Letters to the Editor
This was the catalyst for my first Letter to the Editor and I haven't stopped since.
Not the title I'd have given to it. I'd add that increasing the supply does nothing to solve the affordability crisis. Conversely, it makes it worse under present conditions via induced demand.
Look at Vancouver for example.
They edited out that the development consultant that wrote in response to to my previous letter, is actively involved (at the time of writing) with the UDI development lobby. That writer had mentioned that they had previously been on the Saanich Housing Strategy Task Force.
In this letter I exposed the true origin of the BC NDP's forced housing targets (the development lobby). I asked crucial questions about the targets that the media were not asking. What communities were consulted for example? The Ministry of Housing responded to a number of my questions, the day after this letter was published in print. Who was really consulted over the summer? The government consulted the government. As they wrote to me by email: "Municipal staff from all 10 municipalities participated in consultation meetings with Ministry of Housing staff."
Not the title I would have chosen, but then it is the Times Colonist.
"Transparency in Saanich? How will mounting infrastructure costs be paid for?" would be the title I'd have chosen.
The provincial bluff on its phony consultations has been exposed.
This was a tough one to get published. "Executive Director" had to be reduced to spokesperson, which they are as well, but when this was eventually published, I was quite happy with the title.
This merger between lobby and state and the game of plausible deniability about it has become implausible. It has to end. The charade cannot be sustained indefinitely.
All levels of government will eventually have to stop funding and joining the lobbies that are lobbying it. Canada including British Columbia should not continue to be reduced to a banana republic for the real estate and development industries.
I had tried to have this letter published by the media warning about the imminent disabling of Saanich's Local Area Plans since the previous month in March.
The Times Colonist, which is a paying member and media partner of the UDI development lobby, refused to print it altogether, nor to inform the public about the imminent disabling of Saanich's Local Area Plan.
The Saanich News finally published this letter 2 days before the Public Hearing on April 28, 2024, but only online, where few people were likely to read it.
The in-print version, finally made its way into the paper, only the morning after the April 30 Public Hearing on the New Official Community Plan of Saanich, which had the Local Area Plans set to be taken out of the OCP Bylaw.
By then the tense in the letter had been edited by the paper, so that in my first paragraph in the in-print version, I am saying that the Public Hearing had already taken place, then in the rest of the letter, I am warning that it is going to happen!
The first exposé in a mainstream media source regarding the UVic Real Estate Club and its close connections to the Urban Development Institute and to the so-called university student group being predominantly financed by the UDI and its paying member companies.
During the same council meeting, the majority of Saanich Council voted to eliminate Open Forum, and then the Mayor and all other Councillors rejected Councillor Chambers' motion to have meetings between the UDI (a registered organization on the BC Lobbyists Registry that represents companies involved in real estate and development) and Saanich minuted, recorded and the public able to attend them. They rejected Cllr. Chambers' Motion by refusing to second the motion.
Why did Saanich News remove this sentence? It is true and the information was very relevant.
The only person to have spoken on the record against Open Forum (a considerable time after the decision had already been made to eliminate it), was a member of Homes For Living and he had donated to the Mayor's 2022 election campaign.
As reported in the Times Colonist: "Murdock said both council and residents were not satisfied with the way the open forum was restricted to residents saying what’s on their minds, which did not allow for a meaningful exchange of ideas with councillors."
"Only one [unrecorded] town hall has been held since open forums eliminated in September"
