For five weeks, a food bank in Nanaimo, B.C. says it saw a jump in the amount of American produce being donated through a food recovery program. But now, that surplus has dwindled.

The teen victim, whose name is protected under a publication ban, was assaulted and stabbed to death while riding the bus home in April 2023.

For Melanie Watson, films aren’t just entertainment. 

They’re a way to bring people together and build a sense of community.

“I love curating films, and I love looking at all sorts of different films and seeing what’s out there, what’s coming,” she said. “And I’m often influenced, of course, by what’s going on in the world right now.”

Her idea for a local film club formed when she lived on a catamaran on the Thames River in London, England and screened films for the community aboard her boat.

“I really enjoyed that, and the feeling of bringing people together,” the festival organizer told The Discourse in an interview. “It was something that I missed when I came here. And I thought, ‘Why don’t I do this here in a different way?’”

After moving back home to the Cowichan Valley, she found the perfect place to host the club — The HUB at Cowichan Station — complete with a screen and a retro popcorn machine.

“The Hub was so welcoming to me,” she said, “and supported me making something here.” 

Watson wanted to make the space feel welcoming to other movie buffs.

Community building is woven throughout Watson’s work with the Hub Film Club, which is volunteer-run and has all proceeds going back to The HUB at Cowichan Station. 

Fast forward to today, and the club is gearing up to host its second annual Cowichan Valley Documentary Film Festival.

Watson says this year’s slate of films is heavily influenced by the world’s current events, and brings together a variety of perspectives on society, art and the environment. 

For her, the “heavy hitter” in the roster is Sugarcane. The Oscar-nominated and multiple award-winning documentary investigates allegations of abuse and missing children from St. Joseph’s Mission in Williams Lake, B.C. — and the residential “school’s” impacts on the Williams Lake First Nation community. 

The film’s director, Julian Brave NoiseCat, made history as the first North American Indigenous person nominated for their directing work at the Academy Awards.

Read More: Heading to the Oscars, the resounding impact of ‘Sugarcane’ proves both validating and ‘long overdue’

Watson said Sugarcane is an amazing film — and an important one to watch — but warned that films like it on sensitive or traumatic subjects can be upsetting to watch.

“There’s obviously a lot of people locally who have experienced the impact of residential schools,” she said. “I don’t want to bring up any of that trauma.”

But she doesn’t want to shy away from such tough conversations, and hopes people will come to see the powerful film when it screens on March 29.

She said it’s important for audiences to “see people’s lives reflected in films,” especially ones that show experiences they may not realize were shared by others.

Bringing back a film festival to the valley

The Cowichan Documentary Film Festival began as a collaboration between Watson’s film club and the Cowichan Valley Film Society.

The society used to run the Traveling World Film Festival, but the event was cancelled due to COVID-19 and never returned to Cowichan.

Last year, Watson felt the Hub Film Club could fill the local gap. 

So, she approached the film society to talk about launching a new documentary festival.

She said the pandemic was “so painful” for local film-fest organizers. 

“They had all the films, everything was set to go,” Watson recalled. “And the day before they were gonna show, everything stopped.” 

The original World Community Film Festival is still held in Courtenay, but its associated Cowichan event — which ran for six years — never happened again.

In the years since the pandemic began, there’s been a swelling of support for the film club, Watson said.

It now has more members than ever before, and she said she’s encouraged to see so many people supporting a local volunteer-run organization fundraising for The HUB at Cowichan Station.

Community building through film

Another of the films at the festival is An Unfinished Journey, being screened on opening night, March 28.

The documentary chronicles the struggles of four Afghan women trying to bring attention to the plight of women living in their country after the Taliban’s 2021 takeover. 

Watson wanted the screening to include the actual voices of women from Afghanistan living in the Cowichan Valley, so she partnered with the Cowichan Intercultural Society to bring in two speakers to introduce the film and share their own stories.

Watson said pinning down an overarching theme for such a diverse event can be tough, but she curated films that show many different perspectives on society, past and present.

She said if someone sees all of this year’s films, they’re “going to have a much different perspective.”

Watson cast a wide net for films, but also wanted to include at least one film by a local filmmaker. 

Last year, she showed A Cedar Is Life, directed and written by Quw’utsun filmmaker Harold  Joe, which explores the cultural relationship between the cedar tree and West Coast First Nations.

This year, she’s screening Sea to Land by Michelle Tremblay. In it, the Victoria filmmaker documented Cowichan Bay fisherman Guy Johnston over a whole fishing season as he runs an initiative that balances fishing economics with sustainability, fair wages and community.

Watson said there’s no shortage of great filmmakers in the Cowichan Valley, and she is always excited to hear from local talent looking for a place to screen their work. 

Watson would like to partner for future events with the recently reopened Duncan Cinemas to expand the festival’s reach. 

As a movie lover, Watson hopes the festival will remind people that the Island’s film community is flourishing, with other local festivals held on Salt Spring Island, in Nanaimo and in Victoria.

“We’re actually super rich in film festivals here on the Island,” she said, “but I don’t think a lot of people know how lucky we are.” 

For a complete film festival schedule and to purchase tickets, visit the Hub Film Club’s Eventbrite web page.

The post Cowichan Valley film fest showcases renowned documentaries — local and global — to inform and inspire appeared first on The Discourse..

This International Women’s Day, The Discourse and Cowichan IWD collaborated to host a panel discussion titled Building a Circle of Care for Vancouver Island. The event brought together community members and five panellists to discuss the question: ​​What supports are required to help women make empowered and informed decisions, whatever those decisions are? The event, which had a health care focus, was live-streamed via Zoom and archived on The Discourse’s YouTube channel.

Community members gathered at Craig Street Brew Pub to hear from Cowichan Valley NDP MLA and Provincial Secretary for Rural Health Debra Toporowski (Qwulti’stunaat),  NDP MP for Cowichan-Malahat-Langford Alistair MacGregor, Cowichan Women’s Health Collective executive director Beverly Suderman, Lelum ‘u tu S’tsa –ehl teyt-en (House of Honourable Mothers) manager Laura Interlandi and Vancouver Island Women’s Clinic’s Dr. Emily Stuart.

Attendees learned about the need for accessible and culturally safe health care, the importance of addressing food insecurity and housing and the importance of trauma-informed care to empower women’s health decisions. They spoke of the need for a community health centre in the Cowichan Valley and more collaboration between medical practitioners and service providers as well as a health care system in the province that is equitable for all women, regardless of where they live.

Defining women’s health care is complicated

“We want women to be thriving, not just surviving,” Suderman said in response to a question about what women’s health care encompasses. 

To address the issues surrounding women’s health care in general, Suderman said communities need to make sure fundamental things such as having a stable income, nutritious food to eat and safe housing are all available. She said ensuring those “social determinants” are met is just one way to address complex health care gaps and issues.

Suderman said she has been advocating for women’s health — and the creation of a women’s health centre in the Cowichan Valley — because her granddaughters aren’t receiving the same quality of health care that Suderman received when she was a teenager.

Topowroski emphasized the challenges women living in rural areas face when it comes to accessing health care, such as lack of transportation options and the cost of travelling long distances to receive health care. She said in her work as parliamentary secretary for rural health, she has met with local stakeholders to “ensure that [women] have access to a diverse range of affordable, equitable and culturally safe health-care services.”

MacGregor said his work has dealt with issues ranging from intimate partner violence and online harms to food security, all of which disproportionately affect women’s health. He said food security is an essential part of improving the overall quality of life for women who are struggling to feed their families. 

“When you’re having that kind of stress on the family, it can lead to really poor health outcomes,” he said.

Interlandi added that there needs to be an acknowledgement of the discrimination that takes place in health care, especially towards Indigenous people, and that practices need to change. She said accessing health care can be a traumatic experience for people who have been — or have family members who have been — abused and harmed by the medical system, and this is a reality for many women. 

“People deserve support while going to doctors appointments, particularly if they are likely or possibly going to be discriminated against,” she said.

Stuart agreed that there has been systemic racism in medicine — especially in obstetrics and gynecology — throughout history, and it still exists. She said having an advocate present in the room for women during doctor appointments can be a huge help.

One reason why Stuart said she chose to work in women’s health as a doctor is the “clear examples of how women weren’t listened to with painful procedures and pregnant people were given disinformation.”

Suderman pointed to the Cedar Branches Shelter, operated by Cowichan Women Against Violence Society, as a successful example of how combining access to health-care workers with low-barrier housing for women results in better health outcomes.

The need for wraparound care

Speakers at the event highlighted the need for cross-disciplinary collaboration to keep women informed of what services exist in their community. Interlandi said she tries her best to get out of her “practice silo” to ensure she knows what different local groups offer in terms of care and support.

“How do I get them great care, and how do we make sure that there are fewer and fewer gaps?” she said. “Because the more gaps, this is where the harm happens.” 

She said hospitals need to feel like centres of healing, where there is access to all types of support in one place and a friendly environment where people can feel comfortable asking questions. 

MacGregor spoke on how the number of supports or options for health care available to a person depends greatly on how wealthy they are. 

“We need to find ways where we are lifting people up so that they have that economic empowerment, where their day-to-day lives are not just scraping by,” he said.

Topowroski said there is a big push for the government to bring mental health and addictions back under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health in order to build better mental health and addiction care. She sees this as a positive development that could increase access to health care. She drew on her own experience as a woman coming out of an abusive relationship and how the outcome could have been different had she not been connected to the right supports. 

“If I wasn’t in the hospital … I wouldn’t have found the social worker that came in and talked to me and said there are these services for you, and you can get the help that you need,” Toporowski said.

Suderman said the Cowichan Women’s Health Collective believes there are four main areas to build a circle of care for women: access to health care, information about community supports, a wide range of choices in those supports and cultural safety to combat the weaponization of health care against marginalized groups. 

Women’s health suffers when access to care is limited

Stuart said another way to support women and pregnant people is to ensure abortion and reproductive care remain legal and safe in Canada, despite legislation brought forth by conservative MPs to limit access to abortion care.

She said bills put forward in the House of Commons to legalize abortion could also be a problem. 

“In the medical sense, abortion should just be a medical procedure. So we don’t want to have any laws that will say yes, it’s allowed. Because we don’t have any laws for other medical procedures,” she said. 

Currently, abortion is part of health care the same way other procedures, such as an appendectomy, are. Stuart said introducing laws that legalize abortion — or any other medical procedure — opens up the possibility to pass laws that make abortion and other procedures illegal.

Read also

North Cowichan denies tax break for House of Grace Pregnancy Centre

Stuart also pointed out that Abortion Care Canada, one of the largest charity organizations in the country that provides abortion care, said it may need to shut down after the federal government declined to renew its funding. The organization uses funding for various things, such as to provide grants to people who need to travel long distances to access abortion care or run phone lines where people can call in to find the closest abortion centre or miscarriage care provider.

While abortion care charities struggle to get by, Vancouver Island has a growing number of crisis pregnancy centres which outnumber abortion care centres or hospitals that provide abortions.  Stuart said these crisis pregnancy centres seem like they are a good choice for women looking to get information on abortion or what options they have, but often spread misinformation and repeat anti-choice rhetoric.

Read also

Crisis pregnancy centres outnumber abortion care clinics on Vancouver Island

“I’ve unfortunately had many people come to me that have visited a crisis pregnancy center first … and they say ‘I was told it would ruin my fertility, that I would get depression from having an abortion,’ all of these things that ultimately are just making them feel shame,” Stuart said.

Stuart highlighted the Abortion Support Collective, based in Victoria, that is made up of doulas and allied health professionals committed to supporting people through their reproductive journeys.

She said the collective can be a great resource for those receiving a surgical procedure. 

“Or, if you want to have someone to advocate for you during an appointment, you can have some of these doulas come with you,” Stuart said.

A wishlist for women’s health care on Vancouver Island

Speakers were asked what would be on their wishlist for women’s health care and what they’d like to see done in the short term.

Speakers highlighted the need for subsidized and supportive housing that allows low-income families to live and meet their needs. Having access to basic care is part of health care, they said. 

The need for better transit options was also a topic that came up amongst panellists and audience members.

Interlandi recalled a recent client of hers who had successfully transitioned out of the House of Honourable Mothers but didn’t have a vehicle and, as a result of the current transit strike, had no way of getting her toddler to the doctor. 

“How is somebody going to get to the hospital? How is somebody going to get to the doctor?” she said. “That’s failing people today, right now.”

Audience members noted that even when transit workers weren’t on strike, options to get around the Cowichan Valley and Vancouver Island are limited — particularly in the evening and at night. This also poses a safety concern for women who don’t have access to a vehicle and may have to walk from place-to-place alone or rely on rides. Audience members said they’d like to see expanded transit options or safe ride options for women.

Suderman said she wants to see a community health centre in the Cowichan Valley where women can receive wraparound care for all of their health needs. She also wants to see more support for youth mental health-care.

While discussing a health centre, Topowroski pointed out that Cowichan Tribes has outgrown the current Ts’ewulhtun Health Centre and hopes it will be replaced soon. Having a centre that houses health services for seniors and youth under one roof would ensure “that we don’t leave anybody behind in our health care,” she said.

MacGregor’s wishlist includes safe, supportive and stable housing, which he considers a crucial primary step before building services around that housing.

To close the event, Interlandi said there needs to be space for people to have tough conversations with those they disagree with. She said if we’re learning anything from what’s happening in America, “there’s some really great organization happening on the right, and we need to be mindful about how we’re not splintering our communities,” she said. 

Health care should be unconditional, she added, “so people don’t owe us healing, and they don’t owe us positive outcomes. Their human right is to receive care.” 

The post Advocates call for wraparound care and community health centre for women in Cowichan appeared first on The Discourse..

B.C. Greens, Conservatives want answers about New Democrats' emergency powers legislation introduced last week.

The herring spawn that turns the waters around Vancouver Island a turquoise blue came to Nanaimo this week with active spawns in the area around Neck Point Park and Pipers Lagoon Park.

It was a sunny Tuesday afternoon and the wind was brisk but wildlife enthusiasts and families were out to see the herring spawn and all of the birds, seals and sea lions that it attracts. 

For Hannah Christie, 7, it was her first time seeing the herring spawn along with her little sister Abby, 2, and her parents Jonathan and Emma.

She told The Discourse that she “loves the animals, especially the seals and eagles trying to catch the fish.”

When asked how she would describe it to her friends she said “it was super cool, it was blue, and we saw lots of seals.”

Her father Jonathan said that seeing the herring spawn is “beautiful” and that he was “overwhelmed by all the life and animals.”

Brittni Panter is a wildlife photographer who moved to Nanaimo 12 years ago from the Yukon and was shooting photos of the herring spawn at Pipers Lagoon Park on Tuesday. For the past two years, she has been busy photographing the herring spawn. 

“I’ve been spending some time in Comox for the last couple of weeks,” she said. “I’ve been making day trips up on the weekend to watch the spawning. I was excited to see that it finally made it to Nanaimo today.” 

Panter said she loves capturing all the action that happens at the herring spawn. 

“Between the seagulls and the sea lions and the eagles, you never know what you’re going to get,” she said. 

Tana Boyce and her husband Dave have been going “on the herring hunt” since they moved to Vancouver Island 26 years ago, and have only missed seeing them a few times.

“It’s unreal, the amount of fish and the beauty of the water and the fresh air, the smell of everything. Seeing the eggs, like snow on the shores, and the seaweed — it’s just incredible,” she said.

Like others, Tana follows the Pacific Herring Spawn Reporting page on Facebook that posts updates on spawning locations and aerial photos of the spawn from regular flights to monitor the spawning.

The Facebook page is a community outreach project by the Island Marine Aquatic Working Group, which helps Indigenous communities “report spawn observations in local territories” and share information “to help management of herring stocks.”

Tanna’s husband, Dave, told The Discourse he enjoys being outside, “seeing nature at its finest” and enjoying life on Vancouver Island. He was out at Neck Point Park with his camera.  

“Seeing the amount of sea life concentrated in one area is just incredible,” he said. “I really appreciate the herring themselves and seeing them bubbling along the shore and all the way up to the big mammals going after them.”

The post Herring Spawn arrives in Nanaimo appeared first on The Discourse..

Scientific evidence is painting an unsettling picture: COVID infections, even if mild or asymptomatic, may be causing long-term cellular and organ damage, as well as increasing your risk of developing long COVID.

The Canadian government has turned to Europe in search not only of new trade partners, but also hoping to firm up support against the annexation threats coming from the United States. But what can Canada offer in return? And what might such an alliance look like?