There has been a lot of chatter in the public about the collapsing British Columbia forestry industry. In every community I visited this summer, forestry issues were central to the concerns of the people I met with. Many people had worked a full career in the forests and they had very little positive to say about the state of the industry and the...
Happy New Year! When the kids go back to school it’s for all intents and purposes a new year. The weather has been changing, brisk mornings and evenings come as dawn and dusk squeeze the day. As the summer holiday drew to a close, the lax bed times and loosened rules made for some haywire kids in our house. We got to a new level of exasperation....
You know how sometimes you see something that makes you smile. It's something so good you can’t not smile. Something you can’t help smiling about. It’s something so perfect that it fills you full of joy! Even if you focus all your energy on something else, something that would normally make you smile... In the end, it's this much better something...
On Sunday, the Times Colonist published Judith Lavoie’s piece about old-growth logging on Vancouver Island. It was first published in The Narwhal a few weeks back. The response from the public was powerful. Working the BC Greens booth at the Saanich Fair, I connected with a lot of people from across the Capital Region. “What are you doing to stop...
Guest post by: Emily Olsen With just over a month to go before the second edition of the The Connection Project, I pause to appreciate a few very important and wonderful changes since last year. The Connection Project event last Fall was a huge learning experience for me. It challenged my underlying fears and beliefs. Would anyone come to the...
Russell Brand is a fascinating person whose podcast I enjoy listening to. He is brilliant and every now and then he will let loose with an unscripted, politically charged poetic rant that I either rewind and listen to again or just hit pause and let soak through the skin. His podcast is called Under the Skin and it has recently gone behind a pay...
Today is Labour Day!I pause and acknowledge the persistent and dedicated effort of workers and their union advocates to lobby and secure a better quality of life and working conditions.In the struggle for workers’ rights there have been many important victories. These include a limit to the number of hours allowed to be worked in a day or week,...
Each month our constituency team produces a newsletter to update you on our work in the community and my legislative activities. Each edition highlights our efforts and it's generally delivered to your inbox in the last week of the month. I have shared a document version of the newsletter below to give you a peek. However, if you Join the Circle...
Last weekend I visited Kelowna, Vernon and Kamloops on a whirlwind three day trip that ended with a tour of the Kamloops Fire Centre. While in Kamloops I had a BBQ with the local BC Green riding association. I took the opportunity to provide an update on our work in the Legislature and had the opportunity to meet Alan Forseth. Alan has been...
The situation I found myself in yesterday morning has not happened much recently. I have been out of the office for the past week enjoying the last of summer break with my family. As a result I put the "pen" down. So, I got home from my morning walk, opened my laptop, and quickly noticed there was no post scheduled for tomorrow (today).Hmmmmm. I...
Last week the Minister responsible for Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, had to announce that only 13% of the sockeye the federal Ministry expected to enter the Fraser River system had actually showed up.It's another chapter in a the epic tragedy of the disappearing salmon. They said the sockeye run this year would near 5...
I write many of these posts on my handheld device. It is a powerful machine. The processing capability grows with each new release as does the storage capacity capturing and keeping huge amounts of information.These devices are a marvel of technology and they have dramatically changed the world in the past decade, putting massive computing...
The northbound exit off the Pat Bay highway onto Keating X Road has always been challenging. It’s the primary access to the Tanner Ridge neighbourhood, the Keating Business Park, Brentwood Bay and world famous Butchart Gardens. Decades ago the District of Central Saanich first raised the danger of this exit with the province as they were looking...
The other day, I invited you to think about, and maybe even share, something that you are thankful for.I am inspired by the transformative power of gratitude. If practiced consistently, it begins to rewire our minds which absorb so much negativity each day.It came to me as I was mid-morning walk that I did not share something I’m grateful for....
I will end this series of posts that hopefully has paused the regularly scheduled programming in our minds to provide a brief moment of disruption with one last aspect of Mettā. My suggestion on Wednesday was to offer yourself loving-kindness, goodwill and benevolence. On Friday my suggestion was to turn the focus toward someone who is close to...
As the dog days of summer give way to the cool dark mornings, and the leaves change with a brilliant display of colour before they blanket the ground with protection for the coming winter, I pause.On Wednesday I invited you to consider Mettā = loving-kindness, benevolence, good-will. In our modern culture expectations are high: for ourselves, for...
I am deeply saddened to learn of the devastatingly low returns of sockeye salmon to the Fraser River this summer. Federal fisheries officials predicted approximately 4.8 million sockeye would show up but just 628,000 salmon have come home to the once iconic salmon river. This is in stark contrast to the stories from people who have lived on our...
I absolutely devoured Byung-Chul Han’s Psycopolitics last weekend.It came as a recommendation to a post I did a while back about the panopticon. The idea was introduced to me in a Philosophize This! podcast episode on Michel Foucault where he discusses Jeremy Bentham’s idea of a prison layout where a single guard can visually watch a multitude of...
Emily has a deck of medicine cards. They are a powerful way to connect us with the animal world. Draw a card or do a spread to learn more about yourself through our relatives in nature. The other night we each pulled a card and read the associated description. I drew Squirrel.Squirrel reminds me to prepare for winter, to save up some energy for...
How many times will you be distracted while reading this post? Do you know how many times you check your email in a day? What are you doing for lunch? Will you be scrambling between meetings to eat the sandwich you bought from a local grocery store? Or, quietly munching on food you brought from home before taking a 30 minute walk?There is a...
If you're a regular here this blog takes a few minutes of your day. I'm thankful for every moment you spend reading my daily offerings. Today I invite you to take the time that you would normally invest in reading this post to meditate on something that you are thankful for. No doubt there is so much to be outraged about. However, there is also...
Recently, I was hanging out with a bunch of political candidates in this upcoming federal election. I was asked to share with them my experience as a candidate and now as a Member of the British Columbia Legislative Assembly.We were talking about the power of storytelling and I was reminded of a beautiful example from the 2017 election.It was...
I tend to stay away from federal political stories in this blog. Mostly because there are so many provincial stories that it keep me busy enough.However, I’m a Canadian and a politician. So, I feel it’s impossible to let the latest chapter in the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau/SNC-Lavalin affair go without a comment.Like many Canadians, I’ve been...
I keep a rolling list of topics for future blog posts in the Notes app on my phone. One topic has been sitting there for quite a while, just two words: “bike lanes.”Bike lanes are a hit issue on talk radio because cyclists are an easy target for enraged drivers looking to blame anyone and anything for the inconvenience of having to slow down. The...
Increasingly, I’m having people stop me to acknowledge my blogging. I’m thankful to have the opportunity to spend a few minutes with you to discuss the content or the practice.It is really fascinating to hear which post catches your attention and why it stands out amongst the rest. It is really a forest of blog posts now growing more dense each...
For hundreds or thousands of years, the people who lived in the Salish Sea had a close relationship with the natural world. I have spoken often about it since my election. I have stood regularly in public meetings, at private coffee parties and at the spot in the British Columbia Legislative Chamber reserved for the Member representing Saanich...