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Charting a climate course: Salt Spring Island's Report Card 2023 unveiled

End Climate Delay July 2022, Photo credit: Alex Harris Salt Spring Island, just like the rest of the world, has not been immune to this year's climate crises. We've endured intense summer droughts, watched as wildfires spread across BC and Canada, and sat under days of smoky skies. The question is: Are we up for the future climate challenges heading our way? We are witnessing more prolonged droughts, water shortages, dangerous storms, increased forest fire risks, devastating heat waves, flooding and more. Between 2019 and 2021, Transition Salt Spring (TSS) rolled out the Climate Action Plan 2.0 (CAP), packed with 250 actions to address the urgent climate challenge. The primary objective? Reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50% before 2030 and prepare our community for the impacts of climate change. Fast forward to 2023, and we find ourselves at a pivotal moment and faced with the question: are we ready for the challenges ahead? Enter the Climate Action Report Ca…
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Gulf Islands Secondary School starts the year with Consent Awareness Week

Gulf Islands Secondary School has partnered with The Circle Education, IWAV and Salt Spring Community Services for its first-ever Consent Awareness Week. Consent is vital to many aspects of life, and is essential for young people to form healthy, respectful relationships. Responding to calls from students, GISS dedicated its first Health and Wellness Day of the new school year to consent. “We are supporting the ‘High School Too’ Movement, which advocates for policy, protocol, and education change so that all high school students understand that consent comes first,” explains GISS vice-principal Stacy Mitchell. Research shows that 15% of girls and 9% of boys between the ages of 14 to 21 have had a sexual act forced upon them by a peer (Taylor et al., 2019). Moreover, in a school climate survey, many 2SLGBTQIA+ students (58%) identified being sexually harassed in the past year and 13% reported that this harassment occurred often or frequently (Kosciw et al., 2020). Lang…
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ASK Salt Spring discussing the Housing Council and local housing initiatives

Nine welcomed Robin Williams, new chair of the Housing Council, to this ASK Salt Spring gathering. After our Territorial Acknowledgement, Robin began by telling us what excites and delights him: lovingly renovating homes that others would demolish. He shared pictures of a home on Long Harbour with extremely serious foundation issues. After a complete renovation, including an extensive seismic upgrade - requiring lifting the home, digging 20 feet to bedrock to anchor the foundation, and backfilling the basement 15 feet - this home met all building codes and was ready to occupy. Pictures of the now-lovely home with charming additions were shared. Not an easy task, requiring 72 yards of concrete and five cement pours, Robin is pleased that his efforts to rescue this home proved fruitful. No stranger to building, he learned skills from his father and renovated his first home at the age of 17, soon moving to spearhead a multi-million dollar campus building at the age of 22. Havin…
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Greenwoods raffle winner is sitting pretty

Photo: Greenwoods resident Bill Hogg (seated) reads the winning ticket name, Bonnie MacPhail at the bench raffle draw on September 11th. Behind (left to right) are Robert Steinbach from Country Grocer, sponsor of the bench; Wayne Glover, Vice Chair of the Greenwoods Eldercare board; Mel Ferrabee, Chair of the Greenwoods Family and Resident Council; and Brenda James from the Family Council. We have a winner! Monday, September 11th was the festive draw ceremony for this year’s bench raffle at Greenwoods, and the prize went to Bonnie MacPhail of Brinkworthy Place on Salt Spring. Greenwoods resident Bill Hogg drew the name from the tickets sold this year. Bill is going to be celebrating his 100th birthday later this year. The annual fundraising raffle of a beautiful garden bench to benefit Greenwoods Eldercare has become a celebrated tradition on Salt Spring, now in its twenty-fifth year. The 2023 garden bench was once again created by island artisan Luke Hart-Weller of Coppe…
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Salt Spring Solutions launches community dialogue on housing solutions

With the release of the first public information video today, local non-profit Salt Springs Solutions launches its public engagement series, Solutions In Action!, aimed at creating positive dialogue on Salt Spring’s housing front. With a focus on respectful fact-based dialogue the organization plans to bring complex issues and solutions to the public in an entertaining and understandable way, to encourage development of community-led solutions that are equitable and environmentally-conscious. The series begins with a video on ADU’s (Accessory Dwelling Units), which you can watch below. Salt Spring Solutions welcomes your questions and contributions to the conversation on its website, which has loads of information and hosts a community forum. Future videos in the series will be based on the organization’s integrated housing framework, called Homes For Islanders, available in full or in summary at the organization’s website. Salt Spring Solutions will also be putting free …
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Opinion: Should Salt Spring ratepayers have a choice in the design and build of the new fire hall?

On June 30, 2022, Salt Spring Island ratepayers affirmed the Referendum to approve $13.7 million dollars to build a new long overdue Fire Hall under the proviso - “No New Taxes”. Depending on how you spin the numbers the return was 75% voted in favour, which sounds impressive. There were 7588 Ratepayers eligible to vote, of those 2608 voted in favour and 864 opposed, with 4,116 or 54.3% who simply chose not to Vote. Ultimately 34% of eligible ratepayers passed the referendum, not so impressive. At the regularly scheduled Meeting of the Fire Board on Monday, August 21, 2023, as a Fire Board Trustee, I attempted to introduce 2 motions (see addendum below) 1. Spend Ratepayers Taxes Wisely. 2. Allow Ratepayers to have a Choice between 2 Fire Hall Designs - Plan A and Plan B. Neither Motion received a Seconder so the Motions never reached the floor for discussion. Clearly, my 6 Fellow Trustees had discussed how they would treat the Motions prior to the Meeting. Let’s leave…
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Community fundraising effort comes together to bring Quw’utsun elders back home

The Stqeeye’ Learning Society is thrilled to announce Mi tse’ t’akw’ (Coming Home), a once-in-a-generation fund-raising campaign that will bring Quw’utsun (Cowichan) elders back to their traditional territory in Xwaaqw’um (Burgoyne Bay) for the first time in 150 years. The community of Salt Spring Island is already coming together to support Stqeeye’s acquisition of an extraordinary 10-acre property adjacent to Xwaaqw’um that is uniquely suited as a home base to expand their on-going wetlands restoration work, their P’hwulhp (Garry Oak) restoration project, and their Youth on the Land program, which reconnects youth with the land in a process that heals both, at a time when both are in distress. The total goal of the campaign is $1,929,000, including just under $1 million for the land, and the rest to fund renovations, develop the land and launch an associated social enterprise. Foundations and private donors have already stepped up with $500,000 in funding, providing a g…
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ASK Salt Spring discussing the Farmland Trust, Grow Local, community composting and more

While the information we gained was rich, the turnout to welcome one of our newly-elected Local Community Commissioners (LCC), Brian Webster, was disappointing. After a heartfelt Territorial Acknowledgment, ending with appreciation for the inexplicable forgiveness by First Nations on this journey of reconciliation, we began our time together learning more about three of our most critical agricultural projects, composting, our abattoir, and the Root. Brian began by answering our traditional initial question of what excites and delights him by speaking briefly of his feelings about the onset of fall. For him, September has always been a time of mixed feelings: those of sadness at the end of warmth and verdant growth, balanced by the excitement and energy of harvest time. As a farmer and co-owner, manager, and apple picker of The Salt Spring Apple Company, these conflicting feelings are magnified. An admitted worrier, a summer of anxiety about whether the harvest will yield eno…
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September gardening tasks and online workshop

Pinch Brussels sprouts: Right now is good timing to cut or pinch out the tips of the Brussels sprouts plants to force the formation of sprouts lower down, along the stem. If your plants already have nice big sprouts this isn’t necessary, but it is essential if your plants currently have only pea-sized nubs where the sprouts should be. With tip growth stopped, the plants quickly start plumping up their sprouts. Even if your plants are still small because they were planted too late, this is worth trying because it might force a few sprouts to form. As regular readers know, if you don’t have good-sized sprouts on the plant by the end of October, they likely won’t form at all because in the spring these biennial plants bypass making sprouts and go straight to flowering. Check thinning: This applies to any crops sown for winter harvest, but especially to carrots and beets. Leafy greens and lettuce should also be checked for overcrowding. If your summer sown carrots are not baby-c…
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ASK Salt Spring with Cycling Salt Spring discussing active transportation, cycling safety and more

Only seven came to welcome Island Pathways’ President, Bob MacKie, board member Margaretha Nordine, and Treasurer Luke Campbell of its Cycling Salt Spring committee. While the numbers were small, the conversation was rich, and all had the opportunity to participate. Our Territorial Acknowledgment morphed into a brief exploration of some of the events in our colonial history that set the stage for our need to reconcile injustices. Soon, though, we launched into our topic at hand: the many exciting projects of Island Pathways: Celebrating its 35th year, Island Pathways has been the driving force behind safer walking and cycling on Salt Spring since 1988. Partners Creating Pathways (PCP), an Islands Pathways committee, created our pathway network around Ganges. By 2017, PCP had completed its commitment to create the 10-section Ganges Village Pathway Network. This over five kilometer network of pathways cost local taxpayers only $250,000, a fraction of the cost paid by other com…
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