You’ll find extended articles with links

and video online at: SaanichVoiceOnline.ca

“When we think of pol-lution, we envision coal power plants, strip-mined mountaintops and raw sewage piped into our waterways.

We don’t often think of the shirts on our backs. But the overall impact the apparel industry has on our planet is quite grim,” writes Glynis Sweeny in “Fast Fashion is the Sec-ond Dirtiest Industry in the World, Next to Big Oil”.

In Overdressed: The shockingly high cost of cheap fashion, author Eliz-abeth Cline states,“The natural resources that go into fibre production every year now demand approx-imately 145 million tons of coal and somewhere be-tween 1.5 trillion and two trillion gallons of water.”

“More than anything, the sheer amount of produc-tion is a problem,” com-ments Bangalore Univer-sity’s Lakshmi Challa in

her report, the Impact of Textiles and Cloth-ing Industry on the Environment. “From wastewater emissions to air pollution and energy consumption the textile industry weighs heavily in the environment.”

Hundreds of textiles fac-tories line the shores of Indonesia’s Citarum River. According to Greenpeace, “The printing and dying processes are particularly chemically intensive and have contributed to the Citarum developing a rep-utation as one of the dirti-est rivers on earth.”

Earth can’t produce enough natural fibres to fill demand, Challa says. Synthetics are popular, low-cost alternatives but far from ideal. For one thing, they are hard to re-cycle. Nylon takes 30 to 40 years to decompose. Nylon production creates nitrous oxide, “a green-house gas 310-times

more potent than carbon dioxide,” notes Challa.

Synthetic fabrics, such as polyester, nylon, acrylic, Lycra, Spandex, and PVC, are all petroleum-based, meaning they are non-bio-degradable. Their manu-facture uses vast amounts of water and crude oil.

“Disturbingly, about half of our wardrobe is now made out of plastic, in the form of polyester,” says Cline. People who scorn bottled water because of the plastic waste it could be guilty of owning a clos-et full of plastic, just in a different form.

Lorna Knowles is co-own-er of Victoria’s Hemp and Company which sells clothing made of natu-ral fibres. She says, “We found the more research we did validated the path

we have taken. Like the impact of polyester and even recycled polyes-ter that is made into the fleece that people buy in great quantities.

“The fabric breaks down and produces mi-cro-particles that go into the environment. What people don’t realize is, (micro-par-ticles of) their clothing goes into the ocean with every washing.”

Of the billions of new clothing items pur-chased each year, 90 percent is transported

from offshore factories by container ships using the dirtiest of fossil fuels – low grade bunker fuel – according to Sweeny.

In contrast, Hemp & Com-pany stocks its own cloth-ing line. “We have a local designer buying fabric from a local distributor. We employ a pattern maker for our factories in Van-couver. It keeps money in the local economy, and is good for more people,” says Knowles. The store also carries other Canadi-an-made clothing.

Buying fewer clothes will help the environment. As Knowles suggests, “It’s about making a conscious decision to buy less but buy better quality.”

Up next - recycling fashion in Saanich.

December 2015 ISSUE 12-05

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

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Blue skies turned grey in November for amalgama-tion supporters as the BC government favoured “ser-vice and governance inte-gration” within the Capital Region.

Community Minister Peter Fassbender has this writ-ten mandate from Premier Clark: “Develop and pres-ent options to Cabinet on potential processes under

which local governments could either amalgamate or integrate service delivery by June, 2016.”

Public attention focussed on “amalgamate” in the mandate but neglected to heed the word “could” and the expressed alternative to amalgamation - “or inte-grate service delivery.”

Non-binding referendums

(expressions of opinion) that accompanied some municipal election ballots last Nov. 15 did not pro-vide a clear over-all result because - except on the Saanich Peninsula - the questions themselves were varied, and some munici-palities did not have refer-endum questions at all.

Nevertheless, the campaign by the lobby group, Capital

Region Municipal Amal-gamation Society (known in short as Amalgamation Yes), continued, looking to the provincial government to take the lead and do a study on amalgamation.

It wasn’t to happen.

There were plenty of hints from last September that the provincial government

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favoured the approach of integrating service delivery over municipal amalgama-tion. And in early Novem-ber Fassbender spelled it out in a letter to area may-ors inviting them to attend a 90-minute meeting with him “... on the topic of service and governance integration in the Capital region.” Significantly, the word “amalgamation” was not mentioned in the let-ter. Neither was the word “study.”

“While individual inter-ests and perspectives are diverse, there have been shared views on the com-mon thread from the 2014 referenda results - namely, that there may be bene-fit to the region from local governments exploring further the question of how to better integrate ser-vices and governance,” Fassbender wrote.

“I know that informing the public and others about the current governance and services profile of the Capi-tal region will be of continu-ing interest to many of you, especially the number of services already undertaken in shared or integrated way.”

Just after his letter be-came public, Fassbender addressed the pro-amal-gamation Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce. His subject was “CRD

Governance - the way for-ward.” Missing, significant-ly, was the A-word.

Fassbender reiterated the comments in his letter seeing the government’s role as facilitator. He said there is “lots of good work going on” between mu-nicipalities and “I believe we can build on that.” He specifically stood by the section of the Community Charter - unique in Cana-da - which mandates that municipal amalgamations must be voter-approved - not imposed by the pro-vincial government. There would be no forced amal-gamations. (Find the link to his full speech online.)

Saanich Voice Online (SVO) asked Mayor Richard Atwell of Saanich and the three Saanich Peninsula mayors for their reactions. Here are their comments:

Mayor Atwell: “I am en-couraged by the Minister’s offer to facilitate a meeting of all mayors in the region to give consideration to this subject. It is long overdue and a positive first step. The Province has said that it won’t force amalgama-tion but as the legislators behind the Community Charter and Local Govern-ment Act, they still must play a policy role that in-cludes analysis of the sta-tus quo vs. an alternate

model. Whether you called it an amalga-mation study or a governance review, it is ultimately about discovering a better system of govern-ment through legis-lative changes, that benefits communi-ties and the greater region as a whole.”

Mayor Ryan Windsor of Central Saanich: “My only comment at this time is I look for-ward to meeting with my colleagues from around the region in a discussion with the minister on a range of topics related to gov-ernance.”

Mayors Alice Finall of North Saanich and Steve Price of Sidney did not reply.

Meanwhile, Saanich will start its own voter-ap-proved governance review with a 13-member res-idents committee in the new year. It is expected to last at least 18 months.

As SVO went to press, an on-line pro-amalgamation petition was initiated. Ad-dressed to “Liberal Party of BC Hon. Christy Clark” it read: “Many residents in British Columbia munic-ipalities have requested their Mayor and Councillors

seek assistance from BC Province for study on amal-gamation specific to their municipality with little suc-cess.

“I the undersigned request the BC Government put a question on the next Pro-vincial election ballot that includes:

“Conduct a study in my municipality about amalga-mation that will include but not limited: financial, social, environmental and options for municipal reconfigura-tion and governance.”

The next BC election will be in 2017.

BC Hydro named consor-tium Peace River Hydro Partners as its preferred partner in the 1.5 billion dol-lar Site C construction con-tract on Nov 25, 2015. The three-member partnership includes Korean based Samsung, Acciona from Spain, and Calgary-based Petrowest Corp.

As the BC Liberal govern-ment pushes ahead with the controversial mega project, Harold Steves, Richmond councillor, for-mer Agricultural Land Com-mission (ALC) Chair, and ‘Father of the ALR’ Harold Steves continues to be very vocal with his opposition to the project saying that, “a reasonable government would investigate the en-ergy demand, analyze the cost and consider cleaner, more sustainable energy alternatives.”

Saanich Voice Online and Saanich Report’s Ed Johnson recorded Steves’ presentation, “Future of Farmland and the ALR in BC,” made at a Farmland Protection Coalition gath-ering in Victoria in October. The one-hour presentation features Steves joined by former ALC Chair Richard Bollock, local farmer and land-use activist Natalie Chambers, and former senior officer in the Ministry of Agriculture, Sig Peterson.

The well-attended talk laid out in no uncertain terms the immense impact to BC’s agricultural farmland stock that the flooding of 30,000 acres of prime farmland in the Peace River Valley would have. Steves talked about the state of food security in BC, not-ing the recent loss of over 500,000 of acres of active

food production in Cali-fornia, at the same time as new crop opportunities open up in BC, attributing both to climate change.

Steves noted the value the Peace adds to BC’s car-bon sequestration equation explaining that the Peace’s farmland absorbs at least 50,000 tons of CO2 per year. That won’t happen once the land is flooded.

He goes on to highlight many of the innovative green energy solutions that are currently in play in both Vancouver and Richmond as evidence of the lack of need for a mega-power project in this day and age.

Among the innovations

Steves lists is an impressive solar network being looked at throughout the City of Vancouver that could see as many as 900,000 homes receiving their pow-er from solar – twice Site C’s proposed output. An-other such innovation is Richmond’s district-owned geothermal infrastructure. The project has already created enough energy to heat 12,000 homes, and Steves says, “We could do every home in Richmond over a period of time.”

You’ll find links for both an 8-minute Site C specific talk from Harold Steves, as well as the larger one hour update on BC’s ALR at www.saanichvoiceonline.ca

You’ll find extended articles with links

and video online at: SaanichVoiceOnline.ca

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Saanich Voice Online (SVO) is a monthly publication covering people, events and issues in Central and North Saanich, Saanich and Sidney. Our writers and photographers are citizen journalists adding their voices to the community’s conversations. Articles and comments appearing in SVO are opin-ions of the writers and do not represent the official position of SVO. You’ll find SVO in over 100 locations throughout Saanich and the Peninsula and online at www.saanichvoiceonline.ca. We’re always looking for citizen journalists and sup-portive advertisers, so please be in touch if this interests you. Local independent media needs YOUR support. Write to: editor@saanichvoiceonline.ca

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