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Christine, We Need to Talk About What Happened to Bill 44

A public letter sharing concerns of residents of Vancouver Island and across British Columbia


M. Rose Munro

Reverend Minister Boyle,

In 2023, you stated plainly that multiplexes were “an important but incomplete tool” useful for diversifying housing types, but incapable of delivering true affordability without major non‑market investment and additional policy layers. You were right. Zoning alone cannot solve a housing crisis. It cannot produce affordability. It cannot protect communities from speculation. It cannot safeguard the environment.

Yet in 2026, after two and a half years of lived experience, public outcry, and mounting evidence of harm, you continue to defend Bill 44 – a bill built entirely on the insufficiency you once acknowledged. Bill 44 contains:

•             no affordability requirements,

•             no environmental protections,

•             no anti‑speculation measures,

•             no infrastructure safeguards, and

•             no mechanisms to prevent displacement.

The consequences have been severe:

•  Still‑affordable single‑family homes demolished and replaced with high‑priced multiplexes far beyond the reach of middle‑income families. In one recent example, a modest 1970s bungalow in Victoria, purchased by a young family in 2017 for under $600,000, was torn down and replaced with four units priced at over $1.4 million each. The family who once lived there could not afford to return to their own street.

•  Unprecedented mature canopy loss and deforestation on Vancouver Island, erasing carbon sinks and destabilizing neighbourhood ecosystems.

•  Speculative development pressure driving up land values and rewarding profiteering.

•  Infrastructure strain in municipalities that were never meaningfully consulted.

•  Rising prices.

These outcomes flow directly from the design of the Bill 44 you continue to defend. This is why so many residents are asking, with increasing urgency:

What happened to the compassion and moral repair you once championed?

What happened to the environmental justice you built your public identity upon?

Your earlier work emphasized listening, care, and the responsibility to confront harm. Today, communities are telling you, clearly and repeatedly, that Bill 44 is harming them. They are telling you the policy is not delivering affordability, that their trees are disappearing, their sense of stability is unraveling, and the neighbourhoods they love are being hollowed out. And they are asking why you are not listening.

There was a time when you spoke fluently about “compassion,” “moral repair,” and the duty of leaders to mend what is broken rather than deepen the fracture. Your public work was rooted in environmental justice, community care, climate responsibility, and the moral obligation to protect the vulnerable. You urged others to listen deeply and repair harm rather than entrench it.

Today’s contradiction is stark. As the Faithful Footprints climate‑action advisor, you built a public identity around environmental stewardship. Yet the policy you are now defending is driving the removal of mature trees, erasing carbon sinks, and degrading ecosystems faster than municipalities can respond. It is difficult to reconcile the climate‑action messaging with the on‑the‑ground reality of chainsaws clearing canopy to make room for speculative development. The gap between the rhetoric and the results widens by the day. 

And the optics only sharpen the dissonance. The construction‑site photo‑ops, the hard‑hat glamour shots, the celebratory posts about housing awards – they project progress while communities watch their landscapes stripped bare. They signal virtue while the policy’s consequences undermine the very climate commitments being promoted.  Your recent “Stars Award Ministry of Housing & Municipal Affairs 2026” had the energy of a mock‑ceremony title: glossy, triumphant, and disconnected from the lived reality of housing policy. It reads like the Ministry is giving itself a trophy for achievements that exist only in its own press releases. Christine, when the performance shines brighter than the public impact, people notice. And they feel betrayed. 

Communities are not opposing housing. They are opposing harm. They are asking for solutions that protect affordability, climate resilience, and neighbourhood stability – the very values you once championed.

Bill 44 has no meaningful safeguards. No affordability guarantees. No protections for canopy, biodiversity, or neighbourhood character. It hands power to speculators and leaves communities to absorb the damage. Defending it in the face of mounting evidence does not read as leadership. It reads as a refusal to confront the consequences. It looks less like conviction and more like pride dressed up as principle. And pride, as you know, is the oldest failing in the book.

What does it profit a minister to preach compassion on Sunday and dismiss the cries of their constituents on Monday? What does it say when the flock gathers at the gate, asking only to be seen, and the shepherd turns away because the policy is already written? There is a quiet shame in that, a shame that grows heavier each day the harm is ignored.

Repealing Bill 44 will not undo the damage already done. But it will stop the harm from accelerating. It will restore trust. It will allow municipalities to rebuild environmental protections and affordability measures that the bill swept aside. It will show that leadership is not defined by stubbornly defending a failing policy, but by responding with integrity when the evidence calls for change.

Reverend Minister Boyle, you once urged others to act with courage when communities were hurting. That courage is needed now. It is time to repeal Bill 44.

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See also:

Index of CRD Watch articles concerning the environment/ecology. – CRD Watch Homepage

Index of articles regarding Law and Bylaw – CRD Watch Homepage

Why Setbacks Matter: Protecting the Green Heart of Saanich, by M. Rose Munro – CRD Watch Homepage

Bill 44: The Oversight‑Free Makeover, by M. Rose Munro – CRD Watch Homepage

The NIMBY Smokescreen: How Bill 44 Protects Speculation, Not Communities, by M. Rose Munro – CRD Watch Homepage

Index of articles revealing major lobbying influence on B.C. Provincial Housing Bills and Housing Targets. – CRD Watch Homepage