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Jan 18 - Dog group says park plan falls flat
Weekly roundup and Turner Building replacement work starts this week.
Capital Daily Team
January 18, 2026
Good morning !
Love them as we do, dogs can sometimes be a nuisance and a threat to birds and other wildlife.
That tension is at the crux of our first story.
— Mark
Today’s approx. read time: 5 minutes
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NEWS
'We thought we had an agreement': Dog owners push back on Panama Flats bylaw postponement
Panama Flats. Photo courtesy of the District of Saanich
Last week, Saanich’s council endorsed a plan to rezone Panama Flats as a bird and nature sanctuary and pushed back a decision on what that means for dogs in the park.
That’s got some dog advocates saying they feel “blindsided” and “betrayed.”
“They’re a lot upset,” says Eulala Mills of the CRD DOGG Society—that stands for Dog Owners (and Friends) for Good Governance Society—which, along with its associated Facebook page, Happy Dogs in Sanich Park, counts 2K members.
“We thought we had an agreement,” Mills says.
In October, Saanich’s council approved a concept plan that prohibited dogs from certain areas of the flats but allowed them to be on-leash on designated trails and, most notably, leash-optional on an eight-foot-wide pathway bordered with bushes that runs less than a kilometre between Hyacinth Park and Roy Road.
Almost two dozen groups representing community associations, interest groups, and First Nations spent the better part of a year developing the plan for Panama Flats—a 26 ha (65-acre) natural area between Interurban and Carey that Saanich bought in 2011.
The plan calls for the district to focus less on producing agriculture in the flats and more on preserving their habitat and biodiversity, while still allowing people to enjoy the park.
The council approved the environmental aspect on Monday night. But it also voted to postpone discussing the animal bylaw component until the Jan. 26 council meeting.
“Staff brought the zoning and other needed changes to the Monday council meeting.” Mills says, but it “reneged on the commitment to dog owners and asked staff to come back with changes that take away off-leash access.”
Mills says her group “made a whole bunch of compromises, reasonable ones that we agreed were necessary, and we asked for one small thing.”
That one small thing: that leash-optional area.
Coun. Karen Harper, who introduced the motion to postpone the animal bylaw discussion, said the dog group jumped the gun on that.
“They never had a deal because there’s been no decision,” Harper tells Capital Daily.
⚠️ Capital Bulletin
Can you ID this TCH hit-and-run suspect? [RCMP]
Saanich single-lane alternating traffic:
* Prospect Lake Road between Burnside West and Munn, tomorrow, 9am-3:30pm
* Brookleigh at Oldfield, tomorrow through Wednesday, 8:30am-3pm
Have your say: Victoria’s noise bylaw and 2026 draft budget.
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