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The Friends of the Gulf Islands Society is a newly formed society whose purpose is singular and simple. We fully support the intent of the Islands Trust Act but are concerned the Islands Trust has lost sight of its statutory mandate as a conservation-focused entity.
The Islands Trust is a unique and special form of a public “trust” created by the BC legislature in 1974 in response to escalating development in the Gulf Islands that had little regard for the natural environment, its rural communities, and the limited capacity of islands to accommodate growth. The Islands Trust Act was intended to limit development. The purpose of the Islands Trust Act is set out in Section 3:
The object of the trust is to preserve and protect the trust area and its unique amenities and environment for the benefit of the residents of the trust area and of British Columbia generally, in cooperation with municipalities, regional districts, improvement districts, First nations, other persons and organizations and the Government of British Columbia.
We are alarmed that our elected trustees, the administrative body called the Trust Council, and Islands Trust staff have strayed from the original purpose of the Trust Act. The Trust was intended to be solely a land use planning body, not a conventional form of local government. Unlike a municipality or regional district, the Trust has a unique and over-riding responsibility to protect the natural environmental and rural character of the trust area.
However, the environmental protection focus of the Trust is being seriously eroded during these times of escalating development pressures and the climate crisis. Increasingly, the Trust is instead behaving as if it were an ordinary local government. Developments are being approved with minimal or no assessments of environmental impacts and neither the precautionary principle nor cumulative impact assessments are being applied in decision making.
Decisions are primarily directed to local community needs. The Act’s specified purpose “for the benefit of” all B.C. residents is given no consideration.
We are concerned residents from many islands in the Trust Area, dedicated to returning the Islands Trust to its legislated mandate through assertive means, such as advocacy with the B.C. government, working with trustees to ensure they fully understand the Trust’s conservation mandate, and through legal challenges if necessary. To that end we have received funding from West Coast Environmental Law and have retained legal counsel to provide us with advice.
In addition to advocacy, we intend to share information with other groups and the media and present educational webinars to the public.
To read more about our Society’s concerns and actions, see Key Issues and Our Activities.
We support and encourage island conservancy associations in their work. Their work focuses on education and protection of land, either by acquiring it or holding conservation covenants on other lands. Our goals are similar to their goals, but our mission is different. We focus on holding the Islands Trust accountable to protect the environment in their role as the regulator of land use in the Trust area.
Whether you are a full-time or part-time resident of the Gulf Islands, a visitor, or someone who cares about fragile ecosystems, we hope you will support our efforts to restore the Trust’s focus on its original environmental protection mandate by becoming a member and/or donor of the Friends of the Gulf Islands Society.
We also encourage you to speak and write to island trustees and to the Trust Council about your concerns with the Trust’s movement away from the primary environmental protection mandate.
Please email us if you have time and skills to contribute to this important endeavour.
The drift to a “local government” is further exemplified in the September 2023 Trust Council decision made in a closed meeting to fundamentally reinterpret the Islands Trust Act phrase “unique amenities” as including, but not limited to, housing, livelihoods, infrastructure, and tourism. There is no indication that First Nations were consulted on this interpretation.
Besides not being in any way “unique amenities” of the Gulf Islands, housing, infrastructure, livelihoods, etc. are services that fall more appropriately under the jurisdiction of regional districts and provincial and senior governments. The reinterpretation is not what was intended when the Trust Act was proclaimed in 1974 and is not what makes the Islands Trust unique in Canada. Moreover, the “reinterpretation” made behind closed doors excluded the public from hearing the views of their elected trustees and knowing how their trustees voted on a fundamental decision. The exclusion of the public from such an important discussion is not in keeping with transparent decision making.
Read the Islands Trust Council Statement on the Scope and Meaning of Section 3 of the Islands Trust Act (Object Clause) September 26, 2023