When I saw this article, I shared it, because I found it very beautiful and helpful. It appears that Mia Taylor is the daughter of two of my friends; just learned that today, when, commenting on the original post, Mia referred to “Mom.” HA! I might have guessed, from my previous friendship with Mia’s parents! But Mia stands magnificently on her own studies, hard work, and perceptions. Thanks, Mia, for a great article, and I’m very glad Britt has picked it up and published it, with your kind permission.

Looks like no 3 photo is a woman

Shameful that these weekend warriors take
Charity money to have multiple fast enclosed boats at each unit.

Other charities are much more deserving of all this BC lottery money.

This is the third major incident that this unit has had in twelve years. Another unit killed some of its members in skookumchuck narrows doing dumb thing with massive current running. Then the safety systems onboard failed to work to right the boat (due to lack of maintenance). This killed two volunteers inside in a most violent traumatic way..

I want my provincial lottery funding used to support people in the community that need it, single moms, families in poverty, seniors etc. NOT weekend warriors in hopped up multi hundred thousand dollar boats that duplicate a service already provided by my tax dollars (coast guard).

Shut all these volunteer Ricky rescue units down…. they are clearly more a hazard than a benefit…. thank Christ there wasn’t a bystander on the land or a kayaker.

They couldn’t even find their way home to their home base…. how can they safely go anywhere else or help anyone?

Their boats are too powerful, their crews not responsible enough to slow down.

They missed Lannon Creek Park today. All roads in here are cleared and sanded.

Its February, not November …

This is great news!!! I am all for saving these poor cats who had no so in people abandoning them :o(((. They are domesticated animals and CAN’T survive on their own!!! Especially in this kind of weather :o(

Thanks to Sooke Council for listening to the one voice. Good job.

The best use of the E&N Rail corridor is as a railroad. The federal government has already put up half the money necessary to service and maintain the railbed. Now the CRD mayors are ready for the work to be done. It’s the province’s time to get on the team. Worries about the Niagra trestle do not affect use of the rail from downtown Victoria to Goldstream. The existing railcars are suitable to be used as they once were.

Yep! Snow day in Sooke. Kudos to Sooke Dental Centre for shoveling not only their own path but the sidewalk as well!

Thank you to everyone who made this happen. Especially to our Regional Director Mike Hicks for coming up with the idea and to Jen Wilde who has worked tirelessly to bring this plan together in less than a week! Great work!

Way to go, Juan de Fuca EA. Thanks to the staff at the admin. office and to our CRD Director, Mike Hicks

My take on this reply, she is not listening!

Ba naum a nuamp.
Doo doo did doo doo
Ba naum a naump
Doo doo did doo doo
Ba naum a naump

Nice story, Britt. Gave me the shivers; hahaha!

Where is this money coming from?
The millions if dollars made in taxes from legal cannabis sales? Liquor sales? Seems counter productive.

How about the fact that anyone under the age of 28 should not be using or be exposed to cannabis due to the fact that use can cause depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and bi-polar and other mental illnesses.
Let’s be proactive and pritect our vulnerable youth. This includes any mind altering substance use.

Hi there are several amounts missing in your report 🙂

Council waffles on addressing remuneration … – Sooke PocketNews

https://sooke.pocketnews.ca/council-waffles-on-addressing-remuneration-frozen-for-…

Jan 22, 2019 – Wittich is a member of the the Sooke’s informal economic development group (EDG). See Delegation Information. In spite of this public-driven …

Cohousing is such a remarkable concept and this development will be a boon to the community of Sooke.

I had no internet connection during my four months in hospital, and no news; I had heard nothing about the death of Cam Sullivan. I am shocked and sorry this happened, and wish to express my profound sympathy to his family and friends. I’m glad a plaque was approved.

If we, citizens of Sooke, expect to be well-represented, then we have a responsibility to support our hardworking Council members by making sure they are well-paid.
Encourage them by telling them so at mayorandcouncil@sooke.ca

I did see these while waiting with my daughter on one visit.
I would say that the pictures are self drawings of them catching snowflakes with their tongue.
Not crying. ❄️
And it definitely put a smile on our faces to see their artwork. Way to go everyone!

Time to seriously consider Reducing (the first of the “3 R’s”: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) the purchase of solid plastic items since they can no longer be recycled.

I drive Sooke Rd home around midnight every weeknight and notice when street lights are out or not turned on. I contacted the Ministry of Transportation in the summer and the Ministry blamed it on BC Hydro not hooking them up. There is still about a dozen new and old lights out on Sooke Rd from West Shore Parkway to Sooke that are still out. How many times do we have to complain until these safety items get fixed?

Finally! Even more so, after reading the ‘paper’ version of the SNM today.

With time expectations of 20 hrs/week, $10,000/yr amounts to less than minimum wage. While I feel that those in public office have a primary responsibility to serve their communities, I wouldn’t expect anyone to do fantastic work, especially anyone with great qualifications, at this pay rate. Our elected officials deserve reasonable pay increases.

Thank you Britt for making this information available to the public and the presenter Lana Fine was excellent. People there , obviously were there to be a help to others. Statistics like 8,000 people in Canada , dying of opioid overdoses. More than aids has ever killed. Learning of how many fentanyl deaths occur accidently due to fentanyl contaminations of injection areas. How the breathing stops and how the most important thing to do is to keep the patient breathing to prevent brain damage which can occur in a short 3 minutes without oxygen. The age stats in Canada have dropped to 40 due to the amount of our precious young people dying. Tara Munro, a counselor, partnered and assisted with Lana for this class. Lana is passionate about what she does and is passionate about saving lives. Even if she needs to give up to 17 injections to bring someone to life and spend hours breathing air into the lungs she will do so and over and over, because her hope is that at some point this life will turn around and leave behind that life.
Both Lana and Tara have been trying desperately to get into the schools to talk with students and teachers and show them how to use the naloxone kits and to give out the kits, which cost $68 each, to save lives. There have been 3 overdoses at Oak Bay High, yet they have not been allowed in to help fight the crisis. The School Board needs to open their ears and the Principals as well and face the fact that young people are at risk. If you can I would urge every parent, grandparent PAC leader etc. to put pressure on the schools to have these ladies come and talk to the schools, including students and teachers. We have a duty to protect the most vulnerable among us and education is so important. Keeping some kits at schools and teaching adult members how to administer naloxone and to keep someone alive by breathing oxygen into them. There are first aiders in the schools as well but many are not trained in the use of naloxone and what to do if someone overdoses. The window to save someone when they have started to turn blue is so short. You only have 2 minutes to react and save someone. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a crisis. Get involved and know how you can help save a life. I am so glad I went and had my eyes opened to the tragedy all around us.
Call Lana Fine at 250-384-2366 to have her come and talk to your school, your workplace, construction site or to your event organizations, ie music festivals etc.

The last OCP took a little over 2 years, not four as the mayor stated. I did correct her. I know i served on it and as cahaur fir the latter part of it and we also went through 4 planners in the process which really put us behind playing catch up with new planners

It would be fun to do a Locals Only reaing club!

The area around Sooke has been home to many celebrated authors including Commonwealth Writers Prize winner in 2001 ( best first novel ) Pearl Luke for Burning Ground and Darrel J McLeod for his 2018 GG winning novel Mamaskatch, A Cree Coming of Age. There is at least one other novelist who has lived in the region whose name I have forgotten, a Crime Fiction writer from Otter Point. Perhaps these people could be asked in for readings!

Hi Britt,
FYI I log in and still can’t get the article. What am I doing wrong?

Wow! This is only getting done now?

Just wanted to comment, as Serna did, that the protest was not about pipelines so much as about the heavily armed police force that arrived to disband the peaceful protest by the Unist’ot’en people. The Unist’oten have been trying for proper consultation with their “senior” government officials(hereditary chiefs) before their unceded territory is invaded by the natural gas industry. It is ironic that the First Nations are asked to bring lawyers to defend what Canada has already agree to as their aboriginal rights under the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Aboriginal People.

We were not there about the pipelines. We were gathered in a show of solidarity to support the wrongness of the illegal arrests of the people of Unist’ot’en on their own unceded territory. They were faced with ARMED forceable actions while they themselves were UNARMED.
Also to say the police “stood by to keep the peace” denotes that there was a cause of concern for some sort of safety issue which was not the case as we were PEACEFULLY responding to a call to action of support with only banners, drums, songs and feathers in hand!

Well, folks. There it is. An analysis of why collaborative government with more diversity–in this case more women–is better government for the province or nation. Since most people were persuaded that the supposed dangers of proportional representation outweighed the supposed benefits, we will have to try another route to a collaborative diverse working government. I think if corporations and businesses don’t voluntarily spend on social programs, there is an argument for taxing them to help pay for social prgrams. From the article above, I take social programs to be those offering “medical care, preventive care, other social services and post-secondary education” as described in the article above. Overall, a health happy population is cheaper to govern than an unhealthy, unhappy population.

More government employees? or does Trudeau want our account numbers

Wowwwwwweeeewow!

What about people who have mobility challenges, or people with strollers???

Not surprised… I can’t believe the direction society is going in to make a buck. Nothing is sacred.

I live between Tugwell and Muir creek , most morning there is a few ,to many sea lions just off shore . This year I did not find one dead salmon carcass on the beach ,in other years there would be many . Can we get a sea lion cull ?
Thank you ,
Bud Gibbons , Otter Point .

I will be there to help share knowledge, the real truth, and address any misconceptions…

Thank you for printing this article. We all need to think about what is going on here. People’s rights and concerns about maintaining the soundness of their backyard are being completely disregarded in favour of profits for the oil and gas industry. This despite the urgent need to reduce (rather than increase) our use of fossil fuels, the toxic nature of the LNG industry (creating earthquakes and irreparably damaging scarce water supplies) and the fact that the market for LNG is basically nonexistent without huge government (taxpayer) subsidies. It seems far away, but it could come to a backyard near any of us some time soon. Best to stand up now in solidarity with the Wet’Suwet’en in whatever way we can, lest governments think it is perfectly okay to send the RCMP in to remove inhabitants from and clear out any place the oil and gas (or mining, etc.) industry wants to exploit.

Soo totally awesome. How do we keep our beautiful Sooke. Thank you to all of you for sharing your obvious love.

Thank you Britt, see you all there!

Good idea! Whoever designed a crosswalk into a ditch anyway? You can barely even see the faded crosswalk unless it’s been painted recently…I think kids from the school should be given colourful paint to create a more visible and fun crosswalk over to the ball diamonds, tennis and pickleball courts and parking area used for school pick ups!

In our discussions we should also note that there is alcohol induced dementia and it is frequent. I only discovered this as a fact through a health care provider who works at our local hospitals. I knew about it , but didn’t know the frequency of it. Another tool to teach our children and adults to keep more folks out of hospitals and lessen the dementia. It is a sad disease and the more we can learn about it the better. Family and friends suffer tremendously from the affects on their loved ones.

First we need a plan. We applied for a bicycle grant before and there wasn’t a real plan and a lot of wasted time and effort from staff and council and extra costs. Let’s be clear where and what it is that we need and then go forward so as not to spin wheels.

Glad to be a Chartered Subsriber! Thanks for all of your tireless hard work, dedication and excellent reporting Britt!!!

Thanks, Britt, for posting this. I missed the actual event and I appreciate the opportunity to hear all the “talks”.

One thing the fire cheif didnt answer was that the Sooke community Hall, The legion and ed milne school are designated in case of an emergency shelter , so not available unfortunately.

Yeah. Council got it.great commenta from concerned citizens protecticting the rural