“The Trust is broken.” How many times have we heard that? Well, when trust is broken, you don’t throw it away — you repair it. Maybe not at the Repair Café, but through the work of the two trustees we will elect on Oct. 17.  

We repair it, because we need a healthy, strong Islands Trust to preserve and protect the places we love, and to make sure we’re ready for big challenges like preparing for climate change, preventing ecosystem loss and making room for affordable housing. 

If you elect me on Oct. 17, I’ll work hard to: 

1. Protect our ecosystems and our community from climate risks like forest fire, flooding and drought by incorporating better protections in a new Community Plan. 

2. Direct most remaining development and affordable housing to places with existing services through the Community Plan. 

3. Ensure that the true diversity of island voices is better heard and truly engaged by the Trust. 

4. Create better coordination on related work between the Trust, CRD, Local Community Commission (LCC) and our water and fire districts.  

A Community Plan sets the rules for what gets built where, and the bylaws that follow put those rules into effect. On Salt Spring, that plan is shaped by the Islands Trust. If we didn’t have those rules, the slopes of Mount Tuam might look more like North Vancouver, and we’d likely have expensive seasonal condo towers in Ganges. But we don’t — and that’s one of many reasons why many of us love this place.  

As a lead author of Salt Spring’s Climate Action Plan, I learned a great deal about protecting our ecosystems and communities as forests dry and oceans rise. With Transition Salt Spring (TSS), I helped develop recommendations to the Trust for a new Community Plan — one that takes on climate, watershed and forest health, and affordable housing by steering most remaining development away from forested and natural areas and into serviced, walkable places like Ganges. I’ve worked hard to learn what our 18-year-old plan says now, and understand where it likely needs to go to serve us better. Finishing that work is a key reason I’m running. 

Before moving back to BC and landing on Salt Spring in 2018, I spent two decades in Ontario working in renewable energy and electricity conservation outside government — and then from the inside. I’ve been a renewable energy developer struggling with local government permitting to build a wind turbine on Toronto’s waterfront (approved as an “amusement park structure/communications tower/other structure”!), which led to the creation of a province-wide renewables industry. From inside government, I spent 15 years helping Ontario transition from polluting coal and gas-fired power plants to renewables and electricity conservation.  

Those experiences taught me how government works, and how to make government work for community and planet. I took those skills to TSS, where I initiated the development of incentive programs to save islanders money on rainwater catchment systems, cleaner-burning wood stoves and heat pumps.  

While at TSS, I also developed strong working relationships with local elected officials and staff at the CRD, LCC, the Trust, North Salt Spring Waterworks and the fire district. I’ve got a head start on the job of trustee and can put these skills and relationships to work with kindness, determination and creativity to help untie the knots that hold us back. 

Repairing our relationship with the Trust will take work to transition to engaging with the community in a meaningful way. How often have you heard that “Salt Spring is an argument surrounded by water?” Well, a longtime islander told me last year that the original line was actually “Salt Spring is a conversation surrounded by water.” Let’s change the channel back to “conversation.” 

And better engagement starts with meeting folks where they are. You shouldn’t be shut out of the conversation because you have a job or a family, because you’re too busy for a long survey, or because you find it tough to speak in front of a crowd. We need to engage Salt Springers in new creative ways that fit better into their lives, and make sure that input is reflected in the result. More voices make for better decisions — and people are generally happier when they’ve been heard. I’m proposing working with my fellow trustees and Trust staff to change the Trust’s institutional culture starting on Salt Spring, and making that a model for the other islands.

Later in August, I’ll share more details about my vision. Anchoring this vision are my beliefs that:

• climate change and rural sprawl require that we do more to protect our watersheds and forests, which have a limited capacity to absorb development;

• housing, when done right and built in serviced areas, takes pressure off the natural spaces we love; and

• meaningful First Nations reconciliation could help right many wrongs, and get us rowing in the same direction to tackle the big problems, together.

I’ll be requesting meetings with all the declared candidates and look forward to more discussions about how each pair of us could work together if we are both elected. I’m also inviting the candidates to host joint open houses, so you can speak with each of us in one location.

In the weeks ahead, I look forward to hearing from you and answering your questions.

Where do you want Salt Spring to go? How do we turn an argument back into a conversation? I’m up for a channel change and a big shot of hope if you are.

Ask me questions on my website at youngfortrust.ca, or by sending me an email message at young4trustee@gmail.com.

Questions on Trust-wide issues:

1. The Islands Trust mandate states that “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.” What do the words “environment” and “unique amenities” mean to you? The terms were not defined in legislation and while they can be seen as highly subjective, we have more than 50 years of discussion and ongoing interpretation. Interpretations in 1986 and 2023 were seminal. The 1986 definition hews closely to natural and ecosystemic attributes, while the 2023 definition is broader and includes human elements. It is the job of Trustees to acquaint themselves with the scope of this discussion within the context of the Trust object, and make decisions that strike a balance – looking to the Trust Policy Statement for guidance. From my point of view, all of the words in the object need to be taken together. To that end, it strikes me as unnecessary, imprudent, and challenging to redefine “unique amenities” to include human settlement and its artifacts. The object of the Trust already states that “unique amenities and the environment” are to be “preserved and protected...for the benefit of the residents of the trust area and of British Columbia generally.” Humans and their artifacts are considered in the object as beneficiaries of the preservation and protection of the unique amenities and environment” found in the Trust Area.

Unique Amenities

We sit in the Coastal Douglas-fir ecozone, perhaps the smallest and most heavily altered ecosystem type in British Columbia. Roughly half of it has already been developed. Under one percent of its old growth remains. On these islands, we hold a mere sliver of the zone, with our Garry oak meadows, manzanita, camas, and madrone on the dry rocky bluffs we love. These are our “unique amenities”.

We’ve already lost a lot of that uniqueness here on Salt Spring. The maps created by Ruth Waldick and Nicholas Courtier in the Climate Action Plan 2.0 that I co-edited with Elizabeth White chronicle forest loss, and from 2000 to 2020 according to Global Forest Watch we lost 6% of forest cover.

To me, ‘preserving and protecting that which is unique’ has to be the pre-eminent priority, and against which all development must be measured, and against which any future Official Community Plan or Land Use Bylaw amendments must be judged. Development is legal in the Trust Area, and we have this mandate. Both co-exist. We must reckon with that contradiction, and based on the steady diminishment of those ecosystems and the species within them over the past 50 years, we cannot continue clearing forests for houses. We need to stick with what we’ve cleared and live within our means.

Environment

I resist reading the word ‘environment’ through the lens of people on one side and nature on the other, with ‘protection’ meaning keeping them apart. The meadows and open forests that we value so highly were shaped over millennia in interactions between the Coast Salish peoples, other animals and creatures, the soil, the sun, and the rain. Human interactions included seasonal burning to suppress Douglas-fir, and promote open Garry oak savannah and camas production. In the language of the SENĆOŦEN speaking peoples ḰȽO,ELENEȻ, is translated as “Camas food systems” which clearly shows that humans were an integral part of what the western way of seeing calls “environment”. Some would say that without this active stewardship, the productivity and complexity of these lands has diminished.

Being a part of “the environment” means being mindful about where we step, how we steward, and how much we take and put back. Sadly, our current relationship with this place is net negative by a wide margin.

There are more and less integrated ways of living within this environment and how islanders score on this criterion is determined by the sum of everything we do, from collective personal practices to government decisions made every single day. If blame is something we need to ascribe, there is plenty to go around, but that is not a fruitful path. Each generation inherits a slightly diminished island and calls it normal. At the same time, almost nobody would deliberately vote for tiny serial degradations at a Local Trust Committee or Trust Council meeting if they lived in the knowledge of the larger context.

The existing Trust Policy Statement (3.1.1) says that:

“Trust Council holds that proactive land use planning is essential for the protection of Trust Area Ecosystems .... and planning must account for the cumulative effects of existing and proposed development to avoid detrimental effects on watersheds, groundwater supplies and Trust Area species and habitats.”

Decisions are made in every day in meetings and through our personal actions that don’t take cumulative impacts into account. This puts the fact of land zoned to allow development, and a preserve and protect mandate into increasing tension over time while we continually fail to account for cumulative effects.

We can lessen the “cumulative effects of ... proposed development”, by building where we already have services in places like Ganges. North Salt Spring Waterwork District (NWSSD) had about 300 multi-family equivalent connections available when it partially lifted the moratorium, and of that roughly 250 are left. NSSWD calculated the 300 connections based on “multi-family units” (aka: apartments) which have far lower domestic water consumption on average than single family homes. These connections should go to affordable and workforce housing sited where there are already existing services, starting with rental housing for the people who already live and/or work here. It's the only way I can see to better balance preserve and protect with the need to address the housing affordability crisis.

Ultimately, “environment” is paramount. For many of us, it’s why we came, it’s why we love it here. But between the impacts of climate change, and our highly inefficient and wasteful rural sprawl development pattern, we’re in fact steadily losing land to preserve and protect.

2. Do you support passing the 2026 draft Trust Policy Statement as it is? Why, or why not?

Short answer - No.

My journey with the Trust Policy Statement (TPS) started a year ago, with a submission I made on behalf of Transition Salt Spring. Our focus then was to add climate change which is absent from the current TPS. I also know from reviewing the current TPS that there is nothing on Indigenous rights and title or commitments to reconciliation. It is also a really challenging document for most people to read.

The draft of the updated TPS is a lot easier to read and navigate. For the general public to truly understand, let alone appreciate, why the Trust is important, they must be able to read and comprehend its core document. A Latin mass is great if you can understand Latin, but when you don’t understand what is being said?! We need a modernized TPS (and OCP and LUB) that makes an effort to speak in ways that more people can understand to build better public familiarity and support for the mandate.

That builds trust.

Since I gave that submission I have reviewed a line by line comparison developed by Friends of the Gulf Islands. The language, for example, around cumulative effects in the current and proposed versions is striking. The proposed version says we should “strive” to account for cumulative effects, while the current one says that “planning must account” for these effects (emphasis added). It’s clear that we are failing to achieve this part of the TPS now, and is perhaps a cautionary tale about how much stock we should put in foundational documents if the institutions charged with upholding them do not uphold their directives. We must reckon with this contradiction in the revised TPS.

I pledge to broaden my understanding of the content and history of the current TPS and the arguments many have made about its strengths. I also pledge to push for a renewed TPS that:

• Keeps and strengthens environmental protections,

• Adds principles and directive language about the undeniable fact of climate change and our need to mitigate ecosystem impacts and develop adaptation policies and strategies, and

• Enshrines meaningful reconciliation as outlined in the draft TPS. I don’t think we will survive the climate crisis well without meaningful reconciliation. Traditional western dichotomies of mind body, human nature drive insufficient responses.

3. Given the legal authority of the Islands Trust Act, what are your thoughts about the role of elected Trustees?

The role of Trustees is to uphold the Trust’s objects, while acknowledging the facts of human settlement, Indigenous rights and title, and climate change. The role of Trustees should be to be innovative and collaborative in dealing with systemic challenges, and in interfacing with the public, agencies, and other levels of government.

Trustees must also be clear-eyed about organizational capacity. My platform places the Official Community Plan and Land Use Bylaw as the two single biggest commitments. This is deliberate. The more we freight the boat with commitments, the less we will achieve given Trust capacity. Collaboration across agencies, rebuilding public trust, and improving how the Trust listens to a broader range of residents are the means by which I want to achieve these commitments. Trustees key goals are to unite residents around the Trust’s mandate.

Democracy itself in the Trust Area needs to evolve, and there is significant tension between many people across the Trust Area and amongst trustees. To help rebuild (or build) trust in the Trust, I plan to advocate for establishing engagement processes drawn from citizens assemblies and deliberative democracy to improve the diversity of voices providing input on key LTC or Islands Trust projects, and empowering citizens to hold some accountability in making recommendations about the shared stewardship of this place we are blessed to call home. We have experts living right here and in Victoria ready to help the public learn about these tools, and in turn help trustees exercise their duties.

4. How do you feel about the various criticisms that have been leveled against the Islands Trust?

The Trust’s own CAO, whom I respect and have met with a number of times, laid out several criticisms of the Trust laid out in last year’s operational review. He was not criticising staff, but rather the almost impossible situation the organization is in, the age of its systems and processes, and the demands placed on it.

The Trust is struggling under decades of cumulative decision making by everyone from provincial officials and their staff to Trustees and Trust staff, along with pressure from thousands of constituents, all with their own needs and perspectives.

The Trust’s professional Planners are amongst the lowest paid in BC particularly when you factor in living costs on these islands. It’s part of the reason why few planners live on the islands, why staff turnover is so frequent. The remoteness of island planners from day to day islander life has heightened the disconnect between the Trust and residents, breeding mistrust and substandard ways of engaging islanders. With high turnover goes institutional momentum, capacity and memory. This is one reason the Trust’s processes are slow and inefficient.

There are OCPs and land use bylaws for each of the 12 LTCs, and one municipality, each of which are unique, in a Trust Area characterized by similar ecosystem zone characteristics and development challenges. Add to that the demands of a 26-member Trust Council that turns over every four years, and the ongoing and steady stream of development applications, and it’s pretty easy to see how things got to where they are.

The Trust has a mandate to preserve and protect, for us here on these islands and for BC in general, but the Trust is almost exclusively funded by revenue from its islands. This wasn’t always the case – staff used to be exclusively paid for by the Province. Part of the reason for the Trust’s challenges come from the lack of Provincial support for the mandate. I will advocate on this issue if elected.

While some would abolish the Trust, I strongly believe we need to retool, reempower, and strengthen the Trust, to give it a proper fighting chance to truly realize the ambitions of the mandate.

Questions on Salt Spring issues:

5. Specifically, what policies would you propose to better protect the natural environment on Salt Spring?

As one example, we must restrict development in areas in the path of documented climate risks to protect the Trust from liability, and our community and ecosystems from harm.

The Trust and the SSIFPD have discussed a Wildfire Development Permit Area and, while it is a step in the right direction, its initial outlines however were insufficient for the magnitude of the wildfire risks we are facing.

The Trust needs a Climate Risk Development Permit Area (DPA) focusing on scientifically validated risks from seasonal freshwater flooding, wildfire, and coastal flooding due to sea level rise. We already have high quality work that covers Salt Spring to plug into a Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessment that would provide a defensible rationale for risk mitigation and climate change adaptation in our revised community plan and land use policies.

A Climate Risk DPA restricted to landscaping and building materials recommendations is helpful but insufficient in addressing wildfire risks in some areas. Likewise in areas where coastal and freshwater flooding zones which will become imprudent to build in, and a Trust liability. Humans cause most wildfires on Salt Spring. Keeping homes out of the highest risk zones is prudent to protect stressed forest ecosystems and increasingly vulnerable aquifer recharge zones.

6. The current Official Community Plan (OCP) has this policy: “B.2.1.2.1 Zoning changes should be avoided if they would likely result in a larger island population than is expected under the development potential zoned in 2008. Exceptions to this policy are to be few and minor and only to achieve affordable housing* and other objectives of this Plan.”

*As defined by the BC Government, the provincial definition of “affordable housing” housing that costs no more than 30% of household income.

Do you support retaining this policy? If not, what policy would you put in its place?

Yes, but with qualifications.

a. The definition in Part A of the OCP “describes rental or owned housing that can be acquired with 30 per cent of the median gross income of families or individuals on Salt Spring Island” (emphasis added). The question above varies from the actual policy by redefining “affordable housing” as no more than “30% of household income” not “30% of the median gross income of families or individuals on Salt Spring.” What is written in the question and what is written in the OCP is apples and oranges. Regardless, the OCP definition seems flawed because it fails to account for the skew in Salt Spring incomes to the lower end because incomes of retired people often include investment income not captured in the calculation of what “median gross income” would be on SSI. What’s more, Salt Spring Foundation’s 2025 Living Wage Report pegs living wage at $28.45, which is 10.60 above the BC minimum wage ($17.85), meaning that the OCP definition fails to account for higher living costs on SSI. At the very least the OCP definition needs to be examined for flaws if its goal is social equity. As it stands, it seems like an arbitrary cut off that makes it harder for affordable housing to be built.

b. It must be acknowledged that current housing economics are terrible – especially for the construction of “affordable” housing, however defined. No policies, separately or in the aggregate, can accomplish affordable housing on their own without significant philanthropy, land contributions, or government grants. Instead we see a proposal for a recreational vehicle park in a clearcut on a bad road with no current water and wastewater system connections. How do we develop housing solutions appropriate for our island that will work, given government indebtedness, poor housing economics, and an island construction premium added onto that?

c. Having said that, we first need to focus on affordable rental housing units close to services, especially Ganges. I recommend that the Trust collaborate with the LCC, CRD, NSSWD to better support the proponents of projects like King’s Lane, Norton Road, and the remaining density at the Drake Road property to see if there is a winning formula to get these built. We need everyone to come together to find ways to make them work, including proactive support from Positively Forward. At the same time, I will need the support of Positively Forward and its members to implement ecosystem and climate readiness measures to better “preserve and protect” our island home.

With respect and hope,

Bryan Young, candidate

SSI Local Trust Committee

EMAIL: young4trustee@gmail.com WEBSITE: youngfortrust.ca

Q1. Affordable Housing: The high cost and lack of availability of housing on Salt Spring make it difficult for many people, including workers, to continue to live here. Without a diverse community, Salt Spring will struggle to meet the challenges of climate change and other worsening issues. According to the Salt Spring Island Foundation's 2025 Living Wage Report, the average Salt Spring family spends more than 40% of their income on housing. Do you support the creation of more affordable housing on Salt Spring within sustainable population limits?

Bryan Young: YES Our rules say ‘yes’ to the wrong housing and ‘no’ to the right housing: a large seasonal home proceeds as a right, while non-profit projects face costly, uncertain processes and unfair opposition. As trustee I will propose: -Pre-zoning serviced land in Ganges for affordable and rental housing through the OCP/LUB update, so proponents are clear on the process and aren't starting from scratch. -Working with my fellow trustee, the CRD, LCC, and water and sewer providers to move projects like King's Lane and the CRD’s Drake Road property forward. -Exploring expansion of secondary suites throughout Ganges, with allowance for one serviced unattached cottage. Homes for islanders, not visitors. That's how we respect sustainable limits: homes for the nurses, ferry crews and teachers who keep this island running, not bigger homes for fewer people.

Q2. Housing Density: Over 80% of housing on Salt Spring consists of single-family detached homes—double the regional average. This type of housing contributes to sprawl. Increasing housing density into already serviced villages cuts the driving, land clearing and ecosystem impacts, and infrastructure sprawl that add to Salt Spring's carbon footprint, taxes and climate risk exposure, while also creating more affordable housing options. Will you ensure the revised Salt Spring Official Community Plan (OCP) directs most new residential zoning capacity into Ganges and other existing serviced villages, rather than continuing to expand into rural and forested areas?

Bryan Young: YES The Trust inherited rural zoning that allows sprawl to continue unchecked. As trustee I propose to: -Make our village-focused growth policy real: allow an added serviced dwelling on suitable village lots, and permit apartments above shops without rezoning in Ganges.-Keep village growth out of Ganges sea-level-rise risk areas. -Redirect subdivision to the LTC instead of to the Province, and requiring lot by lot rezoning. -Better use density transfers to shift rural density into villages, and downzoning high-risk or ecologically critical land. -Allow additional storeys as was done for the Drake Road housing project to take up less land. -Conserve more natural areas by requiring residential structures to be located closer to the road, allowing easier access to first responders. Curtailing development outside of serviced areas makes it easier to protect our forests.

Q3. Smaller Housing Forms: Smaller homes use less energy to build and heat, let people live closer to where they work, and can often be more affordable - all of which cut commuting emissions, protect ecosystems and create more housing options. Will you support zoning bylaws that allow smaller housing forms such as garden suites, cottages, and tiny homes (aka: accessory dwelling units) as permitted uses for year-round housing in more places?

Bryan Young: YES Small homes are the lowest-impact housing we can add, and many islanders already live in unpermitted ones. A legal path makes them safer and more secure. As trustee I will propose: -Permitting garden suites, cottages and code-compliant tiny homes or manufactured homes as long-term residential uses in serviced areas, and with proven water supply. Gabriola's work shows a path for Salt Spring. -Year-round rental housing only through housing agreements with the owner. No short-term rentals. -Simple and lower cost permitting for small homes, with water standards encouraging rainwater catchment. -Lowering maximum house size to 3000 sq ft from 5000 across the island. -Allow one separate service-connected unit to be built on existing developed properties in serviced areas starting with Ganges. It's simple: more people housed in smaller, water conserving spaces, less forest cleared.

Q4. Engagement with First Nations on Land Use: Indigenous knowledge of this land's fire, water, food and ecological history is vast, and land use decisions made without them risk missing information that matters for adapting to a changing climate, while also repeating a pattern of consultation after decisions are already made. Will you support a policy requiring early engagement with local First Nations governments before land use decisions affecting their territories move to a vote, even where that adds time to the approval process?

Bryan Young: YES Early engagement doesn't slow good decisions down; late consultation does. As trustee I will propose: -A reconciliation section in the OCP, developed with Nations and grounded in reciprocity: what we offer, not only what we ask, including stewardship roles in fire, forests and deer management. -Seeking capacity funding from the Province so Nations can respond and there are sufficient dedicated Trust staff resources. Referrals without resources shift the burden onto stretched Nation staff. -Protocol agreements setting out which decisions each Nation wants a say in, and how, rather than us deciding for them. -Referring relevant development applications and policies affecting First Nations territories to them at the start, with time built into schedules up front. Relationships built early are what make good decisions possible later.

Q5. Data-Driven Planning: As wildfire, flood, and drought risks grow, decisions made without current and locally specific hazard and vulnerability data lock in policies that are difficult to reverse later. Will you support a requirement that current climate hazard data (wildfire, flood, sea level rise, drought, food and freshwater availability) be a mandatory part of reviewing rezoning and subdivision applications?

Bryan Young: YES Past conditions no longer predict future risk and lock in climate risk liabilities for everyone, including the Trust. As trustee I will propose: -A climate risk assessment built from existing work with gap-filling as needed: wildfire, flood, sea-level rise, drought, groundwater and farmland data, kept current and public. -Proof of water updated to move from past performance to forecasted availability based on climate modelling. -A Climate Risk Development Permit Area to minimize climate change-induced freshwater flooding, sea level rise, and wildfire risks. -Climate hazards review for rezonings or subdivision applications. -Requirements scaled to risk: small affordable projects don't get buried in studies while larger proposals get properly tested. -Climate risk and adaptation indicators and targets in the revised OCP/LUB, reported annually so the public can track performance.

Q6. Development Permit Areas for Habitat Protection: Forests, wetlands, and shorelines absorb floodwater, buffer wildfire, and store carbon, so weakening their protection removes exactly the natural systems that help the island cope with climate extremes and protect biodiversity. Will you support the strengthening of Development Permit Area (DPAs) guidelines for forests, wetlands, and shoreline habitat, even where that adds cost or process time for applicants?

Bryan Young: YES Healthy habitats are a less expensive way to manage climate risk than dealing with damage later. As trustee I will propose: -A Wildfire DPA where fuel management and habitat protection work together. -An Ecosystem Contiguity DPA, to reduce fragmentation of ecosystems caused by lot-by-lot development. -Updated shoreline guidelines accounting for sea-level rise, with stronger wetland and riparian protection keyed to climate forecasts. -Clear, objective guidelines and staff approval of simple permits to limit cost, plus resources for enforcement. -A renewed and expanded mapping and monitoring to track threats and progress. Some island foresters practice sustainable forest practices and gain livelihoods from the sale of forest products. We need to encourage these practices in collaboration with willing island partners.

Q7. Watershed Health. With droughts becoming more frequent and severe, approving growth without confirming water supply sustainability sets up shortages that can hit every household. Water is also a linchpin issue in ecosystem wellbeing and climate risk reduction. Will you make watershed health and freshwater sustainability a key priority if elected?

Bryan Young: YES Water is the limit that shapes every decision here. As trustee I will propose: -Requiring rezonings to show a sustainable water supply, based on projected water availability not historic averages or current flow rates. -Treating on-island water supply as a hard ceiling in the OCP's growth projections. -A Groundwater Recharge DPA to protect lands that refill our aquifers. -A standing watershed forum to fill the gap left by SSIWPA's wind-up, bringing together the CRD, LCC, North Salt Spring Waterworks, CRD utilities, private providers and the Province.-Rainwater catchment and water-wise design as standard in all new builds, including constructed ponds and wetlands. -Pressing the Province, which licenses groundwater, for better monitoring. -Advocating to Island Health and the Province for more streamlined rules on potable water from rainwater catchment, and greywater reuse.

Q8. Food Security: Local food production is one of the clearest ways to reduce emissions from transporting food from off-island and strengthen our resilience when supply chains are disrupted by climate, political and economic events. Farming is also notoriously hard to sustain, with farmers saying they need to be supported to allow for agri-tourism accommodations, worker housing, and on-farm sales. Will you prioritize food security and the preservation of farmland and farming as a viable livelihood within the ALR, and outside of it, on Salt Spring?

Bryan Young: YES Local food buffers us from supply chain shocks, and farmers create local livelihoods. As trustee I will propose: -Protecting farms, inside and outside the ALR, from conversion to other uses. -Broadening protection for farm income streams including on-farm sales, food processing and agri-tourism – including limited accommodation – tied to active farming. -Opening farmworker housing to working farms outside the Agriculture zones, and use housing agreements so those homes stay with farmworkers, not vacation renters. -Helping farms store rain for summer use, with simple, low-cost rules for ponds and catchment. -Sending every bylaw that affects farming to the Agricultural Alliance and the Agricultural -Advisory Planning Commission, and build the Area Farm Plan into the OCP, so rules align with farmer needs.

Q9. Climate Risks: What do you believe are the main climate risks to Salt Spring Island’s citizens, infrastructure, economy, and ecosystems? What specific actions do you think the community should take now to adapt to these risks and prepare for the growing challenges, and how will you help advance these efforts?

Bryan Young: The main risks: wildfire in drying forests; drought and falling groundwater levels; extreme heat; sea-level rise and storm surge in Ganges, at terminals and on low-lying roads; increasing atmospheric-river flooding, leading to increasing road failures and property damage, and ferry and supply-chain disruptions. Drought stressed ecosystems, with Western red cedar and Coastal Douglas-fir die back, deer overbrowsing further drying soils. Behind it all sits economic risks: insurers retreating and costs landing on us all. As a lead author of Salt Spring's Climate Action Plan, I'll push for: -A climate risk assessment built into bylaws: no new development where risk is high, and for already-built hazard areas, a plan to protect, adapt or retreat. New rules using updated sea level rise science. -Wildfire, forest and groundwater recharge DPAs, plus advocacy for additional FireSmart support for neighbourhoods. -Water sustainability tests based on forecasts for any new density, and a standing inter-agency watershed protection forum. -Farmland and local food production treated as critical resilience infrastructure. -Resilience hubs and stronger evacuation planning with the CRD, LCC and SSI Fire Rescue. As trustee, my job is to pull the agencies together. No single body owns climate risk, and the gaps between them are where people, our ecosystems, and other creatures get hurt.

Q10. Top Overall Priorities: If elected, what will your top priorities be in the coming term, and what specific actions will you take to address those priorities?

My priorities are secure homes people can afford, healthy watersheds and ecosystems, and a Trust that makes clear decisions and follows through. Protecting Salt Spring and keeping it livable are the same job.

Through the OCP and Land Use Bylaw 355 review, I would pursue compact housing near services, smaller homes, lasting affordability, and clear protections for watersheds, farmland, forests, and shorelines. I would work with water providers and the CRD to align housing plans with water capacity and practical infrastructure improvements.

I would seek clear application requirements, realistic timelines, written reasons, and a public application tracker. First Nations should be involved early, and a representative citizens’ assembly should help shape the community plan.

I would regularly report on progress, obstacles, and next steps so residents can hold me accountable.

By Bryan Young, Candidate for Islands Trust Local Trustee

Islander Margarite Sanchez wrote to me this week with a question others may also have on reading Ron ’s opinion piece published on Tuesday on the Salt Spring Exchange, so I’m sharing our correspondence here, with Margarite’s permission, as my reply to her and to my island community as we prepare to choose two hardworking Islands Trust Local Trustees.  

Hi Bryan: I am still trying to decide on my vote for the Islands Trust. I want someone who will strengthen the Islands Trust and the preserve and protect part of the mandate. I’ve been leaning towards voting for you, and then an acquaintance directed me to this article that is not favourable towards you. I thought I’d ask you directly: can you explain why you supported the draft Trust Policy Statement as is?

Hello Margarite:  I really appreciate the question. I’ve addressed this in my responses to Positively Forward and the Friends of the Gulf Islands, but I wouldn’t expect anyone to wade through all of that.

The short answer: I do not support the draft Trust Policy Statement as it stands.

Here is how I got to that position. Transition Salt Spring submitted its comments on the draft Islands Trust Policy Statement when we were entirely focused on our climate and ecosystem submission to the Official Community Plan review. Our Policy Statement response came out of internal collaboration and had a narrow goal given the time we had to develop our position: getting climate change recognized as a guiding principle. Ronald ’s article draws selectively on that record because he does not seem to have read my responses (hyperlinked above) on this issue.  

Since then, in preparing for this election, I’ve read the Trust’s existing Policy Statement through and compared it afresh with the proposed one. My conclusion is that the current Policy Statement is ambitious and appropriate, but has been collectively ignored for decades. One clear example is its requirement that the cumulative effects of development decisions be considered. Look around our island and it’s plain that cumulative effects have largely been ignored. The new draft says we should “strive” to account for cumulative effects. That may actually be a more honest description of what we have collectively done to these islands, but merely “striving” is at odds with the preserve-and-protect mandate. We all own this; this is a collective failure. 

Like many of my positions, this one is nuanced. The gap between the rules and policies we make and what we actually do keeps widening. That is not a sustainable path for a society that respects the rule of law, let alone for the Trust’s mandate. We need to tighten the language on environmental protection and have a very honest community conversation about what we are actually willing to enforce. A law without enforcement is just wasted paper and time. The pressures on these islands are many, and climate change – for which we are wholly and frustratingly unprepared – makes them far greater.

I strongly support the preserve-and-protect mandate. I also believe the Trust as currently configured, structured and funded is simply not up to the task. In some circles, saying so gets you called a “Trust-hater,” which I am not. Nor do I believe in the binary positions (for/against) that some take on many island issues which are far too complex for black and white. So, in the world of the colour spectrum, we can both be critical of the Trust, and love its purpose.  

We must stop throwing tomatoes, and start actively deliberating on our biggest problems. That means actually listening, which many including Mr. Wright and Positively Forward could become better at. Ignore the Trust’s problems and two things will happen: people continue to lose faith in the Trust, and the Trust, in turn, becomes increasingly less effective as an organization.  We cannot let that happen. Yet, this is exactly what folks like Mr. Wright’s and others do – sit on the grenade with its pin pulled out thinking it won’t go off. Well, what I am hearing in this election is that people want change and are tired of the status quo of paralysis in our community. 

To address the Trust’s significant problems, and if elected, I will work with Trust Council to secure external funding to help the Trust actually achieve its mandate, and push to improve how the Trust lobbies the government for change. There are other problems that the Trust has right now, many of them are outlined in Trust CAO Rueben Bronee’s well-articulated operational review – something the new Trust Council must reckon with  after the election.  

Locally, I will do everything I can as Trustee to further slow development in natural areas and direct remaining development (the key word is “remaining”) to serviced areas, taking pressure off our undeveloped natural spaces. At the same time, I want to bring in new development permit areas that fully account for climate risks such as wildfire, winter flooding and sea-level rise, so that we begin limiting development in those areas. That reduces future risks to life and property – not to mention the climate-risk liabilities steadily accruing to the Trust. Nowhere in the Trust are there policies, for example, on sea level rise. That’s in spite of a toothless ‘climate emergency’ the Trust declared in 2019. 

Within my first six months, I will convene tables on climate and environment; housing; economy and agriculture; and on planning and civic engagement, drawing on the many gifted experts that live right here. These tables will guide my thinking as we reopen the stalled community plan and  land use bylaw review for genuine, meaningful whole island public input. For the climate and environment table, I have already reached out to many of our island’s best and brightest, and all have agreed to help. They, like me, see the need to preserve and protect this place and prepare for a troubled future.

None of us is Robinson Crusoe on a desert island; when there are two, there are trade-offs – full stop. To move forward, we need to establish a new island wide social consensus for these challenging times. That means listening to the needs of the diversity of our community. For example, that means making room for necessary affordable housing at a time when we also need to slow development and shrink the footprint of what we do build. Smaller homes in an apartment building have a far lower footprint than rural sprawl, and I want to see affordable housing and remaining development in general built in places that are already serviced. New affordable housing will be difficult to achieve, with public funding now scarce or non-existent. Our community will need to do what it does best: get creative together. 

Mr. Wright’s brief assessment of my candidacy leaves out key elements of my preservationist platform: a proposal to downzone Channel Ridge, and a “homeplate” zoning proposal (already in our community plan but never turned into law!). These would help conserve forested lands while keeping what is built closer to the road and safer for emergency services to reach. There is also my commitment to lower the maximum size of a principal residence from 5,000 to 2,500 or 3,000 square feet. Why no attention to these proposals? 

As you’ll see in my platform at youngfortrust.ca, the aim of every single proposed policy or initiative is to weave together a broad consensus for our community as a whole – in a way that honours “preserve and protect” while acknowledging the glorious differences within our community. In a pluralistic society (and in villages with more than one person) we must negotiate trade-offs.  That is what living with others means. What is Mr. Wright or Positively Forward willing to negotiate in its discussion with this village?  The winner-take-all approach favoured by both extremes – left and right on our island and elsewhere in our burning world – is divisive and fundamentally undemocratic. There will be no peace in that approach – only anger and stalemate. That is precisely why my campaign is about changing our “argument surrounded by water” into a “conversation”.  

Candidates can’t respond to every characterization of their positions, so I truly appreciate the chance to answer this question directly. If you have any more questions, please get in touch.

Thank you to Margarite for encouraging me to adapt my response to her for publication. 

One island working as one. That’s my wish. Vote - Saturday, October 17th.