Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee regular meeting, November 19, 2022

[0:00:17] Voice 14: Casting yet? We are.

[0:00:18] Voice 26: Okay. Good morning, Council. Let us call ourselves to order.

[0:00:32] Voice 14: Nobody

[0:00:32] Voice 15: listens to the Chair.

[0:00:39] Voice 14: Good morning, Council.

[0:00:44] Voice 26: Council. I know we're all excited to be here, but it is nine o'clock. All right. It's a

[0:01:03] Voice 26: joy to see all this chatter. It's really

[0:01:05] Voice 26: great. There's lots of great new, fresh connections

[0:01:09] Voice 26: and lots of stuff to talk about. But we're here for council business. And this is about

[0:01:16] Voice 26: this is about as more formal as a business meeting at which we're going to get today so it's kind of

[0:01:21] Voice 26: like a test run for what's going to happen um at our december meeting um want to acknowledge that

[0:01:27] Voice 26: we're meeting here in uh lagunquin and uh speaking territory esquimalt and songhees nations

[0:01:33] Voice 26: particularly here um this is an amazing uh center of culture and uh community and exchange on this

[0:01:44] Voice 26: coast since time immemorial and uh i personally i think it's important to recognize all these

[0:01:50] Voice 26: amazing places that have such rich cultural and history i'm uh honored to be here and uh and

[0:01:56] Voice 26: certainly we were honored yesterday with the welcoming remarks from eric pelkey and um that's

[0:02:02] Voice 26: a good reminder of the people of this coast so we have one more um session here to to go through

[0:02:11] Voice 26: today finance and budgeting um and um we're gonna go with to uh over to julia mobs to uh start us

[0:02:20] Voice 26: off on that good note really great to see you here this morning julia and let us begin thank you mr

[0:02:29] Voice 23: chair and good morning council it's good to be back with you all i hope you all slept well last

[0:02:34] Voice 23: night because we are going to be engaging our minds this morning as we talk about all things

[0:02:41] Voice 23: budgeting and finance related at the Islands Trust. For returning trustees, none of this

[0:02:45] Voice 23: information is going to be new to you, but hopefully will be a good refresher at the

[0:02:49] Voice 23: start of this new term. And for new trustees, the hope is that we can provide you with enough

[0:02:54] Voice 23: information such that when you are reviewing financial information in the budget and financial

[0:02:59] Voice 23: reporting in December, that you have a solid foundation and understand what it is that you're

[0:03:04] Voice 23: looking at. So we have intentionally kept this session fairly high level. We do have a lot of

[0:03:10] Voice 23: of material to cover, and we only have so much time to get through everything. But if someone

[0:03:14] Voice 23: has a question, or they'd like some more detail on something, please feel free to raise your hand

[0:03:19] Voice 23: and ask a question. If I miss your hand, and you need to interrupt me, please do that.

[0:03:24] Voice 23: I will not be offended. Is the volume okay? That's better now. Great.

[0:03:32] Voice 23: Okay, so what's on the agenda for today? We are going to have a look at the Islands Trust

[0:03:36] Voice 23: budget cycle, understand what that's all about. We're going to have a look at some basic principles

[0:03:41] Voice 23: of budgeting within the public sector space and also within the Islands Trust context.

[0:03:46] Voice 23: We're going to have a look at a summary of the current year budget. So that's the budget for

[0:03:50] Voice 23: fiscal 2022-2023. That's our current fiscal year. We're going to talk briefly about some of the

[0:03:56] Voice 23: financial management practices at the Islands Trust. And then we'll have a look at the draft

[0:04:01] Voice 23: budget assumptions and principles that have been put together for next year's budget,

[0:04:06] Voice 23: fiscal 2023-2024 budget. So before I begin, are there any questions on what we'll be covering

[0:04:13] Voice 23: today? No questions. Excellent. We're off to a good start. So the Islands Trust budget cycle.

[0:04:23] Voice 23: The Islands Trust budget cycle spans nine months of any given year. So that's three quarters of

[0:04:29] Voice 23: the year that we spend planning for the subsequent year. So that shows how important this exercise

[0:04:34] Voice 23: size and this task is to the organization. It shows how much time, how much effort and how

[0:04:39] Voice 23: much thought goes into this process and into the prioritizing of work and financial allocations

[0:04:44] Voice 23: for future years. During these nine months of planning, every governing body will meet

[0:04:49] Voice 23: as well as staff to weigh into the process and ensure that the budget is drafted with

[0:04:54] Voice 23: consideration from all Islands Trust governance bodies as well as internal business units.

[0:04:59] Voice 23: To start things off, in July and August of every year, the Local Trust Committee's

[0:05:04] Voice 23: council committees as well as the islands trust conservancy board will begin prioritizing their

[0:05:08] Voice 23: work for the coming year and they will develop business cases for any funding requests that

[0:05:12] Voice 23: they'll be bringing forward to trust council during that same time period financial planning

[0:05:17] Voice 23: committee gets together to review the draft assumptions and principles for the budget next

[0:05:22] Voice 23: year this document is a place where all of the assumptions and principles for the next year's

[0:05:27] Voice 23: budget are housed so an example of an assumption that might be included in the budget is something

[0:05:33] Voice 23: like inflation. So what assumption are we making around the rising costs of goods? Are we planning

[0:05:39] Voice 23: to increase budget lines to account for the rising costs of goods? Which budget lines will be

[0:05:43] Voice 23: increasing by how much? An example of a principle that we might see in this document is something

[0:05:48] Voice 23: like reconciliation. So does Trust Council plan to have a principled approach to business? Do we

[0:05:54] Voice 23: plan to build reconciliation into every budget line? And what does that look like in reality

[0:05:59] Voice 23: in the financial plan. So financial planning committee builds this initial document in August

[0:06:04] Voice 23: and forwards it to trust council for their review in September. In September, trust council has a

[0:06:09] Voice 23: review of that assumptions and principles document. In the same month, staff are reviewing their

[0:06:14] Voice 23: department budget needs, and they're also preparing business cases for any funding requests that they

[0:06:19] Voice 23: will be bringing forward. Finance staff receive all of this information from across the organization

[0:06:27] Voice 23: and consolidate it into the first draft of the budget, and the management team will review the

[0:06:32] Voice 23: consolidated budget in September as well. Typically, the budget cycle timeline has

[0:06:37] Voice 23: financial planning committee reviewing the first draft of the budget in October. In election years,

[0:06:42] Voice 23: this timeline is shifted, and the first draft of the budget is reviewed in November. The thinking

[0:06:47] Voice 23: is that an outgoing financial planning committee may have very different priorities to an incoming

[0:06:51] Voice 23: financial planning committee, so instead of taking on work in October to review the budget,

[0:06:56] Voice 23: which may not be relevant directly after in November, the review of the first budget is

[0:07:01] Voice 23: delayed in November in all election years. So typically in November, FPC would be reviewing

[0:07:08] Voice 23: the second draft of the budget as well as any updates to the budget assumptions and principles

[0:07:12] Voice 23: document and both of those pieces of information would be forwarded to Trust Council for their

[0:07:16] Voice 23: review. Financial Planning Committee also reviews plans for public consultation at this time.

[0:07:21] Voice 23: So Financial Planning Committee does hold responsibility for oversight of the consultation

[0:07:25] Voice 23: process and they review those documents with staff and the plan for that process and then

[0:07:29] Voice 23: trust council will also weigh in at their meeting in december so the december meeting is where trust

[0:07:34] Voice 23: council sees the first draft of the budget at this point fpc has seen it twice and this is the first

[0:07:39] Voice 23: time council will be seeing it any changes that are directed by trust council will be incorporated

[0:07:44] Voice 23: into the budget prior to that budget draft being circulated for public consultation at the december

[0:07:50] Voice 23: meeting, Trust Council will also determine which, if any, local trust committee projects they believe

[0:07:55] Voice 23: should be funded by a special property tax requisition. Special property tax requisitions

[0:08:00] Voice 23: are levied on properties within a specific local trust area only. So the way that the

[0:08:06] Voice 23: Islands Trust budget works is local trust area taxes are collected from Islands Trust as a whole

[0:08:11] Voice 23: to support the work of Islands Trust as a whole. If there is any particular local trust committee

[0:08:16] Voice 23: project that has a greater need for financial resources or is of particular benefit only to

[0:08:22] Voice 23: that local trust area, a special tax requisition can be levied only on properties in that tax area.

[0:08:30] Voice 23: Also in December, Trust Council reviews and approves the public consultation process. In

[0:08:36] Voice 23: January is when the public consultation process begins. I'm sure everyone at this table is very

[0:08:40] Voice 23: familiar with what that process typically looks like. LTCs proposing special tax requisitions

[0:08:45] Voice 23: would also at this time be holding public consultation meetings on those projects staff

[0:08:50] Voice 23: begin communications with Bowen Island municipality staff at this time around the property tax levy

[0:08:55] Voice 23: that will be requisitioned to Bowen Island and financial planning committee reviews the third

[0:08:59] Voice 23: draft of the budget and proposes any changes that they feel are necessary at that time we're still

[0:09:08] Voice 14: going still in the

[0:09:09] Voice 23: budget cycle in February financial planning committee will review all

[0:09:14] Voice 23: of the public feedback that's been received as part of the consultation process and they will

[0:09:18] Voice 23: will incorporate any changes they see fit into the draft budget. They will also review the final

[0:09:24] Voice 23: draft of the budget and forward their recommended draft budget to Trust Council for approval.

[0:09:29] Voice 23: And in March, that's the biggest budget discussion that happens at this table. That is the meeting

[0:09:33] Voice 23: where Trust Council needs to approve a draft budget for the following fiscal year. So Council

[0:09:40] Voice 23: at March will review the budget, make changes if necessary, approve the final draft of the budget,

[0:09:46] Voice 23: and also the five-year financial plan bylaw.

[0:09:49] Voice 23: The five-year financial plan bylaw is a requirement for Islands Trust

[0:09:52] Voice 23: and the five-year financial plan bylaw must be forwarded to the minister for their approval.

[0:09:58] Voice 23: Staff will then post the budget to the Islands Trust website for the public

[0:10:02] Voice 23: and on April 1, we can implement the newly approved budget.

[0:10:07] Voice 23: So even talking about all the activities that happen in the budget cycle

[0:10:12] Voice 23: seems pretty tedious, it seems pretty repetitive

[0:10:14] Voice 23: and actually working through the activities can feel very much the same.

[0:10:18] Voice 23: It can feel tedious. It can feel repetitive.

[0:10:20] Voice 23: But there is a very good reason why we spend so much time in the budget cycle.

[0:10:25] Voice 23: Does anyone want to take a guess as to what that reason might be?

[0:10:33] Voice 14: No takers? No brave souls?

[0:10:37] Voice 23: All right. Primarily, the primary reason for why we take so much time and effort in the budget cycle every year

[0:10:43] Voice 23: is that we are a public sector entity.

[0:10:45] Voice 23: And as a public sector entity, we are collecting money from the public

[0:10:49] Voice 23: and spending public funds. And in spending public funds, we do have a responsibility to make sure

[0:10:55] Voice 23: that we are appropriately managing those funds. And so we spend a lot of time planning for the

[0:11:01] Voice 23: management of those funds and where we think they should be allocated in any given year.

[0:11:09] Voice 23: Okay, so we'll dive now into some of the basic principles of budgeting. I'm sure everybody here

[0:11:14] Voice 23: has engaged in some form of budgeting in their personal lives, maybe for a business. So many of

[0:11:20] Voice 23: the budgeting concepts that we're going to talk about may not be brand new, but there are some

[0:11:25] Voice 23: nuances to budgeting in a public sector space that need to be understood. And so we're going

[0:11:29] Voice 23: to be looking at some of those public sector nuances as we walk through some of the basic

[0:11:33] Voice 23: principles. Firstly, the Islands Trust budget is presented on, well, budget and all financial

[0:11:41] Voice 23: information is presented on a fiscal year basis. For Islands Trust, the fiscal year is April 1 to

[0:11:46] Voice 23: March 31st of any given year. This is in line with other provincial bodies. Other local government

[0:11:52] Voice 23: bodies have a fiscal year ending December 31st which is in line with calendar years but of course

[0:11:57] Voice 23: we're a provincial agency and we are tied to the province and so we follow provincial fiscal years

[0:12:01] Voice 23: ending March 31st. The community charter dictates the fact that local governments as well as islands

[0:12:08] Voice 23: trust must present a balanced budget every year so our planned revenues must equal planned

[0:12:14] Voice 23: expenditures. Now typically when you're putting a budget together you don't magically land at a

[0:12:20] Voice 23: a place where your budget is balanced. Normally, what happens is you land in a place where you have

[0:12:24] Voice 23: more revenues than you have planned spending, or you have more planned spending than you have

[0:12:29] Voice 23: revenues. If you find yourself in a situation where you have more revenues than you plan to spend,

[0:12:36] Voice 23: the options there to balance the budget would be transfers to surplus or transfers to reserve.

[0:12:42] Voice 23: So if we have planned revenues of $1 million, we only have planned spending of $700,000,

[0:12:49] Voice 23: there would be a $300,000 excess and that excess could be recorded as a transfer into the surplus

[0:12:55] Voice 23: fund or a transfer into any reserve fund and that would balance the budget. What happens more

[0:13:00] Voice 23: typically and happens at Islands Trust is we land in a situation where we have planned spending that

[0:13:06] Voice 23: is greater than planned revenues. So when we're in that scenario there's a number of different

[0:13:10] Voice 23: options that are available to us. Option number one is to increase planned revenues. So at the

[0:13:17] Voice 23: the Islands Trust, we've got different revenue sources. We can look at property taxes, can look

[0:13:22] Voice 23: at increasing the property tax requisition to pay for the planned spending. You want to consider

[0:13:28] Voice 23: when you're talking about the potential for increased property taxes, consider the appetite

[0:13:32] Voice 23: for tax increases, consider historical tax increases as well. Fees and sales, this is

[0:13:39] Voice 23: revenue that's coming to us from application fees for planning applications, NAPTAP applications,

[0:13:43] Voice 23: and by law enforcement fees. We have very little control over this source of revenue. We cannot

[0:13:49] Voice 23: control the volume of applications that's coming to us each year and application fees are set.

[0:13:54] Voice 23: So arbitrarily increasing fees revenue to balance the budget would be a poor practice.

[0:14:00] Voice 23: We also have very little control over grants revenue. We don't know what grants we might be

[0:14:04] Voice 23: awarded in any particular year. So that's also a place where we're limited in increasing revenues,

[0:14:09] Voice 23: As well as investment income, which is largely outside of our control and tied to market rates.

[0:14:16] Voice 23: So if we're not going to increase planned revenues, we have the option to instead decrease planned spending.

[0:14:22] Voice 23: So this is something that we do see quite often at Islands Trust.

[0:14:26] Voice 23: Initial drafts of budget will start with more planned spending than where we end up.

[0:14:30] Voice 23: When you are looking at reducing planned spending, you do want to consider the impact of the ability to consider or to complete work at the Islands Trust.

[0:14:40] Voice 23: so if we're removing financial resources from the budget we may be removing the ability for work to

[0:14:45] Voice 23: be completed and this is particularly important when we're looking at projects that are already

[0:14:49] Voice 23: in play if we have a project that is started that is part way through if funding is removed for that

[0:14:54] Voice 23: project you could lose the value of the work that's already been done the third option that's

[0:15:00] Voice 23: available to balance the budget is one that the islands trust does take advantage of at least

[0:15:05] Voice 23: every year that i've been at the trust and i think for many many years in the trust history

[0:15:09] Voice 23: And that's to make a transfer from the surplus fund or transfer from reserve funds.

[0:15:16] Voice 23: So transfers from surplus and reserves are sometimes also referred to as appropriations from surplus and reserves or as draws from surplus and reserve.

[0:15:25] Voice 23: Those are all different terminologies that mean exactly the same thing.

[0:15:29] Voice 23: It's simply a transfer of money from your surplus funds, from your reserve funds to pay for planned spending.

[0:15:39] Voice 23: So we're going to talk a little bit about what surplus and reserves are. If we're going to be using those as sources of revenue, we should understand what they are.

[0:15:45] Voice 23: What is surplus? Annual surplus is unspent monies from any single fiscal year.

[0:15:52] Voice 23: So it is the savings in a fiscal year, if you will. If you have a budget of a million dollars and you only spend $800,000, you would have an annual surplus of $200,000 for that year.

[0:16:04] Voice 23: year. Accumulated surplus is the cumulative pooling of surplus funds that are generated over

[0:16:09] Voice 23: time. So if in one year I have an annual surplus of $200,000 and in the next year I have another

[0:16:15] Voice 23: annual surplus of $200,000, the accumulated surplus balance would be the total $400,000.

[0:16:22] Voice 23: Islands Trust has one surplus fund. It is referred to as the General Revenue Surplus Fund. This is

[0:16:27] Voice 23: the fund that holds all of Islands Trust surplus monies. There is a minimum balance that is

[0:16:33] Voice 23: required to be maintained in this fund. Trust Council, in its wisdom many years ago, put into

[0:16:41] Voice 23: policy the fact that a minimum balance needs to be held in surplus, and it's for a number of reasons.

[0:16:46] Voice 23: The primary reasons being to fund any significant or unanticipated expenditures that might come up

[0:16:52] Voice 23: in the year. The other reason is to fund ongoing operations from the start of the fiscal year,

[0:16:57] Voice 23: April 1, to July 30th, when we receive our property tax requisition. So a budget year,

[0:17:03] Voice 23: begins on April 1. It includes our planned property tax revenue as well as all other revenue,

[0:17:09] Voice 23: but we do not receive property tax revenue from the province until July 30. So there's a four

[0:17:15] Voice 23: month window at the start of every fiscal year, where we know we do not have our primary source

[0:17:20] Voice 23: of revenue yet. And so we need to have cash resources to draw on for those first four months

[0:17:25] Voice 23: of the year. And that's part of why we have a minimum balance to be maintained in the reserve

[0:17:30] Voice 23: fund, or sorry, in the surplus fund. What are reserves? Reserves are surplus funds that have

[0:17:39] Voice 23: been specifically set aside by Trust Council for a specific purpose. So these are savings that have

[0:17:45] Voice 23: been earmarked for specific things. The Islands Trust has two reserve funds. The first is the

[0:17:50] Voice 23: Local Trust Committee Project Reserve Fund. This is a reserve fund that was created by Trust Council

[0:17:55] Voice 23: in fiscal 2018. And the intention of this fund is to hold monies that are set aside specifically to

[0:18:02] Voice 23: to pay for local trust committee projects.

[0:18:04] Voice 23: And we have seen in budgets over the last number of years,

[0:18:07] Voice 23: a draw from the reserve fund

[0:18:09] Voice 23: to pay for local trust committee projects.

[0:18:12] Voice 23: The second reserve fund that Islands Trust has

[0:18:14] Voice 23: is the Special Property Tax Reserve Fund.

[0:18:17] Voice 23: This is a Salt Spring Island Reserve Fund,

[0:18:20] Voice 23: Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee Reserve Fund.

[0:18:22] Voice 23: It contains unspent funds

[0:18:24] Voice 23: from special property tax requisitions.

[0:18:26] Voice 23: So Salt Spring Island has engaged

[0:18:28] Voice 23: in a special property tax requisition

[0:18:30] Voice 23: for the last number of years.

[0:18:31] Voice 23: and any unspent monies from that special requisition automatically flow into the

[0:18:36] Voice 23: special requisition reserve fund at the end of the year, as they can only be spent on the project

[0:18:42] Voice 23: for which they were requisitioned. Okay, so now that we understand that we need a balanced budget

[0:18:51] Voice 23: and we understand the options we can employ to get us to that place, we can talk about some of

[0:18:58] Voice 23: the elements that we see in a budget. And we'll start with revenues. The Islands Trust has several

[0:19:05] Voice 23: streams of revenue that we collect from external sources. First, we touched on fees and sales. This

[0:19:10] Voice 23: is revenue that comes to us from planning application fees, NAPTEP application fees,

[0:19:15] Voice 23: as well as bylaw enforcement fees. We do each year receive an unrestricted provincial grant.

[0:19:20] Voice 23: The amount of the grant is determined by the ministry. We do not have any influence over

[0:19:25] Voice 23: the value of that grant each year. We do at times also receive restricted grants from the province.

[0:19:31] Voice 23: these grants are approved for specific purposes and can only be spent on expenses related to what

[0:19:39] Voice 23: they were approved for property tax levies i think everyone here is well aware of what property tax

[0:19:45] Voice 23: levies are property tax levies must be approved by trust council in the budget before they can

[0:19:50] Voice 23: be requisitioned special property tax levies i mentioned previously these are tax levies

[0:19:56] Voice 23: requisitioned only in a particular local trust area the municipal contribution is the property

[0:20:02] Voice 23: tax levy that comes to us from Bowen Island Municipality. So Bowen Island, being a municipality

[0:20:07] Voice 23: within the trust area, they contribute only to a portion of the island's trust budget. And that's

[0:20:13] Voice 23: because they do not rely on island's trust for the planning function. So as a municipality,

[0:20:19] Voice 23: they have their own planning department, they do their own planning work. And so they only

[0:20:23] Voice 23: contribute to the portions of the island's trust budget that are not planning related.

[0:20:26] Voice 23: There is a specific formula that we follow to calculate the value of the Bowen Island contribution.

[0:20:32] Voice 23: We'll look a bit more at that a little bit later.

[0:20:36] Voice 23: Another external source of revenue is interest income.

[0:20:39] Voice 23: We do invest our property tax funds and we invest our surplus funds in conservative investment vehicles.

[0:20:46] Voice 23: We are pretty limited in what we can invest in based on community charter regulations,

[0:20:50] Voice 23: but we invest those monies and have some modest investment earning incomes each year.

[0:20:56] Voice 23: Internal sources of revenue in the budget are the things we just talked about related to transfers from surplus or transfers from reserve.

[0:21:03] Voice 23: And of note, any transfers from surplus or reserve must be approved by Trust Council in their five-year financial plan bylaw every year.

[0:21:14] Voice 23: Expenses in the budget are broken out into three main categories.

[0:21:18] Voice 26: There are some questions. Do you want to deal with those as you go?

[0:21:22] Voice 26: Absolutely.

[0:21:22] Voice 23: I can take questions.

[0:21:23] Voice 26: Okay. Deb Morrison. And then I saw another hand here. Joe Berardo.

[0:21:29] Voice 4: Riveting. Thank you.

[0:21:32] Voice 4: I just wanted to point out one thing because I know that you and I have talked about this and it's like my personal pet peeve in this space.

[0:21:40] Voice 4: So fees and sales, the first one on the revenues there, we have internal trust counsel policy that guides fees and sales.

[0:21:49] Voice 4: We have we have fee bylaws that each LTC passes.

[0:21:53] Voice 4: classes. And, but we have a general trust policy that says that we have cost recovery on the

[0:22:00] Voice 4: average cost of permits, particular permits. And so that's something that I just want to flag for

[0:22:06] Voice 4: folks, because I think it will probably come up. I will definitely bring it up again at some point.

[0:22:11] Voice 4: But just in terms of like the philosophy behind why we're doing that, if we should be doing it

[0:22:18] Voice 4: that way, how much it's going to influence our budget or not. Are there particular kinds of

[0:22:23] Voice 4: permits that we want to be like, yes, we totally want to charge for these or no, we don't want to

[0:22:27] Voice 4: charge at all for these. I think there might be two rogue LTCs, we're one, that have not passed

[0:22:35] Voice 4: their model fee bylaws because we wanted to roll it into this next term and have a deeper conversation

[0:22:40] Voice 4: about that. Thanks.

[0:22:44] Voice 27: My question's pretty straightforward. Being new to this, I'm just

[0:22:49] Voice 27: wondering if you can give us a rough estimate of the percentage of the external revenues that come

[0:22:54] Voice 27: from those different sources that you've identified there thanks uh

[0:22:59] Voice 23: we will actually be having a look

[0:23:01] Voice 23: at the current year budget and we'll see the actual dollars associated with each of these

[0:23:05] Voice 23: lines so we can tackle that at that point no

[0:23:11] Voice 14: other questions all

[0:23:13] Voice 23: right i'll press on

[0:23:15] Voice 23: looking at the elements of the budget as it relates to spending when we present financial

[0:23:20] Voice 23: financial information to Trust Council, expenses are summarized into three categories. We have

[0:23:27] Voice 23: operating costs, we have project costs, and we have

[0:23:30] Voice 23: capital costs. Operating costs are costs

[0:23:32] Voice 23: associated with the annual ongoing day-to-day operations of the trust. So things like office

[0:23:37] Voice 23: leases, bank charges, staff and trustee costs, audit fees, legal fees, meeting costs, office

[0:23:43] Voice 23: supplies, things of that nature. These would be contained in the operating budget. We separately

[0:23:48] Voice 23: show a project's budget and this is where funding for all the projects across the organization would

[0:23:53] Voice 23: be housed. So strategic plan projects, any local trust committee projects or operational projects

[0:23:58] Voice 23: will be shown in the project's budget and generally every project that comes forward for funding will

[0:24:03] Voice 23: have a business case that accompanies it and that business case will outline the rationale for taking

[0:24:08] Voice 23: on the project and also support the costing that is being asked for. The capital budget houses

[0:24:15] Voice 23: houses purchases of all tangible capital items in the year.

[0:24:19] Voice 23: So this is things like computer hardware, furniture and equipment and leasehold improvements.

[0:24:24] Voice 23: Capital budget is its own separate category because it doesn't fit into the operating budget,

[0:24:30] Voice 23: as these are often one-time expenditures.

[0:24:34] Voice 23: They're not always projects, so they don't fit in the project's budget.

[0:24:37] Voice 23: So they do need their own category.

[0:24:39] Voice 23: But the other reason is that there is a difference in how the purchases of capital items is treated in the budget versus how it's treated in financial reporting.

[0:24:50] Voice 23: And we'll get into that a little bit later on in the term when we're reviewing some financial reporting.

[0:24:55] Voice 23: But for now, all you need to know is that it's included in the budget as separate lines.

[0:25:00] Voice 23: I think I see a question. Trustee Morrison.

[0:25:05] Voice 4: Sorry, but it is actually one of the things that I find interesting.

[0:25:09] Voice 4: interesting um so projects budget can you explain for us the difference so people do projects right

[0:25:16] Voice 4: and people like different staff members do projects at the trust so can you explain the

[0:25:24] Voice 4: difference of why we have for instance staff salaries in the operating budget but we have

[0:25:29] Voice 4: additional project budget pieces that we tend to argue a lot at the trust council about the project

[0:25:34] Voice 4: budget but we don't necessarily like chip away at the operating budget because they're people

[0:25:40] Voice 4: they're real people behind that right stuff but can you just explain the difference for us like

[0:25:45] Voice 4: why do we have additional money assigned to projects if it's people that are doing the projects

[0:25:49] Voice 4: so

[0:25:54] Voice 23: when we are planning for projects we are considering what resources will be required

[0:26:01] Voice 23: human resources will be required to undertake a project sometimes that is using staff and

[0:26:08] Voice 23: and sometimes it is drawing on external consultants. Any business case for any project

[0:26:12] Voice 23: should clearly outline what the plan is. Do you plan to be using staff time, or do you plan to

[0:26:17] Voice 23: be using a contractor? For projects that are drawing on staff time, I think this is what

[0:26:22] Voice 23: you're considering. We should be considering how much staff time it's going to take to complete

[0:26:29] Voice 23: a project, but because those staff salaries are existing staff salaries, whether or not this

[0:26:35] Voice 23: project is going to be undertaken, they're not built into the cost of the project itself.

[0:26:41] Voice 23: It's definitely an important thing to consider because we don't want to be taking on so many

[0:26:45] Voice 23: projects that we can't resource them.

[0:26:47] Voice 23: So we need to be considering how many staff hours are going to be allocated to each project.

[0:26:51] Voice 23: But if we didn't undertake one project, a staff member would have many other, like a

[0:26:56] Voice 23: lot of other work to complete.

[0:26:58] Voice 23: And so the cost would still be ours to bear.

[0:27:00] Voice 23: And so that's why the cost of salaries lives in operating.

[0:27:10] Voice 6: Yeah, thanks for that. That is true, of course, you know, that you have, well, let's put it this

[0:27:18] Voice 6: way, we should really understand the total capacity within the staff resources to undertake

[0:27:24] Voice 6: those projects. And those projects should explicitly say how many staff hours of existing

[0:27:31] Voice 6: staff will be required, in my view. And to go back to that, the budget assumptions and principles,

[0:27:39] Voice 6: so I just wanted to ask a quick question. I didn't ask it earlier because I wasn't sure

[0:27:44] Voice 6: whether you would take questions. When is that actually final? Because it's presented at various

[0:27:50] Voice 6: times to the FPC and the Trust Council, but is it ever actually labeled, okay, this is final in this

[0:27:57] Voice 6: budget cycle? Thank

[0:28:00] Voice 23: you. So the budget assumptions and principles document, it's a document that we

[0:28:05] Voice 23: be considered to be a living document. So it's never quite final. It is being updated and massaged

[0:28:12] Voice 23: continually throughout the budget cycle. As new information becomes available, it may be that we

[0:28:17] Voice 23: need to revise an assumption that was in the initial draft assumptions document, or we may

[0:28:22] Voice 23: embrace a new principle that we want to clearly outline in the assumptions document. So that

[0:28:26] Voice 23: document is brought forward to financial planning committee every time they are reviewing a draft of

[0:28:31] Voice 23: of the budget to make sure that it's still current.

[0:28:34] Voice 23: And it's also brought forward to Trust Council

[0:28:36] Voice 23: every time that they look at the budget.

[0:28:38] Voice 23: So I would say there's never a time

[0:28:41] Voice 23: when it's completely final, it's constantly being updated.

[0:28:50] Voice 14: No other questions?

[0:28:53] Voice 14: Okay, we'll move on.

[0:28:57] Voice 23: So the format of the budget takes on many forms

[0:29:01] Voice 23: depending on who is looking at the numbers.

[0:29:04] Voice 23: Internally, when we take the budget

[0:29:06] Voice 23: to financial planning committee and to trust council we provide a lot of very in-depth

[0:29:12] Voice 23: information so budget information is shown line by line with a lot of detail during the review

[0:29:18] Voice 23: process and that's to help financial planning committee and help trust council in their

[0:29:22] Voice 23: oversight duties and understanding what's in the budget but for external reporting of financial

[0:29:29] Voice 23: information we need to consider public sector reporting requirements for financial information

[0:29:34] Voice 23: Public sector reporting requirements dictate that information for public sector entities, such as ourselves, must be grouped according to the service areas of an organization.

[0:29:46] Voice 23: So if you go to the website of a municipality and you look at their financial information, you're likely going to find the costs of the various services they provide.

[0:29:53] Voice 23: You'll see the costs of the policing service. You'll see the cost of the firefighting service, of water service.

[0:30:00] Voice 23: The primary driver for requiring this kind of presentation is the thought that the users of financial information, which is public constituents, care about how much a particular service is costing them.

[0:30:12] Voice 23: And so there's a requirement for us to group our financial information by areas of service.

[0:30:18] Voice 23: So at the Islands Trust, there's three areas of service.

[0:30:21] Voice 23: We have Trust Council services, we have Local Trust Committee services, and we have the Islands Trust Conservancy services.

[0:30:27] Voice 23: And you'll see each of those areas of service align quite neatly with the different governance bodies, Trust Council, Local Trust Committees, and the Conservancy Board.

[0:30:36] Voice 23: This presentation of financial information also aligns with presentation in the audited financial statements.

[0:30:43] Voice 23: And so comparisons of information from budget to actual is facilitated when information is presented in the same format.

[0:30:53] Voice 23: So keeping this in mind, we can have a look at the current year budget in summary format.

[0:30:58] Voice 23: so that we can bring everyone up to speed on the financial environment that we're working in this

[0:31:03] Voice 23: year.

[0:31:06] Voice 14: But maybe I'll pause to see if there's questions on that.

[0:31:12] Voice 17: Marston.

[0:31:13] Voice 17: It's

[0:31:15] Voice 4: me asking 10,000 questions about budget. So I'm wondering about an assumption, given all

[0:31:23] Voice 4: the feedback that we've had this last year in particular, but I would say ongoing, around

[0:31:28] Voice 4: the budgeting assumptions that projects all have some kind of communications budget built in.

[0:31:35] Voice 4: So that there is like FTE for different communications needs that we've clearly identified across the entire scope of our work, but that they're built into individual budgets.

[0:31:47] Voice 4: So it's much more difficult to axe a communication effort if it's not a single position, if it's actually just woven into the work.

[0:31:56] Voice 4: And that way we know that each project has it. So would that be a budgeting assumption then that we would do?

[0:32:03] Voice 4: do um

[0:32:06] Voice 23: so great question and actually i believe it was the september trust council meeting i wasn't

[0:32:12] Voice 23: wasn't at that meeting so my timeline might be off but trust council did actually add into the

[0:32:16] Voice 23: assumptions document two new assumptions this year one being around reconciliation and one being

[0:32:20] Voice 23: around communications and engagement the intention there was to acknowledge that these are activities

[0:32:25] Voice 23: that impact the organization as a whole and any project should be contemplating these two things

[0:32:31] Voice 23: clearly specifically outlined in the business cases.

[0:32:35] Voice 23: So that has been communicated to staff

[0:32:37] Voice 23: and business cases that are coming forward

[0:32:39] Voice 23: will actually have that clearly built in.

[0:32:41] Voice 23: I do know that the directors are working together

[0:32:44] Voice 23: to go through the various business cases.

[0:32:46] Voice 23: You know, as you heard in the budget cycle discussion,

[0:32:49] Voice 23: there's projects coming to us from all areas of the trust.

[0:32:53] Voice 23: So going through those projects

[0:32:55] Voice 23: and pulling out communications pieces, for example,

[0:32:58] Voice 23: to understand what is going to be

[0:32:59] Voice 23: the total uh resources that are needed for communications in a single year that work is

[0:33:04] Voice 23: also currently happening

[0:33:06] Voice 26: ceo hodgson

[0:33:08] Voice 25: pillar has something to add thank you for a great question

[0:33:11] Voice 25: um it's a great public sector question i just would offer this thought as we do that at its

[0:33:19] Voice 25: infancy we would usually contract that work out right if we don't have a large communications

[0:33:25] Voice 25: function excuse me we would would put five percent ten percent in all your discretionary projects

[0:33:32] Voice 25: projects. At a certain point, when you add all those up, it becomes more than an FTE.

[0:33:38] Voice 25: So that's when you collectively go, where do we want to go with this? Do we want to bake this

[0:33:45] Voice 25: into our system? Or do we want to be discretionary on each of our projects? That's where we find,

[0:33:51] Voice 25: particularly in the reconciliation work, that we weren't baking funds in and then getting

[0:33:58] Voice 25: getting surprised when we don't have enough capacity

[0:34:00] Voice 25: to address an issue that comes up.

[0:34:02] Voice 25: So it's just a thought for you as you move forward

[0:34:04] Voice 25: is as you ask us or we put those discretionary funds

[0:34:09] Voice 25: in each of those projects,

[0:34:11] Voice 25: eventually what does all that add up to?

[0:34:14] Voice 25: And where do we go in the future?

[0:34:16] Voice 25: Thank you.

[0:34:24] Voice 14: All right.

[0:34:25] Voice 23: So now that we understand a little bit about budgeting,

[0:34:28] Voice 23: we can have a look at the approved budget

[0:34:29] Voice 23: for the current year

[0:34:31] Voice 23: and have a better sense of what we're looking at.

[0:34:35] Voice 23: So on the screen, you'll see a direct copy-paste of budgeted revenue information that's available

[0:34:40] Voice 23: on the Islands Trust website. You can include, you can see that it includes a line to address

[0:34:46] Voice 23: all of the external sources of revenue that we talked about previously. And our revenue for the

[0:34:52] Voice 23: current year totals $8.7 million from external revenue sources. One thing that becomes very

[0:34:58] Voice 23: clear when we're looking at this breakdown of revenues is that property taxes are our primary

[0:35:04] Voice 23: source of revenue. So that's making up the largest percentage of our external revenue base. All of

[0:35:10] Voice 23: the other lines are in the hundreds of thousands and our general property taxes are at $7.3

[0:35:15] Voice 23: million. And again, that's the reason why we have to take due care in the budget cycle process. We

[0:35:21] Voice 23: are managing this magnitude of funds. When we move into expenses, this is a summary of how much

[0:35:29] Voice 23: trust council services is costing for the current year. So council services accounts for 12% of the

[0:35:36] Voice 23: budget in the current fiscal year. It has a price tag of $1.5 million. And this includes all costs

[0:35:41] Voice 23: for trust council, such as meetings, election costs, and the council portion of trustee

[0:35:46] Voice 23: remuneration, as well as strategic plan work. The costs of executive committee are housed here as

[0:35:51] Voice 23: well, including training for EC members, remuneration associated with EC, and all of the work of trust

[0:35:57] Voice 23: area services so that's all of the work associated with advocacy communications and with trust area

[0:36:03] Voice 23: services staffing each budget area also includes an allocation of the overall general administration

[0:36:10] Voice 23: budget and that's to acknowledge that the general administration team supports the work of all the

[0:36:15] Voice 23: other business units at the trust and so the general administration costs are allocated out

[0:36:20] Voice 23: to each service area based on the portion of the budget that they make up so we can see here that

[0:36:25] Voice 23: council services is receiving 14% of the general admin allocation because they represent 14% of

[0:36:32] Voice 23: the overall budget. We'll dig into general admin allocation a little bit later, but for now that's

[0:36:38] Voice 23: what that means. Local planning services has a price tag this year of $6.7 million. This area

[0:36:44] Voice 23: of the budget includes all costs for the areas you see on the screen. So local trust committees

[0:36:49] Voice 23: and their work, planning staff and their offices, as well as bylaw enforcement.

[0:36:56] Voice 23: LTC costs and programs would include things such as costs for all LTC meeting expenses

[0:37:02] Voice 23: if venues are being rented and there's travel for trustees to get to where they need to

[0:37:06] Voice 23: go.

[0:37:07] Voice 23: The local trust committee portion of trustee remuneration also lives here, legal costs

[0:37:11] Voice 23: associated with litigation against LTCs, as well as any programming or work that local

[0:37:17] Voice 23: trust committees are undertaking in the year.

[0:37:20] Voice 23: Planning staff and facilities pretty self-explanatory. By-law enforcement includes

[0:37:24] Voice 23: staff costs, travel costs for by-law enforcement officers, and any by-law enforcement litigation

[0:37:29] Voice 23: costs that occur in the air. The Islands Trust Conservancy has a price tag this year of $1.2

[0:37:36] Voice 23: million. The lines there are pretty self-explanatory as to what types of things are

[0:37:41] Voice 23: included in this budget. I do want to note, however, that of this $1.2 million in the current

[0:37:46] Voice 23: year budget. $213,000 of these costs are being funded by a federal grant, and that's to pay for

[0:37:54] Voice 23: the Conservancy's work with species at risk. So this is the general administration budget

[0:38:02] Voice 23: for the current year. It has a price tag of around $2.1 million. The first line there,

[0:38:08] Voice 23: it's called senior management. It's a bit misleading, makes it sound like it's all of the

[0:38:13] Voice 23: team that you see here costed out there. This should actually read executive management.

[0:38:17] Voice 23: So these costs are associated with the office of the CAO and his support staff, as well as legislative services, financial, human resources and information services that includes costs for those staff, contracted tech support, audit charges, bank fees, all of the sort of general operational costs that we incur, office operations, self-explanatory, amortization expense is a mystery expense that most people don't understand.

[0:38:43] Voice 23: stand. I'll try. I'll do my best. Amortization expense, it's a non-cash item and it reflects

[0:38:51] Voice 23: the use of assets over time. So if we purchase an asset and that asset will have service to us for

[0:38:57] Voice 23: three years, rather than showing the cost of that asset in the year that we purchase it, we show

[0:39:03] Voice 23: one third of the cost over the three years of the life of that asset. So it can be a bit confusing.

[0:39:10] Voice 23: The main thing to know about amortization expense in our context is that it's included in the budget, but then it's removed from the budget because we do not tax for amortization expense, because again it's, it's not a cash expense.

[0:39:22] Voice 23: It simply represents the use of assets over time.

[0:39:27] Voice 23: So when we put all of that information together. This is a summary of the current year budget, we see we have external revenue sources $8.7 million, we have planned spending of $9.3 million.

[0:39:39] Voice 23: dollars. So this is the situation we talked about where we have planned revenue that is less than

[0:39:44] Voice 23: planned spending. So we have an annual deficit of $563,000. Knowing what we know that we don't tax

[0:39:51] Voice 23: for amortization, we remove that out of the budget and now we have an adjusted annual deficit of

[0:39:56] Voice 23: $395,000. What are the options when we find ourselves in this scenario? At the Islands Trust,

[0:40:02] Voice 23: what we typically do is engage in option number three that was on a previous slide. We draw money

[0:40:07] Voice 23: money from our surplus funds. We draw money from reserve funds to pay for the deficit. So in the

[0:40:13] Voice 23: current year budget, we're planning a transfer from the General Revenue Surplus Fund of $183,000.

[0:40:18] Voice 23: We'll be transferring money from the LTC Project Reserve Fund of $144,000. And the Salt Spring

[0:40:24] Voice 23: Island Local Trust Committee will have a draw from their Special Requisition Fund of $68,000.

[0:40:29] Voice 23: And then at the bottom of the screen there, you see a nice fat zero, which is what we want.

[0:40:34] Voice 23: it represents a balanced budget we

[0:40:37] Voice 26: have another question deb morrison so

[0:40:40] Voice 4: this particular like

[0:40:42] Voice 4: surplus thing was the big mystery to me when i started so if i may just try to paraphrase

[0:40:48] Voice 4: like in terms of the surplus can i do that okay it'll just be like a second so basically

[0:40:58] Voice 4: the adjustment from surplus if we had for instance local trust committee project reserve fund we had

[0:41:05] Voice 4: bunch of stuff that we didn't complete last term so that money was there in last year's budget it

[0:41:09] Voice 4: got shoved into surplus and now we're pulling it out of surplus to be able to continue that work

[0:41:13] Voice 4: this year so drawing out of like a local trust committee project reserve fund is really just

[0:41:20] Voice 4: buffering the annual year like it's just flowing money from one year into another it's a method of

[0:41:25] Voice 4: doing that with the general reserve fund it's a little bit more nebulous because it it maybe it

[0:41:32] Voice 4: it was a project that we started and didn't finish last year, or maybe we just have more projects

[0:41:37] Voice 4: this year than we have money for that we want to draw out of for something like perhaps we didn't

[0:41:42] Voice 4: fill a staff position last year, and so we had additional revenue that was put into the surplus

[0:41:46] Voice 4: fund. So as long as we're meeting the obligations in our surplus, which is my question actually for

[0:41:53] Voice 4: you, is given this budget flow, do we still meet at the end of this our general reserve surplus fund

[0:41:59] Voice 4: fund limits that we need to have in our surplus fund?

[0:42:05] Voice 23: So before I answer your question, I'm just

[0:42:07] Voice 23: going to add to what you've talked about there. So talking about how money gets into the surplus

[0:42:13] Voice 23: fund, how it gets into a reserve fund, and how at the end of the year, any savings flow into those

[0:42:17] Voice 23: funds. For reserve funds, another way to get money into reserve funds is actually a directed

[0:42:24] Voice 23: transfer from surplus. So Trust Council, you know, if you look at the balance in a local trust

[0:42:30] Voice 23: trust committee reserve fund and you see, oh, there's only $5,000 there, but we want more money

[0:42:34] Voice 23: to be reserved to pay for local trust committee projects. You could make a directed transfer from

[0:42:39] Voice 23: the surplus fund into the LTC reserve fund. So it's not always about just money flowing year

[0:42:46] Voice 23: over year. You can actually make decisions around the reserve fund. Your question was around whether

[0:42:51] Voice 23: or not we have excess surplus money to use for next year's budget, or if the balance is going

[0:42:57] Voice 23: going to be maintained?

[0:43:01] Voice 4: Sorry, given this set of numbers, at the end of this set of numbers,

[0:43:05] Voice 4: do we still have the adequate requirement in our general reserve surplus fund?

[0:43:11] Voice 23: Yes, we do. So when we go through the budget cycle every year, we do look to see if this budget that

[0:43:17] Voice 23: we're presenting is adopted, what is the impact to the surplus fund? And are we going to have

[0:43:22] Voice 23: enough monies there? So this budget that was adopted at the start of the fiscal year did have

[0:43:27] Voice 23: of adequate funding left in the surplus balance.

[0:43:31] Voice 26: All right, Jeff, two more questions.

[0:43:34] Voice 26: Grant Scott from Hornbill and Joe Bernardo from Cambria.

[0:43:40] Voice 13: Julia, how much is actually in those surplus funds today

[0:43:45] Voice 13: after we've taken that amount out?

[0:43:54] Voice 14: Your microphone.

[0:43:57] Voice 23: So it's an interesting question

[0:44:01] Voice 23: because when we calculate how much is in these funds

[0:44:05] Voice 23: at the time of budget approval, it's an estimate because we're looking at what's going to happen

[0:44:12] Voice 23: in the current year. What are we forecasting to happen? And then what's in the budget? And we use

[0:44:17] Voice 23: both of those pieces of information to estimate what's in the reserve funds and the surplus funds.

[0:44:24] Voice 23: So we've done the exercise for the current next year's draft budget. Of course, we're doing this

[0:44:30] Voice 23: exercise again. We're looking to see how much money is actually in the surplus fund. At the

[0:44:34] Voice 23: end of next year's draft budget we have around 1.7 million dollars in the general revenue surplus

[0:44:39] Voice 23: fund and the local trust committee reserve fund i think has around 50 000 dollars um i'd have to

[0:44:46] Voice 23: double check that number but they're healthy balances okay

[0:44:51] Voice 13: thank you um one more um back a

[0:44:56] Voice 13: couple of slides you showed uh from the tax revenue seven point something million 7.3

[0:45:06] Voice 13: and that comes from the taxpayers in the local trust areas who we represent right and yet the

[0:45:13] Voice 13: you know i heard this mentioned yesterday the mandate of is from the province is to preserve

[0:45:19] Voice 13: and protect for the people in the trust area plus the province and i know it was discussed that

[0:45:25] Voice 13: it started out the province put a lot of money in and now it's down to two percent so

[0:45:29] Voice 13: So I heard, Peter, that there have been lobbying done or letters done.

[0:45:33] Voice 13: Could you just refresh us on that, what's been done to get those folks down the road here to put more money in there to cut our taxes down for our taxpayers?

[0:45:48] Voice 23: So that's a question I'd have to direct to our CAO who's overseeing that work.

[0:45:55] Voice 25: It's been an ongoing question.

[0:45:57] Voice 25: There have been discussions over the last three or four years with the ministry pointing this out.

[0:46:02] Voice 25: um we have not had it as a substantial goal of trust council to um have a coordinated

[0:46:09] Voice 25: effort associated with that um i think that there's going to need to be um there's a limitation

[0:46:17] Voice 25: on what staff can do and a senior staff to senior staff position i think we talked about this at

[0:46:22] Voice 25: two trust councils ago and that i think the governing body here is going to have to determine

[0:46:28] Voice 25: determine a strategy and present a government to government case a full case there has not

[0:46:36] Voice 25: been dedicated time set aside to providing a full case to the province and it is not even

[0:46:44] Voice 25: though I know it feels like it's an open and shut matter there are different viewpoints on

[0:46:51] Voice 25: the funding mechanisms it stands right now from the provincial perspective so you'd want to do

[0:46:56] Voice 25: that work and

[0:47:00] Voice 26: i'm going to follow the speaker slash joe bernardo and then my read um boland

[0:47:05] Voice 26: from citroen also has a question uh

[0:47:08] Voice 27: about that annual surplus or sort of the annual deficit that

[0:47:13] Voice 27: i understand the point that it's essentially a bubble that carries on from fiscal year to

[0:47:17] Voice 27: fiscal year what's the variation if it's possible to say from year to year is it rough does it you

[0:47:25] Voice 27: The intersection between planning and budgeting, does it end up more or less working out to be

[0:47:30] Voice 27: roughly half a million every year, or is there significant variation in what that deficit is

[0:47:35] Voice 27: from year to year?

[0:47:39] Voice 23: You're talking about what the difference would be in what we budget versus

[0:47:44] Voice 23: what reality shapes up to be. The recent trend with Islands Trust is we don't spend all of what

[0:47:52] Voice 23: we plan to spend in a given year. There's a number of different factors that contribute to that. One

[0:47:56] Voice 23: one of the primary drivers is staff vacancies.

[0:47:59] Voice 23: When we have staff vacancies,

[0:48:01] Voice 23: we underspend on the salaries budget,

[0:48:02] Voice 23: but we also could underspend on projects

[0:48:05] Voice 23: that those staff were meant to be working on.

[0:48:08] Voice 23: You know, of course, there's going to be areas

[0:48:09] Voice 23: in the budget or in actual spending

[0:48:11] Voice 23: that might offset that underspending.

[0:48:13] Voice 23: If we have an unanticipated legal action,

[0:48:15] Voice 23: maybe we've got higher legal costs.

[0:48:17] Voice 23: But generally, historically, recent history has seen

[0:48:21] Voice 23: that we underspend against budget.

[0:48:22] Voice 23: actually

[0:48:24] Voice 27: thank you for that but i actually my question is a little different it is actually

[0:48:29] Voice 27: about the projected deficit uh i appreciate that when it comes out in the wash the number is going

[0:48:36] Voice 27: to be different every year but my point is in the planning process when we're projecting what

[0:48:42] Voice 27: the deficit is going to be from year to year um are those projections roughly the same from year

[0:48:48] Voice 27: year to year or do they change? I mean, or maybe a better way is what's the variation in the

[0:48:54] Voice 27: projections of deficit from year to year?

[0:48:59] Voice 23: So I think they were fairly consistent for a number

[0:49:03] Voice 23: of years at around half a million dollars that would be drawn from surplus and reserve funds

[0:49:07] Voice 23: in totality, which is fairly consistent with what we see in the current year budget. The current

[0:49:18] Voice 23: a new council we may see that shift but the most recent council term it was pretty consistent with

[0:49:24] Voice 23: what you see here thank

[0:49:28] Voice 26: you my read um

[0:49:30] Voice 6: hi about the um provincial contribution uh is there a

[0:49:35] Voice 6: mechanism that they use to calculate that you know i think about the bone island contribution

[0:49:41] Voice 6: there's um a known kind of you know equation that's used so from the province is there an

[0:49:50] Voice 6: equivalent and could we explore it in that way?

[0:49:58] Voice 23: So I'll start off with responding to that and

[0:50:00] Voice 23: then I think our CAO has some things to add. We receive that funding as part of the regional

[0:50:06] Voice 23: government grant funding formula which is given to regional governments by the province.

[0:50:11] Voice 23: One of the factors that's built into that formula is population so of course in that instance we

[0:50:18] Voice 23: We are not going to be seeing significant dollars coming our way.

[0:50:23] Voice 23: And that has been the primary reason that our contribution from the ministry has remained stagnant over a number of years.

[0:50:30] Voice 23: And our CAO has additional comments, I think.

[0:50:35] Voice 25: Yeah, to my understanding, it would represent part of the grant that a regional district would get associated with the planning function.

[0:50:46] Voice 25: So there's sort of a logical consistency and you see why it's ending up at that number.

[0:50:51] Voice 25: And as Julia says, we have the medium-sized population

[0:50:56] Voice 14: base, medium to low.

[0:51:00] Voice 14: Thanks.

[0:51:04] Voice 14: Okay, why don't you continue, Julia?

[0:51:08] Voice 14: I will do so.

[0:51:10] Voice 23: Okay, so quick review.

[0:51:12] Voice 23: We've talked about how Financial Planning Committee and Trust Council get super detailed info on finances.

[0:51:17] Voice 23: We've talked about how that same information is summarized for purposes of external communications.

[0:51:22] Voice 23: We've seen how everything comes together in a nice balanced budget.

[0:51:26] Voice 23: budget. So I feel like we've learned some things. Hopefully we've learned some things.

[0:51:31] Voice 23: So given that we've learned some things, we should be able to answer some questions.

[0:51:36] Voice 23: So based on what we've seen, does this financial information let us know how much the organization

[0:51:43] Voice 23: spends on salaries in any given year? So let's say that's a question a trustee wants to know.

[0:51:48] Voice 23: Can we find that information in the budget as it's presented? So we'll scroll back.

[0:51:55] Voice 23: Council services, I don't see anything here that would clearly outline how much salaries is costing.

[0:52:01] Voice 23: Local planning services, we see planning staff and facilities as a line, but that's not

[0:52:07] Voice 23: just salaries alone. We can't break out total salaries cost from this presentation.

[0:52:12] Voice 23: When we look at the Islands Trust Conservancy, there's no clear outline there of how much staff

[0:52:18] Voice 23: are costing for the Conservancy. General administration, same thing. So this is the

[0:52:24] Voice 23: the way the budget is presented externally, but it doesn't answer some questions that

[0:52:28] Voice 23: constituents might have about the budget. For example, how much does salaries cost for the

[0:52:33] Voice 23: organization? So as it turns out, someone on the Public Sector Accounting Standards Board

[0:52:40] Voice 23: realized this conundrum and thought, well, we can solve the problem. We will create more work

[0:52:46] Voice 23: for all of the board underworked accountants that are out there, and we will generate an

[0:52:52] Voice 23: an additional financial presentation for them to undertake, and this is called expenditures by

[0:52:57] Voice 23: object. So the same information that we've just seen is also required to be presented by object.

[0:53:04] Voice 23: It's a different way of reviewing the exact same expenses. It's included in the annual audited

[0:53:10] Voice 23: financial statements, and it can be a very helpful reference during budget time to understand

[0:53:15] Voice 23: different spending areas in the organization, and it's also helpful when reviewing financial

[0:53:19] Voice 23: reporting to understand spending trends in a particular area. So this is what expenditures

[0:53:26] Voice 23: by object looks like. For some people, this is a much more easily understood way of presenting

[0:53:33] Voice 23: financial information. So this information doesn't tell us how much a particular service area of the

[0:53:39] Voice 23: trust is costing, but it tells us what specific types of expenses are costing the organization.

[0:53:45] Voice 23: So, for the draft budget, or the approved budget for the current year, we see staff salaries and benefits have a cost of around $5.5 million, and that's about 59% of the budget.

[0:53:58] Voice 23: We are a service-oriented organization who provides services, it's staff, so naturally our largest expense in the budget is staff costs.

[0:54:06] Voice 23: So the finance team does include this presentation of financial information

[0:54:12] Voice 23: when we present financial reporting to council as well as the former presentation by service area

[0:54:17] Voice 23: to make sure that everyone has information in a way that is usable to them.

[0:54:27] Voice 23: Okay we've had lots of questions as we've been going through but if there's any others on

[0:54:31] Voice 23: expenses by object I'll quickly take those before I move on. No questions? Okay so now we're going

[0:54:42] Voice 23: going to step very briefly, because I think I'm going to go over time if I keep talking at the

[0:54:46] Voice 23: rate I'm talking. We're briefly going to have a look at financial management at the Islands Trust

[0:54:50] Voice 23: and some of the practices that we undertake throughout the year to make sure that we're

[0:54:54] Voice 23: managing funds appropriately. So I always say that budgets are only useful when they're properly

[0:54:59] Voice 23: used. There is no sense spending nine months of the year drafting a budget just to have it ignored

[0:55:04] Voice 23: as soon as it's approved. So timely and accurate monitoring of actual spending against budget in

[0:55:10] Voice 23: the year is essential for proper financial management. We undertake financial reporting

[0:55:17] Voice 23: at the Islands Trust on a quarterly basis, and those quarterly reports are sent to Financial

[0:55:21] Voice 23: Planning Committee for their review, and then they are sent to Trust Council for approval.

[0:55:25] Voice 23: So at the end of quarter one for the current year, we are showing a net 22% of our budget has been

[0:55:33] Voice 23: spent. One quarter of the year is 25% of the year gone. You could expect to be about 25% of your

[0:55:40] Voice 23: budget spent. So we are slightly underspent against that benchmark. And we'll be reviewing

[0:55:45] Voice 23: quarter two financial results in December. Sneak preview, we're looking at about 47% spent at

[0:55:51] Voice 23: halfway through the year. So the underspending trend from quarter one is continuing into quarter

[0:55:55] Voice 23: two. Twice a year, we do financial forecasting. So that's looking ahead to the rest of the year

[0:56:01] Voice 23: to see how will financial, actual financial spending, how might it shape up for the end of

[0:56:07] Voice 23: the year. Quarter two results will be presented to Trust Council in December. Those financial

[0:56:12] Voice 23: forecasting results are looking like we might end up spending 97% of our budget. So again,

[0:56:17] Voice 23: a slight underspending projected for the year. And then we do financial forecasting again at

[0:56:22] Voice 23: the end of December for quarter three. And forecasting can be a really useful tool when

[0:56:27] Voice 23: you're looking at the budget development as it can help understand current spending trends and

[0:56:31] Voice 23: and how they might influence budget figures.

[0:56:33] Voice 14: We have a question here.

[0:56:34] Voice 23: Okay.

[0:56:37] Voice 5: Just a quick question with the quarterly reporting,

[0:56:41] Voice 5: does that, is that publicly disseminated as well?

[0:56:47] Voice 23: Yes, so the quarterly reporting

[0:56:48] Voice 23: goes to financial planning committee

[0:56:50] Voice 23: and also to trust council and those meeting agendas

[0:56:52] Voice 23: are publicly available on our website.

[0:56:58] Voice 5: Sorry, the agenda or the budget, the budget spend?

[0:57:05] Voice 23: In the agenda, all of the reports would be contained.

[0:57:08] Voice 23: so those actual reports are publicly available. Okay we'll breeze on through. Some financial

[0:57:18] Voice 23: management policies that Islands Trust there are a number they're all included on the website and

[0:57:23] Voice 23: I'm told they're also in your toolkit. So I'll just briefly touch on the four policies that

[0:57:28] Voice 23: exist and what they cover. The reserves and surplus policy guides the use of surplus and

[0:57:33] Voice 23: reserve funds that we've talked about previously and it also guides the minimum levels that must

[0:57:37] Voice 23: be held in the General Revenue Surplus Fund. Our policy on budget control and adjustments

[0:57:42] Voice 23: guides what happens when overspending has occurred or is expected to occur.

[0:57:48] Voice 23: So it guides when overspending is required or when overspending may occur, what reporting

[0:57:54] Voice 23: requirements are there? Who do we need to report out to and when? And what mitigating factors

[0:58:00] Voice 23: should be undertaken and who decides those mitigating factors? It also decides or gives

[0:58:05] Voice 23: guidance on who can amend budget lines. Procurement, it's one of the policies that

[0:58:11] Voice 23: our CAO mentioned yesterday. He also said that the treasurer, me, has all power when it comes

[0:58:19] Voice 23: to procurement. That is only slightly true. What it actually says is that I have the power to

[0:58:26] Voice 23: delegate that authority. So procurement has been given to me, and then it is my role's

[0:58:33] Voice 23: responsibility to delegate out procurement powers to the rest of the organization. So what we have

[0:58:38] Voice 23: built into that policy is certain guidelines around what staff within the organizations can

[0:58:43] Voice 23: procure what services and at what

[0:58:45] Voice 23: dollar level they can procure. And all of that is very clearly

[0:58:49] Voice 23: laid out in the policy. It also determines the various processes that must be undertaken for

[0:58:55] Voice 23: various levels of procurement. It also highlights some values that we like to embrace in our

[0:59:00] Voice 23: our procurement practices. So things like local purchasing in the context of the trust policy

[0:59:05] Voice 23: local is on the islands. It also talks about social procurement attributes. Some of the key

[0:59:12] Voice 23: concepts in the procurement policy are around transparency with public funds, mitigating bias

[0:59:17] Voice 23: and conflict of interest in selecting vendors. So we don't want anyone selecting a vendor simply

[0:59:21] Voice 23: because they're their neighbor and they get along well. And it also indicates that the responsibility

[0:59:26] Voice 23: for procurement is a staff responsibility.

[0:59:30] Voice 23: Grants and donation administration is the responsibility

[0:59:32] Voice 23: as a director of legislative services.

[0:59:34] Voice 23: It outlines the process for seeking

[0:59:36] Voice 23: and receiving external funds,

[0:59:38] Voice 23: and also make sure that we are properly reporting out

[0:59:41] Voice 23: on any funds received.

[0:59:45] Voice 23: Okay, I've incorporated a joke break.

[0:59:48] Voice 23: I know financial information can be fairly dry.

[0:59:52] Voice 23: So I've incorporated a joke break.

[0:59:54] Voice 23: I did this at the last orientation as well.

[0:59:57] Voice 23: When I was searching the internet

[0:59:58] Voice 23: for some fun math really.

[1:00:00] Voice 23: jokes. There really are none. I

[1:00:02] Voice 23: think the only two math jokes that exist, I used last time.

[1:00:06] Voice 23: So I've recycled them. We'll come to you after. Yeah. So

[1:00:13] Voice 23: I've recycled the jokes, which means

[1:00:15] Voice 23: returning trustees have seen these, so you can't participate. But hopefully you'll enjoy them a

[1:00:20] Voice 23: second time. Okay. Joke number one. What kind of insect is good at math? An inchworm. I like that

[1:00:29] Voice 23: that guess but it's not what we're looking for

[1:00:30] Voice 14: anything

[1:00:34] Voice 23: else any other guesses

[1:00:36] Voice 14: sent

[1:00:38] Voice 23: a bead we

[1:00:39] Voice 23: had that guess last time also not what we're looking for it's an account ant very cool very

[1:00:49] Voice 23: cool okay we've got one more joke uh why was six afraid of seven because he comes a little louder

[1:01:02] Voice 23: because seven eight nine pretty scary this one's a bit of a groaner but I thought it was cute

[1:01:14] Voice 23: okay good I'm glad uh hopefully that woke you up a little bit Daphne's joke yes

[1:01:20] Voice 14: we'll collaborate next time I have to

[1:01:40] Voice 23: tell some jokes okay so we do have planned for this session

[1:01:45] Voice 23: an overview of the draft assumptions and principles for next year's budget. So we're

[1:01:50] Voice 23: not looking at numbers today. We're looking at the assumptions and principles that are being

[1:01:54] Voice 23: drawn on to build the numbers for next year's budget. I think I've only got 15 minutes left.

[1:02:00] Voice 23: Is that accurate? Okay. So I will be going through these pretty speedily. I'll do what I can to make

[1:02:08] Voice 23: sure I'm still getting the most important information out. Still feel free to ask

[1:02:11] Voice 23: questions as we go through okay so just as a quick refresher where are we in the budget cycle we are

[1:02:18] Voice 23: in November 2022 this is where trust council is reviewing the assumptions document for the first

[1:02:22] Voice 23: time I've talked about how the assumptions document is a living document and it's constantly updated

[1:02:29] Voice 23: throughout the budget cycle and we'll dive right in so fees and sales in next year's budget draft

[1:02:36] Voice 23: we've made the assumption that we will again have fees and sales revenue and that this fees and

[1:02:42] Voice 23: and sales revenue will be based upon estimated application volumes multiplied by application

[1:02:48] Voice 23: fees. So we have incorporated the actual application fees by local trust area as most local

[1:02:54] Voice 23: by local trust committee as most local trust committees have adopted their new fees bylaw

[1:02:58] Voice 23: with the exception of two. And if those two do adopt new fees, we'll update the budget

[1:03:03] Voice 23: when that happens. Our current estimate of fees in next year's budget is around $265,000.

[1:03:10] Voice 23: dollars. We are expecting to receive provincial funding again. We've kept it in lines with

[1:03:16] Voice 23: historical norms at $180,000. This is the regional government grant that we received that we've

[1:03:22] Voice 23: talked about. Local trust area property taxes. Of course, we make the assumption that we are going

[1:03:29] Voice 23: to need property taxes in order to balance the budget this year. And that value is simply a

[1:03:34] Voice 23: calculation of external revenues, less planned spending, less surplus draws. And Trust Council,

[1:03:39] Voice 23: of course, is the ultimate authority on the level of property taxes that's included in the budget.

[1:03:45] Voice 23: Non-market growth in property taxes. So this is a fun concept that we revisit every year. When we talk about growth in property taxes, we talk about it in two ways. There is the actual growth to our property tax base that will be a tax lift on existing properties in the local trust area.

[1:04:04] Voice 23: area. There is a growth in the property tax base that comes from things like new construction and

[1:04:10] Voice 23: development. So if there's new construction in an area, you now have new property to tax on.

[1:04:17] Voice 23: And so this is what we incorporate into the budget to help understand what's a true increase

[1:04:21] Voice 23: versus what is an increase in the tax dollars we'll receive that are coming from non-market

[1:04:26] Voice 23: factors, which is things such as new construction and development. So we get that information from

[1:04:31] Voice 23: From BC Assessment, we've incorporated into the draft budget an anticipated 1% increase

[1:04:37] Voice 23: to property taxes coming from new construction, and we'll update that when we've got new and

[1:04:41] Voice 23: current information in December.

[1:04:45] Voice 23: We've talked already a little bit about special property tax requisitions and what they are.

[1:04:49] Voice 23: So in the current year draft budget, or next year's draft budget, we do have a special

[1:04:54] Voice 23: levy request that has been submitted by the Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee.

[1:04:58] Voice 23: They are seeking $75,500 for the ongoing work of the Salt Spring Island Watershed Protection Alliance.

[1:05:06] Voice 23: And approval of this special requisition will have to come from Council before it can proceed.

[1:05:13] Voice 23: The municipal tax requisition, talked about this a little bit as well.

[1:05:16] Voice 23: The formula that Bowen contributes to the Islands Trust is a formula set out in the Islands Trust Act and coded in Trust Council policy.

[1:05:23] Voice 23: policy. Generally, Bowen Island contributes to all of council services and all of conservancy

[1:05:29] Voice 23: services as well as a portion of administrative expenses. So again, they're not contributing to

[1:05:35] Voice 23: the planning function of the trust as they do their own planning. Investment income, we're

[1:05:41] Voice 23: seeing a lift in investment income next year. We're anticipating about $120,000. Of course,

[1:05:46] Voice 23: we're taking advantage of the rise in interest rates. The last few years have been very quite

[1:05:52] Voice 23: abysmal with the low interest rates but we're seeing a lift now for next year. Other income

[1:05:58] Voice 23: is a line that we include in the budget as a placeholder for any grants that may be received

[1:06:03] Voice 23: in the year that are unanticipated at budget time. So we do need to have a place to record

[1:06:08] Voice 23: this unanticipated revenue and so we include a line called other income. In the draft budget

[1:06:13] Voice 23: it's simply a placeholder. We have one dollar there simply to hold the line. Inflation is one

[1:06:22] Voice 23: one of the assumptions that we talked about previously. Obviously, we are anticipating a

[1:06:27] Voice 23: rise in costs in next year's budget for a lot of the expenses that we incur. We update this

[1:06:32] Voice 23: assumption for December consumer price index each year. And so the current draft budget doesn't

[1:06:38] Voice 23: actually have any inflationary factors built in. We'll be updating that in January. We're making

[1:06:45] Voice 23: the assumption that staffing levels will remain the same with the addition of one new staff member.

[1:06:50] Voice 23: So there is a request from staff that's been supported by the outgoing executive committee for one new full-time equivalent staff member.

[1:06:57] Voice 23: It's a local trust committee meeting administrator, and that's to facilitate all of the many, many hybrid meetings that are ongoing for local trust committees.

[1:07:08] Voice 23: LPS staffing levels is something that's been incorporated into the assumptions document for many years.

[1:07:15] Voice 23: Again, we assume that there will be the same number of planning staff plus the additional full-time equivalent if council approves.

[1:07:23] Voice 23: There's also a potential reclassification of six of our planning staff to acknowledge changes in their work.

[1:07:31] Voice 23: Planner resource allocations.

[1:07:33] Voice 23: There are a number of or a couple of Trust Council policies that were recently amended that influence this budget line.

[1:07:39] Voice 23: In particular, the amendments that impact the budget are that no local trust committee will have more than one new minor project in a year, and all projects over $5,000 must be accompanied by a business case to trust council.

[1:07:53] Voice 23: So we have built those two things into the budget draft, and of course we'll be submitting business cases for those projects.

[1:08:02] Voice 23: Salaries and benefits are our largest area of spending in the budget.

[1:08:05] Voice 23: it. So we do have union staff here at Islands Trust. The bulk of our staff are unionized staff

[1:08:10] Voice 23: and what we pay them is governed by the BCGEU agreement, which is an agreement that's negotiated

[1:08:17] Voice 23: with the province on our behalf. So the union agreement stipulates that union staff next year

[1:08:22] Voice 23: will receive a raise anywhere between 5.5% and 6.75%. So without the clarity on where the raise

[1:08:32] Voice 23: might actually land we've made a decision to choose the midpoint and so we've included in

[1:08:37] Voice 23: the budget a general wage increase for all union staff members at 6.1 percent excluded staff which

[1:08:44] Voice 23: are your management staff fall outside of the union our payment is governed by the public sector

[1:08:49] Voice 23: agency and each year they let us know what potential raises are permitted for excluded staff

[1:08:55] Voice 23: that information is not available at the time of budget draft and so we simply estimate it based

[1:09:00] Voice 23: based on historical actuals.

[1:09:02] Voice 23: And so we've estimated next year's increase

[1:09:04] Voice 23: for excluded staff members to be around 4%.

[1:09:08] Voice 23: We also have a benefit rate

[1:09:10] Voice 23: that we pay to the public service agency of 25.4% each year.

[1:09:14] Voice 23: So the public service agency processes

[1:09:17] Voice 23: all of our payroll for staff and they administer benefits.

[1:09:19] Voice 23: They are submitting all of the tax deductions

[1:09:23] Voice 23: that are withheld, CPP, AI, all of those sorts of things.

[1:09:26] Voice 23: They're also paying benefit premiums on our behalf

[1:09:28] Voice 23: have, and this represents a reimbursement to them for that cost. We don't have that rate at this

[1:09:33] Voice 23: point, so we're using last year's rate, 25.4% in the draft budget. Trustee remuneration is guided

[1:09:40] Voice 23: by Trust Council policy. There's been no changes to the policy for next year's budget draft,

[1:09:44] Voice 23: but we have updated the calculation for the factors that are relevant, which includes CPI,

[1:09:49] Voice 23: the number of folios in each local trust area. Census information is still from 2016.

[1:09:54] Voice 23: Of course, all of you will know we've moved you on to the Enhanced Benefit Plan, and so that's been included, the increased premiums have been included in the budget.

[1:10:03] Voice 23: The policy for trustee remuneration is currently under review, but no changes are expected in time for next year's budget.

[1:10:11] Voice 23: First Nations Engagement and Reconciliation, this is one of the new additions to the Assumptions document this year.

[1:10:17] Voice 23: It says that, or it guides that all First Nations Engagement and Reconciliation must be integrated throughout the organization.

[1:10:24] Voice 23: So what we've had historically is a line called First Nations Reconciliation and projects as they need to engage in reconciliation would draw from this line.

[1:10:33] Voice 23: We're moving now more to a model of every project, including reconciliation in their actual project budget.

[1:10:40] Voice 23: We do still have a line for First Nations Reconciliation to provide funding for our reconciliation work that's outside of projects.

[1:10:47] Voice 23: But this is something that's been explicitly added to the document this year.

[1:10:52] Voice 23: Communications and engagement also newly added. Same concept as reconciliation to be contemplating

[1:10:58] Voice 23: these factors in all projects and to include considerations of this in all business cases

[1:11:03] Voice 23: which has taken place for the draft budget. We make the assumption that no changes will be made

[1:11:10] Voice 23: to Islands Trust real estate for next year's budget so we are still budgeting for all of our

[1:11:14] Voice 23: existing leases. There is a consideration of relocation of the Gabriola office to Nanaimo

[1:11:21] Voice 23: but we would be making any moves that are deemed necessary at the end of our lease which I think

[1:11:27] Voice 23: is two years from now. Strategic plan projects of course always need consideration in the budget

[1:11:34] Voice 23: obviously thinking about budgeting for strategic plan projects for the next fiscal year is a bit

[1:11:38] Voice 23: more of a difficult exercise given where we are right now as New Trust Council has not yet adopted

[1:11:42] Voice 23: a new strategic plan however outgoing committees have looked at their ongoing projects from

[1:11:48] Voice 23: existing strategic plan and have submitted business cases to support the work that they

[1:11:52] Voice 23: believe should continue in next fiscal and those items are incorporated in the budget we have no

[1:11:59] Voice 23: elections next year but we budget for by elections we never know if we might lose one of you we want

[1:12:04] Voice 23: to plan for that and so we do have a policy that guides how by election funding will be included

[1:12:09] Voice 23: in the budget and we've included that as a contribution to surplus

[1:12:14] Voice 14: transfers

[1:12:17] Voice 23: from surplus

[1:12:18] Voice 23: we've talked about this quite in depth now we are anticipating a transfer from surplus in the

[1:12:23] Voice 23: current year or in next year's budget. We're looking at having surplus funds available to

[1:12:28] Voice 23: transfer into the budget at around $250,000. This figure will be updated as we do additional

[1:12:33] Voice 23: forecasting throughout the year. And so at quarter three, we'll have a better sense of how much we'll

[1:12:39] Voice 23: have. And if we draw out the $250,000 to use in the budget, we will still have the minimum balance

[1:12:45] Voice 23: required. Transfer from local trust committee reserve fund. We are planning for that again

[1:12:51] Voice 23: next year. There's a $36,000 transfer from the reserve fund for minor projects and a $16,000

[1:12:57] Voice 23: transfer for major projects. If both of these transfers are included in the budget, the reserve

[1:13:01] Voice 23: fund will have no funds left in it at the end of the budget year. And so Trust Council will

[1:13:06] Voice 23: choose or could choose to put more money into that reserve fund if they wanted to use it again

[1:13:10] Voice 23: in future years. There's been no requests from Salt Spring to draw money from their special

[1:13:17] Voice 23: Requisition Resource Fund. Okay, next steps. November, that's this month, Financial Planning

[1:13:26] Voice 23: Committee will be meeting to review the first draft of the budget. Once they've had a review

[1:13:31] Voice 23: of the budget, they're going to be sending it to Trust Council and all of you will have a chance

[1:13:34] Voice 23: to see that in December. FPC will also be reviewing quarter two results for the current year as well

[1:13:40] Voice 23: as quarter two forecast and those pieces of information will also land at the Council table

[1:13:45] Voice 23: table in December. In December also, Trust Council will be determining special tax requisitions.

[1:13:52] Voice 23: So if there are local trust committee projects that council feels should be funded from special

[1:13:56] Voice 23: requisition, December is the time when Trust Council makes that decision. And of course,

[1:14:01] Voice 23: we're going to be walking you through that process in December. And also Trust Council

[1:14:05] Voice 23: will be approving a draft budget to be put forward for public consultation. So I found this cute

[1:14:13] Voice 23: little image on the internet it says that minions define math as mental abuse to humans

[1:14:19] Voice 23: uh some of you might share this sentiment after the plethora of information you've received today

[1:14:25] Voice 23: but if not if you're still awake and if you maybe enjoy the session a little bit i would encourage

[1:14:30] Voice 23: you to put your name forward for financial planning committee uh and that way you can

[1:14:34] Voice 23: relive this kind of magic six times a year that's all i have i hit it right on the nail

[1:14:41] Voice 23: all I will take questions oh well

[1:14:45] Voice 26: thank you Julia CEO Hodgin

[1:14:47] Voice 25: -Piller well thanks very much Julia and

[1:14:50] Voice 25: just in support of my colleague um just want to get specific around some of the dates so what's

[1:14:55] Voice 25: today today is the 19th and so we're under um some minor compression in terms of the dates that

[1:15:03] Voice 25: Julia's discussed so FPC would be meet at the first FPC meeting would be next Friday in order

[1:15:12] Voice 25: to get their considerations into the December budget discussion so when you get that first

[1:15:20] Voice 25: budget you're going to want your FPC to have had a look at it that means that agenda is going out

[1:15:27] Voice 25: on Monday correct Tuesday so this sequencing won't always be your sequencing once every four years

[1:15:38] Voice 25: it's uh it's exciting um one other consideration associated with that um fpc is made up by policy

[1:15:49] Voice 25: of of specific individuals right two of those individuals are representatives from trust

[1:15:57] Voice 25: programs committee and regional planning committee because those committees vote a representative to

[1:16:03] Voice 25: to attend fpc those meetings won't have occurred by next week so those two members there won't be a

[1:16:14] Voice 25: representation from fpc and tpc so there would be eight people as currently undertaken by policy

[1:16:21] Voice 25: that would be attending fpc and you would get your agenda on tuesday

[1:16:26] Voice 25: so julia's going to spend the rest of her weekend getting those numbers and that

[1:16:33] Voice 25: happily, getting those numbers ready for a Tuesday release, and we'll be supporting her

[1:16:41] Voice 25: as we go forward. Is that fair? And is the timing, the timing is right? Are there any

[1:16:46] Voice 25: questions about that? May I read?

[1:16:52] Voice 6: It's my, as Deb would say, pet peeve, but, you know, the

[1:16:57] Voice 6: the decision to, by custom, not put out a draft budget in October, as is usual,

[1:17:07] Voice 6: I think it's really handicapping, you know, the New Trust Council in its ability to challenge or

[1:17:16] Voice 6: change the budget. And I'm just curious to know, like, when and how that became the custom or is

[1:17:23] Voice 6: agreed because I can understand you might say the FPC outgoing might not want to recommend

[1:17:30] Voice 6: major changes but constructing it and putting it out at the time that is normally available

[1:17:38] Voice 6: I think would make would have made better sense thank

[1:17:42] Voice 14: you okay thank you for the comments

[1:17:50] Voice 25: if there are any other questions happy to receive those but now you've got some specifics yeah

[1:17:55] Voice 25: Yeah. Okay.

[1:17:57] Voice 26: Okay. So then we're going to move into new business. But you know what? Let's

[1:18:04] Voice 26: just stand up and stretch for a minute because this has been, it's riveting, Julia. Thank

[1:18:12] Voice 26: you. And don't go away. Just stretch. Get some good air into your lungs. Actually, the

[1:18:32] Voice 26: air quality, we're monitoring it up here at the front desk. Thanks to Sue Ellen. And the

[1:18:36] Voice 26: The air circulation is very good,

[1:18:39] Voice 26: so don't be concerned too much about that.

[1:20:06] Voice 26: council, let's dig into the new business.

[1:20:48] Voice 15: you're not going to do anything well imagine the big thing

[1:20:52] Voice 15: so

[1:20:53] Voice 14: i would actually

[1:21:20] Voice 9: That's making it possible.

[1:21:39] Voice 15: Okay, council,

[1:21:42] Voice 26: I don't wanna delay you from heading home

[1:21:46] Voice 26: and I don't wanna delay the public from their expectations.

[1:21:49] Voice 26: Let us return to our seats.

[1:21:50] Voice 26: I don't want to regret having let you go I

[1:21:56] Voice 14: know yeah

[1:22:05] Voice 15: well

[1:22:07] Voice 26: there you go and my my

[1:22:09] Voice 26: backup strategy is as soon as I've got a quorum sitting at the table I'm gonna

[1:22:13] Voice 26: get going okay and I have a quorum

[1:22:18] Voice 14: so I'm

[1:22:22] Voice 15: thank

[1:22:24] Voice 26: you I didn't know that

[1:22:27] Voice 14: that's

[1:22:31] Voice 26: why i want to be chair

[1:22:32] Voice 14: okay

[1:22:37] Voice 26: everybody thank you um it is important to stick to our agenda so we're

[1:22:42] Voice 26: now moving into new business and i'll just um we've got well this whole section actually which

[1:22:48] Voice 26: is business and decision items is kind of a taster you know it's what this is a big section when we

[1:22:55] Voice 26: come back to council later on and there'll be lots of stuff and there'll be lots of details the items

[1:23:00] Voice 26: that are listed here below new business are just kind of an overview. And I would suggest that we

[1:23:06] Voice 26: just receive, for the most part, those information items. Brief questions for clarity might be

[1:23:14] Voice 26: appropriate, but there's also the opportunity for conversation amongst others, experienced

[1:23:19] Voice 26: trustees, and with staff about what the content is. Like a follow-up action list, for instance,

[1:23:24] Voice 26: is huge. I don't think we want to go into that today. Okay. Is that all right? So then let us

[1:23:32] Voice 26: begin with new business. So when we adopted our agenda way back on Thursday, we added three items

[1:23:40] Voice 26: to our new business section, two of them being notice of motion, which means just going to

[1:23:45] Voice 26: present the concept here today to alert you, and they will be coming to a future, to our December

[1:23:50] Voice 26: council meeting and then we do actually have a motion here as well and so toby elliott

[1:23:55] Voice 26: reconciliation select committee over to you thank you toby thank

[1:23:59] Voice 8: you chair um so i had

[1:24:03] Voice 8: had a lot of conversations um leading up to this as i'm sure many of you did and one of the things

[1:24:09] Voice 8: that became apparent to me um was that reconciliation action um didn't seem to have a

[1:24:18] Voice 8: home and so i was wondering how we might consider um a body for that work and giving some leadership

[1:24:27] Voice 8: and direction to it so um yeah with the help of staff i put together a motion for consideration

[1:24:33] Voice 8: for next trust council meeting in december um that trust council requests staff to report options for

[1:24:41] Voice 8: for resourcing and supporting the formation of a select Committee on Reconciliation in

[1:24:47] Voice 8: line with Policy 2.3.1 Council Committee System that would be formed to recommend reconciliation

[1:24:54] Voice 8: actions to Trust Council and to request staff to recommend the Committee's Terms of Reference,

[1:25:00] Voice 8: Composition and Purpose.

[1:25:02] Voice 8: um with your indulgence i would also propose a second alternative motion for consideration um

[1:25:10] Voice 8: just in doing some research into the secretariat um function that exists within the trust

[1:25:17] Voice 8: it references a body called a coordination group and i couldn't really find any information on that

[1:25:25] Voice 8: um but i was wondering if we could also ask staff to report options for the same wording

[1:25:31] Voice 8: and resourcing and supporting the formation of an entity other than a select committee

[1:25:37] Voice 8: for the purpose of recommending reconciliation actions to trust counsel such as a reconciliation

[1:25:42] Voice 8: coordination group and so if you read secretariat policy 2.1.15

[1:25:48] Voice 8: it actually specifically defines a coordination group as a body

[1:25:56] Voice 8: trust programs committee is encouraged to prioritize support for coordination groups

[1:26:00] Voice 8: that work collaboratively and respectfully with First Nations governments

[1:26:04] Voice 8: and Indigenous peoples within the trust area.

[1:26:07] Voice 8: And so my question was whether a coordination group could be struck

[1:26:11] Voice 8: that would actually invite First Nation members as advisors in addition to trustees.

[1:26:17] Voice 8: So that might be a second body where we could actually have an interagency

[1:26:24] Voice 8: decision-making body to advise us on reconciliation actions

[1:26:28] Voice 8: to bring forward to trust counsel.

[1:26:30] Voice 8: So those are two sort of recommendations

[1:26:33] Voice 8: that I submit for your consideration.

[1:26:37] Voice 26: Thank you.

[1:26:38] Voice 26: And so that's a notice of motion is an intention

[1:26:41] Voice 26: for that to be undertaken with staff

[1:26:44] Voice 26: and that would come to council,

[1:26:46] Voice 26: not an opportunity to really

[1:26:47] Voice 26: flex it out or debate it here today,

[1:26:49] Voice 26: but would encourage anybody that's interested

[1:26:52] Voice 26: in having this conversation is to talk to Toby

[1:26:54] Voice 26: to allow her to bring that other additional information

[1:26:57] Voice 26: to staff to help support a piece of work coming forward.

[1:27:01] Voice 26: So I want to thank you, Toby,

[1:27:02] Voice 26: so that you can, that will happen, so to speak.

[1:27:06] Voice 26: So I'm going to move to in my sequential order

[1:27:09] Voice 26: that as the motions were brought to us earlier.

[1:27:12] Voice 26: So now at 8.2 is Maya Reid, FPC appointments.

[1:27:16] Voice 26: And I believe you have a motion

[1:27:18] Voice 26: and perhaps we'll get that up on the screen

[1:27:20] Voice 26: and you can speak to it.

[1:27:29] Voice 14: Yes.

[1:27:30] Voice 6: So basically in my,

[1:27:38] Voice 6: oh don't

[1:27:39] Voice 26: don't move it just yeah

[1:27:43] Voice 26: get trustee middleton to move over a bit give him more space no it's a

[1:27:47] Voice 19: technical i fiddled

[1:27:48] Voice 19: with the volume norm and i think i just i made it i apologize profusely it will never happen again

[1:27:54] Voice 19: i

[1:27:55] Voice 26: think that's a ten dollar fee he

[1:27:58] Voice 6: didn't say he didn't apologize

[1:28:01] Voice 6: fullsomely I don't know we have to split it between us that's five dollars each

[1:28:11] Voice 6: yeah yeah so okay thank you and first of all I'd acknowledge thank thanks to David Marler again

[1:28:21] Voice 6: for helping me you know understand what I needed to do and help me compose it so the bottom line

[1:28:29] Voice 6: is i became involved you know interested in the budgeting process as you know and i followed it

[1:28:35] Voice 6: along and you know the budget was prepared it went to the fbc it went to the trust council it came

[1:28:42] Voice 6: back to the fbc it went to the trust council it came back and basically items were removed and

[1:28:47] Voice 6: reinserted with enormous regularity and you know nothing much in a net sense happened so i witnessed

[1:28:57] Voice 6: all of this and I then in you know once I you know agreed to be a trustee I looked at the terms

[1:29:04] Voice 6: of reference I looked at how committees are created and I realized that the FPC is by default

[1:29:11] Voice 6: the four members of the executive committee the chair of three of the other committees

[1:29:18] Voice 6: and then three trustees what I would call ordinary trustees appointed by the chair so I thought well

[1:29:26] Voice 6: well, hey, this is like the foxes in charge of the hen house.

[1:29:30] Voice 6: So basically, the people who oversaw and approved the elements and components of the budget

[1:29:38] Voice 6: are then tasked with challenging it.

[1:29:41] Voice 6: And they have limited, let's say, appetite for that.

[1:29:46] Voice 6: So they just shove it up the line to trust counsel.

[1:29:48] Voice 6: I'm paraphrasing a bit, and I hope I'm not being too disrespectful.

[1:29:52] Voice 6: But it is, you know, difficult to challenge something that you personally approved.

[1:30:00] Voice 6: So I wondered if there might be a different way. And when the Governance Committee was elected, I also see that there are two roles for, you know, the Financial Planning Committee has to oversee a financial management process, which is very important.

[1:30:14] Voice 6: important but the challenge to the content is a kind of a different element that isn't dealt with

[1:30:23] Voice 6: as well I think so I would have thought that in the same way as the governance committee was elected

[1:30:30] Voice 6: that electing a group of trustees to be on the financial planning committee might be a better

[1:30:38] Voice 6: way to deal with it and it also reduces the workload on some of the executive committees who

[1:30:45] Voice 6: you know the members of the executive committees who are expected to

[1:30:49] Voice 6: you know spread themselves thinly in many roles across many committees and i feel that it could

[1:30:56] Voice 6: mean that by the time the budget and the um proposals go from uh the fbc to the trust council

[1:31:06] Voice 6: there's a better sense of ownership of the content and that the and a better understanding

[1:31:14] Voice 6: because you have a big section of Trust Council whose only role on the FPC that's it they haven't

[1:31:22] Voice 6: I mean I know there'd be overlap in roles but I just thought that this would be a better way

[1:31:28] Voice 6: to create the financial planning committee so with that in mind I had two versions and I think

[1:31:38] Voice 6: I'm going to go for option two option one was let's adopt this process immediately and let's

[1:31:45] Voice 6: elect a financial planning committee immediately but that was when I was naive three days ago

[1:31:54] Voice 6: now that I understand everything I'm hoping it won't take two years but I would go for option

[1:32:02] Voice 6: two which David Marler proposed which was that we would agree in principle that this is the way we

[1:32:09] Voice 6: would go forward that staff would come back with a draft change and a proposed format and at that

[1:32:18] Voice 6: time we would elect an FPC. Now there I think in the version that I think the timing I would

[1:32:27] Voice 6: suggest the timing should be within up to six months because the new budget cycle starts

[1:32:34] Voice 6: so it would be nice to have the new FPC on seat when the new budget cycle commences and in the

[1:32:42] Voice 6: meantime we go with the status quo and elect a financial planning committee per the current

[1:32:48] Voice 6: policy so that's the deal on the table okay thank you all

[1:32:54] Voice 26: so thank you maya do you want to make your

[1:32:56] Voice 26: motion and then we can have a and i'll need a seconder and then we'll have some debate over

[1:33:01] Voice 26: the merits so

[1:33:05] Voice 6: that trust council requests staff to report back and with options and implications

[1:33:10] Voice 6: of changing the selection process established in the Trust Council Policy 2.3.1 Council Committee Systems

[1:33:18] Voice 6: for the Financial Planning Committee so that membership is determined by Trust Council election.

[1:33:25] Voice 6: The Trust Council changed the process for appointing the Financial Planning Committee

[1:33:29] Voice 6: established in Policy 2.3.1 Council Committee Systems

[1:33:34] Voice 6: by limiting the appointment under the current policy to up to six months, I suggest,

[1:33:41] Voice 6: pending adoption of a new selection policy at which time a new financial planning committee

[1:33:46] Voice 6: could be decided by the new policy thank

[1:33:49] Voice 15: you sorry

[1:33:52] Voice 26: uh seconded by deb morrison and laurie can we just

[1:33:56] Voice 26: make that a bit bigger to make sure that council is able everybody's able to read that that's the

[1:34:01] Voice 26: most important thing for me that we know what we're discussing and voting on um and i see some

[1:34:07] Voice 26: Some little edits going on there, and Maya, is that what you read out, your expectation?

[1:34:12] Voice 26: Okay.

[1:34:12] Voice 6: Yes, I just changed in the original, it said for a year, and I suggest that it should be six months.

[1:34:20] Voice 26: Okay, so I have a motion on the floor, moved and seconded.

[1:34:23] Voice 26: Do you wish to speak to your motion further?

[1:34:27] Voice 6: No, I think I've said enough.

[1:34:28] Voice 26: So speakers on the motion, please raise your hands.

[1:34:36] Voice 26: Okay, and we can have more as we go along.

[1:34:41] Voice 26: So the first two are Deb Morrison and Kate Louise Stanford.

[1:34:46] Voice 4: Yeah, I think I would just add that this is something that I've been concerned about, too.

[1:34:51] Voice 4: And I would love to see our options. So I like the idea that we'll give it some thoughtful reflection and then come back with options.

[1:34:57] Voice 4: Thank you. Thank

[1:34:58] Voice 26: you, Deb. Kate Louise.

[1:35:01] Voice 9: Just a question of clarity here.

[1:35:02] Voice 9: the way I read this is no matter what our end decision is when this comes forward,

[1:35:10] Voice 9: that we are changing our process for appointing the Finance Committee right now, that we will be

[1:35:17] Voice 9: having re-elections in six months. That's how I read this. I

[1:35:23] Voice 12: think it's the status quo for now

[1:35:27] Voice 12: So

[1:35:29] Voice 9: it's all single in one rather than two separate items.

[1:35:38] Voice 26: David Muller, you want to make a remark using microphone?

[1:35:41] Voice 24: Yeah, thank you.

[1:35:43] Voice 24: Yeah, so that's correct.

[1:35:44] Voice 24: This would be status quo for six months.

[1:35:46] Voice 24: And then after that depends on the policy.

[1:35:49] Voice 24: You may not actually adopt a new policy, but in six months time, you'll make a decision as to whether you want to continue as you do now or change the way you appoint it.

[1:36:00] Voice 26: Right. And there will be options. Normally, there'll be options there. And it may be that you don't like the options and come up with some other recommendation. But it is a decision of this body that, as Maya Reid has established in the motion, within six months' time.

[1:36:18] Voice 26: So my next speaker, and please pop up your hand if you have anything, Joe Bernardo and Lee Middleton.

[1:36:24] Voice 26: just following

[1:36:26] Voice 27: up on that just that um discussion that just happened

[1:36:30] Voice 27: about the wording of it uh the second part of the motion uh do we need language at the end there

[1:36:39] Voice 27: that contemplates the possibility that trust council decides to stay with the status quo

[1:36:46] Voice 27: in which case the limitation of the appointment doesn't it isn't limited so i'm thinking i'm just

[1:36:54] Voice 27: off the top of my head here which is at which time a new financial planning could be decided

[1:36:58] Voice 27: by the new by the new policy failing which uh then we've got to figure out what else would go

[1:37:07] Voice 27: in there but failing which the existing committee would stay in office or something along those

[1:37:12] Voice 27: lines right then just to cover off the contingencies i'm going to go to david

[1:37:17] Voice 27: malland director of legislative

[1:37:18] Voice 26: services to provide that answer yeah

[1:37:20] Voice 24: thank you one of the

[1:37:21] Voice 24: the options would be do nothing so so the report coming back to council would tell you if you

[1:37:27] Voice 24: decide to do nothing then one of the options is just to continue with the appointments already

[1:37:32] Voice 24: in place so that so i don't think you need to add that here i think that's a given but if you're

[1:37:37] Voice 24: more comfortable with it you can certainly ask something like that i

[1:37:42] Voice 27: actually would be more

[1:37:44] Voice 27: comfortable with it because the the current language declares basically that the motion

[1:37:49] Voice 27: motion is to limit the appointment to six months. So if that doesn't happen, I guess I'd just be a

[1:37:55] Voice 27: bit more comfortable if there's wording that just contemplated that alternative, so that we've got

[1:38:00] Voice 27: both options are explicitly in the motion.

[1:38:06] Voice 26: David, do you see that limitation?

[1:38:11] Voice 24: Well, again, it's really up to council. I'm a staff. When we come back to you, we will provide

[1:38:17] Voice 24: that as an option for you just to continue with the appointments as appointed today.

[1:38:22] Voice 24: Okay, so

[1:38:23] Voice 26: let me make a simple suggestion. Do you have, Joe Bernardo, do you have an amendment to the motion? That's how we would do this.

[1:38:30] Voice 26: Yes, I do.

[1:38:30] Voice 26: Thank you.

[1:38:33] Voice 26: Do I have to provide it now?

[1:38:35] Voice 26: You have to provide a motion.

[1:38:36] Voice 26: All right.

[1:38:38] Voice 26: Let's just play a game for a second.

[1:38:40] Voice 26: Yes, you have to provide a motion in writing to Lori, but we're not going to do that. Let's get your motion, try to be precise, and I will need a seconder.

[1:38:50] Voice 27: All right, thank you.

[1:38:52] Voice 27: What I'm contemplating is an amendment to the second half of that motion, which would simply add the language after it says the new policy, like new policy, comma, failing which the existing financial planning committee will remain

[1:39:11] Voice 26: in office, period.

[1:39:13] Voice 26: Perfect.

[1:39:14] Voice 26: And so Laurie's getting that up on the screen for us.

[1:39:16] Voice 26: I see lots of seconders.

[1:39:18] Voice 26: I think Kate Louise Stanford, I saw your hand first.

[1:39:21] Voice 26: and I'm just going to ask Joe and Kate that the motion that's at the bottom of the screen there

[1:39:27] Voice 26: the amendment to the motion is what you intend all right then so we've moved and seconded so now

[1:39:34] Voice 26: on the motion to amend the original motion is there any discussion not seeing any hands

[1:39:42] Voice 26: I'm going to call the vote on the amendment to the motion all those in favor so please lower

[1:39:51] Voice 26: Lower your hand.

[1:39:52] Voice 26: Any opposed?

[1:39:54] Voice 26: So that is unanimous.

[1:39:56] Voice 26: Thank you very much, Council.

[1:39:57] Voice 26: And now we're going to go back to the amended motion.

[1:40:02] Voice 26: And perhaps, Laura, you might be able to merge that.

[1:40:05] Voice 26: The amended motion.

[1:40:06] Voice 26: Is there any further discussion on the amended motion?

[1:40:09] Voice 26: I have a couple of people on my speaker's list, which was Lee Middleton and Kate Louise

[1:40:13] Voice 26: Stamford.

[1:40:14] Voice 26: Do you wish to still speak?

[1:40:16] Voice 26: You spoke.

[1:40:17] Voice 26: Thank you.

[1:40:18] Voice 26: Lee Middleton.

[1:40:19] Voice 19: Thank you, sir.

[1:40:20] Voice 19: I would just say in general that this is, I support the motion, I believe it's building positively on how we appoint and task committees.

[1:40:35] Voice 19: It's not, I don't view it as a protest against the previous work of the Financial Planning Committee, and I don't think the mover intends that either.

[1:40:43] Voice 19: in the governance review it was noted that having an electoral process to select people who

[1:40:51] Voice 19: self-identify and present their expertise to provide committee work to council is generally

[1:40:56] Voice 19: a good policy and I think this follows along with that and staff may determine in fact there's some

[1:41:02] Voice 19: efficiency requirement that requires more members of the executive and they would put that forward

[1:41:06] Voice 19: in the report, so I think it's a good positive move.

[1:41:11] Voice 26: Thank you, Lee.

[1:41:13] Voice 26: Any further speakers on motion?

[1:41:15] Voice 26: Sue Ellen Fast.

[1:41:16] Voice 10: Thank you, I just wanna check with the mover and seconder

[1:41:19] Voice 10: that the text was put in where you wanted it to be,

[1:41:24] Voice 10: failing which, the existing, thank you.

[1:41:27] Voice 26: Yeah, all

[1:41:28] Voice 27: right, so we're good with the motion.

[1:41:30] Voice 27: Actually, no, to respond to Trustee Fast's point,

[1:41:35] Voice 27: the language failing which should be right at the end of like after the end of the new policy

[1:41:42] Voice 26: right thank you right thank you very much suel and joe for capturing that are we now clear on

[1:41:49] Voice 26: the motion on the screen mover and seconder and council are you clear on the motion and council

[1:41:56] Voice 26: are you ready to vote not seeing anybody raising their hands i'm going to call the vote all those

[1:42:02] Voice 26: in favour? Please lower your hand. Any opposed? Lovely. All in favour? That's unanimous. What a

[1:42:13] Voice 26: great way to start counselling. So thank you, Maya Reid, for bringing that to us. So the next

[1:42:21] Voice 26: notice of motion is from Susan Yates regarding Trust Council in-person and island meetings.

[1:42:30] Voice 26: Over to you, Susan.

[1:42:34] Voice 28: Thank you, Chair Luckham. It's a short motion, but it has a lot of background

[1:42:40] Voice 28: ground in rationale, which I understand I do not present to you until December. Here's the motion

[1:42:48] Voice 28: that Trust Council ensure that the 2023-24 budget allows for four in-person council meetings.

[1:42:59] Voice 28: And the second part of the motion, or motion number two, that at least two of the in-person

[1:43:07] Voice 28: and trust council meetings take place on the islands our mandate pertains to oh

[1:43:18] Voice 26: yeah oh there

[1:43:19] Voice 26: you go so that is a notice of motion and uh susan will work with staff to bring that to you in

[1:43:25] Voice 26: december and if there's any input that you'd like to have i would suggest you bring that to susan

[1:43:30] Voice 26: to incorporate that into that and so if there's no objections or concerns that we'll have that

[1:43:37] Voice 26: that debate in December.

[1:43:38] Voice 26: So I want to thank you very much, Susan,

[1:43:40] Voice 26: for bringing that to us, excellent work.

[1:43:43] Voice 26: And that concludes our new business.

[1:43:45] Voice 26: And so really want to thank you council

[1:43:47] Voice 26: for a very smooth transition through our first opportunity

[1:43:52] Voice 26: to conduct some new business.

[1:43:54] Voice 26: So following on the business and decision items,

[1:43:57] Voice 26: as I mentioned earlier, this is kind of just a taste,

[1:44:00] Voice 26: not a lot of opportunity given the timing,

[1:44:04] Voice 26: although we're doing very well with our timing.

[1:44:09] Voice 26: 11 o'clock we have a scheduled break.

[1:44:11] Voice 26: And the first item is resolution without meeting report.

[1:44:15] Voice 26: Now just, it's on the screen there for you.

[1:44:19] Voice 26: A resolution without meeting is actually a very unique

[1:44:21] Voice 26: only to the Islands Trust tool for us to make decisions

[1:44:27] Voice 26: without physically actually having to have a meeting.

[1:44:30] Voice 26: And that has been afforded to us

[1:44:31] Voice 26: because of our infrequent opportunity to meet.

[1:44:34] Voice 26: And we meet quarterly at council and the same power exists at the LTC.

[1:44:39] Voice 26: So you can make resolutions without meeting because, again, because of the frequency of the meeting of our councils.

[1:44:46] Voice 26: And these are resolutions that do not and cannot have discussion.

[1:44:51] Voice 26: And so it's mainly aimed at administrative work in order to advance the business of council.

[1:44:59] Voice 26: So those are there for your information, and perhaps just entertain a question if there's anybody that has one, and perhaps a staff member on the process, and staff might be better off to answer those questions.

[1:45:11] Voice 26: Deb Morrison.

[1:45:16] Voice 4: So let me know if I'm out of order, because in this particular situation, I'm not sure if I'm going to be.

[1:45:21] Voice 4: But this particular resolution without meaning that we had related to this meeting, the timing of this meeting,

[1:45:28] Voice 4: I would actually like to have some clarity because that caused, because we couldn't debate it, because it was a resolution about meeting, it caused a great deal of conflict for me.

[1:45:40] Voice 4: And I really appreciate Russ and like working and listening to my rant that he had to get because I had to cut short my obligations at the United Nations to be here for this meeting, which is fine.

[1:45:58] Voice 4: But I literally had my entire life worked around the Adams Trust schedule and then it changed. So that was very challenging for me. So I would like to understand how that happened.

[1:46:10] Voice 4: or just some brief amount of clarity these were

[1:46:20] Voice 26: circumstances outside of our control

[1:46:23] Voice 26: because it was not identified when the local government when the community charter gas

[1:46:30] Voice 26: changed with respect to the dates of the meetings we have always and help me out russ if i'm getting

[1:46:38] Voice 26: it wrong and and actually the details are not that important and so let me just say we have

[1:46:43] Voice 26: have always held trust council on the first week of the week following the month following the

[1:46:50] Voice 26: elections as it turned out it isn't the first week it's the 11th day or something ridiculous

[1:46:58] Voice 26: and we had to move forward and just so you know i had to travel also some travel plans

[1:47:05] Voice 26: but i'm going to see my mom and i had to change that and so and there were other people that it

[1:47:11] Voice 26: It's also an inconvenience.

[1:47:12] Voice 26: It was an inconvenience.

[1:47:13] Voice 26: I'm sorry about that.

[1:47:14] Voice 26: It's not my fault, but I can apologize.

[1:47:18] Voice 26: So I think that clarifies it.

[1:47:20] Voice 26: It was an unfortunate incident.

[1:47:23] Voice 26: Only happened this time.

[1:47:25] Voice 26: Won't happen again, I imagine.

[1:47:27] Voice 26: See you.

[1:47:29] Voice 25: Yeah, no, thanks for the opportunity.

[1:47:31] Voice 25: Just really, I feel I can apologize.

[1:47:36] Voice 25: The confluence of about three or four factors,

[1:47:38] Voice 25: the lunar schedule actually factored into that.

[1:47:41] Voice 25: when does a monday fall on any of the last six years this wouldn't have happened

[1:47:46] Voice 25: but um our council policy conflicted with um um the local government requirements is it the charter

[1:47:55] Voice 9: local

[1:47:55] Voice 25: government requirements and we're just trying to get as much space into the

[1:48:01] Voice 25: um process as possible the change from three years to four years the um the changes around

[1:48:09] Voice 25: when the election date is all of those factored into us doing well in fact we're there was true

[1:48:15] Voice 25: terror in the organization to make to ensure that we get space for this meeting so um we're glad

[1:48:22] Voice 25: we're we've gone to the space i really can't offer much more than yeah i think true terror

[1:48:31] Voice 26: underestimates the panic

[1:48:32] Voice 14: because

[1:48:34] Voice 26: the the ideal date that would have caused less conflict for

[1:48:38] Voice 26: all of us, there was no facility available for us to have a meeting. And so this is the only time

[1:48:45] Voice 26: and space. And indeed, we're spanning into a weekend, which I don't think we've ever done

[1:48:50] Voice 26: before. So thank you. And certainly, Russ, thank you for the apology. I appreciate that. And thank

[1:48:57] Voice 26: you to your staff for living through that moment of terror. Okay. Yeah.

[1:49:03] Voice 4: And just a thank you for

[1:49:04] Voice 4: dealing with it because I know Russ took the brunt of my frustration in that moment so thank you very

[1:49:09] Voice 4: much for that.

[1:49:10] Voice 26: And Deb thanks for being here and thanks for your work. Sue Ellen Fast otherwise

[1:49:16] Voice 26: we'll move on.

[1:49:18] Voice 10: I just want to add that Bowen Island Municipality plays a little role in making

[1:49:22] Voice 10: it a very tight window because my fellow Judy Getty had to be sworn in as did I before this

[1:49:30] Voice 10: Trust Council could be convened to swear us in as trustees. So it makes it a very, very narrow

[1:49:38] Voice 10: window. I don't think they've had to deal with that before.

[1:49:43] Voice 26: All right. Thank you. So I'm going

[1:49:45] Voice 26: to move on the agenda, if that's all right. Okay. So item 8.3 is September Trust Council minutes.

[1:49:51] Voice 26: It says pending late item on my list that's in front of me here. But those have been adopted

[1:49:58] Voice 26: adopted by RWN? No, you'll adopt them in December. We will adopt them in December. Thank you very

[1:50:05] Voice 26: much. So this is just kind of a sample of the normal practice in business and decision items.

[1:50:11] Voice 26: So again, the extensive work here at 8.4 and the follow-up action list is council's follow-up

[1:50:17] Voice 26: action list. You're going to see follow-up action lists at your LTC, which are local work. When you

[1:50:23] Voice 26: make a motion, staff goes off and they put it on the follow-up action list and they ensure that

[1:50:27] Voice 26: that gets done. This is the mechanism, and I enjoyed actually, Russ, when you said the other

[1:50:32] Voice 26: day that this is the organizational tool that ensures that things happen. So it's here for

[1:50:37] Voice 26: information, and often, normally, we might inquire about particular items on there. All of this work

[1:50:45] Voice 26: is from a previous council, and certainly you might have a lot of interest in it, and I would

[1:50:50] Voice 26: encourage you to speak to the area, the staff member in the area of responsibility if you want

[1:50:55] want

[1:50:55] Voice 26: to have any details or updates on why that's there,

[1:50:59] Voice 26: why it's taking so long, and when we'll come off the list.

[1:51:03] Voice 26: Those are the typical questions.

[1:51:05] Voice 26: So broadly, are there any questions

[1:51:07] Voice 26: conceptually about the follow-up action list

[1:51:09] Voice 26: that this one is yours?

[1:51:13] Voice 26: OK, super.

[1:51:15] Voice 26: Thank you.

[1:51:16] Voice 26: So now what kind of leads from the follow-up action list

[1:51:21] Voice 26: is 8.5, the priorities chart.

[1:51:23] Voice 26: This is a summary list of the top priorities list of,

[1:51:27] Voice 26: each of the committee bodies and the trust, thank you, and each of the local trust areas.

[1:51:36] Voice 26: And this is an information item for council to know what's going on. There may or may not be

[1:51:42] Voice 26: questions. Sometimes there are corrections that are necessary, particularly on the LTC things.

[1:51:47] Voice 26: And like I could say that Thetis Island added something else to the top priority system. This

[1:51:53] Voice 26: because this sometimes lags local trust committee meetings.

[1:51:57] Voice 26: So it's as best as it can be that sometimes requires correction

[1:52:01] Voice 26: and is an information piece for council.

[1:52:04] Voice 26: So are we okay with that?

[1:52:05] Voice 26: We just received that for information.

[1:52:09] Voice 26: Excellent.

[1:52:09] Voice 26: Thank you.

[1:52:11] Voice 26: So the next important section here is correspondence.

[1:52:15] Voice 26: This is where correspondence that is directed to council,

[1:52:19] Voice 26: not to local trust committees.

[1:52:21] Voice 26: Often there's spillover where people feel that council needs to know

[1:52:24] Voice 26: something about what's going on in a local trust committee and it ends up here the only item that

[1:52:29] Voice 26: we have on this list today is a a letter from minister cullen and um i want to thank minister

[1:52:35] Voice 26: cullen in case he's watching today to see the inaugural meeting of trust council um for this

[1:52:40] Voice 26: letter and um this is in response to a request of council and i see your hand up there laura

[1:52:47] Voice 26: this is in response to a request from council to review the islands trust act ostensibly

[1:52:53] Voice 26: and this was his response and that's it's good that we've got a response and that he's applied

[1:52:59] Voice 26: some thought to it I want to let you know as a piece of information that may not be have been

[1:53:05] Voice 26: readily available to you is a lovely thing that happened at our last executive committee is we

[1:53:11] Voice 26: received a request from the minister to meet with the new EC as soon as possible this is a real joy

[1:53:18] Voice 26: And I would say is a moment in our working with the province over the years that we have asked for more regular communication with the minister and the minister has responded.

[1:53:31] Voice 26: And so, indeed, your budget concerns and requests are funding of First Nations reconciliation and my head of other things that are presently on the agenda will be discussed.

[1:53:46] Voice 26: And if I'm fortunate enough to be your chair, I look forward to having those conversations.

[1:53:52] Voice 26: So any response or this is a decision item, we receive it for information, we take some action.

[1:53:58] Voice 26: And Laura Patrick has my full attention and the floor is yours.

[1:54:04] Trustee Patrick: I guess I'd say it's probably a notice of motion, but I think it'd be a good idea to bring the request for decision from June back to the December Trust Council to vote on again.

[1:54:13] Trustee Patrick: again, because I think that request for decision

[1:54:16] Trustee Patrick: addressed a lot of these comments in this letter.

[1:54:19] Trustee Patrick: So I guess it's a notice of motion.

[1:54:20] Trustee Patrick: I'm happy to bring that back.

[1:54:25] Voice 26: David Mahler, correct me if I'm wrong.

[1:54:28] Voice 26: I think this would be an ideal time for a motion

[1:54:30] Voice 26: because this is a decision item,

[1:54:33] Voice 26: what we do with piece of correspondence.

[1:54:35] Voice 26: And so you certainly could say,

[1:54:37] Voice 26: I would ask staff to bring the motion,

[1:54:42] Voice 26: bring it to us back in December

[1:54:44] Voice 26: and then the council can have that discussion.

[1:54:46] Voice 26: that's a for sure thing david david's in agreement oh

[1:54:49] Trustee Patrick: so a motion on the fly

[1:54:51] Trustee Patrick: yeah

[1:54:51] Voice 26: we try not to do that folks okay i

[1:54:56] Trustee Patrick: uh i'll move that trust council request staff to bring

[1:55:00] Trustee Patrick: the request for decision for i can't remember the title of it for review by the provincial

[1:55:07] Trustee Patrick: government i think it would be nice to have the right title um to the december trust council

[1:55:14] Trustee Patrick: meeting for consideration okay

[1:55:19] Voice 26: these are learning opportunities yeah we don't like motions on the

[1:55:25] Voice 26: fly great idea if you're thinking about bringing a motion and this isn't a lesson for Laura because

[1:55:29] Voice 26: Laura knows and this is great this is a perfect opportunity right learning opportunity if you're

[1:55:33] Voice 26: contemplating bringing a motion based upon some correspondence that you see in the agenda prior

[1:55:37] Voice 26: to the meeting talk to staff about creating a motion and then that way we can get that to happen

[1:55:42] Voice 26: and I like personally to see the motion on the screen before somebody seconds it

[1:55:47] Voice 26: because maybe you misunderstood what you said and now you've just endorsed something that you don't

[1:55:52] Voice 26: agree with and so let's just pause for a moment to give Laurie that opportunity to capture that

[1:55:57] Voice 26: motion which is why it's great to have this conversation in advance so I'm going to ask

[1:56:02] Voice 26: Laura Patrick is that the motion you intend keeping in mind staff have heard the discussion

[1:56:08] Voice 26: and they will act accordingly

[1:56:15] Trustee Patrick: let's

[1:56:17] Voice 14: reword it

[1:56:18] Trustee Patrick: wrong so trust council requests staff to it's

[1:56:21] Trustee Patrick: either put the rfd return or

[1:56:25] Trustee Patrick: return the rfd and the title of it needs to be there and i'm sorry

[1:56:30] Trustee Patrick: i don't have that title and that the title is the review by the provincial government so i don't

[1:56:36] Trustee Patrick: think you need to have that there for consideration at the december trust council meeting so i think

[1:56:42] Trustee Patrick: that's what it just needs the title needs to be there can

[1:56:45] Voice 26: somebody grab that title it would be

[1:56:48] Voice 26: more uh oh car you're helping us out thank you

[1:56:56] Voice 12: uh

[1:56:57] Voice 25: we get it mr chair so uh okay just tell us to do it and we'll just bring the

[1:57:02] Voice 26: regard exactly no

[1:57:04] Voice 25: big deal

[1:57:04] Voice 26: okay okay so then um that's satisfactory based on the discussion council gets it david

[1:57:13] Voice 14: David. All

[1:57:19] Voice 14: right, let's just get it in there then. Wasn't that hard?

[1:57:32] Voice 26: Okay, so that's moved. And I think Susan Yates wants to second that motion.

[1:57:38] Voice 26: So that's moved and seconded. Does the mover wish to speak to it?

[1:57:44] Trustee Patrick: No, I would say any new trustee, I encourage you to go back and read that if they aren't aware of

[1:57:49] Trustee Patrick: that RFD from June. And it would just be for reconsideration again. I think it would be a

[1:57:55] Trustee Patrick: good response to minister cullen and hopefully a unanimous one hint hint

[1:57:59] Voice 26: i love it thank you

[1:58:03] Voice 26: um trustees any discussion on the motion all right thank you laura patrick for bringing it

[1:58:09] Voice 26: oh lee middleton i'm

[1:58:13] Voice 19: a tiny bit less enthusiastic um i'll give you some reasons um i think the

[1:58:19] Voice 19: minister has also said i saw that you had a governance and management review i saw in there

[1:58:25] Voice 19: that there were many things recommended that i believe is in your power to do be interested in

[1:58:30] Voice 19: seeing you do those things and then when you see the results of what you did so come back to me and

[1:58:35] Voice 19: so it just seems a tad i mean i know i i mean correct me if i'm wrong let me not make an

[1:58:41] Voice 19: assumption the idea being here is to show that the new council is in fact fully behind the request

[1:58:47] Voice 19: for a review by the province of the honest trust that's the intent i'm assuming i would just

[1:58:52] Voice 26: suggest let's debate that when the motion comes back to us in december oh this is just to make

[1:58:57] Voice 26: it

[1:58:58] Voice 19: oh the motion isn't even on the table well

[1:59:01] Voice 26: this motion is

[1:59:01] Voice 19: on the judge profusely again my goodness

[1:59:05] Voice 26: this motion to bring that rfd back to us is on the table what the council in december decides

[1:59:11] Voice 26: to do right is terribly embarrassed i apologize is that another ten dollar fee

[1:59:18] Voice 26: and so let me maintain a speaker's list here so thank you lee i now see the mover of the

[1:59:24] Voice 26: motion lord patrick and you know another learning moment this motion now belongs to council right

[1:59:28] Voice 26: we can't withdraw it we don't own it anymore you own it lord patrick like

[1:59:33] Trustee Patrick: it was more responding

[1:59:34] Trustee Patrick: to trustee middleton uh the rfd did acknowledge that that the report was done and that that work

[1:59:40] Trustee Patrick: needed to continue to do the internal work in order so reread the rfd perfect any other

[1:59:47] Voice 26: the discussion on the motion that's on the screen before you. All those, are we ready to call the

[1:59:53] Voice 26: vote? I'm trying to make sure I do that. All those in favor? Hands down, any opposed?

[2:00:00] Voice 26: and there are none opposed council what a beautiful way to start our sessions together

[2:00:05] Voice 26: and how beautiful is it like it is now 11 o'clock it's officially time for a break

[2:00:12] Voice 26: so let's have a break 15 minutes and we're going to come back and we're going to have some

[2:00:17] Voice 26: elections okay

[2:13:25] Voice 24: we're going to be starting the elections in about two minutes two minutes till

[2:13:29] Voice 24: So we start the elections. Thank you.

[2:15:25] Voice 14: Dutch

[2:15:25] Voice 26: Council, let's return to our seats

[2:15:29] Voice 26: so David Mollert can lead us through this next session.

[2:15:48] Voice 26: So folks out there enjoying the refreshments out there,

[2:15:53] Voice 26: let's get those people in here.

[2:16:04] Voice 14: Your

[2:16:05] Voice 26: flight is now boarding.

[2:16:06] Voice 26: Please have your tickets and passports ready.

[2:16:13] Voice 26: David Mahler

[2:16:14] Voice 15: I'm

[2:16:16] Voice 26: gonna switch it over to you yeah

[2:16:17] Voice 24: thank you okay thank you everybody

[2:16:21] Voice 24: okay so as we talked about earlier I'm going to be taking you through the elections for the chair

[2:16:27] Voice 24: vice chair and islands trust conservancy so we are following the rules of the election

[2:16:32] Voice 24: that's established in section 20 of the islands trust act and section six and seven of the islands

[2:16:38] Voice 24: Islands Trust Regulation and the Act does require that the Chair be elected before the

[2:16:44] Voice 24: nominations are accepted for the positions of Vice Chairs. So we'll be running three

[2:16:48] Voice 24: elections, Chair, Vice Chair and Islands Trust Conservancy. So under the legislation it is

[2:16:55] Voice 24: a secret ballot and the actual votes for each person will not be revealed, only the successful

[2:17:03] Voice 24: successful candidate will be named. The chair, so for the chair I'll ask for nominations. You can

[2:17:09] Voice 24: nominate any trustee except yourself and for each nomination I'll need a seconder and then I'll ask

[2:17:18] Voice 24: the nominee if he or she wishes to stand for the election and then we'll record that nomination on

[2:17:24] Voice 24: the screen so Laurie will put it up here for you and I'll ask three times for any more nominations

[2:17:30] Voice 24: before closing the nominations.

[2:17:33] Voice 24: So once that's happened, once the nominations are complete,

[2:17:37] Voice 24: I'll ask Trust Council by resolution

[2:17:39] Voice 24: to elect one of their own to be a scrutineer.

[2:17:42] Voice 24: And this could be any member of council

[2:17:45] Voice 24: except for one of the candidates.

[2:17:47] Voice 24: The scrutineer's job is to watch the vote counting

[2:17:51] Voice 24: on behalf of Trust Council.

[2:17:53] Voice 24: Following that, I'll print the ballots over at the back

[2:17:57] Voice 24: and distribute them to you.

[2:17:59] Voice 24: you this is what the ballots are going to look like they're going to be blue and just ask that

[2:18:04] Voice 24: once you've filled it out just fold it in half or fold it in a way so we can't see what you've

[2:18:10] Voice 24: written and we'll put have you put it into this box okay if you accidentally spoil the ballot

[2:18:21] Voice 24: let me know and i can give you a replacement and spoiled ballots won't be counted so for the chair

[2:18:27] Voice 24: if it's not clear who you're voting for we won't be able to count that if you voted for two we

[2:18:32] Voice 24: won't be able to count that for the vice chairs because there's three you don't have to vote for

[2:18:37] Voice 24: all three you can vote for one two or three but don't vote for any more than that okay

[2:18:42] Voice 24: um once you have the ballot you can move to a different location if you want some privacy to

[2:18:48] Voice 24: market that's totally fine and then following that once we've collected all the ballots

[2:18:53] Voice 24: Laurie, myself and the scrutineer will go to another room, we'll count them and

[2:18:58] Voice 24: then we'll come back and announce the results. Under the legislation if there

[2:19:02] Voice 24: is a tie then there'll be a run-up ballot, we'll print just the names of the

[2:19:07] Voice 24: two people that are tied and then there'll be another vote. If after that

[2:19:12] Voice 24: it's still tied then again under the legislation it's by drawing a lot so

[2:19:18] Voice 24: we'll just put names in a hat, pick it out and that'll be the chair. Okay so is there

[2:19:24] Voice 24: any questions in that process we'll be doing that three times chair vice chairs islands trust

[2:19:29] Voice 24: conservancy okay so with that then i'm going to open the floor for nominations for islands trust

[2:19:35] Voice 24: chair and there's one to be elected so are there any nominations for islands trust chair

[2:19:47] Voice 24: go ahead janine dads i

[2:19:51] Voice 7: i nominate peter luckham and

[2:19:55] Voice 14: then you need a seconder i saw grant scott

[2:20:03] Voice 24: and go up to second all right and uh trustee luckin do you accept the nomination thank you

[2:20:12] Voice 24: very much okay do i have any more nominations for the position of chair and i see uh trustee

[2:20:19] Voice 24: middles i

[2:20:20] Voice 14: nominate

[2:20:21] Voice 24: that morrison for chair and i need a second there for deb morrison please

[2:20:28] Voice 24: the trustee peterson and trustee morrison do you accept the nomination yes

[2:20:39] Voice 4: thank you very much

[2:20:41] Voice 24: Okay, do I have any more nominations for position of Chair?

[2:20:51] Voice 6: I'm reluctant to pronounce your second name. Falke? Falke, okay.

[2:20:59] Voice 24: Okay, thank you. So that's Trustee Falke. And do I have a seconder for nomination of Trustee Falke?

[2:21:09] Voice 14: I second the nomination.

[2:21:14] Voice 24: Okay, there we go. Actually, I saw Trustee Elliott second it. Is that correct?

[2:21:19] Voice 24: Correct. Yeah. OK, thank you. And trustee, if I accept the nomination for chair for running for chair.

[2:21:27] Voice 24: Yes. OK, are there any more nominations for the position of chair?

[2:21:34] Voice 24: OK, let's ask a second time for any more nominations for the position of chair and asking a third and final time for any more nominations for the position of chair.

[2:21:44] Voice 24: OK, I'm going to print the ballots and distribute them. So please remain in your seats. Thank you.

[2:21:48] Voice 24: just be about a minute

[2:21:49] Voice 14: to just

[2:24:59] Voice 24: have council's attention my apologies i did forget about the

[2:25:03] Voice 24: scrutiny so could i get could i have council by resolution appoint a scrutiny here who is not one

[2:25:10] Voice 24: of the three candidates um

[2:25:15] Voice 14: i

[2:25:17] Voice 17: was going to nominate uh

[2:25:19] Voice 24: trustee graham okay i need a second

[2:25:24] Voice 24: day for trustee graham and trustee barthwick okay so can i just get a show of hands to appoint

[2:25:31] Voice 24: point trustee graham as scrutiny okay any opposed okay trustee

[2:25:37] Voice 14: graham you're the scrutiny

[2:30:10] Voice 24: Okay. Do I have everybody's ballots? Nobody's got one. Okay. We will be back in a few minutes

[2:30:15] Voice 24: with the results. Okay. Trust Council. Thank you. Just like to announce that the new chair of Trust

[2:36:44] Voice 24: Council for 2022-2026 term is Peter Luckin. Just give Laurie a chance to get back and then we'll

[2:37:13] Voice 24: do the same thing for the vice chairs. Okay.

[2:37:19] Voice 7: I think we should be thanking the other two

[2:37:22] Voice 7: candidates i think putting your name forward and speaking i think is

[2:37:26] Voice 14: fabulous okay thank you so

[2:37:38] Voice 24: again we'll do the same thing for the vice chairs so once lori gets the table up on the screen i'll

[2:37:46] Voice 24: ask for nominations for the vice chair okay

[2:38:03] Voice 14: all right could i have nominations for vice chair i

[2:38:07] Voice 14: see uh trustee middleton and i need a seconder for ben mabley

[2:38:15] Voice 24: uh trustee mark thank you and

[2:38:19] Voice 24: And could I have confirmation from Trustee Mabley that he wishes to stand?

[2:38:25] Voice 24: Yes, I accept. Thank you.

[2:38:32] Voice 14: I'd like to nominate Dave Maud.

[2:38:36] Voice 24: Thank you. I need a seconder for David Maud.

[2:38:40] Voice 24: Sorry. I see. Is that Aaron Campbell? Thank you.

[2:38:47] Voice 24: And Trustee Maud, do you wish to stand? Thank you.

[2:38:51] Voice 24: Who's that over there? I can see a hand, but I can't see a face.

[2:38:57] Trustee Patrick: I nominate

[2:38:58] Voice 24: Toby Elliott.

[2:39:03] Voice 24: Okay, I need a seconder. I see Trustee Allen. Thank you. And Trustee Elliott, do you wish to stand?

[2:39:09] I

[2:39:12] Voice 24: heard yes. Thank you. And Trustee Allen?

[2:39:15] Voice 24: I nominate Timothy Peterson.

[2:39:18] Voice 24: I need a seconder for Trustee Peterson. I see Trustee Yates. Thank you. And Trustee Peterson, do you wish to stand?

[2:39:29] Voice 14: And yes, go ahead.

[2:39:40] Voice 24: Somebody's got the microphone on. There we go.

[2:39:42] Voice 24: Do I have a seconder for Trustee Fast?

[2:39:45] Voice 24: And again, I see Trustee Yates.

[2:39:47] Voice 24: And Trustee Fast, do you wish to stand?

[2:39:50] Voice 24: Thank you.

[2:39:51] Voice 24: Do I have any more nominations?

[2:39:53] Voice 24: I see Trustee Grant.

[2:39:55] Voice 24: I'd like to nominate Sam Bothwick.

[2:39:59] Voice 24: And do I have a seconder for Trustee Bothwick?

[2:40:01] Voice 24: I see Trustee Allen.

[2:40:03] Voice 24: And Trustee Bothwick, do you wish to stand?

[2:40:05] Voice 24: Thank you.

[2:40:06] Voice 24: Do I have any more nominations?

[2:40:07] Voice 24: I see Trustee Evans.

[2:40:09] Voice 6: Aye.

[2:40:10] Voice 6: May I speak?

[2:40:11] Voice 6: I've lost track of where we are.

[2:40:15] Voice 5: yeah i'd like to nominate uh doug falk

[2:40:19] Voice 24: and uh do i have a second there for trustee falk

[2:40:23] Voice 24: and i see uh trustee uh trustee hunter as a second there thank you and trustee falk do you wish to

[2:40:30] Voice 24: stand yes thank

[2:40:31] Voice 24: you do i have any more nominations for the position

[2:40:35] Voice 14: of vice chairs not rushing you

[2:40:46] Voice 24: i am going to ask a second time is there any more nominations for the position of vice chairs

[2:40:50] Voice 24: And I'm going to ask a final time, any position, any nominations for the position of vice-chairs.

[2:41:04] Voice 24: Okay, with that, I'm going to close the nominations. I will update the ballots and create them, take a few minutes, then we'll distribute them.

[2:41:14] Voice 24: And this time they'll be on a different colored piece of paper. Okay, thank you.

[2:48:13] Voice 14: Do I have everybody's ballots?

[2:48:31] Voice 14: All

[2:48:31] Voice 24: right, do we

[2:48:34] Voice 14: have all the ballots? Okay, thank you.

[2:48:51] Voice 24: So I always forget about the

[2:48:52] Voice 24: scrutineer, so I do need another vote for a scrutineer, so could I get a mover for a

[2:48:59] Voice 24: scrutineer please? Okay, Trustee Allen? Okay, Susan Yates has been moved, do you have a second there?

[2:49:09] Voice 24: Trustee Mavely. Can I get a vote of council please? Are there any opposed?

[2:49:16] Voice 24: Okay Trustee Yates, do you want to join us? Thank you. I'll try and remember to do that next time.

[3:00:34] Voice 14: Okay, Trust Council, I have the results of the vote.

[3:00:38] Voice 14: All right, so

[3:00:46] Voice 24: the results of the vote for the vice-chairs.

[3:00:51] Voice 24: These are in no particular order, so I'd like to welcome Vice-Chair Peterson, Vice-Chair Elliott, and Vice-Chair Maude.

[3:01:15] Voice 14: Just getting my computer to wake up here.

[3:01:19] Voice 14: Okay, we're back.

[3:01:26] Voice 12: Yeah, so again,

[3:01:28] Voice 14: congratulations to all.

[3:01:30] Four

[3:01:37] Voice 14: years will pass quickly.

[3:01:38] Voice 14: Put your names in soon.

[3:01:44] Voice 24: Sorry, my computer went to sleep and I just got to refine things.

[3:01:48] Voice 24: So my apologies.

[3:01:51] Voice 24: Desktop.

[3:01:51] Voice 24: Oh,

[3:01:56] Voice 14: I see what's going on.

[3:01:58] Voice 14: Okay.

[3:02:01] Voice 24: Okay, so we're going to now do the same for the Islands Trust Conservancy.

[3:02:06] Voice 24: Laurie, there's actually another form if you scroll down.

[3:02:09] Voice 24: Go down one more.

[3:02:13] Voice 24: There we go.

[3:02:14] Voice 24: Okay.

[3:02:15] Voice 24: Okay, so again, could I get nominations for the Islands Trust Conservancy?

[3:02:21] Voice 24: So I see Trustee Yates.

[3:02:27] Voice 24: If you'll just yell it out, I'll repeat it.

[3:02:30] Voice 24: I

[3:02:31] Voice 14: nominate Sue Allen-Fast.

[3:02:33] Voice 24: Okay, Sue Allen-Fast, I need a seconder.

[3:02:35] Voice 24: I see Trustee Stamford and Trustee Fast.

[3:02:39] Voice 24: Do you take that nomination?

[3:02:41] Voice 24: Thank you.

[3:02:43] Voice 24: I see Trustee Allen.

[3:02:45] Voice 24: Go ahead, just yell it out.

[3:02:47] Voice 14: Grant Scott.

[3:02:47] Voice 14: Okay,

[3:02:48] Voice 24: I hear Grant Scott, seconded by Trustee Elliot.

[3:02:52] Voice 24: Oh, sorry, Patrick.

[3:02:56] Voice 24: You're so close together there.

[3:02:59] Voice 24: Sorry, who was that?

[3:03:00] Voice 24: That was Trustee Scott.

[3:03:02] Voice 24: So, Trustee Scott, do you take that nomination?

[3:03:04] Voice 24: Thank you.

[3:03:05] Voice 24: Trustee Stanford?

[3:03:10] Voice 24: Okay, and I need a second of Trustee Yates.

[3:03:12] Voice 24: And I see Trustee Borthwick.

[3:03:14] Voice 24: Thank you.

[3:03:15] Voice 24: And Trustee Yates, do you take that nomination?

[3:03:17] Voice 24: Thank you.

[3:03:18] Voice 24: Are there any more nominations for the Allen's Trust Conservancy?

[3:03:24] Voice 24: Asking a second time for any more nominations for Allen's Trust Conservancy.

[3:03:28] Voice 24: Asking a third time for any more nominations for Allen's Trust Conservancy.

[3:03:33] Voice 24: Okay, so with that, we'll close the nominations for the Allen's Trust Conservancy.

[3:03:36] Voice 24: I'll create the ballots and then distribute it.

[3:03:39] Voice 24: Before I forget, could I get a scrutineer?

[3:03:42] Voice 24: So I'll need a mover to appoint a scrutineer that's not one of those three candidates.

[3:03:48] Voice 24: Okay, Trustee Fass?

[3:03:50] Voice 10: I nominate Kate-Louise Stamford to stand for Scrutineer.

[3:03:55] Voice 24: Okay, Trustee Stamford, the seconder, that's Trustee Bernardo and Trustee Stamford.

[3:04:00] Voice 24: Actually, I'm going to have to stand for it.

[3:04:02] Voice 24: Could I just get a vote on that, please?

[3:04:07] Voice 24: Okay, anybody against?

[3:04:08] Voice 24: Okay, Trustee Stamford, once we start counting, I'll come and get you.

[3:04:12] Voice 24: Thank you.

[3:17:22] Voice 14: Okay, good afternoon, Trust Council.

[3:17:28] Voice 24: Thank you.

[3:17:29] Voice 24: Thank you. So the Trust Council appointees to the Allens Trust Conservancy Board for 2022-2026 is Susan Yates and Grant Scott.

[3:17:45] Voice 14: So that concludes the elections and I'll turn the meeting over to the...

[3:17:50] Voice 14: Sorry, thank you. So that

[3:17:59] Voice 24: concludes the elections and I'll turn it over to the Chair and the Executive Committee.

[3:18:07] Voice 26: Yeah, the tradition has been as the Executive Committee joins the head table, that is not

[3:18:13] Voice 26: necessarily a written in stone thing, but that's how it's been done.

[3:18:17] Voice 26: So I would be honored if the new Executive Committee members would join me for this session

[3:18:22] Voice 26: to be here.

[3:18:23] Voice 26: But before we let that happen, while that happens, let's really thank David Marler for

[3:18:30] Voice 26: for having conducted his first elections of the, exactly.

[3:18:38] Voice 14: And as many of you may know,

[3:18:40] Voice 26: David was the director of local planning services

[3:18:44] Voice 26: and this move of bringing that skillset and that knowledge

[3:18:48] Voice 26: into legislative services is really paying dividends.

[3:18:52] Voice 26: And that was demonstrated here today

[3:18:54] Voice 26: and how smoothly the elections went.

[3:18:56] Voice 26: So thank you very much, David, for your work

[3:18:58] Voice 26: and continued work and support for the Allen's Trust.

[3:19:00] Voice 26: And of course, I want to thank all the staff

[3:19:02] Voice 26: for everything they've done particularly laurie foster for orchestrating

[3:19:08] Voice 14: all of this i'd just like

[3:19:19] Voice 7: to thank uh i uh information services this couldn't have all happened unless um they put

[3:19:24] Voice 7: this all together too so thank you information thank

[3:19:26] Voice 14: you laurie it's all about teams of the

[3:19:33] Voice 26: honest trust we're a team committees are a team staff is a team and um and that's amazing and

[3:19:41] Voice 26: And let's support them.

[3:19:42] Voice 26: Let's support each other.

[3:19:43] Voice 26: But Chair Luckham, shut up.

[3:19:47] Voice 26: Let's go for lunch.

[3:19:50] Voice 26: Okay, let's recess for lunch.

[3:19:53] Voice 26: Have some more conversations.

[3:19:55] Voice 26: We'll be coming back here for public comment at one o'clock.

[3:19:58] Voice 26: I do want to start that promptly because people will be joining us to find out what's happening.

[3:20:03] Voice 26: So let's eat lunch, get some fresh air, sunshine, and be back here at one o'clock sharp.

[4:02:47] Voice 14: Esquimalt Nations.

[4:02:48] Voice 26: It's a real honor and privilege every day to wake up in this very special place

[4:02:53] Voice 26: where the Coast Salish people have been since time immemorial. This particular location is a very

[4:02:59] Voice 26: community site for time immemorial. One of the largest clam harvesting sites on the entire coast

[4:03:09] Voice 26: is right here. There was originally two waterway accesses into this harbor and the communities

[4:03:16] Voice 26: would come and go according to the weather conditions outside the harbor and it's important

[4:03:21] Voice 26: to remember the history of this place all these places so thank you so let me start on my left

[4:03:26] Voice 26: hand side and we'll go counterclockwise around the table

[4:03:29] Voice 22: my name is trustee judy getty i'm from

[4:03:33] Voice 22: bowen island my co-trustee has got the pronunciation down better but um we're in

[4:03:38] Voice 22: the unseated territory of the slay with tooth people thank you

[4:03:47] Voice 14: my name is lisa gober i'm from

[4:03:49] Voice 14: Galliano Island, the traditional territory of the Coast Salish people.

[4:03:52] Voice 14: I'm Jamie Harris from Salt Spring Island.

[4:04:03] Voice 17: Aaron Campbell from North Bender Island.

[4:04:07] Voice 17: I'm Ben Mabry, Galliano Island, home of the Penelakut, Nihilaylum, Saratanowin Nations.

[4:04:15] Voice 18: Lee Middleton, Saturna Island, traditional territory of the Sintratan speaking peoples.

[4:04:21] Voice 14: Maureen Bowen, Saturna Island. Laura Patrick, traditional territories of the Coast Salish

[4:04:28] Voice 14: peoples. Salisbury.

[4:04:33] Voice 14: Mikaela Laroni, Liskiti Island. Tim Peterson, Liskiti Island, Ahuete.

[4:04:42] Voice 14: David Martin, Maine Island. Peter Lockham, elected on

[4:04:48] Voice 14: Fetus Island,

[4:04:48] Voice 17: Penelakut and Langston Territory.

[4:04:53] Voice 14: Toby Elliott, Gabriola Islands,

[4:04:56] Voice 5: Dinamik First Nation Territory.

[4:04:59] Voice 14: Christina Evans,

[4:05:01] Voice 5: South Pendern, I'm still learning the

[4:05:03] Voice 5: correct pronunciation, I apologize.

[4:05:08] Voice 28: Susan Yates,

[4:05:09] Voice 28: Gabriela Local Trust Area, Traditional and Unceded Territory of the Snuneymagh.

[4:05:19] Voice 14: Siwell and Fast, Nuhlelequem or Qalakam,

[4:05:23] Voice 10: also known as Bowen Island in Housan and Al-Qitsim,

[4:05:26] Voice 10: Squamish Nation.

[4:05:31] Voice 9: A. Louise Stamford, Gambier-Keats Local Trust Area, coming from the

[4:05:35] Voice 9: island of Ch'Altnovich

[4:05:37] Voice 14: in Al-Qitsim. Joe

[4:05:43] Voice 14: Bernardo, also from the Gambier-Keats

[4:05:45] Voice 18: Local Trust Area.

[4:05:47] Voice 4: Deb Morrison, Stans,

[4:05:49] Voice 4: with Saanich Territory.

[4:05:52] Voice 14: Dag Falk from South Pender.

[4:05:59] Voice 14: David Graham

[4:06:01] Voice 25: from Devon Local Trust Committee,

[4:06:04] Voice 25: traditional

[4:06:04] Voice 18: territory of the Comox.

[4:06:07] Voice 18: Sam Borthwick,

[4:06:08] Voice 18: also from Devon Islands,

[4:06:10] Voice 18: home to the Comox and Penlatch peoples.

[4:06:15] Voice 26: Thank you very much, Council.

[4:06:17] Voice 26: I want to acknowledge Alex Allen,

[4:06:19] Voice 26: and it looks like Ken Hunter

[4:06:20] Voice 26: has not been able to stay with us

[4:06:22] Voice 26: for the afternoon.

[4:06:24] Voice 26: Alex Allen, of course,

[4:06:26] Voice 26: elected on Hornby Island and Ken Hunter elected on Thetis Island. So welcome and thank you.

[4:06:33] Voice 26: So this is a public comment period used to be called public town hall and I'm just going to

[4:06:39] Voice 26: look to the back of the room if you don't mind and we've got one two three speakers that wish

[4:06:44] Voice 26: to address council one two no no two speakers and so I'll just take you in from left to right

[4:06:50] Voice 26: if that's all right and then we'll go to the speakers that are on the that are joining us

[4:06:54] Voice 26: online. So I'll ask you to walk up to the front of the room and please tell us your name and

[4:07:00] Voice 26: you have five minutes. And just as is our tradition, we always ask all speakers at Council

[4:07:07] Voice 26: to be respectful of each other and the people that are viewing us and speak to the issues,

[4:07:15] Voice 26: not individuals, and also speak to the work of Trust Council. If you wish to address a local

[4:07:22] Voice 26: trust committee issue that is better held at a local trust committee level so um sir over to you

[4:07:31] Voice 20: thank you chair welcome uh my name is ian peace i'm here from salt spring island and i'm also

[4:07:36] Voice 20: here on behalf of the gulf islands alliance we call ourselves gaia and i'd like to congratulate

[4:07:42] Voice 20: all of you on your election to this term and your commitment to upholding the special nature

[4:07:52] Voice 20: of the legislated object of the Islands Trust.

[4:07:56] Voice 20: A little bit about GAIA.

[4:07:58] Voice 20: GAIA is dedicated to the protection of the islands

[4:08:00] Voice 20: in the Salish Sea and Howe Sound

[4:08:02] Voice 20: that are in the Islands Trust area.

[4:08:04] Voice 20: We support the natural and historical culture

[4:08:07] Voice 20: of these islands, including the inherent rights

[4:08:11] Voice 20: of the many First Nations who have lived here

[4:08:14] Voice 20: since time immemorial.

[4:08:16] Voice 20: GAIA believes that their rare ecology of the Trust area

[4:08:20] Voice 20: is threatened by human development

[4:08:23] Voice 20: and deserves not only dedicated protection, but the placement of limits on human settlements

[4:08:29] Voice 20: and activities. Gaia holds the Islands Trust to their Climate Emergency Declaration of March 2019

[4:08:36] Voice 20: and urges the Trust to consider climate change in all of your deliberations. Gaia holds the

[4:08:42] Voice 20: Islands Trust to their Reconciliation Declaration of March 2019 and expect the Trust to be guided

[4:08:48] Voice 20: in all their actions by the principles of reconciliation. We also advocate for adequate

[4:08:54] Voice 20: provincial support and recognition of the Islands Trust's unique environmental mandate.

[4:08:59] Voice 20: We urge government at all levels to support the Islands Trust in conservation and stewardship

[4:09:05] Voice 20: initiatives, climate change mitigation, and First Nations reconciliation work.

[4:09:11] Voice 20: We believe that support for the stewardship of the natural history and ecology of the trust

[4:09:17] Voice 20: trust areas, marine and terrestrial environment is a share is shared widely across the trust area

[4:09:24] Voice 20: and throughout BC. When consulted, the larger public consistently lists the natural environment,

[4:09:33] Voice 20: rural island culture, and preserving the special ecological features of these islands as top

[4:09:39] Voice 20: concerns. And despite this strong and evident emphasis on the natural environment, Gaia is

[4:09:46] Voice 20: is concerned that the Islands Trust is facing a fundamental

[4:09:48] Voice 20: and possibly existential challenge confronting trustees

[4:09:52] Voice 20: on how to interpret the preserve and protect object.

[4:09:57] Voice 20: It's our wish to leave you with these thoughts,

[4:10:01] Voice 20: which we shared with trustees in the last term,

[4:10:05] Voice 20: June 2022, trust council meeting based on the legal opinion

[4:10:09] Voice 20: Gaia obtained from Mandel Pinder in Vancouver.

[4:10:14] Voice 20: Quote, a local trust committee operating

[4:10:16] Voice 20: under the islands trust act is mandated to place the preservation and protection of the trust areas

[4:10:22] Voice 20: environmental environment uppermost in its considerations and ltc may not trade off the

[4:10:30] Voice 20: trust mandate of environmental protection in pursuit of other purposes collateral to that

[4:10:36] Voice 20: mandate unquote and further from the same opinion the scheme of the islands trust act is not simply

[4:10:43] Voice 20: filled with statements of mere piety that have no effect on the exercise of powers by the trust

[4:10:49] Voice 20: bodies. It expresses a clear and vigorous legislative intention to preserve and protect

[4:10:55] Voice 20: the trust area and its unique amenities and environment and vests the trust bodies with

[4:11:01] Voice 20: the duty to do so. The specific measures required to fulfill that duty are addressed in part

[4:11:07] Voice 20: through the trust policy statement for a trust body to legally exercise its powers

[4:11:13] Voice 20: it must comply with both the spirit and the letter of the act unquote and thank you for this

[4:11:20] Voice 20: opportunity to share our thoughts with you thank

[4:11:26] Voice 26: you very much for joining us today on this occasion

[4:11:28] Voice 26: and i'll just ask are there any questions that anybody has for the speaker no okay thank you

[4:11:35] Voice 26: very much sir and uh it's not michael sketch if i'm not mistaken um button

[4:12:02] Voice 14: on the microphone

[4:12:03] Voice 14: can you hear me clearly at the back of the room

[4:12:10] Voice 1: councillors first thank you for serving um

[4:12:15] Voice 1: my sense is a palpable palpable appetite for change change is needed and it's in your hands

[4:12:22] Voice 1: the direction must come from trust council i'll speak to the need for a rewrite of council's trust

[4:12:29] Voice 1: policy statement, I'll call that the TPS, and the lack of implementation of federal governance.

[4:12:38] Voice 1: The stage for this Council term was set last term. A governance review has begun,

[4:12:45] Voice 1: led by a Council committee. A review of the TPS began but has faltered. The context is important.

[4:12:54] Voice 1: important. It has been three decades since the Act was amended to require that Council

[4:13:02] Voice 1: adopt a TPS by-law for the Trust Area. In common with the provincial, regional districts

[4:13:09] Voice 1: and Canada, the Islands Trust is a federation. Each has a premier law. For Canada, the Constitution.

[4:13:20] Voice 1: institution. For regional districts, a regional growth strategy. For the trust, the TPS. The

[4:13:29] Voice 1: point here is that the premier law in each case is administered at the upper of the two

[4:13:36] Voice 1: hierarchical Federation levels. For the trust, council, and trust area services are the upper

[4:13:44] Voice 1: Federation level. Although Canada and the regional districts do administer their premier

[4:13:51] Voice 1: law at their own federal level, councils current and draft TPS by-law delegates directive trust

[4:14:01] Voice 1: area policies to each local trust area for implementation or not as the local jurisdiction

[4:14:09] Voice 1: sees fit in their by-laws. This federation structure failure has persisted since the 1994

[4:14:18] Voice 1: 1994 Council TPS by-law.

[4:14:22] Voice 1: Councillors, I hope you see the disconnect here.

[4:14:26] Voice 1: Neither does Council take direct responsibility

[4:14:28] Voice 1: for its own TPS policies,

[4:14:31] Voice 1: nor is the trust administration configured

[4:14:33] Voice 1: in a two-level hierarchy.

[4:14:36] Voice 1: The check and balance benefit of a federation is missing.

[4:14:42] Voice 1: Further, in TPS policies,

[4:14:46] Voice 1: environment is referenced for each

[4:14:48] Voice 1: of built and natural parts of the environment whole,

[4:14:54] Voice 1: but the relationship between the two parts must be inferred.

[4:14:59] Voice 1: Environment is at the heart of the act

[4:15:01] Voice 1: and the trust is at last embracing reconciliation.

[4:15:06] Voice 1: It is self-evident to indigenous culture

[4:15:08] Voice 1: that the natural environment is honored in its own right.

[4:15:13] Voice 1: In common law terms, that the personhood of entities

[4:15:17] Voice 1: in the natural environment is a premise,

[4:15:21] Voice 1: not an action of new law.

[4:15:25] Voice 1: In that sense, the act section three object

[4:15:29] Voice 1: is a statement of reconciliation

[4:15:32] Voice 1: with the first nation way of knowing.

[4:15:35] Voice 1: In another sense, the object gives a prescient warning

[4:15:39] Voice 1: to the trust area.

[4:15:41] Voice 1: The natural environment is threatened

[4:15:43] Voice 1: threatened by an overbuilt environment.

[4:15:49] Voice 1: The promise gave teeth to the object in the very next Section 4 of the Act, namely that

[4:15:56] Voice 1: each of Council, Executive, and the local trust committee trust bodies are continued

[4:16:02] Voice 1: for the purpose of carrying out the object.

[4:16:06] Voice 1: Has Council seriously considered the corollary of Section 4, that if the legislative tools

[4:16:13] Voice 1: given council aren't used effectively to carry out the object, that the trust bodies may be

[4:16:20] Voice 1: discontinued. Councillors, you have very important work before you this term. Thank you.

[4:16:27] Voice 1: Thank

[4:16:32] Voice 14: you, Michael. Any

[4:16:34] Voice 26: questions for the speaker? No. Okay. Thank you, Michael, for joining us today.

[4:16:42] Voice 26: I'm just going to turn to Laurie Foster, perhaps, to ask if we have speakers that wish to speak

[4:16:48] Voice 26: speak with us. I see two names up there. Thank you. Can we perhaps, is that Deborah Ferencz at

[4:16:55] Voice 26: the top there? It's hard for me to read. No. Yeah. So shall we, maybe they can show a digital hand

[4:17:05] Voice 26: on the Zoom. That's a pound nine, I believe, if you're by phone, or if you have a button at the

[4:17:11] Voice 26: bottom of your screen on your Zoom screen, you could raise your hand if you wish to speak to

[4:17:15] Voice 26: council and then we will promote you to be a participant in order to bring you in either via

[4:17:22] Voice 26: audio or video so please raise your digital hand speak participants that are on the screen at the

[4:17:28] Voice 26: moment and there's two names i see there uh-huh so the first one has raised your hand can we promote

[4:17:34] Voice 26: that person to a participant chair luck can we just turn on the audio for uh

[4:17:40] Voice 14: people in public

[4:17:41] Voice 14: the comments good afternoon are you are you able to hear me

[4:17:52] Voice 26: yes jennifer margerson we can hear you

[4:17:55] Voice 2: thank you um congratulations to the new trust council and um the members of the executive

[4:18:02] Voice 2: and the conservancy board um i just would like to um refer back to something that um deb morrison

[4:18:11] Voice 2: actually suggested yesterday and that was that the trust council chair not chair an LTC

[4:18:22] Voice 2: thereby building more neutrality into that position I'm just wondering if that would be

[4:18:30] Voice 2: something that the trust council might consider looking into as a possibility this year I thought

[4:18:39] Voice 2: thought that was an interesting suggestion. Further to that, I also wanted to support the

[4:18:47] Voice 2: comments of both Ian Peace from the Gulf Islands Alliance and Michael Sketch. I'm a member of

[4:18:56] Voice 2: another small inter-island group, Friends of the Gulf Islands, and we also support the mandate of

[4:19:04] Voice 2: the trust and the original intent of creating the trust which was to protect the rural environment

[4:19:11] Voice 2: and the natural environment of the trust area in order to benefit not just the residents of

[4:19:21] Voice 2: the gulf islands but all the people of bc and so i just wanted to offer my support to both those

[4:19:29] Voice 2: comments and I know that there are many on the Gulf Islands who share our

[4:19:35] Voice 2: concerns about the pressures of development on the in the trust area.

[4:19:40] Voice 2: Thank you. Well

[4:19:44] Voice 26: thank you Jennifer Margerson for joining us today and

[4:19:47] Voice 26: appreciate your message. So the other speaker I don't see a raised hands there

[4:19:54] Voice 26: from the other participant. I'll ask if you want to raise your hand there if you

[4:20:02] Voice 26: wish to address council right i'm going to assume no then hopefully there's not technological

[4:20:10] Voice 26: problems and so then that would wrap up our public comment period and i want to thank everybody that

[4:20:18] Voice 26: has joined us today i'm going to move along that's all right to our next meeting and in our

[4:20:25] Voice 26: package on page 46 we have what is the proposed december 6th to 8th trust council meeting that

[4:20:34] Voice 26: That is an electronic meeting at this time.

[4:20:37] Voice 26: And I'll just finish and then I'll go to questions.

[4:20:43] Voice 26: This normally in the due course when we've had three months between meetings is a very early draft of what that agenda looks like.

[4:20:52] Voice 26: And it gets changed as time progresses, as important work comes to the table.

[4:20:58] Voice 26: And it's usually an early draft.

[4:21:00] Voice 26: This is a well-advanced draft.

[4:21:02] Voice 26: This is, you know, there's only 10 days between now and our next meeting, more or less, and so there's not much opportunity to change it.

[4:21:11] Voice 26: So it's mostly, it's for information, and certainly the EC would receive and staff would receive any remarks about timing,

[4:21:18] Voice 26: but it's electronic, of course, which has a little less and some more flexibility, and that's there.

[4:21:26] Voice 26: So I'll just ask if there's any questions about the schedule, otherwise anticipate this is what we're going to do,

[4:21:31] Voice 26: and i'll go to deb morrison who has a question it's

[4:21:34] Voice 4: not a question about the schedule oh actually

[4:21:37] Voice 26: okay um so anything on the schedule uh cao uh

[4:21:43] Voice 25: thank you so indeed this is the schedule it has

[4:21:46] Voice 25: been considered and honed to a certain degree um it is an electronic meeting we do have two

[4:21:53] Voice 25: sessions well three sessions in particular there's going to be a substantive discussion around the

[4:21:57] Voice 25: budget um and there's two opportunities for that on the first day and on the second uh then we are

[4:22:05] Voice 25: having um reese harding coming in from young anderson to do a fairly extensive discussion

[4:22:10] Voice 25: around um uh reconciliation um uh rights and title to give some good context for um trustees so

[4:22:20] Voice 25: that's a couple hours um two to two and a half hours of work that's being planned there um a

[4:22:25] Voice 25: a couple, you know, an initial strategic planning project discussion, and then the last day is

[4:22:33] Voice 25: going over meeting procedures, the tools that you'll be using in your meetings,

[4:22:37] Voice 25: and a reminder session for many, but a good building block for others. The other consideration

[4:22:43] Voice 25: is that out in the hallway, there's today, there's the listing of intention to join a committee,

[4:22:50] Voice 25: and thank you very much for that today at the end of this meeting executive committee's meeting and

[4:22:56] Voice 25: those names on the financial we're going to need to move towards getting the financial

[4:23:00] Voice 25: planning committee moving as soon as possible because the agenda comes out on monday

[4:23:05] Voice 25: that's one consideration and the second is there's a listing of the governance committee

[4:23:10] Voice 25: up there so expressions of interest associated with that it would be expected that

[4:23:16] Voice 25: you have till march but it's most likely that you would in december

[4:23:20] Voice 25: somewhere on this schedule you would determine who's going to be on your governance committee

[4:23:25] Voice 25: as i've heard expressed by various trustees so i just want to make sure that if you did have

[4:23:30] Voice 25: that interest that you signed up before the end of today is that okay thank

[4:23:36] Voice 26: you very much thank

[4:23:36] Voice 26: you very much for addressing the governance committee that was important and there might

[4:23:40] Voice 26: be some other conversations around the governance committee i know i have an interest but i'm going

[4:23:43] Voice 26: to see what uh what trust council's interests are above and beyond the schedule at this time

[4:23:49] Voice 26: and Deb Morrison over to you normally

[4:23:53] Voice 4: we do disposition of delegations is that not on the

[4:23:56] Voice 4: agenda we

[4:23:57] Voice 26: didn't have delegations today the this was town hall so if we had a delegation

[4:24:02] Voice 26: um there would be disposition of delegations so

[4:24:05] Voice 3: will we be doing any kind of disposition of the

[4:24:07] Voice 3: things that we just heard from the public um not normally unless

[4:24:12] Voice 26: you want to take some specific

[4:24:13] Voice 26: action yeah okay so um then i'm just going to take this opportunity to ask you so there's any

[4:24:23] Voice 26: other business today um um and like i would like to share some thoughts about the governance

[4:24:28] Voice 26: committee from my own point of view but i want to provide counsel the opportunity to have that

[4:24:33] Voice 26: moment as well go ahead deb yeah

[4:24:37] Voice 4: i just can't leave it sorry i contemplated it because i do

[4:24:40] Voice 4: have a 240 ferry i wish to catch but um i do think that this is the moment to in some ways

[4:24:46] Voice 4: And I know it will come over to the governance committee at some point, but there, I mean,

[4:24:50] Voice 4: we've just heard from somebody from the public who also like things similarly around the,

[4:24:56] Voice 4: um, the choices that are going to be made in the next few days about chairs of LTCs.

[4:25:04] Voice 4: And there is actually no policy guiding which way, like whether the chair sits on a committee

[4:25:09] Voice 4: or not.

[4:25:10] Voice 4: And I think it would be helpful to hear from various members of the council on how they,

[4:25:15] Voice 4: to guide your decisions about how the chairs of LTCs are appointed relative to you sitting on

[4:25:21] Voice 4: specifically sitting on a chair yeah

[4:25:27] Voice 26: um we could certainly have that conversation there's not much

[4:25:30] Voice 26: ability to make any amendment to policy necessarily at this point in time i'd look to staff for some

[4:25:37] Voice 26: advice on that certainly we can have a conversation but at this point i think we're planning on

[4:25:42] Voice 26: moving forward with the practice that we've undertaken that is covered in policy presently

[4:25:48] Voice 26: So, David Marlowe, do you have some assistance there for us?

[4:25:51] Voice 26: Yeah, just to be clear, are we talking the chairs

[4:25:53] Voice 24: of the local trust committees, or is that what you're asking about?

[4:25:56] Voice 4: We're specifically talking about the chair of trust council sitting as a chair of the local policy committee,

[4:26:02] Voice 4: because the vice chairs are very clear in policy.

[4:26:06] Voice 4: The chair is not so clear.

[4:26:11] Voice 24: Okay, sorry, I'm not clear what the question is.

[4:26:14] Voice 24: so

[4:26:16] Voice 4: Jennifer Marston just named the the the issue that was brought up about the chair of trust

[4:26:25] Voice 4: council sitting as a chair on LTC is uh there there is a concern in our communities about the

[4:26:31] Voice 4: chair of trust council being involved in more of the local work as opposed to being the chair

[4:26:37] Voice 4: solely of this council okay

[4:26:39] Voice 24: thank you I understand that now uh so the appointment of the chairs uh

[4:26:44] Voice 24: to the local trust committees is in the Islands Trust Act, it's legislation, it's not trust

[4:26:50] Voice 24: council policy, and it gives the chair of trust council the authority to make those decisions.

[4:26:57] Voice 24: So that is the one thing that those chairs sit at the pleasure of the chair of trust council.

[4:27:04] Voice 24: So the chair of trust council could take advice from trust council, but trust council can't tell

[4:27:08] Voice 24: the chair how to appoint.

[4:27:14] Voice 26: Thank you for raising that. And certainly we can have a conversation

[4:27:17] Voice 26: about this at council but it would require a process to make the change and certainly happy

[4:27:22] Voice 26: to entertain that or council needs to be happy to entertain that um if there's nothing further

[4:27:28] Voice 26: um i have had some conversations with some of you and have some thoughts about the the governance

[4:27:34] Voice 26: committee itself and i think that the model and certainly there's some debate the model that we

[4:27:40] Voice 26: use to elect the executive committee is important and significant and council decides who the chair

[4:27:46] Voice 26: is. Council decides who the members are. What is presently proposed in policy that we can change

[4:27:54] Voice 26: because it's internal policy, it's a select committee, is the election process associated

[4:27:59] Voice 26: with the governance. And presently, it is set that all members of the governance committee

[4:28:02] Voice 26: will be elected by council, which is terrific. However, my thoughts go around the election of

[4:28:11] Voice 26: the chair because it's the body, the elected representatives of governance committee that

[4:28:16] Voice 26: that will choose their own chair.

[4:28:17] Voice 26: And it strikes me that following the EC model of membership,

[4:28:23] Voice 26: that it might be helpful for council

[4:28:24] Voice 26: to elect the chair separately,

[4:28:28] Voice 26: and then elect the members of the governance committee.

[4:28:31] Voice 26: So I'm not proposing a motion.

[4:28:32] Voice 26: I'm not proposing any policy change.

[4:28:34] Voice 26: I just wanna plant that as a seed for thought

[4:28:36] Voice 26: that in December, if there's an interest in doing that,

[4:28:39] Voice 26: we can change that policy internally

[4:28:42] Voice 26: and immediately move into that election process

[4:28:45] Voice 26: where we would pick up that process.

[4:28:49] Voice 26: So I'm happy to talk to anybody

[4:28:51] Voice 26: between now and the next meeting,

[4:28:52] Voice 26: or you can certainly have a conversation with staff.

[4:28:55] Voice 26: I just wanted to plant that as a seed

[4:28:56] Voice 26: that I think that that would help the Governance Committee

[4:28:59] Voice 26: have that strong supportive council

[4:29:01] Voice 26: in not only the leadership of that body,

[4:29:03] Voice 26: but the membership of that body.

[4:29:05] Voice 26: And I've had support from those that are interested

[4:29:07] Voice 26: in the Governance Committee.

[4:29:08] Voice 26: So that's all.

[4:29:11] Voice 26: Please.

[4:29:11] Voice 26: please.

[4:29:13] Voice 19: It seems to me that this would perhaps be a policy contemplated by the governance committee

[4:29:19] Voice 19: and then applied to the other committees as well. We've been cautioned repeatedly from making policy

[4:29:27] Voice 19: changes on the fly. And with all due respect, I think that that's what that would in fact be at

[4:29:32] Voice 19: the December meeting if we're then asked to contemplate. And I'm not opposed. I'm just

[4:29:36] Voice 19: saying that from my understanding of how we put together the policy that underlay the governance

[4:29:40] Voice 19: committee and the understanding of how new businesses are introduced to future meetings

[4:29:47] Voice 19: that we're perhaps a step ahead of ourselves with that proposal and that one of the things that

[4:29:54] Voice 19: could happen for instance is what the motion proposed for the financial planning committee is

[4:29:58] Voice 19: is that there is an interim

[4:29:59] Voice 19: for him.

[4:30:00] Voice 19: yeah um i think we could probably use existing policy to uh well existing policy would then

[4:30:05] Voice 19: elect them that that group and then there would a motion would be made that would then task that

[4:30:10] Voice 19: group with engaging staff to come up with perhaps an adjustment to policy that would reflect what

[4:30:15] Voice 19: you've just proposed so i'm not arguing anything i'm just basically saying i think maybe we need

[4:30:21] Voice 19: to extend the consideration and go through that channel to to do that change that's that's great

[4:30:29] Voice 26: Great. I agree. That's definitely an avenue. However, I just want to be clear, I'm not

[4:30:34] Voice 26: encouraging a motion on the fly. If there's an interest in that, work with staff, have that

[4:30:39] Voice 26: prepared and ready for the Council in December. Admittedly, the agenda is pretty much already

[4:30:44] Voice 26: directed, so it may be complex. Your advice is very wise, and I appreciate that. So, Council,

[4:30:50] Voice 26: if there's no further business, I'd like to call for adjournment. Any further business?

[4:30:56] Voice 26: then let's call it adjourned all those in favor that carries unanimously i'm going to say