Cortes Currents

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - British Columbia is currently navigating a widening divide. On one side, the courts are handing down historic decisions affirming Indigenous rights. On the other, a growing wave of anxiety over private property and economic certainty. Today, we look at the fallout from the Gitxaala and Cowichan Tribes decisions—and the political battleground forming around the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA).

These are actually three separate topics: two court cases regarding the duty to consult before registering mining claims (Gitxaala versus British Columbia and the 2025 appeal); a court case regarding the Aboriginal title to an ancient village site that was sold out from beneath the Cowichan Tribes (Cowichan Tribes v. Canada); and DRIPA, the provincial legislative framework that formally adopts and implements the the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)

The tension spiked following Cowichan Tribes v. Canada. For hundreds of years, the Cowichan tribes wintered in the Southern Gulf Islands and then regrouped at Tl’uqtinus village, in Richmond, during the warmer months. David Rosenberg, Senior Counsel for the Cowichan Tribes, explained, ‘These lands were settlement lands and settlement lands were supposed to be put aside for as reserves for First Nations.’ Instead, Tl’uqtinus was sold to settlers. The court has restored the 800 acres of the historic village site ‘over which they have proven sufficient and exclusive occupation,’ to the Cowichan Tribes.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents -The Quadra Island Salmon Enhancement Society grew out of poor salmon runs in the 1970s and 80s and has been a non-profit organization (and registered charity) since 1981. In this morning’s interview Lauren Miller, a director, talks about the 2025 salmon run, climate change and some of the projects her organization has undertaken.

Cortes Island Academy/ Folk U - Tune in on January 23, 2026, to hear student journalists Minton, Jasmine, and Willow, of the Cortes Island Academy, explore the topics of storytelling and play, and why they are vital and important parts of healthy culture, both in the past, and today. Journey with them as they interview experts on these topics, report on their findings, weave in their own stories, and bring us a new and playful understanding of these timeless concepts and why they remain as important today as they did hundreds of years ago.

This show is the first instalment in the culmination of the 2025/26 podcasting course at the Cortes Island Academy, an intense deep dive into the techniques and art of podcasting in which each student picks a topic, then researches & produces a full feature-length show on it from start to finish, including interviews, scripting, recording, and editing their show. To learn more about the Cortes Island Academy, visit www.cortesislandacademy.ca

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 - It has been two months since Mark Carney survived a non-confidence vote and went on to sign an MOU in which he agreed to support a new bitumen pipeline across British Columbia. In this morning’s interview, Jennifer Lash, the Liberal candidate for our North Island Powell River riding in the last election,  explains why she still thinks Mark Carney is the right Prime Minister for Canada.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - In addition to being the MLA for our North Island riding, Dr. Anna Kindy is also the Health Critic for the Conservative Party of British Columbia. She recently had a conversation with Cortes Currents about the state of healthcare in British Columbia.

Anna Kindy: “That portfolio has kept me quite busy, to be honest. There are issues throughout British Columbia, like we've heard on the news. I have my tentacles in all sorts of health authorities, and people are communicating with me from the front lines.”

“When we're looking at healthcare right now, it probably will be getting worse before it gets better unless we start shifting. What we're seeing is that issues with accessing primary care are still a big issue for people. There are issues with accessing specialty care. The Consultant Specialists of BC put out that 1.2 million people are on a waitlist right now. Just to give you an example of what specialists need to do now—for example, in neurology—they get so many referrals that they need to triage what is important, what needs to be dealt with right away, and what doesn't, because they can't keep up. What happens is some people end up getting worse as they're waiting. Over 4,600 British Columbians have died waiting for care.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Over the past few years, the Quadra Island Foundation has channeled hundreds of thousands of dollars into the local economy. Now, thanks to a change in their charitable status, they may be able to do a great deal more.

Marc Doll, Vice President in Charge of Communications, explained: “We have had charitable status since our inception. The change is in the scope of that status. Previously, we were only able to work with charities within a very, very defined set of parameters. Our charitable purposes really limited us to only working with established charities on the island. We couldn't work with individuals or societies. It handcuffed us, so even when we gave out our small neighborhood grants, we had to work with the Rec Society because we didn't actually have the ability to funnel that money directly to people who were not registered charities.”

“Now, we wrote these charitable purposes really broadly so that we have the right to make donations, create funds, create bursaries, and work directly with societies and small groups on basically everything our imagination could allow us to write up at the time.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Two films by veteran journalist, educator, and NDP candidate Avi Lewis are being shown at the Linnaea Education Centre this weekend. At 7 PM on Friday, January 23, 2026, Lewis and his wife Naomi Klein tell the story of Argentinian workers who took control of a bankrupt auto plant and turned it into a cooperative. At 7 PM on the following night, their documentary ‘This Changes Everything’ connects climate action to economic justice.

Max Thaysen, who is organizing the showings, explained, “Avi Lewis is running for the leadership of the Federal NDP, and he has made a couple of awesome films that I actually haven't seen yet. So, I thought that it would be interesting to see his films, learn more about him, share that with the community, and take the opportunity to chat about the leadership race and how people can get involved if they want to.”

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents -Strathcona Regional District (SRD) staff will be asking the Ministry of Forests about the possibility of obtaining two provincial lots on Quadra Island for development. Three of the four Regional Directors at the Wednesday, January 14, 2026, Electoral Areas Services Committee meeting voted to proceed.

Meredith Starkey, Manager of Planning for the SRD, brought a list of 13 Federal, Provincial and Regional properties to the meeting. She explained that the report provides an overview of public land available near Quathiaski Cove and Heriot Bay on Quadra Island which could be considered for future affordable housing.

 “There's really only three sites that are currently undeveloped in a suitable size and some other conditions that make them more suitable than others. They all have constraints.”

She advised that the appropriate next step is an inquiry to the relevant land manager to determine if the province is willing to sell or lease the land. Subsequent steps would depend on the tenure type but would likely include legal surveys, management plans, First Nations consultation, and site condition assessments. These assessments would cover environmental, archeological, geotechnical, potable water, and sewage disposal factors.

Robyn Mawhinney, the Regional Director for Area C, responded, “ I wanted to say thank you for this great report. It's really comprehensive, clear to understand maps and came back really quickly. I really appreciate all of that. And I think for me, when I, once I looked at it, it really feels like there are two provincial land lots of particular interest identified in the report. I think the report identifies them as lot 7 and 8 in on Hyacynth Bay Road and those are the ones that kind of sparked my curiosity in the first place when I was looking at the provincial IMAP website and what led to the request for this report. So I'm really happy that they made it onto the report.”

John Rice, Regional Director for Area D, had some concerns: “When I read the report, it seems like there's a fair amount of hurdles that need to be jumped through. What is the likelihood that anything can be achieved from this?”

 Meredith Starkey: “I think that there is certainly likelihood. We don't know what the current intent for these parcels is from the provincial perspective. Without opening that line of inquiry, I can't really say with any certainty. Through our other park processes to pursue tenures, we know that the province does consider this. There's nothing today that would tell us that they wouldn't, if that makes sense. It isn't likely something that would be concluded in a short period of time. Tenure processes usually do take a number of years.”

Director Rice: “That was exactly what my line of thought was thinking and here we are, in year four and I'm wondering is this something that is going to take a fair amount of effort? What I would like to see staff working on is our existing projects and get them completed before the next election cycle. I really don't see a quick end game to this.”

Mark Vonesch, Regional Director for Cortes Island, had a different perspective.

 “I just want to give a little bit of perspective on a similar situation on Cortes where there was a piece of land owned by Ministry of Transportation. The previous regional director pursued it for three years. I've been pursuing it since and it has only just finally been announced that the Ministry of Transportation is willing to release it.”

“I think these things do take time and I've certainly been impatient around the process, but just wanted to let fellow directors know that these things do take time and taking the small steps to move them forward is ultimately worth it in the end.”

Director Rice voted against the motion, but Directors Mawhinney, Vonesch and Whalley were in favour, so the motion to further look into the possibility of developing these lots for housing will proceed.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - 2026 is a municipal election year and some people hope Campbell River residents will use this opportunity to elect a city council that will help alleviate the homeless situation. 

“We have an opportunity as a community to come together and actually create solutions with the support of the city, because they are the only ones that have the capacity to be able to do the longevity of some of these projects, but they need us. They need the nonprofits, they need the grassroots, they need citizens and residents to help them and to buy into those solutions in ways where we create a much more inclusive, safe, welcoming community for everybody, not just for some,” explained Sue Moen, a Kwesa Place volunteer and coordinator for the Campbell River Community Action Team. 

“Many of these counsellors and new people are going to be campaigning over the next 10 months. I think that's really important for voters and citizens to say, ‘okay, how are you going to work with others to do this?’”

De Clark/Roy Hales/Cortes Currents -DOne of Cortes Island’s longstanding traditions is the Christmas Bird Count; for almost 25 years, local residents have volunteered in a coordinated week-long audit of the island’s bird life. For many years this effort has been coordinated in the field by longtime islander George Sirk, host of the 'Nature Boy' Radio Show on CKTZ.

Roy Hales interviewed George about this year's bird count.