Start With One Man
Harry Bains is 67. He bought a house on Old West Saanich Road in 2018 and built nothing. In May 2022 two Saanich inspectors invited him to the municipal hall for a meeting "to resolve a situation on the property." He went. "Instead, everybody disappeared to the back of the Saanich Hall," he told council, "and I got served papers to appear in criminal court." Six days later council put a notice on his title at a meeting nobody told him about. He learned of it from a newspaper. He cancelled a hip operation to appeal. Council refused, on a motion from Councillor Colin Plant, who is asking for your vote again this October. That is on the recording. So is everything in the four documents below: 1,380 hours of council meetings, every quotation timestamped to the second, every one checkable against the District\'s own video. Five incumbents and two mayoral candidates are on this ballot. Read what they said. Then decide.
Meet the Man Who Really Runs Saanich
The mayor doesn't. The Chief Administrative Officer does, and council voted in 2022 to review his performance and never did. How he got the job, what he built while nobody was reviewing him, a homeowner invited in for a meeting and served with court papers, the bylaw passed as "housekeeping," and the legal bill council was never shown. Revised October 6, 2026; the revision note is on page one.
Read the release (5 pages) → Two-page briefingNine Years, Nine Voices, One Answer
Every councillor, both mayors and the CAO, in their own words when residents were in front of them. "It would be negligent not to." "We have to rely on the systems we have in place." "I'm sorry, but your appeal is declined." "In fact we're interested in what you're going to say." Twenty-one titles. Three owners asked. Three refused.
Read the briefing (2 pages) → Councillor reportColin Plant: You Didn't Do the Work
Nine years on council, seeking a fourth term. Asked for the numbers that justified the enforcement expansion and was told tickets would not pay for it. Moved the policy that dropped the safeguards, moved the bylaw that armed the officers, seconded the motion that kept the public out of the room, moved ten of the twenty notices on title Saanich registered from 2020 to 2025. In the chair at open forum, stopped two residents' clocks inside a minute.
Read the review → The archiveEvery Word Saanich Council Has Spoken Since 2017
495 meetings, 12.2 million spoken words, searchable in under a second and cross-linked to every agenda, report and minute. How it was built, what it does, and what it has already returned. Nothing said in open council since 2017 is lost. It grows with every meeting.
Read how it works (2 pages) → The letter to CouncilYour Words on the Record, 2018 to 2026
What the archive returns for the Mayor, each councillor and the CAO, by name, sent to all of them on September 25 with a deadline to dispute any quotation. The deadline passed without a reply.
Read the letter (2 pages) →