Artist and teacher Jane Baigent explores the POWER

Transcription

FOCUS
PM 40051145
Victoria’s monthly magazine of people, ideas and culture
Februar y 2011
Artist and teacher Jane Baigent
explores the POWER OF PLACE
Victoria’s
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February 2011 • FOCUS
contents
Have more funds
and more trust
February 2011 VOL. 23 NO. 5
“Dana’s advice has
always been based
on my circumstances.
She is an excellent
communicator with the
ability to listen—bright,
18
36
32
4 THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME
The rising tide of dementia demands more solutions.
Leslie Campbell
8 WHAT IS A SIDEWALK FOR?
Municipal engineers have a lot more power over
city life and politics than most of us realize.
Rob Wipond
11 SPRAWL MOMENTUM
BUILDS IN CENTRAL SAANICH
Proposals to extend municipal water services suggest the
municipality is being primed for real estate development.
Gordon O’Connor
Editor’s Letter
4
Letters
6
Talk of the Town
8
Conversations
The Arts in February 20
Coastlines
32
My Dream City
34
Urbanities
36
Linda Rogers
Rearview Mirror
40
30 BEYOND THE RAINS
Natural Relations
42
In Context
44
Finding Balance
46
18
GOING BAROQUE IN VICTORIA
Early music is enjoying a renaissance in Victoria.
Danny Everette Stewart: seeing life’s intrinsic beauty.
Mollie Kaye
32 A NATURAL LOVE STORY
Stephen Hume’s new book offers reflections on why we love this place.
Amy Reiswig
— Daphne Paterson, retiree
18
30
12 THE DIVINE ONLINE
able, and entirely
trustworthy.”
Show & Tell
For the women of Chicktoria, online dating sites provide
hard evidence of real, live, single men, right here.
Mollie Kaye
personable, knowledge-
Dana E. Craft, President
Megson FitzPatrick Craft Financial Services, Inc
Chartered Financial Planner
250.595.5212 • www.danacraft.com
34 THE EMPOWERMENT OF PLACE
Jane Baigent’s fascination with rocks have nurtured her love of place.
Aaren Madden
36Self-interest
IT’S NOT OUR RUSH HOUR
should be the starting point
for Victoria’s transportation planning.
Gene Miller
40 THE
FINLAYSON CONNECTION
A burned-out brick façade reminds us of a
former chief factor and mayor.
Danda Humphreys
42 WAM BAM, THANKYOU TAM
Corporate mergers raise questions about who really owns BC.
Briony Penn
ON THE COVER: Artist, teacher and
place-maker Jane Baigent. Photo by
Tony Bounsall. See story on page 34.
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46 ONE
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And that’s costing us too much, in too many ways.
Trudy Duivenvoorden Mitic
February 2011 • www.focusonline.ca
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3
editor’s letter
There’s no place like home
LESLIE CAMPBELL
The rising tide of dementia demands more solutions.
D
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avid and I did the Colwood crawl this past month as David’s
mom Patricia was in the Victoria General Hospital for three
weeks. She had landed there after a sudden decline in her mobility
and vitality. Many tests and good care later, it’s still not precisely
clear what’s wrong—besides the lymphoma and dementia which we
already knew about—but a new problem with her kidney means she
will have to wear a catheter from now on.
Pat is taking the indignities that come with aging and disease with
grace and good humour. While much of her memory is gone, she still
recognizes us and can still recite Shakespeare on cue: All the world’s
a stage/And all the men and women merely players/They have their exits
and their entrances…Indeed. Dementia’s course is known, and it’s
largely a grim journey.
The hospital experience was, on balance, a good one—for Pat and
her family, which rallied around her, showing up daily to feed and reassure her. My front-row seat at the hospital reassured me that some
things are working pretty well (except the traffic).
My mother-in-law’s hospital care was diligent and compassionate.
Pat got lots of attention from doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and social workers. And the food really does seem
to have improved.
But hospital is still a place in which you wouldn’t want to spend any
more time than necessary. A friend of mine, a well-credentialled nurse
who teaches nursing and has run hospitals on the Island, in the Yukon and
overseas, once said to me, “A hospital is no place for a sick person.” It
sounded funny at the time, and of course needs a few qualifications, but
I see her point. As the in-your-face hand sanitizers and headlines testify,
there’s lots of germs floating around. And by its very institutional nature,
the hospital is somewhat impersonal and grim, with constantly changing
staff. For those with dementia, it’s a very confusing, unsettling place.
On top of that, hospital care is the most expensive form of care. Best
to keep it for only those times when a person has no other choice.
In Pat’s case, now that she’s been put back on track, she has a doting
husband who is keen to take care of her at home.
Bob is 87, but he’s willing, able and determined. For the past four
years, since her diagnosis with lymphoma and subsequently with dementia,
he’s devoted himself to the myriad tasks involved in caregiving. Enhancing
Pat’s quality of life has become his main purpose in life.
Fortunately, he is not short of brain power (his memory is sharper
than mine), funds, and family support. He can afford the bath chair
and the stair lift. In the aftermath of the recent crisis that landed her in
the hospital, it looks like he’ll need to hire a nurse or home support
worker to come in daily, though he can manage some aspects of the
Ph.D., R. Psych. (CPBC #1433)
[email protected]
250-881-1145
www.memoryclinic.ca
Editor: Leslie Campbell
Publisher: David Broadland
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4
About us...
Amos and Andes is a
delightful fashion
boutique located in the
catheter on his own. His family is hoping he’ll accept the help of a
nursing service to reduce the wear and tear on him. He is, as he often
says to our suggestions, “taking that under advisement.”
While I don’t worry about Bob (much), because he is so capable in
so many ways, I do wonder how other elders—both those with dementia
and their caregivers—manage. It’s such a debilitating, horrible disease.
And it affects a lot of us; 20 per cent of seniors have dementia by the
age of 80. Because not every caregiver is as able as Bob, they can
often end up for months in those expensive, rather uncheery hospital
settings—or spend years in nursing homes. If we could reorganize our
health care system so that more supports were given to people to enable
them to stay in their homes longer, they’d be happier, there’d be less
pressure on hospital and nursing home beds, and less costs all-round.
A Globe and Mail series on dementia last September advocated that
the federal government develop a national strategy on dementia, such
as those in place for cancer, heart disease and mental health. The
Alzheimer Society has lobbied for this for 32 years, warning costs already
top $15-billion a year, including caregivers’ unpaid labour. By 2038,
the Society predicts the costs will be 10 times that. (See their recent
report, Rising Tide: The Impact of Dementia on Canadian Society.) It
seems virtually anything we can do to delay the entrance of people into
long-term care facilities is a cost-saver.
The Globe series cited “Keep[ing] people at home as long as possible”
as the number-one solution to the dementia crisis. Experts say it’s both
the most humane and cost-effective route. Another key solution stated:
“Guarantee family caregivers the help they need.”
That help would include access to equipment and devices that make
life at home safer, training, and nursing services. The Alzheimer Society
recommends caregiver skill-building and support programs like “system
navigation support.” They show how such modest measures will reduce
the “total economic burden” by many billions over the coming years.
As the Globe notes, “Most families are willing to help, but they
need help themselves, especially as the disease progresses and new
challenges arise.”
I’ve seen Bob rise to the challenges time and again. He’s become Pat’s
memory; he’s coped with her incontinence, he bathes her, feeds her, gets
her dressed and to appointments, makes sure she gets her medications,
rounds up wheelchairs and walkers as needed, cheers her up. Loves her.
Not all victims of dementia are so lucky; not all caregivers can
cope in the face of the numerous and stressful demands. Even my
amazing father-in-law may need more assistance as time goes on.
Meanwhile Bob is not just helping Pat live out her years comfortably.
He’s helping all of us taxpayers by caring for her at home.
heart of Mosaic Village.
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Come in and shop
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Don’t forget, bring a friend!
Come visit us at 1037 Fort Street 480-5183
Leslie Campbell is the editor of Focus. Like many
baby boomers, she didn’t know that diabetes, obesity,
heart disease and chronic depression significantly
increase their odds for developing dementia. Exercise
is a key preventative strategy.
5
readers’ views
Re: Blue Bridge Coverage, 2010
Your solid reporting on the issues surrounding the Johnson
Street Bridge replacement was a credit to the city. You provided vitally
important, unbiased information that was blindly overlooked by other
local media. I profoundly admire the stand taken by the editor and
the magazine in response to the propaganda spread by the Victoria
Chamber of Commerce. You have earned a dedicated reader with
your journalistic integrity.
Anita Willis
Re: Secrecy and City Hall, January 2011
Although I do believe that we are well along the road to total
control and are mired in pervasive manipulation of a passive
population by government at every level, and that access to information by citizens and journalists is no longer possible without
individual whistleblower action, reading “Secrecy and City Hall”
recharged my sometimes completely depleted belief that change is
possible. (I just don’t know how, yet.)
Along with Rob Wipond’s analysis of the Ministry shell game (“A
Mess Fit for a Fascist”) that has been played for so long by Gordon
Campbell et al to make information retrieval impossible, and to defeat
citizens who attempt to track which Ministry of the Week is responsible for what in British Columbia, the January issue solidified my
growing conviction that Focus has become a major journalistic force
in Victoria, continually solidifying its status as a leader in journalistic
integrity and courage.
Thank you to Focus writers and contributors. Because of you, I
look forward to every issue. I know it will be well-written, wellresearched and fearless.
Diane McNally
Re: A Mess Fit for a Fascist
Excellent summary of ministry reorganizations: expensive, demoralizing, inefficient, and done for hidden motivations. I went through
many over the course of several decades working for, or contracting
to, the government of BC. I would be quite surprised if anyone has
actually done a cost study on these, but I am sure that the costs for
even a one-ministry reorganization would appall people. The computer
reprogramming costs alone are very high. That is at least a measurable sort of cost. The lost efficiency would be much harder to quantify.
Mike Zimmer
Re: Things To Come, January 2011
Few even of our avowed “realists” are brave enough to talk the
truth, the reality of the time. In his January piece, Gene Miller has
given us another fine though sobering column, coupling his appreciated flamboyance with, to me, an obvious truth. A simple question
is posed for all of us: How would we respond to the type of invasion
by desperate survivors of the collapsing American culture he describes?
Roger Smeeth
I’m dismayed that one of Focus magazine’s regular contributors could
provide its readers with such a distorted vision of what we Canadians
can expect to come in future decades. In Gene Miller’s dystopian vision
of the future we are warned that a host of despicable human beings
straight out of the backwoods of the movie Deliverance are going to be
surging across the border “by the millions” once the American political6
economic system collapses (as though, if it did, ours wouldn’t!). These
dreadful American immigrants will include “mouthbreathers...weaponized
nuts with NRA bumper stickers, Republicans...and spooky evangelical
Christians.” (The latter two groups get lumped in with drug dealers,
“prison refuse” and “psychopathic road-freaks in Mad Max.”)
Surely this piece has got to be one of the most vituperative, antiAmerican essays we’ve read in a long time. What kind of ivory
tower does Mr Miller live in that he can believe this nonsense? Does
he ever take a walk downtown on a summer’s day and observe the
numerous American tourists who pay us the compliment of visiting
our city and pouring millions of dollars into our local economy?
Yes, a lot of them may be Republicans and a lot of them may be
evangelical Christians (so what?), and the overwhelming majority of
them are well-intentioned, decent, generous people.
It’s truly remarkable how such a seemingly intelligent and wellinformed person as Mr Miller could subscribe to such a distorted
worldview about our southern neighbours.
Barry Gaetz
Gene Miller Responds: I’m a stand-up catastrophist and often stretch
a point to make a point. If you peer beneath this carefully-crafted literary
persona as a doomsday hysteric, you will find the true, roiling pessimism
that undergirds it; and whether mine is a “distorted worldview” or a
clear-eyed view of a distorted world remains to be seen. Upon digesting
the selfsame column, my friend Jim wrote to me: “I’ve just finished
James Lovelock’s final book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia. Lovelock
wanted the subtitle, Enjoy Her While You Can, but the publisher refused,
so he used A Final Warning. His conclusion is that perhaps a few million
people will survive the disasters coming in this century, in the few habitable places left on Earth, fighting off the billions of desperate people
with the resources to travel to these places.”
Anyway, I’m no more critical of the majority of Americans (I am
one, by the way) than Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi is of bank tellers
when he calls Goldman Sachs a “great vampire squid wrapped around
the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into
anything that smells of money.”
Re: The surprising (and welcome) emergence of B Channel
Thanks for the heads-up on B Channel and congratulations to
Andrew Ainsley and Chris Johnson and their team. Boy, do we ever
need something different from what we’ve got now.
I seldom watch broadcast/cable TV. There’s so much more to learn
out on the web. But every once in awhile, like on a recent visit to my
parent’s home, I find myself in front of the box and, let me tell you,
it’s a jarring reminder of why I cut TV out of my media diet.
A few months back, I was watching CHEK’s local evening news at my
folks place. We were watching while eating dinner; a terrible habit, I
know. CHEK was showing some minor local event, somebody broke
into a neighbor’s house in Nanaimo, or something like that. I got up to
clear the table and when I came back they were doing a piece on fish
LETTERS
Send letters to: [email protected].
Letters that directly address articles published in Focus
will be given preference.
ADVERTISEMENT
Focus on your hearing
Oak Bay Hearing Clinic opens its doors to open new ears
by Mollie Kaye
farming. I was surprised at how long it went
on and how biased it seemed to be. It appeared
to be what we might call a “documentary,” but
it was filled start-to-finish with apologists for
finfish aquaculture.
Well, this went on for half an hour until I
finally realized we were watching an “infomercial.” An entire half-hour of the so-called
“newshour” had been bought and paid for
by a controversial industry that was extolling
its own great environmental and economic
virtues. It would have been natural for anyone
watching to think they were viewing a documentary put together by CHEK’s journalists.
It was unethical.
I have great hopes for the future, and part
of my faith comes from knowing there are
people like B Channel’s Ainsley and Johnson,
guys who have the smarts to build a new media
system from the ground up. I wish them success.
Robin Wilson
Re: City of Victoria priorities
I find it perplexing that Mayor Fortin has
put commuter rail at the top of his priority
list for 2011. I doubt many of us in the City
of Victoria will use commuter rail. I feel we
have a terrific transportation system within
the City itself. I am not saying commuter
rail should not be a priority for those in the
region; however for those of us who live in
the City of Victoria I think our priorities lie
elsewhere, such as making our downtown
core more attractive and affordable, meeting
the needs of the homeless, and moving to a
regional policing governance model.
The same logic can be applied to establishing rapid transit lines along Douglas Street
for the benefit of commuters from outside of
Victoria, yet to the detriment of Victoria businesses along Douglas Street. Or how about
the City’s willingness to fully bear the cost
for replacing the Blue Bridge whose use is of
most benefit to those in other municipalities?
I believe it is time Victoria City Council
begins to focus on the priorities of our City
rather that those of the region as a whole. As
Mel Couvelier, former mayor of Saanich,
recently said, “The downtown ambience has
been—and continues to be—destroyed by
successive Victoria councils.”
Paul Brown
Omission: Credit for the painting in Hemp
& Company’s December advertisement should
have been given to Jeffrey Boron.
O
nce shunted away down dusty corridors in
nondescript office buildings, audiology is
“taking it to the street”in Victoria—the newlyopened Oak Bay Hearing Clinic is located in a storefront
right on the “main drag,” Oak Bay Avenue.“The idea
is to encourage more of a ‘stop-in-and-browse’ atmosphere instead of an ‘appointment only’ atmosphere,”
explains Dr. Erin Wright, Oak Bay Hearing Clinic’s audiologist.“We want to make hearing aids as accessible
as eyeglasses,” which, come to think of it, were also
hidden away in office buildings at one time.
But just like glasses, which have certainly evolved
since the 1940s (when there were three frames to
choose from, each with all the flair of a coat hanger),
hearing aids are now enjoying a fashion infusion—
with sleek styles available in a rainbow of colours,
some even adorned with Swarovski crystals.“It’s fun
to see the variety available these days,” Dr. Wright
enthuses, showing off a nifty display board of jewelcoloured options.
In addition to the ever-widening array of hearing
aids,there are also innovative new devices that amplify
or dampen sound for ears of all ages.Actress Gwyneth
Paltrow’s toddler daughter,Apple,recently made waves
wearing candy-coloured, protective headphones at
her rock-star dad’s concert—Oak Bay Hearing Clinic
carries those, along with many other non-prescription,
hearing-related items like personal hand-held listeners,
amplified telephones, alerting systems for people who
take their hearing aids out at night,shake-awake alarm
clocks, and vibrating wrist watches.
If Dr. Wright’s name sounds familiar, it’s probably
because she opened Broadmead Hearing Clinic in
2006, and is still working with patients there. “From
the start, our intention was to open two clinics,” she
explains.“The timing was right, we found a wonderful
location,and now we can serve people who live downtown or nearby in Oak Bay, Fairfield, and Gordon
Head.” Dr. Wright is one of the only audiologists on
Vancouver Island to have earned a doctorate of audiology.“I felt passionate about getting the extra training,
so I could learn even more about the fitting process."
“I love working with Erin,” says Robert Averill,
whose state-of-the-art hearing aids have three settings
for different noise situations. “Whenever I’m having
an issue, she works with me to get the best results
possible.”His hearing aids are equipped with microfine
speaker tubes and blend perfectly with his hair colour,
making them virtually undetectable—the preference
of those who aren’t aiming to make a fashion statement.“My relationships have changed so much since
my hearing loss was corrected,” he says.“Every time
I take these out, I say,‘This is what it was like?’ I could
never go back.”
To celebrate the opening of Oak Bay Hearing Clinic,
Dr.Wright invites you to her Open House on Thursday,
“I know all the neighbours. It’s so exciting for me, to
be right on the street, offering something more visible
and accessible. I want to build bridges, so that more
people who are suffering from hearing loss will get
”
the correction they need to enjoy life more fully.
—Dr. Erin Wright, Audiologist
February 17, from 1pm – 5pm. Refreshments will
be served, and you can ask questions about hearing
loss correction and prevention, browse the selection,
and enter to win a customized set of ear moulds—
a slick way to get the most personalized fit for a
bluetooth, or to enjoy comfy ear protection while
swimming, sleeping, travelling, or practicing music.
“The open house will be fun,” says Dr. Wright,
whose first home in Victoria was on Redfern Street,
a stone’s throw from the office.“I know all the neighbours. It’s so exciting for me, to be right on the street,
offering something more visible and accessible. I want
to build bridges,so that more people who are suffering
from hearing loss will get the correction they need to
enjoy life more fully.”
Dr. Erin Wright,Audiologist
Oak Bay Hearing Clinic
1932 Oak Bay Ave (near Foul Bay Rd)
778-430-5969
Free parking
7
talk
of the
town
Rob Wipond 8 Gordon O’Connor 11 Mollie Kaye 14
What is a sidewalk for?
ROB WIPOND
Municipal engineers have a lot more power over city life and politics than most of us realize.
“Peds” waiting for the state to say it’s okay to move
I
t’s an academic lecture about sidewalks.
Could I have even dreamed up an event
that sounded more inconsequentially
mind-numbing?
But on this cold, rainy, January night, the
little Legacy Art Gallery and Café, as part
of the University of Victoria’s “City Talks”
lectures, has drawn nearly a hundred provincial and municipal bureaucrats, business
owners, artists, developers, lawyers, students,
urban gardeners, civil rights activists, anarchists... Why on Earth would all these people
be so interested in sidewalks?
Within the hour the answer becomes clear,
as Simon Fraser University’s Nicholas Blomley
delivers a surprisingly riveting overview of the
role of sidewalks in social control.
Blomley is a “legal geographer” who specializes in “property and its relationship to the
politics of urban space.” His new book sounds
similarly recondite: Rights of Passage—Sidewalks
and the Regulation of Public Flow. However,
much like his earlier work on homelessness,
First Nations dispossession, and community
gardens, Blomley adeptly straddles abstract
academia and on-the-ground activism.
8
“What is a sidewalk for?” he begins, and
it’s soon apparent this seemingly benign question holds the seeds of intense urban conflict.
According to Blomley, municipal engineers
who build them usually believe a sidewalk’s
function is to help people move efficiently.
Many political theorists and urban designers
(and, we’d probably add, most ordinary sidewalk users), though, have argued that sidewalks’
purposes are multi-various. Yes, sidewalks allow
movement, but they’re also a public space where
people stop, look and contemplate. They’ll
extend stores or cafés. They enhance public
safety and provide playing areas for children.
Sidewalks host people-watching and group
hang-outs, and often serve critical functions
for picketing and protests. With famous truism,
they also enrich society by allowing spontaneous encounters, conversations, and mingling
between folks “from different walks of life.”
Obviously, some of these different purposes
might be enhanced through different types of
sidewalk construction—adding greater widths,
more courtyards, or installed amenities. Yet
when reminded of all these other roles for
sidewalks, Blomley says one municipal engi-
Nicholas Blomley
neer replied to him matter-of-factly, “It’s definitely not seen that way in my mind.” And in
his subsequent research and interviews, Blomley
says he repeatedly found municipal engineers
strictly emphasizing only sidewalks’ “traffic
flow” function.
He provides many compelling examples—
some so extreme they seem to border on
the satirical.
In manuals like Geometric Design Guides
for Canadian Roads from the Transportation
Association of Canada, humans are generically demarcated as simply “the ped”—a
simulated pedestrian with a hypothesized ideal
0.15m “no touch zone,” and other specific,
sidewalk-design demands with respect to
distances, sight-lines, movement and storage
capacity. What “the ped” thinks, feels or values,
clarifies Blomley, usually isn’t important; in
engineering code, we’re routinely reduced to
being just “an object in motion.”
“In many cases, this is a very good thing,”
comments Blomley diplomatically, pointing
to walkers in a hurry, or people using wheelchairs. “But what’s interesting to me is the way
it’s the only option that seems to be at play.”
ON THIS COLD, RAINY, JANUARY
night, the little Legacy Art Gallery
has drawn nearly a hundred provincial and municipal bureaucrats,
business owners, artists, developers,
lawyers, students, urban gardeners,
civil rights activists, anarchists...
Why on Earth would all these people
be so interested in sidewalks?
According to Blomley, for most engineers,
flow “trumps” everything; all other activities
on sidewalks are potential “obstructions” to
good flow and must therefore be banned or
tightly regulated through permits.
And the engineers’ perspective holds immense
sway in urban politics. Blomley cites Vancouver
bylaws, which broadly declare it an offence for
any person to either “stand” or put down any
“object,” “substance” or “thing” in ways that
might “interfere” with pedestrian flow. (Victoria’s
Streets and Traffic Bylaw makes similar declarations.) Consequently, notes Blomley, we no
longer have a world where “everything is free
to do, unless the state will say you can’t.” Instead,
the reverse logic has seized control of our sidewalks: “Everything is illegal, unless the state
will say you can do something.”
Blomley recounts a verbatim interview to
show how tunnel-visioned such engineeringthink can become. He urges a particular municipal
engineer to open his mind up to other, equally
reasonable uses for sidewalks, yet their discussion rapidly degenerates into something closer
to a Monty Python-esque debate about whether
a parrot is technically “dead” or “deliberately
obstructing traffic flow.” When Blomley paints
images of people engaging together in street
life in different ways, the engineer responds
with various versions of, “That requires a
permit,” and, “We have regulation on parades.”
When Blomley conjures images of random
meet-ups and spontaneous group chats, the
engineer responds, “You mean like loitering?”
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OF COURSE, WHETHER or not something truly
“obstructs” the purpose of a sidewalk depends on how
we define that purpose. The best way to protest, then,
is to vigorously re-open public dialogue about what
our sidewalks are really for.
It was no joke, however, when these differences came to a head in
the 2002 court challenge to Vancouver’s “obstructive solicitation” or
anti-panhandling bylaw.
People challenging the bylaw, on the side of which Blomley himself
provided an expert submission, defended people’s basic rights to equality
and expression in public spaces.
The City’s counter-argument was simple: Panhandlers were no
different than street vendors, parking meters, trees or garbage bins, all
of which had to be regulated in defence of “smooth and unobstructed pedestrian traffic flow.” And the BC Supreme Court agreed.
“Flow needs no justification,” remarks Blomley. He adds that one city
representative provided a “compelling distillation” of the city’s position to him privately: “It’s not a matter of civil rights; it’s a matter of
civil engineering.”
Many battles over newspaper boxes, busking, sidewalk cafés, and
protest rights have ended similarly.
Considering how “pervasive” and “powerful” the engineering viewpoint on sidewalks has become, Blomley suggests it’s surprising political
critics have spent so much more time on examining the influence of
police, planners, or elected representatives on urban politics than on
examining the influence of engineers. “I suggest that might be a mistake.”
Notably, this suspicion arose during Victoria’s recent Johnson Street
Bridge fiasco: Many believed the City of Victoria’s engineering department wanted a new bridge, and that they were the ones pushing the
poor upkeep and misleading technical reports.
In any case, when everyone not moving is an “illegal obstruction,”
our downtown evidently helps usher along policing more than it helps
provide neutral spaces for expressions of a democratic diversity of
human values.
Of course, whether or not something truly “obstructs” the purpose
of a sidewalk depends on how we define that purpose. The best way
to protest, then, is to vigorously re-open public dialogue about what
our sidewalks are really for.
I walk home ignited by these new ideas, singing aloud, half-expecting
Victoria’s early evening sidewalks to come alive in the fire of my eyes
like the inner city streets of some Bruce Springsteen song. But they’re
just long, desolate corridors, punctuated by the occasional snoring
mummy bag in an alcove.
I approach six young people standing, chatting outside a restaurant.
Even this, I see, is too many. As I shuffle around between the tree,
parking meter and car, we all glance awkwardly and apologetically at
each other.
Rob Wipond can frequently be spotted walking around Victoria, or can be
reached at [email protected].
PHOTO: CHRISTIAN J. STEWART
DESIGN
SOURCE
Warehouse
HOME AND GARDEN
Sprawl momentum builds in Central Saanich
GORDON O’CONNOR
Proposals to extend municipal water services suggest the
municipality is being primed for real estate development.
O
n a continent where big box stores and parking lots have buried
farmland and choked the rivers next to almost every major
city, Central Saanich has been a shining example of progressive land use planning. It is a bucolic paradise of farms, open fields,
rolling hills and ocean views that sits less than 30 minutes outside
downtown Victoria.
Unfortunately, all of this open land and beautiful scenery make
it the perfect candidate to become another drab commuter subdivision. Real estate speculators are pushing hard to make this
happen, but Central Saanich has largely
AFTER THE LAST clung to its rural identity and protected
its agricultural land base from reckmunicipal elections less development.
Its Official Community Plan (OCP) is
brought a slate of
one of the best ever written. Its strict
development-friendly zoning rules and careful application have
created an ideal community with a healthy
business people to environment; a stable, locally owned
council, a wave of economy; and low property taxes. The
OCP document focuses growth and resiexceptions were dential settlement into three Urban
made to Central Containment Boundaries (UCB) to keep
the city compact, create sustainable transSaanich’s OCP.
portation options, and minimize
infrastructure costs. The enforcement of
these boundaries is supported by a regulation that only allows
municipal water and sewer services to be provided inside UCBs. Together,
these mechanisms have been able to prevent the sprawl of housing
developments onto rural land.
Things are changing, however. After the last municipal elections
brought a slate of development-friendly business people to council, a
wave of exceptions were made to Central Saanich’s OCP. Ian Vantreight
was given permission to build a subdivision on rural land; Gordon
Denford championed an application to bring municipal water
service to a rural neighbourhood; and the Peninsula Coop rezoned
553 Hillside Ave
(between Bridge and Rock Bay)
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11
talk of the town
an agricultural field for commercial development. In addition, Vantreight
Farms made separate preliminary applications for another residential
project involving workers’ housing and the extension of municipal
water services to his land near Wallace Drive.
On the surface, or individually, these changes may seem insignificant, but a closer look at the projects and the processes used to approve
them suggests otherwise. These proposals appear to some to be strategic
manoeuvres intended to open Central Saanich up to the worst kind of
reckless development and urban sprawl.
The story starts in the 2008 municipal elections when a group of
elite landowners made substantial financial contributions to candidates
with campaign platforms and track records promoting development.
When the votes were counted, Ron Kubek, John Garrison, Terry Siklenka,
Mayor Jack Mar, and Susan Mason had been elected to council with
the blessings of the local development lobby. Ian Vantreight, who is one
of the largest land owners in Central Saanich, registered donations
totalling $9428.79. Gordon Denford, the president and CEO of the
Berwick Investments development corporation made smaller contributions on behalf of himself and his business. The Peninsula Coop
(Gordon Denford is on its board) spent $16,000 on the election and
endorsed Siklenka and Kubek for their support of the Coop’s plans
to develop some farmland. Shortly after the election, the RCMP recommended laying 19 charges for election funding violations. (BC’s criminal
justice branch refused to proceed.)
With a supportive council in power, Vantreight submitted an
application to rezone rural and agricultural land outside of the UCBs
to build an 89-house subdivision. Although urban style developments are prohibited in that area, the only binding difference between
a rural and urban settlement in Central Saanich’s OCP is that rural
settlements are not provided with municipal water and sewer services.
Having proposed to access well water and provide independent sewer
services for his project, Vantreight suggested the 89 homes on 32 acres
of land could be considered “rural.”
After several months of controversy, the project was stalled by the
Capital Regional District’s Planning and Transportation Committee,
so Vantreight returned with a slightly amended application for 57 houses
in the same area. Central Saanich’s own planning staff and the local
Advisory Planning Commission still advised against it, but Ron Kubek,
Terry Siklenka, John Garrison and Susan Mason voted in favour and
the rezoning was approved. (On January 12, 2011 a challenge was filed
in BC Supreme court by the Residents and Ratepayers of Central Saanich
alleging the municipality erred in allowing the subdivision to proceed,
as it is contrary to the terms of the OCP, which, according to the Local
Government Act of BC, takes precedence over council decisions. It asks
that the bylaw permitting the rezoning be quashed.)
The Vantreight project has been criticized for many reasons, but the
most prominent concern focuses on the development’s water source.
Reports produced by Vantreight’s consultants suggest that the
development would require 2.5 litres of water per second. This fits
comfortably with their projected supply of 19.2 litres of water per
second from wells to be dug on the property. However, research from
the provincial government indicates that the median supply from
existing wells in the area is only .25 litres per second. Only two percent
of the existing wells drawing on that aquifer are productive enough
to meet the projected demand. The same report indicates that drawdown in existing wells has been shown to decrease the productivity
of other wells nearby. According to this research there are reasonable
grounds to expect that the water source that qualifies Vantreight’s
12
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subdivision as a rural property will quickly run dry and take neighbouring wells down with it.
In a separate application, Vantreight Farms applied to bring a sixinch municipal water main into the same area to service their farm
stand. Servicing one building with
THESE PROJECTS HAVE a six-inch pipe is a bit like watering
flower pot with a fire hose.
been presented to the aAlthough
it’s impossible to prove
community as minor amend- pre-meditation, it does seem like
more than a coincidence to ask
ments to restrictive zoning for a major water main extenrules, but they stand to have sion to be built next to a
subdivision that is expected to
a much larger impact than run out of water.
If the province’s research is
their proponents suggest.
correct and the new subdivision
These amendments will does dry out the aquifer under
function to dismantle the the Vantreight subdivision, the
municipal water main will have
mechanisms that Central to be extended to service these
houses and other rural estates in
Saanich uses to protect the the area. At that point, agricultural land will have been rezoned
region’s rural character.
for residential use and municipal
water services will have been provided—thereby eliminating two of
the major barriers to urban sprawl in the area. (Central Saanich’s water
inside the UCB comes from the CRD’s reservoirs.)
Gordon Denford has also championed the extension of municipal
water services to a rural area. In 2008, Council was presented with
a request for a water main to service his neighbourhood of luxury
estates near Senanus Drive to council via petition from people who
live in the area.
The Mount Newton Neighbourhood Association opposed the petition, noting that many of the houses near Senanus Drive have their
own swimming pools, and independent testing confirmed that good
quality drinking water is being accessed by local wells. They challenged
the legality of the petition in court—and won, forcing Central Saanich
to repeal the bylaw enabling the waterline extension. However, in a
closed-door session last spring, the council voted to go ahead with the
$2.2-million project under a different process.
In November 2009, councillor Ron Kubek proposed a study be
conducted on the feasibility of extending these water services to the
entire northwestern corner of the municipality. In an area several kilometres north of Senanus Drive, a different land owner has already applied
for rezoning to build yet another luxury subdivision on rural land.
With the extension of municipal services to the northwest via the
Senanus Pipeline and to the northeast for Ian Vantreight, and the rezoning
of rural areas outside of the Urban Containment Boundaries in both
areas, the entire northern half of Central Saanich will have been primed
for development.
In addition to his work as a developer, Gordon Denford is also an
outspoken member of the Peninsula Coop board of directors. Amidst
a storm of controversy and lawsuits over their internal election process,
the Coop board is pursuing an application to rezone agricultural land
for commercial purposes. The farm field in question is strategically
located at the corner of Keating and West Saanich Road, directly in
between the Brentwood Bay and Keating Urban Containment Boundaries.
Hypothetically speaking, if one were interested in opening the southern
by Mollie Kaye
The revolutionary smart fortwo
T
en years ago, Mercedes-Benz launched one of the world’s most unusual vehicles. This extremely compact car had just two seats and measured slightly
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Long-anticipated as an answer to the demand for a small, fuel-efficient, welldesigned car, people clamoured to get one—six-month-long waiting lists indicated
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In spite of its diminutive size, two people and their luggage travel quite comfortably to their destination in a smart car—with maximum safety.
Its impressively low fuel consumption and minimal emissions are a relief to those
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The bold design confidently makes structural elements such as the “tridion safety
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safety.This innovation protects passengers like a walnut shell protects the nutmeats.
In this way it also meets the extremely strict standards of Mercedes-Benz Cars.
The smart also complies with American crash requirements and attained top ratings
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Despite its young years, this car has already established itself as an automotive
classic. In 2002, the smart fortwo became the only vehicle still in production to be
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The much-lauded favourite of eco-conscious, aesthetically-savvy people worldwide, the smart car is truly unique, yet it makes no sacrifice in safety, winter driving,
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part of Central Saanich for more development,
it would be an ideal manoeuvre to start rezoning
land and building infrastructure to unite the
two Urban Containment Boundaries there.
These projects have been presented to the
community as minor amendments to restrictive zoning rules, but they stand to have a much
larger impact than their proponents suggest.
These amendments will function to dismantle
the mechanisms that Central Saanich uses to
protect the region’s rural character and put
the municipality on the same path that Surrey,
Mississauga, and countless other formerly
rural communities have already travelled.
The erosion of protection for agricultural
and rural areas is especially problematic given
the economic realities facing farmers on
Vancouver Island. Subsidies for imported food,
the lack of government support for local agriculture, and the loss of biodiversity combine
to make farming an extremely difficult enterprise. But the highest barrier of all is the inflated
value of land.
Central Saanich’s rural areas are being
priced for their value as potential subdivisions
and as the ageing population of farmers retires,
the next generation is being faced with prohib-
itively high mortgages. Many farmers are
being forced to sell off parts of their land for
development and others are giving up all
together to find more secure ways to support
their families.
Each new subdivision or extension of
municipal services to a rural area encourages
real estate speculation, and this drives the value
of rural land even further out of reach for the
average farmer. On an island that grows only
five percent of its own food, this should be a
major concern for all of us.
Other consequences associated with urban
sprawl include tax increases, air pollution,
the invasion of big box retail chains, and loss
of biodiversity. It is an undeniable truth that
urban sprawl creates unhealthy communities
and it would be wise for us to see the trend
that is emerging in Central Saanich and put
a stop to it before even more of our land is
lost to us forever.
Gordon O’Connor is the Forest Campaigner at
the Dogwood Initiative. Websites of interest
include: www.senanus.net, www.rrocss.org,
www.dogwoodinitiative.org, www.daffodil.com,
www.centralsaanich.ca.
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D
The divine online
MOLLIE KAYE
For the women of Chicktoria, online dating sites provide
hard evidence of real, live, single men, right here.
I
have a vivid memory of the visceral reaction I had 16 years ago at
the home of some friends. They’d just revealed to me and my
then-husband how they’d met—through a personal ad! No way! We
tittered about them as we drove home. We had met at a party given
by a mutual friend. They were SWM and SWF. We saw them as pathetic
outcasts whose union was tainted from the word “go.” What sort of
desperation led people to use the personal ads to find a spouse?
At that time, in 1995, the web was
DIVINE, A NATIONAL in its infancy, and I hadn’t yet heard
anyone meeting their better half
women’s magazine, of
online—but if I had, you can bet I
declared us Canada’s would have been equally derisive.
Fast forward eleven years to 2006.
“City with the Least While suffering the debilitating grief
Dating Potential.” Victoria brought on by the demise of both my
13-year marriage and my utterly text...may have a large singleton book “rebound relationship,” I befriend
population (77 percent) a lovely woman my own age who,
like me, is single and raising kids. She
but, unfortunately, only a reveals that she has profiles up on the
meagre 27 percent of them dating websites Lavalife.com and
PlentyofFish.com. I’m wide-eyed, but
much more leaden in my rush to judgeare men.
ment. After all, this friend of mine is
a lot like me. So what was she doing on these dating websites? Wasn’t
that a last ditch for people who were undesirable, socially inept, or both?
Server-supported socializing starts to look mighty appealing, though,
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And for the women of Chicktoria, well, it’s reassuring just to see hard
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iane Regan has a gift for you. As an alternative health expert and owner
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So anxious, that she’s placed fantastic sale prices on many of her most popular
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“When it comes to revolutionizing one’s health, affordability is key,” says Diane,
“especially this time of year, when post-Christmas budgets are tight.” For starters,
she is offering an incredible $1000 savings on the Alkal-Life 7000-SL Water Ionizer
until March 1st.“This is an unbeatable price for the best water purifier
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To refresh her store’s inventory
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Books are on sale, and so are
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While you’re in the store taking advantage of Diane’s fantastic deals, don’t forget
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16
Divine, a national women’s magazine, declared us Canada’s “City
with the Least Dating Potential.” Victoria...may have a large singleton
population (77 percent) but, unfortunately, only a meagre 27 percent
of them are men. With stats like that, it’s easy to develop a complex.
(Calgary, by the way, was deemed the “City with the Most Dating
Potential”—perhaps if chromosome shape is your only requirement.)
Emboldened by my friend, and in a fit of rebound pique, I set up a
dating profile on PlentyofFish.com. It was an exciting opportunity to
see who was out there, yet terrifying to become part of the cyber-single
scenery of this small town. Suddenly, I had a neon sign on my head
blazing the message “SEARCHING 4 LUV.” I carefully cropped a
few honest but reasonably attractive images of myself, uploaded
them, then agonized over whether to make them generally visible. (I
initially put it all out there, but then someone I knew IRL—in real life—
spotted me there and sent me a message
to say hi. OMG! It was like he’d seen IT WAS AN EXCITING
me naked in the Crystal Pool locker
room! I pulled my towel tight and hid opportunity to see who
my #%*#!ing profile.)
was out there, yet terriIf you’d injected truth serum into
the glib blurb I’d written to accom- fying to become part
pany my photos in that first foray, it of the cyber-single
would have read: I’m desperate to
know that the guy I just broke up with scenery of this small
is not the only man who will ever find
town. Suddenly, I had
me attractive, and I would like to have
sex again before I am post-menopausal. a neon sign on my head
I am deep in the bowels of grief, deeper
blazing the message
now than I was a year ago when my
13-year marriage officially ended; “SEARCHING 4 LUV.”
therefore, I’m terrified that I will always
be a frazzled wreck who bursts into tears in the men’s underwear section
at Sears. My social landscape, as a middle-aged single mother in Victoria,
is a coma-inducing, wintry wasteland of icy, tight-knit families and
snow-capped septuagenarians with British accents. SAAAAVE MEEEEE!!!!!
I screwed up my courage and clicked that rectangular button on my
profile to “go live.” Then I gazed upon the stunning vista of, um...Dicktoria?
Hundreds and thousands of men’s faces, some familiar—which definitely was an icky shock—but most previously unknown to me. The
site automatically popped a dozen random guys into a banner at the
top of the page, chosen to match my age and geographic coordinates.
Another cluster of ever-shifting faces indicated they were “available
for live chat.” What? Chat? Now? With an actual person? In the span
of 23 minutes, wearing ratty pajamas, in the comfort of my own home
on a Thursday night, my dating pool had suddenly gushed from “intermittent drip” to “fire hose.”
I hunted and clicked, sifted and sorted. A numb objectification developed from the rhythm of no, no, maybe, definitely not, no, no, maybe,
no—the same rhythm of searching for flower bulbs or bathing suits.
These were human beings, but it was fast becoming another online
shopping expedition, shot through with the sickening angst of junior
high school. In my vulnerable state, the manic carousel—up, down,
round and round—of witty online chat, freaky dates, and dashed hopes
quickly had whirling spirals supplanting my pupils. The fish—and boy
there were plenty—had started to reek as they stacked up in my dinghy.
I retreated and deleted.
After a couple of years and relationships that began IRL, I decided to
cast my net into the web waters once again—and wow, did I get a live one.
ADVERTISEMENT
Focus on beauty
Mollie Kaye writes for Focus, teaches Compassionate
Communication, and is so very grateful that her
amazing, wonderful husband—an answer to many
prayers—didn’t have his dating profile hidden.
Dare to be bare “down there”
by Mollie Kaye
O
kay, gals, huddle up: just in time for Valentine’s
Day, we’re going to talk about something very
intimate. Men, you can stay, since it concerns
you too.Ten years ago, if you had said “Brazilian wax”
to me, I would have thought you were talking about
car detailing, but now I am a convert. Keep reading,
and hopefully I can inspire you to dare to be bare...
down there. Especially if you’re the type who already
shaves her legs and likes to be well-groomed—
why leave any hair in the area where the business
actually takes place?
“Oh, my husband definitely loves it. For me, it
makes me feel more feminine, more sexual—
with my clothes on as well as off. I can wear
Photo: Tony Bounsall
The first red flag was his photo: a modelling headshot. I ignored him, but the site kept
insisting we were “99.9 percent compatible.”
I clicked. His profile read like a cocainefuelled, Tolkien-esque gangster rap. We met
at Re-Bar for dinner. He ate nothing, I ordered
a feast. He said women were throwing themselves at him on the website, but nobody
really “got it.”
“You mean what you’ve written?” I ventured,
remembering his serpent-n-switchblade
metaphor marathon. His knee bounced like
a jackhammer and his eerily constant smile
grew more strained in his very tanned face
(think Al Jolson, only blonde). Catching me
mid-sentence, he said flatly, “I have to go,”
and rose quickly to present his debit card to
the waiter. “Uh, we can split it,” I garbled at
him through a mouthful of strawberry shortcake. He didn’t respond. I watched his
leather-clad back recede toward the door as
he strode past the crowded tables.
Every veteran of virtual hookups has some
sort of harrowing tale, and that was mine. But
whether I knew someone for 20 minutes or
dated them for six months, met someone on
an airplane or met them online, each relationship was a necessary step, providing keener
and keener insight into myself and the qualities of my ideal union.
This Valentine’s Day, I’ll be setting my dinner
table for six, and eating some sort of kidfriendly fare with my husband. We met on
PlentyofFish and got married last August. Each
of us had gone a few laps in the “sea,” casting
about with different bait. When we both had
healed enough to radiate celebration and
authenticity, we found each other there.
The magic moment came when I, searching
on key words that appear in someone’s “list
of interests” (you can also search for a particular height, income, ethnicity, or desire for
children), entered the word “openness.” This
was exactly what was missing in me when I
first heard of online dating, yet it’s hard to
imagine how he and I would have met otherwise, each of us sharing custody of two young
kids, living in different neighbourhoods, and
with no overlap in our well-worn ruts.
We’re living proof that computer-generated
as they may sometimes be, human connections are just that—human—even when
facilitated by technology.
yoga pants and tight jeans and it just feels
sexier. Naked, it gives me more confidence.”
—C.
Okay, okay, relax, calm down. First of all, ladies,
the practice of removing the hair from the nether
regions is old news. (This is where I pull down the
map of the world and get out my pointer.) In fact, in
Middle Eastern societies, it’s been considered an
essential part of proper hygiene for many centuries.
Evidence of de-fuzzing the peach dates back to 4000
BC in ancient India, but North American women are
always the last to know—we’re just coming on to
this concept—hence the fear, tittering, and fallacies
floating around.
“My whole adult life, I’ve considered anything that
makes you feel well-groomed and feminine as part
of regular maintenance,”says 55-year-old C.,a devotee
of Frilly Lilly, Victoria’s only boutique esthetics salon
specializing in bikini waxing. She’s been getting
Brazilian waxes for a few years now,and was absolutely
thrilled when Frilly Lilly opened its doors on Fort Street
a little over a year ago.“I believe in going to the right
person to get the job done,and since they were specializing in it, that’s where I needed to be! The girls there
are all so comfortable with it, and they put you at
ease—they’re so kind and professional.”
“A lot of people still have a fear of bikini waxing,”
says Karen Banks, esthetician and owner of Victoria’s
Frilly Lilly (the flagship is in Calgary, with five locations in total, including one in Vancouver). “Maybe
they are afraid of someone seeing their private parts,
but this is our speciality here. We’ve already been
voted the number-one place to go for bikini waxing
in two cities. Every Frilly Lilly uses the same highquality, exclusively-formulated hard wax; we’re all
trained by the franchisor—that’s what sets us apart:
our products, our training, and our technique.”
If you’re not quite ready for Brazil, Frilly Lilly’s menu
offers The Hawaiian (Aloha! Bare’ly there),The Canadian
Left to right: Jessica Fotheringham, Dana Wende,
Karen Banks (owner), and Lindsey Rigg.
(O Canada! Perfect for the Canadian Bikini), or The
Alaskan (Stay warm this winter! Just a little off the
sides please...)
So what does C.’s better half think of the Brazilian
wax? “Oh, my husband definitely loves it. For me, it
makes me feel more feminine, more sexual—with
my clothes on as well as off. I can wear yoga pants
and tight jeans and it just feels sexier. Naked, it gives
me more confidence.”And what about between the
sheets? “In an intimate situation, it’s very erotic.We’ve
been married for 22 years, and the Brazilian wax has
definitely enhanced things,” C. reports with a sly smile.
Especially, she says, the part that involves facial contact
with the smooth-as-silk results. I can concur on that
one—my husband can’t hide his, um, enthusiasm
when I tell him I’m off to Frilly Lilly.
As an eight-year, three-country veteran of Brazilian
waxes (I even had one done in Argentina!), I can
tell you with confidence that the best you can get,
anywhere, is at Frilly Lilly. The store itself is a pure
delight: the first time I went in, I was dazzled by the
beautiful, unique accessories and jewellery they have
displayed for sale—the aura of the place is just yummy,
like being inside of a sweetheart’s candy valentine.
Just go and see. It’s totally Frilly.And the petals of your
Lilly have never been so sweet and velvety! Celebrate
yourself, and treat that special someone to you—
smooth, soft and scrumptious. Mmmmm. Enjoy!
Frilly Lilly
811 Fort Street
250-590-4400 • www.frillylilly.ca
17
Creative
Coast
conversations 18 the arts in february 20 show & tell 30 coastlines 32
Going baroque in Victoria
LINDA ROGERS
PHOTO: TONY BOUNSALL
Early music is enjoying a renaissance in Victoria.
Marc Destrubé
W
hat is more appropriate to the season of lengthening days
than the word enlightenment? If winter is our Dark Age,
the annual Pacific Baroque Festival, which has brought the
sound of light to Victoria for a decade of Februarys, strikes promising
notes for the gardening seasons.
This year’s festival is designated Stylus Fantasticus: Music for Bishops
and Emperors, after the baroque flowering in Austrian music that
followed the Thirty Years War, a shadow time for artists. The play of
light and darkness, chiaroscuro, which gives an intense vitality to music
of the Baroque period, is a metaphor that appears to reinvent itself at
appropriate times.
Stylus Fantasticus borrows from the fantasia, improvisation, and
variation on religious themes tempered by folk idiom and the Renaissance
18
fascination with the human story. This music, notably that of composers
Heinrich von Biber and Johan Schmelzer, leading composers of the
17th Century, was created to vault the emotional architectural spaces
of the Counter-Reformation, when the Catholic Church invited artists
and musicians to capture the imagination of Christians tempted by the
asceticism of the Reformation.
Where better to present this music than Alix Goolden Hall, where
intimacy is possible in an acoustically lovely context, and Christ Church
Cathedral, with its Helmut Wolff organ? Now that the Casavant organ
at the conservatory has been brought back to life, the Alix Goolden
Hall has another layer of glorious auditory patina.
Pacific Baroque Festival manager Brian Groos sings the praises of
both venues. “The Alix Goolden Hall is well made for the performance
of Baroque music. Christ Church Cathedral has a different atmosphere
but is ideally suited for an organ concert. Because of the growing international reputation of the festival, it is easier to tempt Europe’s top
organists to perform here.”
Not that there is any shortage of talent on the ground. Violinist Marc
Destrubé, the festival’s artistic director, describes the West Coast as “a
hot spot for high-level performers on historical instruments.” As examples, he mentions the musicians of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra (which
he founded) in Vancouver, as well as other talented performers in Victoria
and Seattle. “We are also blessed with a number of exceptional vocal
soloists with international early music careers who make their homes
locally and have graced our stage—or have furnished us with excellent and well-coached students to whom we can give the opportunity
to perform with period instruments in a professional setting.”
Destrubé himself has an impressive list of accolades and achievements. A native Victorian, he is a founding member of the Tafelmusik
Orchestra, and has appeared with many of the leading period instrument orchestras in North America and Europe. He is presently
co-concertmaster of Frans Bruggen’s Orchestra of the 18th Century,
and first violinist of the Axelrod String Quartet, the Smithsonian Institute’s
quartet-in-residence.
Besides acting as artistic director of this year’s Pacific Baroque Festival,
Destrubé will be performing (with others) in one event: “17th Century
Virtuoso Violin Music, with Some Animals.”
The festival also offers the chance to hear renowned talents from
elsewhere. This year, Victoria audiences will be treated to Reinhard
Jaud, organist and custodian of the 1558 Ebert organ in Innsbruck,
Austria who will play baroque music written for church canticles at the
Cathedral. That will be elixir for the musical palate. Destrubé says, “I
think audiences like to bite into a musical meal knowing that all the
dishes go well together and form a coherent whole, and that they
together form a larger picture of music from a given time and place.
It also gives one an opportunity to serve up music that the audience
may have never encountered before, mixed with more familiar morsels.”
This year’s festival explores the playful and grassroots side of the genre
as well, which, true to the Renaissance, looks for the immortal spirit in
“
I THINK AUDIENCES LIKE TO BITE INTO a musical
meal knowing that all the dishes go well together and
form a coherent whole, and that they together form a
larger picture of music from a given time and place.”
—Marc Destrubé
the phenomenal world. Opening the door for Romantic composers, the
masters of the baroque integrated the singing lines of folk music in
their complex arrangements. The concert “Peasants, Gypsies, Bagpipes
and Nightwatchmen,” February 4 at Alix Goolden Hall, will address the
commonality of music and dancing in European culture and especially
at the courts of Austria, whose most famous expatriate, Marie Antoinette,
brought haute bucolic fashion to le petit trianon at Versailles.
The artistic director orchestrates this cross-pollination. “Destrubé,”
Brian Groos reports, “is a truly gifted musician who has chosen beautiful programs and inspired the performers.” Festivals at their best
provide opportunities for performers to expand their own parameters
and benefit from interaction with other artists while developing the
knowledge and experience of their audiences. This has been the experience of PBF, which provides an opportunity to hear less-performed
music by masters of the genre. Both audiences and sponsors have
embraced the growth envisioned by its hard-working organizers.
Destrubé agrees community support has been essential in ensuring
the success of the festival. A high point was “…seeing the musicians’
faces when they were checking into the Magnolia Hotel for the first
festival (and where we’ve enjoyed staying ever since). I’m sure the musicmaking has been better as a result!”
Ever gracious, Destrubé also says, “Two other important factors in
the success of the festival are the devotion, persistence and hard-work
of the organizer, Brian Groos, and the fact that the Early Music Society
of the Islands had already created an audience in Victoria for baroque
music performed at a high level and with historical sensitivity.”
Another of the festival’s ongoing partnerships is with the Victoria
Children’s Choir, which will perform von Biber’s Requiem at Alix
Goolden the evening of February 5. Destrubé says that, “Without question the rehearsals and performances with the young people of the
Victoria Children’s Choir have been the most precious experiences;
just seeing their faces when they heard us play the opening bars of
Vivaldi’s Gloria a few years ago, or their absolute concentration when
singing a very difficult Bach Motet last year.”
Moving young performers and audiences from Bieber to Biber is an
exciting proposition. Destrubé says in the future they may consider
holding “a concurrent concert for children, a kind of ‘enlightened babysitting,’ so that parents can go to one concert while their children are
looked after musically in another room in the same building.”
Now that is le plus ultra day care, the Pacific Baroque Festival growing
baroque from lullaby to requiem.
Pacific Baroque Festival, February 3-6, has its calendar of events at
www.pacbaroque.com.
Linda Rogers, Victoria’s Poet Laureate, is also a lyricist.
♥
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herbal tea, through her wise counsel, to the lavender-scented
hot towels at the end of a treatment. And now, the addition
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hot stone treatments, individualized personal training, and
yoga-based therapy, can deepen your healing.
Call her today to arrange a consultation—or a gift
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Dr. Deanna Geddo, DDS • 250-389-0669
404 - 645 Fort St (across from Bay Centre)
[email protected]
www.integrateddentalstudio.ca
19
the arts in february
handmade gifts from local woods
Live-edge curly spalted maple bowl
Heartwood Studio
bowls and spoons, wooden utensils, urns, lamps and more
Visit the artist in his studio or online:
250-746-5480 • www.heartwoodstudio.ca
or see us at Eclectic Gallery
2170 Oak Bay Avenue
20
February 12
BUMP & GRIND VALENTINE SHOW
Metro Theatre
HAVING ENJOYED THE FREEDOM OF CREATIVE EXPRESSION
that performing under a character pseudonym facilitates, I can definitely relate to this anonymous woman on the phone, a founding
member of The Cheesecake Burlesque Review. A scientist by day who
works with engineers and software
designers, her burlesque character is
Champagne Sparkles, a saucy, satirical,
feather-shaking strip-teaser. She sees
this balancing act as her own holistic
approach to full female empowerment.
This current generation of mothers,
wives, and professional gals—raised in
the shadow of the wily, counter-culture
bra-burners of the 1970s—has a very
different take on what it means to be
a “liberated woman.” Satirical and sassy,
“The Cheesecakes” are a motley troupe
of 13 female performers who storm
the stage with electric wit and confidence, telegraphing a crystal-clear
message of female self-acceptance while
boldly embracing all things jiggly.
When it died 40 years ago, burlesque
was a tired-out, seedy form of enter- The Cheesecake Burlesque Review
tainment for men, but in its heyday in
the 30s, 40s and 50s, it was high-budget Hollywood. Now in its renaissance, it is a cult sensation, appealing mostly to women. Equal parts
satirical sketch comedy and striptease, it has become the glistening
cherry on top of most cities’ theatre scenes, and Victoria is no
exception. The Cheesecakes perform throughout the province and
beyond, and were the only Canadian troupe invited to Las Vegas to
participate at the International Miss Exotic World Pageant (burlesque’s
answer to the Olympics).
“It’s a celebration of yourself as a beautiful woman,” says Ms Sparkles
of burlesque. She, along with a group of friends, got together in 2006
to perform “for fun,” and ended up having the unexpected experience
of inspiring self-confidence in other women. “One of the most rewarding
things,” she says, “is when women come up afterwards and say, ‘You
have made me feel so good about myself.’” She attributes this response
to the fact that the Cheesecakes are “such a diverse range of women—
different shapes, sizes and ages—so they see themselves up there.”
The Bump & Grind Valentine Show, says Ms Sparkles of the Cheesecakes’
February offering, is a tribute to love in all its forms: “falling in love,
heartbreak, different kinds of things that we love—it’s going to be hilarious.” A Vaudevillian-style variety show centred around the classic form
of striptease (emphasis on tease, as there are always bottoms, and at
least pasties on top), there are references to the history of burlesque,
“but we bring in modern music. We’ve got fan dancing, feather boas,
and lots of glitz and rhinestones. Everyone who comes to one of our
shows seems to love it—even my grandma had a huge smile on her face
all the way through.”
Saturday, February 12, doors at 8 pm, show at 8:30 pm. Metro Theatre,
411 Quadra Street (at Johnson Street). Tickets: $22 adv/ $25 door. Available
at at Lyle's Place or www.cheesecakeburlesque.com.
—Mollie Kaye
The Victoria Fine Art Festival Society presents
creations by self-taught artists from around
the world, including Vancouver Island. Works
will range from obsessive drawing to miniature wood carvings. 104-860 View St.
250-213-1162, www.viewartgallery.ca.
continuing to February 9
MORE NAUGHTY BITS SHOWING
Community Arts Council Gallery
The Island Illustrators Society presents new
works on the theme of erotica, love and relationships. G6 1001 Douglas St. 250-381-2787,
www.islandillustrators.org.
LIKE SOME POOL OF FIRE
Open Space
An exhibition of art depicting political
concerns. Works by Michael Morris, Vincent
Trasov, Rhonda Weppler, Trevor Mahovsky,
Kristina Lee Podesva and Miles Collyer. 510
Fort St. www.openspace.ca.
ARTISTS FOR AIDS
www.artistsforaids.ca
12 pieces of art from 12 prominent local
artists in a fundraising lottery, celebrating AIDS
Vancouver Island’s 25th anniversary. 250384-2366.
THE CRYPTOGRAM
Belfry Theatre
February 5
SOUNDS OF MOTOWN
Mary Winspear Centre
The legendary Vic High Band performs. 711pm. No-host bar, silent and live auctions.
$85 in support of For the Love of Africa Society.
2243 Beacon Ave. www.fortheloveofafrica.org.
February 5-24
DANCE MAGNIFIQUE
Martin Batchelor Gallery
Five of Victoria’s award-winning visual
artists present their unique interpretations
based on performances of acclaimed dancers.
New works by Clement Kwan, Lance Gilson,
Maria Miranda Lawrence, Herman Surkis, and
Bill Zuk. Half proceeds to Ballet Victoria. Opening
Feb 5, 7-9pm, 712 Cormorant St. 250-3857919.
February 6
AWAKENING THE DREAMER
SYMPOSIUM
Sooke Harbour House
Well Foundation and Sooke Transition
Initiative present an all-day event that explores
what’s possible for the future. 10am-4:30pm,
suggested donation $20. 250-642-2517.
February 6
THE BIG SNEEZE
McPherson Playhouse
Axis Theatre performs this hilarious, poignant
new play following Lizzy as she navigates the
hallways of her grade school life. A Kaleidoscope
Theatre Production. 2pm. 250-386-6121,
www.rmts.bc.ca.
Playwright David Mamet dramatizes the
betrayal and abandonment of family and friendship. 250-385-6815 or www.belfry.bc.ca.
February 6-March 2
BOUNDLESS
Goward House
February 3-6
PACIFIC BAROQUE FESTIVAL 2011
Works by the South Island Artists group.
Opening Feb 6, 1:30-3:30pm, 2495 Arbutus
Rd. 250-477-4401, www.gowardhouse.com.
Alix Goolden Hall / Christ Church Cathedral.
See story page 18. www.pacbaroque.com.
February 4 & 5
S/KIN
Metro Studio Theatre
Choreographer Constance Cooke presents
this multimedia dance work; performed
by dancers Jung-Ah Chung and Robert
Halley. Original score by Tina Pearson. 8pm,
1411 Quadra St, $22.25. 250-386-6121,
www.rmts.bc.ca.
February 7
JON CLEARY
Upstairs Cabaret
bold colours, shimmering figures and heart-felt passion.
February 8-9
BEAT POET MICHAEL MCCLURE
Merlin’s Sun/Hermann’s
160 films over 10 days. Director Bruce
McDonald will present his films. Details of all
events and venues at www.victoriafilmfestival.com.
February 4-27
POLYPHONY
Xchanges Gallery
February 9
JETS OVERHEAD
McPherson Playhouse
A unique installation by June Higgins.
Opening Feb 4, 7-9pm, 2333 Government St.
250-382-0442, www.xchangesgallery.org.
Victoria-based quintet Jets Overhead with
opening act Maurice. 8pm. $17.50. 250-3866121, www.rmts.bc.ca.
February 5 & 6
LAPLANTE PLAYS BEETHOVEN’S EMPEROR
Royal Theatre
February 10-11
FLOATING
Metro Studio
The Victoria Symphony presents Andre
Laplante playing Beethoven’s magisterial piano
concerto, the “Emperor,” plus the “39th
Symphony.” $31-73. 250-386-6121,
www.rmts.bc.ca.
The Isle of Anglesey is set adrift from the
mainland of Wales, embarking on a fantastical journey up to the Arctic and beyond.
8pm, $21, 1411 Quadra St. 250-590-6291,
www.intrepidtheatre.com.
Mexico and love!
You don’t have to leave Victoria to bask in the heat of
Victoria Jazz Society presents vocalist and
piano playing jazz dynamo from New Orleans.
8pm, $25/$22, 1127 Wharf St, www.rmts.bc.ca.
Two events with this prize-winning poet
and playwright who has mentored Bob Dylan
and Jim Morrison. Feb 8: An Evening of Film
on poetry and Haight Ashbury, 7:30pm,
Merlin’s Sun Theatre, 1983 Fairfield Rd, $20,
250-385-3378. Feb 9: An Evening of Poetry,
7:30pm, Hermann’s Jazz Club, 753 View St,
$20, 250-388-9166.
February 4-13
VICTORIA FILM FESTIVAL
Various Locations
This February, experience
a touch of
marion evamy
“ENAMORADO”
february 2 - 15, 2011
new works, large and small
537 FISGARD
250.383.1552
21
“Kooza” Marion Evamy, 36 x 36 inches, acrylic and mixed media on canvas
OUTSIDE.rs
VIEW ART GALLERY
throughout February
ADELLE ANDREWS
The Avenue Gallery
In Adelle Andrews’ recent works, somewhat imaginary structures with architectural connotations and highly textured surfaces reveal a third dimension to create the illusion of mass and
volume which increases the tactile sense of her work. An active member of the Federation of
Canadian Artists and the Alberta Society of Artists, Andrews’ paintings can be found in Canadian
museums, foundations and many corporate and private collections. 2184 Oak Bay Ave.
250-598-2184 www.theavenuegallery.com.
“ARRIVING IN STYLE” DAVID GOATLEY, 30 X 40 INCHES, OIL CANVAS
throughout February
DAVID GOATLEY & KEITH HISCOCK
Morris Gallery
▲
New works by these two impressive Victoria-based artists. David Goatley is best known
as a portrait painter. His portraits of Prime Minister Kim Campbell and Speaker Gilbert Parent
hang on Parliament Hill; Lt Governors Iona Campagnolo and James Dunsmuir were painted
for Government House. But he also loves to travel and paint. At Morris, you will find landscapes, townscapes and people pictures from Canada to Karnataka. On Alpha St at 428
Burnside Rd E. 250-388-6652, www.morrisgallery.ca.
22
“CLOWN ME” MARION EVAMY, 30 X 30 INCHES, MIXED MEDIA AND ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
▲
February 2-15
ENAMORADO
Dales Gallery
With bold colours and shimmering figures, Marion Evamy’s canvases portray mystery
and whimsy, and evoke memories of the work of the European Expressionists. With graphic
images, pattern, texture and references to other worlds and precious things, her works imply
characters looking for that elusive sentiment between turmoil and harmony. See her new works,
large and small. 537 Fisgard St. 250-383-1552, www.dalesgallery.ca.
“BULL FIGHTER” JAN JOHNSON, METAL, NATURAL STONE
February 4-24
PETS ’N’ MEAT 2011
Collective Works Gallery
▲
▲“LIBERTY SERIES #59” ADELLE ANDREW, 12 X 36 INCHES, ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
Marking the beginning of the Chinese lunar new year, the year of the Rabbit, Jan Johnson
is showing new metal sculpture featuring his trademark surreal figurative works. The title
of the show was inspired by a 1980s sign on Sooke Road. The Sooke sawmill had recently
shut down and many people were out of work, but an enterprising family started raising
rabbits commercially and advertising them on the road. Opening Feb 4, 7pm, 1311
Gladstone Ave. 250-590-1345.
NATHALIE PROVENCHER
MICHEL MAILHOT
KEVIN JENNE
CAROLINA ECHEVERRIA
MARTIN BEAUPRE
RICHARD PEPIN
MARIE-FRANCE ROULEAU
LOUISE MARION
LISE DEROSIERS
Dominguez Art Gallery
2075 OTTER POINT RD. SOOKE www.travelingart.ca 250-664-7045
“La Grande Descente” Guy Roy, 30 x 36 inches, oil on canvas
WEST END GALLERY
GUY ROY
An Exhibition of Paintings from the Charlevoix
February 19 - March 3, 2011
Gallery Hours: Tues - Fri 10 - 5:30 & Sat 10 - 5
1203 Broad Street • 250-388-0009 • www.westendgalleryltd.com
23
Via Choralis
February 13
AMOUR ET MUSIQUE
St. Elizabeth’s Church
VIA CHORALIS, WHICH TRANSLATES AS “the choral way,” is a
community choir under the direction of renowned Victorian composer
and choral conductor Nicholas Fairbank. He began directing choirs
at the tender age of 19, and has been doing it ever since. So, when
he was approached by Via Choralis to take over the choir in 2005,
Fairbank welcomed the opportunity, “I really enjoy choral conducting
because I enjoy working with people, and I enjoy sharing my musical
ideas with them.”
Though Via Choralis is technically a community choir in that its
performers aren’t professional musicians, it is far from an “amateur”
one. Singers must be able to read music, sight sing, have previous choral
experience, and pass an audition. This is owing to the challenging nature
of the repertoire. Says Fairbank, “We tend to aim, in Via Choralis, more
towards the Classical repertoire.” He stresses that singers need to prepare
on their own “so that when they come to rehearsal, I’m able to work
with them on interpreting the music and not spend so much time on
what we call ‘note bashing.’” Some past concerts have featured such
demanding works as Renaissance polyphonic madrigals, Mozart’s
Requiem, Vivaldi’s Gloria, and Handel’s Messiah.
Rehearsals are a wonderful blend of hard work and fun. The singers
generally have 10-12 rehearsals before a concert, and Fairbank laughingly
admits that “by the eighth or the ninth rehearsal, we’re suddenly realizing,
‘gosh, we’d better get our act together,’ and of course in the end everything works out well. The singers are, in fact, prepared, and they enjoy
it because they come back again, and they sing for the next concert.” And
there’s always the post-concert celebrations and socializing!
February’s concert, the day before Valentine’s Day, is a delightful
tribute to four centuries of music devoted to love. Works include music
by the Renaissance composer Orlando di Lassus, settings of popular
folk songs, new music by the “American Choral Master” Morten
Lauridsen, and, as in every concert, modern Canadian works. As a
composer himself, Fairbank confirms,“I know how important it is to
find opportunities to have my own music performed, and I am able to
do that for other local composers as well.”
Fairbank and the choir actually have fun with his music. He jokes,“They’re
great guinea pigs, and they’re usually pretty willing to try out what I
throw at them.” This concert will premiere Fairbank’s setting of the
Shakespearean sonnet, “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day,” a
beautifully lyrical work that the choir really enjoys singing. It appears
that they are glad to be “guinea pigs” for this one.
The concert starts at 2:30 pm. Tickets, $15 ($10 for students); available at Tanner’s Books in Sidney or at the door. St Elizabeth’s is at 10030
Third St, Sidney. www.viachoralis.ca.
—Lisa Szeker-Madden
24
February 11
SCRIPT TEASE
1701 Elgin Road
Emerging playwrights present their works as part of Canadian
College of Performing Arts’ Festival of New Works 2011. 8pm,
by donation. www.ccpacanada.com.
February 11
JOAQUIN DIAZ
Victoria Event Centre
Caribbean merengue artist’s light-fingered accordion
playing and Latin vocals. 9 pm, $22/$19, 1415 Broad St.
www.rmts.bc.ca.
February 11-13
O’SIEM BC SPIRIT FESTIVAL & TRADE SHOW
Eagle Ridge Community Centre
Workshops, musical performances, stroll an interactive
village and more. www.capitalfestival.com.
February 11-25
BEYOND THE RAIN
Madrona Gallery
A solo exhibition by local artist Danny Everett Stewart. See
story, page 30. Opening Feb 11, 5-9pm, 606 View St. 250380-4660, www.madronagallery.com.
February 11-March 12
COLD COMFORT
View Art Gallery
Paintings by Robert Randall and Keegan Wenkman.
Opening Feb 11, 6-9pm, 104-860 View St. 250-213-1162,
www.viewartgallery.ca.
February 11-March 18
AILANS TRAVELLED
Alcheringa Gallery
Celebrating the return from the UK of several works created
for Hailans to Ailans, the first major international exhibition
of contemporary Papua New Guinean and Canadian Northwest
Coast art. Ailans Travelled will also feature new work by
Iatmul carver, Claytus Yambon completed during his recent
residency at Alcheringa Gallery. Opening Reception Feb
17, 7-9pm. Online catalogue at www.alcheringa-gallery.com.
665 Fort St. 250-383-8224.
February 12 & 13
VICTORIA TEA FESTIVAL 2011
Crystal Garden
PROGRAMS IN EARTH LITERACIES
Saturday, February 26
Transformation to
a Sustainable World:
Leadership Lessons from
Aldo Leopold & Thomas Berry
The largest public tea exhibition in North America! Hosted
in the tea capital of Canada, the 5th annual event features
tea tastings, tea-food selections, complimentary presentations, and opportunities to purchase tea, tea-related products,
and exquisite tea wares. A Silent Auction (live and online)
will be offered. Proceeds to Camosun College Child Care
Services. Info & ticket outlets: www.victoriateafestival.com.
This is a search for wisdom. Inspired
February 12-14
SLEEPING BEAUTY ACT III/GAITE PARISIENNE
McPherson Playhouse
adapting to Earth’s life support systems
Canadian Pacific Ballet couples this classical ballet with a
rollicking look at Parisienne nightlife. 8pm; 13th at 2pm. 250386-6121, www.rmts.bc.ca.
February 13
THE NEXT GENERATION
UVic’s Farquhar Auditorium
Enjoy the music of Rimsky-Korsakov, Mozart and Gershwin
as the Greater Victoria Youth Orchestra celebrates their 25th
anniversary with performances by four up-and-coming
musicians. 2:30pm, $25/$20/$10. 250-721-8480.
by the insights of Aldo Leopold (forester
and philosopher) and Thomas Berry
(cultural historian), we will explore
changing the way we make decisions,
and living well, responsibly.
Facilitators: Gertie Jocksch (SC, DMin);
Ray Travers (RPF); & Bill Wilson (SJ, PhD).
TIME: 9 am - 5 pm COST: $85
LOCATION: Royal Roads University
REGISTER: Best to register by Sat, Feb 12, 2011
www.royalroads.ca/continuing-studies
or 250-391-2600, ext. 4801
25
Continuing to February 8
PACIFIC PRINTS 2011
Alcheringa Gallery
Annual exhibition of innovative printmaking from the Pacific. From the Northwest Coast,
highlights include rare prints from Robert Davidson and recent releases from Susan Point, Maynard
Johnny Jr, John Marston and Dean Heron. View contemporary developments in use of formline,
colour and narrative in the graphic works of lessLIE, Dylan Thomas and Torres Strait artist Dennis
Nona. Online catalogue at www.alcheringa-gallery.com. 665 Fort St. 250-383-8224.
“ROSE AND TURQUOISE” CAROLINA ECHEVERRIA, 48 X 36 INCHES, ACRYLIC AND MIXED MEDIA ON CANVAS
February 1-27
CAROLINA ECHEVERRIA: AVANT-GARDE CONCEPTIONS
Dominguez Art Gallery
▲
Carolina Echeverria is a Chilean artist who arrived in Montréal in 1986 to complete her
Masters Degree in Visual Arts—and never left. In 1989, she opened her own art school and
studio and became one of the most acclaimed artists in North American art galleries. Her
anthropological and mythological approach challenges social norms around such subjects as
environment, feminism, street art, transculturalism, and immigration. 2075 Otter Point Rd,
Sooke. 250-664-7045, www.travelingart.ca.
26
“JUST A TWIST” JERRY DAVIDSON, 18 X 24 INCHES, ACRYLIC ON CLAYBOARD
▲
February 12-18
LOVE IS IN THE AIR
West End Gallery
An array of new works from gallery artists has arrived, just in time to sweeten your Valentine.
Small works burst with colour and passion from local artist Elka Nowicka, a preview of things
to come in her March 19 solo exhibition. Acclaimed Quebec artist Annabelle Marquis debuts
her paintings in Victoria. Collectors have been impressed with her mixed media and collageinspired canvases which strike a graceful balance between fragmentation and beauty. David
Calles explores shape and colour in his latest Button collection of glassworks. 1203 Broad St.
250-388-0009, www.westendgalleryltd.com.
“WATER LILIES” DAVID MILNE, 1928, OIL ON CANVAS, AGGV COLLECTION: GIFT OF MRS. H.A. DYDE, EDMONTON
February 18-June 5
FLORA
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
▲
▲ “REMEMBRANCE” SUSAN POINT, 30 X 30 INCHES, SERIGRAPH EDITION 90
An exploration of growth, fertility, and renewal in the life cycle as expressed in art throughout
the centuries, and largely drawn from the Art Gallery’s historical collections. This thematic
exhibition, which blends music and garden imagery, asks us to consider the symbolic and
allegorical meanings of vegetation in art, particularly as they relate to human existence and
our struggle with mortality. “Flora” is part of a larger exhibition program for spring 2011 in
Victoria, the Garden City of Canada. 1040 Moss St. 250-384-4101, www.aggv.ca.
“The Rocky Coastline” (detail) Ron Parker, 30 x 30 inches, acrylic on canvas
January 26 – February 22
Experience the Art of Connection!
RON PARKER
NEW WORKS
2184 OAK BAY AVENUE VICTORIA
www.theavenuegallery.com 250-598-2184
KEITH HISCOCK
Danny Everett Stewart
Beyond the Rain
February 11 – 25
Opening reception February 11,5-9pm. Artist will be in attendance.
606 View Street • 250.380.4660 • www.madronagallery.com
“North of Mendicino” Keith Hiscock, 24 x 30 inches, oil on canvas
“Tulips III”Danny Everett Stewart,36 x 36 inches,acrylic on canvas
NEW WORK
MORRIS GALLERY
Original local artwork
On Alpha Street at 428 Burnside Road E.
250-388-6652 • www.morrisgallery.ca
27
The Victoria Chapter
of the
FEDERATION of CANADIAN
ARTISTS
February 16
RICHARD WAGAMESE PUBLIC TALK
UVic’s Hickman Building
Award-winning journalist, novelist and
broadcaster will share his storytelling techniques with students and the general public.
6:30-9:30pm, room 105. 250-573-4518.
Art auction and fundraiser for the Mustard
Seed Food Bank. Music performances and
snacks. 6pm, 510 Fort St, $10/$8. 250857-8910, www.oppositesattract.uvic.ca.
February 17
February 19
SIX DEGREES NORTH
Lutheran Church of the Cross
HUMANITY ASCENDING—A NEW WAY
BCGEU Auditorium
Documentary film by futurist Barbara Marx
Hubbard is followed by dialogue with Louise
Taylor and Grant Taylor. 7:30pm, suggested
donation $10, 2994 Douglas St. 250-3848236, www.wellfoundationorg.blogspot.com.
February 17-26
LA BOHÈME
Royal Theatre
“Begonia Pots” (detail) by Jean Wilmshurst
Hexaphone, Victoria’s six-member a
capella vocal ensemble performs. 8pm,
$18, 3787 Cedar Hill Rd. 250-385-1335,
www.hexaphone.org.
February 19
SEEDY SATURDAY
Victoria Conference Centre
Pacific Opera Victoria presents Puccini’s
classic love story; directed by Michael Shamata.
$37-$132, 805 Broughton St. 250-385-0222,
www.pov.bc.ca.
Victoria’s premier gardening event with
seeds, plants, seedlings, food and garden
products, displays and demos, Master Gardeners,
Seed Swap, kids’ activities, Seedy Cafe, free
speaker sessions. 10am-4pm, $7, under 12
free. Schedule at www.jamesbaymarket.com.
February 17-March 1
VICTORIA EMERGING ARTISTS
Dales Gallery
February 19 & 20
THE PENELOPIAD & THE ODYSSEY
1701 Elgin Road
“Where Are They Now?” 10 artists exhibiting.
Dales is the first satellite gallery to showcase
this exciting group of artists. 537 Fisgard St,
250-383-1552. www.dalesgallery.ca.
February 17-June 5
SILENT AS GLUE
Established Canadian artists Lynda Gammon,
Matt Harle and Elspeth Pratt show works that
allow for a contemplative exploration of the
relationships between architecture and space;
handmade processes; the vernacular; humble
everyday materials. Opens Feb 17, 7:30pm,
1040 Moss St. 250-384-4101, www.aggv.ca.
February 18 & 19
HEAVENLY HARMONY IN
SHAKESPEARE’S ENGLAND
Alix Goolden Hall
The Early Music Society of the Islands
presents the Baltimore Consort; with works
from the Golden Age of music in Elizabethan
England. 907 Pandora Ave, $20-25. 250386-6121, www.rmts.bc.ca.
February 18-June 5
DOWN THE GARDEN PATH
Works by Mark Lewis, Scott McFarland and
Yedda Morrison provide an opportunity to
question how we use, alter and manipulate
public and private spaces. 1040 Moss St. 250384-4101, www.aggv.ca.
February 19
CAFE BERLIN HANS FEAR MEMORIAL
Edelweiss Club
This BC Schizophrenia Society fundraiser
features Cold Cut Combo, U Vic Jazz Orchestra,
and Drabbit Plays Pastorious; artists display/sale.
Doors at 6pm. 108 Niagara St. $22 at Larsen
Music, Tempo Trend, Long & McQuade, Munro’s,
Tanner’s or 250-384-4225; $25 at door.
www.bcssvictoria.ca.
28
February 19
OPPOSITES ATTRACT
Open Space
Presented by Canadian College of Performing
Arts. 250-386-6121, www.rmts.bc.ca.
February 19-March 3
GUY ROY
West End Gallery
Capturing the countryside in Quebec,
particularly the Charlevoix and Amiante regions,
Roy’s winding paths lead to little villages of
brightly-hued houses underneath grand skies
which threaten to burst with colour. 1203
Broad St. www.westendgalleryltd.com, 250388-0009.
February 20
CHARLES FOREMAN PIANO RECITAL
Alix Goolden Hall
907 Pandora Ave, 2:30pm, $21.50/17.50
for students/seniors/$7.50 for members. 250386-6121, www.rmts.bc.ca.
February 20
VANCOUVER OPERA‘S CINDERELLA
McPherson Playhouse
Cinderella is brought to life in an enchanting
English adaptation of Rossini’s opera. 2pm.
Presented by Kaleidoscope Theatre. 250386-6121, www.rmts.bc.ca.
February 21
PEN-IN-HAND READINGS
Serious Coffee
Poetry featuring Ottawa/Montreal writers
Blaine Marchand & Gabriella Goliger. Open mic
sign up 7:15pm, 230 Cook St. 250-995-1316.
February 21
VICTORIA STORYTELLING GUILD
1831 Fern Street
Hear and tell stories. 7:15pm, $5/$3. 250477-7044, www.victoriastorytellers.org.
February 22
AT THE MIKE—FICTION
Fort Cafe
Guest authors include Angie Abdou, Kathleen
Wall, and Marlyn Horsdal. Free, 7pm, 742 Fort
St. 250-360-0829.
ADVERTISEMENT
Focus on food
Kulu Restaurant—local ingredients, Far-East influences
The Victoria Historical Society presents author Susan Mayse.
7:30pm, 234 Menzies St. www.victoriahistoricalsociety.bc.ca.
February 24-March 5
TWELFTH NIGHT
UVic’s Phoenix Theatre
Matinee and evening performances. Previews $6. Regular
$18-$22. 250-721-8000, www.finearts.uvic.ca/theatre.
February 25 & 26
TORONTO DANCE THEATRE
McPherson Playhouse
Presented by Dance Victoria. Choreographer Christopher
House’s new sophisticated and vibrant piece. 7:30pm, $3852 ($5 off for students/seniors). 250-386-6121, www.rmts.bc.ca.
February 27-March 9
SPRING ART EXHIBITION
Community Arts Council of Greater Victoria
View the works of the Victoria Chapter of the Federation
of Canadian Artists at this juried show. Reception and awards
Feb 24, 2-4pm, 6-1001 Douglas St. www.victoriafca.com.
February 27
INCOME TAX WORKSHOP FOR ARTISTS
Cedar Hill Recreation Centre
Learn about the fundamentals of taxation for individual
artists. 1:30-3:30pm, $25, 3220 Cedar Hill Rd. 250-4757121, www.recreation.saanich.ca.
February 27
MUSIC RECITAL
UVic’s Philip T. Young Recital Hall
The Canadian Federation of University Women present
pianist Jilliam Hanks. 2:30pm, free. www.cfuvvictoria.org.
February 27
CONTINUUM CONSORT: DANCE OF THE RAIN
Alix Goolden Hall
Part of the Victoria Conservatory of Music’s Faculty Recital
Series. Works for soprano, flute and guitar. 2:30pm, 907
Pandora Ave, $10-15. 250-386-5311, www.vcm.bc.ca.
Throughout February
BLOOM
Moon Under Water Brew Pub
The Island Illustrators Society presents a 4-artist floral theme
show. 250B Bay St, www.moonunderwater.ca.
Throughout February
SERENITY: THE ASIAN GARDEN
THE LAB: 250 REMIX
ALBRECHT DÜRER PRINTS
EMILY CARR: ON THE EDGE OF NOWHERE
1040 Moss St, 250-384-4101, www.aggv.ca.
Throughout February
ALL SORTS
Eclectic Gallery
View the works of Jennifer McIntyre. 2170 Oak Bay Ave.
250-590-8095, www.electicgallery.ca.
Sundays in February
FOLK MUSIC
Norway House
Feb 6: Skagway. Feb 13: Greg Madill and the Nightrise
Band. Feb 20: Steve Palmer. Feb 27: James Gordon. 7:30pm,
$5. Open stage and performances. 250-475-1355,
www.victoriafolkmusic.ca.
Mondays in February
SINGING FOR THE FAMILY
Kids and adults are invited to join the Harmonius Family
Singers and Choir any Monday. All voices welcome. 250385-7464, www.harmoniousfamilychoir.com.
by Mollie Kaye
E
ven though Victoria is a West-Coast, world-class
travel destination, our Asian restaurants have
historically been a pretty predictable bunch...until
now. Hip Fernwood Square now boasts the newlyopened Kulu Restaurant (owned by chef Hank Kao
and his wife Sydney Liu)—an eatery that is shaking
things up with its devotion to fresh local ingredients,
authentic Far-East influences, and healthy, creative
dishes.What we North Americans think of as “Chinese
food”—pink-dyed and deep-fried—is not on the
menu here. If you want Asian fusion that celebrates
our Island bounty, this is the place.
David Gilchrist, director of finance and administration for the Fernwood Neighbourhood Resource Group,
is delighted by Kulu’s arrival and says it’s one more
excellent reason to come to Fernwood Square,an area
whose shops,eateries,galleries and theatres have firmly
established it as a major hub of the local arts community. He admits he’s become “quite infatuated” with
“If the food is fresh, really fresh,that’s what is most
healthy and tastes the best…The taste and texture
Photo:Tony Bounsall
February 24
VICTORIA: CROWN JEWEL OF BC
James Bay New Horizons Centre
Owners Hank Kao and Sydney Liu with two of Kulu’s culinary
delights: “Salmon Castle” and “Kimchi Tofu with avocado.”
of the vegetable completely changes if it has been
canned or frozen…There is so much we can do with
”
what is grown right here!
—Chef Hank Kao
Kulu.“I like the twist on Asian flavours—it’s clear they’re
taking things up a notch. They’re always giving me
warm smiles and trying out their new appetizers on
me.It’s great!”Just bricks away from the Belfry,hungry
theatre-goers will embrace what Gilchrist calls Kulu’s
“ very reasonably priced”and playful,changing menu.
“They emanate their passion,” he says of Hank and
Sydney.“Every customer is treated really well.”
Hank’s mission is to completely re-invent the North
American Asian restaurant paradigm. Every detail of
what is served reflects his commitment to health,flavour,
and quality.“If the food is fresh, really fresh,that’s what
is most healthy and tastes the best,”he says of his decision to work collaboratively with local produce farmers
and create his menu around what is available in each
season.“The taste and texture of the vegetable completely
changes if it has been canned or frozen,” he laments,
citing other Asian restaurants’ practices of using the
same ingredients year-round just to maintain consistency and deliver the familiar.“There is so much we can
do with what is grown right here!” he says excitedly.
From my first cup of tea at Kulu,it is clear to me that
this is anything but a business-as-usual Asian restaurant.“It’s sour cherry from Silk Road,” Sydney tells me
as I coo happily over my steaming cup. Originally from
Taiwan,this lovely young woman really knows her tea,
and wants the very best for her customers. She spent
many hours sampling the offerings at Silk Road, and
serves only her carefully-chosen favourites in looseleaf form,brewed in individual pots.This kind of attention
to detail and quality, she says, supports her vision of
“people coming in to have some tea, to eat good
food...to talk together and enjoy themselves.”
Lindsay Harper is a big fan of Kulu’s fascinating
variety of flavourful dishes. “The first time I went, it
was a romantic evening out with my boyfriend, and
I really enjoyed the range of appetizers and main
courses they had,” she says, referring to starters like
the Sake Salmon, House Seaweed Salad, and Corn
Soup, and entrees like the delicious and tender Pan
Fried Chicken with Curry—all sauces are Hank’s, from
scratch,and delectable—but the menu,like the seasons,
is constantly changing. Lindsay savours the variety,
and says of Hank, “You can hear how passionate
he is about his food—every dish he creates is something he wants others to enjoy; it’s like he’s making
something for his family and he wants everyone to
come in and be a part of that.”
For Valentine’s Day, the cozy, intimate Kulu is a
perfect place for lovers who are craving the deliciously
different and appreciate fresh, local ingredients—
Hank is planning a special dinner of several courses
to stimulate and satisfy you and your sweetheart.
Reserve now to guarantee your table.
Kulu Restaurant
Open for lunch and dinner Tuesday – Sunday
1296 Gladstone Avenue
778-430-5398
29
show & tell
Beyond the rains
MOLLIE KAYE
Danny Everette Stewart: seeing life’s intrinsic beauty.
I
t took love and death, according to artist
Danny Everett Stewart, to extract him from
Toronto’s big-city intensity. “I had two
extremes, both pushing me.” His spouse Stephen
had moved out here to Victoria, but Stewart
was still reluctant. A few months later, he was
robbed at gunpoint. Remembering that fateful
day in 1994, he says, “I had four dollars on
me—a two dollar bill in each pocket. They had
the gun in my chest...I thought, ‘I’m dead, or
I’m paralyzed.’ Everything had slowed down;
not a car was going by, no one was around.
Then, all of a sudden, everything sped up, cars
went by, and [the assailants] were gone.”
This harrowing event, he now concludes,
was a gift. “When the robbery happened, it
was like it was meant to be; nothing else was
going to motivate me.” He celebrates his life
here with Stephen, surrounded by beauty. “I
consider myself a Victoria boy now…Our
families are still [in Ontario], and we visit them,
but I really don’t like going back there.”
The robbery, and other subsequent challenges, have all been inherently positive,
he says. Insights, inspirations, new connections, and creative tours-de-force have all
been born of what originally seemed the
bleakest of circumstances.
Danny Stewart
That includes Stephen’s diagnosis with stagefour cancer a few years ago. “We thought he
was dead,” says Stewart matter-of-factly. “Stage
four meant you only have so many months to
live.” Originally Stewart didn’t want to paint
at all during that extremely difficult time.
“Thankfully the Cancer Centre had wonderful
programs of support; they said, ‘Why don’t
you try…but I was afraid it would be really
dark. Sure, I would feel better, but no one
would want to hang it up.”
Ultimately, the works he created at that time
didn’t turn out dark after all. Says Stewart,
“What I thought was going to happen didn’t
happen, and what did happen was extraordinary for me—not only in the pieces, but in my
life as a whole.”
“The work that came out of that was
absolutely gorgeous,” he says, recalling both
his triumph in creating the canvases, and the
gifts of insight the process brought. “I saw a
beginning; I thought the end was near, but it’s
not...there’s so much beauty in life.” With a
situation like that, he says, “you see things
differently. I was able to see the positive aspects
of things. [Stephen and I] now concentrate
more on each other,
and the things that are PUTTING PAINTINGS
important—and we
don’t put things off; up on the wall for
we just do it. I think
the very first time
there’s a beauty in that
freeness, and it really and letting people
came across in those
paintings.” And, he see them is like
reports, Stephen’s
condition has stabilized, putting your soul out
thanks to a new drug.
on the laundry line
Another gift.
Stewart’s ability to for the whole neighsee beauty in even
harsh circumstances bourhood to see.
has provided endless
fuel for his creative fire. “I find that when
you’re out of ideas, something will happen,
some sort of thing in your life, negative or
positive...but it happens, and all of a sudden
you’re creating again. Ultimately, there is no
negative experience.”
This applies as well to Stewart’s other work—
as an accountant. “It kind of excites me when
I solve problems—when I’m faced with a challenge, and I get through it.” Mental blocks
happen in both professions, he says. While he
finds each of his careers authentic and satisfying, he says, “I can’t get my emotions out
when I do numbers. It doesn’t release me from
“Rain on the window VII” Danny Stewart,
18 x 24 inches, acrylic on canvas
30
“Tulips V” Danny Stewart, 30 x 30 inches, acrylic on canvas
any of my feelings, and doesn’t help me explore
them, either. Painting does that.”
Painting since childhood, the first confirmation he remembers is winning first prize
in a county fair for a painting he did in grade
two. “They gave me a little bit of money too;
I think it was five dollars, which was like thousands at age seven.” He believes that we all
have certain things programmed into us through
our DNA. “My dog is a border collie; he acts
like a border collie...people are like that too.
I was bred for painting and crunching numbers.
There’s a certain art to numbers.”
In his art, Danny Everett Stewart works
in every scale, from two inches square to over
six feet high, and utilizes thick applications of
acrylics and oils. “They’re mostly bright and
vibrant—lots of colour,” says the artist.
Especially fascinating for him lately is the
effect of looking through the old, wavy glass
of his 1911 home and out into the garden.
“The glass seems like it’s dripping, and the
colours are blurry and skewed and mashed
together. One of the things I love about that
house is seeing green through those windows—
or flowers—I’ve got to try to recreate it. That’s
where all of these paintings were born,” he
says of his current show at the Madrona Gallery
on View Street/Trounce Alley.
Though he knows he can’t please everyone,
he says, “Putting paintings up on the wall for
the very first time and letting people see them
is like putting your soul out on the laundry
line for the whole neighbourhood to see.
You’re vulnerable; you’re not in your little
safety zone. Maybe that’s why I get scared.
But if I think I can do better and haven’t given
my all, that’s where I stop and say, ‘I have to
create something else.’”
Danny Everett Stewart: Beyond the Rains
runs February 11-25, with an opening reception February 11, 5-9 pm, at Madrona
Gallery, 606 View Street (entrance on Trounce
Alley as well). www.madronagallery.com,
250-380-4660.
Mollie Kaye is Focus’ staff
writer.
31
coastlines
A natural love story
AMY REISWIG
Stephen Hume’s new book offers reflections on why we love this place.
Stephen Hume
A
h, February, when the minds of marketers turn to love. Often
branded “V-month,” February can suffocate with its consumer
focus—on candy, cards, roses, etc. But if you’re looking for
something truly from the heart to nourish the heart, Stephen Hume’s
recent collection of essays, A Walk With the Rainy Sisters: In Praise
of British Columbia’s Places (Harbour Publishing, September 2010),
offers one man’s deep, diverse and, ultimately, infectious love: of BC’s
nature and people as well as a great and simple love of life itself.
Hume is a Victoria-grown, multiple-award-winning journalist—
he’s been a columnist and senior writer for the Vancouver Sun for
over 20 years—as well as the author of over half a dozen books of
poetry, essays and natural history. Now living in North Saanich, he
teaches writing at the University of Victoria and Vancouver Island
University in Nanaimo.
In everything he does, he brings an intense curiosity—a permeable
spirit—which gives him a joyful, peaceful sparkle. That sparkle, along
with his short silver hair, glasses and serene yet slightly rascally smile
suggests a blend of Santa Claus and the Dalai Lama. I get the impression that his joy, like theirs, comes from feeling that he hasn’t wasted
a moment of his life.
“I’m a specialist in the encounter,” Hume explains animatedly over
coffee at UVic’s bookstore café. “Any interaction is in you. It’s all about
32
how you perceive and react to things.” Case in point: “Did you know,”
he asks me, “that skunk cabbage regulates its own inner temperature
like a mammal?” Nope. Hume’s ability to find fascination in anything
is a reminder that opportunities to make ourselves bigger through openness surround us at all times.
That genuine openness, the willingness to receive and take in from
what’s around you leads to the desire to give, and that’s what Hume
does in this book. In these
BUT MORE UNEXPECTEDLY, hugely varied 35 short essays,
he gives, as you might expect
Hume gives freely of his feelings. from a journalist, informaStereotypes about emotionally- tion: stats about pollution;
the mathematical calcularestrained men and about tion of spring’s exact arrival;
supposedly hard-nosed journal- arguments about the need
for political change; odd
ists evaporate in the face of, snippets of local history that
make you want to run off
for instance, his unabashed use and learn more (for example,
“Saturna thrusts southeast
of “I love.”
toward the American
boundary and the San Juan Islands, where a dispute over a stray Hudson’s
Bay Company pig wound up costing Canada half the archipelago”).
But more unexpectedly, Hume gives freely of his feelings. Stereotypes
about emotionally-restrained men and supposedly hard-nosed journalists evaporate in the face of, for instance, his unabashed use of “I love.”
“I love the subtle gradations of grey and the filtered light and the everchanging sky,” he writes. “I love a shower’s dimpling hiss across the still,
glassy surface of a woodland bog.” While some readers cringe at anything
bordering on the sentimental, I found myself surprised and disarmed
at Hume’s effusions, and it reminded me that for a journalist, or a learner
of any kind in life, a soft heart is more useful than a hard one.
“When teaching creative non-fiction, I tell students: don’t mess with
the facts,” he says. “But journalism is about human experiences. If you
only write about facts, you won’t reach your readers. If you can touch
their spirits, you can better transfer the information.” And that is, ultimately, the purpose of Hume’s writing, here or in his Vancouver Sun
newspaper columns: to transfer information and effect change.
For when dealing with love, one is almost always dogged by the
threat of loss. Hume addresses loss of wildlife, of wildlife habitat, of
people due to shipwreck or fires, of care and respect for our world and
for one another. Thus, in addition to delight and awe, he also writes
with anger, worry and fear. “This insanity—shoot the last elephant,
harpoon the last whale, cut the last big tree—that permeates our heedless, wastrel culture has got to stop,” he writes, lamenting that “our
irreplaceable heritage [is] being vandalized in the name of the almighty
dollar with…government’s bland and blind approval.” As a result,
meditation on a single pond can become a call for caution, a warning
against complacency: “this secret little pond dreams on through languid
summer days while dragonflies dance across its surface like brilliant
splinters of nature’s prism, messengers from the distant past sent to
ADVERTISEMENT
Focus on your health
Food as medicine
by Mollie Kaye
remind us of everything that is ours to
lose.” Loving deeply
comes with a price.
Despite outbursts
of anger, Hume is
a man and writer of
incredibly positive
outlook. People can
be destroyers and
causes for sorrow,
but Hume introduces us to individuals making
a difference: one man who clears neglected
sections of historic trail, another who handrescues stranded fish fry in the changing
Cowichan River, a lighthouse-keeping couple
who has saved more mariners than any other
keepers on BC’s Pacific shore. What, the
implicit question asks, is each of us willing
to do?
“I’m an optimist,” Hume tells me. “I have
great hope for the future. Here at the university I’ve seen extraordinary shifts in attitude
in students. One reason I keep coming back
to teach here is because I learn more from
these young people than they do from me.”
If you take the long view, he notes, “we’re
not sure what’s going to happen. Looking
back at history, we’re not even really sure
what happened, and we’re not really sure
of what’s happening now. Things are
advancing all the time, but it’s slow. I have
a great deal of faith in the collective wisdom
of people.”
Hume is a man of generous heart whose
ideas, commitment and ability to articulate his
appreciation of both the small and the cosmicscale beauty of life make you want to be more
generous as well. This February, reclaim Vmonth from the storefronts and take a walk
with Stephen Hume through our province in
celebration of a different kind of love.
Victoria writer and editor
Amy Reiswig has nothing
against romance, but thinks
that the free beauty of
nature makes the best gift
for sharing with a beloved
at any time of the year.
Photo: Cathie Ferguson
I
’m beginning to wonder if my “healthy”diet is really
as great for me as I’ve always imagined it to be.
Sure, I eat lots of vegetables and whole grains,
but I’m still noticing some health complaints: issues
with digestion,skin,and energy levels.What if my body
is reacting badly to some of the “healthy” things
I’ve been consuming—in vast quantities—for all these
years? Could I eat more strategically for better health?
“Food sensitivities represent a major aspect of most
people’s health issues,” advises Dr. Maria Payne
Boorman,a Naturopathic Physician practicing in Victoria
at Hawthorne Naturopathic Centre. “I like to create
that ‘a-ha moment’ for patients, when they realize
that eliminating a specific food from their diet can
have a significant, positive impact on their health.”
Dr. Boorman uses EAV, also known as Biomeridian
testing, which involves taking simple, painless electrical readings on the skin’s surface to measure sensitivity
to a variety of foods, vitamins, minerals, and herbs.
Once the results are known, she collaborates with
her patients to create a “food as medicine” nutritional program. “Knowing and eliminating what is
causing imbalance in your system can aid in resolving
weight issues, digestive issues, skin eruptions,
foggy head, low energy and even mood, which shows
up as behaviour issues in children,” she advises.
“Wheat, gluten, dairy, soy, and caffeine are the
most common culprits, but a person could be reacting
to almost any food,” says Dr. Boorman.“The benefits
of cutting out the offending food can be almost immediate, and I advise most patients to maintain a diet
free of these foods for up to a year.At that point, they
may have healed sufficiently to introduce small quantities of the food into their diet again.”
In April of 2008, J. was very ill.“I had a lot of digestive problems in addition to other chronic health issues,”
she says.“Maria came highly recommended as a health
professional who ‘thinks outside the box.’ We focused
on my individual needs and worked at a pace that I
could tolerate. I knew I had food sensitivities, but had
not been able to isolate exactly what I needed to avoid.
We tested and found a number of severe reactions.
Eliminating these foods was daunting at first,but Maria
took me step-by-step through the process,even grocery
shopping with me and giving me recipe ideas.”
“We don’t realize how low our level of health is
when there are problems in our diet,” explains J.
“When the problems are gone,you realize how unwell
you really were.After working with Maria, there has
been a major shift in the quality of my life.” J. attributes this to Dr. Boorman’s support, wisdom and
collaborative approach.“My GP speaks to Maria, and
she speaks to my GP; I get the best of both worlds.”
“It’s wonderful that traditional and naturopathic
medicine are now seeing eye-to-eye on the huge
issue of food sensitivities,” says Dr Boorman. “It is
“Food sensitivities represent a major aspect of
most people’s health issues…I like to create that
‘a-ha moment’ for patients, when they realize
that eliminating a specific food from their diet can
”
have a significant,positive impact on their health.
—Dr. Maria Payne Boorman, ND
now widely agreed upon that nutrition, food allergies and sensitivities can have an enormous impact
on many conditions.”
“What I like about Maria is that she is very scientific-minded, but follows her heart and listens closely
to her patient’s needs,”says J.“She looks at the whole
picture, both physical and emotional, but has her
grounding in the biochemistry of your body and how
foods and supplements directly affect your health.”
“My goal is to create such optimal nutrition for my
patients that they don’t crave the foods that sabotage their bodies,” says Dr. Boorman with a warm
smile.“I strive to create such open lines of communication that a sense of genuine collaboration happens
for both patient and health professional—this is what
supports the best possible healing.”
Dr. Maria Payne Boorman, BSc, ND
Hawthorne Naturopathic Centre
1726 Richmond Road,Victoria
250-598-3314
www.hawthornehealthcentre.com
33
this
place
my dream city 34 urbanities 36 rearview mirror 40 natural relations 42 in context 44 finding balance 46
The empowerment of place
AAREN MADDEN
Jane Baigent’s fascination with rocks have nurtured her love of place.
34
O
ne evening last fall, I sat at one of several tables in the new Vic
West Community Centre with a few neighbours. There we
were presented with a large map of the block of Craigflower
Road containing the Spiral Café, Sailor Jack kids’ consignment and all
the other great shops my family frequents.
While I sipped lemon balm mint tea harvested from the nearby
Bamfield Commons, artist and community activist Jane Baigent introduced the concept of placemaking. The idea, in a horse-chestnut shell,
is about what makes a community unique, including its geography,
its history, its present, and its people. Placemaking shows the handprints of its residents not just visually, but in the feel of the place.
Portland’s City Repair Project is an example Baigent cited where neighbourhoods are brought to life through road murals, handmade benches,
hand-painted signs—unique DIY touches that go a few steps beyond
the usual banners hung from lamp standards. These other things make
you feel like you’re somewhere.
As a member of the Vic West Community Association, Baigent was
fully engaged in the four- to five-year process that culminated in the
evening’s adjacent purpose: a public meeting regarding planned traffic
calming measures.
“We fully accept that we live on commuter routes, but we want a
walkable community and a sense of community…a clear message to
vehicles that we live here, that we use the road by walking on it and
across it,” stated Baigent. Placemaking starts with facilitating walking,
the pace that inherently fosters deep experience of place.
By night’s end, our map emoted with notes, exclamations, plans.
We had overhead lanterns, a road mural a block long, sidewalk chalk,
you name it.
A couple of months later, as we sit in her living room, Baigent recalls:
“I felt good about it because I had to keep on interrupting, to even be
heard. The din was great, people all talking to each other and pointing
to the maps, meeting new neighbours.”
Eight years ago when she moved into her Vic West home, Baigent’s
house stood on a blackberry-brambled, tucked-away lane where people
wandered and cars slowed accordingly. She loved its slow, neighbourly
ambience, and wanted to keep it that way. When she learned it was
to be replaced by a busy, three-lane paved road, she joined the community association and her interest in placemaking was kindled. Although
she lost the battle for her lane, she won a community. Now, she’s finding
independent ways (like the workshop) to build community through
enhancing sense of place.
Baigent’s art practice, too, centres on the subject of placemaking.
She teaches photography at Vic High and uses photographs as guides
in her impressive drawings, two of which confront me as we sit and
chat. They have both an imposing and tranquil presence. A four-bysix-foot rock face rendered in graphite on raw canvas interprets Agawa
Canyon in northern Ontario. A smaller piece shows cobbles and kelp
at Cattle Point in Oak Bay. In depictions of tiny fissures, seams and
veins in the rock, the smooth swirl of seaweed and water-sculpted stone,
Jane Baigent
both drawings evoke their settings through basic and defining elements.
She calls them “portraits of places.” Indeed, the drawings of her Rockface
and Tidelines series are meditations on place. Shown in galleries across
Canada and housed in collections throughout North America and in
Germany, Baigent’s been producing these drawings since the 1980s
and they testify to her lifelong fascination with rock—“the texture, the
colour, the form of it.”
It was that fascination which led to her interest in the ancient Pueblo
Peoples, and their homes hewn into canyons. Beginning in 1989, she
volunteered with archaeologists at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.
The place, showing evidence of life lived within the rock, “just felt
Voted for best “All You Can Eat” restaurant
in 2009 and 2010 Best in City
IT WOULD BE MAGIC if we could somehow, in any urban environment—
we in Vic West, we in Victoria—get in touch with that sense of living within
our means and find a heightened awareness of our place.”
—Jane Baigent
right,” she recalls. She split the next eight years
between teaching at an art school in London,
Ontario; the “red rock and cobalt blue sky”
of the desert; and the cool-hued stones and
filtered light of the West Coast.
Her peripateticism generated within her a
unique state of constant return; an ability to
see through eyes filled with the wonder of
newness, and that allowed her to maintain a
knowledge of place that never faded into
complacent familiarity. “I was acutely aware
of what made this place different, special, and
then what made that place,” she says.
The Vic West visioning project she was
involved in through the community association about five years ago was all about that.
One of its products was a map Baigent drew,
satisfying another passion (she has an entire
bookshelf devoted to maps and atlases). The
map shows local landmarks including ecological, cultural, and historical ones. These
landmarks represent what’s meaningful to the
people who live there, and the map functions
as a multifaceted community-building tool.
“If you identify a place as important to
you, the next step is being a steward of it.
The step after that is to enhance,” she explains.
A group of grade six students who had learned
the community’s coastal marine biology
gave a tour as part of the visioning process.
Baigent overheard one commenting to a
classmate afterward, “You wouldn’t believe
it, but I saw an adult throw a coffee cup
down into Lime Bay!” “He was appalled!”
said Baigent; “I thought that was great; he’s
got it. He’s already looked after it, picked
up the garbage, watched the fish, counted
them.” The creatures he and his classmates
studied are labelled among the hand-drawn
waves on the map’s shorelines.
Just after the placemaking workshop, Baigent
returned to the desert and she was reminded
of how culturally intrinsic stewardship was
for the Pueblo People. They cultivated tiny
pockets of land from the canyon’s ridge down
into its depths, knowing that some, but not
all, of the plots would produce. Small dams
built into the rock in just the right places
controlled and pooled precious rainfall. “If
you’re farming in a desert, you can’t make any
assumptions,” Baigent observes, tapping a
book on her table called Canyon Gardens. “It
was all set up based on looking, watching, and
being respectful of the environment. It was
a matter of life and death. It is for us too, we
just don’t realize that.”
As she observed and documented the desert
landscape through her camera lens, Baigent
found herself frequently overcome. “Down
into canyons and onto mesa tops you are actually travelling through geological time, through
eons, and you learn what kind of rock was
put down by an ocean hundreds of years ago,
what was put down by sand dunes, volcanic
activity, pressure and heat; you start to recognize them. To me, that’s learning a place,
becoming aware of a sense of place, of where
you are,” she explains.
The desert and the West Coast have at least
one similarity in Baigent’s mind—a sense of
“opening out.” Standing on a brilliant red
mesa top is “the same as the sense of vast space
I get here when I am by the ocean or on the
ocean in a kayak,” she says. It’s that vastness
that makes her acutely, and inversely, aware
of the intricate details in every tide-sculpted
stone on our own shores: the dark basalts laced
with gleaming quartz, the speckled granites,
muted rusty jaspers, the milky greens.
“It would be magic if we could somehow,
in any urban environment—we in Vic West,
we in Victoria—get in touch with that sense
of living within our means and find a heightened awareness of our place.”
The simple act of walking, of being here,
is, for Baigent, the essential beginning. From
there, our place is what we make it.
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Aaren Madden has a son
whose first drawings
were of maps, and a
daughter who is forever
tucking rocks into her
wee pockets.
35
urbanities
It’s not our rush hour
GENE MILLER
Self-interest should be the starting point for Victoria’s transportation planning.
PHOTO: DAVID BROADLAND
YOU SAY: Yes, but people living in the Western Communities
who work for government, etc. get stuck in long, unwieldy,
rush-hour traffic jams in the morning and later afternoon.
And I say: boo-hoo, my heart bleeds for them.
The Colwood Crawl backed up over Colquitz River Bridge
H
op in the car. What? Oh, you don’t like
the butt-warmer? Just turn that thumbwheel to zero. Not that one, that’s for
dashboard lighting level.
Where are we going? We’re just conducting
a Wednesday afternoon experiment. What
does your watch say? 3:41? Good. So, here
we are turning onto Blanshard from Broughton,
by the Royal Theatre. We’ll stay to the right
because cars can still make left turns up until
four o’clock. Hey, nice! It’s 3:43 and we’re
just hitting our first red light at Fisgard at the
arena corner. Less than a minute later and
we’re cruising through Bay Street when the
traffic light second-counter still says five…four;
and it looks like we’re going to make it through
the Hillside Avenue green also. Damn! The
truck ahead of us had to pause for a pedestrian, and now the light’s turning yellow.
36
Traffic’s starting to thicken at Finlayson
across all three lanes of Blanshard, and it looks
like we’re going to miss a light cycle. Yup, it
happened. Not too bad at Tolmie, but I can
see the river of brake lights ahead, and I bet
we’re going to be two lights squeezing through
Cloverdale and maybe even three on the crawl
through the long Saanich Road light near where
Uptown shopping centre is taking shape.
Oh, wait a minute, we’ve been driving in
Saanich for the last number of minutes, not
Victoria. Oops!
Do you need me to go back downtown
and make the same northbound trip out
Douglas Street instead of Blanshard, heading
toward Uptown where Douglas becomes the
Trans-Canada Highway? Or down Pandora
toward the Johnson Street Bridge? Or down
Bay to the Bay Street Bridge? Or out Quadra
or Cook? Or up Fort or Johnson headed
toward Oak Bay?
Do you want me to conduct the whole experiment an hour later, around five, if you think
the traffic will be heavier then?
Or would you like to take my word for it
and come to the same conclusion I have come
to: traffic in Victoria is not a problem and
rush-hour traffic into or out of the city is not
Victoria’s problem. It’s Saanich’s. Or the
Western Communities’.
Victoria, the city—even and especially the
street network serving downtown and environs—is a brilliant demonstration of successful
high-volume traffic management. So why is
Victoria putting any energy whatsoever into
the idea of a regional transportation plan?
All the people who journey into Victoria by
car, vanpool, bus or bike are already doing so
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by exactly those means…without a regional transportation plan. In
other words, there is already a plan. It’s called: people getting around.
They come into town. They work for government. They work in offices.
They work for businesses and in shops. And so on.
So, why would Victoria want to spend a penny or any political capital
on a transportation plan or on new systems that will simply do what is
already being done more or less successfully? Especially when the real
problem isn’t in Victoria, but elsewhere? (By the way, you don’t have
to take my word. Test this for yourself during morning or afternoon
rush hours. Sure, traffic is heavier everywhere then, but there are no
standstills, no gridlock, within the city itself.)
You say: Yes, but people living in the Western Communities who
work for government, etc. get stuck in long, unwieldy, rush-hour traffic
jams in the morning and later afternoon. And I say: boo-hoo, my heart
bleeds for them. They have to come into town because of work or
professional obligations. Honestly, who cares if they drive their cars or
crawl in on their nose hairs? Or if they don’t like the commute, let them
dump their jobs with the provincial government and work in Langford.
I understand Tim Horton’s on Goldstream Avenue is hiring.
And if there was an express bus or rail corridor between downtown
and Uptown in Saanich, this would benefit downtown how, exactly?
Look, I am neither a crackpot
nor a Luddite nor a fool, so follow EVERYBODY WHO NEEDS
my logic. Everybody who needs
or chooses to come downtown or chooses to come downis currently doing so. All others
town is currently doing so.
are clearly avoiding downtown,
and the presence of a high-speed All others are clearly avoiding
bus or a light rail connection is
downtown, and the presnot likely to make much if any
difference, as in: “You want me ence of a high-speed bus or
to drive from my home to
Uptown, park illegally, take public a light rail connection is not
transit to downtown and back? likely to make much if any
For what? Why would I do that?
For all that trouble, I’ll just stay difference...
at Uptown and shop, thank you.”
The problem is cultural and historical: We have been cultivating
beliefs about the city’s centrality for a very long time, and old beliefs
are very hard to shed. I’ve heard various theses, the most popular of
which is that the dominating presence of the provincial government
produces a lulling effect characteristic of company towns. It’s hard to
become competitive, tough, practical and self-interested overnight. In
my view, we could do worse right now than to act as if the provincial
government were only visiting.
Transportation? Economic development? There is no regional
perspective. The political leadership in various municipalities is making
hard-headed decisions pitched to their own local advantage. Here’s
Saanich’s Frank Leonard in the local paper just before Christmas
under the headline “Saanich mayor calls for better transit service.”
Saanich cannot afford to let plans for rapid transit on the Douglas Street
corridor push its regular transit needs to the back burner, Mayor Frank Leonard
says. “The 25-year plan for transit concerns me because it’s not recognizing
the needs of the existing population,” he said.
“It seems to have a bias toward chasing not so much population
growth but sprawl, in some respects—the population that’s on the outer
reaches of the region going into new subdivisions as opposed to the density
that a municipality like ours is providing within existing boundaries,” Leonard
38
Focus presents: CDF Woodworks
said. Leonard said existing neighbourhoods in
Saanich need a better transit service.
Does Victoria itself have unmet mobility
needs? Absolutely! Should self-interest be the
starting point for Victoria’s thoughts about
mobility needs and the investment of its
stretched finances and limited administrative
capacity? Absolutely! How should that be
defined? Two simple ideas: convenience and
service to Victoria citizens, and downtown
economic development.
To be clear, Victoria can have great success
when it tries. One of the regrettably underreported triumphs of Dean Fortin’s mayoral
leadership has been the enormous progress
made in the provision of housing for various
at-risk constituencies, including the homeless.
A second is policing and downtown security.
And regardless of where you stand on the Blue
Bridge issue, there is no missing (or admiring)
the mayor’s dogged campaign to win public
support for City spending on a new bridge.
We need to harness that determination to
create a modest but entirely achievable mobility
revolution—some form or multiform of transportation to supplement big busses tied to
their routes. Ideally, it would be a much more
granular—the wifi of mobility—and come
as close as possible to the convenience of a
car and the responsiveness of a taxi, without
costing any more than an hour’s downtown
parking. Sort of the land-based analogue to
the harbour ferries. Or maybe enclosed powerassisted pedi-cabs. Or taxis, using a different
tariff strategy.
The idea, in any case, would be to enable
Victoria to draw on the economic strengths
of its dense population and the geographic
advantages of its small land footprint. At a
guess, there is no point within the political
boundaries of Victoria more than eight minutes
from downtown by vehicle; and to provide
mobility convenience to this population so
it can bring its shopping dollars and service
needs downtown makes a lot of sense.
Actually, given success, such downtown
mobility services might extend into the near
reaches of Saanich. I’m sure Mayor Leonard
wouldn’t mind.
Gene Miller is the
founder of Open
Space Arts Centre,
Monday Magazine,
and the Gaining
Ground Sustainable
Urban Development
Summit.
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Not just another pretty kitchen
by Mollie Kaye
A
fter reading an article about
below the quote we got from another
German-born designer and woodplace in town, and this was after taxes,”
Tony emphasizes.
worker Sven Grosse in Focus last
fall,Tony and Catherine Steele of Cordova
Says Sven,“I prefer to do business in
Bay decided to hire him to do extensive
a way that my clients are not a number,
renovations on their new home. “We
my work is not a business transaction,
had just bought our house,” says Tony.
but instead a fun way to work together.”
“We went to a few other places in town,
To that end, he doesn’t take on more
then we looked at a kitchen Sven had
than one job at a time, and doesn’t
Sven Grosse
just done for one of his other clients, and
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vided attention to each job. It makes for
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Sven apprenticed in both carpentry and cabinetso much cupboard space that we actually have empty
making in Bavaria and has since worked all over Europe
drawers!”This is a shock to Tony,who adds,“If anything,
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to the back of the cupboards.”
“This kitchen is all ‘green’ and going to someone
Sven also introduced the Steeles to innovative,
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“invisible” lighting with customized LED fixtures not
gesturing to some beautiful cabinets he custom-built,
widely available here.“He’s way ahead of the curve,”
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says Tony. Because of Sven’s decades of experience
mixture. I’ve used wood with no formaldehyde, and
creating custom-designed trade show displays for
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clients ranging from multinational corporations to
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39
rearview mirror
The Finlayson connection
DANDA HUMPHREYS
A burned-out brick façade reminds us of a
former chief factor and mayor.
N
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MULTIMEDIA COVERAGE
INDEPENDENT * NEWS/ARTS/MUSIC
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Photos: Pete Rockwell
40
ews of upcoming redevelopment in our historic Chinatown
would bring a smile to the face of at least one long-ago civic
personage if he were still around to hear it. Roderick Finlayson
died almost 120 years ago, but his legacy will live on in a soon-to-berevitalized Pandora Avenue building.
Born in Ross-shire, Scotland in 1837, Finlayson came to Canada at
the age of 19. He almost immediately found work as an apprentice
clerk with the Hudson’s Bay Company—the beginning of a lifetime of
adventure. Before long, he was sent across Canada, to the Columbia
District west of the Rocky Mountains. At Fort Nisqually, on Puget
Sound, he met up with HBC veteran James Douglas. The two set sail
on the Beaver, bound for Sitka and negotiations with the Russian
American Company. Their route took them past Vancouver’s Island,
as it was then called, and Finlayson would later remark, “I little thought
that it would ultimately be my home.”
In 1842, Finlayson’s life took an unexpected turn when he was posted
to Fort Simpson (on the Nass River) and found himself in the company
of Sarah, daughter of the fort’s Chief Factor, John Work, and his wife
Josette. Finlayson was completely captivated by her, but had to leave
her behind when in June 1843 he was transferred to the southern
end of the same island he had sailed past just a few years earlier.
James Douglas, who was based at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia
River, had chosen a location for a new trading post on our harbour’s
east side. Now he was ready to return to the Columbia, leaving
long-term HBC employee Charles Ross in charge of Fort Victoria’s
construction, with Finlayson as second-in-command. Unfortunately
Ross, already in poor health, was not long for this world. In the spring
of 1844, he became very sick. He blamed “a rather merry Christmas
and New Year,” but his symptoms continued to worsen, and after five
days of terrible suffering, he died. Finlayson, who had ministered to
him during those last agonizing hours, took command of the new fort.
He was just 26 years old.
By the time Douglas returned in 1849, the fort was a thriving trading
centre, destined to be the HBC’s new northern headquarters with
Douglas himself as Chief Factor. Finlayson stepped sideways to become
chief accountant and first treasurer for the colonial government—and
at long last was in a position to marry his beloved Sarah. The newlyweds celebrated their first New Year in their quarters at the fort.
Some time later, Finlayson purchased a huge estate stretching
from Rock Bay to Spring Ridge, and built a large home for his growing
family in its centre. The Finlaysons’ seven daughters and four sons grew
up in this roomy, rambling house with its meadows, orchards, formal
gardens, carriage houses, stables, and a barn for the cow, near the intersection of Douglas and Bay streets—in those days, the outskirts of town.
In 1850, Finlayson was appointed chief trader. In 1859, when Douglas
cut his ties with the HBC, Finlayson became chief factor, and eventually retired from the company’s service in 1872 to concentrate on his
farming and real estate interests. He was a member of the legislative
assembly for many years, and was elected mayor of Victoria in 1878.
An astute and successful businessman, he remained active until the day
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Victoria Hospice: built on trust
by Mollie Kaye
The remanants of Finlayson’s building on Pandora Avenue
he died, suddenly, in January 1892 at the age of 74. The whole city
mourned the man who many considered to be the true founder of
Victoria. Sarah lived on in the family home for 14 years. Shortly after
she died, in 1906, the beautiful old house disappeared in favour of
commercial development, and a goodly chunk of Victoria’s history
disappeared along with it.
Ten years before his death, Finlayson had invested in two downtown
buildings; one a commercial property at 1202 Wharf Street (now
Hartwig Court); the other a two-storey brick and stone building at 528
Pandora Avenue. Chinatown’s population was booming. Wooden
shacks built in the late 1850s were being replaced with more substantial structures, all connected by a network of alleys and inner courtyards.
A mid-20th century slump was followed by a civic and private investment-funded revitalization that led to Chinatown’s 1996 designation
as a National Historic District, and today the area is thriving again.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of Finlayson’s building. A few
years ago, fire destroyed all but its historic façade and parts of the
retaining walls. But help is at hand. Anthem Properties plans a major
new condominium development (“Union” with 133 units) that will
incorporate Finlayson’s façade—a fitting tribute to the last surviving
original member of Fort Victoria’s fur-trading team.
Danda Humphreys has written several books about
Victoria’s early European arrivals. www.dandahumphreys.com
Photo: Tony Bounsall
PHOTO: DAVID BROADLAND
I
t’s been said that donors don’t give to institutions, they invest in the ideas
and people in whom they believe and trust. At Victoria Hospice, being
accountable to donors is as important as providing the best care for those
facing advanced illness, death and bereavement.
Kathleen Burton, Director
of Development at Victoria
Hospice, says, “We know that
people have a lot of choices
for their valued donor dollars.
We do everything we can to
give people the assurance that
when they give to us, their
contributions will be used wisely
to provide expert care for
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Community donations are
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care system; the balance must
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Each year,Victoria Hospice has
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In the Fall of 2010, the organization appealed to the
community to raise a shortfall
of $1.2 million and the response
has been outstanding—there
While we thank and celebrate everyone
have been contributions totaling who has contributed, we would like to
$700,000 to date.“We are nearly
there,” says Kathleen. “While remind the community there is still
we thank and celebrate everyone $500,000 more needed by March 31,
who has contributed, we would
2011 to prevent further program cuts.
like to remind the community
there is still $500,000 more —Kathleen Burton, Director of Development
needed by March 31, 2011 to
prevent further program cuts.” She also cautions, “While this takes care
of our immediate need, we must continue to build our financial resources
to ensure that the care you have come to trust will be available to meet
the increasing demands of an aging population.”
“As stewards of your donor dollars, Victoria Hospice takes very seriously the trust the community has placed in us,” says Kathleen. For the past
two years,Victoria Hospice has been recognized as a recommended charity
by Charity Intelligence Canada. In addition,Victoria Hospice adheres to the
standards set out by Imagine Canada’s Ethical Fundraising and Financial
Accountability Code.
If you value quality of life at the end of life—and want to give to an organization that you can trust—consider an immediate gift to Victoria Hospice.
“
”
Victoria Hospice • 250-952-5720
Give online at www.VictoriaHospice.org
41
natural relations
Wham BAM, thank you TAM
BRIONY PENN
Corporate mergers raise questions about who really owns BC.
42
PHOTO: KJ MULLINS
I
used to report on the colourful species that
inhabit this part of the world, but those articles are diminishing with their populations.
Now I’m as likely to report on the colourful
CEOs of companies who are doing their best
to liquidate these last “distressed assets.” It’s
quite a challenge, as one has to be able to follow
the ever-changing mergers, selloffs and vertical
integrations that the big players concoct through
Byzantine-like structures and deals.
One also has to be able to remember threeword acronyms which often change. To follow
the money in this region right now, the most
important ones to be aware of are BAM and
TAM. Look out your window anywhere from
Crofton to Sooke and you’ll be gazing at a
piece of real estate owned in some fashion by
BAM or TAM.
Mr Martin J. Whitman, the founder of
Third Avenue Management (TAM), runs
his empire out of New York; a few of its minor
assets have included Western Forest Products,
Timberwest, and Island Timberlands through
associations with another roving predator of
distressed companies, Brookfield Asset
Management (BAM) under CEO Bruce Flatt.
TAM and BAM form a many-headed hydra
that has been devouring most of the private
forestlands on southeast Vancouver Island.
These distressed asset managers live in the
skyscrapers of New York and Toronto from
which they “manage” thousands of hectares of
forest in the Capital Region. We rely on these
forests for water and are now having to buy
them back from BAM/TAM at great expense.
If you travel around British Columbia, you’ll
gaze upon many other TAM assets. In fact,
fully one quarter of BC’s public harvesting
rights—over 10 million cubic metres of Crown
forest—are now under TAM’s controlling
interest through their acquisition of huge
chunks of BC’s biggest forest and pulp companies, including Canfor and Catalyst. As pressures
to privatize crown assets continue, the companies with existing leases to resources will be
best poised to secure title to the land underlying those resources.
TAM, working alongside Jimmy Pattison
(who is also a board member of BAM), has
majority share ownership in Canfor. Pattison
and Whitman joined together in 2007 to vote
Zoe Miles
in their own slate of directors, including TAM
men like Amit Wadhwaney, an ex-Domtar
forest products analyst who heads up the TAM
International Value Fund, and Ian Lapey,
Whitman’s future successor (they are not on
the board now, though Pattison is). The same
sort of thing went on with Catalyst. The typical
pattern is: close down facilities, consolidate,
liquidate assets, avoid taxes (as happened in
Crofton), try and exert influence on the political system, wait out the process of privatization
and then sell.
Whitman’s investment mantra is “Safe and
Cheap.” He coined it after the war when he
discovered there was a lot of money to be made
buying distressed companies in sectors hit
by recession; liquidating and consolidating;
then waiting it out for the rising market.
The philosophy is stated this way on TAM’s
website: “We believe the cheaper you buy, the
greater the potential investment reward and
the cheaper you buy, the less the inherent risk.”
What was Whitman’s inspiration? His biography states: “When he encountered a timber
company rich with assets [aka forests] but no
visible earnings power he realized there was a
better way.” One assumes the “better way” is
to liquidate the forests prior to selling the land
when real estate prices are rising. In southeast
Vancouver Island, there has never been so much
timber removed from these forests so quickly.
We shouldn’t be surprised that our province
attracts such companies. Who could resist
British Columbia, a great little banana republic
on the doorstep of America that meets all those
great investment criteria? Safe? For sure, there
are no Zapatistas here. And cheap? Once you’ve
creamed the forest off the top, you have free
real estate that can be sold. Moreover, we have
a provincial government that seems easily
swayed by corporate investors.
Right behind TAM’s Whitman as top man
for liquidating our forests is BAM’s Bruce
Flatt, now a revered investment guru, even
being described in the media as “Canada’s
Warren Buffet.”
Recently Mr Flatt was pursued by a courageous young woman from Cortes Island. Zoe
Miles is a member of Wildstands, an alliance
of Cortes citizens that aims to protect the
island’s ecosystems. Wildstands says they
asked Island Timberlands to sell 2700 hectares
of Cortes forestlands slated for logging
back to the community. The lands include
clusters of rare old growth giants, shelter many
endangered species, and encompass several
entire watersheds.
Zoe Miles decided to go to Toronto to try
and have a conversation with the CEO of
Island Timberlands’ parent company BAM,
Mr Bruce Flatt.
First, though, she got in touch with Jonnie
Penn, a young Victoria man (and also my
nephew), who produces and stars in a popular
MTV reality show called Buried Life that asks
viewers: “What do you want to do before
you die?” Zoe wanted to save her island forest,
and hoped Jonnie could help her reach Mr
Flatt. Penn and his partners thought it was a
worthy goal and decided to help. After filming
on Cortes this September, they headed to talk
with Bruce Flatt at BAM’s headquarters in a
towering Bay Street skyscraper defended by
a bristling squad of security men. Hundreds
of young women dressed in blue to look like
Avatars showed up to support Zoe. Flatt,
perhaps not surprisingly, failed to appear.
(Google “Zoe Miles goes to Toronto.”)
Perhaps it wasn’t such a big surprise, either,
that when the Buried Life show aired on MTV
this November, there was no mention of
BAM/TAM and only clips of a patch of second
growth. What happened? Jonnie told me “the
powers above became extremely anxious and
we were forced to cut all mention of BAM.”
Because of their immense power, these
companies are perverting our landscape, both
physically and metaphorically. Their slash
and sell behaviour destabilizes both the
ADVERTISEMENT
Focus on your money
Ethical investing: making a difference while making a dollar
by Mollie Kaye
FULLY ONE QUARTER of BC’s public
cubic metres of Crown forest—are
now under TAM’s controlling interest.
economy and ecology, making it impossible for local communities to exercise control
over their future. The removal and replacement of forests also have far-reaching
implications for climate change.
Another Cortes resident, Tzeporah Berman,
who is now co-head of the climate and energy
program for Greenpeace International, warns
us not to be fooled by Island Timberlands’ claim
to sustainable logging practices: “The majority
of their logging is traditional clearcut logging
with devastating ecological implications that
results in either a change of landuse or a dramatically weakened and simplified ecosystem. The
Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) that Island
Timberlands touts does not ensure strong environmental standards and has little support from
First Nations or environmental organizations.”
In fact, she reports that ForestEthics (an organization she co-founded) has filed complaints
about SFI’s greenwashing claims and the legitimacy of SFI’s tax status as a public charity with
the US Federal Trade Commission and the US
Internal Revenue Service.
Although governments seem reluctant to
regulate against the dangerous über-control
exercised by the BAM/TAMs of this era,
citizens like Zoe Miles are sending out strong
signals that BC is not just another banana
republic where investors can buy forests cheap
and suck the lifeblood from communities.
The negative publicity being generated will,
inevitably, concern some would-be investors
enough that they will avoid investing in the
BAM/TAMs, or, if they already own shares in
such companies, motivate them to attend shareholder meetings and demand an end to
liquidating forests.
Meanwhile, in the last 24 hours while writing
this, TAM has offloaded some BAM shares
after a record rise in share prices, having previously hit some bottom lows. Wham BAM,
thank you TAM.
Briony Penn PhD is a
naturalist, journalist,
artist and awardwinning environmental
educator.
F
lorence Best,now in her 70s,doesn’t mince words
when I ask about her ethical approach to
investing—and tell her that others who are at
or near retirement may worry they would be sacrificing
income potential if they did the same. “I think that’s
nonsense,” says the feisty septuagenarian.“I need my
investments for income, but I also want to be involved
with companies I have respect for, and it’s working just
fine.There are more and more opportunities to have
ethical investments that provide solid income. You
can’t really complain about the state of the world if
you’re not investing ethically.If I didn’t invest my money
in a conscious way, I wouldn’t be able to face my children and my grandchildren.”
“I think the statement,‘I’d love to invest ethically,
but I couldn’t make the same money’ is, for me, the
ultimate red herring,” says Stephen Whipp, a seasoned
senior financial advisor who has been in the business
of ethical investing so long that he’s well-versed in
the pros and cons of different approaches.There are
no cons in ethical investing,unless you count consciousness. “We’re not in the philanthropy business;
we’re in the business of growing people’s wealth. If
they are using their investments to live off of, we
provide that reliable income for them; ethical investing
is truly a win-win-win.”
Florence and her sister Ruth Miller (also in her
70s and a member of the activist group Raging Grannies)
are delighted to know that their money is supporting
both positive changes in the world and positive growth
in their portfolios. They have enormous respect for
Stephen Whipp. “Stephen knows what I need, and
that’s the way he invests for me,” says Florence. “He
calls us, and we examine the statements each month;
every year he meets with us in our home to review
all of our investments. He’s absolutely wonderful to
work with.He cares about us as people,not just clients.
And he’s not pushy,’” she adds. “He really listens.”
Moira Chaudhry, who works for the Sierra Club,
also has a portfolio of ethical investments managed
by Stephen. “I first met Steve when I was working at
Dogwood Initiative;he was on the board.I didn’t know
very much about ethical investing, but I was eager
to learn about it, and invest in companies that could
make profit but also be part of the solution in terms
of environmental and social issues. Some companies
have a perception that to make money, you have to
not care about those things, but I was interested to
learn about companies that didn’t believe that.”
A mother of young children, Moira definitely has
an eye toward the future. She sees her investments as
a way to make even more of a positive difference in
the world, to magnify by thousands of times what she,
as an individual, can accomplish as an environmentalist. “I didn’t really have any anxiety about the
performance of my investments; when I joined with
Photo:Tony Bounsall
harvesting rights—over 10 million
“I can help guide your investments to consciously
achieve your financial goals—and to create more
”
of what you would like to see in the world.
—Stephen Whipp
Steve, he showed me the actual statistics on socially
responsible funds, and it’s really clear that they tend
to out-perform conventional funds.”
Stephen reports that many of his clients’ ethically-invested portfolios have all grown beyond their
pre-downturn valuations, even those that continue to
provide steady income.“We have shown over the years
that generating income through ethical investing is
not an issue at all,” he says. “Using wealth to influence and impact the world—this is ‘impact investing.’
Investments are doing incredible things; what impact
do you want to have? Do you want cleaner sources
of energy? Do you want affordable housing and better
communities?”
“Investing is like voting,” says Stephen Whipp.“If
you want to see changes, you must participate. I can
help guide your investments to consciously achieve
your financial goals—and to create more of what you
would like to see in the world.”
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.
in context
Spineless hypocrisy destroys trust
ROB WIPOND
How can we lift ourselves out of the despair our politicians too often inspire?
F
ormer minister George Abbott introduced his campaign for the BC Liberal
leadership by promising to give disengaged voters more say. “It’s how government
makes their decisions that is just as important
to people as what those decisions are,” he
explained to a reporter.
I dropped my head into my hands. A string
of exasperating political proclamations like
this began the new year, each one hitting me
more personally, until I didn’t know how to
stop my descent into bitter cynicism.
Abbott’s 18-point plan for leading our
government, entitled “The People are Coming,”
included “promoting public participation in
government decisions,” restoring regular
legislature sittings, and championing “proactive disclosure of government information.”
Fantastic. Of course Abbott was primarily
promising to now undo everything he’d helped
do as a prominent Liberal minister during
the past nine years of cancelling legislature
sittings, ignoring public and expert opinions,
and building walls of secrecy.
Left to right: Kash Heed, George Abbott, Phillipe Lucas
less, gutless, twin-tongued twit. Where the
hell were you when we needed you?”
The emotional rollercoaster continued
thanks to Kash Heed.
As a top cop in Vancouver, then a Liberal
candidate, Heed had crusaded for years to
get rid of our patchwork of municipal forces
and RCMP units in favour of regional police
I WANTED TO YANK MY HAIR OUT. In all these hypocritical turnarounds (and if they ’d come with heartfelt apologies, maybe we
could have regarded them as healthy learning), I felt implicated, even
personally betrayed; heck, I voted for Lucas.
The hypocrisy was most precisely revealed
in his pledge to “Return responsibility, authority
and accountability to Cabinet Ministers to
run their departments.” After all, if the legally
established powers of ministers must be
“returned,” how had those powers been taken
away, and by whom, and why hadn’t any
ministers publicly protested?
Evidently, Abbott was essentially admitting he’d always been playing along in sham
support to Gordon Campbell’s dictatorial regime. So now with Campbell out and
no potential controversy over his declarations, Abbott was ready to defend
democracy? Where a few years ago this
rebellion would’ve ignited my praise, and
provided important leverage for critics of
autocratic Liberal decisions, I couldn’t help
but simply think now, “Abbott, you spine44
forces. I myself had applauded his pluck for
publicly standing against the entrenched,
cozy, often corrupt politician-RCMP establishment (“Is it Time to Put the Mounties Out
To Pasture?”, Focus, July 2009).
Then, Heed became Solicitor General—
BC’s ultimate top cop. And as discussions
about the RCMP’s future ramped up (their
contract with BC expires in 2012), people
began asking Heed about his intention.
Suddenly, that was no longer clear. Heed
stick-handled vaguely about making the
RCMP more accountable and supporting
better working relationships amongst forces.
One night, a more dogged TV reporter interviewed Heed until, when the question of
his about-face on regional policing could
no longer be dodged without explanation, Heed walked off.
Heed’s unambiguous conviction, however,
did return—months later.
A girl died after going missing in Saanich
and, this January, Heed launched himself
brashly back into the headlines, blaming the
tragedy on our lack of a regional police force.
Apparently, another crisis was occupying
Saanich’s tiny police force at the time,
and it was bureaucratically clunky trying to
corral help from other area forces to search
for her.
“When are people going to wake up and
realize that the system for policing in British
Columbia is broken?” demanded Heed.
Unfortunately, Heed was no longer in
cabinet and our government was in a power
and leadership vacuum. Which made me
think, ‘Heed, you spineless, gutless, twintongued twit. Where the hell were you when
we needed you, and when you could’ve actually effected change?”
I was still seething the next day when
Victoria council learned $30 million in sewer
repairs were needed. Councillor Phillipe
Lucas suggested to a newspaper reporter that
we explore all possible alternatives, like stepping up water-conservation efforts and focusing
on just the most vital repairs. “I’m sure most
of the families in our region are looking at
ways to cut costs,” he remarked.
That seemed reasonable. But where was
this spirit of frugality, flexibility, and compromise when Lucas was completely dismissing
alternatives and lower-cost options for repairing
the Johnson Street Bridge that were being
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alexander technique
proposed via countless citizens volunteering
countless hours, by some researchers and
writers right here in Focus, and by 40 percent
of voters?
I wanted to yank my hair out. In all these
hypocritical turnarounds (and if they’d come
with heartfelt apologies, maybe we could
have regarded them as healthy learning), I
felt implicated, even personally betrayed;
heck, I voted for Lucas. So it wasn’t like
watching some distant, unknown official
on the news mouthing phony platitudes. It
felt more like I was stuck inside a B-movie
thriller where my ex-girlfriend smiles sweetly
and finally agrees to mutually kind and
supportive discussion—except only after
she’s knocked off my new lover, seized
my home and money, and locked me at
gunpoint in the basement.
I felt like never getting involved in politics
again. Trapped in my own bleak cellar.
But then that depressing analogy made me
wonder if dealing with political despair perhaps
wasn’t so different from just dealing with any
souring relationship.
They can both feel grimly overwhelming.
But at heart, it’s mostly just about a breakdown in trust, isn’t it? We keep catching
glimpses of potential, and continue hoping,
expecting and wanting a person to be different
than they are. When our hopes are repeatedly dashed, it’s frustrating and embittering.
Yet when we finally let go of that hope,
when we stop emotionally investing in that
deluded expectation, the frustration fades,
too. Then, we simply see things as they are:
Guns and bitterness solve nothing.
But what comes next, we wonder.
We let our eyes adjust to the dark and try
to open ourselves to new possibilities.
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45
finding balance
One-third of our garbage is food
TRUDY DUIVENVOORDEN MITIC
And that’s costing us too much, in too many ways.
46
Statistics Canada’s finding that
the same family wastes 732 kilograms every year. These are
after-tax dollars that, when
reformulated into a pre-tax price
tag, represent a big bite out of
family income. Add on the
hidden costs of bringing that
food home and refrigerating it
until it gets discarded, as well
as the not-so-hidden cost of
garbage disposal, and it becomes
clear that wasted food is not an
economically neutral item in
the family budget.
Sometimes I wonder if the food
industry is gleefully rubbing its
hands together. The more we buy,
the more they profit, and they
can drive that gain even higher
by encouraging wastefulness.
They know we’re a bit soft in the
knees for over-sized portions.
They know how to tempt with
products that will end up in the
back of the fridge. They know
that best-before dates—the cause
of so much food going to waste—
are, in many cases, based more
on fear of legal action than on
the actual shelf-life of a product.
The industry itself is hugely wasteful too. Consumers want only
the best, so right off the bat, 20 percent of any crop is left behind in
the field. Retailers often overstock to avoid running out and, again
because of fear of legal action, tend to dump their surplus rather than
channel it to food banks and soup kitchens.
Which brings us back to our little problem here on the Island. It
seems as if the two stories are connected after all. While the CRD is
looking at ways to keep food out of the landfill—already controversial because of the inevitable added taxes—maybe we could ponder
how wasting less might be part of the solution. Maybe it could
even be practical. More on that next month.
ILLUSTRATION: APRIL CAVERHILL
W
hen my children
watched Sesame
Street years ago, one
of the skits they especially
enjoyed involved a group of
items and a discussion on how
these were interconnected. What
do these things have in common,
the viewers were asked by way
of a singing ditty that still hums
around in my head once in a
while. Sometimes the humming
starts when I see issues with a
significant cause-and-effect relationship nonetheless presented
as polarized stories in the media.
Two such stories caught my
eye recently. The first is local
and affects us all: The CRD is
in a quandary. The Hartland
landfill will be full in 2035,
despite an expansive recycling
program that already has 90
percent of us diverting up to
29,000 tonnes of recyclables
annually. Furthermore, there
are no plans to replace it,
according to Victoria councillor
Chris Coleman, interviewed in
a recent newspaper story on the
Hartland dilemma.
I was surprised to learn that organic waste is, at 30.4 percent, the
biggest single “filler” at the landfill. That means food, everything from
vegetable scraps and takeout detritus to—in recent weeks—the rest
of the holiday brie, dips and sauces that sat out too long and the ubiquitous leftover turkey, is plugging up the landfill. A third of your garbage
container and mine is crammed with stuff we bought to eat, and didn’t.
The cousin to this story—and it should be front page news—affects
everyone in North America. Jonathon Bloom, author of American
Wasteland, a new book on food waste, estimates that 40 percent of
the food produced in North America is wasted somewhere between
production and consumption. It would be easy to dismiss him for
hyperbole, except for the CRD’s finding here at home and Statistics
Canada’s revelation that 38 percent of the solid food available for
retail sale in 2007 was wasted, the equivalent six million tonnes nationwide or 183 kilograms per Canadian.
Let’s say it out loud: We’re lugging a lot of food to the curb. What’s
more, we’re doing it without giving much thought to how this profligacy impacts our wallet or the Earth.
Jonathon Bloom estimates that food waste costs the average North
American family of four about $2000 per year, a figure in line with
Trudy Duivenvoorden Mitic is a writer, mother and
Master Gardener. One of her favourite kitchen “tools”
is an old stainless steel compost bucket.
Exquisite Indulgences. Fabulous Finds.
Everyday Luxuries.
#103-2506 Beacon Avenue, Sidney • 250-654-0424
285 Fifth Street, Courtenay • 250-334-1887
www.tabimports.com
47

Artist and teacher Jane Baigent explores the POWER

Transcription

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