Tag Archives: Quadra Island

Transportation

BC Ferries says it’s making progress on its Clean Futures Plan

Editor’s not: Cortes Island residents may also benefit from the addition of the hybrid e-ferries, which may eliminate many, if not all, of our one ferry waits at the Quathiaski Cove terminal.

By Greg Osoba, CKTZ News, through an LJI grant from Canada-info.ca

BC Ferries’ Clean Futures Plan calls for its fleet to do away with greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and progress is being made, according to the organization. It issued an update to the plan on October 27th.

Continue reading BC Ferries says it’s making progress on its Clean Futures Plan →
Housing, Poverty

Solutions for the ‘Unsheltered’ and ‘at Risk’ crisis on Cortes and Quadra Islands

According to Linda Bernicki, Director of Rural Health and Wellness at the  Rural Development Network, “Housing is a human right and just not housing, safe and stable housing is a human right. So if I’m in housing that doesn’t have any heat or running water, then I’m denied a basic human right, and it takes all levels of government and all levels of society to work together to start to develop responses that is going to limit and homelessness.” 

Continue reading Solutions for the ‘Unsheltered’ and ‘at Risk’ crisis on Cortes and Quadra Islands →
Politics

Final meeting of the outgoing SRD Board

The outgoing Strathcona Regional District Board held its final meeting on Wednesday, October 26, 2022. This is the first time that most of the Directors have met around the table since the pandemic began. They shared their thoughts about the election and the preceding term, at a Directors Roundtable.

Continue reading Final meeting of the outgoing SRD Board →
Housing, Poverty

Demographics of the ‘Unsheltered’ and ‘At Risk’ on Cortes and Quadra Islands

There were at least 159 Cortes Island residents living in ‘unsheltered’ or ‘at risk’ conditions when they responded to the housing needs survey last spring. There was a smaller response on Quadra and the Outer Islands, so only 69 were identified. These are both low numbers. At one point during our interview Emma Wallace, who oversaw this project, suggested the actual number for Cortes might be 10% higher. So I guesstimate about 175 people in a population of about 1,100 are in unstable housing situations. (I do not believe there is enough data to make a serious guesstimate in Area C.)  

Wallace is employed by the Rural Development Network, which was commissioned to do this study by the Campbell River & District Coalition to End Homelessness and the Urban Indigenous Housing and Wellness Coalition. In today’s program she gives a demographic sketch of the unsheltered and at risk population.

Continue reading Demographics of the ‘Unsheltered’ and ‘At Risk’ on Cortes and Quadra Islands →
Cost of Climate Change, Weather

FOCI’s Climate Change and Drought Report

When the rain finally started about 5 PM on Sunday, October 23, Cortes Island had received almost no precipitation for 97 days. The “Rain’ chart at Cortes Island School shows that 3.5 mm of rain fell overnight and I can hear the drizzle continuing to fall on my roof early Monday morning. Hopefully light rains will continue to soften up the soil before we receive a downpour.

“The 2022 drought is worse than people think, it’s worse than scientists predicted, and its impacts up and down the coast are a lot worse than I had even feared when I started researching it,” said Forrest Berman-Hatch, author of FOCI Report: Climate Change and Drought.

Continue reading FOCI’s Climate Change and Drought Report →