Islands Trust Conservancy Board regular meeting, November 19, 2024

[0:00:04] Voice 5: Okay, thank you. So hi, everybody. I guess I'm going to call the meeting to order. And I'm going to start by just explaining some differences this time to last time. Welcome, everybody.

[0:00:18] Voice 5: Lisa, Trustee Galgrove has kindly offered to help me manage the speakers list. So she'll be managing the speakers list and calling on you in the order that you put your hands up. So that's great.

[0:00:30] Voice 5: And I thank Trustee

[0:00:32] Voice 4: Elliott for the suggestion.

[0:00:35] Voice 5: some people are

[0:00:36] Voice 5: talking in the background could you mute yourself if you're not speaking in the

[0:00:41] Voice 5: meeting that'd be great and the next thing before we do anything else would be the land

[0:00:47] Voice 5: acknowledgement and I hope people are patient but I'd really like to do it today because

[0:00:51] Voice 5: I haven't done it since the first meeting or since January or something so it'll be short but

[0:00:58] Voice 5: I would like to acknowledge that we're conducting this meeting in the traditional territory of the

[0:01:03] Voice 5: Coast Salish peoples. We're all in different places, but generally that's the peoples we are

[0:01:08] Voice 5: in their territory. Long before settlers arrived from Europe and elsewhere, Coast Salish peoples

[0:01:14] Voice 5: were thriving in the Salish Sea, stewarding the unbelievably rich biological resources of this

[0:01:21] Voice 5: area. The Coast Salish people did not cede their home to the new arrivals, yet their land and sea

[0:01:28] Voice 5: and equally horrifying, their children and their culture were systematically taken from them. It's

[0:01:35] Voice 5: now all of our collective responsibility to find a way to right the many wrongs of the past.

[0:01:41] Voice 5: As we deliberate today, I encourage all of us to reflect on how each decision we make can

[0:01:48] Voice 5: and inch us closer to meaningful reconciliation.

[0:01:52] Voice 5: Thank you.

[0:01:55] Voice 5: So the first thing then, it was fun writing that actually.

[0:02:01] Voice 5: Thank

[0:02:01] Voice 8: you, Trustee Smith.

[0:02:02] Voice 8: That was really nice.

[0:02:04] Voice 5: You're welcome.

[0:02:04] Voice 5: I think we're all getting more deeply vested in the importance of this every day.

[0:02:11] Voice 5: So it's great to be able to express that when we can.

[0:02:14] Voice 5: As far as before we approve the agenda, I just want people to be aware

[0:02:19] Voice 5: there's no um lunch on this agenda or no breaks or anything that's because you guys are so

[0:02:24] Voice 5: dedicated you just want to go straight to three o'clock you know that um so i'm hoping we can

[0:02:29] Voice 5: take a break um sort of 11 o'clock each and that would happen around just after item 6.1.6

[0:02:38] Voice 5: which is the um nature reserve monitoring report so we'd be able to do that decision and then take

[0:02:44] Voice 5: take a break for 10 minutes. If we're lucky, that'll be about 11. I'm thinking this meeting

[0:02:50] Voice 5: will go to 1230. We'll have a half hour for lunch, and then go to the in-camera meeting. So just

[0:02:55] Voice 5: to make you aware of how the day will play out if possible. And, oh, sorry.

[0:03:04] Voice 5: So you've all seen the agenda. Are there any changes or additions to the agenda that you'd

[0:03:11] Voice 5: like to make you know okay so then um i'll ask for approval of the agenda but we don't need to have

[0:03:25] Voice 5: a motion for this um i'm correct i forget this but i'm i'm pretty sure of that um just is there

[0:03:32] Voice 5: anybody who objects to the agenda if not then um we can just approve it unanimously so that has been

[0:03:41] Voice 5: been done um the next thing is um the rise and report decisions from uh previously closed

[0:03:50] Voice 5: meetings and i will have to read this out um so um this is what we rose in report from the last

[0:03:59] Voice 5: closed meeting the islands truck so i can't see that but don't worry i can have it on my screen

[0:04:06] Voice 5: The Islands Trust Conservancy Board granted the request of Salas Forest Strata, Sydney Island, by issuing a temporary waiver of terms 3.2b, 3.2j, and 3.2k of Covenants ES 065747, Dragonfly Pond, ES 65743, Woodpecker Pond, and ES 605749, Kingfisher Pond,

[0:04:35] Voice 5: for the purpose of using an excavator to extract invasive

[0:04:41] Voice 5: Cortegus monogena hawthorn trees

[0:04:43] Voice 5: and dispose of the biomass on site by burning,

[0:04:47] Voice 5: subject to the following terms as amended.

[0:04:49] Voice 5: Effort is made to minimize the area of soil compaction by excavator.

[0:04:55] Voice 5: No other motorcar-based vehicles are permitted in the covenant areas.

[0:04:59] Voice 5: Preference is given to disposal of hawthorn in brush piles

[0:05:02] Voice 5: as close to treatment sites as possible

[0:05:05] Voice 5: and large enough to reduce the risk of regenerating cuttings the number of burn piles is

[0:05:11] Voice 5: minimized the burn pile locations must be pre-selected in consultation with islands trust

[0:05:17] Voice 5: conservancy staff to avoid impacts to native plants wildlife and habitat structures the work

[0:05:23] Voice 5: must occur during the months of september to february to minimize impacts of natural values

[0:05:28] Voice 5: and must be completed by the end of february 2026 the coordinates of evacuated trees brush

[0:05:34] Voice 5: piles and burn piles are documented and provided to the Islands Trust Conservancy Board and every

[0:05:41] Voice 5: effort is made to work with Parks Canada to have experts in heritage management attend during the

[0:05:47] Voice 5: excavations so that is um that's the first item and there's not really any approvals it's just

[0:05:55] Voice 5: so that the public knows that um that we've done that the next item is the um draft Islands Trust

[0:06:03] Voice 5: conservancy board minutes of october 2024 so i guess there's no way i don't know if other people

[0:06:10] Voice 5: can see those but um corlin is there any way to make them a bit bigger or maybe people don't need

[0:06:19] Voice 5: that could you

[0:06:19] Voice 13: perhaps disappear the sidebar unless it's necessary or yeah that would be great

[0:06:25] Voice 13: ah

[0:06:27] Voice 5: yeah okay maybe that helps okay so um i'll just ask if there's any elements in the minutes

[0:06:36] Voice 5: that people feel need to be changed or some corrections is anybody and trustee Gavro maybe

[0:06:43] Voice 5: you'll call on people if people put their hands up uh

[0:06:46] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): no hands up right now okay

[0:06:49] Voice 5: I'll just wait

[0:06:50] Voice 5: another minute anybody have any changes to the minutes okay apparently not and I have a motion

[0:06:59] Voice 5: to um approve the minutes I see trustee Yates a seconder no seconder oh Steve Timothy

[0:07:19] Voice 5: okay all those in favor put your hands up it's best if you put your hands up electronically

[0:07:27] Voice 5: i say as i try and find them right i can't find mine uh okay well you can put your hand up right

[0:07:34] Voice 5: here yep okay i think everybody has approved them except trustee go world oh but you are you have

[0:07:41] Voice 5: okay okay so they seem to be approved unanimously that's great thanks everybody um now we get into

[0:07:49] Voice 5: the follow-up action list and I want to remind people I did this before but if

[0:07:55] Voice 5: you're you know having trouble jumping around in the agenda if you put the

[0:07:59] Voice 5: outline up on your PDF screen it lets you click on and take you right to

[0:08:04] Voice 5: agenda items I don't know if that works for other people but works great on my

[0:08:09] Voice 5: computer in these okay so um well um so we're in the um we have those up oh we do okay the action

[0:08:20] Voice 5: follow-up action report are there any comments on any of these follow-up actions we might have

[0:08:30] Voice 5: just waited one minute so i can get that um okay are there any hands up um nope no hands up no

[0:08:48] Voice 5: hands up nobody has comments I'm just checking to see if I do no so in we

[0:08:55] Voice 5: won't there's nothing to approve but we don't have anything to follow up with

[0:08:59] Voice 5: staff thanks everybody for having such a good action report we don't even have to

[0:09:03] Voice 5: ask questions the next agenda item is proposed ITC board meeting schedule from

[0:09:09] Voice 5: January 2025 until March 31st 2026 and I think the note is pretty clear they're

[0:09:17] Voice 5: giving us some dates some for in for zoom meetings and some for in person are there anybody is there

[0:09:26] Voice 5: anybody who can't make it to that schedule the in-person meetings and the and the ones by zoom

[0:09:33] Voice 5: uh yes uh i i see uh carolyn stewart's hand up although i didn't hear from

[0:09:41] Voice 5: okay carolyn please go ahead carolyn is your hand up i

[0:09:51] Voice 12: don't see any hands up oh okay she had

[0:09:54] Voice 12: i can't hear

[0:09:55] Voice 12: you carolyn if you're trying to speak oh no still not coming through no

[0:10:02] Voice 12: it might be your headset can you

[0:10:04] Voice 10: hear me now yeah yes sorry about that uh there was just one item i

[0:10:09] Voice 10: I wanted to ask for clarity on in this report and what staff had heard at the last Trust Fund Conservancy meeting and what was heard at Executive we weren't 100% sure on.

[0:10:24] Voice 10: Was it your intention, Coraline, if you can go down a little bit to the Executive Committee ITC Board section of this.

[0:10:33] Voice 10: there we had I understood that with the three meetings with executive that the way you had

[0:10:41] Voice 10: been doing it going to an executive committee meeting and having an hour-long discussion

[0:10:46] Voice 10: was adequate and and so that's what we had proposed but what some people had heard at

[0:10:54] Voice 10: the executive meeting was that you wanted longer meetings and them not to be associated with a

[0:10:59] Voice 10: regular executive meeting. So I was just wanting to get clarity that what we've put in this report

[0:11:05] Voice 10: is indeed works for the Conservancy.

[0:11:10] Voice 5: So would any board members like to comment on that?

[0:11:20] Voice 5: If I see hands up, and I don't hear from Trustee Galbraith, can I just call them?

[0:11:24] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Yeah, I see Trustee Elliott. Yeah,

[0:11:29] Voice 13: my understanding was the former, due to the number of meetings that

[0:11:35] Voice 13: are scheduled throughout the year. I think it's over 200. And we've had to add more because of

[0:11:41] Voice 13: the CAOHC hiring committee, which is becoming an oversight committee as well for the new CAO.

[0:11:49] Voice 13: There is really limited time to add any new meetings. So my understanding was that we were

[0:11:58] Voice 13: going to be added to existing executive committee meetings, except for potentially

[0:12:05] Voice 13: the liaison meeting which ITC typically hosts and that was the longer one. So looking at July 22nd

[0:12:20] Voice 13: that is an ITC board meeting in the morning and I would assume that that is we are hosting

[0:12:28] Voice 13: the EC liaison session. So that's why that one's longer.

[0:12:33] Voice 10: Yeah what's in this report then reflects

[0:12:35] Voice 10: reflects what you've just said. Thank you. Okay.

[0:12:43] Voice 5: My head is also up. I do. That reflects what I

[0:12:47] Voice 5: also believe. And also, I'm not sure that we do. I mean, I thought the purpose of having the three

[0:12:53] Voice 5: shorter meetings was so that we wouldn't need a long meeting, because then we would have more

[0:12:58] Voice 5: directed discussions on particular topics. And to me, that's kind of working, actually. So I'm not

[0:13:05] Voice 5: I'm not sure that on that, sorry, July meeting that we really, we can still host it, but I don't think it needs to be a long meeting because the whole point of the short meetings was more frequent short meetings.

[0:13:20] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): I see Trustee Elliott.

[0:13:23] Voice 13: And my understanding would be that it's easier to schedule a meeting and then cancel it if we discover there isn't a need for it than to try to schedule a meeting.

[0:13:32] Voice 13: So I really like this approach of holding that space.

[0:13:36] Voice 13: And if we don't need it, we can just indicate that.

[0:13:41] Voice 5: Okay, thanks.

[0:13:42] Voice 5: So I don't see any other discussion on this.

[0:13:45] Voice 5: Just I don't see anybody who's objected to the dates.

[0:13:48] Voice 5: I'll just have one more call for that to make sure the dates work for everybody.

[0:13:52] Voice 5: So just put your hand up if the dates don't work for you.

[0:13:56] Voice 5: I don't see that.

[0:13:58] Voice 5: Okay.

[0:13:59] Voice 5: So then we do have a recommendation related to this.

[0:14:02] Voice 5: so does somebody want to um read the recommendation uh i guess first i first i should have a someone

[0:14:12] Voice 5: to present the motion for the recommendation and a seconder so i guess trustee elliott are you

[0:14:17] Voice 5: um moving the motion yep so i move that the seconder oh

[0:14:23] Voice 13: yeah i think i

[0:14:24] Voice 5: need to read it out

[0:14:25] Voice 13: okay i move that the islands trust conservancy board adopt the proposed meeting dates from

[0:14:30] Voice 13: from January 2025 until March 31st, 2026, as presented.

[0:14:37] Voice 13: Can I do all three, or do you want to do them one at a time, Chair?

[0:14:41] Voice 5: I would prefer you do all three,

[0:14:43] Voice 5: because we've already hadn't had any objections to any of them.

[0:14:46] Voice 13: Okay, and I move that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board direct staff

[0:14:50] Voice 13: to schedule the 2025-26 Islands Trust Conservancy Board meeting dates

[0:14:55] Voice 13: of january 21 may 27 october 7th and november 18th 2025 and january 20th 2026 as electronic meetings

[0:15:05] Voice 13: and list the victoria office boardroom as the public meeting location and at the island's

[0:15:12] Voice 13: trust conservancy board direct staff to schedule three in-person meetings on march 18th and july

[0:15:17] Voice 13: 22nd 2025 and march 17th 2026 trustee yates

[0:15:24] Voice 6: trustee

[0:15:29] Voice 5: yates you've been called on are you

[0:15:30] Voice 5: going to second it trustee yates is seconding it all those in favor raise your hands who's

[0:15:46] Voice 5: who's victor huddle is that your is that you trustee galbraith the victor

[0:15:56] Voice 2: that's the victoria

[0:15:57] Voice 2: um huddle it's a small

[0:15:59] Voice 5: meeting room yeah

[0:16:00] Voice 2: okay yeah it's where uh trustee khan and katherine

[0:16:05] Voice 2: martell are okay

[0:16:07] Voice 5: okay and uh so everybody's hand is up okay so it's passed unanimously

[0:16:13] Voice 5: great thanks let's hope all the items go like this thank you um so the next item is um the

[0:16:22] Voice 5: the Trustee Conservancy NAPTEP Covenant Monitoring Report,

[0:16:25] Voice 5: and there is a request for decision.

[0:16:28] Voice 5: So I'm sure that a staff member would like to speak to this briefly.

[0:16:32] Voice 5: And I'm going to assume that everybody has read all the material.

[0:16:36] Voice 5: So the staff, you know, can give a short summary,

[0:16:40] Voice 5: but we will be able to have more time to ask them questions.

[0:16:43] Voice 5: So is that, Gemma Green, are you going to speak to this?

[0:16:47] Voice 2: Yes, I will. Thank you, Trustee Smith.

[0:16:50] Voice 2: Smith. So the NAPTEP monitoring report summarizes the results of the Natural Area Protection Tax

[0:16:57] Voice 2: Exemption Program monitoring for 2024. And I'll just share the key takeaways there that all 26

[0:17:05] Voice 2: of the NAPTEP covenants that we monitored were found to be in compliance, that there are four

[0:17:11] Voice 2: long-standing trespass cases that are yet to be resolved. Most covenants are in need of some

[0:17:19] Voice 2: stewardship attention and trespass and stewardship needs are going to be prioritized and addressed

[0:17:27] Voice 2: as budget and staff capacity permits according to this report and the recommendations laid out in it

[0:17:34] Voice 2: depending on the board's decision and i'm happy to take any questions

[0:17:45] Voice 4: let's see trustee yates thank you um i'm having a hard time with my hand because it used to be

[0:17:54] Voice 4: you could just raise your hand from the bar below but now you have to go into react and do that

[0:17:58] Voice 4: which is kind of a double thing so sorry for my delay um i'll ask someone later if i can set my

[0:18:06] Voice 4: zoom um set this up differently so i don't have to go into react first um i'm just going to get

[0:18:13] Voice 4: back to you um jemma on the mcrae covenant on gabriola because this is exactly the same as what

[0:18:21] Voice 4: what we were experiencing last year, and kind of similar report. And I will certainly concur that

[0:18:29] Voice 4: it's a real problem. I generally go through there once a month. And the last time I went through

[0:18:36] Voice 4: there, there were actually two dogs running off leash, and only one of them appeared to have an

[0:18:42] Voice 4: owner. And so I really tried to talk to the person about how important it was to have the dog on

[0:18:49] Voice 4: unleash and to stick to the trail that you know the real trail because what the one of the dogs

[0:18:56] Voice 4: was doing it's not just that they poop everywhere and they scare the birds away they dig up the moss

[0:19:02] Voice 4: you know they do their their little doggy thing where they scrape the moss away and this one dog

[0:19:09] Voice 4: was just going at it on the moss on the rocks so I just wonder if there's anything that Gabriola

[0:19:17] Voice 4: of citizens could do to help with this or whether we should have a nice diplomatic article in our

[0:19:24] Voice 4: local newspaper that could help i

[0:19:30] Voice 2: think i think that is a great idea um and as far as what we can

[0:19:37] Voice 2: do as uh in our role as covenant holders um as i think i mentioned in the report there's no

[0:19:46] Voice 2: There's no signage that directly addresses dogs.

[0:19:49] Voice 5: Right.

[0:19:50] Voice 2: So that is something that could be introduced to the area, calling attention to that for anyone who misses communications or articles.

[0:20:00] Voice 2: That is an option.

[0:20:02] Voice 2: And the museum now has a management group that is assisting them with stewardship of that covenant.

[0:20:09] Voice 2: And that's Gabriola Land and Trails Trust.

[0:20:13] Voice 2: us. So we can ask that perhaps they have maybe some ambassadors, maybe occasionally walking

[0:20:23] Voice 2: through and looking out for people with off-leash dogs and speaking with them about it. But yes,

[0:20:30] Voice 2: any sort of advocacy you want to do with the community is what would also help, I'm sure.

[0:20:34] Voice 4: So just a couple of things. I have a really good relationship with the museum and of course,

[0:20:40] Voice 4: with Galt so you know I'd be happy to talk to them but I think an article in our local newspaper

[0:20:46] Voice 4: would be very helpful because apparently a lot of people still read our local newspaper and if you

[0:20:54] Voice 4: did that then I could kind of follow up with maybe a little op-ed or a letter to the editor

[0:21:01] Voice 4: or something similar but I think just a really nice article in the newspaper would be super

[0:21:07] Voice 4: helpful with maybe an accompanying photo as well is that can someone do that like I don't want to

[0:21:14] Voice 4: write it but I'd sure be happy to support it I'm

[0:21:20] Voice 2: yes I'm I think we can I'm not sure if we've ever

[0:21:24] Voice 2: done that sort of open advocacy work and Carolyn do you have any comments on that I

[0:21:32] Voice 10: would I would

[0:21:34] Voice 10: suggest that Gemma and Michaela and I have a conversation about how best to address that

[0:21:39] Voice 10: I think we can certainly put something together, but I would probably get in touch with whomever the right people are at your local newspaper first to discuss that idea.

[0:21:50] Voice 10: We

[0:21:51] Voice 2: might want to let the museum know that we're working on this as well, so

[0:21:55] Voice 4: it doesn't come

[0:21:55] Voice 2: as a surprise to them.

[0:21:56] Voice 2: Absolutely.

[0:21:57] Voice 4: Yeah, for sure. That's a really good idea. And you won't have any problem with the newspaper. I'm sure they'd support that.

[0:22:07] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): I see Trustee Smith's hand.

[0:22:10] Voice 5: Yes, my hand is up to you. First, thank you, Gemma, for this really excellent report,

[0:22:15] Voice 5: and your thoughts, a lot of your thoughts were really very good. Anyways, in my opinion,

[0:22:22] Voice 5: I would say that you've raised some important issues. And one thing that you raised is that

[0:22:28] Voice 5: we have a capacity problem for monitoring our covenants. I was really glad you raised that.

[0:22:33] Voice 5: and um i'm wondering if we should be looking at how to address that and i have a suggestion but

[0:22:41] Voice 5: i'd have to see what the board thinks about that but the other part of it was that it seems to me

[0:22:47] Voice 5: that you know this is a a trust council program that we administer we're doing it very responsibly

[0:22:53] Voice 5: and we monitor which is great um and i think we do need additional funds particularly for

[0:23:00] Voice 5: for this program as you've raised.

[0:23:03] Voice 5: And I wonder if we've ever done something like

[0:23:06] Voice 5: a survey of NAPTEP holders

[0:23:08] Voice 5: to determine if they're satisfied with the program,

[0:23:11] Voice 5: what do they like about it?

[0:23:13] Voice 5: What could we change?

[0:23:14] Voice 5: And the only purpose of doing that

[0:23:17] Voice 5: would be as a support for why we need more funds

[0:23:21] Voice 5: for this particular program.

[0:23:22] Voice 5: So I just wanted to ask your opinion about that.

[0:23:27] Voice 5: Sorry, I think I'm getting sick again, I don't know.

[0:23:29] Voice 5: And so before you answer, that's one part of my question. And the other part was, do you think that we need to maybe put a hold on new covenants beyond what's already in the hopper until we have some additional resources? So I know we've raised this before, done it sometimes, but I need to know, Gemma, your opinion on that before we think about it. So that's all, two questions.

[0:23:54] Voice 5: Okay.

[0:23:55] Voice 2: So we have surveyed covenant landholders before. We had a relatively low response rate. I think it was 7% or 13%. I understand that's actually pretty high for a survey, but it wasn't a lot of information that we got back.

[0:24:12] Voice 2: um so i i and that was regarding communications and engagement um and what we took away from

[0:24:20] Voice 2: that survey um and we've been it was initiated in 2020 but we've been um providing it to all

[0:24:27] Voice 2: new covenant landholders so when the the property changes hands we'll share that survey with the

[0:24:33] Voice 2: the new landholders and there isn't a lot of interest in engaging on the covenants and but

[0:24:42] Voice 2: that is an interesting suggestion that what we're doing a lot of the information that we share in

[0:24:47] Voice 2: the monitoring report we share also with the landholders in our letter that they get every fall

[0:24:52] Voice 2: about how the monitoring went and what we've seen and it'd be interesting to accompany that letter

[0:25:00] Voice 2: with all of our concerns noted this invasive species that trespass issue on the trail with

[0:25:06] Voice 2: do they think that these things are being adequately addressed and you know would they

[0:25:12] Voice 2: would they support or do they think more needs to be done by the covenant holders

[0:25:17] Voice 2: the thing with covenants is that there isn't an obligation by the conservancy to address these

[0:25:26] Voice 2: these issues in many ways. So we have no obligation to remove invasive species. We have

[0:25:35] Voice 2: that ability, but it doesn't clearly delineate who's responsible for what. And so I don't know

[0:25:44] Voice 2: that there's a lot of expectation on the part of the landholders that we are fully addressing

[0:25:50] Voice 2: these things it's more of a what are our standards and what are we what are we protecting if we let

[0:25:57] Voice 2: things if we let things go in terms of ecological concerns but I do think that that's a good idea

[0:26:04] Voice 2: and I think we would learn a lot from it provided we get responses back and I think that's something

[0:26:10] Voice 2: we can prepare to roll out with the monitoring reports to landholders this fall and we don't

[0:26:18] Voice 2: need a motion

[0:26:18] Voice 5: for that because your your suggestion of just doing it with your regular reporting i

[0:26:23] Voice 5: think is really good and efficient actually yeah

[0:26:26] Voice 2: and do it do i um do i have that um do i grasp

[0:26:33] Voice 2: that correctly that you're you're looking to see if we're um if we're meeting their expectations

[0:26:38] Voice 2: in terms of addressing um ecological concerns no

[0:26:45] Voice 5: actually i think that's great

[0:26:46] Voice 5: but what my

[0:26:47] Voice 5: My concern is, is how can we promote this program to trust council and show how important these covenants are?

[0:26:55] Voice 5: So what I really want to know is, are they really happy they put their covenant on?

[0:26:59] Voice 5: You know, I don't know. Does it make them feel good?

[0:27:02] Voice 5: Are they feeling that it was the right decision because they are getting a tax break, but maybe the tax break isn't enough to compensate a decrease in value of property?

[0:27:11] Voice 5: property i don't know these are just ideas but i want some something that we can use to say this

[0:27:17] Voice 5: is a great program people are super happy with it but it's an expanding program and we don't have

[0:27:23] Voice 5: the resources to keep expanding it without some funds that's my motivation right but okay

[0:27:30] Voice 2: and

[0:27:31] Voice 5: there

[0:27:33] Voice 2: are um there is have a little bit of concern around how responses will come from

[0:27:41] Voice 2: landholders that didn't put the covenant on their land. So we have an increasing number of second

[0:27:46] Voice 2: and third generation covenant landholders that are not of the same mindset of the person who

[0:27:51] Voice 2: put the covenant on. So they could be speaking to their gratitude for the tax break, that sort of

[0:27:57] Voice 2: thing. But I fear that in a lot of cases, it's more of like a little bit of a nuisance having

[0:28:03] Voice 2: the covenant on the land. And so we might not get the sort of response we'd hope to support

[0:28:10] Voice 2: the kind of things that need to happen. But if we're willing to take that risk,

[0:28:18] Voice 2: then let's do

[0:28:21] Voice 5: it. I'm asking

[0:28:22] Voice 5: you about if we're willing to take that risk.

[0:28:26] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): My hand's up again,

[0:28:28] Voice 5: but I can do that.

[0:28:29] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): From the speakers list, we have Trustee Yates,

[0:28:31] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): and we also have uh staff steward as well thank

[0:28:36] Voice 4: you lisa um so just getting back to the mcrae

[0:28:40] Voice 4: covenant um i think we can only go forward from here because for one thing the museum has a brand

[0:28:47] Voice 4: new board and a little more support than they've had in the last couple of years and i know galt

[0:28:53] Voice 4: just keeps growing and getting more and more support and they're a co-covenant holder on that

[0:28:58] Voice 4: covenant so um if you are able to write something for you know after talking to those covenant

[0:29:06] Voice 4: holders uh if you're able to write something for our local newspaper i think you'll get lots of

[0:29:13] Voice 4: support so i hope that i hope that happens thank you

[0:29:20] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): next up carolyn stewart

[0:29:22] Voice 10: i just wanted to

[0:29:24] Voice 10: to mention to the board that we have had conversations internally about how to address

[0:29:31] Voice 10: the volume of work and Gemma and I have talked about the possibility if there's too much that

[0:29:38] Voice 10: we can contract some of some of the monitoring out in the future we and I will be speaking to

[0:29:45] Voice 10: Director Frater about organizational needs in a broader perspective because we have it with

[0:29:55] Voice 10: with a multitude of staff.

[0:29:57] Voice 10: It's one of the unfortunate side of.

[0:30:00] Voice 10: effects of having a wonderful conservancy that's achieving a lot next up um

[0:30:08] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): trustee smith yeah so

[0:30:11] Voice 5: i had had a second part to the first question which related to should we put a sort of temporary

[0:30:16] Voice 5: halt till we can catch up and the other and the other question i have why i put my hand up again

[0:30:22] Voice 5: was in your um excellent briefing you have implications of recommendations and you have

[0:30:27] Voice 5: a First Nations section there and you do talk about restoration work and archaeological sites

[0:30:35] Voice 5: but I'm wondering if we shouldn't be trying to engage with effective First Nations before we

[0:30:41] Voice 5: do any restoration it's not just about archaeological sites although that's incredibly

[0:30:45] Voice 5: important but there are you know issues about restoration in general and we might want to engage

[0:30:53] Voice 5: them with what we're doing and just be sure they're on board with the type of restoration

[0:30:58] Voice 5: we're doing. I don't know if you think that's possible to do, but it relates more to my opening

[0:31:04] Voice 5: land acknowledgement. I'm always looking for ways that we can show respect. And this, I think,

[0:31:10] Voice 5: would be an area if we can possibly do it, given capacity, right? So that was the two parts,

[0:31:16] Voice 5: should we put a halt and the First Nations?

[0:31:19] Voice 2: Yes. So in answer to your first question,

[0:31:21] Voice 2: In my opinion, this is a really big question and definitely the purview of the board, but in my opinion, if you're asking for it, I think that there are alternatives in terms of monitoring and stewardship.

[0:31:38] Voice 2: There are alternative pathways to what we're currently doing, some changes to policies and procedures that would allow us to continue to acquire covenant lands and serve our preserve and protect mandate and still provide a reasonable level of monitoring and stewardship.

[0:32:01] Voice 2: chip. But our current model of in-house monitoring of every covenant every year in person

[0:32:10] Voice 2: could be adapted. So there's remote monitoring opportunities, there's contracting, there's

[0:32:16] Voice 2: relying more on co-covenant holders than we currently do. There's alternating years for

[0:32:22] Voice 2: monitoring. A lot of these things that we're seeing in the covenants are happening at a slow

[0:32:27] Voice 2: slow pace. So trespass and violations, they may occur, but then they don't get worse year over

[0:32:37] Voice 2: year. Or, you know, we'll report on a holly infestation, but it's going to be fairly slow

[0:32:42] Voice 2: growing. So there are things that we can do to adjust the way we currently approach monitoring

[0:32:48] Voice 2: and stewardship and just kind of, yeah, consider ways to adapt those rather than putting a halt

[0:32:54] Voice 2: on acquisitions that would be my recommendation and then your second question um your second

[0:33:03] Voice 2: question was sorry trustee smith can you remind

[0:33:06] Voice 5: me um in your section on first nations you're

[0:33:10] Voice 5: highlighting restoration work and you're highlighting checking about archaeological

[0:33:14] Voice 5: sites but i was wondering if we could speak about restoration in general

[0:33:20] Voice 5: in top of archaeological sites with First Nations before we do it?

[0:33:27] Voice 2: That's a wonderful suggestion.

[0:33:29] Voice 2: We have one case of a known archaeological site that hasn't been surveyed,

[0:33:37] Voice 2: as far as I know, hasn't been thoroughly surveyed,

[0:33:41] Voice 2: that we really need to do restoration at.

[0:33:44] Voice 2: And we have landholder support.

[0:33:45] Voice 2: port and the the plan staff had been sort of doing some preliminary planning about how to go about

[0:33:52] Voice 2: this and the first step was going to be after we had landholder interest expressed to go out to

[0:34:00] Voice 2: the first nations that might have an interest in this area and speak with them about what we're

[0:34:06] Voice 2: thinking of doing perhaps get recommendations on archaeologists that they would be interested in

[0:34:11] Voice 2: having to do the survey so definitely from the very very preliminary planning stages once we had

[0:34:18] Voice 2: buy-in from the landholder we would be consulting with First Nations on this and I think that's

[0:34:26] Voice 2: something that we would do in every case.

[0:34:29] Voice 5: I'm still looking at the ecological restoration too

[0:34:32] Voice 5: like for example just as an example in Galliano one thing we're doing is we're starting to hire

[0:34:37] Voice 5: first nations people to do the restoration on their properties ah it's

[0:34:42] Voice 5: a small thing but you

[0:34:43] Voice 5: know um they're really happy they have certain skills or want to build up their skills and so

[0:34:48] Voice 5: when there's like paid opportunities they're they're super happy they want to be part of that

[0:34:53] Voice 5: and yeah

[0:34:53] Voice 2: we and at this very site that i was using as an example two years ago we were doing

[0:35:00] Voice 2: some restoration and we had um and uh first nations ethnobotanist come out and provide

[0:35:06] Voice 2: recommendations for plants to plant and then we had Harold Joe come out with two Indigenous youth

[0:35:14] Voice 2: to do the restoration planting and the youth actually advised our restoration practitioner

[0:35:21] Voice 2: on what plants should be planted where and sort of served as monitors of the site in the absence

[0:35:31] Voice 2: sense of an archaeological survey. But we realized that we need to actually go back and do a survey

[0:35:37] Voice 2: before any more work is done. That wasn't enough. But it's interesting that you've touched on that.

[0:35:43] Voice 2: And it's something that's already started to happen. And it actually went really well.

[0:35:48] Voice 2: There were some challenges, but they were overcome and it worked out. So it'd be nice

[0:35:52] Voice 2: to see that continue as well. Thank you.

[0:35:56] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): saying uh we have trustee yates on

[0:35:58] Voice 4: the speaker's list

[0:35:59] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): thank

[0:36:00] Voice 4: you lisa so just a couple of questions

[0:36:03] Voice 4: i love these suggestions um and i can see where you know it's almost impossible in one year's time

[0:36:09] Voice 4: especially when the season that you need to do this monitoring for in-house staff to do that

[0:36:15] Voice 4: so um jemma with your suggestion would would we need to think about the budget would we would

[0:36:21] Voice 4: would there be added costs to have monitoring partners?

[0:36:25] Voice 4: Or are you thinking of co-covenant holders like on Gabriola, for example,

[0:36:30] Voice 4: like Galt, where there might not be a cost?

[0:36:34] Voice 4: So that's my first question.

[0:36:36] Voice 4: My second question was, I'm wondering which NAPTAP covenant of the 27

[0:36:42] Voice 4: was not looked at this year?

[0:36:47] Voice 4: Because I know you did 26 of 27.

[0:36:49] Voice 4: So,

[0:36:51] Voice 2: in answer to your first question, I think a lot of capacity constraints would be addressed by having additional ITC staff.

[0:37:04] Voice 6: But

[0:37:05] Voice 2: in terms of the more creative solutions, given the current arrangement, a way to go about this without much additional cost.

[0:37:18] Voice 2: So there are remote monitoring solutions that I'll be presenting to the board at a future date.

[0:37:23] Voice 2: But in terms of working with co-covenant holders, it would probably be an informal arrangement or perhaps a memorandum of understanding or something where we agree to alternate which covenant holders monitor from year to year.

[0:37:39] Voice 2: and in the case of more remote sites i'm thinking of some of the smaller islands where both covenant

[0:37:47] Voice 2: holders aren't present on the island but have to actually get there itc could provide

[0:37:55] Voice 2: some sort of support for covering the costs of travel but because we'd already be going there

[0:38:03] Voice 2: anyway. It's not an additional cost, but we would be providing the cost to the coholder

[0:38:08] Voice 2: to access those sites. So I don't think there would be much additional cost. If we wanted to

[0:38:17] Voice 2: get to the root of the problem by increasing staff capacity, that would have to be a much bigger

[0:38:25] Voice 2: budget consideration. But in terms of the more creative solutions, I think apart from maybe

[0:38:30] Voice 2: hiring a contractor to monitor some of the sites which would probably be a small bump to the budget

[0:38:36] Voice 2: the other solutions could come within the existing property management budget

[0:38:42] Voice 2: the budget is less of an issue than staff capacity to coordinate everything

[0:38:46] Voice 4: right and my second question was which is which one of the 27 were you not able to get to

[0:38:54] Voice 4: Yes.

[0:38:55] Voice 2: So we don't monitor the Owl's Cull Naptep Covenant on Salt Spring Island. That covenant was one of our earliest Naptep covenants. And in those days, it was actually written into the covenant agreement that the landholder would contract out monitoring themselves every year.

[0:39:16] Voice 2: And I think we quickly realized that for conflict of interest purposes, or just to have more control over the monitoring process, we wrote modification agreements to those early NAPTEP covenants to have ITC responsible for the monitoring.

[0:39:31] Voice 2: But the landholder of this particular covenant didn't want to modify that.

[0:39:36] Voice 2: so from the beginning they've always been responsible for contracting out the monitoring

[0:39:42] Voice 2: and we just haven't received the report yet from the biologist that does the monitoring reports

[0:39:47] Voice 2: for this covenant okay

[0:39:50] Voice 4: that's that's really helpful if that happens again next year if you

[0:39:54] Voice 4: could just put a note to that effect that would be very helpful thank you we'll

[0:39:59] Voice 2: do uh trustee

[0:40:01] Voice 5: Govro. I don't see any other hands. Do you?

[0:40:03] Voice 5: Me neither. Yep. Great

[0:40:04] Voice 5: conversation. Okay, so

[0:40:06] Voice 5: does somebody want to move the motion?

[0:40:14] Voice 5: I'll move it.

[0:40:16] Voice 5: I move that

[0:40:17] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): the motion, is that you, Trustee Govro?

[0:40:19] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Trustee Govro, yep.

[0:40:20] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): I move that the Allen's Trust Conservancy

[0:40:23] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Board accept the Allen's Trust Conservancy

[0:40:25] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): NAPTEP Covenant Monitoring Report

[0:40:27] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): 2024 and direct staff

[0:40:29] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): to address compliance and ecological

[0:40:31] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): concerns as addressed

[0:40:33] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): in the report. Do I have a seconder?

[0:40:40] Voice 5: Well, it says Victor Huddle. That must be trustee Charles. Is that you? Is this second or Charles? Charles Cohn?

[0:40:55] Voice 10: If it's from the huddle, it will be Charles, yes.

[0:40:57] Voice 5: Okay, it'll be Charles. All those in favor of the motion, put your hand up, please. That looks like everybody.

[0:41:08] Voice 5: Trustee Timothy did send a note in the chat that he had to leave for a minute. He'll be back soon, but we have quorum without him, so I think that's okay.

[0:41:16] Voice 5: So the motion passes. Thanks, everybody. And thanks, Gemma, for such a nice discussion. Very helpful.

[0:41:23] Voice 5: OK, the next agenda item. Wow.

[0:41:31] Voice 5: Sorry, let's see where I am. Crazy agenda. OK, let me help me here.

[0:41:43] Voice 5: What's the next agenda item? Is this is it the Martin Rapp Tech Covenant application?

[0:41:48] Voice 5: application i think it's 6.1.3 isn't it that's 6.1.4 yes

[0:41:53] Voice 10: 6.1.3 is where we're at five year plan

[0:41:56] Voice 10: five first nations engagement update

[0:41:58] Voice 5: okay and why can't i see that ah here i am okay

[0:42:02] Voice 5: got too many agendas that's why okay so we're on 6.1.3 and i'm presuming that carolyn you'd like

[0:42:09] Voice 5: to speak to that yes am i

[0:42:13] Voice 10: correct yes in any interest of time i'll keep it very short uh

[0:42:17] Voice 10: The report is providing an updated schedule and flow workflow.

[0:42:23] Voice 10: And I'm suggesting that the Conservancy Board submit a letter to the minister explaining the need for an extended timeframe and that we see if when Director Frater gets the new policy advisor, if there's any chance of using some of that person's time to assist with this project.

[0:42:45] Voice 10: Okay.

[0:42:48] Voice 5: Any questions? Trustee Elliott.

[0:42:57] Voice 13: Yeah. Thank you. I just wanted some clarification on the request as to whether the auxiliary

[0:43:07] Voice 13: Trust Area Services person would be able to assist or we're asking for...

[0:43:14] Voice 13: Okay. So it's in recommendation two, considering if a portion of the new Trust Area Services

[0:43:21] Voice 13: policy advisor position supported by Trust Council September 2024 can be targeted to assist ITC

[0:43:29] Voice 13: staff. So this is supported by Trust Council, but it has not been approved in the budget for 2025-26.

[0:43:41] Voice 13: So, well, I guess there's two parts to my question. There is an auxiliary Trust Area

[0:43:47] Voice 13: services policy advisor position it and that's temporary and then a new auxiliary position that

[0:43:55] Voice 13: would be full-time for 2025-26 um has to yet be approved um through the budgeting process so are

[0:44:04] Voice 13: we talking about that part-time auxiliary position that would end in march 2025 i

[0:44:15] Voice 10: would suggest we're

[0:44:16] Voice 10: asking for both. If there's any time in this current year to get for instance the concordance

[0:44:22] Voice 10: reports and make sure that we're ready to go between now and March that would be helpful

[0:44:28] Voice 10: and if the position in 2025-26 is approved if there is some time that could be allotted to

[0:44:35] Voice 10: assisting the conservancy in this project that would be very helpful.

[0:44:41] Voice 12: Okay thanks

[0:44:43] Voice 13: for that I

[0:44:43] Voice 13: I just, yeah, I wanted that clarified because it was supported by Trust Council, but there's no guarantee that another position will be approved.

[0:44:52] Voice 13: And I'm hoping it will because we absolutely need that somebody in that role.

[0:44:57] Voice 13: So Director Frater isn't here.

[0:44:59] Voice 13: here. I am guessing that a portion of that role could be used to support the Conservancy's plan,

[0:45:13] Voice 13: but I'm not sure where we're at. So I don't know, is anyone able to speak for Director Frater?

[0:45:19] Voice 10: I cannot speak for Director Frater. She and I did have a conversation about this

[0:45:24] Voice 10: um some time ago and she thought that there might be the ability to uh to use some time but it was

[0:45:34] Voice 10: just left quite uh loose at the moment but given our budget requests we did not add in asking for

[0:45:44] Voice 10: an islands trust conservancy policy assistant um we decided to go this route and and uh see if we

[0:45:53] Voice 10: can use the one that she's getting or hopefully will be getting.

[0:46:00] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): I see Trustee Smith's hand.

[0:46:04] Voice 5: Yes I had a question about you have this the five-year plan the updated engagement

[0:46:10] Voice 5: process if we go for the extension and I just want to ask a few questions about that.

[0:46:16] Voice 5: So the first thing is you're saying that customized initial letters to First Nations

[0:46:24] Voice 5: applications will be completed by January 2025. But the new person to replace you won't be coming

[0:46:32] Voice 5: into until, like, maybe a week before that. And so I'm just concerned about whether that's

[0:46:40] Voice 5: realistic. Like, if we're putting in this letter with a timeline, I want to be sure that our

[0:46:44] Voice 5: timelines are realistic. So I questioned that. And also I questioned this conduct initial follow-up

[0:46:53] Voice 5: by email and phone in February and so that would be a new person would have only been in there for

[0:46:59] Voice 5: you know they'd be starting to phone if they're going to do it for all of February um when they're

[0:47:05] Voice 5: also very new and I'm hoping that's actually possible but I just wanted to ask you what you

[0:47:11] Voice 5: think about that because you had previously told me that you know it takes so long to get up to

[0:47:16] Voice 5: speed and I just I just want to hear what you have to say so

[0:47:19] Voice 10: in terms of the letter I do

[0:47:22] Voice 10: have it is my hope to get the letters finalized i have a draft letter claire hasn't had a chance

[0:47:30] Voice 10: to review them yet but um she did say she would like to have a letter for those nations first

[0:47:37] Voice 10: nations that did provide comment separate and different from a letter to those nations that

[0:47:44] Voice 10: did not provide any response. So having that done before the middle of January is one of my

[0:47:52] Voice 10: actions that I hope to have. If we can get them out early in January, again, I'm hoping that we

[0:48:00] Voice 10: will have some time of a policy analyst and that other staff, Islands Trust Conservancy staff,

[0:48:07] Voice 10: may also be able to help with the follow-up calls and emails. Essentially, that's just

[0:48:13] Voice 10: explaining who we are and asking if they would like to be involved and not just

[0:48:20] Voice 10: by email but by email and then by phone call so that we're not leaving it to

[0:48:25] Voice 10: just a letter and sorry in terms of the initial follow-up again hopefully it's

[0:48:31] Voice 10: not just the manager that is responsible for doing that but that we can target

[0:48:36] Voice 10: some assistance so there's more people trying to address our okay

[0:48:43] Voice 5: great so you

[0:48:44] Voice 5: this is realistic from that that's very helpful yeah are there any other questions about this so

[0:48:51] Voice 5: um because we do have a motion no i don't no hands

[0:48:57] Voice 5: any questions up there you see any hands

[0:49:00] Voice 5: no hands no no hands okay so we have a motion does somebody want to read the motion

[0:49:05] Voice 5: corlin could you get the motion up there thanks i see trustee yates trustee yates you're on mute

[0:49:15] Voice 5: Yeah,

[0:49:15] Voice 4: thank you. I move that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board direct staff to prepare and

[0:49:23] Voice 4: submit a letter from the ITC Board to the Minister of Municipal Affairs that reiterates the ITC's

[0:49:30] Voice 4: desire to undertake meaningful First Nations engagement, explains the ITC staff capacity

[0:49:36] Voice 4: challenges, provide the board's proposed ITC plan engagement outline of November

[0:49:43] Voice 4: 2024, and seeks the minister's support for the updated timeframe for

[0:49:49] Voice 4: development and submission of the next ITC plan. And do you want me to read the

[0:49:54] Voice 4: second part of this as well?

[0:49:57] Voice 5: I do. If that's okay with people, we can do that.

[0:50:00] Voice 4: We have

[0:50:01] Voice 4: we have talked about it. So we I move also that the ITC board requests that Director

[0:50:08] Voice 4: Frater consider if a portion of the new Trust Area Services Policy Advisor position supported

[0:50:15] Voice 4: by Trust Council in September 2024 can be targeted to assist ITC staff with the five-year

[0:50:23] Voice 4: plan First Nations engagement project or if ITC can seek similar funding for an ITC policy advisor

[0:50:31] Voice 4: position for this and other policy requirements?

[0:50:36] Voice 5: Do I have a seconder? Trustee Elliott seconded it.

[0:50:43] Voice 5: All those in favor raise your hand.

[0:50:54] Voice 5: Oh I guess Trustee Timothy's back that's great. So that looks like everybody so it passes

[0:51:00] Voice 5: unanimously. Thanks very much everybody and also for a good discussion and a good note by Carolyn.

[0:51:09] Voice 5: So now we're in item 6.1.4 which is the Martin NAPTEP Covenant Application Salt Spring Island

[0:51:17] Voice 5: and there is a request for decision on this. I'm not sure I see I don't know who's I thought this

[0:51:25] Voice 5: This was Catherine's file, so maybe someone else

[0:51:27] Voice 5: from staff can speak to it.

[0:51:29] Voice 14: I'm here. I'm here with Charles.

[0:51:31] Voice 14: Oh,

[0:51:31] Voice 5: I don't see you.

[0:51:32] Voice 14: Oh, I can't see you.

[0:51:35] Voice 14: I can be very brief.

[0:51:37] Voice 14: I think the, I hope the staff report speaks for itself.

[0:51:41] Voice 14: The board has already seen this application and gave permission to move forward.

[0:51:46] Voice 14: So, NAPTEP application from Dr. Tara Martin.

[0:51:51] Voice 14: It is a little bit different from the usual in that it is a smaller size than is usually under our board policy.

[0:52:03] Voice 14: However, I do feel that it meets the criteria for an exemption to that policy, particularly

[0:52:12] Voice 14: because of the opportunity to be engaged in a covenant with a restoration component and

[0:52:17] Voice 14: an eco-cultural connection that may bring extra, that will bring extra time and complexity

[0:52:25] Voice 14: to the covenant negotiations, but the landholder is aware of that.

[0:52:31] Voice 14: and um and and we've talked about that extensively actually so um i guess any questions seems

[0:52:40] Voice 14: the next step here i

[0:52:46] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): see trustee eight thank

[0:52:48] Voice 4: you lisa um thank you so much katherine for this

[0:52:51] Voice 4: excellent report and how wonderful to see something where restoration is going to be a big

[0:52:58] Voice 4: part of it yeah

[0:53:01] Voice 14: one of the um complexities that jemma and i have discussed is um future land

[0:53:10] Voice 14: holders and whether or not well how we how we address that and there are a number of different

[0:53:20] Voice 14: possibilities and i think after the first nations um referral process and approval from the minister

[0:53:27] Voice 14: stir we might come back to the board with for some discussion around different ways of approaching

[0:53:33] Voice 14: those negotiations any

[0:53:40] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): other discussion or questions i don't see any hands but i'll make

[0:53:44] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): a comment yeah okay

[0:53:46] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): yeah i'm supportive uh approving this okay so trustee govro can you

[0:53:53] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): read the motion please uh sure thing i do see trustee yates hand she had a question oh sorry

[0:53:59] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Um,

[0:54:01] Voice 4: no, I was just going to read the motion, but I'll happily second it.

[0:54:05] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Fantastic. Then I'll read it. Uh, I moved the Allen's Trust Conservancy Board

[0:54:09] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): approved the conservation proposal submitted by Tara Martin to place a NAPTEP covenant on

[0:54:15] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): approximately one hectare of Salt Spring Island, PID 000363740, Lot A, Section 39,

[0:54:26] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): 39, Salt Spring Island, Cowichan District, Plan 35768, subject to review of First Nations

[0:54:34] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): responses to minister approval and to protect woodlands and herbaceous habitats, mature

[0:54:42] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): drying Douglas fir forests and connectivity to adjacent protected areas.

[0:54:48] Voice 5: And we have a seconder already, Trustee Yates.

[0:54:51] Voice 5: All those in favour, raise your hand, please.

[0:54:58] Voice 5: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

[0:55:05] Voice 5: That's unanimous.

[0:55:06] Voice 5: So the motion passes unanimously.

[0:55:09] Voice 5: Thanks, everybody.

[0:55:12] Voice 5: Next item is 6.1.5, the Soil Moisture Research at Link Island Nature Reserve,

[0:55:19] Voice 5: Gabriola Trust Area.

[0:55:21] Voice 5: And there is a request for decision in this one as well.

[0:55:25] Voice 5: Here we go.

[0:55:26] Voice 5: um any uh is somebody going to speak to this i

[0:55:34] Voice 9: can hi this is nula i can say briefly um that

[0:55:38] Voice 9: the swiss family would like to install soil moisture and temperature data loggers at four

[0:55:45] Voice 9: representative monitoring locations to allow information to be collected on the regional

[0:55:51] Voice 9: annual cycle of winter's wet season and summer dry season and each location would involve creating a

[0:55:58] Voice 9: narrow hole, maximum of 20 centimeters wide and a maximum 50 centimeters deep to insert the data

[0:56:06] Voice 9: soil moisture and temperature loggers, which would usually be inserted around 15 to 30 centimeters

[0:56:12] Voice 9: deep. And I'm happy to take any questions.

[0:56:18] Voice 5: Are there any questions or comments for Nuala?

[0:56:20] Voice 5: I see Trustee

[0:56:26] Voice 4: Yates. I was just going to move the motion. And I remember when we first started

[0:56:33] Voice 4: talking about this very special this very special property and I remember

[0:56:41] Voice 4: having a conversation with the family when we celebrated and a lot of the

[0:56:47] Voice 4: conversation was about climate change and about monitoring climate change and

[0:56:52] Voice 4: how important this link Island was so this seems completely appropriate to

[0:56:58] Voice 4: have as part of that as part of that property so thank you for doing that work and I'm happily

[0:57:06] Voice 4: I'll happily make the motion if that's okay can

[0:57:09] Voice 5: we just wait to see if there's any other comments

[0:57:11] Voice 5: before you do that please thanks a lot any other comments no hands up no hands up okay nope read

[0:57:20] Voice 5: the motion please then sure

[0:57:21] Voice 4: I move that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board approve soil

[0:57:26] Voice 4: oil moisture research at link island nature reserve by the swift family subject to first

[0:57:32] Voice 4: nation's consultation and the covenant holder's approval and

[0:57:39] Voice 5: do i have a seconder

[0:57:46] Voice 5: yeah okay uh all those in favor put your hand up please

[0:57:51] Voice 5: oops looks like everybody so that passes unanimously thanks everybody um and then the

[0:58:03] Voice 5: The last one before the break, I'll see what time it is.

[0:58:05] Voice 5: It should be, oh yeah, we're pretty, we're doing very well.

[0:58:08] Voice 5: 6.1.6 is the Islands Trust Conservancy Nature Reserve Monitoring Report.

[0:58:15] Voice 5: And there is a request for decision in this one as well.

[0:58:19] Voice 5: So who's going to speak to this?

[0:58:21] Voice 9: That's me again, Neela Murphy.

[0:58:23] Voice 9: And there was an error in the recommendation that I would like to change the wording to.

[0:58:30] Voice 9: And I believe Coraline may have the wording already, but that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board accept the Islands Trust Conservancy Nature Reserve Monitoring Report 2024 and then changes and direct staff to address the recommendations as identified in the report.

[0:58:47] Voice 9: The wording was put in as the same as the covenant wording, which talks about compliance, which isn't relevant for the nature reserves.

[0:58:58] Voice 9: Can

[0:58:59] Voice 5: you just read that one more time?

[0:59:01] Voice 5: Yes, yes.

[0:59:03] Voice 9: That the Islands Trust Conservancy Board accept the Islands Trust Conservancy Nature Reserve Monitoring Report 2024

[0:59:12] Voice 9: and direct staff to address the recommendations as identified in the report.

[0:59:20] Voice 5: Okay.

[0:59:21] Voice 5: Are there any other questions?

[0:59:26] Voice 5: Ms. Chicovro, do you see any hands up?

[0:59:28] Voice 5: No hands up.

[0:59:30] Voice 5: Okay.

[0:59:30] Voice 5: Okay, so would someone like to read the motion as amended?

[0:59:35] Voice 5: Trustee Yates.

[0:59:39] Voice 4: I move that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board

[0:59:42] Voice 4: accept the Islands Trust Conservancy Nature Reserve Monitoring Report 2024

[0:59:48] Voice 4: and direct staff to address the recommendations as identified in the report.

[0:59:55] Voice 5: Do I have a seconder?

[1:00:02] Voice 5: I see Trustee Kahn.

[1:00:04] Voice 5: Okay, Trustee Kahn is the seconder.

[1:00:06] Voice 5: Can I have a show of hands for all those in support?

[1:00:13] Voice 5: Like it's unanimous.

[1:00:15] Voice 5: Great.

[1:00:15] Voice 5: Thanks very much, everybody.

[1:00:17] Voice 5: And then, let's see.

[1:00:19] Voice 5: That's it.

[1:00:20] Voice 5: That's the last item before the break.

[1:00:22] Voice 5: So I'm going to suggest that we, it's 11.03.

[1:00:25] Voice 5: My God, that's amazing.

[1:00:27] Voice 5: So I will suggest we take a 15, maybe a 10-minute break would be better so that we're sure to get through with it.

[1:00:33] Voice 5: um remember in your break to put yourself on mute and put your video uh off and everybody

[1:00:42] Voice 5: please come back it's 11 04 by my um my thing so at 11 14 try not to be late because we have a big

[1:00:50] Voice 5: heavy agenda but um we do need a break thanks everybody and see you in uh 10 minutes is trustee

[1:00:57] Voice 5: on here now trustee yes okay so we'll start the meeting again so i just want to start with i i

[1:01:06] Voice 5: some people weren't here i had had one comment on the last um the last decision related to the

[1:01:14] Voice 5: nature reserve monitoring oh i'm sorry i have my headphones on just give me some okay can you still

[1:01:26] Voice 5: hear me yes yes oh good okay um i had a comment and that doesn't change the decision but i do

[1:01:34] Voice 5: do you think it's pretty important to make the comment?

[1:01:37] Voice 5: So are people comfortable with me going back to the last decision

[1:01:41] Voice 5: and just making a comment but not changing the –

[1:01:46] Voice 5: it doesn't affect the recommendation?

[1:01:48] Voice 5: I'll just ask you to show your hands if you're not comfortable with that.

[1:01:56] Voice 5: Trustee Galbraith, are there any hands up?

[1:01:58] Voice 5: Nope, no hands.

[1:02:00] Voice 5: Okay.

[1:02:00] Voice 5: So I'll just go back for a bit.

[1:02:03] Voice 5: It relates to something in the excellent note we got.

[1:02:08] Voice 5: And it's on page 89. And it's number four, it's on issues identified in this report. And it talks about the Ruby Alton Nature Reserve Salt Spring Island. And the last sentence or two sentences is there are many health maintenance issues that should be dealt with in the next year funds allow a revised management plan for this nature reserve is required.

[1:02:32] Voice 5: required and I think actually since we have a motion already related to this and we'll be

[1:02:38] Voice 5: talking about it later anyways I would like to change I would like to make you aware that

[1:02:43] Voice 5: like I can't change that it's it's a staff note but I would like to make the comment that

[1:02:50] Voice 5: a revised management plan for this nature reserve is currently in preparation and actions related

[1:02:57] Voice 5: related to the reserve will be identified in the final approved management plan so whether we will

[1:03:02] Voice 5: or will not do house maintenance isn't really um appropriate in this area because it's something

[1:03:09] Voice 5: else that we're dealing with in a different uh context and so i would just like to highlight that

[1:03:15] Voice 5: um for staff and for people here and if anybody has any like you know i can't i can't change

[1:03:22] Voice 5: change, you know, a note that staff has written. But I did want to highlight that. So if anybody

[1:03:29] Voice 5: is uncomfortable with what I've just said, or thinks I'm wrong or something, just please,

[1:03:35] Voice 5: please say so. Trustee Gauver, are there any comments? No hands. Nothing. Okay. Thanks a lot.

[1:03:46] Voice 5: And thanks, everybody, for letting me get back to that, because I thought it's pretty important that

[1:03:50] Voice 5: that we stick to the board decisions.

[1:03:54] Voice 5: So the next item is the 35th anniversary

[1:03:57] Voice 5: of ITC communications and engagement strategy.

[1:04:00] Voice 5: And this is...

[1:04:05] Voice 5: Oh, sorry, Trustee Yates.

[1:04:08] Voice 4: Are we skipping over 6.1.7,

[1:04:12] Voice 4: the budget request that was added yesterday?

[1:04:16] Voice 5: Oh, I see.

[1:04:17] Voice 5: I knew it was added, but I didn't see,

[1:04:19] Voice 5: I don't have it on my agenda. So I don't want to skip over that. But can you just give me a second?

[1:04:24] Voice 5: I can't hear people. I got to figure out why that is. You can hear me, right?

[1:04:30] Voice 5: Yeah. Yep. Hmm. I guess I don't know why that is. Just a minute.

[1:04:38] Voice 5: OK. Is that too loud? Am I too loud for you now? Nope. OK. I can hear you better. OK. Thanks.

[1:04:46] Voice 5: Yes, thank you for raising that. In my order, I had that at the end, but it is actually 6.1.7. So let's look at the addendum, which is the item for approval, the budget. And does someone, I guess, Carolyn, would you like, were you going to be speaking to this?

[1:05:08] Voice 5: I

[1:05:08] Voice 10: can just give you a bit of an update. So we had provided a budget back in July, and have made a couple of updates based on board direction. It went to the financial planning committee recently, and some questions were asked. And as we were answering those questions, we realized that we had made a mistake.

[1:05:30] Voice 10: I had looked at one thing from last year and not realized it had been updated.

[1:05:38] Voice 10: So we had down in our budget that $110,000 was coming from the ECCC contribution when in fact it's only $102,000 and something.

[1:05:54] Voice 10: So we need to increase by $7,582 the amount that we have in the budget request for the Islands Trust Conservancy for salaries and benefits to correct that error that I made last time.

[1:06:10] Voice 5: Okay, thanks a lot. Are there any, anybody have any questions for Carolyn on this budget?

[1:06:18] Voice 5: I see Trustee Smith.

[1:06:21] Voice 5: Pardon me? I didn't

[1:06:22] Voice 5: hear you say something.

[1:06:24] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Your hands up.

[1:06:25] Voice 5: Oh,

[1:06:26] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): my hands up. Yes.

[1:06:27] Voice 5: Yeah, I did have a question. It's on the Proposed Islands Trust Conservancy budget request. It's the table that you have in there. And there's just something I don't understand. So the last line is the ITC plan for First Nations engagement. And we had a total approved budget of 20,000 for the fiscal year we're in right now.

[1:06:48] Voice 5: and then you have that um there'll be no budget for next year but we are asking for an extension

[1:06:57] Voice 5: of that so i'm not understanding how that works i must be misreading this somehow uh nope you're

[1:07:04] Voice 10: reading it correctly so we asked trust council last year for the funds to provide to first

[1:07:12] Voice 10: nations who wish to be involved. It's capacity funding for this project. So it's a one-time

[1:07:19] Voice 10: capacity funding amount that will be provided to the nations. It was approved in the 2024-25 budget

[1:07:26] Voice 10: and we will be providing that before the end of this fiscal to assist with the whole of the

[1:07:32] Voice 10: project. So there wasn't any indication in the past that we would go back and ask for additional

[1:07:39] Voice 10: capacity funding it was a one-shot request but

[1:07:44] Voice 5: we need capacity funding as we go on i just i'm

[1:07:48] Voice 5: confused do we have capacity funding in some other way no

[1:07:54] Voice 10: we have this amount that was provided by

[1:07:56] Voice 10: trust council for capacity funding for the five-year plan development uh the first nation's

[1:08:03] Voice 10: engagement portion of the five-year plan development yeah

[1:08:06] Voice 5: but we're doing most of that

[1:08:07] Voice 5: next fiscal. That's why I'm confused.

[1:08:10] Voice 10: Right, but the intent is that we would send out the letters

[1:08:13] Voice 10: and engage with First Nations in this fiscal starting January, February, March, and we would

[1:08:20] Voice 10: be able to provide the capacity funding for the project this fiscal, even though the project is

[1:08:28] Voice 10: going on more than just this fiscal, but the capacity funding would be provided at the front

[1:08:34] Voice 10: end of the process okay they don't have

[1:08:36] Voice 5: to spend it

[1:08:37] Voice 10: this no no we have to provide it this fiscal

[1:08:41] Voice 5: that's all oh and then they can use it over whatever time period they want yes okay and we

[1:08:49] Voice 5: already but we haven't yet identified who that would go to no

[1:08:55] Voice 10: that will be dependent on our

[1:08:56] Voice 10: initial discussions with the different nations okay

[1:09:00] Voice 5: i get that any other questions about this

[1:09:03] Voice 5: um about 6.1.7 the budget i'm not seeing any hands no okay then uh i don't think that that

[1:09:14] Voice 5: my question would even change the motion so does somebody i'm looking for there must be

[1:09:18] Voice 5: is there a motion here um

[1:09:24] Voice 10: you're currently in the

[1:09:26] Voice 10: attachment so in the original somehow i'm

[1:09:33] Voice 5: not seeing the motion but could you put the motion up there caroline or do you see the motion

[1:09:38] Voice 5: Oh, here it is. I see it now. Does everybody see the motion? Does somebody want to read the motion?

[1:09:51] Voice 10: No one wants to read?

[1:09:52] Voice 5: Coraline?

[1:09:53] Voice 10: Coraline, you're in the attachment as opposed to the RFD.

[1:09:58] Voice 2: Yeah, it's actually Michaela.

[1:10:00] Voice 2: Oh,

[1:10:00] Voice 10: sorry, Michaela.

[1:10:01] Voice 10: Sorry, where is it?

[1:10:02] Voice 2: Michaela, can you go up?

[1:10:03] Voice 10: Where is it? Sorry.

[1:10:05] Voice 10: Just go into the bookmarks again.

[1:10:08] Voice 10: No, this is the attachment. We need to go in the document that's before that.

[1:10:13] Voice 10: There.

[1:10:14] Voice 10: Here? Okay.

[1:10:15] Voice 10: Yep, thank you.

[1:10:18] Voice 10: Thank you.

[1:10:20] Voice 5: Okay, now everybody's got the motion.

[1:10:22] Voice 5: Does somebody want to read the motion?

[1:10:27] Voice 5: That looks like trustee Kahn, Mr. Huddle.

[1:10:34] Voice 7: Did I say I was gonna?

[1:10:36] Voice 7: No, but.

[1:10:38] Voice 7: Where is it?

[1:10:41] Voice 14: At the bottom there, the recommendation, the motion.

[1:10:45] Voice 7: Okay, I'm moved that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board

[1:10:49] Voice 7: request an increase of $7,582.

[1:10:58] Voice 7: So it's moving.

[1:11:00] Voice 7: No, it's bigger.

[1:11:01] Voice 7: It's bigger, good.

[1:11:02] Voice 7: To its proposed 2025-2026 salaries and benefits budget,

[1:11:08] Voice 7: Islands Trust contribution due to an error

[1:11:11] Voice 7: in its earlier submission relative to the amount available

[1:11:15] Voice 7: from the Environment and Climate Change Canada

[1:11:17] Voice 7: Contribution Agreement for salaries and benefits

[1:11:20] Voice 7: it's in 2025-26. Thank you.

[1:11:24] Voice 5: Do you have a seconder? Oh, sorry. Trustee Yates. Do you have a seconder?

[1:11:32] Voice 5: Trustee Yates has hands up. Thank you. All those in favor, raise your hand. That looks like it's

[1:11:44] Voice 5: unanimous. Thanks very much, everybody. Okay. So now we're back on to the items for discussion

[1:11:53] Voice 5: and direction, 6.2.

[1:11:55] Voice 5: Sure, Smith.

[1:11:56] Voice 13: I

[1:11:56] Voice 5: have some hands up.

[1:11:57] Voice 5: Yes.

[1:11:58] Voice 5: Thank you.

[1:11:59] Voice 13: Just on the last item, the budget, I do note in the alternative

[1:12:04] Voice 13: that we could have requested staff to look for some other reductions.

[1:12:09] Voice 13: I just want to inform the committee that from the Financial Planning

[1:12:13] Voice 13: Committee's perspective, although I'm speaking as an executive,

[1:12:16] Voice 13: executive budgets uh the budget is is um going to have to be reduced uh we're going to be looking

[1:12:25] Voice 13: for reductions wherever possible um and i guess i just wanted to sound out this board's appetite

[1:12:34] Voice 13: for that um increase of i think it was three thousand dollars for board um training uh i know

[1:12:41] Voice 13: that we we've asked staff to look into providing a briefing on um gosh what was it back in the fuel

[1:12:50] Voice 13: um return of lands to indigenous governing bodies um and so i'm wondering if uh that board honoraria

[1:13:00] Voice 13: for for outside speakers to come in and provide training might be able to wait um

[1:13:06] Voice 13: Um, because it's, it's just going to be a really hard year to balance a budget and,

[1:13:12] Voice 13: and, you know, even looking at that, um, auxiliary, um, trust area services position that we need

[1:13:19] Voice 13: for the next year to support conservancy work and engaging with First Nations, I'd say that's

[1:13:24] Voice 13: going to be a really critical piece.

[1:13:26] Voice 13: And I would, I will go to bat for that, um, for trust council.

[1:13:30] Voice 13: I'm not sure I can, um, for additional budget requests from the conservancy.

[1:13:35] Voice 13: see it's just been it's just going to be tough so i just wanted to flag that and um say that if we

[1:13:42] Voice 13: do want staff to look for um any other reductions we should probably indicate that now or have a

[1:13:48] Voice 13: conversation about where we might be able to see reductions in our request to council thanks okay

[1:13:55] Voice 5: so my suggestion is i think that's a very good point and even though we've already approved it

[1:13:59] Voice 5: I'm presuming we can go back and look at the motion again we'll see what other

[1:14:08] Voice 5: people have to say first

[1:14:09] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Timothy's hand oh

[1:14:15] Voice 8: sorry no I forgot to lower it from

[1:14:18] Voice 8: previously my apologies

[1:14:20] Voice 6: see

[1:14:29] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): director Smith Stewart Sam is that me I

[1:14:34] Voice 5: yes I I'd

[1:14:41] Voice 5: like to say that I think that trustee Elliott raised a really good point and

[1:14:45] Voice 5: that maybe we do we want to revisit this and if we would be quite significant if

[1:14:52] Voice 5: we remove that $3,000 but we'd still have $1,600 for board training and

[1:14:59] Voice 5: conferences but if we remove the increase of $3,000 I might just ask

[1:15:05] Voice 5: trustee Elliott she she raised that and if that would be something that the

[1:15:11] Voice 5: executive would look on favorably

[1:15:17] Voice 13: I'm yeah I'm just looking for the board's I

[1:15:23] Voice 13: guess some consensus on where where are the soft spots that if we need to say

[1:15:28] Voice 13: okay we need to fund this position and are willing to let go of that one so I

[1:15:35] Voice 13: I am content because we've actually requested staff to come back with a briefing on some options for, I'm sorry, I don't have the right words in front of me, it's in the fuel, and I note that that's in progress.

[1:15:50] Voice 13: And so I'm thinking that before we look outside for, yeah, so that would be one soft spot that I think could see a reduction and we could indicate to financial planning committee, maybe not this year, but that we strongly support, for instance, the auxiliary trust area services support person.

[1:16:21] Voice 13: Because essentially, we are burning out on staff capacity to do this intergovernmental work that is so critical.

[1:16:30] Voice 13: I think without somebody in that role, we will not be able to pull off.

[1:16:35] Voice 13: I'm concerned we won't be able to do the proper engagement over the next year with First Nations.

[1:16:41] Voice 13: And I think that is a much higher priority.

[1:16:44] Voice 13: We need to get that moving.

[1:16:47] Voice 13: So if the board wanted to indicate that it supports trust area services request for an auxiliary policy advisor

[1:16:59] Voice 13: position for one time for one year, because we consider this work critical, we could indicate we'd be willing to drop some other budget requests.

[1:17:12] Voice 13: So I'm looking for what is everybody else's feeling on that.

[1:17:18] Voice 5: Okay, anybody else want to raise their, raise some comments?

[1:17:30] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): I'll make a comment. I think it's an excellent plan. I think it's forward thinking is where we

[1:17:37] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): need to be in the next while. The only hand I see is yours. Nope, it's down now, Trustee Smith.

[1:17:44] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): No,

[1:17:44] Voice 5: I put it up again. I don't know why it's not. Okay, sorry. Yes, my hand is up. Yes,

[1:17:49] Voice 5: Yes, I also think it's a good idea, and I'm just wondering if it would help if we had a motion to that effect, just a separate motion to that effect, just so it's very clear that that is our priority.

[1:18:02] Voice 13: Yeah, I can draft that. If we want to move into the next briefing, and then could we come back to a motion, I could

[1:18:10] Voice 13: put that on the floor? Thanks.

[1:18:12] Voice 5: Yeah, okay, thanks.

[1:18:13] Voice 5: So, okay, good. That's great. So the next item, we'll come back to that. Can

[1:18:17] Voice 5: someone make a note of that, that we'll come back to that? Maybe, Trustee Elliott, when you're ready,

[1:18:22] Voice 5: you'll tell us, and then we can come back to that. And I would like to just highlight to everybody,

[1:18:26] Voice 5: because I don't know if people are following the chat, but Trustee Kahn is going to have to leave

[1:18:30] Voice 5: early because of this upcoming storm. So he's going to be leaving before the lunch break.

[1:18:36] Voice 5: we'll still have a quorum so I'm not too concerned about that but although I'm I

[1:18:41] Voice 5: would like to have them here what I'd like to know is anybody else going to

[1:18:44] Voice 5: have to leave before the lunch break due to the storm no I don't see anybody else

[1:18:51] Voice 5: okay thanks for letting us know that trusty con okay so the next item is six

[1:18:57] Voice 5: point two point one thirty fifth anniversary of ITC communication

[1:19:01] Voice 5: communications and engagement. And I think Michaela is probably speaking to that. Am I correct?

[1:19:08] Voice 11: Yes, that's correct. Thank you, Chair. Hi, everyone. So this is what we are proposing

[1:19:14] Voice 11: for communications and engagement for the 35th year anniversary of Islands Trust Conservancy.

[1:19:20] Voice 11: And the proposed items will fit within next year's budget. And I'm happy to take any questions.

[1:19:26] Voice 11: any

[1:19:29] Voice 5: comments questions i

[1:19:41] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): see trustee elliot

[1:19:42] Voice 13: uh i just wanted to thank you um this is a really good

[1:19:47] Voice 13: well-rounded communication engagement strategy and i think it will do a lot to

[1:19:52] Voice 13: support and advance um the sort of image and the brand and the work of the conservancy in

[1:20:00] Voice 13: our communities and so i really appreciate the thoughtfulness and your creativity on this

[1:20:04] Voice 13: Thank you. Any other comments?

[1:20:11] Voice 4: Trustee Yates.

[1:20:14] Voice 4: Yeah, good point. I was already thinking about Earth Day 2026, and hopefully we'll have another little community event where we can do a little ITC promotion.

[1:20:36] Voice 5: Trustee Smith?

[1:20:36] Voice 5: Yes, I'd like to also say that I'm, I'm really happy with this, this briefing and the, and the whole proposal and the way the thoughtful way it's laid out. And especially that you can do it within the current budget, which is awesome. So thanks very much for putting this together. And because I see there's a lot of thought in this. I very much appreciate that. Don't think there's any decision on this. It's just a briefing. Is that correct? I don't see a decision.

[1:21:08] Voice 5: No. Okay. Any other comments? If not, I'll move on. Trustee Galbraith, any other comments?

[1:21:15] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Oh, I concur. This is a very robust engagement plan. I love it. Thanks.

[1:21:23] Voice 5: Okay. So thanks for that. So I don't, you don't, Michaela, do you need anything else from us?

[1:21:31] Voice 5: We like it, you know, but we don't need a motion. So just want to be sure you're comfortable.

[1:21:36] Voice 5: All good. Thank you.

[1:21:38] Voice 5: The next one is 6.2.2, Gambier Island Local Trust Committee request regarding the use of

[1:21:45] Voice 5: Squamish language on ITC nature reserve signage on Gambier Island. Are there any comments?

[1:21:53] Voice 5: Whose briefing is this?

[1:21:55] Voice 9: It's mine, Nuala.

[1:21:58] Voice 9: It's just this recommendation from the Gambier Island Local Trust Committee gives ITC an

[1:22:05] Voice 9: opportunity to work with Squamish First Nations to incorporate Squamish language on the signage

[1:22:10] Voice 9: on the, there's three ITC nature reserves on Gambier Island. But then this work may also help

[1:22:16] Voice 9: ITC develop in other areas to incorporate First Nations language and better define our policy

[1:22:24] Voice 9: around signage. So I'm happy to take any questions about the briefing.

[1:22:36] Voice 5: Trustee Smith?

[1:22:38] Voice 5: Yeah, thanks for this.

[1:22:40] Voice 5: I really like the pilot idea that you propose in this,

[1:22:44] Voice 5: because we're talking about signage and other issues,

[1:22:47] Voice 5: and I think that that's really creative,

[1:22:49] Voice 5: that we could use this as a pilot, see what kind of language works,

[1:22:53] Voice 5: and maybe even try some of the other things that we want to do with signage,

[1:22:58] Voice 5: including translating it.

[1:23:00] Voice 5: The only thing I'm concerned about is that,

[1:23:02] Voice 5: I'm not sure if I read this properly,

[1:23:04] Voice 5: But it seems like you don't think we could respond to that in any timely manner, just because of capacity.

[1:23:10] Voice 5: Did I understand that correctly?

[1:23:14] Voice 9: In terms of doing the majority of the work on this, I think it has to be next fiscal.

[1:23:20] Voice 9: But in terms of just responding to the LTC about intentions to go forward, that can be done immediately.

[1:23:29] Voice 5: Okay, great.

[1:23:31] Voice 5: So next fiscal is not that far away anyways.

[1:23:33] Voice 5: ways um like you're not talking about a year from now you're talking just a few months is that

[1:23:37] Voice 5: correct

[1:23:37] Voice 9: yes it was thought that the work plan was full for this fiscal um to really put the effort

[1:23:44] Voice 9: in it that this would require and to um but it's it's definitely things can be set in motion for

[1:23:51] Voice 9: that it to be added to the work plan for next fiscal thank you any

[1:23:56] Voice 5: other questions for nula

[1:23:58] Voice 5: No other comments. Okay. It's not for decision. So I don't think we have to do anything else. There's another item 6.2.3, the annual holiday campaign.

[1:24:14] Voice 5: campaign um this yeah

[1:24:18] Voice 1: that's uh that's mike hi mike on that one um yeah just uh just wanted to

[1:24:25] Voice 1: let you know uh as per the strategic uh fund action plan uh fund development action plan

[1:24:33] Voice 1: there's a yearly um a yearly appeal an annual appeal um and we're going ahead with that this

[1:24:40] Voice 1: year in time for giving tuesday at the beginning of december and there'll be a bit of a focus on

[1:24:46] Voice 1: the covenant management and defense fund which um which would need need some support as we move

[1:24:53] Voice 1: forward um so yeah just just letting you folks know that that's uh where we were up to with that

[1:25:02] Voice 5: uh thank you for letting us know do you need anything else from us except i appreciate that

[1:25:06] Voice 5: we know about it that's great no

[1:25:08] Voice 1: just so you know you know people may talk about it as they

[1:25:11] Voice 1: they receive the emails and things so just so you all know about it okay

[1:25:17] Voice 5: great um so we now have uh

[1:25:21] Voice 5: if everyone's okay with that i move on to the next agenda item which is correspondence and we have

[1:25:27] Voice 5: this long correspondence 6.3.1 on weather modification manipulation not climate change

[1:25:34] Voice 5: email which went to trustee khan um i don't know if trustee khan you want to speak to it or anybody

[1:25:40] Voice 5: else anybody can speak to it if they would like to let's see trustee khan

[1:25:47] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): i

[1:25:49] Voice 7: just wanted to point

[1:25:50] Voice 7: out that it didn't actually just come to me i just happened to be the first name on the list

[1:25:56] Voice 7: and i i have no um knowledge of this other than anybody else has but um it seems to me something

[1:26:06] Voice 7: thing that we could ignore sorry

[1:26:11] Voice 5: could you say that again something that we could ignore

[1:26:14] Voice 7: i

[1:26:14] Voice 5: just

[1:26:16] Voice 7: thought it was something we could ignore okay

[1:26:19] Voice 4: thank you uh trustee eight i concur with

[1:26:25] Voice 4: trustee khan because i don't want to encourage any more on this um

[1:26:34] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): trustee

[1:26:39] Voice 5: smith yes i also

[1:26:41] Voice 5: had that comment i do not think we should respond to this at all i think we received it that's fine

[1:26:46] Voice 5: and I don't think we should respond it's just a lot of work for for nothing and

[1:26:52] Voice 5: there's there there's so many things in it that are untrue and I don't think

[1:26:57] Voice 5: it's worth the effort but we did receive it and that's fine don't think we should

[1:27:01] Voice 5: waste our time valuable time responding to it so the question is really if

[1:27:08] Voice 5: anybody else thinks we should respond any I don't see any hands up trustee

[1:27:22] Voice 5: go no no hands up yeah receive information so i'm uh feeling that people agree with that

[1:27:30] Voice 5: 6.3.2 is the trust council letter to minister kang request for provincial review of islands

[1:27:37] Voice 5: trust and i don't know if i don't think there's anything for us to do we're just receiving this

[1:27:42] Voice 5: but um does anybody want to um uh brief us on this quickly or um

[1:27:51] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): no i just have a comment to

[1:27:52] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): make and the news yesterday i've read that uh rabbi uh cologne is the new minister of municipal

[1:27:59] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): affairs so i don't believe anne king will be receiving this letter thanks for that any other

[1:28:07] Voice 5: comments um oh sorry i see no hands my hand is up go for it this is technology um i do want to

[1:28:24] Voice 5: the only thing i want to say is that this letter does implicate us but we were not asked to input

[1:28:30] Voice 5: into it and i think it's very important that because we're part of the islands trust

[1:28:35] Voice 5: that when a major letter like this goes out that does implicate us that we should be given an

[1:28:42] Voice 5: opportunity to comment on it or respond in some way and i'm not sure how we would communicate

[1:28:49] Voice 5: that to Trust Council but I'm sort of seeking some advice on that. Trustee

[1:28:56] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Elliott.

[1:28:58] Voice 13: Thank you. There was a lot of debate on this request for review. I

[1:29:05] Voice 13: believe the the vote for the review was well supported by Council in principle

[1:29:11] Voice 13: but not this letter and not the timing. The vote ended up being 14 to 10 on

[1:29:17] Voice 13: on sending this letter.

[1:29:18] Voice 13: So it was two separate votes.

[1:29:20] Voice 13: I advocated at Trust Council's table

[1:29:24] Voice 13: that we had not consulted or asked Bowen Island Municipality

[1:29:29] Voice 13: with whom we have agreements.

[1:29:33] Voice 13: We hadn't consulted the Conservancy

[1:29:35] Voice 13: and we had not done the work with First Nations

[1:29:41] Voice 13: to even consider coming together with a request

[1:29:45] Voice 13: request that might include their interests in a review. And so I felt as a trustee, and I still

[1:29:53] Voice 13: feel very strongly that this letter was sent much too soon and actually against the advice.

[1:30:00] Voice 13: that we requested at UBCM from senior policy advisors

[1:30:05] Voice 13: and people in the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.

[1:30:09] Voice 13: And it was for this reason, principally,

[1:30:12] Voice 13: that we need to act in concert with others to accomplish the mandate.

[1:30:17] Voice 13: So I do feel that the Conservancy has a voice here

[1:30:21] Voice 13: and could choose to exercise that.

[1:30:26] Voice 13: I'll also let you know that Bowen Island Municipality Mayor

[1:30:29] Voice 13: Mayor Leonard is going to address Trust Council in December personally and has actually there's a letter from Bowen Island Municipality in our upcoming agenda tomorrow for approval for Trust Council to read,

[1:30:47] Voice 13: indicating that because we went forward as a council

[1:30:52] Voice 13: without talking to Bowen Island Municipality,

[1:30:55] Voice 13: essentially they're not going to do any engagement

[1:31:00] Voice 13: or response on our policy statement amendment project.

[1:31:04] Voice 13: So this has caused some serious ripples

[1:31:08] Voice 13: with our intergovernmental partners.

[1:31:11] Voice 13: And if the Conservancy wants to indicate

[1:31:15] Voice 13: that it should be part of the conversation,

[1:31:18] Voice 13: I would think that a letter from the chair could give some support to that.

[1:31:27] Voice 13: But I'm not going to tell this board what to do.

[1:31:28] Voice 13: I'm already wearing two hats.

[1:31:32] Voice 13: Chair Smith.

[1:31:35] Voice 5: Yes.

[1:31:35] Voice 5: Well, I think it's very important that we have not been consulted on such an important initiative.

[1:31:43] Voice 5: And we were briefed on it by Trustee Elliott at the previous meeting.

[1:31:46] Voice 5: So I would very much like to write a letter to Trust Council about it, which I would compose and run it by the board before it went anywhere else, obviously, because your input would be critical.

[1:32:02] Voice 5: But I need to know if I would have support from the board to do that.

[1:32:07] Voice 5: And I'm just thinking that Trust Council is December 3rd or something, isn't it?

[1:32:13] Voice 5: Very soon.

[1:32:13] Voice 5: I probably wouldn't be able to get that letter in in time. What I could do, I did not put myself on

[1:32:23] Voice 5: the agenda to speak at Trust Council, but maybe it's not too late to change that and I would have

[1:32:28] Voice 5: five minutes to read a letter if the board was comfortable with me writing such a letter.

[1:32:38] Voice 4: Trustee Yates. I really like that idea, Chair Smith, and usually you do address

[1:32:46] Voice 4: council at some point on the agenda when conservancy comes up so perhaps that would be

[1:32:52] Voice 4: appropriate and i fully confess that i was one of the trustees who did vote to send the letter

[1:32:59] Voice 4: however i did not vote on the timing which was terrible and i really you know the next the very

[1:33:08] Voice 4: next day when i thought about all of the excellent advice we had from staff and from trustees

[1:33:15] Voice 4: um who attended ubcm i i was just so sorry that i had voted in favor of sending the letter

[1:33:22] Voice 4: and i'm almost glad now that we have a different minister maybe it'll never get to the

[1:33:33] Voice 5: or maybe i'll ask please don't be shy if you're not comfortable with me writing such a letter

[1:33:39] Voice 5: and i'll talk to alex and see if i can still put myself for my five minutes on the agenda

[1:33:45] Voice 5: if you're not comfortable please tell me and I won't do it we really need to I really need to

[1:33:51] Voice 5: know that so don't be shy if you're not comfortable if I don't hear from any of you now I'm going to

[1:33:57] Voice 5: proceed with writing that letter and trying to get the opportunity to read it once you guys have

[1:34:02] Voice 5: reviewed it I'll send it by email to everybody. Trustee Yates you

[1:34:07] Voice 4: just said the most important

[1:34:08] Voice 4: thing once we have a chance to review it. Thank you.

[1:34:13] Voice 13: Trustee Elliott? I do think that to indicate

[1:34:16] Voice 13: that this is the wish of the committee, we should have a resolution to that effect so that it's in

[1:34:21] Voice 13: the minutes. Okay. So I move that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board request Chair Smith

[1:34:29] Voice 13: to write a letter on behalf of the Conservancy responding to Islands Trust Council's request

[1:34:37] Voice 13: for Provincial Review of the Islands Trust and we can just leave the timing up to you.

[1:34:49] Voice 5: Okay, thank you. Do I have any seconders for that motion?

[1:34:53] Voice 5: Can you put it up? I know it's

[1:34:55] Voice 5: hard, Coraline. Is it possible for you to get that motion up somehow?

[1:35:03] Voice 2: Yes, sorry Toby,

[1:35:05] Voice 13: could you just repeat that again and I'm

[1:35:07] Voice 2: halfway through.

[1:35:08] Voice 13: Sure, I move that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board requests that Chair Smith

[1:35:12] Voice 13: write on behalf of the

[1:35:18] Voice 13: Islands Trust Conservancy a letter

[1:35:22] Voice 13: to Trust Council regarding the request

[1:35:28] Voice 13: for provincial review and perhaps I could add and

[1:35:34] Voice 13: indicate that it would appreciate consultation

[1:35:40] Voice 13: or appreciate being involved in the discussion

[1:35:45] Voice 13: anybody help here?

[1:35:47] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Well we just leave it at writing

[1:35:49] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): the letter i think we know the intention

[1:35:50] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): yeah okay with

[1:35:52] Voice 5: you guys don't worry about that yeah

[1:35:56] Voice 5: um trustee gavro are there i see there's some hands up there's

[1:36:00] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): quite a few

[1:36:00] Voice 5: uh i'm gonna call

[1:36:02] Voice 5: on trustee timothy uh

[1:36:05] Voice 8: thank you i just sorry i still had my hand up from before oh

[1:36:08] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): sorry um

[1:36:11] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): trustee yates i was just seconding the motion great if i could third it i would

[1:36:18] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Good. It's a great, great initiative, guys. Right on.

[1:36:22] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Okay,

[1:36:23] Voice 5: all those in favor, could you put your hands up, please?

[1:36:32] Voice 5: Okay, thanks. And I will ask people, like if in the next day or so, I probably won't write that till Monday.

[1:36:38] Voice 5: If you have ideas of things you think should go in that letter, just fire me an email.

[1:36:44] Voice 5: I very much appreciate that. So just particular issues that you think I should raise.

[1:36:49] Voice 5: ways. That'd be great. Thanks a lot, everybody. Okay, thank you. Okay, so the next item is

[1:36:59] Voice 5: Stuart Brand's email to executive committee. Does anybody want to speak to that?

[1:37:09] Voice 5: Here we go. Oh, my hands are up, but it should be down. Well, I'll leave my hand up for one reason.

[1:37:16] Voice 5: that's okay trustee smith um i had this is not related to this particular correspondence but

[1:37:26] Voice 5: i had uh said and i still stand by that that i would write a letter in response to all the

[1:37:33] Voice 5: other correspondence we got from stewart brand mostly because he lives on galliano and i feel

[1:37:38] Voice 5: responsible to respond to him and i'm still intending to do it but as i said before it

[1:37:43] Voice 5: It wasn't going to be an instant thing.

[1:37:45] Voice 5: And I'm still going to do that.

[1:37:47] Voice 5: And I don't know, I wonder, this didn't go to, this just went to executive.

[1:37:52] Voice 5: So we don't really respond to it specifically, but I'll include some of these in my, things in my letter to him.

[1:37:59] Voice 5: But I'm going to do the other letter first, assuming my second print.

[1:38:03] Voice 5: Just let people know that.

[1:38:05] Voice 5: Any other comments on Stuart Brandt's letter?

[1:38:12] Voice 13: Trustee Elliott.

[1:38:12] Voice 13: it. So Chair, am I understanding correctly that you are already writing back to Mr. Browns on a

[1:38:19] Voice 13: previous letter and now responding to this one as well? I don't

[1:38:24] Voice 5: want to specifically respond to this

[1:38:26] Voice 5: because he didn't send this letter to us. He sent it to Executive, but he has points in there that

[1:38:33] Voice 5: relate to his other letters too. So I'll just try and pick that up.

[1:38:37] Voice 13: So I do see it was sent from ITC

[1:38:39] Voice 13: email to executive why did we receive it then oh because it involves protective covenants i

[1:38:44] Voice 13: apologize okay i would just encourage the you to to encourage the letter writer that um

[1:38:52] Voice 13: we're doing the best we can i've already started

[1:38:56] Voice 5: that letter actually thanks okay and also you

[1:39:00] Voice 5: should be aware like katherine martell also responded to him with a really excellent letter

[1:39:04] Voice 5: and in it she explained what we are doing so i'll pull out that some of some of that too

[1:39:11] Voice 5: Okay. Any other comments on Stuart Brand? Okay. Updates for information. So the time,

[1:39:19] Voice 5: I guess you guys want to, like we're doing really well. But I do know that Trustee Kahn has to leave

[1:39:24] Voice 5: in five minutes. So Trustee Kahn, maybe I'll just ask you if you want to say anything quickly before

[1:39:30] Voice 5: you leave. Trustee Kahn has already had to leave. Oh, he already had to leave. Well, there you go.

[1:39:36] Voice 5: I'm behind the times. So updates for information. Public acquisitions report. Does anybody

[1:39:43] Voice 5: Anybody want to speak to that?

[1:39:44] Voice 5: Oh, there's some hands up.

[1:39:46] Voice 5: Trustee Zell.

[1:39:47] Voice 5: Yeah, Trustee Elliott.

[1:39:50] Voice 13: So I do have a motion prepared on the budget item.

[1:39:56] Voice 13: So we could do that if you want before this or after.

[1:39:59] Voice 13: And then I wanted to also ask if the board wants to consider indicating that it's going to halt more covenants or acquisitions for the next year so that we can focus on the already big work plan we have ahead of us.

[1:40:22] Voice 13: Because we didn't really discuss that. There was indications in both the NAPTEP monitoring report and the Nature Reserve monitoring report that staff are already at capacity. And so I'm just wondering what we're going to do to address that. Are we going to keep accepting new covenants and property management or that require property management?

[1:40:45] Voice 13: where we seem to be reaching that threshold do we need to make a decision or is just maybe now

[1:40:51] Voice 13: it's not the time but anyway that motion is um ready to go on the budget and i send it to you

[1:40:55] Voice 13: corlin and uh to the board as well if you check your email thanks

[1:41:00] Voice 5: marlin if you could put that up

[1:41:01] Voice 5: and i just want to respond to your last comment because we we did discuss that in the covenant

[1:41:07] Voice 5: discussion and i had asked that very same question and we got a very good answer from i think it was

[1:41:13] Voice 5: Catherine that she felt there were many other efficiencies they could uh implement and she had

[1:41:20] Voice 5: a lot of creative ideas without stopping uh covenants so so if you still want to have a

[1:41:26] Voice 5: motion that's fine but I just wanted to remind you that um that had been raised during that item

[1:41:31] Voice 5: thank you I zoned out or something yeah well it's so easy it

[1:41:36] Voice 14: was Gemma who had all the wonderful

[1:41:38] Voice 14: ideas oh

[1:41:39] Voice 5: Gemma okay I knew someone did I couldn't remember who but yes yay Gemma

[1:41:43] Voice 5: Thank you for that.

[1:41:46] Voice 5: So Trustee Galbraith, do we have the motion up now?

[1:41:50] Voice 5: We have the motion up.

[1:41:52] Voice 6: It's on the screen.

[1:41:56] Voice 13: So I could just read it out if you want, Chair,

[1:41:59] Voice 13: and then we could discuss it if there's any changes.

[1:42:03] Voice 13: We could make some changes before it's seconded.

[1:42:07] Voice 13: So I move that the ITC board indicate to Trust Council

[1:42:10] Voice 13: and Financial Planning Committee that it considers

[1:42:12] Voice 13: that trust area services business case for an auxiliary policy advisor for 2025-26 is critical

[1:42:19] Voice 13: to support ongoing intergovernmental and policy work and that ITC requests that a portion of an

[1:42:25] Voice 13: auxiliary policy advisory advisor no auxiliary policy could you change that to advisor position

[1:42:31] Voice 13: be dedicated to support the Conservancy's engagement with First Nations on the Conservancy's

[1:42:36] Voice 13: mandate and a renewed five-year plan and that in light of increasing budget requests from the

[1:42:42] Voice 13: the Conservancy, the board indicates that its request for an increase to board training for

[1:42:46] Voice 13: $3,000 to support education on Indigenous conserved and protected areas could be deprioritized for

[1:42:52] Voice 13: this fiscal.

[1:42:55] Voice 5: Thank you. Do I have a seconder for that? I'll second. Okay. I should have asked

[1:43:03] Voice 5: before I seconded. Any further discussion? We've already talked about this. I

[1:43:08] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): see Trustee Yates'

[1:43:11] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): hand no

[1:43:13] Voice 4: sorry i was just uh seconding and then gonna vote sorry okay

[1:43:18] Voice 5: uh all those in favor raise

[1:43:20] Voice 5: your hand please okay so that passed unanimously thanks very much for that trustee elliott okay so

[1:43:34] Voice 5: now we'll move on to the next the item where we were starting which is updates for information

[1:43:38] Voice 5: there's the public acquisitions report 6.4.1 um does anybody want to speak to that

[1:43:47] Voice 5: I

[1:43:48] Voice 14: don't know that there's a need to but I can certainly answer any questions about this one

[1:43:52] Voice 14: and the next item yeah

[1:43:54] Voice 5: so this is really just an update with the chart so it would be more if

[1:43:58] Voice 5: anybody has particular items they have questions on uh or particular questions for was that

[1:44:04] Voice 5: Catherine's voice I heard yes yes it's yeah Catherine so is there anything on the public

[1:44:09] Voice 5: acquisitions report um update where's that I don't know what's wrong with me I'm I want to

[1:44:18] Voice 6: I

[1:44:18] Voice 5: see no hands okay and so then we'll move on to the public covenants report

[1:44:29] Voice 5: any particular questions on that one sorry

[1:44:35] Voice 8: chair smith I actually had I was struggling to put my

[1:44:38] Voice 8: hand up in regards to crystal mountain the public acquisitions update I saw there's a note

[1:44:47] Voice 8: uh of i think maybe may is it may 6 2023 or june 5th 2023 penelicate tribe has requested

[1:44:57] Voice 8: greater consultation around subdivision and bylaw and itc work is on hold um has there

[1:45:05] Voice 8: been an update since then that's

[1:45:07] Voice 14: essentially still the status trustee timothy penelicate has

[1:45:11] Voice 14: has been working with the planning side,

[1:45:16] Voice 14: with planning team and with the proponent.

[1:45:19] Voice 14: And we're just in a holding pattern

[1:45:21] Voice 14: until we hear what happens, essentially.

[1:45:23] Voice 8: Thank you. I appreciate that.

[1:45:26] Voice 5: Okay, great.

[1:45:30] Voice 5: Okay, so now we're moving on to the NAPTEP covenants.

[1:45:34] Voice 5: Any questions on those?

[1:45:42] Voice 5: I see no hands.

[1:45:44] Voice 5: Okay, and then the budget report,

[1:45:47] Voice 5: which we've kind of already discussed,

[1:45:48] Voice 5: so is there anything else on the budget report any hands no hands okay uh ITC briefing to

[1:46:01] Voice 5: financial planning committee who's on the financial planning committee is that trustee

[1:46:06] Voice 5: Yates yes

[1:46:08] Voice 4: um actually trustee Elliott and I are both on the financial planning committee

[1:46:12] Voice 4: and we did have a meeting recently and I'm just happy to say that so far we were able to protect

[1:46:19] Voice 4: everything that itc is asking for but of course we've just made this recent motion to you know

[1:46:26] Voice 4: help bring the budget down so we'll see how that goes at council okay

[1:46:32] Voice 5: thank you any other comments

[1:46:35] Voice 5: no okay so the next one is the quarterly report to trust council and i believe that's in here

[1:46:42] Voice 5: um sorry i'm gonna pull that up here we go okay so we've got the quarterly report did anybody

[1:46:55] Voice 5: So this comes every Trust Council, there's a written report from staff, and it's always in this form.

[1:47:01] Voice 5: And this is the one that will go for the third quarter.

[1:47:05] Voice 5: Does anybody have any questions about it?

[1:47:08] Voice 5: Comments?

[1:47:13] Voice 7: No.

[1:47:14] Voice 5: No? Okay.

[1:47:16] Voice 5: The next one is the Salt Spring Island LTC planning referral notice and staff response.

[1:47:33] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): I see Manager Stewart has

[1:47:37] Voice 10: her hand up.

[1:47:37] Voice 10: If I may, I've been looking into this situation. This is the second time there's been a referral come through the planning section that has had like a two week turnaround for comments, which precluded us from getting anything to the board in advance.

[1:47:54] Voice 10: and um so staff provided comments and we've put it on the agenda for your information um there's

[1:48:02] Voice 10: another one that is coming again from salt spring the new planner was not familiar with the process

[1:48:08] Voice 10: i just spoke with her yesterday but one thing that um that i have i was looking at could it be

[1:48:16] Voice 10: done through a resolution without meeting but those you can't have discussion and debate about

[1:48:21] Voice 10: out. So that didn't work. Should you defer commenting on these to staff and do it this

[1:48:29] Voice 10: way in terms of unless there were big red flags, that's another option. Or I now realize there's a

[1:48:36] Voice 10: third option that I was not familiar with a special meeting, which does allow us to provide

[1:48:42] Voice 10: an item and you can in fact have discussion and debate and add to our items. So I just was

[1:48:50] Voice 10: wanting you to know that we have provided comments on these two, this one this most recently,

[1:48:57] Voice 10: and seek some direction as to whether you do want to see every referral, no matter how large or

[1:49:07] Voice 10: small or if that's what our current policy says is that all referrals will be provided to you

[1:49:13] Voice 10: so if something comes in the future I'll set up a special meeting if that's the direction you wish

[1:49:18] Voice 10: to continue.

[1:49:21] Voice 5: Trustee Smith? Yes so I put a lot of thought into this after because I'm getting

[1:49:26] Voice 5: emails from a trustee about the referral process not this one but other ones that aren't going

[1:49:32] Voice 5: going through the proper process and first I liked Carolyn's idea of deferring to staff 99.9%

[1:49:39] Voice 5: of the time we would take staff's recommendations on this but I've had a change of opinion on this

[1:49:45] Voice 5: I really think that it that's one of the things that's our job as the board and I don't think we

[1:49:51] Voice 5: should defer our job and so it's my preference Carolyn's idea that when referrals there's two

[1:49:58] Voice 5: two things. One, I don't think a two week turnaround is enough. And I think we should

[1:50:03] Voice 5: communicate that to whoever asks us for these two week turnarounds. And the second thing relates to

[1:50:10] Voice 5: I think that if there is a referral, we should have a special meeting, it might just be a five

[1:50:15] Voice 5: minute meeting. But I don't think we should be absolving our responsibility to look at referrals.

[1:50:21] Voice 5: Most aren't controversial, but occasionally, there's one or two that really are. And

[1:50:26] Voice 5: And so it's my preference to not defer that to staff

[1:50:32] Voice 5: and have a special meeting.

[1:50:33] Voice 5: But obviously, I'd like to hear from other people.

[1:50:37] Voice 4: Trustee Yates.

[1:50:38] Voice 4: Thank you for that, Chair Smith.

[1:50:40] Voice 4: And certainly, staff's advice is always appreciated.

[1:50:45] Voice 4: And I can't imagine, you know, even going against it most of the time.

[1:50:50] Voice 4: But I guess my question is, do we need a special meeting?

[1:50:53] Voice 4: or would an email response be acceptable?

[1:50:58] Voice 4: Oh,

[1:51:00] Voice 6: excuse me.

[1:51:08] Voice 10: Manager Stewart?

[1:51:11] Voice 10: I would suggest that you would need to have a resolution

[1:51:19] Voice 10: without meeting or a special meeting

[1:51:21] Voice 10: to have an actual board resolution and board direction.

[1:51:32] Voice 13: Justy Elliott.

[1:51:37] Voice 13: So just following up on that,

[1:51:40] Voice 13: I don't think we could have a resolution without meeting unless there was absolutely no discussion.

[1:51:46] Voice 13: That's the limits for that functional ability.

[1:51:52] Voice 13: But I just wanted to flag that there is something else coming out of Saltsburg, and I don't know if you're aware of it, Manager Stewart.

[1:52:01] Voice 13: It's on the executive committee's agenda for tomorrow for discussion, but there's no material on it.

[1:52:07] Voice 13: And so I just wanted to raise this because it's another consideration of how much, how convoluted these things can get. So there's a high profile Crown lease referral that's under consideration by the province. This matter applies to the Conservancy as well, but the LTC has not had an opportunity to comment.

[1:52:27] Voice 13: And so this has been that we have to untangle this process because the public is expecting the LTC to weigh in.

[1:52:37] Voice 13: And at least one First Nation is requesting a community meeting on the application.

[1:52:41] Voice 13: But since the LTC did not receive the Crown lease referral and development permits are delegated to staff, the decision makers didn't get to see it.

[1:52:51] Voice 13: And so that's what they're trying to undo, because there's an old Crown Land Administration memorandums of understanding seem to skip over the local decision-making body.

[1:53:10] Voice 13: And so we'd want to make sure that that doesn't happen with the Conservancy. So I'm just flagging that as another potential confusing piece.

[1:53:22] Voice 13: is sometimes the decision makers do get skipped over because of these old memorandums of

[1:53:27] Voice 13: understanding. But we should look for that one from the Salt Spring Island LTC, if and when it

[1:53:34] Voice 13: gets a referral, because I think it implicates the Conservancy.

[1:53:39] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Manager Stewart.

[1:53:43] Voice 10: I was speaking

[1:53:44] Voice 10: with the Salt Spring Island planner yesterday about that particular one. So there are on Salt

[1:53:53] Voice 10: spring and possibly in all of our offices there are quite a number of new staff and so she was

[1:53:59] Voice 10: not familiar with the process and the requirement to refer things so she is going to be referring

[1:54:06] Voice 10: that to staff to us as soon as she can get the proper package together of the right information

[1:54:14] Voice 10: so i would um and it is apparently close to i don't know if it's adjacent but it's close to

[1:54:21] Voice 10: two of our covenanted lands so I would refer it to Gemma and she and I will take a look at it

[1:54:29] Voice 10: and we'll set up a special meeting for you to discuss that.

[1:54:38] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Trustee Smith?

[1:54:42] Voice 5: Nope you're muted.

[1:54:46] Voice 5: Just to follow up on what Trustee Elliott said it's about that particular referral on Salt Spring

[1:54:53] Voice 5: um that relates to this crown lease and uh there has been a trustee from uh salt spring who's very

[1:55:01] Voice 5: angry about this and has been lobbying me about it because it does affect us as well and because

[1:55:07] Voice 5: she wondered if we had seen it which we hadn't and that made me realize that we do need to

[1:55:14] Voice 5: see referrals even though most of the time uh you know we just take and probably this time as well

[1:55:22] Voice 5: We would take staff advice, but I don't think we, that's why it was that number of emails

[1:55:29] Voice 5: from a trustee on Salt Spring that really made me reflect on, you know, what our responsibility

[1:55:35] Voice 5: is as a board and not devolving that to staff.

[1:55:39] Voice 5: I don't, that's why I said that.

[1:55:40] Voice 5: And so, Trustee Elliott, it was in relation to that other one that I had to think about

[1:55:47] Voice 5: this.

[1:55:47] Voice 5: Thanks.

[1:55:50] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Trustee Yates.

[1:55:51] Voice 4: Yes, thank you for all those comments.

[1:55:54] Voice 4: I think it's really important that Conservancy has a comment on this.

[1:56:00] Voice 4: And it just reminded me of how important it is for the decision makers to see some of these.

[1:56:07] Voice 4: They're very occasional.

[1:56:08] Voice 4: But, for example, two years ago, Trustee Elliott and I had to really kind of work backwards

[1:56:15] Voice 4: to look at a crown lease for a gravel pit that had gone straight through from Modi

[1:56:23] Voice 4: and minister of mines and it was all approved and there was a notice in the

[1:56:26] Voice 4: paper with no time at all for the local trust committee to even meet before the

[1:56:33] Voice 4: approval went through so it's really good if we can have a chance to when we

[1:56:40] Voice 4: really need to have a have a comment on these sorts of things I'd

[1:56:47] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): like to make

[1:56:48] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): a comment as well I like to thank staff for their response back the letter to

[1:56:53] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): to the LTC. I think the rationale was strong. On Galliano, we've dealt with quite a few DVPs,

[1:57:01] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): drain fields in the natural boundary is an issue. I think we've approved three. I didn't approve

[1:57:07] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): them, but they got approved. So this is an important issue. Not to make the matter more

[1:57:15] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): complex, but also the applicant does have the opportunity to go to the Board of Variants if

[1:57:19] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): If it doesn't like the answer, it gets from the LTC.

[1:57:23] So how's that?

[1:57:26] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): How's that fitting here?

[1:57:27] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): So I agree there's a

[1:57:28] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): lot of work to be done there,

[1:57:29] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): and I'm very thankful for the response letter.

[1:57:35] Voice 5: Okay.

[1:57:36] Voice 5: Thanks, everybody.

[1:57:37] Voice 5: So just as a chair, what I'm hearing here is that we don't want to,

[1:57:43] Voice 5: we're not ready to give responsibility for these referrals to staff

[1:57:48] Voice 5: staff and that we do want to see them and I really I kind of like Carolyn I think what you

[1:57:54] Voice 5: presented is was with that we could do it electronically if there's no discussion so

[1:57:59] Voice 5: maybe we could say that that's our first our first response because most of them will not

[1:58:06] Voice 5: be controversial but if we see one like that and people want a discussion then we'll have to have

[1:58:12] Voice 5: a special meeting does that make sense that's sort of what I'm hearing any hearing anything

[1:58:21] Voice 5: Anything different,

[1:58:26] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Amanda Stewart?

[1:58:28] Voice 10: Just to clarify.

[1:58:30] Voice 10: So what I'm hearing you say is that when a referral comes in,

[1:58:35] Voice 10: we could send it to the board members and possibly with a draft response

[1:58:42] Voice 10: and see if you want to address it as a resolution without meeting

[1:58:48] Voice 10: or if you wish to have a discussion about it,

[1:58:50] Voice 10: in which case we would set up a special meeting.

[1:58:54] Voice 10: Is that correct?

[1:58:54] Voice 10: That

[1:58:56] Voice 5: is how I see it. And if anybody disagrees with that, that's excellent. Just let us know now.

[1:59:07] Voice 5: I'm seeing no hands.

[1:59:09] Voice 5: Okay. Okay. So the next, thanks everybody for that discussion. And 6.4.7 is an executive committee update. Does Trustee Elliott want to do that?

[1:59:26] Voice 13: Thank you, Chair. Yes, Executive Committee, as I announced before, we are meeting tomorrow in person. We have a heavy agenda to get through. And so this is preparation for a Trust Council meeting, which is in early December.

[1:59:47] Voice 13: There is going to be quite a few delegations to Trust Council, just looking at the potential agenda.

[1:59:55] Voice 13: And so if the Conservancy...

[2:00:00] Voice 13: wanted to have space, either at the usual time, just speaking for the Conservancy, I think for

[2:00:09] Voice 13: 10 or 15 minutes, I can definitely request that. Or you could request as a delegation, I think

[2:00:15] Voice 13: that's still possible. Although executive committee needs to approve those, but sometimes we've

[2:00:22] Voice 13: approved them right before the meeting, sort of December 2. So if there was a letter that you

[2:00:28] Voice 13: you wanted to read out on behalf of the Conservancy and then the board, we could

[2:00:37] Voice 13: approve it right before Trust Council. That's possible. We will be meeting our new Chief

[2:00:45] Voice 13: Administrative Officer. So CAO Ruben Brony will speak and address Trust Council for the first

[2:00:53] Voice 13: time. I think he will be in the role for just about a week by that point. So lots of learning

[2:01:01] Voice 13: and looking forward to see what new skills and perspectives he's going to bring our council.

[2:01:12] Voice 13: There is ongoing issues really being raised around conduct. Council has a standards of conduct

[2:01:21] Voice 13: policy and our September meeting it appears there were some breaches by some

[2:01:31] Voice 13: trustees in the perspectives in in the view of some and and so executive

[2:01:39] Voice 13: committee was advised by staff that we do have a responsibility to ensure trust

[2:01:46] Voice 13: Trust Council upholds not only our own bylaws, but provincial and federal legislation, which

[2:01:54] Voice 13: includes bullying and harassment, provincial legislation.

[2:01:59] Voice 13: And so just out of an abundance of concern for staff, for trustees, and to advise council

[2:02:09] Voice 13: that the tone and some of the choice of wording was probably not, well, definitely not upholding the standards of conduct

[2:02:20] Voice 13: and might actually get us into trouble with that provincial legislation,

[2:02:26] Voice 13: we decided to pull the recording off of the website.

[2:02:32] Voice 13: Executive Committee, we did neglect to advise all trustees that this was happening

[2:02:39] Voice 13: And that Chair Luckham admitted as an error and oversight, we were all, you know, kind of struggling with what to do and pulled the recording off, but then didn't advise trustees.

[2:02:53] Voice 13: So that came out in the media and there's been quite a bit of around dialogue, a lot of dialogue, and some trustees are feeling quite justifiably upset that they weren't advised of this.

[2:03:10] Voice 13: So it is within executive committee's role to ensure that council is, you know, upholding that legislation and we're not putting staff or our employees at risk for further harm.

[2:03:27] Voice 13: So it was for that reason, but the recording still exists.

[2:03:30] Voice 13: It's on our servers and I think there'll be a conversation at Trust Council and maybe a decision to put it back up.

[2:03:37] Voice 13: We're not sure.

[2:03:38] Voice 13: so that seems to be taking a lot of time uh the policy statement amendment project is proceeding

[2:03:44] Voice 13: through committee the whole discussions it's quite slow um and in light of that

[2:03:54] Voice 13: trust well sorry executive we actually decided to reduce the budget suggest a financial plan

[2:04:02] Voice 13: committee we reduce the budget for the next year for because essentially we're

[2:04:08] Voice 13: going to suggest that we pull the anticipated six-month engagement in

[2:04:13] Voice 13: communities on the draft policy statement that would be adopted in

[2:04:22] Voice 13: principle so this isn't so the plan had been to adopt in principle a draft go

[2:04:28] Voice 13: out into communities and have sort of either trustee-led or a combination of staff and

[2:04:34] Voice 13: trustee-led engagements and then bring that back as referrals from the local trust committees

[2:04:41] Voice 13: to to the table to make further amendments and then finally give first reading but that

[2:04:47] Voice 13: six-month period is not going to allow us to finish this project before the end of this term

[2:04:53] Voice 13: in the view of executive committee so I think we're gonna have that discussion

[2:04:58] Voice 13: at December as well to potentially eliminate that period and hopefully go

[2:05:04] Voice 13: to first reading and that would trigger the referrals and the referral look to

[2:05:09] Voice 13: the Conservancy so I hope I'm explaining that it's been a it's been quite a

[2:05:15] Voice 13: learning process um the governance i guess i'll leave that to you uh trustee govro and um just

[2:05:26] Voice 13: looking at there's been i think that's all i'll report out on executive there's lots going on but

[2:05:34] Voice 13: mostly internal things thank you chair

[2:05:39] Voice 5: excuse me

[2:05:43] Voice 5: well thank you for that i do have one question if that's okay just to be sure i heard you correctly

[2:05:49] Voice 5: did you say that you are not going to have a six-month public um engagement on a revised

[2:05:59] Voice 5: policy statement is

[2:06:00] Voice 5: that what you said well

[2:06:02] Voice 13: this is council's decision and council's direction so

[2:06:06] Voice 13: So far at Trust Programs Committee's idea from two years ago was to have a six-month period of community engagement.

[2:06:18] Voice 13: But that was supposed to happen essentially this year.

[2:06:23] Voice 13: And yet we're only about halfway through the document and we're not quite, well, we're not at approval in principle.

[2:06:30] Voice 13: So if we get to approval in principle, let's say by May, and then have another six-month period and then redraft and have first reading, we're not going to get a final draft before the end of term.

[2:06:44] Voice 13: So we are recommending to remove that six-month period and go straight to first reading, but council ultimately will have to make that decision.

[2:06:59] Voice 13: Thank you.

[2:07:00] Voice 5: I just wanted to be sure I understood you correctly. Okay. So, any other questions

[2:07:05] Voice 5: for Trustee Elliott? So, financial planning committee update.

[2:07:10] Voice 5: Chair, you

[2:07:11] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): had a comment, Mike, too, that just to highlight the fact that first reading

[2:07:16] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): is not approval of the document. Just so that anyone listening at home would say first reading

[2:07:22] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): is just uh it enables um referral processes to move forward it's really it's an important part

[2:07:29] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): of the process and it's certainly not the final part of the process any

[2:07:34] Voice 5: other comments

[2:07:36] Voice 5: or questions okay financial planning committee uh do we still need an update on that i don't

[2:07:42] Voice 4: think so because i gave one yes

[2:07:44] Voice 5: exactly okay trust council update i think we kind of got

[2:07:49] Voice 5: an update on that from trustee Elliott but does anybody else want to or trustee Elliott someone

[2:07:54] Voice 5: want to give a trust council update or is that needed maybe just okay fine a governance committee

[2:08:05] Voice 5: update do we need an update on that yeah yeah we've been busy

[2:08:08] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): all right at our November 5th

[2:08:11] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): meeting we discussed the trustee remuneration review this is a review based on a trust council

[2:08:17] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Council policy. We compared it to the UBCM Council and Board Renumeration Guide to ensure

[2:08:24] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): that we were following best practices in trustee compensation. Staff identified areas in the

[2:08:31] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): policy that aligned with the guide, but also areas, opportunities to improve. The committee

[2:08:38] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): agreed to forward recommendations to Trust Council for consideration with a goal of how

[2:08:44] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): to update that policy. We also review the Secretariat business case. This stems from

[2:08:50] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): a recommendation of 2022 governance review. It suggests the creation of a full-time corporate

[2:08:57] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): secretary to better support operations at Trust Council. Staff proposed a $15,000 budget request

[2:09:05] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): for a consultant and for legal fees to explore that role and the scope of that project.

[2:09:12] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): We discussed the potential benefits of having a dedicated role to improve efficiency at Trust Council meetings and decision-making.

[2:09:22] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): And after discussion, we approved the business case and forwarded it to the Financial Planning Committee for inclusion into the 2025-26 budget.

[2:09:32] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): We also approved a policy review business case to ensure that we're regularly reviewing and updating policies.

[2:09:39] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): policies. And this will help us stay aligned with best practices and hopefully improve our

[2:09:45] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): governance over time. We also came up with our meeting schedule for 2025 and 26. All meetings

[2:09:54] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): will be continued to be held electronically. And finally, there was a really great discussion about

[2:10:00] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): creating a governance manual. Laura Pratchett brought it up. This would help streamline and

[2:10:06] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): and organize policies in a more user-friendly way.

[2:10:11] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Yeah, this is something that we'll continue to develop.

[2:10:14] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Staff will take the lead on it and develop resources,

[2:10:18] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): potentially adding some support from a consultant.

[2:10:22] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Overall, the meeting, I think we made great progress.

[2:10:26] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): It was a very productive meeting.

[2:10:27] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): Looking forward to continue the good work in the next year.

[2:10:31] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): And our next meeting is January 29th.

[2:10:34] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): we'll pick up this discussions and move forward as directed by trust council thank

[2:10:39] Voice 5: you thank you

[2:10:41] Voice 5: very much um any questions for trustee govro trustee

[2:10:50] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): elliott thank you

[2:10:51] Voice 13: i do have a question

[2:10:54] Voice 13: uh i'm maybe i can speak with you offline but do i have it correct that the um governance

[2:10:59] Voice 13: committee is returning to trust council with a request to hold a session on the governance review

[2:11:11] Voice 13: itself. And so I guess my query is the governance review triggered the creation of the governance

[2:11:22] Voice 13: committee, whose terms of reference are to look at all those recommendations in the governance

[2:11:28] Voice 13: review and then give recommendations to trust council how to implement them how can we improve

[2:11:33] Voice 13: our governance so what was the rationale for governance committee saying we're going to go

[2:11:38] Voice 13: back to trust council not with recommendations but to have a wholesale discussion on the

[2:11:44] Voice 13: governance review two years later um is there i'm just trying to understand the reasoning

[2:11:51] Voice 13: for that like isn't that the purpose of the governance committee great

[2:11:55] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): question um my

[2:11:56] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): My understanding is that having all trustees weigh in on the governance review is needed first.

[2:12:03] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): And that would inform direction in the trust council.

[2:12:05] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): And I believe that's going to be a special meeting.

[2:12:08] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): And I think we've been trying to schedule that since the beginning of our term, but it hasn't happened yet.

[2:12:14] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): So a lot of the work of the governance committee itself is dependent on the fact that the trustees actually support the recommendations in the trustee review or the governance review.

[2:12:26] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): you that's a that's a bigger question i think so until we have the discussion as a council

[2:12:31] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): and look at the recommendations and follow then uh the governance committee is just an act i kind

[2:12:36] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): of continue with any um any of the work that the trust council has handed off to it or directed

[2:12:42] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): towards it okay

[2:12:46] Voice 5: does that satisfy you could be a long discussion maybe it's a very long discussion

[2:12:51] Voice 6: maybe you

[2:12:52] Voice 5: want to have it offline unless other people want us to go on it i'm curious but not

[2:12:57] Voice 5: not enough to. Anyways, thank you so much. Anything else for Trustee Galbraith on governance?

[2:13:07] Voice 5: Any hands? I don't see any hands. Do you see any hands? Nope. No. Okay. The next thing is the

[2:13:14] Voice 5: Salish Sea Conservation Forum that was on Galliano October 18th. And we had quite a lot of people

[2:13:20] Voice 5: from Islands Trust Conservancy there. I wonder if one of the staff who was there, there was Gemma,

[2:13:26] Voice 5: there was Catherine there was Erica and then trustee Elliot was there and I was there for

[2:13:32] Voice 5: the Galeano Conservancy but you know can't ignore that I'm also on the trust council so I don't know

[2:13:37] Voice 5: would be I'd be putting on you the spot um if either Gemma or Catherine would just speak to

[2:13:43] Voice 5: it briefly oh maybe neither of them are here hello I'm here

[2:13:53] Voice 2: trustee Smith sorry for the delay

[2:13:55] Voice 2: Yes, I can give a quick summary from my perspective.

[2:14:01] Voice 2: First of all, I was extremely grateful that the Galliano Conservancy was willing to coordinate and host this event.

[2:14:09] Voice 2: It's been, I think it was the last time I attended a meeting of conservation organizations working in the Salish Sea was the fall of 2019.

[2:14:18] Voice 2: 19. So the pandemic really threw a wrench in these opportunities. And this was our first time,

[2:14:26] Voice 2: as far as I know, getting back together. And the forum was organized as a series of workshops,

[2:14:36] Voice 2: and they did a really good job of trying to ensure that there were two workshops being

[2:14:42] Voice 2: held concurrently for a total of, I believe, eight workshops. And they did a really good job of

[2:14:47] Voice 2: coordinating things so that participants could attend all of the workshops they wanted to

[2:14:54] Voice 2: without conflicts between the topics. And personally, I attended workshops on forest

[2:15:01] Voice 2: restoration in degraded landscapes, deer management, voluntary conservation and stewardship

[2:15:14] Voice 2: stewardship on private lands. And gosh, I think I'm forgetting one. Oh, reconciliation. Of course,

[2:15:24] Voice 2: how could I forget? And so they were all really interesting. I was able to take away

[2:15:31] Voice 2: some key points and apply to covenant management. And there were some great opportunities for

[2:15:40] Voice 2: discussion around the workshops as well heads up things between organizations co-covenant holders

[2:15:47] Voice 2: things that projects they have coming down the pipe that are going to impact us and that will

[2:15:52] Voice 2: be eventually making their way into board agendas yeah I thought it was a really successful event

[2:15:59] Voice 2: And I look forward to, to future forums.

[2:16:05] Voice 14: Thank you.

[2:16:07] Voice 14: Sorry.

[2:16:09] Voice 14: I just wanted to add Gemma's,

[2:16:14] Voice 14: to Gemma's comments that the sessions that I attended also were excellent.

[2:16:18] Voice 14: And as with any of these types of events,

[2:16:21] Voice 14: it was fantastic that we were able to be there in person because even though

[2:16:25] Voice 14: it was only the one day, we weren't able to, we didn't,

[2:16:30] Voice 14: we didn't attend the social the evening before but the one day that just all of those coffee

[2:16:35] Voice 14: breaks or um because despite the atmospheric river coming in and jemma and erica left earlier

[2:16:42] Voice 14: than planned to catch the ferry on the friday evening um they were still able to be there for

[2:16:47] Voice 14: the dinner and i stayed later as well and it's those those discussions are really what's so

[2:16:52] Voice 14: critical and what you miss when you're doing this all virtually and and um i think helped to dispel

[2:16:58] Voice 14: the idea also that the concert islands trust conservancy is this external organization

[2:17:06] Voice 14: because i think we lose that connection with the local conservancy sometimes and

[2:17:11] Voice 1: so it was

[2:17:11] Voice 14: excellent and and for me one of the the best things that came out of it was in the reconcili

[2:17:17] Voice 14: action talk at the end there was a powerful moment where um we were given it was phrased as a gift

[2:17:26] Voice 14: and i really believe it was of someone pointing out how poorly we were considering the um

[2:17:37] Voice 14: the core needs of the indigenous person not only uh indigenous people who were participating but

[2:17:43] Voice 14: also just in general and i think that was a really valuable moment to take us back to the fact that

[2:17:49] Voice 14: we need to always remember that we're operating within colonial structures that and so we were

[2:17:55] Voice 14: were all talking about nitty-gritty and details of how to change them which is important but we

[2:18:00] Voice 14: also needed to explicitly acknowledge more frequently how harmful those practices already

[2:18:05] Voice 14: are so

[2:18:09] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): just great wonderful i see trustee yates well

[2:18:15] Voice 4: i wasn't able to attend but i sure do

[2:18:18] Voice 4: appreciate the report and i have to say galliano galliano conservancy rocks

[2:18:27] box great

[2:18:30] Voice 5: uh trustee smith um yes i was there i was there actually for the galliano conservancy

[2:18:36] Voice 5: so i will pass all your kudos on to our board there thanks very much um i went to four sessions

[2:18:42] Voice 5: too the connections were unbelievable i've been lots of follow-ups since then especially i did

[2:18:49] Voice 5: one on finances and it it was amazing and um i it's a lot of organization to do that so i hope

[2:18:57] Voice 5: someone will do it again in like maybe a year or two because these connections are very important

[2:19:02] Voice 5: um i will also say that something i was in the uh reconciliation one as well and there was a very

[2:19:10] Voice 5: emotional moment there and something that was raised by um kate emmings who was also there

[2:19:17] Voice 5: although not for the ITC. She raised this issue, are land trusts inherently colonial structures

[2:19:28] Voice 5: that are not compatible with reconciliation? And she suggested a working group to discuss that,

[2:19:36] Voice 5: and a lot of people are very interested in that, as am I as well. So I just thought I'd raise that.

[2:19:42] Voice 5: I'm not

[2:19:43] Voice 5: going to go into the details, but if anybody wants to have a conversation about

[2:19:46] Voice 5: those details um or wants to be part of that let me know trustee elliott

[2:19:53] Voice 13: thank you i'll be brief

[2:19:56] Voice 13: um i was so thankful to be there so two points um on that last matter um i actually um met with the

[2:20:04] Voice 13: the woman the penelaket woman who um who spoke up in the ferry lineup afterwards and we had a hug

[2:20:12] Voice 13: and a great conversation uh she laughed about it um and i asked her specifically what was

[2:20:17] Voice 13: what was the challenging the the key issue and she said it's when we talk

[2:20:25] Voice 13: about our lands our properties our nature reserves when talking about

[2:20:32] Voice 13: access to for indigenous peoples to our properties and if we could just shift

[2:20:40] Voice 13: this one thing these are not our islands they are not our properties they're not

[2:20:45] Voice 13: our lands. We are guests and visitors in homelands of First Nations people whose

[2:20:52] Voice 13: families have been here since time immemorial. And so there was much in that conversation which

[2:20:59] Voice 13: had excluded the voice and perspective of Indigenous people who were there. But that

[2:21:05] Voice 13: one thing was, I think, the trigger. And we could definitely shift that language.

[2:21:10] Voice 13: The second thing I wanted to ask is if there'd be interest in having Dr. Tara Martin do a webinar or do a session on, I think, specifically the hyperabundant deer.

[2:21:24] Voice 13: I was so shocked to learn how not just the invasive fallow deer are changing the architecture of the forest and the ecosystems, but just the native deer alone, because they're so super abundant.

[2:21:37] Voice 13: her research is really showing that the I think it's called the baselines for ecological

[2:21:44] Voice 13: for of cumulative effect or shifting generation after generation so we don't even know what kind

[2:21:50] Voice 13: of forest ecosystem we have lost generation to generation and Dr. Tara Martin of course we've

[2:21:56] Voice 13: just seen this knap tap covenant is a highly regarded scientist and I want I would like to

[2:22:05] Voice 13: to see if we could have her do a webinar

[2:22:07] Voice 13: on some of their research.

[2:22:08] Voice 13: Thank you.

[2:22:11] Voice 4: Trustee Yates.

[2:22:13] Voice 4: Thanks for that, Toby.

[2:22:14] Voice 4: I think we've actually talked about having a webinar,

[2:22:19] Voice 4: generally an Islands Trust webinar

[2:22:20] Voice 4: on the Colombian black-tailed deer

[2:22:24] Voice 4: and what it does to our environment.

[2:22:26] Voice 4: But if we don't do it through the trust regularly,

[2:22:29] Voice 4: if we could do it through the Islands Trust Conservancy,

[2:22:32] Voice 4: that would be really good

[2:22:34] Voice 4: because i did attend a webinar on actually i attended a live meeting on what happens to the

[2:22:42] Voice 4: natural habitat with the deer and it has everything to do with the loss of songbirds

[2:22:48] Voice 4: and the loss of native shrubs and it's really really serious and i would just love to have a

[2:22:57] Voice 4: a webinar on that sponsored by whomever can do it uh

[2:23:03] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): manager stewart i

[2:23:07] Voice 10: just wanted to mention

[2:23:08] Voice 10: that director claire director freighter and i have had a conversation about webinars that had

[2:23:15] Voice 10: been suggested at one of our previous um conservancy board meetings and she did indicate

[2:23:22] Voice 10: that there are i believe three webinars already being um put together um for january february

[2:23:30] Voice 10: in march and she suggested that it might be best to hold off a little bit um in terms of webinars

[2:23:36] Voice 10: and i would suggest that might be something uh to uh to go back i can have a conversation with

[2:23:43] Voice 10: and see if that fits into the 35th anniversary at all um i can't remember if we talked about

[2:23:50] Voice 10: that sort of thing or but we might just want to wait until after the islands trust ones are

[2:23:57] Voice 10: are established or held, sorry.

[2:24:02] Voice 5: Okay, thanks everybody.

[2:24:04] Voice 5: And thanks Carolyn for that explanation.

[2:24:07] Voice 5: So I think we're getting into our lunch.

[2:24:11] Voice 5: So I think I'll just move on to the next item

[2:24:14] Voice 5: and we can at a next meeting, discuss that webinar.

[2:24:18] Voice 5: The next one relates to reconciliation

[2:24:21] Voice 5: and organization change report.

[2:24:23] Voice 5: Does anybody need to speak to that?

[2:24:25] Voice 4: Yes, that

[2:24:26] Voice 4: was my addition to the agenda, Chair Smith.

[2:24:30] Voice 5: Okay.

[2:24:31] Voice 4: So I'll speak to, I'll be as brief as I can.

[2:24:34] Voice 4: And I'm almost certain that I kept notes on this, which I can forward to all of you later.

[2:24:40] Voice 4: And the reason I want to talk to this now is because I actually attended this webinar

[2:24:45] Voice 4: two years ago, but it's come up at a couple of our ITC board meetings.

[2:24:51] Voice 4: And then I couldn't find my notes

[2:24:53] Voice 1: for a while.

[2:24:53] Voice 4: And I found them.

[2:24:54] Voice 4: I thought oh yes this is just so relevant so it's a webinar I attended two years ago was actually

[2:25:02] Voice 4: January 2023 and it was sponsored by the Conservation Through Reconciliation Partnership

[2:25:09] Voice 4: and the Sustainability Network. Now we often see notes from the Sustainability Network coming to us

[2:25:16] Voice 4: on our ITC mail but this one particularly got my attention so I signed up for it. There were

[2:25:24] Voice 4: quite a few other um conservancy board members and staff people at that meeting including kate

[2:25:31] Voice 4: emmings linda adams and lisa wilcox was also there so it was hosted by chloe dragon smith from the

[2:25:40] Voice 4: denny nation in the northwest territories and all the panelists were indigenous except jennifer

[2:25:47] Voice 4: mckillop from the nature conservancy canada who has lived and worked in northern cree territory

[2:25:52] Voice 4: Treaty 4 territory for a long time. So the host, Chloe Dragon-Smith, posed two questions

[2:26:00] Voice 4: for the participants, and she introduced the session with some remarks about First Nations

[2:26:06] Voice 4: having to always work as bridges to accomplish reconciliation for NGOs, and this burden should

[2:26:14] Voice 4: shift to the NGOs. And her two questions for the panelists were, what does reconciliation look like

[2:26:21] Voice 4: so far with your organization and what are the greatest challenges with

[2:26:26] Voice 4: reconciliation and conservation work? So the panelists mostly combined their

[2:26:32] Voice 4: answers. The first one was Jen McKillop from Nature Conservancy Canada. She

[2:26:38] Voice 4: talked about growing up and learning about the Cree name for where she lived

[2:26:42] Voice 4: and the name was the place where the bones are piled up and the deep tragic

[2:26:47] Voice 4: tragic meaning of this name being connected with the extermination of the bison, which

[2:26:53] Voice 4: of course eliminated First Nations food, shelter, connection to their land culturally and environmentally.

[2:27:01] Voice 4: So briefly, Nature Conservancy Canada is working with First Nations to establish an Indigenous

[2:27:07] Voice 4: and conservation framework for all of their work. I'm expecting that that is probably

[2:27:13] Voice 4: done now since this was two years ago. And she said, we are in a place of deep displacement

[2:27:19] Voice 4: of Indigenous peoples. The next panelist was Claire Hutton and Amanda Karst. They were speaking

[2:27:27] Voice 4: for Nature United. They were both First Nations participants. They spoke about working for

[2:27:34] Voice 4: Indigenous-led conservation and working on projects of mutual interest. And how harmful,

[2:27:41] Voice 4: And we've talked about this recently, how harmful the colonial history of conservation has been across North America and how it can almost invisibly be part of ongoing colonialism.

[2:27:54] Voice 4: And I think we really see that in our recent discussions.

[2:27:57] Voice 4: Claire talked about combating goal-oriented projects that are rushed to meet funding requirements and colonial deadlines, and suggested line items in every project budget for bigger changes that require more time and space.

[2:28:16] Voice 4: Charlene George, also known as Kaquasnut, spoke about the entitled attitude that comes with traditional conservation efforts, as if conservation is the answer to the colonial legacy of extraction.

[2:28:31] Voice 4: The best gift she learned from her grandfather was about the interconnectedness of all life.

[2:28:37] Voice 4: And she said she learned to ask, how do you meet bear on the trail?

[2:28:42] Voice 4: and I just love that. She spoke very passionately about how conservation is still mostly human

[2:28:50] Voice 4: centered. And she's talked about how do I be a good guest is an essential question to ask oneself.

[2:28:59] Voice 4: She also suggested something for organizations. And this was interesting to me. It was kind of

[2:29:07] Voice 4: of a reversal of what I usually think. She said, hire people on contract rather than as permanent

[2:29:14] Voice 4: staff to allow for varied knowledge and expertise, depending on which nations might be part of

[2:29:22] Voice 4: ongoing work. So as a socialist at heart, I always think, oh, you know, if you can avoid contract

[2:29:29] Voice 4: and hire someone permanently. But of course, we don't, you know, we have a lot of projects that

[2:29:34] Voice 4: that don't require a permanent staff member.

[2:29:36] Voice 4: So I really listened to her when she said this.

[2:29:40] Voice 4: And then the last panelist was Hannah Askew.

[2:29:44] Voice 4: And she said, we must learn to be comfortable

[2:29:47] Voice 4: with not knowing, not being tied to specific end results

[2:29:52] Voice 4: and her comments about measurable outcomes

[2:29:55] Voice 4: tied directly with Kwasniewicz concerns about funding.

[2:30:00] Voice 4: which is often in direct conflict with smaller, quieter initiatives

[2:30:03] Voice 4: that do not have measurable outcomes or definite endpoints.

[2:30:09] Voice 4: In closing, I really admired their definition of ethical space,

[2:30:15] Voice 4: and that is from the Conservation Through Reconciliation Partnership.

[2:30:19] Voice 4: An ethical space is creating a place for knowledge systems

[2:30:23] Voice 4: to interact with mutual respect, kindness, and generosity.

[2:30:28] Voice 4: So that's my summary. It was a two-hour webinar and I enjoyed every moment of it. And I'll send you my notes.

[2:30:36] Voice 4: Thank you very much,

[2:30:38] Voice 5: Trustee Yates. So that was great and probably people will want some follow-up.

[2:30:46] Voice 5: I don't know if there's any public or any delegations on the call. Is there, Coralyn, anyone from the public on this call who would like to speak?

[2:31:01] Voice 4: Oh, sorry, I'm just checking. No, I do not see any attendees on the, on the meeting.

[2:31:09] Voice 5: Thanks a lot. So there's this one other item, which I put on. And it's just a reminder to people

[2:31:15] Voice 5: because a lot of people are new, that every January, so at our next meeting, we will choose

[2:31:20] Voice 5: a chair for the next year. And because I will be stepping down as chair, I wanted everybody to

[2:31:27] Voice 5: to think over the holidays, whether that's the position you thought that you would like to have

[2:31:32] Voice 5: or could have or, you know, feel ready for whatever. And if you have any questions about

[2:31:37] Voice 5: taking that on, I'm welcome to talk to talk to you if you'd like. So I just wanted to put that

[2:31:43] Voice 5: on everybody's agenda, because we'll have to find a chair next January. And it has to be from

[2:31:50] Voice 5: amongst the board members, and I will be stepping down. So that's it. For this meeting, I'm not

[2:31:57] Voice 5: going to have any questions now because you can contact me if you have any um i'd like to close

[2:32:02] Voice 5: the meeting and then take a break um it's 12 47 just before i close it and i suggest we really

[2:32:09] Voice 5: do need a break so if we could come back at about 1 20 which would be a half an hour break that

[2:32:17] Voice 5: would be wonderful and does somebody want to have a motion to close the meeting or read that motion

[2:32:22] Voice 5: to have someone to read the motion to close the meeting i

[2:32:28] Trustee Gauvreau (probable): see trustee yates um so chair smith

[2:32:32] Voice 4: are you asking for the motion to close the meeting yes to enter yeah

[2:32:36] Voice 4: okay so i move that the meeting

[2:32:38] Voice 4: be closed to the public in accordance with the community charter part four division three section

[2:32:44] Voice 4: 91 that the security of the property of the islands trust conservancy board the acquisition

[2:32:51] Voice 4: disposition or expropriation of land or improvements if the board considers that

[2:32:56] Voice 4: disclosure could reasonably be expected to harm the interests of the Islands

[2:33:00] Voice 4: Trust Conservancy Board the receipt of advice that is subject to solicitor

[2:33:04] Voice 4: client privilege including communications necessary for that

[2:33:07] Voice 4: purpose negotiations and related discussions respecting the proposed

[2:33:12] Voice 4: provision of a service that are at their preliminary stages and that in the view

[2:33:16] Voice 4: of the board could reasonably be expected to harm the interests of the

[2:33:20] Voice 4: Islands Trust Conservancy if they were held in public and that staff be invited to remain in the

[2:33:25] Voice 4: meeting.

[2:33:29] Voice 5: Seconder, that's Trustee Galbraith. All those in favor raise your hands. Okay that's

[2:33:39] Voice 5: unanimous. I will remind people that you should turn off your audio and your video when you go for

[2:33:45] Voice 5: for lunch and to please come back on time at.

ADOPTED 
 
Islands Trust Conservancy Board   
Regular Meeting Minutes 
November 19, 2024 ADOPTED Page 1 of 12 
Islands Trust Conservancy Board 
          Minutes of a Regular Meeting 
 
Date:  
Location:  
Tuesday, November 19, 2024 
Electronic Meeting and Physical Location 
Islands Trust Victoria Office 
200 - 1627 Fort Street, Victoria, BC  
 
Members Present: Risa Smith, Chair 
 Lisa Gauvreau, Vice Chair 
 Charles Kahn, Trustee (left the meeting at 11:30 a.m.) 
 Susan Yates, Trustee 
 Tanner Timothy, Trustee 
 Tobi Elliott, Trustee 
  
Staff Present: Carolyn Stewart, Acting ITC Manager 
 Corlynn Strachan, Administrative Assistant/Recorder 
 Jemma Green, Covenant Management and Outreach Specialist  
 Kathryn Martell, Ecosystem Protection Specialist 
 Micaela Yawney, Communications Specialist 
 Mike Richards, Strategic Fund Development Specialist 
 Nuala Murphy, Property Management Specialist 
  
Staff Regrets: Erica Wheeler, Species at Risk Program Coordinator 
  
Members of the Public 
Present: 
No members of the public were in attendance 
 
1. CALL TO ORDER 
The meeting was called to order at 10:03 a.m. Chair Smith acknowledged the meeting was being 
conducted in the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples and provide a territorial 
acknowledgement. 
2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA 
2.1 Review of Agenda and Introduction of New Items 
There were no additions to the agenda. 
2.2 Approval of Agenda 
By general consent the agenda was approved as presented. 
3. RISE AND REPORT DECISIONS FROM PREVIOUSLY CLOSED MEETING 

          ADOPTED 
 
Islands Trust Conservancy Board   
Regular Meeting Minutes 
November 19, 2024 ADOPTED Page 2 of 12 
Chair Smith reported on the following item from the ITC Board October 1, 2024 closed meeting: 
The Islands Trust Conservancy Board granted the request of Sallas Forest Strata, Sidney Island, by 
issuing a temporary waiver of terms 3.2 (b), 3.2 (j), and 3.2 (k) of covenants ES065747 (Dragonfly Pond), 
ES65743 (Woodpecker Pond), and ES065749 (Kingfisher Pond) for the purposes of using an excavator 
to extract invasive Crataegus monogyna (hawthorn) trees and dispose of the biomass on site by 
burning, subject to the following terms, as amended: 
1. Every effort is made to minimize the area of soil impacted by excavator; 
2. No other motorized vehicles are permitted in the covenant areas; 
3. Preference is given to disposal of hawthorn in brush piles as close to treatment sites as 
possible and large enough to reduce the risk of regenerating cuttings; 
4. The number of burn piles is minimized; 
5. Burn pile locations must be pre-selected in consultation with Islands Trust Conservancy staff 
to avoid impacts to native plants, wildlife, and habitat structures; 
6. The work must occur during the months of September–February to minimize impacts on 
natural values, and must be completed by the end of February 2026; 
7. The coordinates of excavated trees, brush piles, and burn piles are documented and 
provided to the Islands Trust Conservancy Board; and 
8. Every effort is made to work with Parks Canada to have experts in heritage management 
attend during the excavations. 
4. ADOPTION OF MINUTES 
4.1 Draft Islands Trust Conservancy Board Meeting Minutes of October 1, 2024 
ITC-2024-054 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board regular meeting minutes of October 1, 2024 be 
adopted as presented. 
CARRIED 
5. FOLLOW UP ACTION LIST 
Received for information. 
6. BUSINESS 
6.1 Items for Approval 
6.1.1 Proposed ITC Board Meeting Schedule from January 2025 until March 31, 2026 - 
Request for Decision 
Acting Manager Stewart requested Board members clarify the Board’s intention for the 
Islands Trust Conservancy liaison meetings with the Executive Committee, in terms of 
length of meeting and joining regular Executive Committee meetings for two of the 
proposed meetings.  

          ADOPTED 
 
Islands Trust Conservancy Board   
Regular Meeting Minutes 
November 19, 2024 ADOPTED Page 3 of 12 
Discussion ensued around the format used in 2024 and the board agreed that ITC 
Board members would attend two regularly scheduled Executive Committee meetings 
for one hour and the ITC Board would host the Executive Committee for an in-person, 
2-hour liaison meeting in July. 
ITC-2024-055 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board adopt the proposed meeting dates from 
January 2025 until March 31, 2026 as presented. 
CARRIED 
ITC-2024-056 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board direct staff to schedule the 2025-26 Islands 
Trust Conservancy Board meeting dates of January 21, May 27, October 7, and 
November 18, 2025, and January 20, 2026 as electronic meetings, and list the Victoria 
office board room as the public meeting location. 
CARRIED 
ITC-2024-057 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board direct staff to schedule three in-person 
meeting on March 18 and July 22, 2025, and March 17, 2026. 
CARRIED 
6.1.2 Islands Trust Conservancy Natural Area Protection Tax Exemption Program (NAPTEP) 
Covenant Monitoring Report 2024 – Request for Decision 
Covenant Management and Outreach Specialist Green presented the request for 
decision and provided the following highlights: 
• All 26 NAPTEP covenants that we monitored were found to be in compliance. 
• Four long-standing trespass cases are yet to be resolved. 
• Most covenants are in need of some stewardship attention. 
• Trespass and stewardship needs are going to be prioritized and addressed as 
budget and staff capacity permit. 
Discussion ensued on: 
• Off-leash dogs in the McRae Covenant and placing an article in the local Gabriola 
newspaper regarding off-leash dogs in covenants. 
• ITC capacity for monitoring covenants 
• The need for additional funding to develop the NAPTEP program. 
• Sending surveys to NAPTEP covenant holders. 
• Promoting the NAPTEP program to Trust Council and show how important these 
covenants are - to get more support. 
• Engaging effectively with First Nations on covenant restoration. 
• Halting acquisitions and covenants versus other creative monitoring options. 

          ADOPTED 
 
Islands Trust Conservancy Board   
Regular Meeting Minutes 
November 19, 2024 ADOPTED Page 4 of 12 
• Owl’s Call, Salt Spring Island, was the only covenant out of 27 not monitored as 
monitoring is contracted out by the owner. 
ITC-2024-058 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board accept the Islands Trust Conservancy Natural 
Area Protection Tax Exemption Program (NAPTEP) Covenant Monitoring Report 2024 
and direct staff to address compliance and ecological concerns as identified in the 
report. 
CARRIED 
6.1.3 Five Year Plan/First Nations Engagement Update – Request for Decision 
Acting Manager Stewart suggested that the Conservancy Board submit a letter to the 
Minister of Municipal Affairs explaining the need for an extended timeframe and 
commented that when Director Frater hires the new Policy Advisor, we see if there's 
any chance of using some of that person's time to assist with this project. 
Discussion ensued on: 
• Clarifying if the Trust Area Services auxiliary position will support Island Trust 
Conservancy with the Five Year Plan. 
• The timeline for First Nations engagement letters and follow up with the upcoming 
replacement of the ITC Manager in January 2025. 
ITC-2024-059 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the Islands Trust Conservancy (ITC) Board direct staff to prepare and submit a 
letter from the ITC Board to the Minister of Municipal Affairs that: 
• reiterates the ITC’s desire to undertake meaningful First Nations engagement; 
• explains the ITC’s staff capacity challenges; 
• provides the Board’s proposed ITC Plan engagement outline (November 2024), 
and 
• seeks the Minister’s support for the updated timeframe for development and 
submission of the next ITC Plan. 
CARRIED 
ITC-2024-060 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the ITC Board requests that Director Frater consider if a portion of the new Trust 
Area Services Policy Advisor position, supported by Trust Council in September 2024, 
can be targeted to assist ITC staff with the Five Year Plan/First Nations Engagement 
project or if ITC can seek similar funding for an ITC Policy Advisor position for this and 
other policy requirements. 
CARRIED 
6.1.4 Martin NAPTEP Covenant Application, Salt Spring Island - Request for Decision 

          ADOPTED 
 
Islands Trust Conservancy Board   
Regular Meeting Minutes 
November 19, 2024 ADOPTED Page 5 of 12 
Ecosystem Protection Specialist Martell presented the request for decision noting the 
covenant is a smaller size than the usual, however, she feels that it meets the criteria 
for an exemption to that policy, particularly because of the opportunity to be engaged 
in a covenant with the restoration component and an ecocultural connection. 
Discussion ensued on support of the application. 
ITC-2024-061 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board approve the conservation proposal submitted 
by Tara Martin, to place a NAPTEP covenant on approximately 1 ha of Salt Spring 
Island, PID: 000-363-740, Lot A, Section 39, South Salt Spring Island, Cowichan District, 
Plan 35768, subject to review of First Nations responses and to Ministerial approval, to 
protect woodlands and herbaceous habitats, maturing dry Douglas-fir forest, and 
connectivity with adjacent protected areas. 
CARRIED 
6.1.5 Soil Moisture Research at Link Island Nature Reserve, Gabriola Trust Area - Request for 
Decision 
Property Management Specialist Murphy advised that the Swiss family would like to 
install soil moisture and temperature data loggers at four representative monitoring 
locations to allow information to be collected on the regional annual cycle of winter's 
wet season and summer dry season. 
Discussion ensued on support for this request and the importance of monitoring 
climate change. 
ITC-2024-062 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board approve soil moisture research at Link Island 
Nature Reserve by the Swift family subject to First Nations consultation and the 
covenant holders approval. 
CARRIED  
6.1.6 Islands Trust Conservancy Nature Reserve Monitoring Report 2024 - Request for 
Decision 
Property Management Specialist Murphy presented the request for decision, noted 
there was an error in the resolution on the report, and requested the resolution 
wording be changed from “and direct staff to address compliance and ecological 
concerns as identified in the report” to “and direct staff to address the 
recommendations as identified in the report.” The original wording referenced 
“compliance” which is not relevant for nature reserves. 
ITC-2024-063 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 

          ADOPTED 
 
Islands Trust Conservancy Board   
Regular Meeting Minutes 
November 19, 2024 ADOPTED Page 6 of 12 
that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board accept the “Islands Trust Conservancy Nature 
Reserve Monitoring Report 2024” and direct staff to address the recommendations as 
identified in the report. 
CARRIED 
Chair Smith commented that on page 89 of the report, under Ruby Alton Nature 
Reserve, Salt Spring Island, the last two sentences state “there are many house 
maintenance issues that should be dealt with in the next year funds allow. A revised 
management plan for this nature reserve is required” and advised that a revised 
management plan for this nature reserve is currently in preparation and actions related 
to the reserve should be identified in the final approved management plan. 
6.1.7 2025/26 Budget Request - Request for Decision (addendum item) 
Acting Manager Stewart advised the ITC budget request that went to the Financial 
Planning Committee in July had an error that was recently found. The Environment and 
Climate Change Canada (ECCC) contribution toward salaries and benefits showed as 
$110,000, however, it should have been $102,418.  Hence, the Board needs to increase 
the budget request for Islands Trust Conservancy salaries and benefits by $7,582, to 
correct the error. 
Discussion ensued on the budget line for First Nations engagement which shows 
$20,000 for the current fiscal year but no budget amount for next year. Manager 
Stewart clarified the 2024/25 amount is intended as capacity funding that would be 
provided at the front end of the engagement process as a one-time contribution 
covering the whole project. First Nations can use it over the time period as they want.  
ITC-2024-064 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board request an increase of $7,582 to its proposed 
2025/26 Salaries and Benefits budget (Islands Trust Contribution) due to an error in its 
early submission relative to the amount available from the Environment and Climate 
Change Canada Contribution Agreement for Salaries and Benefits in 2025/26. 
CARRIED 
Trustee Elliott advised, as a representative of the Financial Planning Committee and 
Executive, the budget will need to be reduced, and commented there was an 
alternative resolution that the ITC Board could have requested staff to look for other 
reductions and provide a briefing. 
Discussion ensued on: 
• Whether or not the Board wants staff to look for budget reductions. 
• Removing the increases of $3,000 for ITC Board training and conferences. 
• Prioritizing having a Trust Area Services Policy Advisor for one year to forward 
First Nations engagement. 
 

          ADOPTED 
 
Islands Trust Conservancy Board   
Regular Meeting Minutes 
November 19, 2024 ADOPTED Page 7 of 12 
ITC-2024-065 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board indicates to Trust Council and Financial 
Planning Committee that it considers the Trust Area Services business case for an 
Auxiliary Policy Advisor for 2025-2026 is critical to support ongoing intergovernmental 
and policy work, and 
that ITC requests that a portion of an Auxiliary Policy Advisor position be dedicated to 
support the Conservancy’s engagement with First Nations on the Conservancy’s 
mandate and a renewed five-year plan, and,  
that in light of increasing budget requests from the Conservancy, the Board indicates 
that its request for an increase to Board training ($3,000) to support education on 
Indigenous Conserved and Protected Areas, could be de-prioritized for this fiscal.  
CARRIED 
6.2 Items for Discussion/Direction 
6.2.1 35th Anniversary of ITC Communications & Engagement Strategy – Briefing 
Islands Trust Conservancy Communications Specialist Yawney presented the briefing. 
Board members commented this is a clear, well-rounded, and creative engagement 
strategy and thanked ITC Communications Specialist Yawney for her work on this. 
6.2.2 Gambier Island Local Trust Committee Request regarding Use of  Squamish Language 
on ITC Nature Reserve Signage on Gambier Island – Briefing 
Property Management Specialist Murphy presented the briefing. 
Discussion ensued on responding to the Local Trust Committee now and adding this to 
the work plan to be done next fiscal. 
6.2.3 Annual Holiday Campaign Update 
Strategic Fund Development Specialist Richards advised the annual holiday appeal this 
year will launch in time for Giving Tuesday on December 3
rd
. This will be an electronic 
campaign to previous donors. With next year’s 35
th
 anniversary celebration, it is more 
likely we can garner gifts for our Acquisition funds and the Opportunity funds, 
therefore, this appeal will focus on this Covenant Management and Defence fund. 
6.3 Correspondence 
6.3.1 N. Maddocks - Weather Modification Manipulation Not Climate Change Email, dated 
20204-09-22 
Received for information. 

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6.3.2 Trust Council Letter to Minister Kang - Request for Provincial Review of Islands Trust, 
dated 2024-10-16 
Discussion ensued on: 
• Ravi Kahlon has been appointed Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs, 
therefore Minister Kang will not be receiving this letter. 
• The letter implicates the Conservancy, however, the Conservancy was not included 
in this request, and the importance of consultation on such an important initiative. 
• The Bowen Island Municipality was also not included in the request, and Mayor 
Leonard is addressing Trust Council in December. There is a letter regarding this 
from Bowen Island Municipality to Executive Committee (EC) on the November 20
th
 
EC meeting agenda. 
 
Chair Smith commented she would compose a response letter and provide it to Board 
members for input, and that she could address Trust Council (TC) at the point on the TC 
agenda where the Conservancy is scheduled. 
ITC-2024-066 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the Islands Trust Conservancy Board request Chair Smith write a letter on behalf of 
the Islands Trust Conservancy to Trust Council regarding the request for a Provincial 
review and would appreciate consultation. 
CARRIED 
6.3.3 S. Brands Emails to Executive Committee, dated 2024-10-25 and 2024-11-05 
Received for information. Chair Smith advised she is drafting a response. 
6.4 Updates for Information 
6.4.1 Public Acquisitions Report 
Received for information. 
6.4.2 Public Covenants Report 
Received for information. 
6.4.3 Budget Report 
Received for information. 
6.4.4 ITC Briefing to Financial Planning Committee 
Received for information. 
6.4.5 ITC Quarterly Report to Trust Council - 3rd Quarter Update 2024-2025 

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Received for information. 
6.4.6 Salt Spring Island LTC Planning Referral Notice: PLDVP20240185 and Staff Response 
Manager Stewart advised this was another planning referral received recently with a 
short turn-around time to provide comments. Staff provided comments within the 
timeframe and it is provided for the Board’s information. Recognizing the often short 
turn around time, Manager Stewart said she would like direction on if the Board 
continues to want to receive every referral or it the board wants to delegate 
commenting on non-controversial referrals to staff.  
Discussion ensued on: 
• A recent referral on Salt Spring that relates to crown land and a Trustee from Salt 
Spring who was wondering if the Conservancy had seen the referral. 
• That the Board is not ready to defer responsibility of referrals to staff, and Board 
members want to see all referrals. 
• Referrals could be sent to Board members with a draft response through email to 
determine if Board members want to address the referral as a Resolution without 
Meeting (RWM) without discussion, or have a special meeting when discussion is 
required. 
Direction to staff was that the Board wants to continue to review all referrals. Staff will 
establish a process using regularly scheduled meetings, RWMs and/or Special 
Meetings. 
6.4.7 Executive Committee Update 
Trustee Elliott reported on the following: 
• Executive Committee meets November 20th with a heavy agenda, including 
preparation for Trust Council’s December meeting. 
• The new Islands Trust Chief Administrative Officer, Rueben Bronee, will attend and 
address Trust Council in December. 
• The Policy Statement amendment project is proceeding through Committee of the 
Whole discussions and the process is slow. It will go out into communities for 
engagement in the future and should also be referred to Islands Trust Conservancy 
before it is finalized. 
6.4.8 Financial Planning Committee Update 
Trustee Yates reported that no changes to the proposed Island Trust Conservancy 
budget were requested by Financial Planning Committee. 
6.4.9 Trust Council Update 
See Executive Committee update. 

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6.4.10 Governance Committee Update 
Trustee Gauvreau reported on the following discussion from the Nov 5
th
 Governance 
Committee meeting:  
• A trustee remuneration policy review is being undertaken to ensure that Islands 
Trust is following best practices.  The Committee is reviewing the Trust Council 
policy and the UBCM Council and Board Remuneration Guide. The committee will 
forward recommendations to Trust Council with a goal to update that policy. 
• Following up on a recommendation of the 2022 Governance Review, the 
Committee reviewed and approved a business case relating to the creation of a 
full-time Corporate Secretary to better support operations at Trust Council. The 
business case has been forwarded it to Financial Planning Committee for inclusion 
into the 2025-26 budget. 
• The Committee reviewed and approved a business case relating to the need for 
regular review and updating of policies to align with best practices. 
• The Committee meeting schedule for 2025/26 was set. All meetings will be 
continue to be held electronically. 
• The Committee supported a suggestion of creating a governance manual to help 
streamline and organize policies in a user-friendly way.  
• The next meeting is January 29
th
.  
6.4.11 Salish Sea Conservation Forum, Galiano Island, October 18, 2024 
Chair Smith reported she attended the forum on behalf of the Galiano Conservancy 
and noted that Trustee Elliot, three ITC staff, and Kate Emmings also attended. Chair 
Smith asked staff to note any highlights for the Board. 
Staff Green reported that she was extremely grateful that the Galliano Conservancy 
coordinated and hosted the event. The forum was organized as a series of eight 
workshops and they did a really good job with the concurrent sessions. She attended 
workshops on forest restoration, integrated landscapes, deer management, voluntary 
conservation and stewardship on private lands, and reconciliation. They were all 
interesting and she was able to take away key points to apply to covenant 
management. There were opportunities for discussion between organizations and co-
covenant holders.  She commented it was a really successful event and looks forward 
to future forums. 
Staff Martell reported the forum was excellent and it was excellent to be able to attend 
in person. It was helpful for Islands Trust Conservancy to be able involved with the local 
conservancy to strengthen our connections. She noted that in the reconciliation talk 
someone pointed out that the core needs of Indigenous Peoples were not being 
addressed well enough. This was a really valuable moment reminding the group that 
we need to always remember that we are still operating within colonial structures and 
we need to be more mindful and change them. We also need to explicitly acknowledge 
more frequently how harmful those practices have been and are. 

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Trustee Smith commented the connections were unbelievable, there have been lots of 
follow-ups since then, and she hopes someone will do it again because these 
connections are very important. Trustee Smith also commented there was a very 
emotional moment during the reconciliation session and that the question of whether 
land trusts, as inherently colonial structures, are compatible with reconciliation or not. 
Trustee Smith noted many people are very interested in this idea and advised if any 
Board members wants to have a conversation about that, to let her know. 
Trustee Elliott also reported on the forum and suggested there is potential to have 
speaker Dr. Tara Martin do a webinar on forest ecosystems, through the Islands Trust 
Conservancy. 
6.4.12 Reconciliation and Organization Change Report 
Trustee Yates reported on a webinar she attended in January 2023, sponsored by the 
Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership and Sustainability Network, and 
hosted by Chloe Dragon Smith from the Dene Nation in Northwest Territories. She felt 
it was a very good webinar. Trustee Yates advised she will forward her notes to Board 
members by email. 
7. PUBLIC COMMENTS AND DELGATIONS - None 
8. NEW BUSINESS 
8.1 ITC Board Chair Update 
Chair Smith provided a reminder that there will be an election for Chair and Vice Chair in 
January 2025, and advised she will be stepping down as Chair. She noted that she wanted to 
provide notice to other members so they could consider whether they would like to be the 
Chair for 2025. Chair Smith will remain on the board, however, has too many other 
commitments to continue with the extra work required of a Chair. 
9. NEXT MEETING 
The next meeting will be held electronically on January 21, 2025 at 10:00 a.m. 
10. CLOSED MEETING 
10.1 Motion to Close the Meeting 
ITC-2024-067 
It was MOVED and SECONDED, 
that the meeting be closed to the public in accordance with the Community Charter, Part 4 
Division 3, section: 90 (1) (d) the security of the property of the Islands Trust Conservancy 
board; (e) the acquisition, disposition or expropriation of land or improvements, if the board 
considers that disclosure could reasonably be expected to harm the interests of the Islands 
Trust Conservancy board; (i) the receipt of advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, 
including communications necessary for that purpose; (k) negotiations and related discussions 

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respecting the proposed provision of a service that are at their preliminary stages and that, in 
the view of the Board, could reasonably be expected to harm the interests of the Islands Trust 
Conservancy if they were held in public; and that staff be invited to remain in the meeting. 
CARRIED 
11. ADJOURNMENT 
By general consent the meeting adjourned at 12:50 p.m. 
 
 
_________________________ 
Risa Smith, Chair 
 
Certified Correct: 
 
 
_________________________ 
Corlynn Strachan, Administrative Assistant/Recorder