The holes in the head of the Trust ain’t ears - Alcyonenews

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Islands Trust

Posted January 14, 2021

The holes in the head of the Trust ain’t ears

Since 2017 I carry on reminding us of the “Consensus” to Review the Trust. I keep at it because the Trust has been suppressing it and now they are posturing to kill it.

The populace of SSI were fatigued after 4 years of Committees, Consultants and Trustees chanting the Urbanization mantra. We needed to relax after that blitz and the Trust took advantage of that to “let sleeping dogs lie”. But the calm was only on the surface. Submarine-surreptitiously, the Trust fired requests to the BC Government to “change” the Trust by giving it more powers to do even more of what they have been doing and which generated the peoples’ quest for Change.

The Consensus had its epicenter in SSI, but the SSILTC (Luckham, Patrick and Grove), sided with the Trust against it and us. In that vacuum, Trustees from other islands swung a Trust Council decision to Review the Trust. The SSILTC trio joined the ExCom quintet (Chaired by Luckham and-vice chaired by Patrick) to oppose the Council decision.

Bickering flared up, as if by design, and I will sample the start up chit-chat:

* The originators of the “Review” hail from islands unevenly located on the Trust republic map. Clearly “clever”, yet revealing: It depicts the Trust feet skywards, protruding through the rim, with them scraping the bottom of the barrel.

* The committee-in-the-making to “steer” the Review is “sex-imbalanced”. To fix this they cast a lure to catch Laura of SSI. See previous item, too!

* The $75,000 budget for the project may double. Scary is that the money could be wasted, or worse, serve the antithesis of its professed purpose.

* This is an inopportune time for the Review because of the pandemic. This surely is worth a garbanzo-can-top medal.

The pandemic curfews give people time to mull over the issues, discuss them, and compose contributions to the Review. In other words, this is an “ideal time” to implement the Consensus.

Luckham entered the chit-chat at a high level as becomes his status. The December 30, 2020 Driftwood carries a ViewPoint pompously titled “Trust project input wanted” by him. I will gather an anthology of assertions he utters, manifesting to it being made to deceive. The Trust operates transparently, he Trump-ously insinuates, therefore there is nothing to reveal about it – presto a Review is a waste of time and money.

Well, let’s sniff the bouquet from the Chairman’s ViewPoint garden:

“... we strongly feel the need to tell the community we are listening ... the SSILTC wants everyone to know we want to hear from you ... our commitment to hearing from the public ... we are gathering and analyzing information ... We are working with local scientists ... we will seek and consider input from the public and stakeholders ... We want to hear from those who rely on forestry for their economic livelihood, and those who have concerns about forestry practices and development practices that degrade ecosystem health ... The SSILTC will be providing engagement opportunities ... local trustees are keen to hear from you ... ”

The bouquet odours offend the nostrils. Evidently Luckham is out to make us mistake the holes in the head of the Trust for ears.

I have made some 150 written submissions to the Trust. The LTC would pretend to listen to my presentations keeping, mostly, their tongues comatose. Sheila Malcolmson, explained that the Council would not act on my submissions because “my local” Trustees stood mute on them.

Many of my submissions were about Booth Canal. I am a “local scientist” highly qualified to pronounce on this matter. They fought tooth and nail against my efforts to prevent the demise of the Canal. They deployed dirty tricks and devious means to suppress the work of this “local scientist”.

Truth be told, Lukham is not telling the Truth and he knows that ...

Over the years I have been challenging the Trust to point to something, any issue I raised that “would be better left unsaid” – They never took me up on that.

However, on January 16, 2016 Luckham and Grams (Grove staying “neutral”) took to the Driftwood to slander me. Without a speck of evidence, exclusively in platitudes, they proclaimed me “Public Enemy Numero Uno", and “Menace” to the Trust “republic-wide”. Then they told the people not to panic because the Trust stands on guard, adroitly sheltering society from Big Bad Tom.

They epitomized it all by asking the newspaper to hide the source of the rubbish they spoke. Five years have gone by since and they have not mustered the decency to apologize. But they have the gall to try to fool the people into believing that “they” are desirous to hear from the people. This accentuates the need society “feels” to take an inquisitive look at this sad Trust.