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Please consider printing a 2-sided hard copy and giving it to someone that might be interested in the SGI Greens.

Sections cover News and Events, General Interest, and On Being Green.
Links to back issues, subscribe/unsubscribe, and join the SGI Greens are at the end.

SGI Greens (Green Party of Canada) News and Events:

We have a new shelter for our election signs!
The SGI Greens and the BC Greens for Saanich North and the Islands used to have two shelters for election signs. The fabric covering on one shelter was full of holes, and we were asked to move all the signs to a new location. During November and December, volunteers cleared brush on a new site, moved the frame of one shelter, covered the frame with metal roofing that will last for many years, moved all the signs (federal and provincial) to the new location, and shoe-horned all of them into the one improved shelter. After this picture was taken, shelves were added to store additional lumber for sign frames, and both ends were closed with fabric to keep out the rain. The other shelter is being sold.

Calendar of events for 2025

TBA The federal election! (possibly in May; no later than October!)

January Community Meetings

At these non-partisan events, Elizabeth brings constituents up to date on activities in Ottawa and listens to constituents’ concerns. They’re a great opportunity to meet Elizabeth, get better informed, and hear others’ concerns.

January 11, 3:30-5:00 pm: Salt Spring Island at Gulf Island Secondary School
January 17, 7:00-8:30 pm: Sidney at Mary Winspear Centre
January 18, 3:00-4:30 pm: Saanich at Cordova Bay, 55+ Association
January 18, 7:00-8:30 pm: Saanich at Gordon Head Recreation Centre
January 22, 7:00-8:30 pm: Central Saanich at Brentwood Bay Active Living Centre (next to the library)

Meetings on Pender, Mayne, Galiano and Saturna Islands will be scheduled in February/March.

February Film and Panel Discussion at the Star Cinema

or March SGI Greens will bring one of the films from the 2024 BC Environmental Film Festival, and related expert panelists, to the Star Cinema. 

April Earth Day – Please send your ideas to sgiedanews@gmail.com

May Victoria Day Parade – SGI Greens participate along with other Greens.

June Grade 12 Student Scholarships – SGI Greens present $1000 to one winner at each high school in the SGI area.

July Victoria Pride Parade – SGI Greens participate along with other Greens.

August SGI Summer Picnic – SGI Greens meet for a fun time in the park.

September Saanich Fair – SGI Greens meet the community.

October Annual General Meeting – SGI Greens elect new Executive members.

November No events so far.

December No events so far.

Green Knitters

The Green Knitters continue to produce beautiful knitwear for sale – proceeds will support the upcoming election campaign for Elizabeth in Saanich-Gulf Islands. We have touques ($60) and headbands ($30) and will be producing more of the popular fingerless gloves ($60) soon.

If you are interested in seeing what is available, please contact us by email. We will have another sales event in February – the date will be in the next SGI Newsletter.

BC Greens news and events: (because we’re friends)

The Saanich North and the Islands Riding Association are busy planning “Voices of Saanich and the Islands” virtual events throughout the winter and spring.  Follow these events via the “BC Greens; Saanich North and the Islands” Facebook page and, if you live in the riding, please send us an email to sign up for our email newsletters. Everyone is welcome, and we hope you can join us!

Community Information: 

January – various dates
The folks at Creatively United have an excellent online calendar of local events.

Peninsula Food Growers Co-op

Co-operative actions towards achieving food security and sustainability

The Peninsula Food Growers Co-op is dedicated to building community around growing local food. We began the coop in November 2022 and now have about 100 members. The mission of our group is to promote growing food locally by providing support, information and expertise. To that end we produce an information-packed newsletter each month (you can read a sample newsletter here) and host a monthly gathering. We meet in people’s gardens during the warm (or at least not so cold) months and at McTavish Academy Of Art during the winter. While we exchange valuable information at our monthly gatherings, we also have a lot of fun getting together with like-minded gardeners and we host events such as tomato tasting and apple tasting, communal seed ordering, free seed exchange and an equipment exchange.

We believe that our mission of encouraging food security and sustainability is core to a rural community and to all people in these changing times. Membership fee is $30 per household per year, or whatever you can afford. If you would like to join, or for more information, contact Gary Searing: gsearing@gmail.com

General interest:

Good news snippets 

• China’s Great Green Wall, the largest man-made forest ever, is climate action at a herculean scale. It is on track to cover 3.9 million square km (about four times the area of all B.C.) or 42% of China. China’s Great Green Wall by itself would be the world’s 7th largest country. (see earth.com and https://x.com/AssaadRazzouk)

Climate (and other) solutions

• Just a few years ago it seemed ironic that Poland, which uses a lot of coal, was hosting a UN climate summit (COP 24 at Katowice in 2018). Now, Poland is proceeding with plans to stop burning coal to generate electricity in the next few years (reported by Bloomberg)! The pace of the planned transition is astonishing.

Is this greenwashing? 

• Catherine McKenna, the former Liberal Minister of Environment, wrote a stinging rebuke of Canada’s fossil fuel industry’s greenwashing: “The oil sands sector has been lying to us for years. They are not getting cleaner. They are not part of the solution.”
• BC’s NDP like to claim that BC is a climate leader. That’s not the case, and the BC NDP are in large part responsible for that. Their “Axe the Tax” campaign of 2008 undercut the effectiveness of what was then a world-leading carbon tax. By 2012, the tax was frozen and, since then, both major parties have promoted the LNG industry. BC’s greenhouse gas emissions are moving in the wrong direction.

On Being Green:

Our Readers

Some of our readers took the time to show their appreciation. Thanks!

• In the latest newsletter you had a link to a lecture by George Monbiot, author of The Invisible Doctrine.  I had not heard of him before and sat through the whole about 50 minute presentation. I was impressed!  Thank you!
  – KKF
• Love this newsletter – Lots in it, and great reading.
  – ML

What we’re reading

The winner of this year’s Booker Award, is a stunning short novel by Sarah Harvey. Her background in philosophy, art, and creative writing is obvious in her elegant prose and philosophical meditations.

I tend to be an impatient reader who likes to get to the crux of the matter quickly. However, I read this book in our Saturday morning book club with my far-flung daughters, and this required me to read it carefully. I’m glad I did because it is a meditative book which still creeps into my thoughts.

Orbital follows the lives of six astronauts on the International Space Station as they make 16 orbits of the earth in just one day, thus witnessing sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets; “the whip-crack of morning arrives every ninety minutes”. It explains

how they eat, drink each other’s recycled urine, sleep, work, exercise, and interact with each other. It explains the experiments conducted on board, including a description of how animals are heartlessly sacrificed for science.

The four men and two women from four countries are overwhelmed by the beauty of the earth, which they see as borderless and interlinked. Continents, glaciers, deserts, oceans, wildernesses, war zones, day and night are described with artistic skill. The space ship is defined as a complex life support system that could fail, in the same way that the human body is a life system that will eventually fail.

As part of their musings the astronauts examine geopolitics, human greed, environmentalism, philosophy, nihilism, religion, art, grief, and the meaning of life. From observation windows they observe a planet of “miraculous and bizarre loveliness. The earth is the face of an exulted lover; they watch it sleep and wake and become lost in its habits. The earth is a mother waiting for her children to return.”

The astronauts are still connected to the people they care about on earth and watch with horror as an enormous typhoon develops and wreaks havoc on humans below. They feel like fortune tellers who can predict, but have no power to act.

Orbital reflects on existentialism and religion. It is pointed out that many humans believe in heaven, but perhaps the earth is heaven and they have already arrived.

One of the many themes examined in this slender novel is that of loneliness on both a personal and planetary level. Not only are humans insignificant within the immensity of the universe, but the planet is also alone. “Without the earth we are all finished. We couldn’t survive a second without its grace, we are sailors on a ship on a deep, dark unswimmable sea.” Raw space is described as “a panther, feral and primal.”

The novel has been described as a love letter to the earth, and ends with a warning: “Can we not stop tyrannizing and destroying and ransacking and squandering this one thing on which our lives depend?”

I found this book to be incredibly thought provoking, and would be interested to know your impressions. Please send comments to karibu123@gmail.com and hopefully we will share them in our next newsletter.

– Reviewed by Shelagh Butterworth Levey