Politics

Tanille Johnson Coming to Gorge Hall on Thursday April 24

Editor’s note: After the event, Mike Moore emailed,  “Lots of great questions and conversations but the only surprise was when Tanille teared up when describing her fear of Gunn being elected. This speaks to her many days in the road, her First Nations family and passion for politics and representing the people.”

NDP candidate Tanille Johnson will coming to Gorge Hall on Cortes Island. This is the last in a series of Meet and Greets organized by the Cortes Island Climate Action Network that has also included meetings with Green Party candidate Jessica Wegg and Liberal candidate Jennifer Lash. Conservative candiate Aaron Gunn was also invited, but has not taken advantage of this. As I am going to be off island when Tanille is here, we had an interview ahead of time. 

Cortes Currents: What’s the big question on voters’ minds during this election?

Screenshot of Tanille Johnson taken during the interview

Tanille Johnson:  “Oh man, there’s a lot of big questions right now! Honestly, I spend most of my day talking with people who are terrified at the possibility of having Conservative representation in the federal government. Like ‘what’s the strategic vote for North Island Power River?’” 

“I really end up being in a lot of these conversations: breaking down strategic voting, what it means and apologizing for it. We’re in this situation because our Liberal government did not follow through with its promise of proportional representation, which would’ve allowed people to vote for the person that they felt was going to do the best job for them. We are now essentially getting shoved into a two party system that nobody wants. We don’t want to mimic our United States relations to the south, but here we are. That’s a big discussion right now across the board. Every riding is talking about it.” 

“It doesn’t discount the real threat of all the ongoing tariffs from Trump. It doesn’t discount the threat of annexation that Trump is bringing. It doesn’t diminish our healthcare crisis, our housing crisis, or our opioid crisis, but right now it feels like people are most fearful of a Conservative government.”

Cortes Currents: Two polls have just come out,—one by Research co suggests you’re best placed to stop a Conservative win, the other by Mainstreet Research says it’s the Liberals. What do you make of this?

Tanille Johnson: “I t honestly doesn’t make sense because there is such a stark contrast, there shouldn’t be a stark contrast at all.  I think it’s fairly well known that Mainstreet is operated by Conservative pollsters.” 

Cortes Currents:   I wasn’t aware of that, so I did a quick fact check. There’s a list of national polls on the 338Canada website. The vast majority of the 94 polls taken between April 1st and April 21st, reported that the Liberals were leading in this race, but there are 6 polls that stated the Conservatives were either leading or tied with the Liberals. 5 of those 6 ‘outlying’ polls were made by Mainstream Research.

(I can’t take this line of thinking further without knowing any (a) what Mainstream MIGHT be doing differently than other polling companies and (b) if that has any relevance in our riding.)

Tanille Johnson: “I think it was 571 people out of like a hundred thousand voters.  Like, if you had a hundred thousand people and you only asked 500 of them a question, are you really going to solidly depend on that answer for whatever your decision making is moving forward? I would hope not, because that is a tiny sample size.” 

Cortes Currents: Tell me some highlights of the campaign for you.

Tanille Johnson:  “Here’s a super funny one.  We were door knocking in Campbell River just the other week.  I knocked on a door and this gal opened and she was so excited to see me. She kissed both of her hands and then put her hands on either sides of my face.  She’s like, ‘keep doing what you’re doing.’  It was just so cute and awesome.” 

“It’s been a highlight watching people get creative with their support. There’s been some really cool self-made bumper stickers that say, ‘Go Tanille’ or ‘Vote NDP, Vote Tanille.’”

“It was a huge honor to have Megan Hildebrandt donate a ‘Vote Tanille Design,’  to be able to screen print ‘Vote Tanille’ t-shirts by hand in Powell River. That was super, super cool and amazing.” 

“It’s been really just an honor to travel the whole riding and get to meet people from all over the place and have the time to sit and listen to their concerns.” 

Cortes Currents: Jody Wilson-Raybould, the former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada recently endorsed your campaign.

Tanille Johnson: “Jody’s awesome. I love any chance to get to hang out with Jody. We have two really cool pictures together.” 

(Jody Wilson-Raybould and Tanille Johnson are both members of the We Wai Kai First Nation.)

“When she was home a number of years ago after everything went down with the federal government, we stood her up in the Big House just to honor her and give her energy and protection. My eldest daughter was an infant at the time, so this is almost six years ago that we did this work. Me and my mom and Collins, as a baby, had our pictures taken with Jody.”

“Then just this past year when I was at UBCM (Union of BC Municipalities),  I had baby Laney with me and Jody was giving an opening talk.  I was like, ‘oh, this is super exciting,’ because I’ll get to snag another picture with Jody and Laney at almost the same age that Collins was when we got that picture in the Big House.” 

“I like looking at those pictures together because it’s just so cute to be able to have that opportunity to get a picture with both my tiny humans around the same age at completely different times.”

“Jody has such an amazing supportive family and getting to say ‘hi’ to them when I was over in Cape Mudge just the other day was really fun. Jody flies all over the place, doing great work. It’s always nice to be able to  catch her when she’s home  and say ‘hi,’ and to also receive her encouragement is really unreal and very, very cool.”

Tanille with Jagmeet Singh

Cortes Currents: What are some of the key issues you’re hearing about?

Tanille Johnson: “Healthcare is a big one that is definitely riding wide. The opioid crisis is a huge one, that’s also riding wide, very consistent. Then there’s definitely unique needs nation to nation and unique needs in different areas of community around different industries. The  forestry industry is going to look a little bit different in one area to another. We haven’t really heard much from community in the area of mining,  but fishing is huge. Aquaculture is more than fish. It’s also our shellfish, our plants. Lots of conversation about aquaculture, riding wide for sure, and different pieces of aquaculture, depending on where you are and who you’re talking to.

Cortes Currents:  Like jobs versus impacts on the environment? 

Tanille Johnson: “Yes, both jobs and  impacts to the environment; where maybe there’s potential for economic growth in industry.  What that could look like; what that should look like. There were really diverse conversations in that area.” 

Cortes Currents: I would imagine in Campbell River that’s an extremely hot topic.

Tanille Johnson: “It’s a really big topic, not necessarily specific to Campbell River. There are a lot of nations that are really involved and heavily invested economically in the industry.  Right now nations are frustrated because they’re given opportunities to have an opinion on what fish farm looks like in their area, but they’re not necessarily being allowed to have a definitive answer on what that should look like. Everyone’s waiting for what the end result from the Liberal government is going to be.”  

“There’s been this push for moving the farms out of the water. If you talk to industry, they’ll tell you that that is impossible to move the breadth of their farms out of the water and onto land. There is also a lot of feedback of the potential negative impacts to climate,  and also the instability that this timeline that the Liberal government also keeps moving has had on their industry. In the meantime,  the damage that’s being created to investment, with the Liberal government coming out with their announcement eight years ago now and having this timeline of 2029, but having it still be very much uncertain  is not a good place for any industry to try to sit.” 

Tanille Johnson visited Cortes Island during February – Roy L Hales photo

Cortes Currents: When you were last on Cortes, you were talking about wanting to hear more from First Nations that were wanting to develop their fish farms. You wanted to understand where they’re coming from. What’s happened there. 

Tanille Johnson: “I have had an initial meeting with one of the Chiefs from one of our communities that is really supportive of industry.  There’s still a lot to learn and hear from. What I have been hearing is that the nations want an opportunity to invest in their own research opportunities to reduce the risk that is, from industry perspective,  perceived of farms having on wild stock.” 

“A number of nations have been afforded that opportunity to do their own research. Not all of them.  I think there’s some frustration there by nations that are saying, why were these guys allowed to do their own process and we’re not? Sovereignty is in question,  and  they want that ability and that opportunity and it hasn’t really been afforded to them at this point.

Cortes Currents: When you look at forestry, on one side you have an industry that is cutting younger and younger trees, and on the other there is a push to restore our  old growth forests. 

Tanille Johnson: “Forestry is a super interesting sector and I actually got to meet with Mosaic this morning,  to learn more about what they’re up to and how they’re operating and how they’re also diversifying. They invest  in logging and in different pieces across the board, like in housing and tourism  and really trying to be super mindful about how they’re giving back to community and not just taking from, which is really cool.”

“There’s a lot of interesting managed forest projects.  Powell River has a managed forest project that they use to  make money  and they invest it back into community – in either parks or housing or whatever  community really needs.” 

Cortes Currents: What about the fact that a lot of trees are harvested  at between 40 or 50 years of age?

Tanille Johnson: “I think a lot of people, including a number of loggers, would love to see those trees get older.  There are some independent loggers that will leave their trees to that 120 year mark that they all used to be left to.” 

“Then there’s also some folks that will activate a lot of science through their logging, and research which species grow best in which areas. This is ongoing research; it’s not a ‘one and done.’  They watch which trees are growing fastest in what areas, and then they’ll leave the ones that are clearly loving that soil and  that eco atmosphere. They’ll move the other ones to a different area and test them in different soil, in different environments.  That type of science and research into the logging industry is awesome because you can actually see trees grow like twice as fast if they’re in the right environment, if they have the right soil and the right shade, and the right sun, and just the right set up. They can grow quickly and that’s awesome, but not everybody  is necessarily doing that  in a way that really produces those bigger trees and not the small ones that we often see coming out  on trucks and heading on their journey elsewhere.” . 

“I would love to see logging industry have a longer than a hundred year plan. I would love to see our trees getting bigger before they’re removed and doing that in a sustainable way that doesn’t destabilize industry and also sees those logs stay more domestic.  Across the board I have heard people  really want our timber to stay in the country.

Cortes Currents: Is there anything in particular that you would like to say about the opioid crisis, for example? 

Tanille Johnson: “I don’t necessarily pull out the opioid crisis from health ’cause it is included in  our healthcare emergencies.  It does weigh heavy into how we distribute and operationalize our healthcare. I don’t want to silo things because  we don’t do good work when we’re operating in silos. We stop acknowledging the interconnectedness of how everything’s impacted. I don’t think we make good decisions  when we do that.” 

“We have committed to funding the provinces better to meet the need. I think we need to help with reestablishing some accountabilities through the Canadian Health Act and our contracts with the provinces for how they’re delivering their services and where that money is actually going when it hits the provinces.” 

“There is a lot of concern over the level of management and administration versus the on the ground work that’s happening in BC.”

“So we have to be mindful of that and we have to build in those accountabilities in the contracts when we send the funding to the provinces to help curb that, if that is the case. We need to line up our detox availability with our treatment availability so that there isn’t a giant gap when you enter into detox.  Then you need the security of having a second stage housing opportunity on the other side of that treatment.  Right now we just don’t have that. It’s all broken up.  If you can get into detox in the right moment, then you just really hope that when you get to the other end of that detox, you have a treatment bed waiting for you and often it’s not the case.”

So it’s a disservice to those people that are ready to make the change and ready to go on their next journey.  It’s harmful to the person that’s trying to make that bold step and it’s harmful to the broader community that  also feels like their healthcare system is sometimes failing them. 

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