As #BC marks ten devastating years since declaring a toxic drugs emergency, VicPD and bylaw continue to criminalize and displace people without homes, which @backpackproject.bsky.social founder Niki Ottosen says increases deaths on the streets. This video filmed by Mar Hammel shows that reality.
@sobittersosweet.bsky.social just published another story for @thenarwhal.ca. What makes this one particularly exciting from a content perspective is that it features images by @mikegraeme.bsky.social *and video* produced by me.
Now you can read, marvel at great photos, or watch a video. Or all 3!
B.C.’s 2021 #OldGrowth Strategic Review promised a paradigm shift in forestry management. Yet in the four years that followed, “around 113,000 football fields worth of old-growth deferral zones were logged,” according to a recent article by Zoe Yunker, where this photo was published.
#bcpoli
Who will win the Webster Award Nov. 3 for Community Reporting, presented by the Al Roadburg Foundation? The Discourse for Van. Island outdoor enthusiasts ... or their story Tiny homes & RVs ease housing crisis, or @indiginews.bsky.social @mikegraeme.bsky.social for How a colonial line shapes...
A B.C. court has granted an injunction against a group of people blocking a logging road on southern Vancouver Island. The decision paves the way for the RCMP to move in, stirring memories of the Fairy Creek conflict 4 years ago thenarwhal.ca/walbran-vall... #bcpoli
The RCMP’s CRU-BC unit — formerly C-IRG — is set to enforce B.C.’s new Bills 14 and 15 designed to fast-track resource and infrastructure projects. This is according to documents obtained by The Breach, which published this photo I took at the Fairy Creek crackdowns:
breachmedia.ca/rcmp-unit-co...
Tiny house for matriarch opposing PRGT arrives in Gitxsan Lax’yip from ‘Victoria’
Volunteer supporters built the home for Maas Gwitkunuxws Teresa Brown, who has been camping in the path of the controversial pipeline in northern ‘B.C.’
indiginews.com/news/tiny-ho...
Story @mikegraeme.bsky.social
“All my life I wanted a home that no one could take from me,” says Teresa Brown, who received a hand-built tiny house from 100+ volunteers Sunday. The home will help her resist the PGRT pipeline’s incursion on her unceded territory.
Latest for @indiginews.bsky.social
indiginews.com/news/tiny-ho...
This week, #climate justice activists gathered outside the international Summit on the Future of Energy Security in London to call for an end to all new fossil fuel projects. They also delivered a million-strong petition to the UK PM demanding an end to oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.
Thousands gathered in Belfast, Northern Ireland this month to commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising—the historic rebellion against British rule in Ireland. The annual remembrance was also interwoven with Palestinian solidarity, with many recognizing the parallels of occupation and land theft.
Just got back home!
Thousands gathered across the world on April 25 for the Global Day of Action for Gaza. These photos were taken of the International Solidarity Mural in Belfast, where memorials honouring those who died fighting for Irish liberation can also be seen flying Palestinian flags throughout the city.
100+ people gathered in #Victoria on Tuesday following Israel’s resumption of massive airstrikes that killed over 400 people and injured more than 560 others. Entire families were wiped out, according to survivors.
Netanyahu said the renewed strikes on #Gaza are “only the beginning.”
#Palestine
Today my heart is with Cambria and Elle Harris, who after nearly three tireless years have located the body of their mother, Morgan Harris, found in Prairie Green Landfill in Winnipeg.
Morgan Harris and three other Indigenous women were murdered by convicted serial killer Jeremy Skibicki in 2022.
A report released late last year showed that continuing to enforce #Victoria’s daytime sheltering ban would cost $4.7 million, due mostly to increased labour for bylaw and police officers.
#VicPD is currently seeking an $80-million annual budget—up $7 million from 2024—to finance new hires.
"Why are we the ones who have our roofs torn off every day?" asked a displaced resident during the bylaw sweep.
It’s a question that cuts to the core of class divide. In a city with a housing market increasingly reserved for the wealthy, those with nothing are criminalized as they try to survive.
Crackdowns on unhoused residents sheltering in #Victoria continued this week as #VicPD and bylaw officers dismantled tent encampments in Oakland’s Park, stripping people of their possessions and survival gear.
Today, #VicPD and bylaw officers continued evicting unhoused residents in Oaklands Park, seizing their possessions/survival gear. When I arrived, I witnessed police standing guard as bylaw officers threw an unhoused woman’s tent, sleeping bag & other survival gear into garbage bins.
#stopthesweeps
Hundreds marched through Lekwungen homelands over the long weekend for the 15th annual #StolenSisters Memorial March, honouring the thousands of #Indigenous women, girls & 2SLGBTQQIA+ people who have been murdered or remain missing in Canada. The crisis is a “race-based genocide” -National Inquiry
Trump declaring his plan to “take over” and “own” #Gaza under the justification of it being full of “death and destruction,” while sitting cordially beside the culprit war criminal whose U.S.-backed military destroyed Gaza is as disgusting as it is unsurprising. The Onion headline writes itself.
More seriously though, it’s striking how quickly those in power admit we can interfere with markets and divert supply chains at the stroke of a pen after they’ve spent years insisting they’re powerless to do so in order to pull people out of poverty, fight climate change or protect ecosystems.
“A ceasefire is simply the first step,” said Anas from #Palestine at the 67th march in #Victoria.
“Ceasefire, then lift the siege, then end the occupation, then free Palestine. As we said from week one, justice is the bare minimum.”
As Israel submits to Phase 1 of a ceasefire in Gaza, community members in Victoria marched through the streets for the 67th week, continuing to call on Canada to ends its complicity in Israel’s genocide and war crimes.
#yyj #freepalestine
In 2019, Shea cofounded The Homeless Idea podcast.
Gaarth Mullen, host of @crackdownpod.bsky.social, said Shea’s legacy will live on.
“Where once his strong voice crackled, we now hear radio silence. But the revolutionary never dies b/c we carry on his work. See you on the other side, brother.”
In his final days, Shea called for housed people to stand with those who are unhoused.
“We need housed people out here with us fighting side by side with us,” he said, adding it makes bylaw “a lot less likely to do the things that they’ve been doing to us.”
#endhomelessness
Shea was a lead plaintiff in a court case against Victoria’s policies targeting unhoused people. He died from an overdose in December.
Shea’s death could have been avoided were it not for bylaw’s intensifying displacement efforts, said harm reduction scholar Bernie Pauly.
#bcpoli
Community members came together in Victoria on Saturday to honour the life and legacy of Shea Smith, an outspoken housing justice advocate who was killed at the cross-sections of the drug poisoning crisis and bylaw policies that criminalize homelessness.
#yyj #stopthesweeps
You can watch the entirety of @backpackproject.bsky.social founder Niki Ottosen’s gripping speech at this link starting at 53:25:
pub-victoria.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx...
Among the unhoused community members who died this week was housing justice advocate Shea Smith. Ottosen says his death, like many others, was not only preventable but systemically inflicted by policy, including the daytime sheltering ban, which attempt to conceal rather than fix the housing crisis.
Following the deaths of 13 unhoused community members over the past 3 weeks, @backpackproject.bsky.social founder Niki Ottosen sharply criticized City of Victoria Mayor & Council this week as they deliberated on allocating another $4.7 million to enforce the city’s daytime sheltering ban.
