The restructure committee's decision to have one cross-boundary vote on restructuring Gibsons, West Howe Sound and Elphinstone into a new municipality was at the forefront of a meeting Tuesday in Victoria with the province's community services minister and elected officials from the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) and Town of Gibsons.
Gibsons Mayor Barry Janyk, SCRD chair John Rees, Area E (Elphinstone) director Lorne Lewis and Area F (West Howe Sound) Lee Turnbull came equipped with briefings on their differing opinions on how the vote should take place. "The minister was very diplomatic," Janyk said at Tuesday night's Gibsons council meeting. "She listened to all the perspectives and ultimately asked, 'What did your committee say?' When she heard the recommendation, she asked, 'And the reason why you are here is?'"
The restructure committee has recommended one vote on the issue. The Town of Gibsons supports two votes: one for Gibsons residents and one for the combined electoral areas. The regional directors support three votes: one for Gibsons, one for Area E and one for Area F.
The issue of the committee's exact authority over the voting structure was raised at the meeting. The regional directors asked "whether the restructure committee had the authority to make a recommendation on voting procedure and governance of a new municipality, in addition to their obvious mandate which was to determine whether or not a vote should be held," Rees told Coast Reporter Wednesday. "We raised questions on whether there was sufficient interest in the electoral areas to have a restructure vote at all. A suggestion to the minister was to have either the SCRD under the minister's guidance or the ministry itself have a poll to determine the interest prior to any vote."
Janyk said there was a clear attempt by the SCRD directors to stall the process when they suggested a poll of areas E and F residents to gauge which option they would like to see pursued.
"The minister was fairly clear she was not interested in pursuing that," Janyk said. "She said there is a limited window, but her office would still be interested in hearing feedback and any comments. She wondered why we established a committee and why we weren't abiding by the decision of that committee. It was a nice visit and a nice flight over, but really nothing more than that."
However Rees found the meeting to be useful.
"We were assured that all our comments would be considered before a final decision was made by the ministry," Rees said. "We were also told that we could submit all our final arguments in writing prior to that determination. They made no comment on all the discussion we had, other than that they would review all the information. I think they listened and the result of what will come out of it is hard to say."
Rees said the regional district will send the ministry its final written submissions, "then we will find out in due course what the ministry will decide."
The details of the proposed poll have not yet been worked out.
"The consequences are considerably larger than the cost of a poll," Rees said.
They also discussed financial impacts of a restructuring. Rees expects if the fiscal impacts are to be dealt with and the proposed poll to take place, the restructure vote would not take place until next spring.- With files from Ian Jacques
