Capital Daily for Monday, September 28

An average of 21 student-on-staff violent incidents happen every day in the Greater Victoria School District, according to a report from the Greater Victoria Teachers' Association.

The report pulls from more than 6,000 violent-incident reports the union obtained through a freedom-of-information request, plus a survey of district teachers. Of those who responded, 95% said they experienced violence in the classroom in the past year, and 87% said it has increased over their careers. Association president Carolyn Howe says the incidents are mostly elementary and middle-schoolers who don't have the skills to handle intense frustration, and they call for supports, not discipline.

One of the report's authors, Tara Ehrcke, says many teachers have stopped filing incident reports because nothing changes when they do. WorkSafeBC claims tied to violence in the district hit 52 in 2025, up 37% since 2019.

Both SD61 and the Ministry of Education said they need more time to review the report before responding. The district said its top priority is the safety of students and staff, and pointed to a long-standing Violence Prevention Program.

Carl Olsen wakes at 5 a.m. in the house his grandfather built on the Tsartlip reserve, prays at the water's edge, and drives to the shoulder of the Malahat to hold a sign that reads "Save the Salmon." He's 78. He's been doing this every Tuesday for three years, through rain, snow and sickness.

What sent him out there in early 2023 was a provincial plan to widen a 1.7-kilometre stretch of highway that cuts through Goldstream Provincial Park. A 2024 environmental assessment found the work would mean permanent loss or alteration of salmon and amphibian habitat next to the Goldstream River, and the removal of roughly 715 trees.

Olsen, whose traditional name is ZȺWIZUT, knows the park as SELE₭TEȽ. To the W̱SÁNEĆ, it's one of their oldest fishing villages, a site they argue is protected by a Douglas Treaty put to paper 174 years ago that affirms their right to hunt and fish on those lands.

He worries most about the canopy that keeps the river cold. "It's about 12 degrees difference from the sun to the shade," he says. Lose the shade, he says, and you lose the fish.