Davin Greenwell

I’m headed to Winnipeg tomorrow for a few days. There *will* be updates from the road, provided there is readily available internet. The camera and laptop will be coming with me.
It’s been absolutely beautiful here in Victoria the last several days. We went for a walk on Monday night down to Dallas Road – where the above photo was taken – and it was so warm – a jacket wasn’t even necessary at 10 PM.

Here’s a wider view of the weir. See if you can see, in it, where the previous photo came from.
I’ve been using this weir as a metaphor for monetary policy’s use of interest rates recently. As mentioned, the weir is used to regulate the level of the river and lake by providing more or less water based on the angle of the weir spillgates themselves. Lets break down the roles involved quickly:

• lake = Bank of Canada reserve
• weir spillgates = interest rate
• river = economy

First lets explain why the weir is even there in reality. The river (update: the river flows FROM the lake) needs a decent level in order to operate effectively downstream. The river levels would be higher than necessary in the winter – when rain is plentiful and evaporation is minimal, so the weir levers would be relatively higher, but still open since they don’t want the lake to flood. In the summer, when river levels would otherwise be very low, the lake has enough water in it to drop the spillgates and provide more flow. This is important for many aspects of the river, not the least of which is fish and keeping the river relatively clean. This is the business of the river. Without water, things don’t move so good.
In Canada, we have an institution that manages the supply, cost, and availability of money. This institution lends to the banks, who then in turn lend to people and organizations for things like buying houses etc. This institution is called the Bank of Canada (BoC.) The banks base their interest rates for lending a little higher than what they can get from the BoC.
The BoC raises the interest rate (floodgates) to contract the money supply (increases level in the lake) to encourage saving. The BoC lowers the interest rate (floodgates) to encourage spending (increasing the level of the river, allowing more activity) – this happens since the cost of money is decreased through a lower interest rate.
So there you have it, an explanation of why the BoC dropped the interest rate to 0.25% this morning – it’s to open up the floodgates a bit, add some flow to the river, encourage spending and combat the recession.

The website has been given a new lighter treatment. Let’s call it tech-rust.
The above photo is from the weir at Lake Cowichan – actually not too far from the Caycuse Bell a couple entries back. It was built in 1956 and serves to regulate levels of both the lake and the river. On the other side of this, where the weir drains from the lake, is where the Cowichan River begins. If you ever go tubing on this river, you might start right beside the weir and float down the river for the next few hours. It’s a highly recommended experience. The weir is probably a dangerous place to go swimming at this time of year, and the water would also be pretty cold.
Not too far down the river is an old trestle that’s been turned into a bridge. The rust on that trestle is the new background on this site, layered a couple times and put under a little pattern that I conjured up last night.

Bare with me here, I’m going to get nerdy. The Canon 5D Mark 2 at ISO6400 with a 50mm at F1.4 is basically night vision. This photo is brighter than it actually was there by a wide margin. Though it’s not grain-free, it’s completely usable and I am rather impressed by the whole deal.
Likewise I was impressed by Laura at Cabin 12 who sang a show at the new spot on Monday night.

This is Caycuse Bell in Lake Cowichan. The town of Caycuse has an interesting history as a floating village on the south west end of Lake Cowichan. Caycuse had 400 loggers/residents at its peak in the 1900s. Not yet a ghost town, 13 people currently live on the land in that area, though I’ve seen other numbers that say 65 people do. The town has a closed school and a 2 lane bowling alley called the MULTIPLEX. It also has an active firehall. You can access Caycuse on a gravel road from Honeymoon Bay.

The bell itself is in front of the musem in “downtown” Lake Cowichan near the Weir. The museum is normally south and behind the bell, but the light from the south was better, as was the backdrop, so I went behind the bell and took the photo, and then mirrored it horizontally to make it look un-backwards again.

I have no idea what the bell was used for. The museum was closed so we couldn’t find out any official info on the weekend. In my head, I am imagining that it was rung when the waffles were ready for the lumberjacks to eat. Do you know anything about Caycuse? Have you been there? Have you heard of it until now?

This is the Knot Garden in Centennial Square in downtown Victoria. It’s a sunken garden on the west side of the square, right beside the Macpherson Theatre. By June 2009, it will be gone. I’ve always liked this little garden, but I can’t deny the need for change in Centennial Square. Here are the plans for the new Spirit Square.

This week I went to a discussion on homelessness facilitated by the Downtown Residents Association. The new police chief Jamie Graham spoke, as did Jill Clements and Charlayne Thorton-Joe from the homelessness coalition, and Ken Kelly from the DVBA. A summary of the talk can be found on Robert Randall‘s website.
Update: Read more on this topic from Yule Heibel‘s blog.


The two representing the coalition – Jill and Charlayne – identified the most systemic breakdowns in support for homeless people. It’s pretty clear that the support system is broken and needs fixing at a high level before it can be effective at a ground level. Another well-documented point that was made last night is that Victoria tends to attract homeless people from all over the province and country due to our climate. This said, it is a relatively small municipality that is paying for a provincial and national issue. The numbers are nowhere close to working, even if the system wasn’t broken down. Anyway, I wont get too deep into the issues as I’m not an expert, but my feeling is that the important cards are not entirely in our hands, yet.

The new Police Chief was really well-spoken. I felt he communicated the challenges that the police face fairly well and in a way that felt appropriately transparent. He was handing out personal business cards and engaging in quite a bit of two-way discussion which is refreshing to see. Clearly the police have their work cut out for them in this city. A city with homeless from across greater Victoria, across the province, and across the nation. And a city where police are divided into various municipality forces. There is multiplication of issues and division of resources. It is a losing combination and Victoria has been losing.
The DVBA representative spoke for a while about the business owners in the area and what they have at stake. I didn’t get much of a point from him beyond that. He spent the remainder talking about parking passes. This is puzzling in two regards – he is talking to people who live downtown, and homeless people generally aren’t looking for a place to park cars so that they can go shopping. I felt that this particular part of the evening did not contribute anything significant to the discussion.
Overall the talk was interesting and the dialogue needed to happen. It was also nice to see the new police chief speak at length about his views and philosophy on policing and the homeless situation in downtown Victoria. I don’t know how to find out what progress the coalition is making, but I’d be interested in keeping up with their findings, recommendations and any actions that local resources are undertaking to change the way the various silos of support work.