Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - At their February 9th meeting, the SRD Board voted against setting aside $50,000 to support community climate action planning initiatives.

The motion was brought forward by Cortes Island Regional Director Noba Anderson, who suggested the project fit into their strategic objectives for 2022.

“When I compare the budget commentary and service goals here to our strategic priorities, this was the one that really stood out to me as a strategic priority that could be very specifically budgeted in resource for in support of existing initiatives that are happening in our communities either that are undertaken by a municipality or social profit sector or some combination thereof that are struggling to find funds to do these climate action plans,” she explained. “If we were able to put aside a very modest amount for a original district of our size, that communities could reach out to the regional district for some collaborative matching funds to support their already ongoing work, I think that would be a very small way of leveraging excellent work that's already underway.”

Regional Director Brenda Leigh spoke against the motion, “ I think that if we are committed to climate action, then we should have established a climate action committee that would oversee how any initiatives are implemented from our regional district. I’m not in favour of what director Anderson's proposing, which is to just cast $50,000 out into the air for non-profit groups to access funding. To me that's just like grants and aid. There's no real control over how the funds are spent.” If they decide, say just an example on Cortes, if they want 20,000 to support the old growth flying squad or whatever it's called. Will they get that money? How will they spend it? And how will it be accounted for?”

She reiterated the need for the SRD to have serious policy, goals and objectives for a program like this. They need to prioritize the initiative and control the funds and prioritize the initiatives.

Since they started holding meetings online, the board found the quickest method of tallying votes is to start by counting people who are opposed.

The minutes of this meeting list 8 directors voting against the motion ( Andy Adams, Mark Baker, Colleen Evans, Ron Kerr, Brenda Leigh, Sean Smyth Brad Unger and Gerald Whalley).

If you listen carefully, you can hear one more opposing vote in the audio: Claire Moglove.

That leaves five five directors who were presumably in favour of the motion: Noba Anderson, Jim Abram, who seconded the motion, Julie Colborne, Martin Davis and Kevin Jules

The motion was defeated, by a 9 to 5 vote.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - As the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) prepares to amend its indebtedness agreement with CityWest, to pay for the installation of high speed internet, Regional Director Jim Abram is concerned that parts of area C are being left out.

Later in the meeting he also mentioned which is o West Thurlow Island.

The maps that SRD staff sent to the directors on April 19th last year do not show the Cape Mudge light house, Cape Mudge or Tsa Kwa Luten Lodge, on the southern tip of Quadra Island, within the service area.

Nor did they include Surge Narrows, on Read Island, or Blind Channel, on West Thurlow Island.

(Cortes Currents posted the complete set of maps on May 4, 2021.)

At that point it was clear that only Cortes Island, the village of Zeballos and communities of Bold Point, Granite Bay and Open Bay on Northern Quadra Island would receive the 90% funding available through the Connected Coast Program. (The SRD is providing the remaining 10%.)

The SRD agreed to borrow up to $12,540,255 so that CityWest could also install high-speed broadband infrastructure in Gold River, Sayward, Tahsis and most of Southern Quadra Island.

Now CityWest has agreed to amend the agreement, so that Regional District will receive 20% return of profits from Quadra Island, Gold River, Sayward Valley and Tahsis for a term of 20 years. In exchange, each community is to make a 5% capital contribution to its last mile construction project. The agreement will stipulate that the capital contributions on behalf of each community will not exceed the construction estimates that are outlined in the agreement.

When this document was discussed at the Wednesday, February 9th SRD Board meeting, Regional Director Abram expressed concerns about the southern tip of Quadra and the principal settlement on Read Island being left out.

“They should be in this written report, so that it carries them forward for future reports. So that we don't lose out,” he said.

Chief Administrative Officer David Leitch explained that the Board had already approved the two funding agreements.

“Okay, but the Surge Narrows build should be in this agreement,” said Abram.

“These are the last mile agreements, these don’t have anything to do with the landings.” replied Leitch.

“How will it be paid, if it's not written up somewhere in this agreement?” demanded Abram.

Leitch explained, “The maps in that agreement identify the homes to be served.”

“I don't have that in front of me because it doesn't come up on my iPad,” said Abram. “Can you assure me, though, that last mile agreements exist somewhere for Blind Channel, Surge Narrows and the [Cape Mudge] Lighthouse?”

Campbell River Mayor Andy Adams asked for a vote on receipt of the staff report.

Chair Brad Unger called for the vote on receipt of the report.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - A Strathcona Regional District motion to remove the term ‘unceded’ from acknowledgements of First Nations territory was defeated, in a 8 to 6 vote, at the Wednesday, Feb 9 Board meeting.

The motion arose during a discussion of the SRD’s First Nations territorial policy.

Regional Director Gerald Whalley, who made the motion, explained, “Our provincial negotiators don't use the word ‘ceded’ for a very specific reason. We shouldn't use it either. “

The seconder, Regional Director Jim Abram, added, “Traditional territory is very easily defined. It's what is defined by the First Nation and the province as the traditional territory of any First Nation. The ‘unceded’ part gets mixed up with the treaty process, which we shouldn't really be commenting on.”

Speaking as a former lawyer, Campbell River Director Claire Moglove described the word ‘unceded’ as ‘a statement of the reality of the situation.’

“Once treaties are finalized, the word ‘unceded’ will come off the table. This word unceded is hugely important to this process and in my opinion, if it's not there, our policy will not be worth the paper it's written on,” she said.

Mayor Julie Colborne of Zeballos agreed, adding that there are both ceded and unceded territories in the SRD.

“Anything that is not acknowledged and finalized under treaty retains that unceded designation,” she said.

Abram responded, “There is alleged and saying something is true. Unless you know it is true: then it’s alleged, It is not true. This is the same situation.”

The only First Nations Director on the SRD Board, Kevin Jules of the Kyuquot/Checlesaht First Nation, said, “It feels like we are beating a dead horse here. This has been talked about over and over and over again. It was brought to the First Nations relations committee. It was voted on and I don't see why it's why it's such a big problem.”

Chair Brad Unger asked if anyone was opposed to the motion.

Eight of the SRD’s fourteen directors (Anderson, Baker, Colborne, Davis, Evans, Jules, Moglove and Unger) voted against the motion to remove the word ‘unceded’ from territorial acknowledgements. The motion was defeated.

Image credit: Looking across from Campbell River to Quadra Island in the unceded territory of the First Nations - Photo by David Stanley via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Electoral Area C is the largest electoral area within the Strathcona Regional District. It spreads out over 10,650 square kilometres: from Quadra to Read, East and West Redonda Islands, East and West Thurlow Islands, Hardwick Island and some of the Mainland Inlets. In the second of five articles arising from the SRD Board meeting of Feb 9th, 2022, Cortes Currents is looking at how the tax dollars from this area were spent in 2021.

There has been an explosion of real estate values.

As SRD Chief Financial Officer Mike Harmston explained, homeowners “are willing to pay 30%, or 40%, or 50% more. That’s what’s causing the shift in the assessments.”

Regional Director Jim Abram pointed out that this rise does not necessarily reflect sales in your area:

“Right on my tax assessment bill this year it says there have been no sales of a property similar to yours in the last three years. So this is politics in Paris, used to be really more. They're just grabbing straws out of the air.”

The good news is that while housing prices have been going up, tax assessments per $100,000 have been going down.

The SRD’s component of the average property tax bill dipped about $10 in 2021 and is expected go up about $30 in 2022.

This total does not include money for the fire department, police, schools, hospitals etc, which other authorities levy through property taxes.

The wharves at Owen Bay on on Sonora Island, Port Neville on the Mainland and Surge Narrows on Read Island appear in the SRD’s books, but along with a notation that “operating costs for wharves are currently funded by Transport Canada divestiture funds.” The segment of the chart that would normally display tax requisitions for these projects displays a zero.

Close to two thirds of the tax revenues under the SRD’s control goes to corporate, regional or electoral area services.

The biggest ticket items in these categories are:

A little over $204,000 for electoral Area administration

$172,000 for planning

$167,000 for the Vancouver Island Public Library

$83,000 for corporate administration and general government

Some other items of interest:

$41,000 for 911 Emergency Answering Service

$29,000 Strathcona Emergency Service

$27,000 towards Regional Broadband

Roughly a third of SRD’s tax requisitions in this area are actually listed under ‘Area C.’

The two largest entires in this category are:

$190,000 for Parks

$175,000 for the Quadra Community Hall

Area C also has a Grant in Aid budget of close to $41,000 a year, but has sufficient surplus from previous years to cover 2022.

You have been listening to an overview of how property taxes are spent within Area C, especially as pertains to sums under the control of the Strathcona Regional district.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The budget for 2022 was one of the principle topics at the Strathcona Regional Districts Board Meeting, on Wednesday, February 9th. Part of this process involved looking into the finances for 2021. So in the first of a five part series arising from that meeting, Cortes Currents is looking into how the SRD is spending our money.

Many Cortes Island residents have probably noticed that they are paying about the same amount for taxes in 2021 as they did the year before. While this will change in 2022, it is only by about $47 for the average home.

Cortes Island Regional Director Noba Anderson explained that this is ‘because the tax rate is going up, [and] the actual requisition per thousand is going down.’

SRD Chief Financial Officer Mike Harmsworth said, “Electoral area B had one of the highest assessment increases for any of our areas. So they're going to be the most effected by the shift. Area B is primarily residential, so there's not a big impact. We're looking at a total requisition increase of about a $33,000.”

He was talking about property values.

A homeowner whose tax assessment was $1,005 for 2020, saw that increase one dollar (to $1,006) in 2021, will probably find themselves looking at a $1,053 bill in 2022. That is a $47 increase, which doesn’t take into account deductions for people who are retired or living in our homes.

As might be expected in a rural community like Cortes Island, the three big ticket items are government services, the fire department and parks.

Max Thaysen/ Cortes Currents - At the January 20th Annual general meeting of the Friends of Cortes Island society, or FOCI, Arlene Tompkins gave a presentation on the Forage Fish Monitoring project.

Forage fish, also called prey fish or bait fish, are small pelagic fish which are preyed on by larger predators for food. Predators include other larger fish, seabirds and marine mammals. Typical ocean forage fish feed near the base of the food chain on plankton, often by filter feeding. They include particularly fishes of the order Clupeiformes (herrings, sardines, shad, hilsa, menhaden, anchovies, and sprats), but also other small fish, including halfbeaks, silversides, smelt such as capelin and goldband fusiliers. Historically they have been a commercially harvested order on this coast and globally still account for about a 3rd of the fish catch – which is primarily used for raising livestock.

(credit - wikipedia)

Arlene described the goals of the project as intended to determine the location, timing and habitat preferences of spawning forage fish, especially surf smelt and pacific sand lance.

Additionally, the effort is intended to bring awareness to these important fish and encourage their protection from impacts by humans through pollution and habitat destruction through shoreline development.

The team monitors two sites at Manson's Landing provincial park and one at smelt bay.

Samples of sand are taken, reduced, filtered and then examined under microscope to find the eggs.

So far the team hasn't found any surf smelt eggs, but has found pacific sand lance eggs many times. The fish around Cortes seem to spawn a little earlier in the year than the rest of the Salish Sea.

The project has many contributing partners.

World Wildlife Fund Canada initiated the effort, with UBC and DFO providing methodolgy and project watershed society out of Courtney coordinating monitoring groups such as the Friends of Cortes Island Forage Fish team.

Mount Arrowsmith Biosphere Research Group provided much of the training to monitoring volunteers.

To get in touch with the project, contact the friends of cortes island – which you can do through their website friendsofcortes.org.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - New evidence suggests that First Nations people may have arrived in north Vancouver Island as early as 18,500 years ago.

Chris Hebda, from the Hakai Institute, is the lead author of a study that found that Topknot Lake, near Cape Scott, has been ice free that long. In today’s interview he also gives a tentative outline of our area’s history from post ice age settlement down to the First Nations that we recognize today.

“We looked at two different sites on Vancouver island. Topknot lake, which is within about two kilometres of the ocean and Little Woss Lake, which is basically right in the Northern portion of the Vancouver island ranges,” he explained.

Core samples taken from the bottom of those lakes illustrated how the landscape had changed throughout the millennia.

The first people to settle in this area probably arrived by boat. They probably hunted seals, harvested fish, shellfish, berries and cold climate plants. Vancouver Island probably looked more like modern Greenland than the forested landscape we are used to. There would have been lots of grass, daisies and some smaller trees like willows.

Hebda and his colleagues discovered that Topknot Lake was ice free at this time and possessed an environment similar to what the first settlers would have been familiar with.

“The key thing about our study is the demonstration that we have an environment in which people could live,” said Hebda.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - At 9:08 AM on the morning of February 9th, 2022, a Squirrel Cove resident phoned the Coast Guard about a fire just north of Refuge Cove, on West Redonda Island. What she thought might be a house engulfed by fire turned out to be a 34 foot wood and fibre glass boat close to the shore. The Klahoose water taxi and boats from Refuge Cove responded to the emergency.

The boat owner is an oyster farmer, who is well known in Squirrel Cove. He escaped from the fire in a canoe.

Coast Guard Communications Advisor Michelle Imbeau said the

‘Cape St James,’ one of two Coast Guard lifeboats stationed in Campbell River, was tasked to attend. It escorted the boat owner to the Squirrel Cove dock by 11 AM.

Cortes Island emergency personal were quick to respond. Fire Chief Mac Diver was waiting on the dock. Overnight accommodation was found for the boat owner.

Imbeau said, “The Campbell River Lifeboat crew are now monitoring the fire from a safe distance. They will remain on scene until the situation is under control and the fire is out. The Canadian Coast Guard does not fight vessel fires. Once the fire is out, the vessel will be assessed for next steps, up to and including salvage.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Union of BC Indian Chiefs is the latest First Nations group to speak against the so called truckers ‘Freedom Convey’ which pulled into Ottawa on January 29th.

According to the BBC, what began as a protest against truckers needing to prove they have been vaccinated before entering Canada, appears to have become a cry for all pandemic measures to be repealed.

The organizers have allegedly pledged to keep going "for as long as it takes... until Canada is a free nation again".

in his morning facebook broadcast from Ottawa, a trucker calling himself ‘the crackpot farmer’ said the leaders of his movement are holding a press conference with all the media at 1 PM eastern time today (Feb 9th).

He added, “that's an interesting development because, up until now, we've kind of not been on speaking terms with those people.”

Chief Judy Wilson, Secretary/Treasurer of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs said, “We were seeing the concerns with the other nations, like Algonquin and some of the nations in Alberta. They didn't feel they were being respected. That's not a good way to ask for our support or for our involvement. That's actually belittling and putting our people down. It didn't feel quite like a freedom for Indigenous people.”

Last Friday, the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians issued a press release stating, “Among the many images of the convoy protest in Ottawa are videos of people dancing using Indigenous hand drums, participating in a mock peace pipe ceremony, and the use of what appears to be a sacred fire. Grand Chief Joel Abram states ‘This is completely unacceptable and it’s making a mockery of all Indigenous Peoples.’”

First Nations leaders in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta condemned the Truckers misappropriation of First Nations ceremonies.

The President of the Manitoba Metis condemned the truckers use of Métis symbols, like their sash, adding:

“Canadians and Red River Métis Citizens always have the right to protest, but as your elected representatives, we have the duty to inform all Canadians that these individuals and this convoy in no way represent what we believe in. We are all in this together and staying together is the only way we will be able to walk the path to the other side of this pandemic.”

A number media images show truckers carrying confederate flags and even swastikas.

The Union of BC Indian Chiefs issued a press release stating, “In Ottawa, not only were racist flags flown, racist signs paraded around, monuments desecrated, and a homeless shelter threatened, thousands of people and hundreds of vehicles occupied downtown Ottawa – the traditional territory of the Algonquin Peoples. The Algonquin Nation has called the actions occurring in their territory “unacceptable,” stating they did not support the set-up of a teepee, the pipe ceremony and sacred fire in Confederation Park. The appropriation of Indigenous culture to serve a divisive, misinformed agenda is horrific and indicative of the hateful, racist nature of the protests occurring across Canada.”

Wilson added that truckers have also made remarks about Islamic immigrants and people of colour.

“This is displaced racism and discrimination against people who are already struggling and people who are already trying to make a better life here in Canada,” she said.

Wilson pointed out that, regardless of what people may think, a lot of people are in the hospital, some have died and many have severe complications from COVID. Her sister (a nurse) and mother are among those that came down with COVID, and her mother still does not have any sense of taste or smell.

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - Back in December 2021 a significant upgrade was taking place at the Gorge Harbour log dump (East end of the harbour). Heavy equipment had been brought in; grading and filling were in progress and some trees had been cut to widen the access road.

A new all-metal ramp or slide had been installed (for rolling logs down into the water).

And a network of boomsticks had been installed to enclose a floating log dump.

By early February the dump was active. On February 5th a dozer boat was busy herding log bundles into a raft, and a truck was delivering more bundles. An Atco trailer (portable prefab building) has been installed — as office space or possibly a camp — but it appears there’s no Hydro drop yet.

For those who have not seen this operation: the logs are held in a cradle on an articulated truck/trailer rig. The upright arms of the trailer can hinge downward on either side. The logs are strapped together into a bundle while on the truck. When the truck arrives, the driver unfastens the strapping and replaces it with cinches made of steel cable, so the logs are still bundled but now independent of the truck.

The truck is then pulled forward to the dump location, and the shoreside cradle arms are dropped. The driver then uses a handy excavator to push the logs off the truck and onto the ramp, where they skid downward into the water.