Good Sunday Morning!

Bastille Day! Where’s our revolution?

July 14th and it is Bastille Day. The annual marking of a major event in the French Revolution in 1789. Revolutionary fervour had spread around the world from 1776 and the American Revolution to the French Revolution, moving to a different type of revolution but one with total transformative effect–the Industrial Revolution. Our modern world is in the throes of instability in nearly every corner of the world and across multiple spheres. Much of this instability linked to the climate crisis was created by the fossil fuels that launched the Industrial Revolution. We are, as Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley says, “living in a poly crisis world.” Elites are worried, but not about the guillotine. Now it is bad polling numbers and a popular impulse to jettison the status quo.

This week I had the joy of being out on the water with whales. It had long been on my calendar to connect with a group that works to protect our southern resident killer whales, which includes protecting these extraordinary creatures from too much love. Well, not exactly love. Like the pressing paparazzi clamouring around celebrities, potentially doing them real harm, whale-watch vessels endanger whales when they ignore the regulations. Cetus Research and Conservation Society runs a number of programmes including StraitWatch and Robson Bight Warden programme. Every day in the whale watch season, Straitwatch has eyes on the water, radioing, flagging down and finding every method to communicate with vessels that are too close or going too fast. Almost the whole time I have been an MP, I have worked to ensure DFO provides funds for Cetus to do the work that is within DFO’s legal mandate but for which DFO needs this essential work.

My long-delayed trip with Straitwatch, canceled last summer due to that inconvenient stroke, happened Thursday as my constituency director Ned Taylor (also Green BC candidate in Saanich South) and my dear husband John Kidder and I set out to see how the Straitwatch team interacts with vessels, vessel captains, and protects whales. I love that my second private members bill to become law successfully banned the keeping of whales in captivity in Canada. The Vancouver Aquarium voluntarily stopped keeping whales in swimming pools. Ontario’s Marineland has closed down.

Over the five years of our marriage, John has mentioned a few times that in his whole life he had never seen a whale in the wild. I found it hard to believe that my husband had never seen a whale at all as I have seen so many. My first home base in Canada was Cape Breton Island where I have seen pilot whales, minkes and humpbacks, and even a right whale or two off Digby Neck. I’ve watched belugas in the Saint Lawrence as well as in British Columbia waters off Haida Gwaii and in the Salish Sea. I have seen whales from the ferry, from East Point light in Gulf Islands National Park and I’ve had the joy of watching Southern Residents cavort, spy hop and leap in Tumbo Channel off Saturna from my friend Susie’s patio.  Susie is a key activist in a fabulous volunteer group of whale-watching data collectors The Southern Gulf Islands Whale Sighting Network. My constituents include a very dedicated group of hands-on conservation activists.

In my life I have been so lucky. I have bobbed amongst a pod of whales. With engines turned off, I have listened to them breathing. I have even kayaked among the whales. They are kin. And yet my dearest John made this wild claim of never having seen one! John met my incredulity with his cowboy version of the same, “How would I have seen whales? I am an interior guy. I am a desert guy.” Well yes, but still, I had not really absorbed that my husband had truly never seen a whale. He came with me this week not because either of us was thinking about whale-watching but more because this was a work-day commitment, and I was feeling a bit low. JP’s departure left me feeling quite depressed. John came along, I know, to make sure I was being looked after. He made enough sandwiches for a long period of being marooned on a distant island.

The day was beautiful as we set out in a zodiac with the Straitwatch team of Mark, Olivia and Lindsay. These charming young people are very authoritative on the water. Waving a whale flag, they get the attention of captains. They pull up alongside yachts, sailboats and motorboats and start with a friendly, “Hello. How is your day going?” and then, “Just wanted to let you know there are whales in this area so keep your speed below seven knots and stay back at least 200 metres.” To the Americans, they convert to the distance to 200 yards. No one was rude, at least on our day out on the water. As Lindsay said, “Everyone loves whales.”

Around one PM, we were about to pack it in.  We had not seen a whale, nor had the team heard any reports of whale sightings from radio or other reports from commercial whale-watch vessels. Maybe on the Juan de Fuca Strait but there were high wind warnings there–another effective deterrent to too many vessels harassing the Southern Residents. But just before heading back, at the point where I was already thinking, “Oh good. I can get those phone calls made and catch up on all that MP correspondence I am carrying around.” when there was a report of whales near Johns Island in the San Juans, the Washington State side of the invisible lines that carve through the Salish Sea.

We headed out to protect the whales. There were five Transient killer whales whose presence was already attracting a veritable flotilla. Some boats were moving at speed toward the whales when the Straitwatch team went into action. Boats shifted away as instructed. Engines were cut. We did not try to move close ourselves. We were not there to watch whales but to watch the vessels that might get too close, but no matter. These five were in the mood to mill about a bit. They did a few fun leaps, they criss-crossed in front of us as we were motionless. John saw his whales and he got to really experience that kinship.

Paul Watson, founder of Greenpeace and then Sea Shepherd, has risked his life to save whales in ways that tempt fate, or that at least put a vast squad of his guardian angels into serious overtime. Paul once told me that the first great nature writing, the first literary human acknowledgement of whales, is in the book of Job.

God’s Power in the Leviathan

41 “Can you draw out Leviathan^[a] with a hook,
Or snare his tongue with a line which you lower?
² Can you put a reed through his nose,
Or pierce his jaw with a ^[b]hook?
³ Will he make many supplications to you?
Will he speak softly to you?
⁴ Will he make a covenant with you?
Will you take him as a servant forever?
⁵ Will you play with him as with a bird,
Or will you leash him for your maidens?
⁶ Will your companions ^[c]make a banquet of him?
Will they apportion him among the merchants?
⁷ Can you fill his skin with harpoons,
Or his head with fishing spears?
⁸ Lay your hand on him;
Remember the battle—
Never do it again!
⁹ Indeed, any hope of overcoming him is false;
Shall one not be overwhelmed at the sight of him?
¹⁰ No one is so fierce that he would dare stir him up.
Who then is able to stand against Me?
¹¹ Who has preceded Me, that I should pay him?
Everything under heaven is Mine.

¹² “I will not ^[d]conceal his limbs,
His mighty power, or his graceful proportions.
¹³ Who can ^[e]remove his outer coat?
Who can approach him with a double bridle?
¹⁴ Who can open the doors of his face,
With his terrible teeth all around?
¹⁵ His rows of ^[f]scales are his pride,
Shut up tightly as with a seal;
¹⁶ One is so near another
That no air can come between them;
¹⁷ They are joined one to another,
They stick together and cannot be parted.
¹⁸ His sneezings flash forth light,
And his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.
¹⁹ Out of his mouth go burning lights;
Sparks of fire shoot out.
²⁰ Smoke goes out of his nostrils,
As from a boiling pot and burning rushes.
²¹ His breath kindles coals,
And a flame goes out of his mouth.
²² Strength dwells in his neck,
And ^[g]sorrow dances before him.
²³ The folds of his flesh are joined together;
They are firm on him and cannot be moved.
²⁴ His heart is as hard as stone,
Even as hard as the lower millstone.
²⁵ When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid;
Because of his crashings they ^[h]are beside themselves.
²⁶ Though the sword reaches him, it cannot avail;
Nor does spear, dart, or javelin.
²⁷ He regards iron as straw,
And bronze as rotten wood.
²⁸ The arrow cannot make him flee;
Slingstones become like stubble to him.
²⁹ Darts are regarded as straw;
He laughs at the threat of javelins.
³⁰ His undersides are like sharp potsherds;
He spreads pointed marks in the mire.
³¹ He makes the deep boil like a pot;
He makes the sea like a pot of ointment.
³² He leaves a shining wake behind him;
One would think the deep had white hair.
³³ On earth there is nothing like him,
Which is made without fear.
³⁴ He beholds every high thing;
He is king over all the children of pride.”

It was a rough week. I miss my partner Jonathan Pedneault a lot but I have to keep on keeping on. I have work to do. And no matter how many media commentators deride Greens as irrelevant, I know our work matters. And this week the whales reminded me of that.

Have a great week. Take care of each other. Late this week I will be flying to Nova Scotia for the Halifax Pride Parade on July 20. Love each other and count your blessings.

Much love,

Elizabeth