Fear, Drama and Politics over-states any real threat to Salt Spring Islanders.

It is often very difficult to read the Salt Spring community landscape - at local voting time it generally breaks down into three main groups, environmental activists, independent business people and dare I say, the New Democratic Party? At the federal level it is quite paradoxical that the Conservative Party has a powerful undivided minority position and therefore garners the most votes because the other side is fragmented into three subsets of opposition. This opposition by failing to align themselves behind any one candidate continues to ensure all of their defeats, it is almost too obvious for words. It is the only reason Gary Holman was locally elected to two terms, too many opponents splitting their vote. But I digress.

There is also an indigenous group of independently wealthy islanders, some of whom can afford to be Cadillac socialists and who work behind the scenes making it difficult for islanders to find a political balance between our environmental, social and economic needs.

Those with money and time on their hands have, over the years thwarted meaningful local employment opportunities, smart development plans for the inner harbour and elsewhere and seem to follow the simplistic notion that if nobody moves nobody gets hurt.

All the while Salt Spring is needing more diverse employment opportunities it is simultaneously becoming too expensive for the average working person to find affordable housing. Businesses are continually faced with a shortage of younger workers, many leaving the island to find homes in more affordable communities.

Clearly we need a change of overall governance towards a more municipal model whereby we are allowed representation from a much wider strata of our population. This fact alone fosters a more democratic system than the current mandate of the Trust is even allowed to embody. Fear tactics from the Trust and its followers tend to inflame situations as in characterizing the short-term rental market as a "commercial take-over of housing" or thwarting low income housing solutions by refusing to enable people to rent out suites or rooms.

The community is owed a full governance study as promised by all our elected officials, not catchy re-inventions like "Trust Renewal".

Finally, just a further note about that divisive fear tactic, the Islands Trust’s anonymous snitch system of bylaw enforcement. Encouraging this kind of free complaint system of bylaw enforcement ruins community goodwill and respect for privacy between neighbours. May I suggest even a nominal complaint fee of $25.00 might be a deterent?, It seems tragic that unverifiable anonymity can still destroy a neighbour's livelihood or that one complainant can initiate a cascade of expensive bureaucratic actions that a dozen endorsements can't diffuse. We all lose when we support policies that are designed to regulate much bigger threats to the community and yet are applied most aggressively to individual and home-based businesses.

Paul Marcano
AKA Artist3d