Thirteen came to this ASK Salt Spring gathering to welcome MLA Rob Botterrell. As we prepared to begin, it was noted that a portion of last week’s report citing progress on Soule Creek may be aspirational but is simply incorrect. Apologies for the misinformation. . . bringing home the fact that you cannot believe everything you read. Rob began by offering his Acknowledgement by reading the last paragraph of the 800-page brief from the BC Supreme Court regarding Cowichan Tribes v. Canada. On August 7, 2025, after proceedings lasting 513 days, this judgment recognized the title of Cowichan Tribes, Stz’uminus First Nation, Penelakut Tribe, Halalt First Nation, and Lyackson First Nation to nearly 1,900 acres of lands in Richmond, including submerged shoreline. Today, land in the claim area is owned by the Crown, province, Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, City of Richmond and private owners. Rob, having spent much of his legal career as a First Nations lawyer, spoke with pas…

This report primarily relates to the business of the Salt Spring Local Trust Committee (LTC), which is made up of the two local trustees and an appointed chair. The LTC’s responsibilities include regulating the development and use of land within the Salt Spring Local Trust Area, which includes Salt Spring Island and more than 25 associated islands including Prevost, Secret, and Piers islands. I want to bring your attention to some important Trust Council business. Trust Council is the body of all 26 elected trustees and is primarily responsible for setting and adopting the annual budget for all of the Islands Trust’s activities, and for adopting a policy statement. The trust policy statement is a general statement of the polices of Trust Council to carry out the Islands Trust’s preserve-and-protect mandate. The policy statement is being updated for the first time in 30 years and recently received first reading. Trust Council wants to hear from you. There will be a …

Thirty joined this ASK Salt Spring gathering to lovingly welcome MP Elizabeth May. She began our time together with an acknowledgement of her honour and gratitude to be working with First Nations whose sheer grit have given them the strength to survive past and ongoing colonial oppression. After going around the circle with introductions from participants, some with many decades of living on Salt Spring to our newest just married guests who have been here only two weeks, we asked Elizabeth what “excites and delights” her. For her, while politics is important, what excites her the most are her rich relationships, beginning with her beloved daughter, just turned 34, her amazing 8-month granddaughter, and her husband, now married six happy years. Elizabeth is delighted with the relationships she has built through ASK Salt Spring, reminding us that this weekly local forum is unique in Canada. While we may believe that only we gain from our times together, she believes that…

July 4 Eighteen joined us for this ASK Salt Spring gathering welcoming MLA Rob Botterell and his Constituency Advocate Deborah Bowman. During his Land Acknowledgement, Rob spoke of the honour he felt in collaborating on the good work of restoring, preserving, and protecting the land we so love. Although we may never restore it to the richness of past years, he is glad to be one of many working with First Nations to repair and regenerate our lands. Rob is “excited and delighted” with his summer so far, one of travel, meeting constituents, sailing, and attending local summer fairs throughout the riding and province including the Pride parade in Victoria. Special Committee on Democratic and Electoral Reform: Rob spent quite a bit of this ASK Sat Spring time focusing on his work this summer as a committee member of the Special Committee on Democratic and Electoral Reform (SCDER). He started off by prefacing that these were wonderful and exciting times to be discussing e…

By Laura Patrick, Chair, Islands Trust Council Islands Trust Council has been working on a much-needed update to the Policy Statement for years. This Policy Statement is a requirement of the Islands Trust Act and it contains the policies that guide the Islands Trust’s work to preserve and protect the Islands Trust Area. It also guides the development of the regulatory land-use bylaws of local trust committees and Bowen Island Municipality. At our recent Trust Council meeting on Salt Spring Island, Trust Council approved a plan for the next steps to advance the draft document. Under that plan, we will meet as Committee of the Whole on July 9 to review the draft with the aim of making any final changes and then, if we feel it is ready, we will advance it to first reading at a special meeting of Trust Council scheduled for July 29. It is important to understand that when Trust Council votes on first reading, we are not voting on a final approval of the Policy Statement. Fol…

Eighteen came to this ASK Salt Spring gathering to welcome MLA Rob Botterell and his associate Theresa Coles. After he offered our Land Acknowledgement, Rob shared that he was “excited and delighted” to have completed the annual spring work on his boat. She is now ready to take him on his summer of sailing, hopefully bringing him from his Pender home to his next ASK Salt Spring time with us July 4. With the Legislative session over, he also spoke briefly about a busy summer with a dizzying number of important committees, including his work on Democratic Reform, the review of Clean BC, the forest review, and an analysis of Community Health Centers, to name a few. He also plans to spend his summer with his 50,000 constituents, getting a smile out of us by telling us that the very best of them were, of course, us Salt Springers :). He also spoke a bit about his plans to soon spend a day on Salt Spring with Housing Minister, Ravi Kahlon in what is expected to be a series…

Local Trust Committee May Update, by Trustee Laura Patrick This report relates to the business of the Salt Spring Local Trust Committee (LTC), which is made up of the two local trustees and an appointed chair. The LTC’s responsibilities include regulating the development and use of land within the Salt Spring Local Trust Area, which includes Salt Spring Island and more than 25 associated islands including Prevost, Secret, and Piers islands. Our next regular meeting will be on June 5th beginning at 9:30 AM at the Salt Spring Legion, Meaden Hall, 120 Blain Road. The agenda will be available on May 30th on the Islands Trust website. Office staff are available to help should you have questions about getting to our meetings or viewing them on-line. Please call 250-538-9144 or email ssiinfo@islandstrust.bc.ca for support. Please note that no in-person office is available on Salt Spring Island currently. Renovations will be commencing on a new office at 121 McPhillips Avenue, w…

May 23 Thirteen came to this ASK Salt Spring gathering to welcome Local Community Commissioners Brian Webster and Gary Holman, also our Electoral Area Director. Beautifully facilitated by Grant Fredrickson with notes provided by Julie Thomson (thanks, team!, the conversation focused on healthcare, housing, and transportation. After Gary offered our Land Acknowledgement, our guests were asked what “excited and delighted” them. Brian, introducing himself as both a farmer and elected member of the Local Community Commission (LCC), began by expressing his delight that we are about a week away from the paving of a section of the Ganges Hill project. Brian also mentioned the recent mechanical issues on the Fulford/Swartz Bay route. While one might question delight with this disruption, he expressed his appreciation of the all day/everyday service our ferry system provides, hoping that we might remember the quality of the ferry service we have rather than the oft expressed l…

Welcoming Rob Botterell – ASK Salt Spring 2 May 2025 Twenty-three joined for all or part of this ASK Salt Spring discussion with MLA Rob Botterell. Changing things up a bit, Ron Cooke, the facilitator sitting in for Gayle Baker, asked Rob what concerns him. Rob answered that this week in the Legislature the government introduced legislation to streamline approvals for projects, the environmental assessment process, and infrastructure projects. Rob thought this wasn’t a bad thing, but as the “devil is in the details”, he is concerned that the Green Caucus will have sufficient time to thoroughly examine the legislation and ensure it is not an over-reach. With this said, Rob started the conversation with a territorial acknowledgment and his thoughts about the tragic events that occurred at the Lapu-Lapu Festival on April 26th. He reminded us that today is a day of mourning and wanted to express his heart-felt sympathies to the community impacted directly by the trag…

Local Trust Committee April Update, by Trustee Laura Patrick This report relates to the business of the Salt Spring Local Trust Committee (LTC), which is made up of the two local trustees and an appointed chair. The LTC’s responsibilities include regulating the development and use of land within the Salt Spring Local Trust Area, which includes Salt Spring Island and more than 25 associated islands including Prevost, Secret, and Piers islands. Our next regular meeting will be on May 8th beginning at 12:30 PM at the Salt Spring Legion, Meaden Hall, 120 Blain Road. The agenda will be available on May 2nd on the Islands Trust website. Office staff are available to help should you have questions about getting to our meetings or viewing them on-line. Please call 250-538-9144 or email ssiinfo@islandstrust.bc.ca for support. Please note that no in-person office is available on Salt Spring Island currently. Renovations will be commencing on a new office at 121 McPhillips Avenue, …

Before welcoming MLA Rob Botterell to ASK Salt Spring this Friday, May 2, 11-1, SIMS classroom, we thought it would be fun to learn more about what “excites and delights” him personally as well as professionally.    Rob grew up in Oak Bay, playing the alto saxophone in the high-school band and spending much of his free time sailing. When he graduated from high school in 1973, he headed off to UBC to study Economics and Political Science, eventually also receiving his MBA there. Idyllic as his childhood may sound, he recalls with a chuckle telling his lawyer mother when he left for college that he would never return to Victoria and never become a lawyer, both predictions which turned out to be untrue.  With his MBA and a keen interest in economics, Rob spent the early decades of his career working for TD Bank and was quickly promoted to Comptroller. During those years, he worked in Vancouver and lived on Bowen Island with his wife, now celebrating 45 years together.…

The B.C. government has updated its direction to ministries, health authorities and core Crown corporations to critically review all contracts with United States companies to decrease the Province’s dependence on goods and services from U.S. suppliers. “As people are choosing to buy B.C. and buy Canadian, British Columbians expect their government to join them in choosing to avoid U.S. purchases wherever possible,” said Premier David Eby. “That’s why we’ve directed our government to use its purchasing power to exclude American suppliers and support Canadian companies and trusted and reliable trading partners instead. Today, we’re expanding that directive to include looking for every opportunity to move existing contracts away from U.S. suppliers and cancelling non-essential government travel to the United States.” The new directives order government, where viable, to: - exclude goods and services from U.S. suppliers under existing contracts with U.S. suppliers; - excl…

April 4 Twenty-two joined this ASK Salt Spring gathering to welcome MLA Rob Botterell and Julie Luna. He began his time with us this month acknowledging his appreciation for being able to live and work on this beautiful land, the unceded territory of 14 Indigenous groups. He spoke of his dismay with the recent display of prejudice by MLA Dallas Brodie. While he recognizes importance of freedom of speech, he believes so strongly that we should stand up and confront racist rhetoric that he will be bringing a motion to the legislature to censor MLA Brodie. While he understands that it may not pass, he is clear that it is his responsibility to challenge her belittling comments concerning Reconciliation. When asked what “excited and delighted” him, he spoke with awe of the amazing sunrise that morning. While many of us may have enjoyed this sunrise, he had a particularly pleasing perspective: True to his Green commitment, had arrived from his home on Pender Island on his sailboa…

Local Trust Committee March Update, by Trustee Laura Patrick This report relates to the business of the Salt Spring Local Trust Committee (LTC), which is made up of the two local trustees and an appointed chair. The LTC’s responsibilities include regulating the development and use of land within the Salt Spring Local Trust Area, which includes Salt Spring Island and more than 25 associated islands including Prevost, Secret, and Piers islands. We are looking for community members to join the Official Community Plan (OCP) and Land Use Bylaw (LUC) Project Advisory Planning Commission. This commission will consist of up to seven people to advise the LTC on community engagement plans, implementing communications strategies, connecting the project team with key interest groups, and promoting diverse community involvement in the OCP/LUB review process. We also have vacancies on the Advisory Planning Commission, the Agricultural Advisory Planning Commission, and the Board of…

Victoria, BC– The Capital Regional District (CRD) and the Capital Regional Hospital District (CRHD) Boards approved the 2025 financial plans at the Board meeting on March 12, 2025. The 2025 Capital Region Housing Corporation (CRHC) Financial Plan was approved by the CRHC Board on December 11, 2024. “The 2025 financial plans reflect our commitment to responsible fiscal management and strategic investment in our community. These plans will enable us to continue delivering essential services, support sustainable growth, and enhance the quality of life for residents in the capital region,” said CRD Chair Cliff McNeil-Smith. “We appreciate the collaborative efforts of our staff, partners, and community members in shaping a budget that addresses our current needs and future aspirations.” The 2025 financial plans support the priorities and initiatives from the 2023-2026 Corporate Plan, aligning with the CRD Board’s strategic goals. The CRD, CRHD and CRHC financial plans combi…

Lək̓ ʷəŋən, METULIYE/Victoria, B.C. – Islands Trust Council approved a budget of $11.2 million for 2025-26. “Sensing the challenging times, staff and the Financial Planning Committee put a great deal of work into reducing the proposed budget ahead of Trust Council’s meeting. The approved budget supports ongoing work directed to the well-being of the Trust Area while minimizing the impact on taxpayers” said Islands Trust Council Chair Laura Patrick. The approved budget for 2025-26 assumes that Islands Trust will maintain existing land use planning service levels, and support various ongoing major projects and initiatives in the Islands Trust Area: Denman Island Local Trust Area Official Community Plan and Land Use Bylaw Review (housing options focus)   Gabriola Island Local Trust Area Official Community Plan and Land Use Bylaw Review  Gambier Island Local Trust Area Official Community Plan and Land Use Bylaw Review and Implementation (heritage preservation/prote…

March 7 Twenty joined this ASK Salt Spring gathering to welcome MLA Rob Botterell and his Constituency Assistant Patricia Pearson. During his Territorial Acknowledgement, he expressed his gratitude that we can live and work on this beautiful land. He acknowledged his pleasure that we can do this work in partnership First Nations, learning from their wisdom, values, and culture. When asked what “excited and delighted" him, he did not hesitate: He is pleased that the Legislature is in session, particularly enjoying his regular opportunity to publicly question our government during the question period. A rookie now, he looks forward to his progression to being our moderately experienced MLA and, eventually, to becoming our “long in the tooth” MLA. Before beginning to answer our questions, he offered us all the opportunity to sign up for his regular newsletter. You, too, can sign up by emailing Newsletter not enough? Want to learn more? See his website. He assured us tha…

Lək̓ ʷəŋən, METULIYE/Victoria, B.C. – The Islands Trust Council elected Laura Patrick as its new Chair today, during the first day of its March quarterly meeting, being held in Nanaimo. Laura Patrick has served the Salt Spring Island Local Trust Area since 2018 and steps into the leadership role with a commitment to advancing the Islands Trust’s preserve and protect mandate. “It is an honour to be elected as Chair of Islands Trust Council,” said Chair Patrick. “As we navigate the challenges and priorities ahead, I am committed to working collaboratively with my fellow trustees to make progress on the issues that matter to islanders. The work of local trust committees, Bowen Island Municipality, and the Islands Trust Conservancy is essential in this, and I look forward to supporting continued cooperative efforts to preserve and protect the Islands Trust Area.” The Chair of Islands Trust Council guides discussions at Islands Trust Council, Islands Trust Executive Committe…

Premier David Eby has issued the following statement in response to the latest threats from the United States: “Today, we are ordering the removal of all American beer, wine, spirits and refreshment beverages from the shelves at BCLIQUOR stores. The stores carry hundreds of types of U.S. alcohol that the BC Liquor Distribution Branch will also no longer be purchasing. “We are taking this action in response to escalating threats from south of the border. Most recently, U.S. President Donald Trump made new threats against Canada’s dairy and lumber industries – and there are reports he has been musing about redrawing the border. “Last week, we took ‘red state’ liquor off our shelves in a targeted move. In the face of ongoing threats, including to Canada’s dairy and lumber industries, we are expanding the list of targeted American products. “We have heard the voices of people in British Columbia who are justifiably upset by American threats – and want to see us take …

Premier David Eby has announced new tariff-response measures with the intention of bringing forward legislation that will defend British Columbians, workers and businesses from U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods and energy. “The White House started a trade war we didn’t want, and we must answer with strength,” Premier Eby said. “We are responding to this unprecedented attack with several targeted measures and in the coming weeks we will arm ourselves with even more tools as next steps to fend off a sustained economic aggression.” The B.C. government intends to introduce tariff-response legislation in the coming days that will give the Province new tools to defend B.C. jobs and businesses and respond swiftly and nimbly to emerging challenges brought on by Trump's trade war. This would enable a range of responses, including the ability to remove interprovincial trade barriers, mandating that low-carbon fuels added to gasoline and diesel be produced i…

February 28 Thirty-seven came to this ASK Salt Spring gathering to welcome MP Elizabeth May and her new Constituency Coordinator, Aysha Emmerson. After her Territorial Acknowledgement, Elizabeth shared delight about her new granddaughter, Lily, born October 30, 2024. While already the loving grandmother of step-grandchildren, Elizabeth has been blown away by the love, delight, and adoration she feels for her daughter Cate’s baby. After we all had a chance to introduce ourselves, Elizabeth started our discussion of local, federal, and transnational issues by addressing the local concerns of one participant about derelict boats in Ganges Harbour as well as hazardous garbage, including many batteries, littering the beaches. This individual had recently collected a trunkful of these environmentally-dangerous batteries littering our shores to dispose of off-Island. Thinking he had been doing a good deed by collecting batteries from our seashore, he was surprised by being cat…