Tag Archives: Read Island

Business, Community

Potential Land Use Issue at Evans Bay, Read Island

The text of Lannie Keller’s Tuesday, March 11 presentation made to the Electoral Areas Services Committee

I’m here to present local concerns and request SRD’s help to avert a land use conflict and a Bylaw zoning violation at Read Island.  

To begin, I’m grateful to live in unceded traditional territory of the Homalco and Klahoose First Nations. And for the wild beauty of this place.

We moved to Read Island in 1980, and have made our living creating and running (what is now) Canada’s longest operating kayak touring company from our home in Evans Bay. Coast Mountain Expeditions has become Read Island’s largest employer. We offer activities based on wilderness ambience – all in this local area. Our business is threatened by Island Sea Farm’s Aquaculture License #1401594, conditionally approved by the province in June 2023. 

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Health, Politics

Anna Kindy: Waiting for the legislature, the Health Crisis & Being the MLA for North Island.

Anna Kindy was sitting in her Campbell River office. Her assistant stood almost out of the frame long enough to wave, before handing Kindy a headset and disappearing. The thing I find refreshing about Kindy is she doesn’t sound like a politician, which is understandable because she only recently became one. She and her husband are both doctors. Anna Kindy was elected as the MLA for North Island on October 19, 2024 and is the Health Critic for the Conservative party Shadow Cabinet, but has yet to sit in the legislature. 

This fact emerged when I asked her about the trips between her home in Merville and the provincial legislature.

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Development

Area C Taxpayers Resistant to paying for Strathcona Gardens Re-Development

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Campbell River’s Strathcona Gardens is in the midst of re-development. Following a successful Alternative Approval Process (APP) in Campbell River and Area D, whose residents use this complex, in 2023 the Board authorized borrowing up to $64.6 million for this project. Crews are currently building the foundations. 

The SRD is exploring the possibility of using Area C property tax dollars to support this complex, but has not yet decided upon a course of action. This sparked a great deal of resistance from Area C residents who do not want to see their property taxes increased to pay for a ‘Campbell River’ project. 

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Rivers & Oceans

DFO Confirms No Problems with Raw Oysters from Cortes Island

Audio by De Clarke; Research & text by Roy L Hales;

There has been a flurry of media stories about the dangers of eating raw oysters lately, but Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) confirmed that there have been no problems with Cortes Island grown oysters. (And there have been no problems anywhere with cooked oysters.) Only one of the 8 emergency closures DF0 listed, in response to Cortes Currents request, is in the Discovery Islands. A DFO notice from December 23 states, “The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has received reports of illness linked to BC Aquaculture Tenure Landfile #1402974” in the Bold Island-Crescent Channel area between Quadra and Read Islands. The other 7 oyster closures pertained to 42 ‘Landfiles’ in the Baynes Sound area across from Denman Island. 

Mo Qutob, Communications Advisor with Fisheries & Oceans Canada, emailed that all of the closures he listed were in force as of December 31, 2024. 

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Water

Bulk Water Regulations For The Outer Islands

At their December 11 meeting, the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) Board passed a bylaw to regulate bulk water processing, bottling and sales on Read, Maurelle, Sonora, Stuart, and the Rendezvous islands.

Three Campbell River Directors voted against receiving the staff report for this bylaw.

Director Susan Sinnott explained,  “I just want to hear from staff, the reasons necessary. Is there a pending application for people to bulk water in the Desolation Sound Area? Is there an imminent issue?” 

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