Heather Conn Blogs

Last week’s results of the recent B.C. provincial election  left me too distressed to want to write much on my blog. I still feel utter dismay that premier Christy Clark got re-elected and that the Liberals even gained seats. What a tremendous loss this means to our environment and to the movement to lower greenhouse gases. Clark supports increased use of liquid natural gas (LNG)  and expansion of these facilities across British Columbia. As the Valhalla Wilderness Society points out, studies have proven that the LNG process—blasting rock with water and chemicals to extract shale gas—results in more carbon emissions than coal. That’s truly disturbing.

 

As for our already decimated salmon runs along many B.C. rivers and seaways, how will these fish, vital to our economy and First Nations coastal culture, possibly survive if we suffer an oil spill as a result of increased tanker traffic? Clark has received considerable financial backing from oil and gas companies, and it’s unlikely that she will try and stop the Northern Gateway and Keystone pipeline expansion projects. All you have to do is watch the excellent but horrifying documentary Salmon Confidential to realize that a single massive oil spill will destroy our wild salmon. Even without the presence of oil in our waters, these fish are already struggling to survive against the  sea lice and three viruses that fish farming has introduced on our coast. And they’re getting no protection from our provincial or federal governments, which don’t want to threaten the economics of farmed salmon.

 

Yet some election results have definitely made me want to celebrate. I am hugely pleased  that Andrew Weaver, a climate change scientist from University of Victoria’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, has become B.C.’s first provincial Green Party representative . This MLA from Oak Bay-Gordon Head will serve as the environmental conscience for our provincial parliament and ensure that climate change remains an action priority.

 

I am also thrilled that David Eby, head of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, emerged victorious in Vancouver-Point Grey. It’s an admirable feat to snatch away the seat of the premier, as he did. He’ll serve as our moral and legal conscience in B.C. parliament. And of course, on our local scene, I am happy that Nicholas Simons of the NDP got re-elected to represent the Sunshine Coast. Nicholas has been responsive and proactive in many grassroots actions in our region and I am glad that he will be continuing his contributions in our legislature. We need more like him.

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

Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons with Sechelt band elder Theresa Jeffries

This was no Sesame Street public spelling bee. And Big Bird and Elmo were nowhere to be seen. Instead, dozens of local people lined Highway 101 yesterday in Davis Bay, BC., each holding a white sign with a different single letter, which collectively spelled out the phrases: “No Tankers,” “No Pipelines,” and “Defend Our Coast.”

 

 

These were some of the 500+ Sunshine Coast residents who gathered along both sides of the highway as a public, collective voice to reinforce that most British Columbians are against the Northern Gateway pipeline, proposed by Enbridge, and do not want supertankers off their coast.

Local school trustee Lori Dixon

As a symbolic gesture, the line of protesters extended roughly 235 metres, to represent the length of a supertanker along the Sunshine Coast. Event organizers placed two hand-painted white sandwich boards next to the highway to indicate where the tanker’s bow and stern, respectively, would appear.

“They [tankers] can’t turn, they can’t stop and they’d take eight kilometres to stop for an emergency,” Jef Keighley of Alliance 4 Democracy, one of the main organizers, told protesters. They gathered in the Beach Buoy parking lot at 1 p.m. after their one-and-a-half-hour public action. “And that’s in open waters with no navigational hazards.”

At least 90 percent of drivers who passed the demonstrators honked their horns in support, according to one of the letter-card holders, who did not want to be identified. This included drivers of commercial heavy-duty trucks, dump truck operators, people in luxury vehicles, and not surprisingly, Smart cars.

One irate male senior stopped his grey van on the highway, rolled down his window and hollered at protesters: “Did you drive to this event? How did you get here?” (He presumably found it hypocritical to burn gasoline to get to an event protesting oiltankers and pipelines.) Increasingly enraged, he repeated his questions until driving off.

 

The protest, which featured homemade signs by people of all ages, was peaceful. It included members of the Sechelt First Nations band, such as elder Theresa Jeffries and local school trustee Lori Dixon, plus teachers from the region, and representatives from the Sunshine Coast Conservation Association. Local RCMP officers were on hand to ensure the safety of participants and asked them to move back farther onto the shoulder, away from the highway.

After the event, demonstrators heard rousing roadside comments, via megaphone, from Keighley, local activist George Smith, and Nicholas Simons, NDP MLA for Powell River-Sunshine Coast. Keighley pointed out that unlike Norway, which captures about 70 percent of the value of its oil, Canada (via Alberta) receives only one per cent in royalties from the gross (not net) value of its bitumen. (Bitumen is the heaviest, thickest form of oil, which Alberta wants to transport from the tar sands via the Enbridge pipeline to Kitimat for initial processing. Then supertankers would take it through the fragile coastal B.C. coast waters and to China for final refining.)

After all of the related capital cost improvements are made, such as building the Enbridge pipeline, tanker terminal etc, Canada would receive only 25 percent of the net value, which will amount to less than one percent in royalties, said Keighley.

“We’re paying the cost to the environment and in jobs,” he said. “This is bad for B.C., bad for Alberta and for the Canadian economy.”

Smith, who has been active in the fight to stop the Site C dam in northeastern British Columbia, outlined the connection between that megaproject and the Enbridge pipeline and tar sands. The provincial government wants to use water power from the proposed new dam for fracking, in the search for natural gas, and for Shell Canada’s liquid natural gas project in northern B.C., he said. The gas would be shipped to the tar sands, then the oil sent to the coast via the pipeline. This, in turn, would enable oil and gas companies to export their product more cheaply to Asia.

“B.C. gives $300 million a year in royalty and tax breaks to oil and gas companies,” Smith said. “They [the B.C. government] are planning to eliminate 83 kilometres of rivers and 13,000 acres of class one farmland [to build Site C].”

Standing on a picnic table not far from his local constituency office, Simons acknowledged that the gathering was on traditional Salish territory. He told the group: “You’ve done the Sunshine Coast proud. Our voices are not solo voices. They are a choir of voices in the right key for the right people to hear.”

The Davis Bay protest was one of dozens of Defend Our Coast actions held yesterday across the province, including demonstrators linking arms outside MLA offices. Defend Our Coast told local organizers that the Davis Bay event was likely the biggest one of the 65 related events around British Columbia. Many thanks to all who participated and helped plan and organize the Sunshine Coast action, including the flyover pilot and photographer (you know who you are).

                                                                                                — Jef Keighley photos

Day-of-Action participants at John Weston’s office in Sechelt

It used to be in Canada that if you had a black mark against your name, it meant that you were on the do-not-admit list. Not anymore. Now it means that you can run the country — and ignore core democratic principles like freedom of speech.

 

On this day of information blackouts by progressive media to protest Harper’s unscrupulous Bill C-38, I feel compelled to speak out. As we know by now, our prime minister is trying to ram through, at the highest level of this nation, a host of new regulations in his Blackmark Budget, with limited debate and discussion, that will fulfill his too-obvious agenda: to get the Northern Gateway pipeline built as quickly and easily as possible, and to silence the groups and individuals who disagree with this plan.

Bill Forst, past president of the Sunshine Coast Teachers’ Association, speaks to those in Sechelt gathered to protest Bill C-38

High-profile folk like activist David Suzuki, federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May, and Liberal leader Bob Rae have villified this 450-page omnibus budget Bill that takes aim at anyone who doesn’t fit the Conservative party agenda of economy and profit above all else.

The Bill is designed to weaken environmental protection and fisheries laws, make it easier to launch major natural resources projects, and eliminate the watchdog that monitors the activities of Canada’s spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. It is also geared to zero in on, and stop, the political activities of non-profits (read environmental groups) that speak out against the Northern Gateway project and other earth-destructive projects. Basically, if you love the planet and this province, you’re Harper’s enemy.

Thankfully, Canadians have collectively spoken out against this outrageous abuse of their democratic freedoms. Two days ago (June 2), they gathered in a Day of Action at 75 locations across the country at Conservative MPs’ offices, in conjunction with Leadnow.ca.

Here on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast, about 200 people, including the region’s NDP MLA Nicholas Simons and Sechelt councillor Alice Lutes, rallied against Bill C-38 at the Sechelt constituency office of Conservative MP John Weston.

Local NDP MLA Nicholas Simons addresses the crowd

“Bill C-38 changes and/or eliminates some 70 pieces of federal legislation, the majority of which have nothing whatsoever to do with the budget,” says Jef Keighley, chair of the Sunshine Coast Senior Citizens and lead organizer of the Sunshine Coast protest.

 

This nation-wide stand against Bill C-38 had three purposes, says Keighley:

 

• to make sure that Canadians are aware that the Bill contains a sweeping agenda to remake Canadian society that goes against most citizens’ interests and values;

 

• to rally Canadians to stand against the Bill before it puts a black mark on our democracy

 

• and to find 13 Conservative MPs who will represent their constituents and stop the Bill.

 

“It will take 13 Conservative MPs to make it impossible to pass the Bill without changes,” says Keighley. He and others are calling on a baker’s dozen of Tory MPs to divide the Bill into reasonable components and start over. That way, prior to the Bill’s third reading, the appropriate parliamentary committees can share reasoned discussion and debate, inviting Canadians to help them make laws that work better for all of us. That’s what democracy’s all about, right?

Roberts Creek activist Caitlin Hicks reaffirms the need to defend democracy in Canada

Our freedom of speech is on the line. As a Canadian citizen, you can help to ensure that our fundamental democratic laws, practices, and principles do not disappear under Stephen Harper’s efforts to squelch dissent. You can stop Bill C-38 and Harper’s “culture of bullying and intimidation,” to use Bob Rae’s words.

 

If you’re on the Sunshine Coast, write a letter (not an email) to John Weston and ask him to vote to divide up Bill C-38 so that our elected officials can debate and discuss its components separately. (Weston’s constituency office is 207 – 5760 Teredo Street, Trail Bay Centre, Sechelt, BC, V0N 3A0.) We deserve this kind of democratic representation – not Harper’s form of autocratic power.

 

Here’s a sample letter, written by Jef Keighley:

Dear _________:

Please Vote to Divide Bill C-38

I am writing you as a concerned Canadian who values and respects the traditions of our representative democracy and the processes of debate and decision of Canada’s Parliament.

Bill C38, the 450 page omnibus budget bill that is seeks to amend and/or eliminate some 70 pieces of federal legislation, the majority of which has precious little to do with budgetary matters, is the most sweeping set of changes in Canadian parliamentary history.  Many of us take issue with the content of the proposed changes, but we also take issue with the hurried process and limited debate.  It seems designed to ensure that the vast majority of MPs and Canadians will not know or understand the impact of those changes until after they are made law after the imposition of closure.

In 2005 Stephen Harper, then Opposition Leader, in response to the 120 page budget bill under Prime Minister Paul Martin said “How can members represent their constituents on those various areas when they are forced to vote on a block of such legislation?’  Harper was right to voice those sentiments then and the call of all of the opposition parties to divide C-38 into its component parts for debate by the appropriate parliamentary committees prior to third reading is the right and fair thing to do now.

As a constituent I am not asking you to express opposition to the content of Bill C-38, but I am asking that you respect our parliamentary traditions and vote to divide Bill C-38 so that MPs and Canadians can know the content and intention of the proposed changes prior to third reading.  Otherwise, MPs will be voting blind and Canadians will be kept in the dark, and that will truly make Bill C-38 a blackmark budget.

I look forward to your positive response.

 

For those on the Sunshine Coast, a gathering is planned on June 14 at 7 p.m. at the Seaside Centre in Sechelt, led by Lead now representative Jamie Biggar.

 

If you live elsewhere in Canada, speak out, stay informed, and write your local Conservative MP. Demand a change and return to participatory democracy. Check out the Lead now website.