By Bryan Young, candidate for the Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee

When Salt Spring Insights asked islanders to rate island service organizations and public agencies, only 11 per cent said the Islands Trust was doing a good job – dead last after the Hospital Foundation, the Fire District, North Salt Spring Waterworks, Community Services, LCC, and CRD.

I strongly support the Trust and its preserve and protect mandate. I do not cite this polling lightly. I do so because the Trust has specific challenges that are eroding public support, and its ability to do the critical work of preserving and protecting the islands of the Trust Area.

I’d like to share with you where I think the Trust is falling short, and what I'd do about it if you elect me on October 17.

Two key Trust problems

1. The Islands Trust's mandate is to preserve and protect. But that was laid over islands already carved into lots, and we keep filling them in, too often with big homes in the middle of forested lots. That's rural sprawl, and climate change is raising the stakes.

   Some think the Trust can flip a switch and “just stop it”. That would result in a lot of lawsuits against the Trust, and a broken social contract between islanders and the Trust. So we have trade-offs to negotiate. I'd start by tightening the conditions for developing forested and natural areas, and steering most remaining growth to serviced areas. Let's work through those choices together.

2. But none of that choicemaking is free. Mapping recharge areas, rewriting bylaws and enforcing them all take staff, and the Trust's budget has already grown 30% in five years while inflation ran closer to 20%.

   So here’s the nub of the second problem: The Trust protects these islands for residents and for "British Columbia generally," yet islanders pay almost the entire bill. The Province once covered all staff costs, then walked away in the 1990s. I think that's wrong. I'll work with Trust Council to bring the Province back to the table, find other funding, and make every dollar go further.

What I propose to do for our Island home

Four commitments – and no more, because the more we load the boat, the slower it moves.

1. Finish the Community Plan and Land Use Bylaw review. We need to make sure new development accounts for climate risks, like wildfire fire and flooding. I'll push for a climate risk assessment with the LCC, CRD, and Fire District that feeds right into development rules, including tying development to long-term water forecasts – not past performance.

2. Put housing where the pipes are. Building big houses in the middle of forested lots is the most wasteful and costly way to add housing to our community and the furthest from the mandate. We need to focus most remaining development in areas where we’ve already got the services.

   North Salt Spring Waterworks has roughly 250 connections left that shouldn’t be handed out on a “first come first served” basis. These connections should go to affordable and workforce rental housing in or near Ganges. I’d start with known projects like the multi-unit proposal for King’s Lane, and work with my counterparts to make them happen.

3. Build a table where our agencies actually meet. The new firehall, Drake Road's supportive housing and the Ganges Hill repaving prove our agencies can coordinate. Yet, there's still no standing forum where the Trust, LCC, CRD, fire, water, and community partners work through shared problems.

   I'll work hard to start one, initially with our LCC and CRD partners – focusing first on affordable and workforce housing. But it can’t just be our elected officials. It’s also got to include staff-to-staff relationships. When the left hand knows what the right is doing, we make better use of precious taxpayer dollars.

4. Engagement that reaches past the usual few. Updated Trust engagement processes need to reach a diversity of islanders and give residents a bigger stake in shared decision-making.

   Citizens' assemblies (members chosen by lottery, with professional facilitation, and elected officials required to report back on how input shaped decisions) are in use in Burnaby and New Westminster. I want one to feed into our revised Community Plan, and that’s actually similar to what this island did in the last plan two decades ago.

Why I’m ready for the job

I spent 20 years working in renewable energy and electricity conservation, outside and inside government. It began with one wind turbine on Toronto's waterfront, and ended with a province-wide renewables policy and a homegrown industry.

Since arriving on Salt Spring in 2018, I've been a lead author of our Climate Action Plan and spent seven years as board member and Chair of Transition Salt Spring (TSS). I initiated incentive programs that save islanders money on rainwater catchment, cleaner wood stoves, and heat pumps.

In the two years before I left TSS to enter this race, I led a team that pushed for an updated Community Plan and Land Use Bylaw built around the same priorities I'm now campaigning on.

This work put me across the table from elected officials and staff at the Trust, CRD, LCC, and the water and fire districts. I’ve developed positive relationships with senior Trust staff and the CAO, and can hit the ground running on revising our community plan and bylaws.

How I work

They say Salt Spring is an argument surrounded by water. Longtime islanders tell me it started out as a conversation, and I commit to helping us get back there. Our problems are too big to waste collective goodwill on fighting.

I believe there's something true beneath even the crustiest opinion, and finding that is usually where we get to common ground. Where we still disagree, I'll show you what I heard, how it affected my decision, and why I landed where I did.

We need a better Trust. Back in 1974 when the Trust was founded, wildfire wasn't a big worry, and few non-Indigenous people understood what reconciliation was. Today's Trust must handle both, and it needs to be properly funded by the Province and staffed with the right people.

Above all, it has to learn how to listen: to treat islanders as partners in looking after this place, whether they’re giving their opinion on a Trust plan or submitting one for Trust approval.

Salt Spring has everything it needs to get this right. And all of us need to extend a little more good faith to the people across the table, and make room for neighbours we don't usually hear from. I commit to building that with you.

Learn more, donate to the campaign, or contact me at http://www.youngfortrust.ca. Voting day is Saturday, October 17. Advance polls are October 4 and 14. Search “crd voter information” for details and locations. The CRD is managing Islands Trust elections on Salt Spring and in the Southern Gulf Islands.