Advocating for Salt Spring
One of the most important responsibilities of Salt Spring Island’s CRD Director is advocacy for Salt Spring off-island and on. As Salt Spring’s only representative on the CRD Board, this is a critical role and will continue to be, even when we’ve brought all the decision-making authority possible to the island through our Local Community Commission.
As B.C.’s largest unincorporated community (aside from the University Endowment Lands in Vancouver), Salt Spring has all the needs of every other community of 12,000 people. We want and need regional, provincial and federal funding for important projects and submitting an application then waiting patiently is often not enough to get it. We need a CRD Director who will advocate clearly and strongly for us in Victoria and elsewhere.
There are many areas where advocacy is important. For example, we must:
Establish a BC Ferries Advisory Committee for Salt Spring
It’s hard to overstate the importance of ferries to Salt Spring. We may be more self-sufficient than other communities of our size, but our connections with the outside world are critical – for food and materials, for medical services, for the sale of Salt Spring products off-island and for so much more. BC Ferries is this vital link and, for many years, Salt Spring had an advisory committee that provided direct input into BC Ferries decision-makers. The Ferry Corporation shut down this committee a few years ago and hasn’t replaced it with anything comparable.
It’s time for us to stop waiting for BC Ferries to listen to Salt Spring. We must speak up for ourselves. If I am elected CRD Director, I will work with the LCC to create a BC Ferries Advisory Committee of our own, with representatives from local government and our community that advocates for Salt Spring and sends BC Ferries and the Province clear messages on what our community needs and expects from this critical service.
Press CRD Regional Parks to speed up development of (and fund) the Salish Sea Trail linking Vesuvius to Ganges to Fulford
For many years, Island Pathways – one of our island’s many outstanding non-profit groups – and its dedicated, hard-working Salt Spring volunteers – have been pushing for progress on the Salish Sea Trail, a 21-kilometre multi-use walking and cycling route linking Vesuvius Bay to Ganges to Fulford Harbour.
The trail is a project of CRD Regional Parks, a separate organization from our LCC’s community parks service, which provides a wide range of parks and recreation amenities across Salt Spring. In contrast, Regional Parks has just one park on Salt Spring, Mill Farm Regional Park, which was acquired 30 years ago and offers no public facilities or amenities.
Salt Springers are required to contribute well over half a million tax dollars per year to the CRD Regional Parks Service, while it has not invested in any new parks or facilities on Salt Spring for three decades. Now Regional Parks is finally turning its attention to Salt Spring and Salish Sea Trail, which has been in its strategic plan for years. But the current plan is to make progress at a rate that will take longer to complete than the life expectancy of a high proportion of Salt Springers.
Salt Spring needs a strong representative on the CRD Board to work constructively with the CRD “over there” while pushing strongly for far more investment on the Salish Sea Trail and at a far faster pace than is currently planned.
If I am elected, I will be that strong advocate, making the point that few Salt Springers are able to use other Regional Parks, while many Salt Springers, as well as other residents of the region, will make use of the Salish Sea Trail. The time for progress is now!
Push the CRD Board to fund affordable housing projects on Salt Spring
Similar to its lack of funding for Regional Parks on Salt Spring, the CRD also makes significant investments in housing, but not nearly enough on Salt Spring. When the CRD got voter approval two years ago to borrow $85 million for housing – to be paid back by regional taxpayers, including Salt Springers – this offered some hope for a change to that history.
But the CRD’s initial plan was to invest all $85 million of this housing funding on southern Vancouver Island and not a dime on Salt Spring. Thankfully, CRD Director Gary Holman was successful in pressing for this plan to change. As a result, the current CRD plan is to invest $5 million of this funding – hopefully to be tripled with matching funds from the federal and provincial governments – in the Southern Gulf Islands and Salt Spring Electoral Areas.
We need to elect a CRD Director in October who will speak knowledgeably, strongly and persuasively, holding the CRD Board to this commitment and considering this promised investment to be just the start of its renewed investment in our community.
These are three examples of the advocacy Salt Spring needs from its CRD Director. If I’m elected, I will work hard to provide that and make sure Salt Spring gets its fair share of attention and resources in housing, regional parks, from BC Ferries and in other areas.