Tuesday, September 22, 2026

what the hell is happening in b.c. politics right now?

September 22, 2026 — verified as of today

If you're in B.C. and haven't been following provincial politics closely, you may want to pay attention now.

I certainly had to stop and figure out what the hell was happening.

Today, Premier David Eby officially called a snap provincial election for October 24, 2026 — less than two years after the last provincial election. And this comes after weeks of extraordinary upheaval inside the B.C. Conservative opposition.

And if you live in Surrey South, there's another particularly strange piece of this story.

the people

Kerry-Lynne Findlay is a longtime Conservative politician and former federal Conservative MP. In May 2026, she became leader of the B.C. Conservatives.

She resigned as B.C. Conservative leader on September 20, after more than a dozen MLAs had left or been expelled from the party's caucus during her short leadership. She did not announce that she was leaving the Conservative Party itself; she said she would remain the Conservative candidate in the Abbotsford-Mission by-election. Lorne Doerkson subsequently became interim leader.

And here's the part that made me stop:

Brent Chapman is Findlay's husband.

Chapman is the MLA for Surrey South, elected as a B.C. Conservative in 2024. Elections B.C. confirms that he won that riding in the 2024 provincial election.

And today, September 22, Chapman announced that he was leaving the B.C. Conservatives and joining OneBC.

CTV reports that Chapman said the party he was asked to run for by then-leader John Rustad had become unrecognizable to him. He also specifically said the turmoil had become personal because he had watched his wife endure attacks from people she had previously worked alongside.

So, in two days:

September 20: Kerry-Lynne Findlay resigns as B.C. Conservative leader.

September 22: Her husband, Surrey South MLA Brent Chapman, leaves the B.C. Conservatives and joins OneBC.

September 22: David Eby calls the provincial election for October 24.

That is not speculation. Those events have happened.

and the Conservative caucus?

This is where it gets even stranger.

During Findlay's roughly four months as leader, more than a dozen MLAs left or were expelled from the Conservative caucus. Several of those MLAs formed or joined CentreBC, led by Peter Milobar.

But today's election call immediately changed the situation again.

Seven CentreBC MLAs are now rejoining the B.C. Conservatives, according to a Canadian Press report published today. Eleanor Sturko is reported to be the sole CentreBC MLA not returning to the Conservative caucus.

So the political map is literally changing while the election is being called.

and Brent Chapman has a history people should know about

This isn't the first time Chapman has been at the centre of controversy.

During the 2024 provincial campaign, old social-media posts resurfaced in which Chapman made deeply offensive comments about Palestinians and Muslims. He apologized and said those views did not represent who he was at the time of the 2024 campaign.

Additional old posts then surfaced in which he questioned whether several mass shootings had actually occurred. Chapman subsequently stated that the Quebec City mosque shooting, Sandy Hook, Aurora and the Orlando nightclub shooting were real mass shootings in which innocent people died, and said he wished they had never happened.

These are documented controversies, not rumours. His explanations and apologies are also part of the public record.

and now we have an election

David Eby went to Government House today and asked Lt.-Gov. Wendy Lisogar-Cocchia to dissolve the legislature.

The provincial election will be held Saturday, October 24, 2026.

And here's something that many people may not realize:

B.C. is already holding its municipal elections on October 17.

So voters in Surrey and elsewhere will potentially be dealing with municipal voting on October 17 and provincial voting one week later on October 24.

That's a lot of political information for voters to absorb in a very short period.

one important distinction

There are now several different political groups on the B.C. right:

B.C. Conservatives — the official Opposition party, currently led on an interim basis by Lorne Doerkson.

CentreBC — the breakaway group led by Peter Milobar. Seven of its MLAs have now agreed to return to the Conservative caucus following today's election call, according to Canadian Press.

OneBC — the party Chapman is joining today. It does not currently have official party status in the legislature.

So when someone says "the Conservatives," it is worth asking which Conservatives?

what I am watching now

I'm particularly interested in what happens next in Surrey South.

Brent Chapman is no longer a B.C. Conservative, and the provincial election has now been called.

I also want to find out who is actually running for the B.C. Greens, NDP, Conservatives, OneBC and any other parties in Surrey South, because this is going to be a very different ballot from the one people might have expected a few days ago.

And that is precisely why I'm writing this down.

Not to tell anyone how to vote.

Not to predict who will win.

Just to document what is happening while it is happening.

Because I suspect a lot of British Columbians are going to wake up and say:

"Wait... what happened?"

And honestly?

That's what I said today too. 🤨🤔🤐😬

disclosure: This post grew out of a conversation I had with ChatGPT on September 22, 2026. I asked it to help me understand the rapidly changing political situation in B.C. I then asked it to verify the information against current news reports. I have tried to distinguish documented facts from allegations, political claims and uncertainty. This is a developing story, so information may change or be corrected. I am documenting what I know as of today, not endorsing any party or candidate.

truth and reconciliation — 10 years later

Ten years ago, I took a course at Langara College that changed the way I looked at history, reconciliation and my own responsibility as a person living on these lands.

I learned from Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers, including Shane Pointe, and one teaching that stayed with me was the importance of being a witness.

I cannot tell another person's story. It is not mine to tell.

I can listen. I can learn. I can remember. I can document what I have witnessed. And I can tell my own story.

Shane Pointe, a Musqueam Elder and Knowledge Keeper who passed away this year, was one of the people who helped teach me that. I think about that teaching now, especially as September 30 approaches.

Ten years ago, I hoped that by now we would have moved much further.

We have learned more. We have heard more Survivors. More records have come forward. There is greater public recognition of residential schools, the children who never came home, the Survivors and their families, and the ongoing crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

But reconciliation cannot simply be something we talk about once a year.

It is also about the land.

The water.

The forests.

The salmon.

The environment we leave for the generations coming after us.

And lately I have been thinking about something else: artificial intelligence.

We are entering a strange time when AI can repeat information endlessly, sometimes without knowing where it came from. Human stories, photographs, research and lived experiences can be copied, rearranged and repeated until the original person almost disappears.

That makes being a witness feel even more important to me.

My old photographs. My paintings. My family research. My notebooks. My blog. The things I saw and documented before AI was everywhere.

They are pieces of a human record.

I don't claim to speak for anyone else.

I can only say:

I was here.
I saw this.
I learned this.
I remember.
This is what I can witness.

Ten years later, I am still learning.

And I still hope we can do better.

#TruthAndReconciliation #NationalDayForTruthAndReconciliation #OrangeShirtDay #EveryChildMatters #MMIWG #Witness #Reconciliation #IndigenousHistory #LandAndWater #ShanePointe #Langara

A 1839 Baptism Record: Finding My Iroquois and Kalapuya Ancestors

Sometimes genealogy gives you a family story.

Sometimes it gives you a document.

And sometimes, nearly 200 years later, you find the document that makes the story real.

I have been researching my family history and have been trying to understand the Indigenous ancestry on one branch of my family tree.

One of the people I kept coming back to was Mary Ann Miranda Brulé, later Mary Ann Voutrin.

I now have an extraordinary piece of evidence from July 4, 1839.

The 1839 baptism record

The Catholic mission register from the Willamette records the baptism of a five-year-old girl named Marie Anne.

The priest recorded her as the:

“natural child of Louis, Iroquois, nicknamed le Frisé, engagé, and of Louise, Kalapoya by nation.”

In other words:

Father: Louis — Iroquois, “le Frisé,” an engagé

Mother: Louise — Kalapoya/Kalapuya

This is a contemporary record from 1839.

It isn't a family tree website created generations later.

It is a Catholic mission record made when Marie Anne was a child.

The same register contains another baptism, recorded immediately afterward, for Michel, aged three, also identified as the child of Louis Iroquois dit le Frisé and Louise, Kalapouya.

That gives us additional evidence that Louis and Louise were a family with multiple children.

Who was Louis?

The priest identified Louis as Iroquois and an engagé.

An engagé was a contracted worker in the fur-trade world.

This is important because Iroquois men were active participants in the western fur trade.

Beginning in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many Iroquois men—particularly from communities around what is now Kahnawà:ke, Akwesasne and Oka—were recruited to work as voyageurs, hunters, guides and other fur-trade workers.

Many travelled enormous distances west.

Some returned home.

Others stayed.

Some married Indigenous women from the communities where they worked and made new lives in the West.

Historian Jean Barman has documented hundreds of these Iroquois journeys and the communities that developed from them.

My ancestor appears to have been part of that much larger movement.

And Louise?

The baptism record identifies Marie Anne's mother simply as:

“Louise, Kalapoya by nation.”

That spelling is the priest's nineteenth-century spelling. Today we generally use Kalapuya.

This matters enormously.

It means that Mary Ann's Indigenous ancestry was not only Iroquois.

Her mother was Kalapuya.

So Mary Ann was born into a family connecting two different Indigenous histories:

Iroquois + Kalapuya.

The name “Marie Anne” becomes important

In 1839, the priest recorded her as Marie Anne.

Later records and historical research identify her as Mary Ann Miranda Brulé, and eventually Mary Ann Voutrin.

This is one reason genealogy can become so difficult.

Names change.

People use French names, English names, nicknames and married surnames.

Spelling changes between records.

A woman can appear under several surnames during her lifetime.

So I don't want to pretend that the paperwork is always simple.

But in this case, the age is a powerful clue.

The 1839 baptism record says Marie Anne was five years old.

Nine years later, in 1848, a young Marie Ann married Joseph Brulé in the Willamette Valley.

The historical record identifies that bride as Mary Ann/Marianne.

The ages line up.

Then comes the 1848 marriage record

On August 7, 1848, Joseph Brulé married Marie Ann Maranda dit la Frise at the Mission of St. Paul.

That record identifies Joseph as the:

“minor son of the late Jacques Iroquois and of Marguerite Brulé.”

It also identifies Jean Baptiste Brulé as Joseph's foster-father and step-father.

So we have another Indigenous connection.

Joseph's biological father was identified as Jacques Iroquois.

His mother was Marguerite.

And his foster/stepfather was Jean Baptiste Brulé.

This explains why Joseph carried the Brulé name even though his biological father was identified as Iroquois.

Look at what came together in this marriage

Mary Ann:

Iroquois father + Kalapuya mother

Joseph:

Iroquois father + T’Sou-ke mother

According to historian Jean Barman's reconstruction, Joseph's mother Marguerite was a woman of the Sooke/T’Sou-ke people of southern Vancouver Island. Barman also traces the family's later movement north and connects it with Marguerite's desire to return to her home territory.

So when Joseph and Mary Ann married, two remarkably interconnected Indigenous family histories came together.

Iroquois.
Kalapuya.
T’Sou-ke.

Alongside the French-Canadian and fur-trade connections that were already woven throughout their lives.

This wasn't an unusual world

That is perhaps the most important thing I have learned.

It is tempting to look at my family and think:

What an unusual combination of backgrounds.

But the Pacific Northwest of the fur-trade era was full of these connections.

Iroquois men travelled west.

They worked in the fur trade.

They formed families with local Indigenous women.

Their children could become part of their mother's communities through kinship, marriage and adoption.

French-Canadian voyageurs and Indigenous families became connected through generations of relationships.

Historian Jean Barman describes Iroquois descendants becoming integrated into western Indigenous communities while retaining or adapting their Iroquois identity.

These were not people living in isolated boxes.

They were living in communities.

And then governments changed the rules

This is where the story becomes much more difficult.

The people in these families had their own relationships, identities and communities.

But colonial governments increasingly imposed categories of race, citizenship, land ownership and tribal affiliation.

People who had once lived and worked together could suddenly be required to prove what they were.

A person with a French surname could still have Indigenous ancestry.

An Iroquois man could become part of a western Indigenous community.

A child could inherit ancestry from several nations.

A woman could be identified differently in different records.

The historical record itself reflects these changes.

That is why I think it is so important to go back to the earliest documents we can find.

What I know—and what I am still investigating

I can now document that a 1839 Catholic baptism record identifies a five-year-old Marie Anne as the daughter of Louis, Iroquois, dit/nicknamed le Frisé, an engagé, and Louise, Kalapuya.

I can document the 1848 marriage of Marie Ann and Joseph Brulé and Joseph's identification as the son of Jacques Iroquois and Marguerite Brulé, with Jean Baptiste Brulé identified as his foster- and step-father.

And I have historical research connecting Joseph's mother, Marguerite, with the T’Sou-ke/Sooke people.

There are still questions.

Who exactly was Louis Iroquois dit le Frisé?

What was Louise's full story?

How did Louis come to the Oregon Country?

What happened to this family after the children were baptized?

And how did these families eventually become connected to Vancouver Island and the communities of British Columbia?

I don't want to fill those gaps with guesses.

I want the documents.

Because that is what makes this journey so fascinating.

Almost 200 years later

A priest sat down in 1839 and wrote a few lines in a baptism register.

He probably had no idea that someone nearly two centuries later would be reading those words trying to find her ancestors.

But there they are.

Louis.

Louise.

Marie Anne.

An Iroquois father.

A Kalapuya mother.

A little girl five years old.

And a family whose story would eventually become part of mine.

Sometimes history isn't lost.

Sometimes it is simply waiting for us to learn how to read it.

And sometimes one little line in an old church book can bring an entire family back into view.

Monday, September 21, 2026

Gr. Grandpa Joseph Enos Diary — March 1885

Excerpt from My Great-Grandfather’s Diary 📖

I’m sharing excerpts from my Great-Grandfather’s diary. They may not always appear in chronological order, so please bear with me as I work through them.

He lived in Nanoose Bay, on Notch Hill, and his diary gives us a glimpse into our family’s life and history.

My Great-Great-Grandfather came from the Azores to Victoria in 1862. He later married my Songhees Great-Great-Grandmother in 1876, the same year the federal Indian Act was enacted.

The diary belonged to my Great-Grandfather. My Great-Aunt Mary eventually donated it to the Royal BC Museum. I was able to have it scanned into a PDF, and I’ve also been working from the handwritten cursive to create a hand-printed transcription so that we can actually read his words.

It feels pretty special to be able to bring these pages back into the family story, more than a century later.

More excerpts to come. ❤️

Transcription Note

Please note: These transcriptions may contain errors. I am working from handwritten cursive that is more than 140 years old, and some words, names and places are difficult to decipher. Where I’m uncertain, I’ve indicated it with [brackets] or a question mark rather than guessing.

I’m sharing these as a work in progress, and I’ll continue to correct and refine the transcriptions as I learn more.

March 1885

March 1 — Sunday

Showers.

March 2 — Monday

Surveying.

March 3 — Tuesday

Surveying.

March 4 — Wednesday

Surveying.

March 5 — Thursday

Clearing in front of the house to put fruit trees in.

March 6 — Friday

Fine weather. ?

March 7 — Saturday

We finished surveying.

March 8 — Sunday

Fishing for ? -?

Places, People & Subjects Mentioned

House · fruit trees · surveying · fishing

More excerpts from Joseph Enos's diary to come. ❤️

Gr. Grandpa Joseph Enos Diary January 1885

Gr. Grandpa Joseph Enos Diary — Surveying, January–February 1885

Excerpt from My Great-Grandfather’s Diary 📖

I’m sharing excerpts from my Great-Grandfather’s diary. They may not always appear in chronological order, so please bear with me as I work through them.

He lived in Nanoose Bay, on Notch Hill, and his diary gives us a glimpse into our family’s life and history.

My Great-Great-Grandfather came from the Azores to Victoria in 1862. He later married my Songhees Great-Great-Grandmother in 1876, the same year the federal Indian Act was enacted.

It feels pretty special to be able to bring these pages back into the family story, more than a century later.

More excerpts to come. ❤️

Transcription Note

I’m sharing these as a work in progress, and I’ll continue to correct and refine the transcriptions as I learn more.

January–February 1885

January 19 — Monday

Surveying.

January 20 — Tuesday

Surveying.

January 21 — Wednesday

Surveying.

January 22 — Thursday

I went up the cost to help J.R. Hamilton to survey his Claims, G.H Drabble Survey Jan. 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 Feb 1, 2, 3, 4 Surveying at J.B Hamilton.

February 5 — Thursday

We finishing surveying Hamilton & 6 and started on our way down.

February 6 — Friday

G J. Hamilton and M Drabble went went to survey J. Hamilton.

February 7 — Saturday

John Soza came to ? with us.

February 8 — Sunday

Fine weather. I went to J. Hamiltons.

February 9 — Monday

J. Hirst called. We began to pull the turnips up.

February 10 — Tuesday

Pulling up turnips.

February 11 — Wednesday

Drabble and Hamilton? head the bay having ? surveying our claims.

February 14 — Saturday

Surveying.

Places, People & Subjects Mentioned

J.R. Hamilton · G.H. Drabble · J.B. Hamilton · John Soza · J. Hirst

Surveying · Claims · turnips · bay

More excerpts from Joseph Enos's diary to come. ❤️

Gr. Grandpa Joseph Enos Diary — January 1886

Excerpt from My Great-Grandfather’s Diary 📖

I’m sharing excerpts from my Great-Grandfather’s diary. They may not always appear in chronological order, so please bear with me as I work through them.

He lived in Nanoose Bay, on Notch Hill, and his diary gives us a glimpse into our family’s life and history.

My Great-Great-Grandfather came from the Azores to Victoria in 1862. He later married my Songhees Great-Great-Grandmother in 1876, the same year the federal Indian Act was enacted.

It feels pretty special to be able to bring these pages back into the family story, more than a century later.

More excerpts to come. ❤️

Transcription Note

I’m sharing these as a work in progress, and I’ll continue to correct and refine the transcriptions as I learn more.

January 1886

January 1 — Friday

Working at the barn.

January 2 — Saturday

Working around the house.

January 3 — Sunday

Freezing hard. At home.

January 4 — Monday

Working at the barn.

January 5 — Tuesday

Working at the barn.

January 6 — Wednesday

Working at the barn.

January 7 — Thursday

Frosty. Working at the barn.

January 8 — Friday

Working at the Barn.

January 9 — Saturday

Shower. Working at the barn.

January 10 — Sunday

Misty Weather. I went to Wm Jacks.

January 11 — Monday

Working at the barn.

January 12 — Tuesday

Mr. Tomas Indian Agent came settle about the estate of Indian John who died about a month ago.

January 13 — Wednesday

Fogg y weather. Sawing timber for rails.

January 14 — Thursday

About 6 inches of snow fell last night.

January 15 — Friday

Freezing hard.

January 16 — Saturday

Very cold. At home.

January 17 — Sunday

I went to Wm Roberts.

Places, People & Subjects Mentioned

Nanoose Bay · Notch Hill · Wm Jacks · Wm Roberts · Mr. Tomas · Indian Agent · Indian John

Barn · house · timber · rails · snow · estate

More excerpts from Joseph Enos's diary to come. ❤️

Gr. Grandpa Joseph Enos Diary — December 1885

Excerpt from My Great-Grandfather’s Diary 📖

I’m sharing excerpts from my Great-Grandfather’s diary. They may not always appear in chronological order, so please bear with me as I work through them.

He lived in Nanoose Bay, on Notch Hill, and his diary gives us a glimpse into our family’s life and history.

My Great-Great-Grandfather came from the Azores to Victoria in 1862. He later married my Songhees Great-Great-Grandmother in 1876, the same year the federal Indian Act was enacted.

It feels pretty special to be able to bring these pages back into the family story, more than a century later.

More excerpts to come. ❤️

Transcription Note

I’m sharing these as a work in progress, and I’ll continue to correct and refine the transcriptions as I learn more.

December 1885

December 1 — Tuesday

Working at the barn.

December 2 — Wednesday

Working at the cellar.

December 3 — Thursday

Cloudy. At home.

December 4 — Friday

Father returned from Victoria.

December 5 — Saturday

Clearing a road to the foot of Notch Hill to get our timber for the barn.

December 6 — Sunday

Mr. John Kenny arrived her from Wellington having come from Victoria and will remain with for a while.

December 7 — Monday

Cutting timber at the foot of Notch Hill for the barn.

December 8 — Tuesday

Fine clear weather.

December 9 — Wednesday

Frosty weather. Looking for oxen.

December 10 — Thursday

Halling timber for the barn.

December 11 — Friday

Freezing. Hauling firewood.

December 12 — Saturday

At home.

December 13 — Sunday

A. Hirst came to look for his cattle.

December 14 — Monday

Cloudy. Looking for A. Hirst cattl.

December 15 — Tuesday

Looking for A. Hirst cattle.

December 16 — Wednesday

I helped Hirst to drive his cattle to E. M River.

December 17 — Thursday

Snowery. At home.

December 18 — Friday

Snowery. Working.

December 19 — Saturday

Working at...?

December 20 — Sunday

Cloudy. At home.

December 21 — Monday

Working at the barn.

December 22 — Tuesday

I took H. Rosewall's cow to the Indian Camp for father to take to Nanaimo tomorrow.

December 23 — Wednesday

Father went to Nanaimo.

December 24 — Thursday

Raining. At home.

December 25 — Friday

Christmas Day. Father returned from Nanaimo.

December 26 — Saturday

Working at the barn.

December 27 — Sunday

At home.

December 28 — Monday

Snowery. Working at the barn.

December 29 — Tuesday

Reverend Father Durand paid returned to Nanaimo us a visit.

December 30 — Wednesday

At home.

December 31 — Thursday

Rev Father Durand returned to Nanaimo.

Places, People & Subjects Mentioned

Notch Hill · Wellington · Victoria · Nanaimo · E. M. River · Indian Camp

Barn · cellar · timber · oxen · firewood · cattle · cow · snow · Christmas · Reverend Father Durand

More excerpts from Joseph Enos's diary to come. ❤️

Sunday, September 20, 2026

A Marriage Record From 1848 Tells a Much Bigger Story

Sometimes one old document can open a door into an entire world.

I have been researching my family history and found a Catholic marriage record from August 7, 1848, recorded at the Mission of St. Paul in the Willamette.

It records the marriage of Joseph Brulé and Marie Ann Maranda dit la Frise.

At first glance, it might look like an ordinary church record.

It isn't.

It tells us something remarkable about the people living in the Pacific Northwest almost 180 years ago.

Joseph Brulé wasn't simply “French Canadian”

The record identifies Joseph as:

“the minor son of the late Jacques Iroquois and of Marguerite Brulé.”

That one sentence is incredibly important.

Joseph's biological father was identified as Jacques Iroquois.

His mother was Marguerite Brulé.

But Joseph was also being raised by Jean Baptiste Brulé, who the priest specifically identified as his foster-father and step-father.

Jean Baptiste was present at the marriage and gave his consent, along with Joseph's mother.

So now we understand something that can be very confusing when looking at old genealogy records:

Joseph carried the Brulé surname even though his biological father was identified as Jacques Iroquois.

The surname does not tell the whole story.

Family relationships were more complicated than the names appearing on a modern family tree.

And who was Mary Ann?

The bride was Marie Ann Maranda dit la Frise, generally known as Mary Ann.

Her father, Louis Maranda dit le Frise, was also present and gave his consent to the marriage.

But Mary Ann's own family history is just as fascinating.

Historical research records that her father was an Iroquois-connected man who had come to the Oregon Country in the early nineteenth century and spent years at Fort Vancouver.

Her mother was a Kalapuya woman from the Marysville area.

Mary Ann therefore came from a family connected to both Indigenous and French-Canadian/fur-trade communities.

And she was only 15 years old when she married Joseph.

Imagine the world they were living in

This was 1848.

The Pacific Northwest was undergoing enormous political and social change.

For decades, the region had been shaped by the fur trade.

The Hudson's Bay Company had established a network of forts and trading posts.

French-Canadian voyageurs and engagés travelled throughout the region.

Iroquois, Cree and other Indigenous men also came west through the fur trade.

They formed relationships and families with Indigenous women from the communities where they lived.

Their children became part of these interconnected communities.

This was not a world of neat borders and categories.

The border between the United States and British territory was being established.

In 1846, Britain and the United States settled the Oregon boundary along the 49th parallel, although Vancouver Island remained British.

In 1848, the United States created the Oregon Territory.

And in that same year, my ancestors were standing in a Catholic church in the Willamette Valley getting married.

They were living between worlds

Joseph had an Iroquois father.

Mary Ann had an Iroquois father and a Kalapuya mother.

Joseph was raised under the Brulé name.

Mary Ann was connected to the French-Canadian Maranda/Maranda dit la Frise family.

They lived within communities shaped by Indigenous peoples, French Canadians, Métis families, missionaries and the fur trade.

And then political borders began dividing the world their families had travelled through for generations.

This is why I find genealogy so fascinating.

We look backward with modern categories and want everything to fit neatly:

Indigenous.
French.
Canadian.
American.

But their lives didn't necessarily fit those boxes.

They were people.

They married across communities.

They raised children.

They travelled for work.

They followed family.

They adapted to changing circumstances.

And this marriage record preserves some of that complexity

Look at who had to be present.

The priest recorded:

Joseph Brulé — groom.

Marie Ann Maranda — bride.

Jean Baptiste Brulé — Joseph's foster-father and step-father.

Marguerite Brulé — Joseph's mother.

Louis Maranda — Mary's father.

These weren't abstract historical figures.

They were people standing together in a church in 1848.

And the priest wrote their relationships down.

Nearly 180 years later, those words allow a descendant like me to look back and say:

Wait. Who were these people?

Who was Jacques Iroquois?

How did he come west?

Who was Marguerite?

What was her connection to the T’Sou-ke people of Vancouver Island?

Why did this family eventually travel north?

How did Joseph and Mary Ann's children carry these different Indigenous and fur-trade histories forward?

Those are the questions I'm still trying to answer.

And there is a bigger history here

The story of my family isn't separate from the history of Canada and the Pacific Northwest.

It is part of it.

The people who travelled through the fur trade helped create communities that crossed what would eventually become the Canada–United States border.

Indigenous women and men were not simply passive observers of this history.

They were mothers, fathers, traders, community members, leaders and decision-makers.

Their families connected different nations and communities.

And when governments later imposed increasingly rigid categories of race, citizenship, land ownership and tribal affiliation, these complicated family histories became much harder to fit into official records.

Sometimes a person was recorded by a French surname.

Sometimes by an Indigenous affiliation.

Sometimes by the community where they lived.

Sometimes an important part of their ancestry disappeared from the paperwork altogether.

One little marriage record

That's why this 1848 document means so much to me.

It isn't just evidence that two people got married.

It gives us a glimpse of a Pacific Northwest that existed before the borders and categories we now take for granted had fully shaped people's lives.

It shows an Iroquois father.

A T’Sou-ke maternal connection.

A Kalapuya maternal line.

French-Canadian fur-trade families.

A Catholic mission.

A young couple beginning a family.

And a region being transformed around them.

One marriage.

One old church record.

An entire world hidden inside it.

And I'm still following the trail.

#FamilyHistory #Genealogy #IndigenousHistory #IroquoisHistory #Haudenosaunee #TSouke #Kalapuya #PacificNorthwestHistory #OregonHistory #BCHistory #FurTradeHistory #MétisHistory #CanadianHistory #RethinkEverything

Saturday, September 19, 2026

when authority loses restraint

when authority loses restraint

This is 2026.

And we are still having human-rights tribunals tell police officers that racial stereotypes influenced the way they treated a Black woman.

In 2020, Safiya Elshazly was a passenger in a car stopped by Vancouver police. She was arrested for obstruction after an officer asked for identification, even though officers testified that the normal procedure when someone has no physical ID is to take their name and other information and check the database.

She offered to provide that information.

Instead, the situation escalated.

She was handcuffed. One officer called her a “drunk lady,” despite the tribunal finding no evidence that she was intoxicated. The tribunal also found that descriptions of her as “belligerent” and “rude” were not supported by the video evidence.

And then came the really disturbing part.

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal found that the decision to arrest and physically restrain her was tainted by the “angry Black woman” stereotype and by a disproportionate expectation that racialized people should simply be docile and compliant.

The Vancouver Police Board was ordered to pay her $25,000 for injury to her dignity, feelings and self-respect, plus almost $1,400 for her damaged phone.

Disgusting? Yes.

And not because every police officer is like this. It is because police have enormous power over ordinary people. When that power is combined with racial stereotyping, frustration can become handcuffs, an arrest and a life-changing encounter very quickly.

This is exactly why I believe police need extensive training before they are given that kind of authority over the public — and continuing training throughout their careers.

Knowing how to enforce the law is not enough.

You also need to know when not to escalate.

You need restraint.

You need judgment.

And you need to understand that the person standing in front of you is a human being, not a stereotype.

Because when the state puts someone in handcuffs, it should be absolutely certain that it is exercising that power fairly.

What do you think — should police training put much more emphasis on de-escalation, bias, restraint and recognizing stereotypes before officers are placed in situations where they can take away someone's freedom?

#HumanRights #Vancouver #PoliceAccountability #RacialDiscrimination #DeEscalation #Justice #BC

maybe we should test the pilot

just a little thought from north of the border…

in 2026, the president of the United States has access to military power, nuclear power and enough authority to make the entire planet pay attention.

and apparently the system still says:

“medical checkup? nah. we’ll just see how it goes.” 😂

we test pilots.
we test truck drivers.
we test people operating heavy machinery.

but the person holding the nuclear football?

elect first. panic later.

and now we're apparently discussing whether a national performing-arts centre should be renovated, renamed, or—depending on the day's mood—demolished.

perhaps the founding fathers forgot one little clause:

thou shalt occasionally check the pilot.

I'm not diagnosing anybody from a television screen. That's for doctors.

I'm just wondering whether, in 2026, we could perhaps have independent medical, cognitive and substance-use assessments for every president.

No parties.
No exceptions.
No political weapon.

Grandfather the current situation if necessary. Start with the next president.

Because this isn't really left versus right.

It's about whether the person with the nuclear football should occasionally have to prove they're fit to carry it.

we can put a man on the moon.
surely we can figure this one out.

what do you think?

“you good?” probably isn't a sufficient presidential medical examination. 😂

locked in poverty — bc, then and now

I wrote this more than a decade ago.

At the time, I was writing about the impact of B.C.’s 2002 welfare cuts on families and children:

Families and children were hit very hard by the welfare cuts of 2002. Almost 1 in 4 children in B.C. lived in poverty. A third of food-bank users were children, and single parents were more than 60% likely to live in poverty.

The 2007 provincial budget increased welfare rates, but it did not solve the underlying problem.

So I went back and looked at the numbers now.

And some of what I found is pretty startling.

Twenty-four years after 2002, B.C. welfare is still not enough to lift people out of poverty.

In 2002, an employable single person receiving welfare had an income equal to 44% of the poverty line.

In 2025?

43%.

Maytree describes this as no improvement in the person's level of poverty over the 24-year period. The person remained below the deep-poverty threshold throughout the entire period.

For a single parent with one child, welfare was 66% of the poverty line in 2002.

In 2025:

64%.

Again, essentially no progress in reducing the depth of poverty over the period.

And this is happening while the cost of housing has changed dramatically.

Rent is not the same problem it was when I wrote that original post.

B.C.'s rental market has become extraordinarily difficult for people with low incomes, and today's regulated annual rent increases are only part of the story. New-market rents can be much higher than what long-term tenants pay, making it extremely difficult for someone who loses housing to find another affordable home.

Then there is food.

In 2024, 24.4% of B.C. households experienced food insecurity.

For children, it was 32.6% — almost one in three.

That was up from 28.8% in 2023.

And then there is the number I find hardest to ignore.

458 people.

According to the B.C. Coroners Service, at least 458 people experiencing homelessness died in B.C. in 2023.

That was a 23% increase from 2022, when there were 373 deaths.

And it was nearly three times the 155 deaths recorded in 2020.

Between 2016 and 2023, the Coroners Service recorded 1,940 deaths of people identified as experiencing homelessness.

These aren't just statistics.

These are people.

So when I see that people are marching on October 10 to end homelessness, I think about how long we have been having this conversation.

I wrote “Locked in Poverty” in 2011.

It is now 2026.

And some things really have improved.

B.C.'s official child-poverty rate is substantially lower than the levels seen in the early 2000s. Governments have increased some benefits, introduced new credits and invested in food programs and housing.

The welfare numbers themselves also show that incomes have increased in real dollars for some households over the long term.

But the crucial question isn't simply:

Are things better than they were in 2002?

It is:

Can a person living on welfare actually afford a home and a basic life in B.C. today?

The answer from the current numbers is uncomfortable.

In 2025, every one of Maytree's four example B.C. welfare households remained below the official poverty line — including the single person, the person with a disability, the single parent with one child, and the couple with two children.

So perhaps “locked in poverty” wasn't such a bad description after all.

I hope I am in Mexico by October 10.

(There's going to be March to End Homelessness.)

Not because I don't care.

Quite the opposite.

I have spent years writing about poverty, homelessness, housing and people being pushed to the margins.

I would simply like, at this point in my life, to find somewhere safe and affordable to live myself.

And I would like to see a day when nobody has to march to demand something as basic as a home.

A home should not be a privilege reserved for people who can afford the price of admission.

Originally written as Locked in Poverty — BC — 400,000 People, 2011/2012.

Friday, September 18, 2026

how many have you taken in?

how many have you taken in?

This started with a petition posted in a Kitsilano neighbourhood Facebook group asking people to stop filming vulnerable people on the street.

I commented.

I said I had actually filmed briefly myself about two years ago because I was trying to draw attention to what was happening.

But I don't feel the same way about it now.

Something has become twisted.

When vulnerable people are constantly filmed, photographed and turned into social-media content, there is a danger that we stop seeing the human being and start seeing the spectacle.

But my comment wasn't really about cameras.

I went on a little rant about the bigger problem:

There isn't enough housing. There isn't enough treatment. There aren't enough places for people to go. And we're still acting surprised that people are living on the streets.

The very first response?

“How many have you taken in?”

Seriously?

I can't prove it was a bot. But it certainly had the feel of one. 😬

And that's the problem with so many of these conversations.

Instead of discussing housing, treatment, addiction, trauma, poverty or what actually happens to people when they fall through every available gap, the conversation gets reduced to:

“Well, what are YOU doing about it?”

Then came another comment:

“No one is forcing them to do drugs.”

Maybe not.

But nobody grows up dreaming of becoming addicted to fentanyl, overdosing, surviving with brain damage, losing their ability to function, ending up on the street and being unable to find housing.

Nobody says:

“That's the life I want.”

So let's talk about choice.

Be grateful your parents didn't force you to take Ritalin as a child simply so you would sit still.

Be grateful you weren't molested as a child and left carrying that trauma for the rest of your life.

Be grateful you have parents — and that they're healthy and don't drink excessively or use hard drugs.

Be grateful you haven't lost the love of your life, your child or your parent to drugs, suicide, a car crash or a medical mistake.

Be grateful you haven't experienced something so devastating that escaping reality became easier than facing it.

We don't choose our childhood.

We don't choose everything that happens to us.

We don't choose who hurts us.

We don't choose every loss.

We don't choose every illness, accident or tragedy.

And sometimes one terrible thing leads to another until a person ends up somewhere they never imagined they would be.

That doesn't mean people have no responsibility for their choices.

It means choice is not the whole story.

And neither is filming.

Two years ago, I thought filming might help people see what was happening.

Now I'm much more uncomfortable with it.

Because there is a difference between documenting a social problem and turning someone's worst moments into entertainment.

Maybe the question isn't only:

“Why are they doing drugs?”

Maybe it's also:

“Why is there no housing?”

“Where are the treatment beds?”

“What happens when someone is ready for help but there is nowhere to go?”

“What happened to this person before we ever saw them on the street?”

And maybe, before we ask a stranger on Facebook,

“How many have you taken in?”

we should ask ourselves what kind of society requires ordinary people to personally house strangers before we're allowed to expect our public systems to function.

The strangest part?

This was posted in a Kitsilano neighbourhood group.

Almost nobody was engaging.

Me...

and probably two bots. 🤔😬😒

Maybe that's the real problem.

We're surrounded by people.

We're surrounded by cameras.

We're surrounded by opinions.

And somehow we're still not talking to each other.

clicks for free

Everybody's filming now.

Someone sleeping.
Someone high.
Someone pushing a cart.

Click.
Click.
Clicks for free.

Somewhere along the way
we normalized suffering.

People look away.

I can't.

This morning
I crossed the street.

“Are you okay?”

Two people on the sidewalk.

One moaned yes.

The other was barely awake.

“What's your name?”

“Shane.”

“Hi, Shane.
I'm Tina.”

I asked if they were okay.

I contacted outreach.

Then I kept walking.

Because I couldn't fix it.

I'm unhoused too.

Two suitcases.
A storage locker full of art.

Winter is coming.

And we're still asking
why people sleep outside.

Maybe the question is simpler:

Why don't we house people?

The Family History Hidden Between the Lines

The more I research my family history, the more I realize how easy it is to misunderstand the past if we expect people to fit into the neat categories we use today.

My ancestors lived in a very different Pacific Northwest.

There were Indigenous nations, French-Canadian voyageurs, fur traders, missionaries, Métis communities and people who had travelled enormous distances through the fur trade.

Families formed across those communities.

People married.

Children were adopted.

Names changed.

People moved.

And then governments came along and began demanding that people fit into categories that had never described their lives very well.

My family is part of that story

One branch of my family connects Iroquois, T’Sou-ke and Kalapuya ancestry.

And for a while, I had the pieces in the wrong places.

I knew there was a connection to Sooke.

I just couldn't find it.

I kept looking down the wrong branch of my family tree.

The connection was through Joseph Brulé's mother.

Joseph Brulé

Joseph was born around 1831.

His father was an Iroquois man identified in the records as Jacques Iroquois.

His mother was Marguerite, a woman of the T’Sou-ke people of Vancouver Island.

After Jacques died, Marguerite married Jean-Baptiste Brulé, and Joseph took the Brulé surname.

That explains something that can otherwise look confusing in the records:

A man can have an Indigenous father and carry a French surname.

The surname does not tell the whole story.

Joseph married Mary Ann

Joseph later married Mary Ann Miranda Brulé, also known as Marianne.

Mary Ann had Indigenous ancestry too.

Her father, Louis Miranda, came to the Oregon Country in 1816 and spent many years at Fort Vancouver.

Mary Ann later testified that her father was Louis Marchelle and that her mother was a Kalapuya woman from the Marysville area.

As a child, Mary Ann attended the Catholic boarding school at St. Paul in French Prairie.

She was only 15 years old when she married Joseph.

So look at what came together in this marriage:

Joseph: Iroquois father + T’Sou-ke mother.

Mary Ann: Iroquois father + Kalapuya mother.

Their marriage brought together Indigenous family histories from different parts of the Pacific Northwest.

Then they went north

This is the part I had been trying to find.

Joseph and Mary Ann went north toward Vancouver Island.

And historical research gives us an important reason.

Joseph's mother, Marguerite, wanted to return home to the territory of the T’Sou-ke people.

There was also growing unease about remaining in American territory as the political boundary between the United States and British territory became established.

So the family moved north.

Eventually Joseph died in the Victoria/Sooke area.

And suddenly the Sooke connection I had been searching for made sense.

It wasn't Mary Ann's mother who was from Sooke.

It was Joseph's mother.

My family tree had been telling me the truth.

I was simply looking in the wrong branch.

But there was something much bigger happening

The families in this story were not unusual exceptions.

The fur trade created enormous networks of people across the Pacific Northwest.

Iroquois, Cree and Delaware men travelled west as independent traders and engagés.

Some married local Indigenous women.

Their children could become members of their mother's community through marriage, adoption and kinship.

The result was a network of blended Indigenous communities.

One historical account describes Iroquois descendants being accepted into local Native communities through marriage or adoption, even when their parents had come from somewhere else.

This is important because it challenges our modern assumption that Indigenous identity has always been recorded according to today's categories.

It wasn't.

Grand Ronde shows us how complicated this became

The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde brought together people from 27 different tribal communities, including Kalapuya, Chinook, Molala, Umpqua, Yoncalla Kalapuya, Southern Molala, Rogue River and Chasta Costa communities.

People whose families had lived together and intermarried could find themselves being categorized by governments in completely different ways.

As American settlers increasingly restricted Indigenous people's ability to own land, some descendants of fur-trade families were forced to demonstrate or assert their Indigenous identity in order to remain within Indigenous communities and obtain land.

And even the records changed.

Grand Ronde records continued to identify some people as Iroquois into the early twentieth century.

Then, around 1910, tribal affiliation was no longer recorded in the same way. Census takers increasingly classified people simply as members of the Grand Ronde community rather than recording the tribe from which their families originated.

Imagine trying to research your family today.

One record says Iroquois.

Another says Kalapuya.

Another might say Grand Ronde.

Someone has a French surname.

Another person has an Indigenous name.

And somewhere along the way, someone may have stopped identifying an ancestor's specific tribal affiliation altogether.

The people didn't necessarily change.

The paperwork did.

And there was a reason people sometimes hid their ancestry

This history is also painful.

Indigenous people and people of mixed Indigenous ancestry faced discrimination.

Some people were denied land.

Some were excluded from citizenship.

Some concealed their Indigenous ancestry because they believed it would give their children better opportunities in the colonial society being imposed around them.

Others did the opposite.

They had to assert their Indigenous identity to remain connected to their communities and obtain recognition or land.

Imagine being forced to make decisions about which part of your own family history was safe to reveal.

That is something we need to remember when looking at old records.

A missing word does not necessarily mean a missing ancestry.

So what does this mean for me?

I am descended from people whose lives crossed these histories.

Iroquois.

T’Sou-ke.

Kalapuya.

French Canadian.

Fur trade.

Oregon Country.

Vancouver Island.

These aren't just labels on a family tree.

They are people.

They were mothers and fathers.

They were children.

They travelled.

They married.

They lost loved ones.

They adapted.

They survived political changes that were completely beyond their control.

And eventually their descendants became part of the people living here today.

Am I T’Sou-ke?

This is where I want to be careful.

I can say that I have T’Sou-ke ancestry because my ancestor Marguerite was identified as a woman of the Sooke people.

I would not claim membership or citizenship in the modern T’Sou-ke Nation simply because of ancestry. That is a matter for the Nation and its own laws and community relationships.

But I can honour the fact that one of my ancestors was T’Sou-ke.

And I can learn her story.

Perhaps that is one of the most important things genealogy can give us.

Not a label.

Not a box to put ourselves into.

But a connection.

The history is bigger than my family

My ancestors were living through the transformation of the Pacific Northwest.

The fur-trade world was changing.

Borders were being drawn.

Missions were opening, closing and changing.

American settlers were arriving.

Indigenous communities were being displaced.

People were being pushed onto reservations.

And governments were increasingly deciding how Indigenous people would be classified, where they could live and what rights they would have.

Yet families continued.

They adapted.

They crossed borders.

They carried their memories.

And they raised children.

That is what I see now when I look at my family tree.

Not a collection of confusing names.

A network of people.

And a history that crosses what we now call Canada and the United States.

The borders are relatively young.

The families are older.

And sometimes, the truth about where we come from is hidden not because it wasn't there—

but because history became complicated enough that we had to learn how to read between the lines.

Thursday, September 17, 2026

promises, actions, outcomes: what happened to ken sim’s 2022 campaign promises?

In 2022, Ken Sim and ABC Vancouver campaigned on a 93-point platform called “The ABC Plan for A Better City.”

It contained specific promises: more police, more mental-health nurses, more housing, faster permits, childcare spaces, trees, public washrooms and a Night Mayor, among many others.

ABC now says that by February 2025 it had “actioned 80%” of its 93-point platform. But actioned is not necessarily the same thing as completed, and completing an action is not necessarily the same thing as achieving the promised result.

That distinction matters.

If voters are going to hold politicians accountable, we need to be able to look back and ask three simple questions:

What was promised?

What was actually done?

What was the measurable outcome?

Here is a snapshot.

public safety

the promise

ABC promised to hire 100 new police officers and 100 mental-health nurses, describing it as part of a renewed approach to community policing and an expansion of programs such as Car 87. Public safety and mental health were major parts of the 2022 campaign.

what happened

The 100 police officers were hired.

The mental-health side did not reach the promised 100 nurses. Instead, Vancouver expanded existing programs and other mental-health response teams involving different kinds of workers.

The VPD budget also increased.

the outcome

The most recent numbers complicate any simple claim about success or failure.

Violent crime fell between 2023 and 2025, but in the first six months of 2026 it increased 6% compared with the same period in 2025.

Reported assaults increased 7.1%, from 2,011 to 2,153, while robberies increased 7.8%, from 232 to 250.

That does not prove that adding police caused — or failed to cause — the change. Crime has many contributing factors, and VPD cautions that its statistics can be revised as investigations and classifications change.

But it does mean the public-safety promise should be evaluated on public-safety outcomes, not simply on whether 100 officers were hired.

co-op housing

the promise

ABC promised to double the number of co-operative housing units in Vancouver during its four-year term.

At the time, Vancouver had more than 6,000 co-op homes, meaning doubling the supply would have required roughly another 6,000.

what happened

According to figures provided to Daily Hive by the City, since November 2022:

402 co-op units were completed
237 were under construction
112 had been approved

The Co-operative Housing Federation of BC calculated a net increase of 334 co-op units.

the outcome

The promised doubling did not happen.

There is also important context: CHF BC said municipalities cannot finance this kind of housing growth alone and that provincial and federal assistance has been insufficient.

That context belongs in the record too.

faster housing approvals

the promise

ABC's 3x3x3x1 plan promised:

3 days for renovations
3 weeks for single-family homes
3 months for multi-family and mid-rise projects where zoning was already in place
1 year for high-rise and larger projects.

what happened

Approval times improved.

Simple renovations reached 92% within three days.

Single-family approvals fell from about 250 days to 160 days.

Multi-family and mid-rise approval times fell from about 18.1 months to 9.8 months.

the outcome

Significant improvement, but the original 3x3x3x1 targets were not fully achieved.

This is an important example of why “done” and “achieved exactly as promised” are not necessarily the same thing.

5,000 childcare spaces

the promise

ABC promised 5,000 new daycare spaces during the four-year term, including making city land available and working with the province and childcare providers.

what happened

The City reported that more than 2,000 new childcare spaces became operational after 2022.

Another 743 spaces had been approved by Council since November 2022.

the outcome

The operational figure was approximately 3,000 spaces short of the 5,000 promise.

And Vancouver still had an estimated childcare-space shortage of about 6,700 spaces.

100,000 trees

the promise

ABC promised to plant 100,000 additional trees in four years, with particular attention to neighbourhoods affected by historic race-based zoning and poor tree canopy.

what happened

For 2023–2025, the City reported:

7,725 trees planted

7,468 trees removed

the outcome

That produced a net increase of only 257 trees during those three years.

The City said 2022 data was unavailable because of software limitations and 2026 figures were still being compiled.

So the available numbers do not demonstrate anything close to the promised 100,000 additional trees.

the Night Mayor

the promise

ABC promised to create a Night Mayor to advocate for Vancouver's nighttime economy.

what happened

The position was not created.

ABC instead points to other downtown initiatives, including FIFA and the Granville Pedestrian Zone.

the outcome

The specific promise was not delivered.

an Official Community Plan

the promise

ABC promised to complete an Official Community Plan for Vancouver by the end of its first term.

what happened

In March 2026, Vancouver adopted its first citywide Official Development Plan, a legally binding framework for land use, growth and infrastructure.

the outcome

This is one of the more complicated promises to classify.

The city did complete a major citywide planning framework, but it was an Official Development Plan rather than the OCP named in the campaign promise.

So this one needs context rather than a simple checkmark.

property taxes

the promise

ABC campaigned heavily on fiscal restraint.

what happened

Property taxes increased substantially during the first part of the term.

They increased by approximately:

10.7% in 2023

7.5% in 2024

3.9% in 2025

Then Vancouver passed a 0% property-tax increase for 2026. ABC has also proposed maintaining a zero increase for 2027.

the outcome

This is another example where the timeline matters.

A person looking only at 2026 sees 0%.

A person looking at the whole term sees three consecutive increases followed by a freeze.

Both are factual parts of the record.

why this matters

This isn't about finding a politician who fulfilled every promise.

Government is complicated. Municipalities share responsibility with provincial and federal governments. Budgets change. Economic conditions change. Some promises depend on other governments, developers, non-profits or agencies.

But that is exactly why we need to keep the promises written down.

Otherwise, four years later, the campaign speeches disappear and we are left with a collection of claims about what was accomplished.

A politician can say:

“We hired the officers.”

But the original promise was not simply to employ 100 people. It was part of a broader public-safety strategy.

A politician can say:

“We planted thousands of trees.”

But the campaign promise was 100,000 additional trees.

A politician can say:

“We created childcare spaces.”

But the promise was 5,000.

A politician can say:

“Housing approvals are faster.”

And they may indeed be faster — without having reached the promised 3x3x3x1 targets.

That is why I think every election should leave behind a simple public record:

PROMISED	DONE	OUTCOME
What exactly did the candidate say they would do?	What did government actually do?	What changed in measurable terms?

Because an action is not automatically an outcome.

And a campaign promise that disappears after election day is worth very little to the people who voted on it.

The real purpose of tracking promises isn't to punish politicians for failing to achieve the impossible.

It's to give citizens enough information to ask a much more important question:

What happened to the promises we were given?

That is how voters can hold future politicians accountable.

grade 10 lesson: wait… can alberta just leave canada?

You know what I hated about social studies?

Dates. Names. Memorize this. Memorize that. Write the test. Forget it.

But what if history class started with a question that actually mattered?

Can Alberta just leave Canada?

Right now, in 2026, Alberta is having a very real conversation about separation.

So let's forget the dusty textbook for a minute and ask:

Who actually owns the decision?

First, Alberta is a province of Canada. A province cannot simply announce that it is now a separate country.

Canadian law says there is no unilateral constitutional right for a province to secede from Canada. If separation were ever pursued, it would require constitutional negotiations involving Canada and the provinces. Those negotiations would have to address things such as borders, assets and debts, minority rights — and the rights, interests and territorial claims of Indigenous peoples.

And here's the part that often gets lost in the conversation:

the treaties didn't disappear.

Alberta is home to First Nations whose relationships with the Crown are governed by treaties, including Treaties 6, 7 and 8.

Then there is Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which recognizes and affirms existing Aboriginal and treaty rights.

In other words, treaty rights aren't simply historical documents sitting in a museum.

They have constitutional protection today.

So imagine a classroom discussion:

Student: “What if Alberta votes to leave?”

Teacher: “Okay. What happens to the treaties?”

Student: “They become Alberta's problem?”

Teacher: “That's the question. And who gets to decide what happens to treaty relationships?”

Now we're doing social studies.

Because suddenly we're not memorizing a date.

We're learning about law, government, Indigenous-Crown relationships, constitutional rights, geography, history and democracy — all at the same time.

and this is happening now

Alberta's October 19, 2026 referendum includes a question asking whether Alberta should remain a province of Canada or whether the Alberta government should begin the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a future binding referendum on separation.

That question does not itself separate Alberta from Canada.

Premier Danielle Smith has said she personally supports Alberta remaining in Canada, while also saying the referendum process should allow Albertans to consider the question.

And here's another important piece students should know:

The federal Clarity Act specifically says that any negotiations concerning provincial secession would have to address Indigenous peoples' rights, interests and territorial claims.

So before somebody says:

“Alberta can just leave.”

A Grade 10 student should be able to ask:

Leave what?

Under whose Constitution?

What happens to the treaties?

What happens to Indigenous rights?

What happens to the borders?

Who negotiates the assets and debts?

What happens to people who don't want to leave?

And what does Canadian law actually say?

That is the kind of social studies I wish I'd been taught.

Not:

“Here are 25 dates. Memorize them.”

But:

“Here's a complicated thing happening in your country. Let's figure out how we got here — and then teach you how to investigate it yourself.”

Because history isn't dead.

We're living in it.

scrooge, photography and ai

I keep thinking about Scrooge.

Before he became the Scrooge we know, he was a young apprentice working for Mr. Fezziwig. He learned a trade. He worked alongside Jacob Marley, who would eventually become his business partner.

He learned by doing.

Fast-forward a couple of centuries.

I remember studying photography when our industry was moving from film to digital. I nearly didn't get into the program because of the chemistry and physics requirements. I thought, Why do I need all this?

Eventually, I realized I didn't need most of it for the photography I actually ended up doing.

Technology changed the job.

Now we're watching AI change work again.

AI can do some of the tasks that once gave junior lawyers, writers, designers and other professionals their first years of experience.

And I keep coming back to something I learned through psychology:

You can't learn from mistakes you never get the chance to make.

You don't need to know how to rebuild a car to drive one.

But if the machine does everything for you, when do you learn what's happening under the hood?

Maybe that's the question we should be asking about AI.

Not simply:

“What jobs can AI replace?”

But:

“What do humans need to learn before we let AI do the work for them?”

Because technology will keep changing.

It always has.

The challenge is making sure people don't become obsolete just because the work changed.

Wednesday, September 16, 2026

The Story in My Blood: T’Sou-ke, Iroquois and Kalapuya

I have been researching my family history, and I recently realized that one branch of my family connects several Indigenous peoples and communities of the Pacific Northwest in a way I had never fully understood.

This isn't a story I want to simplify.

It is a story about T’Sou-ke, Iroquois and Kalapuya people, French-Canadian fur-trade families, Catholic missions, migration, changing borders and a Pacific Northwest that looked very different from the one we know today.

And somewhere in the middle of that history are my ancestors.

Start with Joseph

My ancestor was Joseph Brulé, born around 1831.

His father was an Iroquois man identified in historical records as Jacques Iroquois.

His mother was Marguerite, a woman of the T’Sou-ke people of southern Vancouver Island.

Joseph eventually carried the Brulé surname because his mother married Jean-Baptiste Brulé after Jacques had died, and Joseph took the Brulé name.

That matters because a French surname does not erase Indigenous ancestry.

A name is not a DNA test.

And colonial records often tell only part of a person's story.

Then there was Mary Ann

Joseph married Mary Ann Miranda Brulé, also known as Marianne.

Mary Ann's family history is extraordinary in its own right.

Her father, Louis Miranda, came to the Oregon Country in 1816 and spent many years at Fort Vancouver.

Mary Ann later testified that her father was Louis Marchelle and that her mother was a Kalapuya woman from the Marysville area.

As a child, Mary Ann was sent to the Catholic boarding school at St. Paul in French Prairie.

She was only about 15 years old when she married Joseph Brulé.

Think about that.

A teenage Indigenous girl, coming out of a mission school, marrying a young man whose father was Iroquois and whose mother was T’Sou-ke.

This was not some isolated European frontier.

This was an Indigenous world deeply connected to the fur trade and to the movement of people across what would eventually become the Canada–United States border.

Then they went north

This is the part that stopped me.

In 1849, Joseph and Mary Ann headed north toward Vancouver Island.

Why?

Historical research gives us an answer.

There was increasing unease about remaining in American territory following the settlement of the Oregon boundary.

But there was another reason.

Joseph's mother, Marguerite, wanted to return home to the territory of the T’Sou-ke people.

So the family went north.

They eventually settled in the Victoria and Sooke area.

And that means the connection to Sooke isn't simply a place my family happened to live.

It was home to my ancestor.

So am I T’Sou-ke?

This is where I want to be precise.

I can say:

I have T’Sou-ke ancestry.

I can say:

I am descended from a woman of the T’Sou-ke people.

I cannot automatically claim that I am a member or citizen of the modern T’Sou-ke Nation. Indigenous citizenship and belonging are determined by the Nation and its own laws and community relationships.

Those are different things.

But ancestry matters.

And knowing where your ancestors came from matters.

So does knowing what happened to them.

And the ancestry doesn't stop there

Joseph was descended from a T’Sou-ke mother and an Iroquois father.

Mary Ann was descended from an Iroquois father and a Kalapuya mother.

Their family therefore brought together Indigenous histories from very different parts of North America.

T’Sou-ke.
Iroquois.
Kalapuya.

And then there were the French-Canadian fur-trade connections that linked these families to the enormous network of people moving through the Pacific Northwest.

This is what makes the history of the region so fascinating.

People were not living in neat boxes labelled Canadian, American, Indigenous, French or European.

They were living lives.

They were marrying.

They were travelling.

They were working.

They were raising children.

They were crossing rivers and mountains.

And eventually, governments drew borders across the world they already knew.

The border changed. The family didn't disappear.

The Oregon boundary was settled in 1846.

The United States was expanding.

British territory remained north of the border.

And families who had lived and travelled throughout the region suddenly found themselves living under increasingly different political systems.

For my ancestors, that meant moving north.

And eventually, Joseph died on Vancouver Island.

Mary Ann remained there and raised her children.

She later married again and had more children.

Her life continued through enormous changes in the Pacific Northwest.

This is why genealogy matters to me

When people hear “family history,” they sometimes imagine old photographs, names and dates.

But behind every name is a person.

And behind every person is a world.

My ancestors lived through the transformation of the Pacific Northwest from the fur-trade era into the colonial world that became Canada and the United States.

They were Indigenous people whose families became connected to French-Canadian fur traders and Catholic missions.

They crossed borders that were being created around them.

They experienced the loss of old political and social systems and the emergence of new ones.

And they carried their families forward.

That is my history.

Not a simple category.

Not a neat little box.

A tangled, complicated Pacific Northwest story.

T’Sou-ke. Iroquois. Kalapuya. French Canadian. Fur trade. Oregon Country. Vancouver Island.

And me.

Still trying to learn what happened to the people who came before me.

Because the more I learn, the more I realize:

They weren't living on the margins of history.

They were living through history.

INVESTIGATE. CREATE. DREAM BIG.

The kids are back at college and university. 🎓

Teachers — here's a topic for them:

INVESTIGATE. CREATE. DREAM BIG.

Why are we so dependent on airplanes for long-distance travel?

What happened to passenger ships that once connected coastal communities?

What if we brought back transportation ships — not cruise ships, but practical passenger vessels where you buy a ticket, bring your luggage and actually go somewhere?

What if you could travel:

🇨🇦 Vancouver → Mexico 🇲🇽

without going through the United States?

And what about rail?

We're already talking about restoring old rail connections in British Columbia. What could happen if we started thinking about transportation as a connected system again — rail + passenger ship + rail?

Students could investigate the history, economics, engineering, environmental impact, Indigenous perspectives, immigration, tourism, fuel costs, ports, rail infrastructure, safety and regulations.

Then design it.

Draw the ship.

Map the route.

Calculate the travel time.

Figure out what a ticket might cost.

Work out where people would stop.

Ask what would make it practical today.

And then ask the biggest question:

Why not?

Sometimes the problem isn't that something is impossible.

Sometimes we've simply stopped imagining it.

Kids — dream BIG.

Teachers — give them something worth dreaming about.

And maybe one of them will build the transportation system we're going to need 20 years from now. 🌊🚂

Tuesday, September 15, 2026

Gr. Grandpa Joseph Enos Diary March 1883

Excerpt from My Great-Grandfather’s Diary 📖

I’m sharing excerpts from my Great-Grandfather’s diary. They may not always appear in chronological order, so please bear with me as I work through them.

He lived in Nanoose Bay, on Notch Hill, and his diary gives us a glimpse into our family’s life and history.

My Great-Great-Grandfather came from the Azores to Victoria in 1862. He later married my Songhees Great-Great-Grandmother in 1876, the same year the federal Indian Act was enacted.

It feels pretty special to be able to bring these pages back into the family story, more than a century later.

More excerpts to come. ❤️

Transcription Note

I’m sharing these as a work in progress, and I’ll continue to correct and refine the transcriptions as I learn more.

Joseph Enos Diary — March 1883

Places, People & Subjects Mentioned

Nanaimo · N.W. Bay · Nanoose Bay · Little Ranch · Notch Hill · L. Swoomp · Indian · Azores · English · E.M. River · camp

Hauling wood · Bringing home oxen · Burning logs · Shot a panther (cougar) · Bringing dogfish scraps home for manure · Grafting · Sawing wood · Fixing fishing line · Planting beach garden · Sowing onion seeds · Planting potatoes · Killed a panther (cougar) · Ploughing · Transplanting cabbage · Sports in Nanaimo · Lost boat on account of high tide

Background — John Enos

Went to Nanaimo.

In the Fall of 1859, the loss of his boat caused Mr. Enos to come to Victoria, where he shipped on a Schooner that was carrying coal from Nanaimo to HMS Satellite at Esquimalt.

The acquaintance of some miners, a liking for the place and surroundings, induced Mr. Enos to make Nanaimo his home and to work for the Hudson's Bay Company.

The manager, Mr. Nichols, gave him permission to settle on a piece of land near the ravine which he bridged, falling a tree on either bent. This served all practical purposes.

March 1883

March 1–4

March 1, 1883 — Thursday

Hauling turnips and manure. I took a letter to R. Wiles to be sent to Tomas Pride, Nanaimo.

Killed a deer at the turnips with a set gun, this being the first killed in this way for this year.

March 2 — Friday

Fine, clear day. Hauling turnips and manure.

Beautiful, calm, clear day. Hauling turnips and manure.

March 3 — Saturday

Fine day.

AM: hauling turnips and manure.

PM: hauling wood.

March 4 — Sunday

Mild, cloudy and snowy.

1 AM: Father and I went to look for H. Ross's cow but could not find him.

March 5–9

March 5 — Monday

Fine, clear day.

AM: I went to look for [Maggie?]

PM: hauling logs to finish the fence by the new road.

March 6 — Tuesday

Cloudy and windy. 10 PM rain.

AM: Father went to the islands to get some fish scraps which the fishermen left there for us, but found that someone had taken them. We therefore brought a load of lumber home.

March 7 — Wednesday

Light rain. At home all day.

March 8 — Thursday

Fine, clear day. Planting fruit & trees.

March 9 — Friday

AM: Light rain.

PM: Fine. Sewing oats at the spit.

March 10–13

March 10 — Saturday

Fine, clear day.

3 AM: I went to look for Maggie the cow and when I returned I found T. Morgan and H. Ross home.

They left about 1 o'clock.

10 PM: Jinny the mare came from Wellington.

All is well.

March 11 — Sunday

Fine, clear day.

I went to look for Maggie but failed to find her.

8: When I returned I found John Silver and John Antoin at home. They brought us a fine lot of fish.

They went home to camp about 3 o'clock.

March 12 — Monday

Fine day.

AM: Father went to look for Maggie.

At 7 AM, 8 AM: M. R. Westmorland called on his way to Nanaimo. We sent 10 doz. of eggs to his brothers.

Bob returned about 9 PM and brought mail, among them two papers addressed to me.

Bob remained with us all night.

Father saw two blue grouse.

March 13 — Tuesday

Fine day.

R. Westmorland went home early this morning.

Planting apple trees.

March 14–18

March 14 — Wednesday

Fine, clear day.

Ploughing by the sea.

March 15 — Thursday

Fine day.

Father and I went to Nanaimo.

March 16 — Friday

Fine, clear day.

Father and I returned from Nanaimo.

March 17 — Saturday

High wind.

We planted the beach garden.

I went to look for the horses, could not find them.

Herring is in the day.

March 18 — Sunday

Fine, clear day.

Ann soon Mr. Seals came to get...

[Entry incomplete in transcription.]

March 18–22

March 18, 1883

He offered Father $10 dollars to take it to Nanaimo.

Found 4 PM Bob Hamilton called and went across the bay to meet his father. He also called on his way home.

All is well.

March 19 — Monday

Fine day.

Father and I went to E.M. River and remained there all night.

We took 2 sacks of seed potatoes up.

March 20 — Tuesday

Fine, clear day.

We left the E.M. River 11 o'clock.

We brought some oats for A. Westmerland and J. Hamilton, also 447 lbs. for ourselves, and a pig and horse also.

We arrived home about 4 o'clock, all safe.

Fine day.

Ploughing by the spring.

3 PM: Bob Harcheran came to get his oats.

7 AM: Bob Weatherland called for his oats.

Bob H. reported finding Maggie the cow.

And I went to fetch Mr. McDougall.

March 21 — Wednesday

[Entry continues in the original transcription.]

March 22 — Thursday

I took Mr. McDougall across the bay. He is going to leave us for a while and I hope he will return all safe.

7 PM: Ploughing the Spanish garden.

March 23–27

March 23 — Friday

AM: Light rain.

PM: Fine.

Sewing oats at the bottom.

March 24 — Saturday

Fine day.

I went to take a hunt and accidentally came across Maggie the cow.

She must have got out of the bottom of Hamilton's fence.

March 25 — Sunday

AM: I just took Maggie the cow.

H. Ross, Wellington.

I returned about 6 o'clock PM.

Father brought Tolly home with a cake.

Hamilton called.

March 26 — Monday

Fine, clear day.

[Working in] the garden at the bottom.

March 27 — Tuesday

Fine, clear day.

Finish [weeding] the garden.

March 28–31

March 28 — Wednesday

Cloudy.

Ploughing at the spit.

March 29 — Thursday

Cloudy.

New oats in the spit.

March 30 — Friday

Fine day.

I am ploughing at the spit alone.

Father is grafting.

March 31 — Saturday

Fine.

We have got things ready to go and plough for J. Hamilton.

Newspaper / Biographical Material

Pioneer Citizen Removed By Death

John Enos, Miner and Farmer, Dies at Ripe Age

The death occurred Friday afternoon at St. Joseph's Hospital of John Enos, aged 87 years.

A native of the Azores Islands, he came to America in 1852.

Previous to visiting the goldfields of California and British Columbia, Mr. Enos visited various seaports of New England, went to West Indies and South Africa.

Having worked for some time in the south, he came to Fort Yale in 1858.

Names Mentioned

Joseph Enos Diary

Jos. E. Almada

R. Wibbs
L. Jones
L. Hamilton
T. Wall
A. Peanfield
Albert Hirst
E. Quonell
John McBride
Mrs. Jack
Miss Mary Ann