February 1st, 2011 - Read Joe Foy's Wild Times column in the Watershed Sentinel as he calls for British Columbians to step up and take the future back.

I love hiking the ridge line between wilderness valleys as the rain mists down. Looking at the little rivulets making their way to the rivers below reminds me that we all have tiny watershed moments in our lives that have the possibility of becoming mighty rivers one day.

Back in the early 1900s, Mr. and Mrs. Smith – their real names, believe it or not – lived in the young city of Vancouver. They had wanted to start a family, but for reasons unknown Mrs. Smith had not been able to give birth to a baby of their own.

Anne Smith was a mid-wife.

And so it came to be that in 1903 Anne learned that a young woman she was helping to give birth was unable to keep her baby girl. I often wonder what it was like in that watershed moment when the decision to adopt that baby was made.

Lucky for me, the Smith’s did adopt the little girl, then went on to raise her and love her beyond words. Eventually she grew up, married and had kids of her own. That little adopted girl became my grandmother, my Nana, the watershed source of me and the wonderful family that surrounds me today.

British Columbia has watershed moments too.

Think of the things we are most proud of in BC, like our public health care system, our national and provincial parks, or our Agricultural Land Reserve – to name just a few. These treasures are enshrined in law now, but there was a time when they weren’t.

Starting in the 1940s, in small town Saskatchewan, future premier Tommy Douglas would take the stage time and time again to speak out and open the way for a Canadian health care system that would eventually become a right for us all, not just a privilege for the rich. In the early 1970s Richmond farmer Harold Steves’ tireless work resulted in BC’s ground-breaking farm land protection law. And, in the 1980s and ‘90s in BC’s Fraser Canyon communities Chief Ruby Dunstan’s passionate speeches helped win provincial park status for the Stein Valley.

But these leaders did not achieve all this on their own. They were buoyed up and propelled by a torrent of citizens, each of whom had made their own watershed decision to engage in making change.

Right now with the exit of Premier Gordon Campbell and Official Opposition Leader Carole James, BC’s political landscape is being remade before our eyes.

The most important watershed decision, these days, is not for our leaders to make. It’s for you.
Will you engage in the political process? Will you help choose the next leaders and their policies?
Will you fight to take the future back?

The time is now for us to create those rivulets that will lead to a mighty, sustainable future BC where oil tankers are banned from our coast and dirty tar sands pipelines are not allowed; where laws ensure the preservation of our remaining old growth forests and our endangered species; and, where many more wilderness areas have the provincial park protection they deserve.

The time is now to demand a premier who doesn’t squander tens of millions of our tax dollars on needless freeway expansion, while starving public transportation. We are starving for a provincial government that finally pushes Ottawa to wipe the stain of salmon farms from our seas and steps up conservation of wild salmon habitat.

The time is now for leaders in Victoria who will keep our hydro power production in public hands, and our wild rivers safe from being ruined by private power developers. And we need elected representatives who enact laws that strengthen, not weaken protections for farmland.

And all that is just for starters. This is BC’s watershed moment.

What will you decide to do?

Joe Foy is Campaign Director for the Wilderness Committee, Canada’s largest citizen-funded membership-based wilderness preservation organization.