Tobi Elliott - Islands Trustee for Gabriola, Mudge DeCourcy

10/06/2026

💧FREE webinar by POLIS authors about Drought in B.C. today!
💧"Creating a Blue Dialogue" is hosted by the co-authors of POLIS Project on Ecological Governance's new report Drought Ready: From Crisis Response to Community and Watershed Resilience in British Columbia. They will share a decade of insights and their vision for a drought-ready future. I'll be listening in and will ask questions about Water Sustainability Plans for our islands.
🔗 Register now: https://uvic.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9QlhwM_oTlehlatw7cOk4w #/registration

The new reality for British Columbians is drought-readiness. British Columbians often act from a belief that water is in endless supply, especially in the temperate rainforests of the wet coast. But it’s not. We continue to set new records for drought severity, extent and duration. In 2023, severe drought hit approximately 85 per cent of the province. And, increasingly, droughts arrive in spring and persist into winter, creating continuous, multi-year droughts.

On these small islands where I live and serve, we are seeing big changes already. Well levels dropping. Streams drying up. Longer, hot summers that produce more violent, unseasonable storms. Climate change is accelerating the water crisis we are facing in BC. Gulf Island communities are already very water-savvy; we are dependent on wells and limited supplies of groundwater, but we are definitely not ready for how dramatically climate change is affecting the supply and messing with this once-temperate “rainforest”. We need to start using all the tools available and shift our thinking radically.

👋 Meet the minds behind our new "Drought Ready" Report!

Next week, all five of the co-authors from our new report Drought Ready: From Crisis Response to Community and Watershed Resilience in British Columbia will come together for our Creating a Blue Dialogue webinar- and you're invited!

🔹 Rosie Simms (POLIS) — Lead author of "Drought Ready" and director of place-based projects at the POLIS Water Sustainability Project. Her work focuses on applied research and new thinking on water governance, law, and policy.

🔹 Oliver M. Brandes (POLIS) — Co-director of the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance at UVic's Centre for Global Studies, leading the award-winning POLIS Water Sustainability Project and POLIS Wildfire Resilience Project.

🔹 Deana Machin (POLIS) — Member of the Syilx (Okanagan) Nation, strategic advisor at POLIS, and senior Indigenous advisor at the Indigenous Watersheds Initiative, with 20+ years in fisheries management and policy.

🔹 Tom Gleeson (UVic Engineering) — Interdisciplinary scientist, engineer, and University of Victoria President's Chair in civil engineering, leading the Groundwater Science and Sustainability Research Group.

🔹 Sacha Ruzzante (UVic Engineering) — PhD candidate researching how climate change and historic droughts are affecting streams and salmon on the west coast.

Moderated by Laura Brandes (POLIS Communications Director), followed by a panel discussion and Q&A. 🎙️

📅 Oct. 6 | 🕛 12:30–2 p.m. PT | 📍 Online | 🎟️ Free

🔗 Register here https://uvic.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9QlhwM_oTlehlatw7cOk4w—and you're welcome to submit any questions in advance!

10/02/2026

Statement on the Use of AI: I don’t use AI. Not for research, not for writing, not for editing. I care too much about my brain, I trained too hard to learn to write, and I care too much about my work, and about you, my constituents.

I recognize AI is embedded in so many of our modern tools that it's hard to escape if you have a smartphone or a Google product. AI is truly re-shaping our world radically, and those who take advantage seem to be racing to the forefront of productivity and effectiveness. But I won't use it if I can help it.

And that probably puts me at a disadvantage in today's world. I still think and process and write at human speeds. I don't have the perfect attention-grabbing headline for all my posts. I am, and want to remain, a thoughtful, careful, reasoning human. I don't want to outsource my intelligence to machines, because it's been hard-won. I know I write long essays that would benefit from an editor. As a tool, as so many people claim, AI could help massively with this. But by unpacking the reasoning in real time, I am "trying to show my work". As flawed as it may be, I don't want to hide that. No matter how much it improves the readability or makes the headline more "grabby" and attention-getting.

This human process does make me slower in a world that is inhaling and re-distributing information at speeds never before witnessed in our evolution. I take a few days to respond to emails. And sometimes when there is a hot button issue in our community, the letters come in at rates I struggle to process in real time. It's often exhausting. Sometimes I can't handle the volume. I sit with one letter, and I don't know the answer, but is Google's intelligence going to be any better at answering the complex questions of our day? My process is slow, imperfect, often clumsy. I still move at the rate of a plant growing in my garden: 6-9 months for gestation, research, learning, writing, integration, output.

Because I don’t use AI — for all the moral, ethical, environmental and privacy-violating principles that I want to uphold both as a human, and as a public servant within an environmentally-focussed planning agency such as Islands Trust — I feel I’m at a disadvantage when constituents email me long missives, or a 5-point plan of commitments or directives that has been clearly written by AI (or with the help of AI.) "It's just a tool!!" everyone claims in defence. But it's a tool that is quite often wrong. And those errors can lead to critical, foundational misunderstandings of process, laws, regulations, roles and responsibilities. These missives certainly sound good, and often contain some very solid ideas, but as AI continually notes, “AI can and does make mistakes”. These mistakes are difficult for a slow human to unpack. But unpacking them is necessary, because an AI-generated argument often strays from the reality that we are working within, pulls in irrelevant statutes, misinterprets regulations and policies that were developed over time and constructed by humans and informed by a constantly evolving context.

I find that AI-generated queries often come across like attacks because of their “isn’t this obvious” sense of superiority. So it takes a lot of personal time and energy and careful thought to respond to these, to separate fact from fabrication. I simply don’t have that kind of time. I struggle not to get angry, because I am one human, trying to answer to 4500 constituents who want instant responses, and some are working with advanced technology that I refuse to adopt for convenience's sake.

And these missives are frankly off-putting. I would far rather read and work with a set of suggestions that contains errors and mistakes, but is written by a human that I can engage with, than a set of carefully constructed questions that are written with the help of AI. In my view, AI cannot and should not replace decision-making that is shaped with human intelligence, an understanding of our local context, with heart and conviction. So when non-human queries come in - or queries heavily drafted with AI - I am challenged because it takes me 3 times longer to unpack and respond to the different levels of misunderstanding and get to the heart of what someone is asking.

But in the end, the main reason I don't use AI is because I value my own intelligence and don't want to cede that to the machines. The process of learning is deeply valuable to me. That's what you go to university for, right? Not to inhale content and ace tests, but to learn to reason, to weigh ideas, to evaluate other thinkers' thoughts, to learn to research, to think.

So, I'm sorry it takes me longer to get back to you. But what you are getting are my real thoughts, my lived experience, and my essential mind, not a construct of what a machine thinks is best for us.

Thank you to those who support human-centred thinking.

Here's a pic of me, the imperfect human, with the imperfect sunflowers I love to grow to give away.

09/30/2026

🧡 So grateful for the leadership and allyship of the Gabriola Historical and Museum Society, who partnered with Snuneymuxw First Nation members to weave together a program of art, culture, remembrance, history, song, craft for Orange Shirt Day on Gabriola.
🧡This was a special ceremony that helps us remember, to memorialize and centre the stories and experiences of Survivors on this important National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. May we never forget.
🧡I was honoured to stand before my community and witness your tears, your hearts full of courage, your willingness to acknowledge and take action and stand against further harm. 🧡We must move from words into true community-to-community allyship, and I see this happening on Gabriola.
🧡Especially grateful for the kind and wise presence of elder Geraldine Manson/C’Tassia, her family, great granddaughters and cousins, as she shared her story of residential school abuse. May we never stop listening to these precious elders.
🧡 Hands raised to the Qwam Qwum Dancers as they remind us who this day is for: the children.
🧡 Hands raised to Ay Lelum-The Good House of Design for coming and sharing the beauty of Coast Salish design.
🧡Thanks to all who show us the way.


09/30/2026

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is an occasion to honour residential school survivors and their families, to think of the children who didn't come home, and to learn truths about Canada's history and how the legacy of trauma still affects us all today. I hope we all take time to remember, to be careful with our words, and join an Indigenous-led event in your community.

Today I'll be at the Gabriola Historical and Museum Society's event at 10:30, and tonight at the Breaking Bannock hosted dialogue with Adam Olsen and Chief Treaty Commissioner George Abbott called Unceded. May we walk with open hearts and open ears.

Here are some of my thoughts. We need to keep witnessing, and carrying the collective burden of our society's grief, together.
https://tobielliott.substack.com/p/how-do-you-write-about-childrens?r=56z4g0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

09/18/2026

Submitted today my letter strongly opposing the West Coast Oil Pipeline being designated a project in the National Interest and referred to the PMO's Major Projects Office under the Building Canada Act, to the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, P.C., K.C., M.P.. President of the King’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister responsible for Canada-U.S. Trade.

Obviously, I'm not in favour. At September Trust Council I was pleased to move the resolution, which had been thoroughly researched by staff (hurrah for Policy Advisors!) and which received almost unanimous support. Chair Laura Patrick has already submitted a letter on behalf of Trust Council, but I felt a personal submission was merited, given how much advocacy and research Gabriola residents have done on the impacts of increased Large Vessel Freighter traffic and anchorages in the Salish Sea over the last decade. Thank you to all for your strong voices. I hope I represented your concerns accurately.

No one I've heard from is in favour of an expedited process that would short circuit environmental reviews and expedite processes to seek consent by First Nations, and skip due diligence to the 30,000 residents who live in the Trust Area, not to mention the San Juan Islands. No one I've spoken with thinks this is a good idea. Thank you to the groups who made delegations and provided information to Trust Council over the years. I relied on the research by the Gabriolans Against Freighter Anchorages - GAFA, Raincoast Conservation Foundation (Misty MacDuffee in particular), and the Georgia Strait Alliance among others. Islands Trust, Gabriola Island Shore Keepers Association San Juan County, WA Bowen Island Municipality, Bowen Island Conservancy Sheila Malcolmson, MLA

Read the full letter here: https://www.tobielliott.ca/clippings

09/17/2026

Thank you for your work bringing attention to Small Home affordability and feasibility to Union of BC Municipalities Convention Vanessa Craig - RDN Director Area B and RDN staff! Addressing house size relative to Building Code requirements is a critical missing piece to housing affordability that the province must look at. So glad Vanessa also got time with Minister Christine Boyle on this issue. Costs and energy efficiency for smaller homes build to code are inverse to their size proportionally, so we and end up driving conventional single family dwellings, when we should be making small homes more attainable and easier to build. 🙏👏👏👏 Looking forward to the Provinces response to this resolution.

Very pleased that my resolution aimed at making smaller homes more affordable to build was supported by the UBCM membership! This follows on the heels of a meeting that Chair Stuart McLean and I had with Minister Boyle on this issue. In an affordability crisis we need to look at innovative ways to keep modest homes affordable.

My speaking notes were as follows:

In many areas of BC the most affordable and accessible housing options are small single-storey residential homes.

The updated BC Building Code includes various revisions such as seismic and adaptability updates in addition to the existing BC Energy Step Code and Zero Carbon Step Code.

I think everyone is on board with the concept of reducing ghgs and ensuring greater safety for BC residents; however, the BC Building Code requirements are adding very significantly to the expense to building homes. While these changes may be warranted for large multi-storey developments, the cost:benefit ratio is not the same across housing types.

We’ve heard clearly from our Regional District building staff, including our professional certified building inspectors, that the costs added to small homes are significant and it doesn’t seem that the benefits are proportionate to the costs.

Notably, small homes by their nature consume less energy, produce fewer emissions, tend to have a simpler building structure, and the data show small single-story dwellings pose a lower life-safety risk due to seismic activities but the Code requirements do not reflect that.

Importantly, where the Code does offer flexibility it requires that homeowners engage professional engineers to sign off on a design which again results in significant added costs. The updated code even expands these requirements to outbuildings!

In summary - While the overall goals of keeping residents safe and protecting the environment are important, the benefits attained by holding small single-storey homes to the same building standard as larger or multi-family dwellings are much less, and the costs are disproportionately higher. Requiring builders who are trying to build an affordable small home to hire engineers to certify simpler designs that recognize their inherently lower seismic risk or production of greenhouse gases is very expensive and disproportionately affects those who can least afford it. I ask for your support of this resolution which is asking for a cost-benefit review of the Code.
Thanks to Jessica Stanley, Area A Director, RDN for the photo!

09/02/2026

📆 Thursday September 3: final Local Trust Committee meeting of this term. Agenda and link to view it online here: https://islandstrust.bc.ca/event/gabriola-ltc-regular-meeting-4-13/
🎉 We start with celebration of a wonderful community group Breaking Bannock who will be recognized and awarded Islands Trust's 🌱 Community Stewardship Award 🌱!! 🎈

✨ Come a bit early to be treated to 🫓 yummy bannock 🥖 before the meeting begins at 10:30 (courtesy of Breaking Bannock), followed by an opening and welcome by Snuneymuxw Elder Geraldine Manson. Then we get into the business of the meeting around 11:15 am. So happy this wonderful initiative of the Gabriola Arts Council is being celebrated in this way! 🫶

☑️ ON THE AGENDA:
➡️ Public Participation 11:45 am - have your say! 📣
➡️ 10.1 Rezoning (BC Ferries) Terminal
➡️ 10.2 Development Permit (Cresta Roca)
➡️ 11.1 Major Project: Gabriola Island Official Community Plan and Land Use Bylaw Review: Bylaw No. 325 Consideration of First Reading
➡️ 12.1 Letter from Gabriola Commons Covenant Team regarding
Gabriola Commons Covenant
➡️ 13.1 Advancing Freshwater Monitoring and Data Collaboration: Trustee Yates - for Discussion

🌎 This is the last LTC meeting of the term. We are looking forward to seeing you there 🙌🏼 Thank you for a wonderful time learning in this community. 💚

09/01/2026

⛴️📣 Mark your calendars! Islanders are calling for federal funding to support our failing ferries system!! Remember in 2014 Gabriolans?? We created a massive push up and down the coast supporting ferry dependent communities to deliver a message: BC Ferries - Our Marine Highway!! Get involved, check out the post☝️to see dates and locations from Sept 14-17!!

MARK YOUR CALENDAR: FAIR FERRY FUNDING RALLIES: SEPTEMBER 14–17

In September, we’re taking our campaign for fair federal funding for BC Ferries on the road, and we need you to join us!

These will be quick, focused rallies--usually about 30 minutes--so you don’t have to give up a big part of your day. Just come out, grab a sign and help us send Ottawa a clear message: FAIR FEDERAL FERRY FUNDING!

A few things to know:

--Make your own sign!, if you can! Keep it simple and use “Fair Federal Ferry Funding” as the message. Or just show up, we’ll be bringing signs that you can borrow and wave.

--Please help us stay focused. These rallies are specifically about federal ferry funding, not about the provincial management of BC Ferries or other ferry issues. The clearer and more united our message is, the more effective we will be.

--Everyone is welcome. These are non-partisan rallies, and elected officials from every level of government and every political stripe are invited to join us.

--Not on our schedule? Hold your own rally! Get some friends and neighbours together, make some signs, tag us and send us your photos.

--Are you along our route? Let us know! If we can make it work, we’ll try to stop and do a quick sign wave with you along the way.

Most importantly, we need people to come out and wave signs. We’ll bring some with us, you bring your voice!

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14

Port Alberni at 8:30 am (Johnston Street & Broughton Street)

Parksville at 10:30 am (Parksville Community Park, near the sports fields)

Denman Island at 12:30 pm (Community Dock Park)

Courtenay at 4:30pm (Simms Park at the 5th Street Bridge)

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15

Comox at 9:00 am (Near the ferry terminal)

Powell River at 12:00 pm (Rally-Location to be determined)

Gibsons Landing at 5:00 pm (Molly’s Lane)

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16

Vancouver at 1:30 pm (Vancouver Convention Centre:UBCM Convention)

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17

Duncan Rally 9:00 am (Rally - location TBD)

Victoria at 12:30 pm (Legislature Lawn)

Esquimalt 2pm (Rally-Location TBD)

Nanaimo at 5:00 pm (Island Highway & Aulds Road)

Please mark your calendar, share this post and bring a friend. Go here for more information: https://www.gordjohns.ca/fair_federal_ferry_funding_now

For coastal communities, ferries are essential transportation. It’s time for the federal government to recognize that and provide fair, stable, long-term federal funding for BC Ferries.

See you on the road, and remember the message: FAIR FEDERAL FERRY FUNDING!

09/01/2026

💜 Today, Aug 31 is International Overdose Awareness Day. I raise my hands to all in our island communities who are helping, serving, living with, supporting and loving those who are vulnerable, those who are struggling with mental health and/or addictions, and those who are affected by the toxic drug crisis. It affects us all—no community is untouched by these losses💜

I am humbled by the many helpers and supporters we have in our community for those who struggle with addiction and mental health. Thank you to groups like MomsStopTheHarm, and Gabriola Outreach and PHC Gabriola - People for a Healthy Community and Gabriola community members like Sang, Danielle, Laura, Colleen, and many others… you are such leaders and heart-led warriors. Huy ce:ep q’u/thank you so much to all who put such care and kindness and support into hosting this beautiful gathering. Truly a circle of care. 💜

We are all impacted by these issues, and all need to support and be supported. Thank you and hands raised to Claire Dineen, for her many years training and educating communities, Dyan D-F and the Poisoned Drug and Addictions Action Table, members of our Health and Wellness Collaborative, and Sheila Malcolmson, MLA. Your empathetic hearts and great courage lead the way. 💜 .

08/26/2026

👏 👏 Thank you and congrats for your work advancing these two important resolutions to UBCM Vanessa Craig - RDN Director!! So important the province hears the voices of rural island communities!!

🏡 The call for Scaling Building Code Requirements and for the Province to consider a simplified rural building standard/alternative compliance pathway for small homes under 1000 ft2/93 m2 is fantastic! “The basis for this resolution is that the building standard is similar no matter the size of residence, while smaller homes are naturally more energy efficient (recognized by the province as an issue) and more resilient to earthquakes. Requiring the same standards for small homes adds disproportionate costs when building without the proportionate benefit.” Really appreciate your and RDN staff’s work on this. 🙌

⛈️ And yay for the call to maintain funding for the Local Government Climate Action Program (LGCAP). LGCAP is an important source of funding for local governments and Modern Treaty First Nations that allows work on climate adaptation including infrastructure resilience and hazard mitigation. The funding was annual and non-competitive (ie local governments didn't have to apply for grants). The RDN has done a lot of good work on understanding potential effects of climate change in our region. The province has not committed to funding the program beyond 2026/27.

Glad you will be there and representing. Hope I can support in some way (but unfortunately Islands Trust won’t be at UBCM this year.)

I’ll tune in to hear what happens with those resolutions!