Welcome to PHARA
PHARA is a volunteer organization which exists to support the vitality of the communities of Pender Harbour and Egmont areas as excellent places to live, work and play for residents and visitors. The Association provides a structure that allows residents to identify issues of broad community concern and have them effectively addressed.
The Association draws its main funding from a $30.00 membership per person per year. It saw a surge in growth as it moved into its expanded mandate but is looking to include more of the residents in the area. To join please go to our Join Us! section. Members receive regular insider newsletters with updates on the latest activities of the association.
PHARA is involved in the community in many ways, with committees dealing with derelict boats, Dock Management Plan revisions, cleaning local waters of debris, the annual trash bash, beach access signage, community volunteer awards, the installation of No Wake signs in the harbour and much more. We invite community input into other projects we should take on as an association.
Community Calendar
Coming events in the community
Latest News & Events
April/14/2024
Support the Community Gardens
The Pender Harbour Community Gardens in Madeira Park and Garden Bay, are currently maintained through generous donations.
PHARA is proposing a small increase in property tax, $30-40, to secure consistent funding for our Community Garden’s upkeep.
This petition is non-binding but will help us gauge support within our community for this proposed tax increase. We believe that together we can ensure the survival and growth of our Pender Harbour Community Gardens.
Our goal is to reach 1300 signatures and we need your support. Please forward this to all your friends who live in the Pender Harbour Area.
Please click here or scan this QR code and sign your name to the petition.
March/19—21/2024
PHARA Volunteers Clean Up Ghost Gear in Pender Harbour
From March 19th to 21st, the Pender Harbour and Area Residents Association (PHARA), in collaboration with SeaWolf Diving and their seven-person crew, successfully retrieved 2,384 pounds of abandoned nets (also known as ghost gear), tires, Styrofoam, rope, batteries, and other pollutants from the waters of Pender Harbour. These items were unloaded at the future site of the Pender Ocean Discovery Centre at Irvines Landing (thanks PODS!), then cleaned, sorted, weighed, and bagged by PHARA volunteers and staff from the Ocean Legacy Foundation. The recyclables were loaded into a 30-yard bin from Salish Soils and transported to Ocean Legacy’s Richmond recycling depot. Approximately five percent of the total materials, which were not recyclable, were taken to the Sechelt landfill.
The retrieved materials had been abandoned on the ocean floor many years ago, primarily at a time when there was much less concern for our environment. However, ourattitudes have changed in recent years, and the increasing presence of whales, dolphins, herring, and other sea life in our harbour indicates improving environmental conditions.
On the 19th and 20th, the PHARA food crew provided delicious meals, including morning snacks, hot lunches, drinks, and desserts. Special thanks to Gail Paton and Sheila Scoular for their tureens of chili and stew. Suzanne Yuile provided drinks and extras. Thanks to Kim Allinson and Val Morrison for their delicious baked goods. All food was prepared and donated by the cooks. Suzanne Yuile and Sage Robson did an outstanding job of support and food organization.
Additionally, special thanks to Matt McDonald, store manager of our local IGA, for providing trays of sandwiches. The PHARA team worked seamlessly to ensure no one left without a full stomach. The labor crew included PHARA members Ron Badley, Al Donor, Doug Hardwick, Doug Le Patourel, Richard Paton, and Peter Robson—with all of us ending up covered in muck from lifting, sorting, and pressure washing the nets. Thanks to Ray Des Harnais who let us use his water and to Bonniebrook Industries for their donation of a portable toilet.
The idea for this cleanup initiative was born several years ago but could not proceed without approval from Fisheries and Oceans Canada and their associated paperwork, which required SeaWolf Diving to first survey the net sites, document their locations, and take photographs.Specific protocols dictated the use of commercial divers following all WorkSafe procedures and having all necessary insurance in place. Many thanks to Rob Alliston, owner of SeaWolf Diving, whose company volunteered its services for the ocean cleanup project. All paperwork went through the Ocean Legacy Foundation, which did an excellent job of managing the complex government documentation.
Your association is committed to improving the ocean ecosystem of the Pender Harbour area. This project demonstrates that residents are taking tangible steps to enhance the harbour environment. In addition to ocean cleanup efforts, PHARA is involved in other programs such as removing derelict vessels and cleaning up illegally dumped trash and vehicles from our backwoods. PHARA aims to continue backwoods and ocean cleanups on an ongoing basis. For more information, visit phara.ca, seawolfdiving.ca and oceanlegacy.ca.
Email from Nathan Cullen
and Reply from PHARA Board
Subject: Meeting with Ministers
February/20/2023
The Pender Harbour and Area Residents Association Welcomes
Six New Board Members at its 2024 Annual General Meeting
PHARA held its Annual General Meeting on February 20, 2024. Some 75 PHARA members were in
attendance via Zoom, a 50 percent increase over our 2022 AGM. The meeting was called to order at
5:05 pm.
President Peter Robson introduced new and departing Board members and thanked PHARA
members for their generous donations to our legal fund to fight the new DMP amendments/Section
7 and the proposed Land Act amendments. As most of our activities regarding the latter took place in
2024, it was decided that discussions on those issues would be held following the adjournment of
the AGM.
Sage Robson provided an update on membership, which had increased by about 50 since the
province and band released their draft amendments to the DMP. Many more joined in early 2024.
Total membership as of the AGM was 415. As many of those were families with a single membership,
we estimated the total number of member supporters at about 1,000.
The year-end financials were presented by Peter Robson.
Peter Robson provided his President’s Report; a recap of the activities of the Society in 2024.
Click here for the full report.
There was no new business.
This was followed by the Election of Directors. The following directors agreed to put their name
forward for the terms shown in brackets below:
Peter Robson (2024), Sage Robson (2026), Ron Badley (2026), Bill Charlton (2025), Eliza Kinley (2025),
Guy Halford-Thompson (2026), Sean McAllister (2026)
The following new nominees agreed to stand for election: Gita Masden, Kim Allinson and Amy Clarke
for terms of 1 year. A call for additional nominations from the floor was made three times. Dwayne
Dobson, Roxy Engle and Suzanne Yuile put their names forward for terms of 1 year.
President Peter Robson made a motion to acclaim Board of Directors as per above. All were
approved by consensus.
The meeting adjourned at 6:07 pm
December/4/2023
PHARA’s Townhall: A Resounding Success!
Approximately 150 community members—a full house—attended our October 22, 2023 Town Hall for an engaging 2.5 hours of information and updates and questions and concerns from the audience relating to issues taken on by the Pender Harbour and Area Residents Association (PHARA) on behalf of local residents.
The event started with information on who and what PHARA is and introductions to the nine current Board members: Kim Allinson, Ron Badley, Bill Charlton, vice-president Guy Halford-Thompson, Eliza Kinley, Sean McAllister, Sage Robson, president Peter Robson and treasurer John Verver. It was followed by an appeal for volunteers.
A number of reports by PHARA directors are included below.
Dock Management Plan
Note that the Town Hall DMP report was compiled prior to the announcement of the proposed new amendments.
Sean McAllister provided a history of the DMP and our efforts to date. Click here for the full report. While some progress has been made, we continue our efforts to insist on further changes in regard to the dock width issue, the light penetration issue and the establishment of zones. Click here for the full report.
Section 7
Guy Halford-Thompson provided us details of an upcoming agreement being forged between the shíshálh Nation and the Province taking place behind closed doors under the auspices of Section 7 of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. Right now, this is primarily a Pender Harbor issue but we believe we need to think beyond that, because what happens here, will set a precedent for all of British Columbia. It’s really important that residents are educated on what this means and its various implications. Click here for the full report.
Community Flower Gardens
Bill Charlton reported on an idea to maintain our Community Gardens adjacent to the Community Hall and Bargain Barn. Don Fraser was the moving force behind the gardens and funding the work out of his own pocket. Don is now retired and he wants to move back to the mainland. We need to come up with a solution to maintain these beautiful gardens. Click here for the full report.
Pender Harbor Community Wellness Project
About three years ago, a local concerned taxpayer, mentioned that he had funds available to make town improvements but he only did it on condition that we had a long-term plan for the town—10 or 20 years—of what the community could look like.
Maggy Spence, who just happened to be completing a Masters degree with UBC on a similar field as town planning, agreed to help with a vision and she has been working on this for nine months now to develop a Pender Harbor Community Wellness Project. Click here for her full report.
Paq Creek Project
PHARA is looking for partners for an exciting project to daylight a portion of Paq Creek that currently runs through a failing culvert underneath the Madeira Park Elementary School playing field. Click here for the full report.
Incorporation
We’re hearing from many members of the community suggesting we revisit incorporating some or all of Area A into a municipality. Click here for the full report.
Ocean Cleanup
The idea of cleaning up some of the underwater junk such as old fishing nets, batteries and such in Pender Harbour has been on our radar for a number of years now. Click here for the full report.
Parks and Trails
“Action on Garden Bay Pub”
Your PHARA board has been grappling for some time with how to approach the unsightly and dangerous burned-out remains of the Garden Bay Pub. We have been in touch with the province’s environmental authorities, who carried out an on-site inspection; Len Lee, Area A Director, is well aware of the problem and has explained to us that for the SCRD to step in and force the absentee owners to clean up the mess, it would require court action—a time-consuming and costly step that would take a long time to even get started.
PHARA has tried on its own to contact the pub’s owners, to no avail. As you can see from the attached documents, we appealed to the owner’s sense of community spirit and also suggested that leaving the debris untouched would result in more expense down the road.
We are again bringing this matter to the attention of the SCRD in the hope they can somehow force the cleanup of the site. We will keep our membership informed of any further developments. In the meantime, know that we will not let this issue drop.
Proposed Section 7 Agreement
On January 20, 2023, PHARA sent the following letter to its members, as well as to provincial and federal legislators, and to several media outlets:
RE: Proposed Section 7 agreement between B.C. government and shíshálh Nation
The shíshálh Nation and the Province of British Columbia have begun negotiations on the first joint decision-making agreement to be negotiated under Section 7 of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (Declaration Act).
The agreement, when negotiated, will apply to decisions on dock tenures in the shíshálh swiya (territory/birthplace/world) and builds upon the current model for making shared decisions on dock tenures created in 2018.
The Pender Harbour and Area Residents Association (PHARA) is reaching out to raise awareness of this new joint decision making process (effectively giving the shíshálh Nation a veto on authorizations), which is likely to be expanded to other authorization types in the future (for example forestry, mining, disposition of Crown land and resources, building permits, business licences, land titles and any other land use authorizations).
The following letter, sent to relevant government entities, asks how final decisions will be made, raising questions about the lack of important checks and balances that we expect to be in place for our elected governments, including accountability, transparency, oversight, complaint handling and dispute resolution.
Yours truly
Sean McAllister
Director, PHARA
For inquiries and questions, please contact board@phara.ca