Cortes Currents

Sadhu Johnston/Cortes Housing Society - Tune in on March 14th for another collaborative monthly housing forum presented by the Cortes Housing Society, and supported by Folk University. Themed “Land Sharing”, this forum featured 5 local Cortesian guest speakers chatting about different land-sharing formats (Tiber Bay, Siskin Lane, land partnerships, living estates, and more!), what has worked for them, and what hasn’t. This hybrid-style forum took place on March 8, 2025, in-person at Manson’s Hall and over Zoom.

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 - Wave and Range Cortes Island has decided it's time to go public.

“This year we're going to be putting on the Cortes adventure challenge, essentially a Cortes triathlon: It's a kayak or a canoe, a swim and a trek. We've got a short course, and a long course. That'll be on the 12th and the 21st of July, tentaively. I'll need to confirm those dates with you, but we'll advertise that. We'll do a little bit of lead up training for that,” explained Kay Hope.

“There's an opportunity with where we live to have not so much a love affair, but like a marriage with the physical place that we live in. I think a majority of us are really disconnected from our biophysical reality. All sorts of things have unfortunately corrupted a lot of people away from a connection with their body and the environment. I'm just trying to foray back into that. I think there's a big opportunity for all of us to just keep doubling down on hiking up Easter Bluff, going to Mansons Lagoon, getting a sweat on, but then exploring in, around and up Desolation Sound. The beauty we have around us, it's really underutilized by us as a community together. I don't want to go out and just be exploring by myself. I'd love to go out on the weekend and see more kayaks than I see power boaters. That's my wish, and my wish for my baby boy.”

“I've traveled to so many different places and the stuff that's just in our backyard here, it's world class. The longer term plan is just to connect more Cortesians to get outside together, and to get away from these damn screens and all the internet fights.”

“I've been interacting with Cortes for over 15 years now. We're living in Vancouver for the most part and coming here in the summers. My partner Tiana grew up here and we moved here a bit over two years ago.”

“I'm pretty busy. I've got a young son, the business to run and that sort of thing, but I'm really passionate about this sort of stuff. I've been getting people outdoors for a long time. I run a business in Vancouver helping people do that.”

“Essentially we looked at what Quadra Island was doing. They have the Quadra Island Outdoor Club. It's essentially a member led club. They do trips outdoors, hiking, skiing, kayaking, all that sort of stuff.

“We incorporated Wave and Range in April 2024. We get insurance through the BC Federation of Mountain Clubs as a nonprofit. There's myself, Jordan Best and Tiana on the Board right now. We're looking for more board members and more people to get involved. We are a bit over 20 members.”

“We've done maybe 32 plus trips. We've been canoeing and hiking. I've been putting on strength and mobility classes at the hall for our members as well, for people to build up the strength and mobility they need to go adventuring.”

“Josh Bannister does some of the hiking stuff. Aaron Ellingsen is going to be there and Sanchez is going to be there. Trevor Bass , Kenny and Evie have been coming to the strength and mobility classes. Kate Madigan and Mike Moore are coming out on the canoe. It's just cool to interact with those people, and listen to the sea lions carrying on down at Mary's Point and getting to know the different places.”

“I've got a big 22 foot, eight person canoe. I've done a bunch of canoeing and adventure trips, as much as I can with running a business. We canoed up from Vancouver to Cortes. I brought some of my coaches a few years back. Just a couple of years back, we canoed from Cortes and climbed up Mount Denman, which was really cool. Last season, Jordan Best, one of the board members and I kayaked around the Redondas in two days. We're both busy fathers, and we crammed that in.”

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - One of the 2025 RIEP Virtual Forum presentations was a panel discussion of how the affordable housing societies were faring on eight rural islands. There were a lot of common themes running throughout their stories: difficulties obtaining funding through BC Housing, CMHC and other organizations whose requirements are drawn up for urban rather than rural areas; the cost of builing on remote islands; relationships with regional districts and Island Trust; and water issues. The moderator was Mike Hoebel from the Galiano Island Affordable Housing Society.

Mike Hoebel: “The lack of affordable housing is truly a crisis in our communities and housing policy was a major item for discussion back at RIEP's 2023 In-Person Porum Gabriola. Today we're going to hear from a number of people about housing related initiatives underway in their communities.”

“First we'll be hearing from Elizabeth FitzZaland from Salt Spring Solutions, then Adam, to talk about the Housing Now program, Bruin Black is going to share some information about the Cortes Housing Society’s Initiatives. April Lewis from Hornby, Simon Palmer from Denman, Deb Goldman from Mayne, Avi Bryant here on Galiano and I'll share a bit of update about the Galiano Affordable Living Initiative Society's project on Galiano. Following the panel presentations we'll touch briefly on some advocacy issues to the province.”

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - One of the most popular presentations at RIEP’s 2025 Virtual forum was Former Green Party MLA Adam Olsen’s identification of ways to further support the success of BC’s Indigenous economy.

Francine Carlin, Chair of the Rural Island Economic Partnership (RIEP) introduced Olsen, “ Adam is a proud member of the Tsartlip Nation. He currently serves as the lead negotiator for the Tsartlip, representing the nation's interests on land and resource management, governance and the treaty land entitlement process. His leadership and negotiation plays a crucial role and advancing the nation's rights and self determination, Adam's expertise of bridging gaps between environmental concerns, indigenous rights and sustainable development makes him a true champion of the greater good.”

Adam Olsen: “ÍY ȻEĆIL. SȾHENEP TŦE NE SNÁ. ĆSE LÁ,E SEN ET W̱SÁNEC LÁ,E ET W̱JOȽEȽP ÁLEṈ. ZȺWIZUT TŦE NE MÁN. ZIȻOT E TELX̱ILEM TŦE NE SILE.” 

“My name is SȾHENEP (Adam Olsen) I am W̱SÁNEĆ from the Tsartlip village. My father is ZȺWIZUT (Carl Olsen) and my late grandparents are ZIȻOT (Laura Olsen) and TELX̱ILEM (Ernie Olsen).” 

“It’s an honour to be here working from my home. I want to acknowledge the territories of my relatives throughout the straights from south of the San Juan islands through Southern Gulf islands, through to the islands in the Northern straights. These spaces have been stewarded by my relatives and our ancestors since time immemorial. I raise my hands to the organizers, the brains and muscles of the Rural Islands Economic Partnership (RIEP).”

“I've always appreciated how you've kept the economic well being of the rural islands centered in your work. At this moment, we're all facing extraordinary economic times. We're confused by the actions of our neighbour, concerned about the future of this territory, and because it is unprecedented, it's difficult to visualize and plan for what may be next.”

“Whatever may unfold in the next few weeks and months, I believe our short, medium, and long term success is contingent on the resilience of our relationships with each other. While some celebrate this term economic reconciliation, I argue that this catchy little phrase remains incomplete to our collective responsibility to First Nations and to our own Canadian identity.”

“Reconciliation cannot be selective. It must be comprehensive addressing land governance and economic sovereignty together. It is important to ground our discussion today in the fact that for the state niche, the rural islands that we know as the Gulf islands today. The San Juan Islands are our relatives.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Around 100 people signed up for the Rural Islands Economic Partnership 2025 Virtual Forum. At least 10 were from Cortes Island and there were others from Quadra, Texada, Hornby, Denman, Cormorant, Malcolm and the Gulf Islands, as well as the Broughton Archipelago. Several of the topics were of great importance to islanders. One of the foremost was Aaron Cruikshank’s analysis of the impact US tariffs will have on island economies and what we can do about it.

Cruikshank is the founder of CTRS, a Market intelligence company from the Lower Mainland that has worked with hundreds of organizations and governments over the past 20 years.

He began his analysis of President Trump’s actions by stating,  “People are really focused on the tariffs, but the message I want to leave with everybody is it's actually trade policy uncertainty disrupting economic patterns. It creates volatility in global markets. It leads to reduced investment, supply chain disruptions, and a contraction in economic activity which hurts everybody. I don't care where you are in Canada, all of that is bad news, but I wanted to make clear that tariffs are just one example of something that contributes to trade policy uncertainty.  We're seeing others, and we'll continue to see others that are going to make these numbers rise.” 

 He put up a chart showing the relative uncertainty that Trump and some of the previous U. S. presidents have created in international trade markets.

Aaron Cruikshank: “This chart goes back to 1960 and the index is based on the impact of policies. You see the baseline jumping up from 25 points to 100 points under Nixon and Ford, that was considered a very big deal in the 60s and 70s. Then in the 80s and 90s you had some spikes with Reagan and Bush. I believe the one with Reagan, or maybe it was Bush Sr., was to do with NAFTA.” 

“If you look at these spikes that are happening  during the first Trump presidency, where we're getting into the 250 range. Very, very, very significant trade uncertainty policy. Then the most recent hockey stick growth there is just in the last couple of months where we're getting up into the 450, 500 range.  We're talking  more than an order of magnitude above baseline for trade policy uncertainty.  We also are hearing talk of President Trump or as I call him, ‘the orange turd,’ wanting to renegotiate the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, what some people refer to as NAFTA 2.0. That uncertainty makes people freak out. Threatening to withdraw from certain trade agreements makes the chart do this. Putting export controls on specific technologies or goods, that makes the chart do this, saying the US is only going to allow X amount of this good.”

“That affects countries like Canada a lot because we end up exporting a lot of raw materials into the US: lumber, oil, metals, minerals, things like that. We supply 80 percent of the US potash, which is used for fertilizer to grow their food. So, they might be putting import caps on things like that. That makes markets go “woo.’”

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/ Folk U - On March 7, 2025, host Manda Aufochs-Gillespie was joined by a group of Cortesians as they swapped stories of unexpected detours, chance encounters, and the adventures that changed them. Are we talking international travel or trips to town gone wrong? Tune in to find out!

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 - CityWest’s internet service for Cortes Island was cut off again, sometime after 10:44 on Saturday, March 8, and not restored until after 9:00 on Monday, March 10. This is the third or fourth time in the last 12 months.

The outage did not affect CKTZ, which relies upon Mascon de TELUS, but did shut down numerous CityWest customers (including Cortes Currents).

‘Rumour’ has it that the fibre cable was cut somewhere on the underwater stretch between Denman Island and Williams Beach. 

“They require a special "marine team" to take care of it and it will be weather dependent. Hopefully the break will be near shore, but they may have to pull up the entire length of cable to find the break and fix it.”

One of CityWest’s public relations people confirmed there was a break in the cable, but could not say where. However the recorded announcement on their phone in line stated:

 “We are seeing services affected in Williams Beach, Stories Beach, Manson's Landing, Bold Point, Heriot Bay, Whaletown, Open Bay, Granite Bay, Chatham Point, Blink Channel, Bliss Landing, Seaford, Klahoose, and Gillies Bay.”

So the rumour was true, at least in regard to where the break occured.

There are some questions about CityWest’s recorded announcement.

For starters, it says services are affected in Bold Point, Open Bay, Granite Bay and Heriot Bay - which are all Quadra Island locations.

Only Regional Director Robyn Mawhinney, who lives on Quadra, has yet to hear of ANYONE being connected on Quadra Island and, up until this point, there has been no mention of Heriot Bay being served.

A number of Cortes Island residents have been connected for over a year, but a lot of people have not. It is not clear which group is in the majority.

In a previous post, Cortes Currents mentioned that numerous households in Squirrel Cove, Whaletown and Mansons Landing have yet to be connected.

Since then, a source who wishes to remain anonyomous, claims that service has yet to be brought to Seaford Road.

Don Hall, from Tiber Bay, recently stated there is no service in his area either.

“We expressed interest early on to get hooked up. They used to phone us and they used to try to sell us things. They ran a line from our local road to our house, but they never ran the line from the main fiber optic network into where we live at Tiber Bay. They never hooked up our house either. The last time I ever heard anything from them was three years ago when they scheduled an appointment to hook up the internal to our house. They never showed up for that and we never heard from them again.”

The Strathcona Regional District has not been talking about the connected coast project very much lately, but according to the press release on their website, this is “a joint venture between the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) and CityWest" which “will be managed and implemented by CityWest and the Strathcona Regional District.”

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - On Sunday, March 9th, the Liberal Party chose Mark Carney as their new leader.

While there have been no polls taken since his election, EKOS carried out a survey just prior to the Convention that suggests Carney may be able to lead the Liberal Party to a majority government. 42% of the respondents between March 2 and 5 chose the Liberal Party, while the Conservatives slipped back to 33%. The NDP was at 13% and the Greens 4%.

 Cortes Currents reached out to Jennifer Lash, the Liberal candidate in North Island Powell River for her perspective.

“I am so thrilled with the results of the leadership race last night. I think that Mark Carney is the right person at the right time, not only for the Liberal Party of Canada, but for all of Canada. He brings a level of expertise in terms of how to handle the economic chaos caused by donald Trump at the exact time that we need it,” she said.

“I also think that the overwhelming support that he received, almost 86 percent of the vote shows that the Liberal Party is united. There's aren't factions. There's no infighting. We are united. We stand by him as our leader, and we're really looking forward to the next steps. One of the things I've found so fascinating about Mark Carney, when I've been talking with people on the street, on the phone, on social media, is just how much he is drawing people in from across the political spectrum.”

“So people who have historically voted NDP, people who have been considering voting Conservative, they're all starting to look at the Liberal Party under Mark Carney's leadership as a really good viable option and for exactly what Canada needs right now. There's a lot of momentum growing and i'm really hoping that people continue to explore and Learn more about the Liberal Party . If they have any questions or any concerns or want to talk with me, they can always learn more about what I feel the Liberal Party can do for North Island Powell River at jenniferlash.ca."

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Jennifer Lash has been working at the intersection of the economy, ocean conservation, climate change and reconciliation for the past 27 years. She founded two non-profit organizations in Sointula and more recently was a senior advisor in the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change. Now she is running for election in North Island-Powell River.

"In the situation we're in right now, with the dire need for strong leadership both at the riding level and nationally. We're not getting that leadership from the NDP and the Conservative Party. Whether you're voting for the leader; whether you're voting for the party; or whether you're voting strategically: I think the best choice this year is Liberal,” she explained.

“I have lived in this riding for 27 years. I have voted for the NDP for many years. I voted strategically. There wasn't anything the NDP were advocating for that I was opposed to, but I didn't really love everything that was being done. I wanted to keep the Conservatives out."

"In 2021, I voted NDP and I didn't like it. I didn't like the experience. I didn't get the thrill of feeling like I was voting for the vision that I wanted. The NDP had a terrible climate plan, if you call it a climate plan at all, and I just didn't see myself or my kids in their vision."

"Fast forward a couple of years,  I started thinking that if I'm not happy voting for the NDP, then I can't just expect somebody else to step up and change the conversation in this riding.  I realized I had to do it myself. So I  submitted my application back in October/November.”

“I did it because I felt that there was a conversation for this riding that looked at how do we build our economies and our communities so that they thrive? So that they have the support that they need, We are protecting our oceans and our forests and our climate, but still making sure that people feel a part of the community. So that people don't feel alienated; workers feel supported and resource users feel like they are a part of things.  I really felt like that was something I wanted to help facilitate in this riding. So I threw my hat in the ring. It's just taken a while to get through all  the hoops you have to jump through  to get final approval."

Manda Aufochs Gillespie/Folk U - On February 28, 2025, host Manda Aufochs-Gillespie was joined by Carrie Saxifrage, Jane Newman, and Karen McDiarmid, to chat about cold swimming. Are you curious about what cold water swimming could do for you? In this episode, we dive into the icy depths to explore the stories, benefits, challenges, and the sheer exhilaration of taking the plunge.

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.