As I referenced in a previous post, the Bowen Island Council meeting of February 22, 2021, was a pretty horrible event for me. It is also an event pointing both backwards and forwards, to a complicated, untold history, and to an uncertain, troubling future.

I needed a collective concept to bring together the intersecting themes, patterns and issues I wanted to explore. Cidergate offers a focal point to start telling the stories I wanted to tell.

The “gate” suffix as a shorthand for scandals, controversies, and just general f***ed up political messes is so familiar, it needs no explanation.

I attached it to cider because the complex of politicking, misinformation, and manipulation around Riley’s Cidery, and the convergence of that with my experience with Raj Hayre, both things coming together at the Bowen Municipal Council meeting of February 22, 2021, offers a way into a host of topics.

More thoughts on those topics, my method, and related issues, can be found in posts under the WIP category heading – start here for those.

The cidergate posts are an ongoing, slow, factual, gradual and cumulative series, where I am attempting to understand what occurred, and place all the relevant pieces, before moving to larger questions and conclusions.