By Transition Salt Spring Elections & Candidates, Local News – October 7, 2026 on the Salt Spring Exchange. See the original post here.
All 5 candidates running for Local Community Commission Commissioner responded to a Community Resiliency questionnaire sent by Transition Salt Spring and the Farmland Trust. See below their responses to Q2 on affordable housing. (Overall survey: https://transitionsaltspring.com/election-2026-questions/)
Q2. Affordable Housing: Climate and economic resilience depend on having enough nurses, paramedics, firefighters, teachers, care aides, and other workers who can actually afford to live here. Community diversity is at the heart of community wellbeing, and our ability to respond to increasing challenges – and affordable housing options are the key.
Will you support the formation of a CRD-funded service to create more affordable and workforce housing options? (YES, NO, WITH QUALIFICATIONS)
Myna Lee Johnstone: YES Housing is a big problem everywhere in the world. Salt Spring has grown immensely. So many workers serving us need housing. Housing options are being studied and several informed people are responding with good ideas. But I insist that housing and transportation are 2 sides of 1 coin. We don’t have adequate community transit very much needed to get people about. We need to build it.
Jenny McClean: NO I do support housing on Salt Spring Island, however, the time and funds that are already being spent by CRD to place itself as the leader in the area is not necessary. There are many housing leaders already on SSI. So far many units have been built without requiring CRD LCC to be in charge of this area.
Earl Rook: WITH QUALIFICATIONS While I am reluctant to commit to supporting a major new service without any of the details being worked out, I recognize that housing is a major problem on the island that affects multiple community priorities and that CRD support of an organization/agency/service to consolidate and coordinate affordable housing development is worth very serious consideration in the new term. Similar organizations have been quite successful in other communities such as Cortes Island and the San Juan Islands and we can learn much from their experiences.
Pam Tarr: WITH QUALIFICATIONS To create a resilient community, we need to support our workforce, attract young families and create a housing ladder of options for the evolution of people’s lives. A Housing Agency will be able to help viable projects move forward by finding funding –private, government and non-profit – and by helping projects navigate the government process. It can encourage rentals and protect both landlords and renters by providing intermediary rental management and a mediation service for disputes. I believe this agency should ultimately be a service of the LCC to access the resources of the CRD, but it could be started independently with community funding to test its viability, followed by a referendum to create the service with public support. Finding the best structure for this potentially invaluable asset should be an immediate project for the LCC, and a good subject for a community assembly.
Ben Corno: WITH QUALIFICATIONS This idea is still a bit vague for me and I’d like to see more details about how it would be structured, how it may be funded, and get some feedback from community members about whether they thought this was the right path forward. I could see it being valuable, but I also don’t know that the thing that’s holding back affordable housing on Salt Spring Island is a lack of centralized leadership. But that’s just me.