There was a marked decrease in the number of BC Ferries cancellations on the Campbell River run this past quarter, but little change on the Cortes Island Ferry.
According to the corporations newly released report of cancellations statistics from July to September 2023, the new hybrid e-ferries only missed 24 sailings as opposed to 161 the previous quarter.
Continue reading BC Ferries Cancellations This Past Six Months
British Columbia’s health care crisis has reached Cortes Island. A number of complex factors led to the resignation of all three doctors working out of the Cortes Island Medical Clinic. Their contract ends on Sunday, March 31, 2024.
“The physicians that we’ve had in our physicians group are moving on to do things in their own lives. They’re starting practices elsewhere and it no longer fits for them to come here,” explained Bernice McGowan, on behalf of the Cortes Community Health Association (CCHA) board.
“We will not be shutting the doors of the clinic on April 1st. That’s not in the foreseeable future. If our physicians leave, the worst case scenario is that we have a whole bunch of locums coming and we’ve been in this position before, where the only people that we had covering the practice were locums.”
Continue reading Changes Coming To The Cortes Medical Clinic“Scapegoating: the act of blaming a person or group for something bad that has happened or that someone else has done. Example: the scapegoating of immigrants for the country’s economic problems.” – Cambridge Dictionary
While it is easy to blame the unhoused population for their predicament, all of the recent ‘Point In Time’ (PIT) suggest they are indications of a much larger problem.
Continue reading The #1 cause of homelessnessOn Saturday Robert Bringhurst (RB) brings his own brand of literature, local history, science and humour to the stage of the Quadra Community Centre. He just gave Cortes Currents a taste in a rambling conversation that at one point went off topic to include remarks about Cortes Island, Campbell River and Whistler. Bringhurst started out by describing his intentions in the epic description of ‘the Ridge’ on Quadra Island where he lives.
RB: “I wanted to make good poetry out of, among other things, good science. I wanted to walk the ridge and relish it as one does without any thought of scientific measurement or accuracy, but I also wanted to think about it as a real place in historical time and to look at the species in relation to other species on the planet, and at the rocks in relation to other rocks. I began to wonder how much biology, geology, astronomy and climatology I could put in this poem without sinking it. The answer turned out to be quite a bit.”
Continue reading Robert Bringhurst on local history, science, poetry, the ridge where he lives and much moreEditor’s Note: While Campbell River is two ferry trips away, it is the central hub for supplies and local government in our area. All Cortes Island residents periodically pass though Campbell River and the affordable housing crisis is found in every community. (See the charts at the bottom of this page.)
Campbell River’s latest ‘Point in Time’ (PIT) Count found 197 homeless people within the city limits. 65% of them have been in Campbell River for at least five years, and 22% were born there. They are sleeping outside, in vehicles, or in someone else’s home. When asked, a third of them reported not earning enough money to pay rent.
“If they’re not in public places, if they are shuffled along back into alleys or nooks and crannies, they are targets. That is one of the reasons they congregate in public together. It’s safe. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve run into over the last year that have got a cast, or their heads wrapped up or they’re on crutches or whatever,” explained Sue Moen, who worked for the Salvation Army prior to her retirement.
“It’s like, ‘Bylaw Enforcement pushed us along. We hung out in this alley. Four guys showed up (not members of the unhoused community), beat us all up and stole all our stuff.’”
Cortes Currents asked Moen for her impressions of a series of motions the City of Campbell River passed at their October 10 meeting.
Continue reading Solving Campbell River’s homeless crisis
