Category Archives: Technology

Communications, Community, Housing

Teen Takeover on Housing, the Death Care Collective & Podcasting

In the first half of this episode, Cortes Island Academy students Elsie, Lacey, and Elias discuss the housing situation on Cortes, from three different angles. This includes tiny homes, Rainbow Ridge, the Seniors Village, and interviews with five different locals, as well as their own stories and observations on the topic. Travel with them as they learn about the challenges of finding housing on Cortes, and the creative solutions that are emerging  to try and solve the issue.

In part two, Nathaniel Maki interviews Margaret Verschuur and Fawn Baron from the Deathcare Collective, and discusses the importance of having a healthy culture and communication around the topic of death and dying.

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Communications

Reality Through the Rear-View Mirror

We can make some sense of the extent and pervasiveness of our present environmental problems by considering the ideas of Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian philosopher and media theorist who died in 1980. In describing the effects on ourselves of the things that we invent, he coined the expression “the medium is the message”, which was playfully modified to “the medium is the massage”. He summarized the process by saying, “We invent things, thereafter they invent us.” He also aptly described the effect of instantaneous electronic communication as having created the “global village”.

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Communications, Education

Desolation Sound on Climate Change, UAPs & Queerness

Tune in on January 30, 2026, for this week’s episode of Desolation Sounds, where student journalists of the Cortes Island Academy tackle some big topics: where is the line on climate change? What’s the deal with UAPs? Is Queerness inherently a radical act? Journey with Dean, Dylan, Devin, and Lin as they interview experts on these topics, and report on their findings.

This show is the second instalment in the culmination of the 2025/26 podcasting course at the Cortes Island Academy, an intense deep dive into the techniques and art of podcasting in which each student picks a topic, then researches & produces a full feature-length show on it from start to finish, including interviews, scripting, recording, and editing their show. To learn more about the Cortes Island Academy, visit www.cortesislandacademy.ca

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Energy, Indigenous Nations, Politics

Coastal First Nations hit back after pundits and politicians challenge its legitimacy in pipeline debate

By Sonal Gupta, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Disagreements over a proposal to build a pipeline to the BC coast has ignited a debate over who has the right to speak on behalf of First Nations. 

After Prime Minister Mark Carney signed a memorandum of understanding with Alberta to advance a new bitumen pipeline to the Pacific coast, he met with Coastal First Nations (CFN) leaders in January. 

BC Conservative leadership candidate Yuri Fulmer jumped in on X (formerly Twitter) to label CFN “just an advocacy group,” like a brand name. Fulmer claimed it is funded by foreign anti-energy groups and said if he becomes premier he will ban any foreign-funded organizations that attempt to influence BC politics.

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Transportation

Poll: 35% of Canadians open to buying a Chinese EV, just 1 in 5 see them as inferior

By Trevor Melanson, Clean Energy Canada

Chinese electric vehicles are coming to Canada, if only a limited quota of them, and they could be met with a flurry of willing buyers, according to a new survey from Abacus Data and Clean Energy Canada. 

More than two-thirds (35%) of Canadians are open to buying a Chinese EV. And among the 50% of Canadians who are open to buying an EV generally, 70% express varying levels of interest in getting a Chinese one.

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