From the desk of Regional Director Robyn Mawhinney
Hello,
Here we are arriving in September rich with cricket music and garden bounty, and excellent community events just finished (Quadrapalooza!) and right around the corner (Youth Harvest Happenings Fall Fair!).
At the August SRD Board meeting there were several Area C related topics discussed. This report shares decisions made regarding Village Bay payphone access and a grant funding allocation to Quathiaski Cove sewer.
“The only word I can find to describe that feeling… is gobsmacked,” exclaimed field biologist Sabina Leader Mense.
She was referring to the moment she heard a Western Screech Owl respond during a call playback survey near Bullock Bluff on Cortes Island. It was nearly midnight, the final station of the night, and her team had conducted over a hundred surveys without a single response. This owl’s call — unmistakable and repeated 12 times — marked the first confirmed sighting since 2017.
Continue reading The Call That Changed Everything: Western Screech Owls Return to Cortes Island
Cortes Community Docks ( formerly called Harbour Authority Cortes Island) received the necessary funding to carry out needed upgrades to the 111-year-old dock in Whaletown. In today’s article Harbour Master Jenny Hartwick gives the details, and also talks about the upcoming August 30 dock swap.
By Sonal Gupta, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
A BC government appeal of a court ruling recognizing aboriginal title to part of the Cowichan Nation’s ancestral land in Richmond will delay reconciliation and prolong generations of harm, the nation’s lead lawyer said.
“This land was where the nation lived together, where they harvested together, where they were defended together and where they were literally embedded in the earth,” said David Robbins.
Last week, Justice Barbara Young granted the Cowichan title to almost 7.5 square kilometres of their ancestral Tl’uqtinus village lands on the south shore of Lulu Island in Richmond, BC across from Tilbury Island. The largely industrial area, long described by the Nation as their traditional settlement area, includes land owned by the federal government, the City of Richmond, Vancouver Fraser Port Authority and private holdings. The ruling affirms their constitutionally protected title and right to fish for food in the south arm of the Fraser River — after more than 150 years of struggle since the land was taken from the Cowichan during the colonial era.
However, within days of the decision, BC Attorney General Niki Sharma released a statement stating the province would appeal, warning the ruling could have “significant unintended consequences for fee simple private property rights in BC.”
Continue reading Reconciliation on hold as BC blocks Cowichan land winCanada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The BC government’s $200-million subsidy to electrify the Cedar LNG project is drawing sharp criticism as a fossil fuel handout and an unwise investment that also opens up potential legal risks after a new International Court of Justice ruling.
Premier David Eby and Energy Minister Adrian Dix said the public funding will go to the electrification of the Cedar LNG terminal, a floating liquefied natural gas facility co-owned by the Haisla Nation and Pembina Pipeline Corporation near Kitimat that is expected to come online in 2028.
Continue reading BC’s Cedar LNG subsidy courts financial liability
