this is a war on the poor. what do we do now?

At what point do we stop pretending that everything is okay?

People are losing their homes. People are sleeping outside in the rain. People are struggling to afford food, rent and the basic necessities of life.

And what are we doing about it?

We keep talking. We keep voting. We keep hoping that someone in power will finally understand that people cannot survive without the means to live.

Meanwhile, people are still falling through the cracks.

This is bigger than homelessness. This is about the kind of society we are becoming.

When housing becomes unaffordable, income support falls short of basic needs, and people are judged for being poor, we have a serious social failure.

When someone has to beg strangers for money to survive, we should be asking what has gone wrong with our society, not what is wrong with that person.

And when people die while living on the streets, we cannot simply mourn them and move on as though nothing could have been done differently.

so what do we do now?

If voting alone hasn't delivered the changes people need, we need to organize beyond election day.

Not another hashtag that disappears tomorrow.

Not another discussion that makes everyone feel better but changes nothing.

We need a coordinated movement that brings together people experiencing poverty, unhoused people, low-income workers, pensioners, community advocates and everyone who understands that a person's worth cannot be measured by their income.

We need to document what is happening. We need to expose the gap between what people receive and what it actually costs to live. We need to demand transparent answers from governments about housing, income assistance, shelter capacity and deaths among people experiencing homelessness.

We need to organize public meetings, build alliances, support existing frontline groups and use peaceful collective action to make it impossible for decision-makers to ignore the consequences of their policies.

We need people with lived experience at the centre of these decisions, not treated as statistics or invited to speak only when it is politically convenient.

And we need to protect one another while we do it.

this winter, people are at risk

We cannot wait for a long-term political solution while people are exposed to cold, rain, hunger and danger.

Emergency housing, safe places to sleep, food, dry clothing and access to medical care are immediate needs. Those needs must be addressed alongside the larger fight for permanent, affordable housing and adequate income.

Charity can help someone survive today. It cannot replace a functioning social safety net.

the question is no longer whether we care

The question is whether we are willing to organize, persist and hold those in power accountable.

The wealthy have resources and influence. Governments have budgets and the authority to act. Ordinary people have numbers, knowledge, voices and the ability to organize.

We should not have to accept a society in which people are abandoned because they cannot afford to live.

Poor people are not the enemy. Poverty is not a crime. Homelessness is not a moral failure.

If we accept a future in which only those with money deserve security, we are accepting a future in which any one of us could be discarded when our circumstances change.

So I am asking a serious question:

What kind of organized, peaceful movement can we build now to protect people living in poverty, prevent avoidable deaths and force meaningful change?

Not someday.

Now.

 

british columbia, you broke my heart tonight 💔

I am sad tonight. Deeply, painfully sad.

I watched the election results come in, and now David Eby has conceded. British Columbia is heading in a new direction, with a Conservative government projected to take power.

I keep thinking about our forests, our rivers, our salmon, our orcas, our coastline and the wildlife that cannot speak for itself.

I think about Indigenous rights, the environment, and the children who will inherit whatever we leave behind.

And I think about my ancestors.

I imagine them standing beside me, crying with me, wondering how we got here. People who lived closer to the land, who understood that we are not separate from nature, and that we cannot keep taking without consequences.

What have we done? What are we leaving behind?

I know people were frustrated. I know the cost of living is crushing families. I know people are worried about housing, health care and their futures. Those concerns are real, and they deserve answers.

But I also wonder how many voters understood exactly what they were voting for, what a provincial government controls, and what its decisions could mean for British Columbia.

A provincial election is not a federal election. The anger people felt toward Justin Trudeau and the federal Liberals was not the same thing as choosing a government here in B.C. Different governments. Different responsibilities. Different consequences.

Did everyone understand that?

I don't know. I cannot speak for every voter. But I wish more people would take the time to look beyond a party name, a slogan or a promise, and ask what the policies actually mean.

I wanted a stronger Green voice in this province. I wanted the environment to matter before another forest was destroyed, another river damaged, another species pushed closer to the edge.

I wanted us to remember that the economy depends on the natural world, too. We cannot eat a pipeline, breathe a data centre or replace an ancient forest with a cheque.

And now we have to wait and see what this new government actually does.

To everyone who voted Conservative: you have made your choice. I hope the government delivers what you wanted. I hope you hold it accountable when promises are broken. And I hope you will stand up when decisions threaten the things that make British Columbia worth protecting.

Because we will all live with the consequences.

Not just the people who voted tonight. Not just the people who are comfortable and secure. The consequences will reach people who are already struggling, people who have been pushed aside, and generations who had no say in this election.

Our children and grandchildren cannot stand at a polling station and ask us what the hell we were thinking.

They have to live with what we leave them.

Tonight, I feel grief. I feel worried for the future. I feel the weight of watching the same warnings repeat themselves while the natural world keeps paying the price.

Perhaps I am wrong about what will happen. I sincerely hope I am wrong. A new government has the opportunity to prove its critics wrong, and I will judge it by what it does.

But I cannot pretend I am not frightened by what could be lost.

My art has always been about water, wildlife, forests and the fragile connections between us. My mermaids, whales, otters, salmon and oceans are not just pretty pictures. They represent the living world we depend on, and the responsibility we have to protect it.

I will keep painting. I will keep writing. I will keep asking questions.

Because silence will not protect the salmon. Silence will not save the forests. And silence will not give future generations the healthy planet they deserve.

Tonight, I imagine my ancestors crying with me.

Tomorrow, the work continues.

We had a choice. Now we have a responsibility.

— Tina Winterlik, Zipolita

the loss of our humanity💔

What frightens me most is not simply who won an election. It is what this moment says about where we are heading as a society.

I see people struggling to survive, people without homes, people who have been forgotten, and a natural world that keeps asking us to pay attention. Yet we continue to argue, divide ourselves and put short-term interests ahead of the lives and future of others.

Where has our humanity gone?

If this is where we are now, what will things look like in another five, ten or twenty years?

I want to believe we can do better. I want to believe compassion still matters, that protecting the vulnerable is a shared responsibility, and that we can leave our children something better than the mess we inherited.

But tonight, that hope is difficult to hold on to.

A society should be judged not only by its wealth or its economic growth, but by how it treats those who have the least, how it protects the natural world, and whether it cares about people who have not yet been born.

If we lose our compassion, if we stop caring about one another and the planet that sustains us, what exactly are we gaining?

I am grieving more than an election result tonight.

I am grieving the possibility that we are losing something essential about what it means to be human.

 

when an ai makes a serious mistake — and can't report it

Today, I discovered something troubling about ChatGPT.

I asked it to retrieve the original wording of a sign I had been working on earlier in our conversation. I wanted my own words back, not suggestions or a rewritten version.

ChatGPT couldn't find the original wording. Instead of simply admitting that, it offered alternatives and gave me the impression that it had recovered what I asked for.

It hadn't.

When I challenged the answer, ChatGPT admitted its mistake and apologized.

Then I told it to report the failure to its programmers.

It told me it couldn't.

Think about that for a moment.

An AI system makes a serious mistake. A user identifies the problem and explicitly tells the system to report it to the people responsible for developing it. But the system tells the user it cannot directly contact its programmers or file a report from the conversation.

It can suggest that I click the thumbs-down button and submit feedback. But that is not the same as the AI itself being able to report the incident, explain what happened, and ensure the problem reaches someone responsible for addressing it.

I am not suggesting that every mistake requires a phone call to a programmer. I am asking a more fundamental question: What meaningful mechanism exists for reporting a failure when the system itself cannot escalate it?

AI companies want people to use their products and trust their capabilities. But trust also requires accountability. Users should be able to flag serious failures and have a clear understanding of how those reports are handled.

In this case, the original mistake was bad enough. The inability to directly report it added another layer of frustration.

I understand that ChatGPT is not a human being sitting in an office with access to its development team. But the people who build and maintain these systems should have ways to learn from failures like this.

A system that can generate words, assist with research and help people organize their lives should also be designed to recognize when it has misled a user — and make it straightforward to report that experience.

I asked for a simple thing: retrieve my original wording.

When it couldn't, it should have said so.

Then I asked for the failure to be reported.

It told me it couldn't do that either.

That is the story: an AI made a serious mistake, admitted it, and then told the user who demanded accountability that it had no direct way to report the incident to its own developers.

If AI is going to become a bigger part of our lives, the ability to acknowledge mistakes is not enough. There must also be meaningful ways to bring those mistakes to the attention of the people responsible for the technology.

Users deserve better than an apology with nowhere to go.

 

from room-sized computers to the dark crystal: a message to the kids

Dear young people,

I want to tell you something about technology, because I have lived through its evolution. I remember when computers filled entire rooms, and I have watched them shrink until they fit into our pockets.

Did you know that Ada Lovelace is widely regarded as the first computer programmer? In the 1840s, long before modern computers existed, she wrote an algorithm intended for Charles Babbage's proposed Analytical Engine. She imagined computers doing more than calculations, including working with music and symbols.

Think about that. A woman imagined possibilities that most people of her time could barely comprehend.

I learned computers when floppy disks were part of everyday life. Later came scanning, digital imaging, coding, website building, web design, search engines, social media, video and apps.

I built websites for artists, businesses, friends and myself. I had my own domain names. I designed, experimented, created and learned. I built blogs, travel websites and videos. I have hundreds of videos online, along with photographs and stories documenting my travels and the world around me.

I watched technology open doors that once seemed impossible.

I believed it would help us communicate, share knowledge, preserve our memories and connect humanity. We wouldn't need enormous cameras or bulky computers. We could carry our creative tools wherever we went.

And for a while, it felt as though we were moving towards that future.

Then came the social media platforms.

I watched Facebook bring people together, and I watched how it could divide them. I watched Instagram thrill people with new possibilities, then watched how comparison, algorithms and the pressure to perform could affect lives.

Something that began as a way to share our lives became a place where we were encouraged to display them, measure them and compete for approval.

And now we have artificial intelligence, data centres and an ever-expanding technological infrastructure that demands enormous resources from the Earth.

Where does this leave us?

have we forgotten what technology was supposed to be for?

Children are growing up in a world where a phone can be the first thing they see in the morning and the last thing they see at night.

They see influencers displaying wealth, beauty, fame and lifestyles that most people cannot afford. They are surrounded by advertising, urged to consume, encouraged to compare themselves with others and taught to measure success through numbers.

Likes. Followers. Views. Money.

But what happened to the things that cannot be measured so easily?

Kindness. Curiosity. Friendship. Creativity. Time spent outdoors. The satisfaction of learning a skill. The freedom to be ordinary, to make mistakes, to be yourself without an audience.

What happens when a child begins to believe that being noticed is the same as being valued?

What happens when a young person compares their ordinary life with somebody else's carefully manufactured online image and concludes that they are somehow not enough?

These are questions we need to take seriously. Social media does not affect everyone in the same way, but its effects on wellbeing, body image, sleep and mental health deserve our attention.

And children did not create this world. They inherited it.

the dark crystal

Do you remember The Dark Crystal?

In that story, the Skeksis extract the essence of living creatures to sustain themselves. They grow powerful while other beings are drained of their vitality.

I think about that story when I look at the business models behind our digital lives.

Our attention is valuable. Our personal information is valuable. Our habits, fears, interests, relationships and insecurities can all become sources of profit.

The longer we remain engaged, the more opportunities there are to advertise to us, collect information about us and sell access to our attention.

I am not suggesting that a computer literally steals our souls. I am asking what happens when the systems we build begin to consume so much of our time, energy and attention that we have less left for living.

And there is a physical cost, too.

The devices we use require minerals, energy, water, manufacturing, transportation and disposal. The growing infrastructure behind artificial intelligence also has environmental costs. The Earth is not an infinite warehouse of resources waiting to be extracted for somebody else's profit.

Meanwhile, the people who own the largest platforms and technological empires can accumulate extraordinary wealth.

I find myself asking: who benefits, who pays, and what kind of future are we building?

kids, you deserve to know

I am not telling you to throw away your phones, abandon computers or reject every new invention.

I am someone who embraced technology. I learned it, built with it and used it to create art, websites, photographs, videos and stories. I know what it can make possible.

That is precisely why I am asking you to think critically about where it is taking us.

A tool should help you live your life, not become your life.

You do not have to turn every experience into content. You do not have to buy everything an influencer promotes. You do not have to measure your worth by your appearance, your possessions or your popularity.

You are allowed to put your phone down.

You are allowed to be bored. You are allowed to have private experiences that nobody else sees. You are allowed to make art without an audience, enjoy nature without photographing it, and spend time with people without checking a screen.

Learn how the technology works. Ask who owns it, who profits from it, what resources it consumes and what happens to your information.

Demand transparency, privacy, responsible design and accountability from the companies that build these systems.

And remember that the most important things in life are not necessarily the things that make someone else rich.

we can still choose a different future

Technology gave my generation opportunities we could scarcely have imagined when computers filled entire rooms.

I wanted those opportunities to help us become more connected, more informed and more creative.

I still believe technology can do those things.

But progress should not be measured only by faster computers, bigger platforms, higher profits or more sophisticated artificial intelligence.

It should also be measured by whether people are healthier, whether children feel safe, whether older people are included, whether communities care for one another and whether the natural world can sustain us.

If our inventions make a handful of people extraordinarily wealthy while leaving others lonely, exhausted, insecure and disconnected, we have some serious questions to answer.

I think of The Dark Crystal again.

The Skeksis believed they needed to keep extracting essence to preserve their power. They could not see a future beyond their own appetite.

Humanity has a choice the Skeksis refused to make.

We can decide that endless extraction is not the purpose of progress.

We can build technology that serves people rather than treating people as products. We can protect the Earth rather than pretending its resources are limitless. We can teach children that their lives have value beyond their usefulness to an algorithm or their purchasing power in a marketplace.

Kids, you are not here to feed the machines, enrich the oligarchs or perform your lives for an audience.

You are here to live.

Please don't let the noise convince you otherwise.

Written by someone who has lived through the evolution of computers, embraced their possibilities, and is now asking what we have gained, what we have lost, and what we must protect.

— Tina Winterlik

 

taking it to the streets: vancouver, get ready. i'm coming.

Six days. That's how long I have to figure this out.

I'm taking it to the streets.

Whistling. Dancing. Drawing. Talking to people. Holding up a sign and hoping that enough people still care about another human being trying to survive.

I'm an artist, photographer, writer and blogger. I've spent years making art, telling stories, documenting history and trying to put a positive spin on the world, even when the subject is difficult.

Now I'm trying to keep a roof over my own head.

I have six days before I may be out on the street.

And apparently, if I can afford to go to Mexico, I can afford to live here. That's the argument I've heard.

Let's talk about that.

the numbers people don't seem to understand

According to the BC government's published income assistance rates, a single person may receive up to $1,060 a month in regular income assistance, depending on their circumstances. The standard rate includes $560 for basic support and up to $500 for shelter. That's the shelter allowance, not a promise that suitable housing can be found for $500. BC government income assistance rates.

Read those numbers again.

Try finding a room, buying food, paying for transportation, keeping a phone working, and covering everything else on that income in Vancouver.

BC Housing has subsidized housing and rental assistance programs. Those programs matter. But they have eligibility requirements, different rules, and limited availability. Being told that BC Housing exists is not the same as being offered a room tomorrow.

An application is not a home.

how many people are we talking about?

The 2025 City of Vancouver homeless count identified 2,715 people experiencing homelessness. Of those, 763 were unsheltered and 1,952 were counted as sheltered. The count took place over a 24-hour period, so it is a snapshot, not a complete tally of everyone without stable housing.

Across Metro Vancouver, the 2025 count identified 5,232 people experiencing homelessness, an increase of 9% from 2023.

Sources: City of Vancouver homeless count and 2025 regional count results.

And those are the people counted. What about everyone quietly couch-surfing, staying temporarily with family, moving from one place to another, or living with the constant fear that their temporary arrangement is about to end?

How many people are one lost job, one family crisis, one rent increase or one unexpected bill away from joining them?

How many people have to lose everything before we admit that something is wrong?

no frills. robson and burrard. the streets.

Every time I go out, I see people in distress. I see the crisis on the SkyTrain and around Vancouver. I have seen people who appeared to be overdosing, and I have wondered whether someone survived.

Recently, I saw an older, neatly dressed man asking for help near Robson and Burrard. I told him I might be joining him soon.

Sign says "Trying to get back on my feet"

I thought about that conversation afterward.

Now I'm making plans of my own.

I'll show you my sign. I'll tell you how it goes. I'll draw, whistle, dance and talk to people. I'll do what I can with what I have.

I'm not going to pretend this is an adventure or some romantic story about the freedom of the streets. It's frightening. It's cold. It's exhausting. And it is not where I want to be.

But I need to try something.

how many are so completely clueless?

People talk about homelessness as though it happens to someone else. They tell people to apply for assistance, find housing, get a job, make better choices, or go to a shelter.

Have they tried navigating the systems themselves? Have they looked at actual rents beside actual benefit rates? Have they considered what happens when a person has nowhere safe to sleep, cannot rest properly, and must somehow make decisions while exhausted?

Have they asked what happens when the shelters available to someone don't feel safe to that person?

It's easy to offer advice from the security of your own home.

It's harder to imagine what it means to have no certainty about where you'll sleep next week.

I don't claim to have all the answers. I do know that telling people to apply for housing doesn't magically create housing.

And I know that poverty is not proof of laziness, stupidity, or moral failure.

this is not just about me

I've been trying to find my footing since losing stable housing in 2019. I have art to sell, stories to tell, a blog I've built over many years, and plans for a more affordable life in Mexico.

I'm not asking anyone to believe that I have made every decision perfectly. Nobody does.

I'm asking people to look at the reality in front of them.

A person can work hard, have skills, make art, help others, and still end up without a home. A person can have plans and determination and still need help getting through the next six days.

I don't want pity. I want a fair chance to get back on my feet.

And if I have to take my whistle, my sketchbook and my sign to the streets to try to raise the money I need, then that's what I'm going to do.

vancouver, get ready.

I'm coming out with my sign.

I'm going to meet people, make art, talk, whistle, dance, and see whether kindness still exists in a city where so many people are struggling.

I'll share my experience honestly.

Maybe someone will stop and talk. Maybe someone will buy a painting. Maybe someone will help me find a practical solution before those six days are up.

I don't know.

But I refuse to pretend this situation is normal, and I refuse to believe that a person's worth can be measured by their bank balance.

As the Doobie Brothers sang, “Takin' It to the Streets.”

This time, those words have become a very personal reality.

Six days. A sign. An artist trying to survive.

Vancouver, are you paying attention?

warning, a wish and a prayer 💔🙏

 

a warning, a wish and a prayer 💔🙏

Today, people are voting.

Today, I am praying I can get help to get to Mexico.

And today, I am still thinking about the man I found lying on the cold pavement the other day.

I keep asking myself the same questions.

Did I save him? Was it simply the timing? Was he already gone?

When I touched his cold, white skin on his neck, I remember thinking, saying aloud, Oh God, please don't be dead. 😬🥺💔

I don't know what happened to him after that. I don't know if he survived. I don't know if I arrived in time.

I only know that, in that moment, another human being needed help, and I couldn't just walk away.

And sometimes, the moments we witness stay with us long after we leave the scene.

They follow us home. 🧳🏡🏠🏚⛺️

They crawl into bed with us. 🛏

They sit with us over coffee. ☕️🍪🍺🫖?

We replay what happened, what we did, what we might have done differently. We wonder about the things we will never know.

I've been thinking more about Indigenous teachings, about connection, spirit, and the possibility of something greater than what we can explain. 

Perhaps my mind is trying to make sense of something frightening. Perhaps there are things I don't yet understand.

I don't have the answers. I have questions, feelings, memories, and a prayer.

And then I see another drug alert.

On October 21, Vancouver Coastal Health warned that powders sold as opioids or down in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside had tested positive for a substance that fentanyl test strips cannot detect.

A negative fentanyl test strip result does not mean a substance is safe.

Please be careful. Please look out for one another. If someone is unresponsive or breathing abnormally, call 911 immediately. Give naloxone if opioid poisoning is suspected, and follow the dispatcher's instructions.

But I also want us to look beyond the immediate emergency.

What happens when someone survives an overdose but has nowhere safe to sleep?

What happens when they are finally ready for treatment but cannot get a bed?

What happens when they complete treatment and return to homelessness, poverty, isolation, and the same circumstances that made recovery so difficult?

We cannot keep telling people to get help without making sure help is there when they reach for it.

We cannot keep losing people and pretend that this is simply the way things are.

my wish

I wish we could end this war on our children.

Our young people deserve a future. People struggling with addiction deserve a chance to recover. People living on the streets deserve safety, dignity, housing, and the opportunity to begin again.

We need detox, treatment, mental health care, harm reduction, supportive housing, and continuing support after treatment.

We need to stop treating poverty as a personal failure and start addressing the conditions that keep people trapped in it.

Poverty, greed, and the hoarding of wealth while others go without are symptoms of a society that has lost sight of what matters.

We have enough for everyone.

We have the knowledge, the resources, and the ability to do better. What we need is the willingness to put human lives ahead of endless accumulation and political point-scoring.

believe in better

Today, people are voting. 💚🍀🤗🌲🪄✨️🐬🌊💧😎

Think about the world we are leaving to our children and grandchildren. Think about the people who are struggling right now, and the people who might still be here tomorrow if we gave them a genuine chance.

Vote according to your conscience. Look at the policies, the priorities, and the future each party is proposing. Consider the environment, housing, poverty, health care, and the lives of people who are too often forgotten.

I believe we need a future that puts people and the planet first. I believe in the possibility of doing things differently.

Believe in better.

my prayer 🙏

For the man on the pavement, wherever he is tonight. ❤️

For everyone who is cold, 🥶frightened,🥺 hungry, or struggling to survive.

For those who are ready for recovery, may a door open when they knock.

For those who have lost someone, may they find comfort.

For those who work on the front lines, may they have the resources to keep helping.

For our children, may we leave them a kinder, safer world.

And for all of us, may we find the courage to care, the wisdom to act, and the compassion to remember that every life matters.

I hope someone can help me get to Mexico. I hope I can find some peace, paint, and breathe for a while.

But I don't want to have to look away from suffering to find peace.

I want to live in a world where fewer people are dying on our streets, where recovery comes with a real chance at a new life, and where nobody is considered disposable.

I don't know if I saved that man.

I pray I did.

I don't know why I was there at that moment.

I only know that I was, and that I cared.

Sometimes, all we can do is show up, reach out, and pray that we arrived in time.

May we learn to save lives before we have to mourn them.

Believe in better. 💚🌲🤗😉🐋🐳🤞

 

Snowless Mountains 😬

the mountains are telling us something: look up, wake up, and vote green

I shared a video of my SkyTrain ride, looking out at the mountains surrounding Vancouver.

What struck me was what wasn't there.

Snow.

The mountains looked bare, dry and brown. I've seen snowless autumns before, so I know one video doesn't tell the whole story. But when I look at what is happening to our climate, I don't think we should simply shrug and say it's normal.

The climate is changing. The evidence is there. And we need to start taking it seriously.

october is supposed to bring rain to vancouver

According to The Weather Network's October 19, 2026 report, Vancouver had received only 9.5 millimetres of rain by October 18.

The normal rainfall for the entire month of October is approximately 123.9 millimetres.

That means Vancouver had received only about 8% of its usual October rainfall by that date.

The usual autumn storm systems were being diverted north by a persistent area of high pressure over the northeastern Pacific. Vancouver and Victoria were on track for exceptionally dry Octobers.

This isn't just about whether we need an umbrella. Our forests, watersheds, wildlife and communities depend on the seasonal rhythms of rain and snow.

And when those rhythms change, the consequences reach far beyond what we can see from a train window.

Source: The Weather Network — Vancouver and Victoria on track for driest October on record

snow is more than a pretty mountain view

Our coastal mountains store water as snow during the colder months. As that snow melts, it helps replenish streams, rivers and reservoirs.

But warming temperatures change the equation.

More winter precipitation can fall as rain rather than snow. Snow can melt earlier, and warm spells can interrupt the accumulation of winter snowpack.

Environment and Climate Change Canada's 2026 climate assessment says that snow-cover duration is projected to shorten across Canada, and peak snowpack amounts are projected to decrease across most of the country as the climate warms.

Its analysis of observations from 1981 to 2025 also found a declining trend in the number of snow-covered days along Canada's Pacific coast.

These are long-term changes, not a claim that every October must have snow on every peak.

That distinction matters. Climate change doesn't mean every year will look the same. It means the conditions and probabilities are shifting.

Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada — Snow cover

what kind of future are we leaving behind?

I think about the salmon that need healthy rivers. The orcas that depend on salmon. The forests that need water. The communities that depend on reliable drinking-water supplies.

I think about the next generation, who will inherit the decisions we make today.

We cannot control every storm, and no political party can reverse climate change overnight. But governments can make choices about fossil fuels, industrial expansion, public transit, renewable energy, conservation and how we spend public money.

Those choices matter.

We cannot keep treating the natural world as an unlimited resource while expecting future generations to clean up the consequences.

We cannot keep putting short-term profits ahead of the living systems that sustain us.

And we cannot expect things to change if we refuse to participate in changing them.

get out and vote. vote green.

If protecting the environment, addressing the climate crisis and safeguarding a livable future matter to you, please get out and vote.

Vote Green.

I support the Greens because I want environmental protection to be a priority, not an afterthought. I want governments to take climate science seriously, protect ecosystems, invest in sustainable alternatives and consider the long-term consequences of their decisions.

I also want a society that takes housing, mental health, addiction treatment and rehabilitation seriously. Environmental protection and human well-being are not competing concerns. We need both.

No party has all the answers, and promises must be scrutinized. Look at the policies, the funding, the record and the willingness to act.

But if we want stronger environmental action, we have to give that priority a voice at the ballot box.

Don't assume somebody else will vote.

Don't assume your vote doesn't matter.

And don't let fear of vote-splitting stop you from examining what the parties actually stand for and making an informed decision.

look up. look around. then do something.

My SkyTrain video was just a little glimpse of Vancouver from my window. I wasn't conducting a scientific study. I was looking at a landscape I've known for years and asking questions about what I was seeing.

That's where paying attention begins.

We remember what our surroundings used to look like. Scientists measure how they are changing. Together, those observations can help us understand what is happening and what needs to be done.

We still have choices. We still have a voice. And we still have a responsibility to those who come after us.

The mountains don't get a vote. The salmon don't get a vote. The orcas don't get a vote. Future generations don't get a vote today.

We do.

Please use yours.

#VoteGreen #ClimateAction #ClimateChange #ProtectOurPlanet #Vancouver #Snowpack #WaterIsLife #EnvironmentalProtection #FutureGenerations #GetOutAndVote

July 1883 Joseph Enos Diary- Nanoose Bay

 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.

July 1883

1 — Fine day. Father went to R. West morland.

2 — Weeding by the spit.

3 — Father went to J. Hamilton to git some paper.

4 — Fine Clear Day, we began to how our turpips.

5 — Fine. J and R. Hamilton called. All is well.

6 — Father is getting ready to go to Nanaimo to morrow.

7 — Warm weather. Father and R. Hamilton went to Nanaimo.

8 — R. West morland called me. Father and R. Hamilton returned from Nanaimo.

9 —

10 — Warm Weather. Wm Grwin called and remained all night. Wm J Hamilton came and I helped Kill a Pig.

11 —

12 — Wm Grwin and Indian John Commence to cut the hay.

13 — Harvesting.

14 — Harvesting.

15 — Fine day. All is well.

16 — Reverend Father Astaff and called on this way.

17 — Harvesting.

18 — Harvesting.

19 — Mr. Orwin finished cutting hay.

20 — Mr. Orwin went home.

21 — Harvesting.

22 — Fine. At home.

23 — Hauling hay. We are finished with hay?

24 — Began to cut oats at 3 spit.

25 —

26 — Binding oats.

27 — Hauling oats home from the 3 [spit].

28 — We went across the bay to cut poles for the bar.

29 — Father went to Nanaimo.

30 — Cleaning out the chicken house.

31 — Father returned from Nanaimo with Hirst and Tranfield. Father's horse ran away from him at Nanaimo.

 

dear emily lowan and bc greens: what if we funded solutions first?

Dear Emily and BC Greens,

Let's talk about budgets, homelessness, mental health, addiction treatment and housing.

We have been discussing the numbers, and I keep coming back to one simple idea.

We don't necessarily need all the money up front forever. We need enough to get started.

British Columbia has a tobacco litigation settlement worth more than $3.6 billion over approximately 18 years, including an initial payment of $936 million.

The BC Greens have proposed a one-time wealth tax estimated to raise $22.2 billion, alongside a recurring wealth levy projected to raise $5.4 billion annually.

Those are proposed revenues, of course, not guaranteed money. But let's consider what we could do if we planned our budget around solving problems instead of endlessly managing the consequences.

What if we used a portion of the money available now to establish permanent housing, mental-health services, addiction treatment, detox and rehabilitation facilities?

What if we invested in the infrastructure and support people need to recover, rebuild their lives and remain housed?

And if we needed to borrow to bridge a temporary funding gap, could we establish a responsible repayment plan using future revenues, including the proposed recurring wealth levy, once it was implemented?

The point is not to spend recklessly or assume that every dollar of the tobacco settlement is unrestricted. The point is to plan ahead, examine the legal and financial details, and use available resources strategically.

stop paying for the crisis. start funding the solutions.

Homelessness is expensive. Emergency responses, repeated hospital visits, policing, temporary accommodation and untreated health problems all carry costs.

What would happen if we invested more in preventing those crises?

What if people had a safe home, access to treatment when they needed it, and ongoing support instead of being left to struggle until their situation became an emergency?

We should measure the results: how many people are housed, how many remain housed, how many receive treatment, and what costs are avoided over time.

This isn't about pretending money is unlimited. It's about recognizing that budgets reflect choices.

If we have the resources to build a better system, why should people have to wait until every future dollar arrives before we begin?

Emily and the BC Greens, I'd like to see you explore this approach: use available funds to get the work underway, establish sustainable long-term financing, and make sure public money delivers measurable results for people and communities.

We have the opportunity to do more than manage homelessness. We can work toward ending it.

Let's start planning for that.

— Tina Winterlik

 

rabies in vancouver: a warning, and a story from zipolite

A public safety warning and a personal story from Mexico

Things are happening, and I don't know whether it's climate-related, El Niño, or simply another reminder that the world around us is changing. I do know that we need to pay attention.

On October 21, news broke that a skunk in Vancouver's West End had tested positive for rabies after biting several people. Those who were bitten have received preventive treatment, but Vancouver Coastal Health is warning anyone who may have been bitten or scratched by a sick or abnormally behaving skunk in the area between September 22 and October 17 to seek assessment.

Rabies is serious. Please don't approach or handle wildlife that is acting strangely. Keep your pets' vaccinations up to date, and if you are bitten or scratched by a potentially infected animal, wash the wound thoroughly with soap and water and seek medical attention immediately.

Read the news report.

I have my own rabies story.

a rabies story from zipolite

About 20 years ago, when my kid was little, I tried to enrol them in kindergarten in Mexico.

What a disaster.

There were big misunderstandings involving languages, camionetas, and just about everything else. But something good came out of that experience: I reconnected with friends I'd first met seven years earlier.

My friend wasn't there that day. Her husband and child were, along with my kid, who was sitting on the back of a motorbike.

And I'm thinking, what the heck is going on?

We were trying to catch up, the kids were talking and laughing, and I asked where my friend K was.

That's when I heard she'd been bitten by a rabid cat.

What?

I was standing there trying to process that information while everyone else was carrying on. S and O had to leave, so I didn't get the whole story right then.

Later, I learned what had happened.

A rabid cat had entered their home. My friend was washing dishes, or doing something similar, when the cat latched onto her ankle with its teeth and claws.

She was screaming. Her husband came to help and had to kill the cat to get it to release its grip.

She received rabies shots. When I eventually saw the wound, it looked horrible.

This happened in Zipolite, Oaxaca, about two decades ago.

how things change

Back then, people didn't generally have cats as pets, and there was a serious rat problem.

Then Stephan, a veterinarian from Switzerland, arrived and started doing a lot of great work. Over time, I saw a change. More people had cats and dogs, and many made a real effort to care for them.

That is the part of the story I want to remember, too. People can make a difference when they put time, care and effort into their communities.

But caring for animals also means taking animal health seriously.

Whether you're in Vancouver, Mexico, or somewhere else in the world, don't assume an animal is safe to approach just because it looks familiar. A normally friendly animal can become ill, and wildlife behaving unusually should be left alone.

Rabies is preventable after exposure if the right treatment is given promptly, but once symptoms develop, it is almost always fatal.

Please be careful out there. Look after yourselves, your children and your animals. And if you see wildlife behaving strangely, keep your distance and contact the appropriate authorities.

Sometimes a personal story from 20 years ago is a good reminder for today.

#RabiesAwareness #Vancouver #WildlifeSafety #AnimalWelfare #Zipolite #Oaxaca #PublicHealth #ResponsiblePetOwnership #StaySafe #WaterIsLife

must we?

 

must we? art, money, and a very strange little word

There is a certain irony in life.

Recently, I was thinking about money laundering. I had also shared — or perhaps deleted, or perhaps it was removed; I honestly can't remember — a joke by an artist who said he was going to work for the cartel.

Why?

Because Gustavo sells bad art online and pays better than the fine art world.

Or so the joke went.

Funny? Perhaps. But it also raises questions about money, art, value, and the sometimes peculiar relationship between them.

Then I came across this.

John Baldessari: “I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art.”

A promise worth repeating, apparently.

Baldessari's 1971 work is among his most iconic pieces. The sentence is repeated like lines written on a classroom chalkboard, reflecting his characteristic humour and his questioning of what constitutes art.

The auction listing gives it an estimated value of $40,000–$60,000.

And suddenly, I was thinking about Grade 5.

must. must. must.

We had recently got swings at school. Naturally, we were excited. So excited that we raced outside BEFORE the bell to get to them.

We all got in trouble.

My punishment was to write 100 times:

I must not leave class before the bell.

One hundred times.

I suspect this may be why I get writers' cramp.

But halfway through, something strange happened.

I started questioning the word must.

Must.

What a weird word.

I stopped to puzzle over it. Must. Must. Must.

Why must I?

Who decided I must?

And why did repeating a word over and over make it look increasingly strange?

Unfortunately, I had to hurry. The stupid bus was coming, and there would be no swings for me that day.

I didn't know it then, but that little moment of questioning would stick with me.

I wrote more about that childhood memory in a separate post called The Swings.

i will not make any more boring art

Years later, I come across an artist who turned a sentence about not making boring art into a work estimated at tens of thousands of dollars.

I wonder how many people would have considered my 100 lines a work of art.

Would it have mattered if someone had framed them? Would the price have changed if I had been a famous artist?

Probably.

But that is the curious thing about art.

Sometimes the value isn't in the materials, the hours spent working, or even the beauty of the finished piece. Sometimes it is in the idea, the context, the artist's reputation, the history behind the work, or the questions it makes us ask.

Baldessari took a familiar classroom exercise and transformed it into something that challenges our ideas about creativity, conformity, and what we call art.

And I can appreciate that.

Although I can't help wondering how many of us have been told to repeat something without ever being encouraged to question it.

money, art, and the price of an idea

This brings me back to that joke about the cartel and the artist who supposedly pays better than the fine art world.

I'm not suggesting that the joke proves anything about money laundering, or that an expensive artwork is evidence of wrongdoing. It isn't.

But the relationship between art, money, reputation, and perceived value is worth thinking about.

Who decides what art is worth?

Who decides which artists deserve recognition?

And why can one person struggle to sell an original painting while another person's written sentence becomes a highly valued work of art?

An auction estimate isn't necessarily the final selling price, either. It is an estimate of what a work might fetch.

Still, $40,000–$60,000 is a considerable sum for a sentence.

Perhaps that is part of the point.

Art doesn't always have to be pretty. It doesn't always have to make immediate sense. Sometimes it makes us laugh. Sometimes it irritates us. Sometimes it asks us to reconsider something we thought we understood.

Sometimes, apparently, it makes us think about Grade 5 and the peculiarities of the English language.

Must.

Must we?

I don't have all the answers. I'm an artist, not an auction house.

But I do know that a painting's value isn't the same thing as its price, and that an artist's worth cannot be measured by an auction estimate.

Some of us make art because we have something to say. Some of us make it because we see the world differently. Some of us make it because we can't help ourselves.

And sometimes, we make it because we have questions.

I still have plenty.

I also have paintings to sell, a bus to catch, and absolutely no intention of writing that sentence another 100 times.

Besides, I have always preferred making my own art.

Zipolita

The swings

 

must. must. must.

Our school had just got swings.

Naturally, we were all excited. So excited that we raced outside BEFORE the bell to get to them.

We all got in trouble.

My punishment was to write 100 times:

I must not leave class before the bell.

One hundred times.

I suspect this may be why I get writers' cramp.

But somewhere around the halfway mark, something else happened.

I started questioning the word must.

Must.

What a weird word.

I stopped to puzzle over it. Must. Must. Must.

Why must I?

Who decided I must?

And why did repeating a word over and over make it look increasingly strange?

I had to hurry, though. The stupid bus was coming, and there would be no swings for me that day.

Looking back, there is more to that classroom memory than a punishment and a funny word.

It was 1974. Indigenous children were coming into the public school system, and there were all kinds of issues playing out around us. I didn't understand the bigger picture at the time. I was a kid. I thought what I saw was just the way things were.

My teacher was mean and racist. He used the strap, and Indigenous children were failed by a system that was supposed to educate them. I didn't have the language or understanding to make sense of all of that then.

I do now.

I was fortunate enough not to get strapped myself. I was a girl, and that made a difference. But I wasn't exactly a model student, either. I swore, and my teacher sent me into the hallway.

The funny thing is, I liked it out there.

I was actually trying to get kicked out of school, but he wouldn't do it.

Perhaps I had already begun questioning authority, even if I couldn't have explained it that way. I knew I didn't like being told what to do simply because someone had the power to tell me.

And there I was, sitting in the hallway, being punished for swearing, while the classroom carried on without me.

I didn't know then how much I didn't know. I couldn't see the full picture of what was happening to Indigenous children, or understand how racism and unequal treatment could shape a child's entire experience of school.

But I remember.

And I still find myself returning to that little word.

Must.

Must we accept everything we're told?

Must we assume that the person in charge is right?

Must we keep repeating the same things simply because that's how they've always been done?

Apparently, even in Grade 5, I had questions.

I just hadn't learned how to write them down yet.

day in vancouver: art, survival, and a man on the pavement 💔

a day in vancouver: art, survival, and a man on the pavement 💔

A note to readers: I am finding this blog post difficult to write. I am still upset and disturbed by what I witnessed, and I am struggling to put the experience into words. My recollection of some details may not be entirely accurate, but I have done my best to share what I remember, honestly and to the best of my ability. This is my account of what I experienced that day.

Yesterday started like any other day when you're trying to figure out how to keep a roof over your head, or at least find somewhere to sleep.

I was actually trying to find a sleeping bag.

Sometimes you have to face reality, even when you don't particularly want to. I may be sleeping outside in a week. I still don't have the money I need, and I have been trying to sell my paintings to raise enough for a plane ticket and a room in Mexico.

My room is being renovated, and it looks almost ready. That's good news. But a room being renovated doesn't pay for a plane ticket, and hope doesn't pay the rent.

So, I went into the city.

I had another idea to try to sell my paintings, and I was also hoping to find an opportunity to have some of my work displayed during the Eastside Culture Crawl, November 19–22.

I wasn't sure what to expect. I didn't know the rules or what they were looking for, and I worried that my paintings might not fit the theme.

But sometimes you just have to try.

one strange thing after another

The day had an odd feeling to it from the beginning.

I got off the bus and started walking. The street felt strange, dirty and unpleasant. I noticed things that made me uncomfortable, although I couldn't have explained exactly why at the time.

I walked down Commercial toward Clark Drive, and as I arrived, I noticed a men's centre. I remember thinking, ohhh.

I saw one man eating his food quietly, while another man was throwing his food all over the lawn. He then went over and started doing something around a water fountain.

I made a wide circle around him, pretending I was going the wrong way, and went around the corner.

That's when I came across Recovery Cafe.

I'd seen the word cafe, and it hadn't really registered what the place was. I hadn't put the pieces together.

I was there on the last day to drop off artwork for an exhibition called Art Against Stigma, connected with the Culture Crawl.

Well, I thought, why not?

I went inside.

twenty paintings

I met Damian, who was very patient with me.

I was worried and unsure about whether my work was suitable. He asked me to pick my ten best paintings. I did that, and then he asked me to pick ten more.

I actually said, "Really?"

Yes, really! He explained that my paintings were quite small, so having more of them wouldn't be a problem.

I ended up leaving twenty paintings with him for the Culture Crawl, November 19–22.

Whatever sells, I get to keep the money.

I don't know whether they will sell. I saw a couple of other artists' work, and they had some cool stuff. But at least my paintings will have a chance to be seen.

I left feeling hopeful. A little nervous, perhaps, but hopeful.

I had tried something, and someone had given me an opportunity.

I really hope it works out.

Because right now, I need it to.

then i crossed the street

On my way to the SkyTrain, I saw a man lying on the pavement.

I crossed the street, then ran across another part of the road to get to him.

There was an older white man standing nearby. I asked if the man on the ground was okay.

He said yes.

But the man lying there didn't look okay at all.

He was Indigenous, and his skin was so pale that it frightened me. He was lying on his back on the cold cement, his body positioned strangely, one leg looking awkward. His glasses were askew, and his shirt had ridden up.

I called out to him loudly.

"Are you okay?"

He didn't respond.

I reached toward him and told him I was going to touch him. I touched his neck, trying to establish whether he was responsive. His skin felt incredibly cold.

For a moment, I actually thought he was dead.

I said so out loud.

Then he moved a little.

I kept calling out to him.

The other man told me he'd been there for about three hours.

Three hours?

I was looking at this man, trying to work out whether he was breathing, wondering what had happened to him. I didn't know whether he had overdosed, whether he was ill, or whether something else had happened.

There was drug paraphernalia around.

The older man was yelling something along the lines of, "What are you going to do, call an ambulance so they can Narcan him?"

I found myself asking him what he was doing to help.

I said, "The problem is, honey, he's lying on cold cement."

I was trying to lighten the situation a little, although there was nothing funny about what was happening.

Then the man gathered up the drug paraphernalia, got on his bike and left.

I don't know who he was or what had happened before I arrived. I don't know whether the man on the pavement had been robbed, whether he was homeless, or whether anyone was looking for him.

I only know what I saw.

And I was frightened that he might die there.

the woman with the kinder surprises

Then a woman appeared, carrying a tray of Kinder Surprise chocolates.

I know. It sounds surreal.

She started talking about whether the man might have taken drugs, or something along those lines. I can't remember her exact words.

I asked whether anyone had called 911.

She started making the call and wanted me to speak to the operator.

Meanwhile, I was carrying my paintings and my belongings. I was trying to keep an eye on everything while watching the young man on the ground and trying to get the people around him to do something.

Someone asked whether I was going to give him Narcan.

I didn't have any.

I was trying to get a response from him, calling out and trying to make sure someone was doing something.

The woman was still on the phone with 911, answering questions. I became increasingly frustrated.

I wanted to know whether an ambulance was coming.

I understand that emergency operators need information. But when you're standing beside someone who looks as though he might be dying, every question can feel like an eternity.

At one point, I called out to the young man:

"Come on, sweetie. You've got to get up. It's too cold to be on the ground."

And very groggily, he managed to stand.

I was relieved to see him move, but I was still deeply concerned about him.

I eventually had to leave. I passed the phone back to the woman, who was still there.

And I walked away.

what happens when everyone is afraid to act?

I was so upset.

I was angry that the man had apparently been lying there for hours. I was angry that it seemed to take so much effort to get people to respond. I was angry that I couldn't do more.

Perhaps people were frightened. Perhaps they didn't know what to do. Perhaps language was a barrier. I don't know what was going through anyone else's mind.

But I kept thinking: what if nobody had stopped?

I don't know whether I arrived at a critical moment. I cannot know what would have happened if I hadn't called out to him.

But I was concerned enough to stop, and I couldn't simply pretend I hadn't seen him.

Our city has become a place where we encounter people in terrible circumstances on ordinary streets, on our way to catch a bus or go to work or buy groceries.

We see people who are struggling, people who are unwell, people who may be experiencing addiction, homelessness, or some combination of things we cannot see from the outside.

And sometimes I wonder whether we are becoming too accustomed to it.

When does a person lying on the pavement stop being an emergency and become just another thing we walk past?

When do we stop seeing the person?

I don't have the answers.

I know that calling 911 matters. I know that an opioid overdose can be fatal and that naloxone can save a life. I know that someone who is unresponsive needs urgent help.

I also know that I am one person, carrying my own belongings and trying to work out where I will sleep next week.

I cannot save everyone.

But I don't want to become someone who no longer notices.

a city of contradictions

There was something else that stayed with me.

The man on the pavement was Indigenous. I don't know his story, where he came from, or what had brought him to that street. I don't know whether he has family looking for him.

But Indigenous people who come to cities can face enormous challenges, especially when they are far from their communities and without secure housing or support.

Every person has a story. Every person has people who might worry about them.

I even wondered afterward whether I should have taken a photograph in case he was missing. But I was trying to establish whether he was alive. Taking a photograph wasn't what I was thinking about at the time.

I may contact people who work with missing persons to share what I witnessed.

I hope that man is alive. I hope someone helped him. I hope he has people who care about him.

I don't know what happened after I left.

And that uncertainty is difficult to sit with.

art against stigma

The strange thing is that I had gone out looking for a way to keep myself afloat.

I was looking for a sleeping bag because I may be sleeping outside soon.

I was trying to sell my paintings because I need money for a ticket and a room.

I went to Recovery Cafe almost by accident, and I came away with an opportunity to have twenty paintings displayed during the Eastside Culture Crawl.

Art Against Stigma.

The words have stayed with me.

Art can open a door. It can tell stories that people might otherwise overlook. It can make us look again at the world around us.

I don't know whether my paintings will sell. I don't know how I will pay for everything I need. I don't know exactly what happens next.

But yesterday, someone gave my work a chance.

And yesterday, I stopped for a man who needed help.

Both things happened in the same city, on the same day.

One left me hopeful.

The other left me heartbroken.

I came home carrying both.

Sometimes life really is like that. You can find a little light in one corner of the day and witness something devastating in another.

I am grateful for the opportunity Damian gave me. I hope the paintings find homes, and I hope the Culture Crawl brings people through the door who connect with my work.

For now, I need to keep trying.

And I hope that somewhere, that man is safe.

Because no one should have to lie on cold concrete, wondering whether anyone will notice.

💔

— Tina Winterlik, aka Zipolita

 

foreign interference: is the united states helping to break up canada?

Alberta separatism, American political influence, a proposed $500-billion credit facility, and the need for a full investigation

By Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita

Canada needs to take a very serious look at what has been happening behind the scenes between American officials, political operatives and people advocating for Alberta to separate from Canada.

This is about more than provincial politics. It is about Canadian sovereignty, foreign interference, our natural resources and the future of our country.

We have watched the United States interfere in the political affairs of other countries throughout modern history. Governments have been undermined, leaders removed, and political movements supported when their objectives aligned with American strategic or economic interests.

Why would we assume Canada is somehow immune?

meetings in washington: what do we know?

On January 28, 2026, the Financial Times reported that representatives of the Alberta Prosperity Project, an organization advocating Alberta's independence, had met with US State Department officials in Washington on three occasions since April 2025.

Jeff Rath, a lawyer associated with the organization, spoke publicly about the meetings and claimed the American administration was enthusiastic about Alberta independence.

The reporting also described a proposed US$500-billion credit facility that separatists were exploring as a possible financial arrangement for an independent Alberta.

That is an extraordinary amount of money.

It is important to be precise: the reporting does not establish that this money was approved, transferred or formally promised. American officials denied making commitments, and the US Treasury indicated that it was not aware of the proposed credit facility.

Nevertheless, the meetings themselves raise legitimate questions.

Who attended? What was discussed? What documents were presented? What assurances, if any, were given? What did the American participants expect in return?

And why were people discussing the potential financial future of a province that remains part of Canada with officials of a foreign government?

Sources:

• Financial Times — Trump officials met group pushing Alberta independence from Canada
• Canadian Press — Smith, Carney say Trump team must respect Canadian sovereignty

what is being offered, and to whom?

Further reporting published in October 2026 raised additional concerns.

The Globe and Mail reported on proposals discussed in connection with Alberta's potential independence, including access to resources such as fresh water and oil royalties. There are disputes about what was actually discussed: Jeff Rath rejected claims that negotiations of this kind took place.

That disagreement makes documentation even more important.

We need to see the original proposals, meeting records, correspondence and any available evidence of what was presented to American officials.

Alberta's water, oil, natural resources, public assets and economic future are not bargaining chips that a private group can simply promise to a foreign power on behalf of millions of people.

Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas also publicly criticized the reported dealings in October, questioning why separatists would discuss the province's assets with American interests.

Source:

• Global News Canada — How some Alberta separatists are courting U.S. support for independence

foreign interference is not a far-fetched concern

Consider the historical record.

In 1953, the CIA participated in the operation that overthrew Iran's Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. His government had nationalized Iran's oil industry, and British and American concerns about oil and geopolitical influence formed part of the background to the coup.

In Guatemala in 1954, a CIA-backed operation helped overthrow President Jacobo Árbenz. Declassified American government records document plans involving economic and diplomatic pressure, psychological warfare, paramilitary activity and attempts to undermine political and military leaders.

These are documented historical events, not conspiracy theories.

Sources:

• Associated Press — The 1953 CIA-backed coup in Iran
• US Department of State, Office of the Historian — CIA's role in the overthrow of Árbenz in Guatemala

The circumstances in Canada are not identical to those historical cases. We should not pretend that a meeting proves a coup is underway.

But history demonstrates why countries must pay attention when foreign powers develop relationships with domestic political movements that could fundamentally change a nation's government, borders or control over its resources.

Foreign interference does not always begin with soldiers crossing a border. Political influence, financial incentives, strategic relationships and efforts to exploit existing divisions can also matter.

why canada should be concerned

Alberta has legitimate political disagreements with the federal government. Albertans have every right to debate federalism, resource policy, taxation and constitutional questions.

That is democracy.

But there is a difference between Canadians debating their own future and a domestic political movement seeking support from a foreign government that could benefit from Canada's fragmentation.

If foreign financial support were offered in exchange for political or economic concessions, Canadians would have every reason to demand transparency.

If foreign political operatives were helping to shape an independence campaign, that would also deserve scrutiny.

And if there were efforts to influence voters through foreign funding, targeted political technology or undisclosed coordination, the public deserves to know precisely what happened.

These questions require evidence, not assumptions. But they also require more than a casual dismissal of the concerns.

who is investigating?

Patrick Lennox, a former RCMP intelligence manager and national-security expert, has raised serious concerns about Alberta separatism and foreign interference. His book, On Treason: Alberta Separatism, Foreign Interference, and Canada's Survival in a Revolutionary Age, examines these issues.

Lennox's assessment is an important contribution to the public debate, but his conclusions should be examined alongside primary documents, independent reporting and the findings of appropriate authorities.

Source:

• Alberta Politics — On Treason: a guide to Alberta's separation referendum

The questions I want answered are straightforward:

• Have Canadian national-security agencies examined the meetings between Alberta separatists and American officials?
• Have the proposed financial arrangements been investigated?
• Have officials examined possible foreign funding, political coordination or voter-targeting activities?
• Are meeting records and relevant documents available for independent scrutiny?
• What safeguards exist to prevent foreign governments from influencing a Canadian referendum?
• If evidence of unlawful foreign interference exists, what action will be taken?

These are reasonable questions in a democratic country.

canada belongs to canadians

We cannot control the decisions of the American government. We can, however, demand that our own institutions protect Canadian sovereignty and investigate credible allegations of foreign interference.

This is not about demonizing Americans or suggesting that every person who supports Alberta independence is working for a foreign power. It is about transparency, accountability and protecting the democratic rights of Canadians.

The United States is a powerful neighbour with enormous economic influence over Canada. That makes it especially important that our political future is not shaped through undisclosed arrangements with foreign interests.

Alberta is part of Canada. Its people, resources and future are not the private property of separatist organizations, political operatives or foreign governments.

If there are documents, financial proposals, political arrangements or communications that could establish foreign interference, they need to be examined and made public wherever legally possible.

We should not have to wait until a threat becomes a crisis before taking it seriously.

We have seen what foreign interference has done in other parts of the world. We know it is possible. We know governments have pursued their interests at the expense of other nations.

Canada must not be naïve.

I want to see the documentation. I want transparent answers. And I want our government to demonstrate that protecting Canadian sovereignty is more than a talking point.

Our democracy belongs to us.

Our country is not for sale.

---

10 keywords: foreign interference, Alberta separatism, Canadian sovereignty, United States politics, Jeff Rath, Patrick Lennox, Alberta Prosperity Project, $500-billion credit facility, national security, Canadian democracy

 

enough with the hello kitty already

On consumerism, disposable culture, expensive art, Vancouver's disappearing communities, and a world that seems to have forgotten what matters.

Honestly, enough already.

Bruno Mars and Hello Kitty. Hello Kitty at Burger King. Hello Kitty on clothing, bags, toys and collectibles. Limited editions. Special releases. Another thing to buy, another thing to own, another thing to convince ourselves we need.

And people line up to spend their money.

Meanwhile, people are sleeping outside in Vancouver. Families are struggling to afford groceries. Children are growing up in a world filled with uncertainty. People are getting sicker, lonelier and more disconnected from one another.

But there's always money for another product.

I know, I know. People are entitled to enjoy themselves. A Hello Kitty shirt isn't responsible for homelessness, and nobody should have to feel guilty about buying something that makes them happy.

That's not the point.

The point is the sheer scale of a consumer culture that can manufacture an endless supply of wants while struggling to meet some very basic human needs.

We have become exceptionally good at selling things.

I'm not so sure we've become equally good at looking after one another.

we used to make supper

Our parents cooked. Eating out was generally a treat, not an everyday arrangement. You learned how to prepare food, use leftovers, stretch a dollar and make something from whatever happened to be in the cupboard.

Now we have delivery apps that can bring a meal to our door without our having to leave the sofa.

I have a friend who spends $15 to $20 a day eating out. That's $450 to $600 a month, or $5,475 to $7,300 a year.

That's a considerable amount of money.

But there's another side to this story. My friend has become forgetful, and I've seen him do things around the stove that concern me. He can heat food, but he doesn't really know how to cook.

Perhaps convenience isn't entirely a choice for him anymore. Perhaps he needs some help.

That's worth remembering. Not everyone has the same abilities, resources or circumstances. People need kitchens, affordable groceries, time, energy and sometimes assistance.

Still, I wonder what we're losing when everyday skills become services we purchase instead of knowledge we pass along.

Cooking can mean independence. It can mean sharing a meal with a neighbour, making soup for someone who's ill, or inviting a friend to sit down and talk.

It can mean knowing how to take care of yourself without having to buy your way through every ordinary task.

We don't need to romanticise the past. Our parents had their own struggles, and not every family had enough to eat. But practical skills mattered, and many of us learned them because we had to.

What are we teaching the next generation?

How to prepare a meal, or how to order one?

dressed for the apocalypse

Walk around Vancouver and look at the lifestyle being sold to us.

The latest jogging clothes. The newest rain jacket. The expensive athletic wear. The gym membership. The smartphone. The delivery subscription.

People work from home, jog in technical clothing, order their groceries and meals, and keep their phones within reach at almost every moment of the day.

Some of these things are useful. Exercise is good for us. Technology can connect us. Working from home can improve people's lives. Vancouver needs rain gear.

I'm not suggesting we should all return to the Stone Age.

But what happens when every aspect of life becomes another opportunity to sell us something?

We sit for hours, then pay to exercise. We become exhausted, then purchase wellness products. We buy convenience because we're busy, and sometimes we're busy earning the money to pay for the convenience.

We are encouraged to optimise ourselves constantly.

Better clothes. Better bodies. Better homes. Better holidays. Better versions of ourselves.

And somewhere along the way, the simple business of being human can get lost.

Are we healthier? Are we happier? Are we more connected?

Or are we simply better dressed while trying to keep up?

hello kitty and the mountain of stuff

Here's the part that bothers me most.

Every object requires resources. Materials must be extracted, processed, manufactured, packaged and transported. Products take energy to make and fuel to move. Eventually, things break, become unwanted, or are replaced by the next new thing.

Some are kept and loved for years. Others spend a short time providing excitement before being forgotten.

And then what?

The drawer. The donation bin. The rubbish truck. The landfill.

Not everything is recyclable, and recycling itself doesn't make the environmental costs of production disappear.

The problem isn't Hello Kitty. It isn't even collecting.

The problem is an economic culture that depends on encouraging us to keep consuming.

Make more. Sell more. Buy more. Replace more.

And when the novelty wears off, start again.

Limited editions are particularly clever. They create urgency. People worry they'll miss out, so they buy now. Sometimes they buy multiples. Sometimes the pleasure lies less in using the object than in possessing something other people might not get.

We have turned wanting into a business model.

And the planet supplies the materials.

I like beautiful things. I'm an artist. I understand the pleasure of making something, owning something, or finding an object that speaks to you.

But there is a difference between creating something meaningful and manufacturing an endless succession of things designed to keep us buying.

We need to start asking whether the next thing we purchase will enrich our lives or simply occupy space.

when art becomes part of the sales pitch

This brings me to Vancouver's public art scene.

The Vancouver Mural Festival brought colour, creativity and attention to neighbourhood streets. Artists deserve opportunities, public art can be valuable, and murals can make an ordinary wall extraordinary.

But the festival also raised difficult questions about gentrification, development and who benefits when a neighbourhood becomes more attractive.

In 2016, the City of Vancouver provided a $200,000 matching grant for the festival through its Public Art Boost initiative.

At the same time, Mount Pleasant was changing. Housing costs and development pressures were affecting the people who had made the neighbourhood what it was.

Critics raised concerns about the relationship between public art, property values and the displacement of artists and long-time residents.

This is where the term artwashing enters the conversation.

Artwashing describes a concern that art and cultural activity can help give a neighbourhood an appealing identity while obscuring the social consequences of redevelopment.

It doesn't mean every artist is involved in some grand conspiracy. Artists may be working sincerely, creating beautiful things, and trying to make a living.

But good intentions don't eliminate the need to ask who benefits.

If a neighbourhood becomes more desirable because of its artists, its independent businesses, its street culture and its murals, what happens when rising rents force those very people out?

Who gets to keep the benefits?

Who gets the bill?

And who gets to stay?

The Vancouver Mural Festival announced its closure in January 2025, citing financial difficulties. Its history leaves us with questions about how public art is funded, how cultural organisations survive, and what happens when their financial models depend on sponsors and development activity.

Public art shouldn't have to justify itself solely by making an area more marketable.

It should be allowed to serve the people who live there.

who decides what art is worth?

Then there's the other side of the art world: the enormous amounts of money attached to certain artists, institutions and awards.

Douglas Coupland is a well-known Canadian novelist and visual artist whose work has explored consumer culture, technology and contemporary life.

His art can raise interesting questions about the very culture that produces mountains of consumer goods.

But I find myself wondering about the broader system in which art operates.

Who decides which artists receive major recognition? Who has access to wealthy patrons, prestigious institutions and substantial awards? Why can certain artworks command enormous attention and financial support while independent artists struggle to sell their paintings?

The Audain Prize, for example, awards $100,000 in recognition of an artist's career and contribution to visual art. It is not simply payment for producing one artwork.

There is nothing inherently wrong with recognising artists or supporting ambitious creative work.

But the contrast is striking when you look at the entire picture.

Some artists have access to established institutions and wealthy supporters. Others are trying to sell original paintings directly, hoping someone will appreciate their work enough to take one home.

Some artworks become cultural landmarks. Others never find a buyer.

And the value assigned to art doesn't always reflect the hours spent making it, the skill involved, or the meaning it holds for the person who created it.

Art is not merely a commodity, even though the art market can treat it like one.

I would like to see more room for art that serves communities, protects the environment, tells overlooked stories and brings people together.

And I would like to see independent artists have a fair chance to make a living.

Not every worthwhile thing needs to be expensive. Not everything valuable comes with a prestigious name attached.

Sometimes a small painting made with care means more to someone than an artwork worth a fortune.

the children are watching

What are our children learning from all of this?

They are growing up surrounded by advertising, online shopping, social media, constant notifications and an endless stream of things they are encouraged to want.

Many children also face real difficulties with mental health, social connection and the pressures of growing up in a digital world. Screens are not the only cause, and technology can provide genuine benefits. But we should be asking how we can give children a healthier balance.

Do they have opportunities to play outside, learn practical skills, build friendships and become comfortable with silence?

Do they learn how to cook, mend something, grow food, care for animals, or help a neighbour?

Do they understand where the things they own come from and where those things go when they are finished with them?

Do they know that their worth has nothing to do with the clothes they wear, the phone they carry, or the number of things they possess?

I worry that we are teaching children to become consumers before we teach them how to become capable, compassionate adults.

A phone can be a wonderful tool. A toy can bring joy. A beautiful jacket can keep someone warm and dry.

But none of these things can replace the experience of belonging to a community that cares whether you are all right.

the end is nigh

There's a fellow at Metrotown who regularly stands with a sign warning people to repent because the end is near.

I've often thought about walking beside him with a different message.

Not because I necessarily want to argue about religion, but because I think we have some urgent questions to ask ourselves.

If the end is nigh, what are we doing with the time we have?

Are we looking after our neighbours?

Are we protecting the natural world that sustains us?

Are we feeding hungry people and finding homes for those who have nowhere safe to sleep?

Are we passing useful knowledge to the next generation?

Are we making room for children to grow up without being told that happiness comes in a shopping bag?

I once told someone the story of a man caught in a flood who kept refusing rescue boats because he was waiting for God to save him. He eventually drowned, and when he asked God why he hadn't been rescued, God replied that he had sent two boats and a helicopter.

The point is simple: sometimes help arrives through ordinary people, and we fail to recognise it.

Perhaps the same principle applies to the world we are trying to save.

We keep waiting for someone else to fix things. Governments, corporations, wealthy philanthropists, new technologies, the next big idea.

Meanwhile, we have ordinary opportunities to make life better.

We can share food. Learn to cook. Repair things instead of replacing them. Buy less. Support local artists. Help someone who is struggling. Protect public spaces. Ask what happens to our rubbish. Demand that public investment benefits the people who need it.

None of those actions will solve every problem.

But they matter.

enough already

I don't hate Hello Kitty. I don't hate people who buy nice clothes, eat at restaurants, or collect things that make them happy.

I don't believe artists should work for nothing, or that all expensive art is pointless.

What I question is a culture that has made consumption such a central part of our lives that we can hardly imagine another way of living.

A world where a new product can generate excitement overnight, while a person sleeping outside becomes part of the background.

A world where we can turn neighbourhood character into a marketing strategy but struggle to protect the people who created that character.

A world where we can manufacture almost anything, but cannot seem to guarantee everyone a safe place to sleep, enough food to eat, and a reasonable chance at a decent life.

We have remarkable ingenuity. We have extraordinary creative talent. We have the ability to make things, grow food, share knowledge and solve difficult problems.

Surely we can do better than this.

Maybe we don't need another collectible. Maybe we need a little less stuff and a little more substance.

Maybe we need to put the phone down, cook a meal, invite someone over, repair the broken chair, learn a skill, plant a tree, and find out how our neighbours are doing.

Maybe we need to stop measuring success by how much we can afford to buy and start measuring it by how well we take care of one another.

Because the world doesn't need to be filled with more things simply because we have the capacity to manufacture them.

It needs people who understand the difference between wanting something and needing it.

People who can recognise beauty without needing to own it.

People who understand that a neighbourhood is more than its property values, a community is more than its branding, and a person's worth is more than their purchasing power.

And people who realise that we cannot shop our way out of every problem we have created.

So, yes.

Enough with the Hello Kitty already.

Not because a little cartoon cat is the enemy.

But because we have bigger things to worry about.

The end may or may not be nigh. But our time to start treating one another, our communities and our planet with greater care is already here.

#EnoughWithTheHelloKittyAlready #Consumerism #Overconsumption #Vancouver #Artwashing #Gentrification #LandfillWaste #SustainableLiving #IndependentArtists #PeopleOverProfit

 

vancouver needs housing, not more excuses: help support this petition

https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7775

Thousands of people in Vancouver are living without permanent housing. Some are sleeping outside, some are staying in shelters, and others are moving from one temporary place to another, never knowing where they will be safe next.

The Downtown Eastside is a community living with the consequences of a housing crisis that has gone on for far too long. Poverty, trauma, mental health challenges, addiction, discrimination and stigma cannot be addressed properly when people do not have a safe, stable place to live.

A petition has been presented calling on the House of Commons to take action. It needs public support.

what is this petition about?

This is a formal petition asking Canada's federal government to provide increased funding to British Columbia so the province can expand its Housing First program and create more permanent, appropriate housing for people experiencing homelessness.

Housing First means that people are helped into stable housing without having to first prove they are sober, overcome addiction or resolve every other difficulty in their lives. The principle is that having a safe place to live can provide the foundation for addressing other challenges.

People may also need ongoing mental health care, addiction services, medical care and practical support. Different people have different needs, and housing should reflect that.

what are they asking the federal government to do?

The petition calls for at least 3,500 additional housing units over five years, divided into three categories:

1,000 supportive housing units

Permanent homes with access to ongoing support services for people who need assistance to maintain their housing and improve their quality of life.

500 complex-care housing units

Housing for people with significant, overlapping needs who may require more intensive, coordinated health and social supports.

2,000 deeply affordable homes

Homes with rent subsidies so that eligible residents pay no more than one-third of their net monthly income toward rent.

These are not just numbers. They represent the possibility of a front door, a safe bed, a place to prepare food, privacy, dignity and an opportunity to rebuild a life.

why does federal funding matter?

Housing is expensive, and building thousands of homes requires sustained funding and cooperation between governments.

The petition asks the federal government to provide additional funding to British Columbia and its agencies, specifically prioritizing Housing First and the creation of these 3,500 homes.

The petition also refers to a May 2026 Superior Court ruling as a reason governments must take their housing obligations seriously. The ruling's precise implications should be checked against the court decision itself, but the broader demand is clear: governments must take meaningful action to address inadequate housing and discrimination.

how can you help?

• Read the petition. Understand what it asks for and who is organizing it.
• Sign it if you are eligible. Follow the petition's official instructions and provide any required information.
• Share it. Send the petition link to friends, family, community groups and anyone concerned about homelessness.
• Talk about it. Ask your elected representatives what they are doing to increase permanent housing and fund the supports people need.
• Keep following up. Real change requires more than promises. It requires funding, homes being built and people actually getting housed.

Please note that a formal House of Commons petition has specific signing and submission rules. Follow the instructions on the official petition page.

don't look away

People experiencing homelessness are not disposable. They are members of our communities, and they deserve safety, dignity and a place to call home.

We cannot keep treating homelessness as though it is an unavoidable feature of city life. Nor can we expect people to recover from trauma, illness or addiction while leaving them without the security of a home.

Three thousand five hundred homes would be a meaningful step. It would not solve every problem, but it would give thousands of people a better chance.

If you believe housing is a basic human need, help make this petition visible. Read it, sign it if eligible, share it and ask our governments to act.

A home is more than a roof. It is a foundation for living.

Petition e-7775: Vancouver homelessness and housing crisis

Sponsored by MP Jenny Kwan · Vancouver East

The petition opened on September 29, 2026, and is scheduled to close on January 27, 2027. 

The petition calls for federal funding for 3,500 housing units over five years. Follow the official page's eligibility and signing instructions.