TOKE 'N' VOTE: CAMPAIGN GOES TO POT ON LASQUETI ISLAND

LASQUETI ISLAND -- Clouds of marijuana forming inside the Lasqueti Island
Whole Food Store have turned the air to velvet.

Surreal sounding rave music, the kind that makes the non-stop whooshing
sound of a huge waterfall, pours from a set of speakers strategically
placed on a shelf beside huge jars of hot peppers and organically grown herbs.

A man behind the till is smoking a fat joint. Drew Timoffee is about as far
removed from the federal election campaign as a person can get, but somehow
he's intimately tuned into the issues.

The 30-year-old businessman was served with an eviction notice earlier in
the day, signalling the end of his utopian dream of turning a health food
and general store into Lasqueti Island's cultural and munchie hang out.

But in true Lasqueti style, Timoffee invited a few of his friends and their
pets to a party instead of a wake.

``I don't think people have been able to understand the economic crisis on
the Gulf Islands,'' says Timoffee, who wears round glasses and keeps his
hair short.

``There's no economy here. The money leaves this island,'' he said. ``Even
the pot market has flattened out.''

Lasqueti Island, about 180 kilometres northeast of Victoria, is a place
where people who want to create their own world go to live.

The island's estimated 300 residents -- artists, hermits and
back-to-the-land enthusiasts -- form what may be one of Canada's most
free-spirited communities.

British Columbia's southern Gulf Islands enjoy reputations as
counter-culture retreats and pleasant tourist escapes, but none are as true
to their hippie roots as Lasqueti, where there are no power lines, shopping
malls, few roads and limited passenger-only ferry service to Vancouver Island.

``Everybody lives in the woods with a little garden,'' artist Ed Varney
said. ``Most of the people are fiercely independent and they like it like
that way.''

Politics is Lasqueti's lifeblood, but it's local issues, not federal, ones
that stir hot debates, he said.

The location of a loading ramp designed to accept supplies from the outside
world produced passionate discussions, Varney said. In the past, people on
Lasqueti have locked horns over free-range animal grazing, protection of
heritage tree stumps and wife swapping.

Varney, 57, ponders for several moments before deciding health care is a
federal issue that may concern Lasqueti residents.

But on a 68-square-kilometre island that has no doctor or hospital,
Lasqueti's residents have come up with an answer: ``They try not to get sick.''

Photographer Barry Churchill, who also provides Lasqueti's taxi service,
says he's never seen an election sign on the island and he's lived there
for 25 years.

``It'd be burned right away. It's rude.''

Lasqueti is part of the Nanaimo-Alberni riding where voters elected Reform
candidate Bill Gilmour in 1997. But the Lasqueti vote itself went New
Democrat, with the Green party second.

Bonnie Olesko says she's become more right-wing in her later years and
believes it's time for a change in Ottawa.

``I'd like to see the Liberals leave,'' says Olesko, 49.

``Being an old `60s hippie and stuff, it sounds funny and I should be
left-wing liberal, but I'm not anymore. I'd like to see things tightened up.''

The Oregon-born organic farmer says she has lived on Lasqueti on a
semi-permanent basis since she was 18 years old. Olesko and her first
husband, a Vietnam War draft dodger, left the United States and ended up on
Lasqueti living a homestead lifestyle.

She says she left Lasqueti for a dozen years during the 1980s to work in
the restaurant business in Victoria, but returned for good 10 years ago.

Olesko says she's most comfortable living in a wind-, water- and
solar-powered home.

``I like being off the grid,'' she says ``You become more sensitive to it
when you go to the city. Power lines all around you.

``If you looked at the world it would light up like a glow room. Lasqueti
doesn't light up like that. It's not on the grid.''

Sculptor Ted Salmon says he landed on Lasqueti Island 20 years ago and
never really left.

He doesn't like politicians and won't vote in the federal election.

``Wherever you go, they're there, irritating you,'' Salmon says. ``Them,
those guys. Those who go for control.

``Nobody speaks for me but me.''

Part-time postmistress Jay Rainey says she loves living on Lasqueti Island
because she can wear her pyjamas all day and nobody bats an eye.

``You can get away with a lot of stuff here that people would look funny at
on the other side. People are very creative here.''

Rainey, who misses rural Ontario's cold, snowy winters, says she's a
writer, but hasn't written much since arriving on Lasqueti eight years ago.

She said she's concerned about arts cutbacks in Canada and will support
candidates who support artists.

``For me personally, I couldn't stand the CBC being cut down anymore,''
Rainey says. ``That's the family in my (12-volt battery-powered) house.''

Just up the road from the tiny post office is a solar-powered bed and
breakfast with a warning sign nailed to the roof: ``No bras allowed on
Island.''

Varney, who admits there's a myth about marijuana cultivation on Lasqueti,
says he lost touch with the pot-growing community after spending 10 days in
B.C.'s legendary Oakalla prison for marijuana possession in 1971.

``I talked back to the judge,'' Varney says.

``He asked me why I had this substance in my possession. I said, `Do you
want to hear what you want to hear or do you want the truth?'

``He wanted the truth. So I gave him a diatribe.''

``He didn't want to hear that.''