Governance and public trust

Every other issue on this site runs through this one. Whether city hall asks before it decides, and whether the answers change anything, is what eventually settles what gets built on your street.

This council took office in 2022 with public trust already low, and it knew that, because the City had just paid to have it measured. In July 2022 the consulting firm MNP delivered the City of Victoria Governance Review, a full report on how the City makes decisions and how residents feel about it.¹ The findings were blunt.

• 71%disagreed that public input is considered by council in its decision-making
• 67%disagreed that council makes decisions in what it believes is the best interest of the city
• 82%disagreed that council ensures the City is focused on the right things
• 81%disagreed that council ensures the City addresses citizen priorities
• 75%did not feel council effectively reports to the public on how the City is performing

City of Victoria Governance Review, prepared by MNP LLP, July 18, 2022. The first two figures come from the main report's section on council decision-making; the next two come from the review's public engagement summary, which also asked those first two questions in slightly different words and recorded 73% and 68%.¹ That review was written about the previous council. It was handed to this one as a to-do list.

Judge for yourself: has anything changed since that review?

• Consultation got shorter, and narrower

  The Official Community Plan is the document that decides what can be built where, on every lot in the city. In our view the consultation that produced the 2025 plan was not built to change anyone's mind. The engagement window was cut back sharply from what residents had been led to expect, community associations were left out of the process they had always been part of, and the survey that went to households in residential areas offered a choice between dense and denser. Residents who went to the open houses told us they were shown the City's plan rather than asked about it. A petition against the plan collected more signatures than the survey collected responses, and it changed nothing.

  This paragraph is the network's own account of what its members saw. The plan itself, and the four-storey-by-right rules it created, are set out clause by clause in our OCP guide.

• The public lost the right to complain about a councillor

  In August 2023 council voted to amend its draft code of conduct so that a complaint against a councillor could be filed only by another council member, a committee member or a City employee. A member of the public cannot file one directly.² The amendment was moved by Councillor Dave Thompson and supported by Councillors Dell, Caradonna, Loughton and Kim. Councillor Thompson's answer was that a resident can still ask a councillor to carry a complaint for them. Councillor Gardiner argued the public needed some way to come forward. The change passed anyway, with the mayor in the chair.

• Council voted itself a 25% raise, against its own review's advice

  In March 2024 council voted 5 to 3 to raise councillor pay by about 25%, from $52,420 to $65,525, taking effect that May rather than at the next election.³ The motion, from Councillor Caradonna, set councillor pay at half the mayor's salary, and it passed.

  Here is the part that matters. The same MNP governance review quoted at the top of this page had already recommended that any new pay rates take effect only when the next council takes office. Council had the advice, and voted the other way, on its own pay.

• A boundary moved on a greyscale map, and a public hearing disappeared

  When council adopted the new Official Community Plan on October 2, 2025,⁶ the lots for a proposed 14-storey tower in James Bay were shown inside the Downtown Core Area boundary. The change appeared on a greyscale map on page 194 of Appendix C. The James Bay Neighbourhood Association noticed it fourteen days after the vote.⁴⁷

  The consequence was automatic. Under the Local Government Act, a rezoning that already fits the Official Community Plan cannot go to a public hearing. Once those lots sat inside the boundary, the hearing scheduled for October 9 could not happen. Nobody had to cancel it. A change with that much consequence, carried in an appendix, in a document the public had been asked to review for other reasons entirely.

• The City paid to belong to a development lobby for over a decade

  Until March 2026 the City of Victoria held a paid corporate membership in the Urban Development Institute, a registered lobbying organisation for the development and real estate industry. Cancelling it for 2026 saved $2,625. Council voted 8 to 1 to end it after public criticism, on a motion from Councillor Hammond. Councillor Dell cast the only vote to keep it.⁵

  In our view a city that regulates development through zoning should not also be a dues-paying member of the industry it regulates. The vote to end it was close to unanimous, which suggests council came to agree.

• Costs came down from the province, and council took them

  Council accepted provincial housing legislation that moved decisions out of local hands. In our view it has also taken on work that belongs to the province, including covering gaps in mental health and addiction services, without securing provincial funding to match. Money spent on another government's responsibility is money not spent on the City's own, and the difference arrives on your property tax notice. What the last four budgets did to that bill is set out, with sources, on the real tax bill.

• August 16, 2026 First slate announced in Victoria two months ahead of municipal election Times Colonist · Hannah Link

  “Victoria for All” running on keeping existing rentals, supporting those in crisis, community “connection”, & investing in urban trees, etc.

• August 16, 2026 Help us shape our coverage of the 2026 local elections Times Colonist · “staff"

  Presents biased list of issues, asking for reader input

• August 14, 2026 Political parties have no place in our municipal politics Times Colonist, comment · Stuart Mackinnon

  Equates “anger and NIMBY-ism” with the incursion of political parties, slates, and block voting in municipal politics.

• August 12, 2026 Livable CRD organizations speak to partisanship of candidate scorecard Victoria Buzz · Curtis Blandy

  Livable CRD claims to be “explicitly non-partisan” and that the questions on the questionnaire will be unbiased.

• August 7, 2026 How confusion undermines confidence at Victoria City Hall Times Colonist, comment · Trevor Moat

  City council passes a highly controversial bundle of disparate matters, large and small, with a single vote. Little wonder the public is suspicious, and want change.

All 38 pieces on this issue