Constituency Office
The community office is almost fully functional. Despite not having internet and phone lines set up, I have had a busy meeting schedule in the new boardroom. If you would like to schedule a meeting, or your community group would like to use the boardroom, please contact us by email, we should have our phone set up very soon.
The community office is located on the second floor in the Landmark Building at 215-2506 Beacon Avenue in Sidney, BC. Enter the building through the breezeway next to Victoria Lavender. We will have signage installed shortly, and a short video on this website, to help direct you to the office.
Ice Box Challenge
I was in Vancouver’s Olympic Village on Thursday to help launch the “Ice Box Challenge”. The event is part experiment, part contest, designed to highlight the benefits of high performance buildings compared to standard BC Building Code structures. The initiative is a partnership between PassiveHouse Canada, the City of Vancouver, VanCity and members of the building community.
Two small structures, one built to the PassiveHouse standard building and the other build to the BC Building Code, were filled with one tonne of ice, sealed, and left in the summer sun. They will be re-opened on August 14th, when we will all see how much ice is left in each building.
Investing in efficiency cuts operating costs, and saves the owner money every month. This initiative will help illustrate the importance of each decision made leading up to and during construction of new buildings. Additionally, it will show the benefits of retrofitting existing structures for performance to decrease energy demand and emissions while increasing the quality of life of the inhabitants.
Click here if you would like to learn more about the Ice Box Challenge.
Click here to take the challenge by guessing how much ice will remain in each structure.
Community Dialogue
On Friday afternoon, we hosted our first community dialogue in the constituency office. It was a follow-up to an event held last month in our riding by the Dogwood Initiative. They invited their contacts get together to discuss the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion (Kinder Morgan), banning corporate and union donations and other issues that have been the focus of their advocacy work.
I was invited to attend, but was not able to be there as I was out of town. These issues are also an important focus for me, so we invited the Dogwood Initiative and the public to our office to continue the discussion and to provide a progress update on these files.
Both the Kinder Morgan pipeline and political party finance reform were issues addressed in the Confidence and Supply Agreement between the BC Greens and BC NDP. These issues remain a high priority for the BC Green Caucus and we are working with the government ensure the commitments made in the agreement are acted on. There will be much more information on these issues in the coming weeks.
BC Aviation Museum Open House
My son Silas and I closed out the week by visiting the British Columbia Aviation Museum (BCAM) on Saturday morning for their annual open house. It was wonderful to see so many people attending the event and providing their support.
The museum is located at the Victoria airport and is powered by volunteers and donations from the public. Their fine work is on display year round at the museum. I highly recommend a visit.
In addition to the open house, Chris Weicht (pilot, author and aviation historian), Viking Air (also located at the Victoria airport) and the Twin Otter, were inducted into the BC Aviation Hall of Fame in the individual, organization and aircraft categories respectively. Congratulations to all three inductees for this recognition of their contribution to the BC aviation community and to Saanich North & the Islands.
If you would like to visit the museum it is located at 1910 Norseman Road.
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