This vote is about making the Islands Trust work for all of us. It's a vote for the future we build together, through a reimagined Community Plan and a renewed spirit of what is possible.
Protecting this island and keeping it livable for the people who make it work are the same job.
Ethan's background is in environmental ethics (Ph.D), and it's one of the many reasons he takes the Trust's job seriously. To separate people from the environment, he argues, is a false divide that excuses inaction and sets people against the very place we all love. We are woven into it, not visitors to it. Doing nothing and hoping for the best isn't protection; it's the slow erosion of the things we say we value. Salt Spring deserves a Trust that protects it by deciding well: clearly, on time, and with reasons, so good decisions hold and people can trust the process.
These are the places where the Local Trust Committee can make a difference.
The Trust does not build homes. It makes them possible, or impossible. Clear pathways for affordable homes in the village core, on already-cleared land, and on farms that need to house their workers. Not a decade-long approval marathon.
When homes are out of reach, the whole island feels it. The family that can't find a rental, the senior who can't downsize here, the ferry crews and nurses nobody can hire.
Land use and water are fundamentally intertwined. Approval of land use has to be grounded in responsible watershed management: ecological flows first, community needs second, luxury use last. And make rainwater cisterns and grey-water reuse easy.
Stewarding the forest by tending it instead of fencing it off. Judge every decision by watershed, forest and shoreline health, and keep the Trust nimble enough to act on wildfire and a changing climate.
Real inclusion of First Nations in land-use planning and the OCP, with participation on the Nations' own terms.
Published permit timelines, written reasons for every decision, and the same standards for everyone, including universal shoreline protection. No more vague explanations. Plain-language guides, checklists, and free public tools.
The Official Community Plan is where housing, water, and protection priorities become enforceable policy. Ethan wants it reimagined for today's climate and housing reality, and then actually followed.
For the biggest calls, a citizens' assembly chosen by lottery, so renters, working families, young people, seniors, farmers and artists are in the room. They recommend. Elected trustees still decide.
Meaningful Indigenous reconciliation, arts and culture funding, food security and farm viability. Ferry reliability and fares, oil spill prevention, salmon, herring, and eelgrass recovery, species at risk, and the services this island depends on: take those fights to the provincial and federal governments where some of the levers actually sit. The Trust can't fix everything alone, but it can make noise where it counts.
Town-hall night belongs to whoever can take the evening off. Renters, working families, and service workers, the people most affected by housing and water decisions, are the ones least able to show up. As Ethan wrote in his op-ed, attendance is not the same thing as representation.
A citizens' assembly answers that. You select a representative group by lottery: renters and owners, every age, gender, income, and neighbourhood, with Indigenous participation built in. You pay them for their time, cover childcare and travel, give them balanced information and skilled facilitation, and ask them to wrestle honestly with one big question. They recommend, and the elected trustees still decide.
Salt Spring's future should not be decided by one faction, one demographic, one room, or one election cycle.
The housing crisis, the Trust mandate, and climate adaptation and mitigation will require contributions from many kinds of knowledge: scientific, Indigenous, practical, professional, generational and lived.
We need the retired planner and the young carpenter.
We need the farmer watching the water table and the renter watching the eviction notice.
We need people who have been here for fifty years and people trying to decide whether they can stay for five.
Salt Spring isn't a problem to be solved. It's a promise to be kept. We are all stewards of this place, but our island is at a crossroads. We need to work together for solutions that are big enough to tackle the challenges and crises that we face. Ethan Wilding · Salt Spring Exchange · July 2026
Salt Spring elects two trustees, so you may vote for up to two candidates. Whoever you give your other vote to, the island is better off when more of us turn out.
Send a note straight to the campaign. Prefer email? Write to info@ethanwildingssi.com. On social? We're on Facebook too.
We respectfully and gratefully acknowledge that Salt Spring Island is located on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, specifically the Hul’q’umi’num and SENĆOŦEN speaking nations including the Penelakut, Quw’utsun, Lyackson, Halalt, Tsawwassen, and WSÁNEĆ peoples. As we engage in the political process, we recognize that Indigenous sovereignty has never been ceded. We commit to moving beyond words by honouring ancestral governance, advocating for policy that centres Indigenous leadership, and by working to dismantle barriers within our local institutions.
