Sooke Council unanimously decides to end the District’s membership with the Urban Development Institute (UDI) – The UDI Capital Region appears in disarray, it’s Board of Directors is missing and its Executive Director is no longer listed on the UDI’s website as a member of staff.

Sooke Council unanimously decides to end the District’s membership with the Urban Development Institute (UDI) – The UDI Capital Region appears in disarray, it’s Board of Directors list is missing and its Executive Director is no longer listed on the UDI’s website as a member of staff.

By Sasha Izard
April 30, 2025

On April 28, 2025, with the election results pouring in from the Federal election, it would be easy to overlook local politics, yet the seats at the District of Sooke’s council chambers, were almost completely filled.

There were a number of items of public interest that evening. One of the items posted, was a motion for the District to potentially withdraw its paid membership from the Urban Development Institute (UDI), a registered organization on the BC Lobbyists Registry, that offers political influence to its paying corporate members involved in real estate and development.

Over a year previously, on March 11, 2024, Sooke Councillor Bateman had put forth a motion for discontinuation of the District’s membership with the UDI, after issues regarding the membership were raised by a Sooke resident that evening.

Sooke Mayor Tait made a motion that was passed, to postpone for up to a year for the UDI to provide a presentation explaining themselves to Council prior to the council deciding whether or not the District would remain a UDI member. The UDI had scheduled to do so on February 28, 2025, yet they cancelled the engagement.

Sooke staff renewed the District’s UDI membership within 4 months of the March 11, 2024 Motion despite that this was in contravention of the council’s directive that they would make a decision prior to it being decided on whether or not to renew the membership.

On April 28 at the Regular Council Meeting, Sooke’s CAO admitted that they had made the mistake.

The UDI had scheduled a second time to present to the Council, which was supposed to be on April 28, yet they cancelled again, without rescheduling a future date.

The report read:

“On April 16, 2025, UDI informed staff that this engagement would also need to be postponed, citing internal organizational restructuring and staff changes.”

With the UDI not explaining their organization to the District after providing over a year of opportunity, the deliberations on this item were quick that evening. The 4 members of Sooke Council present (Mayor Tait was not due to the Federal election), decided unanimously to not renew the District’s membership with the lobbying organization.

Sooke Council thus became the 3rd municipal council to make that decision unanimously in just over 2 years. The others being Saanich and View Royal. Oak Bay, and the Regional Government the CRD had also discontinued their UDI memberships during that time period, although those decisions were staff decisions.

So what were the UDI’s “internal organizational restructuring and staff changes.” mentioned?

I quickly searched, the UDI’s website UDI.org to find the answer. The UDI Capital Region’s Board of Directors list was missing entirely, whereas it had been accessible a month previously. The same appeared for the lists for other branches.

Was the UDI reorganizing by perhaps centralizing the organization and eliminating its branches? The UDI branch websites had gone down on Nov 21, 2023 the same day that the Township of View Royal Mayor and Council ratified their decision to end their District’s UDI membership.

Or, are the branches going on as before, albeit without the visibility they previously had and with the branch Board of Directors rendered obscure by simply including them in the general listing of the UDI Directors without identifying the specific branch that they are a director on? In terms of reducing visibility, the UDI had also pulled down their members directory that same day of Nov 21, 2023, and its list of its committees that meet with government was also pulled down recently.

The only staff member missing from the UDI Capital Region’s staff listing on UDI.org is Kathy Whitcher, the Executive Director of the branch. Her name was also missing from the general list of UDI directors still accessible at the time of writing on UDI.org/leadership.

Did Whitcher leave the UDI to spend more time on her role on the so-called “Advisory Board” (renamed from the “Board of Directors” earlier in the year) of the University of Victoria Real Estate Club?

Whitcher had previously in 2023, unsuccessfully addressed Saanich Council, and View Royal Council asking for them to not discontinue their memberships with the UDI. At the Sept 12, 2023 View Royal Committee of the Whole, she had stated “UDI is not a lobbying group” despite being registered as the UDI’s in-house lobbyist on the BC Lobbyists Registry, both then and now.

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

With the BC Lobbyists Registry to inform them, View Royal Council did not buy that “UDI is not a lobbying group”, and neither did Sooke. The absence of a UDI representative to explain the nature of their organization to the elected officials was notably conspicuous on April 28, 2025.

Perhaps it’s time for the few remaining municipalities in the Capital Region that are still UDI members to finally wake up and realize that the writing is on the wall when it comes to paid government memberships in a lobbying organization.

————————————————————————————————–

Appendix: Screenshots of the UDI leadership/staff as of March 31, 2025 and April 30, 2025 comparatively.

Screenshots of an Archive.org Wayback Machine snapshot of the UDI’s board of Directors on UDI.org as it was on March 31, 2025 prior to the change.

Leadership | UDI – Urban Development Institute

————————————————————————————————–

Screenshots of the UDI’s Board of Directors on UDI.org one month later, made on April 30, 2025
Leadership | UDI – Urban Development Institute

Note: the UDI’s website is missing the bar for the branches of their Board of Directors, thus the list of the Board of Directors by branch cannot be accessed anymore.

Almost all of the UDI Capital Region Board Directors have gone missing from this list. Did they resign en masse? Or is the UDI simply not showing them?

————————————————————————————————-
Screenshot of Archive.org Wayback Machine March 31, 2025 screen capture of UDI Capital Region staff directory (after clicking on the UDI Capital Region link):

Staff Directory | UDI – Urban Development Institute

—————————————————————————————————-

Screenshot of UDI Capital Region staff made on April 30, 2025:

—————————————————————————————————

References:

The following is the Sooke report attached to the agenda item (11.3) for the April 28, 2025 Regular Council Meeting regarding whether or not to renew the District’s UDI membership.