Around a kitchen table in Fort Saint John, seven people are talking through their local Let BC Vote strategy when one asks me, “What took you so long to come to the Peace?” She’s one of several hundred longtime Dogwood supporters in the North Peace. The answer is simple: time. It’s a big province but […]
“I’m glad we’re getting started small and then growing big. We’re going to grow fast here.” That’s what one first-time organizer from Prince George said to us after we carefully walked him through the process of bringing together an alliance of at least 476,509 citizen’s initiative pledgers. It will be a lot of work, but […]
Not long ago comedian Russell Brand took a crack at guest editing the New Statesman, a UK-based political magazine. His subsequent interview with BBC’s Jeremy Paxman saturated my social media feed. He definitely struck a chord with people under thirty – a generation experiencing the widest income inequalities in decades. His message, dripping with self-deprecating […]
Victoria cooled to a chilly -2 C on Friday after the hottest activist-driven day of 2013 thus far: eight days of Enbridge hearings in Victoria had wrapped, rallies and flotillas occupied the harbour and Idle No More protests converged in Victoria’s Centennial Square. Dogwood, however, had one last action up its sleeve. As dusk set […]
Just before noon on October 24, Gabriela Hirt stood outside MLA Ida Chong’s office on Vancouver Island, her heart aflutter. “I looked at my watch: almost noon,” she thought as panic set in. About 150 people stood in front of her. She held the megaphone and they were looking to her for direction. Hirt admits […]
In May’s federal election, nearly 70 per cent of eligible voters in the Victoria region voted – one of the highest turnouts in the country! In contrast, during the last municipal election only 17 per cent of eligible voters in Saanich (our largest municipality) got out to the polls. Sadly, it’s not difficult to imagine […]
B.C. local governments say whoa there cowboy to Kinder Morgan pipeline and oil tanker expansion plans through Juan de Fuca Strait. Late one afternoon near the end of September during the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) conference in Vancouver, I watched Victoria City Councillor Philippe Lucas step up to the microphone. He was bringing a […]
In the past few months, Dogwood has welcomed two new communications staff. Karl Hardin Karl Hardin joined Dogwood full time in January as our communications coordinator. He has a background in environmental communication and sustainability education and recently finished an education project about Arctic sea ice. Karl grew up on a hazel-nut farm in the […]
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