Courtesy of the Times Colonist
Photo: The aging operations centre at McKenzie Avenue and Borden Street is the base for about 300 staff who look after transportation, parks, water, sewer and solid waste in Saanich. ADRIAN LAM, TIMES COLONIST
I wish I could take credit for the term “Dysfunction-by-the-Sea,” but longtime readers of this newspaper will recognize it was Jack Knox’s acerbic term for Greater Victoria.
But while Jack has retired — and is much missed — Dysfunction-by-the-Sea soldiers on. There are two current examples.
The first concerns the rejection of Saanich council’s plan to borrow $150 million to upgrade the district’s public works yard and buildings, which are old and don’t meet building code requirements.
But the alternative process used to approve the funding for the project failed when just over 12 per cent of eligible voters opposed the proposed borrowing.
There is so much wrong with this that it is hard to know where to begin.
The July 18 headline says that Saanich residents rejected the proposal, and Mayor Dean Murdock was quoted as saying, “I’m pleased to see democracy is alive and well,” and that “the voters spoke and they don’t support it.”
Well, sorry, but no, no and no!
I am a resident of Saanich, and nobody asked me if I approved the borrowing, which I did. But this process, which was designed by the province, is heavily biased in favour of rejection and is not at all democratic.
There were two choices open to me — obtain a form and submit it to say no, or say nothing. There was no option for me to sign a form to say yes.
So, did the more than 87 per cent of eligible voters who said nothing approve the expenditure, or did they not care one way or the other?
We don’t know, but in effect, those 12 per cent may well have overruled a larger group of voters who would have approved, if given the opportunity. Clearly, the voters have not spoken, and democracy is not alive and well; it is sick and dying.
Then there is Save Our Saanich (SOS), the group that spearheaded the rejection.
The result of this fiasco is that there may need to be a full referendum, at considerable cost, or the work is postponed, which will increase costs.
Meanwhile, thanks to SOS, staff will continue to work in buildings that don’t meet modern building code standards.
Then to add insult to injury, SOS president Nancy Di Castri is quoted as saying, “We have never been against them fixing up the old buildings.”
So why incur extra costs for the municipality’s taxpayers and poor working conditions for staff, for a project you seemingly support?
Meanwhile, over in Victoria, the proposal to amalgamate Saanich and Victoria — perhaps the single most idiotic idea in municipal politics in recent decades — lumbers inexorably on.
Victoria council, having wasted a couple of hundred thousand dollars on a citizens’ assembly with Saanich, has voted unanimously to put it on the ballot in 2026.
There is nothing about this idea that makes any sense.
Why would you want to amalgamate the two largest municipalities — between them comprising half the region’s population — while leaving the remaining 11 untouched?
We would be left with one super-municipality and 11 smaller municipalities — some of them very small — that would be dominated by the super-municipality. And we would still be left with disjointed police, fire and other systems across the region.
It makes no sense to just look at these two municipalities in isolation. What we should be doing is a full review of regional governance.
But since the local governments seem incapable of any such rational approach, it is time for the province to step in, stop the Victoria-Saanich process and commission such a review.
The questions that should be put to a full regional citizens’ assembly are:
What is the best governance system for this region in the 21st century?
How do we govern this region (recognizing that governance is more than just government) to maximize the wellbeing of all who live here — and all who will live here in future generations — while reducing our overall ecological footprint and protecting and enhancing the bioregion and all our relations?”
Imagine becoming Functional-by-the-Sea!