The Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia (LTSA) is a paying member of a registered lobbying organization for real estate and development.
This article is the latest installment in a series of articles covering Crown Corporations and statutory entities in British Columbia, which are paying members of the Urban Development Institute (UDI) and have been evasive about that fact (see links at the end).
The UDI pulled down its members directory from public view on November 21, 2023, as the Provincial Housing Bills were being pushed through. The directory contained hundreds of corporate entities involved in development and real estate and numerous branches of government, including both local and regional governments, crown corporations, statutory entities; as well as media companies.
By Sasha Izard
Dec 12, 2024
On October 6, 2024, I sent the following email:
Hello the Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia (LTSA),
I have a question,
Does the LTSA have a paid membership with the Urban Development Institute?
Thank you,
Sasha
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The LTSA promptly responded first thing in the morning:
Good morning, we do not have memberships. We do have 2 accounts, one that you can pay for up to 40 titles searches or document/plans per year with a credit card. The other is the Enterprise account which legal professionals would use to search or submit documents.
Can you please clarify what it is you are looking for.
Thank you
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OK, here we go again, far from unexpectedly, another Government entity, is providing answers to the questions that I didn’t ask, and not answering the basic question that I did ask.
I responded:
Thank you for getting back to me.
“We do have 2 accounts, one that you can pay for up to 40 titles searches or document/plans per year with a credit card.”
What is the 1st type of account called? Is it an account with the UDI?
“The other is the Enterprise account which legal professionals would use to search or submit documents.”
How did BC Assessment get an Enterprise account with the UDI?
I see no such type of account listed on the UDI’s website? Perhaps I’m missing it?
“Can you please clarify what it is you are looking for.”
The LTSA was listed on the UDI’s membership directory last year under the following address:
Land Title And Survey Authority of British Columbia
#200 – 1321 Blanshard Street
Victoria, British Columbia V8W 9J3
· MAP
· (250) 410-0571
Did the LTSA not renew its membership with the UDI since then?
Thank you,
Sasha
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After 10 days and no response, I wrote back:
Hello LTSA,
Why have you not responded to my questions?
Sasha Izard
(Concerned Citizen)
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The LTSA did not respond.
3 days later, I sent the following Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the LTSA for:
Records showing the year that the The Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia began to pay the Urban Development Institute (UDI) for membership and
also communications, or other data showing the reasons and those responsible for that initial decision.”
All records showing invoices and receipts for payment by the LTSA to the UDI.
All communications regarding payments between the LTSA and the UDI.
All records related to LTSA membership in the UDI.
If the LTSA discontinued its membership with the UDI:
1. Date at which the decision was made to discontinue, or
terminate the LTSA’s membership with the Urban
Development Institute (UDI).
2. Any communications at the LTSA that shows how
and why this decision was made and who was responsible
for the decision and how that decision was made.
3. The date at which the membership was ended.
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On December 3, 2024 I received from the LTSA, the response documents to my FOI request.
I was informed that the LTSA “reserves the right to charge for further time spent in addressing the request.”
The following is quoted from their response email:
“LTSA was able to search records of accounts paid by LTSA to UDI back to 2006. The results of this search are contained in record 16.
LTSA was able to search for invoices or receipts issued by UDI to LTSA back to 2019, when LTSA implemented software that enables such retention.
All invoices and receipts located are contained in records 1-15. In each case, the amount was paid by an LTSA staff member and subsequently reimbursed by LTSA to the staff member, not to UDI.”
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Why were staff members of the BC Statutory Corporation spending money on a registered lobbying organization representing and offering political influence to its corporate members involved in real estate and development, and being reimbursed for it with government money, as they claimed?
“LTSA was able to search records of accounts paid by LTSA to UDI back to 2006. The results of this search are contained in record 16.”
Record 16 section looked like a red herring, something that I’d seen before. All the document contained was the following:
Transactions paid directly? How about indirectly? Is the LTSA paying the UDI indirectly? If so, why? Is this all just part of an elaborate shell game designed by the UDI and involving the government to obscure their tracks?
A very different picture emerges from the other 2 documents containing records 1-25
– From FOI Record 22 dated Jan 5, 2024
Remember when the FOI officer stated:
All invoices and receipts located are contained in records 1-15. In each case, the amount was paid by an LTSA staff member and subsequently reimbursed by LTSA to the staff member, not to UDI.”
While the amount may have been paid by an LTSA staff member, for the LTSA’s UDI membership renewals, they were probably using the LTSA’s corporate credit card or similar type of corporate payment system, rather than their own personal non-government credit card.
If an LTSA staff member was using their own personal non-government credit card, something that has yet to be documented for such a purpose, how could they sign up an entire BC Statutory Corporation to be a paying member of a registered lobbying organization with it? How could it be legal to do so?
If they are using a personal credit card to sign the government up to memberships in a registered lobbying organization, and being reimbursed for it by the government, how come no direct evidence for such hypothetical reimbursements is ever forthcoming in FOI requests? If this is what is happening, why is the government not forthcoming with the evidence for it?
Is it too embarrassing for them to have to show evidence for it?
When I previously did an FOI to Crown Corporation BC Assessment to show records of employee reimbursements, when they claimed that they were reimbursing employees for memberships, no records of these supposed reimbursements showed up in the FOI response.
The receipt below shows that the LTSA was reissued its membership from the UDI through a membership renewal payment on Sept 5, 2024 using a credit card through the online Stripe payment system.
The following is from the FOI record 15 dated to Sept 5 2024:
Why can’t BC Crown Corporations and Statutory entities simply be honest regarding their UDI memberships for once?
The fact that they are repeatedly documented as being evasive and/or dishonest about them, speaks volumes about the nature of the government trying to repeatedly obscure its tracks involving its paid relationship to the development and real estate lobby.
The following is the contact details at the bottom of the receipt. How come every recent government membership receipt that I’ve seen from the UDI, has the “i”s missing on it?
Is this intentional, or is the UDI just missing an “I” on their keyboard?
Don’t be confused. The UDI is not a registered charity. It is a registered lobbying organization though.
At least in their membership confirmations, unlike for their membership receipts, the UDI has a keyboard with a functioning “i” button.
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Record 14, which contained the invoice for the membership above, is interesting in that it shows payment options:
We know from the receipt that it was paid on Credit Card with Stripe.
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The following is from record 13.
I have removed the name of what appears to be an LTSA employee under the payment confirmation for purposes of privacy.
While this invoice is from UDI Events, it appears to be for a so-called “Corresponding membership” which is a type of corporate membership in the UDI Pacific Region based in Vancouver. It does not appear to be for an employee membership.
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The following is Record 12 (I have blanked out the names of 5 LTSA employees):
Why was so much money being paid by the government for LTSA employees to attend what amounts to have been a political luncheon with the BC NDP’s Minister of Housing at the Vancouver Hyatt, with the most powerful/influential lobbying organization for development and real estate interests in the Province?
Only half a year later, the Minister would be pressing through the housing Bills 44-47 including the invocation of closure. The Bills featured content lobbied to the Province by the UDI, that would take major powers over zoning from local governments by the Province.
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Records 10 and 11 showed another LTSA employee attending a UDI function at the Hyatt for:
No mention is included on how the payment was made.
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Record 9 showed an inexpensive in comparison, payment confirmation for the same LTSA employee to attend a UDI event:
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Records 7 and 8 showed a similar payment confirmation for the same employee from Sept 26, 2022:
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Record 6 showed yet another payment confirmation for an expensive UDI political event featuring the Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Housing at the time (soon to be made Premier by the end of the year) speaking to the Bob Rennie the so-called “condo-king”.
The previous year had a UDI virtual interview in which the soon-to-be Premier asked Rennie how to solve the housing crisis to which Rennie offered a super-abundance of housing supply as the solution (no benefit to Rennie of course, if implemented).
Excerpted image from the UDI’s Policy and Advocacy updates newsletter July 13, 2021.
David Eby before and after:
Before:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbYJxMsrPGs (While in opposition): “David Eby tells Premier to set record straight on Bob Rennie’s influence on real estate policy”
At 3:15 Eby criticizes the Liberal Housing Minister for exchanging multiple emails with Rennie and engaging in dialogue with him on Real Estate)
After:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=511JXFHh8oA (While Housing Minister): Eby seeks Bob Rennie’s advice to solve the so-called housing crisis, in lengthy interview facilitated by the UDI development lobby.) Note: The Youtube link while previously available to the public has since been made private. Don’t worry, someone backed-up a copy of the video first.
Rennie, the so-called ‘Condo-King’s advice to Eby? An abundance of over-supply when it comes to housing.
I hope the LTSA employee received front row seats at that price, although I still can’t see why government funds were necessary for this.
David Eby to the left, stands next to Bob Rennie and Anne McMullin President and CEO of the UDI, and the UDI’s Chair at the time Jon Stovell, from the UDI’s Annual Report 2022-2023
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Record 5 contained a receipt of payment for what appears to have been a 2020 renewal invoice for the LTSA’s Corresponding membership with the UDI Pacific Region based in Vancouver (see also Record 1 further below for the 2019 membership at the same cost). I have removed the LTSA employee’s name from it.
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Records 2-4 showed invoices for LTSA employees to attend various UDI events, the most expensive being a luncheon for 136.50 after tax.
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Record 1 (I have removed the name of the LTSA employee who received the renewal invoice):
Note the invoice was for the LTSA corporate annual membership. This was not an employee membership.
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Records 17-25 were in another document. They showed communications by LTSA employees regarding UDI memberships.
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The following is from Record 20 Sept 6, 2023:
I have removed the name of an LTSA Senior Executive Assistant to the President and CEO.
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Record 21 features a conversation beginning on Sept 6 about how the membership will be paid subsequently. One person suggested that it could be charged to PLS (not sure what that is), another another asked which budget it should be paid out of, and another mentioned that it doesn’t make sense to be charged to PLS, and that it would make more sense to be paid out of their budget.
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Record 25 showed the LTSA Senior Executive Assistant to the President and CEO sending an FYI to the LTSA Executive Committee regarding the UDI’s 2024 AGM as in the UDI’s newsletter below:
This brings a key question: If all members can attend the UDI’s AGM, can government members vote on the composition of the UDI Board of Directors?
Can government members and/or employees vote for the composition of a registered organization on the BC Lobbyists Registry that lobbies the same government?
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Conclusion:
One thing is for certain at least and that is that the Land Titles and Survey Authority of British Columbia (LTSA) has and still has a paid for membership with the Urban Development Institute (UDI).
Why so much government money was spent on sending its employees to events from the lobbying group for real estate and development, especially on expensive UDI functions, featuring Ministers of the BC NDP e.g. David Eby (While Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Housing) and Ravi Kahlon, still appears a mystery. Previously, these were the sort of events that Gordon Campbell and his Liberal party leadership would attend.
This is from the UDI’s 2004 Annual Report:
As always, the definitive evidence of the LTSA’s membership with the UDI despite the now standard government evasions, obscurations and/or flat out denials is below:
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This was the fifth installment in a series of articles covering BC Crown Corporations’ (and Statutory entities’) paid memberships in the Urban Development Institute, after the UDI took to hiding its members directory from the public in late 2023.
The following links are of articles in the series so far:
5. The Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia (LTSA) is a paying member of a registered lobbying organization for real estate and development. – CRD Watch Homepage
6. It’s Official: B.C. Provincial Government entities are reimbursing government employees for expenses spent on a registered lobbying organization representing corporate interests, involved in development and real estate. – CRD Watch Homepage
7. The federal department Public Services and Procurement Canada had (or still has) paid memberships in a lobbying organization for development and real estate interests. – CRD Watch Homepage
CRD Watch Homepage 
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