Heather Conn Blogs

The Suffragettes

Thanks to The Suffragettes, an all-women performance group on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast, I’ll never hear the song “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly” the same way again.

 

The four nimble dancers, clad in suffragette-style period costume, shared a hilarious, feminist parody of the children’s song on March 8 as part of an International Women’s Day celebration. To the applause of 150 people at Roberts Creek Hall, they related the tale, to the same tune, of a lady who swallowed a lie, rather than a fly.

 

The lady in this song version, whose lyrics are attributed to Meredith Tam, swallowed the rule “Live to serve others!” along with lipstick and fluff and a ring: “looked like a princess but felt like a thing.” One day she awoke: “She went to her sisters/ it wasn’t too late/To be liberated, to regurgitate.” She threw up the lie and unlike the woman in the original song, she will not die.

Nicholas Simons

This playful song was part of an excellent line-up of local talent—singers, musicians, and poignant speakers—at a pot luck supper sponsored by the Sunshine Coast Labour Council. Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons welcomed the crowd, which sat at tables adorned with arrangements of deep pink roses.

 

Emcee Alice Lutes, a Sechelt councillor, and some audience members teared up when shishalh elder Barb Higgins (Xwu’p’a’lich) recited a poem she’d written, Walking on a Mountain, which evoked “warriors of the heart.”

 Barb Higgins ((Xwu’p’a’lich)

Barb’s daughter Holly later sang several songs, her solo voice resonating clear and loud across the hall. She recited her own poem, which included the line “Thank you for this blood that runs through my veins.” She invited everyone in the hall to join hands with the people beside them, look into their eyes, and say: “Be strong.” The mostly female crowd—at least a dozen men were present and welcomed—eagerly complied.

Dionne Paul

Shishalh band member Dionne Paul, a local Idle No More activist, shared a moving story about her birth. As part of what she called The Sixties Scoop, when Canada’s federal government was taking First Nations children away from their homes, she was to be adopted by a non-native couple in West Vancouver. Her mother, in an abusive relationship, was unable to care for her. At the hospital, only minutes before she was to be handed over to the pair, her aunt and uncle rushed in and said that they would raise her. As a result, she grew up surrounded by her true heritage, enjoying the cultural blessings of her First Nations lineage.

 

She said: “My dad was the very first feminist I ever met. He told me I could be whatever I wanted. I got my fire, strength and drive from my dad.”

 

Fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, mothers, and Gaia—all were honoured at this free neighbourhood event. From “Bread and Roses” and other labour songs to the traditional European songs performed by the seven-member group Sokole, the evening reinforced a flavor of gratitude and solidarity among women and all humanists, regardless of gender, who seek a world of respect and equality. As local school board rep Betty Baxter told the audience: “Our movement accepts people for who they are.”

Jill Conway, Karen Stein, and Daniela Dutto

Popular local groups such as the Knotty Dotters and Definitely Diva rounded out the delightful evening. An a cappella trio of Karen Stein, Jill Conway, and Daniela Dutto sang a women’s liberation song from Tanzania and a beautiful rendition of Gaia Chant: Another World is Possible by Ann Mortifee and Chloe Goodchild. Another world is possible, a new day is here/we can work together now, to go beyond the fears. . . Oh Gaia . . .             

The hope, clear spirit, and irreverence expressed throughout the entire event–not to mention an ardent refusal to adopt Stephen Harper’s vision for Canada–reminded me yet again why I feel so grateful to live in such a fabulous activist community.

— Heather Conn photos

As dozens and dozens of aboriginal drums reverberated in unison outside the Sechelt band office, people thrust “Idle No More” signs upwards. A few woven cedar hats bobbed. About 20 male shishalh band members drummed in a circle, some young, some old. They sang, joined by shishalh women who stood in a smaller circle beside them. In traditional-style dress—button blankets, cedar leggings and headbands, fringed shoulder covers—they all drummed and sang, as supportive local non-aboriginals drummed around them.

More than 500 residents on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast, led by shishalh members, marched Jan. 4 across Highway 101 as part of a nation-wide Idle No More initiative. They gathered by a ceremonial fire across from Sechelt’s Raven’s Cry Theatre to show support for Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence of northern Ontario and to condemn prime minister Stephen Harper’s omnibus bill C-45. (Spence has been on a hunger strike for 29 days, demanding a meeting with Harper to discuss treaty issues and conditions on her reserve. The prime minister has since agreed to meet with the Assembly of First Nations and chiefs on Jan. 11.)

Bill C-45 reduces the number of waterways protected by the Navigable Waters Protection Act from three million to 96. It also weakens or removes industry requirements to protect fish habitat or compensate for its loss or damage. Besides directly attacking the heritage and livelihood of Canada’s First Nations communities, the bill ignores treaties signed by our European and Aboriginal ancestors. It will also serve to destroy land, water, soil, and ecosystems. It eliminates legislation that would have otherwise slowed down or prevented the building of pipelines such as Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project.

“Bill C-45 is going to affect everybody,” shishalh member Robert Joe told the group through a megaphone. “It gives free rein to come into our territories and take our resources. We need to protect our fresh water.”

Donna Shugar, Sunshine Coast Regional District director

Throughout last Friday’s event, shishalh nation members reinforced that their vision of Canada’s Idle No More movement was inclusive, equally welcoming non-natives, environmentalists, First Nations, and anyone opposed to Harper’s dismantling of Canada’s democratic process and structures.

shishalh elder Barb Higgins (Xwu’p’a’lich)

“Let’s all join together and show Canada that we are one,” said shishalh elder Barb Higgins (Xwu’p’a’lich), to cheering and drumming. Locally, Higgins has condemned destruction of forests on the Sunshine Coast and was recently arrested for trying to save 27 hectares of trees and habitat in Wilson Creek.

“We have got to stand up for our rights,” said shishalh chief Garry Feschuk. “This omnibus bill is destructive of our issues in every community across Canada. There has been no consultation. It’s the law to consult with First Nations.”

This last comment brought applause and supportive drumming. Feschuk said that Canada’s current Idle No More rallies, part of a grassroots movement, are only a beginning. Although Harper has agreed to meet with chiefs, Feschuk said: “It’s got to be more than words. Things will escalate if there’s no action behind those words.”

shishalh ancestral chief Calvin Craigan said that the First Nations struggle to achieve rights and recognition in Canada has continued for 200 years. “Finally, nations are going to stand together,” he told the group around the fire. “We’re going to continue until the suppression is no longer.”

After the event, sishalh band council member Ashley Joe wrote: “My heart is so happy to see our people unite for such an important cause. . . Let’s pray that Harper listens to our voices and meets with our leaders in good faith, [in a] Nation-to-Nation manner to address our concerns. We are a powerful people and must be reckoned with.”

The Idle No More movement began when four women in Saskatchewan, indigenous and non-indigenous, organized teach-ins to educate people about the impact of Bill C-45. Since then, indigenous communities across Canada have embraced it as a grassroots initiative and held related roadblocks, protests, flash mobs, and more.

How can you help?

• Stay informed by reading grassroots websites such as idlenomore1.blogspot.ca/
• Join Idle No More rallies and demonstrations
• Write to your local MP
• Contact Stephen Harper at pm@pm.gc.ca or 613-992-4211
• Write to the Governor-General of Canada, Rideau Hall, 1 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1A 0A1
• Join your local Idle No More Facebook page
• Join Twitter @IdleNoMore4 or Idle No More

Think of new, engaging ways to bring these issues to a broader audience in a respectful, peaceful way.

 

As the Wilson Creek forest falls to logging, I am reminded of the simple message: “Never give up.” Otherwise, a person loses heart, a community crumbles, dreams disappear. When it seems like no one is listening and no one cares, don’t despair. There will always be people who care. And those who truly care take action.

 

About 130 such people showed up last Wednesday in front of the District of Sechelt office. Environmentalist George Smith, who was instrumental in protecting the Tetrahedron region and transforming it into a provincial park, said: “It [Sunshine Coast Community Forest] is not a community forest. It’s never been a community forest. The good old boys are running this [community forest].”

 

Smith noted that the Sunshine Coast Community Forest (SCCF), in its current form, was structured over the objections of the local community, the Sunshine Coast Conservation Association, the Sunshine Coast Regional District, and most community associations in the area. The B.C. Liberal government put it in place because they wanted to log our watershed, he added. “Get out of our watersheds and make sure that eco-forestry is practiced.”

George Smith addresses the group

Smith urged all those present to write to provincial New Democratic Party leader Adrian Dix—presumably B.C.’s next premier in May 2013—to have him revisit the structure and role of community forests. “B.C. Timber Sales should be giving their land a real community forest,” Smith said. “We should have an appropriate ecosystem and a decent forest in which we can recreate.” Listeners applauded.

Starwalker: “Let’s stay positive”

Starwalker, one of the protesters recently arrested in the Wilson Creek forest peace camp, told the group: “Let’s stay positive.” Last Friday, he appeared in a Vancouver courthouse with three other protesters. On Dec. 12, he filed a small claims court lawsuit against the RCMP and B.C. solicitor-general for not returning his food and possessions, which were confiscated when he and others received a 10-minute notice to pack up the camp or face arrest.

Barb Higgins: “It’s the same old story”

Another of the arrestees, sishalh elder Barb Higgins (Xwu’p’a’lich), told the crowd: “It’s so long since we’ve seen justice. It’s the same old story except more people are becoming aware that they are being manipulated by politicians.” She will face a judge Jan. 14 in Vernon, BC.

Within about 10 minutes, during two pass-the-hat sessions, the group donated a total of $1,000 to help with expenses related to the arrestees’ court appearances.

Event organizer Pat Ridgway addresses the group, with Barb Higgins to her right.

“We want the community put back into the community forest,” said event organizer Pat Ridgway, who asked the assembled group to direct positive energy towards the District of Sechelt building and its decision-makers. Many of the group’s placards read: “Who cut you and me out of the community forest?”

 

Local activist Scott Avery stood on a rock and directed his voice at the building, as if speaking directly to Sechelt Mayor John Henderson. “We are all members of community,” he said. “Community, to me, involves everyone.” The crowd repeated his sentences in call-and-response style, a format popular with the Occupy movement.

David Quinn (Popois)

David Quinn or Popois of the sishalt nation, a nephew of elder Theresa Jeffries and another arrestee, said: “No corporation, no society, has a right to occupy Indian and without a purchase.” (The Wilson Creek Forest is part of the sishalh’s traditional territory.) “Thank you for standing behind our elders.”

 

So far, neither Henderson nor SCCF chair Glen Bonderud has responded publicly to the protesters, nor to their letters. Not surprisingly, those seeking a more inclusive community forest board have said that Henderson and the SCCF are not listening to them. Last week’s Coast Reporter quoted the mayor as saying that “We’re not listening” truly means “We’re not agreeing.”

 

Last Thursday, CBC-TV made the Wilson Creek forest logging and arrests their top story for the 11 p.m. news. They acknowledged that the current ordeal on the Sunshine Coast is but a microcosm of what is occurring across the province. As part of this newscast, Bonderud, contacted by phone, said that our region needs jobs. In his view, logging underway in Wilson Creek provides jobs.

 

In response, Avery points out on Facebook: “Ninety-five percent of logs get shipped offshore whole this year. That means three loggers; an operational manager plus secretary; perhaps four truckers and their truck owners; perhaps four scalers and their management; perhaps four longshoremen and their management; ship crew if it is Canadian.” That leaves only log brokers and the financial markets as the “inflated beneficiaries,” he says. Avery said that overall, local forestry is operating at an excruciatingly long-term loss, especially when factoring in 60 years of non-timber forestry losses plus the social losses.

 

At a recent public meeting at Sechelt City Hall, local resident Rolef Ohlrogge stood up and asked Henderson: “Could you tell me your definition of a tree farm and a forest?” Someone at the event said that the mayor looked away, paused for a few seconds, then said, “Well, you know, things grow.”

 

Last week, I was feeling discouraged by the lack of respect and response that Henderson, Bonderud, and others have shown towards those who want to preserve our local forest and have a say in how it is managed.

 

Then, last night, I watched Anne Wheeler’s CTV movie The Horses of McBride. Based on a true story, it addressed how one caring young woman didn’t want to see two starved, abandoned horses, marooned in deep snow high in the mountains in northern B.C., die. While others, including a veterinarian, urged her to forget the animals and have them put to sleep, she refused.

 

The horse enthusiast soon won over her father to her cause. In minus-30-degree-Celsius weather, he helped her start to dig a two-metre trench in the snow, to create a pathway to lead the horses out to a road. Soon, local snowmobilers and those from neighbouring provinces appeared to provide their support. Within four days, a trench more than a kilometre long was completed, and the horses were led to warmth and safety.

 

This show reinforced to me what one person’s determination and the positive spirit of a community can do. It all starts with caring, then action. Never give up.

 

As Shannon Woode, a concerned mother who helped organize an educational walk in the Wilson Creek forest, says within a poem:

 

“May the Wilson Creek Forest become a legacy that moves us to a new beginning. May our leaders follow with open heart. May this be the last forest of awe to be slashed from history.”

 

Never give up.

Today’s protest gathering in front of the District of Sechelt offices.

 

It could have been called Occupy District of Sechelt.

 

About 80 local people gathered today outside the Sechelt mayor’s office as a peaceful show of support for the beleaguered Wilson Creek forest.

 

They slammed the arrest this week of nine who stood in opposition to the logging of 27 hectares of this Sunshine Coast forest, which has already begun. (The previous total of 25 arrested, a figure widely distributed on Facebook, was not accurate.) They criticized the RCMP’s heavy-handed approach to the arrests, which involved eight police cruisers, minor injuries to one protester, and the towing away of the self-named forest-guardians’ vehicles. (Before making the arrests, the RCMP had given the inhabitants at the well-established trailhead peace camp only 10 minutes to pack up and leave — a clearly impossible task.)

 

Outside the Sechelt government office, various concerned community members spontaneously took turns addressing the leaderless group, standing on a rock on the lawn in the same impromptu style that has characterized the global Occupy movement.

Hans Penner addresses the crowd

“We have to call for a suspension of the licence of the [Sunshine Coast] Community Forest, its sales and operation,” Hans Penner, co-founder of Elphinstone Logging Forest, said to applause and appreciative drumming.

 

Since it began, the current Sunshine Coast Community Forest (SCCF) group, which has the licence to log Wilson Creek Forest’s cutblock EW002, has not held one public meeting, Penner said. Its nine directors, seven of whom are from the logging/forestry sector, must comply with a gag order not to share any critical information with the public, he added. (Click here to see the minutes of their board meetings.)

 

How’s that for public consultation? Really puts the “community” into Community Forest, doesn’t it? As one man commented to the group, “It’s basically the Sechelt Council Logging Company.”

 

Although logging in this cutblock halted temporarily last week and this morning, loggers and the RCMP have since disregarded a formal request by sishalh elders to stop trespassing on the Wilson Creek Forest. This land is part of their ancestral territory, which has never been negotiated away, said Penner.

 

sishalh elder Barb Higgins (Xwu’p’a’lich)

As sishalh elder Barb Higgins (Xwu’p’a’lich), one of the arrestees, told the group: “This land is the bones of my people.” The 79-year-old organized everyone into a large circle, while remaining in the centre, then asked them to open their hearts and connect with the spirits of all peoples who are working to protect the earth.

Pat Ridgway talks to the group

Pat Ridgway, who organized today’s gathering, said that the original Community Forest concept, voiced on the Sunshine Coast in 2004, was inclusive, with a strong preservation theme. Since then, members of the forestry industry have co-opted the vision with a drive to log rather than conserve.

 

“There is no community in the Community Forest,” she said. “The [Sechelt] mayor and the Sunshine Coast Community Forest are making decisions and not listening to us. We have to hold a vision of what we want.” She reinforced that those who oppose the logging want a peaceful resolution.

 

Scott Avery, who chaired an informal meeting Sunday in Roberts Creek that included peaceful protesters and SCCF operations manager Dave Lasser and his wife, said that Sechelt mayor John Henderson, a former SCCF director, and the Community Forest group are not acting with mindfulness or a holistic viewpoint.

 

“They’re not evolving,” he told the group. “We need to evolve to appreciate each other for what we are and are not. We can all live by example every day. We can try not to create adversaries and appreciate the person on the top and on the bottom, not abuse anybody.”

Higgins talks to local media

Several dozen of the group moved to the RCMP building next door to demand the release of the five people arrested and taken to Vernon. Others broke into small groups, discussing strategy. One man thought that the group is “fighting for the scraps” of the forest; he felt that a broader, coast-wide initiative, beyond just protecting Wilson Creek forest, is needed. He wanted a clear mandate: “What is the vision?”

 

A community source has noted that the SCCF, RCMP, and District of Sechelt are anticipating an escalation of protest and will respond accordingly, based on their “play book.” This could even involve having their own camouflaged commandos waiting in the forest for protesters who might flee into the woods, hoping to avoid arrest. Be warned.

 

Anyone who seeks to protect what’s left of the Wilson Creek forest is urged to contact Sechelt mayor John Henderson, write to the local media, and to contact SCCF directors directly at their home, office (604) 885-7809 or by email at scpi@telus.net. Click here to see the names and bios of the directors. The most important one to contact is chair and president Glen Bonderud.

We need to make Sechelt mayor John Henderson and the SCCF truly accountable to the community.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  — Jack Stein photos

Local community members who have worked for years to help save 27 hectares of Wilson Creek forest have not let last week’s initial logging stop their efforts. If anything, the desire to save this precious creek and area of first-growth firs (cutblock EW002) has grown even stronger.

Early last week, I was truly saddened and deeply disappointed to hear that loggers had begun cutting down this local forest on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast. Then the RCMP announced that anyone who came onto the land would be arrested for trespassing. Members of the peace camp at the mouth of the trail received only 15 minutes to clear out. Three people were arrested.

Supporters at the trail head

I thought of all of the local schoolchildren, parents, hikers, and shishalh elders who have come to this forest to admire and honour its presence. They have spoken out to protect it. I thought of the beauty of the land itself, the soft moss, the pond, the roaring creek, the silent, tall trees, and the various species of creatures that depend on these woods for their home and survival. I thought of the 27 interpretive signs that volunteers had erected along the trail to teach people about the biodiversity of this forest and the important role it plays. Was all this effort and many years of rich, natural growth to be deemed irrelevant, reduced to ugly stumps and slash?

But hope remains, as the forest has met a reprieve—for now. In a display of admirable activist power, some shishalh elders signed trespass-and-rights documents and served them on the RCMP and the Sunshine Coast Community Forest, the body with the logging rights to these hectares. This land, after all, has belonged to the shishalh for centuries; it is part of their traditional territory.

Barb Higgins (Xwu’p’a’lich)

Since then, elder Barb Higgins (Xwu’p’a’lich) has held daily healing ceremonies in the woods. There has been no logging. Supporters have joined Higgins and her daughter Holly, acting as ongoing forest guardians. They continue to remain in this area. They are determined to save this forest, a vital anchor piece for the proposed Mt. Elphinstone Park expansion, for the enjoyment of their grandchildren.

Concerned community members also shared their anger with Sechelt mayor John Henderson at Saturday’s Sechelt town hall session. Why have he and the Sunshine Coast Community Forest board members not listened to the many people who have spoken out in favour of saving these woods? Whose interests are they guarding?

I’m relieved to hear that the drive to save this forest is still thriving. The group Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) is asking people to show their support. Join Higgins and others at the trailhead. Bring firewood and snacks. Contact ELF for more information.