Cortes Currents

De Clarke/ Cortes Currents - The Cortes Community Health Association held its annual AGM at 1pm on Sunday May 7th, in the main room at Mansons Hall. The meeting was lightly attended and no controversial topics were on the agenda.

After opening the meeting, Board President Ed Safarik welcomed guest speaker Yasmina Cartland who made a brief presentation about “Compassionate Communities.” The rest of the meeting was devoted to the usual business of an AGM, concluding with selection of Board members for the coming year

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Cortes Community Economic Development Association (CCEDA) recently hired Kate Maddigan as its new Economic Development Officer (EDO). 

Colin Funk, the President of CCEDA, explained, “I have known Kate pretty much the entire time I've been on Cortes, I think I'm coming up to my 10th summer here. I've been on a few boards with her when I was active with Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI). We live pretty close together in the south end of the island. So like many, we bump into each other at the store or on the trails and such.”

Cortes Currents asked Maddigan about some of the work she has done in the community.

“I'm working for the ambulance station, but that will be my daytime job.”

“I did work for DFO for quite a few years up in the Yukon, and through that I came to understand government culture better than anywhere. So when I'm writing a grant or something, I understand the brain of a bureaucrat. It really helps because you need to be able to speak their language and not everybody can do that.”

“I have written a lot of grants, and then it turns into a project management position because I know the project so well”.

“The Cortes Community Forest Cooperative approached me to write a grant with their value added project, and then I became the project manager when the grant was successful. I've also done some work for the partnership with the skills training of forestry workers a year and a half ago, I wrote the grant, the grant was successful and I became the project manager.”

“I did some work writing grants for the Streamkeepers and help them with their fundraising strategy.”

“I've done a lot of work for FOCI just being on the board of directors for 10 years, and felt that my time there was done, and CCEDA was looking for a grant writer. So I jumped in and I've done some project management for CCEDA along with all the grant writing.”

CF: “She's got a deep sense of Cortes, having been a resident for many years. She's been in the nonprofit/ social profit sector for a huge amount of time and, I think more than anybody on Cortes, has a really good understanding of the groups - whether it's groups that are dealing with the environment, economic or social education. That's really important because many of us sometimes just have a singular focus and she's very much pan-Island, so that's super important.”

“The other thing too is she just has some remarkable skills in terms of being a real strategic thinker, and a visionary and then the ability to get things done. That's unique because most of us are either big thinkers, dreamers, but we couldn't tie our shoes effectively. Others can get lots of things done, but aren't necessarily working on the right thing or the appropriate context. She's got this whole brain approach. Kate can go from big picture and then very quickly understand what's needed to put that forward.”

“She's got a wonderful personality and is really responsive to listening to people and following up on, helping us achieve our aspirations, our dreams. When you're working in the type of work we do in the nonprofit sector and volunteer sector, it's all about relationship. We're doing stuff that sometimes is a surprise, or unexpected, or a challenge and quite often with limited resources. So the relationship side of things is really, really important. LIke many others, I just so enjoy being around her.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Green Party leader Elizabeth May flew in from Ottawa on Saturday, May 6. She was the feature speaker at the North Island - Powell River Electoral District Association (EDA) AGM at the Maritime Heritage Centre in Campbell River. Around 60 people from Campbell River, Comox, Powell River, Port McNeil, Quadra Island and Cortes Island were in attendance.

This is an edited transcript of her speech, and a couple of excerpts from the subsequent remarks made by local Green Party candidate Jessica Wegg.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - As the weather turns warmer, some recreational vessels seek moorage at Cortes Island docks for periods of between one and six months. This is called long-term-moorage. On Wednesday, May 3, the Harbour Authority of Cortes Island (HACI) issued a press release stating that their docks in Whaletown and Cortes Bay are now full for long-term-moorage this summer.

“When we're talking about long-term recreational moorage, we're just talking about individuals who are looking to moor a boat and not live on it,” explained Harbourmaster Jenny Hartwick

“At this point in time, both the Squirrel Cove and Mansons docks still have some long-term recreational moorage placements available and those are available on a first come, first serve basis until they are full.”

CC: So this does not apply to boats coming in for the afternoon, or a few days.

“For a community user that wants to come in for the afternoon, from their boat-access-only property, or a commercial user who's using the dock for work on a regular basis, absolutely. We are only talking about recreational long-term moorage.”

“We have had to do this because we have received such a huge request for individuals looking for one month, three month or six month long-term moorage for their recreational vessels. We've had to look at the actual physical capacity of our docks, and what they can handle.”

“I'd also like to remind the community that rafting is a requirement on all of our docks.”

“This means that vessels are already being rafted two deep and this policy was put in place to prevent what we saw as potential safety issues of vessels coming into our more popular docks and in some cases rafting four, even five vessels deep down the entire length of the dock.”

“I think the first thing to reiterate is that the government docks on Cortes are all docks that are owned under the Small Craft Harbours program of the federal government. Under this program, the Harbour Authority of Cortes Island operates these docks through an arm’s length lease agreement, but we are required to meet Small Craft Harbour's mandate as part of this lease agreement. Small Craft Harbour's primary mandate is to support the commercial fishing industry in BC and to support the infrastructure associated with the commercial fishing industry.”

“We recognize that we are an island and we have all sorts of short-term moorage needs. People with boat access only properties, and there are a huge variety of other community uses for our docks.”

“This policy of limiting long-term recreational moorage is to help us manage the increased requests for moorage that we've experienced over the past couple of years, while still ensuring that we have space available for those mandated commercial uses, but also the community island needs.”

Image credit: Boater by Larry Wentzel via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Old Schoolhouse Art Gallery is looking forward to what may be their best season in years.

“There's a post COVID enthusiasm which was first evidenced by the submissions that we had that have resulted in seven shows. There's no hesitation about Covid rules, or what we should or shouldn't do. We've been a nonprofit for a year and a bit, and the new manager has had a year behind her. Things feel more settled, and more focused on the magic of the shows than the behind the scenes business that the boards have to handle in any organization in a big time of change,” explained Oriane Lee Johnston (OLJ).

“One thing that Islanders can look forward to is a full season starting from the 9th of July.”

“There will be a grand opening with 'Between Heaven and Earth' with the Thursday afternoon Arts Collective. Seven artists have been meeting pre-pandemic in Lisa Gibbons studio every Thursday afternoon and have a body of work that we are all now going to see.”

“The last show closes on the 10th of September with the Annual Members Show. That will be a grand finale where every Cortesian who fancies themselves an artist, or who is an artist, may submit a piece or two pieces for exhibition in the gallery.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Cortes Island Academy appears to have its full quota of 20 students for 2023/24.

Manda Aufochs Gillespie, the Academy’s principle Board member, explained, “We've let the first 20 students know that they have a spot if they want it, and then we'll start taking students off our wait list. This time last year, we were still like, 'oh no, we don't know if anybody will sign up for this crazy new program we have.’ This year, not only is it an established program that's going to keep continuing into the future, but we had so many applicants that we had to have a wait list.”

“We took that hard job of figuring out who to let in and gave it to a jury of community members, who listened to the students videos that they had to create as part of their application, read the reference letters, looked at their application, and helped take into consideration our matrix of priorities such as making sure we make additional concessions for local students, etc. Some of them said it was one of the hardest things they've ever had to adjudicate or give their thoughts on. It wasn't easy, but it was a beautiful process of young and old Cortesians, people who lived on the island and have moved off, representatives from the school district and from the Outer Islands.

“The second really exciting thing that we're doing this year, is that the Cortes Island Academy has officially created partnerships with other rural remote Outer Island communities within School District 72 to treat their students as much as possible as locals. That means that we can prioritize their applicants and applications into the Cortes Island Academy.”

“We've had to figure out a rental situation where those Outer Islands families can come and share in the responsibilities of hosting these kids on our island. They can be part of this innovative, awesome, educational experience, so that they can have a real option.”

CC: Which Outer Islands?

“We have offered places to students from of course Quadra, Sonora, Read, and an island called Bibs, which I've never even heard of.

“Those are what we're calling the Outer Islands. There's other ones too , Maurelle and other places out there. Some of these have families and students who get to school by boat or have almost no option at all even compared to Cortes. They're even more remote.”

“We just want to stress that our rural and remote students are suffering in Canada, that they're underperforming in all academic majors. They're dropping out of high school at almost double the rates of their rural counterparts and they're entering the workforce with the largest education gap of any developed country.”

“My dream is that every student in Canada has an option to something like a Cortes Island Academy, but in the meantime we're starting in our own backyards and helping make this a true option for local people. So thank you again to our community and those many neighbors who took the time to be part of this heart-wrenching process of figuring out who we are going to prioritize for letting in.”

“The Cortes Island Academy has done something that's pretty hard to do, which is figure it out a way to leverage government and education money for something that is really out of the box.”

“This program still costs about $200,000 a year in hard costs, and that has been up to the Cortes Island Academy Society and the Cortes Island Community Foundation to fill that gap. We were able to fill that gap last year through individual donors and through a grant from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.”

“We are still trying to fill that gap this year. Of this year's $200,000 hard costs, we have raised more than a quarter already.”

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The 2023 Gorge Hall Mother's Day Plant sale will be from 11 AM to 2 PM on Sunday May 14. This has been a Whaletown Community Club (WCC) tradition for more than 30 years.

“It's a community event. The pleasure of people seeing each other, talking to one another outside of the absolute necessity of needing something from a neighbour. This is an opportunity to see the gardening health of Cortes and the vibrancy of it by seeing what's on the table. The vigor of the gardening culture has always been an integral part of Cortes,” explained Gabriel Dinim, President of the Whaletown Community Club.

“We don't always go in other people's gardens, but if you put a bunch of plants on the table you can even put your name by it - then everybody can see what a gardener you are! If you don't put your name by it, it just provides more plants to sell for the WCC. We can always use a fundraiser.”

“Before Covid it was the crowds milling around looking at the plants. people come early before the sale opens up, bringing their plants. Carloads of shrubs and small trees, perennials and annuals. that activity is lovely.”

“I remember seeing 50, 60 people coming up and three or four tables loaded with plants and trees from nurseries. Rosemary Woodridge used to be very involved in it, and she's a fearless woman who would get on the telephone called the nurseries and ask them to donate, and they would. Somebody would go to town, pick up a bunch of things that we did not grow on the island.”

“Then watching people just go from table to table deciding what they're going to pick, discussing it with their friend or neighbor or parent. What about this? What about that? The activity is very pleasant. And if it's a sunny day on top of that, then it's the icing on the cake.”

CC: Is this the first Mother's Day plant sale since Covid?

GD: “There was one last year, but it did not have quite the oomph as the pre covid sales had. I think that we still had a touch of PTSD around that issue. Fear of the crowd, which we are learning to overcome again.”

“if you wish to volunteer to put plants on the table, to get the tables out of the hall, have a good time and laugh, please come around 9:00 in the morning when we expect the donations to start. If you have extra, please bring it to the Gorge and we look forward to seeing you. It will be a lovely event.”

Image credit: Rhododendron Photo by Jim the Photographer via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 LIcense)

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The Strathcona Regional District (SRD) centralized fire service, unveiled at last week’s board meeting, was not what many feared. It seemed to compliment, rather than replace, the District’s seven volunteer fire departments. Cortes Currents reached out to Mark Vonesch (MV), the Regional Director for our area, for a more in depth perspective.

MV: “The size of this service is quite small and it's really just funding two full-time jobs to provide some general administration support around the things that rural fire departments and the regional district need to coordinate more on. I think it makes sense both for rural fire departments in the Strathcona Regional district and the regional district itself to have some shared administration.”

“It's going to make it easier for rural fire departments. It is going to make it easier for the regional district to make sure that all the rural fire departments are meeting regulations, that inspections are happening in a coordinated and uniformed way. We're looking at training and inspections in ways that are smart for everybody.”

“This is not going to cost very much money. We're looking at roughly $16 per property owner, if your property's $800,000. The average is less than that in Cortes. This is a very small cost that is going to provide some shared admin support for rural fire departments.”

“My first impression of this is that it actually makes a lot of sense. It's something worth supporting. I think it's going to ultimately bring down the budget that the Cortes Fire Department is going to require moving forward, as we share some administration, particularly around training inspections, regulatory requirements, symbol bulk purchasing and general administration.”

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - At the regular SRD board meeting on April 26th (minutes), a couple of issues of interest to Cortes residents were discussed.

There were new developments in the story of SRD’s proposal to centralise rural fire hall administration; this was covered by Roy Hales on Monday.

The Board also discussed the “Community Resiliency Investment Grant” and its uses, specifically the provision of wood chipping service for properties with road access, and the local use of those wood chips.

Sean Koopman reported to the Board that SRD successfully applied for $300,000 under the Resiliency grant for this year:

So on November 23rd, 2022, this board passed a resolution authorizing the Regional District to apply for $300,000 for this grant.

While we haven’t officially received the grant yet, it is incoming soon, so it’s non-officially official. Part of the activities that the board approved were wood chipping for road accessible properties in electoral area A and D. What we started with this grant last year was putting out calls to community organizations for the wood chips that come from this grant — under the UBCM criteria that they be disposed of 100 metres from structures.

Although initially those wood chips were available only to community service organisations — not to individuals or businesses — the Board at the April 26th meeting voted to offer wood chips to any applicant willing to come and collect them from a central location. Delivery of wood chips, however, would still only be available to community organisations. Individuals would have to sign a waiver or agreement promising to dispose of them safely and according to those FireSmart guidelines.

The Surge Narrows Parents’ Association put in a request for wood chips to cover their playground, which was granted. Wood chips are stored and composting on Cortes in several locations; the composted matter will be available to farmers in two or three years. The Seniors’ Association is using the chipped wood for their trail maintenance; Linnaea Farm and the Dillon Creek Restoration project have also benefited.

Area B Director Mark Vonesch asked why Quadra and Cortes residents were not being offered the chipping service this year, despite SRD’s successful grant application.

Question — Quadra and Cortes were not not being offered this year. Is that just a matter of sort of like every other year?Different locations based on the budget you’re working with?

Sean Koopman explained that Quadra has gone over their budget for wood chipping in the last two years, and the situation on Cortes was complicated by SCCA’s plans for fire safety improvements at Manson’s Hall:

Quadra has gone over budget with this amount in the last two years. That’s a separate conversation. Cortes, the reason we didn’t go for it this year, is this grant can allow for $50,000 per electoral area.

And Fire Smart Renovations for community buildings is an eligible criteria. Mansons Hall has about $80,000 worth of project that they want to undertake. They received a grant for $25,000 for that. So talking with Tammy and the SCCA I said, I will max out the SRD’s 50,000 [from the Community Resiliency grant]. So if the SRD gets the grant — 50,000 from us, 25 from their grant — then that allows them to undertake those Fire Smart renovations to that important community building.

For Cortes, we aim to get back to the chipping next year. This was was a special one time thing in partnership with the SCCA.

It appears that SCCA has a major fire safety upgrade planned for Mansons Hall, similar to what’s already been done for the Gorge Hall but on a larger scale. In the meantime, it looks like Cortes residents may have access to those stored wood chips — by applying to SRD, filling out some forms, and doing their own pickup and delivery.

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Elizabeth May, co-Leader of Canada’s Green Party, will be the guest speaker at the North Island-Powell River riding AGM in Campbell River this Saturday, May 6, 2023.

This is the first riding in Canada to announce its candidate for the next Federal election. Jessica Wegg (JW) was also the Green candidate for this riding in the 2021 election.

Cortes Currents asked her, “Is this meeting open to the public?”

JW: “Yes, it's open to the public. If you want to vote on anything, you have to be a member of the Greens, but you can join today, or tomorrow. If you're not a member, you can still come.”

“We're very excited that Elizabeth May is coming. We're really looking forward to seeing her and seeing everyone in person. Finally, it seems like we can connect with more people now that we're further away from the pandemic.”

CC: Do you know what Elizabeth May will be talking about?

JW: “No, but she is such a wonderful speaker. I'm really looking forward to seeing her again.”

CC: Do you want to share any thoughts on running again?

JW: “I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do with more time and more preparation . I'm excited to jumpstarted with this AGM and I'm really looking forward to meeting people in person. I think people are feeling energized. We're starting to feel more strength within ourselves to affect change, and I'm excited to see where that goes. I was energized by the last election, even though I lost. It was a really wonderful experience and I'm looking forward to trying again.”

“Candidates all over Canada have been applying and going through the vetting process. It so happened that mine was the first to get through. So I will be the next candidate for the next federal election, whenever that may be, for the Green party for our area.”

The Discovery Islands tend to be more radical than the rest of our riding, or nation for that matter. The 2021 election was an NDP landslide. 939 people voted for the incumbent Rachel Blaney, more than three times what any other candidate received.

Despite divisions within the Green Party and the persistent idea that if you do not vote NDP the riding will swing Conservative, Wegg placed second at 299 votes. She was ahead of both the Conservative and Liberal candidates.

CC: I've been watching the Greens for four elections now, you always have an incredible potential - which has yet to play out in the end.

JW: “What is really going to help the Greens is more youth involvement and people seeing that as Canada unfortunately becomes more polarized with far right thinking and the far right creating an image of the left as well, that the Greens aren't right or left. We're, ‘let's get together and move forward.’ We have to make some changes. There's only one way to do it, if we all work together and there's no reason to not do that.”

The North Island-Powell River Green Party AGM will be on Saturday May 6th from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM at the Maritime Heritage Center in Campbell River.