Former school board vice-chair among five in North Cowichan council byelection race
Johanne Kemmler promises to respect public-consultation results supporting conservation vision for forest reserve
A former school trustee is among five candidates running in the byelection for North Cowichan council.
Johanne Kemmler was elected school trustee in Cowichan Valley School District in 2018, and served as vice-chair, but lost in a re-election bid in 2022. Before that, she worked 25 years as an elementary school secretary.
The byelection to replace Debra Toporoskwi will be held April 12 (with advance voting April 2 and April 8) at an estimated cost of $121,000.
The nomination period ended Friday.
“I am not far left, but I am more left than right,” says Kemmler, who lives on a hobby farm in North Cowichan. “My biggest hope in this world is that we can not be so divisive.
“I’m not closed. I’m open to ideas.”
Elizabeth Croft, current school board vice-chair, says of Kemmler: “She examined every decision that came before us independently. She would never die on a hill. It was all about deliberation, good conversation and good decisions.”
Kemmler is coordinator of Cowichan Valley Community Action Team, focusing on the “opioid crisis and supporting our community’s at-risk members.”
She says she supports the Official Community Plan (OCP) and the Safer Community Plan, which “share common goals of promoting sustainable growth for North Cowichan, including housing and support services for those in need.”
But she said that without further research she cannot say how she would have voted Nov. 20 when council approved 4-2 amending the OCP to allow a controversial major development north of Herd Road in the Bell McKinnon area.
“I could have gone either way.”
While seemingly conflicted on the issue of logging, Kemmler said she would respect the results of a public consultation process that showed 76-per-cent support for conservation management of the Municipal Forest Reserve. “Yes, one has to do that. It’s not on the table now. It’s done. Yes, I would respect that.”
(A parallel consultation continues with local First Nations).
She is the wife of Sig Kemmler, who is managing partner and director of Integrated Operations Group, a Campbell River-based logging company. The company earned $67,480 from logging activities in the Municipal Forest Reserve in 2019.
Sig Kemmler has lobbied the province to continue logging old-growth forests, and through the Truck Loggers Association magazine has criticized North Cowichan for pausing logging in the forest reserve pending consultations.
“My husband doesn’t actually believe in logging old growth — just for the record,” says Kemmler, adding his company is more involved in salvage operations.
But in an email to the province’s Old Growth Strategic Review in 2019, Sig Kemmler wrote: “My companies harvest old growth timber from the coastal working forest. Access to this working forest is critical to my company’s future and success.”
Johanne Kemmler said she’s not sure she has seen that comment, adding: “Old growth is a funny, funny thing. If it’s not actually farmed or harvested a little, they just die in the bush anyway.”
She added: “I don’t believe in logging old growth. I like our old growth to stay put. But I understand there are times when it is necessary or acceptable — but not for me.
“My husband’s views are his, and we live very well together in the same household. Logging pays for my family….”
She concluded: “My husband’s politics aren’t mine and he’s not running. I am.”
The forest reserve falls within the coastal Douglas-fir forest, the most endangered forest type in B.C. Almost no old-growth remains in the forest reserve — popularly known as the Six Mountains — due to decades of clearcutting.
More than 40 conservation groups and levels of government — including the BC forests ministry, but not North Cowichan — are committed to “promoting and protecting” the coastal Douglas-fir biogeoclimatic zone and its associated ecosystems.
(Photo submitted by Kemmler).
Previous articles on candidates Joanna Lord, David Bellis and Becky Hogg:
https://www.sixmountains.ca/article/1c6c2356-54ff-4d9f-9e24-2ee5f87db392
https://www.sixmountains.ca/article/f68120e5-ca28-4e2e-aca1-6c8b3d9d0285
A fifth candidate running in the North Cowichan byelection is Raymon Travis Farmere, a resident of Cowichan Bay, who finished last with six votes in the March 1 mayoral byelection in Ladysmith.
Farmere said he holds a master of education degree, and has worked as an educator and CUPE executive member. He currently is a customer care agent for Freedom Mobile.
“I want to improve communication between the community and council and work towards the objectives of the OCP,” he said.
Farmere is also playing the political field, says he is considering running for the right-of-centre People’s Party of Canada in the riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands during the next federal election.
“But I might pull back on that if I get elected in North Cowichan.”
Farmere finished last in election bids for Oak Bay council in 2022 and North Saanich (another byelection) in 2023.
He also ran for mayor of Nanaimo in 2018 and took 1.3 per cent of the votes. He sought a judicial recount in that election — without success.
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— Larry Pynn, Mar. 8, 2025
