April 30, 2008 - Estimates Debates: Ministry of Community Services
On Vote 22: ministry operations, $285,688,000 (continued).
J. Horgan: Well done. It's a pleasure once again to be engaging with the Minister of Community Services on issues of importance in my community.
I'd like to start with a simple one, and that would be an update on the status of the Metchosin-East Sooke phase 2 restructuring study. The minister will be in receipt of correspondence from the chief administrative officer of Metchosin seeking an extension. Could the minister confirm that that extension has been granted?
Hon. I. Chong: To the member: it sounds like he has a bit of a cold. I hope it's not hay fever or anything too serious, but I wish him a speedy recovery, having gone through that a couple of weeks ago myself.
I do appreciate the member's question, and I want to let him know that I did sign off on the letter yesterday. I indicated that the grant that they had requested is still available. However, we wanted to hold off until the new year so that, after the civic elections that take place this November, we'll ensure that the new council will reaffirm the commitment from Metchosin council and the electoral area director that this continues.
The dollars are still on the table. They have not been removed, but given that there is going to be an election, it's important that we know, going forward, that this is absolutely what everybody is committed to.
J. Horgan: Could the minister confirm the quantum of the grant?
Hon. I. Chong: There were two amounts allotted. There was $30,000 provided for the Metchosin-East Sooke restructure study phase 2 and another $25,000 that has been committed, and that is for the Metchosin-East Sooke restructure study public consultation and vote processes. So $55,000, as I say, is still on the table.
J. Horgan: It's good to see that the money is still available, and I appreciate the logic the minister has just put forward that we'll have a new council and.... Well, we'll have a re-elected council and an electoral area rep, and we can deal with it again at that time.
I will say before we move on, though, that when we first engaged on this issue, my appeal on behalf of my community was for resources to do a governance study. Staff attended meetings in Otter Point to deal with the entire unincorporated areas within the confines of my constituency, which included Jordan River, Otter Point, Shirley, Port Renfrew and Malahat.
Somewhere along the line, a decision was made to focus those minimal resources on the amalgamation study in East Sooke and Metchosin, which certainly I'm not opposed to. But we started off on a different track, and we ended up where we're at. As a result, we had three years of, in essence, no progress. That's disappointing, certainly for those who voted overwhelmingly in 2005 in referenda to seek a new way of governance on the west coast of the Island. To have three years passed and no progress made is disappointing for them, and I pass that on to the minister for her consideration.
The next issue I'd like to talk about is the Mill Bay incorporation committee, which the minister will know is also within my constituency. This area is characterized as electoral area A within the Cowichan Valley regional district. The incorporation committee is a collection of volunteers, APC members and parks board members within the area of Mill Bay.
They came together and formed an incorporation committee. They've been corresponding with the minister in the hopes that this grass-roots movement would have some guidance and support from the ministry. In response to that, they received a copy of the 2003 municipal incorporation document and the guide for grass-roots organizations.
I think the concern now is that, although this started as a grass-roots movement for the incorporation of Mill Bay, it has now taken on a new life including area A, area B and area C - which in real language is Cobble Hill and Shawnigan Lake - all within the confines of the Cowichan Valley regional district.
The minister will know that that particular regional district.... I think there are 15 electoral area reps, so you have this grass-roots body that started an incorporation process, which has now been sucked into the vortex known as the Cowichan Valley regional district, and it's looking at three areas - A, B and C - as part of a shared services process, which is not what this grass-roots organization was hoping to see. So I'm wondering....
There has been correspondence. They have requested a meeting with the minister or senior staff, and I'm wondering if the minister could update us on how we went from, again, a grass-roots group coming to government, looking for new ways to organize their affairs, and getting caught up in a bureaucratic process that will inevitably have no end.
Hon. I. Chong: I just wanted to, for clarification, respond to a comment that he made regarding the request that was made when he was first elected regarding the sort of larger amalgamation or study that was to look at rural governance study for the entire electoral areas that he spoke of earlier. Just so that he's aware, it was the electoral area director who turned down that request, which is why, when it came back a second or third time as to the new studies to look at, we agreed to do that. I had not turned down that request, and if it had gone on we would have continued. That's what happened, so I just wanted the member to be aware that's what occurred.
I appreciate the fact that.... It sounds like he is supporting the grass-roots organization and they should have been allowed to conduct this governance review and governance study at the outset because it was certainly their ideas and their thoughts. But it is a complex matter in that there are a number of electoral areas, and these communities can intertwine in terms of the fact that there are electoral area directors that represent overlapping areas.
Generally, though, when we do approve a restructure study, we approve it as it is requested by an elected body or an elected official. We don't generally receive requests from grass-roots organizations and then immediately act upon that. Although, if there's no opposition to that, we would certainly take a look at that. While it started as a grass-roots organization, once, in his words, it got taken into this vortex -- what he calls the regional district -- and once it moved to that state, and I received the formal request from the Cowichan Valley regional district chair, then I was obliged to respond and take a look at a governance study in that regard. So I realize that it may be disappointing, but that is the general approach that we take.
J. Horgan: I'll just clarify, then, on the Otter Point, Shirley, Jordan River and Port Renfrew issue, the minister said that it was the electoral area director who said that was not the direction that the community wanted to go in and instead wanted to channel what resources were available to the East Sooke-Metchosin amalgamation. So I'll leave that out there, and you can respond. I see your staff knows where I'm going with that.
I'll get back to Mill Bay because what the minister has just said about what happened in Otter Point and on the Juan de Fuca side of the Island is exactly what's happening in the Cowichan Valley. Citizens, dissatisfied with the governance that they're currently living under, are seeking input from the ministry directly -- not through their elected representative, but coming to the provincial government for assistance, which is what they've done in this instance and also which is what happened with OPSRRA and the other groups in the Shirley-Otter Point area.
They're coming to the government because the electoral area director may well have had a different view of the world and in the instance that we outlined earlier, the electoral area rep, I would say -- I'll put the words out there, you don't have to say them -- hijacked that process and went in another direction. That's exactly what's happened to the good people of Mill Bay, who had a plan, wanted to discuss it with government and made overtures to government for meetings and some framework within which they could operate.
Instead of - at a minimum - having a discussion about where they live, they're now caught, not even in a process, but embraced in some broader Cowichan Valley process that includes Shawnigan and Cobble Hill. I don't believe that the people in Cobble Hill want to talk to anybody, based on the people that I've been hanging around with.
What came as a simple overture by Mill Bay, the largest community in south Cowichan, for a discussion about how they could better organize their affairs to deal with the onslaught of development that's coming, whether it be the Bamberton project or numerous other large-scale residential developments in and around electoral area A....
In trying to get that away from the provincial approving officer, which is where it rests now, into some other form of dialogue that would have a better reflection of what the community wanted, what they ended up with is an abyss. They've raised this issue with me. I said I would raise it with you.
They want to work directly with the provincial government. They have no animus towards the electoral area rep. That's not the issue, and I don't believe that's the issue on the west side of the Island either. But these are citizens, large numbers of them, that have a vision, have a plan and have broadly discussed these issues with their neighbours and their community, and they came to government asking for assistance. What they got was a quick slide into the CVRD maw, and they may never recover from that.
Again, would the minister avail her staff to these people as they have requested so that they can put forward a framework in their own community that could then carry on to the electoral area director and on to the CVRD? As it stands now, they have brought this forward, and now they're being removed from the process. That's how they feel, and I'm bringing that concern to you today.
Hon. I. Chong: I just wanted to get some context. My understanding is that there has been a meeting, I think in the last couple of months, with one of our staff members. If the member is saying, "Well, will you meet with these people again?" the short answer is then yes. If the member would like to help facilitate, arrange that meeting, perhaps it would be a good thing for him to be the lead on that. I will ask the member to contact our staff and see what the appropriate time is and how we might facilitate that.
J. Horgan: I thank the minister for that. I'll certainly take her up on that and get something together as quickly as I can.
