Niall Parker

candidate for Islands Trust, North Pender Trustee, 2026

Introduction

I’ve been a Penderite for 25 years, raising our family and involved in the community from the beginning, volunteering with various organizations including the Emergency Program, Moving Around Pender (trails/bus/etc), RCMSAR Station 20 (search and rescue) and others. I am an engineer by occupation, fortunate to be able to work remotely from the earliest days of telecommuting, leaving me lots of time to enjoy our island and community. I have worked with many of our IT trustees over the years but this is the first time running as a candidate.

Platform

The Gulf Islands were recognized as an area requiring special protection and management of development leading to the formation of the Islands Trust. While IT has its flaws, it is what we have to work with for the foreseeable future.

• “Preserve and Protect” applies primarily to our environment, with our human community necessarily built on top of it. Humans have been here a long time, modifying the environment as we need to live but planning decisions by the LTC need to minimize our impact.
• Rational and transparent decision making: we all have our feelings but decisions are best made on whatever objective data is available. Every decision will be a tradeoff, clearly identify all sides of the issues before deciding.
• Efficient use of our resources: water, energy, space, waste disposal ... in all these areas, island communities must manage with tighter constraints than other places.
• Focus: the Local Trust Committee is primarily about land use decisions, guided by our Official Community Plan. We need to avoid distractions into areas where other levels of government have responsibility.

If elected as a North Pender Trustee, I will do my best to serve our community in our planning decisions and working with any other agencies toward common goals. Contact me by email (np4ltc@balsk.ca) if you have questions, thanks !