January 2012 Focus

FOCUS
PM 40051145
Victoria ’s monthly magazine of people, ideas and culture
Januar y 2012
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January 2012 • FOCUS
contents
STERLING & GASCOIGNE
January 2012 VOL. 24 NO. 3
16
Certified General Accountants
32
30
4 REFLECTIONS OF VICTORIA
Good medicine from local poets and artists.
Leslie Campbell
8
DERAILED
What happened to the plans for commuter rail?
Ross Crockford
10 PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MUNICIPALITY IS
On January 31, a panel of local experts will talk about new ways
to ensure your savings, RRSPs, and investment dollars help strengthen
our community sustainability and resilience. We offer a preview.
Rob Wipond
14 LRT = TAIL WAGGING DOG
Two competing visions emerge on how to mitigate
climate change at the regional level.
David Broadland
16
TOTALLY VULNERABLE
Megan Dickie’s sculptures critique the status quo.
Christine Clark
30
LOVE, ART AND TRANSFORMATION
Phyllis Serota often tells stories in her paintings. Now she tells the stories
behind the paintings.
Amy Reiswig
32
AT THE TIPPING POINT
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Ah-in-chut Atleo thinks
the situation at Attawapiskat is one of many signs Canada is at a tipping
point in its relationship with First Nations. The system has failed, says
Atleo: it’s time to “smash the status quo” and start over again.
Katherine Gordon
38
SPRAWL BUSTER
With a vision of environmental and social justice informed by travel and
history, Ben Isitt is keen to shake things up at City Hall and the CRD.
Aaren Madden
40
A NATURAL HISTORY OF CONCRETE
It all starts with ooids. Next thing you know, there’s a parkade.
Gene Miller
editor’s letter
4
readers’ views
6
talk of the town
8
Alison Gascoigne, CGA
Ashley Stanford, CGA
Ruby Popp
Kim Sterling, FCGA
Experienced • Knowledgeable • Approachable
palette
16
Accounting and Income Tax
arts in January
18
for Individuals and Small Businesses
coastlines
30
focus
32
island interview
38
urbanities
40
natural relations
44
finding balance
46
1560 Fort Street
Stadacona Centre
250-480-0558
www.sg-cga.ca
ON THE COVER
“The Spirit of Lekwammen,” at
Songhees Point (called P’alac’as by
the Songhees). Photographed by
Christian J. Stewart. The original
180-foot pole was created by First
Nations carvers, led by Coast Salish
artist Richard Krentz, in 1994, as
part of the Commonwealth Games
commemoration. In 2001 the pole
was cut down to a height of 40
feet after it was deemed a hazard
to float planes approaching the
Inner Harbour.
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44
RE-ENCHANTING OURSELVES WITH THE LOCAL
The story of bees could possibly be the great allegory for our times.
Briony Penn
46 JUST SAY “HELLO”
Confessions from an introvert enroute to a more social 2012.
Trudy Duivenvoorden Mitic
January 2012 • www.focusonline.ca
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3
editor’s letter
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Reflections of Victoria
LESLIE CAMPBELL
Good medicine from local poets and artists.
I
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f there’s a theme to this edition (indeed of Focus in general), one that
provides a good direction for the New Year, it is to “go local”—to
contemplate and celebrate the bounty we have in our environs, to
nurture its health, to protect it fiercely.
Briony Penn’s piece, aptly entitled “Re-enchanting ourselves with
the local,” argues that this localizing project is the “the most powerful
antidote to globalization, inequity, corporatization, degradation, poverty
and despair.” She is speaking about it largely in relation to the
natural world, but it applies to virtually every aspect of out lives, from
art through business, food and travel. Rob Wipond’s contribution in
this edition also turns our attention to the power of local in its
discussion about re-directing some of the dollars that go into RRSPs
into local ventures through “community investment funds.”
I was thinking about such matters just before Christmas when I
attended the launch of Framing the Garden, a new book edited by Focus
regular and just-retired Victoria Poet Laureate Linda Rogers. The 35
poems in the book, all by local writers, are awash with images and
reflections about this place. Indeed the subtitle of the book is “Reflections
of Victoria.” We hear of Garry oak meadows, gulls, rocks, barnacles
and kelp—and of Government Street, Mile Zero, a carver on a sidewalk, and a blue bridge. And of the human spirit, grief, and cherishing
“Planet Earth” (thanks to P.K. Page). The poets each chose a visual
artwork that inspires or otherwise reflects their words. These too are
by local artists and evoke our experience here, both urban and wild,
personal and political.
Here’s an excerpt from writer Robert Hilles’s poem “Distorted Facts”:
I’m reminded of Victoria
Where in winter, walls of wet rock
Are broken only by a few stubborn red sedums
Bunched with cladonia lichen.
Fifteen foot rhododendrons
Crowd the sides of buildings
And persist in their green despite inches of snow.
Framing the Garden is a gift to the city and its citizens. Says Linda,
“The purpose of the book was to celebrate a city of artists, whether
they be poets, painters, dancers, musicians or gardeners.” Originally
conceived as a protocol gift for the City, a “legacy project” of her term
as Poet Laureate for the City of Victoria, it was scuttled by the powersthat-be. “I may have failed bureaucracy,” admits Linda.
But Linda being Linda carried through. She had, after all, already
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4
Editor: Leslie Campbell Publisher: David Broadland Sales: Bonnie Light
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Canadian Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 40051145.
January 2012 • FOCUS
ADVERTISEMENT
Focus presents: Iyengar Yoga
Iyengar yoga is fun and challenging
rounded up the contributors and set her sights on raising funds for
Slangspruit, South Africa school children through book sales. She
just needed a bit of help from her friends, which included publisher
Ekstasis Editions, Island Blue Print, and launch hosts Martin Batchelor
Gallery and Victoria Gin.
It was exciting and inspiring to see the scores of artists and literati
who showed up at the launch, a veritable who’s who of the arts
scene. Missing in action, though, were representatives from the City
of Victoria, unless you count Janet Marie Rogers, one of the book’s
contributors and the new Poet Laureate. (But that hadn’t been officially
announced at that point.)
Linda, who fittingly just won the Broadside Prize (visual artist Eric
Fischl chose her poem “The Grasshoppers’ Silence” to incorporate into
a work of art), part of the Montreal International Poetry Prize, is thrilled
at Janet’s appointment as Poet Laureate. Interviewed about her most
recent book, Unearthed, in Focus’ November edition, Janet Rogers,
like her predecessor, is an empowered, righteous woman who insists
on authenticity, and is willing and able to make things happen.
Have no fear: Our tax dollars will get excellent value in this appointment, as they did with Linda’s. The bargain-basement $2500-per-annum,
three-year appointment requires acting as a sort of ambassador for
the arts, building community through poetry at events, fundraisers,
council meetings, etc.
It would be nice to think that in 2012, Linda and Janet and the many
other local artists and arts organizations who contribute so much to local
culture and economy would be more supported. But too often they are
the first things to be cut, as if art was an unnecessary, expensive frill.
In reality, supporting local arts is one sure way to build the local
economy without breaking the bank. “BC government’s own data…clearly
demonstrates that for every dollar invested in arts in BC, at least $6 is
returned to BC government coffers within one year.” (www.stopbcartscuts.ca)
A study by Dr Brock Smith of the Peter B. Gustavson School of
Business at the University of Victoria has conservatively pegged the
local economic activity generated by the Greater Victoria arts and
culture sector in 2010 at $127 million in net income (GDP) activity,
“supporting the equivalent of more than 4600 person years of employment, and almost $18 million in property tax revenue.” (See
www.crd.bc.ca/arts for the report done by the CRD, Victoria Foundation
and other organizations.)
Other studies show the benefits of the arts towards creating a healthier
population (thereby saving health dollars). And it’s worth noting that
the arts sector is one of the greenest industries around.
But despite the empirical evidence of benefits, local arts groups are
struggling, largely due to funding cuts. BC has by far the lowest arts
funding per capita in the country.
Wanna be a great city—or province or nation? Build a healthy
local arts community.
Leslie Campbell didn’t mean to spend the day before
Focus’ press deadline reading poetry, but it sure
felt good. As Janet Rogers says: “The essence of poetry
is medicine—good things for the spirit and the mind.”
Wishing all Focus readers and advertisers more poetry
in 2012.
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
Shirley Daventry French teaching Reclining Big Toe Posture.
L
ooking to make some changes in habits and health for the New Year? New
to yoga or looking to try a new style of yoga? The Iyengar Yoga Centre of
Victoria has 22 well-trained teachers and offers classes seven days a week
for every age and every body.
Shirley Daventry French, founding member, who turned 80 in October, is respected
world-wide and continues to teach yoga classes, workshops and retreats.
“Yoga is for all of us! No one is too old, too young or too stiff,” says French.
“Iyengar Yoga is fun and challenging and can be viewed as the great equalizer
among yoga styles offered today,” says Wendy Boyer, general manager and teacher
at the Iyengar Yoga Centre.
“Whether you are a first time student or familiar with yoga, you are in good
hands with Iyengar teachers,” says Daventry French. “We teach a progression
of poses to boost mobility, stability, strength and stamina.We have a well-developed eye!”The Iyengar Yoga Centre of Victoria offers one of the most comprehensive
teacher training programs in North America and certificates issued by the Iyengar
Yoga Association of Canada are respected and accepted world-wide.
The founder of the Iyengar method, BKS Iyengar, says “The effects of yoga practice are beauty, strength, clarity of speech, calmness of the nerves, increase in
digestive powers and a happy disposition that is revealed in a smiling face.”The
93-year-old master lives in Pune, India, and still practises many hours a day.Victoria
teachers travel regularly to India to study at the Iyengar Institute.
The Iyengar Yoga Centre runs 55 classes a week, including Introductory to
Advanced; Pre-Natal; Family; 50+; Gentle; Special Needs; and Restorative.The first
class is free...choose from any of the regular classes offered seven days a week.
Classes by-donation are being held Saturdays from 11:30-1pm on Jan 7, 14, 28;
Feb 4, 11, 18, 25 to prepare teacher trainees for the Level 2 Iyengar assessment.
If you are looking for a January workshop, Boyer recommends the Heart of
Yoga workshop led by two of Canada’s best Iyengar teachers—Shirley Daventry
French and Ann Kilbertus.“Strengthen your backbends and inversions,” says Boyer
of the January 21-22 workshop. “It is intended for students familiar with yoga,
and will be a mix of standing poses, backbends, forward bends and inversions.
Iyengar Yoga Centre Victoria
202-919 Fort Street (above the Blue Fox Café)
250-386-9642 • www.iyengaryogacentre.ca
Visit us on facebook at www.facebook.com/IyengarYogaCentre
5
readers’ views
Re: Hunter, Luton and Lucas booted off council, Dec 2011
Thank you for the article by David Broadland writing about Victoria
City council electoral changes. Almost all of my friends and acquaintances here in Fairfield were unusually concerned with this last election.
Nearly all wanted much more clarity and transparency from the City,
particularly with respect to financial issues. Many of us want a Council
that knows the difference between needs and wants. Canada’s
rough times are far from over, so we must deal only with essential
issues for the near future.
Ron and Alexandra Stewart
One of the major bricks in the City’s platform to sell a new Johnson
Street Bridge was that it needed to be seismically safe. But if Victorians
were asked to vote tomorrow on which project is more pressing as
far as the safety of the city goes, would it be a new bridge, or would it
be a seismically safe Number One Fire Hall?
If the Blue Bridge collapses in a major quake as the City fears, or if
the Bay Street Bridge—with its water and gas mains—suffers major
damage, what would be the consequence if the fire hall is buried in
rubble? Unfortunately, the question was not asked leading up to the
bridge referendum.
I trust that the City will live up to its pledge to move the decommissioned rail bridge to Rock Bay, to become part of the waterfront walkway.
Dennis Robinson
Re: Breaking news on the yellow brick road to calamity, Dec 2011
What do I think? Journalism and activism go well together at a
time of community, national, and global crisis. Particularly so when
the activism is well considered versus off-the-cuff and for its own
sake. I appreciate Rob Wipond for taking the time to send City council
six pages of discussions and detailed suggestions for the City of
Victoria’s Economic Development Strategy. His writing is always
relevant and clear, and—in my opinion—it is always respectful and
fair. I read his articles in Focus every issue and I read every issue of
Focus cover to cover. I am grateful to the business people who advertise in the magazine and I will go out of my way to be their patron
if/when possible. Public conversation in this city would be the poorer
without Rob and the other Focus writers.
Julie Graham
Rob Wipond asks his readers to respond to the question: “Are we
satisfied with the news media that we have?” That question is easy
to answer: No. Using a detached, “objective” style of reporting, readers
are led to believe that the truth is being represented without bias. But
most readers are sophisticated enough to know that no reporting is
without bias when media need corporate sponsorship in order to
survive. The most honest reporting is done by publications that openly
acknowledge their bias, and like-minded readers seek them out.
Rob Wipond is a reporter whose commitment to investigative
reporting is at least locally recognized and appreciated. It is refreshing
to read about the workings of local policy makers with some insight
into the motivations that make them take the decisions they do.
Rob has done this at the city council level, school board level, environmental advocacy level…And his voice makes a difference to
the decisions that citizens make when choosing whether or not to
vote for particular politicians or support particular environmental
groups, or to be sceptical about mental illness treatments, or
6
care protocols for the elderly, to name a few of the topics he has
covered recently.
Rob doesn’t pretend “objectivity” but does a thorough job of interviewing a range of people in the know and researching documents
to substantiate his claims. This kind of journalism motivates readers
to want to learn more and to do our own investigations to come to
our own conclusions. This is the ideal kind of reporting required in
a truly functioning democracy and I applaud him for it. It is the kind
of journalism that can be found in the Washington Post, the Manchester
Guardian, and even occasionally in the Globe and Mail. I just hope
we don’t lose Rob to one of these well-financed papers that can afford
to print the complexities of truth once in a while.
Starla Anderson
We moved here from Edmonton 10 years ago. I used to work in the
oilsands industry, where I tried to lend my expertise to green the industry
from within. The fact that I’m here suggests how successful that initiative was. But you see, in Alberta, “left-necks” act versus talk.
Being a long-term supporter of the David Suzuki Foundation, I expected
to find the environment, climate crisis and related issues to be the dominant concern or focus in Victoria. How wrong that assumption was!
Much of what I’ve heard from politicians at all levels of government
sounds like regurgitated Kleinisms which are basically re-hashed
Bush/Cheneyisms.
Yes, Mr Wipond, we definitely need activist-journalists like you. We
also need to “work” from the inside, because standing outside with
signs doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.
Garry Pigeon
Re: The poppy and the dove, Nov 2011
Thank you Trudy Duivenvoorden Mitic, for your comments about
the militaristic aspects of Remembrance Day events in Canada. I
haven’t worn a poppy for many years; instead I wear a small button
that says, “Honour veterans...no more war.” As each Remembrance
Day goes by, the celebrations seem to focus more on military routines
and the “heroes” of war, which I find alarming. I usually attend the
November 11 assembly at our local school, and although there is
some acknowledgement of the importance of peace, most of the event
centres around the speeches and marching-in of veterans and people
from local military detachments.
For the past 15 years, during the week of November 11, I have
spent several days reading stories about peace to all of the children
in our elementary school. I keep thinking that as the years go by,
maybe we will stop worshipping the uniforms, authority, and power
of past wars, and instead focus on events that specifically promote
peace. So far, that is just a dream—this year saw the biggest assembly
yet at the military cairn in my community, with enough medals on
uniforms to stock a war museum.
Susan Yates
LETTERS
Send letters to: [email protected]
Letters that directly address articles
published in Focus will be given preference.
January 2012 • FOCUS
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Focus presents: All Organized Storage
Resolution #1: Get Organized
M
Photo:Tony Bounsall
any people feel that their life is out of
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and are constantly in “reaction mode,” unable to
fully enjoy the present moment. Relationships,
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If you’ve made a resolution to take control of
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Since 1997, Janet has established herself as Victoria’s “organization authority.”
Her expertise and comprehensive product lines can help anyone convert a
kitchen, laundry room, bathroom, bedroom or garage/workshop into an attractive,
high-functioning oasis—providing them with a sense of peace and order, not to
mention saving them precious time because things can be found quickly. (Research
shows most people spend an average of an hour a day just looking for things.)
During the past 15 years, Janet has researched and sourced the best organizing
and closet systems available so that she now offers the largest selection in Western
Custom made cherry wood storage unit with fudge stain.
Just a few of the organizing solutions available at All Organized Storage.
Canada, ranging from locally manufactured green wood storage, melamine, slated
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And now, with her new showroom, store and attached warehouse,All Organized
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and accessories in mid-January.
Her store is a veritable treasure chest of affordable, small but life-enhancing
ideas to keep your belongings in check. Organizing “accessories” include shelving
solutions (stacking, rollout, drawer trays) for kitchens, grid boards and tool storage
units for workshops, and for the bedroom, belt and tie racks, clear stacking
boxes, a valet stand, a compact pant trolley and jewellery inserts.
“It may seem small,” says Janet,“but when you open your closet or pantry and
see order, it frees up energy for you to make other changes as well.A beautiful and
well-organized room can start a chain reaction to begin a process of improvement
in all areas of life. What I hear over and over again from my clients is, ‘Why did I
wait so long? I wish I had done this sooner!’”
In fact, many of Janet’s clients have started with one room and quickly
become converts, relying on her services for other projects. Designers and builders
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Chris Walker, of Christopher Developments, says All Organized Storage is his closet
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With her new showroom displaying numerous ways from large to small to
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www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
7
talk
of the
town
Ross Crockford 8 Rob Wipond 10 David Broadland 14
Derailed
ROSS CROCKFORD
What happened to the plans for commuter rail?
8
PHOTO: DALLAS AREA RAPID TRANSIT
F
or a few hours in 2008 and 2009, residents got an idea of what it would be like
to take a commuter train between Langford
and Victoria.
One Saturday in August, in both those years,
Jim Sturgill ran a 70-passenger VIA Rail “Budd”
car back and forth between Goldstream Avenue
and the old CPR roundhouse in Vic West, as
part of E&N Days, a summer celebration of
the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway. “It worked
very well,” says Sturgill, a veteran trainman
who operated locomotives on the E&N for
30 years. During 2008’s one-day test, he made
six round trips, taking about 25 minutes each
way—a challenge for any car driver trying
to reach the same destination by navigating
the stop-and-go traffic on Douglas Street or
Craigflower Road.
In 2009, Sturgill made seven round trips,
carrying 680 people. “There were so many
people wanting to take the ride,” he recalls.
“Four teenagers got on the train at Langford,
and I asked them if they were going to E&N
Days. ‘Oh no,’ they said, ‘we’re just doing this
so we can catch a bus to the Mayfair shopping
centre. We wish a train like this was running
all the time.’”
Back then, that wish looked certain to become
a reality. In 2006, Canadian Pacific donated
the E&N to the brand-new Island Corridor
Foundation, and ideas flourished along the
tracks. In January 2008, a group of officials
from Victoria, Esquimalt, View Royal and
Langford called Communities For Commuter
Rail (C4CR) released a study showing that an
hourly train service would cost $16 million
to build, and $2 million a year to operate—a
sum requiring lower per-rider subsidies than
BC Transit's buses. Riders would pay $5.
In the November 2008 municipal election,
Langford and Colwood asked voters if they
wanted the BC and federal governments to fund
the E&N, and BC Transit to provide commuter
rail; 93 percent said Yes. Two days later, an allparty finance committee of the provincial
government said the E&N and commuter
rail should be a capital spending priority. Victoria
mayor-elect Dean Fortin chimed in: “Commuter
rail from Langford to downtown Victoria is an
idea whose time has come.”
VIA’s old Budd cars are being used for commuter service—in Texas
Then it fizzled. In June 2010, consultants
hired by the province to study the E&N’s
viability issued reports stating it would cost
$123 million to rehabilitate the entire line [TO
COURTENAY], and at least $69.5 million for
Victoria-Langford commuter rail, with new
stations and trains—slamming the brakes on
any immediate prospect of provincial investment. The ICF tried to get a pilot commuter
service running that autumn, but the BC Safety
Authority demanded new assessments of all
24 crossings between Langford and Victoria,
even though VIA had used the same route for
decades. The following spring, Victoria councillors voted rail permanently off the new
Johnson Street Bridge. And all the while, BC
Transit poured time and money into its $950million plans to electrify the region with
Uptown-centred Light Rail Transit.
Now the E&N is in a perilous state. Last
March, VIA’s Budd cars stopped running
because of poor track conditions, and in
November, VIA shipped the cars off the island.
The province has said it will give the ICF $7.5
million for track improvements, but only if
the federal government does too—and the
feds’ decision may hinge on a just-completed
assessment of the E&N’s bridges, including
the huge span erected in 1910 across
Goldstream’s Niagara Canyon. Many fear that
if the bridges don’t pass, the E&N is doomed.
But would that automatically kill commuter
rail? Maybe not.
The fact is, we’ve invested considerable
sums in the tracks already. CRD Parks says 30
percent of the $14 million it’s put into the
E&N Rail Trail has gone to rail infrastructure,
such as its new Four-Mile Bridge over the
Island Highway. Langford has concentrated
new developments around the tracks, including
its new Eagle Ridge recreation centre. And
Esquimalt and the province have spent $5
million on the rail crossing at Admirals Road,
the potential site of a station for hundreds
of people working across the street at CFB
Esquimalt and Victoria Shipyards.
The key, rail advocates say, is to build up a
commuter service incrementally, which would
be far less expensive than the all-at-once, “platinum or nothing” mentality of the LRT plan.
January 2012 • FOCUS
“
I DON’T UNDERSTAND THE LRT PROPOSAL. It doesn’t make sense
to me... With the E&N, we could use the track that’s existing, and spend
a few dollars to upgrade it. It’s mind boggling to me that that wouldn’t
be the first thing we would do.”
—Jim Hartshorne
“Municipal operations is totally different from
a provincial-scale, BC Transit way of doing
things,” says Geoff Pearce, the chair of C4CR,
and Langford’s former clerk-administrator.
“We do what’s necessary, and if something
doesn’t work, we fix it and then we go on.
What we envisaged with commuter rail, starting
small and growing, was quite different from
what the Ministry of Transportation or BC
Transit says, which is, ‘You’ve got to put in
$60 million up front.’”
That incremental approach has worked elsewhere. Cash-strapped and desperate for transit,
several American cities have converted old
freight railways over to commuter service:
one example is New Jersey’s River Line, which
uses diesel-powered vehicles that roll into
downtown Camden like streetcars. Another
example, even closer to our circumstances,
comes from Texas: in 1994, Dallas’s transit
authority bought 13 Budd cars from VIA (used
ones cost as little as $100,000) and started
running them on a bankrupt freight line for a
commuter service called the Trinity Railway
Express. Today, TRE carries 9,800 daily passengers on new trains, and has loaned its Budd
cars to build up a new commuter line in nearby
Denton County.
Local commuter rail does face challenges
beyond finding vehicles and money. C4CR’s
$16-million scheme depended on rail coming
across the Johnson Street Bridge—and so far,
the City of Victoria has refused to investigate
whether the new bridge could have rails embedded
in its roadway (an idea pushed by this author),
fearing increased costs and construction delays.
“It’s going to take somebody to say, ‘Hey,
this is important enough, we’ll put in $30,000
to help Victoria look at that alternative. And
let’s do it now rather than later,’” says Pearce,
who wants to see the CRD create a regional
funding formula for rail on the bridge.
There’s also the question of which entity
would run the commuter service. Southern
Rail, which is currently contracted by the Island
Corridor Foundation to operate the E&N,
doesn’t have passenger insurance. Pearce says
VIA would be the logical choice, if it brings
back its Budd cars, and can be persuaded that
connecting Langford and Victoria meets its
intercity mandate. Alternatively, a whole new
intermunicipal service could be created, or
the rail system could be operated by the CRD
or BC Transit.
Unfortunately, the last two bodies currently
seem entranced by LRT. The CRD board, the
regional transit commission, and some local
politicians have already endorsed BC Transit’s
shiny $950-million plan—without much worrying
about whether austerity-preaching federal and
provincial governments will actually pay for it,
or already-public opposition from the CRD
Taxpayers’ Association and businesses afraid
of losing two car lanes along Douglas Street.
The LRT fantasy may also cost us opportunities that are staring us right in the face.
Langford’s Westhills development has set aside
$1 million for a commuter-rail station, and
a park-and-ride system connecting it to buses.
But there’s a time limit, and if rail doesn’t materialize by the end of 2013, Westhills will spend
that money on other infrastructure.
Jim Hartshorne, the prime project consultant for Westhills and president of the Westshore
Developers’ Association, sat on BC Transit’s
community-liasion panel for LRT. “And I can
tell you: I don’t understand the LRT proposal.
It doesn’t make sense to me. It is, in my opinion,
doomed for failure,” Hartshorne says, even
though the LRT plans include Westhills. “We
will have to spend millions just to acquire
rights-of-way, and design a system for a billion
dollars that doesn’t appear to have a population that could support it. With the E&N,
we could use the track that’s existing, and
spend a few dollars to upgrade it. It’s mindboggling to me that that wouldn’t be the first
thing we would do.”
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
Ross Crockford is a director
of johnsonstreetbridge.org
and the author of Victoria: The
Unknown City.
9
talk of the town
Put your money where your municipality is
ROB WIPOND
On January 31, a panel of local experts will talk about new ways to ensure your savings, RRSPs, and investment dollars
help strengthen our community sustainability and resilience. We offer a preview of some of the ideas they’ll address.
D
uring her presentation at the Community
Social Planning Council of Greater
Victoria’s recent annual general meeting,
economic development expert Nicole Chaland
brought out a perspective-shifting number:
$360 million.
That’s how much Greater Victoria residents
invested last year in Registered Retirement
Savings Plans (RRSPs)—enough to effectively
double last year’s growth in Greater Victoria’s
entire gross domestic product. Yet instead of
boosting our economy or helping improve
our community, most of that enormous wealth
of ours was simply drained away into globalized mutual funds.
If we could create some sort of local pool
for RRSPs, Chaland said, “What we’d be doing
is capturing money that’s already being invested,
and we’d be making sure it’s invested locally.”
And that, says Community Social Planning
Council director Rupert Downing, is what
he’s setting out to do in the wake of Chaland’s
feasibility report on community investment
funds (CIF).
“This is a very exciting opportunity,” says
Downing, who envisions such funds helping
develop local affordable housing.
“There is a capital gap,” explains Downing.
“The availability of subsidies [from governments] and mortgages from banks or credit
unions doesn’t cover the full cost of developing market rental housing.” What we need,
he says, is “patient capital,” where loans are
relatively cheap and investors don’t need or
expect to pull their money out in a hurry—
like with RRSPs.
The Community Social Planning Council
(often called the Community Council) recently
coordinated meetings between BC provincial
government representatives and their counterparts in Nova Scotia, where such community
investment funds are already in operation,
discussing tweaks to RRSP and venture capital
tax credits that could facilitate the process here.
“The funds that work need a tax incentive,”
says Downing. “That’s the optimum.”
A Cape Breton community investment fund
has already captured two percent of their local
RRSPs—if we could merely equal that here,
that’d be $7.2 million annually.
10
Left to right: Nicole Chaland, Lisa Helps, Stephen Whipp, Rebecca Pearson, Rupert Downing
Community investment funds around North
America generally focus on supporting locallyowned businesses but, because of their broader
mandate to foster overall community development, they usually come with an additional
focus on improving local environmental sustainability, social justice, economic resilience and
self-reliance. So aside from affordable housing
developers, Downing points to City Harvest
(an urban farming cooperative), City Green
Solutions (a home-energy retrofitting nonprofit), and Community Micro Lending (a
provider of small loans to new entrepreneurs)
as examples of the kinds of companies which
often fall between the cracks when trying to
raise conventional loan capital, but which
could be readily helped through a CIF.
The Community Council is gathering a
steering group to begin developing the business plan and legal framework for a regional
community investment fund. So to anyone
with business, financial, tax, legal or marketing
expertise willing to do a little pro-bono work,
says Downing, “We’d be very pleased to hear
from them.” Downing will be speaking about
the initiative at an upcoming community
investment forum sponsored by Transition
Victoria, Vancity and Focus. Along with
Chaland, Downing, and new Victoria councillor Lisa Helps, who is a director of
Community Micro Lending (see Focus, April,
2010), several other speakers will outline
additional options for redirecting your dollars
back into our local community.
One of those speakers will be Vancity
community business banking account manager
Rebecca Pearson.
“Just by banking with Vancity, you are
investing in community,” notes Pearson,
explaining that credit union regulations require
virtually all of Vancity’s $14.5 billion in assets
to be invested in British Columbia. And most
of that, she says, stays in the Lower Mainland
and Southern Vancouver Island.
“On top of that, we are focusing on community impact,” she adds. “So we’re not just
investing locally, but we’re also making an
effort to invest in the building blocks of a
sustainable economy.”
Pearson points to the Root Cellar Village
Green Grocer, Dockside Green, and the
Victoria Car Share Co-op as examples of
progressive local enterprises with which Vancity
has been involved.
But exactly where your savings are invested
is often not under an individual’s direct control,
and so some Vancity members remain frustrated by the credit union’s investments in
more conventional or less ethical businesses.
Pearson says Vancity is developing options for
those people, too.
“The most interesting thing that we’re
working on right now for more direct connections between your dollars and where they
get locally invested is the Resilient Capital
Program,” says Pearson. Just starting up now
in Victoria, but with a pilot project underway
in Vancouver, the program gathers investors
who can contribute $50,000 or more into a
multimillion dollar pool. “Their money
will be made available to social enterprises to
help build resilient communities.”
In Vancouver, Vancity’s Resilient Capital
Program recently helped support a major
expansion to a non-profit that runs women’s
shelters, and a revisioning of Save on Meats
as a multifaceted social enterprise benefiting
its impoverished Downtown Eastside neighJanuary 2012 • FOCUS
Invest Your Money
IN LOCAL CHANGE
bourhood through a restaurant serving all
income levels, accessible work opportunities,
and a rooftop vegetable garden.
“We’re still looking for depositors,” says
Pearson. And to entrepreneurs with great ideas
for improving local resilience, she adds, “We’re
looking simultaneously for investment opportunities on the Island.”
That’s good news to Stephen Whipp, an
ethical investment advisor with Manulife
Securities Incorporated and vice-president of
the Westshore Chamber of Commerce, who’ll
also be speaking at the forum. Whipp says he
constantly hears from prospective clients with
a hunger for ethical investment opportunities
that are specifically local.
“One issue that comes up over and over and
over is people want to help,” says Whipp.
“[Investors ask] ‘How do I help? Other than
growing my own food, other than cutting back
on how much I drive or increasing how much
I use transit, how do I make my community a
better place?’”
Due to regulations to protect us from scams,
however, licensed brokers and investment
advisers like Whipp are restricted to recommending opportunities that are listed on
mainstream capital markets. So instead, Whipp
provides financial and business advice to “put
tools in the toolbox” that help people do their
own “due diligence” when they examine local
investment opportunities. Another approach
Whipp suggests people explore is community
“investment clubs,” an ad hoc version of a
community investment fund where small
groups of people get together to share the costs
and efforts of doing such due diligence.
But these are makeshift solutions which
shouldn’t have to continue this way, argues
Whipp. He hopes growing public demand will
push governments, regulators, and investment
firms with sufficiently large expert infrastructures to more proactively facilitate targeted,
ethical, community investment opportunities.
“I think the credit unions have an ability to
make a huge play in this area,” comments
Whipp. “That in itself may make others pay
attention to it.”
AT THE OTHER END OF THE SPECTRUM,
of course, some would argue that trying to
make money from money, while participating
within a global financial system that’s arguably
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
A forum on present and future options for
putting savings, RRSPs and investment dollars
into local, sustainable, ethical businesses to
build a more self-reliant economy
Nicole Chaland, Sustainability Solutions Group, Program
Director for Simon Fraser University Certificate Program for
Community Economic Development
Converging Global Crises and the Benefits of Local
Investment Models for Businesses and Communities
Stephen Whipp, CFP, Senior Financial Advisor with Stephen
Whipp Financial and Manulife Securities Incorporated, specializing in Socially Responsible Investing and Financial Planning
Challenges and Possibilities for Ethical, Local Investing
Rupert Downing, Executive Director of the Community Social
Planning Council of Greater Victoria, former director of
the Canadian Community Economic Development Network
Building Affordable Housing and Social Enterprises with
Community Investment Bonds
Rebecca Pearson, MBA, Account Manager, Vancity Community
Business Banking
Invest in Community Impact through Banking Locally
John Ehrlich, Owner/manager of Alderlea Farm & Cafe,
and Farmer at TLC's Keating Farm in Duncan
Food Security through Community Supported Agriculture
Lisa Helps, City of Victoria Councillor, Executive Director of
Community Micro Lending
"We need each other to flourish": Small Investments, Big
Paybacks through Local Investments
ADMISSION FREE
7 pm Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Ambrosia Conference Centre
638 Fisgard St. Victoria, BC
sponsored by Transition Victoria, Vancity and Focus Magazine
FOCUS
11
“
I THINK WE’RE AT AN INCREDIBLE CROSSROADS.
We have a huge opportunity which may never
be there again, to show people that you can do
business in a different way.” —Stephen Whipp
dubious at its core, is inherently antithetical to sustainability, social
justice and community development. From this perspective, ethical
investing is a tiny bandage over the gaping wound that’s brought our
society to the brink of environmental, social and financial collapse.
Yet it’s difficult to deny that Vancity’s $14.5 billion, or Greater Victoria’s
own $360 million annually in RRSPs, are amounts that could have farreaching and profound societal impacts if directed creatively and progressively
back into their source communities. Those aren’t mere bandage levels
of money. And even if, after some hypothetical apocalypse, we were to
pull out of the global economy altogether through an alternative local
currency, we’d probably still need some infrastructure guided democratically by members, not unlike a credit union or community investment
fund, to help manage that currency and provide expert guidance on where
to funnel our collective financial resources. So why not explore what’s
possible if we put our financial shoulders to the wheel right now?
John Ehrlich, another speaker at the forum, has already shown what’s
possible, even with just a little upfront investment and no complicated
legal or regulatory frameworks.
While family farms are disappearing across Canada, his Alderlea
biodynamic farm near Duncan has been expanding at 30 percent annually since 2003. This year, 200 families will invest on average $450
each as “shareholders” in exchange for weekly veggie bins. Aside from
being emotionally uplifting to have so many people “committed” to
helping your farm survive, says Ehrlich, this “Community Supported
Agriculture” system improves cash flow, efficiency and marketing.
“The biggest thing is having the money up front, before the season
begins, purchasing seeds and tools and other things,” he explains. “And
we know exactly what to grow and how much to put out for the families each week.”
Starting a community-supported farm, says Ehrlich, is as simple as
bringing some community members together to help stabilize a farmer’s
livelihood by providing upfront payments for produce at near-retail
rates. But our next regional hurdle is figuring out how to rally enough
local resources to actually purchase land for farming. Ehrlich has been
closely involved with The Land Conservancy’s experiment with Keating
Farm, and will outline those efforts at the forum.
“I think we’re at an incredible crossroads,” summarizes Whipp. “We
have a huge opportunity which may never be there again, to show
people that you can do business in a different way.”
The Community Investment Forum is 7 pm Tuesday, January 31 at
Ambrosia Conference Centre, 638 Fisgard Street. Admission is free. For
more information see “Events” at www.TransitionVictoria.ca.
Rob Wipond discloses that he has $200 invested in
a maintenance and landscaping company through
Community Micro Lending.
12
January 2012 • FOCUS
ADVERTISEMENT
Focus presents: Joseph Barry Martin
Take hold of your life—move joyfully toward your dreams
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
Photo: David Broadland
W
e’ve all experienced it: That burning
passion to fulfill a dream, only to have
fears and doubts insidiously creep in
to suffocate the spark before it flames into fruition.
In this new year, forge past the fear and fan
the flame!
Maybe you thrill to the idea of the ease and
flexibility of living in a low-maintenance home
that supports travel, freedom, and new experiences. Or perhaps you’ve always wanted to leave
the city and enjoy country life—yet you’re holding
back on selling your property because the media
is banging its wearying drum about the “slow
market.” But what, if anything, do you gain by
buying into the hype instead of buying your
dream home?
Laurie Klassen and Stacey Toews, owners of
Level Ground Trading, recently made an inspired
move—from their house on a busy corner in
Brentwood Bay to their dream home, a hobby farm
with acreage. If they’d listened to the media,
they might have panicked and stayed put, but real
estate agent Joseph Martin’s support and guidance kept them grounded and focused on their
true inspiration. Now they are celebrating the
unforeseen gifts of their new life every day. “I’ve
learned that you can’t know in advance all the
ways it’s going to be such a great thing for you in
the end,” Laurie says of pursuing the dream they
had.“The new property opens up all sorts of opportunities for us—there are so many things we could
never have done at our other place.”
After discovering the farm on a bike ride, Laurie
and Stacey made the bold decision to buy it without
making the offer conditional on the sale of their
Brentwood home.There were times in the process
when they became quite anxious, and Laurie appreciated the way Joseph kept them positive and on track.
“He understands the stress of putting yourself in a
vulnerable place and taking a risk in order to pursue
something. On the phone, when we were secondguessing ourselves, he’d say, ‘Okay, I’m coming
over—let’s celebrate the steps we’ve made,let’s make
a plan for the future,’ and he’d remind us where the
light is at the end of the tunnel.”
At their very first open house last summer, no
one came, and Laurie felt discouraged. “He was
really calm,” she says of Joseph’s take on the situation. “He said, ’It’s okay, lots of people are going
to come through here in a few weeks’—and that’s
exactly what happened! It was so helpful that he
had the clarity of why we had called him in the first
place, what he was helping us achieve, and what
was going to happen.”
“You can create your own reality.
Don’t listen to the market, the media,
the naysayers, the fence-sitters. Go
ahead and live your life the way you
want to. Do you intuitively feel it is
right to sell? Then list to sell now. Make
your dreams come true!”
—Joseph Martin
“With me, they trusted that their house would
sell, and it did, on the very day we thought it would
sell!” exclaims Joseph.“You can create your own
reality. Don’t listen to the market, the media, the
naysayers, the fence-sitters. Go ahead and live
your life the way you want to. Do you intuitively
feel it is right to sell? Then list to sell now. Make
your dreams come true!”
Laurie has a message for those waiting out the
“down market”before making a move.“I think a few
years ago, we got accustomed to the idea that we
had all this money in the bank, but it wasn’t really
true.The reality is,we have a house,and we can change
that house into a condo or a townhome or a farm
or whatever we like.The numbers are such a shortterm perspective,so focusing on the pricing is just not
worth it.Would I put myself back on that busy corner?
The answer is no,” she says with a laugh. “I’m not
getting any younger!”
She is grateful that Joseph helped assuage the
fears that might have prevented her from fulfilling
her dream of growing food on the scale that the
farm allows. While every square metre of their
suburban spec house’s yard had been made into
an edible garden, it still wasn’t the perfect fit, and
she knew it. “We were not looking around, we
were happy enough where we were, the house
was big enough for us—but it was this niggling
feeling in the back of our minds.” Now, every day,
she looks out the window onto acres of pristine
farmland, wildlife, and wide open sky, and says
that while growing food was her initial inspiration, the unexpected rewards of their new situation
are affirming over and over again that they made
the perfect move.
Joseph, who jokingly calls himself the “House
Whisperer,” is recruiting people who are excited
to move ahead with their new lives and want to
sell their homes. That’s because he’s now sold a
number of his listings over the last few weeks of
a slow December market—a feat made even more
astounding given the fearful “can’t do” attitude
that is coming at us from all sides. How does he
do it? “You must ignore the comments of the
media and others about the current real estate
market. Move from real estate ‘worrier’ to real
estate ‘warrior.’ Be one of those for whom the
market is a ‘perfect fit’ right now. Your ‘in the
zone’ dream home awaits!”
Joseph Barry Martin, Ph.D., REALTOR®, Feng Shui & Prepping™
Pemberton Holmes Ltd Real Estate
MLS® 2008 & 2009 Bronze Awards (Top 30%)
Accredited Seniors Agent ASA, National Association of Green Agents and Brokers NAGAB
Office: 250.474.4176 • Cell: 250.361.8167 • Fax: 250.294.3871
Email: [email protected]
www.JosephBarryMartin.com • www.HouseOfLightHarmony.com
To get local market conditions go to: http://bit.ly/MLSMarketSnapshot
13
talk of the town
T
his community’s most notable response
to the threat of climate change—BC
Transit’s proposal to spend $1 billion on
light rail transit (LRT) from Downtown to
Langford—has been guided by the belief that
the bulk of population growth in the CRD over
the next several decades will inevitably occur
in Langford and Colwood. The idea is that LRT
will lower the carbon emissions associated with
more people travelling between LangfordColwood and the core municipalities (Saanich,
Victoria, Oak Bay, Esquimalt, View Royal).
Although support for LRT has not come
exclusively from politicians aligned with the
NDP, that party’s local elite, including MPs
Denise Savoie and Randall Garrison, MLAs
Rob Fleming, Maurine Karagianis and Lana
Popham, Victoria mayor Dean Fortin and
various municipal councillors, have given the
project its most substantial support.
The current provincial NDP position on the
LRT goes back to just before the 2009 provincial election when the party flip-flopped on its
previous support for a carbon tax and launched
their low-brow “Axe the Tax” campaign. The
NDP’s regressive position threatened to turn
green voters off and local NDP MLAs no doubt
wanted to reassure those voters they weren’t
going completely Neolithic. So the Victoria
NDP MLAs attacked the Liberals for supporting
LRT in Vancouver but not in Victoria. At the
time, Maurine Karagianis said, “The Campbell
government’s transit plan focuses almost entirely
on projects in the lower mainland while the rest
of BC, including Victoria, has been ignored.
The Capital Region seeks to avoid sprawl by
building an innovative, high quality public transit
system with LRT between downtown and
the western communities.”
At that same time Rob Fleming said, “The
region should stick with its Regional Growth
Strategy and pursue an LRT system between
Downtown and the western communities.”
Fleming seemed to forget that the 2003 Regional
Growth Strategy actually called for bus rapid
transit. So the NDP’s LRT position evolved
not out of any detailed study that made a
rational case for it in this city, but rather as a
strategy that could help in an election. More
recently, in a letter to Focus, Fleming wrote,
“The debate that small and large cities in Canada
and around the world are having is about how
to positively link inevitable urban growth with
enhanced economic prosperity that is green
and sustainable. That’s the debate we should
be having in Victoria.”
14
LRT = tail wagging dog
DAVID BROADLAND
Two competing visions emerge on how to mitigate climate change at the regional level.
Bear Mountain subdivision. An LRT to Langford will mean much more of this.
True enough. But part of that discussion
would involve carefully working out how much
of that “inevitable urban growth” should take
the form of sprawl: low-density development
on the western edge of the CRD in Colwood
and Langford (or on the Saanich Peninsula).
Such development chews up farmland, Garry
oak meadows, wetlands and Douglas-fir forests,
and then spits out blasted rock, low-density
subdivisions and more cars on the roads, all of
which exacerbates climate change.
Yes, there is a Regional Growth Strategy. But
the RGS is a compromise that allows Langford
and Colwood to sprawl to their borders if they
so choose, even if that’s not in the best interests of the rest of the CRD or the planet. So
is sprawl in Langford and Colwood inevitable?
One aspect of the LRT study released last
spring by BC Transit (and later endorsed by
the CRD Board) that received little public
discussion was this question about the
inevitability of population growth in Langford
and Colwood. Without a much larger population, there’s no good reason to build LRT
to Langford. So where does the idea come
from that vast sprawl is inevitable?
The ridership projections presented in the
BC Transit study (co-authored by SNC-Lavalin,
a company that designs, builds and operates
LRT systems all over the globe) actually
rely heavily on another study delivered to the
CRD in 2009 by the Vancouver planning firm
Urban Futures. That study, A Context for
Change Management in the Capital Regional
District, predicted that over the next 30 years
the population of the CRD would grow by
111,000 with the West Shore receiving 51
percent of that growth. The numbers gath-
ered by Urban Futures to define the trends
they thought would play out were heavily
influenced by data from the years 2006-2008—
the height of the building boom in the CRD.
Now an interesting fact about that time is
that there were a number of proposals for highdensity developments in Langford that would
have been tallied by Urban Futures but that
were later cancelled, or were started but never
completed. Not least among those doomed
projects for which a building permit was obtained
was Robert Quigg’s $1.4 billion 650-unit fourtower luxury condo/vineyard project on the
east side of the Bear Mountain development.
Quigg apparently killed his project after learning
Bear Mountain had inflated their real estate
sales figures. Other victims of those wildly reckless times were Bear Mountain’s own 14-storey
Highlander project and the South Skirt Mountain
development. The Bear Mountain and South
Skirt Mountain developments triggered
construction of the $30 million Spencer Road
interchange, now widely known as Stew
Young’s Bridge to Nowhere. That overpass
now sits unfinished—and obviously unneeded—
across the Trans Canada Highway, its only
useful purpose being a monumental warning
to passing drivers about unrealistic projections.
So it was out of this over-wrought period
that Urban Futures’ report, which formed the
statistical backbone of the LRT study, was born.
Urban Futures predicted that as the region’s
population aged, there would be a long-term
shift towards multi-storey housing. They went
on to predict—and who could blame them
given the condo-mania hype that was coming
out of Langford and Colwood at the time?—
that over the next 30 years, the West Shore’s
January 2012 • FOCUS
share of multi-storey housing would grow
while the core municipalities’ would shrink.
But the last three years have seen the opposite. The core’s share has held steady while
West Shore’s has steadily declined.
Moreover, Urban Futures noted that its projections assumed there would be no substantial
changes to any of the municipalities’ policies
around density. The numbers it came up with
didn’t take into account the possibility that,
over time, the City of Victoria could adopt new
policies that would encourage and expedite
dense residential development in and around
the Downtown core. Urban Futures projection
didn’t foresee someone like recently-elected
councillor Ben Isitt coming along and changing
the City’s direction. Isitt has said he will work
to increase the Downtown residential population and thereby shift future population growth
away from the western periphery of the CRD.
So there are two competing visions emerging
about how to mitigate climate change in terms
of how the region develops.
On one hand you have the tail-wagging-thedog vision that sprawl in Langford and Colwood
is inevitable, and so transportation infrastructure should be reshaped in the hope of reducing
the accompanying traffic congestion. The LRT
proposal, which depends heavily on future
growth in Langford and Colwood to make it
viable, plays right into that vision. You accept
sprawl’s deforestation and destruction of rare
ecosystems, the loss of farmland and the immense
emissions price tag of the LRT itself, and hope
that, on balance, you are reducing emissions.
On the other hand you have the dog-waggingthe-tail vision: the core municipalities develop
new policies that encourage and expedite
denser residential development, which would
then out-compete the West Shore for the lion’s
share of future population growth in the region.
That vision doesn’t need a billion-dollar LRT
to Langford. That vision understands the
proposed LRT would only encourage urban
sprawl and thereby defeat the long-term goal
of reducing carbon emissions by shortening
distances travelled. It encourages denser, more
energy-efficient forms of housing, and avoids
deforestation, destruction of wetlands and
loss of farmland. And more people living closer
to Downtown would strengthen the economic
prospects of businesses there.
Currently, most regional politicians seem to
prefer that the tail wags the dog.
David Broadland is the publisher of Focus Magazine.
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
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15
Creative
Coast
palette 16 the arts in january 18 coastlines 30
Totally vulnerable
CHRISTINE CLARK
PHOTO: TONY BOUNSALL
Megan Dickie’s sculptures critique the status quo.
Megan Dickie with “Submission”
I
n the short video called Ready to Rumble you will see a slim young
woman wearing a form-fitting black dress, tied at the waist, with
black leggings and tall black boots. Her high heels clatter against the
cement floor of a white room as she wrestles with a free-standing and
uncooperative wall of bricks. She is wearing a flesh-coloured leather
Lucha mask, a decorative full-face covering traditionally used in Mexican
wrestling. After hauling the wall up from its prone position on the floor
and struggling to keep it vertical and straight for a few uncertain moments,
the young woman falls beneath the unwieldy weight of the bricks, only
16
to extricate herself almost immediately. Freed, she crouches beside the
fallen wall, smoothing down its tousled bricks and returning it to its
benign original position.
Meet Megan Dickie: MFA, sessional instructor at UVic, printmaker,
sculptor, video-artist.
While watching Ready to Rumble, Dickie’s first video project,
completed in 2007, you might primarily be struck by the strangely
beguiling visual image. It’s amusing. Not exactly in a laugh-out-loud
kind of way; it’s almost too austere for guffaws and chuckles, but the
incongruity of the set-up is in itself quite arresting.
The ramifications come later, at least for this observer. The archetypal woman, the fragility and shapeliness of her body, in stark opposition
to the hard brick (which it should be noted is not brick but was made
by the artist from wax), the falling wall and at the end, the womanly
ministrations, the smoothing and the straightening, the returning of
the disturbed to a state of order. It makes one think of Haiti, and of
other terrible forces, both natural and human.
Although the work is not specifically feminist, the clothing is carefully planned and is meant to demonstrate the validity of the feminine
and to highlight the artist’s own identity as a feminine creature. Her
sculptural projects normally begin with a series of drawings or prints,
and usually end with a video (often taking up to three years to complete
the entire cycle). They all tend to illustrate the way in which the sculpture, itself can be used. And they always feature the artist dressed to
kill in various interactive poses.
The presentation of the feminine is not incidental; it is a constant.
Dickie says, “ the majority of sculptors are not women, and many sculptors make work that is solemn and not fun;” work that is perhaps more
concerned with supposedly masculine (or shall we say serious?) trends.
As Ms Dickie says herself, “it’s good to bring humour into the work
to draw people in. Then you can point out things that are more significant,” which she describes as being science, math, architecture and
value systems.
In her newest project, called “Submission,” value systems are under
scrutiny. This is just one of her recent projects; she has several under
way. The other piece under construction in her studio at the moment
is called “The Gleamer” and is a 15-by-15 foot blanket made up of
aluminum triangles and reflects her growing interest in geometry, as
well as—not surprisingly—light. It is also a tongue-in-cheek response
to Buckminster Fuller’s ideas.
Megan is an incredibly hard worker and says, “If I’m not making art,
then I’m gardening or making pasta by hand. I like to be constantly
making things.”
“The Gleamer” will be shown at Calgary’s Stride Gallery in
February, but for the moment it’s “Submission” that is centre stage
and in final preparation for a group show called Throw Down with
five regional artists, which opens at the end of January at the Art
Gallery of Greater Victoria.
January 2012 • FOCUS
Allow
Yourself
to Fully Bloom
with Dr
Deanna Geddo DDS
• holistic dentistry
“Submission” (video still from Step into the Ring), 2011-12
Leather, vinyl inflatable, lead shot, 42 x 30 x 84 inches
“Submission” is a seven-foot-tall realization of the logo used by
the Canada Council for the Arts. Like much of her sculpture work,
“Submission” is intended to be a full body experience. Dickie explains
that “the work is participatory—it comes alive when people interact
with it.” In this case, her sculpture is made of soft tan leather and leather
stitching, encases a bop bag (of Bozo the Clown fame) so that you
can punch, push and grapple with the piece without ever completely
knocking it down. It always comes right back at you. “Submission” is
fun and beautiful too, but it’s intended as a critique of the Canada
Council’s granting system.
Every year, artists from all over Canada submit applications for grants;
grants that, if received, will help cover the burdensome costs of art
making. Megan Dickie received a grant in 2004; she’s also been rejected
several times, so she understands the impact the Canada Council can
have on an artist’s career and on an artist’s sense of self. She says, “They
control what we value in arts. Receiving a grant adds enormous credibility to your practice. You feel like you are doing something significant.
If you don’t get it then you feel the opposite, which isn’t necessarily
true. I want to acknowledge that it’s a driving force in the Canadian
art scene. And it’s ok to be critical of the driving force.”
She goes on to say that it’s “not just critiquing granting systems,
but [rather] the relationship we have with them. They are a huge organization, based in Ottawa, and not very personal. This project is about
creating an intimate relationship with the Canada Council.”
This is what we all want, isn’t it? To feel that we have some control
over the governing bodies in our lives, or any force larger and more
powerful than ourselves, for that matter. Often times it’s much easier
to concede defeat, to simply bask in the complacency of powerlessness.
Questioning the status quo is not for the weak at heart; there’s such
potential for ridicule and defamation. Fortunately there are a few artists
and others, people like Megan Dickie, who are willing, as she says, to
make themselves “totally vulnerable.”
Christine Clark is a Victoria-based artist who writes
about artists in Victoria and beyond. See her blog at
http://artinvictoria.com.
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
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17
the arts in january
Continuing to January 2
ALICE IN WONDERLAND
St Luke’s Hall
Alice, the White Rabbit, the Queen of Hearts and others
get the panto treatment by the St. Luke’s Players. 2pm Jan 12 at 3821 Cedar Hill X Rd, $5/$13/$15. 250-884-5484,
www.stlukesplayers.org.
Continuing to January 7
SMALL WORKS
Eclectic Gallery
Featuring smaller pieces by Robert Amos, Pat Martin Bates,
Jenny Waelti-Walters and many other artists. At 2170 Oak
Bay Ave, 250-590-8095, www.eclecticgallery.ca.
January 1
A VIENNESE NEW YEAR’S
Royal Theatre
Participate in a 60-year tradition, started by the Viennese
Philharmonic Orchestra, by spending the first day of the new
year with the Victoria Symphony. 2:30pm at 805 Broughton
St, $35.50-$87.50. 250-386-6121, www.rmts.bc.ca.
January 4
RANDALL ANDERSON
University of Victoria
Hailing from Montreal, multidisciplinary artist Randall
Anderson speaks about the intersection of drawing, painting,
sculpture and performance. 8pm at Room A162 of UVic’s
Visual Arts Building, free. 250-721-6222, www.finearts.uvic.ca.
January 6-29
JOAN RICHARDSON: EYE THRILL
Xchanges Gallery
Joan Richardson’s abstract colour field paintings bring
disorder to chaos. Opening reception 7pm Jan 6 at 2333
Government St. 250-382-0442, www.xchangesgallery.org.
The Arts Centre at
Cedar Hill
We have
Pottery Classes
for All Ages!
Adult Art Classes
Drawing
Artistic iPad
Creative Watercolour
Acrylic Painting Studio
Watercolour 101
Classes start soon. For details
on dates and times check out
our Active Living Guide
or call 250-475-7121
www.recreation.saanich.ca
18
January 6-February 1
YOUTHFUL EXPRESSIONS V
Goward House
Vibrant works from young artists at Frank Hobbs, Arbutus,
Lambrick Park and Mount Douglas schools. Opening reception 1:30pm Jan 8 at 2495 Arbutus Rd. 250-477-4401,
www.gowardhouse.com.
January 6-February 12
WAX POETIC
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
Chin Yuen BFA, MA, an international award-winning
Canadian painter, who does encaustic painting and printing,
joins forces with abstract expressionist painter Irma Soltonovich
to offer an artistic exploration of what it means to “wax poetic.”
Opens with reception 6-8pm, Jan 12 at 1040 Moss St, in the
Macey Gallery. 250-381-1688, www.chinyuenart.com and
www.soltonovich.com.
January 6-May 6
THE SALISH WEAVE COLLECTION
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
Chief AGGV curator Mary Jo Hughes shines the spotlight
on works from Coast Salish artists such as Susan Point, lessLIE
and Luke Marston from the extraordinary, contemporary Coast
Salish art collection of Victoria residents George and Christiane
Smyth, who have lent and donated far and wide to promote
to a broader audience the Coast Salish artists. 1040 Moss St,
regular gallery admission applies. 250-384-4171, www.aggv.ca.
January 9-14
SMUS STUDENT FUNDRAISER
Eclectic Gallery
See story on page 20.
January 2012 • FOCUS
Focus presents: Triangle Healing
ADVERTISEMENT
Meet us at the Victoria Health Show
January 11
GALIANO ENSEMBLE
University of Victoria
January 16
ENIGMA VARIATIONS
Royal Theatre
Yariv Aloni conducts the ensemble as they
perform a program of English suites. 8pm at
UVic’s Philip T. Young Recital Hall, $30/$33.
250-704-2580, www.galiano.ca.
Victoria Symphony performs the piece that
cemented Edward Elgar in the classical music
pantheon, as well as two other compositions.
Featuring guest pianist Sara Buechner. 8pm
at 805 Broughton St, $26-$6, student and
senior discounts available. 250-386-6121,
www.rmts.bc.ca.
January 12-31
AMAZING SEA STORIES
Maritime Museum of BC
Secrets of the ocean’s depths, featuring
discoveries made by Ocean Networks Canada
and their Venus and Neptune observatories
here in Victoria. Opening reception 1-3pm Jan
12 at 28 Bastion Sq, museum admission applies.
250-385-4222, www.mmbc.bc.ca.
January 16
PEN IN HAND READINGS
Cook St Village Serious Coffee
Readings by Deborah Willis, Sandy Pool
and Holly Adams. Open mic sign-up 7:15pm,
readings 7:30pm-9pm at 230 Cook St. $3.
250-590-8010.
January 13-February 6
ABSOLUTE ABSTRACT
Slide Room Gallery
January 16
STORYTELLERS GUILD
1831 Fern Street
Three abstract artists and students of Bill
Porteous—Victoria Clarke, Joan Richardson
and Gordon Shukin—offer up work that
ranges from spontaneous expression to experimental process. Opening reception 7:30pm
Jan 13 at 2549 Quadra St. 250-380-3500,
www.vancouverislandschoolart.com.
January 16
OC87: THE OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE
MAJOR DEPRESSION BIPOLAR
ASPERGER'S MOVIE
Eric Martin Pavilion Theatre
January 14
AN AFTERNOON IN VIENNA
St Mary the Virgin
The 2012 Diemahler Chamber Series kicks
off with Diemahler String Quartet, led by
Maestro Pablo Diemecke, former Victoria
Symphony concert master and one of Canada’s
greatest virtuoso violinists. This first of five intimate concerts will feature Viennese music.
Samples from Diemecke’s latest CD can be
heard at www.pablodiemecke.com. 2:30pm
at 1701 Elgin Rd, $22.50/$25 or all five concerts
for $100, at Ivy’s Books, Cadboro Bay Books
or www.rmts.bc.ca or 250-386-6121.
January 15
CHINESE NEW YEAR GALA
University Centre Auditorium
Ring in the Year of the Dragon with both
modern and traditional performances by Ocean
Rain Chinese Arts Academy, Victoria Society
Of Chinese Performing Arts, Victoria Chinese
Culture Club, and Victoria Chinese Public
School. Presented by the Victoria Chinese
Community Association and the Victoria Chinese
Students and Scholars Association. 7pm at
3800 Finnerty Rd, $8-$15. 250-721-8480,
www.tickets.uvic.ca.
January 15-February 2
SNOW SCUD
Polychrome Fine Arts
A group exhibition of abstract works by
Charles Campbell, Cody Haight, Lance Olsen,
Ingrid Mary Shawn Shepherd and many others.
Opening reception 12pm at 1113 Fort St. 250382-2787, www.polychromefinearts.com.
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
Hear and tell stories. 7:15pm. $5 ($3
students); includes goodies. 250-477-7044.
An innovative film that takes you inside
another person's experience of the challenges
of mental illness, but also hope. Plus: Oh
Me 2, a film by and about Canadian bipolar
animation artist Jonathan Amitay and his
psychologist son, Oren. 6:30pm at 1900 Fort
St, free. 250-595-3542, www.moviemonday.ca.
January 17, 24 and 31
SIN CITY IMPROVISED SOAP OPERA
Victoria Event Centre
This ongoing improvised serial tells the
story of a travelling sideshow in the 1930s
dustbowl. Featuring Morgan Cranny, Kirsten
Van Ritzen, Wes Borg and others. 8pm at 1415
Broad St, $12/$15. www.sincityimprov.com,
250-480-3709.
January 17-February 4
RESIDENT STUDIO ARTISTS
Gallery 1580
Marjorie Allen, Irma Argyriou, Maggie Cole,
Malene Foyd, Richard Pawley, Mette Pedersen
and Lynda McKewan. Large and small abstract
paintings, with Foyd’s pottery. 1580 Cook St.
January 18
OPEN CINEMA
Victoria Event Centre
A screening of “Crazy Wisdom,” a documentary about controversial Buddhist guru
Chogyam Trungpa. Allen Ginsberg considered
him his guru; Thomas Merton wanted to write
a book with him; Joni Mitchell wrote a song
about him. A panel discussion will follow with
the Victoria Shambhala Meditation Centre’s
Leyth Matthews, financial advisor Elizabeth
Hazell and others. Doors 5:30pm, film 7pm
at 1415 Broad St, $10-$20 suggested donation. 250-381-4428, www.opencinema.ca.
“Look younger, be sexier, feel better ... than you’ve ever felt before.”
W
hile this may be the mantra of Victoria’s 2012 Health Show, it’s also what
Diane Regan has been delivering to the customers of Triangle Healing
for years.
This year will mark Triangle’s 23rd year at the Victoria Health Show and they
are as excited about it as ever.
“We love participating in this popular show.We’re able to introduce incredible
products to people who might otherwise have not come across them. It’s a place to
connect with people and help them achieve their health goals.Whether it’s looking
younger,living pain-free,or elevating their
wellness and fitness level,Triangle is uniquely
suited to connect people with solutions,”
says Regan.
One of the stars of this year’s show will
no doubt be the Sonic Vibration Exerciser.
This is a revolutionary product that is taking
the wellness industry by storm.This advanced
system works with sonic vibration to move
blocked energy, increase bone and muscle
mass, remove blockages in your lymphatic
system and increase the potential of the
body’s cells.“We’re hearing about amazing
results from everyone from highly fit athletes
to people who have been coping with
chronic pain for years. Ten minutes a
day on the Sonic Vibration Exerciser gives
a similar cardiovascular, musculoskeletal
Sonic Vibration Exerciser
and hormonal workout as an hour of exercise,” explains Regan.
Another system that has helped literally hundreds of Triangle’s customers get
relief from pain and discomfort is the Barefoot Science Foot Strengthening System.
This system helps to restore feet to a healthy,pain-free state.Whether you’re suffering
from sore feet (bunions or hammer toe), hips or back pain, Barefoot Science will
help you walk away from pain. “We love fitting people with the Barefoot Science
insoles. It’s such an effective system, people can feel the difference immediately and
we instantly create very happy customers,”says Regan,noting,“the Barefoot Science
insoles are a fraction of the price of orthotics.”Triangle is sweetening that already
good price by offering a $5 in-store coupon for Barefoot Science products at the
Health Show.
Other featured products will include the new German-made Bellicon Mini Trampoline—
one of the best ways to get an indoor whole body workout without putting stress on
your joints.The Circulator Foot Massage Mat will also be on hand.This little mat is the
ultimate stress reliever, improving your health in just two minutes per day.
“We’ll have coupons, and free samples, and a contest to enter along with product
demonstrations,” says Regan. “Our booth is always full of exciting products just
waiting to be touched, tried, and explained.”
Make sure to stop by Triangle Healing’s booth at the Health Show. January
28th and 29th at the Victoria Conference Centre—your one-stop shop for
looking younger, feeling sexier, and better than you’ve ever felt before.
Triangle Healing Products
770 Spruce Avenue, Victoria, BC
250-370-1818 • www.trianglehealing.com
Triangle Healing Products, its owner, its employees do not provide medical advice or treatment.They provide information and
products that you may choose after evaluating your health needs and in consultation with health professionals of your choosing.
19
the arts in january
January 9-14
VISUAL POETRY WITH SMUS STUDENTS
Eclectic Gallery
local food
good
f oerv e r y
body
delivering organic food
to your door since 1997
Celebrate the Local Harvest with Us
Local Produce is Available this Winter!
Why buy a Box?
Makes crop planning easier for farmers
and pricing better for you!
You are supporting…
• Local Island growers and the local economy
• Organic growers working with Mother Nature
• YOURSELF by enjoying fresh healthy foods!
Delivered to your Home or Office
What could be easier?
To order follow the links
on our web site
www.shareorganics.bc.ca
or call 250.595.6729
20
THERE IS A GREEK WORD THAT SAYS
it all—Ekphrasis—poets in conversation with
visual artists, the place in the universe where
words and images collide to make beautiful
music that inspires and energizes the Earth.
In this time of war and natural disaster, we
deserve to be led by a new generation with
their heads in the stars, who have been given
permission to use their ability to think and
act beyond the normal limits.
Good teachers teach to the right brain,
where creative thinking links the worlds of
body and spirit, where practical solutions
rise out of abstract ideas. Poet Susan Stenson
and artist Jennifer McIntyre of St Michael’s
University School are cut from cloth made
in the firmament. The student collaboration
that will result in a world handshake was their
idea and the students took their suggestion
with enthusiasm.
Their prints made in response to poetry
written by creative writing students responding
to visual imagery in Stenson’s classroom will
hang in Eclectic Gallery from January 9-14.
John Taylor, Eclectic co-owner with wife Vijaya,
says, “Jennifer McIntyre proposed this collaboration. We both thought it would be a great
idea to have the exhibit be a fundraiser for
international children’s rights. We personally
feel committed to giving to those less fortunate. This is an important lesson for SMUS
students as well, and what better way to express
this idea than through art. Art transcends all
boundaries, and allows children to communicate with others both locally and globally.”
Exposure is not new to SMUS poets who,
along with writing students from Claremont
and Reynolds Secondary Schools have
drawn a lot of positive attention in student
literary competitions.
All the money will go to two charities: War
Child Canada, chosen by the SMUS students,
and Amma, which builds schools in India,
chosen by Eclectic Gallery. The beauty of
raising money to send overseas is that its value
increases in translation and the SMUS students
will see their contributions multiply.
Beyond the satisfaction of creating beautiful works of art, students will assume the
integrity of spirit that comes from understanding world family, the politics of poverty,
and an appreciation for marketing what is
precious, the gifts they channel. It is a perfect
partnership. They give knowledge just as they
receive it themselves.
The poem “Stop” by Harrison Kim inspired
Alex Davies’ “Time,” a two-colour reduction of stasis and movement that is now and
never again, the human condition.
Stop
Clouds surround the clock tower
keeping the town oblivious as men
staring at camel hump roads
waiting for the red bus.
The bus stops at Kensington Road
waits for the tall dark man
who brings with him an old lady:
Time will not wait.
“Time” by Alex Davies
Indeed. Time will not wait for children in
need or for a world in crisis.
Eclectic Galler y is at 2170 Oak Bay
Avenue. Opening is Jan 9, 5-7 pm. 70 prints
with poems will sell for $35 unframed and
$60 framed.
—Linda Rogers
(Linda Rogers recently edited Framing
the Garden, a book combining the work of
local poets and artists—see story page 4.)
January 2012 • FOCUS
January 18-February 4
THE DROWSY CHAPERONE
Langham Court Theatre
This Tony-winning contemporary Canadian
musical, penned by Bob Martin and Don
McKellar, is a humorous love letter to the jazz
age that tells the story of a lonely man’s
escape from reality. Opens Jan 19 at 805
Langham Ct, $17/$19. 250-384-2142,
www.langhamtheatre.ca.
January 19-21
A SALUTE TO THE RAT PACK
Royal Theatre
Multi-instrumentalist and singer Matt
Catingub reinvigorates celebrated classics
from Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy
Davis Jr and others. Expect “I’ve Got You
Under My Skin,” “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head”
and other memorable melodies. 2pm Jan 19
and 8pm Jan 20-21 at 805 Broughton St,
$26-$66, student and senior discounts available. 250-386-6121. www.rmts.bc.ca.
January 21
WORLD DRUMS
McPherson Playhouse
Hand Drum Rhythms presents this concert,
featuring Amadou Kouyate, Weedle Braimah,
Kinobe, Sam “Lobo” Lopez and dozens of
local performers. 7:30pm at 3 Centennial
Sq, $19.75-$24.75. 250-386-6121,
www.drumvictoria.com.
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
January 21
COUGAR ANNIE TALES
Intrepid Theatre Club
January 22
THE LAUGHING SYMPHONY
Royal Theatre
The Other Guys Theatre Company present
a workshop performance of this musical play
by local singer/actress Katrina Kadoski about
the West Coast pioneer Cougar Annie. In the
early 1900s, she trapped over 70 cougars,
homesteaded a rainforest bog, opened a remote
post office, and outlived 4 husbands. Kat Kadoski
lived in Clayoquot Sound for three years caretaking Cougar Annie’s garden and immersing
herself in the folklore surrounding the legendary
pioneer-settler. 2-1609 Blanshard St (at Fisgard),
250-590-6291, www.intrepidtheatre.com.
Norman Foote takes kids on a symphonic
journey that reaches from Beethoven to “Old
MacDonald.” 2:30pm at 805 Broughton St,
$11-$30. 250-386-6121, www.rmts.bc.ca.
January 21
CONTINUUM CONSORT
Lutheran Church of the Cross
Soprano Elizabeth MacIsaac, alongside
Pat Unruh (vielle) and Douglas Hensley (gittern
and lute), perform songs of love by 14th and
15th century French composers. 7:30pm at
3787 Cedar Hill Rd, $10/$15. 250-477-6222,
www.lutheranvictoria.com.
January 22
UNDER THE MANGO TREE
Mary Winspear Centre
This touching semi-autobiographical solo
show about a woman’s journey from Fiji to
Canada first visited Victoria in March 2010,
and is back for another performance in Sidney.
2pm at 2243 Beacon Ave, Sidney, $15. 250656-0275, www.marywinspear.ca.
January 24-February 26
ON THE EDGE
Belfry Theatre
A world premiere of Michele Riml’s play
documenting a chance encounter between
three very different women. One actress, Susinn
McFarlen, in a tour de force performance, gives
voice to three ordinary souls, challenged by
the world around them. Opens Jan 26 at 1291
Gladstone Ave, $23-$38. 250-385-6815,
www.belfry.bc.ca.
January 25
LAILA BIALI
Hermann’s Jazz Club
Jazz-pop artist Laila Biali returns to Victoria
after a sold out JazzFest performance. The
singer-pianist will perform with George Koller
on bass and Larnell Lewis on drums. 7pm at
753 View St, $22 advance, $25/door. 250386-6121, www.jazzvictoria.ca.
January 25
LEGENDS AND FAIRY TALES
Royal Theatre
Enjoy a cup of tea as conductor-in-residence Giuseppe Pietraroia bring fairy tales like
Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella and Swan Lake
to life with stories and, of course, music. 2:30pm
at 805 Broughton St, $26-$31. 250-3866121, www.rmts.bc.ca.
January 26
THE VICTORIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
James Bay New Horizons
Robert Griffin’s talk, “Feeding the Family:
100 Years of Food and Drink in Victoria,” is
based on his new book that documents the
history of our city’s food suppliers. 7:30pm at
234 Menzies St, www.victoriahistoricalsociety.bc.ca.
January 27
MUSICA ANGELICA
Alix Goolden Hall
This special performance features the
Los Angeles-based early music ensemble
alongside star Canadian soprano Emma Kirkby
and countertenor Daniel Taylor. 8pm at 907
Pandora Ave, $30/$32. 250-386-6121,
www.earlymusicsocietyoftheislands.ca.
January 27-28
HEIDI OF THE MOUNTAIN
Mary Winspear Centre
Triple Threat Musical Productions presents
their take on the classic Swiss tale of Heidi,
Clara and their adventures. 7pm Jan 27 and
2pm Jan 28 at 2243 Beacon Ave, Sidney,
$5/$10. 250-656-0275, www.marywinspear.ca.
21
“BLUE MAGIC TEAPOT” BILL BOYD, 5.5 X 7.5 INCHES, CLAY WITH CRYSTALLINE GLAZE
Throughout January
BILL BOYD: NEW CERAMIC WORKS
The Avenue Gallery
“ALMOST MIRROR” CHIN YUEN, 10 X 10 INCHES, ENCAUSTIC COLLAGE ON WOOD
January 6-February 12
WAX POETIC
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
Chin Yuen BFA, MA, an international award-winning Canadian painter, who does encaustic
painting and printing, joins forces with abstract expressionist painter Irma Soltonovich to
offer an artistic exploration of what it means to “wax poetic.” Opens with reception 6-8pm, Jan
12 at 1040 Moss St, in the Macey Gallery. 250-381-1688, www.chinyuenart.com and
www.soltonovich.com.
“WE ALL NEED A WARM PLACE TO REST OUR BONES” LIAM HANNA-LLOYD, 11.5 X 11.5 INCHES, MIXED MEDIA
Throughout January
LIAM HANNA-LLOYD: COLLAGE
Victoria Emerging Art Gallery
Introducing the exceptional collage artist Liam Hanna-Lloyd to VEAG: “The layers of
paper, patterns and paint build the piece outwards to represent time, evoke tactility and to
procure a landscape. The imagery…can come to me in dreams; can be hidden in old photographs,
found within First Nations legends, or simply though experiences.” Also featuring local artist
Carollyne Yardley’s quirky squirrel paintings and new work by Samuel Jan, Logan Ford, Jen
Wright, Pete Kohut and Lisa Rose. 977A Fort St. 778-430-5585, www.victoriaemergingart.com.
22
Bill Boyd of Galiano Island began making pottery in 1970, in Sweden, where he worked
with several talented potters and taught ceramics. Over time, the Scandinavian influence melded
with an Asian aesthetic, bringing Boyd to his signature work of classic simplicity. Since 2002,
his traditional forms have become the playground for explorations into crystalline glazing; he
is one of the leading names in this challenging, relatively new process that involves growing
zinc-silicate crystals in the glaze at high temperatures. 2184 Oak Bay Ave. 250-598-2184,
www.theavenuegallery.com.
“LIGHTNING” DYLAN THOMAS, 13.75 X 21.25 INCHES, SERIGRAPH EDITION 100
Throughout January
GALLERY ARTISTS
Alcheringa Gallery
Featuring new serigraph releases by Coast Salish artists lessLIE and Dylan Thomas, handpulled lino prints from Ake Lianga, and more. Shown here is a work by Qwul`thilum (Dylan
Thomas), a young
Coast Salish artist
from the Lyackson
First Nation, originally from Valdes
Island, whose influences include Rande
Cook, Art Thompson,
Susan Point and
Robert Davidson.
Alcheringa’s new
website features treasures from throughout the Pacific Rim,
including graphic and
three-dimensional
work. 665 Fort St.
250-383-8224,
www.alcheringagallery.com.
January 2012 • FOCUS
“Warm Arrival”by Corrinne Wolcoski,36 x 60 inches,oil on canvas
Coastal Celebration
January 7 – 28
Group Exhibition
Opening Reception January 7, 1– 4pm
Francis Baskerville,Don Berger,Karel Doruyter
Graham Forsythe,April Mackey,Fredwin Perry,
Michael Stockdale,Corrinne Wolcoski
“Journey of an Ancient Soul #23” John McConnell, 30 x 40 inches, oil on canvas
606 View Street • 250.380.4660 • www.madronagallery.com
John McConnell, AAI
A Celtic Journey
handmade gifts from local woods
January 16 - February 25
Reception Monday, January 16, 6 - 8pm
Live-edge birdseye yellow cedar bowl
Heartwood Studio
bowls and spoons, wooden utensils, urns, lamps and more
Visit the artist in his studio or online:
www.eclecticgallery.ca
2170 Oak Bay Avenue • 250.590.8095
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
250-746-5480 • www.heartwoodstudio.ca
or see us at Eclectic Gallery
2170 Oak Bay Avenue
23
the arts in january
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
FEBRUARY 9-12, 2012
Discover the musical
brilliance of Versailles
and beyond
“Brilliant!
The festival just keeps
getting better!”
“This festival
is a treasure, a gift to
Victoria.”
Marc Destrubé directs the Pacific Baroque
Orchestra and soloists in music by Lully, Couperin,
Rameau, Bach and Telemann
FEATURING : Paolo Pandolfo, (viola da gamba),
Soile Stratkauskas (baroque flute), Byron Schenkman
(harpsichord), Victoria Children’s Choir
and St. Christopher Singers
Details at www.pacbaroque.com
January 27-May 6
THROWDOWN
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
Five BC artists work in sculpture, video, photography,
drawing and public intervention to address socio-political
issues, economic struggles, to invoke a call to action or an
invitation to play. Featuring Sonny Assu, Gregory Ball, Megan
Dickie, Tyler Hodgins, Alison MacTaggart. (See story about
Megan Dickie, page 16). In addition, a new public project
by Tyler Hodgins, “Sleeping Bag,” will place his temporal
sculptural interventions at various locations throughout
the city during the run of the exhibition. Opening reception
7pm at 1040 Moss St, regular gallery admission applies.
250-384-4171, www.aggv.ca.
January 28
THAT’S JUST CRAZY TALK
Eric Martin Pavilion Theatre
See story om page 28.
January 28-29
CROW PLAYS MENDELSSOHN
Royal Theatre
Gifted BC-born violinist Jonathan Crow and the Victoria
Symphony perform Brahms’ “Symphony No. 1,” Bruckner’s
“Overture in G Minor” and Mendelssohn’s “Violin Concerto.”
8pm at 805 Broughton St, $26-$66, senior and student
discounts available. 250-386-6121, www.rmts.bc.ca.
January 29
JAZZ AT THE GALLERY
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
See jazz vocalist Joe Coughlin sound off surrounded by
art. Presented by the AGGV and UJAM. 2pm at 1040 Moss
St, $30. 250-384-4171, www.aggv.ca.
Throughout January
IMAGES OF INTERNMENT
McPherson Library, UVic
Paintings by Henry Shimuzu document the artist’s teenaged
years spent in a New Denver internment camp between
1942 and 1946.
Throughout January
SCHOOL OF MUSIC CONCERTS
Philip T. Young Recital Hall
All events free or by donation. Every Friday: Fridaymusic
concerts featuring School of Music students, 12:30pm. Jan
11: Lieder at Lunch presents an exploration of the German
Lied repertoire with Sharon and Harald Krebs and Benjamin
Butterfield, 12:30pm at MacLaurin B307. Jan 14: faculty recital
featuring Eugene Dowling, Tzenka Dianova and Stephen
Brown and the Bastion Jazz Band, 8pm, $17.50/$13.50. Jan
20: Piano students of Eva Solar-Kinderman perform R. Schumann
and Janácˇek, 8pm. Jan 21: Wendell Clanton’s saxophone
class recital, 8pm. Jan 22: Piano students from the studio of
Bruce Vogt performing works by composers from Scarlatti
to Bartók, 2pm. Jan 24: Harald Krebs presents a lecture
entitled “Robert Redeemed: The Beauty of Schumann’s Late
Songs,” with soprano Sharon Krebs, 7:30pm. Jan 27: UVic
Concerto Orchestra performs works by Wagner, Mozart and
more, with soprano Mary-Ellen Rayner, 8pm at University
Centre Auditorium, $17.50/$13.50. Jan 28: faculty recital
featuring Suzanne Snizek (flute), Charlotte Hale (piano), Arthur
Rowe (piano) and Benjamin Butterfield (tenor), 8pm,
$13.50/$17.50. Jan 31: Annual Solo Bach Competition and
Concert, where a jury elects three winners from UVic string
students performing Bach’s suites and sonatas, 7pm.
24
January 2012 • FOCUS
HARVEST
by Ken Cameron
ALL SHOOK UP
January 25
VCM PRESENTS—JANUARY JAZZ
Alix Goolden Performance Hall
THE JANUARY BLUES WILL BE SENT PACKING WITH AN
upcoming concert featuring jazz maven Brad Turner together with
Gordon Clements and Conservatory of Music colleagues.
Gordon Clements, head of the Jazz Studies Department at the Victoria
Conservatory of Music, has always straddled two musical worlds. His
formal training is in classical music and
the clarinet. But from his teenage years,
he has maintained a high standard of
performing the entire saxophone family
of instruments in numerous Jazz bands.
Playing saxophone for the house band
at the Strathcona Hotel six nights a week
actually helped to finance his Classical
clarinet studies at UVic. “It was kind of
a schizophrenic personality that I had,”
says Clements of those years: “Kind of
Classical by day and Jazz by night. I’ve
always loved that.”
Gordon Clements
While many agree that music is a
universal language, Clements knows it
to be a fact, especially in the case of Jazz.
During a trip to Cuba, he introduced
himself to the house band at a Jazz club
he was visiting, and they let him sit in
and play with them. The experience was
exhilarating. As he explains, “We couldn’t
even converse. They didn’t speak any
English at all. I didn’t speak any Spanish,
but we managed to figure out some song
titles, and right away it was a huge success.”
He has since repeated that experience in
a number of different countries and cities.
Brad Turner
There is a special thrill and excitement
to a concert of Jazz music that is not really
found in performances of any other musical genre. This derives in part
from the importance of improvisation in Jazz. It is a chance to be
part of a one-off event; to watch musicians create on the spot. Clements
confirms, “If it’s done right, the improvisation not only reflects the
music and the other musicians on stage, but it also involves the
audience…and the people that I work with and play with would all
agree that bringing our audience to us, to the music, is absolutely fundamental to what we do.”
Internationally renowned Jazz trumpeter and recording artist
Brad Turner is the guest performer for the event. Clements enthusiastically concedes that, besides Turner’s virtuosic command of the
trumpet, “he can sit down on drums and piano and make that sound
like his first instrument as well!”
All of the performers taking part in this event are also composers,
so the program will feature many original compositions. It will be
rounded out by other works from The Great American Songbook and
Duke Ellington’s oeuvre. The afternoon of the event, students will have
a chance to participate in a masterclass with Brad Turner.
January Jazz is at 7:30-9:30pm. Adults $25; seniors/students $15. 907
Pandora Ave. 250-386-5311, www.vcm.bc.ca. —Lisa Szeker-Madden
CELEBRATING 20 SEASONS!
featuring the songs
of Elvis Presley ®, book
by Joe DiPietro
NOISES OFF
by Michael Frayn
(contains strong language)
JOSEPH AND
THE AMAZING
TECHNICOLOR®
DREAMCOAT
lyrics by Tim Rice, music
by Andrew Lloyd Webber
CHICKENS
by Lucia Frangione, music by
Royal Sproule, Lewis Frere, Mark
Lewandowski and Jason Bertsch
WINGFIELD’S FOLLY
by Dan Needles, starring
Rod Beattie (Bonus Show!)
THE GIFTS OF
THE MAGI
from O. Henry stories, book &
lyrics by Mark St. Germain, music
& lyrics by Randy Courts
SEASON TICKETS ON SALE NOW
Ask us about our
Gift Certificates and
Getaway Packages
1.800.565.7738
chemainustheatre.ca
2012
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
Colin Sheen 3 SeaShine Design 3 David Cooper Photography
“WINDY DAY” JOHN MCCONNELL, 12 X 24 INCHES, OIL ON CANVAS
January 16-February 25
JOHN MCCONNELL: A CELTIC JOURNEY
Eclectic Gallery
“CULTURALLY MODIFIED” KAREL DORUYTER, 30 X 36, ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
January 7-28
COASTAL CELEBRATION
Madrona Gallery
This group exhibition will include exquisite works inspired by our local geography,
including Corrinne Wolcoski’s superb seascapes and Karel Doruyter’s masterful handling
of the rainforest. Also featured are new works from Francis Baskerville, Fredwin Perry, Michael
Stockdale, Don Berger, Graham Forsythe and April Mackey. Opening reception January 7,
1-4pm. 606 View St. 250-380-4660, www.madronagallery.com.
“HANDS AND ROCK REFLECTION” MYFANWY PAVELIC, 9 X 12 INCHES, CHARCOAL/CONTE
Throughout January
MYFANWY PAVELIC ESTATE SALE
Morris Gallery
An exhibit and sale of the last seven pieces from the estate of Myfanwy Spencer
Pavelic. Born in Victoria in 1916, Pavelic was mentored by Emily Carr, who discovered the
young girl’s talent at six years old, and arranged a show of her work when she was 15. In
the ‘40s she lived and painted in New York where she was part of the art scene, before
returning to the Saanich Peninsula. Renowned for her portraits, she painted the likes of Yehudi
Menuhin, Glenn Gould, Pierre Trudeau (his official portrait), and Katharine Hepburn. On Alpha
St at 428 Burnside Rd E. 250-388-6652, www.morrisgallery.ca.
Each painting in John McConnell’s “Journey of an Ancient Soul” series features the image
of a soul travelling from this life to the next, along with the vessel in which it undertakes the
journey. Each image has its own individual personality. For some the journey is easy and calm,
for others it is a difficult and tumultuous experience. The artist never knows the image before
he begins a new work and just follows the painting as it evolves before him on the canvas.
2170 Oak Bay Ave, 250-590-8095, www.eclecticgallery.ca.
UNTITLED, RICHARD RAXLEN
January 13-February 25
RICHARD RAXLEN
Open Space
This co-presentation with MediaNet, entitled “introspective?!*√º"ç¥å?!, ” looks at the diverse
work created by this local filmmaker, animator and visual artist who has long been a Victoria
staple. Watch for images of Mutt & Jeff, historical footage and well-known literary figures in his
work. His work is idiosyncratic, aesthetically rich, unabashedly hand-crafted, and borderless.
He has produced scores of experimental films, including some award-winning ones. In conjunction with the exhibition, Open Space will publish a book with essays by Peter Sandmark and
Marilyn Brakhage. Opening reception 5pm Jan 13 at 510 Fort St. 250-383-8833, www.openspace.ca.
January 2012 • FOCUS
“Pots of Flowers” Sylvia Armeni, 7 x 10 inches, fabric collage
Masterworks of Contemporary Aboriginal Art
Canadian Northwest Coast • Papua New Guinea
Solomon Islands • Australia
Visit our new website at:
WWW.ALCHERINGA-GALLERY.COM
or in person at:
665 Fort St. Victoria B.C., Canada Tel: 250-383-8224
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
Sylvia Armeni
New fabric collages
2184 OAK BAY AVENUE VICTORIA
www.theavenuegallery.com 250-598-2184
27
the arts in january
January 28
THAT’S JUST CRAZY TALK
Eric Martin Pavilion
WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW: IT’S AN ADAGE WE’RE ALL FAMILIAR
with, and one that Victoria Maxwell took to heart when she decided
to write what would become her first play. The topic? Her experience
being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, anxiety and psychosis at age 25,
the subsequent five years she spent coming to terms with her disorders,
and her eventual recovery. It was a call
for submissions for KickStart’s disability
arts festival that first motivated her to write.
“I thought, ’Well, if I’m going to do something, this might be the place to do it, because
there will hopefully be a warm audience
there,” says Maxwell, who worked as an
actor before her diagnosis. “I applied and
more or less said, ‘Hey, I have a book and
I can read excerpts.’ And they said, ‘Great!’
Then I realized shit, I don’t have a book. I
don’t even have excerpts.”
Since then, the self-proclaimed Bipolar
Princess has become a premiere presenter
Victoria Maxwell
on issues surrounding living with mental
illness, and has penned four acclaimed onewoman shows: Crazy For Life, Funny...You Don’t Look Crazy, Head
Over Heels and her most recent, That’s Just Crazy Talk, which is coming
to Victoria on January 28 as a special presentation of Movie Monday.
“I would say it’s probably my most personal, mainly because it
goes into my family history on both my mom and dad’s side,” says
Maxwell. “My other ones were obviously very personal because they
were based on my life, but somehow, I guess because I wasn’t describing
things that had to do with my mom and dad, it didn’t seem quite
as revealing or risky.”
The play has been performed three times as part of a research
project by CREST.BD, or Collaborative RESearch Team on the Psychosocial
Issues of Bipolar Disorder. The project’s goal is to study the impact that
lived-experience theatre presentations can have on attitudes towards
mental illness, both in people living with bipolar disorder and healthcare providers. While the Victoria performance isn’t part of the research
project, CREST.BD team leader Erin Michalak will be attending the show
and they will be making a presentation about the project during the Eric
Martin Pavilion's psychiatric grand rounds a couple days later.
“There is a lot of lip service to the lived experience being so valuable
in helping people to recover, but it doesn’t really find its way to really
being supported,” says Bruce Saunders, who has been organizing the
Movie Monday film screenings at Eric Martin Pavilion for nearly 20
years. “I’ve been trying from all different angles all the years that I’ve
been doing Movie Monday to try and influence the mainstream professional community and this is a bright spark for me, to see that someone
is doing it and doing something scientifically and with some credibility
to the mainstream.”
That’s Just Crazy Talk will be performed at 6:30pm Sat, January
28 at the Eric Martin Pavilion Theatre in the 1900 block of Fort
Street. It’s free and open to the public. Visit www.crestbd.ca/events to
register. For more information on Victoria Maxwell, visit www.victoriamaxwell.com. For more on Movie Monday, visit www.moviemonday.ca.
—Amanda Farrell-Low
28
January 2012 • FOCUS
Throughout January
WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR
Royal BC Museum
See the 108 winning images in this 47-year-old international competition, run by BCC Wildlife Magazine, on its only
North American stop. Regular museum admission applies.
675 Belleville St, 250-356-7226, www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca.
VARIOUS EXHIBITIONS
Art Gallery of Great Victoria
“Collected Resonance,” works by three South Asian
Canadian women, to Jan 8. “Promising Objects,” Alison
MacTaggart uses parameters from the Canadian Intellectual
Property Office to guide this exploration of inventors and
artists and their ongoing desire to find solutions to problems
and ideas, to Jan 15. “The Enduring Arts of China,” decorative elements and motifs that have been passed down
by Chinese artists for centuries, to May 6. “Emily Carr: On the
Edge of Nowhere,” semi-permanent Emily Carr exhibit. All
at 1040 Moss St. 250-384-4171, www.aggv.ca.
Celebrating Local Artists
Fine Art, Jewelry, Gifts
& Crafts by Local Artists
Great selection of
Gemstones & Findings
2000 Fernwood Road
250.361.3372 • www.shesaidgallery.ca
THE EMERGENCE OF
ARCHITECTURAL MODERNISM II
Legacy Art Gallery
PHOTO: HUBERT NORBURY
Subtitled “UVic and the Victoria Regional Aesthetic in
the late 1950s and ’60s,” this is the second in a series of exhibitions and publications exploring the relationships, personalities
and projects contributing to the development of a regional
modernist aesthetic in the post-war Victoria urban landscape.
630 Yates St, 250-381-7645, www.legacygallery.ca.
Council Chamber Wing, Pandora St. Entrance
(Wade Stockdill & Armour Architects)
ALL STARS CONTINUED
Dales Gallery
Works by Stephanie Harding, Ira Hoffecker, Bob McPartlin,
Clive Powsey. 537 Fisgard St, 250-383-1552, www.dalesgallery.ca.
Tuesday Nights
NEWCOMBE SINGERS REHEARSALS
St Mary’s Church
This non-audition community choir is on the hunt for
tenor and bass voices, but welcomes all new members.
7:30-9:30pm weekly at 1701 Elgin Rd. 250-480-5087,
www.newcombesingers.com.
Sundays in January
FOLK MUSIC CONCERTS
Norway House
Check website for performers. Open mic at 7:30pm at
1110 Hillside Ave, followed by the featured concert. $5. 250475-1355, www.victoriafolkmusic.ca.
Send ARTS-RELATED listings to
[email protected]
by January 10 for events in February.
Placement cannot be guaranteed.
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
29
coastlines
Love, art and transformation
AMY REISWIG
PHOTO: TONY BOUNSALL
Phyllis Serota often tells stories in her paintings. Now she tells the stories behind the paintings.
Phyllis Serota
I
n chilly midwinter, golden monarch butterflies approach and even
settle on Victoria artist Phyllis Serota’s father. This frozen imaginary
moment lives in a large canvas in Serota’s sitting room and tells a
very private story of reconciliation and forgiveness—a long-sought
breakthrough regarding the man who, years ago, beat his daughter
so regularly that the family joked about Daddy breaking her glasses
every Tuesday night.
Relaxing in front of this painting in her Oak Bay home is the warmsmiling Phyllis Serota, now far from the west side of Chicago where
she grew up in a Jewish family under what she calls the “contradiction
30
of love and terror” that was her father. The only reason I know the
story of this painting, and what it means to see her laugh beneath it,
is because she told me—and not just me. While she has been telling
stories in her paintings for years, Serota now bravely takes readers into
the world behind her work with a new book, Painting My Life: A Memoir
of Love, Art and Transformation (Sono Nis, October 2011).
Serota has been a fixture in Victoria’s visual arts scene for over 35
years, and not just as a painter working away in isolation but involved
in the community. Her work has been shown at galleries in Victoria,
Vancouver (including the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre),
Edmonton, Washington and Oregon, and she has been involved with
Open Space Gallery, the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, and
the Victoria Holocaust Remembrance and Education Society. Serota’s
work is currently held in many private collections, including local institutions such as UVic and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, as well as
at the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
While readers will learn that Serota, born in 1938, took classes at
the Art Institute of Chicago, at Malaspina College and eventually graduated, at the age of 41, with a BFA from the University of Victoria, and
while we see over 100 colour reproductions of Serota’s work, the book
is not specifically about her paintings. Rather, it is about the person and
the people behind them—everything that has gone into the art of living
her life. What she writes regarding her series of Holocaust paintings
serves also as a good description of the artistic and humanistic
project of this book: “I also recalled Tikkun Olam (a Hebrew concept
of repairing the world), and the idea that you can’t heal a wound unless
you clean it out by looking at it carefully.”
Serota tells me that the very fact of the book is surprising to her, but
the jump in genre, the transformation of painter to author, has not
proven too much of a stretch since both art forms are ways of personal
storytelling. While she’s been writing in various ways since she was 10
years old, Serota says her textual family chronicling began in earnest
when she was invited to join a memoir-writing group. “Everything
comes from this little moment of saying yes,” she muses.
Some sections of this 230-page book originated years ago as part
of that memoir-writing group, but many were newly written specifically for this publication. And Serota’s prose, perhaps not surprising
for a painter, is vivid and visual, extraordinarily detailed yet still conversational. One can see, smell and practically taste her family dinners,
feel the air on her back porch or the rush of people dancing. Every character in her life’s drama is delineated with care—the way her very
beloved mother cleaned the red-and-grey tile kitchen floor every day
on her hands and knees, laying newspaper on it while it dried; the way
her Aunt Rosie and Uncle Jake ground horseradish with a small machine
at the back of their fish store. In one of the book’s many reflective
moments, Serota writes: “I believe it’s important to get very specific
about your life. Then it becomes universal.”
“Writing wasn’t hard,” Serota laughs. “I’m a good talker.” There is
a lot of laughter during our meeting. But also, and for the first time in
my experience as an interviewer, there were tears I had to fight. Not
because of painful topics or difficult personal revelations such as the
January 2012 • FOCUS
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THIS IS A PROFOUNDLY GENEROUS BOOK, one in which
the author does nothing less than make a gift of her family,
of herself. From that perspective, it is a humbling read.
family violence, but from a very deep sense of gratitude. This is a
profoundly generous book, one in which the author does nothing less
than make a gift of her family, of herself. From that perspective, it is
a humbling read.
In some ways, to tell too much about her life here would be cheating
you from the pleasure of reading about Serota for yourself in these 29
short chapters. So I will say
that it is raw, funny and disarmingly open as she shares both
beautiful and brutal moments,
all pointing to that theme
of transformation: growing
up in and away from a childhood of both violence and
love; becoming a wife and
mother; the move to sexual
openness and drugs in a hippie
BC coastal community;
divorce and discovering the
gay scene in Victoria in the
1970s; the issue of definitions—rejoining the Jewish
community she had
temporarily left or feeling
comfortable calling herself
an artist or a lesbian (“There’s another work of art, at the computer,” she
tells me, beaming and pointing to Annie, her partner now of 38 years).
“I have no time for BS anymore,” the resilient Serota tells me. “There’s
not enough openness in the world; there’s so much pretense all the
time. There’s nothing better than when we can just be ourselves.” The
book also conveys a deep sense of the freedom that comes from so truly
and publicly being yourself for all to see.
“I always feel exposed when I have a show, and I thought I would
feel worse than I do about exposing myself like this in the book,” she
admits. “I thought it would be terrible. But at the launch”—at the Art
Gallery of Greater Victoria—“I felt just so much love coming from
so many people,” she exults, somewhat humbled herself. As the old
saying goes, you get what you give.
As the new year symbolically offers the opportunity for personal transformation, Serota’s is a beautiful example to follow in terms of deciding
to live reflectively, give generously of oneself and share without shame.
It makes you wonder what a work of art all our lives could be.
Writer, editor and musician Amy Reiswig is reminded
of what unexpected gifts may come into your life and
the lives of those around you when you flatten your
fears by saying “yes.”
N
irvana Pet Resort is a happy place for humans and non-humans. Those
who peek in the large windows of the 4400-square-foot facility on
Government Street, or drop off their dogs for day care, leave with a smile
on their faces.
Whether it’s grooming, obedience training, boarding, or day care, Nirvana Pet
Resort has the caring, experienced staff to guarantee top-notch care for your pet.
Owner Chris Anctil, a certified obedience instructor who has worked in the
veterinary field for over 12 years, opened
Nirvana because of her passion for animals
(her own include a Miniature Poodle, a
Miniature Australian Shepherd and a
Lagotto Romagnolo, a rare and ancient
breed of dog).
Chief groomer Jessica Elrod is another
passionate animal lover—she owns two
Poms, a Sheltie, and a Border Collie,
along with several pet birds.She is comfortable with any animal, from cats and dogs
to birds, rodents and exotics.
Says Chris, “Our philosophy on
grooming is that it’s not a production
line. We take our time, especially with
babies or nervous animals, so that it’s a
positive experience from the start.”
Among Jessica’s talents are hand stripping for terrier breeds.This helps maintain
a proper coat. “She’s a perfectionist,”
says Chris, proudly.
Customer Mrs. Maureen Ross has
been taking her 12-year-old Cairn Terrier
Bobby to Nirvana for the past year, and
is “so impressed. I’ve never seen as good
Chris Anctil with Mickey
a job,” she says.“They can’t do enough
for you; it’s just delightful.”
Both Chris and Jessica breed and show dogs so they know show cuts if that is
what the client wants, but they do mostly comfortable pet cuts. “We recognize
that people are putting their pet in the hands of someone they don’t really know.
We understand how that feels. We take pride in treating every dog as if it’s our
own,” says Chris.
This applies to the daycare as well, which is roomy enough for the dogs to get
lots of indoor exercise chasing balls or using the slide (an entertaining sight!).
The wooden floor is easier on their joints than concrete. Staff keep the dogs
physically and mentally stimulated and know how to curb territorial or possessive behaviour before disagreements occur. Small dogs have a fun space of their
own, though each dog is evaluated as to where it will most happily fit, and no
breeds are discriminated against.
“Daycare is one of the best ways to teach puppies how to socialize—and to
build confidence in any dog,” says Chris, pointing out that dogs are pack animals
so isolation doesn’t suit them.
Chris also offers obedience training. She knows what she’s doing and after
eight 45-minute classes, your dog will be a model of good manners.
Nirvana Pet Resort
2000 Government Street (at Discovery)
250-380-7795 • www.NirvanaPetResort.weebly.com
Visit us on facebook: search for Nirvana Pet Resort
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
31
focus
reporting from the frontlines of cultural change
At the tipping point
KATHERINE GORDON
PHOTO: FRED CATTROLL
Assembly of First Nations National
Chief Shawn Ah-in-chut Atleo thinks
the situation at Attawapiskat is one
of many signs Canada is at a tipping
point in its relationship with First
Nations. The system has failed, says
Atleo: it’s time to “smash the status
quo” and start over again.
32
January 2012 • FOCUS
N
ational Chief Ah-in-chut Atleo was speaking at a philanthropy
conference in Toronto last October when stark images of
families in Attawapiskat, Ontario, living in uninsulated tents
without power or running water, started flashing across Canadian
television screens.
As Canadians learned that dozens of reserves across the country
share Attawapiskat’s Third World conditions, Atleo told conference
delegates that Canada is at a moment of reckoning in its relations
with First Nations. “Since contact between European settlers and
indigenous peoples in Canada,” said Atleo, “there has been a constant
and aggressive erosion of First Nations economies, laws and ways of
life. Statistics tell a tragic tale of communities with the highest youth
suicide rate in the world, a rate of TB infection 30 times the national
average, an education gap that will take over two decades to close
and the reality that our children are more likely to end up in jail than
to graduate from high school. This is completely wrong,” raged Atleo.
Three months earlier, now-retired federal Auditor General Sheila
Fraser had unleashed a scathing report on the state of First Nations
communities in Canada, lashing out at the federal government for
the appalling conditions on many Indian reserves. Canada had failed
to implement numerous recommendations she had made over the
years on ways to improve the lives and well-being of people living in
First Nations communities in any way that had led to significant
change. If anything, reported Fraser, conditions were worse.
Unless the federal government works with First Nations to rise
to this challenge, concluded Fraser sombrely, “living conditions may
continue to be poorer on First Nations reserves than elsewhere in
Canada for generations to come.”
Atleo agrees wholeheartedly. He believes it’s time for bold action:
“We’re at a tipping point. We have to unlock the full potential of First
Nations, and sever the shackles of the Indian Act. The current system
is failing,” he says unequivocally. “It’s time to smash the status quo.”
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Fighting for the children
On a blustery west coast day in December, I spoke to Atleo by telephone from Ottawa. Atleo, 47, is from Ahousaht in Nuu-chah-nuulth
territory on Vancouver Island. He sighed wistfully when I described
the slashing rain and wind outside. Moving to Ottawa in July 2009 to
undertake his three-year term as National Chief meant leaving behind
his beloved West Coast. Except for fleeting visits with his wife Nancy
to see their two children, Tara, 23, who will graduate from Vancouver
Island University next month, and Tyson, 25, the youngest councillor
ever elected to Ahousaht Council, Atleo is rarely home these days.
But Atleo couldn’t turn the opportunity down. He was also tailormade for the position. Atleo had already served two terms as the
AFN’s Regional Chief in BC. With an M.Ed in Adult Learning and Global
Change from Sydney’s University of Technology in Australia, accounting
and financial qualifications from California’s Stanford University, and
extensive experience in treaty negotiations and human resource issues
in Canada, Atleo is also no slouch on First Nations policy issues. An articulate, pleasant and diplomatic man, he is universally well-regarded in
non-First Nations circles, and was invited to be Vancouver Island University’s
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
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34
“
IT’S CLEAR FROM THE HISTORICAL RECORD that the intent of the treaties
was that First Nations would always be full participants in designing a future
for Canada together with the Crown.”—National Chief Shawn Ah-in-chut Atleo
Chancellor in 2009, the first indigenous individual in the province to attain such a position.
He is also not afraid to call a spade a spade.
In a recent editorial in the Globe and Mail,
Atleo bluntly stated: “Our collective failure
to address the long and lamentable list of
challenges affecting First Nations means First
Nations lurch from crisis to crisis with governments’ responses motivated, to paraphrase
Canada’s former auditor-general, more by
headlines than by actually achieving change.”
Atleo doesn’t mince words in person, either.
Of working with the federal government, he
says: “Sometimes it feels like pushing sand
uphill. But this is a fight for our children,”
he continues passionately. “We can’t afford
to lose another generation.”
A fundamental transformation
Atleo has a novel but simple plan to change
the status quo: hitting “the reset button” on
the relationship between Canada and First
Nations. “It’s critical, as the former AuditorGeneral pointed out, that the federal government
makes a significant shift in how we work together.
It’s time for it to stop imposing solutions on
First Nations, go back to original principles
and start working with us as real partners.”
When Atleo talks about hitting the reset
button, he means it quite literally. “We should
return to the beginning, to the kind of relationship between First Nations and the Crown
that was forged in the earliest days of Canada,
in the treaties that were struck when Canada
was first settled,” he says. The spirit and intent
of those treaties have never been properly
implemented: if they had been, things would
look very different today.
When Canada was formed as a country,
explains Atleo, First Nations were, of course,
already here. They had aboriginal rights and
title in their territories, and where treaties
were struck, rights under those agreements.
Those treaty rights were reciprocal rights in
a two-way partnership between equals,
and that was how First Nations interpreted
them. “If you want an example of that, you
just have to look at the War of 1812 in which
First Nations fought shoulder to shoulder
with Canadians. We were allies in a treaty
relationship with Canada. We were all treaty
people—the people of Canada had signed
up to those treaties just as much as First
Nations people had, so we fought together
to protect all of our rights.”
In other words, treaty rights were always
intended to be a two-way street, a sharing of
the wealth of the land and its resources and
providing mutual support for rights, culture
and heritage. “It’s clear from the historical
record that the intent of the treaties was that
First Nations would always be full participants in designing a future for Canada together
with the Crown.”
But it hasn’t been that way since. The
concept’s been forgotten, says Atleo, or worse,
willfully hidden by governments. Instead, a
history has prevailed of ignoring First Nations’
inherent rights and unilateral control of their
lives by governments. Far from working with
First Nations as partners, governments
step over their treaty and aboriginal rights
as if they weren’t there.
“That has led to a 100-year-old Indian Act
that no one likes and no one can figure out
how to get rid of, to endless conflict, and ultimately to the soul-destroying situation you
see on reserves like Attawapiskat. It’s all based
on ‘Ottawa knows best.’ It doesn’t make
anything better. As the Auditor General
pointed out, it’s made things worse. Unilateral
decision-making and imposed solutions don’t
work and never have.”
Things are no better in BC. “Here, the land
question remains a burning issue to resolve,
but it needs to be done from a place that
recognizes that First Nations have rights, and
those rights must be reconciled.” As things
stand, however, treaty offers are dictated by
government policy developed behind closed
doors, and there is little appetite on the part
of government to recognize aboriginal rights.
“That’s why you see Hulq’umin’um being
forced to go to the Inter-America Commission
to hear their land claim. Where else do they
go if the federal government is acting as both
judge and jury in their territory on these
issues?” The fact that the IAC decision will
not bind Canada, or whether Hulq’umin’um
will succeed in its claim, are almost irrelevant
at this point: “I think the fact that the IAC
even agreed that the case should be heard
suggests there is something that desperately
needs to be addressed here.”
January 2012 • FOCUS
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
35
“
Will Atleo’s plan make any difference?
36
STUDIES SHOW THAT closing the
education and employment gaps
for our people would contribute
as much as $400 billion to the
national economy, and save at
least $115 billion in government
expenditures. It can be done, but
it has to be done with First Nations
at the table sharing the decisionmaking on how to get there.”
—National Chief
Shawn Ah-in-chut Atleo
PHOTO: FRED CATTROLL
It certainly sounds like it’s worth a shot. After all, as Atleo points
out, the paternalistic structure of the Indian Act isn’t serving First
Nations well and the federal bureaucracy required to implement it
is costing the Canadian taxpayer billions in operational expenses.
No-one’s happy about the impoverished state of First Nations’ social,
cultural and economic well-being.
But calls for change are nothing new. The records documenting
failed efforts to shift the relationship over the last three decades litter
the filing cabinets of government departments. Attempts to scrap
the Indian Act, including Atleo’s own call for its elimination, haven’t
got anywhere so far, and a year after Canada finally signed up to the
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,
there has been no substantive shift in government policy to reflect
its provisions.
In BC the treaty process, touted as the way to a better future, is on
shaky ground. Many First Nations have given up on the process.
Vancouver Island’s Hulq’umin’um Treaty Group has resorted to taking
its land claims to the Inter-America Commission to seek justice (see
Briony Penn’s story “Pensions on Trial” in the November 2011 issue
of Focus) and last October Sophie Pierre, Chief Commissioner of the
BC Treaty Commission, introduced the Commission’s 2011 Annual
Report by stating that unless there is significant progress by the time
the twentieth anniversary of the process rolls around in September
2012, it’s game over.
So what’s different about what Atleo has in mind—and will his
approach make any difference to communities like Attawapiskat?
Lorne Brownsey, who divides his time these days between Victoria,
Hornby Island and Mexico, retired from his post as provincial deputy
minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation in January 2011.
Prior to that, he was the federal government’s executive director of
its Vancouver Treaty Negotiation Office. Brownsey is unequivocal in
his views about Atleo’s approach: “National Chief Shawn Ah-in-chut
Atleo has identified the only path to reconciliation between First
Nations and the rest of Canada.”
Like Atleo, Brownsey believes that prosperity comes from a
place of partnership. “That will never be achieved through endless
disputes about who has what rights where. Governments and citizens must recognize existing treaty and aboriginal rights and move
forward to conclude arrangements on how these rights, and responsibilities, can be given contemporary context.”
Atleo has no doubt that the approach he passionately believes in
will make a difference. “The old unilateral system has proved
itself to be unworkable. But where you have shared vision and reconciliation,” he says firmly, “and agreements that recognize rights and
support them, you empower health, well-being, good governance
and independence. You don’t see terrible poverty and hear arguments about accountability. That’s how it used to be in First Nations.
It can be again.”
Atleo also points out that it is not just the economic and cultural health
of communities like Attawapiskat, but of all of Canada, that requires a
new approach to reconciliation with First Nations. “First Nations are
the youngest, fastest-growing population at a time when the Canadian
labour force is aging. Studies show that closing the education and employment gaps for our people would contribute as much as $400 billion to
the national economy, and save at least $115 billion in government
expenditures. It can be done, but it has to be done with First Nations at
the table sharing the decision-making on how to get there.”
We are all treaty people
Atleo is optimistic about the potential for significant movement
on the part of the federal government. A Joint Action Plan announced
in June last year, covering governance, education, economic development and negotiations, resulted from intensive discussions between
Atleo and Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The agenda for the first
meeting under the Joint Action Plan, scheduled for January 24, is
focused on what action is required to put the relationship back on its
original foundation.
“We need to scrap the old policies, and jointly design a framework
that will work for all of the parties. The prime minister will be there,
and that’s appropriate. This discussion has to start at the top.”
Lorne Brownsey agrees: “As the National Chief and many others
have rightly noted, we can’t afford the social, moral or economic
cost of not meeting this challenge.” As a former insider, he is more
sceptical than Atleo about the federal government’s willingness to
embrace the concept: “Unfortunately, the government of Canada
has become an increasingly reluctant partner in the process of reconciliation in British Columbia and elsewhere. Hopefully, the January
meeting signals its willingness to step up to the table and help reenergize or, as the National Chief puts it, reset a relationship of
mutual prosperity.”
Atleo remains confident, despite the scepticism. “We need to understand that if we can reach agreement on this issue,” he reiterates, “that
will benefit every Canadian, not just First Nations. After all,” he
reminds us, “we’re all treaty people.”
Accepting the latter concept, says Atleo, is fundamentally important to improving the relationship between First Nations individuals
and other Canadians. “I think if we start to understand that we are
January 2012 • FOCUS
Focus presents: Sterling Financial
all treaty people in Canada—every one of
us, even the newest immigrant—that will
shift us to the place we need to be. We’re
all partners, and we all benefit when every
First Nation is as prosperous as every other
Canadian community. The path to that is
joint action to support our rights and wellbeing. That’s where the understanding needs
to be,” he says.
“I believe there is a shift occurring,” he
adds. “I read one report indicating millions
of Canadians can trace their heritage to the
indigenous peoples of North America. Those
stories often used to be left in the family
woodshed, but now they’re coming out
again. That suggests to me people are growing
closer to each other again and are starting
to be proud of Canada’s First Nations’
heritage,” he says happily. “It also tells me
Canadians are embracing the concept that
we’re all here to stay.”
We need to move boldly
For Atleo, in the end the most important
thing is making life better for the children
and desperate communities he sees almost
every day in his job. “The children in our
communities have been getting the message
for too long that people don’t care about
them,” he says. “I know there is fear about
taking bold steps like this. I acknowledge that
fear. But we need to move boldly. We need
to tell the children we do care, by our actions,
and we need to do it together,” he says.
“That way we can not only stem the tide
of despair and suicide but unleash the potential of these young people. Imagine what that
would be like for Canada. That’s the hope
I have. That’s what’s driving me.”
A former lands claims negotiator, Katherine Gordon
is a Gabriola Island resident. Her upcoming
sixth book explores the connections between
culture and self through the stories of young
Aboriginal Canadians who discuss their lives as
British Columbians of First Nations heritage.
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
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37
this
place
island interview 38 urbanities 40 natural relations 44 finding balance 46
Sprawl buster
AAREN MADDEN
With a vision of environmental and social justice informed by travel and history,
Ben Isitt is keen to shake things up at City Hall and the CRD.
38
PHOTO: TONY BOUNSALL
A
s we sit in the warm, wood-panelled glow of Ben Isitt’s partially
renovated kitchen, it becomes clear he has wasted no time
embracing his new positions as Victoria city councillor and
CRD board member. Six days after the civic election, he has already
pored over the 2008 orientation manual for new councillors, last year’s
finances, and this year’s operating budgets for both the City of Victoria
and the CRD. He’s met with numerous community and business groups,
colleagues and the mayor. He is, he says, “trying to get my head around
the numbers, seeing the whole range of projects and policies that are
being undertaken right now.”
As he comes up to speed, he searches for ways to “see some savings
and make some changes to address social and environmental goals.”
In their bottom lines, he believes, the City and the Region District have
to account for not only economic concerns, but social and environmental ones as well. And though he allows that this is happening to
some degree, Isitt plans to bring that lens to every single issue that
crosses his desk. “There is no other option in the 21st century than to
integrate social justice and the environment into every decision we
make,” he declares.
Isitt’s family moved to Victoria from Winnipeg when he was in high
school, where he remembers arguing for socialism over capitalism in
a debate class. Though he found himself in the vast minority, something clicked. Then, at 18 years of age, he backpacked solo through
Canada and the United States and witnessed abject poverty for the first
time. “Certainly in the large North American cities, seeing the gap in
wealth crystallized my commitment to social change,” he says. He has
since been to over 51 countries, and is planning an overland adventure
from Shanghai to Singapore, hopefully with his now-five-year-old
daughter. However, he smiles, “I will have to see how that fits in the
City council agenda.”
While feeding his love of cultural diversity and the unique human
relationships that emerge on any journey, these days Isitt’s travels are
in the service of his academic research. He studies and has taught the
history of social movements in British Columbia and Canada and is
now a research fellow at UVic, pursuing a PhD in law that examines
the relationships between social movements and the state. “It’s a reflection of the academic job market,” he says of his decision to become
“a double-doc” (his first is in history).
He has been active in the NDP and ran for mayor twice previously,
once in 2002 and again in 2005 as an NDP-backed candidate with a
strong second showing behind incumbent Alan Lowe. He sought a
council seat this time to accommodate demands of work and fatherhood, and to gain experience for future aspirations, which he will
determine farther into his first term, he suggests.
Seeing the results of civic policies world-wide has taught Isitt what
kind of city he wants to help create. In Heidelberg, Germany, hundreds
of years of industrial development (not to mention war) have done
little to hinder the natural beauty of the medieval town and its envi-
Ben Isitt
rons. Contrast that with Athens, Greece, where ancient hills and mountains are paved over with concrete and housing, or Vladivostok, Russia,
where privatization has brought rampant and unchecked development
of “condos for the rich.” It taught him “the good life should be
within everyone’s reach. In all the countries I have been to, there is
more than enough wealth. So it becomes a question of how resources
January 2012 • FOCUS
“
I DON’T BELIEVE IN THE MAXIM of ‘growth at any cost.’ Citizens and
public office holders have to push back against that mentality and ensure
future growth happens in existing built-up areas, because once we pave
over our paradise, it’s very hard to get it back.” —Councillor Ben Isitt
are being distributed or not distributed to keep
the good life out of reach for people.”
For Isitt (who was nicknamed “Che” by one
reporter in 2005), the good life is one in which
we take care of each other and the environment. Isitt sums it up in the platform he ran
on: a “fair, safe and green” Victoria.
One of his first steps toward fairness will
be convincing his council colleagues to support
a $25 housing levy at the CRD level similar
to the ten-dollar-per-year parks levy implemented ten years ago. It would spread the
burden beyond the City of Victoria and “raise
about four million dollars annually, which
could then be used to leverage federal and
provincial money to build everything from
new co-op housing to supportive housing for
the hardest to house,” he explains.
The latter includes those dealing with addictions, and a safe injection site is a must to
mitigate health and safety concerns for them
and their neighbours. “Victoria needs to apply
very quickly for an exemption from Health
Canada to open a safe consumption site like
Vancouver’s InSite,” he insists. “We have to
treat addiction as a health issue, rather than a
policing issue,” he says, adding, “I know many
police officers share my view.”
Urban sprawl is another problem Isitt intends
to tackle. In 2007 he wrote a 32-page report
on the Bear Mountain development that
provided a history of how the controversial
project had come into being. That report subsequently helped gel opposition to the hilltop
development. In 2008 he took an active role
in protests to stop the Spencer Road Interchange,
which has now been sitting unfinished for over
three years.
While many share his concerns on sprawl,
he warns, “There are groups in this community who would like to pursue more Bear
Mountains. One of my major priorities at the
CRD level is to prevent that from happening…If
you look at all of the low-lying buildings
and parking lots between Downtown and
Uptown, there is a huge area there where
we could densify with low-rise buildings
and mixed-use development. We could house
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
tens of thousands of people without going one
inch further into our farmlands or forested
lands. That’s just a policy choice.”
If this drives some business away, he says,
“so be it. Other, more forward-thinking developers will fill their boots. I don’t believe in the
maxim of ‘growth at any cost.’ Citizens and
public office holders have to push back against
that mentality and ensure future growth happens
in existing built-up areas, because once we
pave over our paradise, it’s very hard to get it
back. I sat in a CRD meeting the other day,
and some of the other directors and planners
do these gymnastics trying to justify why the
development makes sense. I want to bring a
common-sense approach to it. There’s more
than enough land to build on without having
to destroy these finite natural attributes and
undermine food security,” says Isitt.
On transportation issues, Isitt has recently
written that he supports “commuter rail between
downtown Victoria and the Western
Communities (and eventually Cobble
Hill/Duncan). I think the best location for
resuming rail operations quickly is to use
the existing E & N corridor, which would help
to contain costs while avoiding the issue of
cars vs trains (as is the case with the proposal
for LRT along Douglas and the Trans-Canadian
Highway).” He also wants the new Johnson
Street Bridge to be “structurally capable of
accommodating track and passenger trains.”
As one of three new faces at the council table
this term, Isitt feels the tide shifting toward
policies like these. That’s partly why he’s hit
the ground running. “There’s a real window
of opportunity we can seize to start making
some substantive changes in how the City and
Region operate,” he says. “I certainly don’t
want to miss this opportunity.”
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Aaren Madden salutes all
councillors, new and returning,
for their commitment to our
city. She also hopes, next
time, there will be more than
26 percent of eligible voters
at the polls!
39
urbanities
A natural history of concrete
GENE MILLER
It all starts with ooids. Next thing you know, there’s a parkade.
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W
hat’s underfoot? The question
holds professional interest for
geologists and mineral explorers
and, I suppose, for folks who think hell is down
instead of Calgary in winter; though Jon Stewart
recently quipped on the Daily Show, “hell is
watching eight straight hours of Fox News.”
Think about it: we do a lot of digging and
a lot of extracting—everywhere we can find
riches to pluck. Adam, you’ll remember,
was himself made from dust—earth itself; and
Lilith, Eve’s precursor, from filth and sediment, as told in that collection of extra-biblical
myths, the Midrashim. And as the Book of
Common Prayer has it: “Dust thou art, and
unto dust thou shalt return.”
We’re deeply connected to the material
beneath our feet. Literally, it’s in our bones.
These matters have taken on currency and
urgency because the planet is roiling: weather
systems, ocean systems, land-based ecosystems, freshwater systems, soil systems. We
don’t have rain, floods, tremors, high tides
and big waves; increasingly, we have metaphors.
There is the scientific thought that by releasing
all that mineral energy underground with our
extracting, drilling, blasting and fracking we
are undoing Earth’s efforts, over millions of
years, to balance the carbon budget.
We have freed the genie from the bottle.
We have woken something underground.
Things are getting biblical.
Locally, we believe we have more a tradition of gardening, husbandry and agriculture
than a history of scraping, digging or delving.
Still, sometimes, walking through sombre
coastal woodlands in Gowlland Tod Park and
other places, you can find incongruous weathered ruins of concrete foundations and low
walls, and the occasional rusted remains of
industrial machinery or piping. The crumbling
vestige of ancient Mayan royal tombs? Gun
emplacements? Martians?
At the bottom of Butchart Gardens, beyond
the sunken garden which itself is a reclaimed
limestone quarry, for example, still stands the
tall brick chimney that expelled the heat and
smoke from a cement works. Below, in the
quiet coves of Tod Inlet, are remnants of
the infrastructure that enabled vast quantities of this milled cement to be barged
elsewhere—rotting wood pilings, paved staging
areas now forested over, massive steel U’s
sunk in concrete to secure marine ropes. And
across Finlayson Arm sits the industrial remains
of Bamberton—initially a friendly competitor
of the Butchart operation, later merged with
it to form BC Cement, itself later merged to
January 2012 • FOCUS
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www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
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100 percent of the profits go
directly to Victoria Hospice, to
support quality end-of-life care.
The history of the Victoria
Hospice Thrift Boutique is evidence
of volunteerism in motion says
Major Gifts Officer,Tom Arnold.
Six years ago, Hospice volunteer
Penny Peck returned from a
conference in Vancouver where
she had attended a session on
thrift stores,very excited to establish such a shop here in Victoria.With the encouragement
of Victoria Hospice staff, Penny gathered a volunteer
team, got a friend to donate the use of a garage to
store collected items and, in 2005, the Victoria Hospice
Thrift Boutique opened at 1315 Cook Street.
A team of upwards of 40 volunteers, ranging in age
from 18 to 88, keeps the boutique running under
the leadership of manager Pat Moench. Right from
the start, Penny’s vision was to be true to the idea of
a boutique, selling only quality items that are clean
and in good shape or even new.
Perhaps you’ve just received some items to donate.
If you got some Christmas gifts that weren’t quite right
for you, consider donating them to the Thrift Boutique
Photo:Tony Bounsall
form Ocean Cement, in turn a division of the
Leheigh Heidelberg Group, third largest global
cement producer. Must be something binding
about cement....
Cement—I oversimplify as only the amateur
can—is heated, pulverized (milled) limestone
mixed with some other minerals. Wikipedia
tells us that limestone is “a sedimentary rock
composed of grains; however, most grains
in limestone are skeletal fragments of marine
organisms such as coral or foraminifera. Other
carbonate grains comprising limestones are
ooids, peloids, intraclasts, and extraclasts.
These organisms secrete shells made of aragonite or calcite, and leave these shells behind
after the organisms die.”
I think it was John Wayne who said: “The
only good ooid is a dead ooid.”
Pour water on cement and something magical
happens: the grains reach out to hold
hands...tightly. Add sand and aggregate—small
stones of various sizes—and the result is concrete.
Our civilization now is made of the stuff: most
of our buildings, almost all of our roads, transportation and big energy infrastructure, and
a couple of breakfast cereals I’ve tried.
While it’s impossible to know the number
of exploratory digs in promising locations in
and around the region, there is no missing
the legacy of successful operations: enormous
limestone pits now flooded; raw hillside gashes
exposing a vertical hundred feet of the planet’s
sandy history; and the still-lunar expanse of
the so-called Construction Aggregates Producer’s
Pit in Colwood, bisected by Metchosin Road.
Though now recently decommissioned, it has
been “in production” since 1919 (most of the
cement-related activity in these parts dates
from about that time) and in its day met local
needs and also sent countless barge-loads of
sand and gravel to the Mainland and Washington
State. After 80 years, it’s fair to guess that
there’s more Victoria in Seattle than meets
the eye. Who knows? Maybe the Pike Place
Market is ours, all ours!
If I have my science right, the friction and
scraping from the formation and movement
of continental glaciers ground up, then picked
Photo:Tony Bounsall
OUR CIVILIZATION NOW IS MADE
of the stuff: most of our buildings,
almost all of our roads, transportation
and big energy infrastructure, and a
couple of breakfast cereals I’ve tried.
to give them a more suitable home—and at the same
time benefit Victoria Hospice. Do you have pieces of
broken gold jewellery sitting in your drawer? The Thrift
Boutique will convert these items into cash that goes
directly towards palliative care programs and services.
Silent auctions, held almost monthly, are a distinctive and very popular feature at the Victoria Hospice
Thrift Boutique. Donated items that are particularly
high-end or collectible are
appraised (by another volunteer!), and set aside for the
silent auction. Auction items
are posted on the website, but
bidders must come into the
store to bid. Lisa says extra
volunteers are always needed
for the exciting and busy closing
time for each silent auction.
Are you getting married in
2012? Keep an eye on the Thrift
Boutique as they make plans
for a special event in the New
Year to sell 60 brand new wedding and bridesmaid
dresses that were recently donated.
The Thrift Boutique grosses about $250,000 a year
to support end-of-life care at Victoria Hospice. If you
like to shop and you want your shopping dollars to
make a difference, or if you have some quality items
that need new homes, consider the Victoria Hospice
Thrift Boutique.
Victoria Hospice Thrift Boutique
250-361-4966
1315 Cook Street (at Yates)
www.VictoriaHospice.org
41
up and pushed, vast amounts of rocky material which was then deposited selectively, based
on land contour, during the melting glacial
retreat. As well, material travelling down longago rivers collected in various places, while
the rivers themselves moved on or chose other
courses. Visit the mile-square Colwood sand
deposit, or the cliffs of sand that form the
current Sayward Hill and Trio Gravel Mart
near Mattick’s Farm in Cordova Bay, or the
enormous landlocked Butler Brothers sand
and gravel pit near the intersection of Keating
Cross Road and Oldfield. The meandering
paths of extinct rivers? Some long-ago delta?
A million years of glacial dripping?
Or, as a more authoritative, if less euphonious, online source puts it:
Most of the surficial sediments in BC owe their
origin to processes active during the last few million
years (Quaternary).
During the Late Wisconsinan (25,000-10,000
years ago), much of the province was covered by
a network of coalescing ice caps, valley, trunk, piedmont and cirque glaciers collectively termed the
Cordilleran Ice Sheet. At this time, changes in base
level resulting from isostasy and eustasy promoted
sediment erosion and deposition. Subsequent climatic
warming witnessed the decay of the ice sheet through
active retreat and in situ melting. Sediment trapped
in the ice consequently underwent active deposition beneath and adjacent to the melting glaciers;
hence, deposits associated with deglaciation tend
to reflect rapid and episodic events.
Want a second opinion? Here’s a rhapsody
from the BC Ministry of Energy and Mines
Quaternary Geological Map of Greater Victoria:
Quaternary deposits in Greater Victoria overlie
an irregular glacially-scoured bedrock surface.
The depth to bedrock can vary from zero to as much
as 30 metres within the space of a city block.
Pre-Vashon sediments occur principally in the
central and eastern parts of Saanich Peninsula, where
they are up to 60 metres thick and have commonly
been sculpted into a series of north-trending drumlinoid ridges and crag-and-tail features.
The Vashon till is overlain by the Capilano sediments, which were deposited at the close of the
Fraser Glaciation when sea level was higher than
present. The principal units of the Capilano sediments in the Victoria area are the Victoria clay and
the Colwood sand and gravel.
The Colwood sand and gravel is a glaciofluvial
outwash and deltaic deposit that occurs at the surface
over much of Colwood and Langford. The maximum
known thickness of the Colwood sand and gravel
is 30 metres.
I’ve copied so much of this material because
I’ve been dying to use “drumlinoid” in a column
42
and also because I intend to casually drop
“glaciofluvial” into my cocktail banter and use
“crag and tail” as a pick-up line. (Oh, get the
disapproving expression off your face. You
know you’re going to name your next two
kittens Isostasy and Eustasy.)
But I digress.
The most common use for cement is in the
production of concrete. Concrete is a composite
material consisting of aggregate (gravel and
sand), cement, and water. When water is mixed
with Portland cement, the product sets in a
few hours and hardens over a period of weeks.
Science can tell us how cement cements. It has
nothing to say about why it chooses to, why
it dedicates itself to this purpose.
Portland cement—so named because its
colour resembled Portland Stone—was first
produced about 160 years ago in England and
Germany. The first cement production in
Victoria came in the early 1900s courtesy of
Robert Butchart at Tod Inlet and subsequently,
in 1912, from the Portland Cement Construction
Company of London, managed locally by Mr.
H.K.G. Bamber. Both were drawn to Victoria
because of the rich deposits of limestone. In
the early part of the century, Victoria was the
Portland cement supplier for much of the
Pacific Northwest.
Water, sand, and ground-up exoskeletons. We owe a significant part of our local
wealth and industrial legacy to the turbulent extremes of natural systems, and the
suicidal, unplanned self-sacrifice of a zillion
ooids. Ain’t nature grand?
I’m not suggesting you stay off the sidewalks out of respect for the departed, or
trying to introduce morbidity into your future
Sunday drives; but if you had any lingering
doubts about the absolute connectedness of
everything, or lack the grounds for a fundamentally pantheistic view of existence,
consider, the next time you see the raw earth
exposed: you pass, your flesh melts, your
calcified bones remain. Eventually, you may
live again, as a parkade.
This much I promise: and unto dust you
shall return, you ooid, you.
Gene Miller is the
founder of Open Space
Arts Centre, Monday
Magazine, and the
Gaining
Ground
Sustainable Urban
Development Summit.
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43
natural relations
Re-enchanting ourselves with the local
BRIONY PENN
The story of bees could possibly be the great allegory for our times.
I
t is a gorgeous Friday morning just outside
of Bellingham. A flock of trumpeter swans
are grazing in the fields, and I am with a
large human flock hanging on every word
of a hip young bee dude with a wicked sense
of humour and two props—a collection of
native bees and a bunch of sticks drilled
with nest holes. The event is called Protecting
Native Pollinators and there are farmers,
students, scientists, teachers, grannies and
young men jostling to learn the difference
between a sweat bee and leafcutter bee; which
native plants are best for bumblebees; and how
to encourage mason bees (which mostly consists
of doing nothing and being messy).
The organizers from the Xerces Society,
dedicated to the conservation of insects, weren’t
anticipating quite so many people from so
many corners of this region on both sides of
the borders, and they tell me that there are no
signs of the interest waning.
Restoring and re-enchanting ourselves with
the local and the native are becoming the most
powerful antidote to globalization, inequity,
corporatization, degradation, poverty and
despair—of which there is no short supply. It
is a simple mantra: stay local and support native
in whatever you do and the structural foundations of inequity will begin to crumble, the
water will flow, the meadow flowers will bloom,
the neighbours will chat, and the birds and the
bees will fill our lives again with music, food
and sensuous times.
As we buzzed our way through the workshop, briefly exploring why there are disappearing
pollinators (no mean feat), then moving on to
solutions, I had a thought. The story of bees
could possibly be the great allegory for our
times—the rise and fall of one worldview and
the restoration of another, older one.
Take the characters first. The antagonists
are largely humourless financiers who direct
operations from their tall glass towers and
send impoverished indentured labour to work
long hours applying chemicals to genetically
modified crops in ugly landscapes. As hedgerows
and the last patches of habitat for our native
pollinators—the bees, birds and butterflies—
are wiped out, agro-industry has resorted to
mono-pollinating with European honeybees.
Mono-anything doesn’t work, and the poor
44
Mason bee
overworked honeybees are now going down
like flies (which they are not, flies have one
pair of wings, bees have two). Viruses, the new
synthetic pesticides, and general malaise from
mall culture have caused colony collapse
disorder in half of the hives already. There
aren’t enough bees surviving to pollinate North
America’s crops, so the industrialists have
taken to importing bees from Australia (in
China they hire children at $2/day to hand
pollinate). But even the economists know that
it all ends in tears. (And perhaps even the US
Department of Agriculture, which has declared
conserving pollinators a national priority due
to the severity of the issue and allocated $30
million this year to subsidizing restoration of
lands back to pollinator preserves.)
The protagonists in this story are hip young
bee dudes like our presenter. This is a guy
raised by a Dakotan farming family. He’s one
of a breed of independent researchers who
have proven that a farm makes more money
(not to mention all the other advantages) if
one-third or more of the land is put back into
native habitat. This is because native pollinators greatly increase yield, productivity and
pest management. And because the cost of all
the chemicals and jetsetting bees around is
rising at an exponential rate.
The hip bee dude—whose name, by the
way, is Eric Mader—has like many of his generation, discovered the correct formula for
communication to the disenfranchised 99
percent—make it real, make it funny, make it
local and make it a party, bro’. He talked about
the various collective successes, like converting
a pesticide-drenched blueberry farm in the
middle of Michigan to a pollinator preserve
(wildflower meadow) that also grows blueberries with a 30 percent increase in yield, or
transforming his own working-class yard in
Portland to an oasis that swarms with native
blossoms, bees and girls.
Now take this same story, with a different
set of characters, north and west to the heart
of native blueberry country where the bees
and butterflies still thrive—Fish Lake in the
Chilcotin. The antagonist this time is Taseko
Mines with the biggest mining proposal in
North America—New Prosperity Mine. Last
month, Taseko failed to win their injunction
against the Xeni Gwet’in First Nation for
blocking their road, and the consequences are
huge for resource extractors in this province.
The protagonist is Marilyn Baptiste,
the new breed of hip young chief of the Xeni
Gwet’in First Nation. She can catch a wild
trout or tame a wild horse with the same
skill as she wins over a court to stop Taseko’s
application for exploration at Fish Lake.
The case was won on the basis that the blueberry, trout and pollinators in the area would
be threatened.
From Bellingham to Fish Lake, the story
is the same. Protagonists everywhere can
win with their simple calls to a past ethic of
the common good and the interconnectedness of life. What has changed from the
old days is that the consequences for losing
the wild are deadly, increasingly illegal, and
decreasingly academic.
Most of our food relies on the preservation
of the wild, directly or indirectly. If we fail
with diversifying the pollinators, then we start
losing our food and we die in droves. Simple.
There is no technological fix, nor global domesticated commodity species, nor silver bullet
shot by a white knight to solve the problem,
only the diversified efforts of the many at the
local level.
This is Mother Nature’s most basic kickback. And it’s an easy solution to sell since the
story also brings us back to discovery, action,
beauty, companionship and joy. That is what
the Occupy Movement has discovered and that
is why they are so dangerous to the status quo.
Also add on, for more good news, the
increasing intolerance of the public for divideand-conquer tactics by the vested interests
January 2012 • FOCUS
Focus presents: Stephen Whipp
ADVERTISEMENT
A new approach to money in the New Year
and support native in whatever you
do and the structural foundations
of inequity will begin to crumble,
the water will flow, the meadow
flowers will bloom, the neighbours
will chat, and the birds and the bees
will fill our lives again with music,
food and sensuous times.
in the status quo and the mainstream media’s
role in exacerbating that division. Readers got
angry last month when the media headlined
a questionable and relatively minor Gitxsan
First Nation deal with Enbridge while sidelining
the real story—that over 130 nations spanning the province were now signed on to
the ban against pipelines and tankers.
As a result, the issue backfired spectacularly
and brought these tactics under the spotlight where they belong. The media erred in
not checking the facts about alleged negotiator
Mr Derrick, his ability to represent the Gitxsan
nation and his connections with industry,
before leading with his story; but their biggest
mistake was in misjudging the public mood
on this issue.
Closer to home, that public mood was
reflected in Nanoose where residents challenged the government and TimberWest for
trying to divide and conquer the locals and
First Nations over the logging of one of the
last patches of Crown old-growth Douglas fir.
Worldview is shifting because it has to.
Back in the field with the farmers, trumpeter
swans, scientists, bumblebees, teachers, grannies,
blueberries and cool dudes, I look around and
feel mildly hopeful for this new year.
For your new year’s resolution, pledge to
protect or return any little patch you can back
to native habitat for bees and butterflies.
Google Xerces Society or The Land Conservancy
of BC for their pollinator programs.
Briony Penn cultivates wild
bees on her wild piece of land
by doing nothing—which
she does very well.
www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
I
n an era in which the government seems disinclined
to take bold action to address climate change,
you can now support—and make money from—
corporations which are doing just that.“Corporations
are supposed to be the bad guys, but some of them
are doing more than the Peter Kents of this world,”
says Certified Financial Planner Stephen Whipp in the
aftermath of the Durban conference.
Whipp has been working with socially responsible
investments for 14 years after shifting away from more
mainstream investing.“That shift,” says Whipp,“rejuvenated me as a person. Being able to help people use
the wealth they have to impact the world they live in,
I find very exciting.” He says the challenges of the past
few years,“have given us the opportunity to become
more financially literate and to take some control back.”
Yet socially responsible investing is not about philanthropy.“Even in this economy,” says Whipp,“clients
look at their statements and their eyes light up; they
are making money, even while following their values.”
Indeed they are making money.A majority of largecap SRI funds outperformed the S&P 500 over 10
years.That’s likely because companies that are progressive and thinking about the environment and governance
issues tend to be better managed—and therefore
more profitable, which is reflected in their stock price.
“Mutual funds that are managed for ESG [environmental/social/governance] criteria engage in constant
oversight and dialogue with the companies in their
portfolios,” says Whipp.“And if disagreements can’t
be resolved, motions are brought to the AGM and
shareholders get to vote their values.” This is influencing the way many corporations behave.
The discussions Whipp has with his clients make
investing come alive for them. “We talk about the
actions companies are taking to better their communities or change their practices on the environmental
or social justice front or around executive compensation.” Such discussions are key, because before
Stephen and his team can develop a financial or estate
plan,they must first understand their values.“We need
to know what makes you tick and what helps you sleep
at night.”With so many SRI vehicles, including stocks,
bonds, mutual funds and private equity now available,
it’s easy to develop a diversified portfolio based on
one’s values and risk tolerance.
Clients Aase and Michael Lium-Hall wrote to Stephen
saying: “You prompted us to think differently and to
create a different relationship with our money…[Money]
has now become a tool for us to change the world.”
Aase, who owns Leka, a new clothing design shop on
Fort Street, describes Whipp’s approach as “accessible
and collaborative,” someone whose “perspective is
always clear and educated.”
That trust is echoed by clients Lorraine and Bruce
Hardy, who told Whipp,“We have a real sense of trust
Photo:Tony Bounsall
IT IS A SIMPLE MANTRA: stay local
Stephen Whipp
that what you are doing is not just right for us but
right for the world…I must say as someone who is
fairly skeptical of people who call themselves green,
you have convinced us that you do walk the talk.”
Whipp also helps individuals and couples with
values-based estate planning. Assuming you have
assets left at death, what do you want done with
them? “It’s not something that should be put off until
after retirement,” says Whipp, who keeps up on the
latest legislation. “There are certain strategies that
you will be better off implementing earlier in life.”
If you want your money to work profitably on behalf
of your values, call Stephen Whipp to set up a confidential financial or estate plan or to learn more about
socially responsible investment funds.
Stephen Whipp offers a 2-hour course at Royal Roads
University—Financial Planning to Build Wealth,
Manage Risk & Build a Better World—on January 28,
10 am-noon. Register at www.royalroads.ca. He’ll
also speak on a panel on “Invest Your Money in Local
Change,” 7 pm Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at Ambrosia
Conference Centre, 638 Fisgard Street. Free.
Stephen Whipp, CFP
Senior Financial Advisor
Manulife Securities Incorporated
250-405-3550
www.stephenwhipp.com
Manulife Securities Incorporated is a Member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund.
The opinions expressed are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect those of Manulife Securities Incorporated.
finding balance
Just say “hello”
TRUDY DUIVENVOORDEN MITIC
Confessions from an introvert enroute to a more social 2012.
46
greeting any and all co-workers
with a warm hello and genuine
interest. “It’s not just something
I believe in; it’s become a way
of life,” he wrote. “I believe that
every single person deserves to
be acknowledged, however small
or simple the greeting.”
White learned the lesson early
from his mother and has let it
guide him through life. “I speak
to everyone I see, no matter where
I am,” he writes. “I’ve learned
that speaking to people creates
a pathway into their world, and
it lets them come into mine, too.”
In some ways that might sound
like New Age fluff, but consider
the alternative—to walk past
people with your head held down
and eyes to the ground so that
the day is just one long protracted
tunnel of isolation, a social ailment
that burdens legions of us despite
our texts and tweets and fingertip
access to everything going on in
the world.
I’ll never be a gregarious
person, and because social isolation is a particular hazard in my
line of work, I have to guard against becoming a loner—even more so
because I find reclusion appealing at a certain level. To be outgoing is
hard work for me but it’s also enriching and almost always well received.
I’m learning to ask about families and children and to remember the
particular threads of connection from one chance meeting to the next.
(Remembering, now there’s another challenge…) I’m trying not to
daydream while trudging up a Cordova Bay hill in the morning so as
to better appreciate the people I meet along the way.
For me the territory and its bumps are as old as childhood and as
new as yesterday but I’m resolved to continue making progress.
It’ll help to call my old friend for a few updated tips, and to avoid
wearing my concentrating face in public. It also helps to know that
2012 looks to be an especially good year for self-improvement.
ILLUSTRATION: APRIL CAVERHILL
I
had a good friend in high
school who could connect
with anyone. She had kind
eyes, a beautiful smile and, as
she would say about herself, the
gift of the gab. She could speak
about anything—within reason
of course, this being high school—
and unfailingly sprinkled her
stories with the kind of self-deprecating humour that solicits the
endearment of others. She cared
about people and was comfortable socializing outside of her
age and peer group.
I envied her. I was, by nature,
more of a sourpuss—well, not
really, but I probably came across
that way. I was shy and awkward
and burdened with the curse of
the blush. Even worse, my face
would involuntarily pinch into
a frown whenever I concentrated,
a social impediment I wasn’t
even aware of until years later
when my young children would
interrupt my reading or writing
with an alarmed, “Why are you
angry, Mommy?”
Given these quirks of personality, you’re probably not surprised to learn that I never really became
adept in the social art of reaching out. For many years it felt awkward to
say hello in passing to people I barely knew, and the timing always seemed
off. An acquaintance spotted at my local Thrifty’s was apt to send me
scooting my cart over to the next aisle because, you see, my hair was a
mess and my jeans were ratty since I was dashing in just long enough to
pick up milk and bread. Well, it wasn’t that bad but I must confess to once
or twice digging deep amongst the frozen foods just to avoid a casual chat
for which I had no energy on that particular day.
My kids are teaching me to be better. Even as youngsters they
were charming and gregarious. They could spot an acquaintance from
a mile away and would insist we go to say hello. Even now they seem
to know everyone in their age group and many of my generation as
well. (This I credit to public speaking learned in school, a stint of scutwork in the retail industry and maybe a gene or two from their father.)
I’m both proud and envious of them, and over the years they’ve bolstered
my own resolve to do a better job of “connecting” in my community.
Social aptitude is not a trivial skill and it can be learned, according
to Howard White, an ordinary man who worked his way up to a vicepresidency with the Nike Corporation. In his essay, “The Power of
Hello,” he relates how and why he developed the habit of always
Despite her good intentions Trudy Duivenvoorden Mitic
doesn’t expect to become an extrovert overnight or
anytime soon.
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47