Latest Updates
Understanding Systemic Racism through the History of Policing in Canada
Canada’s first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, created what is known today as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). His model was the Royal Irish Constabulary, a paramilitary force the British created to keep the Irish under control. Police in Canada were established to serve the interests of colonial expansion and colonial rule. “The RCMP is a racist institution. What we’re seeing aren’t decisions from a random, bad apple. This is decision making within the institution, tracing back...
Global Green New Deal vs. Extractivist Capitalism
Authors Arundhati Roy and Naomi Klein took part in a virtual conversation to help launch a Global Green New Deal project to foster internationalism and visualize possibilities for a new and better world for people and the planet. “The violence of a capitalist system is rooted in an extractivist logic that treats the Earth itself, individual places, and entire groups of people as disposable -- a logic of endless extraction... that really cherishes nothing and no one,” said Klein. Before the...
Climate Action vs. Pipeline Debt for Big Oil Profiteering
In November, the Government of Canada’s Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson tabled Bill C-12 -- a new legislation that would force current and future federal governments to set binding climate targets to get Canada to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. In addition to public participation and assessment, the bill would require the Minister of Finance to prepare an annual report about key measures taken to manage the Government’s financial risks and opportunities related...
Single Use, to Systems Change: FOCS Joins Call to Action
Humanity produces 2 billion tonnes of waste each year and this figure is projected to increase by 70% by 2050. Single use products are a key contributor to this: when not effectively recycled, they are burned, sent to dumpsites or landfills, or simply left to degrade Earth’s ecosystems and poison Earth’s oceans. Of the 300 million tonnes of plastic produced each year, half of that goes into single use products and applications. Plastic is derived from fossil fuel extraction and manufacturing;...
“No Logging My Nation’s Territory”: A personal reflection
By Stephenie Charleson Home is where the heart is. Home is where we come from, where our families come from. Home is where we have a connection. I have a strong connection to my home in Hesquiaht territory. We have pressure on us to log in our territory, part of a business from years ago when they would clearcut our territory. Our coasts have seen slides and destruction to salmon habitats -- ocean side and streams and creeks, lakes -- the horrible effects of logging already done in the area....
Logging Deferred in Clayoquot Sound by B.C. Government for First Time in Colonial History
Last winter, the Government of B.C. acknowledged its approach to old growth forests is broken, ordering a comprehensive Old Growth Review. On Friday, September 11th, the government of B.C. released the Old Growth Review report and announced that for the next two years logging would be deferred for almost 353,000 hectares provincially, including more than 260,000 hectares in Clayoquot Sound. “For the first time in history, the B.C. Government announced the deferral of logging in Clayoquot Sound...
2020 Winter Newsletter Is Out Now!
The Friends of Clayoquot Sound 2021 Winter Newsletter is out with an in-depth look at the major issues in Clayoquot Sound and the work we have been doing over the last several months, including updates on our campaigns. Click the following link to read the 2021 Winter Newsletter Articles found in this newsletter include: “No Logging My Nation’s Territory”: A personal reflection. Canada Mandates Plan for Removal of Open Net Salmon Farms Climate Action vs. Pipeline Debt for Big Oil Profiteering...
Timelines Conflicting for End of Open Net Pen Salmon Farms
The Liberal Party’s campaign platform said a re-elected Trudeau government “will work with the province to develop a responsible plan to transition from open net pen salmon farming in coastal waters to closed containment systems by 2025.” But when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued mandate letters for his ministers in mid-December, the new Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan was instructed to work with the B.C. government and Indigenous communities “to create a responsible plan to...
Clayoquot Salmon Roundtable Begins First Ever Marine Risk Assessment
At just 1% of their historic abundance, wild salmon are in a state of emergency in Clayoquot Sound. Local salmon stocks have drastically declined in recent years. Watersheds that once supported returns of over 40,000 salmon annually have decreased to roughly 2,000 returning adults. Changing ocean conditions and productivity, habitat degradation, historical over-fishing, genetic diversity, disease, pathogens and sea lice prevalence are all believed to be leading causes of this decline. The loss...
B.C. Government Should Invest in Reconciliation-based Rainforest Protection
Old growth forests are non-renewable. This is why Friends of Clayoquot Sound, Greenpeace, Wilderness Committee, Sierra Club, and Stand (formerly Forest Ethics) formed the Clayoquot Sound Conservation Alliance (CSCA) in 2006 to support discussions with regional First Nations about protecting the intact valleys of Clayoquot Sound through conservation investment. Since then, FOCS has worked continuously towards permanent protection by supporting local First Nations in securing conservation...
Mining Cleanup to Cost B.C. Taxpayers $1.2B
Last summer as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took a taxpayer-funded luxury vacation in Tofino, the deadline for the Government of Canada to charge Imperial Metals for the 2014 Mount Polley Mine disaster passed. With no charges, fines or penalties, a signal was sent from government to Imperial Metals, the mining industry, and the stock market that the environmental costs of mining will be subsidized by the public, meaning greater profits can be privatized. Two days after the deadline passed,...
Protecting Nature Is Essential for Protecting Humanity
In April, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), published an article placing responsibility for COVID-19 squarely on our shoulders. “There is a single species that is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic – us. As with the climate and biodiversity crises, recent pandemics are a direct consequence of human activity – particularly our global financial and economic systems, based on a limited paradigm that prizes economic growth at any cost....
6 Nature Facts Related to Coronaviruses
Did you know that around 60 per cent of all infectious diseases, and 75 per cent of all emerging infectious diseases, in humans are zoonotic - in other words they come to us via animals? Zoonotic diseases that emerged or re-emerged recently are Ebola, bird flu, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), the Nipah virus, Rift Valley fever, sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), West Nile virus, Zika virus disease, and now coronavirus. They are all linked to human activity. The Ebola outbreak...
FOCS Join 150 Organizations to Launch 6 Principles for a Just Economic Recovery
As governments prepare recovery plans amidst the COVID-19 crisis, an informal alliance of over 150 civil society groups, representing collective memberships of millions in Canada, are demanding these plans move us toward a more equitable and sustainable future. United in support of the 6 Principles for Just Recovery, endorsing organizations alongside Friends of Clayoquot Sound span sectors and communities across the country, including the Canadian Labour Congress, Indigenous Climate Action,...
B.C. Fails Test of Indigenous Rights Law: Pipelines Pitted Against Indigenous Title
Canadian settler governments have legally recognized the importance of abiding by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Rights (UNDRIP). Last year, the B.C. Government closed out the decade with signs of hope and optimism, passing UNDRIP into law. But months later, both levels of government were found failing a major pipeline test. The five hereditary Chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en clan system, the only rightful authorities on their territory, issued eviction notices to...
