The idea of Engaged Buddhism can seem like an oxymoron: how does fiery activism co-exist with the Buddhist philosophies of peace and nonviolence?In fact, mindfulness practices have powerful benefits for activists.I loved my conversation on CBC’s Tapestry – have listen here: Listen here: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/tapestry/engaged-buddhism-1.4113121/sit-down-rise-up-how-meditation-supports-activism-1.4113264

The Vatican released a statement this week that repudiates the Doctrine of Discovery, the decree that has been used to subjugate Indigenous Peoples for half a millennium. But how should Canada reconcile the Church’s statement with what we see unfolding right now — another RCMP raid on Wet’suwet’en territory? These are the sorts of violent…

Karyn Pugliese, member of Pikwakanagan First Nation, is a seasoned journalist best known for hard-hitting reporting at the National Observer, Canadaland, and APTN. So it’s refreshing to hear her delighted cackle as she unpacks some of the absurdities that are baked into Canadian law. In Canada’s historical narrative of the march from British colony to…

The Echo Valley Farm group offers a beautiful example of how collectivizing food production can create not only healthy systems but healthy human cultures.  Robert Birch, who has been farming together with his neighbours on their patch of south-end ground since the project’s inception, thinks of the Echo Valley Farm as a social experiment in…

Mob rules: Horned and bare-chested, the barbarians storm the capital while out in the bay sailboats come loose off their moorings and careen into rocky shoals. Off in the distance sirens wail slicing through no-sound, howling at no-moon. Jaws drop on a masked populace as the rude Emperor lowers his pants and bare bawls it…

The relationship between Canada and First Nations plays out like a marriage on the rocks. Once upon a time, separate Nations came together: some brought a love of land, and others had more of a lust for it. They made a solemn covenant, sealed the deal in ceremony, and then: things went horribly sideways.  Maybe…

 I was married to this guy from Winnipeg’s north end. His dad was a white guy, a trucker with big personality and a bigger anger management/drinking problem. His mom Joann was Metis, a “Roy”, five foot nothing, warm and golden as a pool of melted butter. She loved the grandchildren that her son and I…

Talk given at opening of “Against the Current” exhibit, 2020 Salt Spring Arts Council Call me Ishmael.  Moby Dick is a book that presents one of the most pure villains in literature: Ahab, the captain of the doomed whaling ship  the Peqod,  embodies the Man vs. Nature domination trip that has resulted in our Current…

A different kind of sentencing hearing took place today on B.C.’s central coast, in an area known as the Great Bear Rainforest. Three years after the Nathan E. Stewart sank, spilling 110,000 litres of diesel, effluent, and engine oil into Heiltsuk fishing grounds, the Indigenous nation is still waiting for justice. Canada charged Kirby –…

“To the resident of New York, Paris or London, the word death is never pronounced because it burns the lips. The Mexican, on the other hand, jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it; it is one of his favourite games and his most steadfast love.” — Octavio Paz Mexico City is aquatic. The…

This article originally appeared in Ricochet. https://ricochet.media/en/1778/when-it-comes-to-stopping-kinder-morgan-tofino-means-business Coastal communities are on the front lines of climate change. For those who live on the narrow peninsula that leads to Tofino on the west coast of B.C.’s Vancouver Island, the prospect of rising sea levels has an immediacy that tends to incite action. That’s one reason why the…

With Helen Knott. On September 12, 2016, the Federal Court of Appeal in Montreal heard Treaty 8’s legal challenge to the massive Site C hydroelectric dam already under construction on Treaty 8 territory in northeast British Columbia. First Nations community members from Treaty 8 travelled 4,500 kilometres to be there. This is the story of…

It’s the mine that won’t die. For twenty years Taseko Mines Limited has tried to get approval for a low-grade, open-pit copper and gold mine at Teztan Biny (Fish Lake.) The federal government rejected the project twice after independent expert panels delivered two of the most scathing environmental assessment reports in Canadian history – in…

Back in the day before Facebook, suburban families used to create saccharine little status updates and mail them out with their annual Christmas cards.  My family was no different — except my dad used the tradition as a sort of platform to gently mock the whole notion of Presenting the Perfect Family, wrapped up in…

(Published in Aqua Magazine, November 2014) Moksha Yoga founder Ted Grand  is not the kind of guy who does things by halves. With 70 studios from Sydney, Australia to Paris, France, one of Salt Spring’s great ‘activist entrepreneurs’ believes that yoga is for everyone— and that the practice can be a force for good in…

(Published in Ricochet, January 2015) Grace Islet is a victory for protecting Indigenous gravesites, but work remains Grace Islet rests just a few meters off the shore of Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. Formerly part of an ancient village known in the Hul’qumi’numlanguages as Shiyahwt, its harbour was a hub for Aboriginal fishing families from…

(Published in Aqua Magazine, 2011) The Beautiful Laundress: Redressing Fashion It’s the house your Bohemian great-aunt would have lived in had she lived by the sea on Canada’s wet coast. The ocean glints out the front windows, while fir trees and berry bushes cluster around the side yard, inviting grazing deer. Inside, vivid hues and rich textures abound.…

(Published Gulf Islands Driftwood, July 16, 2014) Sometimes you just have to draw a line. Salt Spring Islanders came out on Saturday to do just that: hundreds of people took advantage of the lowest tide of the year to walk over to Grace Islet. Together, mothers, fathers, children, and elders worked to string a line of…

(Published in West Coast Native News, July 2014) I live on Salt Spring Island. The adjective most used to describe this little dot in the archipelago sprawling across Canada’s Pacific coast is ‘bucolic’. Organic farms, yoga centres, pastures roamed by grazing lambs, grinning hippies on bicycles: get the picture? There’s a great deal of giving…

(Published in Island Tides, 2011) Markets and barns, farms and tables. Welcoming African guests to Salt Spring seems to have much to do with: “what shall we eat?” Herein we find common ground: while our drive in the islands is to return to our land-based roots and away from an industrial food system, for Mamello…

Published in Watershed Sentinel, June 20, 2013 Hupacasath Stand Up for Canada – FIPA Court Case by Andrea Palframan A remarkable resistance movement is gaining momentum in this country. A  few weeks ago, the federal court in Vancouver heard the case of Hupacasath vs. Canada. At issue was the China-Canada Federal Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement…

Durban, South Africa by Andrea Palframan, Watershed Sentinel   In the wake of the opening session of COP 17 climate change summit in Durban, violent storms ripped through the city, foreshadowing the dire warnings that will be sounded at the international conference. Flash floods and electrical outages resulted in six deaths and the accumulation of…

Watershed Sentinel A death-knell for a new Kyoto is being sounded just as the gates open at Durban’s COP 17. Politically, the victories here are being predicted to be insubstantial. Thus the focus is shifting to economic approaches, such as increasingly gimmicky emissions markets and a push for yet more privatization of resources. Beneath those…

(Published in Aqua Magazine, December 1, 2014) Moksha Yoga founder Ted Grand is not the kind of guy who does things by halves. With 70 studios from Sydney to Paris, one of Salt Spring’s great ‘activist entrepreneurs’ believes that yoga has the power to change the world.   As a young man, he joined legions…

(Published by Local Environment: The International Journal of Climate & Justice, T&F, May 13 2014) Abstract: In Lesotho, climate change adaptation funding is being managed and distributed by the same mechanisms which have traditionally operationalised humanitarian aid and international development assistance in the country. Lessons from the HIV/AIDS disaster, along with insights into the value…

(Published in the Vancouver Observer, Oct 9th 2013) Power Shift is a global movement that offers training and resource sharing among youth climate justice activists. The latest conference, Power Shift BC, took place in Victoria over the October 4-7 weekend. To get a sense of just how different the Power Shift approach is, picture the scene that…

(Originally published in Rabble.ca; licensed by Common Dreams November 24, 2014) Can a First Nations-led, people-driven movement really have the power to stop Big Oil? The folks behind the Pull Together campaign think so. The Pull Together initiative supports First Nations in B.C. who are taking to the courts to stop Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project. Led by the…