(Bruce Findlay: no consensus on climate change)
Councillors Findlay and Manhas question climate change, seek to reduce building-emission standards
Two failed candidates from 2022 election work to rally support for June 4 council meeting
(UPDATE: In a compromise vote, council put Tek Manhas on the regional board. Christopher Justice remains on the board at the suggestion of Chris Istace, who becomes alternate director #2. Bruce Findlay becomes alternate director #1. Meanwhile, council delayed Findlay's notice of motion to amend the building code pending receipt of a staff report, including on cost implications.)
North Cowichan’s byelection is barely over, but already political forces are hard at work putting a right-of-centre face on council.
Councillors Bruce Findlay and Tek Manhas are flexing their muscles following the April 12 election of their candidate, Becky Hogg, and are proposing motions that would elevate their status at the regional level and scale back emission requirements for new buildings.
Manhas is pushing to have himself and Findlay appointed North Cowichan directors to the Cowichan Valley Regional District board of directors. If his motion succeeds, Christopher Justice and Chris Istace would be demoted to alternate status.
Mayor Rob Douglas and councillor Mike Caljouw would continue to represent North Cowichan on the regional board.
Findlay’s motion relates to the BC Energy Step Code, which gives municipalities the option of requiring levels of energy efficiency for new construction that exceed the base BC Building Code.
Findlay seeks to amend North Cowichan's building bylaw "to set the current Zero Carbon Emissions Level to match the Provincial B.C. Building Code level... and follow the province's schedule for further changes to the Zero Carbon Step Code.”
In a backgrounder to his motion, Findlay refers to “environment-first, damn the consequences, thinking” as well as “political posturing and virtue signaling.”
According to a provincial guidebook for municipalities, compliance with the highest zero carbon level requires that a proposed home’s space, water heating, and cooking equipment produce zero emissions.
Read more: https://energystepcode.ca/
The watering down of North Cowichan’s building emission requirements is consistent with statements Manhas and Findlay have made about climate change.
(Tek Manhas: humans have no huge impact on climate change)
Manhas has posted on social media: “I do not think that humans have had a huge impact on the climate…climate is changing and always will.”
Findlay recently told council that “consensus on climate change doesn’t really exist.”
Their comments appear contrary to those of the scientific community.
A study published in 2021 found greater than 99 per cent scientific consensus on human-caused climate change based on peer-reviewed scientific literature. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966
NASA further states that the “vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97 percent – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change.
“Most of the leading science organizations around the world have issued public statements expressing this, including international and U.S. science academies, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and a whole host of reputable scientific bodies around the world.” https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/faq/do-scientists-agree-on-climate-change/
(Adrienne Richards at 2025 byelection all-candidates meeting)
Two failed candidates in the 2022 municipal election — Adrienne Richards and Joseph Enslow of Citizens Oversight & Accountability Project — support Findlay’s motion.
Richards and Enslow are encouraging like-minded residents to attend the Wednesday, June 4, council meeting at which Findlay’s motion will be debated.
(Chris Shaw and Joseph Enslow stand at 2022 all-candidates meeting to show they believe the Official Community Plan was influenced by the World Economic Forum and/or the United Nations).
Richards, Enslow, and Chris Shaw ran as the United Independents in 2022, calling for less government in citizens’ lives and asserting that North Cowichan had become a “testing ground for multiple international environmental projects, without public consultation.” Shaw wrote the book, Dispatches From the Vaccine Wars: Fighting for Human Freedom During the Great Reset, with a foreword by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who is currently U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mzk2y41zvo
At its May 21, 2025, meeting, council received a letter from the Citizens Oversight & Accountability Project urging council to withdraw its membership in the Partners for Climate Protection program, administered by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and Local Governments for Sustainability.
Valerie Russell, a climate advocate from Maple Bay, complained to council that the letter contained no names. “The absence of named North Cowichan residents is concerning,” she said. “It is reasonable to enquire about the identities of the individuals referenced but not disclosed.”
Douglas agreed that names should be attached to letters to council.
Video interview with Richards and Enslow on The Iron Will Truthcast: https://strongandfreecanada.org/iron-will/of-the-people-by-the-people-for-the-people-adrienne-richards-and-joseph-enslow/
(Do you have a comment for council? Email council@northcowichan.ca.)
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— Larry Pynn, June 1, 2025
