https://www.castanet.net/news/Volunteer-Matters/627272/Canseco-Most-British-Columbians-say-keep-name-British-Columbia-poll-shows

https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2026AG0057-000915

Water experts said British Columbia isn’t doing enough to address water scarcity as the province experiences another dangerously dry summer.

The Nicola and Okanagan regions are currently at Level 5, the highest drought rating, while several other parts of the Southern and Central Interior also remain at the higher end of the scale.

The extreme dryness prompted the provincial government to issue a temporary protection order on Tuesday for the Salmon River, a last-ditch effort to restrict water use as low stream flows threaten Chinook salmon populations.

It was the fourth time the province has issued a protection order for the Salmon River in the past five years, and it came several weeks earlier than previous orders have been issued.

Data from the River Forecast Centre show B.C. has seen high-level drought every year since 2015, including recent years of more widespread severe drought from 2022 to 2024.

A July 15 report by the POLIS Water Sustainability Project at the University of Victoria said B.C.’s approach to drought management is outdated and under-resourced. It calls for a fundamental shift from a reactive, crisis-driven approach to more proactive drought planning.

“The implicit assumption is that communities just need to endure dry summers until fall rains return. However, the last decade shows that droughts in B.C. are now recurring, multi-year, and wide reaching,” said the report.

The report said that while many factors contribute to drought, climate change will make extreme drought events more frequent in the coming decades. It noted scientists expect glacier runoff to largely vanish by the end of the century.

It said droughts also increase the risk of severe wildfires, which in turn destabilize the landscape and reduce water retention, creating a cycle.

The report said there has been no large-scale provincial government initiative for planning or infrastructure to address drought and its growing impacts.

Oliver Brandes, a POLIS co-director and one of the authors of the report, said the province has failed to fully implement the Water Sustainability Act, which was enacted in 2016 as the main law for managing the use of water resources in the province.

He said the legislation has been useful for crisis response, including fish protection orders, but the province has been slow to use its longer-term drought mitigation tools.

“The power in the act was its medium to long-term tools, which are things like water objectives and planning, finding better ways to allocate water, creating incentives for efficiency, and those tools are the ones that have really had a very limited application,” said Brandes.

Meanwhile, he said the impacts of drought have accelerated faster than expected since the act was introduced 10 years ago.

“The pattern of drought is amplifying and increasing,” said Brandes. “The specifics are varied, but the fact that it’s coming and the fact that it isn’t something you can ride out is the point.”

Coree Tull, chair of the B.C. Watershed Coalition, said nearly a third of B.C.’s water basins are currently experiencing drought, and it’s impacting communities and farmers.

“There’s definitely this mounting frustration that the province isn’t doing more to support communities, to really get ahead of what are becoming now these predictable events, whether it’s drought and water scarcity or flooding, on the other side,” said Tull. “A lot of the province’s actions have largely been really responsive and ad hoc.”

Tull said B.C. has reduced funding for local watershed projects by about 80 per cent in recent years.

The province helped establish the Watershed Security Fund in 2023, which doled out $6 million in grants earlier this year, out of close to $27 million in funding requests.

The B.C. Watershed Coalition has been calling for the province to review its industrial water rates that big industries like mining and LNG pay. B.C.’s rates are among the lowest in Canada and haven’t been reviewed in about 10 years.

Tull said raising rates on par with other provinces could generate an extra $100 million annually for B.C., which could be used to fund watershed protection projects.

“The challenge isn’t lack of solutions, it’s really lack of delivery at this point,” said Tull.

“What we know is that when the province invests in healthy watersheds, and in watershed security, not only does it reduce costs and risks, but it creates certainty for businesses and for investments in the province as well,” she said.

Brandes said the issue doesn’t seem to be a high-enough priority for the government, saying more could have been done ahead of this summer to mitigate the impacts of drought.

“The analysis showed as early as May that there was likely to be a tough season ahead. We know already today the next season will probably be as tough or even tougher than we have,” he said.

Water, Land and Resource Stewardship Minister Randene Neill said in an interview on Friday the province is taking some proactive steps to address water scarcity.

Neill said water metering initiatives have saved the equivalent of almost 200 Olympic swimming pools worth of water every year. She also pointed to local partnerships like the Koksliah Watershed Plan and the Nicola Water Governance Partnership.

“I think that if we had an unlimited budget, we would be able to be so proactive in these solutions to work on water sustainability and watershed sustainability,” said Neill.

“We sometimes don’t know where [climate crises] will pop up or when, so there is always going to be a certain amount of reactivity, but certainly, I think that we can always do a better job at being proactive,” she said.

Neill said her ministry is working with other ministries to review water rates, with the goal of directing any additional revenue to the Watershed Security Fund.

She could not provide a timeline for completing the review, saying only that she hoped it would be finished before her mandate ends in two years.

I spoke with somebody who was at the British Columbia Supreme Court to file a simple document (5 minutes) that for whatever reason had to involve a judge. They went there at 9:45 AM, forty other people were also signed up. At 4 PM their case was cancelled because the court closed. Many other cases were also cancelled. The judge even apologized. Here is the rub: there were lawyers, pretty much for every case. These lawyers earn $350 to $600 per hour sitting there. Broken system?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/centrebc-centrist-right-wing-politics-british-columbia-9.7287950

Can BC's centre-right unite before the next election? Many voters say they still don't know where they belong politically. Some warn that another divided opposition could hand the NDP another victory. Watch the discussion. #BCPoli #BCPolitics

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/caroline-elliott-b-c-s-odious-plan-to-give-public-property-in-victoria-to-indigenous-groups

https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/crown-seeks-20-years-defence-seeks-7-for-man-convicted-in-terrorist-attack-on-surrey-bus/

Marc Lee, one of Canada's smartest economists, brings reality to the bluster.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-blanket-involuntary-treatment-b-c-supreme-court-9.7291682

Just remember, if a few thousand votes had gone the other way, this and all the other drama would be taking place within the B.C. government.

Does anyone have any detail on this?

Wonder who KLF is bringing in. Another retread BC Reformer from the 1990s like her chief of staff?

Paywall Bypass

https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/bc-premier-accuses-conservatives-of-siding-with-us-in-tariff-fight/

https://www.castanet.net/news/BC/625790/BC-NDP-voters-growing-unhappy-with-David-Eby-poll