Islands Trust Council regular meeting, June 18, 2026

[0:00:00] Trustee Elliott: All right, Chair, we're ready.

[0:00:02] Voice 10: All right, good morning, everyone.

[0:00:04] Voice 10: We're going to re-assume, that's the right word, come out of recess for our meeting,

[0:00:12] Voice 10: our third day here with Trust Council.

[0:00:14] Voice 10: I just, again, I know many of you were at the Committee of the Whole,

[0:00:18] Voice 10: but I realize many of the trustees joining us yesterday were not.

[0:00:21] Voice 10: So I'm just going to repeat a little bit from our opening from there.

[0:00:26] Voice 10: Again, I want to thank Comox Elder Donna Mitchell for opening our meeting on Tuesday in such a good way, and that we acknowledge with respect and humility that the lands and waters of the trust area have been home to Indigenous people since time immemorial.

[0:00:42] Voice 10: Their deep connection to these lands continue today, and we honor their enduring presence, constitutional rights, and responsibilities.

[0:00:50] Voice 10: disabilities. I know, like you, you're hearing so much in the community these days. We are

[0:00:58] Voice 10: living through a genuine period of transition. Indigenous title was never extinguished in

[0:01:03] Voice 10: this province. That reality is not new, but our collective willingness to engage with

[0:01:07] Voice 10: it openly, thoughtfully, and respectfully is evolving. I really encourage all of you

[0:01:13] Voice 10: to seek out thoughtful and informed voices, to read widely, to listen carefully, and to

[0:01:19] Voice 10: to engage respectfully with these issues.

[0:01:21] Voice 10: If we rely on social media posts

[0:01:23] Voice 10: or overheated political rhetoric,

[0:01:27] Voice 10: we risk losing the opportunity

[0:01:29] Voice 10: for the informed and constructive community dialogue

[0:01:31] Voice 10: that this moment requires.

[0:01:33] Voice 10: There's a number of resources out there right now.

[0:01:36] Voice 10: I brought to your attention before the book,

[0:01:38] Voice 10: "'Unseated, Understanding British Columbia's Colonial Past

[0:01:41] Voice 10: and Why It Matters Now," by George Abbott.

[0:01:44] Voice 10: Read it, it's fantastic.

[0:01:47] Voice 10: And also on May 16th, there's a video from a panel discussion with former B.C. Attorney General Andrew Petter, Jeff Plant, along with Adam Olson.

[0:01:59] Voice 10: Adam Olson, I know, is also doing a forum talk on Sunday here on Salt Spring Island.

[0:02:05] Voice 10: And so please seek out, listen and find out about these times, please.

[0:02:13] Voice 10: please. Okay, trustees, we're going to begin today with the Financial Employee Services. That's

[0:02:21] Voice 10: section 14 of the agenda. We're scheduled to have a 15-minute break at 10.30, a half-hour

[0:02:30] Voice 10: lunch at noon if we hope we'll probably be getting there. We do have a hard stop at 10.45

[0:02:37] Voice 10: for the BC Coastal Marine Strategy presentation.

[0:02:42] Voice 10: After we finish financial services,

[0:02:45] Voice 10: we're going to return back to items 13.2.6 through 10

[0:02:49] Voice 10: to finish those before we move on with the agenda as presented.

[0:02:54] Voice 10: So, trustees, we're going to begin then in Section 14,

[0:03:00] Voice 10: financial and employee services.

[0:03:04] Voice 10: And I really want to welcome Derek Coburn

[0:03:07] Voice 10: to his first meeting of Trust Council.

[0:03:10] Voice 10: I know he listened in to our last one and was here,

[0:03:14] Voice 10: but he still had Director Mobs to lean on,

[0:03:18] Voice 10: and now it's Director Coburn.

[0:03:19] Voice 10: Thank you for being here.

[0:03:21] Voice 10: So we have two consent items at 14.1.

[0:03:26] Voice 10: We have 14.1.1,

[0:03:27] Voice 10: Director of Financial Employee Services Quarterly Report,

[0:03:30] Voice 10: and 14.1.2, the March 31, 2026 Financial Results Briefing.

[0:03:37] Voice 10: do anyone want to pull either of those items for discussion not seeing any so through general

[0:03:48] Voice 10: consent can we receive them for information thank you so that brings us to 14.2.1 on page 605 of

[0:03:58] Voice 10: the agenda this is the march 31st 2026 islands trust audited financial statements and audit

[0:04:04] Voice 10: report request for decision i'm going to turn over to director coburn to introduce this item

[0:04:12] Voice 16: Thank you, Chair. Excuse me. Yes, once again, KPMG was our auditors for the last fiscal year. They gave a presentation, I believe it was two weeks ago, to the Audit Committee, and then that got forwarded to the Financial Planning Committee. Now it's coming here.

[0:04:29] Voice 16: The good news, well, I shouldn't say it's not a surprise,

[0:04:32] Voice 16: but we got a clean audit opinion yet again.

[0:04:34] Voice 16: We've got a nice continuous track record,

[0:04:37] Voice 16: which is important for us to have.

[0:04:39] Voice 16: Going through it, I said this was my first year

[0:04:42] Voice 16: being the lead on the audit.

[0:04:44] Voice 16: I still, as you mentioned earlier,

[0:04:45] Voice 16: Julio is still in the back pocket,

[0:04:47] Voice 16: but Nancy and the rest of the finance team

[0:04:50] Voice 16: were strongly involved.

[0:04:52] Voice 16: They really made it easy on me to get through.

[0:04:54] Voice 16: Everything was well, no major findings.

[0:04:56] Voice 16: findings, a couple of recommendations we looked at. Like I said, the financial statements look

[0:05:02] Voice 16: very similar to last year in audit opinion again, but I will put a bit of a heads up for next year.

[0:05:09] Voice 16: We'll be having two new accounting standards hitting us next year. So next year, our financial

[0:05:14] Voice 16: statement package will look different. It's all about, it's basically more just a presentation

[0:05:20] Voice 16: change. So for example, the balance sheet or the statement of financial position will look

[0:05:25] Voice 16: different how we classify things the bottom lines will all be the same but the out the breakdown the

[0:05:31] Voice 16: details will be different next year so next year i think we might have more discussions but this year

[0:05:37] Voice 16: same process same standards same accounting treatment as last year and a clean audit

[0:05:41] Voice 16: opinion from kpmg so i open up anyone has any questions for me are

[0:05:46] Voice 10: there any questions for

[0:05:47] Voice 10: the director well this is a

[0:05:53] Voice 10: quiet gang if not there is a resolution on page 605 that

[0:06:01] Voice 10: we can move to if you're ready go ahead i'm going to call you director fast this morning i'm going

[0:06:09] Voice 10: to change everybody's title fast well

[0:06:13] Trustee Fast: thank you um yes as mentioned uh several of us uh trustees

[0:06:18] Trustee Fast: Trustees saw this in the audit committee and then in the financial planning committee.

[0:06:24] Trustee Fast: Audit committee does not include the vice chairs.

[0:06:27] Trustee Fast: So it's a smaller group, just a way to make sure that any questions can get answered and whatever.

[0:06:36] Trustee Fast: Anyway, all clean, which is great.

[0:06:38] Trustee Fast: I move that Islands Trust Council approve the Islands Trust audited financial statements for

[0:06:45] Trustee Fast: the year ending March 31st, 2026, and forward them to the Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs.

[0:06:51] Voice 10: Thank you. Seconded by Trustee Barthwick. Is there any discussion? Not seeing any.

[0:06:59] Voice 10: Trustee Pastor, your hand is up, but you might be voting. That's right. All those in favor,

[0:07:04] Voice 10: please raise your hands. 12 in favor. Lower your hands. Any opposed?

[0:07:23] Voice 10: No, that

[0:07:24] Voice 10: carries. Thank you, trustees. And it's good for a clean report and next year it will look different.

[0:07:33] Voice 10: So that brings us to the next item 14.2.2 on page 628 of the agenda package. This is the draft 2027-28 budget assumptions principles and guidelines request for decision. Again, over to you, Director Coburn.

[0:07:47] Voice 10: Thank

[0:07:48] Voice 16: you, Chair. I'm just going to get to, I'm just going to find what page I want to target for us.

[0:07:55] Voice 10: 628.

[0:07:58] Voice 16: It's the third page I want, so 631. Just getting caught.

[0:08:05] Voice 10: There you go.

[0:08:06] Voice 16: Oh, did I go too far, maybe?

[0:08:09] Voice 16: It's

[0:08:09] Voice 10: on the screen, too.

[0:08:11] Voice 16: It's not the

[0:08:11] Voice 16: page. Can you, sorry, what page number do I have?

[0:08:16] Voice 16: have. So I'm looking for the section titled considerations for the 27-28 fiscal year.

[0:08:23] Voice 16: Ah,

[0:08:24] Voice 5: that's 630. Perfect.

[0:08:25] Voice 16: 630 is off by one number, sorry. Can you scroll up so you can see the middle

[0:08:29] Voice 16: of the page? Thank you. That's, yeah, perfect. Okay, so I'll start with saying this document,

[0:08:34] Voice 16: what we're looking at is, I believe last year this document was presented in September. So what I'm

[0:08:40] Voice 16: trying to do is I'm trying to bring it forward a few months to get us started earlier in our budget

[0:08:44] Voice 16: process so the document is basically the same as document was presented last year

[0:08:49] Voice 16: the big area we focused on is in this page here is updating what are the impacts are going to

[0:08:55] Voice 16: or what are the considerations that are going to impact our next year budget so some of them are

[0:09:00] Voice 16: are things that have been long going they'll continue on a few things are some new items

[0:09:05] Voice 16: that will impact our budget so i remember we discussed i think was yesterday sort of the

[0:09:10] Voice 16: timing of this document. This document's more of a theory-based document. Oh, okay. It looks like

[0:09:18] Voice 16: this, I thought we had this fixed, but it looks like it didn't get fixed in the pickup. Thank you.

[0:09:23] Voice 16: Sorry. I just thought that no, but the typo in the fourth bullet.

[0:09:28] Voice 16: Yeah. So this is sort of a theory document of setting the stage of what the expectations are

[0:09:32] Voice 16: over the course of the next three months. We will now having the business cases coming in

[0:09:37] Voice 16: and doing the actual number crunching, which will be presented at a future meeting. This is

[0:09:42] Voice 16: setting the stage and I was going to look at what BAPG stands for, budget assumptions, principles

[0:09:47] Voice 16: and guidelines. So these, you know, in simpler words, these are the rules we're going to follow

[0:09:51] Voice 16: when we create our new year budget. So I said, it's the rules are the same, but there's just a

[0:09:56] Voice 16: few more areas where there might be a new issue hitting us. For example, the top couple of bullets

[0:10:02] Voice 16: are new pieces that have just come in. I mean, the second one hasn't been passed yet. It's still

[0:10:07] Voice 16: just a proposed bill, but those things will have implications on our budget. So these are all

[0:10:12] Voice 16: things I'm tracking, watching for. And when the time comes to creating a 28 budget, you'll see

[0:10:19] Voice 16: some new additional details and calculations on some of those earlier bullets. A lot of the other

[0:10:26] Voice 16: bullets towards the bottom part of this list are bullets that have been on this page for a while.

[0:10:30] Voice 16: It's the same things that we deal with every year, but it's just raising our awareness to

[0:10:33] Voice 16: make sure everybody's following and taking these all into consideration. A good news on the very

[0:10:39] Voice 16: last bullet, the second sub-bullet, our annual chargeback. We talked yesterday about when you're

[0:10:45] Voice 16: looking at our project costing to make sure every time you look at a salary, include the employee

[0:10:49] Voice 16: benefits chargeback. The good news is the rate has stayed constant this year at 25.4.

[0:10:54] Voice 16: So one of the few things that didn't go up, almost everything else seems to be going up.

[0:10:59] Voice 16: CPI as of last month was just under 3%. So it's probably safe to say that the budget everywhere

[0:11:07] Voice 16: is going to go up at least three percent if not more i know we're talking some of our it operations

[0:11:12] Voice 16: whether it's quite reliant on them they know that they've got the market cornered and some of the

[0:11:17] Voice 16: rates are going up more than three percent but that's part of the game we need we're reliant on

[0:11:23] Voice 16: them we need them so some of those rates will go higher but these are all the things that are

[0:11:26] Voice 16: getting going to our calculation of what's excuse me coming up to next year's budget um i just want

[0:11:33] Voice 16: want to step back for six the reason i want to do this earlier is once once we get through it

[0:11:38] Voice 16: everybody's we get approval of this document would like to do spent the months of july and august

[0:11:43] Voice 16: also doing some outreach and training for all our staff you know how to develop a full-blown

[0:11:48] Voice 16: business case the timing what are the key documents required make sure everybody's aware of

[0:11:52] Voice 16: who needs to approve what documents where the process to make sure that when you do come back

[0:11:57] Voice 16: with that first draft of the budget, that it will be as strong of a budget

[0:12:02] Voice 16: or as close to final of a budget as possible.

[0:12:06] Voice 16: I know there will always be more additions as we get closer and closer

[0:12:08] Voice 16: to our final approval next March.

[0:12:11] Voice 16: But these rules will be the same, and I think I will leave it at that

[0:12:15] Voice 16: and see if anyone has any questions on the guiding documents

[0:12:19] Voice 16: guiding us going forward to the next few months.

[0:12:21] Voice 10: All right.

[0:12:22] Voice 10: We have a couple that already started up, so thank you.

[0:12:26] Voice 10: trustee Boland and then trustee Getty

[0:12:29] Voice 10: thanks so much

[0:12:32] Voice 19: Derek and welcome

[0:12:33] Voice 19: to this process

[0:12:36] Voice 19: you have a hard act to follow

[0:12:38] Voice 19: but I'm sure you're well capable

[0:12:40] Voice 19: so thank you

[0:12:42] Voice 19: I did notice another

[0:12:44] Voice 19: little typo which is small

[0:12:46] Voice 19: but it's the

[0:12:47] Voice 19: assume that

[0:12:50] Voice 19: yeah number 12

[0:12:52] Voice 19: staffing levels assumed requested

[0:12:54] Voice 19: for any new staff positions

[0:12:56] Voice 19: Let's just prove I read it. But over and above that, I have a couple of questions.

[0:13:05] Voice 19: On average, how much is the trustee salary increase, the new framework, going to add?

[0:13:12] Voice 19: Just overall kind of big percentage number, if you know. And then I can leave it with you, if you like.

[0:13:24] Voice 16: Yeah, that project, that's sort of, that's part of my sort of July-August project. I haven't started working on that file yet, but

[0:13:32] Voice 19: I will plan out.

[0:13:32] Voice 16: okay

[0:13:33] Voice 19: i'm just curious to know in advance and then um i did wonder about um so when these

[0:13:41] Voice 19: business cases are being created and they've improved a lot over the time that i've been a

[0:13:48] Voice 19: trustee i have to say especially with respect to um allocation of staff resources um will there

[0:13:56] Voice 19: be a way to turn those weeks hours whatever is described in the business case into money

[0:14:03] Voice 19: because i think that's um a really important thing that will actually form a picture in people's

[0:14:10] Voice 19: minds of what things are costing at the moment you know the headline is you know twenty five

[0:14:15] Voice 19: thousand dollars plus you know two hundred hours of a staff planner but it doesn't really turn it

[0:14:22] Voice 19: into a an economic headline and I think that would be really really helpful because that gets

[0:14:30] Voice 19: lost in the comparisons we just remember the 25,000 versus the 69,000 not the number of staff

[0:14:40] Voice 19: hours that are associated and what type of hours those are and an average cost for them so I would

[0:14:47] Voice 19: really, really recommend that that would be something that would be in those business cases.

[0:14:52] Voice 19: And the last thing I have to ask, and maybe it can be part of your homework during the holidays,

[0:15:00] Voice 19: is the number of meetings we have, that must have an impact as well, because trustees get

[0:15:07] Voice 19: a remuneration per meeting. And I'm just wondering, you know, if the committee system

[0:15:16] Voice 19: and the meetings were restructured.

[0:15:19] Voice 19: I know it's not going to be a big number,

[0:15:22] Voice 19: but it is a consideration in terms of, you know,

[0:15:27] Voice 19: kind of reorganising and streamlining a bit.

[0:15:30] Voice 19: It might just be sort of, you know, small change,

[0:15:34] Voice 19: but it's worth making a note of it, I think.

[0:15:38] Voice 19: OK, thanks very much, Derek, for that.

[0:15:41] Voice 19: And good luck with the next year's budget.

[0:15:45] Voice 16: Thank you. Chair, if I may, I can respond to sort of the three points you raised, one about the trustee remuneration. As I mentioned, I'll be working on that over the next month or two, so I'll be able to come back with more details on that.

[0:15:57] Voice 16: You're asking about the business cases.

[0:15:59] Voice 16: One thing we will be looking at is when we review them is looking for the full project lifecycle costs, including, as you mentioned, making sure that there's a value for everything involved, including staffing.

[0:16:11] Voice 16: So it won't be a footnote on the side, but the number will be included into the grant, the total.

[0:16:18] Voice 16: And the third part about cost of trustee meetings.

[0:16:20] Voice 16: meetings. I know there is a budget line item, but what I can do is I can put a note and put a

[0:16:25] Voice 16: sort of a footnote or additional schedule with more details on that. Some of the discussions

[0:16:31] Voice 16: I've heard, you know, the impact of, you know, changing a meeting from an in-person to a

[0:16:37] Voice 16: virtual meeting. What are the implications of that? I know there's definitely benefit of in-person

[0:16:44] Voice 16: meetings, but I can put some analysis there that might help with looking at how many meetings we

[0:16:48] Voice 16: need and the structure whether they're in person or virtual so i can put a bit more information on

[0:16:53] Voice 16: that in the budget package uh

[0:16:55] Voice 19: thanks derek i don't want to make work for you without

[0:16:58] Voice 19: much benefit so if it becomes obvious that it's small change just forget about it okay but thank

[0:17:05] Voice 19: you you're welcome trustee

[0:17:09] Voice 10: yeti then bernardo thank

[0:17:11] Voice 22: you um with respect to the um chart that's

[0:17:16] Voice 22: It's on 631 with the basic assumptions.

[0:17:19] Voice 22: Is there some way that we can add notes in terms of not so much data sources,

[0:17:25] Voice 22: but, for instance, in fees, there's been talk yesterday,

[0:17:30] Voice 22: and there has been probably the four years that I've been on council

[0:17:35] Voice 22: in terms of figuring out a way of either timekeeping

[0:17:38] Voice 22: or doing a more broad general increase in the fees.

[0:17:44] Voice 22: And I think that that's something that should be pursued. I'm not sure if it's something that should be on this chart in terms of having some decision made and some movement in terms of getting a more accurate fee return in terms of increasing that revenue item.

[0:18:07] Voice 22: Similarly, with the provincial grant unrestricted number two, there's been this resolution separate from all of the legislation and all of the other things that we've been asking the province to look at.

[0:18:22] Voice 22: But I think there's a general strategy that we need to figure out for just the unrestricted provincial grant, separate from a lot of the other political considerations.

[0:18:36] Voice 22: So it's a Treasury Board kind of strategy and how to unlink it from some of the other internal and external political stuff that we have to do.

[0:18:49] Voice 22: I'd also like to see in number 10 the other grant funding.

[0:18:55] Voice 22: We've got a staff person that gives an outline in terms of granting sources, but I don't have a sense of the staffing levels in terms of people that are able to work on the grants and whether or not there's any assessment of, you know, if we go after increased grant funding sources, whether or not we're going to be able to supervise the people that get hired and the projects.

[0:19:25] Voice 22: and not end up in a situation where we lose the biologist, for instance,

[0:19:30] Voice 22: when we should be scouring and trying to figure out ways of maintaining those kinds of positions

[0:19:36] Voice 22: or backfilling them now that we're in a situation where we've lost them.

[0:19:42] Voice 22: Similarly with, let's see my notes here, there's a note under page 637.

[0:19:48] Voice 22: I think it was with respect to new funding sources.

[0:19:55] Voice 22: Let me just find it.

[0:19:58] Voice 22: And departmental budget submissions.

[0:20:00] Voice 22: There's a note that

[0:20:03] Voice 22: Trust Council established a 26-27 budget guideline resource request

[0:20:07] Voice 22: for additional operating budgets, including one-time projects,

[0:20:11] Voice 22: will only be considered where critical capacity issues

[0:20:13] Voice 22: can be clearly demonstrated

[0:20:15] Voice 22: or where upfront investment will result in long-term savings.

[0:20:18] Voice 22: I would like to see that kind of note or caveat on a lot of these areas, the other parts of this chart where we've gone through a process where we've increased pretty dramatically either staffing positions or projects.

[0:20:39] Voice 22: And I think that we need to have some sort of a note that we need to either put an upper limit.

[0:20:49] Voice 22: You know, we're not going to have a budget increase over, I'm arbitrarily here suggesting maybe 10%,

[0:20:56] Voice 22: But have some cautionary note, such as it has been included in 22, so that we are not as prone at the last minute to increase the budget with various projects or staffing levels.

[0:21:21] Voice 22: And finally, in number 19, elections, there's a note here that there's no election costs are anticipated for 27-28.

[0:21:33] Voice 22: And I would repeat that I think it's important to spread out, I think it was $200,000 this budget, and that we need to set up a reserve so that it's not a big spread it out over the four-year term instead of having the one-year spike in terms of that expense.

[0:21:56] Voice 22: And I'd like to see that included as some sort of a budget consideration when we're setting this up.

[0:22:07] Voice 22: Thank you. Those are my notes.

[0:22:10] Voice 16: Just scribbling these down so I don't lose all those thoughts you shared. Thank you.

[0:22:15] Voice 16: So I'm looking quickly. A lot of them I've taken notes that I'll go into as we start building our budget process starting next month.

[0:22:23] Voice 16: The first one I can talk clearly on the fees.

[0:22:25] Voice 16: We will be presenting back a paper, an option paper on fees.

[0:22:30] Voice 16: I think it's safe to say we will never reach 100% of cost recovery for fees, but we will have something more meaningful than our current practice.

[0:22:39] Voice 16: But there'll be different options coming forward for approval for that goes forth.

[0:22:45] Voice 16: Grants.

[0:22:45] Voice 16: I know we are looking at making sure that the expenses relate to grants.

[0:22:50] Voice 16: If it is a one-time short-term grant, that it is a one-time operating expense.

[0:22:55] Voice 16: It doesn't go part of our base budget that we can't afford in future years once the grants fall off.

[0:23:00] Voice 16: So we'll be looking closely at that.

[0:23:03] Voice 16: Excuse me.

[0:23:06] Voice 16: The caveat, the election note, yeah, we can look at, as you said, spreading out the cost over multiple years.

[0:23:11] Voice 16: So if it's $400,000 for an election rather than have a 000-400, we can allocate some money each year to smooth out that cost.

[0:23:21] Voice 16: So we'll take all these into consideration when we build the budget, and you'll see new options coming forward when the first draft of the budget comes forth.

[0:23:31] Voice 22: Excellent. Thank you.

[0:23:32] Voice 22: You're welcome.

[0:23:35] Voice 10: Trustee

[0:23:35] Voice 22: Bernardo, then Peterson.

[0:23:43] Voice 15: Thank you, and apologies to everybody for joining late.

[0:23:46] Voice 15: late. I had problems with my computer this morning. Derek, my question here relates to

[0:23:52] Voice 15: budget assumptions, and it's a little involved. It relates to the general issue, and what I'm

[0:23:58] Voice 15: going to be getting at is the general issue of our need for greater provincial financial support,

[0:24:05] Voice 15: which I don't think is in the cards unless we can make a very compelling economic case

[0:24:11] Voice 15: space for it and uh i've been thinking lately that we have a kind of the economics the island's

[0:24:19] Voice 15: trust area are a little different than uh most places and certainly different than

[0:24:25] Voice 15: the economics that affect local governments uh in in thriving communities uh whatever the rate

[0:24:34] Voice 15: of inflation is you know whether it's high or low uh i think we take it as a given that the

[0:24:40] Voice 15: cost of delivering our services will inevitably go up every year by some amount. So that's just

[0:24:47] Voice 15: life. The difficulty we have with the trust area is that by design, it's low growth,

[0:24:55] Voice 15: low density. Some people even want it to be zero growth. So it seems to me that that puts us in a

[0:25:02] Voice 15: a position where there's a dynamic where no matter how abstemious we are, even if we just

[0:25:13] Voice 15: restricted ourselves to matching the rate of inflation, we are going to be in a position

[0:25:19] Voice 15: where tax increases are going to have to keep going up every year just to stay in place

[0:25:26] Voice 15: because our communities, the residential property owners, the property tax base is simply just

[0:25:33] Voice 15: it's not going to increase at a rate that's equivalent to the rate of overall inflation

[0:25:39] Voice 15: from year to year.

[0:25:40] Voice 15: And my question after that kind of involved description is, are we in a position to determine

[0:25:52] Voice 15: some formula or a calculation for that rate of growth?

[0:25:58] Voice 15: And what I'm talking about is this discrepancy between the residential tax base and the inevitable tax increase over, you know, if you take an average, say, five-year inflation rate projected forward five years and compare it to what we anticipate the residential tax base is going to be over the next five years.

[0:26:21] Voice 15: and what I'm getting at and so that's the question do you think we're in a position to do that and

[0:26:26] Voice 15: the reason I'm asking that is since we effectively do have a ceiling on the residential tax base it

[0:26:32] Voice 15: seems to me that if we're able to come up with an explanation like that it would be relevant

[0:26:39] Voice 15: and might be helpful for us when it comes time to make the case to the province that the trust

[0:26:46] Voice 15: basically isn't sustainable without significant provincial funding because that's what it looks

[0:26:54] Voice 15: like to me so uh sorry for the kind of involved um involved question so uh over to you

[0:27:02] Voice 16: hey i'm just writing one last note yeah so looking so what i heard is you're looking at

[0:27:13] Voice 16: something of sort of a sort of out for looking five-year forecast of where we think the split

[0:27:17] Voice 16: will be between tax rate funding how the implications are and as you're seeing the

[0:27:23] Voice 16: bottom line, looking at the sustainability of the trust's work. And then, you know, I think

[0:27:30] Voice 16: we'd like to see this nice bottom line saying, here's a shortfall provincial government to help

[0:27:35] Voice 16: raise the case of provincial government. So I will be working with the other directors to see

[0:27:39] Voice 16: where we think funding can come from. I know everybody on this call agrees we need and want

[0:27:45] Voice 16: more provincial government funding. But the ability to get that is not that easy, but I will

[0:27:52] Voice 16: We'll work with the other directors and something like this could help support our case of why and how much we would be needing in future talks with the provincial government.

[0:28:02] Voice 15: Well, Derek, I'm really looking at it from, you know, I'm trying to fashion a pitch.

[0:28:07] Voice 15: I mean, we all know we need the provincial funding, but everybody wants money.

[0:28:13] Voice 15: We've got to build the most persuasive case we can.

[0:28:16] Voice 15: And I think if we can make a case that's based not on narrative, but on just hard numbers, I think that's more compelling.

[0:28:25] Voice 15: There's no guarantee we'll get anything.

[0:28:27] Voice 15: The odds are still against us.

[0:28:28] Voice 15: But what I'm really talking about is a component of that argument.

[0:28:34] Voice 15: And the punchline is identifying a shortfall over which we have no control, that there's simply nothing we can do about it.

[0:28:43] Voice 15: It's not a question of being more disciplined.

[0:28:45] Voice 15: blend it's not a question of um you know pulling in our horns it's not a question of being more

[0:28:51] Voice 15: efficient it's like we've got no control over the rate of inflation we are essentially in a very

[0:28:57] Voice 15: close to zero economic growth area the residential tax base isn't going to increase that means

[0:29:03] Voice 15: there are costs that can become a year after year over which we have no control

[0:29:06] Voice 15: and we don't actually have the funding base for it so you know it's not it's it's not like a home

[0:29:13] Voice 15: run. But if we get arguments like that, economic arguments like that and others, I think it might

[0:29:19] Voice 15: be more helpful for us when it comes time to sort of have a serious discussion with the finance

[0:29:24] Voice 15: people. Thanks.

[0:29:25] Voice 6: CAO Broney. Thank you, Chair. I think, Trustee Bernardo, I think the underlying

[0:29:30] Voice 6: assumption that you're getting at is a valid one in terms of the growth of development and the

[0:29:37] Voice 6: the property tax base. I think there's validity in looking at that. It's always hard to do

[0:29:44] Voice 6: long-term projections. I mean, everybody tries to do that. The province tries to do that itself

[0:29:49] Voice 6: from a budget perspective, and every year they have to revise it because their economic growth

[0:29:53] Voice 6: forecasts and everything, inflation forecasts go out the window quarter to quarter, let alone

[0:29:58] Voice 6: year to year.

[0:30:00] Voice 6: Nevertheless, and, you know, Derek will build the ins and outs of that better than I do, but that is part of how you try and do your long-term financial forecasting.

[0:30:07] Voice 6: I do think, though, so I think there is, if we were to present a case to the province, I think there's value in trying to make the argument that you're making, Trustee Bernardo.

[0:30:15] Voice 6: I think inevitably, though, any submission or pitch to the province around funding would need to be accompanied by an articulation of what we have done to try and manage that ourselves.

[0:30:33] Voice 6: And I think that would be the first question we'll have.

[0:30:35] Voice 6: So even if that was successful, yes, we see that you have a budget problem.

[0:30:38] Voice 6: And I know that currently the province's perspective is you can raise as much money as you want through property taxes.

[0:30:46] Voice 6: nutshell right um you know and i would love to have a debate with them about the political

[0:30:52] Voice 6: viability of that because it's the same dynamic the problem spaces but they will inevitably say

[0:30:57] Voice 6: what have you done to manage your budget this budget pressure have you really um taken a hard

[0:31:03] Voice 6: look and made hard decisions about your operational costs before you come to us and ask for money and

[0:31:09] Voice 6: so i think that's that's the bigger discussion that you would have to have as an organization

[0:31:13] Voice 6: Again, I think the point you're making is a stream of that business case.

[0:31:17] Voice 6: I think there is some value in trying to do that forecasting and make that point around

[0:31:21] Voice 6: the gap between potential growth and the inevitable just inflationary increase of our costs.

[0:31:27] Voice 6: But we would need to have also a well-documented explanation of what we have done to manage

[0:31:34] Voice 6: those costs internally.

[0:31:36] Voice 6: And despite all the operational pressures we face in that, I don't think we have really

[0:31:41] Voice 6: grappled with that um the potential necessity of the need to to explain how we would actually

[0:31:47] Voice 6: reduce our costs to offset that pressure so i think it's a bigger conversation than that is

[0:31:53] Voice 6: necessarily relevant for for this agenda item but i think there is there is a need for us to really

[0:31:58] Voice 6: dig in on that of what that business case would be and the point you raised would be a valid one

[0:32:03] Voice 6: to incorporate into it

[0:32:04] Voice 21: thank you i

[0:32:06] Voice 15: i just uh quickly i just appreciate the ceo's response on

[0:32:09] Voice 15: that uh because uh yeah i mean it just makes perfect intuitive sense the minute you just said

[0:32:15] Voice 15: that made that point which is no matter what we do uh or no matter what numbers we present

[0:32:20] Voice 15: the province is going to be looking at it says what have you actually done prove it to me document

[0:32:25] Voice 15: what you've done to keep your costs down and as it stands right now we have nothing you know we

[0:32:32] Voice 15: have done nothing really to keep our costs down

[0:32:36] Voice 10: um trustee peterson and i'm going to put myself

[0:32:39] Voice 10: up on the speaking list before olin so trust peterson uh

[0:32:44] Voice 21: thank you chair um appreciate the

[0:32:47] Voice 21: conversation uh director colburn i i it sounds like you said that um that reaching uh a hundred

[0:32:56] Voice 21: percent recovery on fees was going to be difficult or impossible to achieve and i'm really curious

[0:33:03] Voice 21: about that and if if perhaps there's a slightly more um i don't know if the right word is

[0:33:11] Voice 21: aggressive approach that we could take to to fee recovery i i know that for some municipalities

[0:33:21] Voice 21: encouraging development by way of essentially subsidizing um is seen as a great way to build

[0:33:30] Voice 21: they're tax-based, but Islands Trust being a little different here, I actually think that we

[0:33:37] Voice 21: think it's important that we're not subsidizing development with taxpayer money at all.

[0:33:46] Voice 21: And I'm just wondering how, you know, how could we approach or even aim for, you know,

[0:33:54] Voice 21: 101 percent or something that's in the realistic uh of view so that that we don't continue this

[0:34:00] Voice 21: case i know it's something that really bothers um a lot of taxpayers uh who aren't developing

[0:34:08] Voice 21: and um and certainly some trustees as well so i'm just curious if there's ways

[0:34:13] Voice 21: that we might approach uh at least getting closer and maybe like i don't know what you have

[0:34:20] Voice 21: have thoughts on that okay

[0:34:22] Voice 16: uh thank you cherry i guess i should watch how i word that right now

[0:34:26] Voice 16: like i said we're not we're charging the fees we're charging today versus 100 recoverable and

[0:34:33] Voice 16: there's a chasm in the middle that we need to look at what's involved what's in there

[0:34:38] Voice 16: and like i said is aggressive the right word we will be looking at in our proposal we bring

[0:34:42] Voice 16: forward in december uh new some different options on how we can raise that rate and still be able to

[0:34:50] Voice 16: to defend the calculation do the work behind it some of it is look you know cost benefit

[0:34:56] Voice 16: um you know to we've had the discussions of earlier about staff timing and staff costing

[0:35:01] Voice 16: and coming up with a system uh i know i've worked in other offices where they've done that in a lot

[0:35:07] Voice 16: of you know professional offices like accounting and legal where they you know they bill clients

[0:35:11] Voice 16: by 15 minute increments one of the downsides of that is you end up spending you know maybe a half

[0:35:18] Voice 16: an hour of your day or an hour of your day just filling out a form of word what i filed that i

[0:35:22] Voice 16: work on how did i touch this and now it's that cost benefit of you know filling out a form

[0:35:28] Voice 16: versus getting the work done that we've been mandated to do so we will be taking that into

[0:35:32] Voice 16: consideration when we bring forward that that uh is that option paper in december but i do have

[0:35:38] Voice 16: notes of that some of the concerns and we will look at of those chair thank

[0:35:45] Voice 10: you so uh yeah i'm

[0:35:47] Voice 10: going to put myself on and then trustee boland uh as a second speaker um i thank trustee getty

[0:35:55] Voice 10: for raising the reserve fund and i and i know that's a piece of work that we were looking at

[0:35:59] Voice 10: the reserve funds but i think as a legacy of this trust council making recommendations to the next

[0:36:04] Voice 10: trust council uh we know these big bumps that come in are difficult so

[0:36:09] Voice 1: one of them is the election

[0:36:10] Voice 10: the other is planning um our larger projects we end up being that's like the discretionary thing

[0:36:17] Voice 10: we end up arguing over every year when that is the basis of the work that we should be doing.

[0:36:23] Voice 10: And I know we have it on there to look at using a reserve fund. We have a reserve fund for the

[0:36:28] Voice 10: small projects, but they don't even get tied to our strategic plans. I think there's work to do

[0:36:34] Voice 10: there. A project that might cost less than $5,000 could still have an awful lot of staff resources

[0:36:40] Voice 10: resources associated with it whereas a project that costs over five thousand dollars might

[0:36:46] Voice 10: might have less so i think we have to find a way to do our planning projects more strategically

[0:36:54] Voice 10: rather than oh yeah you get one project two project three projects when you know we really

[0:37:00] Voice 10: need to find a way to do that but we also should be moving to a reserve fund for the larger projects

[0:37:05] Voice 10: So that we're putting in money every year into a reserve fund for that OCP land use bylaw update projects, rather than arguing and fighting over does Galliano get one or Hornby get one, we should just have a reserve fund that's building for OCPs and land use bylaws, and we go to a strategic planned approach for using that reserve fund.

[0:37:28] Voice 10: So I know that that's work to be done and may or may not get done for this next budget cycle.

[0:37:35] Voice 10: But I think from, like I said, a legacy standpoint, if we can move to reserve funds and some of this known bigger work that will help the next trust council move out of that argument phase.

[0:37:57] Voice 11: Trustee Bolden?

[0:38:00] Voice 19: Thanks.

[0:38:01] Voice 19: I just had a few things.

[0:38:02] Voice 19: Indeed, if we had reserve funds, it might be easier to get a top up from the province.

[0:38:09] Voice 19: You know, if you had a reserve fund that was ring fenced and had a strategic plan attached to it, it might be possible to get some sort of top up as needed because it would be clearer what you were asking for.

[0:38:24] Voice 19: So that's that's a good add on perhaps to what Trustee Bernardo was talking about.

[0:38:29] Voice 19: And I had I was just thinking as we spoke about the fact that the deferment of property tax for seniors has taken a back step in that the interest rate has gone up so that many will stop deferring the property tax.

[0:38:52] Voice 19: I see two impacts. One is that perhaps seniors who are quite comfortably deferring their property tax might take more interest in the budget and because they'll notice it more.

[0:39:04] Voice 19: And secondly, I'm just wondering, you know, how it just occurred to me, how is that taken into account in our yearly tax recovery?

[0:39:17] Voice 19: If people defer their property tax, does the province provide that to us regardless?

[0:39:26] Voice 19: It's just a thought that occurred to me.

[0:39:30] Voice 19: Is there an impact on what we actually get in funding if those property tax payments are deferred by seniors?

[0:39:38] Voice 19: Thanks.

[0:39:42] Voice 16: Trustee Boland and Reuben, I'll see if you want to jump in and add to this.

[0:39:46] Voice 16: I know when we set forth our tax rate and it goes forward, we get that full payment up front.

[0:39:54] Voice 16: I know we're not implicated if people don't pay their taxes.

[0:39:58] Voice 16: I'm not so clear about the deferment rule if that impacts us.

[0:40:01] Voice 16: I believe it doesn't, but I'm not 100% sure. I'll have to look into that.

[0:40:05] Voice 6: CAO Browning.

[0:40:06] Voice 6: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that it doesn't because, as Director Coburn has said, we don't collect that directly.

[0:40:13] Voice 6: We submit it to the province.

[0:40:15] Voice 6: The province provides us with the full amount

[0:40:17] Voice 6: that we have requested

[0:40:18] Voice 6: and then they manage whatever the impact might be

[0:40:22] Voice 6: of the deferral on their end.

[0:40:25] Voice 19: Okay, thanks.

[0:40:26] Voice 19: I'm hoping that will cause seniors

[0:40:28] Voice 19: to come out in force

[0:40:31] Voice 19: and come to their Island Trust meetings more

[0:40:34] Voice 19: and participate as they look at the budget process.

[0:40:38] Voice 19: Thanks.

[0:40:39] Voice 10: Trustees, I know we're into second speakers.

[0:40:41] Voice 10: I just want to remind that

[0:40:42] Voice 10: we're moving toward approving the document as presented so if you are proposing changes we

[0:40:48] Voice 10: would need to propose changes to this uh to the document beginning on page 631 so just a thought

[0:40:57] Voice 10: for second time speakers here uh trustee bernardo uh

[0:41:01] Voice 15: no worry for me i'm not going to propose any

[0:41:03] Voice 15: changes uh just have a question here to to uh improve at least my own thinking about this uh

[0:41:10] Voice 15: Uh, director Coburn, uh, this question relates to the, this, this question that keeps coming

[0:41:15] Voice 15: up with us, which is the recovery of development fees, increasing that recovery, uh, is superficially

[0:41:22] Voice 15: attractive, but I, uh, uh, I confess, I don't actually know what the practical consequences

[0:41:30] Voice 15: are of that.

[0:41:31] Voice 15: I mean, what the, and what I'm getting at here is, um, what does cost recovery really

[0:41:37] Voice 15: mean in, in practice?

[0:41:38] Voice 15: this. If we're talking about recovery of, and the word we keep phrasing, we keep hearing is

[0:41:45] Voice 15: development fees. I've been interpreting that as the fees related to the issuance of development

[0:41:51] Voice 15: permits. If that's what we're talking about, that's only one component of what the planning

[0:41:55] Voice 15: services overhead is. So hypothetically, you know, what would the effect of 100% recovery

[0:42:02] Voice 15: development permit fees actually mean for the bottom line of the trust? I mean, how much more

[0:42:09] Voice 15: income would we expect to get from that? That's one question. The other question is, if I'm wrong,

[0:42:16] Voice 15: and that when we're talking about recovery development fees, we're talking, you know,

[0:42:21] Voice 15: are we actually in fact talking about a user pay system for everything that the planning services

[0:42:26] Voice 15: does? So I'm trying to figure out here, what do we really mean about recovery development fees?

[0:42:32] Voice 15: and if it's limited to development permits, then what are the numbers? Thank you.

[0:42:37] Voice 15: I

[0:42:38] Voice 10: was going to say, Trustee Bernardo, that is a good question. However, I think that's a project

[0:42:44] Voice 10: and there is a project to look at this whole fee structure. We know it's revenue and we know we're

[0:42:53] Voice 10: not getting what we would like to see, but that is a project on its own for the assumption and

[0:43:03] Voice 10: principles were kind of uh limited right now uh

[0:43:09] Voice 15: okay i thought it was a fairly straightforward

[0:43:11] Voice 15: question well

[0:43:13] Voice 10: it deserves to be answered but i don't it is related to this this other project

[0:43:18] Voice 10: is all i'm trying to point to um not the assumptions and principles at this time

[0:43:25] Voice 16: well if

[0:43:26] Voice 16: you if i may chair yeah this document identifies what are the issues we're dealing

[0:43:30] Voice 16: with and each of these issues will be built into the upcoming budget including as we said

[0:43:35] Voice 16: that fee proposal option paper that's coming back forth in december so we'd like there's

[0:43:41] Voice 16: something we need to look into so we don't have an answer today but there will be more

[0:43:44] Voice 16: details coming forward in the near future yeah

[0:43:47] Voice 15: all right all

[0:43:51] Voice 10: right trustees are there any if there's

[0:43:53] Voice 10: any proposals to change the document that's before you otherwise there is a resolution to advance

[0:44:00] Voice 10: advance what is presented. And that's on page 628. Trustee Graham?

[0:44:07] Voice 1: Happy to make the motion.

[0:44:10] Voice 10: Go ahead. I move

[0:44:12] Voice 1: that the Trust Council approve Financial Planning Committee's

[0:44:15] Voice 1: recommended draft budget assumptions, principles, and guidelines, BAPG, as presented.

[0:44:22] Voice 10: Yes, acronyms. We need more. Seconded by Trustee Borthwick. Is there any discussion?

[0:44:29] Voice 10: discussion. Not seeing any, I'm going to call the vote. All those in favor, please raise your

[0:44:35] Voice 10: hands.

[0:44:40] Voice 7: I see 12.

[0:44:42] Voice 10: All right. Lower your hands. Sorry.

[0:44:51] Voice 10: You weren't the slowest. Trustee Peterson,

[0:44:56] Voice 10: just lower your

[0:44:56] Voice 11: hand, please. There we go.

[0:44:57] Voice 10: Any opposed? No. That carries. All right. Trustees,

[0:45:03] Voice 10: Thank you, Derek, and the next phases of the budget are always fun.

[0:45:10] Voice 10: Point of order.

[0:45:12] Voice 17: Point of order.

[0:45:13] Voice 10: Point of order?

[0:45:14] Voice 10: Yes, state your point.

[0:45:16] Voice 17: There's 12 people voting for it.

[0:45:19] Voice 17: Was there an abstention or is there not a quorum?

[0:45:23] Voice 10: There are three abstentions, so there were no one

[0:45:26] Voice 10: voting against it.

[0:45:27] Voice 17: Could we mention that, please, so that we know that there's enough people to have a quorum?

[0:45:32] Voice 17: from winner's vote, please.

[0:45:34] Voice 10: Thank you, but we have two staff members in the room

[0:45:37] Voice 10: that are accounting for that on each and every vote.

[0:45:39] Voice 10: So thank you, Ken, and we'll try to say that going forward.

[0:45:44] Voice 16: Thank you.

[0:45:46] Voice 10: Trustee Fall?

[0:45:56] Voice 4: No, okay.

[0:45:57] Voice 10: All right, trustees, I think that concludes the work

[0:46:02] Voice 10: that we have for financial and employee services.

[0:46:10] Voice 10: So thank you, Derek Coburn, Director Coburn, for your work today.

[0:46:18] Voice 10: And trustees, we're going to go back and pick up where we left off yesterday.

[0:46:25] Voice 10: We'll move toward a break and not yet, a little early.

[0:46:29] Voice 10: So we're at item 13.2.6 on page 476 of your agenda package.

[0:46:36] Voice 10: package. That was the update to the Islands Trust Agreement Register request for decision.

[0:46:44] Voice 10: Director Marler had given a presentation, but I'll let him just sort of give the Colesnote

[0:46:49] Voice 10: version of his and then we'll see if there are any questions because we stopped it after

[0:46:54] Voice 10: his presentation. So over to you, Director Marler.

[0:46:56] Voice 7: Yeah, thank you, through the chair. So the Colesnote says that staff have gone through

[0:47:02] Voice 7: all the agreements and the two that are listed here for being rescinded are out of date so we

[0:47:10] Voice 7: recommended that they both be rescinded as indicated the first one i believe bt hydro

[0:47:15] Voice 7: has already indicated that they're playing out so that one is has no effect anyway the second

[0:47:21] Voice 7: one as i said yesterday was actually intended to help the alms trust with the uh creation of

[0:47:28] Voice 7: its first official community plans under the new act which came into force in 1992.

[0:47:33] Voice 7: So that agreement was really for funding for a very specific reason over a five-year period.

[0:47:39] Voice 7: It no longer has any effect, the ministry just sees it the same way that it was for a particular

[0:47:46] Voice 7: period in time and this agreement has no effect on any other grants that you have such as the

[0:47:52] Voice 7: unconditional grant so the recommendations are there at the top of page uh 476. all right

[0:48:00] Voice 7: trustees questions for

[0:48:01] Voice 10: director marler if there are no questions there are two go ahead uh trustee

[0:48:12] Voice 10: fast thank

[0:48:14] Trustee Fast: you um it's nice to see uh graham dinsdale's name on the uh at the end of this

[0:48:20] Trustee Fast: on page 489 he was chair of the islands trust from bowen uh back in the day 1996 i think these

[0:48:27] Trustee Fast: are outdated. I remember the hydro poles. They've changed the materials used. It's not

[0:48:35] Trustee Fast: an issue anymore because they're using safer materials. And I move that the Islands Trust

[0:48:44] Trustee Fast: rescinds the letter of understanding 2003 held with BC Hydro and request staff to remove it

[0:48:50] Trustee Fast: from the Islands Trust Agreement Register. Second.

[0:48:55] Voice 10: Was that Trustee Hunter? Thank you.

[0:49:01] Voice 10: any discussion just up there there's no discussion i'm going to call the vote

[0:49:11] Voice 10: all those in favor please raise your hands

[0:49:17] Voice 7: 14 all right

[0:49:21] Voice 10: 14 hands lower your hands

[0:49:23] Voice 10: any opposed okay not opposed or one abstained so 14 in favor one abstained

[0:49:38] Voice 10: None opposed? That carries. Trustee Yates?

[0:49:45] Voice 18: I'd be happy to read the second one because I was a trustee when Graham Dinsdale was the chair.

[0:49:50] Voice 10: So please proceed.

[0:49:54] Voice 18: I move that trust council rescinds the protocol agreement 1996

[0:50:00] Voice 18: held with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs outlining the provincial financial assistance

[0:50:06] Voice 18: for the adoption of new official community plans and request staff to remove it

[0:50:11] Voice 18: from the islands trust agreement register is

[0:50:15] Voice 10: there a second seconded by trustee borthwick

[0:50:18] Voice 10: any discussion not seeing any i'm going to call the vote all those in favor please raise your

[0:50:28] Voice 10: hands uh

[0:50:36] Voice 7: 14 all

[0:50:38] Voice 10: right lower your hands any opposed none

[0:50:45] Voice 7: opposed one abstained so

[0:50:47] Voice 10: none opposed one

[0:50:49] Voice 10: abstained that carries all right trustees i'm going to move on to the next item we're still

[0:50:56] Voice 10: and Trust Program services at 13.2.7 on page 490 of your agenda package. That's the 2025-26

[0:51:05] Voice 10: draft annual report request for decision. I'm going to turn it over to Director Brader.

[0:51:13] Voice 23: Thank you. Yes, this is your annual item. This is one of your few legislative requirements that

[0:51:18] Voice 23: you must provide to the Minister. And I think you are all familiar and hopefully you can see

[0:51:23] Voice 23: the sections that have worked through all the various committees and local trust committees.

[0:51:26] Voice 23: And it's here for your approval. We are happy to incorporate any changes that are needed prior to submission to the Minister. Once submitted, the Minister will table it in the House, and often the Islands Trust Chair is invited to attend that moment. Thank you.

[0:51:43] Voice 10: Trustees, any corrections or changes that you see that you want to make to the annual report? Trustee Elliott?

[0:51:54] Trustee Elliott: No changes. I have reviewed it, and I wanted to thank our communications staff for, yeah, putting in some needed changes and for a really well-rounded report. I think it represents our work this year. Thanks.

[0:52:18] Voice 10: Any other questions? Trustee Yates?

[0:52:24] Voice 18: I agree with Trustee Elliott. It's looking good, and I'd like to make the motion.

[0:52:28] Voice 18: I just want

[0:52:31] Voice 18: to make sure

[0:52:32] Voice 10: everyone's had an opportunity. If there's any other comments or corrections that are here, if not, I will welcome the resolution.

[0:52:44] Voice 18: I move

[0:52:45] Voice 18: that Islands Trust Council approves the 2025-2026 Annual Report for submission to the Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs.

[0:52:55] Voice 18: bears is

[0:52:56] Voice 10: there a second seconded by trustee overall any discussion you're not seeing any

[0:53:07] Voice 10: i'm going to call the vote all those in favor please raise your hands 13 all right lower your

[0:53:22] Voice 10: hands any opposed not opposed to abstain

[0:53:36] Voice 7: so

[0:53:37] Voice 10: 13 in favor to abstain none opposed that carries

[0:53:42] Voice 23: all right trustees

[0:53:44] Voice 23: oh was there a question

[0:53:45] Voice 23: no i was just gonna say thank you trust council

[0:53:48] Voice 23: Oh,

[0:53:49] Voice 10: I'm sorry. It's hard in this room. It's like, where did the voice come from? Thank you. And we're going to keep on moving forward. So we're at 13.2.8 on page 546. This is the Walker NAPTEC certificate on Salt Spring Island. Request for a decision. Over to you, Director Rader.

[0:54:11] Voice 10: Thank

[0:54:12] Voice 23: you. Yes, this is coming to you from the Conservancy. And the proposed covenant area on Salt Spring is within a high conservation priority area, as determined through the Conservancy's conservation prioritization model.

[0:54:27] Voice 23: The Conservancy currently holds 12 NAPTEP conservation covenants on Salt Spring Island, which within the ranking is a high priority area within the regional conservation plan. And to date, Trust Council has issued 31 NAPTEP certificates in the island's trust area.

[0:54:42] Voice 23: I'll leave it there because you've got all the detail in the briefing, but I'd be happy to take any questions.

[0:54:47] Voice 10: Are there any questions on this report?

[0:54:57] Voice 10: Not seeing any, so I'm going to look to the Chair of Trust Conservancy, Trustee Govro, to make the resolution.

[0:55:05] Voice 9: With honour.

[0:55:06] Voice 9: All right. I move that the Islands Trust Council request the Secretary to issue a NAPTEP certificate for the covenant portion of the property described as PID 009805991, Lot A, Section 72, South Salt Spring Island, Cowichan District, Plan 46279,

[0:55:35] Voice 9: subject to registration of a conservation covenant and the completion of a baseline

[0:55:40] Voice 9: inventory report consistent with the standards developed for NAPTEP. Is there

[0:55:46] Voice 9: a second trustee

[0:55:47] Voice 9: board for eight

[0:55:47] Voice 10: seconds any discussion up trustee fast yes

[0:55:56] Trustee Fast: just just to say I'm really glad to see

[0:55:58] Trustee Fast: this now I wish we could have some on Bowen and just in case anybody from Bowen is watching this

[0:56:06] Trustee Fast: What NAPTEP means is a natural area tax exemption program.

[0:56:10] Trustee Fast: So it means it's a way to lower your taxes for land that you want to stay in a natural condition.

[0:56:17] Trustee Fast: And it's something no other places in B.C. have.

[0:56:22] Trustee Fast: So it's a feature of the Islands Trust area the way I see it.

[0:56:26] Trustee Fast: And I'm happy to support this resolution.

[0:56:30] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[0:56:30] Trustee Fast: Thank

[0:56:32] Voice 10: you, Trustee Fast, for that important pitch for NAPTEC.

[0:56:37] Voice 10: It is an important program of the Islands Trust.

[0:56:40] Voice 10: All right, with that, there's no further discussion.

[0:56:42] Voice 10: I will call the vote then.

[0:56:44] Voice 10: All those in favor, please raise your hands.

[0:56:46] Voice 10: 13.

[0:56:53] Voice 10: All right, lower your hands.

[0:56:59] Voice 7: Any opposed?

[0:57:03] Voice 7: None opposed to abstain.

[0:57:05] Voice 10: 13 in favor to abstain.

[0:57:07] Voice 10: None opposed.

[0:57:08] Voice 10: That carries.

[0:57:09] Voice 10: Thank you, Council.

[0:57:10] Voice 9: All

[0:57:12] Voice 10: right, looking at the time here.

[0:57:13] Voice 10: Nope, it's just 10 o'clock.

[0:57:14] Voice 10: we're not breaking for another 30 minutes so i'm going to go on to the next item it's item 13.2.9

[0:57:21] Voice 10: on page 551 of the agenda this is the indigenous relations action plan 20 26 28 request for

[0:57:30] Voice 10: decision i'm going to turn the floor over to director freighter thank

[0:57:34] Voice 23: you and before i get

[0:57:35] Voice 23: going i'll just let council know um our senior indigenous relation advisor joelia it's not

[0:57:41] Voice 23: available today um so i'll be representing this um but just want to offer um thanks for all the work

[0:57:48] Voice 23: and it's really been a true collaboration um so as i as we bring this back to you you'll remember

[0:57:53] Voice 23: that you received an earlier version in march and then directed us to bring it back to staff for

[0:57:58] Voice 23: some additional feedback as we hadn't had a fulsome opportunity to do that um so that has now

[0:58:03] Voice 23: happened and we're bringing you back a revised version and so through the review of the cross

[0:58:08] Voice 23: department staff working group um there's been a number of revisions to the draft so the key

[0:58:13] Voice 23: among them are we have really worked to maintain the commitment to reconciliation relationship

[0:58:17] Voice 23: building respectful engagement and organizational ongoing learning um we've added background at the

[0:58:24] Voice 23: beginning around the regulations and policies that underpin council's mandate to cooperate

[0:58:28] Voice 23: with indigenous peoples we've added some long-term outcomes of trust council so we want to make sure

[0:58:33] Voice 23: you agree that those are your indeed what you're striving towards we've structured the goals and

[0:58:38] Voice 23: and actions within three areas of organizational focus being governance, administration, and

[0:58:42] Voice 23: education. And within the plan, we've tried to clarify the role of the Others Trust Conservancy

[0:58:48] Voice 23: Board and provide more information about the fact that the board is doing its own work

[0:58:52] Voice 23: and will be working towards its own plan in the future once it's concluded all the

[0:58:56] Voice 23: conversations about the 2028 to 2032 plan that it's working on right now.

[0:59:04] Voice 23: we've also refined the language somewhat and updated language because when it was presented

[0:59:08] Voice 23: to you in March you hadn't yet adopted the budget and so things have been moving so we've tried to

[0:59:12] Voice 23: catch it up with what's been happening in the meantime we've removed actions related to Trust

[0:59:18] Voice 23: Council funding decisions just recognizing that one allows some future flexibility for Trust

[0:59:24] Voice 23: Council we've also removed specific reference to policies within the draft policy statement

[0:59:29] Voice 23: statement, but have left in the one around the commitment to engaging with Indigenous peoples.

[0:59:35] Voice 23: We've shifted reporting on implementation from every three months to every six months,

[0:59:39] Voice 23: recognizing just the staff effort that's required in that reporting, but also that things

[0:59:43] Voice 23: may not move too swiftly in a three-month period. And finally, added an action relating to the

[0:59:49] Voice 23: identification of measures to monitor the long-term outcomes identified in the plan.

[0:59:53] Voice 23: So with all those changes, there are some things that have stayed really consistent. Again, that

[0:59:57] Voice 23: that commitment to relationship building and cooperation.

[1:00:00] Voice 23: within the existing legislative framework is still centered also really continues to support

[1:00:06] Voice 23: efforts to support respectful engagement planning land stewardship and land protection

[1:00:10] Voice 23: in discussions with indigenous governing bodies and it continues to respond to the guidance and

[1:00:15] Voice 23: teachings that have been shared with staff and trustees by indigenous peoples we've really tried

[1:00:20] Voice 23: to ensure that the lessons that have been taught to us and the guidance that we've been offered

[1:00:25] Voice 23: has been, you know, continued to be in the plan. So should you choose to approve it today, staff

[1:00:31] Voice 23: will then work on an implementation plan, and the intention is to report to Trust Council bi-annually

[1:00:36] Voice 23: on progress on the plan. And of course, it will be then, those activities will also show up in

[1:00:42] Voice 23: the annual report to the Minister. The intention is that this will be a living document, and so

[1:00:48] Voice 23: it may need to be adjusted over time as things change in our relationships, and due to

[1:00:53] Voice 23: organizational priorities, emerging opportunities, things that come about discussions with Indigenous

[1:00:58] Voice 23: peoples, and of course, any desires of the new Trust Council after the election. So this is not

[1:01:05] Voice 23: fixed. And it only is, at this point, we have a year and a half to implement it, by which time

[1:01:10] Voice 23: we should have a new manager of Indigenous relations. And we can sort of use the foundation

[1:01:14] Voice 23: that this will offer to then look forward and, you know, help guide the organization into a new

[1:01:20] Voice 23: potentially longer term plan um so i'll leave it there happy to take questions and um yeah and

[1:01:28] Voice 23: we're happy to make any adjustments that you might like

[1:01:30] Voice 10: thank you director freighter and i'll call

[1:01:33] Voice 10: everyone's attention to appendix one i think that is a valuable thing to look at truth precedes

[1:01:39] Voice 10: reconciliation really talks about the fact you know the isles trust came about in 1974

[1:01:45] Voice 10: 1974 not one bit of consultation or consideration of first nations in fact what's in the reports

[1:01:52] Voice 10: when you look at it is quite alarming um and that continued through um our history so where we are

[1:02:00] Voice 10: so please keep that in mind as we talk about this section so uh trustee getty and then trustee yates

[1:02:07] Voice 10: Thank

[1:02:10] Voice 22: you. My question is, under governance on the first block of the chart that's on 569, it says using a distinction-based approach, and I'm not sure what that means.

[1:02:27] Voice 23: So this is a term that the province is using frequently to guide its relationships with Indigenous peoples.

[1:02:36] Voice 23: And this essentially means acknowledging that each nation is unique unto itself and each type of Indigenous group.

[1:02:43] Voice 23: So, for example, for the province, particularly around the province, they're dealing with different types of Indigenous interests, be it Métis, be it, you know, treaty nations, be it non-treaty nations.

[1:02:53] Voice 23: And so we meet each nation where it's at with its own set of powers and interests.

[1:02:57] Voice 23: is essentially what's that's thank you a simplified way of explaining it thank

[1:03:02] Voice 10: you trustee yates and

[1:03:04] Voice 10: elliot thank

[1:03:06] Voice 18: you director frader for the introduction to this um i'm really appreciating

[1:03:12] Voice 18: on page 552 uh page two of the plan that um there's there's three bullets at the bottom of the

[1:03:20] Voice 18: the page setting out intentions of the plan and one of them is responding to the generous guidance

[1:03:28] Voice 18: and teachings that have been shared with staff and trustees by Indigenous peoples and I really

[1:03:34] Voice 18: appreciate how that talks about the two-way relationship and the collaboration and cooperation

[1:03:41] Voice 18: that we're working towards thank

[1:03:44] Voice 10: you trustee Elliott then Bernardo um

[1:03:54] Trustee Elliott: thank

[1:03:54] Trustee Elliott: you I just want to express my appreciation to staff I know this has

[1:04:00] Trustee Elliott: been such a long thoughtful and very responsive process you are responding to

[1:04:11] Trustee Elliott: to so many different needs, including within our own organization,

[1:04:18] Trustee Elliott: and as the interests, as Trustee Yates mentioned,

[1:04:25] Trustee Elliott: come up from Indigenous governing bodies,

[1:04:29] Trustee Elliott: responding to that in a thoughtful way

[1:04:32] Trustee Elliott: and making sure that our governance structures and processes,

[1:04:38] Trustee Elliott: those interests have a place to land,

[1:04:41] Trustee Elliott: And they can be advanced in a respectful way. So I really appreciate the approach that you've taken. I think this document is really well organized. I love seeing the goals and actions with the areas of organizational focus.

[1:04:59] Trustee Elliott: I think the goals are all really strong, and I like having them supported with, you know, specific calls to action, for instance, from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Public Education, which is a responsibility that all local governments carry.

[1:05:17] Trustee Elliott: and I don't think it promises too much I think these are actionable items that can be accomplished

[1:05:25] Trustee Elliott: and having that indicators measures is going to be really good so I fully support the document

[1:05:31] Trustee Elliott: it I see that it's a living document may need to be changed but this is a great starting point

[1:05:36] Trustee Elliott: and I just really would like you to convey to Joe Elliott our deep thanks I'm sorry that he's not

[1:05:44] Trustee Elliott: here today i know that he's put a lot into this document as our senior indigenous relations

[1:05:48] Trustee Elliott: advisor so please um convey our thanks and gratitude to him yeah thank

[1:05:56] Voice 10: you trustee bernardo

[1:05:58] Voice 10: um thank

[1:06:01] Voice 15: you um uh the action plan i think is um uh appropriate and i support it uh it's appropriate

[1:06:08] Voice 15: given where we're at in terms of the as trustee elliott and just remarked uh it's appropriate

[1:06:13] Voice 15: given where we're at in terms of jurisdiction and capacity, it's realistic in that way.

[1:06:17] Voice 15: I like the identification of the need for us to move forward in a manner that's pragmatic

[1:06:24] Voice 15: and focused on what we can actually usefully do. As this action plan becomes elaborated in

[1:06:35] Voice 15: more operational terms, my hope is that going forward, we'll be able to do more to foster

[1:06:44] Voice 15: leadership to leadership connections between trustees and I'm thinking about trustees at

[1:06:51] Voice 15: the local trust committee level and the relevant IGB political leadership that

[1:06:59] Voice 15: is particularly germane to this or that local trust area. I think that is a crucial component

[1:07:07] Voice 15: of the long-term outcome that we're setting for ourselves of having meaningful engagement.

[1:07:13] Voice 15: The staff-to-staff relationship is obviously equally crucial. It's how the whole apparatus of relationship building gets built. But there's a limit there. Real relationships can't be established by holding each other at arm's length.

[1:07:35] Voice 15: uh and the trust and confidence in each other requires that decision makers i think

[1:07:42] Voice 15: somehow come to share at least a common space of mutual understanding it's inevitable that

[1:07:47] Voice 15: ltcs and igbs as we move forward to the future won't be able to agree on all things

[1:07:52] Voice 15: at all times that's okay as long as um uh disagreements are recognized as coming from

[1:08:02] Voice 15: from an honest place, from a good place of good faith.

[1:08:05] Voice 15: That requires trust and confidence between leadership.

[1:08:11] Voice 15: We're not there yet.

[1:08:14] Voice 15: It's not a fault.

[1:08:16] Voice 15: I think it's part of the natural evolution of these things.

[1:08:20] Voice 15: But I really do think that we need to work hard

[1:08:25] Voice 15: at doing what we can to cultivate those relationships

[1:08:29] Voice 15: at the political leadership level

[1:08:31] Voice 15: so that there's genuine trust and confidence in the organization

[1:08:35] Voice 15: among IGPs. Thank you.

[1:08:40] Voice 10: Thank you. Trustee Boland, then Borthwick.

[1:08:44] Voice 19: I just wanted to say thank you. It's a very good document for anybody

[1:08:49] Voice 19: who's trying to figure out what this means

[1:08:53] Voice 19: because certainly I struggled with the

[1:08:57] Voice 19: practicalities of I can buy into this

[1:09:01] Voice 19: but I have no idea where to start or how to do this so I think it's it's really good from that

[1:09:08] Voice 19: perspective but I really wanted to say on page 586 I love the little piece of art and the sea

[1:09:17] Voice 19: going ocean going ocean coast sailish canoe I really like that I think it's a really nice symbol

[1:09:25] Voice 19: and the description underneath it speaks to what we're trying to do so thank you

[1:09:34] Voice 10: thank you trustee forthwick yeah

[1:09:39] Voice 20: so i i want to echo a lot of what's being said to to some degree

[1:09:44] Voice 20: but i don't want to just do that but i i do want to be you know really clear that uh um deep

[1:09:49] Voice 20: appreciation for the work of staff and and especially joe elliott in this work um it's

[1:09:55] Voice 20: it's evident, it shows. And I know through the work that's been done at my LTC that there is

[1:10:03] Voice 20: really valuable inroads being made in relationship and that this is bearing fruit already and it's

[1:10:10] Voice 20: nice to see it sort of come together. And as I say, I think every time we talk to this subject

[1:10:18] Voice 20: and as Trustee Bernardo was just saying, a key component, a vital component is leadership to

[1:10:25] Voice 20: leadership. And I totally appreciate that it won't necessarily start in that place and that

[1:10:30] Voice 20: there is a lot of value in the more perpetual machinery that is staff, to put it in very

[1:10:39] Voice 20: generous terms. Those people who are going to be with those bodies on a longer term than elected

[1:10:46] Voice 20: persons potentially, um, you know, have those, those, those concrete and, and, and, and effective

[1:10:53] Voice 20: relationships. And also I think it's, I really want to make sure, and I do see this in this

[1:11:00] Voice 20: document, but I, I want to make sure that primacy is given to, or some, some, some primacy, not,

[1:11:06] Voice 20: uh, exclusivity, but I want to see that there is emphasis put on, um, not only making space for

[1:11:15] Voice 20: and fostering those meetings and relationships

[1:11:18] Voice 20: and the important rituals of cultural exchange,

[1:11:24] Voice 20: but also, as is laid out in this,

[1:11:27] Voice 20: and I think laid out in a good way,

[1:11:29] Voice 20: education and opportunities to learn

[1:11:31] Voice 20: because, as Trustee Boland was just saying,

[1:11:34] Voice 20: it can be difficult to know where to start.

[1:11:37] Voice 20: Obviously, there are political figures in the province

[1:11:42] Voice 20: who have no interest in this work,

[1:11:44] Voice 20: But I think for those of us who do, you know, it's often difficult to know where to begin. And I think I want to applaud that in this. And I want to reemphasize that I think that that trustees need to be a leading edge of this, these discussions, quite apart from anything else as a sign of respect, because it's all very well to meet with, you know, staff who are going to do a lot of this work.

[1:12:09] Voice 20: But, you know, if we then turn around and don't support staff's work in an isolated, secluded meeting, we undermine all of that relationship building.

[1:12:22] Voice 20: And it's really important to put our money where our mouth is in that regard.

[1:12:27] Voice 20: So, yeah, I know this is not new comments from me and I'm aware that I'm over time, but I just wanted to sort of reemphasize those points because I think it's really important.

[1:12:35] Voice 20: But I'm very pleased with the document. I look forward to more, seeing it bear more fruit.

[1:12:41] Voice 10: Thank you. Trustee Peterson, then Govro.

[1:12:46] Voice 21: Thank you, Chair. Much like pretty much everything I've heard, that's great work.

[1:12:52] Voice 21: There's one piece on page 578 that I have a question around, which is assess possible impacts of rescinding local trust committee reconciliation standing resolutions.

[1:13:11] Voice 21: I'm curious about that because I don't know.

[1:13:14] Voice 21: I mean, I know in many cases, perhaps they haven't had those standing resolutions haven't had much effect.

[1:13:21] Voice 21: and at the same time rescinding them without some kind of explanation

[1:13:33] Voice 21: or alternative, I'm just concerned that that might send a message

[1:13:41] Voice 21: that is, I don't think, what we intend.

[1:13:45] Voice 21: So that's the only part that stood out as a little curious

[1:13:48] Voice 21: from my point of view.

[1:13:50] Voice 21: and i'm just wondering if there is either some background to that i realize it says assess not

[1:13:57] Voice 21: do it um but i'm just curious about what that assessment like might look like and if there's

[1:14:05] Voice 21: uh sort of you know is there alternative or replacement contemplated because um yeah i'm

[1:14:12] Voice 21: just concerned about uh uh what that might look like if it's just sort of they vanish

[1:14:20] Voice 23: uh so yeah through the chair yeah happy to speak to that so this is actually something that was

[1:14:25] Voice 23: asked for in 2024 by executive committee that staff look at this um and we just simply haven't

[1:14:30] Voice 23: got there yet and so there's there's a number of activities that are sort of on various follow-up

[1:14:34] Voice 23: action lists that we have put in this plan to kind of provide a structure and a linear sequence to

[1:14:38] Voice 23: them um i think the concerns that have been raised around these local trust committee standing

[1:14:42] Voice 23: resolutions is one they're too ambitious i think they're they're beyond the capacity of some local

[1:14:47] Voice 23: trust committee's staff time to implement in a fulsome way they call for annual activities

[1:14:52] Voice 23: that are are just beyond the resources we have available so there's that i think also they are

[1:14:58] Voice 23: kind of what what we call islands trust centric they really speak to what isla's trust wants to

[1:15:03] Voice 23: accomplish but it ends up in letters for example that we send to local trust committee to nations

[1:15:07] Voice 23: they're like here in one instance it was like here are the top 13 local here are the 13 local trust

[1:15:12] Voice 23: committees that you work with and here are the nine projects they're working on like it really

[1:15:17] Voice 23: really doesn't lead to like strong relationship building, like the outcome of those standing

[1:15:20] Voice 23: resolutions is sort of contrary to the intent of them, I think. That said, the rescinding of them

[1:15:27] Voice 23: could be seen as a walking back of commitment, which is not, I think, what anyone's intending.

[1:15:33] Voice 23: So that's why we want to look at if we were to recommend rescinding of them, what would they be

[1:15:38] Voice 23: the accompanying messaging? How would we explain the rationale? And then what, hopefully, the

[1:15:44] Voice 23: content of this plan would then supplement the relationship building that's the intent behind

[1:15:49] Voice 23: those standing resolutions so we want to be able to do that work so when we provide the recommend

[1:15:53] Voice 23: if we provide the recommendation to rescind it's sort of backed with all that information um and

[1:15:58] Voice 23: can send a signal to nations that the rescinding of it is not indeed a walking back of commitment

[1:16:06] Voice 21: thanks so much just

[1:16:08] Voice 10: as i'm looking at would a softer word be the impacts of or or somehow

[1:16:13] Voice 10: indication of replacing them so that let me know i don't know some some other word that might have a

[1:16:18] Voice 10: softer or more open meaning something to think about trustee uh

[1:16:23] Voice 10: go room uh

[1:16:25] Voice 9: thank you thank you

[1:16:26] Voice 9: um yes i'm in favor of this plan wholeheartedly i'm gonna gush a little bit actually too um i

[1:16:34] Voice 9: think that the trustees come and go staff um move on they retire um but these relationships that we

[1:16:40] Voice 9: we're building shouldn't have to start over again every election cycle or as you know as key members

[1:16:47] Voice 9: leave the organization. As I heard Dr. Freider say many times this is about improving institutional

[1:16:54] Voice 9: knowledge and it's about continuity and yeah as I said yesterday it's this type of work that

[1:17:02] Voice 9: makes me really proud to be part of this organization. I fully endorse this plan it's

[1:17:08] Voice 9: ready to be operationalized and i'd be happy to make the motion thank you all

[1:17:13] Voice 10: right i'll turn to

[1:17:14] Voice 10: you in a moment trustee bernardo yes

[1:17:18] Voice 15: uh just um uh listening to um trustee peterson's concern

[1:17:22] Voice 15: about the language about rescinding um standing resolutions um i think it does make sense to to

[1:17:31] Voice 15: rescind resolutions that are outdated or just in a sense um disconnected or not quite focused in

[1:17:37] Voice 15: the right way that aligns with the reality of what we can do and the direction that we're taking

[1:17:43] Voice 15: as a whole as an organization. It occurs to me that, you know, Trust Council or staff on the

[1:17:52] Voice 15: behalf of Trust Council has developed in other contexts, model bylaws. And I'm wondering whether

[1:18:01] Voice 15: or not, as part of that exercise that's described in that item that Trustee Pettersson identified,

[1:18:07] Voice 15: identified as part of that assessment process, I would suggest and would hope that staff would

[1:18:13] Voice 15: consider the possibility of developing, in a sense, a model standing resolution for local

[1:18:21] Voice 15: trust committees to adopt. Right now, often materials that come to a local trust committee

[1:18:29] Voice 15: will refer to trust counsel's commitment. I think it's a lot more forceful if we have a commitment

[1:18:36] Voice 15: that aligns with the direction we want to go to.

[1:18:40] Voice 15: And it's a common commitment adopted by each of these independent LTCs.

[1:18:45] Voice 15: Anyhow, that's just a thought.

[1:18:47] Voice 15: I'll throw it out there for staff to consider as it works on that.

[1:18:50] Voice 15: Thank you.

[1:18:51] Voice 10: Well, Trustee Bernardo, that's exactly what we have.

[1:18:54] Voice 10: And that's what the last conversation was about was the rescinding of them.

[1:18:57] Voice 10: So last term, each and every local trust committee did adopt a standing resolution

[1:19:01] Voice 10: that we haven't been able to commit to.

[1:19:04] Voice 10: So I think that's part of this. How do we replace or update or make sure that we have standing resolutions that we are actually living up to that reflects our reconciliation?

[1:19:15] Voice 10: So I think that's that action that's in the plan. How do we replace what we have?

[1:19:23] Voice 10: Trustee Fast.

[1:19:25] Trustee Fast: Thank you. I'm totally in support of this fabulous plan.

[1:19:32] Trustee Fast: It was interesting and heart lifting to read it.

[1:19:36] Trustee Fast: I think it's practical too.

[1:19:38] Trustee Fast: I'm looking at 578 in case we want to amend the wording

[1:19:42] Trustee Fast: of that word rescind.

[1:19:44] Trustee Fast: And my question for staff is,

[1:19:46] Trustee Fast: is that the actual word that trust council made before?

[1:19:52] Trustee Fast: And if it is, could we as trust council amend this plan

[1:19:58] Trustee Fast: plan to say uh revise or rescind certainly

[1:20:04] Voice 23: yes it was executive committee and i'm looking that

[1:20:07] Voice 23: the word rescind is not in there i mean it's kind of assumed in the motion that was passed

[1:20:11] Voice 23: um but certainly you could make it you could have it you could replace that with the word replace

[1:20:15] Voice 23: like this is your plan so if you wanted to signal that you wanted to replace the standing resolutions

[1:20:20] Voice 23: you could recommend that as well um yeah okay again again

[1:20:24] Voice 23: but i'll just note as we frame that

[1:20:26] Voice 23: it's for each local trust committee to make that decision so council would be yeah i think it's

[1:20:31] Voice 23: fine you could replace the word rescind with replace if that's something you'd like to signal

[1:20:35] Voice 11: or revise yep um okay i would like to move that the word all

[1:20:43] Voice 15: right if i if i have a suggestion

[1:20:44] Voice 15: for trustee fast um might want to consider just using the word refresh about refreshing local

[1:20:52] Voice 15: trust committee reconciliation standing resolutions you know uh it's a little softer

[1:20:58] Voice 15: It's a little softer than all the other options.

[1:21:01] Voice 15: Anyhow, just a thought.

[1:21:02] Voice 10: Good thoughts.

[1:21:03] Voice 10: We'll see what Trustee Fast says, and then we can debate these.

[1:21:05] Voice 10: So go ahead, Trustee Fast, on your winging resolution.

[1:21:10] Voice 10: We've got to have one on Thursday.

[1:21:13] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[1:21:14] Trustee Fast: I move, if I still have the floor.

[1:21:17] Trustee Fast: Yes, you do.

[1:21:18] Trustee Fast: Go ahead.

[1:21:18] Trustee Fast: Okay.

[1:21:19] Trustee Fast: Okay. I move that the word rescinding in on page 578 of the Indigenous Relations Action Plan be replaced with the word updating, period.

[1:21:41] Voice 15: I'll second that.

[1:21:43] Voice 10: Before I second it, I'm going to wait until staff put it up on the screen and we just have a moment.

[1:21:49] Voice 10: Hold that second, Trustee Bernardo.

[1:21:51] Voice 15: okay that hope that second is being held and uh trustee fast i think uh landed on exactly

[1:22:01] Voice 15: the right word as far as i'm concerned i

[1:22:04] Voice 10: did change the

[1:22:06] Trustee Elliott: language a bit too all right uh

[1:22:08] Voice 10: so let's take a look at that i'll have stuff uh let's go ahead and see how ronnie thank you

[1:22:16] Voice 6: jerry i would just recommend since we're referencing specifically the plan it's

[1:22:20] Voice 6: actually page 23 of the plan it's 578 of the agenda right but we can change that page 23

[1:22:26] Voice 6: so

[1:22:28] Voice 10: i've looked staff that's sufficient to understand what we're talking about

[1:22:32] Voice 10: no no i

[1:22:34] Voice 19: don't think i think it's to replace the word rescind not to rescind the word

[1:22:39] Voice 11: yeah sorry replace the word and

[1:22:48] Voice 19: it could be to rescind the word but okay

[1:22:52] Voice 10: it's an ing there you go um i'm sorry um oh that was um it's just you guys it is

[1:23:03] Voice 10: well not a moment we're almost there to make sure there's no other numbers on these actions

[1:23:09] Voice 10: so that

[1:23:10] Voice 10: makes it a little tricky i think it's the very last action just double checking there's no

[1:23:17] Voice 10: know whether we're sending on this page because we're not detailing where in the action i think

[1:23:22] Voice 10: it's uh are those referred to as actions action item

[1:23:30] Voice 23: action

[1:23:31] Voice 10: item is the last and the last action

[1:23:33] Voice 10: item yes okay then i think that uh if trustee fast could be reading okay trustee fast i think

[1:23:44] Voice 10: we're satisfied if you could read that one more time i would appreciate it thanks everybody for

[1:23:49] Trustee Fast: are helping that islands trust council request staff to replace the word rescinding on page 23

[1:23:55] Trustee Fast: of the draft indigenous relations action plan omit the words be replaced

[1:24:02] Trustee Fast: with the word updating in the last action item second

[1:24:09] Voice 15: now

[1:24:10] Voice 10: it's seconded by trustee bernardo any

[1:24:11] Voice 10: discussion not seeing any i'm going to call the vote all those in favor raise your hands

[1:24:29] Voice 10: see 11. lower your hands any opposed not

[1:24:45] Voice 7: opposed three abstained we have a total of 14 trustees

[1:24:48] Voice 7: 11

[1:24:49] Voice 10: in favor three abstained uh none opposed that carries so there are no further uh amendments

[1:25:00] Voice 10: then there is the motion on page 551 and i'm going to turn to trustee gabriel who offered

[1:25:04] Voice 10: to make that motion thank

[1:25:06] Voice 9: you very much uh i move that trust council approved islands trust

[1:25:11] Voice 9: indigenous relations action plan 2026 to 2028 as amended all right

[1:25:19] Voice 11: is there a second seconded by

[1:25:20] Voice 10: trustee borkwick any discussion when you call the vote all those in favor please raise your hands

[1:25:29] Voice 10: i'll definitely raise my hand on this one i'll be biased okay

[1:25:35] Voice 7: that's 14 of 14

[1:25:37] Voice 7: all

[1:25:38] Voice 10: right that is unanimous as uh uh so uh trustees thank you and uh so just a reminder

[1:25:45] Voice 10: it is almost national indigenous people's day uh that's on june 21st on the solstice

[1:25:53] Voice 10: so uh and please see the email that our indigenous relations advisor joe elliott sent out about all

[1:26:01] Voice 10: the activities occurring in the trust area you may even know of more so national indigenous

[1:26:06] Voice 10: Indigenous Peoples Day takes place on the summer solstice, the longer day of the year.

[1:26:10] Voice 10: For generations, many First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities have celebrated their cultures,

[1:26:16] Voice 10: languages, and traditions at this time of year. Summer solstice holds deep spiritual and cultural

[1:26:21] Voice 10: significance for many Indigenous peoples, making it a time of renewal, connection, and celebration.

[1:26:27] Voice 10: So please join your communities. It's so wonderful to see these activities growing,

[1:26:31] Voice 10: growing in our communities,

[1:26:34] Voice 10: more and more people actively involved.

[1:26:36] Voice 10: So congratulations, trustees on passing this

[1:26:40] Voice 10: and thanks to the staff for bringing this along.

[1:26:43] Voice 10: And now we have to put the action in reconciliation there.

[1:26:49] Voice 10: All right, so trustees, it's two minutes to the break time.

[1:26:55] Voice 10: I think we'll take a break and then after the break,

[1:26:58] Voice 10: we're gonna return to item 12.2.1,

[1:27:01] Voice 10: which was the First Nations referral procedure update.

[1:27:05] Voice 10: Oh, no, 1045, it's the presentation.

[1:27:08] Voice 10: Thank you for reminding me.

[1:27:09] Voice 10: After the presentation, we'll return back to the referral process.

[1:27:13] Voice 10: So, trustees, let's take a break and be back promptly at 1045

[1:27:18] Voice 10: so we can welcome our presenters.

[1:32:11] Voice 3: Mr. Short. It's Alexandra here. Thank you for joining us.

[1:39:31] Voice 4: Kristen, it's Alexandra. Thank you

[1:39:33] Voice 4: for joining. We'll see you resuming in about

[1:39:35] Voice 3: four minutes. All right,

[1:43:19] Voice 4: trustees, welcome

[1:43:21] Voice 10: back from

[1:43:22] Voice 10: the break. We're going to go right into item 16 on the agenda package, which is on page 639.

[1:43:29] Voice 10: This is a presentation on the British Columbia Coastal Marine Strategy. It's with my pleasure

[1:43:35] Voice 10: I get to welcome Charlie Short, the Executive Director of the Coastal Marine Stewardship and

[1:43:41] Voice 10: Fisheries Branch in the Ministry of Water, Land, and Resource Stewardship, and Kristen Worsley,

[1:43:48] Voice 10: Director of Coastal Marine Policy for the same branch, who will give us a presentation

[1:43:55] Voice 10: on the BC Coastal Marine Strategy. So welcome. I'm going to turn the floor over to you. I believe

[1:44:01] Voice 10: you're going to share your screens and so the floor is yours excellent

[1:44:08] Voice 13: and thank you so much

[1:44:09] Voice 13: for that introduction it is when you hear it coming back to you it's kind of a mouthful isn't

[1:44:13] Voice 13: it with all of the ministry name and our branch name but uh really appreciate everyone's time

[1:44:19] Voice 13: today um to to hear an update on the coastal marine strategy my name is charlie short and i'm

[1:44:25] Voice 13: here with my director kristen worsley and uh we have a short presentation and then i think we have

[1:44:32] Voice 13: have some time for questions um and can just can can you remind me how much time we have on your

[1:44:37] Voice 13: agenda uh just so i can pace myself

[1:44:39] Voice 10: we have approximately a whole hour so oh

[1:44:42] Voice 13: okay all right

[1:44:43] Voice 13: well um i i we probably won't need that amount of time but uh i can uh go through in a bit of

[1:44:49] Voice 13: detail and then we can leave some some space for some good discussion that'll be great so let me

[1:44:55] Voice 13: me share my screen. I think I, oh, perfect. I will get this going here. Just checking to see if

[1:45:29] Voice 13: anyone can.

[1:45:33] Voice 10: That looks great. It's working.

[1:45:35] Voice 13: Perfect. Okay. Well, so a couple of things

[1:45:43] Voice 13: for folks that are aware that the province released a coastal marine strategy, the first

[1:45:50] Voice 13: of its kind actually uh for british columbia back in 2024 late 2024 and so we've been working um

[1:46:00] Voice 13: for the last little while a year and a half or so just to get up to speed and progress on some

[1:46:07] Voice 13: of the implementation priorities so we're going to talk a bit about that today we're also going to

[1:46:13] Voice 13: to go through some of the processes we've gone through to identify priorities and then talk

[1:46:20] Voice 13: a bit about what we're up to this year and share some thoughts about next year. And then also,

[1:46:28] Voice 13: here are some of the questions that, of course, Islands Trust has as well regarding

[1:46:33] Voice 13: your neck of the woods, so to speak. But before I get into the details here, what I'm going to do

[1:46:39] Voice 13: is we've just put a bit of a synopsis of what the team does and um and how we're how we're kind of

[1:46:46] Voice 13: made up so i can't remember the last time we came to islands trust um we have been a couple times

[1:46:54] Voice 13: through the development of this process but not probably since we've done a little restructuring

[1:47:00] Voice 13: So back in October, October, November of 2025, there was some restructuring going on in the ministry and government wide, in fact.

[1:47:12] Voice 13: And so our team is is did change a bit since probably we last spoke.

[1:47:20] Voice 13: We have three three distinct work units.

[1:47:26] Voice 13: and we expanded our role as of sort of late 2025 to include fisheries and aquaculture work unit

[1:47:35] Voice 13: so we have myself as an exec director we have Kristen Worsley who's on the line here today

[1:47:42] Voice 13: as a director of coastal marine strategy and policy in particular coastal marine strategy

[1:47:48] Voice 13: implementation and broader marine coastal marine policy and we have one two three four five

[1:47:54] Voice 13: uh policy analysts that support that work um the the the little humans that have uh are filled in

[1:48:04] Voice 13: just mean they're on either they're on leave or on a temporary assignment elsewhere at this point

[1:48:08] Voice 13: in time um if you're wondering about that uh we also have a director natalie shell who uh is our

[1:48:15] Voice 13: director of sort of coastal marine planning and we have a small science division as well in our

[1:48:20] Voice 13: branch and most of that work is is is more in northern British Columbia at the moment

[1:48:30] Voice 13: with regards to broader coastal marine planning and marine protected area network design and

[1:48:36] Voice 13: implementation and then we have a director Mike Turner who's responsible for broader provincial

[1:48:43] Voice 13: role in marine fisheries, tidal fisheries, and tidal water aquaculture. So this is both aquatic

[1:48:52] Voice 13: plants and shellfish and finfish, as well as a broader role in the provincial role in various

[1:49:00] Voice 13: fisheries, treaties, hake, halibut, salmon, and then also administering funding for broader salmon

[1:49:08] Voice 13: and restoration and recovery work in particular so all told we we cover most of the sort of like

[1:49:15] Voice 13: tidal water planning and protected area and conservation stewardship and fisheries

[1:49:22] Voice 13: responsibilities within this ministry and then we also have the responsibility to liaise with

[1:49:27] Voice 13: other provincial ministries and local government like yourselves and also many many partnerships

[1:49:33] Voice 13: with First Nations across the coast to get this stuff done.

[1:49:38] Voice 13: So the difference between probably when we last spoke

[1:49:43] Voice 13: and now is the fact that we've expanded a bit

[1:49:46] Voice 13: to include broader fisheries and aquaculture

[1:49:49] Voice 13: within a different branch and working it all together.

[1:49:58] Voice 13: So the Coastal Marine Strategy itself was always a responsibility of WLRS.

[1:50:07] Voice 13: and was developed over the course of two or three years

[1:50:14] Voice 13: early in this ministry's mandate.

[1:50:17] Voice 13: And the idea was that the provincial government

[1:50:21] Voice 13: did lack a comprehensive and holistic vision for coastal BC,

[1:50:26] Voice 13: despite us being a maritime province on the west coast of Canada.

[1:50:31] Voice 13: We didn't have that articulated from the provincial perspective.

[1:50:35] Voice 13: We had lots of pieces of work going on

[1:50:37] Voice 13: with various partners and through various collaborations,

[1:50:42] Voice 13: but never did articulate what the coast

[1:50:46] Voice 13: and the sort of nearshore marine environment meant to the people of BC

[1:50:50] Voice 13: and where we wanted to see it into the future.

[1:50:53] Voice 13: So that was a call to action,

[1:50:56] Voice 13: and so we started engaging with folks across the coast,

[1:51:00] Voice 13: with First Nations, with local governments,

[1:51:02] Voice 13: with stakeholders to set that vision.

[1:51:04] Voice 13: So that's what this document does.

[1:51:06] Voice 13: it's available online and we can provide a link for that later if folks haven't had a chance to

[1:51:11] Voice 13: look at it but in essence it sets out that 20-year vision um for where we want to go and then uh and

[1:51:19] Voice 13: then yearly has yearly milestones and commitments and performance measures articulated in our

[1:51:24] Voice 13: in our ministry service plan and this is meant to sort of ensure we are making progress

[1:51:33] Voice 13: us incrementally over time. I will note that the call to action was also to develop this

[1:51:44] Voice 13: in collaboration with Coastal First Nations. So many of you probably know that this is a big ask.

[1:51:50] Voice 13: You know, about almost 50% of all nations in British Columbia are coastal. So we focus quite

[1:51:59] Voice 13: a lot of our time and effort to structure a process so we can understand and make sure we are

[1:52:04] Voice 13: echoing the voices of the many nations here on the coast in the strategy so we think we've

[1:52:10] Voice 13: been a pretty good job of that and we'll and we continue to work with those many nations across

[1:52:16] Voice 13: the coast to set the implementation priorities and and then and then circle back and vet those with

[1:52:22] Voice 13: with user groups local government stakeholders in our service plan we have a variety of milestones

[1:52:33] Voice 13: So one of the things that we tried to tackle quite early once the strategy was released publicly was to finalize what we could prioritize during that time and start putting the strategy into action, so to say.

[1:52:54] Voice 13: And so we focused a bunch of our time and effort to to do that, you know, in 2020, throughout 2025.

[1:53:04] Voice 13: And we were able to kind of articulate a sort of prioritization report at that time and start identifying which which actions and activities that are within the strategy, which ones to move the dial on.

[1:53:18] Voice 13: So that was also then manifested in our service plan, whereas in this past year and this year, we are to initiate at least three new net new priorities within the strategy and define an implementation approach with Coastal First Nations.

[1:53:37] Voice 13: and then incrementally over time in the year 2026, 2027, now in 2027, 2028,

[1:53:44] Voice 13: another net new three priorities so we can keep on moving the dial,

[1:53:49] Voice 13: so to speak, on strategy implementation.

[1:53:55] Voice 13: So that's a public document.

[1:53:57] Voice 13: If folks are interested, the service plan has performance metrics

[1:54:00] Voice 13: and performance measures integrated into it,

[1:54:03] Voice 13: as well as our ministry budget once, yeah, now that that's been settled.

[1:54:16] Voice 13: So one of the challenges that we encountered early on, the strategy was released, so that

[1:54:24] Voice 13: was a good thing.

[1:54:26] Voice 13: However, it wasn't released with a dedicated budget, which was a bit of a downer.

[1:54:32] Voice 13: And so what we had to sort of pivot towards was when we were going through that

[1:54:37] Voice 13: that prioritization exercise, we had to kind of triage some of the implementation activities and

[1:54:43] Voice 13: commitments in the document itself to be realistic with regards to our fiscal, you know, the fiscal

[1:54:52] Voice 13: climate we're in now with the provincial budget. And so, and, you know, what that ultimately meant

[1:54:59] Voice 13: was that we had to kind of prioritize things that we think we could carry forward and implement

[1:55:04] Voice 13: realistically within existing budgets and with existing staff capacity so as folks were probably

[1:55:11] Voice 13: aware we're not in a position now in the provincial government that we're in like a real good big

[1:55:16] Voice 13: hiring spree that's not happening so we knew we weren't going to be able to recruit new talent and

[1:55:23] Voice 13: new capacity to increase increase the horsepower in our branch we also knew we weren't going to

[1:55:31] Voice 13: have access to big pots of money to do the sort of larger, more expensive, longer term activities

[1:55:38] Voice 13: in the strategy, like embark on big planning efforts that would span multiple years with

[1:55:45] Voice 13: multiple partners that can cost, you know, several millions of dollars. That wasn't realistic at this

[1:55:51] Voice 13: time. So we went through this process over the course of a number of workshops to help identify

[1:55:58] Voice 13: some of those priorities. And we'll talk about those in a couple slides here. And so we did

[1:56:05] Voice 13: commit to, you know, making sure we're going to keep everyone informed. We're going to be moving

[1:56:09] Voice 13: the dial on actions that are realistic at this time and flag those priorities that are still

[1:56:17] Voice 13: important, but just maybe not, this isn't the best time to sort of initiate the implementation

[1:56:23] Voice 13: because there just isn't available resources at this moment in time.

[1:56:28] Voice 13: So I'll get to some tangible examples here in a sec.

[1:56:33] Voice 13: So that was kind of a difficult task, to be honest,

[1:56:36] Voice 13: because a lot of the actions and topics in the strategy

[1:56:41] Voice 13: would require a significant amount of resourcing.

[1:56:44] Voice 13: And we had to kind of work hard to be creative

[1:56:48] Voice 13: around how we could identify those priorities

[1:56:52] Voice 13: would actually be meaningful to everyone, but at the same time, not cost a fortune. So I think we

[1:56:57] Voice 13: did pretty good. And it's not to say we don't have access to any resources, that there just

[1:57:02] Voice 13: wasn't a dedicated coastal marine strategy implementation sort of fund allocated. So

[1:57:09] Voice 13: it just means a little bit more work on staff to be more creative and dig a little deeper with

[1:57:17] Voice 13: regards to seeking out those available monies to support implementation. So what are some of the

[1:57:28] Voice 13: near-term priorities? There were nine of them that were identified throughout the course of 2025,

[1:57:39] Voice 13: early 2026, and we've identified that these would be the sort of overarching actions that we're

[1:57:46] Voice 13: going to pursue implementation activities in and around through until 2028 and so like i said these

[1:57:55] Voice 13: were things that were kind of based on what we thought was realistic in terms of our current

[1:58:00] Voice 13: capacity and our branch and and and other ministries at this time and available um funding

[1:58:07] Voice 13: so um they're listed there on the screen um they're consistent with the actions that are

[1:58:13] Voice 13: in the strategy itself. And so we have a few projects underway right now with regards to

[1:58:21] Voice 13: enhancing our ability to monitor coastal habitats and broader near shore marine health.

[1:58:29] Voice 13: There's a few actions in and around improving salmon survival and other opportunities coming

[1:58:37] Voice 13: We're coming about now with renewed federal funding in this space with the renewal and announcement from the federal government of the Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative, $412 million over five years, as well as a commitment to renew what was formerly the BC Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund over the next five years.

[1:59:01] Voice 13: So we're actively working now with the federal government on that, what that could look like, and that will also help inject some renewed investment over the next five years in terms of salmon survival.

[1:59:12] Voice 13: There's a series of activities that we're pursuing in and around preventing marine pollution,

[1:59:20] Voice 13: improving and understanding climate change, supporting First Nations specific climate

[1:59:26] Voice 13: action initiatives, looking at initiatives and activities in and around the coastal economy,

[1:59:33] Voice 13: both from the perspective of community well-being, but also broader coastal economies here in

[1:59:41] Voice 13: British Columbia, specific activities linked to commercial harvesters, and also First Nations

[1:59:51] Voice 13: food security, as well as local community food security, in particular looking at innovative ways

[2:00:00] Voice 13: to enhance productivity in some of our shorelines with regards to shellfish both in particular

[2:00:06] Voice 13: through this sort of like wild harvest and and clam garden sea garden types of systems

[2:00:14] Voice 13: and then we have some internal work as well as forecasted outreach on this stuff around

[2:00:20] Voice 13: basically modernizing some of our policies and procedures as it relates to tidal water

[2:00:26] Voice 13: water authorizations. So things like restoration in the coastal shoreline or aquaculture or

[2:00:34] Voice 13: salmon recovery efforts, etc. So what that looks like across the coast currently is a good spread.

[2:00:43] Voice 13: There was a recent announcement made by the provincial government just last week during

[2:00:51] Voice 13: Oceans Week, I think it was last week, or the week previous. There's about 23 nations that are

[2:01:00] Voice 13: implementing around 20 distinct projects across the coast. We were able to sort of cobble together

[2:01:08] Voice 13: about $2.5 million in funding to support Coastal Marine Strategy. This was for 25-26 fiscal year.

[2:01:17] Voice 13: and we're looking to continue on some of this good work

[2:01:23] Voice 13: for this coming year

[2:01:24] Voice 13: and looking to secure an additional amount of funding

[2:01:28] Voice 13: but I couldn't tell you how much at this point in time

[2:01:30] Voice 13: but we're getting pretty good at trying to dig around

[2:01:34] Voice 13: and find funding and even in times of fiscal restraint.

[2:01:38] Voice 13: So some success already being witnessed here

[2:01:41] Voice 13: with coastal and marine strategy implementation

[2:01:43] Voice 13: implementation across the coast and up on the north coast as well. So I wonder, because there's

[2:01:53] Voice 13: a bit of a pivot in the presentation now in terms of getting into some detail on some of these

[2:01:59] Voice 13: individuals, giving you some examples of these individual projects, but maybe I'll just take a

[2:02:04] Voice 13: moment and pause for a sec here to see if there's any questions on anything, just knowing that we

[2:02:10] Voice 13: have a bit of time here.

[2:02:12] Voice 10: All right. We have a couple

[2:02:15] Voice 1: of questions already

[2:02:16] Voice 10: popped up. So I have

[2:02:17] Voice 10: Trustee Bolland and then Trustee Fast. And if you could introduce yourselves to Executive Director

[2:02:23] Voice 10: Short, well, that would be helpful too.

[2:02:25] Voice 19: Sure. I'm Maureen Bolland. I'm on Saterna Island

[2:02:30] Voice 19: and I live out at East Point on Saterna. So a question about commercial harvesters.

[2:02:39] Voice 19: And so a specific issue here, we have a kelp mapping initiative every year.

[2:02:49] Voice 19: You probably know about it. It's Maine Island Conservancy who organises it, do a fabulous job.

[2:02:56] Voice 19: They've been doing it for, I don't know, 16 years or some incredible number and their data is highly regarded.

[2:03:03] Voice 19: regarded so we see a huge impact from reds red urchins and one of the questions was could we

[2:03:13] Voice 19: encourage commercial harvesters to come and take those urchins and you know directly outside my

[2:03:23] Voice 19: window i'm looking at an area that last year was covered in kelp and horrifyingly little this year

[2:03:29] Voice 19: and my husband is a diver and he saw all the urchins on the seabed um but there seems to be

[2:03:37] Voice 19: some difficulty in encouraging uh commercial harvesters to come and help i'm just thinking

[2:03:43] Voice 19: like commercial harvesters could be partners in restoration if they were uh you know i don't know

[2:03:53] Voice 19: maybe you do this already but i'm thinking is there a way to say no no don't harvest their

[2:03:58] Voice 19: harvest over here where it would benefit um rather than just saying oh you know it's always

[2:04:05] Voice 19: slightly negative you know don't do this don't do that this is a closure that's a closure if there's

[2:04:12] Voice 19: a way to bring them in as partners in actively doing things to promote the health and this is

[2:04:21] Voice 19: is an example thanks yeah

[2:04:25] Voice 13: thanks for that i i i admit i haven't heard of that in particular

[2:04:30] Voice 13: however um i made a couple notes here and um like we do have a broader restoration

[2:04:37] Voice 13: priority i already identified in the strategy and and one of the one of the areas is for kelp

[2:04:43] Voice 13: and aquatic plants we would need to um coordinate with department of fisheries and oceans they would

[2:04:51] Voice 13: would be the authority to issue like a commercial license if that was a thing but we could we could

[2:04:57] Voice 13: take that away i think trustee and and and think about that from a restoration lens of near shore

[2:05:03] Voice 13: ecosystems for kelp in particular and uh

[2:05:06] Voice 19: please uh feel free to be in touch with me if you want

[2:05:10] Voice 19: to know more i'm happy to talk to anybody and i'll be by phone email whatever and um privately

[2:05:18] Voice 19: and or as a trustee so I can I can wear your ear out on the subject okay thanks

[2:05:26] Voice 19: all right

[2:05:28] Voice 10: we love kelp all right trustee fast then fourth wing um

[2:05:35] Trustee Fast: thank you very much for

[2:05:36] Trustee Fast: your presentation so far um uh we just passed before the break um trust council just passed

[2:05:44] Trustee Fast: an Indigenous Relations Action Plan. So this is really good timing. If you could tell us maybe

[2:05:50] Trustee Fast: a little bit more about these projects that are on the screen right now, particularly in terms of

[2:05:58] Trustee Fast: what might be good examples for us to look at as islanders wanting to build relationships and work

[2:06:06] Trustee Fast: with and steward and protect and preserve and all those good things.

[2:06:12] Voice 13: Excellent. Yeah, that's

[2:06:13] Voice 13: the next part of the presentation so we'll get there uh real shortly here and that

[2:06:18] Voice 10: was uh thanks

[2:06:19] Voice 10: i was

[2:06:19] Trustee Fast: just making sure yeah

[2:06:20] Voice 13: that

[2:06:21] Voice 10: was trustee fast and municipal consular from bowen island

[2:06:24] Voice 10: okay next is a trustee borthwick don't forget to introduce yourself i

[2:06:30] Voice 20: won't uh yes um i'm sam

[2:06:33] Voice 20: borthwick trustee from uh denman island i'm currently looking uh to my right out of urbane

[2:06:39] Voice 20: sound um and yeah i have a sort of a slew of questions and i it's fine if these are not all

[2:06:46] Voice 20: things that come out immediately but um obviously we're there's a lot of aquaculture here um we have

[2:06:54] Voice 20: and there are sort of attendant concerns with that i uh have yeah i'll just run through a couple

[2:07:00] Voice 20: things and by all means we can move on to other people if it's more expedient but um my first

[2:07:06] Voice 20: question is i don't know if you are aware of or and you may be that you may be well well be aware

[2:07:12] Voice 20: but aren't able to speak to any of the situation with the deep water recovery uh ship breaking

[2:07:18] Voice 20: activities here in union bay um they're continuing to operate despite a lot of injunctions i'm i'm

[2:07:27] Voice 20: sure there's not a lot specifically you can say but just does that fall sort of underneath this

[2:07:32] Voice 20: sort of broader remit um of of the of this of the strategy uh and is there i know that there's um

[2:07:40] Voice 20: our mp gordon johns has introduced legislate introduced a bill uh federally to to sort of

[2:07:49] Voice 20: talk a little bit about shipbreaking in terms of activities and there isn't a unified strategy for

[2:07:54] Voice 20: that across canada um but i i would hope that some that's something that has uh your focus in

[2:08:01] Voice 20: in sort of protecting and preserving these waters

[2:08:03] Voice 20: and finding appropriate places and ways to dispose of old ships

[2:08:07] Voice 20: because it's definitely work that needs to happen.

[2:08:09] Voice 20: But when it happens in a way that's risky,

[2:08:12] Voice 20: as it has been happening here,

[2:08:14] Voice 20: there's a huge impact on local aquaculture

[2:08:19] Voice 20: and species and everyone.

[2:08:25] Voice 20: So yeah, I don't know if it's more useful

[2:08:27] Voice 20: if we go back and forth on things.

[2:08:28] Voice 20: I've got a list, but it's not super long.

[2:08:31] Voice 13: yeah no uh thanks thanks for that so i i can um maybe maybe on this so i can speak to a little

[2:08:38] Voice 13: bit about that in terms of um one of the objectives of the strategies to kind of like you know

[2:08:46] Voice 13: uh foster a healthy coastal economy right and um we do know on the ship breaking piece trustee like

[2:08:54] Voice 13: we do know that there are is a need for that industry somewhere absolutely and that we have

[2:09:00] Voice 13: have a lot of aging vessels some all you know different shapes and sizes um and so i our jobs

[2:09:07] Voice 13: and economic diversification i'm sorry they're a different name now jobs and economic growth

[2:09:13] Voice 13: ministry leading some of that stuff in consultation with local communities around

[2:09:18] Voice 13: and canada as well uh to determine like where is that best suited for and and you know you know

[2:09:26] Voice 13: Where could we take ships?

[2:09:27] Voice 13: Where can it be done responsibly with the right facilities

[2:09:31] Voice 13: and all of the infrastructure that needs to go out?

[2:09:33] Voice 13: So there is a good effort being put into that right now

[2:09:37] Voice 13: because we know it's a growing problem.

[2:09:39] Voice 13: And so I'll say that.

[2:09:42] Voice 13: And for Deepwater specifically, there's like ongoing investigations,

[2:09:45] Voice 13: as you know, ongoing enforcement and compliance issues,

[2:09:49] Voice 13: and it's got its own world attached to it.

[2:09:53] Voice 20: yeah i don't and i don't need to draw you out yeah so

[2:09:56] Voice 20: that's all good yeah um and yeah i'll

[2:10:00] Voice 20: maybe quickly just run through some other bits and then and then we can decide what's useful to

[2:10:04] Voice 20: sort of like talk to but um uh herring over harvesting now again this is going to be at

[2:10:11] Voice 20: least partly a dfo question uh and i have spoken with them and the shellfish grow the yeah shellfish

[2:10:18] Voice 20: Producers Alliance and various other bodies but there's we are one of the last herring spawn areas

[2:10:26] Voice 20: in coastal on coastal North America there's a little bit I think still down in the San Juans

[2:10:32] Voice 20: as well but you know we have a serious issue we are one of the last places it's a remarkable

[2:10:38] Voice 20: phenomena that used to be common to a lot more of the Islands Trust area and is now pretty much

[2:10:44] Voice 20: limited to to hornby and denman and there's a real concern like you know every every year i can hear

[2:10:52] Voice 20: the i live on the other side of the island from where the harvesting happens but i can hear the

[2:10:55] Voice 20: boats running all night when they're harvesting and it's there's a real there's a lot of you know

[2:11:01] Voice 20: pretty serious scientific people have have made the point on a number of occasions that like

[2:11:09] Voice 20: there probably needs to be a moratorium for at least a couple of years to let that stock

[2:11:14] Voice 20: recover um and it's i know it's something of incredible concern to my community but also um

[2:11:22] Voice 20: you know i've spoken at length with a number of the first nations in this area um you know these

[2:11:29] Voice 20: this is their ancestral uh harvesting practices as well and there's the the trawlers that are

[2:11:36] Voice 20: out there hauling them in it's it's devastating and and it feels very short-sighted to to just

[2:11:44] Voice 20: just beat to death the last the last

[2:11:47] Voice 20: gasp um so that's something that that i'm concerned about

[2:11:51] Voice 20: um we have a sort of ongoing issue which again this is something we're trying to follow up on

[2:11:56] Voice 20: in other cases but it is one of those things where um we have lots of legislative bodies um

[2:12:03] Voice 20: but there's because there's so many different bodies sort of regulating things stuff seems to

[2:12:09] Voice 20: to get hot-potated around and fall through the cracks.

[2:12:12] Voice 20: One of the specific issues we're seeing here

[2:12:15] Voice 20: is we have a specific marine conservation zone

[2:12:21] Voice 20: that there is an aquaculture lease right next to it.

[2:12:24] Voice 20: And over time, the aquaculture lease has slowly intruded

[2:12:30] Voice 20: into that marine conservation area.

[2:12:33] Voice 20: And now they are applying to,

[2:12:36] Voice 20: which is, that was something that was flagged

[2:12:38] Voice 20: a number of years ago.

[2:12:38] Voice 20: it's been hard to to regulate our enforcement have a hard time doing stuff on the water

[2:12:44] Voice 20: but then now now they are applying to expand their lease into that conservation zone and so

[2:12:50] Voice 20: it's a question of someone is you know expanding overrunning their lease into a conservation zone

[2:12:57] Voice 20: and then applying to have that added to their lease and you can see where this this

[2:13:01] Voice 4: process

[2:13:02] Voice 20: sort of rinse repeats and that's it the the issue i think that we have in a big way is that it

[2:13:07] Voice 20: because it falls between the cracks of so many other bodies,

[2:13:10] Voice 20: it's hard to capture those specific things.

[2:13:15] Voice 20: And just, I would hope that, you know,

[2:13:19] Voice 20: a more comprehensive marine strategy

[2:13:22] Voice 20: helps to plug some of those gaps

[2:13:25] Voice 20: and sort of coordinate the conversations around those things

[2:13:28] Voice 20: because it is an issue.

[2:13:30] Voice 20: And this is not

[2:13:31] Voice 20: the only incidence.

[2:13:32] Voice 20: This is just a

[2:13:33] Voice 20: very specific thing.

[2:13:34] Voice 20: But there's lots of things that I've seen

[2:13:36] Voice 20: where the issue belongs to one body or another and and and but everybody believes it's another body

[2:13:43] Voice 13: yeah yeah well maybe trustee i think we'll we can and i see one more question we can loop back

[2:13:50] Voice 13: around because some of this stuff will come yeah

[2:13:52] Voice 20: through some of

[2:13:53] Voice 13: those slides and also uh

[2:13:56] Voice 13: you know it's good to hear this stuff too because we do while we on the fishery side we while we

[2:14:01] Voice 13: We don't have authority to manage the fishery, of course.

[2:14:04] Voice 13: We do have influence, and that influence is stronger if there's a lot of voices behind us.

[2:14:10] Voice 13: And we do sit at those tables, and we are obliged to provide comment on fisheries management plans, for example, that DFO would administer.

[2:14:19] Voice 13: So there's windows there, is what I'm saying.

[2:14:23] Voice 13: Yeah.

[2:14:23] Voice 20: Well, and it's, I mean, it's frustrating because nominally the, the, the specific

[2:14:27] Voice 20: conservation thing that I'm thinking about is within our jurisdiction, but there's nothing we

[2:14:33] Voice 20: can do about it because nobody hears us. Um, and that's, that's the challenge it's about. I know

[2:14:37] Voice 20: very well that it's about getting all those voices in the room and, and, and oftentimes things can be

[2:14:42] Voice 20: fixed quite quickly. Um, but it is a question of making sure that people realize that it's an issue,

[2:14:47] Voice 20: um, and, and that the conversations happen. So anyways, I've taken up a bunch of time,

[2:14:52] Voice 20: but I appreciate your answers yeah no worries thank

[2:14:56] Voice 10: you before I call on trustee Bernardo I

[2:14:58] Voice 10: have a favor to ask trustee Maberly I appreciate your active lifestyle but it's making us dizzy

[2:15:03] Voice 10: if you could just turn your uh your video off I think it'd be less distracting thank you so much

[2:15:08] Voice 10: uh trustee Bernardo um

[2:15:12] Voice 15: thank you um I have good news my question is quite a bit shorter

[2:15:19] Voice 15: um i'm wondering if you can provide an overview i'm not sure it's possible for you to do it but

[2:15:25] Voice 15: i'm going to ask you to provide if you can an overview of the province's approach or strategy

[2:15:31] Voice 15: with respect to um uh co-management of um the various coastal issues that you are concerned

[2:15:38] Voice 15: with co-management with first nations um obviously a lot of these projects are you're working

[2:15:45] Voice 15: working together with First Nations. But I'm kind of curious about the approach or the strategy or

[2:15:51] Voice 15: the theory behind it in terms of, you know, there's cooperation and then there's co-management,

[2:15:57] Voice 15: you know, if you have any thoughts about the differences between those two things. And the

[2:16:01] Voice 15: reason I'm asking is I'm interested in the potential for the trust to learn useful things

[2:16:06] Voice 15: about relationship building because we've been treading water on that for a long time and we're

[2:16:14] Voice 15: We're trying hard and we're moving ahead in increments, but it'd be helpful if, you know, if there are some clues about how we could accelerate the process.

[2:16:22] Voice 15: And kind of related to that, I'm wondering if there are any developments on the co-management, cooperative front, but mostly on the more formal co-management front in the trust area itself.

[2:16:36] Voice 15: Thank you.

[2:16:37] Voice 13: Okay.

[2:16:39] Voice 13: That's a good question.

[2:16:40] Voice 13: And I'll try and expand on that as I go through the next slides because it's sort of integrated into the work that we're doing, Trustee Bernardo.

[2:16:51] Voice 13: So maybe I'll go through some more detail on the projects and I'll try and like describe to your question, I'll describe how we went about this with the nations.

[2:17:05] Voice 13: But then maybe before I start, like all of the things that we're talking about from now on in the presentation.

[2:17:11] Voice 13: we had probably like a good half a dozen, if not a more structured workshops with nations to flesh

[2:17:18] Voice 13: out the priorities. So then when we got to them, and when they start actually happening,

[2:17:24] Voice 13: there's no surprises. And there's already been a conversation about that manifesting, right? And so

[2:17:33] Voice 13: that is one thing that has been super useful, is then putting up that upfront time,

[2:17:40] Voice 13: convening people together talking about the priorities reporting out on them we

[2:17:45] Voice 13: in this case we did a report a priority setting report and we distributed that

[2:17:51] Voice 13: to the nations for comment and so by the time you get to the actual actions

[2:17:57] Voice 13: there's no it's no surprises it's all good news and there's sort of broader

[2:18:03] Voice 13: support for them so that's one thing that we've learned in both the

[2:18:06] Voice 13: development of the strategy itself but also in identifying the actions and this will make more

[2:18:11] Voice 13: sense when i go through some of the examples here um so uh just just to recap so there's a there's a

[2:18:19] Voice 13: bunch of individual projects that are distinct from each other they're being implemented by

[2:18:25] Voice 13: nations right now across the coast and they are covering a bunch of things that the coastal marine

[2:18:32] Voice 13: strategy says we ought to cover. On coastal monitoring and health, we are doing some training

[2:18:39] Voice 13: on kelp monitoring protocols so that we have a consistent and sort of systematic approach to

[2:18:48] Voice 13: kelp monitoring across all of coastal BC so we can understand distribution patterns and changes

[2:18:54] Voice 13: over time better, as well as support understanding what's going on in the kelp sort of ecosystems

[2:19:01] Voice 13: systems itself, to your point, Trustee, about the sea urchins. We have a number of restoration

[2:19:08] Voice 13: projects going on that are geared towards restoring salmon habitat and enhancing their

[2:19:17] Voice 13: overall survivalship. This is in conjunction with both stakeholders and First Nations

[2:19:25] Voice 13: operations across the coast. We have some targeted pollution prevention exercises going on,

[2:19:35] Voice 13: some specific funding to remove some smaller derelict vessels that have been jammed up on

[2:19:41] Voice 13: shorelines for some time and just needed that extra help to get some heavy machinery in there

[2:19:46] Voice 13: at a low tide to get stuff off the beaches. So this does two things that gets, you know,

[2:19:51] Voice 13: trash off the beach and some of them have you know deleterious substances on them that should

[2:19:58] Voice 13: be not in the intertidal zone but also opens up that space for other things access being one

[2:20:04] Voice 13: but also so recreation access and also some of these areas where we're shellfish harvesting

[2:20:11] Voice 13: areas that people weren't able to access we also have a broader initiative on the sunshine coast

[2:20:19] Voice 13: going on with regards to helping people get rid of old polystyrene floats in their coastal

[2:20:25] Voice 13: infrastructure, in particular people's dock structures. And so a challenge being local

[2:20:34] Voice 13: municipal landfill and the big foam blocks that take up a lot of space and they're hard to get

[2:20:40] Voice 13: rid of and deal with. And so we are supporting these big, what we're calling turn it in events

[2:20:46] Voice 13: where people can kind of organize and rally on specific days

[2:20:50] Voice 13: and get their stuff to depot points.

[2:20:53] Voice 13: And then basically we're working with Ocean Legacy Foundation

[2:20:58] Voice 13: to coordinate the logistics and just get barges in

[2:21:01] Voice 13: and big trucks in and get rid of it.

[2:21:03] Voice 13: So that's kind of happening throughout the summer

[2:21:06] Voice 13: on the Sunshine Coast in particular.

[2:21:08] Voice 13: And then we have some other programs with regards to more shoreline naturalization

[2:21:13] Voice 13: where we have areas that have been identified

[2:21:16] Voice 13: without having sort of high risk for erosion and erosion of habitats due to a variety of factors.

[2:21:23] Voice 13: And we're looking at rather than hard engineering, hard armoring,

[2:21:30] Voice 13: other sort of more nature-based solutions that have more long-term effectiveness

[2:21:35] Voice 13: and they're a little more geared towards enhancing and restoring the natural habitats

[2:21:41] Voice 13: that prevented that from happening in the first place.

[2:21:45] Voice 13: We also have a few projects going on around enhancing recreational accessibility and mapping information and knowledge exchange with regards to coastal tourism in general.

[2:22:01] Voice 13: that then support the local economy and then support more responsible local recreation and

[2:22:08] Voice 13: tourism in areas that have a high amount of like archaeological sites and traditional use sites

[2:22:15] Voice 13: where we can kind of just sort of steer people clear from those sensitive areas but also

[2:22:19] Voice 13: support an enjoyable experience. We have some specific effort going towards

[2:22:30] Voice 13: creating a more comprehensive vision of where we want to go with regards to both commercial

[2:22:36] Voice 13: aquatic plant harvest and the wild plant harvest and aquaculture. There's been a

[2:22:44] Voice 13: significant degree of interest in this here in BC. We do have a wild kelp harvest economy and a

[2:22:52] Voice 13: and a um americultural economy so uh but we haven't done a lot of like that visioning and

[2:23:00] Voice 13: that kind of broader strategic planning and around it at the same time so what does that

[2:23:04] Voice 13: look like we've been supporting some workshops for that as well and then doing some more

[2:23:09] Voice 13: operational um planning with um some nations not all around how to revitalize some of the

[2:23:17] Voice 13: traditional practices as it related to creating seafood gardens or commonly known as as clam

[2:23:24] Voice 13: gardens to enhance productivity in the beaches and shorelines so that picture there is i believe

[2:23:31] Voice 13: actually i don't really know where it is i think it's in coles bay and in packaging territory

[2:23:37] Voice 13: we were just there the other day actually participating in a community event to help

[2:23:42] Voice 13: build up the wall that then helps create or revitalize shellfish clam habitat in the beaches.

[2:23:54] Voice 13: One of the other things we are working on as well internally with existing staff is

[2:24:02] Voice 13: looking at which procedures, policies that we have in place now that were written with a land focus,

[2:24:09] Voice 13: but then we apply in the marine environment that's that's kind of

[2:24:12] Voice 13: typical right now of the BC sort of legislative and policy framework is that

[2:24:17] Voice 13: we have a lot of land-based policies and legislation that we then just apply in

[2:24:22] Voice 13: tidal waters because we didn't have a specific tidal water marine but we don't

[2:24:27] Voice 13: have marine legislation specifically but since we have a strategy now we can

[2:24:32] Voice 13: focus in on some of that stuff so our early focus now is on tuning up our

[2:24:38] Voice 13: aquatic plant harvest procedures and policies looking at improving our shoreline restoration

[2:24:45] Voice 13: policies to to enable authorizations to happen a little quicker we've run into some roadblocks

[2:24:55] Voice 13: there just with our existing constraints how the policy is written now and then looking at

[2:25:01] Voice 13: uh opportunities and options around poly the use of polystyrene in tidal waters

[2:25:08] Voice 13: and so this is foam floats for docks for marinas for you know seaplane marinas whatever

[2:25:15] Voice 13: um you know coastal coastal gas installations um it's using a whole bunch of marine infrastructure

[2:25:22] Voice 13: to be honest to keep it afloat uh and then you know what what are like at the same time

[2:25:30] Voice 13: it degrades and we got to clean it all up and that costs a lot of money too so we're looking at

[2:25:36] Voice 13: options to uh either uh yeah phase it out in particular is what the coastal marine strategy

[2:25:43] Voice 13: called for uh so those are the things we're kind of honing in on at the moment um and so in a little

[2:25:49] Voice 13: bit more detail what that looks like is um on the aquatic plants front we held a a pretty big

[2:25:57] Voice 13: workshop in early may uh to and we convened first nations from across all of coastal bc to help

[2:26:03] Voice 13: provide input into what that sort of broader aquatic plant vision would look like

[2:26:08] Voice 13: uh and to your point trustee around how do you how do you what are some of the things we learned to

[2:26:14] Voice 13: engage with nations that help move the dial is like just doing that really early is super helpful

[2:26:20] Voice 13: um like even you know sometimes you think if you had a blank slate it's not the best time but it

[2:26:26] Voice 13: It can be a really good time because you sketch it out,

[2:26:29] Voice 13: and if the workshop is, if you get the right facilitator

[2:26:32] Voice 13: and that kind of stuff, you can really get the key things

[2:26:35] Voice 13: that people want to be interested in,

[2:26:38] Voice 13: and then you can pull up and write it and then get feedback on that.

[2:26:42] Voice 13: And it's not a surprise. It's familiar, right?

[2:26:45] Voice 13: And so that's really helpful.

[2:26:48] Voice 13: That's how we approach the actual writing the Coastal Marine Strategy.

[2:26:51] Voice 13: and often you can get specific nation participants,

[2:26:57] Voice 13: usually just a small handful that will actually help you write it,

[2:27:01] Voice 13: and then that helps a lot as well.

[2:27:03] Voice 13: On the polystyrene front, we did a big policy scan.

[2:27:08] Voice 13: We met internally with various provincial ministries

[2:27:12] Voice 13: around who actually has the accountability and regulatory authority on this,

[2:27:16] Voice 13: and it's a little messy.

[2:27:18] Voice 13: We were looking at various options.

[2:27:21] Voice 13: Do we even have alternative suppliers for flotation and marine infrastructure available now?

[2:27:28] Voice 13: You know, last thing you want to do is phase it out and then no one can actually build an alternative.

[2:27:34] Voice 13: That doesn't get people too happy with us.

[2:27:36] Voice 13: So we've got to make sure all that is sort of sorted out.

[2:27:40] Voice 13: But the idea being that is in many jurisdictions, coastal jurisdictions are doing this,

[2:27:45] Voice 13: is that eventually you could sort of phase out the use entirely from tidal waters not entirely

[2:27:51] Voice 13: from construction at all but from using it in the marine environment is the focus and then the other

[2:27:59] Voice 13: thing that we're lurking on here is is on shoreline restoration permitting processes

[2:28:05] Voice 13: we've run into some challenges with our existing permitting and authorizations kind of like

[2:28:12] Voice 13: like, you know, scope of work and priorities and all that kind of stuff.

[2:28:16] Voice 13: And where does shoreline restoration fit amongst, you know,

[2:28:20] Voice 13: housing and this and that and major projects and all this kind of stuff.

[2:28:24] Voice 13: So you're kind of, we're looking at alternatives basically to ensure,

[2:28:29] Voice 13: you know, things are covered, insurance, liability and all that.

[2:28:32] Voice 13: But also we have really low risk, no brainer situations,

[2:28:36] Voice 13: what alternative authorizations process are available to us under,

[2:28:40] Voice 13: are you know that are legal and that could be a lot faster for people as well as improving our

[2:28:47] Voice 13: ability to communicate particularly with residents that live in the coastal areas on

[2:28:54] Voice 13: around upcoming and restoration efforts and shoreline restoration efforts and why

[2:29:00] Voice 13: and what kind of things are we looking at so we're looking at that from a couple different angles

[2:29:05] Voice 13: um so uh on on separately um we have a variety of of uh emergency and incident preparedness

[2:29:21] Voice 13: and response recovery planning going on the coast this is being done um largely in conjunction with

[2:29:28] Voice 13: many of the broader first nations councils and also um through particular agreements with the

[2:29:37] Voice 13: federal government, Transport Canada, Coast Guard, and mainly are the main leads for this kind of

[2:29:44] Voice 13: stuff. And so we have some agreements that are focused up north around anticipating increases

[2:29:51] Voice 13: in marine traffic. And we also have increases in marine traffic in the south. And are we ready for

[2:29:57] Voice 13: all that from a, from the perspective.

[2:30:00] Voice 13: of preparedness alerts response planning recovery planning and so we've we've moved the dock quite a

[2:30:07] Voice 13: bit up north on this and then there's going to be some renewed focus down south and making sure we

[2:30:14] Voice 13: have the right you know spill response infrastructure staged in the right places

[2:30:20] Voice 13: and the people trained to know how to use them all that stuff needs to be planned and and you

[2:30:26] Voice 13: You know, sort of the old adage that you plan for the worst and hope for the best kind of scenario.

[2:30:30] Voice 13: That's what the emergency management people do all the time.

[2:30:33] Voice 13: And so there's a huge amount of investment into this.

[2:30:36] Voice 13: And both by Canada and NBC.

[2:30:41] Voice 13: And Canada has just renewed some of that funding for the next five years.

[2:30:46] Voice 13: So that's really good news.

[2:30:47] Voice 13: So we'll be focusing on that as well.

[2:30:48] Voice 13: So we did wrap up some funding with regards to understanding the effects of, you know, climate change more broadly, but specifically like ocean acidification and hypoxia.

[2:31:05] Voice 13: So changing pH levels of the ocean and then changing oxygen levels of the ocean is having an impact on fish, shellfish, our ability to grow fish, grow shellfish.

[2:31:17] Voice 13: so trusty up in your and bane sound like there's a lot of focus there like can we

[2:31:22] Voice 13: continue to grow oysters you know are they is it too acidic do we need to think about moving

[2:31:28] Voice 13: elsewhere what are some other tech so there's a big investment into that there's um qr codes for

[2:31:35] Voice 13: for folks will and we'll also leave you with this presentation so you don't have to

[2:31:39] Voice 13: memorize everything uh and some of the so some of the qr codes will take you to more detailed

[2:31:45] Voice 13: detailed documents that have some really, really cool stuff with regards to ocean acidification,

[2:31:50] Voice 13: climate change here in BC, and has led to other interesting investments into local economies and

[2:32:00] Voice 13: various testbeds and using AI to monitor salmon and monitor shellfish growth rates, etc. So there's

[2:32:12] Voice 13: Recently, on the stewardship side, signed an agreement with Parks Canada, DFO, and six

[2:32:20] Voice 13: Central Coast nations to commit to establishing one of the largest marine protected areas

[2:32:26] Voice 13: in BC, the Central Coast, Mi'altoa, Alisa'ahum, Central Coast National Marine Conservation

[2:32:34] Voice 13: Area Reserve.

[2:32:36] Voice 13: So this is a pretty significant milestone in that process that sort of looks to integrate

[2:32:42] Voice 13: Great Bear Rainforest with the adjacent marine environment as well in partnership with the Six

[2:32:47] Voice 13: Nations in Canada and BC conserving around 7,000 square kilometers of marine area. What's

[2:32:56] Voice 13: interesting about this particular site is that it's geared towards sustainable use so you will

[2:33:03] Voice 13: have industries being able to use the area, you will have coastal tourism, you will have recreation.

[2:33:08] Voice 13: creation. I see some hands, so we are approaching the end of the presentation, so we'll have some

[2:33:16] Voice 13: conversation. So there's some more information online about that. I will say that we're,

[2:33:26] Voice 13: you know, continuing to do this all in the spirit of upholding our commitments around DRIPA and

[2:33:31] Voice 13: UNDRIP, and we've integrated much of the nation's processes within our process to support

[2:33:38] Voice 13: how we approach implementation and set priorities and we'll have reoccurring meetings to sort of

[2:33:46] Voice 13: to reinforce that and make sure we're on the right track. And to someone's point earlier on

[2:33:52] Voice 13: how we're going to do that, we have a couple of ideas and I'll sort of go over this quickly

[2:33:58] Voice 13: because I'm sure people will have questions, but we have some ideas around process where we have

[2:34:04] Voice 13: broader oversight what we're calling through a stewardship circle and these

[2:34:11] Voice 13: this idea here this would be a government to government process where

[2:34:14] Voice 13: we would convene various nations in the province together to provide overall

[2:34:20] Voice 13: guidance on broader themes and then we would we would you know they would meet

[2:34:26] Voice 13: infrequently maybe twice three times a year and then they would sort of set

[2:34:31] Voice 13: those priorities and we'd have to sort of delegate the work to more specialized

[2:34:34] Voice 13: what we're calling pods to do time bound kind of work and so this does two things one is it

[2:34:41] Voice 13: keeps everyone in the loop of what's going on so there's sort of that no surprises and

[2:34:47] Voice 13: we're all we're all singing from the same song sheet kind of thing and understand what the plan

[2:34:52] Voice 13: is but then also we can't everyone can't work together on everything we'll get nothing done

[2:34:58] Voice 13: done that way. So delegate time-bounce focus work to specific teams that have the expertise in that

[2:35:05] Voice 13: and they report back. And we can keep on doing that for individual topics. This could be things

[2:35:13] Voice 13: that could be at different scales. So for example, you know, this helps with keeping the relationship

[2:35:22] Voice 13: alive, but also, you know, keeps people informed, but doesn't replace, you know, our duty to consult.

[2:35:29] Voice 13: at the same time uh so that would be the stewardship circle model the pods would be

[2:35:34] Voice 13: intentionally small dive deeper into particular topic areas maybe work for like two three months

[2:35:41] Voice 13: on something right um and this is all under the kind of idea that we keep the keep momentum

[2:35:47] Voice 13: with strategy uh keep showing that we're doing good work um and um but we also recognize that

[2:35:55] Voice 13: you can't have a group of 50 people doing that all the time or 60 people, 70 people. It's too

[2:36:02] Voice 13: cumbersome. So that's our current thinking to keep implementation going and moving and moving

[2:36:11] Voice 13: the dial with the strategy and closing things off and starting new things. So that's the intention

[2:36:17] Voice 13: there. We can, I'm just sort of conscious of time here, so I'm moving through this part a little

[2:36:23] Voice 13: little bit quickly but we can circle back with violence trust if they want to do a deeper dive on

[2:36:27] Voice 13: process for this so that's i'll throw that out there now um so but some ideas on what a pod might

[2:36:34] Voice 13: you know focus in on it could be a specific things like how do we want to deal with um responding to

[2:36:42] Voice 13: you know abandoned boats in particular bays that are vessels of certain sizes like there are ways

[2:36:47] Voice 13: that we can go about doing that that are both consistent with the legal frameworks that we have

[2:36:53] Voice 13: have, but also would meet the needs of specific communities, for example.

[2:36:57] Voice 13: Or another one that's come forward is like, what are some practical ways we can deal with

[2:37:03] Voice 13: what we call 6PPD, which is this issue that's brewing around the degradation of tires, vehicles,

[2:37:13] Voice 13: entering our waterways and entering into the ocean and that being persistent in the ecosystems

[2:37:20] Voice 13: systems of a near shore environment. Tire dust is what we would call that. It's cumulatively a big

[2:37:28] Voice 13: deal. And when you factor in the scale of it, it's a pretty big deal. But it's also something we can

[2:37:35] Voice 13: look at, right? So there'd be a particular group that would be focused in on that.

[2:37:39] Voice 13: Maybe it's a call to action, come up with some practical recommendations back to the stewardship

[2:37:44] Voice 13: circle, for example. And then we loop back with everyone else. So meetings like this,

[2:37:55] Voice 13: local government meetings specifically, we have stakeholder meetings specifically,

[2:38:00] Voice 13: and then we're looking at engaging people on an ad hoc basis through conferences, invitations,

[2:38:08] Voice 13: et cetera, and also doing a little bit better with our government websites. That's a bit of

[2:38:13] Voice 13: of a challenge. I don't know if you've ever gone to the provincial websites lately, but they're a

[2:38:17] Voice 13: bit of a maze. And so we can, we are looking at ways that we can kind of provide sort of more

[2:38:24] Voice 13: approachable ways of communicating progress on this sort of stuff. So we do have a few more

[2:38:36] Voice 13: minutes for questions. There are some specific questions around there, ideas and thoughts on how

[2:38:42] Voice 13: how we are communicating and how we're planning on engaging.

[2:38:46] Voice 13: So I'll leave that with you there.

[2:38:48] Voice 13: But just to make sure you're aware of what we're doing next,

[2:38:52] Voice 13: we're testing out this sort of stewardship circle working pod process with nations now.

[2:39:00] Voice 13: And then we kind of want to do the same thing in more detail with stakeholder groups

[2:39:05] Voice 13: and local government groups to see if it resonates.

[2:39:08] Voice 13: The last thing you want to do is move forward on a process everyone hates.

[2:39:12] Voice 13: right? Or an idea. And so we want to make sure we're getting it right. And maybe we test it out

[2:39:17] Voice 13: for six months or something to see if it works. At the same time, we're continuing on with all

[2:39:23] Voice 13: that work that we're doing already. And then, and moving the dial on some of those, those

[2:39:30] Voice 13: priorities we've already identified to be the ones we want to focus on. So I'll open up to

[2:39:37] Voice 13: questions now. But just with this last final slide, here's a, you know, everyone that's involved in

[2:39:41] Voice 13: this process so please feel free to reach out at any time and we will uh we'll get back to you so

[2:39:48] Voice 13: i know there is a few minutes and a few more questions here and i'll stop sharing my screen

[2:39:54] Voice 13: well

[2:39:54] Voice 10: thank you before i open the floor you my chair plumber is just for that privilege i can

[2:39:58] Voice 10: speak english uh we are too guilty of focusing on land instead of the over 1300 kilometers

[2:40:06] Voice 10: in the islands trust and also might we are an agency of the province and i think in your

[2:40:13] Voice 10: your pod potentials that you put up there i see a couple that uh you know i've run into that we

[2:40:20] Voice 10: if there's opportunities to to to be at the table and is um when the province approves a marina to

[2:40:29] Voice 10: to update its facility uh it requires it requires the disposal of the docks but it doesn't follow

[2:40:35] Voice 10: up on that there's no you know cradle uh like the cradle uh tracking so those become

[2:40:42] Voice 10: problems in our areas they get you know out while they continue to shed

[2:40:46] Voice 10: styrofoam so that's you know an opportunity for us to work with the other is like the work that

[2:40:52] Voice 10: Pakachan is doing with the sea walls and the clam gardens is the aging septic systems that we have

[2:41:01] Voice 10: on the over 1300 kilometers of coastline that we have and how we could work more cooperatively to

[2:41:07] Voice 10: make sure those are being maintained or replaced or updated to keep the coast healthy so

[2:41:15] Voice 10: those are just two off the top of my head that we can collaborate on so you guys we are running

[2:41:21] Voice 10: any shortening questions so short question uh trustee peterson yeah

[2:41:28] Voice 21: thank you jaron thanks

[2:41:29] Voice 21: for bringing that up i see there's lots of synergy between interest uh in islands trust and and what

[2:41:34] Voice 21: this uh this was work looks like it's good to hear there's um some intersection and working

[2:41:41] Voice 21: together uh you know with the federal government i've been attending most of the ocean protection

[2:41:45] Voice 21: plan uh sessions there i have seen some provincial resident representation there on occasion um

[2:41:51] Voice 21: I'll try and be as brief as possible.

[2:41:54] Voice 21: One of the things that's stood out in our area, especially around marine spill prevention, is the lack of emergency towing capacity around Turnpoint, Sydney area.

[2:42:07] Voice 21: We have definitely advocated to the feds on that.

[2:42:12] Voice 21: I don't know. I'm not that aware of what level of interest the province has taken in sort of advocating for that kind of increased emergency towing capacity.

[2:42:23] Voice 21: And then, as you're probably aware, there's been a move from a number of organizations and local governments to ask the province to turn this great work into into with some legislative teeth.

[2:42:41] Voice 21: and so um i guess uh the questions well the short two questions would be uh one is around that

[2:42:49] Voice 21: advocacy uh for increased towing capacity with the feds and then uh the second is

[2:42:54] Voice 21: you know put you on the spot here but uh what do you think the likelihood is is that the province

[2:43:00] Voice 21: is going to uh crank out some legislation in relation to these important works yeah

[2:43:06] Voice 13: i'll i'll

[2:43:07] Voice 13: I'll try and be quick here.

[2:43:09] Voice 13: So I don't want to take that.

[2:43:11] Voice 13: I want to see what the questions are.

[2:43:13] Voice 13: So one, we can always be an advocate on the sort of emergency response measures.

[2:43:19] Voice 13: And in fact, I believe they are all integrated into the environmental certificates for TMX

[2:43:24] Voice 13: expansion, et cetera.

[2:43:26] Voice 13: And so that would be a thing that we just need to have the right people in the room

[2:43:32] Voice 13: to do that.

[2:43:33] Voice 13: And our environment staff are well poised for that.

[2:43:36] Voice 13: So I will follow up with them on that. I commit to doing that. And then on the second point, legislation is on our radar. It's just timing is off, I would be frank, right now to introduce something like that.

[2:43:51] Voice 13: um but it is i will say this is something that people have turning their minds to right and we

[2:43:58] Voice 13: are sort of looking at and what could that even look like you know um and so uh it's just that it

[2:44:06] Voice 13: it's one of those things that is in the strategy but it's one of those things that takes a bunch

[2:44:10] Voice 13: of time and we do need some dedicated resourcing for it to make it work you know um so uh yes so

[2:44:18] Voice 13: So, but, but the, and I'll say like continuing to remind us of the importance of that from

[2:44:24] Voice 13: your perspective is also important.

[2:44:28] Voice 10: All right.

[2:44:28] Voice 10: I know we are over time now.

[2:44:30] Voice 10: Trustee Ellen, do you have a short question that you can at least get on the record?

[2:44:34] Trustee Elliott: Sure.

[2:44:35] Trustee Elliott: So you mentioned the National Protected Marine Area in the Central Coast.

[2:44:41] Trustee Elliott: I'm wondering if there's progress on a conversation on the National Marine Protected

[2:44:47] Trustee Elliott: Area around here.

[2:44:49] Trustee Elliott: in these waters. And secondly, whether federal legislation, such as the C5 Building Canada Act,

[2:44:57] Trustee Elliott: which aims to get projects developed faster and to the coast for corridors of energy,

[2:45:05] Trustee Elliott: as well as the recently passed Bill 15, the Provincial Infrastructure Act, would have impacts

[2:45:15] Trustee Elliott: or would a marine protected area prevent infrastructure projects

[2:45:20] Trustee Elliott: from sort of landing on that coast?

[2:45:24] Voice 13: I have to, on the Southern Strait of Georgia proposal,

[2:45:26] Voice 13: I do have to defer to Parks Canada.

[2:45:29] Voice 13: They are leading that.

[2:45:31] Voice 13: It is their, you know, feasibility study.

[2:45:35] Voice 13: We participate in it.

[2:45:37] Voice 13: It's been going on for over 20 years, on and off, on and off,

[2:45:40] Voice 13: as folks probably know.

[2:45:41] Voice 13: and so right now it's sort of

[2:45:46] Voice 13: it's still in that feasibility stage and so whether or not

[2:45:50] Voice 13: Parks Canada will continue to fund that and continue to pursue it is

[2:45:53] Voice 13: kind of up to them so I can follow up with a contact

[2:45:58] Voice 13: there, a current contact and then I'll have to come

[2:46:02] Voice 13: back to you on the two infrastructure bills. Protected

[2:46:06] Voice 13: areas have their own legislation though. There are core minimum protection

[2:46:10] Voice 13: standards that are protected in legislation so it depends on the type of

[2:46:15] Voice 13: protected area that you're contemplating but yeah you can't just override it I'm

[2:46:21] Voice 13: not aware of that without amending a boundary for example to carve out space

[2:46:27] Voice 13: for that if that's something that would be done but there are like core you know

[2:46:33] Voice 13: no no-go activities within protected areas so it depends on the type of

[2:46:38] Voice 13: infrastructure. Yeah.

[2:46:40] Voice 10: All right. I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut the questions off here at

[2:46:44] Voice 10: Trustee Bernardo, but you did give us your contact information and I can tell you trustees like to

[2:46:50] Voice 10: contact and pass questions on. So I really want to thank Charlie Short and Kristen Morsley for

[2:46:57] Voice 10: being here today. One of our next bits of business is we are going to be sending, likely, if Trust

[2:47:04] Voice 10: council supports it more advocacy on asking for enshrining into law we know that it's a lot of

[2:47:09] Voice 10: work but uh uh we are we work closely with our our counterparts on san juan county and laws matter

[2:47:16] Voice 10: when it comes to marine uh environment and uh we'll be likely seeking support in that so thank

[2:47:24] Voice 10: you so much for being here today we really appreciate this work is close to heart with

[2:47:28] Voice 10: us and we want to be as helpful and a partner as we can in advocating for stronger coastal

[2:47:36] Voice 10: protection well

[2:47:38] Voice 13: thanks for having us and have a great rest of the afternoon all

[2:47:42] Voice 10: right thank you

[2:47:42] Voice 1: so much

[2:47:43] Voice 10: you would have had

[2:47:44] Voice 10: applause if you were in the room but uh you'll have to imagine it

[2:47:49] Voice 13: thank you take care everyone you

[2:47:51] Voice 10: bye-bye all right trustees i see it's 10 to noon i'm going

[2:47:57] Voice 10: going to return us keep us being a driver here on work and i know but i'm afraid we're going to

[2:48:04] Voice 10: start losing people if we don't so we're returning back in time in our agenda package to item 12.2.1

[2:48:12] Voice 10: on page 227 of the agenda package that's the first nation's referral procedures update uh the first

[2:48:21] Voice 10: nation's referral work plan a request for decision you had asked that we defer that until after we

[2:48:26] Voice 10: we had approved the Reconciliation Action Plan,

[2:48:28] Voice 10: which we have now done.

[2:48:31] Voice 10: So I don't know if Director Surmack is,

[2:48:33] Voice 10: Director Surmack is in his sun setting years

[2:48:36] Voice 10: and is here.

[2:48:39] Voice 10: If you'd like just to quickly reintroduce this

[2:48:42] Voice 10: and we'll see if there's more discussion

[2:48:43] Voice 10: or if we're gonna move right to the motion.

[2:48:47] Voice 14: Thank you, Chair.

[2:48:48] Voice 14: This would be me reintroducing my reintroduction.

[2:48:51] Voice 14: So I'm gonna resist the urge,

[2:48:53] Voice 14: even that your request you have before you,

[2:48:57] Voice 14: now you more understand the nesting doll effect of this particular work program within the Indigenous

[2:49:03] Voice 14: Relations Action Plan which you have approved and staff request that Trust Council endorse

[2:49:08] Voice 14: this work plan so we can get planning services staff can get on with it. Thanks.

[2:49:13] Voice 10: All right, trustees, did you have any outstanding questions? Trustee Elliott.

[2:49:18] Trustee Elliott: Thanks. My only outstanding question remains communication materials. So Action 9 relates

[2:49:26] Trustee Elliott: It relates to clear communication materials, re-referrals for applicants, public and LTCs. So it is in the plan. And I really appreciate that. I would just like confirmation that there will be a strong suite of communication tools when and as and when things change, that that is not just lost and happening.

[2:49:50] Trustee Elliott: happening, you know, but it, I know, you know, you've heard me speak on this, but just please

[2:49:57] Trustee Elliott: confirm that there's going to be a lot of communication about how our referral process

[2:50:02] Trustee Elliott: may change.

[2:50:06] Voice 14: Through the chair, certainly that is the intent. And we will, you know, we hear you

[2:50:13] Voice 14: clearly and we agree with you that first of all, make sure that we understand it internally and

[2:50:19] Voice 14: and we'll communicate it at words radiating from there

[2:50:21] Voice 14: as we go along.

[2:50:22] Voice 14: Maybe a bit slower, Trustee Elliott,

[2:50:24] Voice 14: than perhaps you're envisioning.

[2:50:26] Voice 14: We're not ready to sort of blitz

[2:50:28] Voice 14: a lot of communication out there,

[2:50:29] Voice 14: but we will definitely develop communications

[2:50:33] Voice 14: as the processes change and make sure that there's access

[2:50:35] Voice 14: to that information everywhere.

[2:50:37] Voice 14: And we'll share it out through all our known networks

[2:50:39] Voice 14: as much as possible.

[2:50:40] Voice 14: Although I will note that we don't have

[2:50:42] Voice 14: really much funds here.

[2:50:44] Voice 14: So we'll be tuning into funds and staffing resources

[2:50:48] Voice 14: resources as much as available so one step at a time but yes we definitely understand the

[2:50:52] Voice 14: communications aspect and we will ensure that that's um uh done accordingly and of course we'll

[2:50:57] Voice 14: be reporting back on a regular basis via the relationship relations action plan so um if it's

[2:51:03] Voice 14: not being done well enough you can make sure it's done better at that point um

[2:51:09] Voice 10: trustee over uh

[2:51:11] Voice 9: I'm

[2:51:12] Voice 9: prepared to make the motion there's

[2:51:14] Voice 10: no further questions which I don't see any coming up then

[2:51:18] Voice 10: then go ahead and make the motion.

[2:51:20] Voice 9: Thank you, with pleasure.

[2:51:23] Voice 9: I move that council endorse

[2:51:25] Voice 9: the First Nations Referral Work Plan

[2:51:26] Voice 9: as attached in attachment A.

[2:51:32] Voice 10: All right, is there a second?

[2:51:33] Voice 10: Seconded by Trustee Peterson.

[2:51:34] Voice 10: Any discussion?

[2:51:36] Voice 10: Not seeing any discussion, I'm gonna call the vote.

[2:51:42] Voice 10: All those in favor, please raise your hands.

[2:51:45] Voice 10: I

[2:51:50] Voice 7: see 12 in favor, sorry,

[2:51:54] Voice 10: 13 in favor.

[2:51:56] Voice 7: right uh

[2:51:56] Voice 10: lower your hands any opposed and

[2:52:07] Voice 7: for abstain 13

[2:52:10] Voice 10: in favor far abstain not opposed that

[2:52:12] Voice 10: carries thank you trustees and uh we're looking forward to seeing those referrals uh get improved

[2:52:20] Voice 10: and uh and really uh do with their the point when we refer it's not just paperwork and check marks

[2:52:27] Voice 10: it's more serious and I'm glad to see this work happening.

[2:52:32] Voice 10: All right, we're moving on now to item 13.2.10.

[2:52:38] Voice 10: Sorry to be jumping around the agenda,

[2:52:40] Voice 10: but that's what happens on Thursdays.

[2:52:42] Voice 10: We are now at page 589 in the agenda package

[2:52:46] Voice 10: and this follows on our presentation that we just saw.

[2:52:49] Voice 10: This is the British Columbia Coastal Marine Strategy

[2:52:52] Voice 10: Request for Decision.

[2:52:54] Voice 10: Director Frater.

[2:52:55] Voice 10: or

[2:52:56] Voice 23: yes i can simply introduce this is coming to you at the request of the executive committee

[2:53:00] Voice 23: um suggesting that there be advocacy to the ministry of waterland and resource stewardship

[2:53:06] Voice 23: um to have the coastal marine strategy enshrined into law um other local governments have taken

[2:53:12] Voice 23: this on as an advocacy piece and i would expect that staff advice to the chair would to be model

[2:53:17] Voice 23: after the messaging um put forward by those local governments all

[2:53:23] Voice 10: right yes that's a we we have seen

[2:53:26] Voice 10: a number of letters from a number of municipalities on on this so uh trustee yates i'm

[2:53:33] Voice 18: just so happy

[2:53:33] Voice 18: to have had that presentation and i'd be pleased to make the motion go

[2:53:38] Voice 10: ahead thank

[2:53:39] Voice 18: you i move that

[2:53:42] Voice 18: islands trust council write a letter to the minister of water lands and resource stewardship

[2:53:47] Voice 18: advocating that the british columbia coastal marine strategy be enshrined into law

[2:53:52] Voice 18: Is

[2:53:54] Voice 10: there a second? Seconded by Trustee Mordewijk. Is there any discussion? Not seeing any, I'm going to call the vote. All those in favor, please raise your hands.

[2:54:07] Voice 10: I'm going to say 14.

[2:54:18] Voice 10: All right, lower your hands. Any opposed?

[2:54:31] Voice 7: Three abstain.

[2:54:34] Voice 10: All right, so three abstain, none opposed. What did you say, 13 in favor?

[2:54:41] Voice 7: 14 in favor.

[2:54:43] Voice 10: for that carries all right trustees it is now uh just almost noon and i'm very cognizant that

[2:54:51] Voice 10: we've gone for a while we can keep on running forward we are at item 17 in the agenda which

[2:54:57] Voice 10: is the final uh part of the agenda so i'm just looking to trustees and looking to staff do we

[2:55:04] Voice 10: need a break for a little bit or do we want to just keep powering through it no

[2:55:11] Trustee Fast: uh trustee board

[2:55:13] Voice 10: um

[2:55:13] Voice 20: i have a very brief question just in light of last vote and abstentions and quorum and all

[2:55:22] Voice 20: these things and obviously i know that it's a long meeting we're doing all the things but i

[2:55:28] Voice 20: noticed that today we've not gone above 16 members um and i i i know we're staff for we've got a

[2:55:37] Voice 20: policy in terms of if you're gonna step out you need to let people know we know obviously that

[2:55:42] Voice 20: that hasn't always happened this meeting. I am a little bit, I just wanted to sort of very quickly

[2:55:47] Voice 20: ask of Director Marler, I think, in terms of counting as having attended Trust Council

[2:55:54] Voice 20: for the purposes of attendance rules, is it sufficient for you to check in for an hour or two

[2:56:03] Voice 20: and day two and not be there the rest of the time? I know this is an authority thing and I don't mean

[2:56:09] Voice 20: to open a whole thing but i i just for my own clarity it's it's frustrating to have

[2:56:16] Voice 20: you know 10 trustees not here uh and and for us not to know when people are in the room

[2:56:21] Voice 20: um extensions obviously happen legitimately it's hard to know um yeah well

[2:56:29] Voice 10: uh i can say trustee

[2:56:30] Voice 10: trustee forthwick you know we've all noted this and uh thank you for uh for putting uh making it

[2:56:37] Voice 10: a public statement during this meeting um we have noticed that and i'll look to director marler yeah

[2:56:44] Voice 7: there's actually two responses to that the first one is the legislative requirement so uh when it

[2:56:49] Voice 7: counts that you've attended the meeting there is no minimum so um if you come to the meeting and

[2:56:57] Voice 7: and then leave and been recorded as being here then i believe that would be enough but be up

[2:57:03] Voice 7: to council to feel that that isn't fair to challenge that in court but as far as i know

[2:57:09] Voice 7: that that currently is the way it is it's just no nothing in legislation says how long you have

[2:57:16] Voice 7: been in the meeting the second answer is the new um policy on remuneration uh so i don't know if

[2:57:24] Voice 7: this is in fact right now but probably not until next term i think it's april next fiscal yeah

[2:57:29] Voice 7: Yeah. So effective April next fiscal, the remuneration for Trust Council will be tied to attendance.

[2:57:39] Voice 7: And in that policy, it will say that if you're at a meeting that's, say, the whole day, you have to attend at least half of that meeting to get the remuneration for that meeting.

[2:57:52] Voice 7: meeting. And if you don't, then your remuneration will be docked. I think it's $800 for a full

[2:57:59] Voice 7: day meeting and $400 for a half day meeting. And if you're in a meeting that's less than

[2:58:04] Voice 7: a half a day or a half day or less, then you would still have to attend 50% of it to get

[2:58:10] Voice 7: paid or get docked, I think $400. That's just to do with Trust Council. So I think through

[2:58:17] Voice 7: through that policy trying to address it from a financial incentive i will see how well that works

[2:58:23] Voice 10: and uh and just uh trustee barthwick we had already identified i'd ask that for the next

[2:58:27] Voice 10: executive committee meeting that we we discussed this and executive committee may decide to take

[2:58:33] Voice 10: action and the individuals could also appeal to the trust council if if they aren't happy

[2:58:39] Voice 10: with any decision executive committee makes but uh we are aware that this uh doesn't look good

[2:58:47] Voice 10: I'll be frank. We are elected for a four-year term. We have a job. We're supposed to be at

[2:58:54] Voice 10: these meetings. Trustees, are we going to discuss this quickly? Otherwise, we need to move on to

[2:58:59] Voice 10: the agenda. Trustee Boland?

[2:59:03] Voice 19: I personally think, and I've raised it in the past.

[2:59:06] Voice 19: Point

[2:59:06] Trustee Elliott: of order, Chair. This is not a discussion for right now. We still have business to conduct,

[2:59:12] Trustee Elliott: please uh

[2:59:13] Voice 10: thank you for calling a point of order and i i agree i think if you if we could hold i

[2:59:17] Voice 10: i assume your hands are raising on similar issues it has been noticed it will be discussed at the

[2:59:23] Voice 10: executive committee if you have strong feelings can you reach out to your vice chair that you have

[2:59:28] Voice 10: a relationship with and make your feelings known uh before our next meeting which is

[2:59:38] Voice 19: I'm not commenting on anything in particular other than saying we should do a show of hands

[2:59:45] Voice 19: for abstentions and I've asked for that before it shouldn't be just by default thank you all right

[2:59:54] Voice 10: well it's always a you're you're entitled I have abstained personally on many because I'm trying

[3:00:00] Voice 10: to be unbiased in my chairing of the motion of the meeting here today that's uh

[3:00:04] Voice 19: i'm not i'm not

[3:00:06] Voice 19: asking it's not it's not an honesty thing it's to do with counting people who may be absent on video

[3:00:14] Voice 19: and they're counted as an extension on the basis of an add and subtract and i don't think that's

[3:00:21] Voice 19: good in these circumstances thank you thank you

[3:00:24] Voice 10: trustee getty are you a different topic or

[3:00:28] Voice 22: slightly different it's the what's left on the agenda so i had a motion and a letter with respect

[3:00:35] Voice 22: to um section 18 that's

[3:00:38] Voice 10: the very next thing on the agenda so uh i we're back to we've we're

[3:00:43] Voice 10: going to power through is that the decision on everybody uh when a break is needed uh please uh

[3:00:49] Voice 10: please wave because then we'll we'll just keep going so we are at um um well new business sorry

[3:00:55] Voice 10: we had item 17 which was the new business item um that uh was introduced by uh trustee elliott

[3:01:03] Voice 10: uh trustee yates did you have a question no

[3:01:07] Voice 18: it's okay it's covered thank you uh

[3:01:10] Voice 10: so we are at item

[3:01:11] Voice 10: 17 which was the new business item uh trustee elliott

[3:01:17] Voice 3: thank

[3:01:18] Trustee Elliott: you chair um i won't take too long

[3:01:21] Trustee Elliott: and i have sent a motion a draft motion in uh for consideration um uh thank you for considering this

[3:01:30] Trustee Elliott: late item of business it's the result of two pieces of legislation that

[3:01:38] Trustee Elliott: uh concern me as i've been following the federal legislation c5 the building canadas act

[3:01:44] Trustee Elliott: which is going to allow the government to streamline federal approval processes for

[3:01:50] Trustee Elliott: major projects um and then following that um a b bill 15 received royal assent uh in late may

[3:01:59] Trustee Elliott: which is the provincial infrastructure projects act which can land um projects which i assume

[3:02:07] Trustee Elliott: would be potentially the federal projects deemed in the national interest um potentially on the

[3:02:15] Trustee Elliott: the coast for export to other markets. In that bill, there's several parts that relate to requests

[3:02:28] Trustee Elliott: to vary requirements, expeditious completion of designated projects, and to conduct consultations

[3:02:36] Trustee Elliott: for removal of constraints. And basically, there's a lot of language in that that concerns me. I

[3:02:42] Trustee Elliott: I don't understand the implications of this kind of bill.

[3:02:47] Trustee Elliott: Staff have noted that it has not yet come into force.

[3:02:50] Trustee Elliott: It comes into force by regulations, and the regulations are not yet published.

[3:02:57] Trustee Elliott: And so my understanding is, please correct me if I'm wrong, that the bill is not, or

[3:03:03] Trustee Elliott: sorry, the Act is active, it's received in real assent, but it's not in force by regulations.

[3:03:10] Trustee Elliott: So my questions to the provincial government are, or would be, what regulations and environmental checks might proponents be exempted from? What sort of projects could be expedited or fast-tracked to the coast? And what are those implications for the coastline?

[3:03:31] Trustee Elliott: and how might they require local governments with planning authorities in the coastal areas

[3:03:36] Trustee Elliott: to expedite their processes? Sort of what series of overrides would that have for our own

[3:03:43] Trustee Elliott: legislation? So in considering this, I was looking at two actions, asking staff to engage with the

[3:03:55] Trustee Elliott: province on the implications of bill 15 and then following on that some advocacy to you know with

[3:04:01] Trustee Elliott: respect to the islands trust act so i've gotten some advice and i don't know if alexandra you

[3:04:07] Trustee Elliott: could bring up the draft motion that we could just get that on the floor and debate it so advice was

[3:04:15] Trustee Elliott: to um to work on the first piece that we would request staff to engage the province about the

[3:04:23] Trustee Elliott: infrastructure projects act to clarify the implications in the trust area and intentions

[3:04:28] Trustee Elliott: to respect the provincial islands trust mandate and then following on that sort of engagement

[3:04:34] Trustee Elliott: and more information about what the regular regulations actually are what kind of projects

[3:04:40] Trustee Elliott: or processes would potentially be enacted then we could dial up any advocacy that would be needed

[3:04:49] Trustee Elliott: once we've got some information so thank you to staff for helping me with um this piece of work

[3:04:59] Trustee Elliott: it's just i think things are moving very fast in the province and and federally with infrastructure

[3:05:05] Trustee Elliott: projects and i think our coastlines um have very different considerations than terrestrial

[3:05:12] Trustee Elliott: land-based projects as we've just heard in the in the presentation so i really want to make sure

[3:05:18] Trustee Elliott: that islands trust is is heard and is at the table and at the at our all

[3:05:25] Voice 10: right thank you before i

[3:05:25] Voice 10: open the floor i'm going to turn to ceo brony um the we are all we're respecting the no new work

[3:05:32] Voice 10: but uh is is this type of work captured in that or how do you feel about uh an instruction of this

[3:05:41] Voice 10: um thank you chair i think i think a staff to staff preliminary engagement

[3:05:47] Voice 6: is manageable um

[3:05:49] Voice 6: You know, and then the broader advocacy piece would have to be a conversation about what that might look like if it was necessary.

[3:05:55] Voice 6: But I think we can incorporate this into kind of our regular business of engaging with Robin at a set level.

[3:06:02] Voice 6: So I can't commit to you on a specific timeline, but while connecting with Director Crater in particular, we'll talk about the best way to undertake that.

[3:06:12] Voice 6: But, you know, I think we can at least do that additional outreach.

[3:06:16] Voice 6: All

[3:06:16] Voice 10: right. Thank you.

[3:06:17] Voice 10: So there's two questions, hands up, if we can relate to understanding of the motion that's been presented, I'd appreciate that.

[3:06:24] Voice 10: And then we can get it on the floor for debate.

[3:06:26] Voice 10: Trustee Yates?

[3:06:29] Voice 18: I think I understand it.

[3:06:31] Voice 18: And I was just worried whether we can do this.

[3:06:34] Voice 18: And it sounds like we can.

[3:06:36] Voice 18: It's really important.

[3:06:36] Voice 18: Thank you.

[3:06:37] Voice 10: Thank you.

[3:06:38] Voice 10: Trustee Getty?

[3:06:39] Voice 10: um

[3:06:40] Voice 22: this was one of the um points that was raised with my sea to sky in terms of the potential

[3:06:47] Voice 22: expansion of the um oh what is it called eagle mountain uh pipeline um out of uh around squamish

[3:06:58] Voice 22: in terms of the lng so um this was you know it's been hard enough with the the um what's called the

[3:07:06] Voice 22: a small project and if they're going to double or triple it then it becomes you know part of the

[3:07:10] Voice 22: federal uh infrastructure expediting approval process and um the province as well so that's

[3:07:17] Voice 22: certainly within our radar and i would be supporting this um getting more as much information

[3:07:23] Voice 22: as we can in terms of what uh the regulations are going to look like and what intentions might be

[3:07:28] Voice 22: in terms of the area i mean how up in squamish it's not directly bowen island but it's certainly

[3:07:34] Voice 22: house sound all right

[3:07:36] Voice 10: thank you so trustee elliot let's get the motion

[3:07:38] Voice 10: on the floor

[3:07:39] Voice 10: thank

[3:07:41] Trustee Elliott: you i move that islands trust council requests staff to engage the province about

[3:07:46] Trustee Elliott: the infrastructure projects act to clarify the implications in the trust area and intentions

[3:07:52] Trustee Elliott: to respect the provincial islands trust mandate is

[3:07:56] Voice 10: there a second seconded by trustee yates any

[3:07:59] Voice 10: discussion do you wish to speak further to a trustee i think elliot i think you introduced

[3:08:04] Voice 10: it so any discussion trustee aids yes

[3:08:07] Voice 18: thank you trustee elliott for bringing this forward i've

[3:08:10] Voice 18: been really concerned about this from a number of different friends of mine who work at ubc

[3:08:15] Voice 18: at sfu on the board of the watershed sentinel um everybody's raising alarms for coastal marine

[3:08:22] Voice 18: environments so thank you very much i hope we can find out some more information thank you trustee

[3:08:29] Voice 10: Bolin followed by Bernardo.

[3:08:34] Voice 19: I'm, you know, I'm in favor of protecting the coastal marine

[3:08:38] Voice 19: environment, but I am also in favor of Canada and British Columbia becoming more economically

[3:08:46] Voice 19: viable. So my question would be, is there evidence that the province will not consult the trust

[3:08:55] Voice 19: and we'll, you know, railroad through the trust area.

[3:08:59] Voice 19: I just find that we're inclined to assume the worst

[3:09:03] Voice 19: and it's not necessarily always true.

[3:09:08] Voice 19: And I don't object to engage with the province about it,

[3:09:12] Voice 19: but I think the province has been engaging with us.

[3:09:15] Voice 19: I've certainly seen a lot of information about this

[3:09:18] Voice 19: and about the plans.

[3:09:20] Voice 19: And I don't assume the worst, basically.

[3:09:24] Voice 19: Thank you.

[3:09:26] Voice 6: Sue, probably.

[3:09:27] Voice 6: Yeah, thank you to the chair.

[3:09:29] Voice 6: I think I wouldn't say there has been any indication necessarily that they that they

[3:09:33] Voice 6: won't engage with the trust.

[3:09:36] Voice 6: But I know there has been some concern raised by UBC and others around the specifics of

[3:09:41] Voice 6: how this would proceed.

[3:09:41] Voice 6: The province has in its communication has at least when they initially introduced this

[3:09:47] Voice 6: indicated that their focus was on infrastructure projects such as schools, hospitals and those

[3:09:52] Voice 6: kind of things but there is also an acknowledgement that it could be other designated projects

[3:09:57] Voice 6: that may be initiated by the province could be initiated by crown corporations even first

[3:10:02] Voice 6: nations or local governments themselves and so they have left that well they've focused on

[3:10:07] Voice 6: what you might call uh you know building infrastructure they have left that capacity open

[3:10:13] Voice 6: under the legislation for it to be something broader which is why there's a lot of concern

[3:10:18] Voice 6: certain speculation around this they did do some engagement earlier this spring around what an

[3:10:24] Voice 6: expedited environmental assessment process as a component of this and so i think that will be

[3:10:29] Voice 6: probably part of the regulations that come forward and i think that's where some of the

[3:10:33] Voice 6: concern is coming from so the short answer is no they haven't necessarily indicated that they

[3:10:38] Voice 6: wouldn't engage with us it's just not clear what that looks like and what an expedited process

[3:10:42] Voice 6: might look like and so you know this is really just asking the asking the question of provincial

[3:10:47] Voice 6: staff of you know can you give us some sense of what that what the impact might be and and the

[3:10:53] Voice 6: extent to which you would engage with us on these projects

[3:10:56] Voice 10: thank you uh trustee bernardo the best

[3:11:00] Voice 15: uh thank you um the ceo's remarks not just the most recent ones but the the initial ones in

[3:11:08] Voice 15: response to the workload question uh those persuade me that um this can be done without

[3:11:16] Voice 15: overly burdening the staff or drawing away from our resources so i can support it and i will

[3:11:21] Voice 15: but i i want us to be very clear about some things here because i i wouldn't say otherwise

[3:11:28] Voice 15: if something like this required any meaningful draw on staff resources um the risk is there

[3:11:36] Voice 15: but um at the moment it's abstract and so with respect to addressing risks or engaging in any

[3:11:42] Voice 15: kind of meaningful advocacy i i i would strongly favor a wait and see approach to see what kind of

[3:11:49] Voice 15: concrete issue emerges or doesn't uh in the circumstances a general inquiry of the province

[3:11:56] Voice 15: fine even a letter expressing concerns and advocacy okay not a big deal but any serious

[3:12:02] Voice 15: heavy lifting in terms of devoting staff time to advocacy and things like that i wouldn't think

[3:12:08] Voice 15: it's appropriate now thank you thank

[3:12:11] Voice 6: you uh go ahead see i'm running thank you through the chair

[3:12:13] Voice 6: and i think just on that point uh the trustee brother was raised i also i would anticipate

[3:12:17] Voice 6: quite likely the response that you will get to this initial outreach is yes we've considered

[3:12:22] Voice 6: that and stay tuned you know and we'll provide more information in due course to all local

[3:12:27] Voice 6: governments including islands trust around what the regulation will look like when it gets closer

[3:12:32] Voice 6: so i don't i wouldn't anticipate an extremely detailed response um but it doesn't hurt to

[3:12:37] Voice 6: ask the question all right so trustee bass uh

[3:12:42] Trustee Fast: thank you i'm in uh favor of this uh motion i'll

[3:12:45] Trustee Fast: be i'll be voting in favor i think um you don't want to wait too long because you i'm as a third

[3:12:53] Trustee Fast: term trustee i recall several occasions when the islands trust has just been overlooked in uh

[3:13:00] Trustee Fast: provincial outreach and uh when things are moving fast you want to be on the list early and uh it

[3:13:07] Trustee Fast: it sounds like this is a reasonable thing to do

[3:13:10] Trustee Fast: and it's in line with so much of the advocacy

[3:13:12] Trustee Fast: around clean, healthy waters

[3:13:15] Trustee Fast: that the trust has done over the years.

[3:13:18] Trustee Fast: So I'm in favor.

[3:13:19] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[3:13:20] Trustee Fast: All right.

[3:13:21] Voice 10: Not seeing any other speakers on the speakers list.

[3:13:24] Voice 10: I'm going to call the vote on the motion

[3:13:26] Voice 10: at request staff to engage the province

[3:13:28] Voice 10: about Infrastructure Projects Act

[3:13:30] Voice 10: to clarify the implications in the trust area

[3:13:33] Voice 10: and intentions to respect

[3:13:34] Voice 10: the provincial island trust mandate.

[3:13:36] Voice 10: all those in favor please raise your hands 11 right lower your hand 12 12 lower your hands

[3:13:55] Voice 10: any opposed i

[3:14:00] Voice 7: see two opposed online right okay so that means three abstain three abstentions

[3:14:08] Voice 10: two opposed uh 12 in favor that carries all right so thank you uh trustee elliott for bringing that

[3:14:17] Voice 10: to us and i'm now going to move on to item 18 which is the disposition of delegations public

[3:14:23] Voice 10: comment and correspondence i know there's been a number of motions that have been submitted so i

[3:14:29] Voice 10: think we'll go in the order that they were received so alexander if you could just put

[3:14:33] Voice 10: them up on the screen and we'll see who's first to introduce it would be trustee getty and just

[3:14:40] Voice 10: comment right all right trustee getty you're first up

[3:14:43] Voice 22: okay so this is in response to the letter that

[3:14:48] Voice 22: We received five point something or other from My Sea to Sky asking questions of the province in terms of, sorry, no, requesting the chair to write to the BC Energy Regulator expressing strong concern about seeking an update regarding FortisBC's reported extended non-compliance with its waste discharge permit for the Eagle Mountain Pipeline and associated impacts to how sound.

[3:15:20] Voice 4: So,

[3:15:21] Voice 22: this is drafted in terms of seeking update regarding reported extended noncompliance, and that was to meet with concern that was raised by Trustee Bernardo.

[3:15:36] Voice 10: All right. So,

[3:15:37] Voice 5: understanding of the motion

[3:15:38] Voice 10: that's on the screen, Trustee Peterson?

[3:15:42] Voice 21: Yeah, I appreciate that, and I think it's worthy of Trust Council taking some action on this.

[3:15:48] Voice 21: I was reviewing the direct request, which was around sending a letter to provincial, federal, and Squamish nation governments, the failure to comply.

[3:16:04] Voice 21: And I mean, I think I'm in favor of opposing any amendments that increase the permits, the discharge levels in the existing permit.

[3:16:22] Voice 21: So I'd kind of like to see a slightly stronger, at least the letter being written a little stronger.

[3:16:30] Voice 21: I don't know if that needs to be reflected in the motion, but just noting that.

[3:16:33] Voice 21: Well,

[3:16:34] Voice 10: thank you. That direction could be made, I guess, in the minutes. Trustee Bernardo, on the intent of the motion?

[3:16:40] Voice 15: Yeah, I just wanted to point out, I just want to thank Trustee Getty for the wording of this motion.

[3:16:45] Voice 15: I think it's an appropriate response to what is a claim that's being made by an advocacy group.

[3:16:53] Voice 15: I mean, you can't take anything at face value, and I think this is the appropriate inquiry, expressing a concern, seeking an update.

[3:17:02] Voice 15: uh and i think it'd be premature to proceed in the direction that trustee peterson would prefer

[3:17:08] Voice 15: which is simply take a stance opposing it we don't know what the meaning of those numbers

[3:17:14] Voice 15: actually is we need to hear from the province about it so i'd be happy to support this uh

[3:17:19] Voice 15: this motion um

[3:17:21] Voice 10: the motion's not been made yet so uh trustee peterson or what are

[3:17:25] Voice 10: or yeah

[3:17:28] Voice 21: i just wanted to note that uh um you know the the company itself has has self-reported

[3:17:35] Voice 21: its exceedance of of its permit so i don't think there's uh there's speculation there when the

[3:17:41] Voice 21: company itself is is uh has reported on itself um so i'm not sure that i agree with the the

[3:17:50] Voice 21: the trustee's assessment there.

[3:17:53] Voice 10: Okay, I think we're generally debating the motion here.

[3:17:56] Voice 10: So can I, trustees, do you have questions

[3:17:58] Voice 10: on the intent of the motion?

[3:18:00] Voice 10: Otherwise, I'd like to get it made.

[3:18:03] Voice 10: So Trustee Yates, did you have a question?

[3:18:07] Voice 10: I see you're willing to second it, Trustee Fass,

[3:18:10] Voice 10: but we need to get the motion made.

[3:18:11] Voice 18: Yeah, I know.

[3:18:12] Voice 18: Well, I agree with Trustee Peterson.

[3:18:15] Voice 18: Anderson, we, that's not just some, you know, somebody, an advocacy group saying this, the company itself has self-reported an exceedance of emissions. So it's, that's very serious. I'd like to see stronger wording, but I'm happy to support this one if it's all we can do.

[3:18:36] Voice 10: Trustee Getty, are you ready to make the motion?

[3:18:40] Voice 22: Sure. But for clarification, the company has said that they brought in more scrubbing equipment and we don't have any documentation or reply or sorry, numbers from that. And that's the regulator is supposed to be keeping track of that. So that's why we're trying to get this update.

[3:18:56] Voice 10: Go ahead and

[3:18:57] Voice 1: make your motion, Trustee Getty.

[3:18:59] Voice 22: Okay. I move that the Islands Trust Council request the chair to write to the BC Energy Regulator expressing strong concern about and seeking an update regarding FortisBC's reported extended non-compliance with its waste discharge permit for the Eagle Mountain Pipeline and associated impacts to Howe Sound.

[3:19:18] Trustee Fast: All right. That

[3:19:19] Trustee Fast: was seconded by Trustee

[3:19:20] Voice 10: Fast, I believe, is the seconder. Beat you there, Trustee Yates. Is there any discussion?

[3:19:25] Voice 10: I'm going to call

[3:19:30] Voice 1: the vote, then all those in

[3:19:31] Voice 10: favor, please raise your hands.

[3:19:33] Voice 10: Okay, that's 13.

[3:19:42] Voice 10: Lower your hands. Any opposed?

[3:19:51] Voice 7: Not opposed. And that means three are abstaining.

[3:19:55] Voice 7: 13 in

[3:19:55] Voice 10: favor, three abstaining. So that's carried. Trustee Getty?

[3:20:00] Voice 22: I got a draft letter for you. I'll forward that too.

[3:20:02] Voice 10: Thank you. That's always appreciated.

[3:20:06] Voice 10: I

[3:20:06] Voice 22: can't take credit for it, though. Claire helped enormously.

[3:20:10] Voice 22: All

[3:20:11] Voice 10: right, Trustee Peterson, do you have a question?

[3:20:14] Voice 21: Yeah, I'm glad to see some action taken, and I support the action.

[3:20:19] Voice 21: What I'm wondering about from staff perspective is, let's assume we get a reply and that the reply causes additional concern.

[3:20:32] Voice 21: CERN. I'm just wondering about the ability of Islands Trust to sort of follow up.

[3:20:42] Voice 21: Well, I think,

[3:20:43] Voice 21: you know, good

[3:20:44] Voice 10: question, but I think we can wait till we receive the reply and

[3:20:47] Voice 10: executive committee or whomever receives that reply will have to make that decision at that

[3:20:53] Voice 10: time. I'm going to keep things moving just because I know the time and I know everyone's going to

[3:20:59] Voice 10: need a break quickly if we take too much more time so this is trustee elliott's uh motion trustee

[3:21:05] Voice 10: elliott uh do you want to introduce no

[3:21:09] Trustee Elliott: we've already done this no oh i apologize this is

[3:21:12] Trustee Elliott: so long ago i forgot okay um i don't really need an introduction so yes this is the correspondence

[3:21:21] Trustee Elliott: requesting a letter of support um for the island coastal economic trust uh to uh to the province

[3:21:31] Trustee Elliott: to have strategic uh investment to shape economic development across the region um there is lots

[3:21:38] Trustee Elliott: that they have done and i do know that they're working on legislation with the province

[3:21:43] Trustee Elliott: uh being developed by the ministry of jobs and economic growth but i think lending our um

[3:21:49] Trustee Elliott: council support as many other local governments have to the importance of this um the other trust

[3:21:57] Trustee Elliott: and uh i i would just like to see that advance so without further ado i'll just make the motion

[3:22:05] Trustee Elliott: motion please yes i move that the islands trust council request the chair of trust council to

[3:22:11] Trustee Elliott: work with staff on a letter of support calling on the province to modernize the island coastal

[3:22:16] Trustee Elliott: economic trust, the strategic investment, and the legislative framework being developed to

[3:22:21] Trustee Elliott: support co-governance with First Nations.

[3:22:23] Voice 10: Is there a second? Second by Trustee Yates.

[3:22:27] Voice 10: Is there any discussion?

[3:22:32] Voice 1: So are we drafting? Are we sending a letter?

[3:22:38] Trustee Elliott: It's working on a letter.

[3:22:43] Voice 10: I think that's the intent. I think the intent is well known and the

[3:22:47] Voice 10: correspondence makes it very clear. So I

[3:22:49] Voice 6: think there would be little value in us drafting a

[3:22:52] Voice 6: letter and the intent wasn't yes

[3:22:53] Trustee Fast: i think

[3:22:54] Voice 6: it's implied that you said yeah like we're gonna

[3:22:59] Voice 10: we're gonna go with that uh trustee middleton thank

[3:23:04] Voice 2: you chair yeah i've just um to kind of be

[3:23:08] Voice 2: more direct and clear in language generally i think uh there's a bit of a theme uh what is

[3:23:14] Voice 2: strategic investment versus investment that

[3:23:19] Trustee Elliott: was the wording um of their own request so it was

[3:23:25] Trustee Elliott: was to modernize the trust with a strategic investment to shape economic development across

[3:23:32] Trustee Elliott: the region. So I'm just using the wording that they requested.

[3:23:36] Voice 2: So we don't know what it means

[3:23:38] Voice 2: then basically?

[3:23:40] Trustee Elliott: I think they've probably provided ample evidence of the kind of investment needed

[3:23:46] Trustee Elliott: through their First Nations strategic recommendations report and their independent

[3:23:51] Trustee Elliott: legislative review.

[3:23:52] Voice 2: I think it's okay to say no when we don't understand something. I would just

[3:23:56] Voice 2: and basically have that word removed then

[3:23:59] Voice 2: if it doesn't carry any meaning

[3:24:01] Voice 2: that we can certainly impart through a letter.

[3:24:05] Voice 10: I think my understanding is the specific thing

[3:24:07] Voice 10: they're looking for is the province to invest in this trust

[3:24:10] Voice 10: through strategic investment.

[3:24:14] Voice 10: So it's the request of the province.

[3:24:19] Voice 2: Yeah, but again, it's a nonsensical statement.

[3:24:22] Voice 2: Why are we perpetuating that language?

[3:24:24] Voice 2: Just remove strategic and leave it as investment.

[3:24:27] Voice 2: It's a small point, I know, but I think this is what we have to start building when we're

[3:24:31] Voice 2: looking for clear language in future in all of our operations.

[3:24:35] Voice 2: It begins with things like this.

[3:24:38] Voice 10: Trustee Middleton, if you want to propose an amendment, the motion's been made.

[3:24:42] Voice 10: So that would be my recommendation.

[3:24:45] Voice 6: CAO Brony?

[3:24:46] Voice 6: We can also take that into consideration in drafting a letter.

[3:24:49] Voice 6: They provided a template, but we don't need to use it verbatim, and so we can address

[3:24:54] Voice 6: that.

[3:24:54] Voice 6: All right.

[3:24:55] Voice 6: Okay. Trustee Bernardo?

[3:24:57] Voice 15: Yeah, I read the submission, the argument that they put forward, and what they're looking for

[3:25:04] Voice 15: is basically an endowment. They want a big chunk of money, something like $10 million or something,

[3:25:10] Voice 15: in order to, and I'm sorry if I got the number wrong, but they've been going from

[3:25:15] Voice 15: funding cycle to funding cycle, and it's diminishing. And in order to ensure their

[3:25:22] Voice 15: long-term viability what they want is an endowment so that they can have that money to um to keep the

[3:25:28] Voice 15: thing going um i can appreciate where they're coming from they want to keep the operation going

[3:25:36] Voice 15: uh where i genuinely struggle with something like this which is

[3:25:42] Voice 15: on its face the submission is like you know it sounds like a good deal sounds like a good thing

[3:25:48] Voice 15: this whole economic trust it sounds like what they're doing is of value and maybe i'm asking

[3:25:53] Voice 15: I'm not asking too much, but what we received in that correspondence was an argument. Respectfully have to disagree with Trustee Elliott. I don't consider that to be evidence. It's a pitch. And I don't want to put the staff to the effort to having to analyze what the Economic Trust has been doing and to weigh its value.

[3:26:15] Voice 15: you but i question um our response uh whether it's this or some other issue that comes up where

[3:26:24] Voice 15: what we have what we receive is plausible a plausible argument and apparently that's

[3:26:29] Voice 15: sufficient for us to say yeah okay we agree i don't know whether or not um an endowment what

[3:26:35] Voice 15: they're asking for is justified i just don't so um uh i guess what i'm objecting to is just um

[3:26:44] Voice 15: this kind of automatic, well, that's not fair, but this offering support without really

[3:26:53] Voice 15: knowing at our end the value of what the organization is asking for. Now, I'm not

[3:27:01] Voice 15: questioning the good faith of the people over at the Economic Trust. I want to repeat, I just don't

[3:27:07] Voice 15: know how to weigh their request. Thanks.

[3:27:13] Voice 10: I was going to say, in December, we invited

[3:27:17] Voice 10: the CAO, Brody Guy, came and did a full presentation to us on the organization and on the work

[3:27:26] Voice 10: in particular they're doing with the co-governance moving forward, which is really setting a

[3:27:31] Voice 10: model in the province for us to follow. Trustee Elliott, did you have something to add?

[3:27:37] Trustee Elliott: Yeah, I was going to say, you could review the presentation that was made at that December meeting. But also,

[3:27:44] Voice 15: I'm going

[3:27:45] Voice 15: to interject. I was there. I have read it. I understand what he said. I don't think from my point of view, it's not enough.

[3:27:50] Voice 15: May

[3:27:51] Trustee Elliott: I continue? The trust is also actively working through the legislative framework for co-governance with nations, which is something that our Islands Trust has been asking for many, many years. Work with us. They are creating a pathway.

[3:28:11] Trustee Elliott: way so it is not um i think it would be beneficial um to see this organization work through some of

[3:28:21] Trustee Elliott: the issues that we are right now grappling with this is um there's a very similar but not equal

[3:28:28] Trustee Elliott: mandate of course but they're working through the process with the province so i there's plenty of

[3:28:33] Trustee Elliott: evidence in the reports they've got every three years they get audited by an independent reviewer

[3:28:39] Trustee Elliott: and the the number of projects that they deliver is substantial not just working with coastal

[3:28:46] Trustee Elliott: first nations but with many many local communities so i encourage you to take a look through

[3:28:51] Trustee Elliott: some of their reports in the documentation thank you thank

[3:28:55] Voice 10: you uh trustee past uh

[3:28:58] Trustee Fast: thank you i'm

[3:28:59] Trustee Fast: in support of this motion i'll be voting in favor and i'd point trustees to uh regarding the word

[3:29:05] Trustee Fast: strategic, page 105 of our agenda, where the wording is First Nations Strategic Recommendations

[3:29:14] Trustee Fast: Report. And if you click that link, you arrive at a page called First Nations Proposed Collaborative

[3:29:20] Trustee Fast: and Transformative Co-Governance Future for Islands Coastal Economic Trust. And it's a new

[3:29:28] Trustee Fast: indigenous authored report that creates an unprecedented vision that the new era of

[3:29:33] Trustee Fast: economic prosperity across coastal BC, I think this would be good for the whole Islands Trust.

[3:29:39] Trustee Fast: I've had an opportunity to see a few presentations from Brodie Guy, the CEO, whatever.

[3:29:49] Trustee Fast: And but this is that's the strategy is it is strategic investment.

[3:29:56] Trustee Fast: It's different from their turning.

[3:30:00] Trustee Fast: corner into a new way of working. And I just encourage people to click the link on page 105

[3:30:09] Trustee Fast: to find out what the word strategic means to them. And that's why I'm voting in favor. Thank you.

[3:30:15] Voice 10: Trustee Middleton.

[3:30:19] Voice 2: Thank you. Yeah, I've been goaded into this by listening to circular

[3:30:23] Voice 2: definitions. And we can't have this if we want to have clear language going forward.

[3:30:28] Voice 2: So I move that we strike the word strategic from this motion.

[3:30:34] Voice 10: I think it's the motion to be amended. Just a second. Move to amend the motion.

[3:31:09] Voice 10: Trustee Middleton, is that motion as you intended?

[3:31:15] Voice 2: Yeah, that's good. Thank you.

[3:31:18] Voice 10: All right. Trustee Boland, are you seconding?

[3:31:21] Voice 19: I am, but I have a comment on the language of the first as well.

[3:31:25] Voice 19: Can I just add it in?

[3:31:26] Voice 19: So are we asking the province to modernize and the legislative framework being developed?

[3:31:33] Voice 19: I I'm not sure that that reads properly.

[3:31:39] Voice 19: Okay.

[3:31:40] Voice 19: Province.

[3:31:41] Voice 10: I think we're going to focus on this one amendment that's here on the,

[3:31:45] Voice 10: on the table.

[3:31:46] Voice 10: If you have a second,

[3:31:48] Voice 19: that and then perhaps we can discuss the rest of the motion.

[3:31:54] Voice 10: On the amendment.

[3:31:56] Voice 10: Is there any trustee Middleton?

[3:31:59] Voice 10: Your hand is still up.

[3:32:03] Voice 10: There's no debate on the amendment.

[3:32:05] Voice 10: I'm going to call the vote on the amendment.

[3:32:08] Voice 10: All those in favour, please raise your hands.

[3:32:10] Voice 10: I see eight.

[3:32:20] Voice 10: All right, lower your hands.

[3:32:24] Voice 10: Any opposed?

[3:32:31] Voice 10: Looks like four.

[3:32:34] Voice 10: Eight in favour, four against.

[3:32:38] Voice 7: So four abstentions.

[3:32:40] Voice 7: Four

[3:32:40] Voice 10: abstentions, so that carries.

[3:32:43] Voice 10: So now we have the motion as amended.

[3:32:46] Voice 19: Do we still have quorum?

[3:32:48] Voice 19: Are we confident?

[3:32:49] Voice 19: Yes, we do.

[3:32:51] Voice 10: all right thank you we have the motion here is any further debate on the motion

[3:32:58] Voice 10: trustee getting um

[3:33:01] Voice 22: bowen is uh outside the map and that's a very strange map it goes right around

[3:33:07] Voice 22: bowen island and excludes us from this uh coastal island uh region because we're a member of metro

[3:33:14] Voice 22: vancouver so um even though we're not eligible for this funding we've applied several times

[3:33:21] Voice 22: because they do have really good projects and funding sources.

[3:33:28] Voice 22: So we'll keep trying, and maybe as a postscript or an addendum follow-up,

[3:33:33] Voice 22: we'll ask that they change their map yet again.

[3:33:35] Voice 22: We keep asking the province, but anyway, besides the fact that we're not eligible,

[3:33:42] Voice 22: it is a good, I support this letter and the programs.

[3:33:47] Voice 10: Thank you.

[3:33:48] Voice 10: Well, I'd say use that membership in the Rural Island Economic Partnership.

[3:33:51] Voice 10: They're the one that got the Salt Spring included because we were also excluded due to being in the CRD.

[3:33:58] Voice 10: Trustee Boland.

[3:34:02] Voice 19: I'm not sure what the intent is here, but maybe my grammar has checked out.

[3:34:09] Voice 19: out but we're writing a letter of support calling on the province to modernize the island trust

[3:34:16] Voice 19: coastal economic trust and the legislative framework being developed to develop to support

[3:34:22] Voice 19: co-governance i mean how i don't there's some disconnect there and something needs to be changed

[3:34:28] Voice 19: in my view but i'm happy to take advice on that i suggest

[3:34:33] Voice 19: we put a full stop after the investment

[3:34:36] Voice 19: and is the rest of it, perhaps?

[3:34:39] Voice 10: At this point, we're going with the motion that's up.

[3:34:44] Voice 10: Trustee Yates.

[3:34:45] Voice 18: Thank you, Chair Patrick.

[3:34:48] Voice 18: I'm just concerned about the word modernize.

[3:34:51] Voice 18: I just wonder if really the word we want is just to support.

[3:34:55] Voice 18: But I'll leave that up to everybody else.

[3:34:58] Voice 18: But modernize almost seems, I don't know,

[3:35:02] Voice 18: a little bit denigrating or something.

[3:35:04] Voice 18: I

[3:35:04] Voice 10: think the request was from the letter writer. So that's the word we're following. And that will be the evidence we use to write a letter. All right. I see no further hands raised. I'm going to call the vote then for the motion that we have before us. All those in favor, please raise your hands.

[3:35:30] Voice 10: I'll be unbiased. I'll raise my hand.

[3:35:33] Voice 10: Okay.

[3:35:34] Voice 7: So including you, that's 10.

[3:35:36] Voice 7: all

[3:35:38] Voice 10: right lower your hands lower your hands there trustee yates there you go any opposed

[3:35:53] Voice 10: looks like just one all right eight in favor one opposed five upstairs five abstained so that

[3:36:05] Voice 10: carries thank you trustees any further business any other motions one more okay one more whose

[3:36:23] Voice 10: motion is this one this one's trustee peterson trustee peterson this

[3:36:26] Trustee Elliott: is going to

[3:36:26] Voice 10: be your motion

[3:36:30] Voice 10: we

[3:36:30] Voice 21: passed another motion uh similar so i i don't think we need to bother advancing this thank you

[3:36:36] Voice 21: okay

[3:36:37] Voice 10: thank you so that's withdrawn then is there any

[3:36:39] Voice 10: further action on item 18 disposition and

[3:36:44] Voice 10: delegation of public comments and correspondence all right thank you trustees we're finally in the

[3:36:50] Voice 10: home stretch here we would have a trustee round table i'm looking to trustees do you wish to

[3:36:56] Voice 10: to take the time on a round table or forego this one more time?

[3:37:00] Voice 10: I haven't had a round table in a long time.

[3:37:02] Voice 10: Trustee Yates?

[3:37:04] Voice 18: I'll leave that up to others because I always like the round table,

[3:37:08] Voice 18: but maybe other people's time is maybe they're just getting too hungry.

[3:37:12] Voice 18: But I just wanted to thank Alexandra and all of the trustees

[3:37:18] Voice 18: and the executive for including their conference reports

[3:37:22] Voice 18: reports from AVICC and UBCM because even though I read them when they first send them out

[3:37:29] Voice 18: I really enjoy reading them again in a printed format and I I take them to heart and I'm so

[3:37:36] Voice 18: grateful that they go to the conferences and that they provide such good reports I just wanted to

[3:37:41] Voice 18: really make that clear thank you all

[3:37:44] Voice 10: right well thank you and

[3:37:45] Voice 10: uh and trustees as we have one more

[3:37:48] Voice 10: trust council in September if you feel strongly about the roundtable and want it to happen we

[3:37:52] Voice 10: We need to move it to Tuesday or Wednesday.

[3:37:55] Voice 10: I guess we're going to be meeting on Wednesday.

[3:37:57] Voice 10: Next is our first day.

[3:37:58] Voice 10: So, trustees, if it is something important to you, please lobby for that to be earlier in the agenda, and then it happens.

[3:38:06] Voice 10: All right, then.

[3:38:07] Voice 10: So we're going to forego the trustee roundtable.

[3:38:10] Voice 10: We have on item 20 is the trust council follow-up action list.

[3:38:14] Voice 10: We moved it to the end of the report in the event that staff need to ask us to remove some already dedicated work to allow the work that we just added to be done.

[3:38:25] Voice 10: I'm not seeing any requests from staff, so we can just receive the follow-up action list.

[3:38:35] Voice 10: Yes?

[3:38:36] Voice 10: Mr. Peterson has his hand up.

[3:38:37] Trustee Elliott: Oh, I'm sorry.

[3:38:38] Trustee Elliott: Trustee Peterson?

[3:38:38] Voice 10: We

[3:38:40] Voice 21: are familiar with the comment I'm about to make about the the follow-up action list

[3:38:44] Voice 21: just to request the staff to update the dates that have passed thank

[3:38:51] Voice 10: you all right so that

[3:38:53] Voice 10: brings us on to item 21 which is the trustee conference and convention reporting there's

[3:38:59] Voice 10: three items here that were all for your information are there any questions from any of the materials

[3:39:04] Voice 10: that weren't provided here?

[3:39:07] Voice 10: Trustee Borthwick.

[3:39:10] Voice 20: Actually, my question is a little bit

[3:39:13] Voice 20: about what wasn't provided.

[3:39:15] Voice 20: This is no slight on any of the chair, the vice chairs,

[3:39:19] Voice 20: but I noticed in the CAO's report,

[3:39:23] Voice 20: there was a discussion about,

[3:39:24] Voice 20: or he referenced that there was a presentation

[3:39:29] Voice 20: on the use of AI,

[3:39:30] Voice 20: which I noted that none of the chair or vice chairs

[3:39:36] Voice 20: went to which is fine there's lots going on I don't don't have any question about that but I was

[3:39:42] Voice 20: going to ask at some point if I'd love to know what was said because if it was apparently it

[3:39:47] Voice 20: was a great presentation

[3:39:48] Voice 6: CEO Brian thank you just briefly I wouldn't necessarily say it was a great

[3:39:54] Voice 6: presentation I think what I took from it was that most jurisdictions are very much in the place that

[3:40:02] Voice 6: we are which is trying to figure out how what and if this ai means for their work and and most are

[3:40:09] Voice 6: very much trying to play catch up there was a presentation from uh from a private sector

[3:40:14] Voice 6: uh vendor who demonstrated a tool that they had developed around building permit processing just

[3:40:20] Voice 6: as an example um but i wouldn't say there there was much that we that we haven't heard other than

[3:40:26] Voice 6: as i say a lot of validation that a lot of jurisdictions are trying to get their head around

[3:40:29] Voice 6: how do we use this and there are varying points on the spectrum around enthusiastic and wanting

[3:40:35] Voice 6: to forge ahead and hesitant and and reluctant and sharing some of the concerns that um that

[3:40:39] Voice 6: some of you have voiced as well all

[3:40:42] Voice 10: right thank you trustee getty um

[3:40:45] Voice 22: thank you very much for

[3:40:47] Voice 22: these reports i really enjoyed reading them and uh it's i'm glad we're doing this now and uh it

[3:40:53] Voice 22: is a bonus in terms of getting you to focus in terms of what you've heard and being able to

[3:40:58] Voice 22: report it and it that means it's a value to the rest of us so thank you thank

[3:41:04] Voice 10: you very much trustee

[3:41:05] Voice 21: peterson

[3:41:06] Voice 10: yeah

[3:41:08] Voice 21: i just wanted to point out to trustee uh borthek and anyone else interested there's uh

[3:41:15] Voice 21: um the global economic forum um is regularly having uh uh seminars on ai and other interesting

[3:41:25] Voice 21: topics. Many of them are free. If you're interested, reach out and I'll help you out.

[3:41:31] Voice 10: Thank you. All right, so that brings us up to the trustee updates on the community committee

[3:41:37] Voice 10: participation. These are all here for your information. I will look, are there any

[3:41:43] Voice 10: questions on any of the reports that are submitted here? I appreciate the trustees that take time to

[3:41:52] Voice 10: to travel and attend these various important partners of the Islands Trust.

[3:41:57] Voice 10: Trustee Peterson?

[3:41:59] Voice 21: Yeah, I just wanted to note that I did attend the Mount Aerosmith Biosphere Region

[3:42:05] Voice 21: on behalf of Chair Patrick there.

[3:42:08] Voice 21: I hadn't had it circulated in time for this meeting, but it will come shortly.

[3:42:14] Voice 21: And then the other piece was on the ocean protection plans.

[3:42:17] Voice 21: I didn't submit any reporting because I wasn't appointed or anything,

[3:42:22] Voice 21: thing. But again, that's something that happens on a regular basis. Anyone interested in attending

[3:42:28] Voice 21: those free sessions, get in touch. They're very interesting.

[3:42:33] Voice 10: All right. Trustees, I think this

[3:42:35] Voice 10: brings us to the milestone you've been waiting for for three days, our next meeting. So our next

[3:42:42] Voice 10: meeting is, I want to point out, make sure you look carefully in your agenda packages. It begins

[3:42:47] Voice 10: on wednesday september 9th because we're going to be following a holiday i believe

[3:42:52] Voice 10: so wednesday september 9th through friday september 11th

[3:42:58] Voice 10: make sure you have that in your calendars and paying attention and please come

[3:43:05] Voice 10: we have the draft program for you at item 23 and this is where if you have feedback on how to

[3:43:13] Voice 10: to structure the meeting or make improvements please reach out to the executive committee

[3:43:19] Voice 10: we try to structure this meeting to be as bestly organized as we can so if you want something done

[3:43:27] Voice 10: differently please raise that and with that i think i need a motion to adjourn trustee getty

[3:43:34] Voice 10: i

[3:43:35] Voice 22: was going to motion to adjourn

[3:43:37] Voice 10: here we go well thank you elsa is there a second by trustee

[3:43:40] Voice 10: Borthwick. All right. We are adjourned. Thank you, everyone. Have a wonderful rest of the week,

[3:43:48] Voice 10: and we'll see you in September.

[3:43:50] Voice 18: Thank you, Chair Patrick. Thank you, Chair.

[3:43:53] Voice 22: Question. Did Sam second

[3:43:54] Voice 22: every single motion? Only

[3:43:59] Voice 11: the ones that Rossi Yates didn't.