

[6:08:26] Voice 46: is has been you know considerable point point even clarification particularly

[6:08:30] Voice 46: particularly in other areas of the province.

[6:08:33] Voice 46: In 2019 and 2020, we actually published ads in local newspapers,

[6:08:40] Voice 46: not the big provincial-wide newspaper,

[6:08:44] Voice 46: but the local newspapers that we thought would be more directly responsive

[6:08:49] Voice 46: to the interests of the community.

[6:08:52] Voice 46: And we've also recently put out information bulletins.

[6:08:56] Voice 46: And I'm saying soon, I said soon social media,

[6:08:59] Voice 46: but actually as of today the Minister of Flinders tweeted out a notification regarding this and we

[6:09:06] Voice 46: complemented that with blog posts on the the government website but I would have to say the

[6:09:15] Voice 46: most beneficial outreach that has occurred has really been through collaboration with other

[6:09:21] Voice 46: organizations so we've been working for many years with associations and councils and organizations

[6:09:29] Voice 46: such as the BC Groundwater Association, Union of BC Municipalities, etc.,

[6:09:34] Voice 46: to ask them to help spread the word, but also to advise us

[6:09:38] Voice 46: on how best to reach their community and their constituency.

[6:09:43] Voice 46: So we're coming to you today to ask, you know, in any capacity you can,

[6:09:49] Voice 46: particularly, I would say, starting in January,

[6:09:53] Voice 46: because we know that December brought us numerous issues

[6:09:59] Voice 46: issues that are very challenging to British Columbians, so we're sort of quietening down

[6:10:04] Voice 46: some of the outreach that we've been doing and anticipate trying to put more effort in January

[6:10:10] Voice 46: when some of the flood issues have progressed. When you have the opportunity, we'd love to have

[6:10:17] Voice 46: your help with encouraging applicants. So getting the word out that the application process

[6:10:24] Voice 46: process is now easier. We received a lot of feedback, particularly in 2016 and 17, that there

[6:10:31] Voice 46: was just too much and it was too hard. We made some changes to the system and we've had trouble

[6:10:36] Voice 46: finding those folks that sort of abandoned those initial efforts to come back. And we're trying to

[6:10:42] Voice 46: get the word out that, yes, the application process has changed and it is easier. It takes basic

[6:10:48] Voice 46: information to apply and where applicants don't have that information

[6:10:53] Voice 46: will help them try and figure out how how to get that information so we we

[6:10:59] Voice 46: also would like the the public to know that we have one-to-one assistance

[6:11:03] Voice 46: available and front counter BC is there to help with that as well as well Cali

[6:11:10] Voice 46: can speak to some of the regional specific assistance that has also been

[6:11:14] Voice 46: added to the team and then we also have documents that we can share the links and if you have an

[6:11:21] Voice 46: opportunity to share the links we'd appreciate that with anyone who's shown interest or any other

[6:11:28] Voice 46: means that you have for sharing the word so with that i'll turn this last side slide over to

[6:11:35] Voice 46: Callie thanks

[6:11:38] Voice 44: Julia hi everyone so my name is Callie Melnichenko and i work in the west coast

[6:11:43] Voice 44: Coast region, so that region is Vancouver Island, Gulf Islands and Central Coast.

[6:11:48] Voice 44: So

[6:11:50] Voice 44: we're more focused specifically on that

[6:11:52] Voice 44: region and not so much the whole province like Ted and Julia.

[6:11:55] Voice 44: So

[6:11:56] Voice 44: we have undertaken some of our own outreach in addition to what Julia has

[6:12:01] Voice 44: mentioned, including hiring two temporary staff to do outreach directly

[6:12:06] Voice 44: within our region to let people know about the requirement to apply

[6:12:11] Voice 44: and offer assistance.

[6:12:13] Voice 44: as they can um and through the analysis we've done over the last five six years of trying to

[6:12:22] Voice 44: understand who the groundwater users are that should be likely be applying um and the rate

[6:12:29] Voice 44: of applications we've received and the work we've done in the applications that we have received

[6:12:33] Voice 44: we've become really aware of the unique characteristics of the gulf islands including

[6:12:40] Voice 44: including the water scarcity issues and the potential for saltwater intrusion in the aquifers there.

[6:12:45] Voice 44: We are concerned about the current pressures on surface water and groundwater resources,

[6:12:50] Voice 44: as well as how they may be exacerbated in future by climate change and increasing development.

[6:12:57] Voice 44: So we have done a lot of analysis to determine who the inferred non-domestic groundwater users are.

[6:13:03] Voice 44: are. So I think we have a reasonable idea of who those people are. But we think we're probably

[6:13:11] Voice 44: missing some. And the number of existing use applications we've received are much fewer than we

[6:13:19] Voice 44: expect that we should have if we're if we were to capture everybody through the application process.

[6:13:25] Voice 44: And just to clarify, Ted did provide a lot of information on what what domestic means. To add

[6:13:32] Voice 44: Add to that, it means somebody basically supplying themselves with water into a single family dwelling so stratas and water supply systems are not considered domestic users and even if they're just supplying households, those users, or the kind of operator

[6:13:47] Voice 44: or the owner of that system needs to apply.

[6:13:55] Voice 44: So like Ted went over, there is great risk

[6:13:58] Voice 44: to users that don't apply and due to the water scarcity

[6:14:03] Voice 44: and kind of high well density

[6:14:05] Voice 44: in some fairly water scarce areas,

[6:14:07] Voice 44: we're quite concerned that even users

[6:14:10] Voice 44: that are very small volume users may not get a license

[6:14:14] Voice 44: if they miss the deadline and have to apply as a new user.

[6:14:18] Voice 44: um and we're aware that there are likely people operating businesses out of homes that where the

[6:14:24] Voice 44: property may be um classified as a single family dwelling so we may not have captured them in our

[6:14:31] Voice 44: analysis and we're concerned that those businesses may not be able to operate without um getting a

[6:14:38] Voice 44: license through the existing use transition process so we're really hoping that violence

[6:14:46] Voice 44: Trust may be able to help because I think you probably have better local knowledge and

[6:14:50] Voice 44: connections with the community than we do and may have the ability to message differently and there

[6:14:55] Voice 44: may be some trust with Islands Trust that is not held in the provincial government for some people

[6:15:01] Voice 44: so I'm hoping that we might be able to work with you or collaborate on some ideas about how to

[6:15:06] Voice 44: effectively reach out to the members in your community.

[6:15:14] Voice 46: Thank you it's Julia here I'll just

[6:15:16] Voice 46: just thanks very much, Kelly. So just to let you know, we're very happy to share this presentation

[6:15:22] Voice 46: after our discussion today. Here's the direct contact information for all of us who are on the

[6:15:28] Voice 46: call. And we wanted to just end with an opening up to questions and answers and links to the online

[6:15:39] Voice 46: line portal and how to contact front counter BC staff.

[6:15:45] Voice 46: So with that, we'll turn it back to the chair.

[6:15:48] Voice 23: So thank you very much. I see a few hands have popped up.

[6:15:51] Voice 23: So you've definitely got some questions here. So Laura Patrick,

[6:15:54] Voice 23: Jane Wolverton case longer ice will be shaken.

[6:15:58] Trustee Patrick: Thank you for coming today. And I know,

[6:16:00] Trustee Patrick: know the immense challenge that you have and I appeal to my fellow trustees.

[6:16:06] Trustee Patrick: I know a lot of the farmers and so forth that I've talked to,

[6:16:08] Trustee Patrick: there's a lot of misinformation out there.

[6:16:10] Trustee Patrick: They think that, you know, there's going to that. I don't know what they're expecting out of this thing, but we need to be encouraging that this is good for them to apply before the deadline.

[6:16:19] Trustee Patrick: In fact, critical for them to apply before the deadline. So please, please do all you can to spread the word on your islands and so that people apply.

[6:16:30] Voice 23: Thank you. Jane Wolverton.

[6:16:33] Voice 29: What is the requirement for dug wells?

[6:16:36] Voice 29: We have a lot of dug wells on Galliano, and there's a little confusion about whether they should be registered.

[6:16:44] Voice 29: These are domestic dug wells.

[6:16:51] Voice 40: I

[6:16:51] Voice 44: can answer that if you want.

[6:16:53] Voice 44: So if they're domestic, it's recommended that they're registered, but they don't need to be licensed.

[6:16:58] Voice 44: So there is a distinct difference between registration and licensing.

[6:17:01] Voice 44: and saying the registration just lets us know

[6:17:04] Voice 44: that the well exists and we can consider that well

[6:17:08] Voice 44: and potential impacts to those registered wells

[6:17:11] Voice 44: on any decision made on water license applications.

[6:17:16] Voice 44: So it's really is valuable to register your well,

[6:17:19] Voice 44: even if it is just a domestic well,

[6:17:21] Voice 44: so that we know it exists and can protect those rights.

[6:17:25] Voice 44: Dug wells are still considered groundwater.

[6:17:28] Voice 44: So any water that's being accessed

[6:17:30] Voice 44: from below the ground is groundwater and is required to well if it's for non-domestic use

[6:17:36] Voice 44: it should be licensed thank

[6:17:39] Voice 23: you case longerized yeah

[6:17:41] Voice 26: thank you for this a couple questions one is

[6:17:44] Voice 26: the uh we talked about gardening but what about a residential the microphone there's a home-based

[6:17:50] Voice 26: business that uses water in their activity is that is that would that be considered a non

[6:17:56] Voice 26: non-commercial use a non-residential yeah

[6:18:02] Voice 44: so any any commercial use so any um any use that is not

[6:18:07] Voice 44: just supplying water for use within the home for potable water pets or gardening uh is required to

[6:18:15] Voice 44: have a license i have

[6:18:18] Voice 26: another question that and that's regarding speak directly to the microphone

[6:18:22] Voice 26: oh sorry

[6:18:22] Voice 26: yeah i have one other question that's regarding the the difference between the registering

[6:18:27] Voice 26: doing of a domestic well and then the application for licensing of the non-domestic use how will

[6:18:35] Voice 26: that provide a precedence for the residential use over the non-commercial over the non-residential

[6:18:42] Voice 26: i think

[6:18:45] Voice 44: are you asking about the priority date maybe during times of scarcity um so domestic

[6:18:51] Voice 44: users have a deemed right under the water sustainability act and it is based on the

[6:18:56] Voice 44: the date of first use, so although it's not required

[6:18:58] Voice 44: to be licensed, if we are say regulating

[6:19:01] Voice 44: during a time of scarcity,

[6:19:04] Voice 44: domestic users would maintain that priority date.

[6:19:08] Voice 44: So a more junior, say commercial or industrial user

[6:19:11] Voice 44: may be cut off before a more senior domestic user.

[6:19:15] Voice 44: But during times of water scarcity,

[6:19:17] Voice 44: if curtailment is happening,

[6:19:21] Voice 44: domestic users still maintain the right

[6:19:24] Voice 44: to essential household use,

[6:19:26] Voice 44: which is considered to be 250 liters a day.

[6:19:29] Voice 44: So domestic users would never have

[6:19:32] Voice 44: the full kind of proportion of their water curtailed.

[6:19:38] Voice 26: How do you check the impact?

[6:19:42] Voice 26: Do you do a dye test?

[6:19:45] Voice 26: Because we live in an area where it's fractured,

[6:19:48] Voice 26: a watering fractures in the rock.

[6:19:50] Voice 26: It's not like a reservoir that we draw upon.

[6:19:53] Voice 26: And I'm just curious about how you actually determine

[6:19:55] Voice 26: determine whether a one well has impacted another?

[6:20:00] Voice 44: Yeah, so we do assessments based on specific applications, and it's really application

[6:20:06] Voice 44: specific what we require and what is needed to make those assessments. Commonly, we require

[6:20:13] Voice 44: somebody to hire a consultant to, with an appropriately qualified consultant, usually

[6:20:20] Voice 44: a professional hydrogeologist, to undertake work. There may be a pumping test required where

[6:20:25] Voice 44: nearby wells are monitored to determine if there is connection and impacts we also have modeling

[6:20:31] Voice 44: modeling tools that have proven to be very effective and are actually conservative

[6:20:39] Voice 44: so well we we're never going to have all the answers we need we're fairly confident in our

[6:20:44] Voice 44: ability to estimate potential impacts okay

[6:20:50] Voice 23: thank you i've got a number of other speakers and those

[6:20:53] Voice 23: of you that have indicated to speak a second time i'll come back to you if we have time

[6:20:56] Voice 23: time. So Laura Bushek and Alex Allen, Lee Middleton, Peter Johnson.

[6:21:02] Voice 10: Yeah, I would like

[6:21:04] Voice 10: to understand a little more some of the implications of what could happen if existing users don't

[6:21:10] Voice 10: apply. I live on a fairly, one of the more remote islands and people I talk to like with home

[6:21:16] Voice 10: businesses or that kind of thing are small scale farmers say, well, like I totally fly under the

[6:21:22] Voice 10: radar here and I don't I don't need a license um will they like can they go on using their well

[6:21:30] Voice 10: indefinitely until like a neighbor applies for a license and that will trigger like how will the

[6:21:37] Voice 10: spotlight shine on users who who just don't apply for a license?

[6:21:48] Voice 2: Ted here I'll start and then Callie

[6:21:51] Voice 2: or Julia, please weigh in.

[6:21:53] Voice 2: Thanks for the question.

[6:21:56] Voice 2: In general, we're not going to start

[6:21:59] Voice 2: provincial-wide enforcement March 2nd.

[6:22:03] Voice 2: I think the key thing is really that

[6:22:05] Voice 2: if those people do not apply,

[6:22:09] Voice 2: they lose that ability to have

[6:22:11] Voice 2: their date of first use recognized.

[6:22:14] Voice 2: And so if a neighbor does apply,

[6:22:17] Voice 2: who might be a second,

[6:22:19] Voice 2: you know, who may come much later,

[6:22:21] Voice 2: they could get the right to the water and the person who hasn't currently has an established

[6:22:26] Voice 2: use may not be able to um may not be able to get a license and they may be regulated before

[6:22:35] Voice 2: and when i say regulated in times of scarcity if there's a requirement to reduce demand they may

[6:22:42] Voice 2: be cut off before those other people who have applied uh and then you know to your point there

[6:22:49] Voice 2: could be a broader investigation which could lead to lead to orders to stop using and as I say here

[6:22:56] Voice 2: there's a risk of being fined friendly unlicensed use of water really you know what we what we'd

[6:23:04] Voice 2: like people to look at as opposed to you know can they fly under the radar etc is what's the value

[6:23:10] Voice 2: they get out of it you know we recognize that people have invested a lot in securing access

[6:23:17] Voice 2: access to water. And this is another step to reduce uncertainty and help them provide more certainty to their business.

[6:23:33] Voice 2: Callie or Julie, would you like to add to that?

[6:23:36] Voice 44: I think kind of to the point you made already is that there is fairly severe water scarcity on the Gulf Islands in the summer months.

[6:23:44] Voice 44: And if we are taking any action to curtail use, or there's an opportunity to in future, we would be the first people that would be targeted would be those that are unauthorized to use.

[6:23:58] Voice 44: So I think they're taking a big risk in not securing those water rights.

[6:24:09] Voice 40: Alex Allen.

[6:24:11] Voice 42: Hi, thank you for your presentation.

[6:24:14] Voice 42: I'm actually one of those, my other capacity beyond a trustee.

[6:24:18] Voice 42: did apply for a commercial license for bulk sales at Hornby Island, a business I work at. So we did

[6:24:24] Voice 42: do apply before the deadline last year. And just a heads up for the rest of the islands there that

[6:24:32] Voice 42: Comox First Nations did request us to report to them of how much water we are selling,

[6:24:38] Voice 42: what our quantity is. But my question is, okay, so Trustee Langari mentioned home-based businesses.

[6:24:46] Voice 42: So, of course, we've got the vacation rentals and Airbnb, which are obviously home-based and acting very commercial.

[6:24:55] Voice 42: Is that in your radar at this time regarding non-domestic versus domestic applications?

[6:25:10] Voice 44: Yeah, so that one has been a bit of a fuzzy one for a while,

[6:25:14] Voice 44: but I think ultimately the determination is that it is a business being run out of a home and a license is required.

[6:25:22] Voice 44: required. But I think it's definitely a tricky one to determine and it would be tricky to regulate. If we were looking at who's domestic versus non non domestic during times of scarcity.

[6:25:38] Voice 42: So can I follow up. I would imagine that would just be as tricky as a home based business would it not in terms of water usage.

[6:25:47] Voice 42: I

[6:25:48] Voice 44: mean, I think a home-based business may be more consistent. I guess a vacation rental that's operating all the time would be pretty straightforward and maybe using fairly substantial volumes of water.

[6:26:01] Voice 44: It's just a rental that's kind of on and off it may be tricky. I think if it's a commercial enterprise being operated out of somebody's home, then they're probably operating fairly consistently.

[6:26:16] Voice 42: Yeah, I'll just say first, so if I could follow up, as for instance, in Horme, we have a very big issue with vacation rentals, like over-the-top vacation rentals, but we have a certain frame time that they're allowed to rent their

[6:26:27] Voice 40: homes,

[6:26:29] Voice 42: so would that not be able to be, what do you call it, monitored if it's May to September or some such thing, or not?

[6:26:39] Voice 40: on yeah

[6:26:41] Voice 44: i mean the if they i mean if they have a business license or their property is um zoned as

[6:26:49] Voice 44: commercial or something like that it's much easier to determine if they're operating a business like

[6:26:53] Voice 44: an airbnb but if it's somebody operating an illegal airbnb it might be tricky um i guess

[6:26:59] Voice 44: the times that they're allowed to be renting out their their properties is also the time of extreme

[6:27:05] Voice 44: scarcity so that's i think where the biggest concern may be thank

[6:27:11] Voice 40: you peter yeah

[6:27:36] Voice 23: sorry i need

[6:27:37] Voice 23: my microphone on i keep forgetting the camera's not working again so it's complicated lee middleton

[6:27:44] Voice 23: peter johnson jane wolverton we're getting close to the end of our day here chair

[6:27:49] Voice 28: i've had my hand

[6:27:50] Voice 28: up the whole time too oh

[6:27:54] Voice 23: thank you tim i'll put you on the list too i had a jane who's already

[6:27:59] Voice 23: spoken once sorry jane thank

[6:28:01] Voice 1: you chair uh and thank you to the presenters for sharing your

[6:28:05] Voice 1: expertise it's very much appreciated um a two-part question i gather from your presentation that

[6:28:11] Voice 1: small improvement districts or land corporations that have um uh the small water systems like

[6:28:19] Voice 1: eight to 15 for example users that are fed by wells those systems need to license their wells

[6:28:28] Voice 1: it sounds like and so in in those cases also some of the systems have been put

[6:28:35] Voice 1: in place because individual wells have either been not reliable or the water

[6:28:39] Voice 1: quality hasn't been excellent but nonetheless the wells are still in place

[6:28:44] Voice 1: they may have a locked cap on them but there's still a you know effectively a

[6:28:48] Voice 1: viable well should those be also registered thank you yes

[6:28:55] Voice 44: so if somebody

[6:28:56] Voice 44: applies to license their well and it's not yet registered it will be registered

[6:28:59] Voice 44: registered through the application process. If there are wells, I think you said there are wells

[6:29:06] Voice 44: that are not in use, those should also be registered. Thank you. Peter

[6:29:12] Voice 15: Johnson. Thank you.

[6:29:15] Voice 15: Could you please make sure that we get a copy of your presentation because we can use those links

[6:29:20] Voice 15: to contact our community members? And is there an annual fee for either licensing or use of water,

[6:29:28] Voice 15: whether it's a licensed dug well or a registered uh drilled well yes

[6:29:34] Voice 44: so for existing use groundwater

[6:29:37] Voice 44: applications the application fee has actually been waived um so if somebody applies as a new user

[6:29:43] Voice 44: there is an application fee but with existing use groundwater there is not an application fee

[6:29:48] Voice 44: but there are annual rentals um i would say they're very minimal compared to what somebody

[6:29:54] Voice 44: company may pay for municipal water use and I think we have some of the lowest water rentals and rates in

[6:30:00] Voice 44: canada um but for rentals for existing use groundwater are being backdated to 2016 so

[6:30:07] Voice 44: somebody that applies now may actually receive a somewhat substantial rental bill um at the

[6:30:16] Voice 44: offset but after that it's it's an annual rental fee if it's domestic use there's no fee associated

[6:30:22] Voice 44: with it but we don't we don't recognize the difference between a dugwell versus a drilled

[6:30:26] Voice 44: well it's more the purpose that it's being used for okay

[6:30:31] Voice 23: thank you tim peterson and then jane

[6:30:33] Voice 23: wolverton uh

[6:30:36] Voice 28: thank you chair and thank you all for for presenting this so uh just a couple questions

[6:30:41] Voice 28: of clarity um so i heard you use the term dugouts a couple of times ago is this uh is talking

[6:30:52] Voice 28: specifically doug wells as opposed to drilled wells uh one of the things that's maybe common on

[6:30:58] Voice 28: On some islands is dug ponds that rely on rainwater and runoff for filling up.

[6:31:07] Voice 28: I just want to try and get clarity for the local community here and try and figure that out was my first question.

[6:31:15] Voice 44: Sure, yeah. So dugouts, they might be something that's just like a pond or something in the ground.

[6:31:21] Voice 44: If it's intercepting groundwater, then a license is required.

[6:31:25] Voice 44: required. If it is literally just rainfall and runoff flowing off the surface of the land into

[6:31:30] Voice 44: that hole, then a license is not required.

[6:31:35] Voice 28: Okay. So, and I guess that's something that probably

[6:31:40] Voice 28: your average person may not be able to determine which is which, but that helps for clarity a bit.

[6:31:46] Voice 28: Yeah.

[6:31:47] Voice 44: And I mean, they're welcome. So I was going to say, they're welcome to give us a call or

[6:31:51] Voice 44: even apply and we can make the determination for them or help them make the determination but

[6:31:58] Voice 46: yeah and

[6:31:59] Voice 44: one of the links

[6:31:59] Voice 46: is to a document that provides diagrams and some fire

[6:32:02] Voice 46: clarification so sometimes the visual really helps okay

[6:32:07] Voice 28: great thank you and then i heard you say that

[6:32:10] Voice 28: the uh the domestic size for garden amounts to about a quarter acre so um so i would imagine

[6:32:19] Voice 28: from that and if somebody had like uh you know their their home garden and then uh in addition

[6:32:26] Voice 28: to that maybe an orchard or you know a couple of dozen fruit trees or a or a larger garden and

[6:32:32] Voice 28: then the regulation is saying they should be applying correct correct

[6:32:37] Voice 44: yeah they would require

[6:32:37] Voice 44: an irrigation license if they are irrigating the full area okay

[6:32:42] Voice 28: so that's yeah that's good to know

[6:32:44] Voice 28: because it's relatively small and then my last question was uh um uh can you give us sort of

[6:32:51] Voice 28: a sense of what the annual fee might be for something that's not a larger scale commercial

[6:32:59] Voice 28: use but say i had uh say i was irrigating like a one acre garden um you know not large industrial

[6:33:09] Voice 28: scale but larger than the domestic so let's just say it was at one acres of

[6:33:16] Voice 28: garden but

[6:33:18] Voice 44: it is all listed in the water sustainability fees rentals and charges

[6:33:21] Voice 44: tariff regulation okay don't know it off the top of my head because it's

[6:33:25] Voice 44: different different amounts for different purposes rentals range from

[6:33:31] Voice 44: $25 to say $200 a year for kind of normal common uses it's probably higher

[6:33:39] Voice 44: for some of the larger larger volume users.

[6:33:44] Voice 28: Okay so that helps because that sort of gives me a small

[6:33:47] Voice 28: scale sort of idea. Thank you very much for that. So

[6:33:51] Voice 2: Kelly just to support your answer there

[6:33:55] Voice 2: irrigation so the the minimum rent is $50 annually for that and it would be

[6:34:05] Voice 2: for your one acre example, you'd be in the $50 range.

[6:34:11] Voice 46: And I'll append a document that provides some sample fees

[6:34:16] Voice 46: so that, or rentals, I should say, sorry,

[6:34:18] Voice 46: not the application fees,

[6:34:19] Voice 46: cause that's we've, that'll help.

[6:34:21] Voice 46: So I'll add that to the PowerPoint

[6:34:23] Voice 46: before I send it on to you.

[6:34:26] Voice 28: Great, thank you very much.

[6:34:27] Voice 23: Go to Jane Wolverton.

[6:34:28] Voice 23: I just want to note that I noticed that there's some links

[6:34:31] Voice 23: and messaging that has been going through the chat

[6:34:33] Voice 23: and the only people who have access to that chat information is those that are online the people

[6:34:39] Voice 23: in the room council that's in the room here doesn't don't have access to that so if those

[6:34:44] Voice 23: links whatever they are will if you your intention is for all trustees to see those you'll need to

[6:34:50] Voice 23: find another way of delivering them and and email them to laurie no

[6:34:55] Voice 28: we already got it laurie already

[6:34:57] Voice 28: no

[6:34:58] Voice 23: there's more going out here oh

[6:35:00] Voice 28: yeah in

[6:35:01] Voice 23: the chat thank you so uh email them to laurie and

[6:35:06] Voice 23: laurie will make sure that the rest of us get them and so that's also to the ministry staff there

[6:35:10] Voice 23: anyway jane wolverton uh and let's call it the last question because it is getting late in the

[6:35:15] Voice 23: day thanks

[6:35:17] Voice 29: very much um my question has to do with the groundwater wells and aquifer aquifers

[6:35:25] Voice 29: record and how we can tell which wells are licensed because i i go into some and

[6:35:34] Voice 29: for example there's one uh that's for uh concerned uh with um an application for an affordable

[6:35:44] Voice 29: housing uh and it says private domestic and so i i it seems like it should say water system or

[6:35:51] Voice 29: something so i'm just wondering how we can tell from the records who's applied who hasn't applied

[6:35:57] Voice 29: and and so we can go and light some fires under people i

[6:36:03] Voice 44: would say from the well records themselves

[6:36:05] Voice 44: that's probably not a good indication if they've applied or not once they're licensed you should

[6:36:09] Voice 44: be able to tell um through our gwell systems or wells inventory um which ones are licensed

[6:36:15] Voice 44: You can use IMAP, there's a layer in there that will show applications and water licenses, you can also search the water license query tool to find water licenses.

[6:36:33] Voice 44: The tricky thing is with existing use applications is because we have a very significant backlog of them and the wells need to be cross referenced before they're entered into the system, not all of those that have applied

[6:36:46] Voice 44: are visible to the public right now.

[6:36:49] Voice 44: So we know who have applied,

[6:36:50] Voice 44: but it's difficult to make that publicly available right now,

[6:36:55] Voice 44: even though it is technically public information.

[6:37:02] Voice 23: Okay, thank you.

[6:37:04] Voice 23: Now, Lee Middleton, did I miss you earlier

[6:37:06] Voice 23: or did you have an additional question there?

[6:37:09] Voice 23: No,

[6:37:10] Voice 1: I probably just didn't put my hand down.

[6:37:12] Voice 1: Thank you, Chair.

[6:37:13] Voice 23: All right then.

[6:37:14] Voice 23: So I think that concludes the number of questions

[6:37:17] Voice 23: in the room and online here today.

[6:37:19] Voice 23: I really want to thank you folks for joining us and being patient and waiting for us to be ready to prepare you.

[6:37:27] Voice 23: And, William, Shobha, can I perhaps lean upon you?

[6:37:32] Voice 23: You impressed upon me the importance of this.

[6:37:35] Voice 23: And do you have any closing remarks with respect to what we've heard here today and the importance of getting people to sign up?

[6:37:43] Voice 23: uh

[6:37:45] Voice 48: yeah thank you chair and thank you to my colleagues at the province for uh articulating

[6:37:50] Voice 48: the importance of licensing um i i think that in the future once once licensing um it has

[6:38:01] Voice 48: established itself that it will be as important to the users as surface water licenses are to

[6:38:09] Voice 48: those who irrigate especially in areas of water scarcity like the okanagan

[6:38:14] Voice 48: um it we need to take this as seriously and um i i think the one unfortunate thing would be is that

[6:38:23] Voice 48: the nature of the islands are changing we're seeing that in property values we're seeing that

[6:38:28] Voice 48: in influx of new people to the islands and it it would be a tragic loss of water right for those

[6:38:38] Voice 48: in the Islands Trust area who, A, are not aware of the licensing.

[6:38:43] Voice 48: I think that's our top priority to ensure that islanders who are out there

[6:38:48] Voice 48: who are growers and producers or small-scale commercial users

[6:38:53] Voice 48: know that this licensing regime exists.

[6:38:57] Voice 48: And then we will have to do more work to ensure that those who do know

[6:39:02] Voice 48: who are hesitant to license because of misinformation,

[6:39:06] Voice 48: information, we need to educate those people. This is registering groundwater wells, and then

[6:39:13] Voice 48: the licensing is the next era of water sustainability in the Islands Trust area, and

[6:39:20] Voice 48: it's very collaborative now, but in the future, as climate change is occurring, water scarcity is a

[6:39:27] Voice 48: bigger deal in the summertime, and there's more non-domestic users. It's going to get a little

[6:39:35] Voice 48: bit more um intense with with respect to conflict between neighbors and and eventually enforcement

[6:39:42] Voice 48: of those who don't have a water license who are illegally taking water so i think it's

[6:39:47] Voice 48: really important that we find a way to reach as many islanders as possible in the next few months

[6:39:53] Voice 48: as it sits now we're not aware of any extensions to this um to this licensing regime at this point

[6:40:00] Voice 48: So it's really important.

[6:40:02] Voice 48: Yeah, thank you, Chair.

[6:40:06] Voice 23: Thank you, William.

[6:40:08] Voice 23: I'm seeing an invitation from Claire Fader, Director of Trust Area Services.

[6:40:11] Voice 23: She has a remark she would like to make.

[6:40:15] Voice 17: Yes, I'd also like to extend a thank you to our guests and say we are looking forward to working with the province to put on a webinar around the groundwater licensing deadline.

[6:40:23] Voice 17: So we'll see that coming in future months or month or so.

[6:40:27] Voice 17: So thank you again.

[6:40:28] Voice 17: And we will be circulating information about the webinar once it's developed.

[6:40:34] Voice 23: Okay. Thank you again. And thank you for joining us. If either any of you have any closing remark,

[6:40:41] Voice 23: be happy to hear that. But otherwise, we'll bid you adieu. And perhaps we'll see you again here.

[6:40:47] Voice 46: I'll just say on behalf of the group, how much we appreciate we know we had a very long day. And

[6:40:51] Voice 46: we so appreciate having this opportunity to speak with you. And thank you so much for your

[6:40:56] Voice 46: thoughtful questions. This is this is the sort of help that we need. And we really appreciate

[6:41:01] Voice 46: the collaboration.

[6:41:03] Voice 23: Okay, thank you very much. Truly, I think it is. So, we are,

[6:41:09] Voice 23: I have a sense

[6:41:11] Voice 23: that we're not inclined to do any more business. And so, therefore, I'm grateful for that. And

[6:41:19] Voice 23: I'll turn to, so we will be starting again tomorrow morning at nine o'clock. It is a

[6:41:25] Voice 23: closed session tomorrow that we'll be kicking off with. And certainly, we can expect possibly to run

[6:41:31] Voice 23: a little late um and the times are approximate um i am inclined to want to respect the fact that the

[6:41:38] Voice 23: public is anticipating joining us after our in-camera session but obviously that is at our

[6:41:44] Voice 23: discretion um and so i'm looking to staff i assume we'll start with the closed meeting and then we'll

[6:41:50] Voice 23: continue with our debate uh getting a nod of approval there so then we'll see you here all

[6:41:56] Voice 23: at nine o'clock and laurie any logistics for tonight no

[6:42:01] Voice 9: it's uh no everything is as it was

[6:42:04] Voice 9: yesterday um thank you for reminding everybody about the closed session and uh take your take

[6:42:12] Voice 9: your equipment with you thank you okay

[6:42:15] Voice 23: so thank you everybody so um see you at dinner get a good

[6:42:18] Voice 23: rest thank you to everybody online for hanging in there also um i know that it's not easy sitting

[6:42:24] Voice 23: at that video screen all day so um thank you have a great evening and we'll see you tomorrow

[6:42:32] Voice 15: where where is the open bar you

[6:42:38] Voice 41: can come over