Keith Davidson

Personally, I rely on an e-bike for all of my local transportation and have always made living in a walkable area a core part of my housing requirements, as reducing dependency on car travel is one of the most impactful changes a person can make. My wife and I also eat a plant-based diet, and I'm in the process of adding solar and battery storage to my own home.

Beyond my own choices, I'm a strong advocate for expanding access to alternative electric personal transportation: e-bikes, low-speed vehicles (LSVs), and European-style electric microcars. Right now, e-bikes and low-speed vehicles face significant restrictions, and European-style electric microcars are effectively impossible to bring onto our roads under Canada's federal vehicle regulations and BC's Motor Vehicle Act, and this is a change I want to champion. A 2022 EU study (Ehrenberger, et al., 2022) found that light electric vehicles could replace 75% of car trips and 50% of car mileage, cutting transportation-related CO2 emissions by 44%. On Bowen Island specifically, with our lower speed limits and shorter travel distances, light electric vehicles would likely be able to replace an even higher share of local trips, making this an especially practical fit for our community.

I also want to push for a simpler, fee-free permitting process for residential solar, battery storage, and rainwater capture systems, along with mandating these systems in new builds and redevelopments, making them the default rather than a costly retrofit later.

In some ways, BC Ferries already has the solution: the hybrid electric Island Class vessels currently in service on the Nanaimo–Gabriola route (though not yet running on electric propulsion, due to delays in shore charging infrastructure). I would strongly advocate for replacing the Queen of Capilano with new Island Class vessels, moving to a two-ferry system like Gabriola's to provide more frequent sailings for Bowen Islanders.

The argument commonly raised by BC Ferries against this is berth space limitations at Horseshoe Bay. But this problem already has a solution, one that BC Ferries itself studied in 2015: consolidating Nanaimo departures at the Tsawwassen terminal, which has more berths and more vehicle marshalling space. This would more than free up the space needed for Island Class charging infrastructure to serve Bowen Island, as well as the future space needed for a similar electric ferry for the Sunshine Coast.

While I am concerned about the idea of additional LNG carrier traffic in Howe Sound, as the question notes, Woodfibre LNG is currently approved for only one LNG carrier transit per week, and there have been no official requests to federal or provincial regulators, or to the Squamish Nation, to expand that capacity.

Any expansion of the project's scope would need to go through rigorous environmental and regulatory review, including under the Squamish Nation Environmental Assessment Agreement, and I would strongly fight to ensure that review is thorough and science-based.

I'd also note that this project is governed by a first-of-its-kind, legally binding Indigenous-led environmental assessment agreement. And in recognizing the rights, knowledge, and environmental stewardship of the Squamish Nation, I find it difficult to second-guess that process or the Nation's decision to approve the project.

I want to make sure we're dealing with the actual cause of our local issues rather than just treating the symptoms. I believe that largely, our issues with tourism are actually infrastructure gaps that get highlighted by tourism in the summer months, but they aren't necessarily caused by tourism itself.

That said, growing visitor numbers do intersect with real vulnerabilities on Bowen: our trails, forests and shoreline ecosystems can be degraded by higher foot traffic if we don't invest in trail development and maintenance, signage, and enforcement. Our systems need capacity planning that accounts for seasonal peaks, not just average loads, and our transportation system (ferry capacity and marshalling, local transit, and personal and active transportation options) needs to be sized for, or able to expand to meet, peak demand rather than just year-round averages.

My approach would be to invest directly in that infrastructure rather than in measures aimed at discouraging visitors: working with partners like the provincial government, Metro Vancouver, the Island Trust and local stewardship groups on trail capacity and ecosystem monitoring, pushing for better seasonal planning, and advocating for the ferry and transportation improvements I've already discussed. Solving the actual bottlenecks benefits residents and visitors alike, and it's a more honest way to address these concerns than treating tourism itself as the problem.

I struggle with this question the most of all of these. I'm not a climate scientist, a hydrologist, or a geotechnical engineer, and I don't have any special knowledge that can help me answer it with authority.

What I do think is that we've had some real successes over the last few years that I'd like to see us expand. FireSmart programming, for one, has given residents much greater access to information about what they can personally do to decrease their fire risk and improve their readiness. Our volunteer fire department has continued to add new skills and capabilities to its toolkit, which not only makes us more resilient, but for some homeowners further from hydrant infrastructure, has meaningfully decreased their home insurance costs. NERP (Neighbourhood Emergency Response Program) and ESS (Emergency Support Services) have, and continue to, improve our readiness and resilience to all sorts of future challenges. I want to fully recognize the work of all these groups and strongly advocate for more Boweners to get involved!

Underlying all of this, I think Bowen needs a coordinated climate adaptation plan, developed with input from Island Trust, Metro Vancouver, and emergency services, that prioritizes these risks based on real data and expert guidance, rather than reacting to them one at a time as they occur. Resilience isn't just about responding to disasters, it's about investing ahead of them, and listening to the people with the expertise I don't have.