Today at the BC Legislature I had the distinct honour to witness more than a thousand youth support Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Greta Thunberg and the school climate strike. Below I reproduce the press release that the BC Green Party released in support of this event that I attended. As you might imagine, the incredible youth participating in this student strike are a wonderful inspiration for me and they certainly serve as hope for the future.

Media Release

B.C. Green Caucus statement on the School Strike for Climate
For immediate release
March 15, 2019

VICTORIA, B.C. – Inspired by the school strikes of Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Greta Thunberg, hundreds of thousands of children and youth around the world are striking today for climate action.

“Our children are telling us that it is time to treat this crisis as a crisis, and they are right,” said Andrew Weaver, leader of the B.C. Greens. “I am humbled and honoured to stand with the world’s children and youth as they demand political action on climate change.

“All of the science is pointing to the fact that we are fast running out of time to avoid global catastrophe, and yet around the world political leaders are failing to consider the existential threat that we face. To quote Greta Thunberg, we need to focus on what needs to be done rather than what is politically possible.”

“The decisions we make today have lasting impacts,” said Sonia Furstenau, B.C. Green MLA for Cowichan Valley. “Our young people may not be able to vote, but their voices are strong and we have a moral, ethical, and political responsibility to listen to them.

“We are incredibly proud of the CleanBC plan and how it will shape our province in the years to come. But as our children are pointing out today, we need to do much, much more. I was grateful to join today’s climate strike, these kids and young people inspire me to keep fighting for a just future.”

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Media contact
Macon McGinley, Press Secretary
+1 250-882-6187 |macon.mcginley@leg.bc.ca

Last night I had the privilege of attending the 11^th annual Oak Bay Young Exceptional Star (Y.E.S) awards ceremony at the Oak Bay Beach Hotel where 10 exceptionally talented youth in grades 6 to 10 were honoured for their achievements.

As noted by the YES Awards Committee, Chaired by Hazel Braithwaite, that administers the awards, “The goal of the awards is to emphasize the positive achievements of Oak Bay’s young people by recognizing those who have distinguished themselves in such areas as volunteerism, arts, citizenship, academics, athletics and/or who have overcome obstacles to achieve their goals.”

Congratulations to this year’s award winners: Lily Cave, Zach Charlseworth, Leo Mohsenzadeh-Green, Reed Greenwood,  John Horwood, Tessa Jones, Talia Pike, Lachlan Stewart, Rebecca Stone, and Lidya Townsend

I had the pleasure of presenting the award to Zach Charlesworth from Oak Bay High School who was nominated by his teacher Nichelle Garraway. Below is the text of my speech.

Text of Presentation Speech

Nichelle Garraway, who coordinated the nomination for Zach Charlesworth, a grade 10 student at Oak Bay High School, descibes him as a spectacular young man.

He leads his classmates effortlessly and with an enthusiasm that is contagious. His teachers speak highly of him as a ‘well-rounded’ student and his peers often look to him for support and guidance, which he is always willing to give freely.

He is a kind and caring individual, working hard to make those around him feel welcome in their school and their community.

Zach is an exceptional student not only in his academics, but also in his comportment.

Zach’s most recent report card was superb. He achieved an ‘A’ in all of his courses and above 95% in seven classes.

His teachers all appreciate his willingness to ask questions and delve into the subject matter on a variety of different levels.

It is no easy feat to maintain grades such as these, especially considering Zach has a very busy schedule playing hockey outside of school as well.

Zach has the ability to converse and work with anyone and everyone, finding something in common with any student in the classroom.

He works very hard to ensure that he submits work of the highest quality in all of his classes and has a genuine passion for learning that inspires others to foster a curiosity within themselves.

Zach’s athletic prowess is not to be overlooked. Zach has played hockey at a very competitive level for many years, even travelling with his team to the provincial championships in Fort St. John this past spring break.

His commitment to the sport of hockey and to his team exemplifies his dedication. He dedicates many hours to practice, to travel and to game play, yet he still manages to arrive to school every day with his work completed at a high quality and excited to learn.

Zach is well known for his creativity and sense of humour both in and out of the classroom. At any given moment, he is sure to be cracking a joke with his teammates, his classmates, even when giving a presentation in French.

Aside from his natural athletic talent, Zach is also a natural leader and deserves to be recognized as such. His positive attitude and genuine charisma contribute to make the school and his community a better place.

There’s no doubt that we’ll continue to celebrate Zach’s success as he influences the Oak Bay community and the world with his kindness and leadership.

I am delighted to be able to present this young man with a Young Exceptional Star award – he is certainly deserving of it!

Please help me to congratulate Zach.

Today in the legislature I had the distinct pleasure of hosting Jillian McCue on a job shadow. Jillian is the remarkable young woman who spent three years trying to get Saanich to allow her to have miniature goats in her back garden. I took the opportunity to make a two minute statement highlighting her inspirational achievements.

Below I reproduce the text and video of my speech.

Text of my Statement

A. Weaver: I’d like to pay tribute to an inspirational young woman who I have the distinct honour of hosting on a job shadow today. Her name is Jillian McCue, a 13-year-old grade eight student at Gordon Head Middle School.

I first met Jillian in April 2013 during a meet-and-greet that I was attending in the lead-up to the last election. Midway through the event, Jillian, then only nine, entered and requested that I ask the audience to sign her petition. I didn’t know who she was or what the petition was about, so I suggested she make the pitch directly. It was compelling, grounded in evidence, and eloquently and passionately delivered. Jillian was setting out to change the fact that Saanich municipal bylaws did not permit miniature goats to be kept in backyards, and she convinced every single person in the room to sign the petition.

She’d done her homework. She learned that in 2007, Seattle city council approved keeping miniature goats as pets. She undertook her own research to disarm the potential criticism that goats would be smelly. Participants in her goat-poo smell study were asked to smell two bags: one containing dog poop and the other containing goat poop. They were then asked to rate the smelliness on a Likert scale of 1 to 5. Her survey data confirmed her hypothesis. On average, dog droppings smell twice as bad as goat poop.

Armed with her research, a petition signed by 132 people in her neighbourhood and well-structured PowerPoint slides, Jillian made a presentation to Saanich council. She was peppered with questions that she easily handled, and Saanich subsequently referred the matter to no less than three separate committees. So began the grueling municipal approval process.

Jillian persevered.

She presented to each of the committees and fielded many questions. She responded to numerous media requests. Three years later — yes, that’s three years — Saanich finally agreed to allow a pilot project to be undertaken. Jillian was able to obtain two miniature goats.

After watching Jillian navigate the complexities of municipal politics, I’m convinced that her determination, skills and ability to take on big challenges could allow her to achieve one of her life goals. That is to be the Prime Minister of Canada.

Video of my Statement

This is the 25^th in our series of stories celebrating the outstanding accomplishments of youth in our community. These inspirational young adults are enriching our lives with their passion and commitment to the betterment of society.

Robert Lee

I first met Robert on May 23 last year at a symbolic passing of the torch at the Old Oak Bay High School Farewell Ceremony. Oak Bay High has four pillars that capture its culture: academics, athletics, fine arts, and community leadership and philanthropy. At the event an alumnus, signifying past success in one of Oak Bay’s pillars, was asked to say a few words about the foundation we received at Oak Bay High. I had the distinct honour and privilege of representing the academics pillar and passing the torch to Robert Lee.

I met Robert a second time on October 27, 2017 at the Grand Opening of the New Oak Bay High School. Now it was Robert’s turn to say a few words about Oak Bay’s academic pillar and what it meant to him. Upon hearing him speak, I knew that this articulate young man was destined for great things.

Robert was born in New Westminster, BC and moved to Victoria with his parents at a young age. He attended Willows Elementary, Monterey & Arbutus Middle Schools and Oak Bay High School, from where he  graduated  this past June with an exceptional record of academic achievement and community involvement. Robert loves learning and told us his favourite courses are “everything I took in school”. He also loves languages (he speaks a bit of French and Mandarin) and history, but acknowledges that he is more of a “science and math type”.

Highly successful in all his courses, Robert  received Honours with Distinction (5.0 Grade Point Average) throughout high school. He has received awards in a wide range of subjects including Top Student in Science 9, Planning 10, Chemistry 11, English 11, French 11, Physics 11 and Mathematics 12. In 2014, the Greater Victoria School District Board of Education honoured him with a Recognition of Outstanding Achievement. His list of awards and achievements is long and impressive.  They include winning the national 2014 Michael Smith Science Challenge (first among 1,753 participants) and the 2016 Oak Bay High School Kiwanis Citizenship and Service Award with Ruby Tang.

In the fall of his grade 12 year, Robert took a Computer Science course at the University of Victoria (in the UVic uStart Dual Credit Program) and received the top mark in the class — that’s a first year university class!

Outside of academics, Robert has also distinguished himself as a leader through various activities at school and in the community. In 2015, with the school’s Bowker Creek Student Group, he participated in an exchange trip to the Netherlands where the students analyzed water samples and plant distribution in Holland’s saltwater marshes and later in Bowker Creek. He led fundraising and successfully secured a grant from a local organization. From his teacher Derek Schrubsole we learned that upon returning from the Netherlands, Robert volunteered his time to assist with a different group of students who would later be attending the Water is Life conference. He assisted with editing, proofreading and formatting the Bowker Creek restoration project and the creation of the project website.

What so impressed Mr. Schrubsole was that Robert was happy to help out and donate his time and effort despite the fact that he was not even attending the conference this year.

Other school involvement includes Student Council, Peer Tutoring, Project Leader for the Cops for Cancer Tour de Rock Campaign in 2015 and Leader in the Community Leadership Program since September 2015. Robert was Co-Leader of the school’s Reach for the Top Team that competed against Vancouver schools in April of 2016.

Robert was pleased to tell us about his work as Leader and Organizer of University of Victoria’s Senior’s Program, where students from his school and other local high schools volunteer their time to teach seniors computer skills. In this role, he created teaching materials, wrote news releases, recruited volunteers and seniors, solicited funding, managed Senior’s program inquiries, mentored volunteers, delegated responsibilities and delivered workshops. All this because Robert wanted to “give back” to his community and he loved working with seniors.

Since 2014, Robert has been a member of the City of Victoria Youth Council, engaging in several events each year, including Go Out and Vote (for the civic election in 2014) and the Employment Fair. In the latter he helped youth find resources to build their resume and practice interviewing skills. As a member of the Greater Victoria Public Library (GVPL) Teen Council, Robert participated in youth focus groups, was a Reading Buddy and a Tech Buddy and acted in an advisory capacity to the GVPL.

Robert has been inspired by many teachers, including his Physics teacher Mr. Simonson, Science teacher and Environment Club sponsor Mr. Shrubsole and Planning teacher Mr. Alexander, who helped him with scholarship applications. “He’s a kid who I think we will hear a lot more about in the future with his ideas and drive” says Mr. Alexander. Frankly, I suspect Robert has inspired many teachers as well!

Robert is one of only 25 recipients across Canada of the prestigious $80,000 Schulich Leader Scholarship in engineering.  He’ll be taking up this scholarship at the University of Victoria where he hopes to eventually explore his passion regarding the electrification and automation of transportation, a field he sees himself working in sometime in the next decade.

At the end of our interview I asked him if he’d ever driven an electric car before. He hadn’t so I pulled out an N to put on the back of my Nissan Leaf and let Robert drive himself home with me as a passenger. Upon exiting the car he let me know that he is determined to convince his family to buy an electric vehicle!

Mr. Shrubsole gave us a fine example of Robert’s humility: during one of the Environment Club meetings, a fellow student came in congratulating Robert for winning the Schulich Leaders Scholarship. Robert, who had not said a word about it prior to this, simply smiled and indicated he was thankful for the amazing opportunity. “Robert is one of those students I felt honoured to work with, both in the classroom and out” says Mr. Shrubsole.

This summer, Robert will spend six weeks working at TRIUMF on the University of British Columbia campus, coincidentally the exact same place I had my first undergraduate summer job.  He is a recipient of TRIUMF’s High School Fellowship Program that offers fellowships each year to graduating secondary students entering their first undergraduate year at a recognized post-secondary institution. The Fellowship includes an award of $3,000 and a six-week summer research experience at TRIUMF.

Robert is a brilliant young man who approaches life with great humility, scientific curiosity and a tremendous work ethic. He quietly goes about tackling challenges and accomplishing great things. We expect to hear much more about his accomplishments in the years to come. And while I thought that May 23, 2015 was the first time I met Robert, closer inspection of the image he provided us to the right from when he volunteered at UVic’s Science Venture shows that it obviously was not! My own son is seen sitting in the front row. And I guess that what’s we all love about Victoria, you are never more than one step of separation from any one in our community.

This is the 24^th in our series of stories celebrating the outstanding accomplishments of youth in our community. These inspirational young adults are enriching our lives with their passion and commitment to the betterment of society.

Nikki Frazer

While reading the Oak Bay News a couple of months ago, I came across an article about Nikki Frazer. Nikki, a grade 12 student at Oak Bay High School, had just been announced as a finalist in the Start Something with Alesse scholarship contest thanks to her business proposal: Bee-utiful Fashion to Save the Bees. Her idea was to create an online store selling mainly bee-related fashion items, as well as ethically-sourced beeswax accessories like soap and candles, in order to raise money and awareness for the declining native bee population here in Canada – an issue she had become aware of after watching a TED Talk on the plight of bees.

After being selected to the top 10 finalists from more than 1,500 entries across Canada, Nikki’s proposal received over 1,000 votes in just 3 weeks. Nikki eventually finished 3^rd in the For-Profit Category, helping to bring a renewed attention to this important issue along the way.

Inspired by her passion and ingenuity, I invited Nikki to be a part of our celebrating youth series. After meeting with Nikki at my constituency office last month it was clear that that Oak Bay News article was just a small sample of the passion and determination she possesses.

Born in Kamloops but raised in Victoria, Niki attended Sir James Douglas Elementary and Monterey Middle School before ending up at Oak Bay High. Currently in her final year of High School, Nikki is the definition of an all-around-student. She is currently taking a full course load, including Calculous, AP English, Chemistry and Band, as well as serving on Oak Bay Student Council, the Community Leadership group, and the Oak Bay High Interact Club, of which she is Vice President, all while maintaining an exceptional academic standing. While she has a passion for classical literature and creative writing, Nikki’s favorite areas are mathematics and theoretical physics. In fact, she will be attending the University of Toronto next fall to do a double major in mathematics and physics.

Outside of school, Nikki volunteers with the UVic Seniors Program, where she teaches seniors how to use social media outlets such as Facebook, Gmail and Twitter, and with Disaster Aid Canada, where she organized over 100 Disaster Relief Kits to be sent out to disaster areas, such as Nepal. Through her work with Disaster Relief Canada Nikki also organized a team of youth volunteers for the Soap for Hope program. Once a week during the summer, and once a month during the school year, the group gets together to collect mini soap, shampoo and conditioner bottles donated from local hotels in order to create hygiene kits for local shelters and international organizations.

When not volunteering, Nikki has delivered newspapers for the Times Colonist (a job she discontinued last month to allow more time for exam studying) and has worked with the SMUS International Student Program, as a Canadian Ambassador for Japanese students, and with the Victoria International Education Centre (VIEC), assisting in ESL Classroom lessons and acting as a tour guide during fieldtrips.

While Nikki is clearly an exceptionally accomplished and determined young woman, perhaps what struck me most in my meeting with her was how modest and humble she was about her accomplishments. It was clear that she truly enjoys and believes in every project she has been involved with, and that her passion for community involvement is a key driving force behind her many endeavors. In fact, it was this humble nature that had her casually skimming over one of her more personal, but equally impressive, accomplishments: Nikki recently earned her Black Belt in Traditional Japanese Okinawan Shorin Ryu Karate.

Beginning her Karate practice learning Shotokan Karate, the more common Karate form practiced in the Western Hemisphere, Nikki won two competitions and earned her 4^th degree Brown Belt before switching over to the more traditional Shorin Ryu form. She currently trains under Sensei Masanbou Kikukawa, dedicating 12 hours a week to her Shorin Ryu practice.

Shorin Ryu has a strong emphasis on patience and respect. While practitioners train their bodies to be able to defend themselves physically, they also train their minds to never have to —instead developing the strength of mind to walk away from a fight, unless given no other choice.

While listening to Nikki talk about Shorin Ryu it became clear to me that the patience, respect and strength of mind that she has developed through her practice has benefited her in all aspects of her life and will continue to benefit her throughout her future. In fact, she is already looking for a Sensei in Toronto that share’s Sensei Kikukawa’s philosophies so that she can carry on her practice while at U of T. And when I asked her about her career goals for the future, she said she would like to be in a Management position at a physics company and have her own Dojo (Karate School).

Nikki’s humble nature, strength of mind and passion for life will no doubt lead her to a brilliant future. And one day Shorin Ryu students may be vying for the chance to practice under Sensei Frazer.