There’s a lot of electioning going on right now! As we look ahead to two elections this month it’s important to take a look back at some key issues and moments from the last 4 years. I want to share some recent history and also tip a hat to outgoing Islands Trust trustee Laura Patrick. Ms Patrick is a talented and honourable woman who served this community well, and to my mind received far too much grief for her efforts working on all of our behalf.

In his recent articles local intellectual and activist Ronald Wright told a history of the last 4 years of Salt Spring in what I found to be a very biased and selective way. He once again painted those who tried to fix our housing crisis or evolve the mandate of the Trust to include community issues as mortal enemies to the original purpose of the Island’s Trust. I view recent events very differently.

But in fairness, we do live in very confusing times. It would be difficult to understand what is roiling island politics in the last decade without wrapping one’s head around the biggest issue for most people under 40 today: affordability and declining standards of living. I have much respect for Mr Wright and his collaborators’ intelligence and care for our planet, but sometimes they seem very out of touch with the reality of many people’s lives today.

Curious folks might want to check this week’s Macleans Magazine cover story, “The Great Generational Rip-off”, about how baby boomers are hoarding Canada’s wealth while millennials fight for scraps. Or tune into the 2026 CBC Massey Lecturer, Leilani Farhi, who just published “Housing, Inc”., about housing as a human right and how the financialization of housing has wrecked lives around the world.

Salt Spring has changed from its rural, agricultural, and hippie past. It’s become older and more gentrified. Opportunities for the young, working people, or those seeking alternative artsy lifestyles to make it here have declined significantly. There are many big reasons for this that are out of our control, but locally the loss of lower-cost and simple housing combined with ever-increasing cost of living, with no big solutions on offer from any level of government, only makes the problem worse year after year.

Ignoring or vilifying those who hope to address these issues doesn’t make the problem go away. Blocking our already limited local governments from responding to community needs only creates more anger and resentment.

I believe trustee Laura Patrick listened to and tried to balance many different perspectives as she leaned into these problems. As she leaves this role after 8 years, you should know Ms Patrick worked extremely hard to improve the Trust and achieve the mandate voters gave her, and she deserves our gratitude.

But on the topic of housing, I sadly agree with Mr Wright’s take that most tangible progress was stymied. Almost every new housing policy or idea was opposed and attacked. Efforts to have the trust mandate include community concerns were classified as treason. Even new forms of community engagement - of the kind being tried by local governments everywhere to reach more people than traditional town halls - were vilified.

Locally, as she was regularly and intensely attacked, Ms Patrick was left politically on an island. No other local or regional politician had the courage to enter the fray, cut through the over-heated rhetoric on these issues and act as the “adult in the room”, reassuring the green base that sensible change wasn’t an existential threat to the Trust, and that new forms of community engagement meant to enhance democracy were not a secret effort to end it.

I truly hope our new Green MLA candidate and provincial party leader Emily Lowan is able to reassure Salt Spring voters there need be no daylight between caring for our planet and caring for people. Our common foe is a corporate controlled financial system that will consume what is left of our natural world while hoarding more and more wealth for the few at the expense of the many.

Instead of punching down, why not look up. Research done earlier this year showed that based on historic development patterns, Salt Spring could see anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 new properties developed on much of our remaining forested land. Barring a major policy shift, market forces will see these be exclusively large, single-family, multi-million dollar homes on subdivided, clear-cut lots far from town, further increasing fire, water, and ecosystem risks, and obviously making inequality even worse.

Must it be this way? There is a new generation who think rather than double down on the past, the Islands Trust needs to evolve, work more effectively with the CRD, and for both to get far better at protecting our environment from today’s real development threats while making some real headway on workforce housing and community resiliency.

This does not need to be a divisive issue. I believe many candidates in the October 17 election acknowledge this complexity, reject the old binaries, and would bring smart new ideas to the table.

My hat is off to Laura Patrick for her attempts to show us a new way, and I hope those who follow her will bring new perspectives and fresh energy to build on the positive foundations she helped lay. The only way forward is, indeed, forward.