2026-04-08 GFPID meeting

The April meeting of the Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement District trustees saw some disagreements, but on the whole proceeded civilly and efficiently. We are summarizing matters and providing transcripts only where there are areas of contention or details in the discussions that we believe are of public interest.

As is typical for GFPID meetings, Trustees and others often interrupt and talk over each other, and there are sometimes side conversations, which sometimes makes it difficult to understand what is being said in the videos. Such sections are marked [unclear].

TABLE OF CONTENTS

---

CALL TO ORDER BY CHAIR JOHNSON

Land acknowledgement.

INTRODUCTION OF LATE AGENDA ITEMS AND ADOPTION OF AGENDA

Agenda adopted

ADOPTION OF MINUTES

Relatively minor edits and corrections. Minutes adopted.

CORRESPONDENCE

Correspondence received from James Arends, Nola Johnston, and Paula Mallinson.

FINANCIAL REPORT

See meeting package for Financial Statement ending Dec 31, 2025.

Trustee Bussler asked about FireSmart expenses and grants. Going forward there will be budget items for planning purposes, but is still unclear if FireSmart monies will be available.

---

COMMITTEE REPORTS

1. Finance Committee

Chair Chorneyko; all trustees [video 04:45]

2025 audit update: all is going well. Planning auditor meeting for last week of April.

The Financial Report includes a breakdown of costs related to the lawsuit, excluding settlements or costs covered by insurance. The total was $38,664, with $$31,664 to Stikeman Elliott and about $7000 to Amui Consulting. Analysis of the years 2022-2025 shows yearly % increase in professional fees, and professional fees as a percentage of operating expenses. There is also a breakdown of 2024 and 2025 professional fees by category. Trustee Chorneyko notes that some increases are to be expected with professionalization of the organization (e.g. by consulting with third parties with subject matter expertise when needed).

Next Finance Committee meeting: May 20, 3 pm (tentative, subject to approval of Finance Committee chair named after the election)

At the end of the meeting Trustee Chorneyko will move to go in camera for “the 2025 discussion and analysis that will come out with the Financial Report.” The intent is to have that material come out with the audit at the AGM.

---

2. Communications Committee

[video 10:00]

See the meeting package for a report on the meeting of the Communications Committee, a proposed Correspondence Flow Chart, and a Correspondence webpage (to archive incoming letters and official responses that can be shared). The package also includes draft Correspondence Guidelines.

[video 11:10]

MOTION FROM COMMITTEE

THAT the Board direct the Policy Select Committee to review and revise the Correspondence Policy (drafted by Trustee Moeller) and bring forward the Policy with recommended revisions to the Board. [MOTION DEFEATED by general consensus]

Trustee Mercier moved to table the motion until guidance from the lawyer has been received so that it can be incorporated in what is brought to the Policy Committee. After discussion and some clarifications, Trustee Mercier withdrew his motion to table and suggested that the board by general consent agree to defeat the motion on the order paper, so that it would remain with the Communications committee; the board agreed, and the policy will stay with the Communications committee pending guidance from the lawyer.

[video 22:45]

MOTION FROM COMMITTEE

THAT the Board consider the DRAFT Correspondence Guidelines as presented, and if further refinement is required, direct that the Guidelines be initially referred to legal for review and recommended revisions prior to final adoption. [CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY]

[video 24:45]

MOTION FROM COMMITTEE

THAT until final approval of the Correspondence Policy and Correspondence Guidelines (Flow Chart) are adopted, the Board use the proposed Correspondence Flow Chart on an interim basis to guide the handling of correspondence. [CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY]

---

3. Website Committee

Chair Appel; Appel and Chorneyko [video 26:00]

See full report in meeting package.

The Corporate Officer was asked about her capacity to maintain what Trustee Appel set up, or whether she would require support. She said she feels capable of providing the minimum requirements, but a larger website overhaul may require additional support. Trustee Appel has been developing how-to documentation.

---

4. Freedom of Information Response Committee

Chair Johnson; Johnson, Bussler and Appel [video 28:50]

Verbal report. The committee met two weeks ago. Six outstanding FOI requests have been received and they have started addressing them.

---

5. Policy and Bylaw 97 Review Committee

Chair Moher; Moher, Johnson, Bussler and Mercier [video 29:35]

Verbal report. Correspondence from lawyer received on the indemnity policy and the Code of Conduct. The Code of Conduct will be discussed further down in the agenda. The indemnity clause requires a bylaw so it is moved to new business.

RECOMMENDED MOTION

To make the policy committee a standing committee allowing the creation of a schedule to review policies on an appropriate schedule (e.g. Respectful Workplace to be reviewed in December 2026)

Effectively converts a standing committee to a select committee. Trustee Mercier moved to amend the motion; motion to amend passed after some discussion and clarifications.

MOTION CARRIED:

To make the policy committee a standing committee with a mandate to review and develop the policies of the improvement district and ensure consistency across the organization. [CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY]

---

6. HR Committee

Chair Bussler; Bussler, Mercier, and Moeller  [video 38:45]

See report in meeting package.

MOTION FROM COMMITTEE: That the board schedule meetings with PeopleSmart HR, Peninsula HR and Vertical Bridge.

Trustee Mercier suggests a friendly amendment to add a clause to satisfy notice of meeting requirements; carried.

MOTION CARRIED:

That the board schedule meetings with PeopleSmart HR, Peninsula HR and Vertical Bridge, and that the board meet in camera as soon as possible after these meetings to make a decision. [CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY]

---

7. Meeting Safety

Chair Bussler; Appel, Chorneyko, and Moeller [42:45]

See report in meeting package. Three meetings have been held. Trustee Appel created a Meeting Safety Guidance matrix which explains what is required for safety before, during and after meetings, with examples of non-compliant behaviour.

RECOMMENDED MOTION

That the Meeting Safety Guidance matrix document become part of the trustee orientation package. [CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY]

RECOMMENDED MOTION

That the Meeting Safety Committee be dissolved. [CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY]

---

8. Performance Management Framework

Chair Bussler; Bussler, John Moeller and Johnson [video 48:20]

See report and draft framework in meeting package. Two staff have attended meetings and provided input. The draft was circulated to the board on March 10^th.

Discussion about timeline. The proposed policy sets a deadline of April 30^th for completion of performance reviews, which may not be not practical for 2026.

The Chair expressed concerns that the proposed framework is overly broad and said that it needs more work. He proposed another meeting before finalizing it. Trustee Moher supported approving the policy so that the rest of the work of refining details such as metrics can be proceeded with. Trustee Chorneyko said that frameworks like this need to be tested and that changes can subsequently be made if necessary.

RECOMMENDED MOTION

That the Board adopt the attached Senior Management Performance Evaluation Policy. [CARRIED 6/1; Trustee Johnson requests that his vote against be recorded]

---

9. Long Range Planning Committee

Chair Chorneyko [video 57:05]

See committee report and contract template for a depreciation report in meeting package.

Trustee Mercier noted that taking money out of the referenced fund requires a bylaw. Trustee Chorneyko said that Firehall #2 (south end) will also require planning for the future and will involve significant costs. The chair indicated that he has concerns about the unclear ownership of the firehall 2 property. Trustee Mercier said that everything in that regard is currently up in the air.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: …[ T]hat whole parcel is provincial crown land; at some point in the past there were negotiations,or something, involved in getting us permanent tenure on that spot. Those did not come to completion, so far as is known. Some time in I think 2023, former Chair Giffin, along with the Chief, initiated an application process to the government to be granted a portion of that parcel. But it’s under consideration for treaty settlements, and so the process moves slowly. And the way that it works generally is that when the province transfers it off their books, the cost has to be recouped from some ministry budget, which would be Municipal Affairs or whatever it’s called now, which would be Office of the Inspector of Municipalities. The province has a say, also, in that transaction, and I don’t know what if anything has taken place in communications with that.

Trustee Moeller is concerned that depreciation report will give longevity estimates but is not sufficiently accurate to be useful, and he would rather spend money on doing repairs than anticipating them.

RECOMMENDED MOTION

That staff get a Depreciation Report for the Albert Reed Hall, with money from Fire Hall Repair or Replacement Fund. [CARRIED 4/3; trustees Johnson, Moher and Moeller vote against]

Next committee meeting: Wednesday May 20th at 1:30 pm

---

REPORTS

CORPORATE OFFICER REPORT

[video 1:06:20]

See report in meeting package. Additional notes:

• Privacy Management Program audit: not complete but large parts have been done
• Trustee Chorneyko commended the Corporate Officer on her work and the very useful framing of the document; noted that the Respectful Workplace Policy has been completed though its status shows as “no action.” The CO explained that the status relates to work she needs to do, not the board, and that item requires no action on her part.

FIRE CHIEF REPORT

See report in meeting package. Additional information:

Callout stats update: 42 calls in March (annual calls to date: 113)

• 1 burn complaint
• 2 Hydro fires
• 1 chimney fire
• 1 miscellaneous fire
• 1 public assist
• 10 wires down
• 26 medical

Jay Dearman Junior Firefighter Fund training: work is ongoing. Gabriola Recreational Society will promote this. Jay Dearman fundraising run will be June 21^st.

Harmac training: cancelled due to cutbacks.

The Chief encouraged the community to write letters to advocate for continued UMBC and FireSmart funding.

---

Discussion on a number of items followed. The transcripts below are NOT fully in chronological order; we have pulled out the two discussions ( vehicle replacement and the wind event) which occurred part way through other discussions, putting them first. Timestamps are included so you can find specific references on the video.

---

VEHICLE REPLACEMENT

[video 1:21:40]

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Just on a different note, so number 12 replacement, can you bring that to the Long Range Planning Committee, and we'll start talking about it there.

CHIEF: For sure. Yeah, and it’s in the long range plan.

---

WIND EVENT

[video 1:23:20]

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: I have a question about that wind event. So that was a fairly large event, I'm guessing, one every two years type thing?

CHIEF:  We see one almost every year.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Every year. So that's like, the, I'd say maybe a big event for the year. Could you, like, I’m wondering what the operational cost of that is. And direct costs, so—labor costs, fuel costs, and any unusual costs. It'd be nice to start knowing what costs for our larger events are, so that we can budget. So we understand that. And so what I'm wondering is, if you could just, you know, prepare, like, a one page report on what an event like that costs us.

CHIEF:  Sure.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Yeah.

---

SOS COURSES

[video 1:19:50]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: I just have a question about the upcoming Safe Ocean Systems course. We don't have a contract with them to provide Advanced refresher courses. Our contract only covers the Basic medical course. So, I guess I'm curious why we're scheduling courses that we don't have a contract for.

CHIEF: Oh, we've done several of these courses. It is under the MEDs program. So the contract generally speaks to the MED contract.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Not to be argumentative, but the contract specifies that we'll work with them on the MED 1, I think, course, and that we’ll undertake conversations with them about expanding the courses that we provide. And then a draft proposal was provided to us, and then I think we sent it back to them, but there's been nothing signed expanding the scope of the training in the contracts.

CHIEF: No, I brought to you a contract that you guys voted down, decided to not pass at this time because of the Operational Guideline. Since then, the Operational Guideline has been rescinded, and there's no Operational Guideline at this time. And so it's stuck, I guess, in your court, so as trustees and governance, you need to make a decision about which way you want to go on it, I guess.

[video 1:22:00]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: From a fire department perspective, how does an Advanced Refresher course differ for the fire department, as opposed to the original?

CHIEF: [unclear]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Like, from our perspective, like I understand, they're the ones performing the training, so you know, whether they're teaching one book or a different book. What is the difference from our perspective?

CHIEF:  I think the perspective is, when we teach Advanced, they’ve got experience that they're trained to use SCBA, so they're actually safer on the fire ground, than a beginner that comes out not knowing how to use a Self Contained Breathing Apparatus, and is just learning how to firefight.  So Basic Refresher, is just a review course, a very basic review.  It’s a one day refresher course that they want.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Do they need more of our equipment?

CHIEF:  No.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Or more space?

CHIEF:  No.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: So it's, from our perspective, there's actually kind of no difference other than the material being taught.

CHIEF:  Yeah.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: I see.

[video 1:24:15]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So, just circling back to this SOS business. I mean, the contract that we have with them states that “this agreement covers the training for STCW MED Basic Safety”. However, the contractor, that's us, “agrees to discuss how we can reasonably support the client's creation of additional training for the STCW Advanced Firefighting Course and MED Domestic Vessel Safety pending the availability of staff, supplies and schedules, and the mutual agreement of fees for those additional services,” full stop. So it's it's not clear to me how or why we're working with this organization to provide training outside of the contract that they've signed with us, like they don't seem like good partners to me, if they are operating on an agenda with our personnel and equipment outside of the scope of the contract, and then it's thrown back at us that we need to make a decision to facilitate their business interests, like they—we have a contract with an organization and we're operating outside it.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: I just, I think that if there's no real difference to the department, then, you know, maybe the contract that they've signed with this is too specific, and perhaps that should be less specific on the actual material we're teaching. Like I don't see why we would want to even have a say in what material they're teaching, like, you know, unless we're involved in it, if they rented a space off us for training—

TRUSTEE MERCIER: We provide the staff for this training. The taxpayers, pay the staff for this training, it goes through our payroll. It’s our staff.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: But that's the same for both courses.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: But it's not, because one is covered by contract and one is not. So the difference is that they're making use of our resources to provide services with which they haven't contracted, and if the contract is too specific from their point of view, then surely it's incumbent on them to open up negotiations with us in advance of expanding the scope of the contract.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: I believe they did.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: If you hire me to work on your house and I work on your kitchen and then undertake to do work on your dining room, and try and bill you for it, then that's a problem, right? Because I'm operating outside the scope of the contract.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Well, not quite, not quite the same.

CHIEF: We had an amended contract back in February that we brought to the board, that was negotiations from SOS asking to do the Advanced fire fighting. It was turned down by the board sometime—

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So why are we scheduling—if the board didn't expand the contract, why are we operating—? Like, that sounds—I remember that occasion, and the board decided to stick with the contract that we had.

CHIEF: I believe, even in the minutes, you told us that we could operate with the last contract, we had.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Right. The last contract, which is STCW [unclear] Basic Safety.

CHIEF: So you've given us permission to operate, and now you're rescinding. I’m confused.

TRUSTEE MERCIER:  I'm curious why we're operating outside of this contract that we had. I mean, we signed a contract in August 2024, and, you know, in June 2025, or October 2025 we started operating outside that contract. We've been operating outside that contract for some time. We were approached with a draft contract that would incorporate the work that we're doing. That was back in February. We decided not to accept that expansion back in February. And so, I mean, I guess my question is, why now, in April are we scheduling stuff that's still outside that?

CHIEF: it was scheduled back in January when we were trying to set up the negotiations. If you'd like to cancel the courses, that's fine. We may lose SOS, but I mean, it's kind of, we'll put it to Trustee Mercier around that.  They want SOS to continue operating, because— currently they can't do the, they're under audit right now for their Basic because they missed one piece of equipment, a davit, so they basically will be shut down at this point. Moving forward, we'll lose the rent as well. So, I guess that’s a decision for the board to make.

CHAIR: I think it's a win-win situation. That's what we spoke about, that we're making money off it. It's a little different than me being a cabinet installer. You know what I mean, like I get what you're saying, but, but they're paying me, but I'm also paying them. You know what I mean? We have a symbiotic relationship that we win on with, with this particular outfit. And I think it's brilliant, if we have have a campus here, where there is training going on, it's a feather in our cap. And as far as I can figure out, it's not costing us money, it’s making us money. So I think we were saying—you would use the word “negotiation”. Okay, let's negotiate. In terms of negotiation do you just want to negotiate more money from them, or you just want to negotiate it right out of there?

TRUSTEE MERCIER: All I'm saying is that we have a private for-profit enterprise making use of taxpayer resources and operating outside of the terms of the contract with the publicly owned, taxpayer funded organization that is participating. I think it's irresponsible for us to operate in this way without a contract, and it seems like it's not up to us to bend over backwards to facilitate the making of money by this private enterprise.

TRUSTEE MOHER: Oh, they’re not making money, we're making money.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: They're certainly making money. They're offering for-profit courses and paying us a cut because we provide the trainers, on our insurance and on our WCB and on our payroll. And they like, they're they're using taxpayer resources.

[multiple voices, unclear]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Yes, so far as that's inside the negotiated contract, that's that's fine with me. I don't understand why we are not holding them to the contract.

CHIEF:  I mean, I'm just gonna speak again. We tried to get it amended in February. Why don't we suggest that—I mean, you don't want me involved in the negotiations, clearly. Why doesn't Trustee Mercier take on the negotiations between Safer Ocean Systems and you can figure out exactly what you want,or don’t want.

CHAIR: I'll be your second on that.

CHIEF: It would be easier for [unclear].

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So I don't understand this situation. They made us an offer. We said “no”. Now we're operating as though we had said “yes”, and it's my responsibility to make that okay? What—no. Will someone please explain? Like, the situation to me looks like we signed a contract with this organization to do certain specific things. Now we are doing different things, and I don't know why we are doing those different things without a contract being in place. And I don't see how it's my responsibility to make it okay that we're operating outside this contract. Like—and why it's because—

CHIEF: Trustee Mercier, in the February meeting you said, “please continue operating the courses that you have scheduled”. We had scheduled the courses back in February[?]. So we haven't changed anything. We haven't added any courses. We've just continued a status quo after you gave us permission.

[ED NOTE: see our comments at the end of this section factchecking this statement.]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: I don't give or withold permission. We vote as a group. Yeah, this is how the process—like, I'm really just struggling to—we [terminate?] the contract. We've got nothing else. We're like…

CHAIR [to Trustee Moeller]: go ahead.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Well, I think that if it doesn't change the resources that we're allocating then I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I'd like to make a motion to make it clear to everyone that we are allowing this Advanced Refresher course to proceed. I'm making that motion.

TRUSTEE MOHER: I’ll second that. And, to clarify, it was because we [unclear] allowed it, confirmed it, in January?

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Can I speak to it? I think the district finds a lot of ways to spend money, and that we have had a series of double digit increases in the cost of this department over the last number of years, and I think it behooves us to try and keep the tax increases as low as possible. And this has been a very good source of revenue, and I don't see that the Advanced Refresher course changes the outlay from the department. It just doesn't really, you know, sure the contract doesn't say those exact words, Advanced Refresher, the book they teach might be different, but the outlay from the department is not, you know, overtly different. So I think that we should move forward with this, rather than potentially blowing up our contract, and I think that the Board should get clear on what they want from Safer Ocean Systems. I am not the one that's opposed to it, so I suggest the people that are, get together and decide what they do want to see from it, so that we can stop having this discussion every time.

CHAIR: Can I speak to this for a second? I have to look at it from 30,000 feet. You know, this is a tremendous opportunity. It's a good, they're good renters. They bring a caché to us, there’s training going on. I know they're using our resources, but I mean, you’re talking about, it isn't all that. And we are—if we're not getting—if the issue is that they're getting more than they're paying us for, let's negotiate differently. But it sounds to me like basically, they're basically the same kind of contract without much difference to it, and they are drawing resources from us on about the same level, and they're paying us from the last contract. I don't see it being a big deal. I really don't. I just can't get nitpicky with that sort of thing myself. But somebody wants to speak, you all want to speak, okay, you first.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: I always hear, all the money that SOS brings in, and I, from my perspective, I am not convinced that it's that profitable. Like, we look at the revenue, and sure it brings in revenue, and then we look at direct expenses, and sure, there's—you take away direct expenses, and then it appears to be a profit. But I think there's a lot of hidden costs that we are not accounting for, and I think that if we did a really good analysis, I'm not convinced Safer Ocean Systems, that we're making money off of this. We would need to go into a deeper analysis to really have that discussion, but I don't think it's clearly as profitable as it's being portrayed.

CHAIR: Will that be part of the audit? Because money comes in, obviously.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO:  I'm scared to even talk about the costs that I see, because I'll get in trouble over that. But it would have to go in camera for me to talk about the true costs of us delivering these courses.

CHAIR: Well then, as far as I’m concerned we need to have that discussion.  Are we making money or are we not?

CORPORATE OFFICER: It's my understanding, the only reason you guys wouldn’t sign the original contract was because of insurance issues, which—we have gone to the insurance company that gives us the exact wording, and that is in the contract, ready to go. So that was the only issue that you guys had with that. So we say we've got a whole bunch of new issues?

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: So my issue, I haven’t spoken yet, is that we are about to run a course that is not covered by an agreement. This—the agreement covers things like compensation, like obligations, like liability insurance. So if something was to go wrong on this course that is not—this contract no longer applies.

CORPORATE OFFICER: So the fastest way to resolve this would be to ask the Chief to present you the contract that he has, and then see if they can, like, approve it.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So the problem with this is that it's up to them to ask us permission to conduct business using taxpayer resources. It's not up to us to facilitate their for-profit model. The way that such an agreement works is they should have asked us for permission first, not leave us scrambling afterwards, and while trustee Moeller has made assertions about keeping tax increases down, the SOS money has not been used for that purpose. Even in today's meeting, we see a recommendation that unbudgeted income from SOS be earmarked for the initial purchase of a necessary procedural thing. Some of that money was used for the purchase of auto extraction equipment. There had been some discussion of offsetting that against this year's budget from last year, but I don't know that that happened. But the point is that we are a publicly owned local government that provides a fire department. There's a company that wants to use that publicly owned personnel and resources to conduct a course, and we've agreed to that, and then they want to conduct a different course, and we haven't agreed to that, but it's still happening. So…

CHIEF:  I’ll speak to trustee Moeller's helping to bring down taxes. So, we took $30,000 off next year's capital, or we'll have the ability to take $30,000 off next year's capital, because we paid down some of those capital costs on auto equipment, auto extraction equipment that we purchased this year, that was savings from SOS rent and courses. I can speak to David about hidden concerns. I mean, we're using all their high wear equipment—nozzles, SCBAs. The only main piece of equipment that we're using is a 27-year-old engine/tender that is acting as a pump for those courses. So it is now timed out, and we didn't get any major repair bills for that this year. It's just gone through a pump test and a CBI, and there was no major expenses on engine 5. So the other stuff that could be wearing, you might have a few lengths of hose, maybe $1,000 worth of hose that may be getting worn. I don't really see any other hidden expenses.

TRUSTEE MOHER: I agree exactly with what you're saying. You talked about that before numerous times. The other thing that I'm very well aware of is, when you are experienced in something or learning something, they say, “Learn it. Do it. Teach it.” Can you tell us the value of teaching something to another group of people, what value that has to our members?

CHIEF:  Yeah. I mean, the members, or the instructors, don't really know the course content truly until they've taught it a few times. Then you really start to understand, once you have delivered that course. We are pleased also, I mean, some other considerations for this, is, we have trained how many new service instructors, Deputy? We've trained, I think, five new service instructors to level one and a couple to level two. So that likely wouldn't happen unless there was room for stuff like this with the courses.

TRUSTEE MOHER: And I would assume that that training, and that experience that they're getting by teaching, is transferable out into action when you're out on calls and things like that.

CHIEF:  It’s directly transferable to training our own members.

TRUSTEE MOHER: So it's a cheap way of reinforcing training. Cheap. I say that because money's being paid through the other thing. So you're reinforcing the training of your own members by upgrading their training to teach what they're learning. So we're actually benefiting from the manner in which they're doing the work. So I would applaud you for continuing…

CHIEF:  We’ve had Captain Goodall speak on training and morale. It's brought up in the past. I think there's other members that have provided great, great speeches about how it's provided morale, and they love teaching.

TRUSTEE MOHER: Thank you.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: At that previous meeting, we decided that money from SOS would go into the general funds. So by definition, that is offsetting taxes. Now, if that money is being spent on something that's not useful to the department, that's a different issue, because it is just going into general funds. So, you know, I don't know about the hidden expenses, and I’d need to know more about that, but from you know, everything I've come to understand, this definitely makes us money, plus I think it's good for morale and good for training. So, you know, I don't really understand the opposition to SOS. From my perspective, it's good, but, you know, I put a motion on the floor, and I think we should pass it.

CHAIR: What was the motion again?

TRUSTEE MOHER: To allow it to go forward.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: To allow the Advanced Refresher training to go forward.

CHAIR: [to Trustee Moher]: And you seconded it?

TRUSTEE MOHER: And I seconded it.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So I'm not convinced, also, that our insurance covers us if we're operating outside of the contract. I'm not convinced that our insurance covers us if we have personnel working outside of their formally defined roles as firefighters, because we don't hire—we, like, we don't have a formal role for instructor. That's an informal role in the organization. The insurance covers people acting in the course of their duties. But if we're, if we have staff teaching courses outside of the contract, outside of their formally assigned duties, I'm not sure that our insurance covers that. And the only assurance that we have that our insurance does cover that is that our insurance covers “in the course of their duties”. But I don't see how this is that.

CHAIR: Can I just speak to that for a second? So, then we need clarification from our insurance company. Our insurance carrier. and I think we have?  Do we have that?

CORPORATE OFFICER: What kind of insurance are you talking about? If our member gets hurt, then it's WCB, because they're being an employee at that point. Or are you talking about the other type of insurance?

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So, a long shot thing would be, if one of our instructors teaches a course, someone who's taken that course goes and makes a decision that leads to an expensive claim on the insurance company. The insurance company is going to be like, “Well, where were you trained? Is that certification valid?” It's going to come back to us, etc, etc, and those people are operating outside of their role as firefighters.

CHIEF: That would come right back to SOS as their accreditation. They're the ones that hand out the accreditation.

TRUSTEE MERCIER:  But our—they hand out the accreditation, but it's our employees providing the training. Those are our employees—

CHIEF:  Under their direction.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: But that's not part of their duties, their regular duties. If they're acting under, if our staff are acting under the direction of SOS teaching a course, then they're not operating in pursuit of their regular duties.

CHAIR: That’s true, but they don’t have to. You can have two jobs.

[unclear]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: You can have two jobs. And if SOS was hiring our staff to teach their courses, this wouldn't be a concern, but they're still our staff. They're still on our WCB, they're still on our general liability insurance. They're still—the money that they make goes through our T4 and tax withholdings process. They're still our employees while they're conducting that work. But I'm not convinced that they're covered under our insurance, because while they remain our employees, they're not engaged in the duties for which we hired them.

CHAIR: Your concern, I think? Getting back to, your overall concern seems to be that the contract that exists is different, it has been expanded, as you said, has been expanded to something else, there’s where the crux of the problem is, as far as your concern. Is that true?

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Yes—

CHAIR: So we change that contract, like, I'll say it right now. I mean, who knows, but I'll negotiate that contract. If you don't want to do it, I'll do it. But I think, I would like to see them stay and, it's a for-profit model. We're gonna have to get over that. Everything's a for-profit model. I’m an old hippie, I get it, you know, but people don't do stuff for free, except us.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Well, like, why are we coming in after the fact to try and make it okay, instead of them coming to us first, and saying, “We want to expand the contracts to do these things,” which hasn't been done.

CHAIR: I'm of the opinion that you fix things rather than, than not fix things. You know what I mean? There's a problem. Let's fix it.  But I don’t want the general public, you know, in this room, to think that we're just trying to get rid of SOS for whatever reasons. I hope that's not the case.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: We have general liability insurance, and we have building insurance, and Workers Compensation covers employees. So I don't see any of those being jeopardized by allowing a course that has a different training guide than you have in the contract, I don't think any of those would be jeopardized by that. And, you said you checked with the insurance company, Marjorie?

CORPORATE OFFICER: Yes. They just have to have the $3 million liability.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Which they do?

CHIEF:  Well, they carry 5 million liability, and they [unclear] policy.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Well, so then we're covered in every aspect. So, my motion still stands, then we just allow the course to run.

CHAIR: All in?  Hands in the air in the approved, please? Carried.

MOTION:

To allow the Advanced Refresher training to go forward. [CARRIED 4:3, Appel, Johnson, Moeller and Moher in the affirmative]

CECA REPORT

MOTION recommended by Chief:

That the Board approve entering into a lease and/or Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Coastal Emergency Communications Association (CECA), with final terms to be established to support continued emergency communications operations on Gabriola Island.

CHIEF: I'd like some clarification of how the board wants to proceed with land use, where we can draw up an MOU and when we need to draw up a lease, because I’m quite confused now that there’s one—

CHAIR: Are you guys alright that I’m inserting it in here? The CECA?

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: Yeah, it was on the Fire Chief’s thing.  Yeah.

CHAIR: Okay. Go ahead.

TRUSTEE MOHER: Well, I think, considering we have a very adept governance lawyer on tap, I'd like to go back to what I spoke to when this first came up, and that's called grandfathering, because even if the land use policy was an issue, both those groups were in there before that policy came into effect, which means that they're not actually governed under it at all, and that it would come under effect if those people left and another group came in. So we could easily get direction from the governance lawyer as to, writing up a grandfather clause to have both those groups down there without needing any aspect whatsoever of them signing onto anything, other than whatever the lawyer puts together for us, because they would actually know the language that needs to be done and what needs to happen.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So I want to make sure my understanding is clear. The objection that CECA has, is to whether or not the word “memorandum of understanding” or “lease” is used. If the terms of the contract are the same, and it's called a “memorandum of understanding” that's okay with them, but if it's called a “lease,” that's not okay with them. Is that the situation that we're faced with?

CHIEF:  I think they're just confused that—there's an MOU that can be signed with the RDN, but when it comes to CECA, it's got to be a lease agreement.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: But—and again, just for my own clarity, my understanding is that CECA has exclusive access of a portion of space, and that they have after hours access to the fire hall as part of their, I'm going to call it “tenancy,” here, which is different than Nanaimo has. The RDN does not have access to the fire hall generally, and—

CHIEF:  They have the same access.

TRUSTEE MERCIER:  Okay, that's… and—but—So is the objection just around the term lease or memorandum of understanding?

CHIEF:  I'm just trying to come up with clarity, because there's two, there's two scales here, one for CECA, and one for the RDN. So I’d just like to balance it so the same rules apply to CECA as they do to the RDN.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: I was a swing vote on that, and so for me, it comes down to access. CECA has a special room. It's walled off. It has a separate lock on the door, and they have exclusive use. CECA walks through the ESS area to get into their room. And, for the public here—that, the basement is right below this room. And so, in the corner over there [gesturing] is the CECA space. There's, there's plywood walls up, and then there's a door on there. And so then, in this part [gesturing], there's a number of structures so that they can… ESS has a bunch of stuff stored along the walls. And so there's a door just right below us. And so I want to—I'm curious about that lock on that door, and so I sent—did you get my email, Chief?

CHIEF:  Yes, yeah. So it's, it's keyed separately, that door, for the basement there.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: It used to be a master key, is—

CHIEF:  It used to be, but now it's keyed separate, so members don't have access down there.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Does CECA have two keys then?

CHIEF: Well, they have their keys to gett into that door downstairs, just like ESS has a couple of keys to [unclear]

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: So how do they get into the main hall after hours?

CHIEF: They store a key down in their locked room, and they have a protocol when they need to come up here and check equipment.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Is it a master key, or is it—?

CHIEF: No, it's just a key to get in the door here.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Which door?

CHIEF: The metal doors.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: All of them?

CHIEF: Just the metal with the glass doors. So there's different series of doors, like the public can come in to have access to this part of the building without accessing any of the truck bay. So we've keyed it to keep separation.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Okay.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So, but CECA does have exclusive use of a locked room, and ESS doesn’t. Is that—?

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: That’s my understanding.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: That seems to me like a salient difference.

CHAIR: Can I speak to that for a second?  The way I look at it, I'm just looking at this from the outsider's point of view, I've been down there once. But I can certainly understand why they would have a key. They’ve been down there for over 12 years, 12 years down there. They've got $30,000, $40,000 worth of equipment down there that is easily taken. And I'm not accusing anybody of anything, but that's the way it is. You have to protect your gear, and that's what it sounds like to me. It's not a matter of trying to make it exclusive or not shared with ESS. It's just that, you know, for the good of everybody, here's the radio—you’ve got to put the radio equipment away.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: That’s not in question.

CHAIR: Okay.

CHIEF: The fire department has access to that room, we've also got access to their equipment. And we did have to make one of the most important calls that, when all the phone lines were down in 2018 in the windstorm, I made a call on their AREDN system, which got the RDN to get TELUS to get that [unclear] unit set up so we could get the whole downtown, or the whole core, with WiFi, so we could get the doctor's office open and the drug store, and all those crucial infrastructure was set up by that one call that was made through that room down there that we had access to.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Who has training on it?

CHIEF: It's basically just a phone line. You dial it and it connects through microwave to a computer over there.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: You have a sat phone now, right?

CHIEF: No sat phone. We now have Starlink. That was before Starlink.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: So you're covered now?

CHIEF: If Starlink stays up. But it's always good to have redundancy.

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: And CECA is also different, in my opinion, in that they have equipment on our apparatus, so they would have to have WorkSafe BC coverage, their own WorkSafe BC coverage, because they can get injured. And the after hour access, like, have they had police record checks? I don't know. I think that there is a difference between the two. But I also want to point out that we did not— So we started in February with asking for a lease agreement. Then we received pushback on that in March. So March 4, we changed the wording to make it that it doesn't need to be a lease agreement, so long as it complies with our Land Use Policy, Policy 23-06. So call it what you will, it doesn't have to be MOU, lease, lease, MOU, whatever, some new name, so long as it complies with the policy.

 

CHIEF: Great, perfect.

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: That’s literally what we asked for on March the 4th. And it’s coming back to us now.

TRUSTEE MOHER: No, you [unclear] from a lease to an MOU, you changed it. You guys changed it really quickly to a lease.

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MOHER: I want you also to understand that the CECA is part of the RDN, and CECA is called out by the RDN instantly when things go sideways. So they actually are attached to the RDN. And there was something else that you just said that, instantly, that went in and out of my head, that was also incorrect, that I was going to—So what were the two things you said at the beginning?

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: Yes, so I said “That the staff be directed to negotiate with CECA for an arrangement” —

TRUSTEE MOHER: [attempts to interrupt] No, not that, Oliver—

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: “—for continued use of the space”—please don't—“in fire hall number one, that conforms with policy 23-06.” And that's the motion we passed March 4. So that's, you have—you're not bound to a lease vs an MOU.

CHIEF: We’ve been working to negotiate that deal. I mean, that provides a lot of clarity [unclear] support staff.

CHAIR: Can I speak to that for a second? My understanding is with this, is that, and I agree with them. CECA seems to feel, that if ESS has that kind of agreement, the memorandum of understanding, then why don't they? Why are they being segregated? What are they, why are they so bad that they have to, have to change it? I mean, it's just words, if I was them, I would simply just say, okay, just call it a lease. But I think, you know, there's people that are a little tender about that, like, why? Why me personally, if you know what I'm saying. Why are you coming after me when you’re letting—  Like, we won't accept a memorandum of understanding from you, but we'll accept it from ESS, and I think that's where the rub is. I think we can negotiate this out, because they are really important. Just like any fire hall, this is a major conduit that we can speak to Nanaimo when our communications are down. I mean, the idea, I guess, was with the Rogers tower, which I don’t know, it might never happen at this point, was that we could use that in a way to communicate. But we have, what, this microwave? Is that what they're using to get to speak to Nanaimo? You can't beat that. And in a firestorm situation like I said, I mean, we need communication. We don't have enough communications on this island, like at my place, my cell phone works very, very little. And that's true of a lot of places on this island. And so when we don't have landline and my cell phone doesn't work, and I can't get on online for some reason, on an iPad or something, you're not in communication anymore. And this is, these guys can help with that. They can't reach out to everybody in the community, but they can, at least there's some place you can go to find out what's going on.

TRUSTEE APPEL: Chair, I think we all agree with that. I think we all agree with it. And if it doesn't matter whether we use the word “lease” or “memorandum of understanding,” but it's important that it conforms to policy 23-06—Can’t we just work on…[multiple voices, unclear] Do we need to make that decision right now?

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: We’ve already passed the motion.

CHAIR: We passed a motion to do what?  Or you’re saying we did?

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: We passed a motion at the March 4th meeting that does not commit us to doing the lease. It commits us—Call it whatever you will, so long as it conforms with our own policy.  Like, we are almost arguing not to follow our own policy, is what it sounds like. And if we are okay with following our policy, call it what you will.

CHAIR: Potato, potah-to. That's what it is. I'll deal with it, if you want me to deal with it.  I’ll deal with it.

CHIEF: No, I think there’s clarity now. I mean, at the last, in the March meeting, they were saying “lease” and now they are saying “MOU,” so—

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: No, we changed the words. It literally does not have the word “lease” in the motion.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: So does CECA want it to say a lease?

TRUSTEE MOHER: No, no.  They were told [unclear].

TRUSTEE MOELLER: So, from my perspective, the term “lease” carries connotations for the district that are more binding on us than the term MOU. So I don't know why we would want a lease to be in there, like, that gives them legal rights over that space, whereas if there's just an MOU, they wouldn't have that. So we should be arguing in favour of an MOU. That's my opinion.

CHIEF: I’m just confused, because we voted down the MOU at the last meeting, but now we're saying it’s okay?

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: So, actually, on March 4th we said it was okay.

CHIEF:  But you voted down the memorandum of understanding at the March meeting, with CECA...

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: And replaced it with a “whatever you want to call it” agreement.

CHAIR: So we’re back to, a we call it—

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: My understanding is that there were two things going on. There's what the agreement is called, and there's whether or not it complies with our land use policy, and there's some overlap with those, but they're not exclusive. And the motion that we passed was about the land use policy. Like, yes, there was conflict about whether or not it should be a lease, but I thought that we had, like, discussed that and arrived at this motion, which is recorded here.

[multiple voices]

CHIEF: I guess it complies—like, the only thing in the land use policy is insurance, and basically that there needs to be an agreement in place.

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: I think there's an indemnification clause in there as well.

 

CHIEF: Okay. So, it’s just, the last one we produced was, pretty well had that. We'll bring it back to the next meeting as an MOU with the indemnity as insurance, and—

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: And have a close look at the exact [?] [unclear].

CHIEF: Yeah.

[multiple voices, unclear]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: It’s confusing to me. Maybe I'm just easily confused. We extend an offer, and then— My understanding of the process of negotiation is that if the other party doesn't like the offer, that they bring a counter offer. And I haven't seen any any counter offers, just objections, so in both this and SOS like, maybe I'm confused about how negotiation happens.

[multiple voices]

CHAIR: Negotiations on a small island community, really—

[multiple voices]

CHAIR: —and history, we’ve got twelve years of things being here, and everybody knows who they are.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Just to clarify, the MOU was the offer, and we rejected it without countering it.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: No. We presented an MOU to them, and then that was rejected without anything coming back to us, other than “we reject the MOU”.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: We did not counter.  We rejected it and didn’t counter.

TRUSTEE MOHER: Yeah, we're just looking at the motion here. We actually did defeat the motion to have an MOU for CECA, but we passed the one for ESS.

CORPORATE OFFICER: So essentially, you were given two identical MOUs. You passed one, you didn't pass the other one, and then there's no clarity in the minutes what you need for the second MOU to make it pass too.

TRUSTEE MOHER: We did talk about insurance.

CORPORATE OFFICER: The insurance was added.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: And I mean, like, the arrangements for the two different organizations are different. Like, it doesn't make sense to have the same agreement with them when one organization has essentially, some shelves.

TRUSTEE MOHER: No, but they both could have been MOUs is what we’re saying.

CHAIR: Is the issue the shelves? Because if they’ve got stuff up—

TRUSTEE MERCIER: No. I just, I don't understand what the confusion is between “Well, why are we treating this organization this way and this other organization this way?” They're different organizations with different needs and access and capacity, and so—

CHAIR: Why does it matter to us? What's the difference to us as the landlord, basically?

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Well, if we're, if we have a memorandum of understanding, maybe that doesn't make us landlords?

CHAIR: That's probably true, but ESS, then we're not landlords to ESS, either. It's a segregation between the two, and I have my theories about it.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: There’s a lot of misunderstanding, apparently. Do we have a resolution? Are we voting on anything? Is there a motion?

[?]: No.

CORPORATE OFFICER: No, there is a motion on the floor.

CHAIR: To do…?

TRUSTEE MOHER: To offer them the MOU?

CORPORATE OFFICER: Oh no, never mind, sorry. There’s no motion on the floor.

CHIEF: We just asked for clarity on the topic. I think staff has clarity on what we need to do.

TRUSTEE MOHER: Okay, thank you.

---

NEW TRAILER

[video 2:07:20]

Trustee Bussler briefly asks about the new enclosed trailer procured through a FireSmart grant, and what was paid for it; the cost was $9000.

---

DEPUTY CHIEF REPORT

[video 2:08:00]

See report in meeting package.

---

ASSOCIATION REPORT

[video 2:10:30]

No report.

---

BUSINESS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES and UNFINISHED BUSINESS

1. Privacy Management Update

 [video 2:10:45]

Placeholder item, ongoing.

2. Bylaw XXX: Fire Department Establishing Bylaw

Placeholder item, ongoing.

3. Records and Information Management Bylaw

Placeholder item, ongoing. Will present at June Meeting

4. Code of Conduct

[video 2:11:45]

A version of the COC updated by lawyer has been received, but was not included in the meeting package. Disagreement about what should be in the Code of Conduct remains.

TRUSTEE MOHER: I would really like to recommend that we pass a motion to accept this Code of Conduct, for two reasons. One, because I believe that his comments on his reasoning behind it, which was, for one thing, making sure that our conflict of interest was a little bit better represented than what was there. He put back in things that were taken out, because we tended to just hyper-focus on money conflicts, and he put other things back in.

But also because there is an order from the government that will be implementing, or has already implemented, this came through on the 2^nd, a Code of Conduct that will be implemented for all government services, that will be mandated, and they're finding that not everybody has one, not everybody has an adequate one. So they decided that they were going to solve this issue and this problem. The problem for us is that we sit between some lines in the Local Government Act as an improvement district, so we don't sit as a municipality, and we're not a Regional District, and we're not a city. So there's some positions in there where it might nail us, and it might not, and everybody is going to have to at some aspect, prove that they have a solid Code of Conduct. The fact that the governance lawyer did ours means that it's going to be extremely solid. And then when this one comes down, we can ask him to meld the two together, and he can look at what's valid for us, and what's valid for the government, in terms of putting together a Code of Conduct that will handle under—because once it's done by the government, it becomes more like a bylaw than a policy. And I think we need to be extremely conscious of the fact that this needs to be done, and it needs to be done properly. And I was very, very impressed with what he put in his work that he did here, and what he put back in, and how he explained things, so… and this was sent to you yesterday.

 

TRUSTEE MOHER: I made a motion that we accept this. [seconded]

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: I'm not aware of the new legislation that you're talking about. Can you — [paper passed to him] Can I have that, or…?

TRUSTEE MOHER: Just put it in and you'll find it. I pulled that off, like it was in all the newspapers, as I look at Derek in the back, and then what you have to do is go in and find the actual governmental—so if you want to take the URL down, so then you can go in and find the thing. Yeah, it was actually sent to me by a couple of different people, because they were all aware that this came down, so the only reason that I'm not saying [clapping briskly] “We need to do this,” is because we are an improvement district, and so we sit in a very weird position within the Local Government Act, and some things we have to follow, and some things we don't have to follow. So I don't want us being caught by surprise when, if we find that this is not going to be adequate.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: […] So the attorney in his correspondence, in his suggestion about conflict of interest, suggested expanding on the conflict of interest provisions to include personal interests that don't have a financial aspect to them. The conflict of interest rules that apply to municipal councilors and regional district directors recognize that the personal interests of an elected official on a matter may give rise to a conflict of interest, even if the financial interests of the elected official are not affected directly or indirectly.

The issue that I have with this is that those rules do not apply to trustees of improvement districts.

TRUSTEE MOHER: Which he knows.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: This—we could get, presumably, put those rules into a bylaw. This Code of Conduct does not impose rules on us in the way that the bylaw does. It's just—

TRUSTEE MOHER: This is a [unclear].

TRUSTEE MERCIER: It’s just a Code of Conduct to which we agree. So even if we put into this Code of Conduct language about personal conflicts of interest, there is no—that doesn't actually restrict anyone. No one can be prevented from voting, prevented from participating, or excluded from any board matter based on a violation of the Code of Conduct. So to put rules in place in the Code of Conduct that we can't enforce elsewhere doesn't make any sense to me. I see his reasoning. If we were municipal councillors or regional district directors, we would have this obligation, but we don't. So to require it of trustees, without actually requiring it of them, does not make sense to me. And so I will not be supporting the adoption of a Code of Conduct that includes that language, because I believe it to be in conflict with the actual obligations of improvement district trustees, which as trustee Moher has just pointed out, are different than in other [unclear]. Are in fact different.

??: [unclear]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: No, no. Are in fact. They are in fact different. We can put whatever rules we want on us, but there is no language in the statute governing improvement districts that binds improvement district trustees around personal conflicts of interest.

TRUSTEE MOHER: I understand what you're saying, that we don't have any teeth, but that doesn't mean we can't have it in there to make people aware that they have a responsibility as a trustee, which is under the Local Government Act, and our handbook and the trustees handbook, to act in a manner according to certain parameters and certain philosophies. And it frustrates me that every time we get around to people looking at their personal behavior, or personal conflicts, which I have no trouble signing off on on, and think about, and do, we start to have push back on it. And so I find it extremely interesting that a lawyer puts it in and suggests [unclear] much that we have it in. I'm really curious to see where we go with the government one, which actually will be law, for people, and then you're stuck with it. The one thing that that will give is teeth to certain things, where we again, may or may not. But I I'm just trying to get us ahead of something. And I'm just confounded by the constant push back on certain language around conflict of interest.

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: So two things. One, we have some grammatical issues going on with confidential information. Just the four bullets there we can fix. And I also will be voting against this. I find that this non-pecuniary conflict of interest piece is too nebulous for me, so I'll read it out. It says, “A non-pecuniary conflict of interest arises when a trustee has another form of personal interest in a matter that is distinct from that of other members of the community, and where a reasonably and well-informed person would conclude the trustee's personal interest could reasonably be expected to influence the trustee’s vote in relation to a matter.”

So, we just had a long conversation about CECA. You know, one of the trustees is a CECA member. I personally think that would be a non-pecuniary conflict of interest, but clearly you do not. So it's very nebulous in my mind. Like, how you prove it, how you determine it, and so I will not be supporting this.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: I agree with you, I think that's opening up a huge can of worms. You're going to create endless debates about what is and isn't. I just want to point out that this is only contemplating a conflict of interest that's self-identified. It's not up to the other trustees to identify and debate whether someone has it. It's just, if you personally feel like you can self-identify, according to this policy. So I think that that's better than—I agree with what you're saying, Mr. Mercier, that you know there's no teeth to it, but because it's self-identifying, then I don't think it needs to have that aspect anyways. So I think it's okay in here. It's kind of just, sort of like saying that this is something that you can consider.

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: But if a trustee doesn't self-identify?

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Then it's not really up for debate from the other trustees to try and point out that they have it or don't have it.

TRUSTEE APPEL: Or if a community member says something? Could someone say that my spouse is a firefighter—it’s not a financial matter, which is fiduciary, it's, you know, can affect a family member. This kind of —

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Totally.

[unclear, overlapping voices]

TRUSTEE APPEL: —a little bit, you know, so I'm—this makes me nervous, honestly—to be honest with you, it makes me nervous, because somebody could somehow use this and, well, I don't know. I'm just—I know it’s self-identifying, but I don’t know.

[multiple voices]

CORPORATE OFFICER: We’re just laughing that we have now paid this lawyer and you guys are like, “no, he's wrong.”

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE APPEL: I’m not saying that, no. I’m not saying that he’s wrong. I'm just saying I don’t know what this means, that’s all.

CHAIR: I think what you have, [unclear] these days, you have to look in terms of what the legal action might be if you are, if you are conflicted.

TRUSTEE MOHER: But we’ll never know.

CHAIR: —and you know, we can make all the Code of Conduct we want, and they can be as toothless as anything, ‘cause basically for a trustee, it takes a serious, serious legal matter to have you force anybody who's who's elected in this province to leave their position, as you may have seen with with a lot of politicians who have been charged with things. But the thing to understand is that if you, just because we say our conflict is only pecuniary, that doesn't mean that the courts say that. And in so many cases, the courts will look at that and say there was a bias, or there was a conflict, and they make that decision. I'm saying that we are not independent of English common law that's used in Canada. So, I mean, I'm, I'm good with it. I know that it's toothless, and I know, I've heard the story before, if you, if you can't, there's no teeth in something while you're doing it. And as far as I'm concerned, it's basically, “Here's what we think as a body. This is how we should behave.” We can't—I know we can't enforce it, but at least you have—I don’t know, I hate to use word moral, but kind of a moral setup.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So we have given to the lawyer, the procedural bylaw, right, our proposed revision to Bylaw 97. It’s Bylaw 97 that sets out the conflict of interest rules. And that bylaw says that if you have a conflict of interest, that means a pecuniary conflict of interest. And if, in that case, then you must do certain things. So if we want to add some other language around conflict of interest, I think the place to put in the “musts”, like “the trustee must do this” language, is in the Bylaw, not the Code of Conduct. The Code of Conduct, to my mind, should establish a standard of conduct [unclear] to which we're expected to adhere. So it's the language around what a trustee must do, and language like, if a board member is in [unclear – debt?], he or she must disclose the circumstances and consult with the chairperson. That language, to me, belongs in the Bylaw, not in the Code of Conduct. Language that belongs in the Code of Conduct, to me is like—this holds the whole rest of this thing, trustees will be, you know, there's a section on accountability, and then it says what trustees will do to remain accountable. That's fine, but if it affects a trustee's right to vote, or if it affects what a trustee must do in addressing a matter, to me that belongs in a bylaw, not the Code of Conduct, because a bylaw can have requirements. Like right now, the bylaw requires that if a trustee has a conflict of interest, they recuse themselves, they do not attempt to influence the discussion, they leave the room where discussion is being held, etc, etc. So there are “musts” there. Those musts, I think, belong in a bylaw, not the Code of Conduct.

CHAIR: Well, the fact of being self-identified. I mean, if you don't feel that you're in conflict, then you're going to vote, but you can't stop trustees from voting, I don’t think there’s any way—

TRUSTEE MERCIER: With Bylaw 97, yes. A trustee with a conflict of interest must recuse themselves.

CHAIR: —anything that we've written. And there's, this island has problems as far as I’m concerned around that. We don't make up our own laws. You know, we're governed by the laws of Canada, not by the laws of Gabriola, and those laws extend into, you know, elected bodies like we have. So, you know, it is a self-identifying thing as far as I'm concerned. I would just like people to know, and I didn't write this, I don’t have anything to do with this, the lawyer did, I'd like people to know that, you know, don't count upon us—you being saved by the fact that you weren't told that you couldn't have a conflict beyond, you know, the pecuniary one. Do you know what I'm saying? Go ahead.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: So coming into this, I was in agreement with it, but I hear trustee Mercier’s comments about the conflict of interest portion and the fact that it is in Bylaw 97, and because it's in Bylaw 97 I don't think it's necessary to have it in two places. And bylaw 97 is being worked on at this time. It's fairly close to the finish line, and I think that we should put the conflict of interest portion into bylaw 97 and so I'm going to put an amendment to this motion that we approve this, but we pull out the conflict of interest portion.

CHAIR: Just on this.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Just on this. And so—

CHAIR: And putting it into Bylaw 97.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Well, it's already in bylaw 97.

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MOHER: Not this portion.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Well but we're still working on bylaw 97 so we can continue to work on it, and probably get this portion in  here. We can debate that and put it in. So I put that motion on the floor that, or the the amendment on the floor, that we pull the conflict of interest portion out of this.

CHAIR: But I think we haven’t finished with…

[Trustee Chorneyko’s motion is seconded]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Non-pecuniary conflicts of interest are subjective, and I don't know how the councillors deal with this, but you know, it's going to be opening up a can of worms. If you have something that actually carries teeth, you know, like, if it's going to determine whether or not somebody gets to vote in a critical vote somewhere, and the board decides that they cannot because of the non-pecuniary interest, you open yourself up to legal action, all kinds of things, for something that's subjective. So I don't know how the councillors deal with it, but I'd say that a lot of consideration would need to be put into adding that to a bylaw that carries the ability to stop someone from voting. Like a pecuniary conflict of interest is obvious. You either are going to make money off it or you're not. But the non-pecuniary, it's like, well, I saw you together at the gas station. Were you having a conversation? Or, you know, like that is going to be a slippery slope that has repercussions.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So I want to be clear about what I mean by teeth. I don't mean punitive teeth, and so maybe that's a bad term. I mean that it makes requirements of Trustees. So our existing bylaw, if a board member believes that he or she has a direct or indirect pecuniary interest in a matter before the board that is not held in common with electors of the improvement district generally, the board member “must”. And then it imposes a series of obligations: declare the interest, not take part in the discussion, immediately leave the meeting, not attempt in any way, whether before, during or after the meeting, to influence the voting on the question. So that's what I mean by teeth. I mean requirements that are placed on the trustee to do things. Now, if you look at this draft Code of Conduct, we see the same kind of language. A trustee must declare this and state in general terms the reason why the member considers it to be the case. Board member must disclose the circumstances and consult with the chairperson. It's those “musts” that I think, if we're going to incorporate them, and I'm willing to leave that as an open question, but those “musts” belong where they can be binding—in a bylaw. If we're going to say “must”, that's the place we should put it. So I'm in support of pulling out the conflict of interest portion of this Code of Conduct and approving it on that basis. I will vote in favour. I will support the amendment, and would also support an amended Code of Conduct.

CHAIR: So you're in favour of, if I may use the term, kind of a toothless—

TRUSTEE MERCIER: No, I like the—my position is that a Code of Conduct that expresses a standard of behavior that can be expected of Trustees is good. A Code of Conduct that says “must do this” is acting outside of scope, when that should be in the bylaw where the “musts” go.

CHAIR: Well, we’re back to the may/shall/will kind of thing, is what you're talking about here.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Yeah, like, if there are requirements being imposed on trustees, then that should to my mind be in a bylaw.

CHAIR: I think, as far as pecuniary conflict of interest, I think you will find that language, which is “must,” in everybody's contract, their social contract, as elected officials across the board, from here to Texas, you know what I mean, even in Texas. So I’m with you on the rest of it, but on that one, I'm just saying that that's that is the industry standard, if I may say.

TRUSTEE APPEL: Trustee Mercier, are you saying you want to take this verbatim, and put this into the bylaw?

TRUSTEE MERCIER: No, I'm saying I want to take it out of this, and then if we want to, in our consideration of the bylaw anyways, look at expanding the scope of conflict of interest, then that's the place to do it.

TRUSTEE APPEL: So you might not have the pecuniary piece in there [unclear].

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: I don’t really like this, either, if I'm being honest. I mean, it says, like Mr. Mercier pointed out, if a board member's in doubt, he or she must disclose the circumstances. That sounds to me like something that's being forced upon that trustee—

[multiple voices, unclear]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: —if they are in doubt. So that means that there's another trustee that is doubting them, and they're being forced to disclose their circumstances, or be, you know, withheld from voting. So that sounds to me like—

CHAIR: None of that—does it say that there?

TRUSTEE MOELLER: It doesn't, but that's, you know, it says they might request a legal opinion.

CHAIR: You can’t, just so you know, you cannot stop people from voting.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Well, I think you would.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: What this language does, is it gives the chair the power to, if necessary, request [unclear] to seek a legal opinion, which could impose delays on things outside of the will of the board.

[multiple voices, unclear]

TRUSTEE MOELLER: I think you're running into a problem there. Like, that was gonna be my point is, like, that is exactly it. When we request a legal opinion, so does that person— it doesn't really go on to say what happens after that. Does the person not get to vote, do they get to vote? Does the vote get delayed?

CHAIR: Yeah, I have to say I agree. I agree with what you’re saying. I think you gotta leave the—and maybe, maybe that is [unclear] too, because it's going to be a law somewhere else, in the bylaw. It's already there in the Bylaw, okay? And it's unenforceable. I just wish that people would understand that, once again, that just because we don't have it in our bylaws does not mean that it's legal to do something. You know what I mean? If we don't have a rule that you can't do it, that doesn't mean you can do it, necessarily, by by the standard of English common law.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: The motion on the floor, I believe, is to remove the conflict of interest portion of the proposed code of conduct.

TRUSTEE APPEL: And put it…

TRUSTEE MERCIER: For now, just...

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Just for now. And it’s already in there.

[multiple voices]

CHAIR: Okay, we’ve exhausted that maybe?

CORPORATE OFFICER: All in favour of the amendment.

TRUSTEE MOHER: All in favour of the amendment.

CHAIR: All in favour, hands in the air please.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Just to be clear, the amendment is just to remove this [unclear].

[Trustees Appel, Bussler, Chorneyko, and Mercier vote in favour]

CHAIR: It carried.

MOTION CARRIED [see minutes of this meeting in upcoming meeting package for the exact wording, because it was not read out]

[Some commentary in low voices, unclear.]

CHAIR: Okay, so we are voting now on the whole darn thing, minus that language.

CORPORATE OFFICER: Yes.

CHAIR: Okay, any discussion further to that? No?

Multiple voices: No.

CHAIR: Okay, hands in the air in the affirmative.

[Trustees Appel, Bussler, Chorneyko, Mercier and Moeller vote in favour]

CHAIR: Carried.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: And we have a Code of Conduct. Or at least we have a new Code of Conduct.

[some chatter]

CHAIR: Well, how much difference is there?

??: It’s pretty different.

CHAIR: Okay, good, okay, fine. I think we're going to have to start listening to a lawyer—

TRUSTEE MOHER: [unclear, but may be referencing the lawyer putting in what the trustees voted to take out]

[multiple voices]

CHAIR: Lawyers aren’t always right, but they’re mostly right.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: We end up with something like this, anyways, in the bylaw.

[multiple voices, unclear]

CHAIR: What’s up next?

---

5. Election Report (C. Hannebauer)

[video 2:37:55]

See meeting package for GFPID Election Booklet.

The Returning Officer thanked Trustee Appel and the Corporate Officer for working with her on her “how-to” report, which has been put into a binder and of which there are multiple copies. The draft is intended as a working, living document. Three election guideline booklets (Election Process, Poll Clerk Duties, and Trustee Representative/Now You’re a Trustee) have been put on the website.

Trustee Chorneyko commended and thanked the Returning Officer for all the work done on developing and documenting election process, and noted that documenting institutional knowledge is very valuable.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: I do have a couple of questions for you about the advanced polls. I know in the community, there's still a little bit of concern about, I'll say, election tampering, or whatever, like—and I don't think there's validity to it, but there's concern. And so my  question to you is, in the in the counting of the ballots, will the advanced polls be counted separately and transparent to the scrutineers?

RETURNING OFFICER: What will happen is, once the polling session closes and we move into the other room for the count, all the advanced votes, they will be counted first, then that will be added to a tally sheet, and we all know how many ballots we used. And then once that's done, after the account is finished for the advanced, we will then move over to opening the general ballot box and counting them. And then we'll, at the very end, we'll merge them together for our total numbers.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: So it will be very transparent to the scrutineers that if only one person got all the votes, the scrutineers are going to see that.

RETURNING OFFICER:  Yeah. Last year, if the ballots only had one or two votes, I showed whoever was the scrutineers, and/or the candidate, the ballot that […] there weren’t three positions maintained or ticked off. And then we also showed—I rejected, I believe it was two ballots only last year, we had two, but yeah, we rejected two, and we had two spoiled ballots that came through.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Are you going to show the scrutineers the ballots?

RETURNING OFFICER [2:41:39]: I did last year on some of them. And I'm, I guess—I'm mulling that over in my mind. And the reason I'm mulling it over in my mind still is, I'm wondering, because the advance vote is the first time we're doing it, I'm wondering about the numbers and how long that takes to process. Last year we finished at 11:20. This year at 11 o'clock, if we're not done with the count, it ends, and it moves over to the next day, the continuation.

 

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: I'll just suggest to you that more transparency on the advance polls would be welcomed. I'm confident in what's going on here. I want to let you know that. I'm just asking you this in front of the camera, just so that people can be confident too. So thanks for the good work you've done.

RETURNING OFFICER: Any other questions?

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: Yeah, I also, I echo David's comments around the value that relates to you directly as well, I think this is a good document, good [unclear] process. The one thing that I think would benefit, it's on a similar theme, and you've already covered it when you presented it to us at the March 4 meeting, but it's around ballot security. In your previous update to us, you talk about the sealing of the ballot box, the advance ballot box, who has keys, the types of ballot boxes that are used. So if we could bring that into this document, just so—

RETURNING OFFICER: Right now, the ballot boxes, the new ballot boxes, are on order. The security tape is on order. The seals are all, everything is on order. So we're ready for it to come in. And yeah, we can add that. We talk a little bit about it in the manual, but we can expand on that.

CHAIR: Can I just ask a question? Just to be clear, the count on the advanced poll doesn't happen at that time.

RETURNING OFFICER: No.

CHAIR: Okay, good.

RETURNING OFFICER: No, that advance ballot box gets locked in the safe and doesn't get opened until the after the general election.

CHAIR: Okay, ‘cause when there was an IT election here, there was a spillage out that people were talking about, who was winning at that point, that was during the, you know, it was just an advanced poll, and I was wondering if that’s the case here, I guess not.

RETURNING OFFICER: It’s not. And in the provincial and federal elections advance votes are never counted until the general election day as well. So that's where, that's where my thoughts and—because that's what I've done over the years of doing that, I've continued that.

The one thing that I will say—to date, we have six nominations that have come in. It ends tomorrow at two o'clock, we'll see if any more come in at the last minute. We've had two separate appointments set up outside of our time frame, first coming into the office and signing on April 14^th.

And the reminder here is, the last day for any candidates to do any advertising in the Sounder is on April the 29^th, because our election day falls on the same day that the Sounder comes out, on May the sixth. There will be no advertising within 100 feet of building, no buttons, no badges, or candidate election material within the voting area on advanced vote day, which is May the second, or on General Election Day, which is May the sixth. I've talked a little bit about the security, that's all been ordered. Any other questions from trustees? [shows binder to audience] [unclear] Marjorie has a copy, and I have a copy, and it's on the website.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: I’ve got one quick question for the fire chief, just to reconfirm how many keys are—who has access to the the file room?

RETURNING OFFICER: Who has access to the file room? Just the three people sitting here. [Referring to Chief, Deputy Chief, Corporate Officer]

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: That's what we heard before. So thank you for reaffirming that.

RETURNING OFFICER: They may have access to the file room, but they won't have access to the safe.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Perfect.

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: One more question. I think it says on the website, in the material that Ray has been posting, that the AGM is going to be held in here, in the training room as opposed to the—

RETURNING OFFICER: Yes, we're giving this a test run. We're going to do the advance vote in here, and we're going to, then when we leave at seven o'clock, this room will be reset for the AGM at seven, which starts at 7:30, and there will be a check in to prove that you're a landowner. Ray and whoever he picks as his co-worker will check the ID coming in, and you will get a colored piece of neon paper if you are a landowner, and when the motions come up on the floor to vote, you hold the paper up, therefore we know. Because the public is also welcome to the AGM.

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: No, that makes sense to me. I just, I was recently in an Islands Trust meeting, and it was crammed in there, and they had, subsequently, for other Islands Trust meetings moved into a larger space. So if we have large attendance come, could we move?

CORPORATE OFFICER: Last year there was a lot, a lot of complaints about people couldn't hear well in there. So that's what—we’ll try it here, then you guys can [unclear].

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Do you give two pieces of paper?

RETURNING OFFICER: No.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: How do you know if someone's voting “no”?

RETURNING OFFICER: I wondered about whether or not we should be using two pieces…

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Because someone that's not a landowner wouldn't put up their hand, and someone who’s voting “no” wouldn't put up their hand. How would you know?

RETURNING OFFICER: Yeah.

[multiple voices, unclear]

RETURNING OFFICER: We can use two.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: I’m just pointing it out.

RETURNING OFFICER: Yeah, it did run through my mind whether we should be having two.

TRUSTEE APPEL: I have a question. I just want to ask it publicly. You just mentioned co-worker. Does that person have to be a trustee?

RETURNING OFFICER: No. It's basically maybe a 15 to 20 minute job. You're checking them in at the door and making sure they're on the roll. That's up to you. Ray, I believe you have a motion.

TRUSTEE APPEL: I did.

MOTION

That the board establish that the election and AGM to be held each year in the month of April, including advanced voting the days preceding the general voting day, in accordance with applicable legislation and policy, and that the Open House be held after the advanced voting election/AGM. [LATER WITHDRAWN]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So why move the election to April from May, or—like, the old rule used to be by May 15, and then it was made more flexible to allow it to happen in each calendar year. And so now this proposal moves it forward to April?

TRUSTEE APPEL: That's my motion.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Yeah, it would just be a request for clarity around why that choice was made.

TRUSTEE APPEL: What I was thinking since the last meeting, when we we talked about the Open House and the conflict of having it on the same day, this is essentially saying that the election will take place before the Open House is really what I'm getting down to, so that… I'm thinking of the table at that Open House, and how important that is. And so I'm just—I mean, I figured out the next 20 years of April dates. So they won't fall within within the long weekend. So the last two categories are as late as possible in April, but not conflicting with potentially the Open House if they have it in the second week of May, the second Saturday of May. So it keeps it completely separate, because I don't want to see that happen again.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So the motivation is to keep the second weekend in May available for fire service to do their Open House.

TRUSTEE APPEL: Correct.

RETURNING OFFICER: Basically, we're trying to lock it into a process that people will know, okay, the month of April, this is when the elections are. We're not floating the date anymore. We're trying to just lock it in so it's a set time and date, and also to deal with what needs to go to the auditor and how long the timeline your Corporate Officer needs to get everything in and have us come back for the presentation at the AGM.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: Are we talking about the election or the AGM?

TRUSTEE APPEL: Well, my motion as it stands says election and the AGM.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: So, I mean, there's already a requirement that you have to hold an AGM every year. My only concern with setting a fixed date, like April, end of April, is that I've seen over my tenure here a couple of times where, you know, we've wanted to have the AGM a certain date, but the auditor wasn't complete, or there was some other extending circumstance, right? That's sort of out of our control. It's not necessarily that you don't want to, but if you set a date like that and something happens, I don't know what you would—

TRUSTEE APPEL: I totally understand, and I welcome the discussion with various points of view. That's fine, that’s great.

TRUSTEE MOHER: I like your idea. But rather than us fixing it, why don't we look at that being fixed? Because there's precedent around when they do it, and it opens up, if you [to Chief] do it at the start of FireSmart—

WS: And we try to pick Emergency Preparedness [Week].

TRUSTEE MOHER: So they're doing it at a specific time, which makes sense. So what our duty would be, and a motion to make sure that we are aware of when it is, and then we pick our date will not conflict with, as opposed to trying to specify specific dates.

TRUSTEE APPEL: But it should also be before the Open House.

TRUSTEE MOHER: It could be after the Open House

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE APPEL: It could be, yeah, but that's—my motive for this was to separate the two.

TRUSTEE MOHER: But if it's way after, then it's separated as well.

TRUSTEE APPEL: Exactly. I did not know that—I wrote it down somewhere here that Fire Safety Week is also October, so that's another possible date. Then my motion’s kind of null and void.

TRUSTEE MOHER: No, I mean, for them to do it when they want to do it, a fixed thing for them, we can be accommodating. And there's no reason why, as long as we're not on the same weekend, it doesn't matter if we're before it or after it.

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: It used to be, prior to January 12, 2023, which was when Ministerial Order M-10, which regulates this was issued, it used to be that the AGM had to happen at least every 12 months, that the Letters Patent further restricted that, and the AGM and the election had to take place essentially at the same time. Those are the old rules. The new rules separate those, and as long as they each happen within a 12 month period there's flexibility there, and that came about through the process of Covid when everything got very sketchy, it became very hard to hold elections and stuff. Some of the trustees here will have been through that process. So I think it's, I think your intention is good. But I think that it's important that we remember that the election and the AGM no longer have to take place at the same time. So the AGM, for instance, doesn't conflict with the open house, in the same way that I, anyway, had concerns that the election did, so there’s stuff that can happen. So I like the flexibility we have under this [unclear].

CHAIR: I interrupted you, Ray.

TRUSTEE APPEL: No, I guess I was like, you ever write a motion, and then when you come to the meeting, it's like, oh, man, this is right full of problems. But like, so I guess the other thing that's kind of weaving in the background here is Open House and election, and that they're not on the same day, and that one comes—it's better if one comes before the other. If the Open House is a week before the election, couldn’t that be an issue, where the trustee table—I don’t know—

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE MOHER: Why don’t we ask the election official?

[multiple voices]

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: I have an idea here. So like, Emergency Preparedness Week is in the first full week of May of each year. And could you [to Returning Officer] put that in your binder there? A piece saying that we would like to target the election prior to Emergency Preparedness Week, and Emergency Preparedness Week is held in the first week of May each year. Put a paragraph in there so that we can target the election, and that gives us full flexibility, and it gets that information into the binder so that we don't trip over each other again.

CHAIR: [unclear, acknowledges Corporate Officer]

CORPORATE OFFICER: […] For clarity, regardless of when the AGM is held, the 2025 audited financial statements must be presented to the board for acceptance and then submitted to the office by May 15^th, so the board can approve it before the landowners approve it at the meeting.

CHAIR: Can I just say that I read before in these discussions, something about having the FireSmart thing, what do we call it, the open house thing, too close to [unclear] as the as the election. And I thought to myself, well, I mean, it's not exactly electioneering, but I heard some voices tell us that people in uniforms cause you to, you see people in uniforms, [unclear]. But what I was going to say is, I think, can we decide on what kind of difference we want between those two events? Is it a week? Is it two weeks? When does the thrill of somebody seeing somebody in a uniform wear off? Is what I'm saying. Is it two weeks?

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: I think it's just prior to. I think that the election should be prior to Emergency Preparedness Week.

CHAIR: Emergency Preparedness Week being different than the Open House?

TRUSTEE MOHER: It’s at the beginning of the [unclear, multiple voices]

CHAIR: I’m not really buying into that argument about being influenced by people in uniform, but if that's a concern, can we decide that—

TRUSTEE APPEL: It’s not a concern with me, I didn't say that here. I was just—

CHAIR: I don't know it has—I mean, we can separate them by week or two, say two weeks for, you know, for clarity, for cleanliness, but I don't know that one has to come before the other, necessarily.

TRUSTEE APPEL: Or we just deal with it year by year. If you want to do that, that's fine with me. We can put a paragraph in—

TRUSTEE MOHER: I think that idea is a great one.

[multiple voices]

CORPORATE OFFICER: So you’ve withdrawn the motion?

TRUSTEE APPEL: Yes.

[banter about making another  motion]

---

6. First Due

[video 3:00:00]

See meeting package for Proposal to Upgrade Fire Reporting Software. Summary of discussion:

The new system provides more services and more integration. Trustee Mercier noted that it would result in “general improvement on operational capacity, savings administratively.” The new system has been tested and all GVFD concerns have been addressed. Bringing officers up to speed on the new system should take no more than 4 hours of training.

The higher cost in the first year includes a transition fee for migrating existing data. There would be an overlapping period during which the GFPID paid for both services; in terms of practical timing the new system will be implemented for the beginning of June, and it will likely be necessary to continue the old system to the end of the calendar year.

The old and new systems may handle payroll quite differently, with the exact setup depending on the results employee negotiations.

Trustee Bussler asked if new iPads or other tech would need to be purchased, Deputy Chief Owens said they hope to get some of those costs covered by a grant.

Trustee Chorneyko asked if it integrates well with provincial reporting; DC Owens answered “It’s not 100% set up, we asked that question. It’s still no harder than what it is right now with Fire Pro, but they told us that they are working with provincial [unclear] here, which would save a lot of time.”

Some discussion around how these costs will be allocated in relation to the budget.

MOTION:

THAT the Board authorize staff to move forward with a subscription to First Due within current budgets. [CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY]

---

NEW BUSINESS

1. Bylaw 115 Dispersing Bylaw - Halls

[video 3:12:30]

See meeting package for full text of Bylaw 115. The meeting fulfilled the requirement for three readings of the Bylaw, which was then passed unanimously, with brief discussion to clarify some matters.

2. Bylaw 119 Dispersing Bylaw – New Command Truck

[video 3:19:30]

See meeting package for full text of Bylaw 119. The meeting fulfilled the requirement for three readings of the Bylaw, which was then passed unanimously, with brief discussion to clarify some matters.

3. Lessons Learned

[video 3:25:15]

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: I just want to put a motion on the table “THAT staff be directed to develop a proposal and obtain a cost estimate from a qualified independent consultant to conduct a lessons learned review on the circumstances and processes related to the lawsuit and the privacy breach, and to report back to council for the June general meeting.” [seconded]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: I ask you to clarify what you mean by a lesson—like what would be contained in a lesson learned report?

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: Whatever the independent consultant, unbiased person, feels appropriate.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Back and forth here, that doesn't actually tell me anything… like, if this was for a budget report, I would have in my head an idea of what we would receive in a budget report. It would say things about this money came in, and here's how it was spent, and this money, [unclear] I could get my head around. Or if it was a travel plan, we're going to leave on this date, we're going to do these things, we're going to return on this date. But a lessons learned report, I don't know what would be in it.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: It would be a report, and they would come in and they would look at how the the lawsuit and the privacy breach went. They would interview some people, and they would come back with us, telling us what we did well, and they would come back and tell us where we could improve.

CHAIR: Can I speak to that—this is thin ice. We've been through this a number of times. It's thin ice. I think people need to understand, despite what they may have heard, that an agreement was made by the district, by the representatives, and that we do not speak about the lawsuit in any way, shape or form. You know, there's, obviously, we know how much the district paid of public money, but it's not something you can discuss. And it doesn't matter whether you've got an independent consultant or not, they can't sneak around the back of the NDA agreement that we made. And I think you're going to find that Stikeman Elliott is going to have something to say about that, and I'm sure that the firm of the…. Yeah, there's going to be real problems you're stepping into it. And what happens here, as far as I can determine, if you agree to this, you're basically putting yourself out there that you're you're breaking that agreement that we have. And you talk about problems if the settlement agreement gets blown up, by anybody's behavior, then we're looking at $200,000 legal costs. That's what I've been told.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: So—and maybe an appropriate person to do it would be Stikeman Elliott—like, I'm not sure who the appropriate qualified independent consultant is. And the other thing about this is, quite possibly there would be a public facing report and a non public facing report. So a lot of this stuff may be brought to us in confidence and not necessarily disclosed to the public.

TRUSTEE MOELLER: I mean, I feel like we are going through a period of bureaucratic inflation to some degree in this department, and certainly it's evolved since I first became a trustee nine years ago, and like, it's gotten more professional in many ways, but that always comes at a cost, and the cost is to the taxpayers. And I don't really know what this consultant would provide, but I also would recognize that you'd have to have the exact same scenarios reoccur for that report to be useful. And not to say that you won't have another complaint, or you won't have another lawsuit, but someone who's probably not any of us, 10 years from now when that occurs, is going to have to recall, “Oh yeah, that happened once before. Oh yeah, there was a report.” They're going to have to go back and look at it all and be like, “I'm not going to make those mistakes,” whatever those might be. I just I think that there's going to have to be a point in time at which we say the taxpayer has got this much to pay for already, and we need to start being more conservative on how we spend that money. So I would vote against it, because I don't see the direct benefit to the taxpayer that I would see from getting something like an audit.

TRUSTEE BUSSLER: I like the idea in concept, because what you're suggesting, Dave is a continuous improvement, right? So what I'm assuming is that you would have come out of this some processes and procedures that we would then adopt immediately, but again, I'm also kind of a bit reluctant to spend money for sure.

CHAIR: Can I just say that if Stikeman Elliot and Scrimshaw were to get together and say, “Yes, we will do this,” and we will allow Scrimshaw or or Stikeman Elliott to do that, I'd be more in favour of it. But if you don't do that, you're putting yourself in enormous legal jeopardy. Enormous legal jeopardy. I don't think people quite understand that, and we are public officials, we can't roll the dice on behalf of—because I'm not kidding. We're looking at what, 140 to go to adjudication, $200,000 to get to Supreme Court, and without outcomes. You know, whatever the outcome is, that there's going to cost this, and the insurance company is not going to pick it up. I guarantee you, the insurance company is tapped out in this kind of stuff. So, and we made an agreement. And I know there are people here that didn't sign on to that agreement, but that agreement was made on behalf of the district, and it stands. It's a legally binding thing, and that's—and both parties signed on it, and both parties are going to be really upset if we upend the apple cart on this one here. I think we need to just step back and say, “We're not going there”. I've learned a lot of things in the last three years, but half of it I cannot say in public. I can't say it. But I'll tell you, I've learned an awful lot. I mean if I was subpoenaed, I suppose I could do that, and I would. It's not like I don’t want to talk about it, but I'm not allowed to talk about it. I cannot put the public in jeopardy, because the public’s going to come up with this money.

TRUSTEE MOHER: I want to say that I totally agree with Trustee Moeller and Trustee Bussler in that looking at things, and looking at something going forward, and the comments that they both made. But I'm also very aware of something that I think Sybil Frei said when she was in one of our committee reports too, is “at some point people have to start looking forward and stop looking back.” And I think that we're at a point on a number of things where we need to start looking forward and moving forward on things. And I thought we were starting to do a pretty good job on that. So that's why I really appreciate the comments from the two of you, finding a way to make something not happen again, but continuing to move forward as we do so.

CHAIR: May I say, again, ’cause I'm tasked with some things here. It's a two parter that you have here, okay? And I understand. I'm not trying to put down that. I'm just saying that, you know, I could never be part of that. I [unclear] sued, I really don't. But I was going to say that we have an Information Privacy Commissioner report to us on about the data breach. And have you seen this? [general question] I think we just got it. So anyway, I'll summarize here. [question from Trustee Chorneyko, unclear] We'll make it available. They have training for us to to address whatever did happen during the data breach, and they, "After reviewing the actions taken by the Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement District, I am satisfied that it has taken reasonable steps to respond to this breach. This concludes the monitoring of this privacy breach, and the above reference file has been closed. If you have any questions, please contact us.” I mean, it was a lot of work for all of us to deal with it, but it's dealt with. And I, you know, short of going back, and I'm not opposed to that, but you know, I got [unclear] from just one person in the neighborhood about the fact that I called the cops, and when I became the chair, because I felt like I had to. We're dealing with this. This is the thing, you don't, I mean, we've learned. The thing we would learn is “Don't put the computer out in the break room.” Okay? Simple as that. Don't allow other people to take your things, either they thought it was, they thought it was available, whatever the story is, we don't even know at this point, and it doesn't matter. The point is, we're over that data breach, and we must have learned something from that. We don't need a consultant to come in and tell us that. We have a huge metal safe in the file room now, with a separate lock on it, and that's where that computer is sitting to this day. My next question would be for to [Investigator] Tara Laughlin would be, “Can we pull the, at least pull the hard drive and recycle the rest of it?” But I'm not sure there's anything—as far as I can determine there's nothing on on that hard drive that's of any worth to anybody, and we should be able to destroy it. That's what I think. That's the lesson learned for me on that, and we all kinda learned that. So I don't think we need, honestly, I don't personally, I don't think we need to spend any more money on it.

[calls of “time”]

CHAIR: Okay, you brought that motion. You had a seconder—discussion.

[multiple voices: “We did.”]

CHAIR: Okay, thanks. Okay. Hands in the air in the affirmative.

[request to hear motion again]

MOTION:

THAT staff be directed to develop a proposal and obtain a cost estimate from a qualified independent consultant to conduct a lessons learned review on the circumstances and processes related to the lawsuit and the privacy breach, and to report back to council for the June general meeting. [MOTION DEFEATED 6/1]

---

4. Authorization to increase callout rates effective March 18th

 

CORPORATE OFFICER: One last thing written on his agenda. “Possible authorization to increase the practice[?] of callout wages for recruits and candidates to $18.25, for June 1st, BC minimum wage effective March 18th.” To simplify my life when it comes to accounting. Otherwise, I will have to recreate the pay scales and stuff like that. But this will be the last time this will happen if we pay them more frequently than quarterly.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: I can make that motion for you.

[seconded]

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So this just takes an inevitable increase in pay, advances it in time, so that, administratively, everyone gets a trivial amount more money, and it saves a huge amount of administrative time and—

CORPORATE OFFICER: Yes, I figured it out with maybe two or three hundred dollars.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO: We'll do that for you.

CORPORATE OFFICER: Thank you.

MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY

---

QUESTION PERIOD

QUESTION 1: voting slips

[video 3:39:30]

PENELOPE BAHR: When John was talking about two colors. I mean, you just hold it up for ‘yay’, hold it up for ‘nay’, you don’t need two colours. [ED. NOTE: Bahr is referring to the use of coloured paper slips issued to landholders that will confirm their right to vote at the AGM.]

RETURNING OFFICER: Well yeah, that’s what I came to, but if we want two colours, then we can have two colours.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: And then we can have a long debate over which colours, we don’t want to— [multiple voices, laughter]

QUESTION 2: scheduling voting day

CHAIR: I should have said this a long time ago, three years ago, but in question period, it would be great people would identify themselves— we're on camera, you guys aren’t.

BAHR: Okay, Penelope Bahr, comment about the colours. The other thing is that I wanted to thank Ray, because what I liked about the April votes, which were up until whatever, is that everybody knew, sort of like, November is when we vote federally. April, it was something you could expect. So if you wanted to be here to vote, you didn't plan your holidays somewhere else. So that's one thing I like about, sort of a timeline of—that's only a comment, nothing else. Thank you all.

QUESTION 3: GFPID Chronicles and election reporting

FRANK MOHER (3:41:08): My name is Frank Moher, I’m the spouse of trustee Moher. These comments and my questions are my own. First, I'd like to remind the trustees that the Improvement District Manual and the Improvement District Trustees Handbook both speak to the matter of conflicts of interest which are non-pecuniary. So if you don't want to listen to your newly hired governance lawyer, you might want to refresh your memory of those documents. Now may I ask the elections officer a question?

CHAIR JOHNSON: You may, sir.

F. MOHER: Thank you. That's regarding the Election Act. There are currently two media organizations covering the GFPID on the island. The Sounder and the GFPID Chronicles. I expect with the election coming up, we will see both organizations tip towards or away from certain candidates in their coverage, either through their reporting, in what they select to cover and what they don't, or explicitly, say through editorials. This isn't uncommon in journalism. We have, in my view, seen both organizations engage in one or the other activity or both. And in the case of the Sounder, we know who stands behind it. Sarah and Derek, the publisher and the editor, they take responsibility for what they publish. The editors of the GFPID Chronicles, however, are anonymous. So to my question: does the Elections Act have anything to say in general about organizations, and in particular media organizations, which may attempt to influence the election, while the people behind such an organization remain anonymous?

RETURNING OFFICER: When I tried to look into that last year, I did not find anything. I am very curious that nobody from the Chronicles has been in touch with me yet regarding any questions whatsoever.

F. MOHER: Well, they would have to reveal their identity to you.

RETURNING OFFICER: Exactly. So I’ll delve into that a little bit more. The only general information on the Elections Act is, is that lack of, you cannot advertise the day of, or within 100 feet of. So—

F. MOHER: Okay.

Last year, because of the different Facebook community boards, I was in touch with all three of them. One of them chose to follow the process and not post anything on election day. The other two just told me to [gesture].

F. MOHER: Right. So I'm interested in organizations, whether they can attempt to take a position in the election without us knowing who the principals behind that organization are.

RETURNING OFFICER: Well, I’ll look into that a little bit further, Frank, because I haven’t found anything yet.

CHAIR JOHNSON: Anybody here from that, from the Chronicles? Anybody? No, okay? Are you? [multiple voices, laughter, comment about “the two faces of Janus”]

RETURNING OFFICER: Well, obviously somebody is from the Chronicles, because they continue to — unless they're just watching the videos.

QUESTION 4 and 5: use of generative AI

TRUSTEE MOHER (3:44:47): Derek, did you have a question?

DEREK KILBOURN (SOUNDER NEWS): Sorry, it's a bit longer winded than you usually get from me. The Islands Trust.  This is Derek Kilbourn from the Gabriola Sounder, asking the question for those watching on the tape. The Islands Trust, the RDN, and the school district, as our other local governments have, or are in the process of establishing policies around the use of generative AI software by their staff and elected officials. Some of them have chosen, for now, to use the provincial standards as their default until they establish their own. Does the fire district have a policy around the use of generative AI software by trustees and staff? Expanding on that, a policy which describes what information trustees or staff is permitted to utilize generative AI software for. Provincial regulations speak to specific programs listed that staff are required to use. Following up then after that, I’ve got one after that, but I'll pause there.

CHAIR JOHNSON: [looks around table, multiple voices] I think we should all, because we're all involved in computers to [unclear]. I don't like using computers and things like this, okay, I think it's a barrier, but that’s, I’m 75 years old, so that’s how I think. I have a real—myself, personally, I have a real, real problem with AI. I think it's going to screw us badly. It's a great tool for for research, but you have to check your research at all times. And I think to a large extent, we are allowing AI to make decisions for us that they shouldn’t make, including moral decisions. And so I, I’m really in favour of not using it, particularly in situations like this, where—But then again, I know that we do have an AI program being used in house to certain extent. I can say that, right? And it's been handy, but it has its limitations, and I think this is what all government agencies are going to come up against. Because, you know, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but you can't trust it. I mean, 15% mistakes on it is unacceptable in situations like this, particularly when dealing with bylaws and policies. I've seen stuff that people have sent me where they're quoting something from online, and how we should run our meetings, and it's the Singapore City Hall that they’re talking about. I think we really have to put a lid on it. I can see that the various governments are doing that at this point, too. That’s my thought.

TRUSTEE MOHER (3:47:51): Thank you, Derek, for bringing this up. I've been seeing an awful lot of things online, from places like Sweden, that are also clamping down on the use of computers in schools and AI. And I think it's timely that you would bring it up, because it could be something that could be added to our policy committee, our standing committee, to look at, especially if the government is starting to put stuff out as to what we could use, and that would give us some time to start doing some research on what the recommendations are going to be. So I would thank you for that, and ask the board to make sure that we have a note of that.

TRUSTEE CHORNEYKO (3:48:30): Derek, to answer your question, no, we don't have a [unclear, laughter]. We don't have a policy on that, and it's something that we need to work on, but we have priorities, like with meeting, procedure bylaws, and we just passed a code of conduct. So yes, we need to work on it, but it needs to raise—it needs to float up to the top before we get working on it.

CHAIR: I'm just glad to see that that it's not just—I've been thinking about it for a while, but I feel like, because I'm old, people push back and say that's just an old-guy talk, but you can see, as you quoted, there's a lot of people who are having more and more concerns about this, how this is going with AI. It's not the be-all, end-all, be-all.

KILBOURN (3:49:29): So my second question with that is, is generative AI software used in the writing of communications, either internal or external, by trustees, staff or any other representative of the GFPID or GVFD?

CHAIR JOHNSON: That's a question you have to ask each individual. I don't use it.

TRUSTEE MOHER: I don’t use it.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So—and people are welcome to correct me if I'm wrong—but my understanding is that it's not used in external communications. But the improvement district does use Microsoft 365, which includes a suite of tools. Those tools include Copilot, which is a generative AI tool, and that inserts itself into the composition of emails in suggesting words. So, short of not using the email system that we pay for and use, we can't completely dissociate ourselves from it, because it's built in, in like the grammar suggestions. So it would be strictly inaccurate to say we never use it for anything, because it's built into the larger tool. But we, to my knowledge, don't use it to write bylaws or policies or that sort of thing.

TRUSTEE MOHER: Nor do we put prompts in and say, write me an email that has something to do with this. Giving a word that they predict might be the next word that you use…[unclear]

CHAIR: In the three years I've been using the system that we’ve got, 365, or whatever it is, I'm a Mac guy, so I've never been [unclear]. I have never seen it change a word, what I did in an email, or suggest a change. So perhaps I'm just not— I didn't even know, until you told me a while back, that we had [unclear]—I can’t—my chip set will not run it. I'll admit it, I would have tried it out, if my chipset would have would run it on my old Mac. But it doesn't. So I'm, I'm pure as the driven snow.

TRUSTEE MERCIER

I would like to formally express doubts about the chairs statement that he’s pure as the driven snow! [laughter]

KILBOURN: Just a comment on what Trustee Mercier said, is Copilot is the one recommended within the provincial policies. Requirement is that staff have to log in with their provincial ID before proceeding to use it.

-------

QUESTIONS 6-8: correspondence policy

NOLA JOHNSTON (3:52:02): Nola Johnston, I had some questions about the correspondence policy, mostly, one extra one as well.  I apologize—I would have liked to have liked to have actually attended the Communications Committee meeting, but I was busy with AGM stuff for a different organization, so that wasn't possible. Otherwise, I would have asked these there.

Sometimes correspondence comes in, and by the time it goes through all of the processes of being referred to A, and then A deals with it and refers it to B, and B deals with it, it can take a really long time for something to be dealt with. And as everybody knows, you guys are all really busy. What checks and balances are in place to prevent correspondence from getting lost and not dealt with? What prevents it from just disappearing because there's too much other stuff going on? So that would be the first question.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: So again, correct me... My understanding of the process that we've adopted today, which is an interim process to the larger thing that we want to put in place, is that the first step in any correspondence coming in will be an acknowledgement of its receipt, which has much, or—a not insignificant amount of correspondence is expression of opinion or advocacy, essentially, is the response. “Thank you for sharing with us this thing,” then the board accepts it at the meeting, and then it's part of the board's record. My understanding of, at least the intention of the process that was instituted today, is that through the regular committee reporting process, because the Communications Committee is charged with dealing with the correspondence, that there will be—even if a request is complicated or in some way time consuming, there will be regular reporting of the progress of that as it moves through the sequence. How will that will work in practice, I don't know, ’cause we just instituted the policy today, but that's, I believe, its intention in the work that was done by Trustees Appel and Moher.

TRUSTEE MOHER: Yeah, and thank you. That's a very good description. One of the things that we looked at when we were trying to decide on time frames and stuff was places like Islands Trust and the City of Nanaimo. And one of the things they talked about in their communications thing, is that it can take up to three months for something to be answered, by the time it goes through all the different channels that it goes to. And we don't want that, when this is up and running, if possible. But once it has to go to committee, if it's something complicated, then the committee has to meet and deal with it, and then it has to possibly be farmed out to somebody to bring information back. So it depends on the complexity of the material that they're working.

JOHNSTON: I guess what I'm just saying is, I hope you have some kind of checklist or table or something, because it’s so easy to lose track.

CHAIR: Yeah, well, we keep it. All of it’s kept, no question. If you send us a letter, it got to us—

TRUSTEE MOHER: Yeah, but she's she's got a point, and I think the work that Ray did on this thing is a net that we’re hoping will catch it.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Behind the scenes, there's been talk of cudgel wielding goons to move this— [unclear, laughter].

JOHNSTON (3:55:29): Oh, that’s effective! I also had a question about something that was in it, and I just made a note of a phrase so I can't tell you exactly which clause it was, but it was an exception for publication, and it was “or potentially harmful or misleading content, i.e. FOIPPA”. What did that mean, and why would a FOIPPA request be harmful or misleading content? I was quite confused about that. I mean, I can understand why certain materials that are subject to a Freedom of Information request would be redacted, but the way it was written was confusing.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Freedom of Information protection of Privacy Act has the two sections, so it's conceivable that someone would write and request that their own or someone else's personal private information be disclosed to them, that would—and where the request for the disclosure might create some kind of bias. And so I think in that case, the request could be acknowledged, and even acknowledged publicly that we received a request, but the contents of what was requested, in some cases, might necessarily be held back differently than a request for a budget or a bank statement or some some more public document.

JOHNSTON: That makes sense, thank you. I would just suggest rephrasing it, because, as written, it suggests that a Freedom of Information request is in itself, generally, something that is a problem.

TRUSTEE APPEL: Yeah. Could you send me that? When you get home, and then let me know where that, where you found that, so I can change it.

CHAIR: The thing you got to remember about the, about FOIPPA is, that the second part of it, and it's a balance between FOI and PPA, and that's privacy protection. You're entitled to privacy protection, even from people who are trying to freedom of information your information.

JOHNSTON: Yeah, I understand that. It was the phrasing that I had difficulty with. And then just another question on that is, will you normally publish information provided in response to a Freedom of Information request? Because I assume that anything in it that's problematic is redacted anyway.

CHAIR: We don't, as a rule, so far.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Some places do. The provincial government, for instance, discloses information that's been, like requests for public information that have been disclosed by them. You can go and you can you can find a long list of requests that they fulfilled. We haven't done that in the past. I mean, I primarily have published stuff I've received. It's law that disclosure to an applicant is disclosure to the world. That's the principle that the Office of Information and Privacy Commissioner operates on. It was established in, I think, 2008 by Commissioner [unclear].

JOHNSTON: It could be proactively useful if people are asking for the same information.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: Yes, and there's, there's discretion in the weighing of that, because if I requested information relating to me that was private, it would be disclosed to me, and I as the recipient of my own private information, would be free to disclose it, but the organization would not be free to disclose that. So there's some nuance in what could be proactively disclosed as being responsive to a FOIPPA request. So the answer is a little bit more complicated than you might think.

JOHNSTON: Okay, that's good to know.

CHAIR: Yeah, if I add something to that. It's a little bit different when you are a private citizen doing an FOI, that's that's your right, completely. But I think with with government bodies, they really have, and they're all like this, they all are, they really have to be careful, because you're talking about, you're talking about being a public body, and you got to pull back a little bit from releasing information that's harmful to people. And that's normally what they do. I mean, you gotta just keep out of the courts, you know, because even FOI requests may get you in a court of law if you’re not careful.

QUESTION 9: privacy breach

JOHNSTON (4:00:09): And then my last question was, you mentioned that you’d received a report on the privacy breach—

CHAIR: The privacy breach?

JOHNSTON: Yeah, will that be published?

CHAIR: Yeah, we just, it's taken us that long to, I won't say, extinguish it. It's taken it, I think we just got it a couple days ago, [overlapping voices as Corporate Officer tries to respond] I just got it today, and it comes to me as the chair. So we're going to make that available to everybody. I don't think there's anything, you know. I guess you weren't here for this, but we basically, we've been not—We haven't been absolved, okay, but what, what was said, if I could paraphrase, is that that we have done our due diligence, as far as that's concerned, and that kind of, if I could say, maybe, no harm, no foul. Nobody was injured in the process, apparently, and this is from the investigator. [asks trustees if they have a copy] So it's a long piece…

JOHNSTON: There's been enough interest in it that it seems like it would be closure.

CHAIR: Derek, if I can give, if I get a copy, I'll give it to you. You know, I mean, this is a three year process.

DEREK KILBOURN: My question, Chair, was actually going to be, fully appreciating that the next meeting that we're going to get to hear from the board will be two to three weeks after the next general election: Would the board be willing to post that report to the website as part of the—where Ray finds it appropriate?

CHAIR: Like, now? Well, it falls to Ray to do that—

KILBOURN: Soonish.

CHAIR: I think we, I think we may do that. I don’t have any problem with it.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: There's nothing in it that mentions any specific person by name who is not a trustee. There's nothing….

RETURNING OFFICER: So there's nothing to react out of it.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: No. I’m not a legally qualified person, but I don't see anything in here that would be redactable under—There's no, it's not even advice or guidance or report. It's just a report on what has happened, what steps we've taken and what we've committed to.

CHAIR: And the offer of help if we feel that we need it, to have it so this doesn't happen again. But the obvious fix is…

TRUSTEE APPEL: Yeah, I can put it on the website somewhere, but I think it'd be good to put on the calendar as a link to “on this night, we decided that it could be downloaded,” you know, at this meeting. So I'll put it somewhere else in the site, in case someone's searching for it and they want to know, “Hey, whatever happened a couple years ago with that data breach?” They can see it in the list of files. It's not really a routinely requested record, but, yeah, maybe I'll put it on part of the site, but also something on the calendar so people can find that easily.

CHAIR: Yeah, when you're tasked with doing stuff like this, it's at that time you think yourself, why aren't we getting paid as trustees? And I'm not saying we should, but I'm like, you talk about a workload, people think, “Oh, you just do this, or you do that.” You know, we're back and forth and back and forth, back and forth with FOIPPA, and we did an awful lot of work to come to the conclusion that we are off their list. You know, they were never bad people out there, but the data breach is is serious, but you have to take into account that the government of British Columbia, a major one— I mean, they come— We've had data breaches with with our CPA. We've had data breaches with one of our third party people. It just happens all the time. There's a small industry that lives off the fact that there are data breaches all the time.

QUESTION 10: GFPID chronicles - disclaimer

RETURNING OFFICER: I have a question. I think Ray and Marjorie and I have discussed this, and this is related to the GFPID Chronicles. I feel that we should have a disclaimer on the website stating that we're not affiliated with them, because we talked about that before. Is that viable?

TRUSTEE APPEL: I don't remember talking about that.

RETURNING OFFICER: Maybe it was Marjorie and I. Yeah, I think that, because the people are getting confused between the fire department and the Chronicles, and they—

CHAIR: They’re not an official organization.

RETURNING OFFICER: They’re not an official organization, and people need to understand that it's separate entities. And I think you need to have disclaimer on the website.

TRUSTEE MOHER: No, but they are in breach because they're using a government acronym.

CHAIR: Trademark.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: I mean, my website is GFPIDiculous, and I'm not in breach of anything.

TRUSTEE MOHER: If you're using the GFPID, you are.

TRUSTEE MERCIER: No. That’s nonsense. [multiple overlapping voices, argument]

DIMITRI TZOTZOS: Not so much a question. Dimitri Tzotzos here. On the GFPID Chronicles website, it says “This site is not affiliated with the GFPID, the GVFD or any other organization or business”.

TRUSTEE MOHER: Good. I’ve never gone to—

CHAIR: I’ve never gone to their website.

TRUSTEE MOHER: Thank you for saving us some time.

[multiple voices]

QUESTION 11: patient extraction

DEREK KILBOURN (4:06:33): To the chief, if that's okay, you were talking about replacement for Med 12. One of the words that was in there was patient extraction capability. Does that include transport of patients?

CHIEF: No, no, that's left up to BC Ambulance. It might give us the possibility if we had to transport one of our own members if there was no ambulance available.

KILBOURN: Okay, thanks.

CHIEF: And there's been cases where we've got permission from BC Ambulance to extract patients from the 707, because the ambulance isn’t capable of going in there, so maybe that possible capability as well.

KILBOURN: Thank you.

CHAIR JOHNSON

Anything else? Anybody. Thank you.