Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - On Monday, May 15, Rami Rothkop and Oliver Scholfield unveiled their ‘Business Roadmap for Value-Added Forestry Products’ on Cortes Island at Mansons Hall. 

Most of what they presented has been discussed before, the difference being that they were not just talking about ‘ideas.’ These were things they had already accomplished. That is why the Cortes Community Forest Cooperative hired them. 

They previously met with local mill owners Ron Wolda, Henry Verschuur, Aaron and Jeremie Elingsen, as well as Kevin Peacey from the Klahoose First Nation.

“We took the information that we gathered, and tried to create several different options for the community to look at, to analyze, and to then choose which direction they want to take forward,” explained Rothkop. 

“I'd just like to say thank you to the people I’ve met, and the new friends that I've connected with here. This is really an enjoyable  project and  I'm pretty optimistic about it. The prerequisite is having people moving forward with ideas, because without that it won't happen, but the ingredients are here for this to work.”

“My approach has always been precautionary with business, and with forestry in general. One of the roadmap options that we came up with, embraced what a couple of the local mills are already doing. We created a vision that would utilize a short-term plan of their expertise and would test the waters for a couple of years with the intention of starting a facility later on Cortes. That would be centralized, assuming these first few years were positive and showed promise.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - On May 16, Mark Vonesch, Regional Director for Cortes Island issued a press release stating, “I’m excited to let you know that the provincial government has approved Cortes Island's short term rental tax application. Starting on July 1st, tourists will pay an extra 3% on their short term rental bookings and the funds will be collected by the provincial government and sent to the Cortes Housing Society on a monthly basis to contribute to the development of Rainbow Ridge rental housing.”

“This is the first time in BC history that a community is using the tax entirely for housing and the provincial government had to amend their legislation to make it possible.”

The application was made by the Cortes Community Housing Society, whose Executive Director Sandra Wood explained, “The issue has been that once a place becomes discovered by tourists, a lot of homes and cottages that used to be providing year round rental accommodation to locals become part of the Airbnb or other vacation rental sites. The owners of those properties can make more money from tourism rentals than they can from long-term rentals to locals.That has created a shortage of housing on Cortes and many other

islands.”

According to the 'Collecting Stories of Where We Live Survey,' last Spring, at least 159 Cortes Island residents were either living in ‘unstable’ conditions, or homeless.

The Strathcona Housing Needs Assessment found that 150 Cortes households are paying more for rent or mortgages than they can afford.

Vonesch wrote that the housing crisis was one of the big challenges that led to his decision to run for the position of Regional Director.

 

“We need to figure out ways for the free market to offer up more rentals and support development that makes land affordable for young people and families who are currently renting and can’t afford to compete with tourist land prices.”

One of his first acts, as incoming Regional Director for Cortes Island last November, was to seek SRD support for an application for a 3% tax on short term rentals. 

“This is a tax that  affects all short term rentals on Cortes, whether you do that through Airbnb or other online platforms, or you rent your place out privately. It also applies to the ‘hotels’ on Cortes, which are the Gorge Harbour Marina, the Cortes Island Motel and Hollyhock. In order for this application to be submitted, you need at least 50% support from the ‘hotels’ on the island. We were really fortunate to have Hollyhock, the Gorge and the Motel all sign on. Part of my argument to the Regional District is, ‘Look, there’s the support from 100% of all the ‘hotels’ on Cortes!” 

The new SRD Vice Chair, Ron Kerr, was enthusiatic about the project, “I think this is an opportunity to really show what this board can do and not drag things on, but try and move them forward.”

Incoming Area C Director Robin Mawhinney agreed, “I love it. I wanted to add that I believe that the Cortes Island Housing Society is doing great work. They have land, a plan and community support. I fully support this community initiative. I think it's an inspiration and a model, and I believe that a letter of support from the board fits within our Strathcona Regional District vision statement, which is to lend support to individual community initiatives.”

At their inaugrial meeting, on November 9, 2023, the SRD Board unanimously voted to write the letter of support which accompanied the Cortes Community Housing Society's application to the provincial government.

Vonesch’s press release explains that, “For short term rental operators using AirBnB or VRBO, this tax will automatically be collected by the online platform when customers book their stay, so there is no action required from you. For those not using these online platforms, and making more then $2,500 from their short term rental, you must register to collect PST and MRDT.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - British Columbia's Office of the Fire Commissioner (OFC) is the Provincial government office tasked with providing support to BC's fire services through fire investigation, collecting statistics, fire prevention and establishing standards for fire service training. It is based in Saanichton and operates through numerous Local Assistants. At the request of the Cortes Island Fire Department, the Strathcona Regional District Board is recommending that Fire Chief Eli McKenty be appointed Local Assistant to the Fire Commissioner for Cortes Island.

This matter came up at the Board’s May 10 meeting.

Chief Administrative Officer David Leitch explained, “It traditionally has to be someone in the local area. Cortes is clearly an island, it, it wouldn't make sense for anyone off island. Historically that assistant has been the Fire Chief. There is an interim Fire Chief there right now, and they're requesting that person be appointed as the local area Fire Commission.”

Mark Vonesch, Regional Director for Cortes Island, said, “I would like to move that the Regional District recommend to the office of the Fire commissioner, that the Fire Chief Elijah McKenzie be appointed as the Local Assistant to the fire commissioner for Cortes Island.”

Regional Director John Rice seconded the motion, which carried with no opposing votes.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Fifteen years ago April Point Developments submitted a subdivision application for phase one of, what was at the time, a three-phase development proposal for a 134 acre parcel on Quadra Island. This application triggered a requirement that the developer dedicate close to 7 acres as parkland. The matter was thought to have been finally settled last summer, when the SRD Board accepted April Point’s parkland dedication offer - but the developer made some revisions.

There were more questions than answers when this matter came before the SRD Board on May 10.

When no one offered to discuss the matter, Chair Mark Baker (MB) called what turned out to be a premature vote.

“All in favour … Opposed .. seeing none, carried in electoral areas only that the revised proposal for Parkland dedication from April Point Developments be accepted, as outlined on May 10th, 2023. Report from the CAO.”

CAO David Leitch (DL) pointed out, “We don't have a mover on the motion.”

MB: “Oh, we don't have a mover on the motion yet, sorry. So we have electoral areas only. There's a motion.”

None of the rural DIrectors responded.

DL: “There’s no mover of the motion yet.”

MB: “Then the motion is defeated, is that not correct? Technically, it has never been made.”

DL: “So this comes from the Electoral Areas Services Committee, that had supported the motion, correct?”

April Point is in Area C, and after a pause Robyn Mawhinney, the Regional Director of Area C, expressed her hesitation.

“I notice that this report doesn't contain the previous iterations of the report that, generally, reports carry along with them. This is an updated version of an application for a park proposal, but there were no previous iterations of the park proposal included in the report. I was curious if somebody from staff could explain to me the material differences between this iteration of the proposed park and earlier versions, as to the size and the walkability. I noticed that most of it is a wetland which are critical for percolating water into the aquifer, and I appreciate that the wetland is being preserved as a park,” she explained.

“I am curious how this trail will be built, and also maintained. And I'm further curious if a group such as Quadra Island Trails Committee, which is an active group on Quadra Island with much experience designing lines of trails, if they've been consulted or if there has been other ground truthing from staff or locals, or if it has been mainly from the proponent and designer, who is in Vancouver.”

Senior Manager Aniko Nelson replied, “I can't speak to why the previous reports weren't attached to this report, but in any event the size of the parcel that is being proposed is the same as previously. There's a small pinch point which has been created, as part of additional surveying and a current road sighting and a bluff.”

“The proposal has been amended slightly, to allow that road and bluff to be outside of the park area. The area 2.78 hectares remains the same as does the overall trail length of 1,430 metres.”

“There's no proposal at this time to construct trail, as this is a requirement for park dedication only. The Regional District is not in the position to require development of trails at this time. This is outstanding park dedication as part of a previous subdivision, and a current covenant that is on title requiring them to provide this park dedication prior to any further developments in the area.”

RM: “I was just curious because the maps really highlight a lot of trails and you're talking about 1400 meters of trails, but then you're also saying that there is no requirement for the trails to actually be built.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Strathcona Regional District’s *SRD) plan to increase the yield of recyclable materials, collected by the curbside pick-up program on Cortes Island, officially went into effect yesterday.

Engineering Services Coordinator Sheena Fisher gave the Electoral Area Services Committee (EASC) an update at their May 10 meeting.

“I believe it was at the last EASC meeting, that we introduced a letter that we received from Recycle BC where they were asking us to develop a remediation plan to increase the yield of the curbside recycling. When we received that letter in January, we began explorations and discussions with our partners, and providing the service, being our collection contractor and Comox Strathcona Waste Management to develop possible avenues to meet the objectives or the requirements of Recycle BC.”

“We put that together in a draft plan for Recycle BC, which was submitted on time. They have subsequently accepted the plan. We've already started putting things into motion, even though it doesn't technically start until May 15th. The main drivers of that plan are mostly around promotion and education, informing residents about the service, the benefit that it provides, as well as letting them know the impacts should the incentives from recycle BC be diminished or taken away if we're not successful, which is a loss of that funding and likely increase to the user fees.”

“One of the big things that we're working on is adding glass back into the collection, which poses a number of logistic and safety concerns. We're working with the collection contractor on how to accommodate that.”

“The collection volumes increase over the summer regardless, just due to an influx of visitors and people on the island. Which limits their ability to add this new material on their normal runs. We are asking them for some proposals to add a separate day of glass collection once a month to see if that can be delivered without increasing the service costs this year, just so we can get an idea of how much glass we've even able to collect on island and if it's a viable product to help us meet those weights.”

“Glass is nice and heavy, so we're hoping that it gives us a lot of bang for our bucks. But the collection contractor has already stated that most of the glass that they used to receive was refundables, which will not count towards our weights.”

“We're meeting with Recycle BC in June to have some more discussions and Recycle. BC is also going to visit the island so that they can get a feel for the unique culture and solid waste management habits of island residents that they might not be expecting seeing as they're all based in the urban environment of Metro Vancouver.”

“We haven't started the educational campaign. It will include a insert into the user. Invoices that are gonna be sent out in May or June, so that we a direct pamphlet to everybody who's part of the service. We're hoping that will be a effective way of reaching everybody as well as a website and putting up some posters in high volume areas such as the ferry terminals and the grocery store . Definitely open to suggestions about other locations that might meet the qualification of high-volume area, but that's where we're at.”

Regional Director Robyn Mawhinney, of Area C, asked “I was curious about the measuring, how frequently is this happening?”

Fisher replied, “Essentially the plan is a six month plan, thank you.”

Mark Vonesch, the Regional Director for Cortes Island said, “I just want to thank Sheena and Wolfgang for their work on this.”

“Cortes Island is really concerned about recycling. I want to definitely increase their volume.

“It was a surprise to a lot of folks on Cortes that so much of the curbside pickup was being subsidized. It's been educational for a lot of folks and look forward to making progress on this. Thank you.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Dead Boats Disposal Society was on Cortes Island last week.

John Roe (JR) said there are close to 4,000 abandoned boats in British Columbia, and he has been removing them for the past 30 years.

The provincial government set up the Clean Coast, Clean Waters Initiative Fund and the federal government has the Abandoned Boats Program.

“We have our team and are pretty proficient at boat removal. It just requires a lot of pre-work. The pre-work is myself going out as a volunteer, reaching out to the communities, coming up and documenting the boats,” said Roe.

That is what brought him to Cortes Island.

JR: “I reached out to the Klahoose Nation. They're renovating Gorge Harbor Marina and offered me a spot for my RV temporarily. I've been here for three days. I'll be here two more days, and then I'll be back again once I start filing my paperwork.”

CC: What have you found?

JR: “Not a huge amount at the time. Cortes is a very broad island with a lot of inlets. I go out mainly with my drone to areas that are accessible. We haven't found a huge amount, but I know they're here because we have received emails. Like everything else, they get shifted around. So it's really up to the community to tell us where they are. If the boats aren’t put on some sort of documentation, they don't get removed.”

CC: Have you found any abandoned boots?

JR: “Yes, I found a few. I'm going down today to Gorge Harbour. I have a few emails that I have to go through now that I'm connected, but I'll get them documented. I have about seven days from now until my first grant application to the province, and another 10 days after that to the federal government. Because we're doing a lot of debris removal, the province will help pay for that hopefully. If not, we'll put it under a federal application.”

“When we get rolling, we're a big unit. We have barges, cranes and things like that, so it's very expensive for us to come.”

“What we've been telling the government is we'll give a discount for volume. We don't want to go and come back a year later for another boat. We'll take them all at one time. Once we're here, we move fast and everything's just gone.”

CC: Have you found any boats in Squirrel Cove?

JR: “I have, I'm going back out today to document it. Says ‘a mine sweeper,’ I don't think it was.”

CC: Are you talking about the wreck by Basil Creek? (Photo at top of page)

JR: “Yeah, I've seen pictures of that for a number of years and it's even more deteriorated. I'll do a quick assessment of it. I'm of the adage that if man put it in, we're going to take it out. Our oceans are not to be a dumping ground for anything.”

We hoped to meet when he arrived in Squirrel Cove, but that didn't work.

Instead, I met Randy Carlson, whose memories of that old wreck stretch back to another era.

“I remember it before I started elementary school on Cortes around 1960. I used to live right on that side of the boat, on the shore with my grandparents living close by. During high tides in the summer, we used to swim out to it to play. My dad was killed in a logging accident. Mom and me went back to Grandma and Grandpa's. I left in ’67, I think, to start high school in Vancouver and moved back last summer. It's nice and quiet, which I need.”

Joe Roe said he would be visiting the Klahoose that day, and then move on to the more remote northern reaches of Cortes Island. There are said to be a bunch of abandoned boats along those shores. He would use a drone to hunt for them.

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - The Strathcona Regional District is moving forward with adoption of a regional fire administration support service that would provide assistance to the various fire departments in the Regional District.

There was little discussion and no opposing votes at the May 10 SRD Board meeting.

Regional Director Gerald Whalley, of Area A, brought forward the motion that will make this immediate, rather than waiting for next years budget.

“I move option B that the regional fire administration sports service be established as part of the general administration service of the regional district,” he said.

Second” responded Regional Director John Rice of Area D.

“Second, Vonesch,” interjected Cortes Island’s Director.

Chairman Mark Baker noted that ‘Director Rice was quick on the draw,’ and thus is recorded in the minutes as the seconder of this motion.

Baker called the vote: “All in favor.”

“Opposed?”

“Seeing none, that motion is carried.”

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - Two experts are coming to Campbell River to teach local entrepreneurs how to how to grow their businesses beyond our borders. Brady Calancie oversees Export Navigator on Vancouver Island, on behalf of Export Canada. Julie Sperber is the CEO of the Vancouver Island Economic Alliance. Together they oversee Foreign Trade Zone VI, Vancouver Island.

“That's a special designation given to Vancouver Island under their umbrella from the federal government. Normally foreign trade zones are created around individual municipalities, but because Vancouver Island is so unique, they basically deemed all of Vancouver Island a foreign trade zone. It may include the Gulf Islands. I can check with Julie on that, I'm sure it would,” explained Mary Ruth Snyder, Executive Director of the Campbell River & District Chamber of Commerce.

Sperber and Calancie are the guest experts at the Chamber’s ‘Lunch and Learn,’ at 12:00 PM, May 16 in the Anchor Inn, Campbell River.

MRS: “There are supports in place through Brady and Julie to help businesses get their product beyond our borders, whether it's beyond the border of the islands, whether it's beyond the border of British Columbia, whether it's beyond the Canadian border.”

“Anybody who has anything that they are selling, they can begin to sell beyond where they're selling now. Say it's candles; we have a lot of local distilleries; maybe it's children's clothing; hemp clothing; maybe it's energy bars that they're making in their VIHA approved kitchen and they want to expand. Maybe you are a videographer, a podcaster, or a coder and write for AI. You've created something that is not tangible, something that you can't hold in your hand, but something that you can share creatively.”

“These are all small entrepreneurs that have an opportunity to go big, but in a way that works for them and that's what these two individuals are bringing together for our ‘Lunch and Learn.’ It's a free service that they offer.

“You can pepper them with questions and then you can set up an appointment with them for a one-on-one.”

“When you export a product, or even an intellectual property, there are many regulatory steps that you have to go through.”

“These individuals know these regulations inside out, and can help businesses navigate and streamline what they're trying to do. If you try to do it on your own, it's very difficult and it's time consuming. Why do it on your own when you have an opportunity to have somebody literally hold your hand through the entire process that does this day in and day out. They are experts in this field.”

“If it's an intellectual property, again, the laws around intellectual property in every country are different. There isn't one law. It's the same for importing products.”

“When you have a product that you want to sell, what Brady Calancie can do and what Julie Sperber can do, is help you identify which market you want to enter. Maybe it's New Zealand, maybe it's East Asia, maybe it's Maldovia, maybe it's Sweden or Finland. They can help you identify which market is going to be the best fit for what you are trying to sell.”

“Secondly, once you identify the market, they can help you go through all the steps that you need to do to begin to sell beyond our borders.”

CC: That's happening in Campbell River today …

MRS: “ … At the ‘Anchor Inn and Suites’ on the old Island Highway, right across from Quadra Island, at 12 o'clock. $30 if you are a chamber member, $35 if you are not a chamber member. Lunch is included in that price. It's going to be a wonderful round table conversation, and you have a chance to win a $100 gift card.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - TELUS issued a press release stating “it has gained approval to construct a new tower on Tla’amin Nation treaty lands that will dramatically improve wireless service on Cortes Island. Once completed, this new site will provide residents and visitors of the Mansons Landing area and surrounding waterways with reliable cell service, enhanced safety and access to emergency services throughout the area.” 

“This upgrade is part of TELUS’ broader coastal connectivity initiative, which has resulted in improved wireless services to residents and businesses in Whaletown, Gorge Harbour, Cortes Bay, and Squirrel Cove. TELUS plans to schedule construction activities on Tla’amin land over the next few months.”

While no firm numbers are available, a significant number of Cortes Island residents are known to oppose construction of this tower because of:

concerns that electromagnetic fields constitute a health hazard,

TELUS’ refusal to hold a public meeting, as is the normal procedure in our area.

A small number of Cortes residents have expressed support for the proposed cell tower.

There are three major mobility carriers in Canada, and respondents to a survey in PC Mag last month placed both ‘Telus Mobility’ and its subsidiary ‘Public Mobile’ ahead of ‘Bell Mobility’ and ‘Rogers Wireless.’

“The company edges out its competitors in overall satisfaction, likelihood to recommend, and satisfaction with choice of phones, customer support, and fees; while the rating of 6.6 out of 10 for satisfaction with fees is nothing to text home about, it's still quite a bit ahead of Rogers.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Cortes Island Museum just its AGM. They have hired two summer students, want to hire an events coordinator, and are gearing up for the Creative Spaces Garden and Studio Tour this summer. These are the topics that Managing Director/Curator Melanie Boyle discussed with Cortes Currents.