Lax regulations compared to neighbouring U.S. states have made Canada’s West Coast a convenient dumping ground for cruise ship pollution, environmentalists believe.
While the cruise ship industry disputes the claim and defends its standards, Stand.earth and West Coast Environmental Law (WCEL) are pressing the federal government to step up with marine discharge regulations comparable to those in California, Washington and Alaska.
A follow up report on discrimination in B.C.’s health care system is stressing the need to improve access to primary treatment, as too many Indigenous people are forced to seek help in the emergency department due to little access to a family doctor.
A call for urgent reforms in logging practices to protect B.C. communities from climate change impacts reflects what First Nations have known all along, says NTC President Judith Sayers.
“There is so much at stake,” Sayers said after speaking out on the issue, publicly backing a Sierra Club report released Feb. 1. “I’m hoping people wake up. The forest fires two summers ago in British Columbia were just devastating.”
In a growing effort to revitalize Indigenous languages, Hesquiaht First Nation is encouraging their youth to apply to a free filmmaking program fused with language learning.
Collaborating with Reel Youth, a non-profit organization that delivers community development programming to youth across Canada, each participant will be paired with a fluent speaking elder to collaborate on a video with.
Together, they will create a storyline that reveals the elder’s personality while incorporating Hesquiaht language throughout at least 50 per cent of the video.
A new book showcasing the historical views and development of canoes as well as contemporary stories featuring canoes has been published. Alan L. Hoover, a retired curator and manager at the Royal British Columbia Museum co-authored Northwest Coast Canoes of Indigenous North America, which was released in December 2020.
Hoover collaborated on the book with retired researcher and author Eugene Arima, who wrote A Report on A West Coast Whaling Canoe Reconstructed at Port Renfrew, B.C. (1975) and The Whaling People of Vancouver Island and Cape Flattery (2011)
The provincial government has pledged $5-million towards development projects spanning across 24 B.C. parks.
As part of the province’s StrongerBC economic recovery initiative to promote wellness and employment, the funds will be allocated towards improvements, such as the instillation of a raised boardwalk and viewing platform in MacMillan Provincial Park and the replacement of boardwalk and stair structures in Maquinna Marine Provincial Park.
A cane and leg brace sit near the entrance to Paul Sam’s apartment in Port Alberni. They’re familiar items for the 64-year-old, but also an indication of the empowerment Sam has gained during the last eight months over his Type 2 diabetes.
“I don’t use these anymore,” said Sam in a gentle, unrushed manner characteristic of his Ahousaht roots.
The First Nations Health Authority reports that it has, in partnership with regional health authorities, delivered more than 10,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines to First Nations Communities.
Dr. Shannon McDonald, acting chief medical health officer at FNHA, told Ha-Shilth-Sa that B.C. Indigenous Communities have received more than 10,000 doses of vaccine since late December, and the number is approaching 11,000. She added that this work was made possible not only through FNHA but also through their partnerships with regional health authorities.
The first month of vaccination programs are well underway in British Columbia with the province’s most vulnerable people receiving initial doses of Moderna or Pfizer vaccines, beginning in December 2020. But a shortage in the supply of vaccines to Canada is causing concern.
Canada receives its supply of Pfizer vaccine from Belgium. According to the Pfizer website, the company is working on ways to ramp up production to meet world-wide demand. They are making modifications at their facilities to deliver 2 billion doses by the end of 2021.
“He joked he could have been the mayor of Port Alberni, he knew so many people,” said Yvonne Lucas of her husband Harry. Lucas, a well-known Nuu-chah-nulth elder, died in a boat accident on his way to Hot Springs Cove on Dec. 31, 2020.
He was a man that lived in the moment and made friends everywhere he went.
At his funeral service, Reverend Rick Lindholm joked that Harry and his elder brother, the late Dr. Simon Lucas, weren’t the shy ones in the family. Yvonne says the Lucas family is a large one and most of the siblings are quiet and reserved, but not Harry and Simon.