by Pieter Vorster | Jun 30, 2018 | News and Events, Newsletters
Must Reads from Last Week BC Electoral Reform Referendum Helen Clark, former PM of New Zealand, on proportional representation Have a listen. Why would business/company owners file an injunction to halt the referendum? Read more. Challenging a colonial inheritance: PR and First Nations Read more. Is democracy even possible anymore? “It’s a widespread belief that once democracy takes hold, citizen commitment to the system grows stronger with time.” But is that true? Excerpt: “[Researchers] found “deeply concerning” trends: citizens in several Western European and North American democracies had grown more cynical and distrustful about their political system and more willing to express support for authoritarian alternatives.” Read more. Locally Courtenay/Comox third bridge could kill Hollyhock March and Kus-Kus-Sum This blog has written numerous times about the Kus-Kus-Sum project. (In fact, this writer was at the Nomadic Tempest show just last night.) This project is tremendously exciting. So the City of Courtenay is working on its Transportation Plan for the next 20 years and is considering a third bridge which, according to Decafnation, “would wipe out the Courtenay Airpark, part of the Airpark walkway, destroy the estuary’s last remaining intact ecosystem at Hollyhock Marsh, undermine the Kus-kus-sum rehabilitation project and create another major signaled intersection on Comox Road at a point that regularly floods during winter storms.” Read more. There is a survey for the Transportation Master Plan: Take the survey here. FURTHER READING: See the study’s open house display boards; The city’s Master Transportation Plan webpage. Potlatch 67-67 2018 marks the 67th year since the Canadian government’s Potlatch Ban was lifted, after it was imposed for 67 years. Hence the...
by Pieter Vorster | Jun 30, 2018 | Member Submitted Articles
by Pat Carl for Fair Vote Comox Valley Usually I like to write about my successes as a teacher. But sometimes it’s healthy to confess failures. So, here goes. Bless me, readers, for I have sinned. While instructing at North Island College in Courtenay, I was assigned to teach an English 115, which is that basic composition class that all entering first-year students must take. The English Department encouraged instructors to create themes for those classes. During one such class, I thought it might be a good idea to follow the advice of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I provided an opportunity for students to think about the way First Nations people have been portrayed in dominant literature and cinema and to consider alternative views from a First Nations perspective. Now, if I had to describe myself, I’d have to say I’m a chubby white girl, mostly Irish, a fallen-away Catholic, raised middle-class, a social-justice liberal, an environmentalist, a gardener, a sometimes-writer, and a lesbian. Do you see anything in that list that qualifies me by any stretch of the imagination to conduct a class about the biases prevalent in literature and film regarding First Nations, never mind present an alternative view from a First Nations perspective? That’s right. Nope, nada, nothing. In retrospect, I realize it was unwise to address such an ambitious theme without consulting and collaborating with at least one First Nations elder at the college. And that’s the rub. However well-intentioned, too often white Euro-Canadians have decided for First Nations what’s best for them. Think residential schools. Think the Indian Act. Think of all the...
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