Surprisingly, the weather gods smiled upon us and the rain cleared, giving 10 participants another lovely – and at times even warm - day in the United Church Meadow.  Islands Trust Local Trustee Laura Patrick began our gathering by speaking about her personal journey of Reconciliation.  She then noted that she had spent the week participating virtually in the annual Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) conference. While there were amazing moments, like listening to the keynote speech by Margaret Atwood, she admitted that she missed the energy and creativity that can happen when meeting together in person. A couple of takeaway messages from this year’s conference are: To respond to the climate crisis, COVID crisis, and income inequality, local governments need to reallocate their resources and deploy innovative solutions. The pandemic has kicked off a migration of people from urban to more rural settings. Salt Spring is already seeing signs of this migratio…

A small diverse group of Salt Springers, meeting since February, are proposing a creative and integrative approach to the Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee (LTC) to maximize the benefits and minimize the harms of housing on Salt Spring, including its ecological, climatic, and socioeconomic dimensions. The proposal is up for consideration at the next LTC meeting on October 6, and it must be made a priority to be resourced. You can find the Housing Working Group report in the September 1 LTC agenda package beginning on page 264.  How is this housing project proposal different?  Driftwood headlines from January 12, 1994, “Local lot prices register fastest rise in the country,” and from August 24, 2002, “Business owners considering action to avert housing woes,” reflect the myriad studies conducted over the past three decades on the issue of housing on Salt Spring.  Today, a well-recognized housing crisis has intensified, concurrent with climate and forest (land use) cris…