Cortes Currents

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - From March through July of this year, Cortes Housing Society — in partnership with FolkU — is presenting a series of monthly forums featuring guest speakers and community discussion. These forums will address the vexed issue of housing — both price and availability — which remains a serious problem for the island.

The invited speakers have expertise in various aspects of this problem, and some will be sharing results from successful projects in other communities. Cortes Currents interviewed Sadhu Aufochs Johnston, executive director of the Housing Society, to find out more about this event series.

CC: Sadhu, can you explain the vision behind this event series — what is it you’re trying to achieve here?

SJ: Well last December we hosted a housing forum, the report for which is posted online. And one of the things I heard from a number of people was the value that we would get here on Cortes, to learn about innovative housing initiatives happening elsewhere. So there was a strong push to continue the dialogue around housing and to be learning from other places, to continue to learn as a community. And FolkU does that on a regular basis so it seemed like a good partnership.

CC: What will the series look like in practise? What’s the schedule, the format, and what topics are you planning to discuss?

SJ: They’re going to be hosted virtually [Zoom]; there’s lots of people travelling right now, and most of our guest speakers are off-island. So they will be virtual meetings, at least at first. We might start to do some in person as well, but at first it will be all Zoom, and monthly. And it will be Saturday mornings, so people who are working can participate.

We’re trying to hit on topics that were a priority for people coming out of the housing forum. So our first topic will be on March 16th, and that will be Home Sharing. We chose that topic because we know there are a lot of homes on Cortes that are unoccupied [most of the year], and there are also homes that are occupied but underutilised. So maybe the kids have moved away, or for whatever reason, you have 1 or 2 bedrooms that may be available, or a small cabin.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - A Federal Court ruled that Canada’s Environment Minister, Steven Guilbeault, failed to protect habitats of at-risk migratory birds in old growth logging areas. Chief Justice Paul Crampton stated the Minister’s decision to limit protection to areas where nests were found ‘was neither reasonable or tenable.’

“This is specifically about the Minister's duty under the Species At-risk Act to take action to protect areas of critical habitat for at-risk migratory birds. Despite the Species At-Risk act being about 20 years old, we had never seen the Minister actually take any action under this section of the act to protect critical habitat of at-risk migratory birds. At least about 25 species of birds are affected by this section,” explained Andhra Azevedo of Ecojustice, the lead counsel representing Sierra Club BC and the Wilderness Committee.

“The federal government had taken the view, through a document called the {, that the duty of the Minister to take action to protect critical habitat only applied to protecting the nests of these birds and not the rest of the habitat that these birds needed to survive and recover. That was what we challenged.”

Lawyers for the Canadian government also argued that federal jurisdiction was limited by the division of powers with the provinces, but Justice Crampton found the federal government’s actions ‘inconsistent’ with the Species At-Risk Act.

“This is particularly so where the relevant province has failed to avail itself of opportunities to take protective action in an area of joint responsibility.”

Andhra Azevedo: “On February 1st we received the decision of Chief Justice Crampton, of the Federal Court, agreeing with our clients Sierra Club BC and Wilderness Committee, that the Minister's interpretation was not justified. The Species At-Risk Act and the Migratory Birds Protection Laws require the Minister to take action to protect something more than this.”

In his Judgement and Reasons, Justice Crampton wrote, “The Applicants state that the Minister did not consider evidence indicating that habitat loss and degradation is a key threat to the survival and recovery of most at-risk migratory birds affected by the Protection Statement. I agree.”

Judge Crampton pointed out that in September 2021, the Sierra Club and WIlderness Committee informed the Minister that ‘Marbeled Murrelet populations have continued to decline, despite being listed under the Species At-Risk Act for many years.’

The two conservation groups pointed out that, “The majority of the Marbled Murrelet’s critical habitat is on provincial lands and that the province of British Columbia had failed to adequately protect that habitat from industrial logging and other activities.”

CIA/Folk U - What really matters most in the world? How will we help inspire the next generation of truth-seekers and truth-tellers? At the Cortes Island Academy we believe in the passion and skills of the people and wild places of this place and are proud of our youth who learned along side our community and shared their growing skills through journalistic podcasts, Elder Documentaries, Field Guides and unsung hero posters.

February 16 on Folk U Radio CKTZ 89.5 FM (1 p.m. Fridays, repeats on folku.ca, cortescurents.ca, cortesradio.ca) featured youth journalists interviewing neighbours and regional experts on the issues of the day in our communities in their Audio Series called Desolation Sounds.

February 16 featured:

Samara Gibbs Reid - Finding Belonging

Luis Dietz - Ant Ventures

Sonia Schmidt - The Benefits of Pets

Jasmine Harvey - Why Cortes?

Fergus Walker - A Tale of Two Markets

Lee Nagle - Living Authentically: Stories of Gender Expression

We hope you will tune in!

You can listen to the CIA youth podcast series, Desolation Sounds, anytime at https://cortesislandacademy.ca/podcasts/

Watch the breathtaking and moving CIA/ReelYouth Elder Films at https://cortesislandacademy.ca/films/

Get your own pocket Biodiversity Field Guide for Cortes (e.g. edible berries, local fungi, marine species, seaweeds, mosses, and more!) at https://cortesislandacademy.ca/biodiversity-project/

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Quadra Island Foundation hopes to strengthen their island's community connections. They invited the island's charities and non-profits to a meeting at the Quadra Community Centre from 1:00 to 5:00 PM on Saturday, February 24.

”We have perceived there has been significant redundancy of projects between organizations. With collaboration between the groups, we will gain some strength, not only in people power,  but also in the strength of 'asks' when applying for grants,” explained Jody A Rodgers, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Quadra Island Foundation.

“We have nearly 30 Quadra organizations that include charities, nonprofits, clubs and groups.  Of those organizations who have RSVP'd ‘yes,’ we requested that the organization send three individuals. They can be staff, board members or other designated individuals. There is a lot of overlap with people in multiple groups. Sometimes an individual may be representing two or more organizations, and that's perfectly fine.”

"In addition to the usual sort of practices of being a community foundation, Quadra Island Foundation, is hoping to be the steward of data for Quadra Island and Surge Narrows-Reed Island."

"We would have all of the indicators that reflect the health of a society.  Not just economic and other demographic details, but things related to transportation, to housing, obviously access to health care,  education, the arts,  secure access to water and other infrastructures that  we need to support expanding communities if necessary."

"In other words: if we want to build an affordable housing unit, do we have the water supply? Can we deal with the septic situation? - those sorts of demographics. If we can gather all of that data together, by pooling the information that a lot of these groups have gathered with respect to their own facet of society,  then Quadra Island Foundation itself would be able to utilize all of that information to help strengthen 'asks' in the future to different organizations, whether they be public or private, when trying to support a particular project.”

"That's the intended goal, how we're doing it  is really going to be under the art and magic of our facilitator Jennifer Banks-Doll. I'll  be welcoming everyone and then turning the baton over to her.”

“She will be doing various exercises where we'll come together in little breakout groups, or slightly larger breakout groups,  and talk with each other. We're going to have some posted notes where people will have some data.  They'll contribute,  both pragmatic  and wishful thinking information." 

"Obviously we're going to gather all of that together and write a report and try to glean what we have learned that we don't know, and we need to fill out. We'll also have a stronger network so that we'll be able to know who to ask."

"People like to describe a charitable foundation as a three legged stool, where it has community engagement and endowment  and fundraising. I'm hoping that Quadra Island Foundation will be more like the hub of a wagon wheel and that all of these different organizations will be the spokes of that wheel. The rim of the wheel is the community, so that in the center is Quadra Island Foundation to assist and support those entities that truly reach out to the community. It seems to be a better analogy for how we would view ourselves."

"We're hoping this particular event is the start of many.  We're essentially doing a 'who's who in the zoo' at this time, so that we can all meet and network with each other  and realize we need to come back together again and thereby strengthen those connections and come up with some more tangible outcomes."

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - Anyone visiting Squirrel Cove right now can see a series of freshly constructed rafts anchored close to the government dock. There were four of them when Cortes Currents first noticed, and another two being built on the beach. Now they are all in the Cove. There are piles of lumber and floats nearby, and a huge pile of hoop-like ‘lantern nets’ waiting on the Squirrel Cove Dock.

“We're leasing the spot off of the store this month to do the building because it's the most practical place,” explained Paul Muskee, Operations Manager for Klahoose Aquaculture.

A well known member of the local aquacultural community, Erik Lyon of Rising Tide Shellfish, has been on the job site.

Paul Muskee: “The rafts are being built by our partner Rising Tide, a bunch of folks from the island and Kenny Hanuse from the village. 100 They will be holding lantern nets, that will hold the scallops.”

“One of the cool things is between the Klahoose Sawmill and Blue Jay Lake sawmill, all the word was milled on island. That's a good news story. Originally, when we had planned for these rafts, the Klahoose Mill wasn't operating, so we budgeted to bring wood on island from somewhere else.”

CC: How long do you expect this project to take?

Paul Muskee: “Just a couple of weeks. I think they'll be done pretty soon. There's I think they're building 10 or 12 rafts. So our original design was for larger rafts, eight rafts, but we've abridged the design, so we're going to get a few more rafts out of it.

CC: Where are they going to be deployed?

Paul Muskee: “We’re going to try a few different spots: Teakerne Arm, at our Klahoose tenure up there, we'll probably try some in Gorge Harbor. Those will be the two main places. The thinking is to spread the risk in case there's a health issue in one area, the other area will still be hopefully covered.”

“These are all going to expand Klahoose's scallop program. We're pretty excited about scallops. It's been going really well. I know different scallop programs have ran into health problems, but we haven't had any. They're growing robustly.We’re especially targeting the Asian live market.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Cortes Community Health Association (CCHA) has been offering Youth Programs for more than 15 years. Serene Williams’ association goes back to 2009 when, shortly after moving to Cortes Island, she became the Teen Szene Co-ordinator. She married after that and now has two children of her own. They were initially homeschooled but when both of her children registered for the Cortes Island School, in September 2022, Williams became the Youth Programs Manager for the Cortes Community Health Association. 


“I love it when I am filling in for one of the facilitators for these programs, and I get to go and actually be interacting with groups of kids. I’ve known most of them since they were toddlers, or babies. I have watched them grow up on Cortes. It is so sweet to watch them interact with each other and watch their creativity and their energy. It's part of why I enjoy my job,” she explained.


“What I'm really proud of right now is that this year, the 2023/2024 school year, we have 77 kids in total attending our programs, including 20 from the Cortes Island Academy and 56 from the elementary school. I think that is a phenomenal number for Cortes. We have a large number of the population of Cortes kids attending our programs, which includes home learners also.”  


“At this point in time, we have 6 program facilitators: Kelly, Lydia, Claudia, Katrina, Steph, and Jasmine. A few of them do more than 1 program. Without great facilitators, we really can't have great programming. So I am so pleased to be able to have our staff going strong and continuing on from year to year.”  


“Right now, we offer programs for all school age kids from kindergarten to grade 12. All of our programs are drop in, so we never know from week to week who's going to show up, or how many kids they will have. Sometimes the numbers are smaller, sometimes it's bigger, and that creates some challenges just to be able to manage the group of kids and their particular dynamics.”


“We have five programs at this point.”

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - On February 12th at the Mansons Fire Hall, Sandra Wood and Kate Maddigan hosted a grant writing workshop for social profit organisations on Cortes Island. Kate and Sandra have considerable experience in grant writing; they offered guidelines, tips, and advice for those seeking funding.

The event was sponsored by the Social Profit Forum, and attended by representatives from the Art Gallery, DCC, BetterAtHome/SOS, Cortes Currents, CIFA, CICF, FOCI, CCEDA, CHS, and SCCA.

Here are a few examples of advice shared at this workshop by the seasoned grant writers:

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Strathcona Regional District (SRD) received a $147,700 grant from the Union of BC Municipalities to prepare a region-wide poverty reduction plan. They will be holding meetings in Campbell River, Tahsis, Gold River, Cortes Island, Quadra Island and Zeballos at the end of the month. 


“Our plans are only as good as the information we receive and we really, really want to be able to address poverty in a holistic, honest and earnest way. We can't do that without the community. So we really need you guys to come out and to talk to us. Give us your thoughts, all of your ideas, your criticisms, your comments,  your questions. Whatever you need us to know, because all of that feeds into the plan, and it makes it more robust, and just everything we do is going to help alleviate poverty in the region as a whole,” explained Meredith Starkey, Manager of Parks and Planning at the SRD.” 


“Are you struggling to have your basic needs met? Then how can we help alleviate that pressure? What are the barriers that you're experiencing, and how can we mitigate that experience?”


The SRD will be in our area on Wednesday, February 28, 2024.


“We are coming to Quadra and Cortes on the same day. We'll be at Manson's Hall at 11am to 1pm. Then we head off to the Quadra Island Community Centre.  We'll be there from 3 to 6 and then back to Campbell River.” 


“We’re developing an action plan and strategies that can actually be applied to minimize poverty in our communities. It's focused on 8 priority areas: 


Housing, 

Education and training, 

Employment,

Safe and affordable transportation, 

Families, children and youth, 

Income supports, 

Social support, 

And discrimination and stigma.”  

“We have a whole bunch of data. We did the housing needs reports. We've done transportation studies. We have lots of data and statistics about poverty, and we understand the intersections of what contributes to poverty in different areas of the region.”


“We know that it's different in rural areas and urban areas. We also know that the experience of poverty on Cortes is going to be different from the experience of poverty in Campbell River.  What we're looking for from the community to do is to  flush that data out and make it real and to let us know more specifically what that experience of poverty might mean for a person on Cortes.”


“We often hear that we're trying to bring Campbell River solutions into Cortes or something. That's not really our intent. It never is, but if we don't hear from people what is really needed, then it's hard for us to implement those things. When we hear from you,  that helps us deliver things that you need.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The ‘What We Heard Report,’ from Cortes Island’s Housing Forum and the subsequent Housing Survey, has been released. 

“We already had a pretty good idea from previous reports and information, but this really gave us a good sense of what the challenges are and then what do people want us to move forward with?” explained Mark Vonesh, Regional Director for Cortes Island.

“It really gives us a framework and direction for taking action following the political will of the people. Which is really exciting because it's really easy to be like, ‘I think this is a good idea,’ but this really gives us the information to move forward in a way that we know we're following the will of what Cortes wants.”

“I think it puts Cortes in a really exciting place. Not many communities have such a strong roadmap for making change. I'm really excited to work with the Cortes Housing Society and the Strathcona Regional District and, various levels of government, to move forward with the action items that have been outlined in the survey and all of the discussions that happened in the breakout groups during the housing forum in December.”


Sadhu Johnston, Executive Director of the Cortes Community Housing Society, agreed, “ It feels like a good step forward and it's a good culmination of lots of feedback from people through the survey and in person and online, but there's lots of work to be done.”


CC: What are the highlights of this report?

Sadhu Johnston: “I guess the highlight for me is just the extent to which people participated in the survey and in the in-person consultation and online. This is clearly an issue that's near and dear to a lot of people on Cortes Island.”

“At the forum, I was a little bit surprised that there were so many people  that own property, and aren't at risk of losing housing, but are  very concerned about the challenges on Cortes. It really feels to me like there's a pretty broad recognition of people that are living on the island, or spending time on the island, that the housing crisis is  a threat to the community diversity and  the very fabric of the community that we all love so much. That was  really made clear to me in the  type of comments that I heard and the way that people were showing up.” 

Looking back to his years as the City Manager, and prior to that the Deputy City Manager. of Vancouver (2009-2021), Johnston observed, “I worked a lot on affordable housing in Vancouver. In Vancouver, if the housing in the community isn't affordable, people drive further away or take the train further or the bus in order to live.  There's this old saying, "drive until you qualify,' which is really driving further and further out into the suburbs until you can qualify for a mortgage that you can  make work.” 

“In a community like Vancouver - the businesses that we rely on, the community of teachers and others - can still function because people are driving further and further out, which is not good for the environment or for their quality of life or for the health of a community, but the community could still work.”

“On Cortes, there's no ‘driving till you qualify,’ there's leaving. If you can't find housing,  it's not like you can just drive to the neighbouring community and find housing. As people that can't afford to be there or can't find housing leave, many of those houses  are being sold to people that are not on Cortes as much so there's more and more empty homes and under-utilized homes.  That combination really is resulting in a fundamental risk  to the community that we love so much.  That was just really brought home to me  in talking to people over the last couple of months, in the housing forum, and in the survey.”  

“People want us to do something about it, which is really good to see. There's maybe not 100 percent alignment on what to do, but there's a lot of alignment on a number of the things to do.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - When Quadra ICAN held a community consultation last September, the central question was ‘what are the challenges the island will face as global temperatures warm up.’There were different questions when ICAN held another community meeting at the Quadra Community Centre on Sunday, February 11, 2024. 


“We're moving to solutions and planning. So today, the questions we're going to be working on are: ‘What can we do as a community to become more resilient and self-sufficient in the face of ecological challenges? And then what is important for us to be working on right now?’” said Jennifer Doll, facilitator of the event.