UBC Professor Patrick Condon used Facebook to circulate an opinion from former NDP Minister of Municipal Affairs, Darlene Marzari. It had been published in BC Orders of the Day, a journal for BC MLAs.

I FEARED THIS DAY IN 1990. NOW IT HAS ARRIVED

When | served as British Columbia’s Minister of Municipal Affairs, I believed – deeply – that strong cities were essential to a healthy province. I also believed that local governments, imperfect as they are, must retain primary responsibility for city planning. Since 1990, I have worried that this principle would one day be set aside in the name of expediency. With the passage of Bills 44, 46, and 47 in 2023, and now Bill M216 in 2025, that fear has been realized.

These bills mark a profound shift in the balance of power between the province and local governments. They strip municipalities of long-standing planning authority – authority that has been carefully built over decades – and replace it with a centralized, one-size-fits-all approach to land use. This is not reform. It is a repudiation of local democracy.

I understand the urgency of the housing crisis. I also understand the frustration with slow approvals and uneven outcomes. But it is a mistake to conclude that the problem is local planning itself, or that the solution is to override it. Cities are not the cause of high housing prices. Land speculation, global capital flows, and decades of policy choices that inflated land values are far more powerful forces. Weakening local planning will not tame those forces; it will simply make cities less able to manage their consequences.

For generations, municipalities in British Columbia nave balanced growth with livability – negotiating community amenities, protecting neighbourhood character, integrating infrastructure, and responding to local conditions. This work is complex and necessarily contextual. A coastal city is not an interior town; a transit- rich urban neighbourhood is not a rural community.

Planning cannot be reduced to provincial mandates without losing what makes places function well.

What troubles me most is not just the erosion of local authority, but the abandonment of a hard-earned understanding: that good planning is about more than housing counts. It is about schools and parks, childcare and public space, streets that are safe to walk, and neighbourhoods that foster social connection. When the province removes local governments’ ability to negotiate these outcomes, it also removes their capacity to make density livable and durable.

I feared this moment in 1990 because I saw how fragile the partnership between the province and municipalities could be. That partnership depended on mutual respect and on the recognition that local governments are closest to the people they serve. Today’s legislation signals a loss of faith in that idea – and that is deeply regrettable.

History shows that when planning authority is centralized, accountability weakens. Decisions become more abstract, less responsive, and more vulnerable to short-term political pressure. Ironically, this can slow housing delivery rather than speed it, as local trust erodes and opposition hardens.

British Columbia needs housing, urgently. But it also needs cities that work – socially, economically, and environmentally. We will not achieve that by sidelining local governments. We will achieve it by restoring collaboration, strengthening planning capacity, and addressing the real drivers of unaffordability.

I regret that we have come to this point. I fear we will regret it even more if we do not change course.

(Editor’s note: In December, the town of View Royal put out an invitation to all BC municipalities to take part in a potential judicial review of the province’s housing policies, including Bills 44, 47, 13, 15 and M216. View Royal’s Mayor Sid Tobias said in an interview with the Capital Daily that these policies “raise serious questions about whether local governments can continue to operate as accountable democratic institutions.” UBCM members raised similar concerns, in particular, about Bill M216.)