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Even When the Government Cheats, You Can Still Win


By Arthur McInnis
April 22 ,2026

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Politicians think they hold all the cards. They will even assume that if citizens challenge a bad rezoning, the government can just rewrite the law to make it legal. They are wrong. Vancouver proved it.

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The Lesson of Bill 26

Victoria residents need to pay heed. Our Mayor and Council operate with the exact same arrogance as Vancouver. They view public input as an obstacle. They think the courts cannot touch them. If you doubt how far governments will go to strip your voice and yet you can still beat them look at what happened in Vancouver. 

The Arbutus Project and the Citizens’ Lawsuit

In July 2022, Vancouver City Council approved a highly controversial 13-storey tower at 7th and Arbutus. A neighbourhood group, the Kitsilano Coalition, opposed the flawed process. They filed a petition in the BC Supreme Court seeking judicial review to quash the rezoning.  They played strictly by the rules. The litigation though threatened to expose the city’s procedural failures and tie the project up for years. Vancouver needed a bailout.

Bill 26 Erasing the Rules

The BC NDP government stepped in to save them. In April 2023, before a judge could even hear the case, the province dropped a legislative hammer. They passed Bill 26, the Municipalities Enabling and Validating Act (No. 5) SBC 2024, c.19.  The Act retroactively legalised the city’s actions. Through Bill 26, the province declared the Arbutus rezoning valid. Full stop.

The government designed the Bill to instantly render the Kitsilano Coalition’s lawsuit moot. The logic was breathtaking. If the rules allow the public to expose a flawed process in court, the government will simply erase the rules.

The BC Supreme Court Ruling 

The BC Supreme Court ruled that the Act was constitutionally valid because it merely changed the substantive law retroactively, rather than impermissibly interfering with the court’s adjudicative function. The judge relied heavily on Barbour v. UBC (2010) BCCA 63 finding that the legislature had the power to retroactively validate municipal decisions, and in doing so did not inherently violate section 96 of the Constitution Act, 1867. The BC Court of Appeal was about to disagree.

The BC Court of Appeal Overruling

In the Reasons for Judgment of the Honourable Madam Justice Newbury in Kitsilano Coalition for Children & Family Safety Society v. British Columbia (Attorney General), (2024) BCCA 423, Bill 26 did not just change the law; it pre-determined the outcome of a specific dispute, thereby stripping the court of its constitutionally protected “core jurisdiction” to conduct judicial reviews of executive action under section 96. In short, while the legislature can change the rules of zoning, it cannot pass a bespoke law that acts as a “shadow court” to dictate the outcome of a pending judicial review.  The nerve of the Provincial government.

Collapse of the Project was the Aftermath

Without the Act protecting it, Vancouver formally abandoned the Arbutus project in May 2025. 

The provincial government learned a brutal lesson. BC Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon publicly vented his frustration. But the deterrent worked perfectly. The province has not dared to try this again since the ruling. The precedent holds. The government backed down.

The Lesson for Victoria’s 2026 Election

This is not just a Vancouver story. Victoria is run by a Mayor and a Gang of Five who share the exact same mindset.

Look at their record. They rammed through the 2050 Official Community Plan. They executed the October 2025 citywide rezoning. They handed massive rezoning powers to staff through administrative defaults. They stripped the public of its voice. And they assume Victoria residents will simply take it.

The Kitsilano Coalition case proves that extreme government overreach has a breaking point.  These citizens beat overreach by Vancouver and the province in the courts. Next October, voters can beat overreach by the Mayor and Gang of Five at the ballot box.


https://www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/ca/24/04/2024BCCA0423cor1.htm

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Index of articles regarding Law and Bylaw – CRD Watch Homepage