What was the Capital Services and Governance Initiative Report (March 2017)?

What was the Capital Services and Governance Initiative Report (March 2017)?

By Sasha Izard
May 17, 2026

The Capital Services and Governance Initiative report dated March 17 was prepared in for the BC Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development.

The Ministry of Municipal of Municipal Affairs (MUNI) at the time released the report publicly, although the report does not appear to still be posted on a provincial government’s website.

The following was an information bulletin dated from August 23, 2017 posted by MUNI: BC Gov News

Excerpts from the bulletin: “The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing has released the Capital Integrated Services and Governance Initiative report.

The report was completed earlier this year to inform potential discussions amongst area local governments, following the 2014 local government elections where residents in some communities were asked about their interest in amalgamated services or governance.

The report, commissioned by the previous provincial government in spring 2016, is largely focused on profiles of the 16 key services delivered by local governments in the Capital region, such as police, fire, water, recreation and housing.”

[…]

“Local governments that want to pursue greater integration can use the report findings to stimulate discussion within their councils, boards and communities.

The Province will not impose any actions on local governments as result of the report but will focus on working with the 13 municipal councils and the regional district to make services more available and affordable.”

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Although it appears that the report cannot at present be found on a government website, the report is still posted on the website of Amalgamation Yes, a political pressure group that has been pushing for amalgamation between Victoria and Saanich.

The report in full can be read here at the time of writing:
capital_region_governance_final_report.pdf

I have backed up the PDF of the report if it ever gets taken down.

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Amalgamation Yes, was one of the “stakeholders” consulted in the creation of the report along with a number of others as seen below.

As the report states:

“The engagement portion of this project was important because the ideas being discussed in this report originated from these important conversations. Stakeholders representing key organizations and public were contacted and invited to participate in engagement activities undertaken by the
project team, include:

 First Nations
 Business (Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce)
 Community interest groups (i.e., Amalgamation Yes, Grumpy Taxpayers of Greater
Victoria)
 Saanich Citizens Governance Committee
 Academic Specialists
 General public (through the Place Speak Process)

The majority of these stakeholders provided feedback directly to the project team and their feedback was incorporated into this report.”

I note, that the Saanich Citizens Governance Committee appears to be this committee Governance Review Citizens Advisory Committeee | District of Saanich

(Archived snapshot: Governance Review Citizens Advisory Committeee | District of Saanich

One of the organizations consulted for the committee include Saanich Community Association Network (SCAN).

You can read my recent article about the lack of transparency surrounding SCAN who also around that time was consulted by the Province for its Development Approvals Process Review (DAPR) report.

Why does SCAN (Saanich Community Associations Network) not have a website? – CRD Watch Homepage

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The Capital Services and Governance Initiative report was created by Urban Systems. Urban Systems is a company that I’ve provided quite a bit of scrutiny over in the past.

In 2023, with the Provincial housing bills being rammed through the legislature, I created a series of diagrams looking at the relationship between Urban Systems, the UDI development/real estate lobby, which it is a paying member of, and various levels of government.

You can read about that and see the diagrams in this article:

How the Development and Real Estate Lobby Pressed Mandatory Housing Targets, Mass Upzoning, Captured Official Community Plans, and Made the Shutting Down of Public Hearings the Norm in British Columbia Under the NDP Government – CRD Watch Homepage

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In the appendix to this article (at the end), you can read an excerpt from another article that I wrote, that illustrates just how much power and influence urban systems has had regarding urban planning/policy in the province, to the point where questions of ‘potential’ conflicts of interest and ‘potential undue influence’ over provincial urban planning policy certainly have arisen – right down to Urban Systems effectively dictating to local governments how many housing units they must construct by law through housing needs reports tied to regional growth strategies, and thus mandated by official community plans for municipalities to implement.

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Urban Systems is a big company with offices across western Canada. There was however also a small company that was hired by the Province, alongside Urban Systems to prepare the Capital Services and Governance Initiative Report.

The company was called Circle Square Solutions. This was a recent archived snapshot of the companies team in 2024: Team – Circle Square Solutions.

Snapshots from the time of the report of the team do not appear on the internet archive. However, the team was described in the acknowledgements toward the beginning of of the 2017 report:

“The project team from Circle Square Solutions includes four former Ministers and Deputy Ministers with decades of practical, hands-on experience working with the Province of BC. This project was led by Dale Wall, BA, MPA with assistance and advice from Bob de Faye, MPA, George Abbott, MA and Chris Trumpy, B.Com,
CGA.”

Effectively, the government hired those who have had top positions in it to help produce the report with Urban Systems on how local governments on Southern Vancouver island could merge service models.

The report cost close to $100,000 to produce at $94,500, a not unusual type of government price tag that avoids ‘sticker shock’.

Consultants chosen to facilitate work on governance and service integration

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Appendix: Excerpt from article: 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

Not only was UDI member company Urban Systems (through its subsidiary Urban Matters) receiving a virtual monopoly on the housing needs reports/assessments across the province, and a full monopoly on the reports for the municipalities that are part of the CRD’s regional growth Strategy including Saanich, but it was also (as through Urban Matters) a consultant for the Saanich Housing Strategy of August 2021 where it worked with Saanich’s Housing Strategy Task Force described as a “Stakeholder Task Force” in the Saanich News, which included numerous members of that have or had ties to the UDI and UDI member organizations.

Urban Systems and was also key consultant on the BC Transit plan. It was also a key consultant and Project Manager on the Province’s Active Transportation Design Guide (2019), that helped the Ministry of Transportation develop and direct the 577 page guide. Under the acknowledgements for the guide (p.3), its logo was placed next to the Ministry of Transportation. Urban Systems was also a consultant hired for Saanich’s Active Transportation Plan, both of which were synchronous with the BC Transit plan. It also “prepared” with help from an architectural firm, the BRITISH COLUMBIA ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION AND TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT DESIGN GUIDE: A Supplement to the British Columbia Active Transportation Design Guide (June 2021) You might have noticed a pattern by now. The guide introduced Transit Oriented Development Areas (TODs) for provincial policy, something that will be discussed in more and which were applied Provincially through Bill 47, and to which the UDI had demanded enforceable housing targets for. The UDI had lobbied the Federal government in 2018 for the adoption of TODs (See appendix on this).

Urban Systems was also a key consultant on the Shelbourne Valley Action Plan, which would involve, active transportation, upzoning, and major sewer upgrades necessary for massively increasing the density of the valley (that wiped out dozens of once mighty Shelbourne Trees). The UDI was also a stakeholder consulted on the plan. The UDI Chair at the time the plan was being drafted was also on the Shelbourne Valley Stakeholders Committee, along with the UDI Capital Region’s Executive Director. The Chair was also serving on Saanich’s Planning, Transportation & Economic Development (PTED) advisory committee. The UDI was also a key stakeholder on Saanich’s new OCP.

Urban Systems had also received at least one contract in Sooke regarding consulting for the Province’s Development Approval Process Review (DAPR), a process initiated by the Province to ‘streamline the development process’, and ‘remove red tape’ around development approvals that looked remarkably like the UDI’s own material. The UDI served as as stakeholder to the Province on the DAPR.

Urban Systems also advised Saanich on various charges for developers, as well as on underground sewage infrastructure. They would do a similar analyses of developer cost charges (DCCs) for the CRD’s water expansion plans in 2023/2024, presenting these to municipalities in the CRD, while the UDI ran a massive public relations plan in parallel, asking for a reduction in DCCs for the plan which would cost hundreds of millions of dollars in order to create the water infrastructure necessary to feed the sort of development the UDI pushed to all levels of government and to which its paying member companies would profit from, while the public would be pressed with an added tax burden to cover the increased infrastructure costs.

Contracts from the District of Saanich to Urban Systems over a 5 year period:

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