Salt Springers must wait at least two years before funding of an incorporation study and subsequent referendum will even be considered.

Provincial government representatives told the island’s locally elected officials last week that no funding is currently available for governance or incorporation studies.

Nothing short of a revolution will prompt a study before local elections in November 2011, according to Salt Spring’s Capital Regional District director Garth Hendren.

“I don’t know what else there is,” he said on Monday, one week after provincial officials explained their decision in a private meeting with Hendren and Salt Spring trustees George Ehring and Christine Torgrimson in Victoria.

“We as a community have to continue demanding [a governance study] through whatever way we possibly can,” Hendren added. “Obviously an election wasn’t a big-enough stick as far as the rest of the world was concerned, so I don’t know what other tools we’ve got to push forward.”

Determining how to push forward is further complicated by the province’s unwillingness to sanction any independently commissioned governance study.

“We could follow every hoop and follow it through, but their bottom line is that they wouldn’t support it and wouldn’t accept the findings of it,” Hendren said.

Hendren called the turn of events a “grave disappointment.”

Last Thursday, Ministry of Community and Rural Development spokesperson Marc Black said funding for the ministry’s governance structure program is “fully committed for this cycle.”

Agreement from the island’s locally elected CRD and Islands Trust officials would be needed before the ministry agreed to proceed with a study in the future, he added. Black said the estimated cost of the incorporation study done on Salt Spring before the June 2002 referendum was $100,000.

Hendren said he is undecided as to whether he will seek a second term as Salt Spring’s CRD director.

Trustee Torgrimson said she looks forward to working with Hendren on other important issues.

“We did what we committed to do — initiate a governance review process — and circumstances beyond our control prevented its completion,” Torgrimson said. “Let’s now accept the current economic reality, build on the strengths of our current governance system and focus on critical community needs.”

Torgrimson said she intends to work on the creation of more affordable housing, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving food security and developing a collaborative Ganges Harbour management plan. 

“This is a tremendously talented and energetic community,” she said. “Let’s stop criticizing and instead join hands to do some constructive work.”

Hendren ran for the CRD position in the November 2008 election on a platform of getting an incorporation study for Salt Spring. During the campaign, Torgrimson and Ehring said they would support some kind of governance review.

Islanders for Self Government president Ken Marr expressed disappointment when he heard of the government’s decision.

He said he prefers not to comment until ISG members have discussed the government’s announcement at the pro-incorporation group’s next meeting.

“We want to see what options exist,” he said.

Torgrimson, Ehring and Hendren have penned a joint column on the process and outcome, published on Page A3 of this issue of the Driftwood.