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 crisis we face.
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, 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.
Clear pathways for practical affordable housing in the village core, on already-cleared land, and on farms that need employees. Food security and affordable housing should be a top priority, all without decade-long approval marathons.
Base land-use on real watershed capacity. Ecological flows first, community needs second, luxury use last. And make rainwater cisterns and grey-water reuse easy.
Science-based decisions, measured by the health of watersheds, forests, and shoreline, and a Trust nimble enough for wildfire risk 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. No more vague explanations. Plain-language guides, checklists, and free public tools.
Plans that guide the island's long-term development and environmental priorities.
For the generation-shaping calls, a representative assembly chosen by lottery, so the people who actually live the consequences can help shape them.
Ferry reliability, 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.
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