True face of homelessness isn’t what’s seen on the streets.

A mayoral candidate in the upcoming October municipal election wants BC Housing to conduct an independent review of shelters and facilities in Kamloops.

BC Housing apartment operated by CSI Kamloops for low to moderate income tenants

The candidate, Reid Hamer-Jackson, said in a press release: “Due to the lack of action, with respect to these facilities, problems have grown throughout our community.” While he is focusing on two projects, Canadian Mental Health Association and ASK Wellness Society, he lumps these with others funded by BC Housing.

That’s a mistake. Many of the shelters funded by BC Housing operate without any problems whatsoever.

I sympathize with businesses who are victims of senseless crime. Windows of local businesses are shattered and goods stolen. But I object to the majority of Kamloops’ homeless being blamed by the actions of a few.

I don’t think Hamer-Jackson understands the scope of projects funded by BC Housing.

Does he mean the 31 low-to-moderate income units operated by the Lii Michif Otipemisiwak Family & Community Services Society 975 Singh Street?

Or the 58 units operated by Tk’emlups te Secwepemc (TteS)/YneT Society on Kamloopa Way & Chilcotin Rd?

I mention those two because the face of Kamloops’ homeless is not what you see on West Victoria Street. In a homeless count done in Kamloops by the Homelessness Services Association of B.C. last year, almost one-half of the homeless surveyed self-identified as Indigenous.

Does he mean the 112 low-to-moderate income rental units on 6^th and Victoria operated by Centre for Seniors Information BC Interior Society, of which I’m president? I can assure Mr. Hamer-Jackson that every one of our tenants has been thoroughly vetted. Many of them were previously homeless.

Again, the true face of Kamloops homeless is not what you see on the streets. Of the 206 surveyed by the Homelessness Services Association of B.C., two-thirds of them were not on the street but sheltered. They were staying in shelters, couch-surfing, and depending on the kindness of friends. True, you might see them in the day but they are indistinguishable from regular Kamloopsians.

The same survey of Kamloops’ homeless also reveals troubling fact: one-third indicated that as a child or youth, they were in foster care, in a youth group home or on an Independent Living Agreement. Many have “aged out” of care facilities and with few resources, are now on the street.

Ten percent of Kamloops’ homeless are under the age of 25, some of them vulnerable women open to sexual assault.

One of those youths was Katherine McParland, former Executive Director for A Way Home, who tragically died last year.

Katherine spent much of her teenage years in foster homes and, once she aged out of the system at 19, was homeless in Kamloops for a period of time.

As an influential member of our community, she told of how she would sleep outdoors and couch surf at the homes of friends. McParland would describe foster care as the “superhighway to homelessness.”

The face of Kamloops homeless is as varied as the citizens who live here. A few of the homeless cause a lot of damage.

The solution to homelessness is homes, not stalling by unnecessary studies.

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Phrase of the year: Supply Chain

I’m picking supply chain as phrase of the year. While there were other strong candidates, the stark frailty of supply chains and its psychological backlash came as a complete surprise. Other contenders were: climate emergency, atmospheric river, and heat dome.

image: Global Supply Chain Institute -University of Tennessee

Supply chains were on Canadian’s minds even before the atmospheric river hit.  Google Trends shows “supply chain” peaking from October 17 to 23 as we worried about goods being stranded in ports and shelves being empty for Christmas.

After the torrential rains began falling, shoppers went on a panic shopping spree and emptied grocery stores of produce, milk, eggs, meat, and in echoes of the pandemic panic, even toilet paper.

After the rains, Google Trends showed “supply chain” reaching another peak from November 14 to 20.

The panic over supply chains was more visceral than rational. The real supply chains remained as Kamloops’ grocers are supplied from the East and South as well as from the lower mainland.

B.C. is exterior-centric. When I moved to Kamloops from Calgary, it struck me odd that I was moving to some place called “the interior.” It was obviously named by those from the coast who like to call the place where they live the “mainland.” We Interiorians would never name this place so.

The supply chains of our minds are more tenuous. The sense of being cut off from the mainland was part of the panic. The memories we have of before B.C. was a province are part of our cultural heritage. In the 1800s, we were dependent on the flow of goods from the ports on the coast. It’s imprinted in our collective psyches.

So, when supply chains from the coast were threatened, it seemed like we were doomed. But contrary to the perception, groceries quickly appeared on shelves even though routes from the coast were still cut off.

Who is cut off from whom is a matter of perspective. The Trans Mountain pipeline was shut down because of potential damage from the washouts. Gas was rationed on the coast while plentiful here. This prompted Kamloops Mayor Ken Christian to quip: “We are not cut off from the coast; the coast is cut off from us.”

If you live where food is produced, or where there are lots of groceries, supply chains present a different dilemma.

When water flowed into the Sumas Prairie, which is not really a prairie but a lake-bed only one metre above sea level, the family-run Lepp Farm Market in Abbotsford, was open and fully stocked. Shiny mandarin oranges sat in wooden crates. There was milk and eggs in the coolers. A chalkboard sign announced the soup of the day: cabbage beef borscht.

The problem for the Lepp’s was not a shortage of food but that they now lived on an island. Charlotte Lepp mused: “We have food, but people can’t get to us.”

Supply chains will continue to occupy our conscious and subconscious minds in the New Year.

Real supply chains carry the bounty of globalization and the fragility of a network exposed by the climate emergency. Our mental supply chains carry our hopes of prosperity and the fears of our vulnerability.

When the frailty of real and mental supply chains meet, panic sets in.

Vaccine objectors pay a price for their stand

What principles do the unvaccinated hold so dearly that they are ready to sacrifice their jobs and face ridicule and scorn?

Nurses in Kamloops are giving up the careers that they have worked so hard to establish: well-paying jobs with benefits and pensions. All because of a jab in the arm?

Kamloops nurse Glenn Aalderink second from right. Image: Kamloops This Week

To lay off nurses is a tough decision for the labour-friendly B.C. NDP government.  Health Minister Adrian Dix called it a “significant and solemn day,” but said that the requirement to get vaccinated “is an absolute necessity in our healthcare system.”

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has been trying to figure out the rationale of unvaccinated health workers. “Some people are quite dogmatic against vaccines, which is unfortunate,” she said.

Kamloops nurse Glenn Aalderink is feeling hurt and rejected.  “We`re not being allowed to help. We were told we weren’t wanted, we weren’t needed — and yet, we know we are,” he said.

Aalderink is so dedicated that he is setting up a private clinic Kamloops –a clinic that the Health Minister says must be staffed by vaccinated healthcare workers. Since then, the clinic has been shut down by the landlord.

Other Kamloopsians opposed to receiving the shot are also paying dearly.

Kamloops City councillor Denis Walsh has come out against being vaccinated. I know Walsh and he is not an irrational man. He’s opposed to the conspiracy theories of the antivaxxers and has received flack from that side.

Now he’s being shunned from the other provaxxer side. His coffee shop business may be affected.  He may well pay a political price as well, and he says that he’s already lost some friends over it.

Kamloopsian Beat Klossner is opposed to this vaccination. We have lively back-and-forth exchanges on Facebook; agreeing that workers rights and wages are threatened but disagreeing over his comparisons of vaccine passports to Nazism.

Klossner is community-minded and has run provincially as MLA for the Communist Part of B.C. and for the Kamloops School Board.

Klossner seems like a reasonable guy but is opposed to the way COVID vaccines have been imposed. He made it clear to me that he is not an antivaxxer. He’s had many vaccines in his life. “It is this specific COVID case I have a problem with,” he told me by Messenger.

Klossner is resigned to his fate: “I made my choice, I live with it. I’m not allowed to travel, to go to a pub or other public places, etc. I’m fully expecting in a few months, at the most, I’ll not be allowed to earn a living anymore.”

I asked: “Do you feel like a martyr? Going down for a cause?”

Klossner replied: “No, but I made my choice and will live with it.”

In an attempt to understand why someone would make such sacrifices, I asked him:  “What is the principle on which you would sacrifice your liberty and ability to work.”

He replied: “I’m not certain what is going on, but there is something bigger in the background. Many guesses and theories are floating around. While many are ridiculous, they also always seem to have something that could be possible.”

There seems to be some dark, ominous feelings that those opposed this vaccine have. The vaccine has gone beyond a simple jab in the arm and taken on totemic properties.

Kamloops should follow Calgary and bring back fluoride

One of the things that appealed to me about Kamloops when I moved here in 1981 was its water. Kamloops water had been fluoridated since 1961.

image: Britannica

At the time, Calgary’s water wasn’t fluoridated. The attraction of moving to a city with fluoridated water was obvious: fluoridation is nature’s way of preventing cavities.

Fluoride research had its beginnings in 1901 when a young dental school graduate opened a dental practice in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He found that teeth were unusually discoloured and that dental cavities were low.

The reason for the cosmetic discolouration and low rate of cavities took years to unravel. It turned out that there was an unusually high level of fluorides in the water. Once the level of fluorides was lowered, the discolouration disappeared and dental health improved dramatically.

 Grand Rapids, Michigan, became the first place to add fluorides. The dental caries (cavities) among Grand Rapids children born after fluoride was added to the water supply dropped more than 60 percent.

Fluorides are naturally found in all water sources, except for rain water collected in barrels. Fluorides leach out of the soil into rivers, lakes and wells. The longer that water is in contact with soil, the greater the fluoride concentration.

Kamloops’ water is naturally fluoridated but only to one-half of the concentration required to be beneficial. After fluorides were added to supplement the natural amount, dental hygiene improved for all, even for those who couldn’t afford to see a dentist. My son, born in 1980, had no cavities.

Then, in 2001, a referendum was held in Kamloops on whether to have water meters installed and fluoridation removed.

The arguments against fluoridation back then sounded at lot like the ones today against COVID vaccinations -I should be free to have fluorides if I want.

Kamloops voters, cranky at the prospect of having to pay for what they imagined was free water, rejected water meters and fluoridation. Voter turnout was low at 37 per cent; 63 per cent of those rejected fluoridation.

I’m astonished how much fuss is made over simple health measures in some places and so little in others. When I was in Mexico I noticed that the salt is fluoridated –an obvious benefit where there are few central water systems.

And why aren’t people ranting about our iodized salt? It reduces iodine deficiency and boosts thyroid function in the production of hormones.

Like fluorine, naturally occurring iodine is found in rivers, lakes and wells but not enough to be beneficial. Fluorine and iodine are similar elements in that they are both halogens.

Calgary’s opinions have blown back and forth like the Chinook winds over the Rockies. They voted yes to fluoridation in 1998 and 1989, and then no in 2011.

In the last referendum, a substantial number; two-thirds of Calgary voters, approved fluoridation.

I think the difference is the pandemic. Even antivaxxers are shifting opinions about public health. They once thought that the issue was personal choice: they should be able to choose whether to receive the shot or not.

Now, the concept of what’s good for all overcomes vaccine hesitancy.

Now will Kamloopsians also come to their senses and return fluorides to our water supply?

You can no longer utter death threats to journalists on Facebook

Facebook has now increased protection for journalists against harassment, bullying, and death threats according to its global safety chief (Oct. 14, 2021, Globe and Mail).

Image Credit: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

However, too bad if you’re a public figure. Facebook differentiates between public figures and private individuals in the protection it affords. For instance, users are generally allowed to call for the death of a celebrity in discussions on the platform, as long as they do not tag or directly mention the celebrity.

Under existing Facebook’s policies, you haven’t been able to call for the death of a private individual for some time. Earlier this year, Facebook said it would remove content celebrating, praising or mocking George Floyd’s death, because he was deemed an involuntary public figure. Those who are involuntary public figures are determined on a case-by-case basis.

Now journalists are afforded the same protection as involuntary public figures.

Why has it taken Facebook so long?

Accurate reporting is fundamental to democracy. Journalists must be protected in order to inform citizens.

Media trolls claim that they are protected by freedom of speech, and for too long social media have given them a platform to spew their hate.

However, freedom of speech ends when lives are threatened. When journalists are threatened, it provides a license to kill. Others who see those threats take action even when the trolls don’t. Sixteen journalists have been murdered globally this year, so far, 1418 have been killed since 1992 according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

It doesn’t take death threats to place a chill on the flow accurate news. One Kamloops Facebook user doesn’t hide his disdain for of reporting about the pandemic on local media. He is especially contemptuous of Kamloops CBC:

“The hysteria being promoted in the media especially the CBC is just that -hysteria !”

He has repeated these criticisms to me and to other local media outlets.

From the comments, some of his Facebook followers agree with his assessment. Either they, or someone sympathetic to his criticisms of CBC, vandalized a Kamloops CBC van by dumping paint over it and spraying “fake news” on the side on April 4, 2021.

The President of CBC/Radio-Canada, Catherine Tait, is worried about the chill on reporting that such attacks have. She told Kamloops This Week:

“We are looking at what security we need to provide so that people feel safe in their jobs. We cannot have people feeling anxious and nervous.”

The pandemic has raised levels of fear and mistrust of news sources in all sectors to dangerous levels. The contagion of COVID has corrupted trust in traditional sources. It’s almost as if the coronavirus has affected people’s ability to think clearly.

A recent survey found that trust declined in all institutions, from business to religion to academia. Forty-nine per cent of Canadians surveyed agree that journalists and reporters are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or by gross exaggerations.

Canada faces a crisis in leadership and expert credibility. More and more, citizens are turning to the echo chambers of social media for news.

I find this astonishing. Why would anyone trust someone sitting at their computers spewing hate and misinformation over those whose job it is to go out and dig up what’s really happening?

Attitude adjustment would solve our homeless problem

Our attitude towards the homeless is a barrier to solving the problem. The old notion is that the poor deserve to be so:  if people would just apply themselves, they wouldn’t be homeless.

image: KamloopsThis Week

Finland’s experience shows how a shift in attitude makes a difference.

In 1987, Finland had a homeless population of about 20,000 out of a population of five million –a rate of four homeless per thousand.

To address the problem, Finland adopted a “Housing First” philosophy, said Juha Kaakinen (Globe and Mail, August 13, 2021).

 Kaakinen, chief executive officer of Finland’s non-profit Y-Foundation, was addressing a panel convened by The Canadian Urban Institute.

Another panelist, Leilani Farha, said that part of Finland’s success is the result of shift in mindset. For Finns, homelessness is not an option.

“People have a right to housing as part of their constitution.” said Farha,

Finland’s solved the problem with a partnership between federal and state governments, lottery corporations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

The Y-Foundation, a non-profit organization, started buying private apartments in 1985 with grants obtained from the government run Finland Slot Machine Association.

In turn, the Y-Foundation subleased the apartments out to municipalities and NGOs. The rent plus the grants paid for the apartments.

Finland’s homeless rate is now one-fifth of what it was.

It’s tempting to think of housing the homeless as an expense when, in fact, it’s savings. Housing for all everyone has proven to be the most effective remedy for improving lives and saving money.

A study published by Journal of the American Medical Association in 2009 found that costs to Seattle’s public health system dropped by 60 per cent in the first six months after chronically homeless people with severe alcoholism were found homes.

Canada is not beyond hope. Our homeless rate is just above what Finland’s was in 1987 –about six homeless per thousand.

All levels of government are working on the problem.

The City of Kamloops’ Affordable Housing Reserve Fund allows for up to $150,000 per project for low income earners.

The B.C. government built 3,200 new affordable housing units last year and more are being built this year. (Full disclosure: I am the president of a non-profit organization that will take possession of the largest project in the interior built by BC Housing, opening in downtown Kamloops this fall.)

The federal government is working with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) to build affordable housing. This year’s federal budget provides an additional $2.5 billion over seven years to CMHC.

Dignity and financial security are restored when the homeless are given homes.

Tina Dawson, 52, from Victoria, told the Institute’s panel about being homeless for first-time in the past year:

“Being newly homeless, I am gob-smacked at the way things are out of sight, out-of-mind, and the machine that is in place to keep people homeless. How on earth am I going to get out of this position? I’ve managed my entire life. I’ve raised three children. And I have no address. The problem is [putting together] the damage deposit. I’m on permanent disability. That’s hand to mouth.”

Those who work full-time at minimum wage jobs should be able to afford a place to live.

Surely that’s not too much of an adjustment in attitude to make.

Don’t confuse all the homeless with Kamloops’ street menagerie

A few deranged, mentally ill and brain-addled addicts on Kamloops’ streets get a lot of attention. But don’t label all the homeless as troublemakers.

Image: Mel Rothenburger, Kamloops

Kamloops RCMP superintendent Syd Lecky shares in the frustration of residents and business owners who notice the same people committing crimes repeatedly.

“When you have them back on the street in a short period of time, it is frustrating,” said Lecky. “And it does challenge us in terms of being able to manage the risk… whether the risk for these offenders to continue offending, whether it be violence or property crime. It’s really going to create some pressure on us to be able to put an end to that.”

Some of the homeless are just regular folk who choose to live outdoors. I get that.

I first met my neighbour Paul when he was living in a river bank one block from my house in Westsyde. I say “my neighbour” because, except that he lived outside, he was friendlier than some of my neighbours.

Although he lived nearby, Paul was hard to find.

I discovered his campsite when I noticed that the grass had been disturbed down a steep river bank. Curious, I carefully descended the bank and found myself in an almost impenetrable thicket.

A voice came from my left: “Come around this way, it’s easier,” as he welcomed me to his humble abode. Paul, in his forties, had notched a level spot in the river bank and strung a tarp over his shelter; his modest belongings arranged around him. He introduced himself and I sat down to chat.

Years ago, Paul had been a sheltered neighbour just a few blocks away. After his divorce, he lost his house and wandered around from town to town before returning to Kamloops. He was outgoing and happy to tell me his life story. We exchanged cell phone numbers and I left.

When I went back a few months later, Paul was gone.

I understand the appeal of living outside. When I hitchhiked in Australia, I used to set up camp in the bush near small towns. I’d walk into town; my gear stowed in what I hoped would be in an undetected spot.

It was a great way to travel. I’d buy groceries and hang out with locals in the pub.

However, being homeless and living on the street is not so idyllic. It can be a living hell. According to the most recent survey of Kamloops’ homeless, 40 per cent of those surveyed were first homeless from ages 10 to 19. Many of those “aged out” of foster care with few survival skills.

Almost one-half of respondents indentified as indigenous.

Not only do many of these teenagers have few life skills, they can have disabilities such as Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). That leaves them vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous individuals. They become a resource in the quagmire of street life; in prostitution and dealing drugs.

For indigenous street people who have aged out of the foster care system, the loss of identity is debilitating. They are doubly resentful of a system that is rigged against them –stripped of their culture and exploited by a toxic street culture.

If young people weren’t mentally ill and addicted to begin with, the gritty street life will soon make them so.

Regrettably, low-cost housing will not solve their devastating problems. At one time they might have been cared for in institutions such as Tranquille.

Now their future looks bleak.

BC Housing should value their friends in Kamloops City Council

City councillors support public housing but the recent announcement by the B.C. government took them by surprise. In a press release, BC Housing said that they had purchased the Fortune Motel on Kamloops North Shore.

Fortune Motel, image: Agoda

BC Housing is a crown corporation that finances subsidized housing for low income families.

“What the hell is this?” was a common reaction at City Hall, Councillor Dale Bass told me. The lack of communication represented a “disconnect of our relationship” with the provincial government.

While staff at City hall were apparently aware of the purchase, councillors were not Bass said.

Consultation is needed because Council has plans for the North Shore and BC Housing’s purchases may not fit. Of course, consultation would have to be done in confidentiality since real estate purchases are sensitive.

In a press release, Attorney General and Housing Minister David Eby said that BC Housing and the City of Kamloops will work together to determine a permanent plan for the property. That’s a fine thing to say but just when did BC Housing plan to start working together?

It’s Councillors who take the flak from the public over public housing. Some citizens are “genuinely afraid” of homeless people, Bass said.

Kamloops homeless are often characterized by the actions of “street people” who sometimes appear menacing.

Encounters with mentally ill people can be frightening. A friend of mine was approached by a stranger, apparently in a psychotic state, as she shopped in a thrift store on Tranquille. “You’re going to fucking die, bitch,” he shouted angrily. The verbal assault left her shaken.   

Mental health of homeless people is a problem and it’s exacerbated by their lack of secure shelter. While mentally ill people are more likely to injure themselves than others, that’s little comfort to those are accosted by the unstable mentally ill.

Street people are also blamed for an increase in crime. Yet the perception doesn’t always match reality.

Kamloops RCMP Supt. Syd Lecky told City Council on June 11, 2021, that crime was actually down in some parts of the city compared to last year. Property crime was down in North Kamloops by eight per cent, the same in Valleyview, and up 11 per cent in Westsyde.

But last year was unusual because of the pandemic, Lecky added, and that property crime was up everywhere from 1019.

Homeless people represent a fragile sector of our population.

In a survey done by BC Housing of Merritt’s homeless in 2020, one-quarter reported a brain injury and 70 per cent had two or more health concerns. Seventy-eight per cent suffered from addiction.

In a survey done in Kamloops in June, 2018, one-half of respondents first experienced homelessness as youths. Probably, as in Merritt’s case, many were formerly in foster care.

The profile of homeless people is one of addiction compounded by desperation, mental and physical health. They are often youths thrown out on the streets with few life-skills.

Kamloops doesn’t need a big-stick approach by BC Housing to get affordable housing in Kamloops. Not like that other Interior city, Penticton, where City Council is taking the province to court over a dispute involving BC Housing’s locations.

Kamloopsians sensibly realize that you can’t complain about homeless people on the street while also complaining that they are being housed.

The graves of Indigenous children cry out for justice

The discovery of children’s graves at the Kamloops residential school was not a surprise to many. What made the findings so graphic was the stunning detail of the remains as revealed by ground-penetrating radar.

image: Inside Edition

Deceased children as young as three, sometimes wrapped in a blanket, sometimes just buried in shallow graves, were buried in the grounds around the school.

While the discovery was startling to national and international audiences, it was no surprise to former residents of the school.

“It is a great open secret that our children lie on the properties of the former schools,” said Sol Mamakwa, an Indigenous member of the Ontario legislature.

And the graves were no secret to those who dug them, such the former students of the Edmonton Indian Residential School. One such student, Jackie Williams, remembers being hired to dig some of the graves when he was a child.

As long as the remains of children remained hidden under often grassy fields, out of sight, we didn’t have to face the horror of this open secret.

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) has brought details of the remains to the surface and to anguished scrutiny.

GPR may be revealing but the process is not as simple as, say, X-rays. First, a GPR machines about the size of a toaster on wheels are pulled around the area to be surveyed. Initial scanning only takes about as long as it does to walk the grounds being searched.

Then data is downloaded and processed by computers. The set-up cost about $35,000 and requires training to interpret the images.

While the GPR images may look like little more than “blobs” to the untrained eye, experienced researchers can recognize details.

A bit like ultrasound images, I imagine. I watched as an ultrasound was done on my abdomen. Fuzzy images floated into to view on the screen. What I saw as fuzzy blobs, the trained health professionals saw as my liver, kidneys and spleen –and measured with great accuracy.

Dr. Terence Clark is skilled in the use of GPR. He used it to discover gravesites at the former residential school on the Muskowekwan First Nation in Saskatchewan in 2018.

Cark, a University of Saskatchewan researcher and professor who specializes in community-based archeology, said: “It seemed like this was a validation that their memories were real, this really happened, and they wanted to see it on the screen. They wanted to know that what they experienced was true.”

As researchers view the underground images, it must be like an under-earth diver swimming through rocks, bones, and other artifacts. As details emerge, the children come to life and cry out for justice.

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, a lawyer and former judge who is of Cree and Scottish descent said: “To me, the dead children themselves in this Kamloops school, and others, have human rights. We have an obligation to them to provide respect for the deceased and take practical steps to address the indignity that might’ve been done to them and their bodies.”

Kamloops is now the focus of global attention in a way that I would have not have preferred. But there we are, and now we need to cooperate with the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation to see that justice is not only done but seen by the world to be done.

Animals organize to take back cities

I’m sitting on the banks of the North Thompson River, not far from my house in Westsyde. People walk along the river, not far away, but they seldom notice me high on the river bank. I’m listening to music and not paying much attention. It’s a cool winter day and I’m wrapped in a blanket; enjoying my lunch and thermos of tea.

image: Government of Yukon

A dog wanders by, just five metres away, and I wait for the dog’s owner to follow. When no one arrives, I do a double-take and realize it’s not a dog but a lynx. The lynx doesn’t see me, or doesn’t seem to care that I’m so close.

This is the first time I’ve seen a lynx in Westsyde and I get to thinking “What’s going on?” There have been other sightings of lynx and cougars in the city, which is strange.

Then the thoughts start to swirl. These animals must be organizing to take back the cities. And they must have animal leaders: the New World Order of Animals (NWOA).

Later, I tell a friend about the sighting of the lynx and how the animals seem to be organizing. Are these animal leaders part of a New World Order of Animals? Something about them has to be special. They must be descendants of Noah’s Ark, she suggests. Yeah, that must be it.

Animals are not just retaking Kamloops, but cities and countries all around the world.

Wallabies, a smaller version of the kangaroo, are establishing themselves in the United Kingdom. Anthony Caravaggi, a lecturer in conservation biology at the University of South Wales told CBC’s Quirks & Quarks:

“The news reports are often accompanied by things like, ‘I can’t believe what I saw’ or ‘wondered what I was seeing. We do have some areas where wallabies have attained a kind of celebrity status. So they have Facebook pages, web pages, and people in some areas are not accustomed to seeing wallabies.”

The animal operation conducted by NWOA is clearer to me now.

The mainstream media is complicit in a conspiracy; saying that COVID-19 originated in Wuhan, China. That’s just fake news.

The New World Order of Animals released the deadly coronavirus in order to clear the way for the return of animals. True, millions of humans will die but why would animals care when humans have killed many more animals by destroying their homes?

The headquarters of NWOA, the direct descendents Noah’s Ark, are closer than you think. They are located at the Centre of the Universe.

‘And where is the Centre of the Universe?’, you might ask. It’s at Vidette Lake in Deadman Valley, just 60 kilometres NW of Kamloops.

The Centre of the Universe was first located in 1980 by the Rinpoche, or Master Teacher, located in San Francisco. He sent a white-robed disciple to Vidette Lake to find the spot. Then, in 1984, the Master Teacher himself visited the spot and confirmed that, yes; this is the Centre of the Universe.

But don’t try to find it. It’s guarded by electromagnetic waves that project the illusion of pastoral landscape.

It’s amazing what revelations are spawned by just sitting by the river.