The fate of 3 wharves in Area C

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - It has been nine years Transport Canada (TC) transferred administration of three wharves in Discovery Islands-Mainland Inlets (Area C) to the Strathcona Regional District (SRD). The SRD was also given $2.9 Million for maintenance and upgrades that were to be completed before November 2024. The work was not done and now the cost of upgrading the wharves Owen Bay on Sonora Island, Surge Narrows on Read Island, and Port Neville on the northern shore of the Johnstone Strait, has risen.  

The SRD hoped to recover the shortfall through the area’s property value taxes, ‘the annual requisition not to exceed the greater of $137,187 or $O.0935 per $1,000 of net taxable assessments.’  

On June 29, 2023, the SRD Board decided to gage the electorate’s support through an Alternative Approval Process. This would allow the District to proceed unless 10% of the voters state they are opposed. A minimum of 242 negative responses would suffice to defeat the motion. By the time the process ended, there were 418 elector responses, 385 of which were deemed to be valid. The motion was defeated.

Transport Canada informed the SRD they will not take either the wharves or the funds back. 

Staff drew up a number of possible options, including:
transferring the wharves to Area C’s parks service,
divest the wharves to First Nations, community groups or private entities,
or using the funds to demolish the wharves