Hamilton Marsh

In a recent release Stuart McLean, chair of the RDN. said “We are deeply grateful to our funding partners, community organizations and residents whose collective support has made the protection of Hamilton Marsh possible,” This statement implies that residents were firstly, "asked" and presumably the majority were in favour of the acquisition as ultimately funded. In fact no referendum was undertaken at any point in the process as not legally required, and our directors feel no moral obligation to ask taxpayers before indebting us to the the tune of $21,200,000 in long term debt.

You may recall that the original proposal included a purchase price of $30,000,000 with $21,200,000 (75%) by taxpayer funded debt and $7,500,000 (25%) contributed from fundraising partners. After more than 6 months, fundraising targets were not met, and instead of reading this as evidence of limited public support for the project, the RDN instead re-negotiated the transaction.

The transaction now scheduled to close on March 31st 2026, has the purchase price reduced to $28 million, the loan still at $21.2 million, plus $4.1 million taken from RDN regional parks reserve funds (contributed by taxpayers) and $2.7 million from external fundraising.

While not included on the RDN project website, the borrowing bylaw includes a further $371,122 in acquisition costs that are presumably paid for by the taxpayers.

Essentially, the Hamilton Marsh transaction is now 90% paid for by tax payers and 10% by fundraising partners. This of course does not include the anticipated ongoing interest costs over the next 20 years of a further $11 million dollars, nor does it include the inevitable park development plan for parking, signage and general management.

As I wrote in an earlier articles, I am not against the conservation of this land, I am however against the process undertaken to acquire the land. In my view, land conservation should be achieved in partnership between the federal and provincial governments supported by philanthropy. It is also not evident to me, that sufficient broad based local taxpayer support was ever demonstrated to the RDN to take on taxpayer funded debt for a discretionary expense of this magnitude for land conservation classified as a Regional Park.

I ask taxpayers to consider that under current legislation, the RDN could repeat this process many times over. When asked about the need for borrowing referendums the RDN confirmed;

"No, the RDN is not required to hold a referendum for this long-term borrowing. Section 3 of the Regional District Liabilities Regulation in the Local Government Act allows regional park and regional trail borrowing without elector approval if the total of the outstanding amount of borrowing for the service and the amount proposed to be borrowed will not exceed the greater of $5 Million, and an amount equal to $5 per $1,000 of assessed value. 

The current borrowing amount of the Regional Parks and Trails Service plus the $21.2 million proposed borrowing are calculate to significantly lower than $5 per $1,000 of assessed value, the current calculation is $329 million. Therefore, the RDN is well within the borrowing limits and can proceed without requiring a referendum."

Unless we start using our voices and pens to ensure taxes are kept within our ability to pay, by asking our elected officials to prioritize spending on critical infrastructure renewal, I can see this situation repeat itself many times over. We currently have Federal and Provincial governments both operating at all time high levels of deficit and debt. The Provincial government has given our Regional Districts the ability to follow in their footsteps. High debt at Regional District level is probably unavoidable, however I think the majority of taxpayers would prefer our elected officials treat taxpayer money as a limited resource to be prioritized on essentials.

Marie Noel

March 10th 2026

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More info

RDN News Release