Issues

Current affairs

Quicklinks:

• Lawsuit
• Non-confidence motion
• Transparency
• Voting

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Non-confidence motion

(June 2025) At the All Candidates Meeting it was revealed that the Firefighters Association had carried a motion of non-confidence against GFPID Chair Paul Giffin. Candidate Giffin responded that he was "not aware of any complaint received from any firefighter about me." Candidate Bussler said that he was aware of two complaints, though as the complainants were not present he could not confirm the details. Candidate Chorneyko pointed out that a non-confidence motion is not a complaint; "Loss of confidence doesn't need to be proven. It needs to be taken just on the face. If the firefighters have lost confidence in you, you need to accept that."

Wikipedia: "A motion or vote of no confidence (or the inverse, a motion or vote of confidence) is a motion and corresponding vote thereon in a deliberative assembly (usually a legislative body) as to whether an officer (typically an executive) is deemed fit to continue to occupy their office." 

Voting

As described in the post on voter eligibility, "only persons attending the election are entitled to vote."

The use of supplementary voting procedures for GFPID elections to address the problem of disenfranchised absent landholders has been under discussion for some time; to date no changes have been implemented.

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Sounder News May 28, 2025, Letter to the Editor:

Fire Improvement District Voting should have advance and mail-in options

Voting processes for Gabriola’s Improvement District Trustees has been problematic for a number of years; it took a concerted effort back in the day to get an advance nomination period and longer voting times, but we got it.

However this year only a ‘mid-week, working-day’ option on which to vote is being offered, despite this entry in the March 2023, monthly public meeting minutes:
“Absentee ballots: Trustees stated no change for this year; will require a lot more time to set up.”

Two years is ‘a lot of time’ and yet, there is still no advance poll or mail-in voting op- tion at the time of writing.

At the very least, there should be advanced polls on Sunday, June 8 and Sunday, June 15.

Did you know that mail-in ballots for both the Islands Trust and the Regional District of Nanaimo are mandated for general elections?

Improvement Districts such as ours should have them too.

Perhaps the Fire Trustees think mail-in ballots to be a lot of trouble with little return.

Democracy is worth a lot of trouble.

In 2018, there were 3,846 eligible voters for Gabriola.

3,015 votes were cast for the Islands Trust candidates on Gabriola. 52 of those were
either first-advance-day or mail-in ballots. 433 were second-advance-day votes. 16% of the votes cast were advance or mail-in.

That same year, there were 1,721 votes cast for Area B Director for the RDN. 33 were first-advance-day or Mail-In. 248 were second-advance-day. Again, that’s 16% of the votes being cast in advance or by mail.

In 2022, there were 4,131 eligible voters for Gabriola.

For Islands Trust, there were 2,657 total votes cast. 49 were first-advance or mail-in. 434 were second-advance. That’s an 18% advance voter turnout, even as total turnout was lower (33.4%) than in 2018 (44.5%).

Area B Director was an acclamation in 2022.

I think fair voting practices are worth Trustees’ time and a slice of a million dollar budget.

If you agree, please write to the Trustees c/o corporateofficer@gabriolafire.ca

—Penelope Bahr