Category Archives: Opinion

Disaster, Opinion

The Quadra Project: Overshoot

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A fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada is an honour that is not bestowed lightly, so readers can assume that Dr. William Rees, a 79 year-old retired professor from the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning has credibility. Age, experience and scholarship have given authority to his opinions. So his peer-reviewed publication in the August 2023 edition of the academic journal, MDPI, deserves attention.

The Human Ecology of Overshoot: Why a Major Population Correction Is Inevitable is a sobering analysis of the trajectory of human civilization as it continues to expand, as more and more people consume increasing amounts of the world’s finite resources, and as the resulting waste overwhelms the disposal capabilities of the ecosphere.

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Disaster, Environment, Opinion

The Quadra Project: Canada’s Forest Fires of 2023

Forest fires in British Columbia, Northwest Territories, Yukon and elsewhere in Canada reached record levels in the summer of 2023. They also coincided, for the months of June, July, August and September, with the highest recorded temperatures since the Eemian Interglacial Period 120,000 years ago. So 2023 is likely to become the hottest year ever recorded since we humans have existed as an identifiable species.

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Housing, Opinion

The #1 cause of homelessness

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“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. 

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Communications, Opinion

The Quadra Project: Living in the Metaverse

The beginning of trouble can be linked to the advent of television. The first hint of a problem that has now grown out of control was identified in 1961 by Newton Minow, the leader of a Federal Communications Commission that was authorized to report to President John F. Kennedy on the effects of television on the personal and social psychology of Americans. Minow’s executive summary described a medium that was filled with “a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, Western bad men, Western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons.” Minow concluded that TV was creating “a vast wasteland” in which an alternate reality of entertainment was disconnecting Americans from the actual world in which they lived.

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Farming, Opinion

Nancy Beach vs the Property Assessment Review Panel

The opinions that follow are those of the person expressing them and not necessarily shared by Cortes Currents, or Cortes Radio.  

The following submission was made by Nancy Beach.

After dealing with BC assessment for 17 years or more, in regard to my small farm on Salt Spring Island, I have come to the conclusion that:

  1. Farm assessments should be administered by the Ministry of Agriculture, not the Ministry of Housing.
  2. The system for assessing farm status needs to be overhauled. It should not be lumped in with assessing the values of residential properties. 
  3. Farmers should be given adequate time to present and debate their cases. 
  4. More people who care about farms should sit on the board of the Property Assessment Appeal Board (PAAB), and the panel of the Property Assessment Review Panel (PARP).’
  5. PARP plan panel members making decisions concerning farms should be well educated about the farm regulations number. Pabst should not charge for their services. 
  6. BC Farmers need an organization to represent them, represent themselves and help defend their interests before the B. C. Assessment when necessary.
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