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FOI Request to BC Transit yields information about the UDI event: “Pathways to Progress: Uniting Land Use and Transit Strategies for Sustainable Growth” which took place the same day that Saanich adopted its new Official Community Plan and rendered its Local Area Plans legally non-binding.

By Sasha Izard
Feb 28, 2025


On May 7, 2024 – The majority of Saanich Council voted to pass a new Official Community Plan (OCP) by unusually passing both third and fourth readings of the proposal that same evening, thus rendering a new OCP into existence on that date, while at the same time Saanich’s Local Area Plans (LAPs) were rendered legally non-binding by removing them from the OCP Bylaw (something the Mayor had referred to as “decoupling” the LAPs from the OCP. The new OCP wasn’t actually due until the end of 2025. Why was it as so many commented, rushed through so quickly?

The UDI’s 2023-2024 Annual Report has a section titled “Advocacy Initiatives”. The term advocacy is often used synonymously with lobbying, “influence” and “impact”, the latter quoted terms appearing on the same page. Under the subheading “District of Saanich” is written the following: “OCP Update/Terms of Reference” above the item “Housing Strategy/Land Capacity” among others including “Centre, Corridor and Villages Plan”. The first item under the subheading “BYLAW REVIEW” was listed: “Active Transportation Network Plan”.

Earlier that day on May 7, 2024, Saanich’s Mayor, Dean Murdock presented at an Urban Development Institute event at the Union Club in downtown Victoria.

The event was titled: “Pathways to Progress: Uniting Land Use and Transit Strategies for Sustainable Growth”

The speakers included the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Rob Fleming, Victoria’s Mayor Alto, Matthew Boyd (Director of Corporate & Strategic Planning at BC Transit), Mayor Murdock of Saanich, the Chair of the UDI Capital Region Ben Mycroft (Director of Development at Gablecraft Homes), and Ryan Berlin (Senior Economist and Vice President of Intelligence at Rennie)

The Sponsors of the Event were: Rennie, the company of Bob Rennie (the so-called “Condo-King” of Vancouver) and the Urban Development Institute itself.

When I asked the Mayor about the event at the Saanich Town Hall Council Meeting on October 22, 2024, he openly acknowledged that he had attended the event.

At the Feb 11, 2025 Saanich Special Council Meeting on the item of the Quadra/McKenzie draft plan, his tone was entirely different. When I brought this up during public input, he refused to let me speak and soon after cut my mic completely.

Instead, he referred to his attendance at the event an “allegation”. When I replied that his attendance of the event isn’t an allegation, it’s a fact; the Mayor immediately cut me off again, and responded that whether or not he should have attended the event was a “difference of opinion”.  Theatrically, after abruptly refusing that I be allowed to speak during public input, the Mayor called a recess, despite that the meeting had only just begun less than 40 minutes earlier.

I subsequently wrote a letter to Mayor Murdock asking, how it can be a mere allegation that he attended the event, and a difference of opinion for that matter; when he himself admitted previously that he attended the event at the Saanich Town Hall Council Meeting of Oct 22, 2024, and given that the event is still listed on the UDI’s websites UDI.org on their past events page at the time of writing.

Needless to say, the Mayor didn’t respond. It’s one thing to claim when the public is watching and in attendance at a Council Meeting, that whether or not he attended the event is an “allegation”, and characterizing the issue as a mere difference of opinion; it’s another entirely it seems, when asked in writing about his attendance at it, after it has been pointed out that he had two entirely contradicting narratives about it from 2 different Saanich Council Meetings.

Letter to Mayor Murdock regarding your Chairing at the Feb 11, 2025 Saanich Special Council Meeting – CRD Watch Homepage

That the Mayor came across as especially prickly, censorious and gaslighting that night on this issue, may have to do with the fact of how relevant that event actually was to the issue on the table that night, which was regarding the works underway for the proposed draft Quadra/Mckenzie Plan, which was to united transit with land-use in Saanich like never before, and with Saanich pioneering its own TOA (Transit Oriented Area) for it, not even mandated by the Province.

On Dec 7, 2024 I had sent the following Freedom of Information (FOI) request to BC Transit for:

“All records of communications with and regarding the Urban Development
Institute (UDI) by BC Transit.

Date range: Dec 7, 2017 to Dec 7 2024”

On Feb 26, 2024, I received the FOI response from BC Transit, which has some interesting information about that UDI event at the Union Club, to which the Mayor of Saanich and the Mayor of Victoria were both featured speakers.

The communications between BC Transit and the UDI leading up to the event described it as a “fireside chat” which would feature discussions of a “high-level overview” of long-term transit planning. The BC Transit representative (its Director of Corporate & Strategic Planning) was asked to prepare several questions for the event. These regarded the impact that the recently passed Bills 44 and 47 would have on the Crown Corporation, what’s new with the Crown Corporation, and what would be BC Transit’s most important priorities in the Capital Region over the next half decade.

The UDI described in the communications: “The overall goal of this event is to bring about discussions around uniting land use and transit to support the growth of sustainable communities.”

“Our topic will be whether land use is leading transit or transit is leading land use – and understanding the relationship between land use and transit is crucial in creating sustainable, efficient, and livable communities.”

The communications also revealed that a similar event with similar topics of discussion for its panelists took place a couple years earlier also at the Union Club in January 2022 as part of the UDI’s Forecast Lunch series and that 2 Zoom meetings with the panelists for that event had taken place in the month prior.

The following as revealed by Freedom of Information the contents of the event over 2 years later on May 7, 2024:

Note: the paragraph that was censored with the red S16 and s17 was censored on the following basis: “information has been withheld pursuant to Section 16 – “Disclosure harmful to intergovernmental relations or negotiations” and Section 17 – “Disclosure harmful to the financial or economic interests of a public body” of FOIPPA.”

How disclosing the UDI’s planned panelist questions would be “harmful to intergovernmental relations or negotiations and “harmful to the financial or economic interests of a public body is needless to say a mystery. The UDI after all is not a governmental organization. Or has it become so merged with government that exposing the contents of its panels to the public could be considered damaging to a sitting government? Why are the public not allowed to see what transposes between government officials and a registered lobbying organization?

Is this topic not only to be censored at council meetings, but through the misleadingly titled Freedom of Information system as well?

Update March 8, 2025: A second FOI response for the content of the event was received this time from the District of Saanich. The censored section in the BC Transit FOI response was not censored in the Saanich FOI.

This is the uncensored section which was blocked by BC Transit:

The UDI directors were certainly interested in getting dates for BC Transit’s expansion plans and the reasoning around them. I can’t imagine it didn’t pass through their minds that this could be very valuable information for property speculators, and that getting firm answers from BC Transit could help compel them towards the UDI’s goals of uniting transit with land-use as a means to significantly increase density in such areas.

Yes, the UDI wanted to discuss the Province’s “aggressive, legislated housing targets, which drive new infrastructure and cost pressures for local government” etc., what they didn’t mention is that they had aggressively lobbied/advised the Province on the creation of that legislation for years.

“Should developers go directly to BC Transit to discuss potential stop locations in front of developments on corridors?” Well I guess the question would be, would they have to register that as lobbying activity?

The UDI’s griping about electric buses – in preference of general transit expansion, aside; the second to last paragraph is quite telling:

The UDI once again, neglected to mention that it had lobbied the Province and that the Province had responded in regard to TOAs and SSMUH regulations through Bills 44 and 47, and that in particular they wanted to tie land-use and transit through legislation. Nothing evinced this more than the following section of a lobbying letter that the UDI provided to David Eby on March 10 2022, using Crown Corporation and UDI member BC Transit’s own maps:

For more info on this letter from the UDI and their lobbying presentation to David Eby when he was the Minister Responsible for Housing see:

The Urban Development Institute lobbied the Province of BC to implement what they called “Global Housing Targets”. The Province would deliver new Housing Bills in response. – CRD Watch Homepage

Although Saanich’s QMP draft plan has received setbacks and ostensibly it is backing down from planned single automotive lanes on either side of McKenzie, the District has suggested that it will consult BC transit on its next steps including going forward on the RapidBus line on McKenzie, which seems somewhat contradictory to the continuance of the present 2 automotive lanes on either side of the road. Will the District continue forward in the reduction of automotive lanes despite its comments, or will it try to find ways around it?

An email from the District of Saanich titled: “Council Direction on Quadra McKenzie Plan” sent on Feb 26, 2025 showed the following:

In the email was the following words:

“Defer any modification of McKenzie Avenue vehicle lanes and specific transit priority measures to a future process in consultation with BC Transit.“

Will land-use lead transit, or will transit lead land-use? If the UDI has its way, and they have exceptionally with the Province so far, it would appear very likely that they and developers/speculators that they represent and offer political influence to, would prefer transit to be leading land-use. On the Southern Island, they may still get their way.

Why has Saanich council chosen to defer to BC Transit on McKenzie, rather than deferring to consultation with the Saanich public?

What happens to local democracy in this scenario? The fact the UDI itself referred positively to eroding local government autonomy under a map from BC Transit of proposed ‘RapidBus’ lines, about says it all…



See also:

More Freedom of Information data surfaces, this time from Saanich, regarding the May 7, 2024 UDI event at the Union Club: “Pathways to Progress: Uniting Land Use and Transit Strategies for Sustainable Growth” – CRD Watch Homepage

Saanich and a lobbying organization for development and real estate discussed decoupling the Local Area Plans from the Official Community Plan in the spring of 2022 – CRD Watch Homepage

Thrown under the Bus: how so-called rapid transit is being used to force high density on communities, while greenwashing the developers’ for-profit agenda. – CRD Watch Homepage

How the proposed “RapidBus” lanes in the Capital Region, including on McKenzie, were used as part of the UDI development lobby’s push for enforced densification/upzoning along rapid transit corridors, during their lobbying to David Eby in 2022 – CRD Watch Homepage