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Letter with answers to questions raised by Sooke Councillor, as to whether the District of Sooke is the target of UDI lobbying, etc.


Letter to Sooke Mayor and Council by Sasha Izard
Nov 24, 2024


Hello Sooke Mayor and Council,

At the March 11, 2024 Sooke Council meeting was item 11: regarding “Sooke’s Membership in the Urban Development Institute” 

During the deliberations Councillor Saint Pierre said the following:

“I really appreciate the member of the public bringing this forward, because I think it’s important that we’re not funding people that are lobbying us for like particular stakeholders.  Having said that, one of the questions that I would really have if we bring them forward and I actually like Councillor McMath’s suggestion of tabling this and having them do a presentation quite a lot, is I don’t know what their target for lobbying is.  If their target is actually the province, or other bodies, I’m not sure why they have that lobbying, you know label, but if we’re not the target of the lobbying, and if we’re actually one of the stakeholders that’s being lobbied for.

This makes sense to me, because from the sounds of things we’re getting cheap expert input.  We’re getting forms for collaboration and putting forward our development vision to a larger community, but I’d like to know that we’re not the target of, like if their mandate is to actually approach local governments and convince them of things for developers, there’s no way we should be actually part of this, or contributing money, because they’ll come to us anyway. I think that’s a, that’s a point well taken, but if that’s not actually their mandate, and I think that’s something that they would have to explain; then I’m more open.”

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I think Councillor St. Pierre’s questions are very important, and should be asked of the UDI, when they eventually do present to Sooke Council on this issue in the not so distant future.

However, the UDI’s own statements regarding their lobbying status do not always fit with the reality of their own registration documents on the BC Lobbyists Registry.

At the September 12, 2023 View Royal Committee of the Whole during public input, the UDI Capital Region’s Executive Director told View Royal Council:

“UDI is not a lobbying group”, which was revealed after to not be true.  In fact, the Executive Director of the UDI-CR was registered on the BC Lobbyists Registry at the time under the Urban Development Institute’s registration on the registry, and the UDI-CR Executive Director is still currently registered as a UDI in-house lobbyist with the Province, as you can see at the very end of the following link: 

Urban Development Institute / Anne McMullin, President & CEO – 12-Month Lobbying Summary – Lobbyists Registry – Office of the Registrar or Lobbying of BC 

This was brought up during View Royal’s Council Meeting, when the issue of their UDI membership, and the elected officials, not having voted to join it in the first place, was deliberated on, on November 12, 2024.  With these facts having come to light, it took View Royal Council less than 5 minutes of deliberations to choose unanimously to terminate their Council’s paid membership with the UDI.

“I don’t know what their target for lobbying is.”

The UDI targets all levels of government with their “advocacy”, as is clear in their annual reports and newsletter, but in terms of registering lobbying activity, they are only registered at the Provincial level. 

The UDI does not need to register lobbying activity to the District of Sooke, because the District does not have a Lobbyist Registry.  This actually shows why it is crucial for local governments to have a lobbyist registry, so that staffers and elected officials are informed as to who and what organizations are they are dealing with, and don’t run into potential conflict of interest issues, like for example using public funds to pay lobbying organizations representing private interests, for memberships, or for attending their events, or relying on them too much in the operating of government institutions, including in land-use planning and policy generation/implementation, which the UDI has a particularly keen focus on.

The UDI has also claimed for over a year, to be setting up a liaison committee with Sooke, although when I contacted the District of Sooke earlier in the year, this was denied by email.

The following advocacy update towards Sooke is from a UDI newsletter sent out last year:

Note the text below: “If you are working in a municipality listed here and would like to be involved in our advocacy work, please contact” [The UDI Capital Region’s Executive Director/registered UDI in-house lobbyist with the Province].

Please also note the text in the first of the 2 sections of the UDI’s newsletter posted above: “If you are interested in connecting with the University of Victoria Real Estate Club for your next public hearing, please contact” [student’s contact info].  Yes, the UDI was advertising that in their newsletter.

The UDI-CR’s Executive Director is also on the UVIC Real Estate Club board of directors. Of that 8 person board, 2 are actual students, while 4 Directors, are also current UDI directors, and 2 former UDI directors are also on that board.  

The members of the club have spoken under its banner at various public hearings in favour of the developments of UDI member companies.  The UDI followed by its member companies are the chief financiers of the club, and the club offers advocacy regarding development, much like the UDI and its directors that mentor it.

This was the page above the 2 sections already posted previously in the UDI’s newsletter:

The advocacy towards Sooke mentioned in the UDI newsletter, is included under a list of the UDI’s “Advocacy Initiatives” in their 2022-2023 Annual Report:

This is from the UDI’s 2023-2024 Annual Report:

It is additionally strange that the UDI was making this claim about being in the process of establishing a liaison committee with the District of Sooke in their Annual Report, given that Sooke was already in a process to potentially end its paid membership with the lobbying organization, as started at the March 7, 2024 Council Meeting, which took place over 2 months prior to this report being published by the UDI.

While the District of Sooke does not have a Lobbyist Registry, nor do any municipalities in the CRD, nor does the CRD itself have a Lobbyist Registry, there is evidence from the CRD’s own minutes that lobbying takes place at the local government level.  As you know regional governments are formations of local governments, and thus are at the local level of government.

The UDI has had a permanent seat on the RHAC since 2019.  The vast majority of the seats on the RHAC have at one time, and in one form or another, been paying members of the UDI.

The following is a quote from the minutes of the June 29, 2022 Regional Housing Advisory Committee meeting at the CRD:

“What can we do as a committee?” [The UDI-CR Executive Director] suggested RHAC members be more active in finding out what policies municipalities are working on and helping to push these policies forward via advocating and lobbying (e.g., Victoria’s missing middle).”

Note: This was prior to the local government election of 2022, where Missing Middle was an election issue.  The Missing Middle Housing Initiative had not been approved yet in the City of Victoria, nor in any municipality in the CRD, yet the UDI had been pushing for missing middle housing for years, and it is one of the “Advocacy Initiatives” listed under the City of Victoria that the UDI mentioned in its Annual Report of 2022-2023, in the section I showed previously.

As you can see advocating and lobbying are used side by side.  What is the difference?  Can anyone tell?  Is it simply a euphemism for lobbying?  Even advocating and lobbying are terms used frequently in lobbying registration forms and often it seems can be used interchangeably.

The RHAC is currently suspended during ongoing reviews of its operations, and it has recently been opened to all members of the public for attendance, should it continue again, after the CRD undertook a look at the legal basis for its Terms of Referencing requiring that for members of the public to attend the committee meetings, they would need both the approval of a committee member and of the committee Chair for attending those meetings.  The CRD has also withdrawn from the UDI after 23 years of being a member, as have the Districts of Saanich, View Royal, and Oak Bay within the last 2 years.

Are the UDI lobbying for municipal interests?  No, I think the evidence is quite clear, that the UDI is lobbying against local government powers over zoning and against public input during local government council meetings.

The UDI has lobbied the province successfully to eliminate vast swathes of public hearings from local governments.  They have successfully lobbied the province to adopt enforceable housing targets, and they have lobbied the province to adopt a carrot and stick approach in dealing with municipalities that do not conform to their agenda, which includes potentially cutting infrastructure funding to them, if they aren’t growing fast enough, in key areas well-served by transit, and by raising taxes on residents living in the areas:

These following excerpts regarding “enforceable housing targets” are from a UDI advocacy/lobbying letter to the Province of BC dated to March 10, 2022 titled:  

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So the UDI lobbies the Provincial government to take actions, including meting out punitive measures where perceived necessary, to municipalities that are not conforming with the UDI’s agenda, and such actions will they hope “compel municipalities to prioritize the delivery of housing.”

And who benefits from the UDI lobbying the Province to take power over zoning from the municipalities and reduce public input in local government?  Well you guessed it, the development industry that the UDI offers paid representation for, through their memberships, which are far more expensive for companies than for local government entities, which the UDI is very happy to have as their members, because then they can show how much influence and access they have with government to their corporate members and prospective corporate members.

So as you can see, the UDI is lobbying against local government power and against democratic public input opportunities at the local level, through pre-zoning, the waiving of public hearings through OCP compliance and compliance to provincial legislation that they have advocated/lobbied for etc.

For more information on this, I offer reading my recent in-depth article on this subject: Freedom of Information reveals that the Province of B.C. was working to implement what the registered lobbying organization, the Urban Development Institute, had been pushing for. This culminated in the recent Housing Bills that override local government authority on zoning.  – CRD Watch Homepage

Now that I have shown you what their target of lobbying is (the government in general), I would like to answer a few of the important questions that Councillor St. Pierre raised:

“If their target is actually the province, or other bodies, I’m not sure why they have that lobbying, you know label,”

The reason for that is the BC Lobbyists Transparency Act (LTA), which requires lobbying organizations to comply with it. Both “lobbying” and “organization” are defined in the act, and lobbying organizations are required to register their lobbying activity on the BC Lobbyists Registry.

I highly recommend reading the Act and familiarizing yourselves with the contents: Lobbyists Transparency Act

That is why the UDI has to by Law, inform the Provincial Government of B.C. of their lobbying activity to it and hence why they have the registration and label of lobbying, as they both have in the past and continue to do so.

I suggest that Sooke draft Bylaws that are similar for the creation of its own Lobbyist Registry, so that its staff and elected officials can identify lobbying organizations and lobbying of the District in the future.  I think it is a crucial component of good governance for government officials to be well informed of who and what are lobbying them and their District and who and what organizations are, as well as their purposes and functions, that they are sending government funds to.

The Councillor also said:  “we’re getting cheap expert input.  We’re getting forms for collaboration and putting forward our development vision to a larger community,”

It is natural that any organization lobbying the government would provide cheap expert material, as it is in their interest for government to read that material and to turn that material into the policies that they want and advocate for, as the Councillor noted this:

“if their mandate is to actually approach local governments and convince them of things for developers, there’s no way we should be actually part of this, or contributing money, because they’ll come to us anyway.”

Yes, they will come to you anyway, as they have for regional governments, dozens of municipalities, and all levels of government for that matter.

The District of Saanich left the UDI and stopped paying it for membership, and yet it still gets UDI material in droves, and it has continued to meet with the UDI and its liaison committee since then, without even having a membership.  Wouldn’t the UDI have cut them off, now that they aren’t funding them anymore?  No.  The collaboration continues all the same, because it is in the UDI and its paying corporate member companies’ interests to have such a close working relationship with local government.  As the UDI put it in a letter to Saanich even after Saanich had left the UDI:

“As an organization, UDI Capital Region is committed to working in partnership with Saanich Council and staff to achieve common goals and ensure that the development process aligns with other regulating documents such as the OCP with a vision of a thriving and livable community. We value the opportunity to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on shaping the future of Saanich.”

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In regard to their mandate, here is the direct proof that their mandate is to approach local governments and convince them of things for developers:

The following was from the front page of the UDI Capital Region website last year:
  

So there you have it, you have seen in this letter the direct evidence that the UDI is a lobbying group, including from its own registrations on the BC Lobbyists Registry, and as shown previously, that it has been lobbying the Provincial Government to take away local powers over zoning, and reduce public input through pre-zoning etc.  All of that is in their registrations on the BC Lobbyists Registry.

The UDI Edmonton Metro has been even more explicit at their targeting of municipalities and their planning departments on their website.  The following was a screenshot of http://www.udiedmontonmetro.com/influence sometime last year. That webpage was later taken down and replaced.  I guess they realized that the reference to influence was too explicit.  They later redirected to a new page called “Our Impact” Our Impact – Urban Development Institute Edmonton Metro.  The Link to “Our Impact” on their front page at present can be seen in the 2nd screenshot below:

As elected officials, there should be no confusion, when you finally do make the decision as many other municipalities have recently, to potentially discontinue the District’s paid membership from the lobbying organization representing the interests of hundreds of companies that profit from development and real estate, and seek to influence all levels of governments to influence the issues that affect their bottom line. 

And, when the time comes for the UDI to inform the elected officials of Sooke what they are, what they do, and why the District joined it as a paying member without votes by elected officials in the first place, please take caution not to inadvertently be gaslighted in the process. 

You are now very well informed.

If you have any more questions, feel welcome to reach out to me.

Thank you cordially,
Sasha Izard