by Megan Ardyche | Jan 29, 2019 | News and Events, Political Activity
Left to right: Blair Cusack, Sandra Milligan, Mark de Bruijn North Island-Powell River Greens announce candidate nominees Nominations have closed! After a thorough search for a suitable candidate, the North Island-Powell River (NIPR) riding of the Green Party of Canada (GPC) has not one, not two, but three candidates seeking the riding’s nomination in the 2019 federal election. The three candidate nominees are Blair Cusack and Mark de Bruijn of Comox and Sandra Milligan of Campbell River. Cusack has worked as a technical analyst in the petroleum, hydro-electric and IT industries, while de Bruijn is a retired teacher and college instructor, fish biologist and community builder. Milligan is a biology instructor at North Island College and president of Greenways Land Trust. Don’t know the candidates? You can ask them anything at three Meet the Candidate Nominees events during the month of February. The three meet-and-greets are open to the public. The first one is on Monday, Feb. 4, 6-8 p.m., at the Campbell River Community Centre Room 2, located at 401-11th Ave, in Campbell River, with subsequent events in Powell River and the Comox Valley. Watch for updates or consult NIPR’s Facebook page. Following the three meet-and-greets, GPC members will choose their riding candidate at NIPR’s nomination meeting, set for March 10 at 2 p.m. Green Party of Canada leader, Elizabeth May, is scheduled to address the crowd at the successful candidate’s campaign launch, set for March 23. In the meantime, don’t forget that you need to be a GPC member 30 days prior to the nomination meeting in order to vote (i.e. by February 8, 2019). Go to...
by Megan Ardyche | Jan 26, 2019 | News and Events, Newsletters
Must Reads from Last Week Locally World Community Film Festival The World Community Film Festival is back again, February 1-2, 2019. This is BC’s longest running social justice documentary film festival, and is presented annually in Courtenay. Global Warming: The time has come for a personal carbon cap, overlooking the full costs of alternatives to wood heat, and the feasibility of the woody biomass industry as a climate change solution This week these three issues came together in the Comox Valley Record. A letter to the editor from Fred Fern of Merville spoke eloquently about the need for a personal carbon cap. “Every person on the planet has a carbon footprint and can make that footprint smaller. We are going to have to ration carbon….” In another letter to the editor from Harold Macy, also from Merville, he writes about the carbon footprint problems of alternatives to burning wood for heating. Then, there’s an article announcing the film “Burned,” which was shown at North Island College on January 23. “Burned” is “an unflinching, critical look at the woody biomass industry as a climate change solution.” Reading these three items brings to mind David Brooks, a New York Times writer and PBS commentator, who says that in terms of the catastrophic climate effects of global warming, only technology will save us. But he’s missing the component of restraint that Fern suggests in his letter, while Macy points out that changing one technology for another isn’t carbon footprint-free. So, perhaps, a personal carbon cap needs to underpin any technological measures we try - serious restraint on an individual level. In...
by Megan Ardyche | Jan 19, 2019 | News and Events, Newsletters
Must Reads from Last Week Locally Opportunity to mentor new Valley farmers The New Farmer Mentorship and Loan Program is ready to support more Comox Valley farmers in 2019. This is an opportunity to directly invest in local food security. They are looking for mentors AND lenders, so if you have farming skills to share, great. If you have a bit of money to invest, great. Read more. If you are interested in being a mentor or lender for the 2019 season, please contact Don Munroe at donm203@gmail.com. The New Farmer Mentorship and Loan Program was developed as an offshoot of the Comox Valley Responsible Investing Club. Plastic bag ban proposal presented to Comox Council “Two Comox Valley nurses are hoping the area will follow the lead of other Island municipalities and ban single-use plastic bags. Betty Tate and Helen Boyd asked Comox council Wednesday at its committee of the whole meeting to consider the ban and in its place use reusable bags at a variety of retailers and businesses.” Tate and Boyd are part of the Comox Valley Nurses for Health and the Environment. Read more. Pacific herring: Small fish – Big problem: The importance of the herring The annual herring spawn in the Strait of Georgia around Hornby and Denman Islands is the last of six major herring spawns on the west coast of Canada - the rest were overfished. It’s called a roe fishery, but 90% of the herring biomass caught is ground up into fish food – often for salmon farms. Only 10% of the herring biomass caught actually consists of roe. “If we...
by Megan Ardyche | Jan 12, 2019 | News and Events, Newsletters
Must Reads from Last Week Provincially Kwispaa LNG pipeline This blog has previously reported on this proposed pipeline, which would come through Powell River, undersea to Comox, and overland to Sarita Bay near Port Alberni. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency is open for comments on this pipeline until January 16, 2019. This is the second of four opportunities for the public to comment on theenvironmental assessment of the project. Some points to consider include: Include the supply pipeline construction and operations as part of the Designated Project and include all associated impacts in the Kwispaa Review. Include the shipping area to the 200 mile limit in the Designated Project Area and all associated impacts in the shipping area in the Review. The shipping area to include all SARA Critical Habitat areas the shipping may pass through. Include downstream impacts of GHGs resulting from the combustion of LNG cargoes at their final customer destinations. Include upstream impacts of natural gas supply including GHG emissions from construction, operations, compression, natural gas well drilling and development and fugitive emissions from natural gas production of the supply wells and supply pipeline network. Include all effects listed in the Kwispaa Project Description Table 5-8 Potential Project Related Effects. Include a Human Health Impact Study. Include a Socio-Economics Impact study that includes the pipeline impacts, the project area impacts including shipping, and construction and operations. Include loss of forestry production values for the pipeline right of way. Include signed contractual undertakings that bind customers to use the LNG to replace coal combustion. Include a Federal Review of the supply pipeline by the National Energy Board...
by Megan Ardyche | Dec 15, 2018 | News and Events, Newsletters
Must Reads from Last Week The Must Reads is going into hiatus over the holiday period. The NIPR Greens wish you all a wonderful year end. Get ready for the 2019 election! Locally Greens of North Island-Powell River December 2018 gathering Left to right: Doug Cowell, Carol Thatcher, Mark de Bruijn, Blair Cusack, Jay van Oostdam, Megan Ardyche, Mark Tapper (Photo by Pieter Vorster) About 40 Green supporters gathered at the Comox Golf Club to eat, drink and get reconnected. The next gathering will be NIPR’s candidate nomination meeting sometime in January or early February 2019. Provincially The BC referendum on proportional representation We know that the Liberals and the anti-PR campaign are now focused on delegitimizing the outcome of the voting referendum even before the results have been announced. Watch this video to find what they’re doing and how you can block their obvious moves against democracy in action. Municipal leaders vote in favour of a new watershed governance model In September, this blog reported on the push for this resolution at the Union of BC Municipalities upcoming meeting. “In essence, the resolution is a transfer of resources and a sharing of responsibilities (from Province to Municipal) to allow for local governments, in partnership with First Nations and local watershed entities, to have the power to address community water needs and concerns locally.” Read more. Now you can also test your River IQ. You can play this game over and over; each time you will get different rivers to choose from, and brief information about that river. Site C: Parks Canada shirks UN request for review...
by Megan Ardyche | Dec 8, 2018 | News and Events, Newsletters
Must Reads from Last Week Locally Cumberland council looking to ban water bottling Read more. The November 3, 2018, edition of this blog carried a similar article in which the Strathcona Regional District also took a stand against water bottling, and the July 7, 2018, edition carried various stories pertaining to water protection. Communities all over the world are fighting global corporate companies like Nestle, but also local business that want to profit from profiting from what is essentially a commons and should be a human right, since it is essential to sustain all life on Earth. As global warming increases and weather patterns change, droughts will occur in more areas and water will increasingly become a flashpoint. (For more on water, see the story of selenium pollution in the Elk Valley below.) Most Canadian cities are totally unprepared for climate change At the Union of BC Municipalities annual meeting this year, a resolution came to the floor which proposed municipalities start holding fossil fuel companies and other industries financially liable for the costs of damages and clean-up their activities result in, and which municipalities bear the brunt of the costs of. Climate change consequences and mitigation are part of that equation. Sadly, the resolution was voted down, and apparently many of the speeches against were from people who denied climate change was real. Read more. Excerpt: “[Jason] Thistlethwaite and his colleagues measured the plans against 46 indicators that include baseline information, goals, implementation, evaluation and public participation. Almost all plans failed to include an assessment of the municipality’s vulnerability to specific climate change impacts,” the paper says. Only...
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