Happy December, Westshore!
It’s hard to grasp how fast this year has flown. Things that happened in February feel like mere weeks ago, and yet there are just 31 days until the new year. I guess it’s time to check in on the goals I set for this year and see if I can knock off a few more before it's time to set a new list. I’d love to hear what you’re looking forward to this month. Let me know by replying to this email. I read it all!
Reporter, The Westshore
ART
New REDress art installation unveiled in Sooke
Pyper Phillips created this metal dress based on a design by Karver Everson in the metal lab at Edward Milne Community School in Sooke. (Contributed)
A Métis artist in Sooke now has two art installations to her name, before she's even graduated high school. Pyper Phillips is a student at Edward Milne Community School where she studies metal fabrication among her regular curriculum.
Her most recent piece is now installed in front of the Sooke Municipal Hall. It’s a bright red dress with Northwest Coast formline cutouts, designed by artist Karver Everson.
The dress was designed as a logo for the Lil’ Red Dress Project, a Vancouver Island-based non-profit that buys advertising such as large billboards to try to find missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
Everson, a Kwakwaka’wakw and K’ómoks artist, donated the design to the project and is glad to see other artists engage with it, so long as they respect where it came from.
“I think it's a really important thing to give other people the opportunity to engage with the cause and with what it means,” he said. His work is mostly carving, so he says it’s neat to see someone translate his design into a different medium like Phillips has done.
The red dress became a national symbol for Missing and Murdered Indigenus Women and Girls in Canada when Metis artist Jamie Black hung 500 empty red dresses in public spaces around Winnipeg in 2010. She intended the dresses to confront viewers with the violence that women are facing and experience, and to visually represent “the presence and power of Indigenous women.”
After consulting with T’Sou-ke First Nation leaders on an appropriate location, Phillip’s metal form red dress was installed outside Sooke’s municipal hall. The first version of the dress is on display at Edward Milne Community School, and another copy was given to the Lil’ Red Dress Project to thank them for allowing Phillips to use the design.
The final dress (left) at the Sooke Municipal Hall and a pin made by Lil' Red Dress project with the same design. (Contributed)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Langford’s new councillors deliberately slowing down after urgent campaign
(Image contributed)
The Westshore talked with Kimberley Guiry, a Red Seal cabinetmaker, mother of two, and first-time councillor to get a sense of how the first few weeks in her new seat have been. The hardest thing so far? Slowing down.
“We stepped out of the election with a lot of urgency and with fairly high momentum, so it's been hard to not jump in and get to work. It’s hard to sit on your hands,” Guiry said.
She says she would like to be getting started on everything on her platform, which included making a framework for neighbourhood associations, creating an urban forest strategy, reviewing development design guidelines and development cost charges, creating an online development tracker (which could make this one obsolete), and more.
But learning the ropes and collaborating between all seven politicians’ priorities has forced a slower pace.
This is the first time in 29 years that Langford city staff have needed to orient a fully new council. Each department is hosting a “deep dive” meeting to explain what they do and what they’re working on.
Pretty much all of the information is new, but the amount of time it takes to get things done is perhaps the most important—things like a review of the Official Community Plan, which several councillors promised to give a fresh consultation. That, they’ve found out, is a multi-year process. Each of the newly elected council members have a list of things they promised to tackle if elected, and they’ll all take up time and resources.
“We have a lot of work we'd like to do, but all of that work has a cost, whether it’s financial, or that doing one project might mean we don't have the resources to do another,” Guiry said. She expects council will develop a strategic plan to prioritize their projects for their term.
Four years is starting to look pretty short.
Langford’s next council meeting is scheduled for_Dec. 5, 7pm._
Around the ’Shore
⚖️ Joint Metchosin murder trial no longer joint: One of the two men charged with murder is no longer part of trial, but the court has not been told why. Zachary Armitage “has been dealt with in a separate way and will no longer be a party in this trial,” the judge told the jury this week. The trial for James Lee Busch will continue into its third week. Armitage and Busch are both charged with the murder of 60-year-old Martin Payne of Metchosin after they escaped the William Head prison in 2019. [Vic News]
📌 Sooke working towards long-term chief administrative officer: Last April the district’s CAO, Norm McInnis, went on sick leave to undergo cancer treatment, and former CAO Don Schaffer came back to fill the role temporarily. His contract has been extended to March 2023, and Sooke’s director of financial services, Raechel Gray, has been tagged to take over as interim CAO. “Mr. McInnis has served our community well and while we hope for his return in good health, there is a lot happening in our community and uncertainty (with personnel) will not set us up for success,” said Mayor Maja Tait. [Sooke]
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TOGETHER WITH MP ALISTAIR MACGREGOR
Proudly representing the Cowichan-Malahat-Langford riding since 2015
As your Member of Parliament, Alistair MacGregor understands that life for Canada’s workers should be getting easier; not harder. That’s why New Democrats successfully fought for an increase to the GST benefit, rent relief, and a national dental care program.
If you need assistance with federal agencies, or would like to know more about how Alistair is bringing Langford and Westshore voices to Ottawa, please contact him.
Community Events
🖼 Metchosin’s annual Mighty Fine sale and show is back. The show features small fine art pieces from new and returning artists. Every weekend starting Nov. 25 until Dec. 24. Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, (plus Thursday, Dec. 22) 11am-4pm.
🎻 Handel’sMessiahperformed by the Sooke Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra, with four guest soloists. Handel’s oratorio, with its message of hope and joy, is as relevant today as it was at the time of its first performance in Dublin in 1742 and has become part of the traditions of the Christmas season. Dec. 3, 7:30pm at the Sooke Community Hall and Dec. 4, 2:30pm at Royal Roads in the Dogwood Auditorium. Tickets and more information.
🎒 Choir concert benefiting The Backpack Project. Choral Evolution, a pop choir founded during the pandemic to bring the joy of singing back to their lives, will donate all profits from the Dec. 9 concert to the Victoria-based mutual aid initiative for community members who live without homes. They focus on necessities like tents, sleeping bags, clothing, food, water, and medical supplies. Tickets are $25, Gordon United Church, 7pm, Dec. 9.
🛷 **Santa visiting Highlands!**The Highlands Fire Department is taking a drive around Highlands on Dec. 10, with a special guest hitching a ride atop a fire truck: Santa and his reindeer.
🎄 Very Merry Makers Market will showcase more than 50 food and craft vendors with live entertainment, wreath-making classes, and, if you’ve been good, a visit with old St. Nick himself! 10am-4pm, Dec. 10 and 11 at 4495 Metchosin Rd.
What’s Offshore?
Esquimalt Lagoon looking towards Washington State, taken on Nov. 30, 2022 (📸 Tom Gierasimczuk)
🚢 #1 The Sim Asia is a Container Ship built in 2010 and is sailing under the flag of Liberia. It is sailing from 🇰🇷 Busan, South Korea ➡ 🇨🇦 Vancouver and was scheduled to arrive yesterday.
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🛳 #3 The Dream Star is a Bulk Carrier built in 2014 and is sailing under the flag of Panama. It is sailing from 🇨🇳 Qingdao, China ➡ 🇨🇦 Vancouver and was scheduled to arrive on Tuesday.
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Westshore Snaps
Deidre Moran of Colwood has created a DIY art event called Wishes. A waterproof box with cards and string sits on a bench with an invitation to write a wish for the world, then hang it on the tree. The short magnolia trees were chosen specifically so it’s accessible for people of any height to participate. Find the tree at the corner of Sparrowhawk Avenue and Bonaparte Street in Royal Bay.
📸 Snapped a photo you’d like to share? Send it with a caption and don’t forget to add where you live.