A privately maintained petition for a Denman governance study
It is time for Denman Island to govern itself.
Founding-signature phase · help us reach the first 100 confirmed Denman supporters.
Denman had 1,391 residents in the 2021 Census, fourteen overlapping governance bodies, no elected local council, and no single body accountable to anyone who lives here. We’re petitioning the Province of British Columbia for a Restructure Study — the first formal step toward incorporating Denman as its own municipality, on the model of Bowen Island.
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The problem at a glance
One island, fourteen lines of authority.
Denman has community life in one place, but public authority is split across ministries, regional districts, federal regulators, utilities, societies, and appointed boards. The petition asks the Province for the study that lets residents test a simpler model.
Denman Island recorded 1,391 residents in the 2021 Census and has additional seasonal residents. Our population grew nearly 20 percent between 2016 and 2021 — roughly two and a half times the BC provincial average of 7.6 percent over the same period. We are an island of farmers, artists, retirees, tradespeople, builders, and families. We have a school, two community halls, a fire department, two churches, a museum, a market, a clinic, and more registered non-profits than streetlights.
What we do not have is a single elected body that anyone living here can hold accountable. Land-use planning is run by a three-person committee chaired by a Trust appointee who lives somewhere else. Roads are run by the Ministry of Transportation in Victoria. Solid waste, water, recreation, and emergency services are delivered through a regional district headquartered in Courtenay. Bylaw enforcement is handled by a Trust officer over email. The waters around our island, which produce a large share of BC’s farmed shellfish — including most of its manila clams — are regulated by Fisheries and Oceans Canada from Ottawa. Fourteen separate non-profit, regional, provincial, and federal bodies divide the rest. We have democracy, but it is a democracy of fragments.
The path that is actually available to us is the path Bowen Island took in 1999: incorporate as an island municipality, with our own mayor and council deciding what happens here. The Trust’s role would shrink from running most of our land-use governance to approving our Official Community Plan and managing the regional Conservancy. We are asking the Province of British Columbia to commission a Restructure Study under the Local Government Act — the same legal mechanism that produced Bowen in 1999 and Okanagan Falls in 2025 — so that Denman Island can decide its own future at a referendum. Below, you can read the case in detail. And below that, you can sign your name.
A ladder, not two contradictory asks
Denman can pursue local accountability while BC considers the larger system.
Incorporation is what Denman can pursue for itself under current law: first a provincially supported governance study and, only if residents later choose it, an island municipality within the Trust. It can improve local control, but it does not end the Islands Trust levy or solve every Trust-wide problem. Bowen Island demonstrates that limit.
Abolition is a separate, longer-term statutory change that only the Province can make. Denman Town’s near-term objective is confirmed local support for an independent study, not candidate recruitment and not a promise that incorporation fixes everything.
Why
Fourteen governance bodies. No single elected council.
A patchwork of regional districts, trust committees, residents’ associations, federal fisheries authority, and provincial ministries — none of which answer to Denman as a community. Plus the cable ferry, the roads, the power outages, the housing crisis reflected in the food bank’s growing caseload, the oyster leases that surround us, and the modern treaty unfolding right now.
Read the case →
How
The Bowen path, the Okanagan Falls path, the BC restructure process.
We are not the first community to ask for this. There is a well-marked legislative process under the BC Local Government Act, and two recent precedents that show what comes next.
Read the path →
Context
Fifty-two years of the Islands Trust. A century-and-a-half of Denman.
The Trust was an NDP-era reform that worked for a generation, then drifted. The ALR is our quieter twin. Denman is older than both. The full story matters.
Read the history →
The petition
A petition to the Government of British Columbia
To the Honourable Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs of the Province of British Columbia, and to all Members of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia.
We, the undersigned Denman Island residents, qualifying non-resident property electors, and connected supporters, respectfully petition the Government of British Columbia to commission a Restructure Study under the Local Government Act for the purpose of evaluating the incorporation of Denman Island as a self-governing municipality within the Islands Trust, informed by the Bowen Island Municipality model. Property ownership alone does not establish elector eligibility.
We make this request on the following grounds:
— Denman Island has grown by 19.4 percent between the 2016 and 2021 censuses — roughly two and a half times the BC provincial average growth rate over the same period;
— Denman Island is currently governed by a fragmented patchwork of overlapping authorities including the Islands Trust, the Comox Valley Regional District, the BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, BC Ferries, and separate community organizations and local service bodies, none of which is directly elected by and accountable to Denman residents as a single coherent local government;
— The Islands Trust Council has itself, in 2022 and again in 2024, formally requested a comprehensive provincial review of the Islands Trust Act and its governance structures;
— Bowen Island (1999) and the Okanagan Falls process approved by referendum in 2025 provide useful BC examples of restructure studies and local incorporation; Okanagan Falls is scheduled to incorporate formally on November 6, 2026;
— A Restructure Study is the lawful, evidence-based first step in this process, providing residents and the Province with the financial, demographic, and governance information necessary to make an informed decision at a referendum.
We therefore respectfully request that the Province commission a formal Restructure Study for Denman Island, with funding from the Restructure Planning Grant program of the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs, and conducted by an independent consultant in collaboration with Denman residents, the Comox Valley Regional District, the Islands Trust, and — in recognition of the K’ómoks Treaty currently being implemented — the K’ómoks First Nation, with appropriate acknowledgement of the Pentlatch People whose traditional territory includes Denman Island.
We are prepared to do the work alongside you. We are asking only for the chance to ask ourselves the question.
Signing takes 30 seconds. We email you a one-click link to confirm. Your name appears on the wall below within minutes. Your address is never displayed publicly.
Signatures
Founding-signature phase · help us reach the first 100 confirmed Denman supporters on the petition.
Every confirmed public signer is listed on one simple page.