Thoughts on BC Politics and More

To address the effects of punishing tariffs on wood exports, the province is handing nearly $8 million to two Vancouver Island forest companies to allow them to adapt their products for new markets. Western Forest Products’ value-added plant in Chemainus will get up to $7.5 million, and Island TimberFrame in Cumberland will receive as much as $325,000, as the province aims to help the industry innovate and increase the number of value-added jobs. Jobs Minister Ravi Kahlon said the investment will allow the two wood manufacturers to pivot faster to higher-value products that will help them reach more reliable markets and customers, while protecting jobs in forestry-dependent communities ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Growing up in Gordon Head, every neighbourhood had that one weird kid. You know the type — the one who insisted on being “different” in all the wrong ways. The kid who refused to bathe, dressed differently than everyone else and seemed to take pride in breaking every unspoken rule of decency. While they weren’t “hated,” they didn’t have many friends and other kids would keep their distance. You might have to interact with them at school or pass them on your walk home, but you always did so carefully and reluctantly — never letting their chaos spill over into your life. In our region, Victoria has become that kid ... CLICK HERE for the full story  

Brennan Day, MLA for Courtenay–Comox and Conservative Official Opposition Critic for Rural and Seniors’ Health, is calling on the government to immediately reverse its plan to end supplemental funding for overtime and agency staffing in publicly subsidized long-term care and assisted living facilities on October 31, 2025. “This is a short-sighted, reckless, and frankly dangerous decision. Cutting the very tools care homes use to keep residents safe will cost seniors their dignity and, for some, potentially their lives,” said Day. “The government must walk this back—now.” Seniors in rural communities will bear the brunt of growing backlogs and closed beds.   “Nearly 1 in 6 B.C. seniors live in rural areas, with the largest shares in Interior and Island Health. Those regions already face tougher workforce shortages and fewer alternatives. Removing overtime and agency options will hit them first and hardest,” said Day. “The average wait time for a long-term care bed in t...

Elected officials on Vancouver Island at the local, provincial and federal levels are calling for urgent action to support British Columbia's struggling coastal forestry sector.  At a news conference Monday, Conservative MLA for North Island Anna Kindy, North Island-Powell River MP Aaron Gunn, along with eight Island mayors, urged BC Premier David Eby and Prime Minister Mark Carney to address the matter, highlighting mill closures, job losses, and the decline of rural communities as key concerns ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

Residents of the Gulf Islands are speaking out against an application made by a travel organization to use campsites on the BC coast. The National Outdoor Leadership School, a U.S. non-profit that teaches students skills through various wilderness programs, is applying for 77 individual sites of Crown land for overnight sea kayaking programs. The campsites, selected from the BC Marine Trails network and scattered across Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, will add to the organization’s list of sites it has used locally since it first began operating on Crown lands in the BC Coastal Range in 1998. According to a spokesperson from the Lasqueti Island Local Trust, 46 emails have been received from residents objecting to the application for the 77 sites, one of which is planned for Lasqueti Island ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

Logging trucks in the Upper Walbran Valley were met with an unusual blockade Monday morning — a 15-foot cougar sculpture erected by anonymous forest defenders demanding permanent protection of one of Vancouver Island’s last intact old-growth watersheds. The group, which says it has the blessing of several local First Nations elders, is targeting eight provincially approved cut blocks in Tree Farm License 44. The license is currently held by C̕awak ʔqin Forestry, a limited partnership between the Huu-ay-aht First Nation and Western Forest Products ... CLICK HER E for the full story  

On a cloudy February morning in 2019, the owners of a century-old pulp mill in Port Alice, on northern Vancouver Island, told their workers to leave, shut off the power and “lock the gate.”  Inside, a sprawling waste site containing oil, asbestos, mercury, chlorine and carcinogenic chemicals stood at “imminent risk of failure.” Six years and one landfill landslide later, the province has spent over $150 million to address the site’s immediate risks — but dangers remain ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

A First Nation on northern Vancouver Island is considering how to deal with a request from members to expel and banish drug dealers and bootleggers on its reserves. Elected Kwakiutl First Nation chief Verna Hunt said band members voted June 9 in favour of a motion calling for four of its members living on reserve to be exiled and struck from the nation’s membership list. The members are accused of selling illicit drugs and alcohol in the community. “We’ve been mandated by our community members to banish or evict these people,” she said in an interview, adding that the request came from members, not council. Hunt said the council will approach the situation carefully, to ensure both the nation’s rights and the rights of the accused are upheld in the process ... CLICK HERE for the full story

I f the NDP is going to rebuild after a difficult federal election campaign, it needs to work on its messaging, according to the lone NDP candidate who held onto a Vancouver Island riding. Gord Johns, who retained his Courtenay-Alberni seat with 39.6% of the vote, defeating Conservative challenger Kris McNichol — who got 34.6 per cent — said the party’s message just didn’t seem to resonate with voters. “We saw the Conservatives with slogans they couldn’t even explain” Johns said Tuesday ... said it’s frustrating when he sees people struggling with the cost of living while big business, big oil, big banks, big grocery stores and big telecommunication companies have record profits and large real estate conglomerates are buying up residential housing ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Political scientists are predicting a “white knuckle” federal election night with “major upheavals” on Vancouver Island. They see the possibility of a Liberal surge edging out some NDP incumbents or vote-splitting that delivers victory to the Conservatives. “I think there’s going to be a lot of upsets,” said Michael Prince, the University of Victoria’s acting dean of human and social development. Of the seven federal electoral districts on ­Vancouver Island, Prince said, ridings to watch include ... CLICK HERE for the full story

K’ómoks First Nation members have overwhelmingly voted to accept a modern treaty with the B.C. and federal governments that has been in the making since 1994. The treaty ratification vote that concluded on Saturday night saw 81 per cent of votes in favour of ratification. K’ómoks also ratified its constitution, with 83 per cent of voters in favour ... CLICK HERE for the full story Check out this related story: L awsuit challenges 1940s amalgamation of Vancouver Island bands

. . . House of Commons petition calls for a $1 billion fund to be established using B.C. and federal funding opportunities for public transit. It recommends using that money to create a modern freight and passenger service on Vancouver Island. Such a service would be a strategic asset on the island, said the petition. The petition said the non-profit Island Corridor Foundation should be recognized as being in the public interest and that it would need guaranteed funding if the project moves ahead. The Foundation, which owns the corridor, consists of 14 First Nations and five regional districts. Freight service could run along the north-south route and out to the harbour at Port Alberni where cars could then head to Nanaimo and then onto the Mainland . . . CLICK HERE for the full story

An expanded Vancouver Island major crime unit is needed as communities grow and serious crime increases, local mayors say. Sooke Mayor Maia Tait and Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog both welcome an initiative of B.C. Solicitor General Mike Farnworth to examine the expansion of the Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime unit to all Island communities. Farnworth has directed the province’s policing and security branch to work with the B.C. RCMP on the issue. He has written to 22 Island municipalities, First Nations and police forces inviting them to participate in preliminary consultations ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The BC Supreme Court has convicted Green Party deputy leader Angela Davidson – also known as Rainbow Eyez – of seven counts of criminal contempt for her participation in the Fairy Creek logging blockades on Vancouver Island in 2021 and 2022 ... ... Davidson was initially arrested on May 18, 2021, after she locked herself to a logging road gate within the injunction zone. She had a bicycle lock around her neck that was attached to the gate, and had one arm chained inside of a pipe that was attached to another person’s arm ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Colwood council is looking at taking its first steps into the medical clinic business with the help of private-sector partners. Mayor Doug Kobayashi wants to explore the legal possibilities for a medical clinic in Colwood’s growing Royal Bay neighbourhood that would be fully or partially owned by the city, administered through a non-profit. The idea formed after many conversations with doctors and the Saunders Family Foundation on how to best attract family physicians to the West Shore, Kobayashi said ... CLICK HERE for the full story

A Vancouver Island woman with late stage cancer says B.C.’s care system is broken. Kristin Logan said she waited weeks after her diagnosis for treatment that never came, and that she’s worried many more cancer patients in the province are slipping through the cracks. The Campbell River mother is battling stage-4 ovarian cancer, and says she relishes a challenge — but nothing like this ... CLICK HERE for the full story

BC Premier David Eby heard from Vancouver Island leaders, who raised key issues hurting economic development across the region.   After addressing the crowd at Nanaimo’s conference centre Thursday, Eby fielded questions and concerns from business and industry leaders, politicians and communities on the key issues hurting economic development across Vancouver Island ... CLICK HERE for the full story

  B.C.’s small rural communities striving for water security as droughts become the norm still sink or swim without much assistance from the province, policy experts say.    Most of the province has been in the clutches of unprecedented — but long anticipated — climate-induced drought for most of the summer. About 55 per cent of B.C.'s water basins are at Level 5 on the provincial drought scale — the point when adverse socioeconomic or ecosystem impacts are almost certain.    Vancouver Island, renowned for its rainforests, has experienced prolonged severe or extreme drought for the past three summers. In an effort to preserve water for people, fish, livestock and growing food on central Vancouver Island, the province has imposed temporary water restrictions in watersheds for the Tsolum River and Koksilah and Cowichan rivers. Industrial water users and farmers growing water-intensive forage crops have had to shut off their taps. It has also imposed simi...