Sonia Furstenau’s political journey began with a very local, very human question - how do you protect the water your community depends on when the system says “it’s fine”? In Shawnigan Lake, she watched a provincial permit allow a contaminated-soil landfill uphill from the community’s drinking-water source, part of a plan that opponents said could bring up to 100,000 tonnes a year into the watershed.
Sonia helped organize her neighbours into sustained, public pressure - rallies, relentless advocacy, and a hard-fought legal campaign that cost the community and regional district more than $2 million.
Under mounting citizen and court pressure, the environment minister suspended the permit in early 2017 and later cancelled it, an outcome many residents saw as proof that persistence can force accountability.
That fight pushed Furstenau from advocate to elected leader: she won a seat as a Cowichan Valley Regional District director and then ran for MLA so she could keep working on watershed protection and the bigger democratic principle at the heart of the campaign.
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