This page will serve as the home of documents related to the Fanny Bay Groundwater Collective SURVEY Click here for a copy of our Survey: Click here to complete a copy of our Survey via Survey Monkey DOCUMENTS Sept 10,2025 Correspondence to Minister Randene Neill Attaching Briefing Note plus Appendices https://theholmteam.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/20250910.c.MinisterGroundwater.Briefing.NoteAppendices.public.pdf Sept 3 2025 Groundwater Briefing Note plus Appendices: https://theholmteam.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/20250903.Groundwater.Briefing.NoteAppendices.pdf NEWS CLIPPINGS: Cermaq sues Canadian government for Discovery Islands fish farm closures. March 11, 2025 Campbell River Mirror https://www.campbellrivermirror.com/local-news/cermaq-sues-canadian-government-for-discovery-islands-fish-farm-closures-7849098 Continue reading Fanny Bay Groundwater Collective
Consumers are always going to be faced with the “one potato, two potato” dilemma. One potato — produced by BC farmers using sustainable farm management practices on high cost land under stringent environmental regulations and paying fair wages — puts many benefits on society’s plate beyond the simple potato. The other — produced on a 1000 acre spud farm with more chemicals and less environmental regulations paying migrant wages and transported 500 miles to market – is clearly the more expensive choice when all factors are considered. But the consumer doesn’t see it that way. It is the … Continue reading One potato… Two potatoes…
The Columbia Treaty is basically an international catch and release agreement for water. Canada. as the upstream partner, build large reservoirs to hold the water back and agreed to release it in accordance with US needs for flood control, energy production, fish flushes and – very importantly – irrigation. The US paid for the construction of the Canadian dams and pays Canada for downstream benefits based on very low, hydroelectric generation rates, despite the fact that the use they put that water to often has considerably higher value. The irrigation of 500,000 acres of land in the Columbia Basin … Continue reading Columbia Treaty – 60 Years On
If Canadian’s understood supply management better, Canada’s former Agriculture Minister Eugene Whelan would be right up there with Tommy Douglas for having created a brilliant public policy vehicle to sustain the economic health and food security of communities now and into the future. Trump – seeking the support of Michigan and Wisconsin’s dairy farmers – will undoubtedly again call for SM’s head in upcoming tariff negotiations. Why? Cause US farmers are price-takers – at the mercy of large, vertically integrated dairy processors. Losing money, they need to milk more cows to pay the bills. If – under the guise … Continue reading Note to Carney: the TRUTH about SUPPLY MANAGEMENT
Published Columns and Articles 2024 Trump’s Obsession with Canada’s Water, The Tyee Feb 18, 2025 2018 Out of sight, out of mind? Connecting the dots between Site C and Wood Buffalo National Park The Straight Oct. Opponent of Site C dam sharing concerns with northerners CBC News · 2017 Nov. The mysterious push to make Site C happen. Times Colonist Jan – All Canada’s farmers have a stake in the Peace! Western Dairy Farmer 2016 Oct 10. Wendy Holm on the Site C Dam Alex Harris. Oct. Site C, An interview with Wendy Holm Oct 2016. pierre-emmanuel chaillon July 2 … Continue reading Columns on Water
In this age of globalism — where rivers of capital move silently through borderless economies, sourcing at the lowest cost and charging back to society its costly externalities – we are adrift on a raft of our own making. Firms today excel at what neo-classical economists and governments have been cheering them on to do since the mid 30’s: make investors richer and the economy will be better for it. But somewhere along the way, communities got left behind. Economic bullies have captured the flag. The question now is: how do communities take it back? As the theory and examples … Continue reading Economic bullies have captured the flag. How do communities take it back?
Canada’s discussion of Trump’s designs on our water has been focused – in the West – on the Columbia. But it is the Peace River that connects the dots to fulfill the long term dream of USACE engineers to bring northern water south to American communities east of the Rockies. Want a selfie of you with THE TAP? Go to Dunvegan, Alberta, just on the border of BC. Future site of the Amisk Dam, designed as the “elbow” that will siphon off water from the north-flowing Peace River and send it flowing south. Conveniently, all the upstream storage capacity is … Continue reading Want a selfie of you with Trump’s tap?
Like much of the Cuban experience, Finca Marta, located on the outskirts of Havana, provides a new model for resilient communities. My 2025 Cuba Tour visited Finca Marta and listened to Fernando Funes describe the model he is building. Greatly simplified, a “mother ship” farm like Finca Marta would anchor, inspire, coordinate and provide agricultural extension and marketing support to up to 15 surrounding satellite farms, ensuring the economic and ecological sustainability of local farmers and a steady source of fresh and nutritious food to area households, hospitals, schools, day cares and seniors homes. One farm couple from Ontario … Continue reading Finca Marta
Why the Site C Dam Should Never Have Been Built: Two Presentations: We All Have a Stake in the Peace Changing the Dialogue on the Site C Dam One Book: Damming the Peace – the hidden costs of the Site C Dam Lorimer April 2018 and a Vancouver Sun Op Ed: Site C: A Damning Indictment of Process, Vancouver Sun April 25. 2105 Vancouver Sun Continue reading The Tragedy of the Site C Dam
Diamond Springs Water Bottling Cooperative provides a new model for government regulators. Continue reading Diamond Springs Water Bottling Cooperative
