Editorial: Trust mandate discussion should be public

In any discussion involving the Islands Trust, no phrase is arguably quoted more than that body’s object or “the mandate.”

As originally envisioned, every decision or action taken by elected trustees should flow from the mandate, through the Policy Statement, then an island’s official community plan and land use bylaws. If the mandate has any meaning at all, changing what it is collectively understood to be should be an important matter. 

That’s why learning that elected Islands Trust Council members had discussed the mandate and come to a conclusion about what it means that is arguably much different from what it’s been for several decades in a meeting closed to the public on Sept. 26 has become an issue of concern. It’s understandable for a local government body to close a public meeting under Community Charter provisions for the purposes of receiving legal advice and to discuss that advice in private. But to have reportedly come to a “consensus” about an interpretation of the mandate and not formally rise and report or provide the details is just shoddy governance.

Minutes from that meeting, approved at last week’s quarterly Trust Council meeting, declared that a news release would be forthcoming on the subject. But council or the Executive Committee clearly don’t want to talk about the discussion or process. No such news release has yet appeared, the topic was not on the Dec. 6 to 8 meeting agenda and it only came into view when members of the public made that the case during the town hall segment. In response to those individuals, Trust Council chair Peter Luckham said he didn’t think any specific action needed to be taken. Trust Governance Committee chair Judith Gedye of Bowen Island did say she intended to draft something for her committee and the Executive Committee, but hasn’t yet had the time to do it. 

So has the interpretation of the hallowed mandate of the Islands Trust actually changed through a closed-door discussion and decision of Trust Council? If anyone knows for sure, they aren’t saying — yet.

Perhaps as the Islands Trust heads into its 50th year it is time to revisit the mandate and/or come to a new consensus on what it means. But if so it should be done through a fulsome discussion with the thoughts and views of our elected representatives made clear in a public forum.