A new trustee elected to represent Salt Spring Island on the Islands Trust council is a tree faller who created a website called Stop the Islands Trust.
Jamie Harris says on the website, which is full of images of island pioneers, that the Islands Trust is “controlled by eco-radicals who have a extreme conservancy agenda with a total lack of regard for the working class citizens.”
Harris, who campaigned on a pledge to address the island’s workforce housing crisis, was elected with 1,327 votes— just 41 votes ahead of his campaign partner Don Marcotte.
Incumbent trustee Laura Patrick, who has a background in environmental management and has already served one term as a trustee, was also elected, receiving 1,441 votes. Patrick was not available for comment.
The results are emblematic of competing priorities for the Gulf Island, where a growing housing shortage has challenged a historic culture of preservation, ingrained even in governance: The since-revised Islands Trust Act was passed in 1974 to “control unbridled development and preserve and protect the islands.”
Harris said he became involved in the region’s governance because of the Trust’s Coastal Douglas Fir Project, a forest management proposal that he said reaches beyond the Trust’s scope by regulating private property.
Harris said there is potential for forestry management on the island’s conservancy land — something he said could reduce wildfire risk and create economic opportunity.
“We have a huge opportunity to go further and look at our conservation lands and parkland and manage that, and keep the wood here,” he said.
During his campaign, Harris criticized the Islands Trust council for a lack of action in addressing workforce housing.
In urging people to vote, Harris wrote: “The ability of all islanders from construction workers to mechanics, trades people of all kinds to put food on the table and pay the bills depends on us all.”
Post-election, he said voters chose him because they could see the dire need for more housing options on the island.
“Everyone is witnessing our community system collapsing,” he said.
“Our hospital is short 40-something people, the ferries are short people. B.C. Hydro workers are having a hard time finding somewhere to live.
“Our services that we’re so used to having be there are diminishing.
“It’s collapsing. And it’s only going to get worse.
“I can’t stress that enough. As people retire from here, out of the workforce, the people that have to come in to replace them cannot afford a home here, period.”
The foundation supporting Salt Spring’s Lady Minto Hospital recently purchased a former motel for $4 million to provide employee rental housing in order to attract badly needed staff.
The hospital, the only one in the Southern Gulf Islands, had been struggling to fill 35 vacant positions — everything from cleaning staff and cooks to technicians and nurses — on an island where any type of housing is extremely scarce.
Peter Luckham, who was re-elected as Thetis Island local trustee and hopes for another term on the Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee, said he’s looking forward to working with Harris and having a new voice at the table.
Luckham said British Columbians expect that the Gulf Islands will be protected for their natural beauty and “delicate ecosystems,” emphasizing they are not urban centres with apartments and high rises.
“That’s not the anticipated form of development on the Gulf Islands.”
In 2021, the Trust’s policy statement — a foundational document guided by the Islands Trust Act — was at the centre of a months-long consultation and review process that ended with Luckham asking for a provincial review of the Trust’s mandate, governance and structure.
That request followed an external governance review that found systemic problems with the Trust model “that need to be addressed for Trust Council to effectively set direction and provide oversight.”
The reviews, Luckham said, were necessary steps for the Islands Trust, which has existed for less than 50 years.
“Those things are coming together for us to move in a really positive way forward to fulfill on the preserve and protect mandate and ideally, help everybody collaborate and work together,” Luckham said.
“We were tasked with doing specific things, and I would say, some things we haven’t done well, and we need to do better. And that’s just a fact.”
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