Letter to the Editor – Hersh Chernovsky

January 2, 2025

BC Ferries Compensation

While compensation is not provided for sailing cancellations that are outside of our control (e.g. weather, medical emergencies, rescue operations, natural disasters, security and law enforcement issues, terrorism/security threats, etc.), if a cancellation within our control occurs (e.g. mechanical issues, crew availability, human error) that prevents you from reaching your final destination on the same day, as planned, you can submit a compensation request with your receipts to our Customer Relations department.

We provide compensation and reimbursement for reasonable gas, meal, accommodation and alternate transportation expenses that you would not have incurred otherwise.

Compensation policies

If you incur out-of-pocket expenses due to a sailing delay or cancellation within our control, on a sailing you booked, that prevented you from reaching your destination on your planned day of travel, you may submit a request for compensation and reimbursement. This also applies for customers who have received a ticket/boarding pass at the terminal to travel on one of our non-bookable routes where alternate travel is not available.

We review requests for reasonable expenses that qualify within our guidelines. Itemized receipts* along with tickets or refund receipts for attempted travel are required. If approved, we will provide reimbursement up to our maximum amounts, posted below, to the booked customer.

Guidelines for reimbursement

Gas

Reimbursement is based on the distance in kilometres between your original departure and arrival terminals via alternate departure and arrival terminals.

See the automobile allowance rates on the Government of Canada website here. We will confirm kilometers submitted using Google Maps.

Meals

In the event of a cancellation within our control where no other sailing options on the same day were provided, we will cover meal expenses as applicable (per person) up to a maximum of:

Breakfast: $20
Lunch: $25
Dinner: $30

Itemized receipts are required*. Alcoholic beverages are not valid for reimbursement.

Accommodation

We will provide reimbursement at the lowest necessary room price proposed by the service provider or to a maximum of $200 CAD per night.

Contact us for information about how to submit your itemized receipts*. You can also mail your receipts to:

BC Ferries Attn:
Customer Relations
Suite 500-1321 Blanshard Street
Victoria, BC V8W 0B7

When the Broken are Allowed to Rule

January 2, 2025

When the Broken are Allowed to Rule

Our country is weak

And our governments are weaker

The end game is visible to all but the sleepers

The best way forward, before it’s too late

Is to drop the charades and ditch all the hate

We thought we were free but we never were

We’ve lived off the backs of the forever poor

Everything’s been handed to the global astute

All we are now is low hanging fruit

Brace yourselves, for what’s to come

The political system is coming undone

There’s a long road ahead as the truth is revealed

If we can’t speak freely, we will never be healed

The genie has been freed

From it’s tight little prison

There’s no end to the potential

Of the newly enlightened risen

Chicken News

January 2, 2025

Islanders Don’t Believe Sacking the Ferry Advisory Committees Will Ensure Better Decisions and Inclusion.

December 19, 2024

Islanders Don’t Believe Sacking the Ferry Advisory Committees Will Ensure Better Decisions and Inclusion.

The following letters to BCF CEO Jimenez and the BCF Commissioner regarding the sacking of the Ferry Advisory Committees concludes my two year campaign for justice. This campaign began when the Friend’s of Denman Forests stood up to BCF to prevent the indiscriminate axing of our trees at the Gravelly Bay terminal and ended with Juan Barker and I appealing to the Office of the Ombudsperson to investigate the BCF Commissioner for breach of her mandate to hold BCF accountable and to balance OUR needs with other stakeholders. We should hear shortly if the Ombudsperson will initiate an investigation.

Now that regional newspapers like the Comox Valley Record and the Times Colonist have been bought by Glacier Media, a right-wing multinational conglomerate, I am personally grateful for publications like the Grapevine in which we can still freely express our grievances with governments and the industries they support.

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Dear CEO Jimenez:

I am sending the pasted appeal to the Commissioner and letter to Vancouver Island editors about your sacking of the Ferry Advisory Committees again just in case my first attempt did not reach your office.

By sacking the FACs, islanders feel that keeping a failed experiment, the Baynes Sound Connector, in service for an entire decade will continue indefinitely now that we do not have a voice in decision-making that the FAC system provided.

Keeping a cabled ferry, which industry experts predicted could not do the job, in service for a decade is causing immense suffering and substantial expenses for islanders and island businesses, some of whom are forced to move off island. The threat of increased fares will have its obvious profound negative effect.

I understand you are investigating the degree of islander’s discontent about being stuck with an unreliable vessel. Take it from me– Islanders are angry and feel hopeless given the persistent claims that the ferry provides a service that the FACTS and our daily experience deny.

Islanders had high hopes that the failures of past leadership would be corrected when you became CEO. Your continued support, however, of ex-CEO Collin’s decisions about the cable ferry and associated pattern of deceptive reporting in annual reports (zero cancellations for Route 21 were recorded in the 203/24 annual report to the Commissioner) has been more than disappointing.

Islanders feel especially vexed that Route 23, which competes with Route 21 as the most profitable for BCF, received two electric ferries while Route 21 remains stuck with a single inadequate dud. Quadra, moreover, has substantially fewer residents.

Islanders feel that we continue to pay the price for former BCF leadership’s mistakes. There is only one solution: provide Route 21 with an island class vessel.

Respectfully,

Sharon Small,

Denman Island Resident and

Retired Business College Professor

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Dear Commissioner Hage:

Pasted below is a letter submitted to the editors of various Vancouver Island newspapers about the sudden sacking of the FACs and the Premier’s silence and yours, despite the Conservatives calling for keeping the FACs.

How are shocked ferry-dependent islanders to interpret the ongoing disconnect between what you state the Coastal Ferry Act authorizes the Commissioner to do–directing BCF in your May 2024 letter to improve its engagement efforts with the highly valued FACs– and BCF sacking the FACs?

Many Hornby and Denman islanders, whose ferry insecurity is profound, feel victimized for exposing BC Ferries’ deceit and incompetence with respect to the Baynes Sound Connector. BCF continues to claim service has improved and attempts to prove this fantasy by underreporting cancellations in annual reports (zero for 2023/24) and claiming in the press after lengthy cancellations that service has improved. Recently received FOI information confirms, however, that all claims of saving tax dollars, the environment and providing service on a par with the Quinitsa are false.

Rumour has it that after an FAC meeting in 2015 in which the ex-CEO extolled the virtues of the proposed cable ferry, ferry staff overheard him exclaim that as far as he was concerned, “Denman Island could piss in a pot,” an expression for “keep the people poor”.

Keeping Route 21 service poor, despite competing with Quadra as the most profitable short routes, which received two new ferries apparently, has apparently the blessings of the NDP.

Thus, again, islanders appeal to you and to Premier Eby to hold BCF accountable for ending the hypocrisy and for providing Route 21 with a reliable island class ferry, like the one designed by a retired master skipper who foreshadowed the service unreliability in 2013 because a cable ferry could not do the job.

Respectfully,

Sharon Small,

Denman Island Resident

Shucking Oysters: The Great Waive Offs

December 19, 2024

Last term the BC NDP waived all public consultation for new building developments. The logic: fast-tracking equals less red tape, and more housing will be built faster. And then they put all mining applications in the express lane, allowing big business free rein without restraint. “You’ll see more and more permitting reform,” Premier Eby ominously announced.

Before even applying for an environmental permit, proponents would have to navigate extensive Indigenous community consultations, provincial ministries, and federal bureaucracies. No more. In the fall, federal, provincial and territorial governmental ministries and agencies agreed to streamline the approval process of proposed mining projects.

Call me skeptical. To think that big business will behave and not bend the rules is as ignorant as believing that if we use one sheet of toilet paper we will save the world. Governments do not control big business. Governments are beholden to big business who are beholden to shareholders. Industry gets rewarded for polluting and losing money. It doesn’t matter what they do, because the government is always there to clean up the mess.

The latest example of BC’s free-range permitting: waiving Environmental Assessments on all new wind turbine projects. Energy and Climate Solutions Minister Adrian Dix announced the exemption in early December. “We need these new energy generation projects urgently to meet growing demand for power and accelerate our efforts to build a prosperous and inclusive clean economy,” Dix said. “We’re going to work together with BC Hydro, First Nations and proponents to get these projects built quickly, responsibly and efficiently, and get those turbines spinning.”

Those espousing the merits of wind farms (green washing) are avoiding the obvious. Wind turbines are made from steel, cement, and plastics, the embodiment of fossil fuels. Their foundations are reinforced concrete, their towers, motors, and housings are steel (nearly 200 tons for every megawatt generated), and their massive blades made of plastic resins are impossible to recycle (about 15 tons for one mid-sized turbine).

A proposed wind farm in the middle of Strathcona Regional Park is one of nine renewable BC Hydro energy projects that got the go-ahead this month. Called the Brewster Wind Project, partnering with the Wei Wai Kum First Nations, the plan outlines a capacity of up to 200 megawatts with approximately 30 wind turbines. Megan Hunter, with Capstone Infrastructure, the Toronto-based company that pitched the Vancouver Island project, said they were surprised to learn of the Environmental Assessment exemption.

“BC has strong environmental protections, and we plan to complete robust consultation and engagement with Indigenous groups and the local community, as their input will improve the project,” Hunter wrote in an email. “Wildlife, environmental, noise, and cultural impact studies will still be undertaken.”

Wind farms come with certain challenges, says UBC professor emeritus Michael Healey. Some of these include the potential to harm birds, a significant land footprint, and noise concerns. Wind turbines kill millions of birds and insects a year, and hundreds of thousands of bats. Studies have proven that offshore wind turbines harm whales, dolphins, seals and porpoises through the sound waves produced.

“I personally don’t think it is a good idea to begin any large industrial project without a thorough environmental analysis regardless of who is involved,” Healey shared. “Saying that because First Nations are involved means environmental issues will be fully taken into account is bogus. The government typically sweetens the pot for elected Indigenous governments to get them to accept projects they would probably otherwise reject,” he said.

Tahsis Mayor Martin Davis, a regional district director and cave researcher, called the decision to exempt the EAs “surprising.” When the wind project was pitched late in the summer, Davis said it would be important to contact caving and paleontology experts to assess the area. He pointed out some of the ridges have limestone, which would need to be avoided to ensure the turbines remain stable. Davis added that if there are caves in the area, they could easily be critical habitats for bats.

For decades the wind energy industry has put out a steady stream of misleading information about its impact on wildlife. They continue to claim that the impact of wind turbines is relatively low, and compare the bird deaths it causes to no more than those of house cats or buildings. The difference is, most of the birds killed by domestic cats and collisions with buildings are small, like robins and sparrows. With big birds, as in owls and eagles, with lower reproductive rates, their deaths have a far greater impact on the population of their species.

Not surprising, the government of Canada website has no references to impacts on wildlife, just the negative impact on humans from the “whooshing/swishing” noise that wind turbines make. They cryptically warn, “This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of references nor an indication that Health Canada supports any of the conclusions in these publications.” With bald-headed transparency, they admit they will only accept research that strengthens “the evidence base that supports decisions, advice and policies regarding wind turbine development proposals, installations and operations in Canada.” In other words, blowhards and windbags, need only apply.

With files from Black Press Media.

Green Wizardries: Holy Week

December 19, 2024

Io Saturnalia to all my dear readers! Saturnalia, the festival of Saturn, runs from December 17 to the 21, the Winter Solstice and it is a time when all people are free and all people are equal. This holiday started a long time ago in the city of Rome. For a few days, all the slaves were free and off work. The masters had to cook supper parties for their households, including the slaves who ate in the dining room of the master and were served by the master’s family.

It was a time of great revelry and people would give each other presents of sweets, candles and toys for the children. Sound at all familiar? Saturnalia was such a joyous festival that even when Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire, church authorities could not stop the celebration of Saturnalia. So, they created the festival of Christmas which took on most of the joyous aspects of Saturnalia.

As Christ was supposed to be the light of the world, they celebrated his birthday on the 25 of December which was the feast day of Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun. The 25^th is the day the sun begins to move north again after apparently being stuck on the same point on the horizon for a few days. So lots of pagan customs came to the new holiday of Christmas.

These few days are a time of gifts. I propose to give you a couple of my favourite recipes to make you healthy and happy in the year to come: squash soup and lamb cassuolet. The squash soup started as a West African soup but as I do not grow sweet potatoes, I used squash and many of the other ingredients were changed. It has become a new recipe but still harks back to the tasty cooking of West Africa.

The lamb cassoulet is a recipe whose time has come on our islands as we have a good flock of sheep between our two islands. Cassoulet is usually prepared with preserved goose but so few people raise geese that we are much better off with a lamb recipe. This recipe makes the tough meat of the ribs and other cuts for stewing into a mouthwateringly delicious and decadent meal.

So for the soup, I never cut up a raw squash, preferring to simply stab it a few times so I can bake it without causing it to explode. I bake a squash until it is soft enough to cut and peel easily and I take it out of the oven and let it cool before cutting it up. This is vastly easier than trying to chop and peel a fortress of a Hubbard squash. The leftover cooked squash can be frozen for later use.

Denman Peanut Soup

Chop two onions up and begin to fry them in oil or lard. After a bit, add several cloves of garlic chopped, a tablespoon of chopped fresh ginger, 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of chili flakes and fry for a few minutes. Add a quart of good stock, not made with a cube!, several chopped carrots, 4 cups of chopped squash, 2 cups of tomato juice, 1 cup of peanut butter, 1 tablespoon of honey. Simmer the soup until all is cooked and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. You can puree this soup if you like and then garish it with fresh chopped scallions, parsley or cilantro.

The cassoulet recipe is from a cookbook printed in 1968. For this recipe you will need 1 cup of dried navy beans, 4 cups of cold water, one large whole onion, 3 whole cloves, 1 clove of garlic,

2 fresh pork hocks or a few slices of bacon, 2 pounds of lamb ribs or stew meat, 2 tablespoons of lard, 1 onion chopped, 1 teaspoon of powdered mustard mixed with 2 teaspoons of cold water, 4 teaspoons of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of ground pepper, 1/2 a cup tomato puree or sauce, 1 cup of stock, 8 carrots quartered.

Place the beans and the cold water into a 4-quart saucepan with the four cups of cold water. Bring the water to a full boil for two minutes. Remove the beans from the heat and place them on a mat and cover the pot with a fluffy kitchen towel for an hour. Do not drain.

Press the cloves into the whole onion and put in with the beans along with the garlic and the pork or bacon. Cover and cook for two hours until the beans are tender. Sear the lamb and add the chopped onions to the pan until the onions are soft. Add the meat and onions to the beans. Add the mustard mixed with the two teaspoons of cold water. Add the rest of the ingredients. Mix carefully and cook for another one and a half hours. This is a great recipe to make in a slow cooker.

Cowboy Corner: The Motel

December 19, 2024

Understanding Hamas & Why that Matters: Part 3

December 19, 2024

“Hamas and Fatah have agreed on the structure of a technocratic authority to run Gaza after the genocide is over. Whether Israel and the United States will accept this idea remains to be seen, but it does signal that Hamas also believes a deal might be on the horizon. The real wild card here, as always, is Israel.” (Mitchell Plitnick, Mondoweiss, 6 Dec.,2024) According to human rights lawyer/writer Plitnick, Israel’s far right government will not agree to an end to the war on Gaza, only to an extended truce, as they have done in Lebanon. He says Israel and the US likely had a private “side agreement” with respect to Lebanon, allowing Israel to continue to fire rockets at Lebanon despite the ceasefire there. UN peacekeepers who are basically permanently stationed in the border area of southern Lebanon have recorded such breaches of the ceasefire by Israel during the last two weeks, with nary a peep out of Washington DC, while Hezbollah’s measured response of rocket fire (no injuries) has been widely publicized. (This reminds me of being on the Gaza border in 2014 when our Jewish-Israeli host, Nomika Zion, told our group that every ceasefire between Israel and Gaza in the many onslaughts over the years had been broken by Israel. She lived in Sderot and was a witness.)

It is worth remembering that a proposal for permanent ceasefire was agreed to by Hamas last July, involving staged return of hostages, and a withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from Gaza. This is nothing more than what the ICJ has ruled is required by international law in its recent ruling on the illegality of the Israeli occupation.

Back to understanding Hamas. (Read the book!) An August 12,2024, interview with historian Tareq Baconi on Jewish Currents’ “On the Nose” podcast sheds more light on the leadership of Hamas. They have made clear for instance that they intend to lay down arms when their goal of self-determination is accomplished. They do not want to govern on their own. They are guided by the consensus of the Palestinian people, which is why they have over the years tempered their more authoritarian Islamicist agenda.

Although socially conservative, as are most Middle East governments, the book Understanding Hamas explores Hamas and women’s rights. It examines shifts in Hamas’ policy in response to public preferences. Women hold important positions in the government, women are encouraged to get higher education, hijab-wearing is not a requirement.

There are once again peace talks going on in Cairo, mediated by Qatar, and hopefully by the time you read this piece, a ceasefire has been agreed upon.

Helena Cobban: “Why should anybody trust that a ceasefire that’s concluded with Hamas would be respected by Hamas?”

Dr. Azzam Tamimi (author and specialist on issues related to Islamic political thought, Islamic movements and West Asian politics): ”Hamas is an Islamic movement. It is informed by Islam. And in Islam, if you signed a contract, it is your religious duty to fulfill the terms of that contract. You cannot be the first to violate or breach it.” (Understanding Hamas @ 136)

What needs to happen for there to be peace with Palestinians? The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory has to end.

“if you ask the leaders of Hamas and the members of Hamas, there is a clarity of vision regarding this issue. This is not a war between the Muslims and the Jews. This is not a religious war. Jews lived in this part of the world, across the Middle East, for centuries, with the Christians, with the Muslims…because there was a formula for peaceful coexistence. The problem started with Zionism.” (Tamimi, ibid. @ 144)

Would Hamas intend to displace the Jews if they were elected to power?

Tamimi cites Nelson Mandela’s statement: “ ‘[N]o more Apartheid and we can live in peace’. And we in Palestine say the same thing: no more Zionism and we can live in peace. We’re not going to send any Jew anywhere in the world, they can remain. We don’t have a problem with them as Jews, but we have a problem with them as people who believe that they have God- given rights to discriminate against us. That’s the problem”. (ibid. @146)

With the release of Amnesty International’s recent 300 page report concluding that Israel is in the midst of conducting a genocide, and the powerful declaration of same by Dr. Amos Goldberg, Israeli Holocaust/Genocide scholar, Fellow of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMwqhdVV5as , we may at last be witnessing a sea change in media coverage of this crime against humanity. We are seeing mainstream media finally paying attention to what is happening in Gaza, finally noticing the unspeakable violence being perpetrated daily on Gazans by Israel. And anti-war protest is being covered in a less hostile way. May we continue to raise our voices in support of peace, justice and equality. May we refuse to look away until this genocide is truly ended. Onward.