FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – an open letter (e.g. share it on your substack with attribution)
Capital Region Municipal Amalgamation Society (“AmalgamationYES”)
June 25, 2026 “Yet Another Plebiscite”
The directors of the board for the local governance reform society known as AmalgamationYES are once again disappointed in the provincial government and local political leadership.
For the third time in a week.
A plebiscite is not a referendum. Referenda are binding decisions (or as close to binding as legislation allows). A plebiscite is little more than an opinion survey. “Public opinion question on the ballot” is the phraseology being used this week to describe the decisions of Saanich and Victoria Councils.
We thank former members (and current councillors) this week for their support for a binding 2026 referendum: Karen Harper and Marg Gardiner. As well, their respective colleagues Teale Phelps-Bonderoff (for his “unfair hockey playoffs series” analogy) as well as Jeremy Caradonna & Dave Thompson for their failed referral motion to send this issue back to the Province.
This week’s outcome is historic in its unorthodoxy. And utterly disrespects the work of the Citizens’ Assembly.
History:
Nearly everybody in the CRD had an amalgamation-related plebiscite in 2014. Of those, all but Oak Bay voted with majority support. Of those five, only Saanich and Victoria moved forward in the process.
Saanich and Victoria had yet another plebiscite in 2018, which led to $750,000 budgeted toward creating and conducting the Victoria-Saanich Citizens’ Assembly. This is the democratic process, lauded worldwide, for studying issues in an objective, non-partisan way.
While the VSCA wasn’t tasked to specifically recommend YES or NO to Amalgamation, nor any other specific course of action, they did.
In 2025, they overwhelmingly recommended Amalgamation. And all elected officials responded by endorsing their process recommendations.
Financial details:
And while the contracted “MNP Report” was in want of deeper financial analysis regarding merger costs related to “transitions”, it unequivocally produced certainty of well-established standards for what they call “compatibility” for the two jurisdictions — geography, populations, revenues, expenses, administrations, infrastructure, capital assets, services, etc — to enter into a merger. And experts all agreed there was no reason to delay holding a binding vote.
Moreover, longstanding provincial legislation known as the Local Government Grants Act, provides funding for locally-assented transitions. This was provided to Abbotsford-Matsqui, and would have been provided to Duncan-North Cowichan; and moreover, we understand over $20 million was promised to Salt Spring Island (a population of under 20,000).
Provincial dollars for transitions do not arrive BEFORE binding referendum votes, they arrive AFTER (and only if “YES” wins).
However, if the provincial government, given their financial situation, wanted to “slow things down”, we could graciously accept that, so long as they weren’t trying to “shut things down”. Despite commitments last year from the ministry and the two councils to follow-through on the process recommendations of the Citizens Assembly (binding referendum, with third-party vote awareness campaign, in 2026), we could understand that perhaps an agreeable alternative course of action would have been to:
- have the Province lead a process to examine potential transition plans, costs and implications
- allow this body of work to compliment the body of work of the Citizens’ Assembly (VSCA)
- together this library of resources could be used by the voter awareness campaign for a 2030 Binding Referendum
- and meanwhile, the Province (Crown) could do its duty to consult with First Nations, rights and title holders (like they did in Okanagan Falls, even though what we are talking about in Victoria-Saanich does not involve the creation of newly incorporated jurisdiction).
The Minister:
The Minister — secretly — told our mayors she wanted to see transition plan implication analysis beforehand, and withheld the ministerial orders required under sections 167-184 of the Local Government Act. This was an unorthodox decision, and one made quietly without explanation, without public comment, and without provincial political media scrutiny. In other words, she made the mayors (and councils) wear the outrage, and cleverly disguised the misdirection and obfuscated accountability when councils took the bait, and unsurprisingly argued amongst themselves during “silly season”.
And recall: this outrage started (a) one year after promising not to “stand in the way”, (b) six months after local councils placed the ball in her court, and (c) two months after she wrote the letter. A letter, which still, months later, has yet to be provided to the Capital Region Municipal Amalgamation Society members who made FOI requests for exactly this information.
It is not too late, Minister, to do the right thing. Remember Premier Horgan and the RBCM museum plans? pivot!
What Now?
Now, we* have to fight a battle with two hands tied behind our back. It was always going to be a punishing fight. The arguments that motivate Victoria might work against us in Saanich, and vice-versa. While we want the question during highest-voter-turnout (i.e. general local elections), that also means voters will be drawn into the trap of worrying about what a combined municipality means for their favourite (and least favourite) politicians in the future — a consideration that we contend is immaterial. But now, we have to do so in an environment where
- the waters are muddied by confusion
- an opaquely organised NO campaign, dedicated since before studying the issue, remains highly motivated
- potential voters open to voting YES will be less likely to take the whole thing seriously, and rightly so, and
- we as a YES campaign, with our momentum hamstrung, will therefore struggle to mobilise volunteers and secure donations from community leaders afraid to be caught on the losing side vis-a-vis incumbents and entrenched interests
*We are not politicians. We are volunteers of a public interest society board, advocating for democratic process at the moment, instead of focussing on communicating the merits of an amalgamation between Victoria and Saanich.
We will ask voters to join us in perpetual patience. Vote YES, yet again, to keep this train moving. And if we can keep the winning streak going, and achieve 7-in-a-row (including the VSCA outcome), then maybe, perhaps, we will end up in a position in 2030, armed with incontrovertible evidence, to finally and definitely, get this thing across the finish line.
“That’s exactly the point”.