Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee regular meeting, December 7, 2022

[0:00:00] Trustee Luckham: Good morning everybody. Good morning members of our community and public that are viewing us

[0:00:07] Trustee Luckham: remotely. My name is Peter Luckham. I'm a chair of Islands Trust Council and this is our

[0:00:14] Trustee Luckham: December quarterly meeting of our council. I want to welcome you all here today. I want to

[0:00:24] Trustee Luckham: acknowledge um that uh i'm down here in victoria and the speaking territory um um at the southern

[0:00:31] Trustee Luckham: portion of the of the um island's trust area not including victoria of course um of the coast

[0:00:38] Trustee Luckham: salish uh sea and the coast salish territory and i'm elected on titus island which is in

[0:00:44] Trustee Luckham: penelope and lax in territory and it's a honor and privilege to be able to wake up here every day and

[0:00:50] Trustee Luckham: and be cognizant of the rich history and culture,

[0:00:52] Trustee Luckham: and also be aware of the past,

[0:00:54] Trustee Luckham: and the sadness and grief that has been experienced

[0:00:57] Trustee Luckham: on the coast here.

[0:00:59] Trustee Luckham: And let's all work towards reconciling,

[0:01:03] Trustee Luckham: that is the language that we use,

[0:01:05] Trustee Luckham: and resolving that, coming to a greater understanding.

[0:01:09] Trustee Luckham: I'm just gonna very quickly go through

[0:01:15] Trustee Luckham: sort of a roll call to see who's here this morning.

[0:01:21] Trustee Luckham: and thank you

[0:01:23] Trustee Luckham: Deb Morrison for the suggestion

[0:01:25] Trustee Luckham: about grouping by island and

[0:01:27] Trustee Luckham: we're going to proceed with that because that's a terrific

[0:01:29] Trustee Luckham: idea. So

[0:01:31] Trustee Luckham: just good morning Judith

[0:01:33] Trustee Luckham: Getty from Bowen Island.

[0:01:35] Trustee Luckham: Give us a hello or a hi.

[0:01:37] Trustee Luckham: And Sue Ellen

[0:01:39] Trustee Luckham: Fast, also Bowen Island

[0:01:41] Trustee Luckham: councillor and trustee, both Judith

[0:01:43] Trustee Luckham: and Sue Ellen. Hello.

[0:01:48] Trustee Luckham: Denman

[0:01:48] Trustee Luckham: Island, Sam

[0:01:50] Trustee Luckham: Worthwick.

[0:01:52] Trustee Luckham: morning david graham good morning

[0:01:56] Voice 12: and

[0:01:59] Trustee Luckham: gabrielle island is uh toby elliott and susan yates

[0:02:07] Trustee Luckham: good

[0:02:07] Voice 35: morning from lagunquin territory normally from snanama territory all

[0:02:13] Trustee Luckham: right uh galliano

[0:02:14] Trustee Luckham: island uh lisa galvaro right here good morning and ben maberly oh good morning

[0:02:22] Voice 8: And

[0:02:24] Voice 12: Gambier Island is Joe Bernardo and Kate Louise Stamper.

[0:02:33] Voice 12: Good

[0:02:33] Trustee Luckham: morning, Pramila Katsam.

[0:02:36] Trustee Luckham: And Hornby Island is Alex Allen.

[0:02:39] Voice 13: Good morning.

[0:02:40] Trustee Luckham: And I think Grad Scott has sent his regrets and seems to go away.

[0:02:46] Trustee Luckham: And Laskiti Island is Michaela Lironi and Timothy Peterson.

[0:02:55] Trustee Luckham: Oh, there you are. Good. Thank you.

[0:02:58] Trustee Luckham: Good morning.

[0:02:59] Trustee Luckham: Good morning.

[0:03:00] Trustee Luckham: uh main island is janine dodds

[0:03:06] Voice 27: here good

[0:03:08] Trustee Luckham: morning and david maude good morning

[0:03:11] Trustee Luckham: and north pender is

[0:03:14] Trustee Luckham: aaron campbell good morning and dan morrison morning

[0:03:19] Voice 24: from stay us with saanich territory

[0:03:21] Voice 24: and

[0:03:23] Voice 12: salt spring island is jamie harris good morning and laura patrick good morning from

[0:03:32] Trustee Patrick: Salt Spring.

[0:03:34] Trustee Luckham: Saturna Island is Myri Boland. Good morning, everyone. Lee Middleton.

[0:03:41] Voice 1: Good morning.

[0:03:44] Trustee Luckham: South Tender is Doug Falk.

[0:03:48] Voice 4: Doug is having problems getting into his emails. He's wondering if he can

[0:03:52] Voice 4: get some IT help.

[0:03:54] Trustee Luckham: All right, okay.

[0:03:58] Voice 4: And this is Christina Evans.

[0:04:01] Trustee Luckham: Christina, I recognize your

[0:04:02] Trustee Luckham: voice good morning christina thanks for the tip on bag so uh the sound is ken hunter good morning

[0:04:10] Voice 16: council good

[0:04:12] Trustee Luckham: morning and of course myself peter luckham just going to double back here a little

[0:04:16] Trustee Luckham: bit i see toby elliott has joined us so uh pick her as as here did you come on board not at this

[0:04:30] Trustee Luckham: time uh joe bernardo still not at this time i think that oh and grant scott is absent so

[0:04:39] Trustee Luckham: very good council um chair

[0:04:42] Voice 36: i just wanted to acknowledge that uh i think trustee bernardo

[0:04:46] Voice 36: said he was coming in a bit later thank

[0:04:49] Trustee Luckham: you for the uh uh reminding you that you're absolutely

[0:04:52] Trustee Luckham: right um he had other commitments prior to council and he's going to try and join us

[0:04:59] Trustee Luckham: tomorrow if not later today but I think actually he's absent today yeah thank you for that reminder

[0:05:05] Trustee Luckham: all right then so let us continue so council we had a terrific conversation yesterday about budget

[0:05:11] Trustee Luckham: and in consultation with staff sort of rejigging the the agenda keep you posted as we flow through

[0:05:19] Trustee Luckham: this to try and maintain some of the important timing items that are fixed to a specific time

[0:05:26] Trustee Luckham: where we have guests coming in um and of course some of the other business that's critical that

[0:05:31] Trustee Luckham: happened today um but we're going to return to the budget discussion we left off yesterday at 6.4.3

[0:05:40] Trustee Luckham: um and i i would like to suggest that we continue on with uh 6.4.4 and work our way through

[0:05:47] Trustee Luckham: um these items not necessarily in a lot of detail uh julie i suggest that the 6.44 that we go

[0:05:55] Trustee Luckham: go through that overview with some detail.

[0:06:01] Trustee Luckham: And the other items probably summarized as you see fit.

[0:06:05] Trustee Luckham: And then that we'll look for questions as we go through

[0:06:09] Trustee Luckham: on those other items to seek clarity

[0:06:11] Trustee Luckham: for some of the trustees.

[0:06:13] Trustee Luckham: And so if that's satisfactory to council,

[0:06:17] Trustee Luckham: I will proceed, I'm not seeing.

[0:06:22] Trustee Luckham: And are there any questions about the process today?

[0:06:24] Trustee Luckham: um

[0:06:27] Voice 24: just one quick thing chair sure i i noticed yesterday but i i didn't know how to address it

[0:06:34] Voice 24: that we don't have access to the chat if there's any technical difficulties or anything we can't

[0:06:38] Voice 24: get in touch with staff via the chat um and this morning i noticed it again just because we can't

[0:06:43] Voice 24: drop our territorial acknowledgement is there some reason for that well

[0:06:47] Trustee Luckham: we've had difficulties

[0:06:48] Trustee Luckham: um with the chat and there's conversations that end up going back and forth between trustees

[0:06:53] Trustee Luckham: and then on occasion somebody accidentally gets in involved in as an attendee somehow in the chat

[0:07:00] Trustee Luckham: and then messaging starts flowing through there and um there's some expectation that myself and

[0:07:06] Trustee Luckham: staff are monitoring that chat and that's difficult or impossible and so just as a management thing

[0:07:13] Trustee Luckham: that's what uh has been considered the best advice is to not use the chat um email works well

[0:07:20] Trustee Luckham: yeah

[0:07:21] Voice 24: so maybe if i can just suggest in the future that we set it up just so we can chat with the

[0:07:27] Voice 24: host because then we can at least let laurie know if there's a problem that's not an option

[0:07:31] Trustee Luckham: so again we can't do that yeah that's not

[0:07:34] Trustee Luckham: technically possible

[0:07:35] Voice 24: email i'll email thank

[0:07:37] Voice 24: you

[0:07:37] Trustee Luckham: it works the best yeah laurie's monitoring that constantly much as possible with everything

[0:07:43] Trustee Luckham: else anyway so thank you deb um so let us begin then uh with 6.4 oh i see one of the handups

[0:07:50] Trustee Luckham: Sue Ellen Fast, I just

[0:07:52] Voice 9: wanted to say good morning to my compatriot Judy Getty from Bowen Island.

[0:07:56] Trustee Luckham: Super. Thank you very much for bringing that to my attention.

[0:08:00] Voice 17: Good morning.

[0:08:03] Trustee Luckham: All right. 6.44. Director of Administrative Services, Julia Mobs.

[0:08:09] Trustee Luckham: Thank you for your terrific and amazing work. And over to you.

[0:08:14] Voice 29: Thanks, Mr. Chair. Good morning, Council. I've switched my headphones today. So I'm hoping

[0:08:19] Voice 29: everyone can hear me with better clarity than yesterday i'm seeing thumbs up that's great

[0:08:25] Voice 29: so yesterday we made it through some of the background of the budget we talked about some

[0:08:29] Voice 29: of the changes that financial planning committee had made to the initial draft of the budget and

[0:08:33] Voice 29: now we can move straight into details of the actual draft budget as it's currently presented

[0:08:39] Voice 29: agenda item 4.4 6.4.4 begins on page 90. it gives a brief summary of the activities that have taken

[0:08:46] Voice 29: place to get the budget to where it is today I won't spend time speaking about that as I think

[0:08:51] Voice 29: everyone here is aware of the activities that have taken place so we'll start looking at the details

[0:08:55] Voice 29: on page 91 of the agenda package so the most summarized version of the budget is provided

[0:09:04] Voice 29: at the top of the agenda page 91 where we see the draft budget has proposed planned spending

[0:09:09] Voice 29: of 9.6 million dollars which is made up of an operating budget of 8.8 million projects budget

[0:09:16] Voice 29: yes um

[0:09:17] Trustee Luckham: i think um one of the things i think is significant just is just to go over the the

[0:09:23] Trustee Luckham: background information about how it is that we got here before you jump into some of the details okay

[0:09:30] Voice 29: sure i can do that it's uh it shouldn't be new information to council so we did review the budget

[0:09:37] Voice 29: cycle in november so we talked about the activities that typically take place before we get to

[0:09:41] Voice 29: December's budget review, but happy to summarize. So what's taken place to date, financial planning

[0:09:47] Voice 29: committee, outgoing financial planning committee did meet in August of last year to determine the

[0:09:51] Voice 29: budget cycle timelines. They also put together the budget assumptions and principles and forwarded

[0:09:56] Voice 29: those to Trust Council for their review in September. Trust Council had the opportunity

[0:10:02] Voice 29: to amend the assumptions and principles at that time. Council committees and the Islands Trust

[0:10:07] Voice 29: Trust Conservancy Board have all met to review their priorities for the next fiscal year and

[0:10:13] Voice 29: they've submitted funding requests and business cases to support the projects that they'd like

[0:10:17] Voice 29: to undertake and staff have also reviewed all of their department budget needs and submitted budget

[0:10:22] Voice 29: business cases for new initiatives and all of that information has been consolidated

[0:10:26] Voice 29: into the draft budget. Financial Planning Committee did review that initial draft budget in November,

[0:10:31] Voice 29: made a few changes that we talked about yesterday and now we are at Council's first review of the

[0:10:37] Voice 29: draft budget typically it would be second but in an election year with our compressed timelines

[0:10:41] Voice 29: it's the first first review that was a quick summary um thank

[0:10:47] Voice 12: you great

[0:10:48] Voice 29: okay so i will

[0:10:52] Voice 29: wait for my computer to unfreeze there we go uh so turning back to page 91 of the agenda package

[0:10:58] Voice 29: uh at the start of that report we see a summary of the draft budget so in summary proposed plan

[0:11:05] Voice 29: spending is $9.6 million, of which $8.8 million relates to the operating budget, $665,000 relates

[0:11:12] Voice 29: to projects, and there's capital spending budgeted of $127,000. There is a proposed tax increase of

[0:11:18] Voice 29: 7.95% to local trust areas. There was some discussion yesterday, and what does that mean

[0:11:24] Voice 29: for the average taxpayer? We did some math just this morning, and it looks like that would work

[0:11:29] Voice 29: out to an increase of just over four dollars per hundred thousand dollars of assessed value

[0:11:34] Voice 29: on average for taxpayers there's a proposed general increase to the bowen island municipal

[0:11:41] Voice 29: levy of sixteen point nine seven percent and there is a proposed draw from the general revenue

[0:11:45] Voice 29: surplus fund of a hundred and ninety thousand dollars and a proposed draw from the local trust

[0:11:49] Voice 29: committee reserve fund of fifty two thousand dollars when we look at how our proposed

[0:11:55] Voice 29: spending for next year compares to the current year financial forecast we do see an increase

[0:11:59] Voice 29: in the operating budget of about 8%.

[0:12:01] Voice 29: That's primarily driven by an increase

[0:12:04] Voice 29: in staff salaries and wages.

[0:12:06] Voice 29: So what's noted on the page there

[0:12:08] Voice 29: is an $840,000 increase in staff salaries and wages

[0:12:11] Voice 29: over the current year forecast.

[0:12:13] Voice 29: Of course, the current year forecast

[0:12:15] Voice 29: does expect underspending,

[0:12:18] Voice 29: given that we've got some significant staff vacancies.

[0:12:21] Voice 29: So when we compare next year's staff salaries budget

[0:12:23] Voice 29: to the previous year budget,

[0:12:25] Voice 29: it's an increase of about $608,000.

[0:12:29] Voice 29: project budgets have actually decreased over the current year forecast and that's due to reduced

[0:12:36] Voice 29: plan spending on strategic plan projects for next year's budget the capital budget has increased as

[0:12:41] Voice 29: there are a number of servers that need to be replaced next year that come with a price tag

[0:12:47] Voice 29: so diving into the real detail of the budget we can look at the individual budget lines when we

[0:12:53] Voice 29: start with a look at planned revenues we see that our largest revenue source which is local trust

[0:12:57] Voice 29: area taxes, budgeted at $8 million in the budget. As we've said, it has a general tax increase of

[0:13:03] Voice 29: 7.95%, which is about $581,000. And then we expect an additional $91,000 to be collected on

[0:13:11] Voice 29: new construction and development. The Bowen Island tax levy is calculated at $382,000, which is

[0:13:17] Voice 29: about a 17% general tax increase with an additional 1% expected to be collected on new construction.

[0:13:24] Voice 29: The Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee has submitted a request for a special property

[0:13:29] Voice 29: tax requisition again for the ongoing work of SWPA, and we'll be discussing that separately

[0:13:34] Voice 29: later on in the budget discussion.

[0:13:37] Voice 29: We do have $547,000 of grant revenue included in next year's budget, so the annual provincial

[0:13:44] Voice 29: grant is still set at $180,000.

[0:13:47] Voice 29: We've not increased that figure.

[0:13:49] Voice 29: It's not something we have control over.

[0:13:50] Voice 29: The province determines that amount, and so we've budgeted it at historical levels.

[0:13:54] Voice 29: We also have a $220,000 amount for grant funds related to the Conservancy Species at Risk work.

[0:14:02] Voice 29: There is a restricted provincial grant from UBCM that's coming to us as part of the Local Government Development Applications Processing Initiative.

[0:14:10] Voice 29: That grant is a total of $367,000 and we expect $125,000 of that will be spent next year.

[0:14:17] Voice 29: And so that amount is included as a revenue item in the draft budget.

[0:14:20] Voice 29: We do have a contingent grant income line.

[0:14:23] Voice 29: line, it's set at just a dollar. That line is simply a placeholder so that if we receive grants

[0:14:28] Voice 29: throughout the year, we have a place to record them. Our fees and sales revenue is set very close

[0:14:34] Voice 29: to what it is in the current year at $262,000. And we are expecting to see a rise in interest income

[0:14:40] Voice 29: as we take advantage of rising interest rates. And so our interest income is budgeted next year

[0:14:45] Voice 29: at about $133,000. Our internal sources of revenue, as we talked about in orientation,

[0:14:51] Voice 29: come from surplus and reserve funds.

[0:14:53] Voice 29: The draft budget does have a draw from surplus of $190,000

[0:14:57] Voice 29: and a draw from the Local Trust Committee Reserve Fund of $52,000.

[0:15:00] Voice 29: There is opportunity for Council to direct that additional funds

[0:15:05] Voice 29: be drawn from the General Revenue Surplus Fund.

[0:15:07] Voice 29: We do still have money in there that can be drawn on for next year's budget.

[0:15:10] Voice 29: We have about $79,000 that can be added into this budget

[0:15:15] Voice 29: and that would reduce taxation by approximately 1%.

[0:15:18] Voice 29: So, in approximate terms, for every $73,000 that we remove from the budget, or additional $73,000 that we draw from surplus, it impacts taxation by 1%.

[0:15:35] Voice 29: When we look at planned spending in the budget, we do see that the largest budgeted expense at Islands Trust does remain staff salaries and benefits.

[0:15:43] Voice 29: Of course, we're a service-driven organization. It's our people that do our work, and so this is the largest area of spending.

[0:15:47] Voice 29: It is calculated at $6.1 million in the budget for staff, and that represents 63% of the overall budget, and that will pay for 63 full-time equivalents.

[0:15:58] Voice 29: The breakdown of the areas that staff work in is on page 93 of the budget for the information of trustees.

[0:16:07] Voice 29: There's a number of factors that influence the salaries line.

[0:16:10] Voice 29: Many of them are outside of our control, so many of our staff are part of the union.

[0:16:15] Voice 29: The new collective agreement for union staff says that all union staff will receive an increase next fiscal year between 5.5% and 6.75%.

[0:16:25] Voice 29: So for the purposes of budgeting, we've chosen the midpoint at 6.1%.

[0:16:29] Voice 29: So we've built that into the budget.

[0:16:31] Voice 29: We've also built an increase into the budget for excluded staff based on historical public service agency increases for that staff group.

[0:16:41] Voice 29: There's two new staff positions that are included in the budget.

[0:16:44] Voice 29: They're both full-time equivalents.

[0:16:46] Voice 29: The first is a local trust committee meeting administrator,

[0:16:48] Voice 29: which has a budget of about $66,000 in the budget.

[0:16:51] Voice 29: That reflects 10 months of salary for this new staff position.

[0:16:55] Voice 29: So we do acknowledge it will take some time to run a hiring competition,

[0:16:58] Voice 29: and this person probably won't start for a couple of months.

[0:17:00] Voice 29: And so the $66,000, it reflects 10 months of work.

[0:17:06] Voice 29: There's also a full-time equivalent for an administrative coordinator

[0:17:08] Voice 29: with a budget of $75,000.

[0:17:10] Voice 29: That's also representative of 10 months of the year.

[0:17:13] Voice 29: again acknowledging it will take some time to hire this new staff person there's a proposed

[0:17:18] Voice 29: reclassification of six of our planning administrative staff that would see them move

[0:17:22] Voice 29: upwards in classification take on higher level responsibilities and therefore be paid more

[0:17:26] Voice 29: that has a price tag of about thirty thousand dollars if it's successful there is some amount

[0:17:33] Voice 29: built into the budget for staff overtime it's about fifty thousand dollars that's based on

[0:17:39] Voice 29: historical overtime analysis and we'll be updating that later on in the budget cycle to make sure

[0:17:43] Voice 29: that figure is still sound. We do pay a benefit rate to the public service agency. So they take

[0:17:49] Voice 29: care of all of the remittances associated with staff payments. So the employer portion of CPP,

[0:17:56] Voice 29: EI, employer health tax and pension contributions for staff, as well as extended benefit plan

[0:18:02] Voice 29: premiums. So we pay at a rate of 25.4% to the public service agency on top of our base salaries.

[0:18:09] Voice 29: and that amount is calculated at about $1.2 million in the budget.

[0:18:13] Voice 29: They set that rate.

[0:18:14] Voice 29: They give that rate to us later on in the budget cycle,

[0:18:17] Voice 29: so we may see that rate change.

[0:18:19] Voice 29: For now, we're using the existing rate.

[0:18:22] Voice 29: There is a reduction to staff salaries to account for staff turnover,

[0:18:26] Voice 29: so there's a $120,000 allowance that's been built into the salaries budget

[0:18:31] Voice 29: to acknowledge that we are likely to have staff vacancies in the year.

[0:18:37] Voice 29: Best-year remuneration is quantified by council policy.

[0:18:40] Voice 29: We reviewed that at our webinar last month, so for those that were there, you'll have an understanding of that policy.

[0:18:46] Voice 29: The policy does guide increases in the year on an annual basis, so we have a 5.2% increase reflected for CPI.

[0:18:55] Voice 29: That number has increased. The latest figures are closer to 6.5%, and the policy dictates that it will be the December CPI figure for Victoria that will be used in the final calculation.

[0:19:09] Voice 29: And so once we've got those figures, we will be updating trustee remuneration.

[0:19:14] Voice 29: The calculation has been updated for the new number of folios in each local trust area.

[0:19:18] Voice 29: And census numbers are not updated, of course, as there's no new census information this year.

[0:19:24] Voice 29: As everyone's aware, we've moved trustees on to enhanced benefit plan.

[0:19:28] Voice 29: And so there's an increased cost there.

[0:19:29] Voice 29: I think the cost increases about $30,000 over the previous year budget.

[0:19:33] Voice 29: budget. Council meeting expenses, we have included in the draft budget costs to pay for four in-person

[0:19:43] Voice 29: council meetings. So we've not held in-person council meetings on the islands for a number of

[0:19:49] Voice 29: years now due to the pandemic. So we don't have a really solid idea of what they might cost at this

[0:19:55] Voice 29: time. We have taken historical averages, grossed them up for an inflationary figure and landed at

[0:20:00] Voice 29: about $27,500 per Trust Council meeting that's held in person. And so we have a total Trust

[0:20:06] Voice 29: Council meeting expense of $110,000 in the budget. Executive committee meetings have a budget that's

[0:20:13] Voice 29: a bit higher than last year, $7,500. And that was making the assumption that new executive committee

[0:20:18] Voice 29: would want to meet in person more frequently. Executive committee has now met and determined

[0:20:23] Voice 29: their meeting schedule for next year. And I understand there's four or five meetings that

[0:20:28] Voice 29: will be held in person with the remainder electronic and so we may be able to reduce

[0:20:31] Voice 29: that amount in future iterations of the budget council meeting expenses is also nominal at four

[0:20:38] Voice 29: thousand dollars as we are expecting council committees will primarily meet electronically

[0:20:41] Voice 29: as well ltc direct expenses is all of the expenses associated with local trust committee meetings

[0:20:48] Voice 29: primarily that number has been reduced over last year's budget and that's to reflect the fact that

[0:20:55] Voice 29: minute taking costs have historically been included in this line but with the addition of a new local

[0:21:00] Voice 29: trust committee meeting administrator that person will be taking on minutes and there will no longer

[0:21:04] Voice 29: be a need for on island contracted minute takers and so that budget line has been reduced to forty

[0:21:10] Voice 29: four thousand dollars can

[0:21:12] Voice 2: i interrupt yes

[0:21:14] Voice 29: i'm happy to take questions thank

[0:21:17] Voice 2: you um with back

[0:21:19] Voice 2: back up to the meetings. The four in-person meetings are budgeted for $110,000. And later

[0:21:27] Voice 2: on on page 97, the Zoom meetings are $16,000.

[0:21:34] Voice 29: So that $16,000 is for the Zoom software.

[0:21:38] Voice 29: It's not included in the meeting expenses.

[0:21:41] Voice 2: All right. Is there a comparable number in terms

[0:21:43] Voice 2: of the costs if it's not the four person in uh for in-person meetings as opposed to zoom costs

[0:21:51] Voice 29: uh so electronic council meetings uh generally we would budget about a thousand dollars per meeting

[0:21:57] Voice 29: uh of course there's no trustee travel there's no staff travel however the chair does typically

[0:22:02] Voice 29: travel to victoria so that he can chair the meetings from the boardroom and actually use

[0:22:06] Voice 29: the big screen as it facilitates cheering uh much better so it's a significant difference

[0:22:12] Voice 12: thank you you're welcome i think jamie harris

[0:22:14] Voice 29: also had a hand up

[0:22:15] Voice 15: um yeah

[0:22:21] Voice 11: thanks so i think this might

[0:22:24] Voice 11: be a good place to interject here um i don't want to take up a whole bunch of time um i do want to

[0:22:32] Voice 11: make a notice of motion um based on the recent correspondence we've received from former trustee

[0:22:40] Voice 11: eric booth that illustrates the extremely low efficiency rate of development application

[0:22:44] Voice 11: processes within the islands trust and keeping fiscal health and efficient

[0:22:49] Voice 11: development application processes in sight I would like the motion to sound

[0:22:53] Voice 11: something along the lines of the islands trust promote the use of a list of

[0:22:58] Voice 11: contract planners for the use of developmental permit applicants if they

[0:23:03] Voice 11: so choose and I'd like to work with staff on this and to bring it forward in

[0:23:08] Voice 11: march at the next trust council meeting

[0:23:13] Trustee Luckham: david um how should we handle that on as a notice of motion

[0:23:18] Trustee Luckham: for the next meeting yeah

[0:23:20] Voice 7: you can just accept it as a notice of motion usually that would be done

[0:23:23] Voice 7: at the beginning of your meeting right but because it's for the next meeting right you just accept

[0:23:28] Voice 7: that will make your record then

[0:23:29] Trustee Luckham: let the minutes record yeah that jamie harris has uh indicated

[0:23:33] Trustee Luckham: a notice of motion for march council yeah and i'll

[0:23:36] Trustee Luckham: just ask you jamie to work with staff on

[0:23:38] Trustee Luckham: the details yeah recommend the director ceo

[0:23:40] Trustee Luckham: i

[0:23:41] Voice 16: don't think that's his intention so you might

[0:23:43] Voice 16: want to check with him oh okay i think he wants the work done by march not for him to introduce

[0:23:49] Voice 16: a notice of motion in march oh i think

[0:23:51] Voice 11: sorry um i'm introducing the notice of motion now

[0:23:55] Voice 11: i'd like to work with staff to bring the motion forward to and watch so he

[0:24:03] Trustee Luckham: would have to introduce

[0:24:03] Trustee Luckham: introduce that into this trust council meeting at some point I see so what you're asking then for

[0:24:09] Trustee Luckham: is for a new business item in during this council um to discuss that concept to uh then ask staff to

[0:24:19] Trustee Luckham: bring that do that work with the recommendation for uh a motion at March Council is that what

[0:24:26] Trustee Luckham: you're after along

[0:24:28] Voice 11: with myself I'd like I'd like to bring a motion I move that we bring a motion

[0:24:32] Voice 11: forward in March and vote on it then and I would like to work with staff in the

[0:24:39] Voice 11: meantime to put that together.

[0:24:41] Voice 7: So I understand what Trustee Harris is asking

[0:24:44] Voice 7: for. From my understanding notice of motion. So we'll make a note in the

[0:24:49] Voice 7: minutes that at the next meeting in March there'll be a business item which

[0:24:54] Voice 7: Trustee Harris has put forward and then in the meantime Trustee Harris can

[0:24:59] Voice 7: can develop the RFD working with the director of planning

[0:25:03] Voice 7: just to make sure the RFD is clean to go to council.

[0:25:07] Voice 7: Okay, perfect.

[0:25:07] Trustee Luckham: So we're all on the same page.

[0:25:09] Trustee Luckham: Thank you, Jamie.

[0:25:10] Trustee Luckham: And I'll return now to Julia Mobs and her presentation.

[0:25:17] Voice 29: Thanks, Chair.

[0:25:19] Voice 29: So we were looking at the bottom of page 95 of the agenda package,

[0:25:24] Voice 29: which is looking at local trust committee project expenses.

[0:25:27] Voice 29: So in the budget this year,

[0:25:28] Voice 29: financial planning committee has capped the amount to be spent on local trust committee projects at

[0:25:33] Voice 29: 250 000 however we have submissions from local trust committees that total 422 000 uh in the

[0:25:42] Voice 29: draft budget so there is some work that is required by this body by trust council to reduce

[0:25:48] Voice 29: uh the spending on local trust committee projects from 422 000 down to 250 um if council wishes to

[0:25:56] Voice 29: to align with financial planning committee's recommendation

[0:25:57] Voice 29: that these projects be capped at $250,000.

[0:26:01] Voice 29: And we will have an opportunity at the end of my presentation

[0:26:03] Voice 29: to speak about the various local trust committee projects,

[0:26:06] Voice 29: whether or not they can all be accomplished

[0:26:08] Voice 29: in a single year and therefore council can make decisions

[0:26:11] Voice 29: as to what might be best to be cut from that budget.

[0:26:15] Voice 29: We've also included in the budget and allowance

[0:26:17] Voice 29: for local trust committee projects

[0:26:19] Voice 29: that might come forward throughout the year.

[0:26:20] Voice 29: These are typically minor projects

[0:26:22] Voice 29: and we've got $36,000 in the budget

[0:26:24] Voice 29: it as an allowance for that work. When we move on to the top of page 96, we're looking at the

[0:26:33] Voice 29: Islands Trust Conservancy expenses. So the Islands Trust Conservancy Board does meet every year to

[0:26:38] Voice 29: put forward their budget request. Their request amounts to $297,000 in the budget, excluding

[0:26:44] Voice 29: salaries for Islands Trust Conservancy staff, which is $734,000. So $220,000 of the conservancy

[0:26:53] Voice 29: request is covered by grant funding for species at risk work. Some of the primary drivers of the

[0:26:59] Voice 29: small increase to the Conservancy budget is an increase of $10,000 to fund development of a

[0:27:04] Voice 29: First Nations engagement plan, as well as some increases to property management costs.

[0:27:11] Voice 29: And there is detailed information on the materials that the Conservancy Board reviewed

[0:27:16] Voice 29: included in the agenda package. Our office lease and associated costs have risen in the draft

[0:27:21] Voice 29: budget. They are calculated at $508,000. This

[0:27:25] Voice 29: is an amount that's based on existing leases. So

[0:27:28] Voice 29: we've renewed the office lease space for the Victoria office, as well as the Gabriola office

[0:27:32] Voice 29: for a period of two years, I believe. We are seeing rising costs there. Of course,

[0:27:37] Voice 29: our landlords are experiencing increased costs due to inflation and also due to the rising costs

[0:27:42] Voice 29: of insurance. And they are passing those costs down to us as the lessors. FOI and records

[0:27:48] Voice 29: management, recruitment and labor relations, and payroll processing are new lines in the budget

[0:27:53] Voice 29: this year. They are not new dollars. They are simply dollars that have been reallocated from

[0:27:58] Voice 29: elsewhere into these new budget lines. So we have a FOI and records management budget of $10,000.

[0:28:05] Voice 29: That is the same amount that's been in previous budgets. Recruitment and labor relations is a

[0:28:10] Voice 29: budget of $21,000. This is primarily for funding advertisements for hiring, as well as contracted

[0:28:15] Voice 29: HR assistance from public service agency and payroll processing is at $19,500.

[0:28:21] Voice 29: Again, that's an amount that's paid to the public service agency as they process our payroll.

[0:28:26] Voice 29: Again, not new dollars, just new lines.

[0:28:30] Voice 29: Insurance costs have risen.

[0:28:31] Voice 29: They're budgeted at $208,000.

[0:28:34] Voice 29: This primarily pays for general liability, Arizona Missions Insurance for trustees and for professional staff.

[0:28:40] Voice 29: staff. We have, we do have some work underway to see if the Municipal Insurance Association would

[0:28:48] Voice 29: like to take us on as an insured client. And if that is achieved, or if that is something that

[0:28:54] Voice 29: they agree to, we may see reduced rates. But for the time being, we are insuring elsewhere and

[0:29:00] Voice 29: our costs continue to rise. We have legal costs budgeted at a total of $220,000 in the budget.

[0:29:08] Voice 29: this pays for legal general costs by law enforcement litigation and litigation defense

[0:29:12] Voice 29: legal general primarily pays for opinions that we seek from lawyers when we're engaging in work

[0:29:20] Voice 29: that requires this sorts of thing this is a reduced budget from previous years management

[0:29:25] Voice 29: is trying to apply greater rigor around this amount and so we're hoping to achieve lower

[0:29:30] Voice 29: budget amounts legal for bylaw enforcement is budgeted at eighty thousand dollars fairly

[0:29:35] Voice 29: consistent with previous years and this is based on the level of enforcement activity so if local

[0:29:40] Voice 29: trust committees are increasing their enforcement activity we may see rising costs here if they are

[0:29:45] Voice 29: choosing to do less enforcement we may see less costs legal litigation has a budget of seventy

[0:29:49] Voice 29: two thousand dollars this is a tough one to budget for as of course we never know what claims might

[0:29:54] Voice 29: come against the trust in any given year but we do our best to create a budget that's reasonable

[0:29:58] Voice 29: based on existing.

[0:30:00] Voice 29: known existing claims with an estimate of what might come forward. Our software support and

[0:30:06] Voice 29: licensing costs have increased to $147,000. The primary driver of this is a $38,000 increase in

[0:30:15] Voice 29: this budget line associated with new costs for the maintenance of new CityView software. So in

[0:30:21] Voice 29: the current year, there's new CityView software that's being implemented for use of the planning

[0:30:27] Voice 29: team, and this carries a $38,000 maintenance cost annually. We do have $16,000 for Zoom meeting costs

[0:30:34] Voice 29: and $9,000 in software costs for a new client relationship management system.

[0:30:40] Voice 29: We also see an increase in computer hardware and software. This is primarily because three of our

[0:30:46] Voice 29: servers need replacement next year. When we replace them, we also incur contracted costs or

[0:30:52] Voice 29: costs for tech tech support from our contractors and there's also some new licensing that needs to

[0:30:58] Voice 29: be procured next year strategic plan projects in the budget have a total of 212 000 for all

[0:31:06] Voice 29: strategic plan projects the list of proposed strategic plan projects is on the bottom of page

[0:31:11] Voice 29: 97. i won't be speaking to any of these in detail now most of these have business cases in the

[0:31:17] Voice 29: the agenda package, which everyone has likely read at this point, and staff can happily speak

[0:31:23] Voice 29: to any of those business cases if there's any that trustees would like some information on.

[0:31:27] Voice 29: For now, that list is all of the proposed projects. They total $212,000 in the budget.

[0:31:36] Voice 29: We have operational projects totaling $127,000 in the budget. Most of this is paid for by grant

[0:31:44] Voice 29: grant monies. So $125,000 is associated with the local government development approvals program

[0:31:50] Voice 29: that's fully paid for by grant funds, so not the burden of taxpayers. And then there's a modest

[0:31:55] Voice 29: amount of $2,500 for accessibility plan development. This is a legislated activity that the Islands

[0:32:01] Voice 29: Trust will have to undertake in the next fiscal year. We've talked about surplus funds and how

[0:32:07] Voice 29: we do have a draw from surplus funds in the budget at $190,000. We've talked about how there is some

[0:32:13] Voice 29: extra in that fund that can be used in the budget to reduce taxation. We have about $79,000 that can

[0:32:20] Voice 29: be drawn on to reduce taxation. So page 99 of the agenda package is where we see the numerical

[0:32:30] Voice 29: detail of the budget. So this is where the budget itself is presented in numerical form.

[0:32:36] Voice 29: I'm going to stop now just to see if there's any questions on the information I've presented. I

[0:32:41] Voice 29: want to make sure that things are clear for trustees. So I'll field questions just on what's

[0:32:45] Voice 12: been presented i see trustee fast right

[0:32:55] Voice 9: yes thank you um julia i just want to confirm about the

[0:33:00] Voice 9: bowen contribution uh the 16.97 increase page 92. i'm wondering um if we were to draw more from

[0:33:12] Voice 9: surplus the general revenue surplus would you expect that proportion to go down

[0:33:19] Voice 9: partly i'm interested in um making sure bowen pays in every year as you know and to the surplus

[0:33:27] Voice 9: and if we draw from surplus my uh i'm anticipating that we might be able to drop that 16.9 per seven

[0:33:36] Voice 9: nine seven percent increase would that be a reasonable expectation uh

[0:33:42] Voice 29: it depends where

[0:33:44] Voice 29: where the surplus draw is allocated.

[0:33:46] Voice 29: So if we draw money from surplus to fund work in planning,

[0:33:52] Voice 29: Bowen would not benefit from any credits there.

[0:33:55] Voice 29: If we draw surplus and allocate it to areas

[0:33:58] Voice 29: that Bowen contributes to,

[0:33:59] Voice 29: so anything in council services or in conservancy services

[0:34:02] Voice 29: or in general administration,

[0:34:04] Voice 29: then Bowen would benefit from a credit.

[0:34:07] Voice 9: Thank you,

[0:34:08] Voice 9: because I'm interested in the new administrative

[0:34:10] Voice 9: coordinator position,

[0:34:11] Voice 9: but I don't know about a full-time.

[0:34:14] Voice 9: That's a full-time position.

[0:34:16] Voice 9: So anyway, thank you.

[0:34:17] Voice 9: I just wanted to confirm that.

[0:34:19] Voice 29: That is a full-time position

[0:34:20] Voice 29: and Bowen is contributing to that position

[0:34:24] Voice 29: as that would serve the entire organization.

[0:34:26] Voice 29: So I believe they're contributing at a rate of 30%.

[0:34:29] Voice 29: They're contributing to 30% of that person.

[0:34:34] Trustee Luckham: Trustee Mayred Bowen, I think is next

[0:34:36] Trustee Luckham: and then Deb Morrison.

[0:34:38] Voice 5: Thanks.

[0:34:38] Voice 5: Hello, Gee.

[0:34:39] Voice 5: and thank you for your comprehensive presentation.

[0:34:44] Voice 5: Two quick questions.

[0:34:45] Voice 5: Number one, the two full-time positions, I was confused.

[0:34:49] Voice 5: I thought there was one.

[0:34:50] Voice 5: Did they both come through the EC budget submission

[0:34:54] Voice 5: or did one come from a different source?

[0:34:58] Voice 5: That's question number one.

[0:35:00] Voice 5: And the second question is, it's not really a question,

[0:35:03] Voice 5: but could you reflect on a suggestion during FPC

[0:35:08] Voice 5: see that the insurance costs might be reduced by contemplating self-insurance and using the

[0:35:17] Voice 5: surplus funds for that? Because I believe, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that the insurance

[0:35:24] Voice 5: costs, some of the insurance costs come through the fact that we're insuring against legal costs.

[0:35:31] Voice 5: Thank you.

[0:35:34] Voice 29: So I'll start with your first question about the two new staff positions.

[0:35:38] Voice 29: Both of these staff positions did go through executive committee, and both were supported by executive committee and submitted.

[0:35:48] Voice 29: There was a subsequent removal of one of the positions.

[0:35:52] Voice 29: I don't remember exactly why.

[0:35:54] Voice 29: I think this was during an exercise where staff were trying to assist with some of the budget pressures and determined that that may be a position that would be able to be removed.

[0:36:03] Voice 29: financial planning committee did review a new request that came from the new executive committee

[0:36:11] Voice 29: requesting that that be added back in. And so financial planning committee reviewed new

[0:36:15] Voice 29: executive committee's request that that be added back in and supported it with a resolution to add

[0:36:20] Voice 29: that back in. So that's why we've got the two positions there. Your second question around

[0:36:26] Voice 29: around legal costs and insurance costs there is definitely an opportunity to self-insure so

[0:36:35] Voice 29: trust council could decide not to take out an insurance policy and instead self-insure so that

[0:36:42] Voice 29: would mean that trust council itself would fund any legal claims that came against us if there

[0:36:48] Voice 29: was any payments that were due if we were to lose a case that would be on the backs of islands trust

[0:36:53] Voice 29: there would be no insurance coverage. Self-insurance does carry a higher risk to the

[0:36:57] Voice 29: organization, and so Trust Council would have to have a risk appetite for that, and there would

[0:37:03] Voice 29: have to be some work that takes place before we take that approach. Self-insurance can result in

[0:37:11] Voice 29: lower annual costs because you would not be paying for insurance, but it can have much greater

[0:37:17] Voice 29: one-time costs if you have legal cases that are significant in cost or that you lose and have to

[0:37:23] Voice 29: make payment on um so two things that at play there but uh it certainly is an option interest

[0:37:28] Voice 29: council could direct staff

[0:37:30] Voice 28: to take on that analysis okay

[0:37:35] Voice 12: so deb morrison and then uh judy

[0:37:37] Voice 12: getty thank

[0:37:39] Voice 24: you um thank you very much julia as usual i just love your spreadsheets um so

[0:37:46] Voice 24: i have a few questions related i think maybe they're for our ec but i'm not sure um there

[0:37:53] Voice 24: There was a few project details in here that for some reason I'm not tracking what that work is, and so would just like some clarification on it.

[0:38:05] Voice 24: One was the Indigenous Watersheds Initiative. I'm not sure why I'm not tracking that one or if there's somewhere that I just need to be directed in the package to understand that more.

[0:38:14] Voice 24: and the other one was the LG development approvals LPS and I do understand those are all grant funded

[0:38:23] Voice 24: I just didn't understand the work so if somebody can direct me to where I'm supposed to know more

[0:38:30] Voice 24: about that that'd be awesome and then I also noticed in the travel for training that there is

[0:38:39] Voice 24: is a huge forecast for, is that for UBCM? Is that what that is? And so that's that question.

[0:38:49] Voice 24: And then I also, I think I might be a little bit ahead on a couple other questions related to some

[0:38:56] Voice 24: of the specific projects. Like I don't see the LUB for North Pender in the specific projects

[0:39:03] Voice 24: over $5,000, but we're in the middle of it. So is that just because it's continuing? So I'll start

[0:39:08] Voice 24: with those.

[0:39:12] Voice 29: So Director Cermak is best placed to answer your questions related to the Indigenous

[0:39:17] Voice 29: Watersheds Initiative and the LGDAP. So I see he's

[0:39:21] Voice 12: online. Your microphone is not on Stefan.

[0:39:37] Voice 12: How's that? Much better. Apparently

[0:39:40] Voice 33: there's two mute buttons. Okay so I'm not sure I can answer

[0:39:45] Voice 33: the Indigenous Watershed. I believe that was a report that was or a process that was already

[0:39:51] Voice 33: occurred and a report was created most questions seem to be about the heritage overlay mapping

[0:39:58] Voice 33: and i could answer that question if that's what you intended in terms of the lgdap the

[0:40:04] Voice 33: which is the uh the grant from the province of over three hundred thousand dollars

[0:40:09] Voice 33: that is to um completely revamp the application processing um software that we use the property

[0:40:17] Voice 33: information system and and the portal system and the interaction that applicants have with

[0:40:23] Voice 33: the islands trust and um yeah right

[0:40:26] Voice 24: okay that's great sorry it was just when it said approvals

[0:40:29] Voice 24: program i wasn't thinking tech but i remembered talking about the tech okay thank you for that

[0:40:33] Voice 24: um and then the other question was the travel stuff was all ubcm related because it was quite

[0:40:38] Voice 24: high i was surprised um

[0:40:41] Voice 29: i believe we have some of that increased cost is associated with the fact

[0:40:45] Voice 29: that we've got new trustees who are likely going to be traveling more uh for training and the the

[0:40:51] Voice 29: lgla i think is um one of the drivers there as opposed to ubcm um the cao may have more information

[0:41:00] Voice 29: on the plans for for trustee travel but we do also have some increases in training in general

[0:41:06] Voice 29: for staff as well and so there's increased expected travel costs associated with that so

[0:41:12] Voice 29: So there has been some specific training

[0:41:13] Voice 29: that's been approved for some excluded staff

[0:41:16] Voice 29: and that could potentially have higher travel costs.

[0:41:19] Voice 24: Okay, I guess my question there

[0:41:21] Voice 24: was a little bit more specific.

[0:41:22] Voice 24: I was just really curious

[0:41:23] Voice 24: if there was conference travel going on

[0:41:25] Voice 24: that we weren't aware of

[0:41:26] Voice 24: and that would just be helpful to know.

[0:41:31] Voice 24: Thank you.

[0:41:32] Voice 12: I can,

[0:41:32] Voice 16: are we on?

[0:41:35] Voice 16: Yep.

[0:41:35] Voice 16: So are we looking at travel for training

[0:41:38] Voice 16: on page 100, the 19,950?

[0:41:43] Voice 35: Yes.

[0:41:44] Voice 16: About $3,000.

[0:41:46] Voice 16: yeah there's a there's one significant training opportunity that occurs that's the lgla

[0:41:54] Voice 16: local government training such sessions there's been a couple years of of not having people

[0:42:00] Voice 16: attend those sessions um it's and it pretty much is would factor into about the difference in

[0:42:06] Voice 16: dollars you see there um and that's for certainly all 26 trustees we couldn't afford to have

[0:42:13] Voice 16: everyone attend that's to have three or four trustees go to that training if they wished

[0:42:19] Voice 16: or there's council direction so that's what that that increase this is associated with

[0:42:26] Voice 16: the UBCM costs and others are in conference training okay

[0:42:33] Voice 24: okay that's super helpful thank you

[0:42:36] Voice 24: um and do we have a policy on how we choose staff and and um maybe this is outside the budget

[0:42:46] Voice 24: conversation but just something to flag I would just be curious to have that policy come back in

[0:42:50] Voice 24: to just be aware of it as a as a council um because for UBCM for instance there's a number

[0:42:57] Voice 24: of trustees that were going to UBCM but we were um we approved it out of our own LTC budget for

[0:43:03] Voice 24: for me to travel, I couldn't travel in the end,

[0:43:05] Voice 24: but that was a question for me at the time

[0:43:07] Voice 24: about how that's getting selected.

[0:43:09] Voice 24: So it would just be helpful to know for all trustees

[0:43:11] Voice 24: so they can decide if they wanna attend those things.

[0:43:14] Voice 16: Thank you, yes, we can go on now.

[0:43:21] Trustee Luckham: Okay, so does that answer all your questions, Deb?

[0:43:25] Voice 24: For now, yeah, I have some questions

[0:43:27] Voice 24: just about the budget cases,

[0:43:29] Voice 24: but I don't think we're there yet, right?

[0:43:31] Voice 24: No, yeah. Okay, thanks.

[0:43:32] Trustee Luckham: We'll go to Judy Getty, Toby Elliott, and Aaron Campbell.

[0:43:42] Voice 2: General question.

[0:43:45] Voice 2: I understand that Bowen is not paying for planning

[0:43:48] Voice 2: and that we pay for all the other services.

[0:43:52] Voice 2: I'm wondering if the office leases for not just Victoria,

[0:43:58] Voice 2: but Gabriela, Salt Spring Island, and Galliano

[0:44:00] Voice 2: are divided out or prorated or whatever the correct language is,

[0:44:06] Voice 2: whether or not the bylaw enforcement legal expenses are similarly divided up,

[0:44:11] Voice 2: and if the new city software is primarily for planning, if that is divided up somehow.

[0:44:20] Voice 2: And more generally, when you talk about the grant revenue and the $180,000 that comes in from the province,

[0:44:29] Voice 2: But there's mention that there should be some effort made to try and increase that.

[0:44:36] Voice 2: And has that, it was sort of discounted or disclaimed in the general write-up,

[0:44:44] Voice 2: but is that a process that we're planning on doing something about more rigorously?

[0:44:56] Voice 29: So I would turn to our CAO to answer your second question there,

[0:44:59] Voice 29: if I end up poaching the province for more funding,

[0:45:02] Voice 29: and then I'll respond to your earlier question.

[0:45:05] Voice 16: That question has been a longstanding question

[0:45:08] Voice 16: at the Islands Trust,

[0:45:10] Voice 16: the amount of funding that we get from the province

[0:45:12] Voice 16: to do work both for the region on behalf of citizens,

[0:45:17] Voice 16: but also on people across British Columbia.

[0:45:21] Voice 16: There has not been a full strategic plan put in place

[0:45:26] Voice 16: or a full strategy put in place

[0:45:30] Voice 16: to address exactly what that ask is um every time we meet with the province this is brought up

[0:45:37] Voice 16: um what we get is that the equivalent planning grant that a regional proportional the equivalent

[0:45:43] Voice 16: planning grant that a regional district would get um so that's why you see that number that number

[0:45:48] Voice 16: has been static for eight years um it's had no increases associated with it um i think that there

[0:45:55] Voice 16: is a case to be made but that has not been a fully vetted strategic direction from my conversations

[0:46:05] Voice 16: with the ministry and others and executive committee in the past it is something would

[0:46:12] Voice 16: need some rigor and a case built around it so while it's a continuing request of the province

[0:46:21] Voice 16: We do not have a specific targeted strategic request of them at this time.

[0:46:28] Voice 16: That would be something that Trust Council could consider.

[0:46:30] Voice 16: It would be a priority.

[0:46:33] Voice 2: Supplemental, if I may, Chair.

[0:46:36] Voice 2: Is that something for the Finance Committee or is that something for the Council generally?

[0:46:41] Voice 16: I think that that question is a strategic action by Trust Council.

[0:46:48] Voice 16: And it would need to direct that that work gets done.

[0:46:51] Voice 16: and fund it in some way and likely you'd want to get some some significant

[0:46:57] Voice 16: experience brought in to assist you with developing that argument there is no

[0:47:04] Voice 16: standing how obvious it seems here there's a significant argument for the

[0:47:09] Voice 16: status quo that I've heard for the last five or six years so I think it would be

[0:47:15] Voice 16: a Trust Council decision to go in that direction and fund and develop a

[0:47:19] Voice 16: strategic uh direction um in that area and to um fund it and approach the province with that thank

[0:47:29] Voice 16: you um i

[0:47:32] Voice 29: can i can respond to the earlier question mr chair so when we are talking about things like

[0:47:39] Voice 29: office leases which of course serve the entire organization and would include space that houses

[0:47:44] Voice 29: planning staff we do make sure that costs related to planning staff are not borne by

[0:47:51] Voice 29: by Bowen Island. So the Victoria office space houses staff from all departments. So Bowen

[0:47:58] Voice 29: Island contributes to a portion of that lease cost because a portion of staff working for Bowen

[0:48:04] Voice 29: initiatives is there. And the other offices, which house only planning staff, Bowen Island does not

[0:48:10] Voice 29: contribute to. When we look at things like software support and licensing, those tend to be

[0:48:15] Voice 29: things that serve the entire organization. I do think the CityView is an important one to look at

[0:48:21] Voice 29: because of course that's a planning only and so that should be removed and we'll make sure that

[0:48:25] Voice 29: happens in the budget it would not have a significant uh impact on the bowen island

[0:48:31] Voice 29: levy unfortunately um but it but it should be excluded and these types of things are what is

[0:48:37] Voice 29: looked at when islands trust engages with bowen island municipal staff so we we start that

[0:48:42] Voice 29: engagement after this trust council meeting uh to make sure that there's review of the allocation of

[0:48:46] Voice 29: of costs such that things are correct.

[0:48:53] Voice 12: Okay,

[0:48:54] Trustee Luckham: thank you very much.

[0:48:54] Trustee Luckham: So my list continues to grow here.

[0:48:58] Trustee Luckham: So I'm hoping that I've got this in order.

[0:49:00] Trustee Luckham: I see that Deb Morrison, your hand is still up,

[0:49:02] Trustee Luckham: but I'm gonna go to Erin Campbell, Ben Maverly,

[0:49:06] Trustee Luckham: and Toby Elliott.

[0:49:07] Voice 24: Sorry, Chair, there was one question I'd asked

[0:49:09] Voice 24: that hadn't been answered.

[0:49:10] Voice 24: It was about the North Pender LUB funding.

[0:49:13] Trustee Luckham: Oh, I see, I'm sorry.

[0:49:16] Trustee Luckham: Is Stefan or somebody still on the line here

[0:49:18] Trustee Luckham: for North Pender LUB funding?

[0:49:23] Voice 33: I am here, Mr. Chair. Could you repeat the question, though? I think the question was North Pender has work currently undergoing on the island, but there's no business case submission for works that are going to cost over $5,000 for next fiscal.

[0:49:41] Voice 24: Yeah, that's the question. And our planner has been working on that. So I'm just curious why there's nothing there.

[0:49:47] Voice 33: well i can't answer why the north pender ltc did not submit a business case for consideration of

[0:49:52] Voice 33: the budget but my assumption is that the costs are not expected to exceed five thousand dollars

[0:49:58] Voice 33: to continue that project next year therefore it's a minor active project and you can have

[0:50:05] Voice 33: you will have staff who can continue that work under that assumption thank

[0:50:10] Trustee Luckham: you thank you deb

[0:50:12] Trustee Luckham: uh aaron campbell ben maybelline toby elliott and we're coming up to our break at 10 o'clock

[0:50:18] Voice 26: i think actually judy had asked most of the questions that i was going to bring up about

[0:50:24] Voice 26: the the provincial government pitching in and i just i guess further to it was wondering what

[0:50:30] Voice 26: um what steps we as trustees could make to try to encourage that process

[0:50:39] Voice 26: just a little more in detail, I guess.

[0:50:46] Voice 16: Well, absolutely.

[0:50:48] Voice 16: So as part of your strategic planning process,

[0:50:51] Voice 16: you know, when you identify the number of things

[0:50:53] Voice 16: that are of significant importance to you,

[0:50:57] Voice 16: you would ask for reporting or the development

[0:51:00] Voice 16: of a strategy associated with that ask.

[0:51:04] Voice 16: And, you know, just anecdotally,

[0:51:07] Voice 16: different than some other initiatives

[0:51:09] Voice 16: that the Islands Trust undertakes where staff goes and does a report

[0:51:13] Voice 16: and brings it back to you, and then you consider things,

[0:51:17] Voice 16: this would have a significant political element associated with it.

[0:51:22] Voice 16: And myself or other senior staff can go and meet with other ministry staff.

[0:51:29] Voice 16: In this particular area, that's not going to move the dial.

[0:51:35] Voice 16: There would have to be a holistic approach that's developed

[0:51:39] Voice 16: where there's, you know, political action taken

[0:51:44] Voice 16: or where it's needed in concert with, you know,

[0:51:48] Voice 16: some specific analysis around what specific funds

[0:51:51] Voice 16: would be appropriate to be redirected

[0:51:54] Voice 16: towards the Islands Trust and for what areas.

[0:51:57] Voice 16: You know, anecdotally, I could talk about

[0:51:59] Voice 16: what those might be, but you would ask for some reporting

[0:52:02] Voice 16: on the development of a strategy.

[0:52:04] Voice 16: That strategy would need to be comprehensive.

[0:52:06] Voice 16: It would be part, I would recommend, of your strategic planning process.

[0:52:09] Voice 16: There would be thought given to it.

[0:52:12] Voice 16: You would likely want to get some outside, unbiased advice and perspective on how to approach the province.

[0:52:20] Voice 16: And you'd have to develop a role for elected officials to affect a different outcome than we have right now.

[0:52:28] Voice 16: Now, we've got a fairly well-baked system, and it's going to need some fairly extraordinary work to turn it.

[0:52:38] Voice 16: So I don't know if that's the succinct answers you wanted, but I think success in this area is going to need those three or four things involved.

[0:52:47] Voice 16: And as you sit together and begin to think about what do we want to do together, what are our shared values, that might be one where you really want to dedicate some effort.

[0:52:58] Trustee Luckham: Okay. Thanks.

[0:53:00] Trustee Luckham: Thank you. And I'm just going to remark on that topic, which I feel necessary to, is a strategic element to this ask would be very welcome, because on every occasion when I meet every minister that we've had in the past 12 years, that request has come forward.

[0:53:22] Trustee Luckham: but it's not as simple as asking for a grant or some short-term funding we're talking about a

[0:53:27] Trustee Luckham: long-term strategic plan that's continuous funding which over the years could amount to millions of

[0:53:33] Trustee Luckham: dollars and our minister needs to have a strong case to go to his colleagues and ask for that

[0:53:39] Trustee Luckham: funding for the honest trust which I believe is necessary to continue the work of the honest

[0:53:45] Trustee Luckham: trust so just want to provide that additional remark so thank you for the question Aaron

[0:53:50] Trustee Luckham: Karen. Let's continue on. I think that answers that question. So Ben Maberly, Toby Elliott,

[0:53:56] Trustee Luckham: Kate Louise, there's five minutes to it.

[0:53:58] Voice 8: Yeah, thanks, Chair. Julie, I just want to go back to

[0:54:02] Voice 8: the insurance. We're paying $208,000 right now to insure. So I think there's merit in reviewing

[0:54:08] Voice 8: or looking at self-insuring. Do you, by any chance, know what our yearly loss performance is

[0:54:15] Voice 8: is with our insurance, because that would dictate how much money we could then put into a sub

[0:54:23] Voice 8: account in the surplus funds to cover off our yearly loss performance and would allow us to

[0:54:28] Voice 8: self-insure. If we have a good year, obviously we're going to build that sub account up

[0:54:33] Voice 8: to exceed our loss performance. It's a fairly simple process. Do you happen to know what that

[0:54:41] Voice 8: what that is now?

[0:54:44] Voice 29: I don't have that information offhand, but I will say it's rare that we lose

[0:54:49] Voice 29: cases, but we often will incur significant costs defending ourselves. That said, we have a fairly

[0:54:57] Voice 29: high self-insurance retention limit. So self-insured retention is very similar to deductible.

[0:55:05] Voice 29: You can think about it as a deductible. Our deductible per claim per insured claim is $125,000.

[0:55:10] Voice 29: dollars so we are paying for all legal costs up to 125 000 per claim and only costs uh incurred

[0:55:18] Voice 29: over that amount are reimbursable by the insurer and then of course uh any amounts um you know

[0:55:24] Voice 29: depending on the outcome of of the legal claim if we're awarded costs um typically yeah we don't

[0:55:30] Voice 29: lose that many cases i believe our um uh recuperation of costs is fairly low but i don't

[0:55:37] Voice 29: have that detail on hand right now.

[0:55:39] Voice 8: Yeah okay because I think there's merit in figuring out

[0:55:42] Voice 8: what those calculations are because it seems like the insurance costs are quite high compared to

[0:55:49] Voice 8: what if we especially if we're not losing losing any cases there should be significant savings in

[0:55:56] Voice 8: there and then you know we've got the money in the sub account and surplus funds to protect

[0:56:02] Voice 8: ourselves from that so i think it's an exercise worth doing okay

[0:56:10] Trustee Luckham: uh thank you um something that

[0:56:15] Trustee Luckham: hasn't been said although julia julie julia hinted about it is that when we we win our cases

[0:56:22] Trustee Luckham: and the courts award us costs it doesn't mean we get all the money back like we get a pittance of

[0:56:29] Trustee Luckham: of it back.

[0:56:30] Trustee Luckham: And so that would necessarily be a continuous thing.

[0:56:34] Trustee Luckham: And Julie also touched on the finance,

[0:56:39] Trustee Luckham: I always forget the name,

[0:56:41] Trustee Luckham: the finance authority, the municipal finance authority

[0:56:43] Trustee Luckham: that has insurance capability for other local governments

[0:56:47] Trustee Luckham: of which the Alliance Trust has been excluded

[0:56:49] Trustee Luckham: all these years.

[0:56:50] Trustee Luckham: We have been making overtures to that

[0:56:52] Trustee Luckham: and have had some success recently and more interest.

[0:56:55] Trustee Luckham: And it is sort of a self-insured program.

[0:56:57] Trustee Luckham: It's actually all the provincial governments get together

[0:56:59] Trustee Luckham: they're self-insuring so that's a good avenue of pursuit but certainly we need to look at all those

[0:57:05] Trustee Luckham: options and so thank you for that ben so i just want to say um i actually said earlier mistakenly

[0:57:11] Trustee Luckham: that our break is coming up at 10 o'clock in fact our first nations reconciliation action plan

[0:57:16] Trustee Luckham: session is coming up in less than two minutes um which we have a guest coming in reese harding and

[0:57:22] Trustee Luckham: And I do need to start that on time.

[0:57:23] Trustee Luckham: I'm going to say, you know, if Toby, I've got two speakers on my list, Toby Elliott and Kate Louis-Stamford, and I've written that down.

[0:57:32] Trustee Luckham: I'll definitely pick those up after the session.

[0:57:34] Trustee Luckham: But if, Toby, your question is less than two minutes, I'd let you ask that question now.

[0:57:41] Voice 31: I was just going to speak to the full-time administrative coordinator position and what the discussion was around that at FPC.

[0:57:50] Voice 31: see the business case uh for it i don't think was included in this budget and i wanted to talk

[0:57:56] Voice 31: about the risk assessment um and just have that conversation more broadly with council so perhaps

[0:58:02] Voice 31: that could be done after our next session yeah

[0:58:04] Trustee Luckham: that's a great question and a good preparation

[0:58:06] Trustee Luckham: for staff to come back after this session with that so i'll return to that toby thank you um

[0:58:12] Trustee Luckham: so i've got toby elliott and kate stanford on my list for when we return and mine

[0:58:17] Voice 36: is just a comment

[0:58:19] Voice 36: and it's 10 seconds long 15 seconds um i just wanted in reference to asking the government

[0:58:26] Voice 36: for more money uh point out there's a strategic approach and one of them is through the islands

[0:58:33] Voice 36: trust conservancy that seems to be one of the logical areas to look for more support through

[0:58:39] Voice 36: the government but uh in order to do so the conversations that i've had just very limited

[0:58:44] Voice 36: it with provincial representatives is what are you doing to bring up your funding and that is

[0:58:52] Voice 36: one of the approaches that the constituency took last term building up its fund development

[0:58:57] Voice 36: strategic fund development and how we move into that position to then go to the government and

[0:59:03] Voice 36: say look at what we're doing to support ourselves how can you help us I just

[0:59:07] Voice 36: wanted to put that out

[0:59:08] Voice 36: there for people to think about it for a while and we can go into more detail at a different time

[0:59:14] Trustee Luckham: Perfect, thank you.

[0:59:15] Trustee Luckham: So I'm going to turn to the CAO to introduce our guest, who I see has come online.

[0:59:20] Trustee Luckham: Sorry Reece for being a little bit late here.

[0:59:23] Trustee Luckham: I'm really excited to have you with us today, but I'll turn it over to CAO.

[0:59:26] Trustee Luckham: Well, thank you very much, Chair Luckham.

[0:59:29] Voice 16: Indeed, we're moving into our Reconciliation and First Nations Engagement session at Trust

[0:59:34] Voice 16: Council as part of your orientation.

[0:59:36] Voice 16: Very excited.

[0:59:37] Voice 16: I'm going to make some initial remarks that staff and myself have considered and then

[0:59:41] Voice 16: introduce Reece.

[0:59:42] Voice 16: and then we're going to go into a session for a couple of hours that's going to provide

[0:59:47] Voice 16: some baseline considerations for us as we continue this work so in recent years the islands trust its

[0:59:54] Voice 16: elected officials staff and staff have shown a strong commitment to advancing the work of

[0:59:59] Voice 16: of reconciliation.

[1:00:00] Voice 16: General of the organization and its people have taken on this important work with humility and respect for the people and places in which we live.

[1:00:07] Voice 16: I want to start off today by acknowledging the patience and guidance of First Nations and Indigenous community members that we work with as we learn to advance this work in a new and different way.

[1:00:20] Voice 16: I also want to acknowledge the contributions of Fiona McGrath and Lisa Wilcox, who have worked in the senior intergovernmental policy advisor role at the Allens Trust and taken on the very delicate task of educating staff and trustees, challenging the status quo and encouraging all of us to stretch to do things differently and better.

[1:00:40] Voice 16: We have come a ways, but still have a long way to go.

[1:00:46] Voice 16: Murray Sinclair, former senator and former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,

[1:00:51] Voice 16: has said that we will not achieve reconciliation in his lifetime and will probably not achieve it

[1:00:56] Voice 16: in the lifetime of his children or even his grandchildren. However, if we make a concerted

[1:01:00] Voice 16: effort then eventually we will be able someday to wake up and to our surprise find that we're

[1:01:05] Voice 16: treating each other in a way that's intended when contact was first made. For Islands Trust Council,

[1:01:11] Voice 16: Council, reconciliation is about acknowledgement, commitment to long-term relationship building

[1:01:15] Voice 16: and healing, and striving for knowledge, sharing, and understanding. Further, Trust Council has set

[1:01:22] Voice 16: out in policy that it is committed to, one, becoming aware of what it does know and does

[1:01:30] Voice 16: not know about or understand about First Nations, two, committing to proving sincere desire for

[1:01:37] Voice 16: reconciliation and three committing to integrating where possible activities that support first

[1:01:43] Voice 16: nations reconnecting with the trust area lands and waters i want to offer some highlights of the type

[1:01:50] Voice 16: of work we've undertaken to grow and to learn over the last number of years as you know trust council

[1:01:57] Voice 16: and the conservancy board have reconciliation declarations last term trust council adopted a

[1:02:03] Voice 16: reconciliation action plan and we made significant process progress on many elements in that plan

[1:02:10] Voice 16: there's been a big focus on internal education and culture change in preparation for improving

[1:02:14] Voice 16: relationships and processes we hope to continue that work this term over the last term we engaged

[1:02:22] Voice 16: four cultural knowledge holders to inform the development of trust council's fresh water

[1:02:26] Voice 16: strategy the strategy is hopefully the first of many that explicitly recognizes indigenous

[1:02:32] Voice 16: Indigenous jurisdiction of waters and lands in the region.

[1:02:34] Voice 16: We also held learning sessions on reconciliation in residential schools, truth and reconciliation

[1:02:39] Voice 16: call to action in Indigenous law.

[1:02:42] Voice 16: For the first time, we engaged First Nations governments in development of Islands Trust

[1:02:46] Voice 16: foundational policy, including the policy statement and the Islands Trust Conservancy

[1:02:51] Voice 16: Plan.

[1:02:52] Voice 16: The North Pender Local Trust Committee advocated that the provincial approving officer not

[1:02:56] Voice 16: approve a proposed subdivision on James Island because it was not in the provincial interest,

[1:03:00] Voice 16: given that it was opposed by the Say Out First Nation, a first.

[1:03:05] Voice 16: The approving officer ultimately denied the application in part due to the negative impacts

[1:03:10] Voice 16: the development would have on the Say Out First Nations.

[1:03:14] Voice 16: The Natsuma Tribal Council and Islands Trust co-hosted the Indigenous Aspiring Leaders Workshop Series in 2022.

[1:03:21] Voice 16: The six-part series provided Indigenous young leaders with the opportunity for discussions around leadership,

[1:03:27] Voice 16: empowerment and connection.

[1:03:28] Voice 16: The Conservancy also worked with two Indigenous youth on Salt Spring Island through a restoration

[1:03:34] Voice 16: project and engaged speakers on eco-cultural restoration and culturally significant places

[1:03:39] Voice 16: in its Species at Risk Gathering event held in March 2022.

[1:03:44] Voice 16: The Thetis Island Local Trust Committee held two boat tours through the islands with leaders

[1:03:49] Voice 16: and staff from the Penelika Tribes and Laiaksin First Nation.

[1:03:53] Voice 16: Finally, we are very pleased in 2021 that the Province responded to a 2018 Advocacy

[1:03:59] Voice 16: request from Trust Council by including specific reference to First Nations in the Trust's object

[1:04:04] Voice 16: statement. We provided almost 240 formal referrals to First Nations government since April this year

[1:04:11] Voice 16: and provided 250 last year. While that represents a significant organizational effort, it does not

[1:04:17] Voice 16: satisfy our commitment to reconciliation. That commitment needs to be grounded in relationships

[1:04:22] Voice 16: and agreed upon methods to navigate tough conversations and decisions. The next phase

[1:04:28] Voice 16: of work for the Islands Trust needs to include the development of protocol agreements with First

[1:04:32] Voice 16: Nations governments that are underpinned by good, strong relationships at all levels, as well as

[1:04:37] Voice 16: examination of how we engage with Indigenous peoples living on the islands. Staff look forward

[1:04:43] Voice 16: to your guidance on how you wish to proceed with this this term. Specifically, there's a number of

[1:04:48] Voice 16: key areas that we need to develop and implement, as well as key questions to answer. How do we

[1:04:54] Voice 16: respectfully incorporate First Nation responses to referrals and decision-making and how do we

[1:04:58] Voice 16: communicate this? How will we fund the emerging situation where capacity funding is regularized

[1:05:04] Voice 16: as part of the referral and engagement process? How do we support trustees develop good working

[1:05:10] Voice 16: relationships with First Nations leadership? How do we understand both our goals with regard to

[1:05:16] Voice 16: UNDRIP and DRIPA and our current legal responsibilities and the limitations associated

[1:05:20] Voice 16: with the structures that we're working within? With that, I'm pleased to introduce Rhys Harding,

[1:05:26] Voice 16: a partner at Young Anderson.

[1:05:28] Voice 16: His practice is focused on local government law litigation

[1:05:30] Voice 16: that includes judicial review, administrative law,

[1:05:34] Voice 16: aboriginal law, assessment and taxation law,

[1:05:37] Voice 16: and natural hazard risk avoidance,

[1:05:39] Voice 16: governance and conflict resolution.

[1:05:41] Voice 16: Rhys has appeared in the British Columbia Provincial Court,

[1:05:44] Voice 16: the BC Supreme Court, the BC Court of Appeal,

[1:05:47] Voice 16: the Federal Court of Canada,

[1:05:48] Voice 16: and the Supreme Court of Canada.

[1:05:51] Voice 16: He has also appeared before several administrative tribunals,

[1:05:54] Voice 16: including the Property Assessment Appeal Board, Environmental Appeal Board, the Coroner's Court,

[1:05:59] Voice 16: and conducts hearings before local government councils. Before joining Young Anderson,

[1:06:04] Voice 16: Reece worked for the Department of Fisheries, Oceans and West Coast Environmental Law. Reece

[1:06:09] Voice 16: is a member of the Municipal Law subsection of the BC branch of the Canadian Bar Association

[1:06:13] Voice 16: and speaks frequently at local government conventions and training events.

[1:06:17] Voice 16: As we move into Reece's talk, it's natural that topics may come up that stray into the

[1:06:21] Voice 16: area of legal advice if this happens we will put those items with your support into a parking lot

[1:06:28] Voice 16: for a future session that could potentially be in camera today is about setting a foundation

[1:06:34] Voice 16: of understanding that we can move forward from and with that i thank rhys and i turn the floor

[1:06:39] Voice 16: over to him thank

[1:06:41] Voice 23: you thank you uh thank you very much russ for those introductory comments uh good

[1:06:47] Voice 23: morning everybody it's a pleasure to see you all i'm going to share my screen now and hope that

[1:06:52] Voice 23: this goes well um it did thank you kindly if we um yeah everyone can hear me fine is that right

[1:07:08] Voice 12: yes thank you i want to go into the actual um

[1:07:12] Voice 16: presenter mode on your presentation on the bottom

[1:07:16] Voice 16: right there yeah

[1:07:18] Voice 23: i'm looking for

[1:07:18] Voice 11: that russ lower lower to the right right it looks like an open

[1:07:23] Voice 11: and book right right a bit more there we go there

[1:07:27] Voice 23: we go thank you kindly i appreciate that

[1:07:30] Voice 23: all right let's get started again good morning everybody um really is a pleasure to be here to

[1:07:34] Voice 23: speak with you about this important and relevant topic i i always take uh a lot of pride in in

[1:07:40] Voice 23: having the opportunity to speak with elected officials about um these extremely important

[1:07:46] Voice 23: and ever evolving matters um i understand we've got a couple of hours i might suggest we take a

[1:07:52] Voice 23: a five-minute break at 11 o'clock for people to stretch, grab a coffee, et cetera. So I'll try to

[1:07:56] Voice 23: watch my clock for 11 o'clock, but please interrupt me if I roll past that time. We've got a fair bit

[1:08:03] Voice 23: of content to cover, but I sure hope there's some time for some questions and some discussion,

[1:08:07] Voice 23: because I think that's what makes this conversation more interesting. Russ did a good job at giving

[1:08:12] Voice 23: you kind of the background of who I am, but I'm going to tell you a little bit more about me to

[1:08:16] Voice 23: to contextualize where I come from on this session.

[1:08:20] Voice 23: So I'm a local government law lawyer, that's what I do.

[1:08:23] Voice 23: I've practiced local government law for 30 years this year,

[1:08:26] Voice 23: and I've pretty much done anything and everything

[1:08:30] Voice 23: local governments manage from the political level

[1:08:33] Voice 23: to the admin level, to the operational level.

[1:08:35] Voice 23: I've really kind of seen it all,

[1:08:37] Voice 23: and I really do understand how local government works.

[1:08:40] Voice 23: I'm not a First Nations law lawyer, that's not what I do,

[1:08:42] Voice 23: but I'm a local government lawyer

[1:08:44] Voice 23: that does First Nations law.

[1:08:46] Voice 23: I'm a bit of a unique hybrid that way.

[1:08:49] Voice 23: And because of that uniqueness,

[1:08:50] Voice 23: I bring a bit of a unique perspective, I hope.

[1:08:53] Voice 23: And I think to this topic that I hope is helpful

[1:08:56] Voice 23: for you as elected officials.

[1:08:58] Voice 23: I candidly admit that my views on these matters

[1:09:01] Voice 23: have evolved over the years and they continue to evolve.

[1:09:05] Voice 23: A couple other matters that I wanna note,

[1:09:08] Voice 23: sort of taking off on some of the comments that Russ made.

[1:09:12] Voice 23: this is very difficult material this is not easy stuff and I want all of you to understand that

[1:09:19] Voice 23: going in that if some of these things seem complex difficult over your head I feel the same way and

[1:09:26] Voice 23: I've really just concluded on these these issues that I'm always learning and I've got to remain

[1:09:31] Voice 23: open to learning it's a bit of a different way of approaching law for a lawyer lawyers think they

[1:09:37] Voice 23: they know everything, right? And it's a bit of a mind bend for those of us that do this to

[1:09:42] Voice 23: just candidly admit that we just simply don't know everything. And we have to remain open to

[1:09:48] Voice 23: learning. The other comment I want to make, and again, botchersing what Russ said about

[1:09:54] Voice 23: Senator Sinclair, is that this is truly generational work. Reconciliation is not going

[1:10:01] Voice 23: to happen in the next one, three, five, or even 10 years. The discussion we're having today,

[1:10:06] Voice 23: hopefully will be a little bit different, but I would predict that the discussion we're having

[1:10:10] Voice 23: today will be continuing in some format with different people, obviously, decades from now.

[1:10:16] Voice 23: It is simply impossible to suggest that reconciliation will happen over a short

[1:10:21] Voice 23: timeframe. So again, a bit of a different approach to the way that we approach these

[1:10:26] Voice 23: matters. We have to take these things slow, steady, with a look to decades down the line,

[1:10:32] Voice 23: not the end of this Trust Council's term in four years. So let's look a little bit quickly at the

[1:10:39] Voice 23: agenda and what we're going to cover today. I have to touch base with you a little bit about

[1:10:43] Voice 23: Section 351 of the Constitution Act. From there, I want to touch in with you on sort of some of the

[1:10:49] Voice 23: seminal Aboriginal title cases, Adelgamook and Chukotan. We're then going to transition into a

[1:10:55] Voice 23: discussion on the duty to consult and accommodate, which I think legally is kind of the nuts and

[1:11:00] Voice 23: bolts of of this discussion actually and i hope coming out of the end of that it gives us some

[1:11:04] Voice 23: clarity with respect to foundational understanding of that concept which is a constitutional concept

[1:11:09] Voice 23: i'll remind everyone we'll kind of wrap it up with what does all that mean uh one two and three

[1:11:15] Voice 23: wrapped up together we're then going to move into a discussion on the declaration act some people

[1:11:20] Voice 23: refer to it as dripa i don't like that term so i call it the declaration act which i think what

[1:11:24] Voice 23: most people are calling it now we'll touch in on undrip the bc action plan and these decision-making

[1:11:29] Voice 23: agreements. We'll have a short discussion, perhaps not that short, but depending on how

[1:11:34] Voice 23: much time we have on the truth and reconciliation calls to action, particularly action item number

[1:11:38] Voice 23: 43, which is the implementation of UNDRIP strategies at the local government and municipal

[1:11:44] Voice 23: level, including the Islands Trust policies, which are robust. I will tell you in advance,

[1:11:49] Voice 23: Russ referred to many of them in his introductory comments. By way of foreshadowing, the Islands

[1:11:54] Voice 23: Islands Trust is well out ahead of the curve with respect to these matters, well ahead of the

[1:11:59] Voice 23: curve. I would suggest you're probably leading the way in many ways. We'll finish up then, I hope,

[1:12:05] Voice 23: with a somewhat positive discussion around reconciliation and collaborative governance

[1:12:09] Voice 23: opportunities. Again, using some Islands Trust examples, as well as some examples from other

[1:12:13] Voice 23: parts of the province, which I hope will leave us with a positive gloss on the discussion.

[1:12:19] Voice 23: discussion. No lawyer is going to attend a session like this without giving a disclaimer of some

[1:12:26] Voice 23: sort. Lawyers are famous for these disclaimers, but I really do need to say this. Russ referred

[1:12:31] Voice 23: to it. I'm just going to have to put it back into play here. This presentation is not intended to

[1:12:37] Voice 23: be legal advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. I want to make that really clear

[1:12:41] Voice 23: to everybody who's watching this and members of the public as well. This is foundational

[1:12:46] Voice 23: It is foundational information. It is not legal advice. I'm not going to comment on any specific land use applications that might be before the trust at this point. To do so would be unfair to anybody involved in those applications and not a good idea to comment on such matters publicly without knowledge.

[1:13:05] Voice 23: So I would request respectfully that if there are any questions, they don't involve specific applications that are before the trust.

[1:13:13] Voice 23: As well, questions that raise specific sensitive circumstances or specific answers might need to be deferred into a future meeting where we can have more candid discussions in a closed meeting session.

[1:13:26] Voice 23: So I'll ask that we try to keep the questions general in nature if possible.

[1:13:30] Voice 23: I'm certainly not asking that you defer questions. I encourage them. I want them. I want to have discussion.

[1:13:35] Voice 23: but i want to be respectful to particularly third parties applicants and others who may

[1:13:40] Voice 23: may have matters before the trust a note on terminology before we get to the

[1:13:46] Voice 23: the presentation itself in this presentation the term aboriginal is going to be used a fair number

[1:13:52] Voice 23: of times when explaining sort of the legal and historical context of aboriginal rights

[1:13:57] Voice 23: this is done to align with the wording used in our constitution the word aboriginal is used in our

[1:14:02] Voice 23: constitution in the remainder of the presentation i'll use interchangeably the terms first nations

[1:14:08] Voice 23: and indigenous people i tend to use the term first nations more you'll probably notice that

[1:14:13] Voice 23: but i i want to acknowledge that i i appreciate that different indigenous peoples and groups have

[1:14:18] Voice 23: different preferences as to how they're referenced some don't want to be referenced as first nations

[1:14:23] Voice 23: some want to be referenced as indigenous people and vice versa and it's not my intention to exclude

[1:14:28] Voice 23: include any Indigenous peoples or groups by the use of my language.

[1:14:31] Voice 23: I just want that to be acknowledged at the front end.

[1:14:34] Voice 23: I also want to acknowledge that when I

[1:14:36] Voice 23: use the term local government, which I've probably used 10 or 15 times already,

[1:14:40] Voice 23: I intend that phrase to apply to both

[1:14:42] Voice 23: local governments generally and the and the Island Trust bodies themselves.

[1:14:46] Voice 23: I appreciate and fully understand that the

[1:14:48] Voice 23: Islands Trust is a unique body under unique legislation and is, I think, often

[1:14:53] Voice 23: referred to as a special form of government, not necessarily a local

[1:14:57] Voice 23: government as we would compare to Vancouver, Surrey, Penticton, Fort St. John. So I understand

[1:15:03] Voice 23: and appreciate the IT is unique, but I make these comments on language, so it's easier to follow me

[1:15:10] Voice 23: in my presentation. Now let's jump into the content, starting with Section 35.1 of the

[1:15:15] Voice 23: Constitution Act. This is constitutional law at its basis, everyone. We have to understand that

[1:15:21] Voice 23: aboriginal peoples are given constitutional protection in canada in our constitution and

[1:15:27] Voice 23: section 35 1 of the constitution act 1982 is on our screen it's 17 words and it says the existing

[1:15:34] Voice 23: aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of canada are hereby recognized and

[1:15:39] Voice 23: affirmed those 17 words have have led to a significant number of groundbreaking cases

[1:15:45] Voice 23: decided by our supreme court of canada simply on the basis of of those words we have to remind

[1:15:51] Voice 23: remind ourselves again that this is our constitution. It is the supreme law of the

[1:15:55] Voice 23: land. It is the highest rung on the ladder. You do not get to ignore it. And when the Supreme

[1:16:00] Voice 23: Court of Canada speaks and rules on such matters under Section 35.1, when they release judgments

[1:16:06] Voice 23: that are their jurisprudence on these 17 words, those words bind all levels of government from

[1:16:13] Voice 23: Canada to the province, to the territorial governments, to regional governments, all the

[1:16:16] Voice 23: the way down to the trust so this is the supreme law of our land what are aboriginal rights they

[1:16:24] Voice 23: are they are not defined in section 351 we go back there you see there it is there's there's

[1:16:30] Voice 23: no definition of aboriginal rights so um we have to jump into it a little bit and i'm i'm advising

[1:16:37] Voice 23: you that that short books perhaps medium or long-sized books could be written on the concept

[1:16:41] Voice 23: of aboriginal rights so i i'm going to be touching at a very very high level here please appreciate

[1:16:46] Voice 23: that um aboriginal rights are not individual rights as a starting point we have to recognize

[1:16:51] Voice 23: that they're collective rights of the first nation group and they're very diverse and and different

[1:16:57] Voice 23: and integral to the distinct culture of each indigenous body it will be different depending

[1:17:02] Voice 23: upon the indigenous body that that we're dealing with um aboriginal rights in general as a big

[1:17:07] Voice 23: basket can include a whole bunch of different things practices customs traditions and it can

[1:17:12] Voice 23: can also include the concept of Aboriginal title, which we hear mentioned quite routinely.

[1:17:18] Voice 23: Aboriginal title seems to be a phrase that is becoming quite common in our parlance these

[1:17:24] Voice 23: days. But what does it mean? It means sui generis title encompassing the right to exclusive

[1:17:31] Voice 23: use and occupation of land for a variety of purposes. Now, sui generis is just a fancy

[1:17:37] Voice 23: Latin term for of its own kind. That's what it translates to in English. So you can think about

[1:17:43] Voice 23: it as a unique form of title that allows an Indigenous body the right to exclusively use and

[1:17:49] Voice 23: occupy an area of land for a variety of purposes that are unique to their culture and historic

[1:17:55] Voice 23: practices. It is still a rare thing for a court to recognize Aboriginal title. It is extremely

[1:18:03] Voice 23: difficult to prove by way of both the evidence that needs to be mustered and the economics of

[1:18:09] Voice 23: mustering that evidence and bringing it to a judge as a starting point in this province,

[1:18:15] Voice 23: at least in the BC Supreme Court. It's difficult to prove Aboriginal title. And when we talk about

[1:18:20] Voice 23: Aboriginal title, please recognize that that is a declaration or finding of a court. It is not

[1:18:27] Voice 23: something that we just say we have. It is a declaration of a judge in a court saying that

[1:18:33] Voice 23: has been proven by a First Nation. And the First Nation Aboriginal body carries the burden to prove

[1:18:39] Voice 23: that they have Aboriginal title before a court. So let's talk a little bit more about Aboriginal

[1:18:45] Voice 23: title as part of Aboriginal rights, just so that we have a little bit of a foundation as to what

[1:18:51] Voice 23: that actually is. So Aboriginal title case law, there's a lot of it. And it certainly goes back

[1:18:57] Voice 23: before section 35 one was brought into our constitution act in 1982 but there and there

[1:19:03] Voice 23: was a number of cases very important cases before that date as well as after but it really all comes

[1:19:07] Voice 23: together in a case called delgamook who we probably most of us have probably heard of that

[1:19:11] Voice 23: case it's a 1997 case from from british columbia and um it's literally um a novel to read it's a

[1:19:21] Voice 23: it's a brilliant read if you wish to read it particularly the bc court of appeal level of it

[1:19:26] Voice 23: But if you want to learn about Aboriginal history in Canada and in British Columbia, particularly coastal people, it's a very good read.

[1:19:33] Voice 23: Long read, but a good read.

[1:19:35] Voice 23: The unique thing about Dalgamook is that it was the first case to decide that Aboriginal title actually could exist.

[1:19:42] Voice 23: So it's the first time that our courts actually said under our constitution, Aboriginal title as a concept can exist.

[1:19:48] Voice 23: And it can include the following sorts of things.

[1:19:51] Voice 23: It's sort of like a fee simple title that we're more used to, but in essence, it's better.

[1:19:55] Voice 23: And the reason it's better is that it's not subject to things like government expropriation, for example.

[1:20:00] Voice 23: It can't be taken away. It can't be removed.

[1:20:03] Voice 23: My fee simple title and my house in Port Moody can be removed by the government if they wish to.

[1:20:09] Voice 23: They could expropriate my property if they want.

[1:20:11] Voice 23: If I have aboriginal title, it can't be expropriated.

[1:20:14] Voice 23: The government can't take it away from me.

[1:20:16] Voice 23: It provides a right to use the land, to occupy the land, to possess the land,

[1:20:20] Voice 23: to seek economic benefits from the land in the supreme court's language to exploit the land for

[1:20:25] Voice 23: things like mining forestry so it's not caught in the aboriginal title if proven is not caught

[1:20:31] Voice 23: in the past from the 1800s when we would be looking at the evidence but it's what you can

[1:20:37] Voice 23: gain from it now the economic benefits are modern you you can use your title for economic benefits

[1:20:43] Voice 23: um that are modern in in context importantly and i mentioned this earlier it's a collective

[1:20:50] Voice 23: right. It's not held by an individual, but it's held by the Indigenous body as a collective.

[1:20:55] Voice 23: So you can't sell it like you would think normally. We can sell a fee simple interest in

[1:21:00] Voice 23: property. It can be leased, it can be used, it can be exploited, but it can't be sold from one person

[1:21:07] Voice 23: to another. It's held by the collective for the Indigenous body as a whole and for future members

[1:21:12] Voice 23: of that Indigenous body. So it's almost a trust-like relationship in some sense that it's

[1:21:16] Voice 23: held collectively for all. Delgamook itself, though, did not actually decide Aboriginal title.

[1:21:24] Voice 23: In true fact, the case failed. The court found that Aboriginal title could exist, but that it

[1:21:31] Voice 23: was not recognized in this particular case. There's a whole series of reasons for that.

[1:21:35] Voice 23: I won't get into it, but the case actually didn't succeed. It was sent back to trial

[1:21:39] Voice 23: well, for a whole series of reasons. So it didn't actually decide title, and it also struggled with

[1:21:48] Voice 23: what was Aboriginal title supposed to look like. The First Nation in this case was urging large

[1:21:53] Voice 23: tracts of land to be granted as Aboriginal title, while the government lawyers were suggesting

[1:21:58] Voice 23: they should be somewhat, we'll call them postage stamp size pieces of land, the actual size of the

[1:22:03] Voice 23: village sites, etc., where they could prove real occupation of the First Nation historically.

[1:22:08] Voice 23: Historically, that issue never really got decided. It was left to future courts to determine how that would all play out. Almost two decades goes by until we get the next significant case at the Supreme Court of Canada dealing with Aboriginal title, and that's the case of Williams or Chilcotin or Silquitin, as it's often referred to. I'll refer to it as Chilcotin in most of my comments.

[1:22:33] Voice 23: this uh this case ends up before the supreme court of canada in 2014 and the decision comes out um a

[1:22:40] Voice 23: very it's a landmark decision i don't think we can suggest otherwise i've read some scholarly

[1:22:45] Voice 23: reports suggesting it might be the most important case in bc history i think there's a case to be

[1:22:50] Voice 23: made for that by way of a very brief review of the case um chilcotin um first nation is in the

[1:22:57] Voice 23: the Williams Lake area. This is a First Nation that's been there from time immemorial. And the

[1:23:03] Voice 23: area that was claimed was just outside Williams Lake, and it was restricted to a claim against

[1:23:08] Voice 23: Crown land. So there was no private land involved here, no water bodies either. It was restricted to

[1:23:13] Voice 23: Crown land itself. The First Nation was able to bring and muster a significant amount of evidence,

[1:23:19] Voice 23: evidence proving exclusive use of the lands historically at the appropriate timeframes.

[1:23:25] Voice 23: and they were firmly able to establish that they had an existing aboriginal title so it was proven

[1:23:31] Voice 23: it took a great deal of effort to get there but they actually proved it in the court

[1:23:35] Voice 23: the court declared a large area so going back to what we said dalgamook didn't do dalgamook didn't

[1:23:42] Voice 23: determine what aboriginal title would look like smaller large parcels this court decided in this

[1:23:47] Voice 23: case on large tracts of land in this matter 1700 square kilometers of land became first nations

[1:23:55] Voice 23: section's Aboriginal title land. So it's a significant swath of land, not as much as was

[1:24:00] Voice 23: claimed, but a significant amount of land in any event. The key points from Chilcotin, from

[1:24:07] Voice 23: Silcotin, is that it's the first ever court case to prove Aboriginal title under Section 35.1 of

[1:24:13] Voice 23: the Constitution Act. There will be more, and there are more in the system. There are quite a

[1:24:18] Voice 23: few in the system, some progressing, and it may be that we're going to hear about more of these as

[1:24:23] Voice 23: as they work their way through the court soon.

[1:24:25] Voice 23: But this was the first and the landmark.

[1:24:28] Voice 23: We know the areas that will be granted

[1:24:30] Voice 23: will likely be larger in size.

[1:24:32] Voice 23: They're not always going to be 1,700 square kilometers.

[1:24:34] Voice 23: They might be larger, they might be smaller,

[1:24:36] Voice 23: but nevertheless, they will be large, it appears.

[1:24:38] Voice 23: The Aboriginal title that's protected under 35 makes it,

[1:24:43] Voice 23: in some ways, almost a super fee symbol.

[1:24:45] Voice 23: I mentioned that before.

[1:24:46] Voice 23: These are my terms, by the way.

[1:24:48] Voice 23: I'm not necessarily suggesting that First Nations lawyers

[1:24:52] Voice 23: would describe it this way,

[1:24:53] Voice 23: These are my terms. I see it as a super fee simple because it can't be taken by the government.

[1:24:57] Voice 23: It's a quite a significant interest in the land, so to speak.

[1:25:03] Voice 23: And of course, the First Nations must protect for future generations. It's a collective right.

[1:25:07] Voice 23: It can't be sold in the usual sense. It could be leased, developed, but not sold.

[1:25:14] Voice 23: So that's a very cursory introduction to Aboriginal title and the two really fundamentally leading cases.

[1:25:21] Voice 23: Now I want to transition to a separate but equally important, and perhaps more important for the trust in local government, another Section 35.1 Constitution Act right called the duty to consult and accommodate.

[1:25:35] Voice 23: We hear this term quite routinely again I think the parlance has become quite usual that we, we say these these words duty consult sometimes accommodates not added into that but the duty to consult parlance is often engaged, and I think

[1:25:50] Voice 23: often engaged mistakenly or misunderstanding. I don't think that we all really recognize what we

[1:25:55] Voice 23: mean when we actually use those terms. So I'm going to try as best I can to try to sort that

[1:26:01] Voice 23: out, particularly from the trust perspective and the local government perspective. So the duty

[1:26:08] Voice 23: consultant accommodate comes from a case called Haida Nation in BC. It's a 2004 Supreme Court of

[1:26:14] Voice 23: Canada case that created this new test to protect Aboriginal rights and Aboriginal title before

[1:26:21] Voice 23: the First Nation is able to prove it. So before the First Nation goes to court and proves that

[1:26:27] Voice 23: they've got rights or title in certain areas of their traditional territory, this case was put in

[1:26:33] Voice 23: place or this test was put in place to protect the First Nation's interests from the Crown's

[1:26:38] Voice 23: activity or decisions and very briefly the case itself was about cutting permits so the province

[1:26:45] Voice 23: was issuing cutting permits on Haida Gwaii to a company at the time called Weyerhaeuser those of

[1:26:51] Voice 23: us who've been around a while will remember Weyerhaeuser I don't think they exist corporately

[1:26:54] Voice 23: anymore in BC they're in some other form now but Weyerhaeuser was granted cutting licenses on Haida

[1:27:00] Voice 23: Gwaii and they were allowed to cut down some very very significant trees from the the Haida

[1:27:06] Voice 23: First Nations perspective, large ancient red cedar trees were being allowed to cut down.

[1:27:13] Voice 23: The Haida claimed both rights and title in the area, rights particularly to the trees

[1:27:17] Voice 23: for certain customs practices and traditions that they had been involved with for thousands of years

[1:27:23] Voice 23: using the bark from the trees. So the Haida challenged the cutting permits. There wasn't

[1:27:29] Voice 23: really a process to challenge them though in the way that the court ultimately crafted this remedy.

[1:27:35] Voice 23: So the remedy of the duty to consult and accommodate is set out there on the page. And it's important that we go through this just briefly, because it will inform the discussion on how this relates to local government later.

[1:27:45] Voice 23: So it's a crown duty. Notice that I've underlined crown on this slide a couple of times. It's a crown duty that arises when a three-part test has been considered and proven.

[1:27:56] Voice 23: The first part of the test is that the Crown has to have knowledge, real or constructive, of the potential existence, note the word potential, existence of an Aboriginal right or claim.

[1:28:07] Voice 23: So is there a potential claim out there that the government is aware of?

[1:28:11] Voice 23: If the answer to that is yes, we go to part two.

[1:28:14] Voice 23: The Crown contemplates a decision or contact that will engage the claim.

[1:28:18] Voice 23: So here, by way of example, there was a decision to allow the cutting of the Western Red Cedar.

[1:28:23] Voice 23: there was a claim in relation to traditional uses of that resource, the Crown could contemplate that their decision to allow cutting would be a problem for the Haida Nation.

[1:28:36] Voice 23: And lastly, the contemplated Crown decision or conduct may, again recognize may, adversely affect the Aboriginal claim of right.

[1:28:43] Voice 23: So clearly in this case, if you cut down a western red cedar tree that's a thousand years old,

[1:28:48] Voice 23: it may affect the aboriginal right uh to the tree itself and to the the customary uses of those of

[1:28:55] Voice 23: those trees and resources by the first nation so remember uh this is a crown duty it's crown

[1:29:00] Voice 23: duty only and it arises pre-proof of aboriginal title of rights so it's there to protect those

[1:29:07] Voice 23: rights to allow them to be proven while that that process goes through either the courts

[1:29:13] Voice 23: through treaty discussions whatever it may be however we're getting there from the first

[1:29:17] Voice 23: nation's perspective and the government's perspective so i've mentioned crown a number

[1:29:22] Voice 23: of times and of course local government is not the crown but there was a theory for for quite

[1:29:26] Voice 23: some time after the haida guai decision or after the haida nation decision sorry um that the duty

[1:29:31] Voice 23: to consult and accommodate may actually apply to local governments as well there was a theory

[1:29:36] Voice 23: that um because of the way that this litigation was argued i won't get into the history that

[1:29:41] Voice 23: perhaps some of the commentary from the litigation particularly the bc court of appeal was that maybe

[1:29:46] Voice 23: it apply to others not just the crown themselves so let's let's transition to to that discussion

[1:29:53] Voice 23: and and have that discussion because this is kind of the mean potatoes of this particular discussion

[1:30:00] Voice 23: Trust Council. It takes us up to 2012. So eight years later, the BC Court of Appeal gets a case

[1:30:06] Voice 23: called Niskanath Indian Band and Salmon Arm. And this was a proposed shopping center project on

[1:30:12] Voice 23: private land in a sensitive riparian area that was just upstream from the Niskanath reserve lands.

[1:30:18] Voice 23: So this wasn't treaty land or claimed aboriginal title land. It's reserve land that was at issue

[1:30:25] Voice 23: here. There was a reserve just across and down the river from where this proposed project was going

[1:30:31] Voice 23: to be done. The Niskanlith Indian Band considered that this would affect their territory, but they

[1:30:36] Voice 23: weren't involved in litigation. There wasn't any negotiations going on for Aboriginal title claims,

[1:30:41] Voice 23: so it fits squarely into the height of circumstances of pre-proof. So it's before

[1:30:46] Voice 23: that the Niskanlith has proven anything. The developer in this case applied to the city for

[1:30:53] Voice 23: for a development permit and specifically

[1:30:56] Voice 23: an environmentally hazardous development permit

[1:30:58] Voice 23: given where it was being situated.

[1:31:00] Voice 23: And the city as it would in these circumstances

[1:31:04] Voice 23: notified the Niskanlith and provided them

[1:31:06] Voice 23: with all sorts of opportunities under their usual policies

[1:31:09] Voice 23: to participate in the applications

[1:31:12] Voice 23: that were before the city.

[1:31:13] Voice 23: There was an OCP amendment, I think as well.

[1:31:15] Voice 23: There were a few things that were going on

[1:31:17] Voice 23: by way of application.

[1:31:18] Voice 23: So all of the section 475 Local Government Act

[1:31:21] Voice 23: Act in quotes consultation that needed to happen between the city and the Niskanenlith did happen

[1:31:27] Voice 23: and the city did quite a good job in this particular case of notifying the Niskanenlith

[1:31:32] Voice 23: and allowing them opportunities to participate in this. The city after that process ultimately

[1:31:37] Voice 23: issued the development permit and the OCP was amended. The Niskanenlith however were not satisfied

[1:31:42] Voice 23: at that stage and they claimed that they weren't adequately consulted not as per section 475 of

[1:31:48] Voice 23: of the Local Government Act,

[1:31:49] Voice 23: the consultation that we're all familiar with

[1:31:51] Voice 23: in local government circles,

[1:31:53] Voice 23: but they said they should have been consulted

[1:31:55] Voice 23: as per the Haida Nation duty to consult.

[1:31:58] Voice 23: So the Haida Nation, back to this test,

[1:32:03] Voice 23: the Niskanath Indian Ban said,

[1:32:05] Voice 23: this is the test that should be applied,

[1:32:07] Voice 23: not the test under section 475 of the Local Government Act.

[1:32:11] Voice 23: So this is the issue that is engaged in this litigation.

[1:32:16] Voice 23: ultimately the court after hearing all of all of the arguments the outcome of the case is as

[1:32:22] Voice 23: follows it's a little more complicated than this but to sort of slim it down to the the bare

[1:32:27] Voice 23: essentials the the court found that local governments need only fulfill their statutory

[1:32:32] Voice 23: obligations when issuing things like dps building permits or amending ocps or zoning bylaws

[1:32:37] Voice 23: the court was quite clear that in the absence of any statutory obligation local governments

[1:32:42] Voice 23: do not have a duty to consult as per Haida Nation.

[1:32:46] Voice 23: The fundamental underlying reason for that

[1:32:48] Voice 23: is that local governments are not the crown.

[1:32:51] Voice 23: That is the fundamental thinking of the court

[1:32:53] Voice 23: coming to that conclusion.

[1:32:54] Voice 23: The court also stated that reconciliation

[1:32:56] Voice 23: of Aboriginal rights and title

[1:32:58] Voice 23: for these sorts of circumstances

[1:33:00] Voice 23: are the responsibility of the crown

[1:33:02] Voice 23: and not of local governments.

[1:33:04] Voice 23: So there was a discussion,

[1:33:06] Voice 23: an interesting discussion in the case

[1:33:07] Voice 23: about how would a local government

[1:33:10] Voice 23: deal with aboriginal title and rights suggestions that were placed before them when they're simply

[1:33:15] Voice 23: looking at the issuance of a development permit how would those topics engage and how would you

[1:33:20] Voice 23: be able to take into account aboriginal title concerns when issuing a development permit the

[1:33:25] Voice 23: court was confused by how a local government would be able to do that and thus more or less kicked it

[1:33:30] Voice 23: back to the crown and said this reconciliation responsibility is yours constitutionally

[1:33:35] Voice 23: not the local governments whose responsibilities are grounded in statute not the constitution

[1:33:42] Voice 23: so this case makes it very clear and this is um about 10 years old now but this is still the case

[1:33:48] Voice 23: that speaks to this issue directly that local governments are not the crown as per haida nation

[1:33:53] Voice 23: and they don't owe a duty to consult or accommodate first nations on the basis of section 35 one of

[1:33:59] Voice 23: the constitution act that's what this case stands for however we'll look at another case because

[1:34:05] Voice 23: because it will become clear how it sort of translates into some of the comments I'll make

[1:34:12] Voice 23: later about the trust itself. So we're getting a little more specific to the trust now.

[1:34:16] Voice 23: This case was brought before the court in 2014. It was brought by the Squamish and

[1:34:21] Voice 23: Lillooet First Nations to challenge the minister's decision to approve Whistler's new OCP. Whistler

[1:34:27] Voice 23: had been working for quite some years on replacing its existing OCP with a new OCP.

[1:34:32] Voice 23: and at the time section 11 of their legislation the rmow has unique legislation similar to

[1:34:40] Voice 23: similar in content but in the same way that the trust does they've got their own act

[1:34:44] Voice 23: above and beyond the local government act and the community charter the old section 11 of that

[1:34:49] Voice 23: legislation is now repealed required the minister to approve the ocp so you can see if you're

[1:34:55] Voice 23: thinking about what we've talked already the crown is now engaged because the minister actually has

[1:35:00] Voice 23: has to sign off on the OCP. Here's the former legislation and what it said, just so you can

[1:35:05] Voice 23: look at it briefly. You'll see section 11 sub 1 at the bottom. An OCP does not take effect until

[1:35:12] Voice 23: it's approved in writing by the minister. Again, that provision's gone now. It's historic. It was

[1:35:17] Voice 23: repealed some years ago, but that's what was in place at the time. Thus, the Crown decision is

[1:35:24] Voice 23: engaged under the Haida Nation test. At least that was the theory of the Squamish and the Little

[1:35:28] Voice 23: LeWatt Nation. The court found in this case that Whistler had conducted quite lengthy Section 475

[1:35:37] Voice 23: Local Government Act consultation and that they did an adequate job under the Local Government

[1:35:41] Voice 1: Act.

[1:35:41] Voice 23: The court found that specifically, but the court also found that the Crown consultation as

[1:35:47] Voice 23: it related to the Minister's approval was not adequate. The court made a specific finding that

[1:35:53] Voice 23: that the OCP itself was more than a policy document and had the potential to affect the

[1:35:58] Voice 23: interests of the First Nations moving forward for their claimed Aboriginal title and Aboriginal

[1:36:03] Voice 23: rights. Mostly on the economic side was the concern of the court. And at the end of the day,

[1:36:08] Voice 23: the court found that the Crown failed to consult as per Haida and actually quashed the minister's

[1:36:14] Voice 23: approval of Whistler's new OCP. So this obviously was a little bit of a concern for Whistler and

[1:36:22] Voice 23: and the First Nations involved, at the end of the day, I'm glad to report things were sorted out

[1:36:27] Voice 23: amicably by all involved. But this case throws a little bit of a twist into what I want to turn

[1:36:33] Voice 23: to now. And that is the more specific Islands Trust legislation. And I want to take a step

[1:36:40] Voice 23: back with you a little bit and consider the Islands Trust Act for a moment and focus a little

[1:36:44] Voice 23: bit on Section 3, which we all are aware of and know what it says. But just to refresh our memories,

[1:36:50] Voice 23: because it'll play into what I'm about to get into.

[1:36:53] Voice 23: We all know that the object of the trust

[1:36:55] Voice 23: is to preserve and protect the trust area

[1:36:57] Voice 23: and its unique amenities and environment

[1:36:59] Voice 23: for the benefit of the residents of the trust.

[1:37:01] Voice 23: But of course, importantly, all British Columbians.

[1:37:04] Voice 23: And you're to do that in cooperation with municipalities,

[1:37:07] Voice 23: regional districts, improvement districts.

[1:37:09] Voice 23: A recent amendment to this section

[1:37:11] Voice 23: is now included First Nations,

[1:37:13] Voice 23: other persons and organizations

[1:37:14] Voice 23: and the government of British Columbia.

[1:37:16] Voice 23: So the object of the trust,

[1:37:18] Voice 23: the preserve and protect object

[1:37:19] Voice 23: object is also buttressed by the need to benefit not just residents of the trust, but British

[1:37:25] Voice 23: Columbians generally. So there seems to me by virtue of that language, some kind of provincial

[1:37:32] Voice 23: interest that's been kept by virtue of the object of the trust. And that's an important thing to

[1:37:37] Voice 23: note and to recognize. This is not just me saying it, but the courts have said it themselves. There's

[1:37:44] Voice 23: a case called Costello and Hornby Island Local Trust Committee from 2009, where the courts have

[1:37:49] Voice 23: have said at paragraph 23 there the islands trust a unique creature of statute while similar to

[1:37:55] Voice 23: local governments its actions must be viewed through the statutory framework and stated

[1:37:59] Voice 23: objects in section 3 of the act to preserve and protect the trust area and its unique amenities

[1:38:04] Voice 23: and environment this was highlighted in mac blow and galliano island trust committee where

[1:38:09] Voice 23: madam justice southern commented on the uniqueness of section 3 no comparable provision is to be

[1:38:14] Voice 23: be found in any other legislation in this province concerning municipal government so there's no

[1:38:20] Voice 23: question that that section 3 is unique and the courts see it that way which then takes us to

[1:38:26] Voice 23: various provisions scattered throughout the IT Act that are the subject of ministerial approval

[1:38:32] Voice 23: and I'll just give you a few examples I think I've caught most of them there may be others but

[1:38:36] Voice 23: I'm not intending to necessarily highlight them all but or to find them all but to highlight the

[1:38:41] Voice 23: the number of them to show you that the Whistler and the

[1:38:45] Voice 23: Scarlet and Whistler cases are going to have to be read

[1:38:47] Voice 23: together for the purposes of how we understand the duty to

[1:38:50] Voice 23: consult specifically within the trust. So section nine is a

[1:38:54] Voice 23: starting place. These are your coordination agreements with

[1:38:56] Voice 23: other other government bodies where we can enter into these

[1:38:58] Voice 23: coordination agreements, nice, nice little power, including of

[1:39:02] Voice 23: course, at nine one E with First Nations, but you'll see

[1:39:05] Voice 23: it's up to that any agreement needs the approval of the

[1:39:09] Voice 23: the minister so the minister has kept their discretion in section 9 sub 2 to approve such

[1:39:14] Voice 23: agreements if the trust entered into them section 15 the trust policy statement itself you'll see

[1:39:20] Voice 23: down at the bottom that the trust policy statement under c has no effect for the purposes of four it

[1:39:26] Voice 23: won't get into four it just complicates it unless it's approved by the minister so just again another

[1:39:31] Voice 23: example of the minister retaining some discretion with respect to trust activities and in this case

[1:39:36] Voice 23: the trust policy statement section 27 probably one that um most of you are familiar with and comes up

[1:39:42] Voice 23: i would i would guess more more routinely than the ones i've mentioned before is the approval

[1:39:48] Voice 23: requirements for bylaws of of ltcs and you can see under two it says a bylaw of an ltc has no effect

[1:39:55] Voice 23: be in the case of adopt of a bylaw adopting or amending an official community plan until it is

[1:40:01] Voice 23: approved by the minister sort of similar in language to the old section 11 of the rmow

[1:40:05] Voice 23: legislation a bit different but nevertheless ministerial decision making is preserved

[1:40:13] Voice 23: and then lastly section 57 or sorry 56 approval of the minister required for zoning bylaws zoning

[1:40:19] Voice 23: bylaw or an amendment to a zoning bylaw of a local trust committee i won't get through a and b but

[1:40:24] Voice 23: there's some requirements in there that have to be met has no effect until it's approved by the

[1:40:28] Voice 23: minister so four legislative examples of the islands trust act preserving ministerial involvement

[1:40:37] Voice 23: in the decisions of the trust that's sort of elevating it to a more provincial standard crown

[1:40:42] Voice 23: standard if i can put it that way uh then perhaps what other forms of local governments uh need to

[1:40:48] Voice 23: do it because this type of ministerial approval does not exist for most local governments

[1:40:53] Voice 23: in the province. It is unique in most ways to the trust itself. So what does this all mean?

[1:41:01] Voice 23: Where do we get to with this discussion? If we're going to pull together now the comments I've made

[1:41:05] Voice 23: on Haida Nation, Nisquanlith, the Squamish case, and the Islands Trust Act, where does it take us

[1:41:10] Voice 23: to? I think we can make a few conclusions to start. The first is that I think it's clear beyond

[1:41:16] Voice 23: doubt, local governments are not the crown. We should not act as such, and we should not be

[1:41:22] Voice 23: be treated as such. And I think that that often forms some of the fundamental misunderstandings

[1:41:27] Voice 23: as to what local government and perhaps the trust can and can't do, because often we are

[1:41:34] Voice 23: dealt with as if we are the crown, or in some cases, local governments act as if they're the

[1:41:39] Voice 23: crown. We are not the crown. That is all there is to it. Generally, a local government does not

[1:41:46] Voice 23: have a high-to-nation duty to consult a First Nation under Section 35.1 of the Constitution

[1:41:50] Voice 23: Constitution Act. That's because there is no constitutional underpinning between a First

[1:41:55] Voice 23: Nation and a local government. And Niskanlith makes that clear. We went through it. I won't

[1:42:01] Voice 23: go through it again. Niskanlith and our courts have said that quite clearly. We meet our statutory

[1:42:05] Voice 23: obligations, and that's enough. Reconciliation is with the Crown. However, for the trust itself,

[1:42:13] Voice 23: it is a bit more complex. And I don't think we could stop the discussion here in all sort of

[1:42:19] Voice 23: intellectual honesty. If this were a presentation being given to another local government in

[1:42:24] Voice 23: British Columbia, Penticton, Vernon, Salmon Arm, Burnaby, we would be able to stop here and say

[1:42:29] Voice 23: Nisquamish is the law. A bit more complex for the trust because of the unique nature of the trust,

[1:42:35] Voice 23: because of the unique nature of section three and the preservation of ministerial approvals

[1:42:40] Voice 23: throughout your legislation. So what is it for the trust and how do we interpret matters in that

[1:42:46] Voice 23: sense. As for the Squamish Nation case, we know that the Crown may, and I really focus on the

[1:42:52] Voice 23: word may there, because it's not going to be in all cases, clearly. The Crown may owe a duty to

[1:42:57] Voice 23: consult an accommodation, or sorry, accommodate an Indigenous body where the ministerial approval

[1:43:03] Voice 23: is required. That's what Whistler found. So it's possible that there could be circumstances where

[1:43:09] Voice 23: the Islands Trust is going to need to wait for ministerial approval where it's required for its

[1:43:13] Voice 23: decisions. Now, of course, it depends on the nature of the decision. We have to go back to

[1:43:17] Voice 23: that HIDA three-part test. Depending on the nature of the decision, it may require Crown

[1:43:22] Voice 23: consultation with a First Nation or a group of First Nations in advance of an OCP amendment,

[1:43:27] Voice 23: for example, depending upon what that OCP amendment entails. And again, I stress may.

[1:43:33] Voice 23: This is not going to be in every case. It's going to be very, very specific on the nature

[1:43:37] Voice 23: future of the decision and the impact of the decision.

[1:43:41] Voice 23: The last bullet is to make this point clear.

[1:43:44] Voice 23: It's the Crown's duty to consult and it can't be delegated to the trust,

[1:43:48] Voice 23: can't be delegated to anybody, frankly, not just the trust.

[1:43:51] Voice 23: The Crown has been told by the Supreme Court of Canada,

[1:43:54] Voice 23: you are not allowed to delegate this duty to anyone else.

[1:43:57] Voice 23: It's your duty.

[1:43:58] Voice 23: It's your honour to be executed and you can't delegate it off to a third party.

[1:44:02] Voice 23: You can delegate process to a third party.

[1:44:05] Voice 23: in other words meetings constantly you know meeting efforts explanation efforts expert

[1:44:11] Voice 23: evidence that types of stuff but you cannot delegate the duty in and of itself so what this

[1:44:17] Voice 23: all leads to at the end of the day is that in certain circumstances engaging the trust the crown

[1:44:22] Voice 23: may have

[1:44:23] Voice 23: to decide if it owes a duty to consult the first nation before approving some of these

[1:44:28] Voice 23: matters that i pointed out to in the islands trust act itself and if so the crown is obliged

[1:44:34] Voice 23: to carry out that consultation, not the trust itself. So I hope that's helpful. I hope that's

[1:44:41] Voice 23: clear. I hope that brings a little bit of clarity. Perhaps it's clear as mud, but I hope it helps

[1:44:46] Voice 23: with contextualizing the discussion around the duty to consult and accommodate because it is

[1:44:51] Voice 23: tricky. But if I could, I'm going to sort of transition away now from the duty to consult

[1:44:56] Voice 23: and accommodate and the constitutional concepts that we've been talking about. And I'm going to

[1:45:00] Voice 23: transition into the Declaration Act. We've got to move into this legislation, I think, for

[1:45:06] Voice 23: a full understanding in the context of where we're at today as to where reconciliation is going and

[1:45:13] Voice 23: how the trust and local governments generally are going to be engaged in that. So the Declaration

[1:45:18] Voice 23: Act, or again, DRIPA for some folks, as some folks like to call it, it's provincial legislation,

[1:45:23] Voice 23: was adopted in 2019. And the aim of this legislation is very significant. It aims to

[1:45:31] Voice 23: incorporate something called the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,

[1:45:36] Voice 23: sometimes referred to as UNDRIP, into law. So its purpose, its aim is very aspirational. It's

[1:45:44] Voice 23: very high. This is a high, high bar that the Declaration Act sets. Incorporate UNDRIP into

[1:45:50] Voice 23: to BC law. UNDRIP, if you're not familiar with it, is a United Nations human rights instrument.

[1:45:56] Voice 23: It was adopted, I believe, in 2007 by the UN General Assembly. And the UN, the human rights

[1:46:03] Voice 23: instrument itself, discusses 46 different aspirational human rights articles that are

[1:46:09] Voice 23: intended to protect Indigenous bodies and groups around the world. It would cover things like

[1:46:13] Voice 23: self-determination, culture, religion, language, legal systems, things of that nature. It's very

[1:46:19] Voice 23: broad in its description of these issues, but nevertheless, a very important human rights

[1:46:26] Voice 23: instrument. If you've heard this concept of free prior and informed consent, again, I think it's

[1:46:32] Voice 23: parlance that's being more commonly used in our discussions in British Columbia these days,

[1:46:37] Voice 23: free prior and informed consent or just consent. The UN article, the UNDRIP article contains that

[1:46:44] Voice 23: phraseology in multiple locations. You'll see it if you read it, that it uses the terminology

[1:46:48] Voice 23: free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous bodies before, and certain things are done by

[1:46:54] Voice 23: the state. That's where this concept arises from, and you should know that that's kind of where it

[1:46:59] Voice 23: comes from. I'm sure the concept was well understood before that, but that's where it's

[1:47:04] Voice 23: kind of showing up in our parlance now, because it's incorporated into UNDRIP itself. BC is the

[1:47:10] Voice 23: first jurisdiction in Canada, and in all honesty, most of the world. BC was way out ahead of almost

[1:47:15] Voice 23: almost any jurisdiction globally, to adopt the UNDRIP Human Rights Instrument into its law.

[1:47:23] Voice 23: Canada did the same thing. It adopted similar legislation to the Declaration Act in June of

[1:47:28] Voice 23: 2021, so a couple of years later. So both federally and provincially now, we have legislation that is

[1:47:34] Voice 23: attempting to align both our provincial and federal laws with the UNDRIP Declaration.

[1:47:39] Voice 23: declaration the declaration act itself sets out a process to align bc's laws with undrip that's

[1:47:45] Voice 23: what the declaration act is really all about setting out this process to begin the alignment

[1:47:49] Voice 23: this is a massive undertaking nobody should should think otherwise to try to align some

[1:47:56] Voice 23: 3 000 plus bc statutes with undrip is going to be a huge undertaking thus back to my comments

[1:48:03] Voice 23: trying to pull together this generational work the declaration act is not going to be

[1:48:07] Voice 23: be satisfied within a year, two or five. It's going to take decades to align BC's laws with

[1:48:15] Voice 23: UNDRIP. Now, UNDRIP, sorry, the declaration itself, I want to talk about two central features

[1:48:21] Voice 23: to the legislation. By the way, the legislation is very short. If anyone cares to read it,

[1:48:26] Voice 23: you'll be able to read it in about five minutes. It's not very long. I think it only contains

[1:48:30] Voice 23: about 11 sections. It's like three or four pages, but it's got two very central features.

[1:48:34] Voice 23: And this is the first section four of the Declaration Act requires the province to prepare and implement what implement what's called an action plan to achieve the objectives under UNDREP.

[1:48:45] Voice 23: So it's a very specific plan to get to what the Declaration Act is saying you're supposed to get to this.

[1:48:52] Voice 23: Our first action plan was released on March 30th of this year, and it includes a list of actions to be taken by the province in cooperation with Indigenous peoples for a five-year window, 2022 to 2027.

[1:49:06] Voice 23: And it's a province-wide five-year roadmap, and it really is worth a read if you haven't looked at it.

[1:49:11] Voice 23: Again, it's not a difficult document. It's probably 20 or 30 pages, but it's worth a read if you haven't had a chance to look at it.

[1:49:17] Voice 23: briefly the four categories of actions that the declaration or that the action plan calls for are

[1:49:23] Voice 23: broken down in these four categories and there's 89 total priorities set out in these in these four

[1:49:30] Voice 23: different categories the first is self-determination and the inherent right of self-government

[1:49:34] Voice 23: second is title and rights of indigenous people the third is ending indigenous specific racism

[1:49:39] Voice 23: and discrimination and the fourth is social cultural and economic well-being of indigenous

[1:49:44] Voice 23: Indigenous bodies. So the 89 priorities in the action plan are divided up amongst these four

[1:49:49] Voice 23: categories and the province along with Indigenous bodies will attempt to bring those to fruition in

[1:49:55] Voice 23: the five-year window under the action plan. Now as it relates to local governments including the

[1:50:01] Voice 23: trust here what does the action plan say with respect to to our level of government? In all

[1:50:07] Voice 23: honesty directly very little. There's not much direct impact on local governments in the first

[1:50:13] Voice 23: action plan but there are several things that that are important to note i note for you um action

[1:50:19] Voice 23: item 1 1.11 which is uh the province saying that they're going to support inclusive regional

[1:50:25] Voice 23: governance by advancing first nations participation in regional district boards from from my way of

[1:50:31] Voice 23: thinking this is extremely welcome i um i i'm aware of course of certain regional districts

[1:50:38] Voice 23: districts having First Nations attendance already GBRD and and Alberta regional district come to

[1:50:43] Voice 23: mind um and but I believe all of that governance structure came by way of treaties so in a treaty

[1:50:50] Voice 23: there was a governance seat at the table granted as part of the treaty process I don't believe any

[1:50:55] Voice 23: First Nation has a seat at a regional district table right now but for treaty at least a voting

[1:51:01] Voice 23: seat is what I mean some are there as participants and to watch but not as a voting full-on member

[1:51:06] Voice 23: So I think this is very welcome, and I hope will be implemented, frankly, provincially, and with some swiftness. I don't know if that's realistic, but I certainly hope so.

[1:51:17] Voice 23: 3.1, kind of a larger aspirational, develop essential training and partnership with Indigenous organizations to deliver to the BC Public Service history rights of Indigenous peoples, treaty processes, rights, and title.

[1:51:29] Voice 23: This is, as I understand it, is to be sort of inclusive of local government services as well. Certainly it would rope in the trust itself. 4.27, review the principles and processes that guide the naming of municipalities and regional districts and evolve practices to foster reconciliation in local processes.

[1:51:48] Voice 23: I see the latter half of 4.27 as being quite important in directory, where the action plan wants and is pushing the evolution of practices to foster reconciliation at our level, at the level of the trust in local governments throughout BC.

[1:52:05] Voice 23: Again, what that means and how it looks is very much open to interpretation, but the action plan is certainly suggesting that it should happen.

[1:52:13] Voice 23: Now there's many indirect action items in the action plan that will affect local governments, including the trust. Things like policing, housing, and the utilizing of what I'm going to talk about next, Section 6 and 7 agreements under the action plan itself in the Declaration Act.

[1:52:31] Voice 23: So a lot of indirect implications of the action plan on local governments generally, for sure.

[1:52:38] Voice 23: But these are the direct ones that can be isolated in the action plan.

[1:52:42] Voice 23: Now, I mentioned Section 6 and 7 agreements a second ago, and I see it's about 5 to 11.

[1:52:47] Voice 23: So let me get through this part and we'll take a break.

[1:52:51] Voice 23: The other key component of this legislation is these agreements.

[1:52:56] Voice 23: agreements. And what the Declaration Act permits is agreements on behalf of the government, that's

[1:53:01] Voice 23: BC, with Indigenous governing bodies. And it's a really, really important part of this legislation.

[1:53:08] Voice 23: So Section 6 is the granting authority. We'll just look at it quickly. It says for the purposes of

[1:53:14] Voice 23: the Act, a member of the Executive Council on behalf of the government may enter into an

[1:53:19] Voice 23: agreement with an Indigenous governing body. And then under Sub 2, it says it's subject to

[1:53:24] Voice 23: subsections or section seven and does not limit a power of a member to enter into an agreement

[1:53:28] Voice 23: under another enactment so it's an additional power not not taking away from powers and other

[1:53:34] Voice 23: other pieces of legislation but importantly it references section seven so let's look at that

[1:53:39] Voice 23: section and this is in my um my opinion um my view this is the um most interesting part of the

[1:53:48] Voice 23: declaration act for well i think generally moving forward i find this to be an extremely

[1:53:54] Voice 23: interesting power that's been set out in the declaration act and how it how it will and can

[1:53:59] Voice 23: be used so noted 7-1 it says for the purposes of reconciliation so it's making it clear what

[1:54:05] Voice 23: what these are to be used for it's a reconciliation agreement between canada or sorry between the

[1:54:12] Voice 23: province and an Indigenous body. So here's how it works generally. Let's just walk it through

[1:54:18] Voice 23: because it's extremely important for you to understand these things because they may be

[1:54:22] Voice 23: coming your way, perhaps not soon, but in time they may be coming our way. So it says that the

[1:54:28] Voice 23: Lieutenant Governor and Council may authorize a member of the Executive Council, so that's Cabinet

[1:54:32] Voice 23: authorizing one of its members on behalf of the government to negotiate and enter into an agreement

[1:54:37] Voice 23: with an Indigenous governing body related to one or both of the following.

[1:54:40] Voice 23: A, the exercise of a statutory power of decision, and here's the key word in A,

[1:54:46] Voice 23: jointly by the Indigenous governing body and the government or another decision maker.

[1:54:52] Voice 23: So it's a joint decision-making process that can be used in here

[1:54:56] Voice 23: for a statutory power of decision.

[1:54:59] Voice 23: I'll show you some examples of this shortly to make it make more sense.

[1:55:02] Voice 23: But this is joint decision-making at its base.

[1:55:06] Voice 23: B takes us back to what I mentioned earlier, the concept of consent coming out of UNDRIP.

[1:55:12] Voice 23: B says you can also enter into one of these agreements only providing the consent of the

[1:55:19] Voice 23: Indigenous governing body before the exercise of the statutory power decision. So this means

[1:55:25] Voice 23: in these circumstances where these types of agreements are granted, the consent of the

[1:55:29] Voice 23: the Indigenous body will be needed before the statutory power is actually capable of being

[1:55:35] Voice 23: utilized. So the scope of the authority is broad, and it could lead to some really interesting

[1:55:40] Voice 23: agreements. I'm going to give you a couple of examples to flesh out how it's been used to date.

[1:55:47] Voice 23: In June of this year, what I understand to be the first of its kind, I think it might be the only,

[1:55:51] Voice 23: certainly the first, there's probably other ones underway, but this is the only one that I'm aware

[1:55:56] Voice 23: of that's come to pass, to fruition. This is a consent decision-making agreement for what's

[1:56:02] Voice 23: called the Eskate Creek Project, and this is an agreement entered under Section 7-1 via the

[1:56:07] Voice 23: Declaration Act. As I say, it's the first of its kind. Entered between the province and the

[1:56:12] Voice 23: Tlatan central government, this is up in northern British Columbia, and it requires the consent of

[1:56:17] Voice 23: the Tlatan to review and ultimately determine whether the Eskate Creek revitalization project

[1:56:22] Voice 23: project will be permitted to proceed.

[1:56:24] Voice 23: S-Gate Creek project is the reopening of a historic gold and silver mine.

[1:56:28] Voice 23: So this was a large mine that was shut down some time ago.

[1:56:31] Voice 23: And the owner wants to reopen it.

[1:56:33] Voice 23: But it can only be reopened now with the consent of the Tlatan central government.

[1:56:39] Voice 23: That's what the agreement says.

[1:56:40] Voice 23: And there's a sophisticated process set out in the agreement itself on how the reopening will go.

[1:56:46] Voice 23: But ultimately, it requires the TCG's consent to get there.

[1:56:50] Voice 23: if they don't consent to it the mine will not reopen it's that simple and when you break it

[1:56:55] Voice 23: down to brass tacks another example under the legislation of a joint decision-making agreement

[1:57:01] Voice 23: so not the consent-based agreement but the joint decision-making agreement well became known in

[1:57:06] Voice 23: august of 2022 when the province announced negotiations with the shishal nation on a

[1:57:12] Voice 23: section 7 agreement regarding decisions on dock tenures in the shishal territory which is on the

[1:57:18] Voice 23: seashell peninsula on the sunshine coast it's my understanding this is the first attempt at a joint

[1:57:23] Voice 23: decision making model this one of course is a lot closer to local governments it's it's seashell

[1:57:28] Voice 23: peninsula it's about docks and tenures on foreshore ocean foreshore probably lakes as well but i think

[1:57:33] Voice 23: primarily ocean foreshore so it's a lot closer to us by by way of uh of its impact not up north

[1:57:40] Voice 23: in in a crown land and on an old mine so the goals of this agreement are to buy to provide sort of

[1:57:47] Voice 23: transparent requirements for dock applicants mitigate ecological impacts including protecting

[1:57:53] Voice 23: archaeological resources and to advance collaborative management particularly around

[1:57:57] Voice 23: the decision making process so this is a joint decision making agreement between the first nation

[1:58:03] Voice 23: and the ministry approval process so interesting use of the powers we can see already right and

[1:58:10] Voice 23: you can see that that they can be used very very pointedly and surgically depending upon what the

[1:58:16] Voice 23: concern might be of the First Nation. So concluding thoughts on the Declaration Act before I give us a

[1:58:22] Voice 23: five-minute break and we'll come back after a few minutes. The scope of this authority is very

[1:58:28] Voice 23: broad. There's no question about it. And I asked just rhetorically, how will it be used? It seems

[1:58:32] Voice 23: it can be used in some pretty creative ways and some pretty broad ways. So that's really the first

[1:58:36] Voice 23: comment. Second, we could see how this could be used potentially in application to local government

[1:58:43] Voice 23: statutory decisions so for an example um could an official community plan that has policies related

[1:58:50] Voice 23: to crown land in it become a joint decision-making process i think it's possible i don't know if if

[1:58:57] Voice 23: it will ever be uh taken out but i think it's possible certainly on the language of the

[1:59:01] Voice 23: legislation so we want to put an ocp in place policies around crown land the crown would make

[1:59:06] Voice 23: that subject to a an agreement under section 7 1a that it's joint decision making with the affected

[1:59:12] Voice 23: First Nations and the local government as it relates to policies around Crown land and its

[1:59:17] Voice 23: OCP. Is it possible? Seems like it is. Third, it should be stated, and I think this is fair,

[1:59:25] Voice 23: is that the current focus of the implementation of these agreements is really with First Nations

[1:59:29] Voice 23: and Crown resource management. There doesn't seem to be any particular hard push toward local

[1:59:36] Voice 23: government jurisdiction at the moment. So that's the fourth and concluding comment on this is that

[1:59:41] Voice 23: I can't find any indication at the moment, and I've spoken to as many people as I can on this,

[1:59:46] Voice 23: that the Declaration Act at the moment is going to affect local government decisions.

[1:59:51] Voice 23: There's nothing at the moment that's changed under the Local Government Act,

[1:59:55] Voice 23: the Community Charter, or the Trust Act itself that would suggest that

[2:00:00] Voice 23: local government decisions are subject to the declaration act perhaps in time five years ten

[2:00:05] Voice 23: years one i don't know i'm just speculating but as it stands right now for local governments and

[2:00:11] Voice 23: its decision making the declaration act hasn't really changed anything that that's the the truth

[2:00:16] Voice 23: of the matter at this stage so it's probably a good time for me to take a break i'll come back

[2:00:22] Voice 23: in in five minutes if everybody wants to take a quick stretch grab a coffee get a water um and

[2:00:28] Voice 23: And I'll come back and take it up on the TRC calls to action.

[2:00:31] Voice 23: And we can take it from there.

[2:00:33] Voice 23: And it looks like we're going to have some time for some discussion if I continue at this pace.

[2:00:37] Voice 23: So I'll shut it down at that point and hand it back to you, Mr. Chair.

[2:00:40] Trustee Luckham: Great, Rhys.

[2:00:41] Trustee Luckham: Thank you very much for this very insightful and engaging presentation.

[2:00:45] Trustee Luckham: I would like to suggest we actually take 10 minutes.

[2:00:49] Trustee Luckham: It takes a little longer than five minutes to boil water on a wood stove.

[2:00:52] Trustee Luckham: and let's do 10 minutes and come back here at about 11 12 or so okay you

[2:01:00] Voice 22: bet thank you sir

[2:01:01] Voice 22: thank

[2:01:01] Trustee Luckham: you yes

[2:11:11] Voice 14: so

[2:11:16] Trustee Luckham: welcome back uh uh council hoping you've all managed to refill your coffees

[2:11:22] Trustee Luckham: to get on to the next section of this exciting and interesting presentation so reese

[2:11:28] Trustee Luckham: back to you thank you yeah

[2:11:31] Voice 23: thank you mr chair i've never heard this presentation described as

[2:11:34] Voice 23: exciting before so thank you i appreciate that well

[2:11:37] Trustee Luckham: i'll tell you i think this is the most

[2:11:39] Trustee Luckham: exciting work that is before us well i

[2:11:42] Voice 23: appreciate uh appreciate the comments uh mr chair thank you

[2:11:47] Voice 23: um let's pick up where we left off and discuss a little bit of the truth and reconciliation

[2:11:53] Voice 23: commission calls to action i i really don't think a discussion in this area is complete without at

[2:11:57] Voice 23: least mentioning this important work so sure you're all aware that the truth and reconciliation

[2:12:01] Voice 23: Commission of Canada released, this is back in June 2015 already, seven years ago now,

[2:12:06] Voice 23: more than seven years ago, they released their 94 calls to action regarding reconciliation between

[2:12:13] Voice 23: Canadians and Indigenous people. And of course, this came out and spun out of the residential

[2:12:18] Voice 23: school settlement between the federal government and residential school survivors. This was one of

[2:12:23] Voice 23: the, this commission was one of the conditions of that settlement, and this important work spun out

[2:12:28] Voice 23: of that. Some of these 94 calls to action have actually been implemented. A good example would

[2:12:35] Voice 23: be our federal holiday, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. That is actually one

[2:12:41] Voice 23: of the 94 calls to action in the TRC report, but many are ongoing. As you can imagine, they're

[2:12:46] Voice 23: going to take quite some time to implement it, and I think there's some hopes that more will be

[2:12:53] Voice 23: implemented in short order. Having said that, the framework of the entire TRC calls to action

[2:13:01] Voice 23: is envisioning reconciliation again. So it's really pushing the state agencies to try and

[2:13:08] Voice 23: envision reconciliation in a new way. And there were five calls to action of the 94 that are

[2:13:13] Voice 23: directly relevant to local government. So I'll dive into those with you to just review them

[2:13:18] Voice 23: quickly, and we'll review one of them in more detail. There they are. I haven't set them out

[2:13:22] Voice 23: in their their entirety but calls 43 47 57 75 and 77 are are directed to um to our level of

[2:13:31] Voice 23: government and 43 is about implementing undrip interestingly sort of the theme of what we're

[2:13:36] Voice 23: talking about here under the declaration act continues under the trc calls you'll see 47 is

[2:13:42] Voice 23: to repudiate concepts of european sovereignty um and in indigenous of indigenous european

[2:13:49] Voice 23: sovereignty over indigenous peoples and lands so to get rid of these old concepts of terra nullus

[2:13:53] Voice 23: and things of that nature just just stop using them and referring to them in any in any way in

[2:13:58] Voice 23: common parlance 57 is about education um more history around um indigenous bodies and peoples

[2:14:05] Voice 23: and then 75 and 77 is a direct plea for records with with respect to ongoing commemoration of

[2:14:12] Voice 23: residential school survivors so that of course included municipal and regional level governments

[2:14:17] Voice 23: as well get your get your records to the national truth and reconciliation um museum um in i believe

[2:14:24] Voice 23: it's in winnipeg so let's do a little focused in on 43 because i think that's probably the most

[2:14:30] Voice 23: um shall we say central um i don't want to say important that's not fair but central to to the

[2:14:37] Voice 23: direction to our level of government 43 says this it says we call on all federal provincial

[2:14:43] Voice 23: territorial and municipal governments to fully adopt and implement the UNDRIP as the framework

[2:14:49] Voice 23: for reconciliation. So again, pretty general statement, but it's pretty clear what the call

[2:14:54] Voice 23: to action is asking municipal governments, which I will include the trust in, as doing.

[2:15:01] Voice 23: Now, it's interesting to note the sort of trends that are starting to happen with respect to

[2:15:07] Voice 23: UNDRIP implementation and strategies. And I wanted to note for you a relatively recent,

[2:15:12] Voice 23: I think, landmark, or what do we say when we're sort of setting something as an important

[2:15:20] Voice 23: note? We'll call it just a landmark. On the general trends of UNDRIP implementation, as per

[2:15:27] Voice 23: Section 43, the City of Vancouver has now, just last month, October 25th of 2022, released its

[2:15:33] Voice 23: UNDRIP strategy. And it's now seeking to implement UNDRIP on the four general categories or the

[2:15:40] Voice 23: themes or action items that we've reviewed before I don't think there's much question when you read

[2:15:44] Voice 23: the documents I've read it if you care to look at it it's easily accessible online it's going to

[2:15:49] Voice 23: raise the expectation for other local governments to get engaged I don't think there's any question

[2:15:53] Voice 23: about that it is I would suggest though on on a being I guess a bit practical pragmatic

[2:16:02] Voice 23: realistic might be another word with respect to the content of it very unclear to most people

[2:16:08] Voice 23: who read it including myself i will candidly admit as to what the legal jurisdiction is to

[2:16:13] Voice 23: undertake a lot of the actions contained in the strategy things like waiving service fees resource

[2:16:18] Voice 23: sharing approval of leases return of land etc it's not clear to me what the legal jurisdiction is for

[2:16:25] Voice 23: the city of vancouver to be suggesting such things can be done but nevertheless it's an aspirational

[2:16:31] Voice 23: document it seems it's a starting point and i think it's worth a quick review of the document

[2:16:36] Voice 23: in itself so you can see uh what it says so theme one is dealing with uh social culture and economic

[2:16:44] Voice 23: well-being of indigenous bodies within the city and some of the highlighted strategies are here

[2:16:49] Voice 23: not all of them of course but some of them to consider options to waive limit reduced service

[2:16:54] Voice 23: fees for water and utilities uh second is to create assurance of ongoing access to fresh water

[2:17:00] Voice 23: water. Third, facilitate fast tracking nation-led affordable housing projects. And last, update

[2:17:06] Voice 23: Vancouver procurement policies to ensure contract opportunities for businesses that are owned or

[2:17:12] Voice 23: partnered with Indigenous professionals. So again, back to what I mentioned here about the unclear

[2:17:18] Voice 23: legal jurisdiction, I think most of us can see that some of these are going to be aspirational

[2:17:22] Voice 23: and for discussion, it would be, I think, difficult from a legal end of things to implement a number of

[2:17:27] Voice 23: these particularly the waving of service fees and things of that nature for utilities that's

[2:17:32] Voice 23: difficult to do in the current environment theme two is ending indigenous specific racism and

[2:17:40] Voice 23: discrimination and the under policy or strategy talks about co-development and implementation of

[2:17:45] Voice 23: policies to address current and future industrial infrastructure development through the lens of

[2:17:50] Voice 23: indigenous rights um i i'm not 100 sure what that means but there there's more meat on the body in

[2:17:56] Voice 23: in the UNDRIP strategy on that,

[2:17:58] Voice 23: but interesting nevertheless,

[2:17:59] Voice 23: that it focuses on industrial infrastructure.

[2:18:04] Voice 23: Prioritizing housing for the Musqueam, Squamish

[2:18:06] Voice 23: and Tsleil-Waututh members

[2:18:07] Voice 23: with the nations defining the term of what is affordable.

[2:18:11] Voice 23: So direct input into affordability concerns

[2:18:14] Voice 23: by the three nations involved

[2:18:16] Voice 23: in the production of the report.

[2:18:18] Voice 23: And then the co-development of criteria for leases

[2:18:20] Voice 23: to be reviewed by the three nations for their input

[2:18:23] Voice 23: before leases are entered into between the city and leaseholders.

[2:18:29] Voice 23: Theme three is about self-determination and inherent right of self-government.

[2:18:34] Voice 23: And you can see that they're suggesting that they want to identify options for revenue sharing through property taxes.

[2:18:40] Voice 23: That is a bold strategy, I would suggest.

[2:18:47] Voice 23: Identifying options for additional development fees as a revenue opportunity for the three nations

[2:18:51] Voice 23: and identifying ways for the three nations to have a say on on leases signed by the city so in other

[2:18:57] Voice 23: words to to have some say over the property management of the city as it enters into leases

[2:19:02] Voice 23: for the significant number of leases that vancouver enters into uh annually so um pretty significant

[2:19:10] Voice 23: aspirational um strategies there and finally theme four around rights and title of indigenous people

[2:19:17] Voice 23: the strategy commits to try to identify ways to support the three nations to restore

[2:19:22] Voice 23: their indigenous laws within their own communities and interestingly across the city

[2:19:27] Voice 23: and to weave them more fully into local decision making processes including each nation's own

[2:19:32] Voice 23: legal review of city projects and plans so um sort of back back to some of the rhetorical

[2:19:39] Voice 23: questions that russ asked in his introduction how do we manage the legal review process of city

[2:19:45] Voice 23: projects or trust projects trust approvals with some of the nation's wants and needs how do we

[2:19:51] Voice 23: do that it's going to be challenging and it's going to lead to some difficult discussions i

[2:19:56] Voice 23: would suggest over the next period of time perhaps a long period of time but it's something that

[2:20:01] Voice 23: expectations are rising on and identification of the issue as as rusted um well in his is in

[2:20:08] Voice 23: introductory comments and as this strategy is identifying um these challenges are coming

[2:20:14] Voice 23: They're coming. They're not off in the distance anymore. They're coming.

[2:20:18] Voice 23: Second is to recognize the three nations as rights and title holders by following consent based approaches as reconciliation.

[2:20:25] Voice 23: So you can see some of the earlier comments I've made about the Declaration Act, UNDRIP, free prior and informed consent, Section 7 of the Declaration Act.

[2:20:37] Voice 23: There's those words again in the Vancouver UNDRIP strategy, consent based approaches for reconciliation.

[2:20:43] Voice 23: So a different decision making model based on consent. Again, how realistic legally that is at the current time, I think is up for discussion.

[2:20:53] Voice 23: But it'll be an interesting time coming to be actually speaking about how decision making is done between First Nations and local governments over development projects or protection of wild spaces, whatever it may be.

[2:21:07] Voice 23: There's going to be some challenging and I think difficult discussions to be had.

[2:21:13] Voice 23: That, in general, just touches on the Vancouver UNDRIP strategy, and again, I refer you to it for your own reading if you care to. It's an interesting document.

[2:21:22] Voice 23: Now, I don't want to finish this part of the discussion off without a specific mention of the Trust, because the Trust, as was noted in Russ's introductory comments, has done an awful lot of work around reconciliation itself, and that should be acknowledged in this discussion.

[2:21:40] Voice 23: discussion so some of the examples of course of of what the trust has done you've got your

[2:21:45] Voice 23: territory acknowledgement reference guide which i i read a week or two ago and i thought it was

[2:21:50] Voice 23: an excellent document you've got your reconciliation declaration of course from 2019 and then you've

[2:21:56] Voice 23: got your your trust council reconciliation action plan from 2019 to 2022 which is in effect a version

[2:22:03] Voice 23: version of what Vancouver has done in 2022. So you were a few years ahead of them, to the extent

[2:22:10] Voice 23: that you were able to take and identify UNDRIP articles and TRC action items, identify those in

[2:22:16] Voice 23: your reconciliation action plan, and then categorize. You've put out six categories of

[2:22:21] Voice 23: goals and action items. I don't have time to go through the action plan, but I've read it,

[2:22:26] Voice 23: and it covers an awful lot of stuff. There's no question about it that you guys were out ahead

[2:22:31] Voice 23: head of the curve here with respect to try to get a consumable reconciliation action plan in place

[2:22:37] Voice 23: from the trust perspective with the input of First Nations. Now there's been a progress report issued

[2:22:42] Voice 23: on it in 2021 by Lisa Wilcox was mentioned in Russ's introductory comments. I think she was

[2:22:48] Voice 23: the driver behind that progress report. Also a good read. So the trust should be acknowledged

[2:22:54] Voice 23: knowledge for this work that it's done to date um doesn't stop there um of late uh the trust is also

[2:23:01] Voice 23: um just get to my notes i apologize there's a trust island policy statement amendment project

[2:23:07] Voice 23: from uh just late in 2022 where feedback was received and obtained from first nations and other

[2:23:13] Voice 23: stakeholders within the trust area um identifying a whole series of policy amendments or policy

[2:23:20] Voice 23: policy considerations moving forward. I just wanted to highlight a couple of them for the

[2:23:24] Voice 23: purposes of this discussion. I've got the policy statement in my hand. Policy 19 or item 19 says

[2:23:31] Voice 23: this. It says to provide more explanatory context on First Nations rights and responsibilities

[2:23:37] Voice 23: and implications of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act with corresponding

[2:23:44] Voice 23: corresponding recommendation policies to guide First Nations engagement and reconciliation work.

[2:23:49] Voice 23: So that's really more or less what we're talking about here today, all encapsulated in those three

[2:23:55] Voice 23: lines in your policy statement from 2022. You also have an existing trust policy or trust

[2:24:03] Voice 23: council policy First Nations engagement principles document. You guys again were, I would suggest,

[2:24:09] Voice 23: just ahead of the curve on this it's from december of 2016 and i just wanted to again cite from

[2:24:15] Voice 23: documents itself the the engagement principles document the three uh engagement principles that

[2:24:21] Voice 23: are set out in this document are that the islands trust is committed to becoming aware of and what

[2:24:26] Voice 23: it does not know or understand about first nations so there's that openness piece two islands trust

[2:24:33] Voice 23: is committed to providing sincere desire for reconciliation and three islands trust is

[2:24:38] Voice 23: committed to integrating where possible activities that support first nations reconnecting with the

[2:24:43] Voice 23: trust area lands and waters then if you're not familiar with this policy the engagement

[2:24:48] Voice 23: principles that then goes on to give specific policy items sort of encapsulating those three

[2:24:54] Voice 23: themes so again from 20 2016 that that policy has been around for for quite a number of years

[2:25:01] Voice 23: at the trust level so again you should be acknowledged as an organization for the work

[2:25:07] Voice 23: that you've done in this regard. I'll move out of sort of the TRC action stuff into sort of

[2:25:13] Voice 23: reconciliation and collaborative governments discussion. I'd like to finish this talk up with

[2:25:17] Voice 23: a little bit of a positive spin on things, if possible, because I sometimes believe that the

[2:25:23] Voice 23: constitutional quagmire that often underpins the relationship between Canada, the province,

[2:25:30] Voice 23: and First Nations can be somewhat, get someone in the way, if I can put it that way, at least from a

[2:25:36] Voice 23: local government's perspectives of doing positive community building, neighborhood building,

[2:25:41] Voice 23: and doing the things that I think most local governments wish to do with First Nations.

[2:25:45] Voice 23: I'm careful when I say that because I don't speak on behalf of First Nations in what I said. I say

[2:25:50] Voice 23: that from the local government's perspective, fully recognizing that First Nations perhaps

[2:25:54] Voice 23: don't agree with that statement. They may not be interested or willing to move out of that

[2:26:00] Voice 23: constitutional framework into something else. But certainly from the perspective of a local

[2:26:05] Voice 23: government lawyer who's who's engaged on these issues i think this is where we can make one heck

[2:26:11] Voice 23: of a difference if i can put it that way just to speak at a very um common common sense and

[2:26:16] Voice 23: practical level this is where we can make a difference we really can and it doesn't really

[2:26:21] Voice 23: have to be driven by the declaration act or the calls to action and i'm going to give you some

[2:26:25] Voice 23: examples of things that really that predate the declaration act certainly and in some cases the

[2:26:31] Voice 23: the TRC calls to action as well.

[2:26:33] Voice 23: There's lots of things we can focus on,

[2:26:36] Voice 23: but I'm gonna use protocols and communication agreements,

[2:26:38] Voice 23: land use planning and education and cultural engagements

[2:26:41] Voice 23: to make this point.

[2:26:42] Voice 23: So again, we start with the IT.

[2:26:45] Voice 23: The trust itself has a couple of quite good

[2:26:49] Voice 23: protocol agreements and communication agreements.

[2:26:51] Voice 23: One with the Sunaimath First Nation,

[2:26:54] Voice 23: which was signed in 2008, believe it or not.

[2:26:57] Voice 23: So quite some time ago,

[2:26:58] Voice 23: and it has a detailed list of items

[2:27:00] Voice 23: that are part of the protocol agreement itself

[2:27:03] Voice 23: between the trust and this First Nation,

[2:27:05] Voice 23: including such things as review of official community plan

[2:27:09] Voice 23: and land use bylaws,

[2:27:10] Voice 23: coordination of land use planning and development agreements,

[2:27:13] Voice 23: consideration and registration of potential First Nations,

[2:27:15] Voice 23: archaeological and heritage sites,

[2:27:17] Voice 23: and it goes on and on and on.

[2:27:19] Voice 23: It includes a whole series of other things

[2:27:20] Voice 23: that I don't have time to get into,

[2:27:22] Voice 23: but it's a quite forward-looking protocol agreement,

[2:27:24] Voice 23: particularly for 2008.

[2:27:25] Voice 23: in 2008. There's another agreement. I'm not sure it's actually a protocol agreement. I actually

[2:27:32] Voice 23: think it's a Section 9 agreement. Remember I mentioned Section 9 of the Trust Act that allowed

[2:27:37] Voice 23: us to enter into agreements with First Nations. This appears to be a Section 9 agreement in and

[2:27:41] Voice 23: of itself between the Trust and the Liaxan First Nation that establishes a government-to-government

[2:27:46] Voice 23: relation, shared values, and some scope of activities. This appears to be entered into

[2:27:52] Voice 23: in the year 2000 um so going back almost a quarter century now uh showing again i think that the uh

[2:27:59] Voice 23: the trust is out front on these matters some of the uh the principles that um or the scope of

[2:28:04] Voice 23: activities that this particular agreement covers includes notice of land use planning processes

[2:28:10] Voice 23: and referral of land use planning and land use change documents or contents

[2:28:14] Voice 23: notice and writing of initiatives to establish agreements or projects with other levels of

[2:28:18] Voice 23: government arrangement of meetings as required between the parties to discuss matters of concern

[2:28:24] Voice 23: and notice initiatives related to the acquisition of crown lands that might benefit first nations

[2:28:29] Voice 23: so it's a again a very forward-looking document for for the trust um it's almost uh 25 years old

[2:28:36] Voice 23: now staying on that theme um there are other places that are doing good work of course town

[2:28:42] Voice 23: of ladysmith should be recognized for for some of its worth with um respect to the synonymous

[2:28:47] Voice 23: I'm sorry if I mispronounced the names. My apologies for that. I really do apologize.

[2:28:52] Voice 23: The Statoomus First Nation. This is from May 2012, again, quite some time ago.

[2:28:57] Voice 23: It's an executed community accord agreement that sets out these mutual recognition principles of cooperation and goals of strengthening relationship.

[2:29:04] Voice 23: This particular protocol agreement is one page in length, but it contains a lot of, I think, very pertinent information for relationship building.

[2:29:14] Voice 23: And it establishes joint meetings, working groups between the town and the First Nation Chief and Council.

[2:29:20] Voice 23: So it's another good example of a protocol and communication agreement of one of our local government friends.

[2:29:28] Voice 23: North Cowichan and the Coatzin Nation Alliance have entered into an interesting memorandum of understanding related to a municipal forest reserve.

[2:29:38] Voice 23: The town owns this, or sorry, the district owns the forest reserve.

[2:29:41] Voice 23: But they've established a group, a working group with themselves as well as the nation alliance to exchange information in relation to the stewardship of the municipal forest reserve itself.

[2:29:51] Voice 23: So it's it's more or less a resource sharing opportunity between the district and and the nation alliance.

[2:29:58] Voice 23: and

[2:30:00] Voice 23: central part of vancouver island it's a it's an interesting document interesting protocol agreement

[2:30:04] Voice 23: between these two bodies moving over to the land use planning side city of powell river and the

[2:30:09] Voice 23: talaman nation have done some really interesting collaboration on various various initiatives

[2:30:14] Voice 23: including sustainability charters regional emergency planning regional transportation

[2:30:19] Voice 23: planning and regional trail plans so they've done some really good work regionally with with talaman

[2:30:24] Voice 23: of the city to establish these regional services that benefit all and interestingly in this process

[2:30:32] Voice 23: the city itself designated some land in its historic town site to the talaman directly

[2:30:38] Voice 23: so there was some really collaborative work that was happening in powell river and with this first

[2:30:43] Voice 23: nation back to the town of ladysmith again they've got another land use planning agreement with their

[2:30:49] Voice 23: local First Nation to develop their waterfront. It's a water, very sophisticated waterfront area

[2:30:55] Voice 23: plan. And the councils of the town and the First Nation actually collaborated on the planning and

[2:30:59] Voice 23: design. It incorporates not just town land, but First Nations land. So it's a combined

[2:31:03] Voice 23: land ownership plan. And it's been recognized provincially with some planning awards. It's a

[2:31:10] Voice 23: very sophisticated plan that shows a great deal of collaboration between the two levels of

[2:31:15] Voice 23: government particularly for economic benefits to both on the educational and cultural side again

[2:31:22] Voice 23: the islands trust should be recognized for its reconciliation webpage it contains

[2:31:26] Voice 23: your acknowledgement as well as your reconciliation declarations and a whole series

[2:31:30] Voice 23: of information and resources for public consumption to understand indigenous relations

[2:31:35] Voice 23: better it's a it's a very valuable resource more pointedly there are a number of different

[2:31:43] Voice 23: different initiatives happening around the province.

[2:31:45] Voice 23: Tsleil-Waututh and Metro Vancouver

[2:31:47] Voice 23: have done some renaming initiatives.

[2:31:49] Voice 23: Most recently, if you're familiar

[2:31:50] Voice 23: with Belcaro Regional Park in Vancouver,

[2:31:52] Voice 23: beautiful park up in the Belcaro region,

[2:31:55] Voice 23: right across from Deep Cove in North Vancouver.

[2:31:57] Voice 23: The traditional name of this park has been retaken

[2:32:02] Voice 23: by the Tsleil-Waututh.

[2:32:04] Voice 23: And so it's now a combination of their traditional name

[2:32:06] Voice 23: and Belcaro Regional Park.

[2:32:07] Voice 23: This is where the Tsleil-Waututh's

[2:32:09] Voice 23: largest ancestral village was located.

[2:32:11] Voice 23: So there was some very significant cultural renaming ceremonies that took place at Valkyra Regional Park back in 2021, I think it was.

[2:32:21] Voice 23: Continuing on that theme, we see happening across the province and other locations, renaming initiatives.

[2:32:28] Voice 23: The Village of Queen Charlotte Island up on Haida Gwaii has restored its ancestral name to, I think it's pronounced Daja Gings.

[2:32:37] Voice 23: So it's no longer known as the Village of Queen Charlotte.

[2:32:41] Voice 23: And I noted this in the recent election reports when all the election results were coming across the bottom of the screen.

[2:32:48] Voice 23: It was reported as the Gingids, not the village of Queen Charlotte anymore.

[2:32:52] Voice 23: So it's clearly taken effect.

[2:32:55] Voice 23: Chilliwack Lake Park's been renamed to its traditional name with Stolo Nation input.

[2:33:01] Voice 23: Mount Douglas Park in Victoria, up in, I think Mount Douglas is in Saanich, as I recall.

[2:33:06] Voice 23: It's been renamed to its traditional Senkotan language name.

[2:33:11] Voice 23: And there's more to come. It's happening all over the place. And that's a good thing.

[2:33:15] Voice 23: So this education and cultural piece is there for the taking and lots of opportunities to progress this for real reconciliation efforts.

[2:33:24] Voice 23: And again, I would just say we don't need the Declaration Act or the TRC calls of action to do these things.

[2:33:31] Voice 23: This is what neighbours who want to get along and build relationships do. This is what we do.

[2:33:36] Voice 23: so in summary i'm going to wrap it up and give us some time for discussion and questions in summary

[2:33:42] Voice 23: i think we can see that many local governments and the trust included are engaging in reconciliation

[2:33:48] Voice 23: efforts that appear and appear to be poised to to further this there there's a lot of interest

[2:33:53] Voice 23: in activity um i do note in closing again lawyers always have to give warnings right i do recognize

[2:34:02] Voice 23: recognize that local governments or suggest that local governments take these efforts slow

[2:34:07] Voice 23: and steady and ensure careful implementation. I think one of the dangers that we face at this

[2:34:14] Voice 23: point is over-promising and under-delivering. And I think that should be avoided from the

[2:34:20] Voice 23: local government perspective, if at all possible. Slow and steady approach, careful implementation

[2:34:25] Voice 23: and not over-promising because we don't want to under-deliver. I don't think reconciliation is

[2:34:32] Voice 23: is advanced by over-promising and under-delivering.

[2:34:34] Voice 23: That is my opinion only, by the way.

[2:34:36] Voice 23: And I'm anxious and curious to hear the opinions of others

[2:34:39] Voice 23: on that closing point.

[2:34:41] Voice 23: Mr. Chair, I'll pass it back to you then.

[2:34:46] Trustee Luckham: Okay, very good.

[2:34:48] Trustee Luckham: Thank you, Rhys, especially for the over-promising

[2:34:52] Trustee Luckham: and under-delivering message, easy to slide into that.

[2:34:58] Trustee Luckham: So very engaging, I thank you.

[2:35:00] Trustee Luckham: and let's go for some questions uh from trustees and i see susan yates and ben maberly uh as our

[2:35:06] Trustee Luckham: first uh go ahead oh

[2:35:10] Voice 35: thank you chair luckham um mr harding i have a very quick question

[2:35:14] Voice 35: when i'm writing about reconciliation i i almost always use a capital r to denote

[2:35:22] Voice 35: a specific reconciliation but i see in your documents that you're it's quite often just a

[2:35:29] Voice 35: a small r and i wonder if you could clarify that for me i

[2:35:34] Voice 23: uh through you mr chair uh to trustee

[2:35:37] Voice 23: yates i'm not sure that that was purposeful to be quite honest with you um i um i would say though

[2:35:45] Voice 23: in regard to that now that you've you've sort of brought that forward is that i i i and again it's

[2:35:51] Voice 23: not purposeful it's not capitalized or or small font on purpose it's probably just um grammar

[2:35:57] Voice 23: issues. But I do wonder whether sometimes the word reconciliation, when used by folks in a

[2:36:06] Voice 23: constitutional context, is capitalized. And when it's not in a constitutional context, it may be

[2:36:13] Voice 23: a small r. That's all I can say in that regard. I see reconciliation as a very broad concept that

[2:36:20] Voice 23: that can be implemented in many, many, many ways.

[2:36:23] Voice 23: And not sure that capitalizing it

[2:36:26] Voice 23: or having a small letter on it

[2:36:29] Voice 23: is from my perspective important, but I take your point.

[2:36:32] Trustee Luckham: Thank you.

[2:36:33] Trustee Luckham: Good,

[2:36:34] Voice 23: Ben Maberly, and then

[2:36:35] Voice 8: Mayreed Boland.

[2:36:38] Voice 8: Yeah, thank you, Chair.

[2:36:39] Voice 8: Yeah, thanks, Iris.

[2:36:41] Voice 8: I just wanted to get your views

[2:36:43] Voice 8: on Indigenous people's traditional rights

[2:36:48] Voice 8: on fee simple land owned by traditional peoples in their traditional territory owned by the

[2:36:53] Voice 8: indigenous peoples in their traditional territory i mean i think we have a significant amount of

[2:36:58] Voice 8: indigenous peoples living in the southern gulf islands that are um are not uh affiliated with

[2:37:05] Voice 8: a particular nation i mean we have but but they're living in their traditional territory

[2:37:10] Voice 8: and um i was just wondering what your views were on on uh on where their rights would stand

[2:37:18] Voice 23: That is a very difficult question. Through you, Mr. Chair, to Trustee Mabry, that's a very difficult question. Trustee Mabry, and I'm not sure that I actually can answer it in all honesty. And it's probably more akin to what I suggested at the beginning of this conversation are such questions that perhaps are not best to be answered in this form, if I could put it that way.

[2:37:42] Voice 23: um i think it engages a series of difficult uh questions and considerations that are are more

[2:37:49] Voice 23: appropriately taken offline to be frank with you

[2:37:52] Voice 8: yeah no i appreciate that um i mean i just

[2:37:57] Voice 8: um yeah no i appreciate that i i just think it's a question that that you know needs to be needs to

[2:38:05] Voice 8: be dealt with and i and i i look at the trust area as sort of a unique in this perspective

[2:38:10] Voice 8: of um because of the the amount of of for indigenous peoples that live on the southern

[2:38:16] Voice 8: gulf islands that um are sort of um i wouldn't say cast out but are are um we're confined to

[2:38:26] Voice 8: fee simple lands and um i think it's just an important question that needs to be be answered

[2:38:32] Voice 8: thanks yeah

[2:38:34] Voice 23: you're welcome trustee and again through you mr chair back to trustee maverly um

[2:38:38] Voice 23: i think i saw um on the islands trust website recently that there are 27 recognized first

[2:38:47] Voice 23: nations engaged in in the trust and and that would not of course include the the um individuals or

[2:38:55] Voice 23: organizations that i believe you're referring to so it's 27 plus and and how indigenous bodies

[2:39:02] Voice 23: everybody's recognized or not, and the impacts on fee simple held land in the trust area is

[2:39:11] Voice 23: dealt with is a very difficult question. And again, I'm going to defer, given my earlier

[2:39:16] Voice 23: comments, to answering that question in the here and now and publicly.

[2:39:20] Voice 8: Okay, thank you.

[2:39:22] Voice 23: Thank you,

[2:39:23] Trustee Luckham: Ben, for the question. Myread Boland.

[2:39:29] Voice 5: So thank you. It's really interesting,

[2:39:32] Voice 5: and I'm on a very steep learning curve.

[2:39:34] Voice 5: So I'd appreciate,

[2:39:35] Voice 5: I assume we will have access to your presentation.

[2:39:38] Voice 5: I would really like that if possible.

[2:39:41] Voice 5: So my question is coming back to your 27

[2:39:46] Voice 5: different First Nation groups

[2:39:49] Voice 5: with whom the Islands Trust consults.

[2:39:51] Voice 5: And the fact that the Islands Trust sits,

[2:39:54] Voice 5: straddles all of these regional districts.

[2:39:56] Voice 5: So I'm imagining that each of those First Nations groups

[2:40:01] Voice 5: groups are consulted with by the regional district and also by the islands trust and just conceptually

[2:40:07] Voice 5: is that not a huge load on their resources and whether or not be more efficient ways of doing

[2:40:15] Voice 5: that and you did talk about the role of the province and versus local government and um

[2:40:23] Voice 5: I'm just wondering about the Matrix of you know consultation and referrals that's going on and

[2:40:30] Voice 5: And it seems like some astronomical logarithmic increasing number, which is going to cause a problem.

[2:40:39] Voice 5: Thank you.

[2:40:41] Voice 23: Thank you, Trustee Boland.

[2:40:43] Voice 23: And through you, Mr. Chair, to Trustee Boland, your points are well taken with respect to capacity.

[2:40:53] Voice 23: Capacity of First Nations and local government to engage in some of the referral processes is going to be challenging.

[2:41:02] Voice 23: I think it has proven challenging already, and I think it will continue to prove challenging.

[2:41:06] Voice 23: There was mention in Russ's opening statements about capacity funding and the number of referrals that had gone out of the trust to local First Nations.

[2:41:17] Voice 23: It was a pretty significant number, as I recall, something in the 200 plus range.

[2:41:21] Voice 23: That's a lot of referrals for First Nations to process and for the trust to send out and reprocess.

[2:41:29] Voice 23: It's a lot of work. I don't know, in all honesty, the answer to your first comment with respect to the doubling up of regional district and trust.

[2:41:40] Voice 23: You call it consultation. I call it engagement.

[2:41:43] Voice 23: engagement. I don't know what's happening on the ground and I'll defer to staff on that one if they

[2:41:48] Voice 23: wish to jump in and clarify that for you. But I think you're hitting on a challenge that we all

[2:41:55] Voice 23: face at this current point and that is what are referrals going to look like? How many referrals

[2:42:01] Voice 23: are going out? And what will we do with the referrals when we get them back? And there are

[2:42:06] Voice 23: there are a lot of um undone questions uh on that right now and i i think your staff in all honesty

[2:42:13] Voice 23: have done a great job at getting a referral process at least aligned and ready to go they're

[2:42:18] Voice 23: well ahead of many other um of their contemporary local governments in that regard because they've

[2:42:23] Voice 23: had to do it so much but they're well ahead of the curve yeah but i i defer to i'm going to defer to

[2:42:29] Voice 23: staff on this one trustee bowling because they they know this well well better than i do okay

[2:42:34] Voice 5: Okay, thank you. Just, I mean, maybe this is, nobody here can answer this, but I'm curious as to whether the province is tracking that capacity, you know, numerically or by whatever means. Thank

[2:42:49] Voice 5: you for your answer.

[2:42:51] Voice 12: You're welcome.

[2:42:52] Voice 12: um thank you

[2:42:57] Trustee Luckham: for that uh question and maybe i'll just chime in and that

[2:43:02] Trustee Luckham: certainly we at the islands trust are aware of the capacity and capacity funding necessary for

[2:43:08] Trustee Luckham: nations to um contribute to the work that we do or that's not the right word to use but nonetheless

[2:43:16] Trustee Luckham: that's part of our ask constantly but the problems is how can we assist nations in that capacity

[2:43:22] Trustee Luckham: funding so we'll see how that evolves but Jamie Harris you've got your hand up yeah great

[2:43:31] Voice 11: presentation I'm looking forward to hopefully reviewing it again I wanted to make a comment

[2:43:38] Voice 11: you know to further what Ben was mentioning about local indigenous some of whom belong to

[2:43:47] Voice 11: to neighboring bands, others who are not yet and who are possibly looking at band status

[2:43:59] Voice 11: being created and further than what they're, how they'd be affected or how this, what this

[2:44:10] Voice 11: stuff means to them you know regards to their fee simple land but also i wanted to mention

[2:44:19] Voice 11: that i feel it's very important that they are also engaged in policy making

[2:44:28] Voice 11: um situations on on the islands here so that was it thanks okay

[2:44:41] Trustee Luckham: thank you um any additional

[2:44:44] Trustee Luckham: remark i reached otherwise i'll look for other hands up i don't see any janine dot community

[2:44:55] Voice 27: members spurs this concern all the time i don't know why my microwave phone so bad um is what

[2:45:01] Voice 27: about um a simple ownership by uh settlers non-native people um there seems to be this

[2:45:09] Voice 27: sense that uh people will actually have to leave the property that they own so can you speak to

[2:45:14] Voice 27: that issue is that covered here anywhere uh

[2:45:19] Voice 23: through you mr chair to trustee dodds um we we

[2:45:22] Voice 23: didn't talk today at all about fee simple lands and the chilcotin case that i mentioned early on

[2:45:30] Voice 23: on the aboriginal title matters specifically did not deal with fee simpler private lands

[2:45:37] Voice 23: it was a title claim taken against crown land only fee simple lands as well as water bodies

[2:45:44] Voice 23: were excluded specifically from the title claim so as of today the the law as it relates to

[2:45:52] Voice 23: impacts of aboriginal title claims aboriginal right claims on fee simple property owned by

[2:45:58] Voice 23: non-natives is up in the air it's undone there are some cases moving through the courts that

[2:46:07] Voice 23: will bring i think some clarification to um this issue because of course the um territory that

[2:46:16] Voice 23: many first nations claim as their ancestral territory and part of treaty claims in particular

[2:46:22] Voice 23: cover vast stretches of fee simple land it's not just crown land it's fee simple land so this issue

[2:46:28] Voice 23: is going to need to be dealt with and determined and i think it will be dealt with and determined

[2:46:32] Voice 23: by a court of law at the end of the day to confirm for the rest of us as to what the court's views

[2:46:37] Voice 23: views are on whether or not fee-simple land is potentially affected by an Aboriginal title claim,

[2:46:44] Voice 23: if proven. So I would suggest, again, sometimes I like to speak pretty directly on these things.

[2:46:50] Voice 23: Stay tuned. I think you'll have some answers to your questions in time as the courts start

[2:46:56] Voice 23: to release judgments that are starting to touch on these issues. And they're very difficult issues,

[2:47:03] Voice 23: of course both legally as well as politically thank you

[2:47:11] Trustee Luckham: any further

[2:47:13] Trustee Luckham: questions for Reese okay I'm not seeing any hands raised so want to thank you

[2:47:26] Trustee Luckham: very much for a very informative and engaging presentation and do you have

[2:47:34] Trustee Luckham: any final closing remark at all or should we just bid you farewell certainly

[2:47:39] Voice 23: we can bid each other

[2:47:41] Voice 23: farewell uh mr chair i i um i'll just say this in closing i i thank you for your time i thank you

[2:47:48] Voice 23: for for listening um i really want to recognize the trust as being out front on these issues

[2:47:55] Voice 23: um you you are recognized certainly by me and many others as being sort of at the forefront of

[2:48:01] Voice 23: pushing some of these issues into um more consumable form and i i applaud you for that

[2:48:07] Voice 23: my only hesitation with respect to this again is to go slow steady and make sure that we know

[2:48:14] Voice 23: where we're going before we implement our next decisions that would be my only closing statement

[2:48:18] Voice 23: mr chair so i'll leave that with you and your colleagues and i'll be happy to re-engage with

[2:48:23] Voice 23: you um in future if if that's ever necessary be happy to see you all again and help you in any way

[2:48:28] Voice 23: I can well

[2:48:30] Trustee Luckham: thank you very much oh there's one other hand up here now so maybe I'll just go to

[2:48:36] Trustee Luckham: Deb Morrison for her question and then we'll close off yeah

[2:48:41] Voice 24: I just want to say thank you

[2:48:43] Voice 24: for the presentation and really just shout out the one name I haven't heard here today

[2:48:47] Voice 24: and that's past trustee Scott Colburn who brought the reconciliation motion forward

[2:48:54] Voice 24: last term so thank you very much for this it's been really informative

[2:48:58] Voice 24: very

[2:49:00] Voice 23: welcome trustee thank you as well for your feedback i appreciate it

[2:49:03] Trustee Luckham: yeah so um uh i'll just

[2:49:05] Trustee Luckham: say um as we close here um that indeed i want to thank uh this uh past councils numerous trustees

[2:49:12] Trustee Luckham: historically that have supported um our uh interest in in in reconciliation i'm just going

[2:49:18] Trustee Luckham: to use that word um uh over the years that has got us to this place today uh both uh moral support

[2:49:25] Trustee Luckham: and financial support to to get us here and then i just want to acknowledge reeves i've had the

[2:49:29] Trustee Luckham: opportunity to see you in other public venues uh speaking on this topic and um really appreciate

[2:49:35] Trustee Luckham: and thank you for the work that you're doing on this very important topic both nationally and

[2:49:40] Trustee Luckham: globally as you have indicated at the outset so thank you sir for joining us today and i'll come

[2:49:46] Trustee Luckham: back to council here now and see how we want to proceed thank you everybody thanks very much we'll

[2:49:53] Trustee Luckham: We'll see you all soon.

[2:49:55] Trustee Luckham: So thank you, Council, particularly for your questions

[2:49:59] Trustee Luckham: and your engagement in this topic.

[2:50:02] Trustee Luckham: We are so very close to lunch.

[2:50:04] Trustee Luckham: It does seem to me like perhaps we should break for lunch,

[2:50:07] Trustee Luckham: but want to acknowledge that we have still

[2:50:11] Trustee Luckham: financial planning work to do,

[2:50:13] Trustee Luckham: but also want to recognize that if I'm not mistaken,

[2:50:16] Trustee Luckham: the motion that came forward with respect

[2:50:18] Trustee Luckham: to Reconciliation Committee was put off

[2:50:21] Trustee Luckham: until after this conversation.

[2:50:23] Trustee Luckham: I don't think there's enough time here to touch on that, but definitely want to return that to you at the appropriate time.

[2:50:32] Trustee Luckham: And I think the best thing to do would be to let's break for lunch.

[2:50:37] Trustee Luckham: It looks like we've got a full hour scheduled for that.

[2:50:42] Trustee Luckham: I certainly wouldn't mind coming back a bit earlier, given the fact that we're ending earlier.

[2:50:46] Trustee Luckham: So if that's not a problem for anybody,

[2:50:49] Trustee Luckham: let's come back in 10 minutes to one

[2:50:50] Trustee Luckham: and continue on with the discussions before us.

[2:50:55] Trustee Luckham: Is that satisfactory, Council?

[2:50:57] Trustee Luckham: Okay, so let us recess

[2:50:59] Trustee Luckham: and I look forward to seeing you in an hour.

[2:57:09] Trustee Luckham: Well, good afternoon, Council.

[2:57:11] Trustee Luckham: Thank you for promptly returning.

[2:57:17] Trustee Luckham: We've had some discussion here about rejigging the agenda

[2:57:21] Trustee Luckham: in order to be sure that we accomplish

[2:57:24] Trustee Luckham: as much as we can today.

[2:57:26] Trustee Luckham: And then with the limited time we have available tomorrow.

[2:57:31] Trustee Luckham: Just welcome the members of the public

[2:57:33] Trustee Luckham: and everybody else that's watching

[2:57:36] Trustee Luckham: and acknowledge that we're broadly meeting

[2:57:39] Trustee Luckham: across the Coast Salish territory.

[2:57:43] Trustee Luckham: Lgonquin speaking territory.

[2:57:45] Trustee Luckham: territory. It's the name, Songhees and Esquimalt Nations, and I'm thankful for that opportunity to

[2:57:53] Trustee Luckham: be here. So I would like to propose, Council, that we've sort of disrupted our financial

[2:58:04] Trustee Luckham: conversation here at the moment. I definitely want to pick that up and continue on with that work,

[2:58:08] Trustee Luckham: but I'm thinking while we've kind of paused that one of the other important items is our

[2:58:13] Trustee Luckham: our Governance Committee election process

[2:58:17] Trustee Luckham: and would like to suggest that we,

[2:58:21] Trustee Luckham: and we look at item 4.5 in your agenda,

[2:58:24] Trustee Luckham: which was a late item to do with amendments

[2:58:28] Trustee Luckham: to the terms of reference for the Governance Committee,

[2:58:35] Trustee Luckham: that's a suggestion from Executive Committee for myself,

[2:58:38] Trustee Luckham: and then do the elections.

[2:58:40] Trustee Luckham: And then that gives us the opportunity to just do finance

[2:58:43] Trustee Luckham: for the rest of the day until we run out of time or energy um are there any concerns with that

[2:58:49] Trustee Luckham: all right no i'm just going to get my participant screen up uh so suelen fast your hand is up you

[2:58:59] Trustee Luckham: have some concerns here not

[2:59:02] Voice 9: a concern sir just to let you know i'm unable to start my video because

[2:59:06] Voice 9: the host stopped it and maybe there are some others like us thank you i

[2:59:09] Voice 9: did turn

[2:59:10] Trustee Luckham: it off you

[2:59:11] Trustee Luckham: You can turn it on yourself.

[2:59:12] Trustee Luckham: You have that ability.

[2:59:15] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, so if you can manage that in the background, that'd be great.

[2:59:19] Trustee Luckham: Jamie Harris.

[2:59:22] Voice 11: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[2:59:24] Voice 11: I was just hoping that we aren't going to be skipping over the election of the Governance Committee.

[2:59:31] Voice 11: I could be just missing something here.

[2:59:32] Voice 11: No, sorry.

[2:59:33] Trustee Luckham: I guess you missed what I said.

[2:59:35] Trustee Luckham: I want to do the Governance Committee election right now to get that out of the way because it is important.

[2:59:41] Trustee Luckham: And let's deal with that.

[2:59:42] Trustee Luckham: and then we will continue on into the rest of the budget session great thanks thanks for that flag

[2:59:49] Trustee Luckham: and so um uh lori do you think we can bring up 4.5 the rfp on the screen there and then i'll speak to

[2:59:59] Trustee Luckham: Go ahead.

[3:00:01] Trustee Luckham: And while Laurie's getting that ready,

[3:00:04] Trustee Luckham: I'll just speak to it.

[3:00:05] Trustee Luckham: That's come from executive committee

[3:00:08] Trustee Luckham: and ostensibly I suggested it

[3:00:11] Trustee Luckham: as adopting some of the recommendations

[3:00:15] Trustee Luckham: that were contained in the governance report

[3:00:17] Trustee Luckham: about those leadership roles

[3:00:22] Trustee Luckham: be more sort of embraced or supported

[3:00:25] Trustee Luckham: by trust council body as a whole.

[3:00:27] Trustee Luckham: and it seems to me that we should embrace these opportunities when they arise and this is indeed

[3:00:34] Trustee Luckham: an opportunity to embrace that principle with the onset of a governance committee election process

[3:00:44] Trustee Luckham: at the beginning of this term and that if we elected the chair of the governance committee

[3:00:50] Trustee Luckham: by council then that's supported and then the membership of the committee is also

[3:00:54] Trustee Luckham: also elected by council and then they can go off and do their work with what I think would be full

[3:00:59] Trustee Luckham: support of council so um first uh for simplicity's sake I'm going to make the motion and if there's

[3:01:07] Trustee Luckham: a seconder that's great if there's not then we'll move on um and otherwise we'll have a discussion

[3:01:12] Trustee Luckham: around it um but uh I'll move that the trust council adopt amended trust council policy 2.3.1

[3:01:18] Trustee Luckham: council committee system dated December 6 2022 that specifies that the chair of the governance

[3:01:24] Trustee Luckham: on its committee be elected by trust council

[3:01:26] Trustee Luckham: from amongst its membership.

[3:01:28] Trustee Luckham: So do I have a second there?

[3:01:30] Trustee Luckham: I'll second that.

[3:01:31] Trustee Luckham: Susan Yates, thank you very much, Susan.

[3:01:33] Trustee Luckham: And so now let's get a show of hands

[3:01:37] Trustee Luckham: if we want to discuss this

[3:01:39] Trustee Luckham: or whether we just simply wanna vote on it.

[3:01:41] Trustee Luckham: But I see Laura Patrick and Mairead Boland.

[3:01:49] Trustee Patrick: Mairead was, her hand was up before me.

[3:01:52] Voice 5: Okay.

[3:01:53] Voice 5: Thanks Laura.

[3:01:54] Voice 5: Laura, I wrote to the Executive Committee about this

[3:01:58] Voice 5: when it was raised at the end of the last Trust Council meeting.

[3:02:03] Voice 5: And I feel that the Governance Committee was set up

[3:02:07] Voice 5: to address multiple changes to governance,

[3:02:12] Voice 5: including changes to the policies, you know, these kinds of policies,

[3:02:18] Voice 5: and that piecemeal ad hoc changing those policies

[3:02:23] Voice 5: isn't appropriate.

[3:02:25] Voice 5: And I think, you know, it would be much better

[3:02:29] Voice 5: to do it in a coherent way.

[3:02:32] Voice 5: And I actually volunteered that my motion

[3:02:35] Voice 5: to change the Financial Planning Committee

[3:02:37] Voice 5: could be rolled back in to being addressed

[3:02:41] Voice 5: by the Governance Committee in view of my view on this.

[3:02:47] Voice 5: so um i would propose that this should be left to the governance committee and not actually just

[3:02:55] Voice 5: sort of um accelerated out of that entire swathe of policies that need to be addressed

[3:03:03] Voice 5: thank you thank

[3:03:05] Trustee Luckham: you marie um for that trustee laura patrick

[3:03:09] Trustee Patrick: um very similar as well i'm not

[3:03:14] Trustee Patrick: in favor of this i think i think what's important is elect the committee and you know see in that

[3:03:19] Trustee Patrick: body then can you know elect its chair because it's it's the kind of we're off to the beginning

[3:03:24] Trustee Patrick: we did that last uh term with the inaugural uh governance committee and i you know it went smooth

[3:03:30] Trustee Patrick: and um i just think that would be a lot easier at this point all

[3:03:35] Trustee Luckham: right thank you um aaron campbell

[3:03:37] Trustee Luckham: Yeah,

[3:03:39] Voice 26: I was just wondering what would make the governance committee different than the other committees where they were, the chairs were appointed after people had been appointed to the, to the chair much in the way that I'm guessing it was originally for the governance committee why, why the governance committee would get singled out as something new.

[3:04:05] Voice 26: Okay,

[3:04:08] Trustee Luckham: thank you. Maybe I'll just respond to that. I'm just taking what I interpret as the lead from the governance report that indicated that the suggestion was that ownership by council of the leadership of various committees of the Allen's Trust, and I'm paraphrasing, it's not exactly right, would be broadly supported if indeed we did it the way that I'm proposing.

[3:04:34] Trustee Luckham: And I'm just wanting to take advantage of creating a brand new committee, essentially.

[3:04:38] Trustee Luckham: Certainly, we had an interim committee at the end of the term, but essentially a new committee.

[3:04:43] Trustee Luckham: And it's one less thing off their plate to pursue.

[3:04:46] Trustee Luckham: But if it's not supported, then I would suggest that we vote against it.

[3:04:51] Trustee Luckham: And then we'll continue on with the election process as prescribed.

[3:04:55] Trustee Luckham: So, Trustee Middleton?

[3:05:01] Voice 1: Thank you, Chair.

[3:05:02] Voice 1: Yeah, I'm not in favor of this.

[3:05:05] Voice 1: I think this is somewhat ad hoc and premature.

[3:05:09] Voice 1: The governance report talked about the importance of council

[3:05:13] Voice 1: electing members to its committees based upon their stated interest

[3:05:18] Voice 1: and qualifications that they present to council for ratification,

[3:05:22] Voice 1: in essence, by themselves being elected to that committee.

[3:05:26] Voice 1: The first committee outside the executive to do that,

[3:05:31] Voice 1: And I would argue the executive should perhaps elect their chair from a selection of four.

[3:05:37] Voice 1: I would take the inverse of I think you're sort of on the fly rationalizing chair and say that, in fact, the governance committee might seek to be reformed following the pattern in which the committee has has been created,

[3:05:53] Voice 1: which is whereby all its members are elected by the council and then the members of that

[3:05:59] Voice 1: elected committee in indeed then democratically choose their own chair i find the wording of the

[3:06:06] Voice 1: the the motion is is a little vague it talks about simply changing a policy but then refers to the

[3:06:14] Voice 1: the that the chair of the governance committee be elected by trust council from amongst its

[3:06:18] Voice 1: membership um and what what we're talking about here is that um we've only just adopted policy

[3:06:27] Voice 1: in fact it's in the minutes that have been presented to us that show how this new uh

[3:06:33] Voice 1: governance committee um will be run and council indeed ratified those policies in september

[3:06:40] Voice 1: and to now sort of effectively on the fly turn around and upend that is um i i i can't see the

[3:06:47] Voice 1: rationale um but if there is a rationale i think it is totally appropriate that the governance

[3:06:54] Voice 1: committee then look at that rationale and apply it to all of the committees i mean i find the

[3:06:59] Voice 1: the rationale to be a tad on the offensive side where it's noted that directly electing the chair

[3:07:05] Voice 1: will improve accountability and transparency on this new committee when in fact several of

[3:07:11] Voice 1: our committees don't get their members elected at all and so i think that uh we need to give

[3:07:17] Voice 1: the policy a chance to function um it worked very well for the inaugural governance committee

[3:07:24] Voice 1: there's nothing interim about it it was the first governance committee and so i would say

[3:07:29] Voice 1: um if we need to do anything it would be to refer this question to the governance committee

[3:07:34] Voice 1: committee who can then consider the election of um of committees and indeed executive members of of

[3:07:43] Voice 1: committees as a whole across all of our committees so appreciate your efforts but I I can't support

[3:07:50] Voice 1: this thank you okay

[3:07:52] Trustee Luckham: well thank you very much um I just feel necessary to say I don't believe I

[3:07:56] Trustee Luckham: used the words transparency or accountability um I just said uh the support of the council body so

[3:08:03] Trustee Luckham: So if I misspoke, then I apologize for that.

[3:08:07] Trustee Luckham: You didn't, Chair.

[3:08:08] Voice 1: You're quite right.

[3:08:09] Voice 1: I believe it's in the section headed Chief Administrative Officer Comments that that phrase is used.

[3:08:16] Trustee Luckham: I should have read that more closely.

[3:08:18] Trustee Luckham: Thank you for that.

[3:08:20] Trustee Luckham: Okay.

[3:08:20] Trustee Luckham: So Deb Morrison, and perhaps if it's not popular, we should just go to the vote.

[3:08:24] Trustee Luckham: Deb Morrison.

[3:08:26] Voice 24: Thank you.

[3:08:27] Voice 24: Thank you. So, I was last term the chair of the Trust Programs Committee, and, you know, have been very interested in leadership across the trust and in the governance report I was on the select committee, last term, that then created the governance

[3:08:47] Voice 24: committee was created out of that. One of the issues related to the governance committee and

[3:08:54] Voice 24: I think why it's unique or why it's being held unique in this way is the governance committee

[3:09:01] Voice 24: will foundationally offer suggestions to the trust council that will be about how we organize,

[3:09:09] Voice 24: about policies, about how we want to really shape the future of the trust. And that's really

[3:09:17] Voice 24: important. Okay. That's really important. And to have a different mechanism in terms of leadership

[3:09:26] Voice 24: in that space, which I'll characterize it the way I feel that it's very, it felt very off the cuff

[3:09:34] Voice 24: coming at this and then we got the rfd late um and i just don't think it's appropriate i think

[3:09:41] Voice 24: it needs to be very carefully thought through and that's what the governance committee is for

[3:09:47] Voice 24: we elect the governance committee because changes like this are hard and they're political and we

[3:09:54] Voice 24: need to be behind them and so i really think that the functioning of a chair inside that committee

[3:10:00] Voice 24: a chair is not all powerful, okay?

[3:10:02] Voice 24: A chair speaks for the committee

[3:10:05] Voice 24: and therefore should be elected by the committee

[3:10:07] Voice 24: to speak for them.

[3:10:09] Voice 24: So I really do feel it needs to be somebody internally

[3:10:13] Voice 24: in the committee that we value the relationships

[3:10:16] Voice 24: those folks are gonna have

[3:10:18] Voice 24: and how they're gonna hold somebody to manage them.

[3:10:21] Voice 24: So I'll leave it at that.

[3:10:22] Voice 24: I'm not for this.

[3:10:24] Trustee Luckham: Okay, thank you, Deb.

[3:10:26] Trustee Luckham: Aaron Campbell, your hand is still up

[3:10:28] Trustee Luckham: or you have a second remark

[3:10:29] Trustee Luckham: Mark, and then I would like to go to the vote.

[3:10:39] Trustee Luckham: I'm not hearing anything back there from Aaron.

[3:10:43] Trustee Luckham: So I'm going to move to the vote.

[3:10:44] Trustee Luckham: Oh, his hand's gone now.

[3:10:46] Trustee Luckham: So I'm going to move to the vote.

[3:10:47] Trustee Luckham: On the vote on the motion that's on the floor,

[3:10:50] Trustee Luckham: which is on your screen, all those in favor?

[3:11:01] Trustee Luckham: Any, and so it looks like that motion fails.

[3:11:06] Trustee Luckham: And so thank you very much, council, for entertaining me.

[3:11:09] Trustee Luckham: And so now let's go to the governance committee election.

[3:11:14] Trustee Luckham: David, are you going to lead us on this one?

[3:11:17] Voice 7: I am.

[3:11:17] Voice 7: Yes.

[3:11:18] Voice 7: This is on page 275 of the agenda package, so I think that's the

[3:11:22] Voice 7: correct page.

[3:11:24] Voice 7: So we're going to follow the same process that we used for the election of the executive

[3:11:29] Voice 7: committee and the chair of the Last Trust Council.

[3:11:33] Voice 7: The only difference is you're going to be doing this electronically.

[3:11:37] Voice 7: So the first step will be to make sure that we got everybody that's interested in being

[3:11:42] Voice 7: on the governance committee has indicated their interest and then give one or two minutes for them

[3:11:48] Voice 7: to make a statement as to why they would like to be on the governance committee. On that page 275

[3:11:54] Voice 7: there is a list of the people that signed up at the last trust council indicating interest so we

[3:12:01] Voice 7: have nine people listed there. So I just ask now if there's anybody else who's not listed on the

[3:12:08] Voice 7: screen there that would like to be considered for being on the governor's committee so just put your

[3:12:14] Voice 7: electronic hand up and um maybe just ask the chair to help me with this one uh see is that uh jimmy

[3:12:21] Voice 7: harris and uh trustee allen and trustee falk so that would be correct okay so trustee harris

[3:12:29] Voice 7: i assume you want me to put your name on the list yes

[3:12:34] Voice 11: i do please all

[3:12:35] Voice 7: right i'll do that

[3:12:38] Voice 7: and trustee allen the same for you no

[3:12:41] Voice 13: i'd like to take my name off the list

[3:12:43] Voice 7: oh okay you're already

[3:12:44] Voice 7: on there take your name off okay thank you okay and uh trustee falck yes

[3:12:52] Voice 34: i would be like like to

[3:12:54] Voice 34: be have my name on there yes okay

[3:12:56] Voice 7: all right and i see trustee fast i

[3:13:02] Voice 9: would like to nominate judy

[3:13:04] Voice 9: getty if she's not on there okay

[3:13:07] Voice 7: maybe just um just getting intro people that are interested

[3:13:12] Voice 7: nominations will come next okay okay

[3:13:16] Voice 7: uh is there anybody else uh that's interested in

[3:13:20] Voice 7: please lower your hands

[3:13:22] Trustee Luckham: dag and sue i

[3:13:24] Voice 9: just spoke with judy um recently and i thought she was

[3:13:28] Voice 9: interested so is she on the call okay sorry

[3:13:33] Trustee Luckham: should be on your screen

[3:13:37] Voice 7: Okay, so that's 10 people. The purpose of this is just to let those people make a statement as to why they would like to be on the governance committee so going to go in alphabetical order.

[3:13:50] Voice 7: And keep those names up and you have an opportunity.

[3:13:53] Voice 7: Sure.

[3:13:55] Voice 7: Yeah, I was trying to get the names up in

[3:13:58] Trustee Luckham: a minute, there was a minute while we get that new list up.

[3:14:01] Trustee Luckham: Sorry,

[3:14:02] Voice 24: David, did you say that any, so did you ask for nominations? I didn't hear that.

[3:14:06] Voice 7: Not nominations yet. This is just those that are interested. We'll do the nominations afterwards.

[3:14:12] Voice 24: So we're going to hear from people who are interested before hearing from people who are

[3:14:16] Voice 24: nominated?

[3:14:18] Voice 7: Yes. These are the people that are interested and then the nominations will come

[3:14:21] Voice 7: next. It's the same process we use for the executive and chair at Trust Council.

[3:14:28] Voice 24: Okay, sorry I'm just, I'm confused so the nominations are not nominations for other people that may be interested.

[3:14:36] Voice 7: So, these people are not yet been nominated.

[3:14:39] Voice 24: Okay, I understand

[3:14:40] Voice 24: what you're saying it's just a little confusing got it. Thank you. Yeah, okay.

[3:14:44] Voice 7: Alright, so let's just.

[3:14:46] Voice 7: I said alphabetical, I didn't turn there, but

[3:14:49] Voice 7: I've been doing that.

[3:14:50] Voice 7: Is Trustee Bernardo here?

[3:14:52] Voice 7: Because if he's not, he wouldn't

[3:14:54] Trustee Luckham: be able to hear.

[3:14:55] Voice 7: Yeah, so unfortunately, we can't hear from Trustee Bernardo.

[3:15:00] Voice 7: Next on the list looks like it would be Trustee Campbell.

[3:15:04] Voice 5: But we did change the agenda.

[3:15:07] Voice 5: So does that have an impact on the fact that Trustee Bernardo is not here?

[3:15:12] Voice 5: because he has

[3:15:14] Trustee Luckham: indicated he is absent for the entire meeting today right

[3:15:20] Voice 12: okay okay um no

[3:15:27] Voice 12: so go ahead

[3:15:30] Trustee Luckham: trustee Morrison well thank you sorry

[3:15:32] Voice 24: will trustee Bernardo not be considered for

[3:15:35] Voice 24: election then the

[3:15:38] Voice 7: election requires everybody to be in the room so you'd have to be here to

[3:15:43] Voice 7: to verbally accept and then be considered.

[3:15:47] Voice 7: So I wouldn't be able to be considered

[3:15:48] Voice 7: for the governance committee.

[3:15:51] Voice 24: Okay, that's seriously problematic from my perspective,

[3:15:54] Voice 24: given his voice in this council.

[3:15:56] Voice 24: So I'm not sure what to do about that,

[3:15:58] Voice 24: but that is really problematic.

[3:16:01] Trustee Luckham: We're gonna try and reach out to him by phone.

[3:16:03] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, okay.

[3:16:05] Trustee Luckham: So let's proceed at the moment

[3:16:07] Trustee Luckham: and hopefully we can rectify that.

[3:16:09] Voice 7: Okay, all right.

[3:16:11] Voice 7: Right. So, Trustee Campbell, do you want to just spend a minute just to indicate your interest and why you'd like to be on the Governance Committee?

[3:16:18] Voice 26: Yeah, thank you. Can everybody hear me okay?

[3:16:22] Voice 12: Yes.

[3:16:23] Voice 26: Okay, I'm mobile at the moment.

[3:16:28] Voice 26: I have an interest in the Governance Committee for basically the same reason that I got involved in running for the Trust.

[3:16:36] Voice 26: uh and that was um but i think that there needs to be some change and there needs to be new new eyes

[3:16:44] Voice 26: and and ears uh to some of the problems that have been going on and and i think that that was shown

[3:16:50] Voice 26: in the in the vote um this year and how many new people there are that have been um elected and so

[3:16:59] Voice 26: So it's something that I would like to be more involved in and and to and to continue to learn more about.

[3:17:07] Voice 26: So that is why I put my name forward for it.

[3:17:15] Voice 7: OK, thank you. So I'm having a technical issue with my computer.

[3:17:19] Voice 7: It's decided to change keyboards and now I can't type anything.

[3:17:24] Voice 7: OK, who's next? That would be Evans.

[3:17:28] Voice 7: Yeah. So, Trustee Evans, you'd like to go next?

[3:17:32] Voice 4: Hi. Hopefully you can all hear me okay. I am in a bad cell spot here. So the reason why I would

[3:17:40] Voice 4: like to run for the Governance Committee, it's also, like Trustee Campbell said, one of the

[3:17:44] Voice 4: main reasons why I had my name put forward and accepted to run as a trustee. After reading the

[3:17:49] Voice 4: Governance Report, there's a lot of good suggestions in there. My background in my career

[3:17:58] Voice 4: involved me working and developing process changes and also implementing process changes so I think

[3:18:07] Voice 4: I have a good background working with people and diverse groups in putting together new processes

[3:18:16] Voice 4: or implementing new changes such as what is being proposed in the governance report and perhaps

[3:18:24] Voice 4: there are other avenues for effectiveness that can be discovered as we're working as a collective

[3:18:31] Voice 4: group. So those are sort of the top highlights as to why I would like to be considered for a

[3:18:38] Voice 4: position on the Governance Committee. I look forward to any questions should you have them.

[3:18:43] Voice 4: Thank you.

[3:18:45] Voice 6: Thank you. So Trustee Falk?

[3:18:52] Voice 34: Yes, thank you. Yeah, very similar actually as

[3:18:56] Voice 34: uh all the previous uh speakers um primarily for me it's uh i'm a big picture thinker and like i

[3:19:07] Voice 34: look at systems and um so it feels like this is the place where where that kind of thinking is

[3:19:15] Voice 34: necessary um so uh yeah basically uh you know just to repeat the the same the same things but

[3:19:25] Voice 34: looking at the governance report in combination with seeing the feedback that has been given

[3:19:33] Voice 34: in in public forums and you know are minuted and so on from uh for the trust and in the last

[3:19:40] Voice 34: last uh few months uh or maybe half a year or so that i've been watching it seems to mesh

[3:19:49] Voice 34: quite a bit and so that you know it's indicating to me that there's definitely

[3:19:54] Voice 34: some issues that are going on that need to be addressed and so that's a great interest to me to

[3:20:00] Voice 34: to be a part of trying to facilitate that and and that you know that kind of problem solving and

[3:20:09] Voice 34: using communication to to facilitate that kind of process of looking at change is something that's

[3:20:17] Voice 34: always interested me and I have quite a bit of background in that from the organic

[3:20:21] Voice 34: industry and movement that I've been part of for the last 30 years thank you hey

[3:20:28] Voice 7: thank you

[3:20:29] Voice 7: and trustee goody hi

[3:20:34] Voice 2: um so I have lots and lots of education I've got a certificate in nursing

[3:20:41] Voice 2: and I've got a master's in psychology and a law degree um I've worked uh in the law courts in

[3:20:47] Voice 2: Vancouver for decades. I did a five-year stint in Hong Kong just before the handover back to

[3:20:55] Voice 2: mainland China and was peripherally involved in the democracy movement there. So the Canadian

[3:21:01] Voice 2: Charter of Rights and Freedoms was actually a document that was very popular. I came back

[3:21:06] Voice 2: to Canada and started working in the provincial courts. Lots of experience reading legal documents,

[3:21:15] Voice 2: quantity of paper and a whole lot of practice in terms of mediation i moved to bowen island in 1980

[3:21:21] Voice 2: it was after the islands trust was formed but before we were municipality so i understand the

[3:21:27] Voice 2: work of local trust committees and our ocp and the mandate of the trust and strongly supportive

[3:21:34] Voice 2: of the trust i've read the recent governance review and that was one of the reasons why i

[3:21:40] Voice 2: wanted to run for council and primarily for trust i think that there's lots of challenges to the

[3:21:46] Voice 2: trust both internal now and external and i'd like to be part of trying to figure out how

[3:21:52] Voice 2: um what all the options are and different ways that we can meet those challenges

[3:21:56] Voice 2: thanks okay

[3:22:00] Voice 12: thank you uh trustee harris hi so the last few

[3:22:07] Voice 11: years i've been heavily involved

[3:22:10] Voice 11: involved with the community, a large portion of the community regarding the public engagement

[3:22:17] Voice 11: process concerning the CDF project, the new policy statement draft, and I've done a lot

[3:22:28] Voice 11: of work with local Indigenous.

[3:22:31] Voice 11: My platform, I ran with a running mate who didn't get elected, he came in a very close

[3:22:38] Voice 11: third and you know big a big big part of our platform is we were pushing for change and you

[3:22:46] Voice 11: know being on salt spring and i've got a you know the largest population here it's uh speaks volumes

[3:22:52] Voice 11: i think so um with that i think i could have a lot to offer the governance committee going forward

[3:22:59] Voice 11: and making a positive change to the trust thanks thank you trustee

[3:23:06] Voice 7: middleton um

[3:23:08] Voice 36: can i just jump in

[3:23:10] Voice 36: I just want to pass on a notice from Trustee Bernardo on behalf of this opportunity right now.

[3:23:18] Voice 36: He just states, I'm in the middle of my hearing.

[3:23:21] Voice 36: I do wish to be considered as part of the Governance Committee.

[3:23:25] Voice 36: He should be done in about 20 minutes.

[3:23:27] Voice 36: Thank you.

[3:23:30] Voice 12: Okay.

[3:23:31] Voice 12: Thank you.

[3:23:32] Voice 12: Okay.

[3:23:33] Voice 12: Trustee Middleton.

[3:23:39] Voice 1: Thank you very much.

[3:23:40] Voice 1: much um yeah I'm very interested in in serving on the governance committee um because I really do

[3:23:46] Voice 1: think it will make the trust better the work the government's committee will do uh springboarding

[3:23:51] Voice 1: out of the uh the the governance committee review will really I think lay a stronger foundation for

[3:23:59] Voice 1: the next 50 plus years of the trust for you know Island ecology and Island communities

[3:24:03] Voice 1: committees we are almost 50 years old and we know that that is uh an apt time to to look at the

[3:24:13] Voice 1: governance structures that support our work and I think we've been given a good intro that's allowed

[3:24:19] Voice 1: us a bit of a program of work from the governance committee um uh I should say from the select

[3:24:27] Voice 1: committee on governance that produced the report that some of you have referred to and I think

[3:24:33] Voice 1: acting on that it's not it's not as i've said before it's not a black mark against the trust

[3:24:38] Voice 1: any organization needs to evolve and strengthen its governance structures and that time for us

[3:24:44] Voice 1: is now and i would really like to uh stick with that work that we began last term um

[3:24:52] Voice 1: i have a lot of experience with community-based and industry-based volunteer and professional

[3:24:56] Voice 1: boards and working with them to come up with policy structure to guide an organization is

[3:25:03] Voice 1: something I've done a lot of and I think it won't be without its challenges there will be missteps

[3:25:10] Voice 1: it's it's going to be important to keep listening and keep where need be piloting things and

[3:25:16] Voice 1: adjusting if if we make a misstep with policy but I think of all the the work that we can do

[3:25:26] Voice 1: to help align shall we say the purposes of all the well-meaning people in our communities and

[3:25:33] Voice 1: try to heal some of the divisions that have developed he used to actually give a strong

[3:25:38] Voice 1: governance foundation where we can as I've said before really talk to each other across different

[3:25:44] Voice 1: values and come to an alignment of purpose and that that I think the governance committee can

[3:25:49] Voice 1: can really really help do and so I I would be very honored to be a part of that work and um

[3:25:55] Voice 1: and I um I I would appreciate your vote to for a position on the the governance committee and

[3:26:03] Voice 1: um I will uh I will leave it at that and thank you all for listening thank

[3:26:10] Voice 6: you uh trustee Patrick

[3:26:14] Trustee Patrick: hello I I really love the the quote that opens the uh governance report that trust is the glue

[3:26:21] Trustee Patrick: that binds governing systems to the people they serve and relevance and purpose keeps governance

[3:26:26] Trustee Patrick: current and meaningful to its residents. Governance isn't static. And I think it was a

[3:26:33] Trustee Patrick: very important step that we initiated this new standing committee on governance. And we'll know

[3:26:40] Trustee Patrick: if this committee is being successful or because it'll help improve the performance of Trust Council.

[3:26:47] Trustee Patrick: And with a higher performing trust council, we can begin to win back some public trust and confidence and work our way through a whole lot of important work to catch up on all of our OCPs and land use bylaws that are needing attention.

[3:27:06] Trustee Patrick: I had a long career in public electric utilities and worked for YBR Airport, as well as had my own international consulting practice, and I was trained and practiced in developing environmental management systems to ISO 14001.

[3:27:28] Trustee Patrick: I know that sounds really boring stuff, but it has a lot to do with making sure that your environmental impacts and risks were truly embedded into the governance system of the organization and that you measured it and you improved performance continuously.

[3:27:47] Trustee Patrick: It's just one of those things.

[3:27:48] Trustee Patrick: You just have to always be working at it.

[3:27:50] Trustee Patrick: um so i think with my my work experience combined with the experience that i learned

[3:27:55] Trustee Patrick: gained last term by serving on the executive committee and also chairing uh trust uh local

[3:28:03] Trustee Patrick: committees across the three geographic regions of the islands trust um will help me um be a good

[3:28:12] Trustee Patrick: good member of this committee. And I am a systems thinker, a process geek. And for those of you who

[3:28:22] Trustee Patrick: don't know me, in high school, while my friends were competing in sports, I competed in parliamentary

[3:28:27] Trustee Patrick: procedure. So I would love to be on this committee and help us get to that high performing state.

[3:28:36] Voice 6: Trustee Peterson.

[3:28:40] Voice 21: Thank you. So yes, I think we all acknowledge that the contents of the

[3:28:45] Voice 21: governance report are important to consider due to timing and trust council meeting schedule etc

[3:28:56] Voice 21: we haven't had a chance to dig into these recommendations and assess their value assess

[3:29:03] Voice 21: their relevance and ex assess what can be done inside the organization as opposed to what needs

[3:29:12] Voice 21: needs to be asked of the province in terms of changes.

[3:29:16] Voice 21: I think what stands out for me as one of the things

[3:29:18] Voice 21: that we can do inside the organization

[3:29:20] Voice 21: that I think is perhaps the most high value

[3:29:26] Voice 21: is to really have a serious look

[3:29:29] Voice 21: at realigning our strategic planning process

[3:29:33] Voice 21: with our budgeting process

[3:29:36] Voice 21: in a way that really ties them together.

[3:29:39] Voice 21: And I think that there's so much efficiency

[3:29:41] Voice 21: that can be gained that way.

[3:29:43] Voice 21: And I believe there's also a lot of clarity

[3:29:46] Voice 21: that can be gained in terms of our interface

[3:29:49] Voice 21: with the public, like why are we spending money?

[3:29:53] Voice 21: What are our goals and how are we gonna get there?

[3:29:55] Voice 21: I think that this committee

[3:30:00] Voice 21: future is going to be very important for the organization for years to come but there's

[3:30:07] Voice 21: certainly plenty of work on the table right at this moment and i'd love to be a part of getting

[3:30:12] Voice 21: at that thank

[3:30:13] Voice 12: you and

[3:30:16] Voice 6: trustee stamford thank

[3:30:22] Voice 36: you trust counsel um this is a critical committee

[3:30:25] Voice 36: and it's as we move into the new term i recognize it is there's so much interest among council

[3:30:31] Voice 36: members that this presents a strong leadership in steering a new course for the island's trust

[3:30:36] Voice 36: as a whole. To me, it's not just about the government's report, which I found was a fairly

[3:30:43] Voice 36: narrow snapshot of issues and recommendations. I feel that as a council, much of the work to

[3:30:50] Voice 36: move forward into the future requires turning the lens on ourselves, how we participate as members

[3:30:56] Voice 36: members of our island communities and as elected elected representatives.

[3:31:01] Voice 36: What is the best model that moves us forward efficiently, sustainably and

[3:31:07] Voice 36: respectfully into the next 50 hundred and even a thousand years?

[3:31:13] Voice 36: It's imperative that the trust clarify its mandate for the provincial government,

[3:31:17] Voice 36: especially in terms of responsibilities with First Nations to the province as a

[3:31:22] Voice 36: whole and how this impacts our funding model um my experience with the trust i've been i was

[3:31:30] Voice 36: privileged to be elected to the inaugural governance committee late last term and i was an

[3:31:35] Voice 36: active and positive participant um i understand a lot of the basics in operations and project

[3:31:42] Voice 36: strategies with the islands trust uh this is my fourth term but also eight years on the islands

[3:31:49] Voice 36: Trust Conservancy and for years as its chair I've learned a lot about the strengths and weaknesses

[3:31:56] Voice 36: just from somewhat outside of the Trust Council to a certain extent. New for me is as a rural

[3:32:05] Voice 36: director with the Sunshine Coast Regional District I'm developing a unique comparative position at

[3:32:11] Voice 36: how governance and management works at the Trust and the SCRD just for interest has voting

[3:32:17] Voice 36: putting representation on its board by First Nations, and that is very valuable perspective.

[3:32:24] Voice 36: The opportunities here, I believe the time is right to examine governance for the Trust

[3:32:30] Voice 36: Council.

[3:32:31] Voice 36: I also want to note that everyone that has spoken and has interest provides a huge wealth

[3:32:39] Voice 36: of experience and important input here, and I hope we all get to participate, whatever

[3:32:47] Voice 36: whatever the outcome is, I hope you will support my election to this important committee.

[3:32:52] Voice 36: Thank you.

[3:32:56] Voice 7: Okay, thank you.

[3:32:57] Voice 7: So I guess the next question for council through the chair is, did you want to wait for Trustee

[3:33:05] Voice 7: Bernardo to return to the meeting or do you want to proceed?

[3:33:08] Voice 7: You could go on with other business and then come back to this once Trustee Bernardo's

[3:33:13] Voice 7: back in the meeting.

[3:33:15] Voice 7: Yeah,

[3:33:19] Voice 12: so I

[3:33:27] Trustee Luckham: guess I wonder, what exactly does it say in the policy about the person being in the room?

[3:33:35] Trustee Luckham: Because clearly people are more broadly spread around.

[3:33:38] Trustee Luckham: He has indicated it, he has reaffirmed his interest in running.

[3:33:44] Voice 7: Yeah, so we're just following the process that we use for the executive.

[3:33:49] Voice 7: So if we follow that to T, he should be here.

[3:33:53] Voice 7: um it's just odd to yes because you have to ask somebody to accept the nomination and they're not

[3:34:00] Voice 7: here to actually accept the nomination so that's the only problem i would have with that and he

[3:34:06] Voice 7: also can't vote because he's not here okay

[3:34:08] Trustee Luckham: so i see a couple of other staff indicating some

[3:34:12] Trustee Luckham: advice this is not a practical

[3:34:14] Voice 16: matter why don't we just postpone the matter until he's available

[3:34:17] Voice 16: and then we hold the same consideration for anyone else who's not in the meeting

[3:34:20] Voice 16: if it comes up that we hold it at four o'clock and three people who are running can't be here

[3:34:26] Voice 16: because there something happened then you probably apply the same principle until you get everybody

[3:34:30] Voice 16: wants to run the room perfect want to be sure that

[3:34:33] Trustee Luckham: i'm got a good foundation for that so i see a lot

[3:34:36] Trustee Luckham: of thumbs up um uh for postponing so why don't we uh postpone the election until uh later in the day

[3:34:46] Trustee Luckham: and presumably that might be after the financial discussion and so um i want to thank council for

[3:34:54] Trustee Luckham: that and um so let's just uh defer this item until uh um later in the day i think that's

[3:35:02] Trustee Luckham: probably adequate and uh then therefore now i want to i think we should return

[3:35:06] Trustee Luckham: to the financial discussion i see a hand up there may read boland uh

[3:35:12] Voice 5: sorry what happened to

[3:35:13] Voice 5: To the Reconciliation Committee, RFD,

[3:35:18] Voice 5: I thought we were going to come back to that after lunch,

[3:35:22] Voice 5: but maybe I missed something.

[3:35:24] Trustee Luckham: Apologies if I did.

[3:35:25] Trustee Luckham: No, you didn't miss anything.

[3:35:27] Trustee Luckham: There was a kind of internal conversation here

[3:35:30] Trustee Luckham: about the agenda.

[3:35:31] Trustee Luckham: And because there are both reconciliation interests

[3:35:36] Trustee Luckham: and financial interests in the striking of that committee,

[3:35:39] Trustee Luckham: that the two other items that are on the agenda

[3:35:43] Trustee Luckham: which have been delayed is indeed that committee and also there's a second motion to come from

[3:35:51] Trustee Luckham: Susan Yates so she's still prepared to advance it about two of the meetings being held on islands

[3:35:57] Trustee Luckham: they can the suggestion here was that they are of a financial consideration as much as anything else

[3:36:03] Trustee Luckham: and then if we get through the rest of this agenda 6.4 through 6.11 that that would be the

[3:36:10] Trustee Luckham: opportunity to revisit those in context of the budget does that sound all right is there any

[3:36:15] Trustee Luckham: concerns from anybody else on council no okay so then uh i had a speaker's list going um before we

[3:36:25] Trustee Luckham: um moved into the government into the uh other items on our agenda and toby elliott and uh kate

[3:36:33] Trustee Luckham: louise stamford and i i've also understand that david graham has submitted a motion associated

[3:36:39] Trustee Luckham: with the budget and so perhaps it would be uh uh advantageous to go with uh toby elliott and kate

[3:36:46] Trustee Luckham: louise and then perhaps defer graham david grahams until we're actually at a motion uh place in the

[3:36:54] Trustee Luckham: agenda

[3:36:54] Voice 16: cao hudson yeah so i'm just wondering whether trust council wants the rest of the

[3:36:59] Voice 16: presentation concluded by the Director of Administrative Services around the

[3:37:08] Voice 16: budget or just to check in with her that she's completed that work so that

[3:37:12] Voice 16: everyone has the same amount of information at the same time and my

[3:37:18] Trustee Luckham: assumption was we would go with the Director of Administrative Services at

[3:37:21] Trustee Luckham: this point to allow her to field the questions two questions that are on the

[3:37:25] Trustee Luckham: the table and and then proceed accordingly okay is that all right thank you very much yeah okay

[3:37:31] Trustee Luckham: so are you okay with that julia do you understand that i saw her there a moment ago

[3:37:39] Voice 29: uh yes i'm just fussing with my technology at the moment that's fine there

[3:37:44] Voice 29: we go camera's working

[3:37:45] Voice 29: perfect

[3:37:46] Trustee Luckham: thank you director mobs and so should we just go back to toby uh elliot trustee toby

[3:37:52] Trustee Luckham: be Elliot to reiterate the question that she had there or and then we'll give you the opportunity

[3:37:58] Trustee Luckham: to speak to that sure

[3:38:01] Voice 31: thank you chair can you hear me okay um I just wanted to um return to

[3:38:08] Voice 31: this question of the um the business case for the administrative coordinator which was pointed

[3:38:14] Voice 31: out to me I missed it in the agenda package it's on one page 157 so I guess we'll be getting to

[3:38:21] Voice 31: that if julia takes us through the rest of the budget um but the discussion at financial planning

[3:38:29] Voice 31: committee and the and i was the one that brought this back forward out of all the project or out

[3:38:34] Voice 31: of all the um budget or the business cases that were removed by staff as uh as an effort to cut

[3:38:42] Voice 31: down the budget um this was the one that i felt i wanted to add this back in so that we have the

[3:38:47] Voice 31: the conversation at Trust Council with with everybody, because I feel like the implications

[3:38:52] Voice 31: for this one role are fairly, they're fairly broad scale, and it actually has to do with

[3:39:01] Voice 31: reconciliation. So if you read through this business case, it has to do with coordination,

[3:39:10] Voice 31: land title filing duties, managing files, it all sounds very administrative and boring.

[3:39:15] Voice 31: But the complexity of all these different nations and the levels of referrals that are going forwards and back with applications, this needs to be tracked diligently so that we do not make administrative errors that will harm relationships with nations in the trust region.

[3:39:38] Voice 31: And so this was why I wanted to bring this back forward for discussion. I don't think unilaterally that this position should be adopted. I wanted to hear again from staff whether this was going to be a significant enough role to manage all these relationships.

[3:39:57] Voice 31: And I think, Trustee Boland, you referred to this matrix of the intersectionality of all these relationships. And so where is that being managed? If our staff is at capacity and saying that this is too much, I would say this is one area where efficiency is better to be built into the institution so that we can start institutionalizing reconciliation procedures,

[3:40:23] Voice 31: procedures, not in a way that makes it stagnant and stuffy, but in a way that we're not going to

[3:40:30] Voice 31: mess up, that we embed this in our administrative processes in a way that's going to be respectful

[3:40:38] Voice 31: of nation's times as well, time and capacity as well. So that was my argument. If you read the

[3:40:44] Voice 31: business case, I wanted to bring it forward to Trust Council so that we could all have a chance

[3:40:48] Voice 31: to debate it. I don't think it's as simple as just striking this and we save $79,000 and that's

[3:40:56] Voice 31: a 1% tax increase. I get the math, but I would like to hear what others have to say about this

[3:41:02] Voice 31: and maybe staff too. Thank

[3:41:08] Trustee Luckham: you, Trustee Elliott. Director Mobs and perhaps the CAO, how do you

[3:41:14] Trustee Luckham: suggest we proceed with this particular question? Is

[3:41:22] Voice 12: there some discussion out there? Go ahead,

[3:41:26] Voice 29: If this is something that council wishes to discuss and have staff give some additional information on,

[3:41:33] Voice 29: then we return to the initiator of this business case, which is our CAO, who can speak a bit more to this particular item.

[3:41:41] Voice 16: So is this when you want to do that, or do you want to go through the totality of the business cases or complete the presentation?

[3:41:53] Voice 16: It's of no mind to me.

[3:41:55] Voice 16: i can certainly speak to this one if you wish um

[3:41:59] Trustee Luckham: so um what you're suggesting is that we should

[3:42:01] Trustee Luckham: hear potentially hear the rest of the materials here before we consider adding or removing items

[3:42:08] Trustee Luckham: from the budget yeah

[3:42:10] Voice 16: i think a good practice would be to get the information provided and then ask

[3:42:15] Voice 16: trustees what they'd like to discuss yes and then you get a list of those things and i'm expecting

[3:42:20] Voice 16: this would be one of those things or anything else some probably don't need much discussion

[3:42:25] Voice 16: And that way you'll just net the five or six things, or maybe it's 20, I don't know.

[3:42:30] Voice 16: And then you'd ask those questions and we'd get the right people answering those in sort of a sequence.

[3:42:36] Trustee Luckham: Okay. So that concept is satisfactory to counsel.

[3:42:40] Trustee Luckham: I'm making a list here now that items that I will remind folks to speak to if they wish to when we get to that decision-making mode.

[3:42:50] Trustee Luckham: So therefore, Director Mobs, would you like to continue?

[3:42:54] Trustee Luckham: Oh, sorry.

[3:42:55] Trustee Luckham: There's also a question here from Kate Louise, but I think that that was actually answered

[3:42:59] Trustee Luckham: potentially.

[3:42:59] Trustee Luckham: It was.

[3:43:00] Trustee Luckham: Okay.

[3:43:01] Trustee Luckham: So thank you.

[3:43:01] Trustee Luckham: So that one is fulfilled.

[3:43:03] Trustee Luckham: And so Director Mobs, if you can take us through in the best way possible of the remaining

[3:43:10] Trustee Luckham: items in this section, and then we can get down to some of the nitty gritty of making

[3:43:16] Trustee Luckham: some decisions.

[3:43:18] Voice 29: Sure.

[3:43:18] Voice 29: Sure. So, I left us off on page 99, which is the budget numerical detail. It's followed up on page

[3:43:26] Voice 29: 102 with a list of the strategic plan projects, and most of those projects have business cases

[3:43:31] Voice 29: in the agenda. We also have a list of local trust committee projects and proposed operational

[3:43:38] Voice 29: projects and proposed staffing changes. So, each of those items has business cases in the agenda,

[3:43:44] Voice 29: And when we look to discuss business cases, I get to sit back a little bit and turn things over to the other staff members who are in charge of these respective areas.

[3:43:54] Voice 29: So I turn it back to the chair to walk us through each of the business cases and have the respective staff speak to that project.

[3:44:02] Trustee Luckham: Okay, so you are advancing us through then to 6.4.10?

[3:44:12] Voice 12: 0.6

[3:44:16] Voice 28: points or let me have a look here.

[3:44:21] Voice 28: My technology is

[3:44:23] Voice 29: freezing a little bit so I don't actually don't 6

[3:44:26] Trustee Luckham: .4 6 Mister chair.

[3:44:28] Trustee Luckham: So strategic plan projects budget requests. Yes all right, thank you.

[3:44:36] Trustee Luckham: So that's on page 106 of your agenda. And so in in the that's the list of

[3:44:47] Trustee Luckham: of business case summaries for projects.

[3:44:52] Trustee Luckham: And I guess the simplest thing to do is to ask,

[3:44:58] Trustee Luckham: oops, lost that page now,

[3:45:00] Trustee Luckham: is to ask council if there's any questions

[3:45:05] Trustee Luckham: or clarity required on any of these business cases

[3:45:08] Trustee Luckham: that are presently, if I'm not mistaken,

[3:45:10] Trustee Luckham: Julia, included in the budget?

[3:45:13] Voice 28: Yes.

[3:45:15] Trustee Luckham: And so, trust council, on the business case summaries,

[3:45:20] Trustee Luckham: beginning on page 106 of the package.

[3:45:24] Trustee Luckham: Are there any questions?

[3:45:26] Trustee Luckham: CAO, do you want to speak to it?

[3:45:27] Voice 16: One point of note, Tom.

[3:45:28] Voice 16: I believe on 106 it says policy statement amendment project

[3:45:31] Voice 16: at a 105,500.

[3:45:34] Voice 16: I believe that's $50,000 now.

[3:45:38] Voice 3: FPC has recommended it.

[3:45:40] Voice 16: FPC has recommended it, but it's at $50,000,

[3:45:42] Voice 16: so it's in the budget at $50,000.

[3:45:46] Voice 16: Okay,

[3:45:47] Trustee Luckham: so let's make sure that we keep those amendments in mind here.

[3:45:51] Trustee Luckham: so thank you for that so this so the first one then there is um uh policy statement amendment

[3:45:57] Trustee Luckham: project originally requested 105 000 is now uh straight fifty thousand dollars and um i'll just

[3:46:05] Trustee Luckham: ask if there's any questions or comments or otherwise uh with respect to the policy statement

[3:46:11] Trustee Luckham: amendment project of fifty thousand dollars i'm looking at my participants list and i see hand

[3:46:16] Trustee Luckham: hand up, Deb Morrison.

[3:46:19] Voice 24: Sorry, I just need clarification because I'm frankly lost. So

[3:46:24] Voice 24: I need to understand, are we just naming the business cases right now that we want to go

[3:46:30] Voice 24: through and then we'll just pull the list? Or are we going through each of the business cases right

[3:46:34] Voice 24: now? Because what Russ had said earlier was the idea to pull a list of all the cases that we

[3:46:39] Voice 24: wanted to talk about and then just systematically go through them. So I put my hand up to pull a

[3:46:44] Voice 24: list but i can also talk to this one okay

[3:46:47] Trustee Luckham: well let's actually i think that what we want to do is

[3:46:49] Trustee Luckham: um let's uh pull those ones that we want to talk about and uh the remainder from that list would

[3:46:55] Trustee Luckham: go forward uh in the budget as presented is what i would suggest great

[3:47:00] Voice 24: so which

[3:47:01] Trustee Luckham: one do you want to

[3:47:02] Voice 24: yeah so on that list for me would be the um two staff positions that are recommended the

[3:47:08] Voice 24: ltc meeting administrator and the administrative coordinator and then i would also like to talk

[3:47:14] Voice 24: about the um sorry my page flipped up um the i just want to have a quick conversation around the

[3:47:26] Voice 24: grid adjustments in the planning admin staff positions and the freshwater co-op student

[3:47:33] Voice 24: thank you yeah

[3:47:36] Trustee Luckham: that's um easier said than done um because i don't have any kind of a numerical list

[3:47:41] Trustee Luckham: here the cao is tracking for

[3:47:44] Voice 15: us okay are there any

[3:47:46] Trustee Luckham: maybe are there any others absolutely are

[3:47:48] Trustee Luckham: there any others uh trust council please raise your hand if there's any other items

[3:47:55] Trustee Luckham: my hand is

[3:47:58] Trustee Luckham: up you need boland over to you

[3:48:00] Voice 5: sure um i'd like to talk about the regional planning

[3:48:04] Voice 5: planning committee budget, which includes, in the business case, reference to a groundwater

[3:48:12] Voice 5: communications portal and staff hours around that. I'd like to understand that, what's happened to

[3:48:19] Voice 5: groundwater strategic projects, because I have some questions. I'd also like to know a little

[3:48:26] Voice 5: more about the Secretariat of Services, and I would like to understand what efficiencies will

[3:48:33] Voice 5: be gained from the grant funded software implementation program to manage uh planning

[3:48:41] Voice 5: thank you you got

[3:48:43] Trustee Luckham: that russ thank you thank you um any other uh items to withdraw for discussion

[3:48:53] Trustee Luckham: uh dag flag yeah

[3:48:56] Voice 34: just uh the policy statement i understand that it was scaled back to 50 000

[3:49:01] Voice 34: but all the things that are mentioned here in the summary there support travel cost public

[3:49:08] Voice 34: engagement you know editors are those things all possible still within that or does it change

[3:49:16] Voice 34: what can be done so

[3:49:19] Trustee Luckham: we've got that on the list rather than answering that question now that was

[3:49:23] Trustee Luckham: discussed at fpc um so we've got that on the list um are there any other uh business cases here that

[3:49:32] Trustee Luckham: council would like to have more discussion about um and marie boland is your hand still up

[3:49:41] Trustee Luckham: okay thank you um and i now see oh director mobs you popped your hand up uh

[3:49:48] Voice 29: thanks for the

[3:49:49] Voice 29: acknowledgement chair um i obviously am not pulling anything to discuss however council

[3:49:55] Voice 29: will have to discuss local trust committee projects because the recommendation from

[3:50:00] Voice 29: financial planning committee was to reduce the magnitude of dollars directed to local trust

[3:50:05] Voice 29: committee projects and so council will have to determine if they agree with that and if so

[3:50:09] Voice 29: which project should be reduced so that's a required piece of conversation okay

[3:50:14] Trustee Luckham: thank you

[3:50:15] Trustee Luckham: that's fair for a process protected um is there anything else so the obvious question is about

[3:50:24] Trustee Luckham: are there any items left on the business case list

[3:50:27] Trustee Luckham: that can be forwarded to the budget process as presented?

[3:50:37] Voice 29: That might be a question best placed

[3:50:39] Voice 29: at the end of the budget discussion.

[3:50:40] Trustee Luckham: Thank you, Dan.

[3:50:41] Trustee Luckham: So let us then begin the discussion.

[3:50:44] Trustee Luckham: And CAO Hotzenpiller, you've got the list there.

[3:50:46] Trustee Luckham: What is the first one on that list?

[3:50:49] Voice 16: So I've got the following list.

[3:50:50] Voice 16: I'll just quickly read it over.

[3:50:51] Voice 16: And that's not to say the Trust Council

[3:50:52] Voice 16: might not come up with some other interests,

[3:50:55] Voice 16: but to discuss the two positions one being the meeting coordinator the second is the

[3:51:00] Voice 16: administrative coordinator to talk about the grid adjustments to talk about the regional

[3:51:08] Voice 16: planning committee request for funding including some groundwater portal requests a discussion

[3:51:14] Voice 16: around the secretary of services a little bit more understanding around the grant we received

[3:51:19] Voice 16: for the provision of software for applications,

[3:51:26] Voice 16: more discussion on the policy statement,

[3:51:28] Voice 16: and then finally, local trust committee projects.

[3:51:31] Voice 16: So if that's okay, I'll just start with the first couple,

[3:51:34] Voice 16: and that's the two positions.

[3:51:37] Voice 16: We've got the first one is the meeting administrator,

[3:51:42] Voice 16: and I put this request forward,

[3:51:46] Voice 16: and after probably a couple years of consideration um it's for it's to assist with the provision and

[3:51:54] Voice 16: broadcasting of electronic meetings and i think trust council as they consider this position

[3:52:01] Voice 16: you've got a range of options in front of you um and i'll just do a quick history um march

[3:52:08] Voice 16: you know 2020 when we um started the process of how we can deliver servicing and have

[3:52:13] Voice 16: communications of the islands trust given the pandemic and the shutting down of our offices

[3:52:19] Voice 16: it really accelerated the need for us to communicate electronically so we just did it and

[3:52:25] Voice 16: if you take us from that day to today we've invested something like 10 or 15 000

[3:52:33] Voice 16: in total on addressing that and we now deliver electronic meetings to 13 different trust

[3:52:40] Voice 16: committees four different council committees and trust council itself all on a mobile basis

[3:52:49] Voice 16: we've had no new staff join us to assist in that effort we've gone to trust council a couple of

[3:52:57] Voice 16: times and said right now that work is displacing work that people are doing so there's at least one

[3:53:06] Voice 16: One FTE, and this I think is the third or fourth report that's gone to Trust Council saying it's new, we have to address it in some manner, how are we going to do that?

[3:53:20] Voice 16: I don't think there's one perfect answer.

[3:53:22] Voice 16: And as an example, we task our vice chairs with carrying around technical equipment to each local trust committee meeting to set up to provide broadcasts and real-time meeting provision for people sitting in their homes and to get to the World Wide Web for the Islands Trust.

[3:53:44] Voice 16: In two months before March of 2020, there was none of that.

[3:53:49] Voice 16: Absolutely none.

[3:53:51] Voice 16: Except for one.

[3:53:52] Voice 16: Ben McConkie would put his Apple phone up and record things, so I want to acknowledge that moment.

[3:53:58] Voice 16: But let's say prior to his putting his Apple phone, this wasn't something.

[3:54:04] Voice 16: This is put in front of you because we're trying to coordinate this function and account for it.

[3:54:10] Voice 16: There's people doing overtime or people who are doing this and it's not in their job description.

[3:54:17] Voice 16: So at what point do you want to regularize this?

[3:54:20] Voice 16: I suggest it's now because if we go too much farther, we'll have lost the plot.

[3:54:29] Voice 16: The other thing is I think you've got a range of options.

[3:54:32] Voice 16: I think the first one you could consider is let's go back.

[3:54:35] Voice 16: Let's stop electronic meetings.

[3:54:38] Voice 16: Let's go back to a time where all the meetings were in-house, old school.

[3:54:44] Voice 16: You'd lose some.

[3:54:45] Voice 16: Here's the downstream effects of that.

[3:54:47] Voice 16: that you'd have travelers now plan planners now traveling to each of the islands um two or three

[3:54:53] Voice 16: of them at a time um and you know the various GHG implications associated with that which is

[3:55:00] Voice 16: being reported to trust Council in the past um you would have possibly some lack of transparency but

[3:55:07] Voice 16: we often hear from founders that they like speaking in live situations so so maybe that's

[3:55:13] Voice 16: palatable um it might be going against the trend these days you've got the connected coast that's

[3:55:18] Voice 16: actually getting you more wired and connected to allow this to be a greater facility um an option

[3:55:24] Voice 16: for the trust but if we can't afford it we can't afford it and i perfectly understand that there's

[3:55:30] Voice 16: no legal reason that you have to broadcast or record all of your meetings um we've been doing

[3:55:38] Voice 16: that because we got good at it through the pandemic and now it's time to figure out how

[3:55:43] Voice 16: you want to pay for it or not um i think we've got the best technology we have right now um associated

[3:55:51] Voice 16: with doing this work but it will probably mature over time the other thing is that this position

[3:55:59] Voice 16: would coordinate all of those meetings and assist all of those vice chairs get on get live and cut

[3:56:06] Voice 16: cut down on the stress they have when they're sitting down and doing this work and it would

[3:56:09] Voice 16: also assist with the the man taking provision um as a technology changes this this position would

[3:56:16] Voice 16: be in charge of implementing that and assisting each of those meetings take place but again i

[3:56:21] Voice 16: think you have some options so that's the

[3:56:22] Voice 16: rationale for the position i'd probably say it's a couple

[3:56:25] Voice 16: years delayed or a year and a half delayed in terms of um serious consideration by trust council

[3:56:31] Voice 16: but once again you've got lots some choices.

[3:56:34] Trustee Luckham: Okay thank you CAO. So we've got a question Deb Morrison.

[3:56:39] Voice 24: Just one little technical issue too can because we're jumping around in the cases can we

[3:56:44] Voice 24: get a page number as we start to talk about a case just so that we can find ourselves in the package

[3:56:49] Voice 24: that would be very helpful. If

[3:56:53] Voice 16: you could help me find the page I'd appreciate it too.

[3:56:56] Voice 16: I'm right with you. I

[3:56:57] Voice 24: was actually just looking for it the whole time and I still couldn't find it

[3:57:02] Voice 24: page 159

[3:57:03] Voice 16: 159 i think thank you but i'm quite sure that all trustees could just

[3:57:08] Voice 16: list off the pages where each of these are at this

[3:57:11] Voice 14: point they're so

[3:57:11] Voice 16: familiar with all these

[3:57:12] Voice 16: all these cases all right so that's the rationale for the first one um trust counsel and uh trustee

[3:57:21] Voice 16: so

[3:57:21] Voice 24: um my my comment on this particular case and on on frankly on staff cases at this moment

[3:57:31] Voice 24: is not actually about the need for it because i think um the need is very clear um and you know

[3:57:38] Voice 24: i'm with ben we've been arguing for you know we argued before covid about the need for virtual

[3:57:44] Voice 24: meetings so that is actually not something that i'm questioning um my concern is that we are in

[3:57:52] Voice 24: a situation with budget where we have discretionary and non-discretionary types of funding and the

[3:57:59] Voice 24: The differences between those are largely to do with the issues of having staff, and

[3:58:06] Voice 24: our staff is amazing, and I don't want to create the expectation that we have new staff

[3:58:11] Voice 24: if we as a council don't clearly see our way to funding that on a perpetual basis.

[3:58:18] Voice 24: But we haven't had time to think through as a council what our strategic goals are, what

[3:58:24] Voice 24: our alignment is, and how that has budget ramifications, because I'm completely with

[3:58:28] Voice 24: with Tim on making sure that we're mapping our strategic plan and our operations issues clearly

[3:58:34] Voice 24: to our budget, because that's been somewhat chaotic from my perspective. So when we see cases

[3:58:42] Voice 24: about new work, there's always a need for new resources in different ways as we expand and

[3:58:49] Voice 24: create our monster list of all the things we want to do. But some of that might be refined as we get

[3:58:56] Voice 24: get into governance or as we get into the implementation of revisions in the reorganization

[3:59:00] Voice 24: as it pans out in planning services. And that might leave FTEs in ways that we could shift

[3:59:07] Voice 24: things around. I know those aren't the same people. I know those aren't the same job description,

[3:59:11] Voice 24: but I just feel that making decisions to add staff with a council that is only a month old

[3:59:18] Voice 24: is not responsible because those are discretionary. They create non-discretionary

[3:59:24] Voice 24: commitments going forward. So I would like to suggest that we consider what it might be to

[3:59:30] Voice 24: contract if we find this is an important role for the next year. And then we work our way into

[3:59:35] Voice 24: actually having a more permanent position if we do understand and need that. Thank you.

[3:59:43] Voice 12: So do you want to go to the next? Well, there's

[3:59:46] Trustee Luckham: a next speaker on this topic. On this topic, yes.

[3:59:51] Trustee Luckham: So trustee, unless there's a response you want to make there, but otherwise I'll go to trustee.

[3:59:55] Trustee Luckham: i don't feel it's for me too i don't trust you trustees are speaking to each other

[4:00:00] Voice 16: unless they ask a specific question.

[4:00:01] Voice 16: Okay, Trustee Patrick.

[4:00:04] Trustee Patrick: No, I think this follows up on what Trustee Morrison

[4:00:07] Trustee Patrick: was just saying, because I was one of those

[4:00:09] Trustee Patrick: that lugged equipment around

[4:00:10] Trustee Patrick: and in particular about this position.

[4:00:12] Trustee Patrick: This position is a piece of the issue.

[4:00:15] Trustee Patrick: The administration of those meetings

[4:00:18] Trustee Patrick: was a huge component of what was happening,

[4:00:22] Trustee Patrick: but the issue of being able to live stream

[4:00:27] Trustee Patrick: and do it in real time and and it is broader than that as to like who should be at those

[4:00:33] Trustee Patrick: meetings should that should the vice chairs be traveling to every meeting should staff be coming

[4:00:37] Trustee Patrick: in via um electronically and and the um you know the the availability of facilities on each island

[4:00:46] Trustee Patrick: and uh when we get on to the island facilities is that an island's trust issue is that something

[4:00:51] Trustee Patrick: that we do in cooperation with others and i'll give the skidi as an example where the regional

[4:00:56] Trustee Patrick: district uh electoral area director was keen to be involved in saying they they could they would

[4:01:01] Trustee Patrick: benefit too if there was a better better way of holding these meetings um on that island so i

[4:01:07] Trustee Patrick: think it's it's bringing it all together into an overall strategic direction of how are we going

[4:01:13] Trustee Patrick: to run these meetings in this new way um you know we are we doing incremental improvements or are we

[4:01:18] Trustee Patrick: going to are we going in so it's a it's a bigger issue um

[4:01:24] Trustee Luckham: thank you trustee patrick uh trustee yates

[4:01:30] Voice 35: Thank you, Chair Luck. Can you hear me?

[4:01:34] Voice 35: Yeah.

[4:01:35] Voice 35: So I think other speakers have covered all my questions, really, because certainly

[4:01:44] Voice 35: we can't go back. It is definitely advantageous to have a live stream, to have the equipment there,

[4:01:52] Voice 35: and to have meetings where people do come, and often they do prefer to speak in person. However,

[4:01:58] Voice 35: I have heard on Gabriola that there would be people locally who would be happy to provide us with that kind of electronic assistance.

[4:02:10] Voice 35: I have no experience in that whatsoever, so I don't know how good that would be.

[4:02:17] Voice 35: So this sort of goes to the question of, would it be wiser to contract that out for one year?

[4:02:25] Voice 35: is that cheaper is that better than putting it into the budget permanently it's probably not

[4:02:32] Voice 35: cheaper um i have also witnessed how difficult it is for the vice chair to go hopping around

[4:02:39] Voice 35: with all this equipment trying to get to the meeting a half an hour early in just in order

[4:02:45] Voice 35: to set up the equipment and that does not seem tenable to me so my really there are more questions

[4:02:51] Voice 35: Okay, I

[4:02:54] Trustee Luckham: think I want to recognize trustee Evans, and then I'm going to go to trustee

[4:03:01] Trustee Luckham: Borthwick.

[4:03:04] Voice 4: Hi, so I just want to make a quick comment.

[4:03:07] Voice 4: Some the host is asking me to share my video, but if I do that, I'll likely drop the call.

[4:03:12] Voice 4: So I had a couple of points and questions on this topic.

[4:03:15] Voice 4: One of the questions would be, if we have videos of our meetings, can those be used to replace physical minute takers?

[4:03:29] Voice 4: I don't have any idea about that, but I was just sort of thinking for new solutions.

[4:03:34] Voice 4: I think there are some creative solutions that we can come up with to help cut some costs and also to help trim back the amount of work that is required.

[4:03:47] Voice 4: But that's, I think, for us as a council to figure out what those can be.

[4:03:51] Voice 4: One of the things that I hear a lot in the community is how are we able to cut back the

[4:03:57] Voice 4: amount of work that our staff do in order for them to be able to more fully do their job

[4:04:06] Voice 4: in a more complete manner. I'm saying this really poorly but rather to alleviate some of the burden

[4:04:15] Voice 4: rather than to keep piling it on and again with me being new here I'm not fully aware of

[4:04:21] Voice 4: how all of the staff work but the people that I've worked with are amazing so far

[4:04:27] Voice 4: but I'm also hearing that you're overloaded so how do we help alleviate some of that load on you

[4:04:33] Voice 4: so that these new positions aren't so critical. I also think what was suggested

[4:04:44] Voice 4: contracting out generally tends to be more expensive than a salary position, but it may be

[4:04:52] Voice 4: a way to not have something permanently on the books. So from where I'm sitting,

[4:05:01] Voice 4: I'm just trying to figure out if there are other ways that we can get this work accomplished

[4:05:07] Voice 4: that we might not have thought of yet, rather than putting a new person in permanently.

[4:05:15] Voice 4: um that's that's really all i have to say thank you thank

[4:05:18] Voice 16: you ceo option pillar i'll speak at the

[4:05:21] Voice 16: end because it's been some great questions and i'll try and address some of them but as soon

[4:05:25] Voice 16: as all the trustees have had their opportunity oh

[4:05:28] Trustee Luckham: all right um so then that the answer there is

[4:05:32] Trustee Luckham: pending uh trustee evans so let's go to sam worthwick and then lee middleton hi

[4:05:40] Voice 25: yeah uh so

[4:05:41] Voice 25: So, yeah, I wanted to just address the idea of contracting.

[4:05:46] Voice 25: I've done technical support for the Islands Trust on Denman before, and I've, you know, I've been the person to run those bits and pieces.

[4:05:57] Voice 25: I suspect, careful design, contracting might not be the hardest thing in the world to achieve.

[4:06:05] Voice 25: achieve. Um, I, but I think that, uh, and I think that there's, there's potential there. I would

[4:06:11] Voice 25: certainly be willing and interested in assisting, uh, information services in, in supporting

[4:06:18] Voice 25: something like that and helping work on something like that if that's, if there's interest. Um,

[4:06:24] Voice 25: but, uh, yeah, I mean, it seems to me adding a, it's much easier to, to add staff than take it

[4:06:30] Voice 25: away. And I think there's wisdom in letting this trust council send a year, spend the year

[4:06:35] Voice 25: you know figuring out what we think is is really going to be important and where we can cut those

[4:06:41] Voice 25: costs uh before and you know we get to the end of this year and we decide that yeah we do need

[4:06:46] Voice 25: dedicated staff person to manage that then yeah by all means but i think there are ways to be

[4:06:52] Voice 25: creative around it and i think there is a lot of frustration and seeing um i mean it's a lot of

[4:06:57] Voice 25: work especially like demon and hornbeam and liskiti we're like a long way away from victoria

[4:07:03] Voice 25: and Nanaimo so it's it's tricky to get people coming out and I know certainly we've had local

[4:07:10] Voice 25: trust council meetings cut short because staff and chairs needed to get back home so yeah anyways

[4:07:17] Voice 25: that's my five cents. Thank

[4:07:20] Trustee Luckham: you Sam. Lee Middleton, Kate-Louise Stamford, Julia Mons.

[4:07:27] Trustee Luckham: you thank you

[4:07:29] Voice 1: chair um what i think we were told by uh the financial planning committee members or

[4:07:35] Voice 1: some of the committee members certainly the the uh the appointed members of financial planning

[4:07:41] Voice 1: committee and it was echoed by trustee patrick that what we end up doing in reviewing the budget

[4:07:48] Voice 1: given how it's presented to us is we sort of take away and nibble away at the um

[4:07:55] Voice 1: the last presented item shall we say or or or discrete projects that look like they can have

[4:08:02] Voice 1: their budget removed and i think to earlier speakers point there might be a more creative

[4:08:08] Voice 1: way that the budget uh shall we say deficit if if we can call it that because of course looking for

[4:08:15] Voice 1: an increase as a product of um a deficit over last year's spending but there might be a better way

[4:08:21] Voice 1: than us going through and sort of piecemeal dealing with these very, you know, very well

[4:08:28] Voice 1: founded business cases. They're sort of on their own and in isolation, the victims of our desire

[4:08:33] Voice 1: to, I believe, our desire to reduce the budget, when it seems to me a more holistic approach could

[4:08:39] Voice 1: be to do what I think I suggested yesterday is refer with a broad guidance, the budget back to

[4:08:48] Voice 1: the financial planning committee for redraft uh to a zero percent increase but that doesn't mean

[4:08:55] Voice 1: that the the the business cases necessarily need to bear the brunt of a reduction there may be some

[4:09:03] Voice 1: i think the uh trustee um if i uh i'm not sure a bit um who made this motion but the the idea that

[4:09:13] Voice 1: that, for instance, there could be some savings

[4:09:17] Voice 1: in perhaps utilization of Harris.

[4:09:19] Voice 1: I think it was in terms of contract planning.

[4:09:24] Voice 1: I'm not sure of a huge amount of the details

[4:09:26] Voice 1: other than I saw the same presentation that you all did.

[4:09:30] Voice 1: And that might, again, be another way

[4:09:32] Voice 1: to find some money in this budget

[4:09:33] Voice 1: to fund some of these extra things.

[4:09:35] Voice 1: So I think to test that assumption, Chair,

[4:09:39] Voice 1: I know you always say the council takes effect

[4:09:42] Voice 1: through motions otherwise it's just just discussion um i'd like to put a motion before

[4:09:49] Voice 1: council and you know it is very simple and if this approach is not to be desired then it can

[4:09:54] Voice 1: be dismissed right away if it is to be desired then there can

[4:09:57] Voice 1: be discussion so

[4:09:59] Trustee Luckham: lee um i kind of

[4:10:02] Trustee Luckham: appreciate this but this is kind of falling back to a an overall budget discussion process and

[4:10:09] Trustee Luckham: we're kind of in the middle of talking about the business cases but i certainly see the

[4:10:12] Trustee Luckham: connection and the relationship um but um i would like to sort of conclude the conversation on the

[4:10:21] Trustee Luckham: business cases and that will inform absolutely a financial planning committee discussion

[4:10:26] Trustee Luckham: in the future because i i definitely believe that this conversation and the process conversation

[4:10:31] Trustee Luckham: belongs with the financial planning committee um so i don't want to obstruct a motion coming

[4:10:38] Trustee Luckham: coming forward but I think that perhaps we should um continue to hear about the case the business

[4:10:44] Trustee Luckham: cases that have been uh requested to be discussed and at this point we're just on the first one

[4:10:51] Voice 1: sure I can certainly wait until the end of the business case uh uh session but if it's sort of

[4:10:57] Voice 1: torpedo lawn versus another I'm not sure that that I'm not sure that's the only approach we

[4:11:02] Voice 1: have here but i i'll i'll wait till um i get the uh the signal then from your chairs to

[4:11:08] Voice 1: be an appropriate time to make make that motion so

[4:11:12] Trustee Luckham: and i take your comment that we're not really

[4:11:14] Trustee Luckham: torpedoing anything at this time we're just seeking clarity and then indeed um we can uh

[4:11:22] Trustee Luckham: determine how the budget closed from there so thanks mr

[4:11:25] Voice 16: chair looks like that's mainly the

[4:11:27] Voice 16: questions on this first position um thank you for your questions i will with respect say this is the

[4:11:33] Voice 16: almost i think the second and a half year i've heard in a row where we come up with more creative

[4:11:38] Voice 16: solutions uh we're two years down the road uh there doesn't appear to be at this point another

[4:11:46] Voice 16: creative solution it will be another year of trying to find a creative solution and that's

[4:11:50] Voice 16: what's being put in front of you so um i understand that there's a desire to do that there was a

[4:11:56] Voice 16: The previous request to go to every island and find out who could provide this service,

[4:12:01] Voice 16: we've done it for a couple.

[4:12:02] Voice 16: It's three times the cost for doing that.

[4:12:06] Voice 16: But I am hearing that there might be an appetite for having this be either temporary or an initial position.

[4:12:14] Voice 16: That won't affect the tax outcome, but it might be less of a permanence and we'll see whether this would work.

[4:12:21] Voice 16: or there's probably going to be a follow-up motion to say let's not broadcast meetings

[4:12:28] Voice 16: i would expect because it's going to be tough to have let's keep doing the meetings and have

[4:12:34] no resource to do it because

[4:12:36] Voice 16: what's happening on a very personal basis is that people who have jobs

[4:12:41] Voice 16: in this organization are not meeting their requirements because they're not doing their

[4:12:47] Voice 16: current job they're doing some other job so I appreciate the idea that there

[4:12:52] Voice 16: could be an opportunity to have some temporary view and perhaps if this gets

[4:12:57] Voice 16: referred back to trust financial planning committee they can grind out

[4:13:01] Voice 16: what that looks like whether it's a temporary staff person or it's in a

[4:13:08] Voice 16: contracted entity so is that fair that summary in general I don't know if these

[4:13:17] Voice 16: these questions are for to follow on that

[4:13:20] Trustee Luckham: or you want to go on to the second?

[4:13:22] Trustee Luckham: So I'll pick it up from here.

[4:13:24] Trustee Luckham: And Trustee Middleton, if your question is now complete,

[4:13:28] Trustee Luckham: I'll get you to lower your hand.

[4:13:33] Trustee Luckham: All right, thank you.

[4:13:34] Trustee Luckham: And then Deb Morrison, I recognize you

[4:13:37] Trustee Luckham: and Mary Boland also, I see your hand up.

[4:13:40] Trustee Luckham: But Julia Mobs, you had a hand up there earlier on

[4:13:43] Trustee Luckham: in the game that perhaps you had some advice

[4:13:46] Trustee Luckham: about some aspect of this in terms of process?

[4:13:50] Voice 29: Thanks.

[4:13:51] Voice 29: I just wanted to respond to some of the comments

[4:13:53] Voice 29: that perhaps we could move to contracting this work out.

[4:13:57] Voice 29: So currently, the Islands Trust

[4:13:59] Voice 29: does have contracted minute takers on each island.

[4:14:03] Voice 29: And so one of the duties that this new position

[4:14:05] Voice 29: would be taking on is minute taking duties.

[4:14:07] Voice 29: And so we have reduced in the current draft budget

[4:14:11] Voice 29: the contracted minute takers.

[4:14:14] Voice 29: So there's a savings of $27,000.

[4:14:16] Voice 29: dollars that's built into the budget so the true cost of this new position is around fifty thousand

[4:14:21] Voice 29: dollars not the full cost that you see there our minute takers contracted minute takers are just

[4:14:28] Voice 29: taking minutes they are not taking on the electronic administering of the meetings they're

[4:14:33] Voice 29: also not currently taking on setting up the equipment if we do move to have these positions

[4:14:38] Voice 29: do more of the electronic functions of this work there's a challenge in that these contracted

[4:14:43] Voice 29: positions these contracted people live on the island and we have equipment that travels so

[4:14:50] Voice 29: currently the chairs of each local trust committee travel with the equipment if we were going to have

[4:14:55] Voice 29: contracted minute takers take on setting up the equipment and everything the chairs would still

[4:14:59] Voice 29: have to travel with the equipment to get there or we'd have to be purchasing new equipment so there

[4:15:04] Voice 29: is some thinking that has to happen around giving this work to contractors i just wanted to make

[4:15:09] Voice 29: that clear for anyone who wasn't aware of that um

[4:15:13] Voice 16: thank you i would just add that there's

[4:15:16] Voice 16: no organization in the country would deliver the level of service that we're that is we are

[4:15:22] Voice 16: currently delivering associated with 13 different areas providing fully interactive live streaming

[4:15:31] Voice 16: um for the same resident population you know talk about efficiencies uh 25 000 people that's the

[4:15:37] Voice 16: city of courtney they've got one room one camera um one everything um to broadcast with so you just

[4:15:43] Voice 16: multiply that times 13 plus the rest of the committees that's where we find ourselves

[4:15:48] Voice 16: thank

[4:15:49] Trustee Luckham: you mr chair okay thank you uh deb morrison i

[4:15:53] Voice 24: appreciate your passion about this rest because

[4:15:55] Voice 24: i know it must be frustrating um so the and and i actually am not arguing that we we don't need

[4:16:04] Voice 24: this capacity what i'm trying to address and and i think there's another aspect that needs to be

[4:16:09] Voice 24: named here is that um it's unclear like what what the entire picture of staff activity is and when

[4:16:20] Voice 24: we take a budget out to our communities and share and have to feel questions about this and and

[4:16:26] Voice 24: that's not as a like convincing our communities that it's right it's fiscally responsible as

[4:16:31] Voice 24: elected officials to be able to do that like to be able to clearly share and describe what's the

[4:16:37] Voice 24: activity that the trust is doing one of the challenges i personally have is there's a black

[4:16:42] Voice 24: box with the with the um non whatever you call it the the non-discretionary um funds because i don't

[4:16:52] Voice 24: have like provision of electronic services at this you know ft to these projects or i don't have like

[4:17:00] Voice 24: clear job descriptions. I don't have speaking notes to be able to do that. And so I can't take

[4:17:05] Voice 24: a budget. I can't vote for a budget locally that is an increase in budget if I can't justify it

[4:17:12] Voice 24: really clearly. And I can justify it more this year if I say that, you know, we're working

[4:17:17] Voice 24: through the governance, we're working through the risk, we're understanding these, but we haven't

[4:17:22] Voice 24: committed new non-discretionary funds without being able to really like examine the overall

[4:17:28] Voice 24: picture of how staff like just understand it clearly as a new council so that's my challenge

[4:17:35] Voice 24: and i i would expect that every other trustee is having that in the era of like being accountable

[4:17:40] Voice 24: to increase budgets well

[4:17:43] Voice 16: one helping um consideration is the back half of the governance

[4:17:47] Voice 16: report does a pretty good job of analysis to say there's no there's no wasted positions at the

[4:17:56] Voice 16: Allen's Trust from a planning perspective. So I recommend that trustees who have gone through that

[4:18:01] Voice 16: report, that's a great place to start in having those conversations with communities around

[4:18:07] Voice 16: staffing and the number of OCPs and how staff work in different areas across the region. We've

[4:18:14] Voice 16: tried to create the regional teams and so forth. So maybe that's of some assistance, but I certainly

[4:18:18] Voice 16: understand your point thank

[4:18:21] Trustee Luckham: you deb uh may read boland hi

[4:18:25] Voice 5: i feel exactly the same as deb does

[4:18:30] Voice 5: it's a bit of a black box uh there is a light dawning because staff resources are estimated

[4:18:37] Voice 5: now against the projects and i would you know love to see more clarity about exactly that job

[4:18:45] Voice 5: descriptions you know what people are spending their time on because i really believe that's

[4:18:52] Voice 5: just fundamental to good planning and adding more non-discretionary um items to the budget

[4:19:00] Voice 5: is a challenge so one thing i would support is in the interests of you know supplying this capacity

[4:19:08] Voice 5: if it goes to a single contract position or perhaps find some magical person who can do

[4:19:15] Voice 5: those two positions you're suggesting but either way i would support a draw on the surplus fund

[4:19:22] Voice 5: for a year to accommodate the fact that a contract position is probably a bit more expensive

[4:19:28] Voice 5: so that as uh jeff spoke to and others the governance committee could do its work and

[4:19:33] Voice 5: really um get their head around this before we add new positions thank you thank you uh

[4:19:43] Voice 34: Yeah, a different topic, but I noticed that Joe Bernardo trustee is is with us now and

[4:19:49] Voice 34: I just wanted to not lose the opportunity to do the voting.

[4:19:52] Voice 34: He looks like he's dressed for more important work than we're doing here.

[4:19:55] Voice 34: So that's what all I wanted to say.

[4:19:58] Voice 34: Thanks.

[4:20:00] Trustee Luckham: There is no less important part than trust counsel.

[4:20:03] Trustee Luckham: But anyway, should I speak to the second position?

[4:20:08] Trustee Luckham: Yeah.

[4:20:08] Trustee Luckham: yeah uh well so joe did you have some remarks you wanted to make at this point

[4:20:19] Voice 22: i i just wanted to say that uh what the stuff i was doing elsewhere is done so i'll be here

[4:20:25] Voice 22: for the duration of the meeting so thank you i i appreciate the fact that you juggled things

[4:20:30] Voice 22: to account for my schedule i really appreciate that thank you i apologize for the inconvenience

[4:20:35] Voice 22: but you can now proceed to uh i'm i'm in your hands we'll just proceed with whatever uh procedure

[4:20:42] Voice 22: works best in order to make the meeting right i

[4:20:44] Trustee Luckham: think we're committed to make the elections at the

[4:20:47] Trustee Luckham: end uh by the end of the day here um i'd rather disrupt the conversation any further so ceo

[4:20:53] Voice 1: hudson

[4:20:53] Trustee Luckham: we're going to speak to the second position um that is being covered off here yeah so there's

[4:20:58] Trustee Luckham: two two positions

[4:20:59] Voice 16: brought forward to you and keep in mind my job is to identify how i can match a

[4:21:06] Voice 16: resource to a need and that's really it and and you're determining whether those two things match

[4:21:12] Voice 16: or not so here is a gap and that gap is in um administration at the islands trust in a mid-level

[4:21:21] Voice 16: physician um at this point and it's i quite understand why this happens there's a new

[4:21:29] Voice 16: governance committee but there's no staff associated with working at that governance

[4:21:34] Voice 16: committee um laurie foster would be the nominal person who would do that for instance with respect

[4:21:41] Voice 16: where i named it but she's full um i can make some time but um that's just because um i'm your

[4:21:50] Voice 16: i'm your sole employee uh so we don't have administrative capacity for to assist right now

[4:21:58] Voice 16: with the governance committee nor do we have um capacity for a reconciliation committee

[4:22:05] Voice 16: or an access so three new committees at the allen's trust um each of those is work and

[4:22:13] Voice 16: they're official bodies of the organization that create schedules organization syncing with

[4:22:20] Voice 16: everything else i completely understand their need to exist but there has to be i just don't

[4:22:25] Voice 16: know where i would get the horsepower to make those work equal to the other committees and

[4:22:33] Voice 16: pieces of the organization i guess one of the options would be to cancel some to remove some

[4:22:39] Voice 16: of the other committees um or look at some rationalization because i'm trying to match

[4:22:45] Voice 16: what your need is with the resources available so just from a committee

[4:22:51] Voice 16: administration perspective we need it the second is you know you think you

[4:22:58] Voice 16: know hidden I appreciate trustee Marsha's question around and you know I

[4:23:03] Voice 16: sit there myself and go how can some of this be FOI is the answer to one of

[4:23:10] Voice 16: those questions foi is at least one fte that is not really accounted for inside this organization

[4:23:17] Voice 16: or many organizations that has risen incredibly over the last couple of years and we've never

[4:23:25] Voice 16: done that so right now when there's a report in here um that identifies oh actually we're

[4:23:31] Voice 16: not getting to it i'll do it in a overnight uh in one of our um sessions um in the evening

[4:23:36] Voice 16: that talks about the people at the Alliance Trust who do FOI responses,

[4:23:40] Voice 16: and that's more than one person a year at the Alliance Trust does that.

[4:23:44] Voice 16: We haven't got that administrative capacity,

[4:23:46] Voice 16: so we have lost that capacity and we're going backwards.

[4:23:50] The third consideration

[4:23:52] Voice 16: is, of course,

[4:23:55] Voice 16: that we're overwhelmed with our reconciliation,

[4:24:00] Voice 16: both our interests and the practicalities on the ground.

[4:24:03] Voice 16: out. The SEPA position is to assist you and the rest of the organization in reaching out and

[4:24:10] Voice 16: having those conversations with nations, but we have no administration to back that up.

[4:24:15] Voice 16: And that means low-level, I'm not going to say chaos, but disorder associated with the referral

[4:24:23] Voice 16: process, with consistency around capacity funding, with knowing who are representatives of nations

[4:24:31] Voice 16: and being up to date on that and responding actually missing letters or missing you know

[4:24:38] Voice 16: we'll have had we've had in the last year a couple profound outreaches and we missed it and so then

[4:24:44] Voice 16: we have to go backwards so um part of this the intention of this position was to fund um those

[4:24:52] Voice 16: reconciliation activities to make that regular business of the honest trust into the future

[4:24:57] Voice 16: because right now it's person-based and the intention here is to make it systems-based,

[4:25:05] Voice 16: meaning all of that information would be to manage these protocol agreements

[4:25:10] Voice 16: and get all that information into one place and manage it

[4:25:14] Voice 16: and to assist SEPA with that work.

[4:25:19] Voice 16: Really, that's it.

[4:25:21] Voice 16: That's the rationale behind it.

[4:25:23] Voice 16: I feel I owe you, like I did with the other position,

[4:25:26] Voice 16: to notify you that there's a gap here.

[4:25:29] Voice 16: and I encourage you to address it.

[4:25:31] Voice 16: And once again, I think you have some options.

[4:25:33] Voice 16: Maybe the Governance Committee will be able to look at committees

[4:25:36] Voice 16: and go, we don't need all these committees.

[4:25:41] That's not what I'm thinking is going to happen.

[4:25:43] What I'm thinking is going to happen is the Governance Committee

[4:25:45] is going

[4:25:45] Voice 16: to say we need more committees,

[4:25:49] Voice 16: and we'll need to sort of fund or accelerate them

[4:25:53] Voice 16: to getting up and going as soon as possible.

[4:25:56] Voice 16: so some some extra administrative capacity there would be helpful uh i will say that when we first

[4:26:03] Voice 16: ran up ran up the budget numbers um i knew that it would be tough for me to sit in this seat and

[4:26:08] Voice 16: have the conversation that we're having so this is the this plus a number of other initiatives we

[4:26:14] Voice 16: rolled we tried to roll off the table um but fpe fpc um put it back on the table probably for some

[4:26:22] Voice 16: of the reasons i've mentioned already so thank you very much mr chair and as usual and answering

[4:26:27] Voice 16: questions okay um

[4:26:31] Trustee Luckham: i think we're actually getting through this i have to stop thinking about what

[4:26:37] Trustee Luckham: we're actually deciding on just stay focused on getting us through this um thing here um

[4:26:42] Trustee Luckham: so bear with me for a millisecond here um it seems like there's some other timing going on here

[4:26:49] Trustee Luckham: that perhaps we've got a break coming up at three o'clock.

[4:26:53] Trustee Luckham: I'm going to suggest that we keep going through this account,

[4:26:58] Trustee Luckham: this finance process, have our break,

[4:27:01] Trustee Luckham: and maybe provide the opportunity actually just before the break,

[4:27:06] Trustee Luckham: provide the opportunity to open up the governance election process again,

[4:27:10] Trustee Luckham: have any last nominate, have nominations, last opportunity to speak,

[4:27:15] Trustee Luckham: go to our break and give us a moment to pause and reflect upon

[4:27:18] Trustee Luckham: on that election process and David can initiate an election process and get those back in over

[4:27:23] Trustee Luckham: the break and then we can have that decision done and continue with the finance does that sound like

[4:27:28] Trustee Luckham: a good plan everybody okay see lots of thumbs up um I'm getting good at this juggling you see those

[4:27:35] Trustee Luckham: all these balls there's about six in the air um okay so are so we just done the two new uh two

[4:27:44] Trustee Luckham: two positions. We've had that conversation, or we are having it. I see Kate Louise Stanford and

[4:27:50] Trustee Luckham: Susan Yates on this topic. And then there's, I think there's another five things to be addressed

[4:27:56] Trustee Luckham: here. Yeah. So Kate Louise and Susan Yates on the current topic.

[4:28:01] Voice 36: Thank you, Chair.

[4:28:02] Voice 36: I just am

[4:28:03] Voice 36: noticing some trends. And I would really caution people using that term creative solutions.

[4:28:10] Voice 36: solutions. It implies that there has been no creativity to date. I think that people have

[4:28:17] Voice 36: worked miracles. And I also use that term a little jaundicedly. We have to take a certain

[4:28:28] Voice 36: level of trust that the staff and the finance committee are doing the creative solutions.

[4:28:34] Voice 36: They're working as best they can. They've come up against a rock and a hard place. And it's up to us to make those decisions. It's not going to take magic. It's not going to take creative solutions.

[4:28:51] Voice 36: It's up to us to decide whether we can move ahead with this, that something will have to fall off if we do not make these decisions.

[4:29:03] Voice 36: And I think we have to get to that point in terms of creatively getting support to remote islands for AV equipment.

[4:29:14] Voice 36: equipment. It's not going to happen on Gambier or Keats. It will be us. It will be something we do

[4:29:20] Voice 36: off the side of our desk. And then there's not the consistency of service that we should expect

[4:29:25] Voice 36: across the local government. And also, Trustee Evans mentioned a request about minutes as they

[4:29:33] Voice 36: are still required. So we still do need to take minutes, even though

[4:29:37] Voice 36: there is a visual recording.

[4:29:38] Voice 36: Thank you.

[4:29:39] Trustee Luckham: Thank you.

[4:29:41] Trustee Luckham: Susan Yates.

[4:29:43] Voice 35: Oh, thank you, Chair Luckum.

[4:29:46] Voice 35: I would just like to echo exactly what Trustee Kate Louise Stamford just said.

[4:29:52] Voice 35: Looking at these comprehensive reports, work from the Finance Committee,

[4:30:00] Voice 35: work from the staff. There are very detailed reasons in here why we need what is being asked

[4:30:07] Voice 35: for. There's also excellent alternatives described in this. I would like to just say right off the

[4:30:16] Voice 35: top, none of this will be accomplished with a zero percent increase budget, and I would not

[4:30:24] Voice 35: support that in any case. That aside, CAO Hudson-Piller said, you know, we could decide

[4:30:32] Voice 35: at some point to drop some committees, to add some committees. What the governance review report said

[4:30:39] Voice 35: very clearly is that the committees are the workhorse, workhorses of council. They are the

[4:30:47] Voice 35: bodies that do the work um the detailed work and bring it back to council for our decisions

[4:30:55] Voice 35: so it's highly unlikely we're going to be deleting any committees in which case we are going to need

[4:31:02] Voice 35: some support for those committees thank

[4:31:05] Trustee Luckham: you thank you trustee yates trustee evans i'm so

[4:31:08] Trustee Luckham: glad we're able to connect with you uh in your remote location so go ahead and floor is yours

[4:31:13] Trustee Luckham: Thank

[4:31:14] Voice 4: you. So this is a little bit more of a larger picture question. And again, this has been raised by the community, I've noticed, a few times. And we also did this at the large corporations that I worked at as well.

[4:31:30] Voice 4: when we had a lot of projects and I remember at the December meeting you talked that you had

[4:31:36] Voice 4: something like over 120 active projects at the moment is there a way to prioritize those projects

[4:31:43] Voice 4: and I'm quite sure you already do this to help reduce the workload per given year and postpone

[4:31:51] Voice 4: some of those projects that was one of the things that we had to do strategically when we had

[4:31:54] Voice 4: larger projects come in on into our companies as well because we didn't have an opportunity

[4:32:00] Voice 4: to hire more staff. Is there a way to push those out the bonds that are lagging to help alleviate

[4:32:08] Voice 4: some of the burdens on an already overburdened staff? That was one of my previous questions that

[4:32:15] Voice 4: didn't quite get answered. And I think that that might help impact the global budget as well.

[4:32:26] Voice 4: And I also agree, the largest part of this budget increase is to compensate staff as they need to be compensated and well-deserved as well, and also fixed costs that we don't have any control over.

[4:32:40] Voice 4: So there is no way we can get this to a zero budget, and we do need to have some money to do trust council work as well.

[4:32:49] Voice 4: So thank you.

[4:32:50] Voice 4: Thank

[4:32:51] Trustee Luckham: you, Trustee Evans. And we're sort of free-flowing here with how we're approaching this, but the CAO is prepared to offer some advice on the 102 items list, I think it is.

[4:33:02] Voice 16: Yeah, no, I really, I deeply appreciate the question because that aids me in making you happier.

[4:33:10] Voice 16: It's been an eternal question of the trust since I've been here, how do we get our desires and our resources matched better?

[4:33:18] Voice 16: I think we have made some progress over the last couple of years.

[4:33:22] Voice 16: But one thing that has happened is policies were put in place at the end of last term, within a couple of months, to reduce LTC projects from three projects to one project.

[4:33:36] Voice 12: And

[4:33:36] Voice 16: then to take any other desires and to put them in a parking lot, essentially.

[4:33:40] Voice 16: So part of what you're asking, we've changed the policy to achieve it.

[4:33:45] Voice 16: and it's just that we're we haven't seen the benefit of that yet um and we haven't got the

[4:33:52] Voice 16: benefit of your collective thinking of what you all want to do and that might be a narrower set

[4:34:00] Voice 16: of things than previously but we need to time test that um i don't envy the situation where

[4:34:09] Voice 16: you are inheriting vestigial work from a previous trust council but you'll notice that the budget is

[4:34:16] Voice 16: for strategic items is less than it's been in previous years to sort of indicate that

[4:34:23] Voice 16: i think we're going in the right direction um in terms of lessening all of these projects

[4:34:27] Voice 16: but i'm completely with you in working this through and the undercurrent that's being

[4:34:34] Voice 16: expressed around matching our finances our budget and our strategic planning process in a in a let's

[4:34:42] Voice 16: solve this kind of way and i think that we're we're not as far away as as as we would think

[4:34:48] Voice 16: but right now we're in a caretaker situation you're you're coming halfway through um a budget

[4:34:54] Voice 16: cycle with some requests at it um but overall i think that that trend if we keep our eye on that

[4:35:01] Voice 16: trend, we will be able to reduce the number of projects we have at the Allens Trust.

[4:35:06] Voice 16: From a strategic plan point of view, the previous strategic plan I think had

[4:35:11] Voice 16: 85 discrete items in it. The last one had something like 30 or 29. So it was an order of magnitude

[4:35:20] Voice 16: more focused effort and when we get to that presentation that I provide on strategic

[4:35:25] Voice 16: planning you'll see what it is but there's still lots of room to go forward. Thank you.

[4:35:32] Voice 16: Thank you,

[4:35:32] Trustee Luckham: Deb Morrison.

[4:35:35] Voice 24: Yeah, so given the conversation,

[4:35:37] Voice 24: I actually think one of the ways forward in this moment

[4:35:40] Voice 24: is to do a temporary position, not a contractor,

[4:35:44] Voice 24: a temporary position for these roles

[4:35:46] Voice 24: that allows us not to commit to long-term employee yet

[4:35:50] Voice 24: without understanding and knowing more deeply

[4:35:53] Voice 24: what is like the bigger picture of the whole staff

[4:35:57] Voice 24: and how it all fits together in the plans

[4:35:59] Voice 24: and work that we are committing to

[4:36:00] Voice 24: and addresses those concerns of having too many things move into that non-discretionary bin

[4:36:06] Voice 24: without everyone in this space really understanding what that means and also avoids like

[4:36:13] Voice 24: potentially contractors or other types of things so and I heard Russ potentially say that that

[4:36:21] Voice 24: would be an option going forward instead of having a full-on permanent hire to do it as a

[4:36:28] Voice 24: a temporary one-year hire potentially.

[4:36:33] Trustee Luckham: Thank you, Deb.

[4:36:35] Trustee Luckham: So your hand down.

[4:36:38] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, great.

[4:36:39] Trustee Luckham: One of the joys of a chair

[4:36:41] Trustee Luckham: is to see the number of hands going down

[4:36:43] Trustee Luckham: as opposed to increasing

[4:36:44] Trustee Luckham: no matter how many people get to talk.

[4:36:46] Trustee Luckham: So we've kind of reached that level.

[4:36:48] Trustee Luckham: So I think we're going to move on

[4:36:49] Trustee Luckham: to the next topic now,

[4:36:50] Trustee Luckham: which

[4:36:51] Voice 16: was pulled for discussion.

[4:36:52] Voice 16: Grid adjustments.

[4:36:53] Voice 16: So I've asked Stefan,

[4:36:55] Voice 16: and I don't know whether David

[4:36:56] Voice 16: worked on that as well,

[4:36:58] Voice 16: to join us and talk about

[4:36:59] Voice 16: the uh the grid adjustments which uh is essentially taking uh with changing um job profiles in real

[4:37:07] Voice 16: time um acknowledging what's going on in the ground and what page is that on for the benefit

[4:37:12] Trustee Luckham: of everybody 172

[4:37:13] Voice 16: 172

[4:37:15] Trustee Luckham: trust council thank you thank you

[4:37:19] Voice 33: mr chair uh my pleasure to present this forward

[4:37:22] Voice 33: this was all my doing so uh david is safe i think it's the first time i can say that at

[4:37:27] Voice 33: trust council meeting so what is this this is a proposal to elevate the grid position the grid

[4:37:36] Voice 33: being the grid is how the province dictates what you get paid so there's level 9 10 11 12 etc

[4:37:43] Voice 33: up to about 30. and each planning office has three admin positions and this proposal is to bump up

[4:37:56] Voice 33: I guess the pay or the grid of those of two positions in each office one's the

[4:38:01] Voice 33: legislative clerk which is the senior sort of admin person the other one is

[4:38:05] Voice 33: the planning team assistant now why do this this is certainly not random

[4:38:10] Voice 33: there's multitude of reasons as pointed out in the business case I really hope

[4:38:14] Voice 33: you all read it it is the last time the admin positions in planning services

[4:38:20] Voice 33: were considered in terms of what did they do how did they do it now they're

[4:38:23] Voice 33: being compensated fairly for it was in 2008 and they created a new position at that point

[4:38:30] Voice 33: and there hasn't been a review since except to help bylaw enforcement with all their all their

[4:38:35] Voice 33: file enforcement uh work so having worked with in since 2010 with um with with the crew i'm

[4:38:45] Voice 33: very aware and intimately um connected with um some of the work that they do and how they do it

[4:38:49] Voice 33: it. And legislative clerks, starting at the top, take on a supervisory role to some degree in the

[4:38:56] Voice 33: office. They dictate the work of what's going on in there and make sure everybody's working

[4:39:00] Voice 33: efficiently. They sort of control the admin team and how things move around, etc. And that's not

[4:39:07] Voice 33: recognized in their grid. And as a matter of fact, I think it was taken out of their job position

[4:39:12] Voice 33: back in 2008. But then they were expected to keep on doing it since then. So it's kind of been a bit

[4:39:17] Voice 33: of a long-standing grievance with them and the planning team assistant also works far beyond

[4:39:23] Voice 33: what their perform what their job profile says and they're doing everything in between

[4:39:29] Voice 33: such as you're hearing about these other positions helping manage various meeting profiles

[4:39:34] Voice 33: scheduling meetings processing applications adapting to all these the changing flow and of

[4:39:40] Voice 33: technology etc and so in reviewing this these positions when i started with the team i recognized

[4:39:46] Voice 33: that this is a good opportunity it is a small impact on the budget overall but it's a huge

[4:39:51] Voice 33: impact with the team and on top of that it creates a hierarchical structure if you haven't heard we

[4:39:58] Voice 33: have two team members admin team members retiring in the northern office and a lot of times we hear

[4:40:05] Voice 33: that the two the planning team assistant and the office admin assistant are at the same

[4:40:08] Voice 33: pay grade and there's no motivation for one to move to the other and so what we're trying to

[4:40:14] Voice 33: create is a flow of opportunities that allows for you know interest in the positions to attract them

[4:40:20] Voice 33: to it it allows for progress through administrative positions and it gives them you know allows us to

[4:40:28] Voice 33: help retain have retention and like i said you know of of these uh six positions four of them

[4:40:36] Voice 33: are currently people who live on the islands on gabriola and salt spring island so i i could give

[4:40:42] Voice 33: you're more rational about why and how and what have you but um it's a you know from my humble

[4:40:47] Voice 33: perspective it reflects more of the duties they're doing i couldn't do it otherwise uh in order to

[4:40:52] Voice 33: get this through we'd have to argue with the public service agency about their change in

[4:40:57] Voice 33: positions so there's a next step to that to argue in front of them and they can be quite a

[4:41:03] Voice 33: scrutineering force so if they disagree this can't happen even if the trust council agrees

[4:41:07] Voice 33: degrees. But like I said, there's many opportunities, it reflects what they're doing, and it's great

[4:41:13] Voice 33: opportunities for the incoming staff to retain them. And I'll leave it there. I'll answer any

[4:41:21] Voice 33: questions.

[4:41:22] Voice 18: Any questions?

[4:41:23] Voice 19: Tim Peterson.

[4:41:27] Voice 21: Yeah, thank you, Chair, and thank you, Director Cermak,

[4:41:30] Voice 21: because as you were speaking, and just as I put my hand up, I realized that I hadn't heard much

[4:41:37] Voice 21: discussion about the challenges of staff retention at Islands Trust and I having

[4:41:43] Voice 21: been a trustee for a while I know that has been an ongoing challenge and

[4:41:49] Voice 21: combination of high workload high expectations duties beyond the job

[4:41:55] Voice 21: description and certainly pay are all potentially factors in those

[4:42:02] Voice 21: difficulties with retention. So I was just going to mention that and I heard you say the word

[4:42:08] Voice 21: retention. So I don't know if you want to comment on that any further for any trustees that may not

[4:42:15] Voice 21: be aware of the challenges that the organization has had over retention over the past couple of

[4:42:20] Voice 21: years. But that was something I just wanted to bring up for anyone who might not be aware that

[4:42:26] Voice 21: that has been an ongoing issue okay thank

[4:42:30] Voice 21: you tim any

[4:42:32] Trustee Luckham: other questions on this topic

[4:42:35] Trustee Luckham: okay let's go to the next one secretariat services okay

[4:42:39] Voice 3: director

[4:42:40] Trustee Luckham: freighter thank you so

[4:42:43] Voice 3: i understand there was a question regarding secretariat services which is a program guided

[4:42:49] Voice 3: by trust council policy that was established a few years ago during the last term that policy

[4:42:54] Voice 3: came about resulting from discussions in the prior term so the 2014 to 2018 term related to

[4:43:01] Voice 3: the salt spring incorporation vote as well as general discussions at trust programs committee

[4:43:06] Voice 3: and other committees around the lack of service integration in the region

[4:43:10] Voice 3: there was a desire to

[4:43:12] Voice 3: better coordinate among different levels of government and in some cases with community

[4:43:17] Voice 3: in coordination forums some of which already existed and some of which have since been

[4:43:22] Voice 3: incubated to better facilitate that in cooperation part of the mandate. This is a discretionary

[4:43:29] Voice 3: program. It has been budgeted or Trust Programs Committee considered a business case in August

[4:43:35] Voice 3: and voted to advance a request for $15,000 to provide capacity to support this program next

[4:43:42] Voice 3: year. It's delivered by the Trust executing contracts generally or providing direct staff

[4:43:48] Voice 3: support to these coordination groups to support their administration needs so this would be you

[4:43:53] Voice 3: know zoom licenses meeting minute takers the rental of a meeting call sometimes the license

[4:43:59] Voice 3: for a website if they want to communicate with the public this is in the business case you'll

[4:44:06] Voice 3: note some of the names of the coordination groups that have been supported generally the way in

[4:44:10] Voice 3: which if council chooses to fund the program then in april trust programs committee hears from the

[4:44:16] Voice 3: different coordination groups with what they anticipate their needs will be for assistance

[4:44:20] Voice 3: with coordination and then through the policy decides how to allocate the funding that has

[4:44:26] Voice 3: been provided. I'll leave it at that and would be happy to answer any additional questions.

[4:44:34] Voice 19: Marie Boland.

[4:44:40] Voice 5: So I understand the business case you made thank you Claire and I appreciate the

[4:44:46] Voice 5: value of it but i would also question the fact that we're being asked to hire another um

[4:44:53] Voice 5: administrative coordinator position full-time while we're providing those services to bodies

[4:44:59] Voice 5: external to the islands trust and i think in your business case you make the point about how

[4:45:06] Voice 5: much resource from your team is involved in this as well so in i'm just thinking about you know

[4:45:15] Voice 5: challenging a budget and making hard choices and I just question whether we should be doing this

[4:45:22] Voice 5: or not but thank you very much for speaking to the topic Clara thank you I

[4:45:27] Trustee Luckham: think there's a point of

[4:45:28] Trustee Luckham: clarity from Director Frater

[4:45:30] Voice 3: yes if I could just clarify these are bodies of which by policy a

[4:45:34] Voice 3: trust body must be a member and typically there are other bodies that also contribute to the

[4:45:40] Voice 3: administration in some other way so often we're part of the contribution but just want to clarify

[4:45:44] Voice 3: it's not external so um typically we provide we can't offer grants so we must do it by providing

[4:45:51] Voice 3: human resources whereas like electoral areas might give a grant towards the group or something like

[4:45:56] Voice 3: that um so just want to clarify it's not totally external to the trust a trust body must be a

[4:46:01] Voice 3: member of the coordination group

[4:46:02] Voice 5: but i'm sorry about to just clarify so we are mandated to be

[4:46:07] Voice 5: a member of these bodies is that correct through

[4:46:11] Voice 3: trust council paul not mandated through trust

[4:46:13] Voice 3: council policy you may only support those coordination groups of which a trust body is a

[4:46:18] Voice 3: member so

[4:46:19] Voice 5: we have chosen to be members of these bodies and then through the policy we may also

[4:46:27] Voice 5: choose to support those bodies is

[4:46:29] Voice 5: that what you say that is correct okay so we could i mean i'm

[4:46:34] Voice 5: just being devil's advocate but if we could unchoose all of that but absolutely absolutely

[4:46:39] Voice 5: Okay, I'll leave it at that for the moment. Thank you for answering so clearly.

[4:46:47] Voice 12: Okay, thank you. Tim Peterson.

[4:46:51] Voice 21: Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to point out one instance where this stewardship, pardon me, secretariat role has historically been supporting the Bain Sound Lambert Channel Forum.

[4:47:12] Voice 21: And I personally have seen that the questions that were be able to be addressed to DFO through that led, in my view, directly to Islands Trust getting a seat on the DFO Shellfish Agriculture Management Advisory Committee that we're going to be coming up on 5.3.

[4:47:38] Voice 21: i sent out a an item to all trustees on that and i know that uh trustee morrison was very much

[4:47:46] Voice 21: involved with the southern gulf islands forum and uh i'm not sure if she's prepared to mention the

[4:47:53] Voice 21: value of that but uh i was just going to point out the baines channel lambert sound the value that

[4:48:00] Voice 21: it's uh provided back to the organization to get us a seat at that dfo table um

[4:48:07] Trustee Luckham: thank you tim i'll

[4:48:09] Trustee Luckham: I'll just mention also the House Sound Forum,

[4:48:11] Trustee Luckham: which ultimately led to the Biosphere Initiative over there.

[4:48:15] Trustee Luckham: So Deb Morrison.

[4:48:17] Voice 24: Thanks.

[4:48:18] Voice 24: And I think this also falls into the category

[4:48:21] Voice 24: of it may be something that can be reorganized

[4:48:25] Voice 24: as we go forward in the governance committee

[4:48:27] Voice 24: as we thoughtfully consider what is our work

[4:48:30] Voice 24: and what is our role in collaborative work.

[4:48:33] Voice 24: But at this time, I wouldn't wanna shift this necessarily

[4:48:36] Voice 24: because it's just a little unclear

[4:48:38] Voice 24: clear how it will all fall out with staff allocations um uh so in the southern gulf islands

[4:48:44] Voice 24: forum it's it's part of the coordination role i don't like to use the word advocacy um but it's

[4:48:50] Voice 24: part of the coordination role that's in the act um for us to coordinate with multiple levels of

[4:48:55] Voice 24: government and has allowed trustees participating who all are welcome in the southern gulf islands

[4:48:59] Voice 24: to meet with our mp and our mla and first nations um leaders in the region and really figure out

[4:49:06] Voice 24: like is this your bin or is this our bin like how are we sorting this out so it's it's really an

[4:49:12] Voice 24: open communication channel yeah

[4:49:16] Trustee Luckham: uh sue ellen fast next speaker thank

[4:49:20] Voice 9: you chair um speaking to uh

[4:49:22] Voice 9: words that i heard from trustee boland uh that this is not a mandate i actually think it is a

[4:49:29] Voice 9: mandate i'm reading from the object um that we do this preserve and protect dot dot dot in

[4:49:36] Voice 9: in cooperation with municipalities, regional districts, improvement districts, and other

[4:49:40] Voice 9: persons and organizations and First Nations, and the government of British Columbia. So we have

[4:49:45] Voice 9: this part of being a special government, as far as I've seen it, is that we have to work in

[4:49:50] Voice 9: cooperation with, and the secretariat role is a good way to do that. And as I've been part of the

[4:49:57] Voice 9: Howe Sound community forum that the chair mentioned, and it's been a very important and

[4:50:05] Voice 9: role for helping us all coordinate to work together and now all these other good things

[4:50:10] Voice 9: are coming that we could never do ourselves so i think it is a mandate thank you thank you

[4:50:15] Trustee Luckham: so is there any other questions on the secretariat function i see uh marie bowen again

[4:50:22] Voice 5: just a quick response then i mean is this a specific piece of work which falls under

[4:50:29] Voice 5: under administrative services in a more general way and perhaps it shouldn't be split out as a

[4:50:35] Voice 5: separate budget item. So this would be just a general workload of the administrative services

[4:50:42] Voice 5: and maybe that makes it a little more palatable but it speaks again to I think transparency about

[4:50:51] Voice 5: about everything but if you could explain to me why is this split out if it is a key foundational

[4:51:00] Voice 5: piece of the work that the trust is expected to do thank you and

[4:51:07] Trustee Luckham: director fader um

[4:51:08] Voice 3: so this is a

[4:51:10] Voice 3: discretionary program it didn't exist prior to last term um it could potentially be delivered

[4:51:16] Voice 3: um right now the role of staff is our program coordinator position within trust area services

[4:51:21] Voice 3: services is once Trust Programs Committee has decided how to allocate funding and potentially

[4:51:27] Voice 3: request that some staff time be used, the program coordinator then requests administrative services

[4:51:32] Voice 3: staff to execute contracts and we then monitor those contracts. It is conceivable that we would

[4:51:39] Voice 3: be able to deliver some of those services directly through the program coordinator position

[4:51:43] Voice 3: but that would then come at the expense of those other duties that that program

[4:51:47] Voice 3: coordinator position offers so potentially you could reduce the financial component and ask for

[4:51:52] Voice 3: more staff time to be allocated but then you'd have less support for the other programs you

[4:51:57] Voice 3: might wish to undertake in addition there is a minute taker component to this and typically that

[4:52:03] Voice 3: program coordinator position is not a trained minute taker so that that we would still struggle

[4:52:07] Voice 3: to deliver that portion of the function I would suggest or we you know would have to

[4:52:11] Voice 3: train up to

[4:52:12] Voice 3: deliver that directly thank

[4:52:14] Voice 5: you it comes back to really looking at everything that is being done

[4:52:20] Voice 5: but thank you very much thank you thank

[4:52:23] Trustee Luckham: you um all right so that concludes that uh item uh perhaps we

[4:52:29] Trustee Luckham: have enough time to do one more and then i want to call the election process for the governance

[4:52:33] Trustee Luckham: committee well david and

[4:52:35] Trustee Luckham: i have talked about the timing

[4:52:37] Voice 16: oh you do so we've got a question around

[4:52:40] Voice 16: around the LG Development Approvals Program.

[4:52:44] Voice 16: I believe it was from Trust Street Boland on,

[4:52:49] Voice 16: and it's a grant program.

[4:52:52] Voice 16: Last year, we got $367,000 associated

[4:52:56] Voice 16: with updating our portal

[4:52:59] Voice 16: and how we track land use applications.

[4:53:02] Voice 16: And this, I think it's $125,000 that you're referring to

[4:53:06] Voice 16: in the current year budget is the continuation of that work um you know i'm not a tech person

[4:53:13] Voice 16: but i can tell you anecdotally that every one who takes in applications from the public has

[4:53:19] Voice 16: some version of a software that is both their public face and then privately we utilize that

[4:53:25] Voice 16: to track applications the allen's trust in the past has customized that software

[4:53:31] Voice 16: where we are sorely out of date and we received this stop me if i'm wrong david right and we've

[4:53:40] Voice 16: got mark on the phone too potentially yeah um and stefan we consider this nothing but an incredible

[4:53:49] Voice 16: opportunity to having received this 400 000 of funding to get us modernized on the provincial

[4:53:57] Voice 16: ticket um in a way that we could never afford imagine me sitting here and telling you we need

[4:54:03] Voice 16: software and programming for four hundred thousand dollars um i would be even more unpopular than i

[4:54:09] Voice 16: am right now which would be hard to take so um um it is a it's a new we're entering into a new

[4:54:18] Voice 16: world a modern world commensurate with others it's going to make the application process more

[4:54:23] Voice 16: transparent for other people and where we are exactly in that process and how that 125 000

[4:54:28] Voice 16: is being spent i can't answer it so um maybe either stefan or mark could yeah well mark is

[4:54:38] Voice 16: here and maybe be brief because i don't

[4:54:40] Trustee Luckham: know it'll be necessary i need a deep i'm not sure

[4:54:42] Voice 16: exactly what the question is i think it was what's the value of the project yeah and i think uh

[4:54:48] Voice 16: trustee Bowen wanted

[4:54:49] Trustee Luckham: to speak and Laura Patrick has got her hand up there as well so

[4:54:53] Trustee Luckham: you want to do a brief summary then Mark about the value of the project well

[4:55:00] Voice 32: the the package

[4:55:01] Voice 32: the city view package is what we're talking about and the local government development

[4:55:05] Voice 32: application program funding yeah so

[4:55:08] Voice 32: the the city view what we have is we have an on-site

[4:55:11] Voice 32: application called TAPIS trust area property information system which we use to track all of

[4:55:18] Voice 32: of all of our applications, all of our bylaw,

[4:55:22] Voice 32: all of our bylaw tickets,

[4:55:24] Voice 32: and we use it for ITC

[4:55:26] Voice 32: for tracking property management information

[4:55:29] Voice 32: and acquisitions.

[4:55:30] Voice 32: And that product is maintained in-house.

[4:55:34] Voice 32: We do our best to maintain it,

[4:55:36] Voice 32: but arguably it is expensive to maintain in-house

[4:55:39] Voice 32: and difficult to maintain such a package in-house.

[4:55:43] Voice 32: It's hard to maintain staff.

[4:55:44] Voice 32: We currently have Daphne Shaheed on staff

[4:55:48] Voice 32: supporting that product, as well as our additional web apps.

[4:55:53] Voice 32: But that is, in fact, a risky plan,

[4:55:58] Voice 32: in the sense that it's hard to maintain those staff

[4:56:01] Voice 32: and to guarantee that we can keep that staff.

[4:56:03] Voice 32: We've seen it in the past that when we lose a staff member,

[4:56:06] Voice 32: we are static.

[4:56:07] Voice 32: We are frozen in our capacity to support that product.

[4:56:11] Voice 32: So the idea of getting away from in-house product to a third party, as we refer to it, and CityView being the application in this case, it guarantees us continuity of service, continuity of product, and continuity of, say, evolution of the product and continued support.

[4:56:29] Voice 32: So our goal here is to take advantage of LGGAP funding

[4:56:33] Voice 32: and implement the CityView application

[4:56:36] Voice 32: in order that we have a third-party steady state

[4:56:40] Voice 32: supporting application for the planning

[4:56:42] Voice 32: and eventually bylaw and CityView,

[4:56:47] Voice 32: we're also looking at ways to get out

[4:56:49] Voice 32: of the trust area property information system as well.

[4:56:52] Voice 32: So that's the intent of the product.

[4:56:55] Voice 32: So I'm happy to try to answer any of your questions.

[4:56:58] Voice 32: Hi,

[4:57:01] Voice 5: thanks. Actually, my question was simpler. I do come from a techie background and normally

[4:57:08] Voice 5: when a project like this is proposed and I fully support moving to third party software

[4:57:14] Voice 5: and all of your aspirations, but normally there would be some kind of estimate of cost savings

[4:57:20] Voice 5: and efficiencies achieved by the project. And I haven't seen that anywhere. I may have missed it,

[4:57:26] Voice 5: But, you know, I saw that there's an increase because you have to pay for software licensing, but I would have thought that, you know, there would be trade offs somewhere mentioned, and if you, if you can't answer that right now fine but if it's written

[4:57:43] Voice 5: someplace else in the original project terms of reference. I would like to see that. Thank you.

[4:57:49] Voice 5: Okay.

[4:57:52] Trustee Luckham: I'm going to go to Laura Patrick and might suggest that obsolete software has to be replaced.

[4:57:59] Trustee Luckham: Anyway, my

[4:58:01] Trustee Patrick: question might help follow up on Trustee Boland's question.

[4:58:06] Trustee Patrick: This project, as I remember, the grant application included a $50,000 retaining of a consultant that was going to make recommendations to improve the efficiency and streamlining of applications.

[4:58:21] Trustee Patrick: Did that occur or is that going to occur?

[4:58:24] Trustee Patrick: And that's also referenced in Annex 1 of the governance report.

[4:58:30] Voice 32: I can answer that, sure.

[4:58:32] Voice 32: So that was in the original proposal that it would be a separate contractor.

[4:58:38] Voice 32: What we've done is we've rolled it into a single contract.

[4:58:42] Voice 32: So CityView, the implementer, is taking their better business practice with local governments

[4:58:50] Voice 32: and doing that review with us and streamlining the process using their experience with other

[4:58:56] Voice 32: local governments and development application processing and giving us a proposal based on

[4:59:01] Voice 32: our existing processes so we have a review built into that implementation strategy

[4:59:05] Voice 32: and they will be providing us with recommendations on how we can improve that process and how we can

[4:59:12] Voice 32: merge their better business approach with our existing so we've integrated those two those

[4:59:17] Voice 32: two aspects of the project okay

[4:59:20] Trustee Luckham: thank you got a thumbs up there so that's great um okay so

[4:59:25] Trustee Luckham: i think that let's conclude this conversation here now on budgets we'll pick that up after the break

[4:59:29] Trustee Luckham: but what i want to do is turn it over to david marla now who's going to conduct our nominations

[4:59:35] Trustee Luckham: and election process over to you david yeah

[4:59:37] Voice 7: thank you so if laurie will bring up the uh

[4:59:43] Voice 7: Okay, so what we're going to do now is go through the same process we used for the elections

[4:59:49] Voice 7: of the executive and ITC.

[4:59:52] Voice 7: We're going to ask for nominations, they need to be moved, seconded, and the person that's

[4:59:57] Voice 7: nominated needs to accept or...

[5:00:00] Voice 7: not let us know so Lori will write them up there once we do that and then following that I will

[5:00:05] Voice 7: ask council by resolution to appoint a scrutineer who is anybody on council that is not standing for

[5:00:13] Voice 7: the election and then over the break I'll create the ballots and email them to you they'll come to

[5:00:18] Voice 7: you from an email address called lts underscore sv monkey it might go to your spam so please check

[5:00:27] Voice 7: there. It takes about five minutes after I send it for it to arrive in your mailbox. That's the

[5:00:32] Voice 7: limitation of SurveyMonkey. It will be a one-time use only link. So you can only vote once and

[5:00:41] Voice 7: that's it. And it will limit you to selecting up to seven of the individuals. So there are seven

[5:00:50] Voice 7: There are seven positions on the Governance Committee, and that is by Trust Council policy.

[5:00:56] Voice 7: So you will be limited to electing up to seven.

[5:01:00] Voice 7: You can elect less if you wish, and the software will not let you elect more.

[5:01:05] Voice 7: So we should have no spoiled ballots that way.

[5:01:08] Voice 7: And then once those are in, I'll take them out of the room, drop out of the Zoom meeting

[5:01:13] Voice 7: with the scrutineer, we'll go into another Zoom meeting, and then we will count the ballots

[5:01:19] Voice 7: and then come back and tell you

[5:01:22] Voice 7: who is the new governance committee.

[5:01:25] Voice 7: And again, it's secret ballot,

[5:01:27] Voice 7: so we're not going to tell you the actual numbers.

[5:01:29] Voice 7: Do you have any questions before I start?

[5:01:31] Voice 7: I see a whole bunch of hands up.

[5:01:32] Voice 7: Quite a few.

[5:01:34] Voice 16: No, those are nomination hands, I think,

[5:01:36] Voice 16: not question hands.

[5:01:38] Voice 16: Are there any question hands?

[5:01:40] Voice 11: There's one from-

[5:01:40] Voice 11: Yeah, I have a question.

[5:01:42] Voice 11: You spelled my name wrong.

[5:01:45] Voice 12: You're right.

[5:01:46] Voice 11: Yeah, thank you.

[5:01:48] Voice 7: Thank you.

[5:01:50] Voice 12: sorry about that i have

[5:01:52] Voice 9: a question will trustee bernardo get to speak as the other nominees

[5:01:58] Voice 9: or the other candidates have got to speak

[5:02:01] Trustee Luckham: yes there's two

[5:02:02] Voice 7: people that haven't spoke

[5:02:04] Voice 7: yet i think so yeah so maybe that's the first question is there anybody else who's interested

[5:02:08] Voice 7: i see that um uh trustee morrison uh emailed me so i've added there to the list and uh trustee

[5:02:17] Voice 7: Bernardo didn't have an opportunity to speak. So probably appropriate for those two to have

[5:02:22] Voice 7: one or two minutes to just indicate why you would like to be on the governance committee.

[5:02:27] Voice 7: So alphabetically, I'll start with Trustee Bernardo.

[5:02:34] Voice 22: Thank you. I guess I should tell you why I'm interested in joining the governance committee.

[5:02:41] Voice 22: Committee, because even as a newcomer, it's apparent that despite best intentions, and it's

[5:02:50] Voice 22: clear, this is a very well-intentioned group, not just now, but historically, but that our

[5:02:56] Voice 22: processes don't allow the Trust Council to fully get its hands around important issues that come

[5:03:03] Voice 22: before it. You heard me yesterday talking about how I felt the budget process seems designed less

[5:03:12] Voice 22: to allow the trust council to approve our budgets on their merits than on timing imperatives

[5:03:18] Voice 22: that's not intentional i don't it's clear that's not intentional it's a process that may have

[5:03:24] Voice 22: worked at some time in the past but it doesn't seem to be working now and i think some of the

[5:03:28] Voice 22: discussions that we're having today the fact that it's necessary is an indicator of that

[5:03:35] Voice 22: also what i learned from other trustees um this issue of not being able to address the real

[5:03:41] Voice 22: substance of problems is a pervasive, long-standing frustration for Trust Council.

[5:03:48] Voice 22: The net result is that decisions that need to get made don't get made. I mean, there's not a nice

[5:03:55] Voice 22: way of saying this, but I mean, that's a description of an organization that's adrift. I mean, the

[5:04:01] Voice 22: strongest evidence of that is the fact that we keep carrying time again, and again, also today,

[5:04:05] Voice 22: how the work the Trust Council asks staff to perform exceeds their capacity.

[5:04:11] Voice 22: uh to do it we're basically asking them to carry a 10 gallon 10 gallons of water in a five gallon

[5:04:17] Voice 22: bucket and congratulating them on a great effort they're doing doesn't quite cut it i mean it

[5:04:24] Voice 22: doesn't make up for the fact that trust council not being able to make principled decisions

[5:04:31] Voice 22: and hard decisions has a net unintended effect of forcing staff to carry that burden of our own

[5:04:40] Voice 22: an ability to set clear priorities and i don't think i'm telling anybody anything they haven't

[5:04:46] Voice 22: already figured out or don't already know i mean that's why the last trust council set up this

[5:04:50] Voice 22: governance committee in the first place and um the frustrations that we've heard since we were

[5:04:57] Voice 22: sworn in um about the budget about planning about the difficulty in getting the trust

[5:05:05] Voice 22: policy statement done they're they all they're all aspects of this governance issue

[5:05:10] Voice 22: And that our mechanisms aren't quite up to the job and that we need to do something about it.

[5:05:16] Voice 22: And I want to be on the committee because I feel that that is actually our number one priority.

[5:05:21] Voice 22: And I feel quite a bit of urgency about that because I know from my own personal experience in past work environments that inadequate process pretty much guarantees you're going to get inadequate outcomes.

[5:05:36] Voice 22: comes. I can bring to the committee knowledge of administrative law, which I think that's not a

[5:05:43] Voice 22: complete answer to anything, but it is helpful to some extent when we're trying to outline the

[5:05:48] Voice 22: fundamentals of what we can and can't do as a governmental body. I've been in work environments

[5:05:55] Voice 22: before where I did quite a bit of work in adjusting and changing processes and took a

[5:06:02] Voice 22: litigation department at the British Columbia Securities Commission that was basically pretty

[5:06:08] Voice 22: lousy. It wasn't really performing and turned it into a pretty good outfit that went from being

[5:06:15] Voice 22: criticized by the commissioners to being praised. So there, I'm going to toot my own horn on that

[5:06:20] Voice 22: front, but I've got some. I'm not going to say it's necessarily entirely transferable to this

[5:06:28] Voice 22: environment yeah

[5:06:30] Voice 7: sorry to interrupt um just wanted about a minute or two and uh just wanted to wrap

[5:06:36] Voice 7: it up if you could please just wanted to keep it very short thank you

[5:06:42] Voice 22: all right well done

[5:06:47] Voice 22: because i'm just about done

[5:06:49] Voice 15: yeah

[5:06:49] Voice 22: so anyhow i was just trying to tell you that's what i can bring

[5:06:53] Voice 22: And, you know, I can also bring him in and so there you go that's my pitch.

[5:07:00] Voice 7: Thank you.

[5:07:01] Voice 7: Thank you. And trustee Morrison that one or two minutes on why you'd like to be on the governance committee. Thank you.

[5:07:10] Voice 24: And just a quick correction I didn't email director Marla, it was trustee Middleton, who emailed in conversation with a number of people over the last few weeks, I've been asked multiple times.

[5:07:24] Voice 24: to run for the governance committee. But I was unsure. And I really wanted to hear the voices

[5:07:31] Voice 24: of those on who are running for the governance committee before I thought about that.

[5:07:35] Voice 24: And partly that is to do with my, I have an ongoing commitment to change in this organization.

[5:07:42] Voice 24: But I don't always see the commitment of this organization to ongoing change. And so I have

[5:07:49] Voice 24: to think carefully about where I put my time and effort. And I'm happy to be the voice on the side

[5:07:54] Voice 24: you know um counseling sharing stirring up the community to to get them to act as needed

[5:08:01] Voice 24: but i was really impressed with the the voices that i hear on this committee and i think i could

[5:08:08] Voice 24: add some historical perspective to the work i've been involved all the way along um not in the last

[5:08:13] Voice 24: voted governance committee but in the select committee that led to it um with the consultants

[5:08:17] Voice 24: And I really do think that a diversity of people on this space is important, and that the diversity, so as I encourage us as we vote, I'm not very good at self-promoting, but I encourage us as we vote for others, that we think about really having a diversity of voices across the council,

[5:08:39] Voice 24: council so that we actually come up with really sound decisions in the governance committee

[5:08:44] Voice 24: that can then be brought forward and not be just thrown to the side because it's a contingent.

[5:08:49] Voice 24: I really want this committee to reflect council. So thank you very much for even putting everyone's

[5:08:56] Voice 24: voices forward for this. Thank you.

[5:08:58] Voice 7: Okay, thank you. So on the screen is everybody's indicated

[5:09:01] Voice 7: interest. I'm going to ask for nominations. So we can move who you'd like to nominate needs to be seconded and I'll ask the nominee to accept it. And you can nominate any trustee, it doesn't have to be the person that's on screen here. Okay, so go ahead and I'm going to start with

[5:09:24] Voice 7: Trustee Morrison.

[5:09:26] Voice 24: I nominate Jill Bernardo for the committee.

[5:09:31] Voice 24: that's all you need right yeah

[5:09:33] Voice 7: second there and trustee bernardo you accept that yes

[5:09:44] Voice 22: i do thank

[5:09:44] Voice 22: you um

[5:09:47] Voice 7: trustee peterson i

[5:09:53] Voice 21: nominate uh trustee stamford okay i

[5:09:58] Voice 21: need a second

[5:09:58] Voice 7: there just yell

[5:09:59] Voice 7: out please. Second. Okay, Trustee Yates seconded. Trustee Stamford, do you accept that?

[5:10:06] Voice 28: Yes, I do.

[5:10:09] Voice 7: Next on the list is Trustee Falk.

[5:10:14] Voice 34: Yes, I nominate Christina Evans.

[5:10:19] Voice 34: I need

[5:10:20] Voice 7: a seconder for that please. Okay, just yell out please.

[5:10:25] Voice 7: Please give everybody's hands up.

[5:10:26] Voice 12: I second that.

[5:10:27] Voice 12: I second that, Elliot.

[5:10:28] Voice 7: Okay, thank you.

[5:10:29] Voice 12: That

[5:10:29] Voice 7: was very trusty and fast.

[5:10:30] Voice 7: Thank you.

[5:10:31] Voice 34: Can

[5:10:31] Voice 7: I do a second one?

[5:10:34] Voice 7: Just going in odd, there's lots of hands up.

[5:10:37] Voice 34: Okay.

[5:10:38] Voice 7: Okay, one at a time.

[5:10:39] Voice 7: And Trustee Evans, you do stand for that?

[5:10:42] Voice 4: Yes, thank you.

[5:10:43] Voice 7: Okay, thank you.

[5:10:45] Voice 7: Next on the list is Trustee Boland.

[5:10:50] Voice 5: Hello, I'd like to nominate Jamie Harris.

[5:10:53] Voice 7: Okay, thank you.

[5:10:54] Voice 7: You're the second.

[5:10:54] Voice 7: Just yell out, please.

[5:10:55] Voice 27: by Janine Dodds

[5:10:57] Voice 7: thank you and Trustee Harris do you stand accept that yes thank you okay thank

[5:11:07] Voice 8: you

[5:11:07] Voice 7: and then next on the list is um Trustee Maybelline yeah

[5:11:12] Voice 8: nominee Devin Morrison okay

[5:11:15] Voice 7: and I need a second there please second right who is that sorry uh Joe Bernardo thank you

[5:11:23] Voice 7: and trustee Morrison do you accept that nomination yes

[5:11:30] Voice 24: thank you all

[5:11:30] Voice 7: right thank you and next

[5:11:33] Voice 7: trustee is trustee fast thanks

[5:11:37] Voice 9: I'd like to nominate trustee Judy Getty

[5:11:39] Voice 7: trustee Getty

[5:11:40] Voice 7: and any second please trustee Yates thank you and trustee Getty do you accept that nomination

[5:11:48] Voice 7: Yes, thanks.

[5:11:50] Voice 7: Okay, thank you.

[5:11:51] Voice 7: Trustee Evans is next.

[5:11:55] Voice 4: I'd like to nominate Lee Middleton.

[5:11:58] Voice 7: Okay, thank you.

[5:11:59] Voice 7: We need a seconder for Trustee Middleton.

[5:12:02] Voice 7: I second, Ben Maberly.

[5:12:03] Voice 7: Ben Maberly, thank you.

[5:12:05] Voice 7: And Trustee Middleton, do you accept the nomination?

[5:12:07] Voice 1: Yes, thank you.

[5:12:09] Voice 7: Okay, thank you.

[5:12:11] Voice 7: Trustee Elliott.

[5:12:13] Voice 31: I nominate Trustee Patrick.

[5:12:16] Voice 7: Okay, and we need a seconder for Trustee Patrick.

[5:12:22] Voice 7: And Trustee Patrick, do you accept the nomination?

[5:12:25] Trustee Patrick: Yes, I do. Thank you.

[5:12:27] Voice 7: Thank you.

[5:12:29] Voice 7: Trustee Campbell?

[5:12:36] Voice 7: Trustee Campbell there?

[5:12:38] Voice 7: Trustee Campbell, do you hear me?

[5:12:41] Voice 26: Yeah, sorry.

[5:12:42] Voice 26: Couldn't get my mute off.

[5:12:44] Voice 26: I'd like to nominate Dag Falk.

[5:12:46] Voice 7: Okay.

[5:12:47] Voice 7: Trustee Falk.

[5:12:49] Voice 7: And could I have a seconder for Trustee Falk?

[5:12:52] Voice 7: Seconder.

[5:12:53] Voice 34: Yeah.

[5:12:55] Voice 7: Yeah, okay. And Trustee Falk, do you accept the nomination?

[5:12:59] Voice 34: Yes, thank you.

[5:13:00] Voice 7: Thank you. And Trustee Allen?

[5:13:05] Voice 13: I nominate Tim Peterson.

[5:13:08] Voice 7: Okay, and I need a seconder for Trustee Peterson.

[5:13:12] Voice 5: I'll second that.

[5:13:14] Voice 7: Thank you. And Trustee Peterson, do you accept the nomination?

[5:13:20] Voice 7: Thank you, yes.

[5:13:21] Voice 7: Thank you. And Trustee Falk, do you have a second nomination?

[5:13:27] Voice 34: Yes, Aaron Campbell.

[5:13:30] Voice 7: Aaron Campbell.

[5:13:31] Voice 7: I'll second that.

[5:13:35] Voice 7: Trustee Campbell, do you accept that nomination?

[5:13:37] Voice 7: Did you catch the second one?

[5:13:39] Voice 12: Yes.

[5:13:43] Voice 7: Trustee Allen, your hand is still up.

[5:13:44] Voice 7: Did you have a second one?

[5:13:50] Voice 7: So I'm not hearing any more nominations, so I'm just going to ask a second time, are there

[5:13:54] Voice 7: any further nominations for the Governance Committee?

[5:13:59] Voice 7: Asking third and final time for nominations for the Governance Committee.

[5:14:04] Voice 7: Okay.

[5:14:05] Voice 7: Okay, so as you see on the screen,

[5:14:06] Voice 7: we have 11 interested trustees.

[5:14:09] Voice 7: There's seven positions, so there will be an election.

[5:14:12] Voice 7: So over the break, I will send that out to you by email.

[5:14:15] Voice 7: I will ask you right now before I forget,

[5:14:18] Voice 7: if by resolution, you can appoint a scrutiny here,

[5:14:22] Voice 7: who is not a candidate.

[5:14:28] Voice 12: I

[5:14:28] Trustee Luckham: move David Mott.

[5:14:30] Voice 24: I second.

[5:14:31] Voice 12: Okay,

[5:14:32] Voice 7: I just vote on that.

[5:14:34] Voice 7: Okay, everybody in favor?

[5:14:37] Voice 7: And is any opposed?

[5:14:47] Voice 7: trustee mod uh after um after the break and um after the um after the election has been done

[5:14:56] Voice 7: i will ask you to step out of the zoom meeting and i'll invite you to another zoom meeting okay

[5:15:03] Voice 7: okay thank you okay let's

[5:15:06] Trustee Luckham: go to our break

[5:15:06] Trustee Luckham: We return at 3.25.

[5:30:06] Voice 12: okay welcome

[5:30:09] Trustee Luckham: back council um 325 um david is advising me that though there's some been some

[5:30:17] Trustee Luckham: technical difficulties with getting that survey out to you um it is uh outbound apparently now

[5:30:24] Trustee Luckham: and um so you will receive it in your mailboxes and so when that becomes apparent that everybody's

[5:30:30] Trustee Luckham: received it if you know of course i would never recommend that you monitor your email while we're

[5:30:36] Trustee Luckham: in a business meeting but if you can keep an eye out for that and and we'll maybe flag it when we

[5:30:41] Trustee Luckham: know for sure it's out there and then david can uh do the uh do the counting and stuff with david

[5:30:47] Trustee Luckham: maude so in the meantime let's continue on with our business cases i do believe we've finished up

[5:30:53] Trustee Luckham: on the last one and now ceo hobson back to you for the list i believe there's a question on the

[5:31:00] Trustee Luckham: policy statement

[5:31:01] Voice 16: that's correct um and that's my i think i've got two more after that and i think

[5:31:06] Voice 16: the nature of the question was given the reduction in budget right um is there an associated reframing

[5:31:15] Voice 16: of the deliverables like will we be able to bring this home with the dollars allocated but i think

[5:31:21] Voice 16: that was guess i did i forgot who um made the policy statement question so

[5:31:26] Voice 34: yeah that was me

[5:31:27] Voice 34: russ thanks well

[5:31:29] Voice 16: trustee director and we directed freighter if that's okay thank you thank you on

[5:31:35] Voice 3: On page 108 of your agenda, you've got the business case for the policy statement project.

[5:31:41] Voice 3: And on there, you'll see in bright blue font, we've noted the FPC recommendation to council

[5:31:47] Voice 3: was that the cost for the project be capped at $50,000 and that options be provided to

[5:31:53] Voice 3: trust council about adjusting the scope of work in due course.

[5:31:57] Voice 3: So it would be our expectation, as you heard yesterday, that if you choose to cap the amount

[5:32:01] Voice 3: at this amount we will bring back a project charter to executive committee and trust program

[5:32:05] Voice 3: committee with some options in there around the scope and type of activities that could happen

[5:32:10] Voice 3: for the project and that you would receive you know sort of final recommendations in march

[5:32:15] Voice 3: budget around the scope of activities for the project that fit within the budget that fpc has

[5:32:21] Voice 3: recommended you'll see below that blue paragraph there you'll see there's a series of activities

[5:32:26] Voice 3: that have been proposed um to undertake and that those would likely be the ones that would be

[5:32:30] Voice 3: discussed as to their relative priority and weight within the allocated amount okay

[5:32:37] Trustee Luckham: thank you uh deb

[5:32:38] Trustee Luckham: morrison further question yes

[5:32:41] Voice 24: just related to that i realized last night after we finished that we

[5:32:45] Voice 24: we had looked at the list um that had been presented by delaney of all of the um prior

[5:32:52] Voice 24: council's recommendations on changes but we hadn't really affirmed those changes and i and just i in

[5:32:59] Voice 24: terms of how they relate to the budget case or to the next steps because i know

[5:33:03] Voice 24: delaney had said that work on the revisions would start next week i was just wondering if that was

[5:33:07] Voice 24: something that had to be done to make sure that work isn't done that's not applicable to you know

[5:33:13] Voice 24: goes back and forth or anything like that dr

[5:33:16] Trustee Luckham: fader so

[5:33:17] Voice 3: no we're proceeding with all you know

[5:33:20] Voice 3: all recommendations proposed including the development of the draft communication strategy

[5:33:24] Voice 3: that you would then be contemplating along with the project charter so at this time unless you

[5:33:29] Voice 3: you wish to change course there's no new direction needed this would simply be about the scope of

[5:33:34] Voice 3: activity to consider in the next fiscal year which would be things that I'll just run you through it

[5:33:38] Voice 3: here so it would be bringing in some additional communications help because we don't have the

[5:33:42] Voice 3: internal capacity to you know manage all the issues management and respond to all the inquiries

[5:33:47] Voice 3: and frame up frequently asked question documents and so on that usually arise in relation to this

[5:33:52] Voice 3: project we've proposed capacity funding for nations we've proposed a modest amount for public

[5:33:57] Voice 3: engagement and this was at the request of executive committee to have a staff person at

[5:34:02] Voice 3: each local trust committee or bone island municipality meeting to speak to the project

[5:34:07] Voice 3: when a briefing about it arrives this would include some advertising costs to advise that

[5:34:13] Voice 3: this thing is more internal engagement is going on we've proposed legal services so this would

[5:34:18] Voice 3: be for a legal review of a draft once you've settled on one at the request of trust programs

[5:34:24] Voice 3: committee this um about 5 000 in the budget for plain language services so to have an expert in

[5:34:29] Voice 3: plain language help edit the document once it's been drafted um and then we proposed 5 000 for

[5:34:34] Voice 3: graphic design when we spoke with financial planning committee we suggested that the plain

[5:34:39] Voice 3: language and graphic design could drop off and that certainly we could reduce the amount for

[5:34:44] Voice 3: communications but really did

[5:34:45] Voice 3: recommend retaining you know some capacity there because the one

[5:34:49] Voice 3: one position we have in house which is frequently vacant um does not have the typical capacity to

[5:34:55] Voice 3: support or maybe

[5:34:59] Voice 24: just a quick follow-up chair um so and i think this is more of a comment to other

[5:35:05] Voice 24: to fellow trustees so i'm fine with that because i was on the prior council and i voted for those

[5:35:10] Voice 24: changes but anybody else just to understand that that list of changes is going forward um and if

[5:35:18] Voice 24: there's any debate about that it's something people should name thank you claire okay thank

[5:35:28] Voice 18: you so dag falk yeah

[5:35:31] Voice 34: thank you um yeah that was exactly my question that i wanted to get more

[5:35:36] Voice 34: information on i wasn't quite clear um so so the the draft the most recent uh draft we are

[5:35:47] Voice 34: proceeding with with tweaking that is it that's kind of what it sounds like like editing and so on

[5:35:52] Voice 34: is that is that kind of where this picks up because as a new trustee I've heard you know

[5:36:00] Voice 34: a number of concerns and comments from from island residents and I thought maybe that we

[5:36:06] Voice 34: would start with going through that but just wondering what the process is so

[5:36:12] Voice 3: certainly I

[5:36:13] Voice 3: think due to the lack of time yesterday we didn't walk you through all 32 recommendations that were

[5:36:18] Voice 3: attached to the session outline so as it's proposed right now I would suggest it's more

[5:36:22] Voice 3: than tweaking it's really a wholesale rewrite um of the document and i think you can expect it to

[5:36:28] Voice 3: be substantially shorter um because quite a lot is coming out um but if there was you know you

[5:36:35] Voice 3: would have to look at your agenda in this meeting to see if if you wanted to get into the nuts and

[5:36:38] Voice 3: bolts of that you'd have to find time in this meeting otherwise we are proceeding as directed

[5:36:43] Voice 3: but i want to assure you this project is in your hands you have all the time that you want to take

[5:36:47] Voice 3: to work with that draft um it can circulate through the various committees that you desire

[5:36:51] Voice 3: it to circulate through there is no rush this is for you to make your own and find some collective

[5:36:58] Voice 3: agreement on so as we mentioned yesterday we're intending to bring a draft for discussion in may

[5:37:06] Voice 3: june to committees and to council but it's for you to determine at that stage whether it comes

[5:37:12] Voice 3: close to meeting your expectations and what changes or new trajectory you want then thank you

[5:37:19] Trustee Luckham: and so i would suggest that there isn't a lot or no capacity remaining in the rest of our agenda

[5:37:25] Trustee Luckham: And I do believe that Delaunay offered the opportunity to have one-on-one conversations with everybody, so please avail yourself of that.

[5:37:32] Trustee Luckham: I see Mairead Boland.

[5:37:35] Voice 5: Just a quick one. So when is the Trust Programs Committee going to meet?

[5:37:40] Voice 5: Because surely they're the people who should quickly be on board with those changes as they're happening. Thank you.

[5:37:48] Voice 5: uh

[5:37:50] Voice 3: thank you i'm we're looking at final dates now we've just been waiting for final local trust

[5:37:55] Voice 3: committee dates to be secured i'm proposing potentially february 6th for those of you who

[5:38:00] Voice 3: are on the committee um but we're just working out the final details of whether that's workable

[5:38:04] Voice 3: um as it also feeds financial planning committee so early late january early february stay tuned

[5:38:10] Voice 3: for a date to come out imminently thank

[5:38:13] Trustee Luckham: you any further questions on the policy statement

[5:38:16] Trustee Luckham: note all right ceo hudson builder what's your next one i've

[5:38:21] Voice 16: got local trust committee projects

[5:38:24] Voice 16: and i'm assuming those are the projects um and i'd ask uh stefan to join us online um

[5:38:33] Voice 16: if there's a way to get him up on the screen that would be good he is here with us

[5:38:37] Voice 16: thank you sir and i believe that's starting on page 127 and um there's one two three four five

[5:38:47] Voice 16: five, six, seven business case summaries

[5:38:53] Voice 16: to financial planning committee.

[5:38:56] Voice 16: And I would turn to my colleague, Julia,

[5:39:01] Voice 16: to say that these summaries, as I understand it,

[5:39:04] Voice 16: was for the full financial amount.

[5:39:06] Voice 16: In fact, Julia suggested this discussion needs to happen.

[5:39:11] Voice 16: So on page 127, the numbers you see here

[5:39:15] Voice 16: or add up to the full original request of business cases and that has been limited through discussion

[5:39:25] Voice 16: at fpc to 250 000 so there will be some reconcile reconciling those numbers and i think that this is

[5:39:33] Voice 16: the time for um you might recommend fpc any of a number of courses of action let's go back to

[5:39:42] Voice 16: the original number um because the all of these projects are equally important or uh let's ensure

[5:39:50] Voice 16: that um these two or three that were vested in um need to carry on these could potentially um

[5:39:57] Voice 16: be uh held over to start next year perhaps so it's uh i think it's time for those questions and is

[5:40:04] Voice 16: that how you understand things julian uh

[5:40:11] Voice 29: yeah that's a good summary so um let me just go back

[5:40:14] Voice 29: to the agenda here so page 103 actually has a summarized list of local trust committee

[5:40:20] Voice 29: project um and we are seeking a reduction of 172 500 to achieve fpc's recommended amounts

[5:40:29] Voice 29: all

[5:40:31] Trustee Luckham: right awesome thank you julia that's very helpful now i've got three speakers on my list

[5:40:36] Trustee Luckham: here so let's uh let's begin this conversation sam worthwick over to you hi

[5:40:43] Voice 25: yeah i there's a

[5:40:45] Voice 25: uh uh we haven't had an opportunity to have our first local trust council meeting yet and so

[5:40:50] Voice 25: there's there's a lot of discussion that i still want to have with staff about uh with regards to

[5:40:56] Voice 25: the first one on the thing which is the denman housing review um but i can tell you that there's

[5:41:02] Voice 25: a lot of uh contentious feeling about the way that that review has been executed so far on denman

[5:41:09] Voice 25: uh there's a lot of there's a um yeah it's been it's been very contentious so i i i wanted i need

[5:41:18] Voice 25: to talk more with staff about the specifics and i we are waiting on a new northern planning uh

[5:41:25] Voice 25: coordinator i believe still but um there's definitely a lot of concern there and that's

[5:41:30] Voice 25: potentially an object that needs to be drastically revised as to how much there's this concern that

[5:41:37] Voice 25: that there's been a lot of spending on consultation

[5:41:39] Voice 25: and that actually very little has been done

[5:41:44] Voice 25: and there's been several rounds of consultation

[5:41:46] Voice 25: and no action.

[5:41:47] Voice 25: So there's a frustration here on Denman

[5:41:49] Voice 25: that a lot of money is getting spent to get opinions

[5:41:52] Voice 25: that are, or feedback that is otherwise attainable

[5:41:57] Voice 25: other than outsourcing to another round of consulting.

[5:42:02] Voice 25: Again, I need to talk to staff about that

[5:42:04] Voice 25: and find out more about that,

[5:42:05] Voice 25: but i suspect that that's a place in which there could be some review okay

[5:42:14] Trustee Luckham: um i think what we're

[5:42:16] Trustee Luckham: wanting to understand is what projects should be included and not included but let's just keep

[5:42:21] Trustee Luckham: going here laura patrick i

[5:42:25] Trustee Patrick: know i um listened into the financial planning committee back there

[5:42:28] Trustee Patrick: and uh that was november a couple of fridays ago and that was a really painful meeting to listen

[5:42:33] Trustee Patrick: to and those of you that were in the room making those decisions wow i don't know how you did it

[5:42:39] Trustee Patrick: and how you held yourselves together for that it was hard to listen to um this is an impossible task

[5:42:50] Trustee Patrick: we none of us have met yet um you know we have in front of us uh you know business cases that

[5:42:57] Trustee Patrick: were brought to the previous local trust committees by staff and are we going to want to commit to

[5:43:04] Trustee Patrick: what's in them at this point don't know you know the salt spring one has a lot of things all it was

[5:43:09] Trustee Patrick: a bundled uh package including the wildfire hazard development permit area work that's uh

[5:43:14] Trustee Patrick: other local trust committees last term we're quite excited to see coming um i think what

[5:43:22] Trustee Patrick: you know we're we're really talking about long range planning and for an organization of this

[5:43:28] Trustee Patrick: size with its geographic complexity um what is the a right amount of money to be spending on

[5:43:36] Trustee Patrick: long-range planning. I think that's the only level of detail we can get to today. The individual

[5:43:45] Trustee Patrick: decisions are going to take a lot of work to figure out what priority and how to spend that

[5:43:50] Trustee Patrick: money and how to make it most efficient and beneficial to all the local trust committees.

[5:43:56] Trustee Patrick: Annex 1 of the governance report is full of recommendations on how to make our planning

[5:44:01] Trustee Patrick: more efficient. And a lot of that work is going to end up in the regional planning committee.

[5:44:04] Trustee Patrick: it's going to take a lot of effort to figure out how to do this and prioritize this work

[5:44:08] Trustee Patrick: so i think it's a really unfair question today to say okay guys let's battle and say denman you get

[5:44:13] Trustee Patrick: yours and uh you know south pender you don't or you know it's it's it's a very strange process

[5:44:20] Trustee Patrick: that we're in today i think what's the total amount is the total amount of 250 000 a reasonable

[5:44:27] Trustee Patrick: amount i can still tell that's not a lot of money but uh what is that reasonable amount i think

[5:44:33] Trustee Patrick: that's where we should stick.

[5:44:35] Trustee Luckham: Can I just interrupt? Okay, thank

[5:44:39] Trustee Luckham: you, Laura. David Mahler

[5:44:40] Trustee Luckham: has something to share.

[5:44:43] Voice 7: Yeah, so the email has come out from me. There's a web link for you to

[5:44:48] Voice 7: go to the ballot. If you can take a few minutes to do that now, if that's okay. And then once you're

[5:44:54] Voice 7: done, I'll ask David Mahler to join me in a separate Zoom meeting. We'll tell you the results.

[5:45:00] Voice 7: okay

[5:45:04] Trustee Luckham: thank you david so yeah the uh the voting card is in your inbox so if you can manage that

[5:45:10] Trustee Luckham: and we'll continue the conversation here uh toby elliott my next speaker thank

[5:45:18] Voice 31: you chair um talk

[5:45:19] Voice 31: about um multitasking um yeah this was a really hard conversation uh thankfully gabriela did

[5:45:28] Voice 31: actually have our first ltc meeting and we talked about strategic planning there

[5:45:32] Voice 31: And in particular, we talked about the wisdom of maybe not launching into an OCP review without, I'm going to borrow Trustee Patrick's phrase, without spending the time to linger in the development and the planning and the design of it.

[5:45:51] Voice 31: and so i think the conclusion that we came to and we don't have the minutes yet but um if trustee

[5:45:59] Voice 31: yates will back me up on this was to approach uh synonymic first nation first of all and the other

[5:46:07] Voice 31: nations in the area and ask if they have interest in um being involved in this process with us

[5:46:14] Voice 31: um and if so what sort of design elements would they like to see what what would engagement look

[5:46:20] Voice 31: look like good engagement from their perspective, and then do a broader community process with a few

[5:46:27] Voice 31: big community meetings, more like information sessions, and what is the OCP about, where does

[5:46:35] Voice 31: it come from, what are other good examples of the OCP, and then we could probably fit most of this

[5:46:40] Voice 31: within our local trust committee budget. I would probably request at least $10,000

[5:46:49] Voice 31: just in sort of reconciliation and capacity funding

[5:46:54] Voice 31: just to engage with the nation.

[5:46:57] Voice 31: So I hope I can feel confident in saying

[5:47:02] Voice 31: we're not going to push for this full $60,000 request this year.

[5:47:06] Voice 31: We want to do the preparation work for it.

[5:47:10] Voice 31: And so the request can be whatever is negotiated,

[5:47:15] Voice 31: but I'd like to discuss that with the Regional Planning Committee.

[5:47:18] Voice 31: As Trustee Patrick said, we need to figure out how to prioritize these projects.

[5:47:24] Voice 31: But that's where Gabriel is at.

[5:47:26] Voice 35: You can make one quick comment if it's helpful.

[5:47:30] Trustee Luckham: Sure. In support of Trustee Elliott's remarks,

[5:47:36] Trustee Luckham: Trustee Yates would like to make a quick comment.

[5:47:40] Trustee Luckham: Yes,

[5:47:41] Voice 35: certainly. The $60,000 would not ever cover a comprehensive review in the first place.

[5:47:49] Voice 35: So we talked about that quite a bit. And I do support Trustee Elliott's idea.

[5:47:57] Voice 35: It's different, but we're going to see if it works.

[5:47:59] Trustee Luckham: And we'll go from there.

[5:48:02] Trustee Luckham: Thank you, Susan. CEO, do you want to provide a remark here?

[5:48:05] Trustee Luckham: um maybe a way to

[5:48:07] Voice 16: do this uh even though we're collectively lamenting how terrible it is to be

[5:48:12] Voice 16: in the position of having to make this decision we are nevertheless in that position so um it might

[5:48:19] Voice 16: be another way to frame this is um trustees who are in support because all of these have some

[5:48:27] Voice 16: some value um and in a future time there will be a process next time you're budgeting or whatever

[5:48:36] Voice 16: and believe me we tried to work on this over the last number of years a process whereby there's

[5:48:43] Voice 16: a staff recommendation the gambia ocp is really out of date it needs to be prioritized and then

[5:48:48] Voice 16: you discuss it and regional planning committee would come forward with their recommendation

[5:48:53] Voice 16: for the top three to get it done because we have to get on this rotating we have to start getting

[5:48:58] Voice 16: on this process of updating these ocps and every time we don't do it we're another year behind

[5:49:04] um so one you

[5:49:07] Voice 16: know three hundred thousand dollars i think is about three percent of your budget for

[5:49:11] Voice 16: for long-range planning i don't think that's outrageous for an organization that's whose

[5:49:16] Voice 16: main product is community building and considerations out to the future the other

[5:49:22] Voice 16: thing I'd suggest is feel confident in our budgeting process and our correlation with

[5:49:28] Voice 16: spending I think that we had a three hundred thousand dollar difference in our spending from

[5:49:34] Voice 16: our budget last year well on nine million dollars that's that's a really great ratio to get that

[5:49:41] you know think of it in your household it's very challenging to get that close within one or two

[5:49:45] percent um so that so there is some um some rigor to this process but for right now to help are

[5:49:54] Voice 16: there any trustees who want to submit that this their project or a project here needs to go forward

[5:50:01] Voice 16: and be budgeted this year and if the unanimity on that then that that maybe would go forward to fpc

[5:50:08] Voice 16: for further discussions and then if there isn't a requirement this year for the project to go

[5:50:14] Voice 16: forward then maybe it would go into the hopper for discussions in the future and maybe that

[5:50:19] Voice 16: would just be a natural way to lessen this list or get to the number so after that is that instead

[5:50:28] Voice 16: of going through each one and debating it maybe a trustee would go you know this is super important

[5:50:32] Voice 16: we're part way through this we need to address this this year otherwise you delay these projects

[5:50:38] Voice 16: if you're feeling budget pressure.

[5:50:44] Voice 12: I got too many things going on.

[5:50:46] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, okay.

[5:50:47] Trustee Luckham: Thank you.

[5:50:50] Trustee Luckham: You've got those four.

[5:50:51] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, I've got these four other speakers here.

[5:50:54] Trustee Luckham: And I missed some of what you said

[5:50:58] Trustee Luckham: because I was being distracted.

[5:50:59] Trustee Luckham: But nonetheless, if there's a voluntary interest

[5:51:05] Trustee Luckham: by any individual local trust committee,

[5:51:07] Trustee Luckham: and I'll just use Trustee Elliot as an example

[5:51:10] Trustee Luckham: to reduce the request by a certain amount,

[5:51:12] Trustee Luckham: I think that that would also be appropriate that

[5:51:14] Voice 16: would be appropriate but to hear ones that are

[5:51:17] Voice 16: really a priority because ultimately anytime we do this that those words will need to be spoken

[5:51:22] Voice 16: because you're going to need to convince others that this is the time to address a project

[5:51:28] Voice 16: brilliant thank you so

[5:51:30] Trustee Luckham: let's go uh alan uh boland stamford harris patrick graham there's more let's

[5:51:37] Trustee Luckham: start out with Alan Boland, Stanford.

[5:51:41] Voice 13: Thank you, Chair. I'm confused because we've already

[5:51:45] Voice 13: done half of this. Well, I've got a few points. We've already had one consultation online, and

[5:51:55] Voice 13: I'm feeling very awkward because a lot of community did not like it at all the way it went.

[5:52:00] Voice 13: In fact, Grant and I are not very happy with the way it was presented, and also it was a week

[5:52:07] Voice 13: before elections and it was just sort of it was just the timing etc etc so I'm feeling a very

[5:52:12] Voice 13: awkward position here regarding well we've already spent part of it I guess and I'd like to know how

[5:52:18] Voice 13: much it is left over and also we kind of want to revisit and look at how the process maybe do it

[5:52:27] Voice 13: differently and we haven't got that chance and also I have an appointment to talk to a planner

[5:52:33] Voice 13: about this the last this particular first consultation meeting we did have and that's

[5:52:40] Voice 13: on Friday afternoon so yes I'm in an awkward position because I could say yeah go ahead

[5:52:44] Voice 13: take the rest of our money because we want to do it differently but that's not exactly the way

[5:52:49] Voice 13: it's supposed to be and yeah so I need some help here because it's an awkward scenario and

[5:52:56] Voice 13: yeah thank you.

[5:52:57] Trustee Luckham: Okay thank you Trustee Allen. Trustee Boland?

[5:53:02] Voice 5: I just want to quickly

[5:53:03] Voice 5: draw attention to the fact that the business case for this includes approximately 3 000 hours of

[5:53:09] Voice 5: regional um planning team as well and the initial discussion um around this cap i thought was pretty

[5:53:18] Voice 5: good in that it said take the money to the regional planning team regional planning committee

[5:53:22] Voice 5: and that they would have a conversation about how to uh dispense at the hours and the money

[5:53:30] Voice 5: and I just wanted to put that on the table because I think maybe people are not aware

[5:53:37] Voice 5: because this is the first time that staff hours have been put on the business case

[5:53:41] Voice 5: and in that business case it actually discussed the fact that they didn't have enough staff hours

[5:53:49] Voice 5: to deal with all of those projects not specifically these but all the projects that would come to their

[5:53:55] Voice 5: table and and the last thing is there was a discussion and i don't know where that goes

[5:54:01] Voice 5: uh about the fact that there would be an option to go to an individual community and ask them to fund

[5:54:09] Voice 5: directly um a project of this nature thank you thank

[5:54:16] Trustee Luckham: you uh kate ms stanford thank you chair

[5:54:22] Voice 36: I would just like to speak for the Gambier OCP project.

[5:54:28] Voice 36: We also had a difficult term with this particular project,

[5:54:34] Voice 36: but recently have had a breakthrough specifically around a clear connection

[5:54:41] Voice 36: with Squamish Nation around many of the possible issues we spoke to earlier

[5:54:47] Voice 36: earlier today with the legal First Nations presentation.

[5:54:52] Voice 36: So I'm actually quite excited.

[5:54:54] Voice 36: I would like to caution people though,

[5:54:56] Voice 36: when we're looking at these OCP projects,

[5:55:00] Voice 36: Gambier Keats last term or last year

[5:55:04] Voice 36: really minimize the amount of money for OCP.

[5:55:08] Voice 36: We really tried to target, we kept it small

[5:55:12] Voice 36: in order to be fiscally responsible.

[5:55:14] Voice 36: I think it's really turned and bitten us because the lack of appropriate funds, we're getting what we paid for.

[5:55:23] Voice 36: And I too am having difficulties with the direction it's going, similar to, I suspect, Denman Local Trust Committee and R&B Local Trust Committee.

[5:55:34] Voice 36: We're all having similar issues. Thank you.

[5:55:38] Trustee Luckham: Thank you. So on my speakers list I have now Harris, Patrick and Graham.

[5:55:42] Trustee Luckham: So Jamie Harris, over to you.

[5:55:50] Voice 11: Okay, so I'm having some major difficulty

[5:55:52] Voice 11: opening this SurveyMonkey thing up.

[5:55:56] Voice 11: I open it up and nothing happens

[5:55:59] Voice 11: when I click on a box of a name here.

[5:56:02] Voice 11: So I don't know if I can get it re-sent or,

[5:56:04] Voice 11: I did email David Marbler, but I haven't had a reply yet.

[5:56:08] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, so we'll let him manage it.

[5:56:13] Trustee Luckham: Maybe you can just do that.

[5:56:14] Trustee Luckham: Well, it's all obviously difficult.

[5:56:16] Voice 7: I'll do

[5:56:16] Voice 7: it right now.

[5:56:16] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, you deal with it.

[5:56:17] Trustee Luckham: um so patrick on the project list yeah

[5:56:24] Voice 12: um i

[5:56:27] Trustee Patrick: mean if you're looking for something

[5:56:29] Trustee Patrick: um i mean when when the local trust equity for salt spring was brought the um these business

[5:56:37] Trustee Patrick: cases back in august uh for the ganges village plan uh we also passed a motion asking the

[5:56:45] Trustee Patrick: executive to revisit with the minister which i guess we have a new minister so the old minister

[5:56:49] Trustee Patrick: will uh has moved on so i guess revisit the new minister about uh getting the financial support

[5:56:56] Trustee Patrick: to do co-planning as requested by the first nations for ganges um ganges is also under a 14

[5:57:05] Trustee Patrick: year water moratorium no new connections so the entire 2008 current ocp which drives density to

[5:57:14] Trustee Patrick: the village is not working and density is going everywhere, but not in the village because it's

[5:57:22] Trustee Patrick: just scattered. So, I mean, we have a serious issue with an outdated OCP and a land use bylaw

[5:57:29] Trustee Patrick: from 1999 that was never updated to 2008 OCP. I don't know how much money we need to work on this.

[5:57:36] Trustee Patrick: We do have a lot of groundwork to do this year. And the work that needs to be done is about

[5:57:44] Trustee Patrick: you know, engaging the community into having these conversations.

[5:57:47] Trustee Patrick: I don't know what the right amount is.

[5:57:49] Trustee Patrick: My fellow trustee and I haven't even been engaged yet to have this conversation.

[5:57:55] Trustee Patrick: You know, so it is a very difficult conversation.

[5:57:58] Trustee Patrick: If you're going to look for something, I don't even I'm not really

[5:58:01] Trustee Patrick: I can't even speak for my fellow trustee to say, is Ganges

[5:58:04] Trustee Patrick: the village, the place that goes on hold till we get the province on board

[5:58:08] Trustee Patrick: to help us do co-planning?

[5:58:10] Trustee Patrick: And I don't know what the amount is

[5:58:12] Trustee Patrick: that it's reasonable for the OCP land use by law.

[5:58:15] Trustee Patrick: I just don't have a dollar value.

[5:58:17] Trustee Patrick: I don't know how to get it today.

[5:58:22] Voice 12: David Graham.

[5:58:24] Voice 17: Thank you, Chair.

[5:58:26] Voice 17: So contrary to the business case,

[5:58:28] Voice 17: I believe our OCP actually in the housing section is excellent.

[5:58:32] Voice 17: It's got all sorts of wonderful policies

[5:58:35] Voice 17: that direct us to provide all sorts of housing options.

[5:58:38] Voice 17: We don't need another housing project.

[5:58:40] Voice 17: I was shocked that the previous local trust committee funded that.

[5:58:44] Voice 17: I can't speak for the Denman Local Trust Committee, but I would say that is going to be, we're going to stop that project as soon as we can.

[5:58:52] Trustee Luckham: Okay, very good. Thank you.

[5:58:57] Trustee Luckham: CAO, we've had obviously input on this, and that information needs to go to Financial Planning Committee.

[5:59:04] Trustee Luckham: And unless there's some further direction from Council.

[5:59:08] Trustee Luckham: Well, there should be.

[5:59:09] Trustee Luckham: There should be, yes.

[5:59:11] Voice 16: so presumably then we have to address two issues by the end of today yes what value what values

[5:59:25] Voice 16: do you do you wish to undertake public consultation and at what values um notwithstanding the the

[5:59:34] Voice 16: information that's complete or not incomplete a process has been run where the various committees

[5:59:39] Voice 16: have had an opportunity to have this discussion we've been building this thing since august

[5:59:44] Voice 16: quite a few obviously some of the trustees are new to the you know they've just been

[5:59:48] Voice 16: elected and they're walking into making this decision um is there any do you want to have

[5:59:56] Voice 16: move forward the public consultation process on the current

[6:00:00] Voice 16: of levels as presented do you not want to undertake that process do you want to say if

[6:00:06] Voice 16: you can of course have fpc sit on this over the next two or three months to bring you back a

[6:00:12] Voice 16: refined budget and they could be asking or diving into some of the issues that are identified here

[6:00:18] Voice 16: but you're not going to be able to have both of those things fpc can work on the document but

[6:00:25] Voice 16: that they'll be moving the dial to some degree

[6:00:29] Voice 16: if you provide them that direction.

[6:00:33] Voice 16: Or you make some changes now

[6:00:35] Voice 16: and you ask for some public consultation to occur

[6:00:38] Voice 16: by the end of tomorrow, I would suspect.

[6:00:42] Voice 16: So really, those are the two options

[6:00:43] Voice 16: that this longstanding process has afforded us.

[6:00:48] Voice 16: And what has made it particularly challenging, of course,

[6:00:51] Voice 16: is the election cycle right in the middle of it.

[6:00:52] Trustee Luckham: we're working in a compressed time frame yeah so laura patrick i

[6:00:58] Trustee Patrick: really felt that the conversation

[6:01:00] Trustee Patrick: yesterday was moving toward either a severely pared down public engagement process and be

[6:01:09] Trustee Patrick: replaced by more work by this body not going away and asking the financial planning committee to

[6:01:14] Trustee Patrick: continue its impossible task um that a special meeting or something be called for this body to

[6:01:21] Trustee Patrick: to make those decisions.

[6:01:27] Voice 12: Okay, Joe Bernardo.

[6:01:32] Voice 12: Thanks.

[6:01:34] Voice 12: One of

[6:01:35] Voice 22: the questions I asked

[6:01:35] Voice 22: at the financial planning committee,

[6:01:40] Voice 22: by the way, I wanna thank the CAO for sharpening the issue

[6:01:43] Voice 22: to its essential point at this juncture,

[6:01:48] Voice 22: which is realistically, does it make sense

[6:01:52] Voice 22: to do public consultation now or doesn't it?

[6:01:54] Voice 22: And he's asking us to consider that question

[6:01:58] Voice 22: as we're flailing around trying to figure out

[6:01:59] Voice 22: how we can come up with a budget on the fly um anyhow one of the questions i asked at the

[6:02:05] Voice 22: at our first um financial you know planning committee meeting was this whole business of

[6:02:12] Voice 22: public consultation um has there ever been a material change to a budget as a result of that

[6:02:18] Voice 22: and the answer i received was no so you know some of the hard questions we have to ask ourselves

[6:02:28] Voice 22: skills, is how much of what we're doing here is performative. It's a nice show we're putting on

[6:02:35] Voice 22: because we want to look good and

[6:02:37] Voice 30: we want to

[6:02:37] Voice 22: meet a certain profile.

[6:02:39] Voice 30: Hang on.

[6:02:42] Voice 30: Well, I

[6:02:47] Voice 22: didn't really want to talk about my boyfriends now, but I guess we could.

[6:02:54] Voice 22: but um where was i right uh the hard question we have to ask ourselves is what is

[6:03:01] Voice 22: the operational functional value of the public consultation process and i'm not saying this

[6:03:09] Voice 22: because i want to squeeze the public out of it and say the public voice doesn't matter and that

[6:03:14] Voice 22: we should just go huddle by ourselves and decide these things our meetings are still open um there

[6:03:22] Voice 22: is room for people to contribute if they have if they're sufficiently engaged to participate in the

[6:03:28] Voice 22: you know the public um you know discussion portion of these of these meetings of ours

[6:03:35] Voice 22: but the reality is that we're not exactly in a crisis right now but we have a real problem with

[6:03:41] Voice 22: this budget and with the budgetary process and just because we've been following a public

[6:03:48] Voice 22: consultation process in the past that looks good but doesn't seem to actually deliver anything of

[6:03:57] Voice 22: operational value in terms of drafting the budget i think we should have you know change

[6:04:05] Voice 22: is never comfortable doing new things means actually doing new things and it may be that

[6:04:13] Voice 22: we're at the point where we need to put the public consultation component of this on the shelf just

[6:04:19] Voice 22: forget about it for now save whatever money we can at that side but that's not the main reason

[6:04:23] Voice 22: the main reason is because we don't have a budget and we're not going to get one in a day and a half

[6:04:29] Voice 22: that's left to us that is um that's got to a point that we've got sufficient consensus that this is

[6:04:36] Voice 22: something that we that we're all on the same page we want the public to weigh in on if we can't

[6:04:41] Voice 22: decide amongst ourselves yet if we haven't come up with our own priorities yet what are we doing

[6:04:48] Voice 22: going to the public giving them information that looks like those are our priorities but really

[6:04:55] Voice 22: they aren't so i i have real reservations not about public consultation in general but public

[6:05:02] Voice 22: consultation in this particular cycle and uh one of the things i think we're going to have to

[6:05:08] Voice 22: consider in the future is exactly what do we want to get out of the public consultation and are we

[6:05:12] Voice 22: getting it we're not going to decide that today but i think that's obviously one of the big

[6:05:18] Voice 22: questions we have to ask going forward. Anyway, that's my view about public consultation at this

[6:05:22] Voice 22: stage. Thanks.

[6:05:26] Trustee Luckham: Okay, thank you. And David Mott, you should be expecting an invite to David Marlowe's

[6:05:31] Trustee Luckham: thing. Okay. Any other speakers at this time, of which the question seems to be, are we going to go

[6:05:39] Trustee Luckham: to public consultation? Are we going to go directly to FPC and get that reworked and forego public

[6:05:47] Trustee Luckham: public consultation at this time,

[6:05:48] Trustee Luckham: which will undoubtedly have its own ramifications.

[6:05:52] Trustee Luckham: Let me just say that.

[6:05:53] Trustee Luckham: Susan Yates.

[6:05:54] Voice 35: Yes, I echo Trustee Bernardo's comments.

[6:06:00] Voice 35: I didn't think I would ever say,

[6:06:02] Voice 35: oh, don't take this to public consultation,

[6:06:04] Voice 35: but we are not ready to take this to public consultation.

[6:06:08] Voice 35: It needs a lot more work.

[6:06:11] Voice 35: And I ran on a platform of getting the Gabriola OCP done

[6:06:16] Voice 35: because it's 25 years old.

[6:06:18] Voice 35: However, $60,000 is not there

[6:06:22] Voice 35: to get a comprehensive review done.

[6:06:25] Voice 35: And I totally acknowledge that.

[6:06:28] Voice 35: So we are elected to be leaders

[6:06:32] Voice 35: and to do the right thing and to make good decisions.

[6:06:35] Voice 35: We have a really good financial planning committee.

[6:06:39] Voice 35: I think we need to skip the public consultation

[6:06:42] Voice 35: for this one round of budget for this time.

[6:06:49] Voice 12: um do you want a motion to this effect go

[6:06:53] Voice 16: ahead ceo i think this might help but i've been wrong

[6:06:59] Voice 16: before we could conduct um like other local governments are in exactly the same scenario

[6:07:09] Voice 16: or local entities where they're getting feedback and they get it back in a compressed time frame

[6:07:14] Voice 16: and they get it at the last meeting when they're passing their budget right so that's not unique

[6:07:19] Voice 16: no

[6:07:19] Voice 15: what's

[6:07:21] Voice 16: unique about us is we have scheduled that we get that public consultation feedback

[6:07:25] Voice 16: and then it's got to go back through all the committees to inform reporting that goes back

[6:07:31] Voice 16: to trust council so we do have the ability to have just put out the survey um once fpc's met

[6:07:40] Voice 16: and had some discussions so that's there's still an opportunity to have maybe a two-week window

[6:07:44] Voice 16: where you have some survey information that comes right back to trust council like many institutions

[6:07:49] Voice 16: do and we sort of skip the the fpc committee process if you do people know what i'm talking

[6:07:56] Voice 16: about yeah

[6:07:56] Voice 12: so

[6:07:57] Voice 16: there would be some public opportunity for directed public feedback

[6:08:02] but it would not be

[6:08:05] Voice 16: sandwiched into the decision-making process as it has

[6:08:08] Voice 16: as before, but you would still hold it

[6:08:11] Voice 16: before you would make that vote, all right?

[6:08:13] Voice 16: That's one.

[6:08:14] Voice 16: Two, and I say this with complete respect,

[6:08:17] Voice 16: even today, as 26 of you sit

[6:08:19] Voice 16: and try and work through these things,

[6:08:21] Voice 16: the conversation is not,

[6:08:22] Voice 16: no one's putting anything on the table

[6:08:24] Voice 16: and saying this is what really matters to me.

[6:08:28] Voice 16: Let's go do it.

[6:08:29] Voice 16: So I don't think all of you sitting,

[6:08:32] the next stage isn't all of Trust Council

[6:08:34] sitting and doing this again.

[6:08:35] Yeah. Probably FPC taking

[6:08:39] Voice 16: these things and distilling it and bringing back some issues, both some financial goals, perhaps, and listening to your comments about which projects have value.

[6:08:53] Voice 16: Because just to have another trust council meeting, it would be structured how? It's different than this.

[6:09:00] Voice 16: um you know so i think you have to send this to my recommendation is to send it to a committee

[6:09:06] Voice 16: for further work and then they bring it back to trust council um with some recommended

[6:09:10] Voice 16: recommendations to achieve some financial outcome that you that you wish

[6:09:14] Voice 16: deb morrison over you right

[6:09:22] Voice 24: lots to think about um so i i am not and i also can't believe i'm

[6:09:30] Voice 24: saying this but i i am not in favor this round of sending this out sending the budget out for

[6:09:39] Voice 24: public consultation for an additional reason that joe mentioned the other day but didn't mention

[6:09:43] Voice 24: today and that is that if we don't have a budget that we're behind yet and we send it out for

[6:09:50] Voice 24: public consultation we're going to instigate a riot um in terms of some of the and my island's

[6:09:57] Voice 24: one of them of islands that get very worked up about the budget and so if I can't get behind

[6:10:05] Voice 24: what's in the budget right now I would not want to be sending it out for public consultation so

[6:10:12] Voice 24: that's the kind of dilemma that I'm in so and I also think that we can post that we could do a

[6:10:18] Voice 24: different form of quote-unquote public consultation where we actually you know post the budget when we

[6:10:24] Voice 24: we get to that point where we have some version, even if it's 10 days before the trust council

[6:10:29] Voice 24: meeting. And we, you know, send that out through our various methods of communications as trustees

[6:10:38] Voice 24: and collect that thinking and use that thinking as trustees to inform the final voting and like

[6:10:45] Voice 24: tweaking of the budget. And so I just, I'm not sure that I could get behind having this budget

[6:10:51] Voice 24: it go out right now. I do think going back to financial planning committee is a good move,

[6:10:57] Voice 24: but I think that it's important for many of the trustees to listen to the financial planning

[6:11:03] Voice 24: committee meetings, so we're not having the same conversations in financial planning committee,

[6:11:07] Voice 24: and then again in March. So that would be the one caveat, is that really trying to encourage

[6:11:14] Voice 24: the trustees to commit to listening to those meetings.

[6:11:19] Trustee Luckham: very good okay thank you um so i got laura patrick susan yates and lee middleton and then maybe i'll

[6:11:26] Trustee Luckham: we'll figure out where we're going to go from there well

[6:11:30] Trustee Patrick: i i concur that we should not go out

[6:11:32] Trustee Patrick: to public engagement until we have a budget that we can live with and uh we can and that is of the

[6:11:39] Trustee Patrick: highest importance the conversation regarding the projects here i i just heard um um let's see

[6:11:50] Trustee Patrick: CAO Hudson-Piller say that would use a financial decision on these projects. I think it's far more

[6:11:58] Trustee Patrick: complex than that. You know, on page 93 of the agenda package here, it says we have 29.6 FTE

[6:12:05] Trustee Patrick: for planning staff, yet we have less than two of those planning staff are devoted to long-term

[6:12:11] Trustee Patrick: planning. So these are big issues that we've got to get into is that regional planning committee

[6:12:17] Trustee Patrick: committee that has to look at how we are you know what is the percentage and how are we going to put

[6:12:23] Trustee Patrick: the resources that are needed to be done to the long-range planning that we are in severe deficit

[6:12:27] Trustee Patrick: for so it's going to cost money to fix our long-range planning it's the prioritization

[6:12:35] Trustee Patrick: how do we choose which projects get done first and that's the work that needs to happen thank

[6:12:43] Trustee Luckham: Thank you, Laura.

[6:12:45] Trustee Luckham: And the CEO wants to chime in here.

[6:12:47] Trustee Luckham: Well, if that's a sentiment shared,

[6:12:48] Voice 16: I'm trying to be assistive here.

[6:12:50] Voice 16: If that's a sentiment shared by Trust Council,

[6:12:53] Voice 16: don't have many long-range projects funded this year

[6:12:56] Voice 16: and undertake the very thorough work

[6:13:00] Voice 16: that Trustee Patrick and others are referring to.

[6:13:04] Voice 16: Tap into some of the indications

[6:13:07] Voice 16: associated with the Governance Committee

[6:13:09] Voice 16: and have a nominal amount put aside

[6:13:13] Voice 16: for specific projects if there's an uncomforted certainly you would not want to raise a tax dollar

[6:13:20] Voice 16: for projects that are uncertain yeah so um despite our best wishes there's going to be a tax moment

[6:13:27] Voice 16: that comes up at the end of march that um we will we need to have a have a financial plan in front

[6:13:34] Voice 16: of the ministry and if there's certain i certainly agree if um over the course of the year you want

[6:13:41] Voice 16: to delve deeper into the process by which we identify these projects that's great then that

[6:13:45] Voice 16: would not be a time to allocate a significant amount of money and tax for it for um long-range

[6:13:51] Voice 16: projects okay

[6:13:54] Trustee Luckham: thank you um susan yates and then lee middleton thank

[6:13:57] Voice 35: you chair luck it's really a

[6:13:59] Voice 35: question to cao hudson pillar um just recently you were mentioning that it didn't sound like we were

[6:14:06] Voice 35: too passionate about some of these projects i actually am very passionate about the islands

[6:14:11] Voice 35: trust conservancy um request for first nations engagement so i just want to make sure we don't

[6:14:18] Voice 35: lose that in this council conversation sure

[6:14:21] Trustee Luckham: that's not on this project okay uh lee middleton

[6:14:26] Trustee Luckham: thank

[6:14:31] Voice 1: you very much chair yeah i i think i guess what i i've been talking to before

[6:14:35] Voice 1: is not so much a an austerity budget but more a recognition that we need to make a pause

[6:14:42] Voice 1: pause um and not I think it's another couple of trustees have just said and not take on just for

[6:14:50] Voice 1: this year any new or continue any projects that are perhaps um uh could be paused and I I I you

[6:15:00] Voice 1: know without prejudice I mean perhaps the trust policy statement review could be paused for a year

[6:15:06] Voice 1: and we then come back and take an effort to assemble good budget guidance tools to use

[6:15:16] Voice 1: to build the budget over the next year so what what i would suggest is is this um is this very

[6:15:24] Voice 1: simple motion that i moved the draft draft budget be referred back to financial planning committee

[6:15:30] Voice 1: with a request they redraft the bet the budget um to the status quo for presentation back to

[6:15:40] Voice 1: the march trust council so that gives a bit more latitude than saying zero percent increase which

[6:15:46] Voice 1: i realize comes off as saying punitive i'm saying literally hold the place as best as possible

[6:15:52] Voice 1: to give us a legitimate chance to build a budget have the difficult conversations further um you

[6:16:00] Voice 1: i'm not saying there wouldn't need to be different conversations uh the financial planning committee

[6:16:04] Voice 1: and then trust council in march but it basically to produce a status quo budget um so that's the

[6:16:12] Voice 1: motion i put on the floor um that might maybe help us move along here okay

[6:16:20] Trustee Luckham: so uh if that's a motion

[6:16:23] Trustee Luckham: that you're uh proposing there we'll just check with lori to see if she's captured that you may

[6:16:28] Trustee Luckham: may want to just say that one more time for yeah

[6:16:31] Voice 1: I sent it to Laurie and Laurie what I would say

[6:16:34] Voice 1: suggest is um instead of with a zero percent increase over last fiscal's budget just change

[6:16:42] Voice 1: that whole statement to uh it's

[6:16:45] Voice 18: up on the screen there uh Lee oh

[6:16:47] Voice 1: great okay thanks um I um I would

[6:16:53] Voice 1: would say that with the request they redraft a status quo oh you've got it uh redraft the budget

[6:17:00] Voice 1: to the status quo yeah thank you that's perfect great thanks okay

[6:17:04] Trustee Luckham: do i have a second here for

[6:17:06] Trustee Luckham: that motion i'll second it great uh boland seconded uh you wish to speak to the motion

[6:17:16] Trustee Luckham: further lee i think you've covered it

[6:17:20] Voice 1: yeah no i i think i have just to stress again not punitive

[6:17:24] Voice 1: but honestly, a space-making effort

[6:17:27] Voice 1: so that we can begin to build inclusive budgeting tools

[6:17:30] Voice 1: and have these values-based conversations.

[6:17:33] Voice 1: Thank you.

[6:17:34] Voice 16: CAO Hudson-Piller.

[6:17:35] Voice 16: So just for clarity, as I'll be at FPC,

[6:17:38] Voice 16: is that then the current budget plus the 6% of the union settlement?

[6:17:49] Voice 1: If I may respond, I guess what I've done there

[6:17:52] Voice 1: is build in the flexibility of interpretation for FPC

[6:17:55] Voice 1: to address that.

[6:17:57] Voice 1: Indeed, if there's no way around an increased budget

[6:18:01] Voice 1: because of salary obligations,

[6:18:03] Voice 1: then I think status quo encompasses that decision

[6:18:07] Voice 1: if that's the way FPC want to go.

[6:18:10] Voice 16: So it's current service levels

[6:18:12] Voice 16: is how I'm understanding that.

[6:18:14] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, I

[6:18:16] Voice 16: think that's correct.

[6:18:18] Trustee Luckham: Okay, so moved and seconded.

[6:18:21] Trustee Luckham: Is there any further discussion?

[6:18:24] Voice 12: Sam's out,

[6:18:27] Voice 12: Joe Bernardo.

[6:18:30] Voice 12: Yeah, thanks.

[6:18:33] Voice 22: The question the CAO raised is onto the right track, I think,

[6:18:41] Voice 22: which is the word status quo. I understand where Lee is trying to go with that and I respect the

[6:18:45] Voice 22: effort, but I think we need different language there. Status quo is a little too loose. It's

[6:18:50] Voice 22: not clear whether that means maintaining service levels at the same operational tempo they're at

[6:18:57] Voice 22: at that at now which effectively means no new initiatives or if it means something else um

[6:19:04] Voice 22: so i think i would just uh i would i would like a little clarity and i and i guess if you know like

[6:19:12] Voice 22: to know whether there's consensus around the idea that we want to maintain existing service levels

[6:19:18] Voice 22: uh but uh but that's it but anyhow i just find that word the term status quo is um

[6:19:27] Voice 22: it's a little too open to interpretation i think because it could actually include

[6:19:32] Voice 22: the all these proposals that um are now at issue about whether we can afford them or not well that

[6:19:38] Voice 22: is the status quo that's what we've got including things that we're carrying on from years before

[6:19:42] Voice 22: like the trust policy statement thing that is just um dragging on apparently and taking up resources

[6:19:49] Voice 22: that's part of the status quo too so uh i'd like some clarification there uh not necessarily from

[6:19:56] Voice 22: Lee but just some suggestion that how do we get to where lee wants to get to which is

[6:20:04] Voice 22: operationally we don't wreck things but we're gonna we're gonna pull back

[6:20:09] Trustee Luckham: thank you could we answer that you see okay so um the the obvious thing here uh joe and i don't

[6:20:18] Trustee Luckham: want to put you on on the uh on the um on the point but anyway um obviously if we need to make

[6:20:25] Trustee Luckham: an amendment to this motion that needs to come forward as an amendment. What I've just heard

[6:20:31] Trustee Luckham: from the CAO is that this status quo question can be answered by FPC, whom are all sitting with us

[6:20:39] Trustee Luckham: right now. And obviously, this conversation is all part and parcel of it. And granted,

[6:20:46] Trustee Luckham: that's a little bit on the loose side, for sure. Except I think that there's no doubt that FPC

[6:20:53] Trustee Luckham: see we'll be able to advance something forward which ultimately council will decide upon whether

[6:21:00] Trustee Luckham: or not that's that they were able to interpret the intention here so unless there's an immediate

[6:21:08] Trustee Luckham: amendment I would say suggest we continue on with this so I'm going to go with my speakers list here

[6:21:16] Trustee Luckham: and that is at present I don't want to make a mistake so I just got to get this up on my screen

[6:21:22] Trustee Luckham: no come on director

[6:21:27] Voice 9: mob is there well

[6:21:29] Trustee Luckham: yeah thanks uh sue ellen i i like to refer to my own screen

[6:21:33] Trustee Luckham: and for some reason i've lost that bear with me a second there we go um so actually dog uh uh flack

[6:21:40] Trustee Luckham: is uh first but director mobs uh from a staff perspective has some advice here so let's go with

[6:21:46] Trustee Luckham: uh director mobs and then we'll go with dag falcon and laura patrick uh

[6:21:52] Voice 29: thanks mr chair so

[6:21:53] Voice 29: So, yes, my comment is from a staff perspective.

[6:21:56] Voice 29: The word status quo, I think, does pose difficulties.

[6:21:59] Voice 29: As staff, we really do appreciate very clear direction.

[6:22:03] Voice 29: I would hate to have Financial Planning Committee interpret the word status quo in a certain way, amend the budget accordingly, bring it back to Trust Council and have Trust Council say, no, that's way off base.

[6:22:16] Voice 29: And then we've lost the value of all of the work that Financial Planning Committee and staff have put into revising the budget.

[6:22:23] Voice 29: So if status quo is to have planned spending equal to last year's budget, it would be great to have that very clear.

[6:22:32] Voice 29: If it's equal to last year's budget plus increases for staff, we can make that language clearer as well.

[6:22:38] Voice 29: but I do think that this body has to decide what that is to facilitate staff and financial planning

[6:22:45] Voice 29: committees' ongoing work.

[6:22:48] Trustee Luckham: Thank you for that very wise advice. I'm going to go to Dag Falk,

[6:22:53] Trustee Luckham: Laura Patrick, and then Jamie Harris, and they read Gowland after that.

[6:22:59] Voice 34: Yes, thank you, Chair. Yeah, along the same lines, I could not support the motion as it's written

[6:23:06] Voice 34: right now because i don't understand what status quo means and as has been discussed but i would

[6:23:10] Voice 34: like to suggest and maybe this just shows my really not understanding it but could it be

[6:23:16] Voice 34: replaced with budget to the court uh you know redraft the budget to the current um dollar figures

[6:23:23] Voice 34: or or you know uh if that's the intent or to the current dollar figures for each item line item or

[6:23:33] Voice 34: or whatever is intended there to spell it out, basically,

[6:23:36] Voice 34: then I would be able to vote on this.

[6:23:40] Trustee Luckham: I think

[6:23:41] Voice 34: the intent is good.

[6:23:42] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, maybe somebody can help us

[6:23:44] Trustee Luckham: with some language here.

[6:23:45] Trustee Luckham: Laura Patrick.

[6:23:49] Trustee Patrick: Yeah, I don't understand what that means.

[6:23:51] Trustee Patrick: Does that mean we get the current levels

[6:23:53] Trustee Patrick: of project spending we have this year

[6:23:54] Trustee Patrick: or we get zero for Salt Spring?

[6:23:57] Trustee Patrick: And that's where I'm very confused.

[6:24:00] Trustee Patrick: I'm confused by this process.

[6:24:02] Trustee Patrick: Like our local trust committee

[6:24:04] Trustee Patrick: committee hasn't even had an opportunity for a community of nearly 12,000 people to talk about

[6:24:10] Trustee Patrick: what needs to be done. So I'm very uncomfortable. I'd like to know what the amount of money is that

[6:24:16] Trustee Patrick: we would have. And to come back, we don't have representation. Salt Spring's not represented on

[6:24:21] Trustee Patrick: the financial planning committee. So I'm not sure how that works. And if the financial planning

[6:24:28] Trustee Patrick: committee comes back and says, we've got to go out and do a special tax requisition for any

[6:24:31] Trustee Patrick: planning work that we want to do on salt spring i don't think uh i would be supporting that um

[6:24:38] Trustee Patrick: so i just want clarity as to what would the budget be of a status quo for salt spring for

[6:24:44] Trustee Patrick: any long-range planning work for next year

[6:24:51] Voice 12: jamie has

[6:24:52] Voice 11: yeah i i just want to understand this a bit

[6:24:59] Voice 11: better myself i what i'm kind of getting is that this wouldn't be for all of next year it would be

[6:25:08] Voice 11: only until we figure out what we need to do um by march for all year

[6:25:15] Voice 11: oh yeah sorry

[6:25:18] Trustee Luckham: it would be an

[6:25:19] Trustee Luckham: entire fiscal period from march till march 23 to to march 24th

[6:25:26] Voice 11: but so what we're saying is what

[6:25:29] Voice 11: this is saying is we're not going to decide now we're going to decide in march is that what i'm

[6:25:35] Voice 11: here?

[6:25:36] Trustee Luckham: At the

[6:25:37] Voice 19: end of the day, the

[6:25:37] Trustee Luckham: decision about the budget will be made in March by council,

[6:25:40] Trustee Luckham: but what we're suggesting is financial planning committee come up with that redrafting based upon

[6:25:47] Trustee Luckham: the word status quo, and that seems to be the question.

[6:25:51] Voice 11: The other question I would have is,

[6:25:54] Voice 11: let's say this goes through, what does that mean at the LTC level for us? Would we still be able to

[6:26:04] Voice 11: put forward applications or, you know, amendments to bylaws to make provisions? So let's say some

[6:26:16] Voice 11: kind of a rezoning to spur some workforce housing projects, not that the trust is going to pay for

[6:26:22] Voice 11: those projects, but private money. Would we still be able to have the planning services

[6:26:28] Voice 11: and be able to review the housing section of our OCP.

[6:26:33] Voice 11: Should Stefan address

[6:26:35] Trustee Luckham: minor projects?

[6:26:36] Trustee Luckham: Because that sounds like maybe a possible minor project.

[6:26:39] Trustee Luckham: CEO Hotson-Pillard?

[6:26:42] Voice 16: Yeah, I think applications are just driven by circumstance.

[6:26:47] Voice 16: So I think applications would carry on.

[6:26:49] Voice 16: And I believe the amendment to our policy had Salt Spring Island

[6:26:52] Voice 16: was allowed three projects based on its population

[6:26:57] Voice 16: population relative to the other communities and those three projects totaled about five thousand

[6:27:02] Voice 16: dollars each um which is what comes to mind when i hear the word amend the ocp on a considered

[6:27:09] Voice 16: basis so if that's a project of the ltc to do that yeah yes

[6:27:15] Voice 11: the housing section the housing

[6:27:17] Voice 11: section of the ocp or to start work on that is that what's that gonna i

[6:27:22] Voice 16: don't know how much

[6:27:22] Voice 16: that's going to cost but i'm just responding to the idea that would you be able to carry on

[6:27:27] Voice 16: um would you be with these initiatives i don't know how much those will cost um

[6:27:35] Voice 16: i suspect they're more than um five thousand dollars each so um if it went to zero i think

[6:27:43] Voice 16: that you you wouldn't have enough money for full full initiatives at this point but you'd be able

[6:27:46] Voice 16: to do some of that project

[6:27:48] Voice 11: work and is this what this is suggesting it just goes to zero for salt

[6:27:55] Voice 11: spring or are we getting what we had last year please clarify that i

[6:28:04] Voice 16: i'm not the i'm not the

[6:28:06] Voice 16: mover of the motion so i'm just responding to various questions um

[6:28:10] Trustee Luckham: well let's see where this

[6:28:11] Trustee Luckham: goes jamie because i think we're far from done there's definitely some need for clarity and

[6:28:18] Trustee Luckham: maybe that'll become apparent and i see the lee middleton's hand up there now that's good lee

[6:28:23] Trustee Luckham: thanks and i'm going to go to uh marie boland uh tim peterson and then lee middleton hello hi thank

[6:28:31] Voice 5: you um a couple of things number one um i did initially propose at the last fbc i removed it

[6:28:39] Voice 5: but because i thought we had achieved some reductions that we would go with last year's

[6:28:46] Voice 5: budget plus an inflation amount however i then rethought that because last year's budget actually

[6:28:52] Voice 5: had a couple of extraordinary items that would normally be needed there was a

[6:28:58] Voice 5: cost for the election there was an unexpected cost to do the ISL public

[6:29:04] Voice 5: engagement I don't remember the cost for the election but it could have been 140

[6:29:09] Voice 5: thousand is in my head and the ISL engagement was an extra hundred and sixty

[6:29:14] Voice 5: seventy thousand and indeed the governance review had a cost so those

[6:29:19] Voice 5: were all extraordinary items in last year's budget which took it up to 9.3 million so arguably

[6:29:26] Voice 5: starting at 9.3 million in a year when those items don't exist

[6:29:31] Voice 12: is

[6:29:32] Voice 5: possibly a little high so that's

[6:29:35] Voice 5: one of my points the second point is that with respect to the state status quo what i would like

[6:29:42] Voice 5: to propose, or my understanding was, that the Financial Planning Committee would look at all

[6:29:52] Voice 5: discretionary items with a view to deferring as much as could be deferred. That would be their

[6:29:58] Voice 5: judgment call.

[6:30:00] Voice 5: and they could come back with a couple of scenarios for people to then review.

[6:30:07] Voice 5: I think we've heard a lot today, you know, good discussion about the different projects

[6:30:12] Voice 5: and how people feel about them.

[6:30:14] Voice 5: But anyway, that's my interpretation of the status quo,

[6:30:17] Voice 5: is basically there's the non-discretionary items.

[6:30:20] Voice 5: We would look at the discretionary items with a view to challenging all of those.

[6:30:27] Voice 5: and then our judgment would not be the final one but we would bring that back in a more

[6:30:35] Voice 5: more coherent way to the table with arguments for and against because at the moment we're looking at

[6:30:42] Voice 5: recommendations from the fpc um which are someplace in the agenda but when we go

[6:30:48] Voice 5: down through the business cases the original um financial estimates are there so it's a little

[6:30:56] Voice 5: little confusing I think and I think the financial planning committee had some really good points to

[6:31:01] Voice 5: make in the conversation about what a cap on the LTA budgets would mean and you know I think

[6:31:10] Voice 5: there was a discussion about how the regional planning team could help with understanding that

[6:31:17] Voice 5: and don't forget we also have the surplus funds which can be used if a particular project

[6:31:25] Voice 5: and line item is goes over budget through the year and that's the correct use of the surplus fund

[6:31:33] Voice 5: because uh the surplus fund should we shouldn't be planning to spend the surplus fund the surplus

[6:31:39] Voice 5: fund is a kind of an emergency fund so we could actually choose to be very rigorous and austere

[6:31:47] Voice 5: in the actual budget and draw on the surplus fund as needed.

[6:31:52] Voice 5: So that's my take on status quo.

[6:31:56] Voice 5: I agree that we should be maybe a bit more explicit about the language,

[6:32:00] Voice 5: but that's my understanding of it and a bit of background.

[6:32:03] Voice 5: Thank you.

[6:32:05] Trustee Luckham: Thank you.

[6:32:06] Trustee Luckham: Now, I'm not sure why my speaker's list has changed here,

[6:32:10] Trustee Luckham: because I thought Tim Peterson was next,

[6:32:12] Trustee Luckham: but my list is now showing Kate Stamford, Tim Peterson,

[6:32:16] Trustee Luckham: and Ann Campbell and Lee Middleton,

[6:32:17] Trustee Luckham: and that's not what it was originally, I think.

[6:32:20] Trustee Luckham: So if there's any concerns about that,

[6:32:23] Trustee Luckham: I'm going to proceed on that basis.

[6:32:25] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, go ahead.

[6:32:26] Trustee Luckham: Kate Louise Stanford, your turn.

[6:32:28] Voice 36: Thank you, Chair.

[6:32:30] Voice 36: As the way this is written now,

[6:32:33] Voice 36: I really can't support it.

[6:32:35] Voice 36: I think this is quite similar to the last minute motion

[6:32:39] Voice 36: that was passed last March,

[6:32:41] Voice 36: which left everyone scrambling

[6:32:44] Voice 36: willing to come up with an ad hoc budget, and this is part of the reason we're sitting where we are

[6:32:51] Voice 36: now, is in the end, we're going to be looking at this, it's almost six of one, half a dozen the

[6:32:57] Voice 36: other, is we will look at an austere budget towards the end of March, and then say, well,

[6:33:03] Voice 36: I need this added in, I need that added in. It will be the same process, but from the other way

[6:33:09] Voice 36: way around. And that I found even more chaotic than the way we're looking at this right now.

[6:33:15] Voice 36: The financial planning committee spent eight hours working on this. And I think by looking

[6:33:23] Voice 36: at this motion, we are considering just throwing that work out. Staff have spent hours and hours

[6:33:29] Voice 36: on this. I think it's really important to have some movement forward in our goals and aspirations,

[6:33:40] Voice 36: and then we can continue to do the long-term changes that we are all asking for, and that

[6:33:47] Voice 36: that will come clear at the strategic planning level, and we will get there. But to just, I feel

[6:33:53] Voice 36: like we're just gonna cut everything off um i'm really concerned that i will not be able to then

[6:33:59] Voice 36: go to my community and say this is what we're doing for the next year because there will be

[6:34:05] Voice 36: nothing there to do um that is where i will hit a lot of trouble with my community thank you kate

[6:34:13] Voice 18: louise tim peterson

[6:34:15] Voice 18: thank

[6:34:18] Voice 21: you chair so i i just i i gotta admit that i'm feeling a little

[6:34:21] Voice 21: disappointed we've spent uh this much time on this motion i would have vastly preferred that we

[6:34:27] Voice 21: continue going through the business cases and actually make some decisions rather than

[6:34:31] Voice 21: punting this back to financial planning uh and i suppose my question is is what is you know due

[6:34:45] Voice 21: to the wording of this motion i'm not entirely clear what uh what if council passes this this

[6:34:52] Voice 21: resolution what is the direction to financial planning that's uh as uh uh trustee stanford

[6:34:59] Voice 21: pointed out we spent about seven hours uh paring things down to the point that we brought it to

[6:35:06] Voice 21: this meeting and uh i i'm just i feel like financial planning committee isn't getting

[6:35:12] Voice 21: clear direction from trust council out of this resolution thank you all

[6:35:18] Trustee Luckham: right thank you um lee

[6:35:20] Trustee Luckham: Lee Middleton and Judy Getty, I'm leaning towards inclining that I want to call a vote on this

[6:35:27] Trustee Luckham: to see if it fails, it passes, and then council can create a new motion if they so desire.

[6:35:32] Trustee Luckham: But Lee Middleton.

[6:35:34] Voice 1: Yeah, I'm happy to defer to Trustee Campbell and Trustee Getty

[6:35:38] Voice 1: because I don't believe they've spoken yet.

[6:35:40] Voice 1: So I can speak after them if that's acceptable, Chair.

[6:35:44] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, you're right.

[6:35:45] Trustee Luckham: No, and in fact, I should have gone to Aaron Campbell first because he's on the phone

[6:35:49] Trustee Luckham: and I don't see him coming out there.

[6:35:51] Trustee Luckham: So Aaron Campbell first and trustee Getty second

[6:35:54] Trustee Luckham: and then yourself Lee Middleton.

[6:35:56] Trustee Luckham: Thank you for deferring.

[6:35:57] Voice 26: Thanks for that.

[6:35:59] Voice 26: My understanding of the original motion earlier in the day

[6:36:03] Voice 26: was to try to push it towards a zero increase budget.

[6:36:11] Voice 26: And if I understand what Lee was intending

[6:36:17] Voice 26: uh with the status quo it would be that it would go back to the to the financial planning committee

[6:36:25] Voice 26: um with with a with a zero increase and at their discretion the ability to increase for a cost

[6:36:34] Voice 26: basically an inflationary cost if that's what was needed um and i know deb has mentioned this

[6:36:42] Voice 26: Because previously, you know, Pender is one of the islands that gets fairly rangy about the budget. And we've heard quite a bit already from people just in over the last 24 hours about any sort of increase.

[6:37:00] Voice 26: increase and and so I know that for us to take something forward is really difficult if there

[6:37:08] Voice 26: is a is any sort of a an increase that we can't justify as something like inflation or whatever

[6:37:16] Voice 26: and so I think that maybe in in being flexible we opened it up a little bit too too much but I think

[6:37:24] Voice 26: that that was the intention of where he was going with it and so that that would be something that

[6:37:29] Voice 26: i would be interested in hearing more about okay

[6:37:35] Trustee Luckham: thank you now judy getty did you lower your hand

[6:37:39] Trustee Luckham: or it was an accidental did you wish to speak please go ahead a

[6:37:49] Voice 21: microphone on

[6:37:53] Voice 2: i'm not clear what the problem is with the status quo uh but i gather that it i understand the

[6:37:59] Voice 2: vagueness issue um and i think i haven't heard of anybody else suggesting an amendment of something

[6:38:04] Voice 2: that might work for them if we're talking about um a zero increase or um prioritizing

[6:38:15] Voice 2: what um all of these additional expenses are the the new items something that um what is it that

[6:38:24] Voice 2: we want the finance committee to work on and to help us with so um i'm not if somebody can suggest

[6:38:31] Voice 2: just an amendment i i haven't been able to think of one for status quo in terms of not understanding

[6:38:36] Voice 2: what exactly it is people are having problems with but um if it's just those two words then

[6:38:43] Voice 2: if it's something else in terms of the finance committee coming up with helping us

[6:38:48] Voice 2: prioritize then maybe we can clarify that way thank you okay

[6:38:53] Trustee Luckham: thank you uh so julia mobs and then

[6:38:56] Trustee Luckham: And certainly Lee Middleton, you deferred,

[6:39:00] Trustee Luckham: and Jamie Harris has come online since.

[6:39:02] Trustee Luckham: So let's go with Julia, and then we'll figure it out.

[6:39:09] Voice 29: So just following up on Trustee Getty's comments,

[6:39:11] Voice 29: I've sent some suggested wording over to Trustee Middleton.

[6:39:15] Voice 29: It's his motion, and so I've sent it over to him.

[6:39:18] Voice 29: And, of course, the wording can be massaged

[6:39:20] Voice 29: to make sure that the proper meaning of council is captured.

[6:39:24] Voice 29: I've sent them to Larry as well.

[6:39:27] Trustee Luckham: thank you very much julia for your um exemplary service to the animals trust thank you um lee

[6:39:33] Voice 12: middleton do you have something there for us i'm

[6:39:39] Voice 1: i'm sure i'd be happy to make that amendment i'm

[6:39:41] Voice 1: i'm just waiting for it to come in i and and my intent certainly was i what i saw was some people

[6:39:46] Voice 1: were after additional cuts some people were after additional increase so i proposed what i thought

[6:39:52] Voice 1: would be a middle pause ground where we have neither increase nor decrease beyond last year's

[6:39:59] Voice 1: budget. And what I wanted to make it clear, obviously, there's inflationary pressure that

[6:40:05] Voice 1: will have to be accommodated somehow. So I had to change an amendment that basically said just that,

[6:40:13] Voice 1: but I'm sure Julia's is a superior amendment to my own. So I'm sort of at your pleasure here,

[6:40:21] Voice 1: chair i mean we can either defeat this motion or and then we can make another one that if you have

[6:40:27] Trustee Luckham: an amendment to the motion i'd be happy to hear that

[6:40:30] Voice 1: okay well in absence of julius having coming

[6:40:32] Voice 1: in i did send it to uh lori uh so she would have it i'm

[6:40:38] Trustee Luckham: sorry um was there a new motion from julia

[6:40:41] Trustee Luckham: or an amendment to the motion i i understood

[6:40:43] Voice 19: that she had recommended an amendment i was

[6:40:47] Voice 29: recommending an amendment but it did also um sort of provide interpretation of the word status quo

[6:40:53] Voice 29: so i sent them to

[6:40:54] Voice 29: lori as well but i can also happily verbally read it out well let's let lee

[6:40:58] Trustee Luckham: do that um

[6:40:59] Voice 1: yeah i would except i haven't received it unfortunately not come in my inbox

[6:41:07] Trustee Luckham: julia's made a suggestion then let's go with julia's suggestion yeah uh

[6:41:13] Voice 29: so what i'll read

[6:41:13] Voice 29: out i've also forwarded to lori lori might be able to bring it up so that trust council refer

[6:41:19] Voice 29: the draft 2023-24 budget back to financial planning committee to be amended to reflect

[6:41:24] Voice 29: approved fiscal 2022-2023 spending levels if that is indeed what the mover meant by status quo

[6:41:33] Voice 29: status quo is last year's approved spending levels plus inflation we could go with the second option

[6:41:37] Voice 29: that's on the screen or if there's a particular tax increase that's desired the third motion on

[6:41:43] Voice 29: the screen could capture that okay

[6:41:48] Voice 1: i think i would uh move yeah ask an amended motion at your

[6:41:54] Voice 1: pleasure chair if you view that the the second bullet point on the screen could be construed

[6:42:00] Voice 1: as an amendment to my to my motion i i i think it is then i i would make that uh i would amend

[6:42:06] Voice 1: my own motion if i may i'm not sure the robert's rules around doing that but the

[6:42:10] Trustee Luckham: motion now belongs

[6:42:11] Trustee Luckham: to the floor, and so anybody can amend it.

[6:42:17] Trustee Luckham: I just, you know, one of the things

[6:42:20] Trustee Luckham: that I really struggle with is letting go of the process,

[6:42:23] Trustee Luckham: but does that also, does that Second Amendment

[6:42:26] Trustee Luckham: include the provincial increase in salaries?

[6:42:31] Trustee Luckham: Because that's obviously something

[6:42:32] Trustee Luckham: that we are not in control of.

[6:42:36] Trustee Luckham: So over to you, Lee Middleton.

[6:42:38] Voice 7: time um so

[6:42:41] Trustee Luckham: david muller has something to offer yeah

[6:42:43] Voice 7: so if you're going to do this as an amendment

[6:42:45] Voice 7: which i think you should um where did that you would replace the words um to reflect approval

[6:42:53] Voice 7: fiscal 2020 oh sorry i'm looking at the wrong one um you remove the wording of status quo and

[6:43:00] Voice 7: replace it with can you just go up there yeah there we go so request that they redraft the

[6:43:09] Voice 7: budget to be amended so in other words you remove the wording to the status quo for presentation

[6:43:15] Voice 7: back to maestro's council and replace it with the words to reflect approved fiscal 2023 spending

[6:43:22] Voice 7: levels plus the amount for inflation what's that as represented by statistics kind of december cpr

[6:43:30] Voice 7: report so replace with a requested uh redraft sorry so replace the words to the status quo

[6:43:40] Voice 7: and that's

[6:43:55] Voice 12: actually good just yeah good yeah

[6:44:00] Voice 1: so i i can um uh make the amendment as a uh

[6:44:04] Voice 1: as uh if if i would have construed a friendly amendment and therefore no need for a motion

[6:44:10] Voice 7: that's the motion okay

[6:44:14] Voice 1: can

[6:44:17] Voice 12: you please uh so

[6:44:19] Voice 1: um i i move that in the uh the currently tabled motion

[6:44:26] Voice 1: uh replace the word status quo with to reflect approved fiscal 2022 23 spending levels plus

[6:44:33] Voice 1: an amount for inflation as represented by the statistics canada december cpi report

[6:44:41] Trustee Luckham: okay so now on the amendment um do i have a seconder on an amendment i'll second it

[6:44:50] Trustee Luckham: was tim peterson was it thank you

[6:44:53] Trustee Luckham: it was aaron campbell okay thank you aaron

[6:44:56] Trustee Luckham: Okay, then. So, is

[6:45:00] Voice 19: there any discussion on the amendment? Laura Patrick?

[6:45:07] Trustee Patrick: I still need to understand what money is being left for projects, if at all, for Salt Spring.

[6:45:17] Voice 12: Susan Yates.

[6:45:18] Voice 12: Just

[6:45:19] Voice 35: a question. Does inflation include salaries?

[6:45:23] No.

[6:45:27] Voice 12: Jamie Harris. Jamie?

[6:45:37] Voice 11: Oh, I'm just trying to wrap my head around this here.

[6:45:41] Voice 14: me

[6:45:42] Voice 11: too um again at the ltc level like this looks like a pretty good amendment here

[6:45:49] Voice 11: made to the to the motion um clearly it doesn't mean we can't do anything at the ltc level and

[6:45:58] Voice 11: we're still going to be able to hash that out at the ltc level and and and um um the fpc will

[6:46:08] Voice 11: will do their voodoo and uh yeah and things will move ahead is that what's going on

[6:46:16] Voice 11: see you'll

[6:46:17] Voice 11: have some fun i'll

[6:46:18] Voice 16: defer to julia first what my concern is that there's no need

[6:46:23] Voice 16: for fpc to do anything because it's it's listed in the motion so is the understanding that there's

[6:46:31] Voice 16: they cannot make any recommendations for anything else like is there no room for

[6:46:37] Voice 16: or some consideration of some project work

[6:46:41] Voice 16: or anything back to trust council in March?

[6:46:47] Voice 16: Is that encompassed in the motion?

[6:46:52] Voice 16: It's not

[6:46:52] Trustee Luckham: specified specifically.

[6:46:54] Trustee Luckham: I would say.

[6:46:57] Trustee Luckham: And the CA wanted to defer to direct the mobs.

[6:47:03] Voice 29: So, the mover of the motion would have to speak to intent,

[6:47:08] Voice 29: but as I read that,

[6:47:09] Voice 29: that speaks to total approved spending in last year's budget plus uh an inflationary factor

[6:47:15] Voice 29: so that that does not talk about the distribution of dollars within the budget so it doesn't say

[6:47:21] Voice 29: that local trust committee projects will receive the same level of funding as they did in the

[6:47:25] Voice 29: previous year if that is the intention of council then i believe that should be perhaps made clear

[6:47:31] Voice 29: in this motion or as a separate motion and that is actually something that's going to be needed

[6:47:37] Voice 29: it anyway um this motion will give financial planning committee a lot of room to decide

[6:47:44] Voice 29: where it as a body believes trust council should place priority and allocate financial resources

[6:47:50] Voice 29: um you know it would be ideal if trust council would give direction to financial planning

[6:47:55] Voice 29: committee to say you know we don't want a budget that is increased by more than inflation and we

[6:48:01] Voice 29: want to make sure that um these things are prioritized in the budget you know the planning

[6:48:05] Voice 29: work is prioritized or long-range planning work or or work associated with water or whatever the

[6:48:09] Voice 29: case may be um to help financial planning committee and their decisions but as i interpret this motion

[6:48:15] Voice 29: it has nothing to do with distribution of funds and everything to do with total dollar value at

[6:48:19] Voice 29: the end of the day and i see a thumbs up from trustee middleton so i think that's his intent

[6:48:22] Voice 29: as well you

[6:48:25] Voice 12: trustee bernardo thank

[6:48:29] Voice 22: you um well certainly the uh amended motion um is much more

[6:48:37] Voice 22: specific than the status quo um language was there before and i appreciate the clarification that

[6:48:45] Voice 22: director mobs had put forward um but so long as people are clear what we're doing with this motion

[6:48:54] Voice 22: if it passes it's it amounts to trust council and i'm not being critical here but it amounts

[6:49:02] Voice 22: is the trust council deferring the business of making hard decisions to another day and asking

[6:49:11] Voice 22: uh fpc to come up with a formula that um uh it doesn't drive people crazy might make them

[6:49:22] Voice 22: unhappy but you know it's it's basically putting on fbc the task of coming up with a combination

[6:49:28] Voice 22: of either cuts deferrals or whatnot that will more or less work for a majority of people

[6:49:34] Voice 22: there's no guarantee that's going to happen um and i just want trust council to know that because

[6:49:43] Voice 22: deferring the hard decisions and i'm sympathetic because this is one of the problems with the

[6:49:48] Voice 22: process which is this is a very awkward and ineffective way of cobbling together a budget

[6:49:55] Voice 22: it and you know we're eating up a huge amount of time doing this and we're making a bit of progress

[6:50:01] Voice 22: mostly spinning our wheels that's not anybody's fault it's got to do with the structure of this

[6:50:06] Voice 22: business and that's got to change it's not going to change anytime soon but kicking this back to

[6:50:12] Voice 22: fpc we can do our absolute best to satisfy this request and by the way being a lawyer i see the

[6:50:19] Voice 22: word request i view that as not obligatory i view that as tc is hoping that we're going to come up

[6:50:25] Voice 22: but a magic solution i view that as saying okay we're going to do our best you may not get what

[6:50:32] Voice 22: you ask for we're going to come up with the best solution that we think is possible now just so

[6:50:39] Voice 22: everybody's clear that's that is taking a chance you're deferring the hard choices to another day

[6:50:45] Voice 22: and they're at the end of the day the hard choices in the budget can't be made by the fpc they have

[6:50:49] Voice 22: to be made by the trust council i'm fine with taking on this work on the committee but just

[6:50:54] Voice 22: just so long as people know what we're doing here.

[6:50:57] Trustee Luckham: Okay,

[6:50:57] Voice 22: thank you, Joe.

[6:51:00] Trustee Luckham: Mireille Boland, and we're on the amendment to the motion,

[6:51:04] Trustee Luckham: and I'd like to call the vote on that,

[6:51:06] Trustee Luckham: and then we can then look at the amended motion

[6:51:08] Trustee Luckham: if that passes.

[6:51:10] Trustee Luckham: And I'll

[6:51:11] Trustee Luckham: let you hand, Joe, and over to you, Mireille.

[6:51:15] Voice 5: Sorry to throw a spanner in the works here,

[6:51:18] Voice 5: but Julia, can you correct me if I'm wrong?

[6:51:21] Voice 5: At the FPC, I prepared a motion,

[6:51:24] Voice 5: which was last year's budget plus an inflation rise,

[6:51:31] Voice 5: which you advised me on the value.

[6:51:34] Voice 5: And then I didn't put it on the table

[6:51:39] Voice 5: because the discussion in the Financial Planning Committee

[6:51:47] Voice 5: was very satisfactory and drove the budget down.

[6:51:52] Voice 5: And but I believe that this motion has already been achieved by the by the Financial Planning Committee.

[6:52:00] Voice 5: If everything that the Financial Planning Committee proposed was accepted, we are, if not at, we are very close to last year's budget, plus 6.4 percent, which was nine, eight, nine, seven.

[6:52:17] Voice 5: Julia, could you comment on that, please? Thank you.

[6:52:22] Voice 29: Happy to. You are 100% correct. I was actually just messaging with some of my colleagues about that. The motion does speak to approved spending levels, and approved spending levels are different to levels of taxation.

[6:52:36] Voice 29: taxation. So we have achieved spending levels in the draft budget that are within last year's

[6:52:44] Voice 29: approved budget plus current levels of inflation, which is 6.4%. That is resulting in a higher than

[6:52:51] Voice 29: 6.4% tax increase because we have less money that's being drawn from the surplus fund in the

[6:52:56] Voice 29: current year budget than in the previous year budget. And so when we've got less drawn from

[6:53:00] Voice 29: surplus, we have to collect revenues in a different way and it's coming from taxation.

[6:53:03] Voice 29: taxation. So if the goal of council is to reduce taxation, we would need more. We would need this

[6:53:14] Voice 29: motion to be amended or to have an additional motion on top of it.

[6:53:20] Voice 5: So what additional motion

[6:53:22] Voice 5: would you suggest if the goal is to reduce taxation levels? I think I want to stick to

[6:53:30] Trustee Luckham: the process we're in. We've got an amendment to the motion. If there's a desire to make

[6:53:34] Trustee Luckham: additional motions with respect to what the outcome is i'd rather go there than start

[6:53:40] Trustee Luckham: thinking about amendments now but if i'm wrong on that

[6:53:47] Voice 5: sure i'll ask julia to respond to that because i've kind of lost track but what does julia think

[6:53:53] Voice 5: might be appropriate thanks russell switch my microphone it's

[6:53:59] Trustee Luckham: not for you no it's not it's

[6:54:01] Trustee Luckham: a political decision actually i think um so i'm gonna um i'm not seeing any other speakers

[6:54:07] Trustee Luckham: i'd like to call for the vote on the amendment to the motion and that's the middleton campbell

[6:54:14] Trustee Luckham: amendment that's before you on the screen please raise your hands if you're in favor of the

[6:54:19] Trustee Luckham: amendment to the motion thank you council yes

[6:54:29] Voice 12: he's 13 on the screen

[6:54:31] Trustee Luckham: um yeah i'm sorry yeah

[6:54:34] Trustee Luckham: 14 should be 14. okay um how many did you have there i've got 13 hands up okay so then please

[6:54:49] Trustee Luckham: lower your hands and uh all the hands are lowered ben they're not just wait yeah okay all the hands

[6:55:01] Trustee Luckham: are now don't jump the gun all those opposed please raise your hands and electronic hand if

[6:55:14] Trustee Luckham: you can

[6:55:14] Voice 14: okay

[6:55:18] Trustee Luckham: that's eight opposed so that amendment carries and now we're back to the

[6:55:27] Trustee Luckham: amended motion so i'll let you lower your hands please sometimes those buttons don't work i know

[6:55:41] Trustee Luckham: It does not want to go off.

[6:55:43] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, I don't

[6:55:44] Trustee Luckham: like that particular mouse.

[6:55:45] Voice 15: I hit it.

[6:55:46] Trustee Luckham: Okay, thank you, Susan.

[6:55:48] Trustee Luckham: So now, is there any discussion on the amended motion?

[6:55:56] Trustee Luckham: I'm going to call the vote on the amended motion.

[6:55:59] Trustee Luckham: All those in favor of

[6:56:14] Voice 12: voting on the amended motion?

[6:56:17] Voice 12: I'm seeing

[6:56:17] Trustee Luckham: nine hands up.

[6:56:20] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, okay.

[6:56:21] Trustee Luckham: So please lower your hands.

[6:56:27] Trustee Luckham: Everybody lower your hand.

[6:56:29] Trustee Luckham: Thank you.

[6:56:33] Trustee Luckham: now those opposed to

[6:56:36] Voice 12: the amended motion okay

[6:56:49] Trustee Luckham: that uh is 13 opposed i'm looking

[6:56:52] Voice 7: at that david mauler

[6:56:53] Voice 7: that's 13 opposed there's 25 trustees in attendance as far as we're aware

[6:57:00] Voice 7: yeah so that's uh 22 trustees those three have abstained so that's 12 in favor 13 against so

[6:57:11] Trustee Luckham: then that fails thank you very much david for that support appreciate it okay council

[6:57:22] Trustee Luckham: square one we're back to square one um

[6:57:26] Voice 16: do you want to go to the governance committee for a change of

[6:57:29] Voice 16: flavor

[6:57:29] Trustee Luckham: let's go to the uh let's reflect on our situation let's go to the governance committee

[6:57:34] Trustee Luckham: with eight minutes remaining in the scheduled time today so david marler yeah

[6:57:39] Voice 7: so we have a tie

[6:57:41] Voice 7: for a seventh position, so there's a seventh position,

[6:57:45] Voice 7: there's a seventh and eighth tie.

[6:57:47] Voice 7: So under the, if we follow the rules

[6:57:49] Voice 7: that we follow for executive committee,

[6:57:51] Voice 7: we would do an election with just those two names

[6:57:54] Voice 7: on the balance.

[6:57:55] Voice 7: Yes.

[6:57:55] Voice 7: So I'm ready to send that right now.

[6:57:57] Voice 7: Yes.

[6:57:57] Voice 7: And then I'll ask the same scrutiny here

[6:58:02] Voice 7: to come with me to count the votes after the fact.

[6:58:04] Voice 7: Yes.

[6:58:04] Voice 7: Okay, so I'm gonna send it right now.

[6:58:06] Voice 7: It's all ready to go.

[6:58:07] Trustee Luckham: All right, thank you.

[6:58:09] Trustee Luckham: Do you follow that council?

[6:58:10] Trustee Luckham: Council there is a tie vote so there'll be two names coming to you to vote and then we'll finally

[6:58:16] Trustee Luckham: get to that outcome yeah perfect

[6:58:19] Voice 7: here it is um maybe just ask if anybody has trouble with it

[6:58:26] Voice 7: just email me and I'll watch for those emails Julia

[6:58:29] Trustee Luckham: moms uh

[6:58:33] Voice 29: thanks Mr chair um I have sent

[6:58:37] Voice 29: some uh revised wording to Trustee Boland and also Trustee Middleton if we're looking at a motion

[6:58:42] Voice 29: that is going to be capping tax increases.

[6:58:45] Voice 29: I think that might be something that council is looking to.

[6:58:49] Voice 29: So that wording has been provided.

[6:58:51] Voice 29: If we want to maybe have a motion passed,

[6:58:55] Voice 29: I think there's a motion floating out there

[6:58:56] Voice 29: around drawing additional funds from surplus.

[6:58:59] Voice 29: That might be an easy one,

[6:59:00] Voice 29: so we can feel like we've accomplished something today.

[6:59:04] Trustee Luckham: We've accomplished a lot.

[6:59:05] Trustee Luckham: It just hasn't resulted in a decision.

[6:59:08] Trustee Luckham: But let me just ask something, Julia,

[6:59:11] Trustee Luckham: that does seem to me that unless you've managed to find some magic here we haven't actually decided

[6:59:17] Trustee Luckham: on project allocations which was at least what seemed to me the conversation was surrounding

[6:59:23] Trustee Luckham: at this time uh

[6:59:25] Voice 29: that's right i've received no direction to make any changes to the budget

[6:59:29] Voice 29: um

[6:59:30] Trustee Luckham: so there's certainly room for contemplation or thought there

[6:59:35] Trustee Luckham: Well, it would

[6:59:38] Voice 16: be good to have a motion, or I think Trust Council has come to the determination

[6:59:43] Voice 16: that they're not prepared to go out to public consultation at this point, so that's where

[6:59:47] Voice 16: I think there's some certainty associated with that, and the next stage is to either

[6:59:56] Voice 16: send this back to FPC for them to sit on this longer.

[7:00:00] Voice 16: Or provide some direction or key thoughts for them to go back with some themes.

[7:00:10] Trustee Luckham: And, yeah, you know, we heard, I guess, it's hard for me not to work towards solutions.

[7:00:16] Trustee Luckham: I apologize for that.

[7:00:18] Trustee Luckham: But we've heard that there is some wiggle room on some one or two of the projects, potentially, that might be confirmed through consultation with LTCs in some fashion.

[7:00:29] Trustee Luckham: And so perhaps the cap of $250,000 is too low, and maybe the cap needs to be higher and still achieve some reduction, but perhaps not as ambitious as what FPC considered.

[7:00:45] Trustee Luckham: So I'm just saying that.

[7:00:47] Trustee Luckham: That's not a solution.

[7:00:47] Trustee Luckham: It's a suggestion of some ideas.

[7:00:52] Trustee Luckham: So where are we at there?

[7:00:54] Trustee Luckham: I think you said that a couple of trustees received some suggestions.

[7:00:58] Trustee Luckham: So I see Mairead Boland and Jamie Harris.

[7:01:05] Voice 5: So Julia, thank you very much.

[7:01:07] Voice 5: Julia's option was to propose that FPC work towards a budget

[7:01:15] Voice 5: that allows for a percent increase in tax draw,

[7:01:21] Voice 5: that percentage to be agreed amongst us.

[7:01:24] Voice 5: um i would look to others to to come up with that number but it is a way of

[7:01:33] Voice 5: um putting in a benchmark or a water level um and i'd just like to point out that that the budget

[7:01:43] Voice 5: that fpc did come up with the one that you were presented with today does achieve um last year's

[7:01:51] Voice 5: budget plus inflation as far as I know but anyway the alternative would be to work towards

[7:02:00] Voice 5: a tax increase as a cap on the budget and to send FPC away with that but I also I remember

[7:02:09] Voice 5: David Graham mentioned that he wanted to make a motion but I don't know if it was in the same

[7:02:15] Voice 5: in vain and now i'll be quiet thank

[7:02:21] Voice 18: you uh

[7:02:22] Trustee Luckham: i'm just going to go on the order of my speakers list

[7:02:26] Trustee Luckham: here uh in order to be fair and it's funny how this speaker list goes i got michaela lironi

[7:02:35] Trustee Luckham: joe bernardo david graham michaela

[7:02:44] Voice 12: sorry

[7:02:46] Voice 28: that was totally by accident okay

[7:02:48] Voice 12: that's fine uh joe

[7:02:50] Voice 12: Bernardo David Graham. Thank you. The

[7:02:57] Voice 22: discussion here, we seem to be trapped in a kind of an

[7:03:00] Voice 22: eddy. We're going in circles here. The problem with the budget, the FPC so kindly

[7:03:09] Voice 22: bequeathed to you guys is that it didn't come with a lot of confidence from the FPC. And

[7:03:17] Voice 22: because we understood that it was proposing something that was coming with a tax increase

[7:03:22] Voice 22: that nobody wants and i don't think i don't think the fact that it that that we're looking at um

[7:03:30] Voice 22: something that attempts to fix costs and then sort of anchors them to the cost of inflation

[7:03:39] Voice 22: that by itself and that might be the right answer but that by itself doesn't

[7:03:45] Voice 22: solve anything because what the big lump in the budget is the salary increase and that's

[7:03:52] Voice 22: dislodging a bunch of other things again i want to be clear i'm not criticizing the salary increase

[7:03:56] Voice 22: it's a fact of life it was necessary but we we're looking the um i seem to recall looking at

[7:04:03] Voice 22: something in the budget that the overage in the original version of the budget the the expenditures

[7:04:10] Voice 22: that the revenue shortfall was something like 771 000 which is i think either exactly or almost

[7:04:18] Voice 22: almost exactly the same amount by which the salaries had increased or the salary overhead

[7:04:22] Voice 22: had increased. So what we're facing here is an issue where a necessary increase on the salary

[7:04:31] Voice 22: side is so large that it's dislodging our ability to fund other things. Whether somebody proposes

[7:04:41] Voice 22: a motion that says zero increase or whether they say it should be capped at this or that

[7:04:47] Voice 22: that and sends that back to the FPC, that's still an exercise in drawing arbitrary lines.

[7:04:55] Voice 22: What you're not doing, I'm going to be kind of rude here, you're not doing your job.

[7:05:00] Voice 22: You're not doing your job of making the decision of what is worth keeping and what isn't.

[7:05:09] Voice 22: And, you know, you can, I'm kind of repeating myself and I apologize for that, but punting

[7:05:17] Voice 22: it back to the fpc yeah you can do that and we'll do our best but um at the end of the day

[7:05:25] Voice 22: uh we're gonna have to be coming back with hard decisions that you're gonna have to make and

[7:05:29] Voice 22: they're they're the ones that you've been avoiding all day today laura was asking you know what the

[7:05:38] Voice 22: salt spring getter is is it going to get what it needs um you heard kate louise uh you know i

[7:05:47] Voice 22: I know this isn't a very comfortable forum

[7:05:49] Voice 22: for having that type of debate

[7:05:51] Voice 22: or making that kind of decision,

[7:05:54] Voice 22: but that's where the heavy lifting is.

[7:05:56] Voice 22: And I think you could actually help the FPC quite a bit.

[7:05:59] Voice 22: You don't have to have all the answers,

[7:06:01] Voice 22: but you could set some direction if people were willing

[7:06:05] Voice 22: and able to identify genuine cuts or deferrals,

[7:06:14] Voice 22: declare a moratorium or something

[7:06:15] Voice 22: about some of these projects then that gives us some guidance as to what else

[7:06:20] Voice 22: we can do going forward thank you okay

[7:06:32] Voice 12: I'm sorry lost in thought David Graham

[7:06:35] Voice 12: over to you Thank

[7:06:40] Voice 17: You chair I'm not sure if this is the appropriate time to make

[7:06:43] Voice 17: my motion yes simply simply I was going to put a motion on that would take some

[7:06:50] Voice 17: funds from the general reserve fund which has been hinted by director Julia

[7:06:56] Voice 17: mobs a couple of times if we remain in compliance with the reserve that we have to hold back there's

[7:07:04] Voice 17: 79 000 there that we could put into the budget which reduces the tax uh hit by one percent i

[7:07:11] Voice 17: thought gosh that's a good idea it's always nice to put money back in that's not going to come from

[7:07:15] Voice 17: our taxpayers so that's the motion that's on the floor um and it was incomplete when i put it to um

[7:07:22] Voice 17: Laurie, and Director Mobs, because I didn't know where that money should go, but I wanted it to go

[7:07:28] Voice 17: in a place which would also reduce the taxes for the Bowen Island taxpayers, whereas if it goes

[7:07:36] Voice 17: into a planning function, it doesn't reduce that. So with some help from Director Mobs,

[7:07:42] Voice 17: the motion does include a complete motion, which you see on the screen now, which ensures that

[7:07:48] Voice 17: that there would be a tax savings for Bowen

[7:07:51] Voice 17: and a tax savings for the rest of us.

[7:07:53] Voice 17: All

[7:07:57] Voice 19: right, so do you want to make that motion, David?

[7:07:59] Voice 17: I'm happy to

[7:08:00] Voice 17: make that motion.

[7:08:00] Voice 17: I move that Trust Council direct staff

[7:08:03] Voice 17: to draw further $79,000 from the General Revenue Surplus Fund

[7:08:07] Voice 17: to reduce the shortfall in the draft 23-24 budget

[7:08:10] Voice 17: and that this surplus draw be allocated

[7:08:13] Voice 17: to the cost of the accessibility plan development, $2,500,

[7:08:16] Voice 17: with the remainder allocated to non-planning staff salaries

[7:08:20] Voice 17: to acknowledge the higher-than-anticipated increase to union staff salaries in the new BCGEU agreement.

[7:08:29] Voice 18: Excellent, David. Is there a seconder?

[7:08:32] Voice 18: I see Tim Peterson, just because I'm not sure who's digital hands up or prior or not.

[7:08:38] Voice 18: In fact, I saw a physical hand there. Tim Peterson, thank you.

[7:08:41] Voice 18: Tim, do you wish to speak further to the motion, David?

[7:08:46] Voice 17: We've been struggling to reduce, reduce, reduce.

[7:08:49] Voice 17: it's a very difficult conversation i thought this would be more fun to put some money in

[7:08:53] Trustee Luckham: thank you so uh i see two hands up i'm gonna lower your hand david i see two hands up there

[7:08:59] Trustee Luckham: uh judy getty uh susan yates um

[7:09:04] Voice 18: on the motion that's on the floor please judy over to you

[7:09:08] Voice 18: i

[7:09:12] Voice 2: don't want to speak to motion on the floor okay thank you

[7:09:15] Voice 2: put my hand up later

[7:09:16] Voice 2: thank

[7:09:17] Voice 18: you very much judy susan yates on the motion well

[7:09:20] Voice 35: sort of a circuitous

[7:09:21] Voice 35: comment to the motion on the floor

[7:09:23] Voice 35: because the province

[7:09:25] Voice 35: requires us to have an

[7:09:26] Voice 35: accessibility plan and

[7:09:29] Voice 35: a committee

[7:09:30] Voice 35: I would love to see the province

[7:09:33] Voice 35: the provincial contribution help us

[7:09:35] Voice 35: pay for that but I know that isn't possible

[7:09:36] Voice 35: so just a comment

[7:09:38] Voice 35: well yeah

[7:09:40] Trustee Luckham: good comment and we

[7:09:43] Trustee Luckham: can ask

[7:09:45] Trustee Luckham: any further discussion on

[7:09:47] Trustee Luckham: the motion on the floor

[7:09:48] Trustee Luckham: I see Tim Peterson and Susan

[7:09:51] Trustee Luckham: and lower your hand thank you uh

[7:09:54] Voice 21: just a question of clarity because i believe since the motion says

[7:09:59] Voice 21: it's non-planning staff salaries then the uh draw from surplus would uh help reduce the bowen uh

[7:10:09] Voice 21: municipal contribution is that correct yes i see julian nodding okay great thank you may read

[7:10:16] Voice 21: Just

[7:10:18] Voice 5: a quick point of clarification. Would this preclude using that for the salaries of the new FTEs if those were voted to be contract positions rather than new staff positions?

[7:10:37] Voice 5: Just the wording, would it preclude using it for those positions? Thank you.

[7:10:42] Voice 5: I

[7:10:43] Voice 29: would say yes if those positions are fulfilled with contractors and not staff

[7:10:48] Voice 29: then these dollars would not be allocated to the contractors because it's specifically

[7:10:53] Voice 29: allocated to staff thank

[7:10:56] Trustee Luckham: you any other questions at this time on the motion that's on the floor

[7:11:03] Trustee Luckham: not seeing any uh so I'll ask you to lower your hand Mary thank you and now I'll call for the vote

[7:11:09] Trustee Luckham: on the motion on the floor. All those in favor?

[7:11:23] Voice 7: David? I see 15 hands up on the screen.

[7:11:27] Voice 7: I concur. So please lower your

[7:11:29] Voice 12: hands. Okay now all those opposed please raise your hands,

[7:11:47] Voice 12: digital hands. So

[7:11:55] Trustee Luckham: David I think that's four. Four against. So then that carries. It carries.

[7:12:02] Trustee Luckham: Okay. Thank you very much, Council.

[7:12:09] Trustee Luckham: Well, let's just get a quick summary here.

[7:12:12] Trustee Luckham: Julia, where does that leave us with...

[7:12:15] Trustee Luckham: I'm inclined just to go back and look at the projects

[7:12:19] Trustee Luckham: because that would be some reallocated funding.

[7:12:22] Trustee Luckham: I don't know if that's true or not.

[7:12:24] Trustee Luckham: Maybe that's a rash assumption.

[7:12:25] Trustee Luckham: Where does that leave us with respect to the goals of Council

[7:12:28] Trustee Luckham: with the budget?

[7:12:29] Trustee Luckham: And maybe I'll give you a chance to figure that out

[7:12:32] Trustee Luckham: and i'll go back go to laura patrick as the next speaker oh sorry christine evans actually the phone

[7:12:40] Trustee Luckham: ones come in a little slower christine evans is uh christina evans sorry um as the first speaker

[7:12:46] Trustee Luckham: laura patrick jamie harris and judy yeti

[7:12:49] Voice 4: so just a thought um perhaps this can be turned into a

[7:12:54] Voice 4: motion uh regarding the projects for the various islands if none of them um are going to be willing

[7:13:00] Voice 4: to move them to next year, perhaps then applying a 30% reduction across all of them to reach that

[7:13:10] Voice 4: $250,000 budget item might accomplish that. Open that up for discussion. Just a thought. Thank you.

[7:13:20] Trustee Luckham: Thank you, Christina. Laura Patrick.

[7:13:26] Trustee Patrick: I absolutely believe there's room, there's significant room to come out of the Salt

[7:13:30] Trustee Patrick: spring projects but um trustee harris and i are only meeting next tuesday for the very first time

[7:13:36] Trustee Patrick: we have all new staff at salt spring and this is on our agenda to have this conversation

[7:13:41] Trustee Patrick: and so that's why i you know i i don't know well what dollar value i can't can't say here's what

[7:13:50] Trustee Patrick: we can cut because we haven't had that conversation but there is room to cut there okay that's

[7:13:56] Trustee Luckham: brilliant too um the ceo hassenpiller

[7:13:59] Voice 16: well perhaps uh you could write to the fpc and

[7:14:02] Voice 16: inform them as soon as you get that information yeah

[7:14:09] Voice 12: uh

[7:14:10] Trustee Luckham: the numbers can keep moving around here

[7:14:15] Trustee Luckham: i see step on cermak for staff perspective as some advice hopefully

[7:14:20] Voice 18: on the project list

[7:14:21] Voice 18: thank

[7:14:23] Voice 33: you mr chair the uh the financial planning committee as i understood the resolution when it

[7:14:29] Voice 33: was passed had asked had sort of said we'd like a 250 000 cap on ltc projects and we would like the

[7:14:39] Voice 33: regional planning committee to provide input into the priority so staff for those people that were

[7:14:46] Voice 33: appointed yesterday to the regional planning committee you should be getting in your inbox

[7:14:50] Voice 33: an invite to a meeting which was originally to be february 2nd but recognizing that this is a

[7:14:55] Voice 33: financial issue to january 17th so forgive me but this is just one big chaotic moment that's one day

[7:15:05] Voice 33: before the financial planning committee meets again and it was my hope at that meeting it's

[7:15:10] Voice 33: my hope and i and was that gabriel the ltc being sixty thousand dollars of the um four hundred and

[7:15:16] Voice 33: thirteen thousand dollars would have a chance to discuss their project which they did they didn't

[7:15:22] Voice 33: make a resolution but you did hear from those trustees today um and be able to inform the

[7:15:28] Voice 33: regional planning community at least of some of their wishes and there's still a chance for them

[7:15:31] Voice 33: to write correspondence same thing with salt spring island local trust committee um they're

[7:15:37] Voice 33: meeting on december 13th i hope it's on the agenda i know i've been in discussion with the

[7:15:41] Voice 33: regional planning manager i i put forward some suggestions to them but of course it's their

[7:15:45] Voice 33: decision and um it's a difficult one to make and hoping that they could at least have that

[7:15:51] Voice 33: discussion and make a recommendation again in anticipation of that january 17th regional planning

[7:15:57] Voice 33: committee the same time staff have heard loud and clear right from you chair luckham that better get

[7:16:03] Voice 33: on making those priority checklists and how do how do we prioritize ltc projects and i staff have

[7:16:10] Voice 33: been working to create it's just kind of a big giant spreadsheet of all the possible ways to

[7:16:17] Voice 33: to permutations of prioritization,

[7:16:20] Voice 33: which we'll talk to the regional planning committee

[7:16:23] Voice 33: about winnowing down as much as possible.

[7:16:26] Voice 33: I don't think they'll make that list complete by any means

[7:16:29] Voice 33: at the next meeting of the first orientation meeting,

[7:16:32] Voice 33: but it gives them a baseline for something to consider

[7:16:34] Voice 33: and a few simple decision factors.

[7:16:38] Voice 33: I think we're making,

[7:16:41] Voice 33: if we stick to the financial planning committee's desire

[7:16:43] Voice 33: to have a $250,000 cap,

[7:16:46] Voice 33: cap, I don't think it's hard to make that decision. I honestly think we're making kind of a mountain

[7:16:50] Voice 33: out of a mole to some degree. I think, you know, I have my own ideas. I'm not going to share them

[7:16:56] Voice 33: too much here because I think that's more for discussion at the Regional Planning Committee.

[7:17:00] Voice 33: And I think we need to hear from the two big ones, which were GATT, Capriola, and Salt Spring.

[7:17:06] Voice 33: And so I would just like to encourage you to have hope in the Regional Planning Committee to make

[7:17:11] Voice 33: that decision. I think they would have good input. I think you're going to have a lot of people

[7:17:14] Voice 33: there there's 10 people there and that information should be able to get to the regional planning

[7:17:18] Voice 33: committee pardon me financial planning committee the next day i hope that's some help oh

[7:17:28] Voice 12: thank you stefan i can't

[7:17:30] Trustee Luckham: help but wonder how is that helping us out today it sounds like we're

[7:17:32] Trustee Luckham: okay so what about what

[7:17:36] Voice 11: about this can we put a motion forward to

[7:17:40] Voice 11: to wipe every one of these projects off the plate

[7:17:45] Voice 11: on Salt Spring and then at our next LTC,

[7:17:48] Voice 11: we can come up with some projects that are more in line

[7:17:51] Voice 11: with a proper spending limit.

[7:17:53] Voice 11: Is that something that we can do here or is that?

[7:17:55] Voice 19: I think that's something

[7:17:56] Voice 19: you need to do at your LTC

[7:17:58] Voice 19: and advance

[7:17:59] Trustee Luckham: that information to FPC.

[7:18:02] Trustee Luckham: Am I correct on that, Stan?

[7:18:04] Trustee Luckham: Yeah,

[7:18:04] Voice 16: I think Stefan just laid out

[7:18:06] Voice 16: how this could be a good look at this.

[7:18:08] Voice 16: and uh so just to give uh confidence to uh trustee harris and patrick you'll have a chance to have

[7:18:14] Voice 16: that conversation and it'll get back into the into the next iteration of the budget

[7:18:19] Voice 11: so there's

[7:18:20] Voice 11: nothing we can do right now

[7:18:21] Voice 16: no not necessary space is being made for you to have your conversations

[7:18:27] Voice 16: before there's an arbitrary decision on affecting your budgets at this point so it'll i think it'll

[7:18:35] Voice 16: lead to a better decision for you okay so

[7:18:37] Trustee Luckham: i want to go to trustee getty here but i want to seek

[7:18:41] Trustee Luckham: some clarity here is there further direction necessary to conclude this meeting today

[7:18:45] Trustee Luckham: in terms of fpc at

[7:18:52] Voice 3: some point during trust council i'd like direction around budget engagement

[7:18:56] Trustee Luckham: okay thank you so certainly that's a motion that's outstanding if we're not choosing to engage

[7:19:02] Trustee Luckham: Well, I think there has to be direction for this body to

[7:19:06] Voice 16: say, go FPC and do it.

[7:19:09] Voice 16: That's what I'm fishing for.

[7:19:11] Voice 16: To

[7:19:11] Trustee Luckham: consider the budget.

[7:19:13] Voice 16: Yes.

[7:19:14] Voice 16: Come back and refined.

[7:19:15] Trustee Luckham: That's what I'm fishing for.

[7:19:17] Trustee Luckham: So, Jamie, if you made your point, I'll go to Judy Getty.

[7:19:23] Voice 11: Well, you know, again, I'm confused here because we're getting asked to make some decisions here.

[7:19:29] Voice 11: and so but yet we can't make any decisions is what you're telling me well you're ltc you um but

[7:19:38] Voice 11: that's that's and that's that's not today that's in however many days and it seems to be a bit of

[7:19:43] Voice 11: an uproar while we can't make any decisions now so i'm confused there i apologize i understand

[7:19:48] Trustee Luckham: um so i don't necessarily want to paraphrase stefan's summation there um but i think that

[7:19:55] Trustee Luckham: there's wiggle room for you in terms of timing that your next ltc meeting is coming up and that

[7:20:02] Trustee Luckham: opportunity will exist for you to provide those recommendations to fbc and fbc in turn will bring

[7:20:09] Trustee Luckham: recommendations to march council is that a correct summation yes i'm seeing nods is that okay

[7:20:16] Trustee Luckham: Okay. Jamie, do you understand that? Perfect. Judy Getty.

[7:20:25] Voice 2: CAO Hudson Pillar said,

[7:20:27] Voice 2: use the analogy of a parking lot for some of these things.

[7:20:31] Voice 2: And I've got this picture of a beater that's over in the corner.

[7:20:33] Voice 2: It's all covered up and behind the snow banks.

[7:20:36] Voice 12: I want to

[7:20:37] Voice 2: pull it out, wash it off, polish it up,

[7:20:40] Voice 2: get it inspected if we need to have some experts involved and sell it

[7:20:44] Voice 2: successfully to the province.

[7:20:45] Voice 2: So that's adding to the budget.

[7:20:50] Voice 2: And, you know, I think that even with an 18% increase,

[7:20:55] Voice 2: if I'm going to the community here and talking to them about a new

[7:20:59] Voice 2: governance committee, which is something that is very much in mind,

[7:21:04] Voice 2: a new reconciliation committee that's been included in the budget,

[7:21:08] Voice 2: a new accessibility committee,

[7:21:12] Voice 2: and that everybody's gone back

[7:21:14] Voice 2: and is going to re-examine all the special projects.

[7:21:17] Voice 2: There's some givens that we're stuck with

[7:21:18] Voice 2: in terms of salaries and leases and whatever.

[7:21:23] Voice 2: And that, you know, we've done a lot of work today

[7:21:26] Voice 2: and we can sort this out.

[7:21:27] Voice 2: So yes, Trustee Bernardo,

[7:21:30] Voice 2: you need to have some feedback from us

[7:21:33] Voice 2: in terms of hard decisions.

[7:21:34] Voice 2: I think I can sell this

[7:21:37] Voice 2: in terms of the new committees that we're trying to do.

[7:21:40] Voice 2: uh trying to set up and um you know i think that um if that's the information that the finance

[7:21:48] Voice 2: committee needs then um okay

[7:21:55] Trustee Luckham: so uh council i just want to hold the space here for a second

[7:22:01] Trustee Luckham: i got two questions for you how much longer do you want to go today and how much extra time do

[7:22:07] Trustee Luckham: you want to provide tomorrow to conclude the minimal amount of business that we need to do

[7:22:12] Trustee Luckham: we're a quarter after five um any recommendation from somebody we're going to go to 5 30 we're

[7:22:21] Trustee Luckham: going to go to six what are we going to do they close the doors here in a certain amount of time

[7:22:27] Voice 2: sue ellen and i have another meeting at six at the local council at

[7:22:32] Voice 16: the end of this meeting yes

[7:22:34] Voice 16: we are close yes okay

[7:22:37] Trustee Luckham: so let's let's try and wrap this up i think we need some direction for fbc we

[7:22:43] Trustee Luckham: need direction about public consultation and with that i'm going to go to joe bernardo thank you um

[7:22:51] Voice 22: yeah i was going to address the the public consultation piece of it but as a general

[7:22:56] Voice 22: matter i mean people are tired and it's been a long slog and i do find it encouraging that

[7:23:02] Voice 22: there's at least some willingness here to try to put our hands around this budget and try to deal

[7:23:08] Voice 22: with it the process as i've mentioned multiple times now it doesn't make it easy but it is

[7:23:14] Voice 22: encouraging to see that there's an emerging consensus here that we've got to do something

[7:23:20] Voice 22: different in terms of trying to get a funding budget forward in relation to that we've got

[7:23:26] Voice 22: the public consultation piece I'm not going to repeat what I said before about that my

[7:23:31] Voice 22: recollection is the amended budget that FPC forwarded to the trust council was proposed

[7:23:41] Voice 22: posed a reduction from I think something on the order of $105,000 that was originally

[7:23:47] Voice 22: allocated for that and reducing it down to 50. I'm not sure that compromise, given the

[7:23:58] Voice 22: tenor of our discussion and certainly given where my perspective is from, I'm not sure

[7:24:02] Voice 22: that compromise goes far enough. I'm going to open up for discussion and possibly so

[7:24:13] Voice 22: so it leads to a motion.

[7:24:14] Voice 22: And I'm a little concerned about how quickly motions

[7:24:17] Voice 22: get made here without full discussion about them,

[7:24:19] Voice 22: or at least a decent discussion about them.

[7:24:22] Voice 22: I'm not entirely sure about this myself,

[7:24:24] Voice 22: but it seems to me it's open to us,

[7:24:28] Voice 22: given the fact that public consultation is,

[7:24:31] Voice 22: we're not even ready for it.

[7:24:33] Voice 22: Just scrub the budget.

[7:24:35] Voice 22: Just take that out of the budget.

[7:24:36] Voice 22: That's $105,000.

[7:24:40] Voice 22: Let me finish my point, please.

[7:24:43] Voice 22: and if it turns out that um you know i know public consultation has a value but the question we have

[7:24:49] Voice 22: to ask ourselves uh is that value worth more than say one of these specific projects that

[7:24:57] Voice 22: we're talking about because that's what it comes down to like what is more important

[7:25:04] Voice 22: and i think there's an i'm hopeful that we'll find other savings but the one that just jumps

[7:25:09] Voice 22: out at me is this hundred and five thousand so i'd like people to comment on that thank you

[7:25:15] Trustee Luckham: thank you

[7:25:15] Trustee Luckham: joe and the reason i was interrupting is because it's not clear to me a hundred and

[7:25:19] Trustee Luckham: five thousand dollars is about that was reduced to 50 is the policy statement public consultation

[7:25:26] Trustee Luckham: not budget consultation and so

[7:25:28] Trustee Luckham: i just want to be sure that that's what you're talking about

[7:25:31] Voice 22: my apology for that right that's my mistake uh uh i can confirm i actually don't know what the

[7:25:37] Voice 22: The number is, but it's just looking to reduce,

[7:25:41] Voice 22: just to get rid of the public consultation line item,

[7:25:44] Voice 22: save some money there and move on to other things.

[7:25:48] Trustee Luckham: I don't think the public consultation

[7:25:49] Trustee Luckham: was necessarily a big line item.

[7:25:51] Trustee Luckham: Director Frater?

[7:25:53] Voice 3: So yeah, so with regard to the policy statement budget

[7:25:55] Voice 3: that's been put forward, it's on screen now.

[7:25:57] Voice 3: It's page 108 of your agenda.

[7:26:00] Voice 3: The original proposal was for 105,000.

[7:26:03] Voice 3: FPC put a cap on 50,000,

[7:26:06] Voice 3: which is currently the amount in your draft budget of that amount we have proposed that 15 500

[7:26:12] Voice 3: be used for public engagement and 30 000 be available for capacity funding so we don't

[7:26:18] Voice 3: yet we don't yet have your direction as to how trust council wishes to scope the project if you

[7:26:24] Voice 3: wish to further reduce that amount you can look at what's on that menu there and determine you know

[7:26:30] Voice 3: if you wanted to go lower but right now there's only fifteen thousand dollars proposed towards

[7:26:34] Voice 3: public engagement on the policy statement can

[7:26:37] Voice 22: i just ask can i'm sorry i should have had the

[7:26:41] Voice 22: number in hand i didn't but what is what is the amount that's allocated for public public

[7:26:45] Voice 22: consultation with respect to the budget oh

[7:26:48] Voice 3: that's out of this fiscal year's budget that's already

[7:26:50] Voice 3: been approved uh fpc has a project charter in the range of about forty five hundred dollars

[7:26:55] Voice 3: and that's out of this fiscal year right

[7:26:57] Trustee Luckham: so that's what i was trying to get to and that's

[7:27:00] Voice 3: It's part of the Trust Area Services Communications Budget.

[7:27:04] Trustee Luckham: All right.

[7:27:09] Trustee Luckham: I've lost track of where we're at.

[7:27:11] Trustee Luckham: Marie Boland.

[7:27:14] Voice 5: Yeah.

[7:27:17] Voice 5: Sorry to harp back to this, but at the Financial Planning Committee,

[7:27:20] Voice 5: there was a proposal to defer the entire trust policy project

[7:27:26] Voice 5: and or to have trustees work on it and take it, make it their own

[7:27:31] Voice 5: and do the consultation with their communities.

[7:27:35] Voice 5: So the initial proposal was to remove that entire 105,000.

[7:27:41] Voice 5: We'll just leave that there.

[7:27:42] Voice 5: The other thing I want to ask about is,

[7:27:45] Voice 5: there are, as far as I know, five vacancies at the moment.

[7:27:50] Voice 5: And Julia told me what those positions were

[7:27:54] Voice 5: and the status of the hiring.

[7:27:56] Voice 5: and I can understand that certain positions are well they're all essential but some of them

[7:28:04] Voice 5: perhaps you know if we understood what would happen if those vacancies were not filled there

[7:28:11] Voice 5: are two planning staff positions so for example if we really looked at what that impact would be

[7:28:17] Voice 5: on the workload of the planners we could make those choices to say well okay we accept that

[7:28:27] Voice 5: this won't get done and so I'm just curious as to whether there is if you know this maybe the

[7:28:34] Voice 5: staff could come back to the financial planning committee and I don't want like 15 pages and to

[7:28:40] Voice 5: add to your workload but just very short summary of what the consequences would be if any of those

[7:28:47] Voice 5: positions remained unfilled if it's possible at this stage thank you thank

[7:28:54] Trustee Luckham: you um i think it

[7:28:58] Trustee Luckham: you know that one of the outstanding questions which might be easier than some of the other ones

[7:29:02] Trustee Luckham: is the notion of deferring the public consultation around the budget um for something after financial

[7:29:11] Trustee Luckham: planning committee has met that would be fed directly to council i think that was one of the

[7:29:19] Trustee Luckham: intentions here and I think we need some direction to undertake that and whether or not there's

[7:29:26] Trustee Luckham: additional changes to the budget is a separate item but I'm not sure that we're going to actually

[7:29:31] Trustee Luckham: get to that today but Deb Morrison hopefully can help soon.

[7:29:36] Voice 24: Is there a motion to that effect

[7:29:39] Voice 24: because I would agree that we should not take this budget out for public consultation and

[7:29:47] Voice 24: and potentially do an abbreviated form of consultation

[7:29:50] Voice 24: that's much closer to the actual trust counsel

[7:29:53] Voice 24: and that that information just feeds straight through

[7:29:56] Voice 24: to trust counsel instead of financial planning.

[7:29:58] Trustee Luckham: So I

[7:29:59] Voice 24: don't have a motion.

[7:30:00] Trustee Luckham: mind um

[7:30:00] Voice 24: let me try for it let me try for it

[7:30:03] Trustee Luckham: that's great i think you can yeah

[7:30:05] Voice 24: okay okay

[7:30:06] Trustee Luckham: hey

[7:30:08] Voice 24: are you good lori okay i move that trust council um requests are direct financial or

[7:30:22] Voice 24: or sorry, I move the Trust Council direct staff

[7:30:25] Voice 24: to defer public engagement

[7:30:29] Voice 24: until after Financial Planning Committee

[7:30:35] Voice 24: has revised the current budget or the proposed budget.

[7:30:42] Voice 19: Director Fader?

[7:30:42] Voice 19: Okay,

[7:30:43] Voice 3: so just to be clear,

[7:30:45] Voice 3: budget consultation does not happen generally

[7:30:48] Voice 3: until after FPC has looked at the budget in January

[7:30:51] Voice 3: or like had met in January.

[7:30:53] Voice 3: when they make a final decision on consultation in any event that's the typical course of events

[7:30:58] Voice 3: so we we would as a matter of course be taking a draft survey to fpc in january for their review

[7:31:05] Voice 3: and approval to then launch typically between the january fpc meeting and the february fpc meeting

[7:31:12] Voice 3: that's our standard course of application what i would look be looking for direction here what

[7:31:18] Voice 3: would you like done differently so if there's a draft budget so typically you have a draft budget

[7:31:23] Voice 3: approved by trust council what if we were to proceed with a draft budget approved by fpc only

[7:31:29] Voice 3: we would amend the survey at the fpc meeting to reflect whatever you know decided there we could

[7:31:36] Voice 3: roll it out after that and just be clear in communications that this is a proposal from

[7:31:41] Voice 3: financial planning committee that has not yet been reviewed by trust counts but is in accordance with

[7:31:46] Voice 3: the principles approved by trust council today i'm

[7:31:50] Voice 24: just checking okay so so claire i think then

[7:31:53] Voice 24: what the motion needs to say is that trust council um defers

[7:32:01] Voice 18: approval you said already on the screen

[7:32:04] Voice 18: yeah

[7:32:04] Voice 24: i see it i see it so the trust council um directs financial planning committee

[7:32:11] Voice 24: to approve the budget for public engagement the budget and pub and process for public engagement

[7:32:18] Voice 24: something to that effect draft

[7:32:20] Voice 12: budget draft

[7:32:21] Voice 24: budget yeah thank

[7:32:26] Voice 12: you Lori and

[7:32:29] Voice 24: and just to be clear that

[7:32:31] Voice 24: this is um yeah so thank you Lori the the trust council directs financial planning committee

[7:32:37] Voice 24: to approve the draft budget and process for public engagement is that what we're looking for

[7:32:43] Voice 24: yes we're we're pushing our responsibility to approve the budget to go out for public

[7:32:50] Voice 24: engagement off to financial planning committee so they can have more time to look at it director

[7:32:55] Voice 19: um

[7:32:55] Voice 24: yeah so that's helpful in terms of

[7:32:57] Voice 3: delegating the responsibility for the draft budget to

[7:33:00] Voice 3: financial planning committee i what i would like today because we place advertising at the end of

[7:33:05] Voice 3: december that then comes out in january so it'd be helpful to staff to have assurance you do wish

[7:33:09] Voice 3: to have public engagement because if financial planning committee were to decide they don't

[7:33:15] Voice 3: wish a process we would have already placed advertising so it'd be

[7:33:18] Voice 3: helpful to have an

[7:33:19] Voice 3: an indication of, is it your anticipation that it will proceed?

[7:33:24] Voice 24: Yeah, that's a good question.

[7:33:27] Voice 24: Before I put the motion on the table, I would actually prefer to just have a, like, even

[7:33:31] Voice 24: a, like, proxy vote of, like, whether people even want public engagement.

[7:33:41] Voice 14: That's what we have for 17 days.

[7:33:45] Voice 16: So we can put it on our website and then go to the subscribers.

[7:33:48] Voice 16: So we don't have to go in December to say that we're going to do that in late February.

[7:33:53] Voice 16: So the

[7:33:53] Voice 3: question would become does council wish to have print advertising to promote the budget because that's what ties our hands in terms of timing.

[7:34:00] Voice 3: So if that's something you wish to forego this time, then you would have more flexibility at the financial planning committee meeting.

[7:34:07] Voice 3: But we do frequently hear from community that that is a source, a strong source by which they become aware of engagement opportunities.

[7:34:15] Voice 18: Okay, I'm going to turn to Deb Morrison the motion hasn't been seconded yet so still your motion.

[7:34:20] Voice 24: Yeah, and so I, I would encourage this motion with the understanding that it's for financial planning committee to decide, and my, so I'm going to move this motion, and my understanding behind that is that there would be no motion on public engagement prior to financial

[7:34:40] Voice 24: planning committee. So if people disagree with that then they'll have to vote the motion down we can go forward on a different motion. Thanks

[7:34:46] Trustee Luckham: for that help that.

[7:34:47] Trustee Luckham: is there a seconder i'll second susan yates thank you susan um uh any discussion on the motion

[7:34:54] Trustee Luckham: i see two hands up well joe bernardo and deb morrison lower your hands if you don't want

[7:35:01] Trustee Luckham: to speak to it joe

[7:35:02] Voice 22: just a point of clarification i guess uh when the language here says trust

[7:35:09] Voice 22: council direct financial planning committee to approve the draft budget um i read that as being

[7:35:15] Voice 22: implicit in that a revised draft budget yes

[7:35:20] Voice 12: yeah we

[7:35:23] Trustee Luckham: could add that word and

[7:35:25] Voice 3: so typically at this

[7:35:26] Voice 3: stage it is the words for consultation are typically found after the words draft budget

[7:35:31] Voice 3: so typically council passes a motion at this meeting to approve a draft budget for consultation

[7:35:35] Voice 3: thank

[7:35:36] Voice 22: you well that's that's actually not the point though of what we're trying to do here

[7:35:40] Voice 22: we're not trying to necessarily approve public engagement we're trying to figure out whether

[7:35:45] Voice 22: we can come up with a decent budget that's worth sending out into the public thank

[7:35:49] Voice 22: you and like

[7:35:51] Voice 22: let's not just push ahead with this idea that somehow we have to keep doing things like we've

[7:35:55] Voice 22: always done it i mean i would have been just as happy with the motion they just scrubbed the whole

[7:35:59] Voice 22: thing but i guess there's not a lot of traction for that but um well

[7:36:07] Trustee Luckham: let's see how much traction

[7:36:08] Trustee Luckham: there is for this well

[7:36:10] Voice 22: it's not my emotions and this whole business of having to come up with

[7:36:14] Voice 22: these you know amendment motions and all the rest of it seems unduly complicated to me but if deb

[7:36:20] Voice 22: wants to amend the her own motion to say um to approve you know a revised draft budget

[7:36:27] Voice 22: and you know consider the process for public engagement some of something along those lines

[7:36:33] Voice 22: that would be a little easier to take i guess i

[7:36:36] Voice 24: think the intent and clarity is to approve

[7:36:50] Trustee Luckham: I would suggest that adding the word revised is a friendly amendment, but I don't want

[7:36:59] Trustee Luckham: to go any further than that.

[7:37:03] Trustee Luckham: It

[7:37:04] Voice 24: needs to say to approve a revised draft budget that grammatically.

[7:37:09] Voice 24: Thank you.

[7:37:10] Voice 24: Thank you.

[7:37:10] Trustee Luckham: Friendly amendment.

[7:37:11] Trustee Luckham: amendment. So any, David Graham, for a discussion on the moved and seconded friendly amended motion

[7:37:21] Trustee Luckham: on the floor.

[7:37:22] Voice 17: Thank you, Chair. I just didn't want Trustee Bernardo to think that that wasn't

[7:37:27] Voice 17: something that some of us agree with. The fact that very few people actually comment, the fact

[7:37:33] Voice 17: that when they do comment, we rarely make changes to the budget, leads me to think it's a waste of

[7:37:39] Voice 17: everyone's time and if we're trying to show fiscal responsibility to our taxpayers every dollar

[7:37:44] Voice 17: counts it gives us some speaking notes when we're speaking to our community that we're trying very

[7:37:51] Voice 17: very hard to respect their dollars their hard-earned dollars and this is one area of our

[7:37:55] Voice 17: expense not a big amount of money but it's amount of money it's a dollar so if I'm not in favor of

[7:38:01] Voice 17: the addition for the process for public engagement portion of this so I will be speaking against this

[7:38:08] Voice 17: motion but i would certainly support a motion to uh not uh engage in public consultation this time

[7:38:14] Voice 17: thank you um

[7:38:18] Voice 16: and um trustee getty has to go to another meeting so she's just informed staff that

[7:38:25] Voice 16: that's the case so just so you realize that one person

[7:38:28] Trustee Luckham: already so just make uh just let the chair

[7:38:31] Trustee Luckham: know uh trustee getty so i just might ask a question um with respect to david graham's

[7:38:37] Trustee Luckham: comment there is that if the fbc is approving a revised budget and process for public engagement

[7:38:45] Trustee Luckham: is it not implicit that fbc will determine the scope of that engagement so it could be reduced

[7:38:52] Trustee Luckham: or zero yeah thank you i

[7:38:54] Voice 16: think one follows the other so that you're giving discretion to fpc

[7:38:59] Voice 16: to go you know we never got there we're just going to have a really tough time in march or

[7:39:04] Voice 16: or no, there's something worth consulting on.

[7:39:08] Voice 16: So it's-

[7:39:10] Voice 16: So some more things for FPC to chew on, yeah.

[7:39:13] Voice 16: So

[7:39:14] Trustee Luckham: it could be no engagement comes out of this process.

[7:39:15] Trustee Luckham: Could be no engagement.

[7:39:16] Trustee Luckham: Okay, thank you.

[7:39:17] Trustee Luckham: Debra, are you wishing to speak to your motion here?

[7:39:19] Voice 24: Yeah, so the last thing I'll say on this is

[7:39:22] Voice 24: that would be my intent if I was sitting on FPC

[7:39:25] Voice 24: would be to actually do public engagement

[7:39:28] Voice 24: at the level of providing speaking notes to trustees,

[7:39:31] Voice 24: send it out for trustees to talk with their communities about that is totally appropriate.

[7:39:37] Trustee Luckham: Thank you.

[7:39:39] Trustee Luckham: Alright, so anybody else wishing to speak on the motion on the floor.

[7:39:43] Trustee Luckham: And I'm going to call the vote.

[7:39:46] Trustee Luckham: So please raise your digital hands.

[7:39:49] Trustee Luckham: If you are in favor.

[7:40:02] Trustee Luckham: Okay, got that David?

[7:40:04] Trustee Luckham: Yes, 18 hands.

[7:40:05] Trustee Luckham: Okay, please lower your hands. That's 18 in favor.

[7:40:10] Trustee Luckham: please lower your hands waiting for hands to get lowered and now raise your

[7:40:16] Trustee Luckham: hands if you're not in favor you see why that's one not in favor so thank no to

[7:40:29] Trustee Luckham: not in favor thank you all right so that carries okay that's a good step in the

[7:40:36] Trustee Luckham: right direction thank you everybody do we need to do anything further David I

[7:40:43] Voice 7: I could just give you the results of the governance election

[7:40:45] Voice 7: and then I'll email it to all the trustees after that.

[7:40:48] Trustee Luckham: Okay, so let's hear the results of the governance election

[7:40:50] Trustee Luckham: and then I'll ask that question one more time

[7:40:52] Trustee Luckham: if there's anything further for us to do today.

[7:40:55] Trustee Luckham: Otherwise, we're going to recess, I think.

[7:40:57] Trustee Luckham: David Mahler, over to you.

[7:40:59] Voice 7: Yeah, okay.

[7:40:59] Voice 7: So the seven positions in the Governance Committee

[7:41:01] Voice 7: are Kate Louise Stanford, Joe Bernardo, Judy Geddy,

[7:41:07] Voice 7: Jamie Harris, Lee Middleton, Tim Peterson, Laura Patrick.

[7:41:12] Voice 7: very good thank you very much council

[7:41:15] Trustee Luckham: well done successful candidates looking forward to your work

[7:41:20] Trustee Luckham: is there any further business that we need to do today all right so then i want to call for recess

[7:41:30] Trustee Luckham: but i want to warn you there's some a number of important items that we need to uh deal with

[7:41:37] Trustee Luckham: tomorrow including delegations or sorry disposition of delegations and on top of the eli mina session

[7:41:43] Trustee Luckham: session that we're having and so um the adjournment time at 12 o'clock is approximate um i think you

[7:41:50] Trustee Luckham: should expect to run a little over time we

[7:41:52] Voice 35: have rfds to do we

[7:41:57] Trustee Luckham: yeah yeah no yeah that's what i'm

[7:41:58] Trustee Luckham: saying there's uh several pieces of business to do including um actually uh the decision about

[7:42:06] Trustee Luckham: the reconciliation committee and potential resolution from trustee yates regarding

[7:42:11] Trustee Luckham: regarding further meetings which will obviously

[7:42:13] Trustee Luckham: have some impact on, maybe have some impact.

[7:42:17] Trustee Luckham: Anyway, Julia Mobs, just for your needs.

[7:42:24] Voice 29: I'm sensing conclusion of the budget discussion

[7:42:26] Voice 29: at this council meeting.

[7:42:28] Voice 29: Is that correct?

[7:42:30] Voice 19: I think I'm getting a nod around the table, yes.

[7:42:33] Voice 29: Okay, there is one item that does need to be addressed

[7:42:37] Voice 29: at this trust council meeting.

[7:42:38] Voice 29: It's around the special property tax requisition

[7:42:40] Voice 29: that's been proposed by the salt spring island local trust committee council needs to

[7:42:44] Voice 29: council

[7:42:45] Voice 29: needs to approve that in principle such that the local trust committee can go to public consultation

[7:42:50] Voice 29: for that work there is a motion uh in the agenda package on page 203 um

[7:42:57] Trustee Luckham: okay thank you so um

[7:42:59] Trustee Luckham: i guess um if we're brave um i would turn to laura patrick and see if you want to make that

[7:43:06] Trustee Luckham: motion or if you think there's going to be a lot of discussion around this that that might be

[7:43:10] Trustee Luckham: deferred until tomorrow but laura patrick i

[7:43:13] Trustee Patrick: i wasn't that that's not what i had on my i was

[7:43:16] Trustee Patrick: going to say that we should talk about 4.4 about the provincial review because of the new minister

[7:43:22] Trustee Patrick: and so forth today that if we can find time for that tomorrow it sounds like we're going to try

[7:43:26] Trustee Patrick: to shoebox a lot in thank you it's my plan

[7:43:29] Trustee Luckham: to try and pick up all the important things that

[7:43:32] Trustee Luckham: that we have not covered in the last two days uh tomorrow which is why i'm begging your indulgence

[7:43:38] Trustee Luckham: in expecting to run overtime.

[7:43:39] Trustee Luckham: That is definitely one of them.

[7:43:41] Trustee Luckham: Thank you, Patrick.

[7:43:42] Trustee Luckham: The question on the floor now is,

[7:43:44] Trustee Luckham: do we want to deal with the special tax requisition

[7:43:46] Trustee Luckham: tomorrow as well?

[7:43:48] Trustee Patrick: I would assume we have to.

[7:43:50] Trustee Luckham: Okay, then that's it.

[7:43:51] Trustee Luckham: So thank you, everybody.

[7:43:54] Trustee Luckham: Thank you for a terrific day

[7:43:56] Trustee Luckham: and an amazing in-depth conversation.

[7:44:00] Trustee Luckham: So let's recess.

[7:44:01] Trustee Luckham: Let's reconvene tomorrow at nine

[7:44:04] Trustee Luckham: and we'll continue on

[7:44:06] Trustee Luckham: on with a little learning opportunity

[7:44:09] Trustee Luckham: and the remaining work on our agenda.

[7:44:11] Trustee Luckham: Thank you council for everything today.