The Islands Trust Council is preparing a public discussion on plans to shift notice distribution to Facebook and its website, as concerns over accessibility — and U.S.-owned social media — have dogged attempts to “harmonize” policies on individual islands.
The current proposal to eschew local print newspapers, advanced by the Executive Committee in December, will be on the next Trust Council agenda, according to staff, the latest expression of a “model” public notice bylaw intended for Local Trust Committees (LTCs) and adopted by the 26-member council last summer.
Previously, when public notices were required by the Islands Trust Act and Local Government Act, the default notification laid out by the Community Charter was publication in two editions of a newspaper, once each week for two consecutive weeks. And while a provision also allows local governments to adopt their own notification schemes with some legislative guardrails, the new online-centric “alternate public notice bylaw” sent to LTCs — while applauded for frugality — has been met with mixed reviews.
Adoption at the local level has been less than harmonious, with the effort thus far yielding a patchwork of different standards for public notification among LTCs, reflecting the different needs of individual islands. The Gambier-Keats LTC, for example, joined Mayne, Saturna and North Pender Islands in adopting the model bylaw as-written, while Denman Island and larger Gabriola and Salt Spring Islands voted to keep the “status quo” — i.e. the legislative default.
Thetis Island added its local “E-Spokes” newsletter to the model bylaw, with Galiano Island adding its Active Page — and Hornby Island amended language to keep the Islands Trust website for notifications, but use “a local print weekly newspaper” instead of Facebook.
Islanders have expressed trepidation over reliance on U.S.-owned Facebook for the distribution of public notices; the Islands Trust’s Executive Committee meeting Wednesday, Feb. 4 discussed correspondence urging it reconsider using the “social media behemoth” to that end, with one letter writer lamenting the cost of supporting “engagement-maximizing products that hijack attention, erode agency and creep people out through surveillance and manipulation.”
“I do understand the sentiment around the social media company,” said Lasqueti Island trustee Tim Peterson, whose own LTC chose not to include Facebook in its adaptation of the model bylaw, substituting “a newspaper that publishes at least once a month on Lasqueti Island.”
“And it’s a sentiment that I’ve heard from plenty of others,” he continued. “I don’t know that we’re in a position to effectively get the same reach through another platform at this time.”
At a recent meeting of the Islands Trust’s Accessibility Committee, member Theresa Burley said the online-only scheme had caught the attention of concerned islanders who had read about Trust Council’s plans in a Victoria newspaper. The committee has not yet had a chance to assess the Trust’s website for accessibility, and shifting public notices fully online “leaves out a lot of people,” she said — “particularly if our website is not up to snuff yet.”
“That’s a bit of a red flag,” said Burley. “Usually you want to have things as available — and in as many formats — as possible, unless the cost is completely prohibitive.”
Legislative and Information Services director David Marlor told that committee it was a balance Trust Council needed to consider.
“From our understanding, with the exception of the Driftwood on Salt Spring, the readership of newspapers in the islands is really quite low, and it’s getting lower because of social media and the internet,” he said. “And then of course the logistics of tying [multiple newspaper publications] all together in staff time, it becomes quite expensive for a fairly low number of people.”
“Just because numbers are low, many are probably older folks where you will have more people with disabilities among them,” said Burley. “We should keep in mind not to discount them, just because there’s not many.”
Marlor reiterated Trust Council could choose to use print media for any reason if the situation seemed to suit it — the policy scheme, staff have said, is intended simply to free them from being required to.
“I think generally, with the exception of age issues, most people are looking to websites for that [meeting schedule information],” said Salt Spring Island trustee Laura Patrick, who as Trust Council chair sits ex officio on the Accessibility Committee. “I mean, that’s how I look. ‘When is Bowen Island Municipality meeting?’ I go to their website and look at it.”
The Accessibility Committee chose not to make a motion at its Jan. 15 meeting, and does not sit again until April — by which time the decision on Trust Council notices will presumably have been made. Trust Council’s next quarterly meeting in Duncan begins Tuesday, March 10.