Having spent time thinking, healing, reflecting and working, I’m coming back to posting.
There are updates related to my previous posts, which I will get to, but also areas/topics/themes not yet explored, which are important.
Things that need to be said, out loud and publicly.
One impetus to this is the story in the Undercurrent about Riley’s Cider, in relation to which some of you may have seen my letter to the editor.
I’m not here to beat up on Bronwyn, I like her, and feel she has a difficult if not impossible job, but … what is more important is the role of the Undercurrent in defining and delineating our shared reality here on Bowen, and it is my belief that it is failing the community in really fundamental ways.
Some of this has to do with the desire to construct, tell, stories in a particular way, positive, uplifting, stories about community, but which distort and ignore the truth, and facts that would disrupt that story arc.
Some of that I think has to do with a parent company (Vancouver is Awesome!) who measure and care about advertising sales, not news, who would close the Undercurrent, as they have other small local newspapers, in a heartbeat.
Facts matter. They matter more than narrative neatness. Ignoring, minimising, misleading, misrepresenting, and/or avoiding facts, in order to tell a pretty story, or to manipulate, or to promote a person or a product, is ….. problematic.
water
In that story, Bronwyn wrote:
Controversy over the cidery arose earlier this year when Hardie and Purdy applied for a temporary use permit from the municipality. Some neighbours had concerns of increased tourism and traffic to the property – seven kilometres from the ferry dock – and feared effects on a nearby equestrian business, neighbourhood character and water use.
We (my mother and I) are the pre-eminent neighbours concerned about water use (we’re also the nearby equestrian business, and immediate neighbours – literally downstream), so surely then, Bronwyn checked with us or others that our worries were tidily in the past?
Her construction here puts all those concerns neatly in the past, and tidies them all up with Christine Hardie’s feelings as the final word – our concerns were challenging for Christine, but it’s all OK now, and the people are happy:
“That was really challenging,” says Hardie. “I genuinely feel though, that it’s just such a happy, welcoming environment and I think a lot of people have really enjoyed coming.
“It’s just such a nice place to have on Bowen …”
But … no-one asked us what we think and feel now.
Our worries are very much present, and ongoing. We’ve experienced greater water shortages this summer than ever before – I won’t revolt you with the details on how rarely I’ve been able to do laundry, or bathe, over the last couple of months, but we’ve had many, many days, when minimal use has drained our well for hours.
And our worries are not just in relation to water use – also, as we advised in the supposed consultation process back in March, we are worried about pollution and septic overflow. And, along with the letters and efforts I’ve been engaged in re the fraud of Raj Hayre et al, we’ve been writing and following up on the water front – to Vancouver Coastal Health, to the Liquor Board, to the Islands Trust, and to the muni.
One obstacle I’ve faced in coming back to write here is the complexity and detail of what there is to say – where to start, what to deal with, where to concentrate my efforts – a problem and worry I haven’t yet resolved for myself.
But I’m going to start, in a way, at the end – with water.
I described in my previous posts how the actions of staff and Council on Feb 22, in redefining the truth, was a form of gaslighting – pure abuse of power – and the experience we’ve had and are having in relation to water is more of the same.
Having clean, adequate, safe, available water in your home is fundamental to dignity.
It is basic, it is essential.
And threatening the water others rely upon is, in the purest sense of the word, an existential threat.
law
in response to my letter, Bronwyn added an account of the legal case between two of the neighbours and the municipality, related to the TUP.
We support our neighbours in this case (due to be heard today) but it is independent of us, and we and they have respected the process, and not discussed the case, their thoughts, or our worries, until it is concluded.
It is evil, not in this case evil with the sense of intentional malice, but of banal evil, the evil done by unthinking, uncaring, ignorant, incompetent, self-centred actors. People who double-down on their mistakes, people who fail to see that their own magical thinking does not match reality. People who cannot see beyond their own desires and needs to what is real, and important.
This is the evil happening to us, and a core piece of the anger I feel, the alienation from this supposed community, is the indifference shown by almost everyone to this. I feel a blend of betrayal, of deep hurt, and of pure anger.
So – we begin. We’re wading into the ocean of bullshit.
In the next installment, collective narcissism, toilets and David Hocking, apples, and more.
