The Strathcona Regional District (SRD) voted 7-6* that Quadra Island taxpayers should also pay for the Strathcona Gardens Recreation facility. The proposed amount has been reduced to 80% of their property’s assessed value, and amounts to about $446 for the average property owner. This decision is to be ratified by a referendum of all Campbell River, Area D and Quadra residents at the next election.
Objections from the Gallery
This decision was not well received by some of Quadra residents who filled the boardroom’s gallery, the lobby and were demonstrating outside. A woman snarled, “My taxes are going up 30%! … I’m faced with the possibility of losing my house for a flipping pool!” An elderly gentleman told the board, “Mark my words: This is not equitable. You’re not representing your citizens.”
When Chair Mark Baker ordered the gallery cleared, someone responded, “How will you clear the gallery?”
“If necessary, through the RCMP.”
“You’ll have to carry me out because I’m not leaving.”
The resolve in Chair Baker’s voice seemed to weaken and he replied, “Then you need to be respectful.”
After one of the women was escorted out, someone said, ”It’s gonna be a long meeting because I’ll tell you now, after she is escorted out there’ll be another one of us that’ll do the same thing.”
The Ministry of Municipal Affairs Replies
The day after this article was originally published, a statement from the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs was published on the Discovery Islander. Among other things, it states :
“If the regional district decides to proceed with the amendment bylaw and local area residents believe they were not adequately consulted, they can submit their concerns to the Inspector of Municipalities at the time the bylaw is submitted to the Inspector for review and approval”.
Email [email protected] & [email protected]; call 250 387-4020.
The Bird’s Eye set up a tool to help folks write letters to the Minister, find it at thebirdseye.ca/strathcona-gardens/.
Quadra’s Regional Director, Robyn Mawhinney, added that people are welcome to CC her at [email protected].
Which Electors should approve this decision?
Director Mawhinney objected to the idea of pooling the votes of all three areas:
“This would dilute the voice of Quadra Island by a factor of 1 to 20. If we have one assent process for all of Campbell River residents and Area D residents, a population over 40,000 altogether, plus the population of Quadra Island (2,500?) being added to that – there’s no voice for Quadra Island.”
She suggested that for Quadra Island to have a meaningful voice, each of these areas should be tallied separately as is specified in sections 342 and 349 of the Local Government Act.
Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) David Leitch responded that he wasn’t going to debate what a meaningful voice is. The votes would be collected separately and then aggregated for a total count.
“The logic behind it, which can always be overridden by the Minister, is that why would a Campbell River and Area D resident not get an aggregated vote when you’re changing the rate structure and the voting structure?”
Director Mawhinney explained that her understanding of Section 349 was that ”if we are amending the Strathcona Garden Service bylaw, we would need to seek the assent of the electors in the way that the assent was first acquired.” She could see nothing in the records from 1971 that suggested the vote was carried throughout the entire service area.
She asked, ”Without confirmation of the 1971 process (which brought the Gardens into being), wouldn’t the default position be that the board must obtain approval separately for each participating area in the proposed service area? As per section 342 paragraph 3, which states that unless authorized under subsection 4, participating area approval must be obtained separately for each participating area in the proposed service area?”
Thomas Yates, the SRD’s Senior Manager of Corporate Services, replied, “The question of whether each area must have a vote separately from the others is really, first of all for the board to determine subject to the Minister’s approval. So it’s up to the board if they wish to pull the votes in all three areas or have them separate and that decision will be subject to a Ministerial review when the bylaw is submitted.”
How other Districts handle these matters
Director Mawhinney questioned why the report the SRD commissioned from RC Strategies didn’t mention how much Gabriola Island residents pay the city of Nanaimo for their recreational facilities?
She pointed out, ”The Cowichan Valley Regional District does a usage survey every three years, and they figure out the percentage of use by the various electoral areas, and they extrapolate that, and that’s what the requisition is based on. They do the same thing in the Nanaimo Regional District.”
Consequently, Gabriola Island residents pay about 5% of their total assessments, not the 80% that Quadra residents will be asked.
Do Quadra Residents Use Strathcona Gardens?
Regional Director Mark Vonesch, of Cortes Island, pointed out that, “One of our strategic priorities, which is our leading document of how we operate as a board, is to proactively engage with our communities. This is an issue affecting 2,000 people on Quadra Island and there has been no consultation with them.”
“ I want to acknowledge the older folks in the audience here, including Mr. Nutting, who’s 90 years old and is on a fixed income. We’re asking him to suddenly just start paying $450 extra. It is undemocratic, it’s unfair, and it’s really not based on the facts – which is, I think, really important.”
He asked that the SRD carry out a usage survey to determine how many Quadra residents actually use the facility.
Regional Director John Rice of Area D stressed the fact that the Campbell River ferry makes 59 sailings every day. Some Quadra residents are walk ons, and if they are seniors this is free. “My constituents are concerned that they are shouldering an (unfair) burden when they see other electoral areas using (Strathcona Gardens).”
RC Strategies attempt to establish a figure through the amount of BC Ferry traffic failed to take into account traffic from Cortes Island, the Outer Islands or the impact of tourism. According to the Quadra Island Evacuation Guide Community Profile (p 15), the island has ‘nearly 100,000 tourist visits annually.’ The population nearly doubles some long week-ends in the summer. There are fewer people living on Cortes, whose population triples (p 17).
Not 66% of those outside Campbell River and Area D
When Stephen Slawuta from RC Strategies made his presentation to the Board, at their March 25 meeting, he claimed that 66% of the people outside of Campbell River and Area D, who have accounts with the complex, come from Quadra Island. There are 935 individual accounts and 9 organizational accounts.
Campbell River Director Ben Lanyon cited the latter numbers at the meeting.
These same numbers appear on Chart 5 of ‘area accounts,’ per family between 2018 and 2025, in the RC Report, which shows they are from all of Area C (not just Quadra).
According to this chart, roughly 61% of the families and organizations came from Area C (not just Quadra) use the Gardens, but this isn’t a true representation of the traffic from outside Campbell River and Area D either. The report also states (page 18) “Approximately 13% of visits and 12% of visitors come from the Comox Valley / Nanaimo region.”
Director Vonesch responded, “There has been no, what I call, credible usage statistics around the usage. Taking a family pass and extrapolating that (data) to 60,000 users is, at best, inaccurate.”
Lanyon admitted, ”Determining the relative proportion is actually not possible. It comes down to internal gut feel and judgment.”
He believes that about 40% of the value Quadra obtains from Strathcona Gardens comes from usage, but added the island derives indirect benefits from its close proximity to Campbell River.
Eighty-eight Area D residents – roughly 2% of the area’s population – responded to a poll asking, “Should the portion of Area C (Quadra Island) that the data shows do use and benefit from the Strathcona Gardens Complex, be finally asked to help pay for this facility just like Area D has for past decades? They have had this free perk since it was built over 30 years ago.”
It is not known if anyone mentioned the fact that that the suggestion Quadra residents have been enjoying a ‘free perk,’ and have ‘finally’ been asked to ‘help pay for for the facility’ was emotionally nudging participants toward a specific conclusion. All but one of them complied.
626 Quadra Island residents, representing more than 30% of the population, responded to a poll conducted by Regional Director Robyn Mawhinney. 543 (87%) stated they never, or ‘once every few years,’ use the pool; 83 (13%) use the facilities at least once a year. 17 of these (3%) go 10 or more times.
Usage is not the only determination
Campbell River Director Susan Sinnott objected to the suggestion Campbell River is making a tax grab.
She declared: ”Usage is not the only determination. We don’t always use the library. We don’t always use the fire department. We don’t always use services and then say that’s how we pay for it. If you ask people in Campbell River, they probably don’t use the Gardens that much either.”
She claimed the Gardens are a regional benefit that was good for everyone.
“It’s going to make us healthier, it makes our community happier. You benefit because you’ve got a great community that you can access when you need to. So I’m voting for this.”
The historical context: Campbell River perspective
Campbell River Director Sean Smyth informed the Quadra residents that the low taxes they have been enjoying were not real, they were being supplemented by others.
Director Lanyon stated that when Strathcona Gardens was built, in 1971, there were 10,000 people in Campbell River and 1,000 on Quadra.
“The two places were quite separate. Quadra was still a small resource community: logging, fishing and a few farms. The ferry service was new and basic. It made sense at that time to see Strathcona Gardens as essentially a Campbell River and Area D facility because Quadra at the time had its own distinct center of gravity. That’s changed quite a bit, today the two communities are quite deeply integrated … Quadra has become, in a practical sense, a bedroom and livestock community for the regional center.”
Director Ron Kerr added that 50 years ago it was appropriate that Campbell River and Area D pay for Strathcona Gardens. Times have changed.
”I say this in the most gentle and honest way. Just like our children who eventually leave our homes and tend for themselves, it’s time for the citizens on Quadra Island to step up to the table and be responsible for the true costs of participating in the Strathcona Garden Service.”
In response to media reports that the complex is ‘gold plated,’ Lanyon said the pool was built in 1979 and was nearing the end of its life. The rink is more than 50 years old. Both ice surfaces have been running at capacity and there have been times when Campbell River and Area D residents could not use it because a Quadra hockey team was using the rink.
Geared to a specific outcome
Director Mawhinney said, “ It feels like the process which has brought us to today, has been geared to a specific outcome. This bylaw amendment would make Quadra Island residents responsible for a $122 million debt they had no say in accruing.”
She pointed out that the gallery was full of Quadra Island residents who are frustrated with the process. Her constituents also sent in a petition, with more than 1,200 signatures, asking for an exclusive Quadra Island referendum. They have written hundreds of letters with the same message.
“When the community engages with the board at this level, I suggest it is important to listen.”
Quadra Island homeowners are already paying for a new fire hall and plan to upgrade their own community centre.
Mawhinney said “One Recreation Society board member told me that if Strathcona Garden’s tax goes ahead, it could set back plans for improving the Quadra Community Centre infrastructure by up to 20 years.”
She added that three quarters of a million dollars that could be used to build facilities and services needed on Quadra will be leaving the community every year.
Director Lanyon said, ”To the Quadra residents here today, it’s not about penalizing you. It’s about recognizing the reality of how our communities have changed and grown together over the past 55 years. If this passes, your Director will gain a seat at the table and Quadra moves from being a user to a partner.”
One of the Quadra women screamed, “You wanted it, you voted for it, then you pay for it! You don’t put the burden on other people who didn’t vote for it, who had no voice for it!”
Others added:
“Are you gonna pay for our new fire hall! How about our community centre expansion? – Is Campbell River gonna pay for that!”
“Money grab is what it is. You can’t rationalize it, that’s the way it is.”
As he was leaving, someone else yelled to the board, “See you in court!”
Links of Interest:
- Strathcona Regional District votes to include Quadra Island in Strathcona Gardens service – Campbell River Mirror
- Strathcona Gardens: Still in the Deep End – The Bird’s Eye
- Must Quadra Island taxpayers pay for Strathcona Gardens? – Cortes Currents
- Articles about, or mentioning, the Strathcona Gardens website
Corrections and additions:
- Cortes Currents initially reported that the vote was 8-6, but Director Jack left at 2:32 PM and was not present. That brings the counts to 7-6.
- The Meeting minutes, YouTube and a statement from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs were published on Friday, May 1, after which Cortes Currents revised the entire article.
Sign-up for Cortes Currents email-out:
To receive an emailed catalogue of articles on Cortes Currents, send a (blank) email to subscribe to your desired frequency:
- Daily, (articles posted during the last 24 hours) – [email protected]
- Weekly Digest cortescurrents – [email protected]