Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - We’ve probably all encountered AI by now. Some Large language model (LLM) AI programs are among the fastest and most comprehensive information tools on the Internet, and arguably, the most “stupid.” Have you ever been harassed by an AI-powered telephone service whose programmer neglected to include the concept of wrong numbers? Or been fed incorrect political information by an AI program that did not know which party or Prime Minister was in power? However if you want to check something like medieval canon law, to ensure the character the attitude of a character in the novel you're writing accurately portrays the times:  it can take seconds with ChatGPT. Everything has to be fact-checked and sources verified, but tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude remain remarkable and they’ll improve as the glitches are addressed. 

My guest this morning is Dr Vered Shwartz, an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia, a CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute, and the author of the book "Lost in Automatic Translation."

Vered Shwartz:  "AI is a really broad category, so I'll mostly maybe focus on generative AI, and, more specifically, large language models like ChatGPT. Several aspects could lead to betterment of humanity in accelerating knowledge discovery, like scientific knowledge discovery which could lead to solving problems such as cures for diseases, boosting economic productivity and even at the personal level, automating everyday tasks for us and making our lives easier. In fields like education, it can be used to provide access to knowledge to underserved communities and be used as a personal tutor."

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - More than a month has passed since Prime Minister Mark Carney took centre stage at the World Economic Forum with a speech calling for middle powers to forge strategic partnerships across energy, food, critical minerals, finance, and supply chains - standing up to lawless superpowers pursuing their own interests. Days have elapsed since Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre addressed the Economic Club of Canada, outlining his vision for a stronger Canada. In this morning's interview, Jennifer Lash, a former senior policy advisor for Environment Canada, compares their visions for the nation’s future.

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U - On February 27, 2026, host Manda Aufochs-Gillespie was joined by Regional Director, Mark Vonesch, for a live check-in about priorities, current issues, and other updates for Cortes residents. Phone-in and mail-in questions were welcomed.

Folk U Radio is taking old school viral every Friday at 1 p.m. and Mondays at 3 p.m./Wednesday at 6 a.m. @CKTZ89.5FM or livestreamed at cortesradio.ca. Find repeats anytime at www.folku.ca/podcasts.

Roy L Hales/ COrtes Currents -Work is about to resume in the Cortes Community Forest.

Mark Lombard, General Manager for the Cortes Forestry General Partnership, explained, "The spring cut is going to happen in the Coulter Bay area of the community forest. We'll probably start a small segment of road in about three weeks. While the road is being built, maybe a month from now, we're going to move over to Larson's Meadow. They're both relatively small projects."

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - If everything goes as planned, the first two rental suites at Rainbow Ridge Affordable Rental Project on Cortes Island will be ready in June, and six units could be occupied as early as January. In this morning's interview, Mark Lombard, the Construction Manager, provides an overview of how the work is progressing at Rainbow Ridge, as well as updates from the Cortes Housing Society's other housing sites—Orchard Village and the Makerspace.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Green party leader, Elizabeth May claims it's safer to move bitumen by rail than through pipelines. She has mentioned this in the House of Commons, written about it in her blog and told reporters. 'In a marine environment, diluted bitumen is, impossible to clean up.'

To which Michael Lowry from Western Canada Marine Response Corporation, responds, "The biggest spill we've ever cleaned up was a diluted bitumen spill."

Elizabeth May: "It wasn't dilbit." (DILuted BITumen)

They were actually referring to two different products. Lowry's company was cleaning up SynBit (SYNthetic BITumen), which is lighter, more likely to float, and thus easier to clean up than dilbit. They're both diluted bitumens that are shipped through pipelines, but SynBit is a 50/50 blend of bitumen and synthetic crude oil, whereas dilbit usually consists of approximately 70% bitumen and 30% diluent.

Lowry is the only one who means something other than dilbit when they mention diluted bitumen in this story.

Elizabeth May: "Since it's a solid, to put it in a pipe to get it to flow, they stir in fossil fuel condensate, naphtha, butane. Imagine that they stir in lighter fluid, stir in anything they can to get this solid tar called bitumen to flow through a pipeline, but unlike upgrading, this is not a step in the process of getting to a refineable product. This is only about getting it to flow through a pipeline. At its ultimate destination, a refinery, the diluent has to be removed."

May isn't endorsing the further expansion of Canada's fossil fuel sector. Her position on that is quite clear:

Elizabeth May: "Don't promote fossil fuel use. Don't build fossil fuel infrastructure - full stop - because of the climate crisis."

However if you are going to do it anyway:

Elizabeth May: "Our coastal waters are very, very much more at risk if we put bitumen in a pipeline."

"When Alberta and Federal fossil fuel supporters attempt to characterize British Columbia as a province or British Colombians and First Nations, as objectors to pipelines, they frame that objection as these people, these first nations, these environmentalists, this provincial government whatever, are trying to stop Alberta getting its resources to market."

"That's a quite familiar framing; That is completely false. Nobody would ever object to carrying solid bitumen to market, that's not the issue. The issue isn't keeping bitumen from going overseas."

"If you really want to get your product to market without getting British Colombians up in arms about destroying our ecosystems, threatening the 800 stream crossings between the Alberta border and the Burnaby Turnable terminal. If you want to ship that bitumen to buyers elsewhere in the world, you can put it on a train."

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U - Listen in on February 20th, 2026 to this episode of FolkU, which features a recording of Dr. Michael De Danann Datura's discussion of the spectacular (in the Guy Debord sense of the word) nature of ideology in late 20th and early 21st century culture. This included an exposé of the layered and concealed aspects of commodities via Kinder Surprise eggs; a critique of Hollywood’s authoritarian master fantasies as embodied in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, and a brief foray into what it might mean to embrace desire without stuff.

Folk U Radio is taking old school viral every Friday at 1 p.m. and Mondays at 6:30 p.m./Wednesday at 6 a.m. @CKTZ89.5FM or livestreamed at cortesradio.ca. Find repeats anytime at www.folku.ca/podcasts.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - In this morning's interview Manda Aufochs Gillespie, Executive Director of the Cortes Island Community Foundation, discusses a fund called Communitas and explains how the Cortes Foundation doubled the money for this year’s Grant in Aid.

The Cortes Island Community Foundation's roots go back to 2018 when, operating under the charitable umbrella of the Cortes Island Seniors Society, it raised $1.2 million for the downpayment on the 51 acre parcel in Mansons Landing now owned by the Cortes Housing Society. The Foundation obtained charitable status in 2021. Unlike more traditional foundations, it does not rely on a long-standing endowment to fund its work.

Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “As some people know, because I like to say it a lot, we’ve only been around (as a charity) for four years and we’re from a new breed of foundation that does not have money sitting in an endowment. We’re a new foundation and we don’t want to wait to help the community organizations and groups and volunteers and neighbours that are doing good things. There’s so much to be done now.”

They’ve been fortunate in that, over the past four years, the government and Community Foundations of Canada have provided funding to distribute directly through community foundations to local groups. So the Cortes Foundation was able to distribute $100,000 to different Cortes organizations doing COVID recovery and between $200,000 and $300,000 to issues related to gender equity.

"We also have been practicing community granting by helping adjudicate and advise what we thought the Grant in Aid should be used for. Mark Vonesch, our Regional Director, has taken those recommendations to the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) Board for final decision making. But every year there are projects that come forward that we are not able to fund because they’re not eligible for Grant in Aid, or there’s just not enough money. The Grant in Aid has more or less stayed the same for years, and $25,000 does not go that far."

“We were really lucky this year because a donor came to us and said, ‘Hey, we want to direct some funds into the community for our greatest need.’ And we said, ‘Well, if you would trust us, what we would love to do is put this into a new fund called Communitas, where we would use it to do community granting and to engage in the process where we get community input and look at needs.’”

“So when Grant in Aid came around this year, we were so excited because, for the first time ever, we had our own funds! We could give out as we wanted and leverage the Grant in Aid funds that the SRD was giving out. We used that process that we were going through anyway, and we were able to make more with what was already there. It wasn’t just having more money. We could fund organizations such as the Cortes Island School Parent Advisory Committee (PAC), which had not been eligible for our Grant in Aid funding.”

“The total pot we were able to give away this year was $25,000 that came from the Community Foundation via the Communitas Fund and $25,000 that came via the SRD through the Grant in Aid process, which is taxpayer dollars coming back to your community.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents -Once again, the polls suggest Mark Carney's government could win a majority if there were an election right now. 338Canada suggests the Liberals could win as many as 185 seats, while the Conservatives shrink back to 125. In North Island–Powell River, Aaron Gunn is still projected as the winner with 36% of the popular vote, according to 338Canada, but the Liberals and NDP are right behind him with 30% each. Some believe Canada may have a spring election.

Gunn said, "If I were a betting man, I would bet there'd be an election within the next two years for sure, but this spring we'll see. I think it will be up to Prime Minister Carney and the Liberal government. Speaking as a Conservative, I don't think we're going to force an election this spring."

Jennifer Lash, the Liberal candidate in our riding during the last election, explained, "When you have a minority government, there's always speculation about whether there's going to be an election or not. There's a lot of talk, but I think that's also a conversation that's happening very much inside the Ottawa bubble of what's going to happen."

"I think there are two things we need to look at really carefully. One is, I don't think Canadians really want to go back to the polls. It's expensive; it's time consuming. I think in general, if Canadians feel that government is functioning and getting the job done, then they would like to see the work being done as opposed to spending time in an election."

"The other thing is, in the past week both the Conservatives and the Liberals have talked about how they're going to work more collaboratively to try to get some key pieces of legislation through — pieces that could have been confidence votes and caused the House to fall if they didn't have the votes."

"I think they're all hands on deck right now to try to avoid an election and get through some of these key pieces that need to be done in order to help us deal with this rupture that we're going through, as the Prime Minister calls it. Having said that, things happen. If the Conservatives start to block things and it becomes very challenging for this government to get anything done, I could see the Prime Minister going to the Governor General and saying, 'We need to have another election because this House, as it's currently formatted, is not being effective and we can't run the country.'"

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Our local MP, Aaron Gunn, is holding a series of town hall meetings in the North-Island Powell River riding. He will be in Courtenay tonight (Feb 17), Campbell River on February 21, Port McNeil on March 16 and Powell River on March 19.  Gunn may also come to Cortes Island, but the dates have not been set. 

Aaron Gunn: " We want to come to Cortes, but if I just come to Cortes with no plan - I haven't really accomplished anything other than a photo op. So we always try to set up some kind of coffee or meeting where people that live there know that I'm coming and if they want to come and engage, they have an opportunity to do so."

Cortes Currents: We will promote it on the radio. We will promote it over our bulletin board. It's called the Tideline. The size of the crowd's hard to tell, could be as few as 20, or as many as 100. The hundred would be surprising, but who knows? We haven't had a Conservative candidate or politician on the island for years.

Aaron Gunn: It's always better to have more people show up, but the most important thing from my perspective is you give everyone an opportunity to come out and voice their opinions and ask their questions. Different communities certainly have different amounts of political engagement. Power River has an incredible amount of engagement for the size of its community.We'll see how the Comox Valley goes tomorrow, but of course only half of the valley's in my riding. So a bunch of people who I'm not representing might show up at the door, but that's okay."

While the Conservative party saw increased support on Cortes during the last election, Gunn will face a variety of perspectives. 

Max Thaysen, the alternate director for Cortes Island and co-leader of the Cortes Climate Action Network, responded, "I welcome him to come and I will be happy to ask him some questions, find out more about what he thinks about some really important stuff. I think having open and public dialogue with people who've been elected to the House of Commons is very important. There were some early concerns that Aaron Gunn was not interested in hearing from constituents. That was something that I heard in a few different places from people who were trying to get hold of him to share their concerns with him. I think he's become more open to hearing from people and sharing with them. That's a good thing."

"I also want to say that, as a very climate concerned person, I am very concerned about the public position that the Conservative party has taken. It borders on climate denial and that is very dangerous. I think we'll have some pretty serious conversations to have. I hope we get lots of people out. It should be fun. Come bring your own questions."

Cortes Currents asked Gunn what he hoped to achieve through his town hall meetings.

Aaron Gunn: "The primary vision is to give constituents an opportunity to hear directly from me and ask any questions that might be on their mind. We get hundreds of emails every week and try to meet with as many constituents as possible, but this is a very efficient and transparent way to engage with the people that you're representing and give them a chance to hold you accountable."