Requirement expanded to allow notices to go in monthly publications
Against the advice of Islands Trust staff, Trust Council voted to keep public notices in print newspapers and expand the requirement from weekly publications to at least monthly.
Public notifications under the previous bylaw required they be placed in a publication that prints at least weekly, for two consecutive weeks in the Local Trust Area. This includes items like public hearings and bylaw changes.
The draft bylaw change, as presented to Trust Council by staff, would have reduced the public notification requirement to exclude print media in favour of online options like the Islands Trust Website and social media.
The public notification bylaw changes was first put before trustees at the March Trust Council meeting, however was deferred to June. At that time, trustees heard from the public speaking in favour of keeping notices in local papers, as reported by the Sounder.
“People are moving away from social media. How can we say that we’re reaching the public with timely notifications, when people don’t know when the notifications are going out?” said South Pender Island Trustee Kristina Evans.
“…I know when I go looking for news releases on the website, I have a hard time finding them,” she said.
David Marlor, Islands Trust Director of Legislative and Information Services, clarified that regardless of the legislation they will continue to push notices out to email subscribers, and Local Trust Committees (LTC) can go above the electronic requirement if that is best for their community, as was decided by the Gabriola LTC in the fall.
Marlor said the reasoning for suggesting pulling the public notices from papers as a legislative requirement is because of cost, and not all Local Trust Areas having a local print newspaper that circulates frequently enough to meet the weekly requirement. This means in some cases they end up publishing in region-wide newspapers rather than local.
“It’s no different than publishing something in a newspaper, which is also a passive form of notification,” said Gambier Island Trustee, Joe Bernardo.
“Not everybody gets a newspaper…somebody has to actually pick one up and look for notifications. It’s the same thing in principle, it’s just a different methodology,” he said.
Lasqueti Island Trustee Island Trustee, Timothy Peterson, proposed an amendment to the public notification, which added print publications back into the bylaw, but expanded it to those that publish at least monthly.
The motion passed with 10 in favour and six opposed.
Peterson said, “Amending the by-law in this manner would assure that print is used [and] makes it accessible for all the people in our islands who either aren’t very tech savvy, choose not to use that technology, or simply just don’t have access.”
By Hope Lompe, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Gabriola Sounder
Original Published on Aug 19, 2026 at 12:42
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