About Tobi
In front of the cedar sided tiny house, which was built in 2018 as a prototype project with Tiny House Courses BC.
“Our communities must be the sources of their own strength politically, economically, intellectually and culturally in the struggle for human rights and human dignity. ”
Tobi Elliott is running for election in 2022 as a Trustee for Gabriola, Mudge and DeCourcy in the Islands Trust.
Tobi is a well-known, collaborative community-builder & innovative problem solver who is grateful to live, work and play on Snuneymuxw First Nation territory, Gabriola Island.
Career
Tobi worked in film and media, pursuing a career in documentary film before coming to Gabriola Island in 2012. She is currently working on her MA in Leadership Studies (Royal Roads University) collaborating with the Gabriola Historical and Museum Society’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee on an action research project involving local government and community groups: “Walking in Truth: Unsettling, Decolonizing and Learning Relational Ways of Being for Key Organizations on Gabriola Island”.
Previous enterprises include:
Business: Tiny House Courses B.C. (2016 – 2019). Organizing tiny home education courses in communities on Gabriola and Vancouver Islands, and around B.C.
Advocacy: she built a demonstration tiny house on wheels in 2018 with local carpenters and 12 students to explore an alternative form of housing.
Media Creator at LeftHand Media co-op (2014 – 2018), doing communications and outreach, video capture and editing, writing and copy-editing educational materials.
Community-based Activities:
Media and content coordinator for the Health and Wellness Collaborative’s “Gabriola Health Matters” public engagement (January 2022 - ongoing). https://www.gabriolahealthmatters.ca/about-the-team.
Project Coordinator, Media and Communications Manager for “Gabriola Housing Matters” public engagement (November 2020 - April 2021), in partial fulfillment of the Housing Options and Impacts review project (HOIRP). This project was the top priority for the Gabriola Local Trust Committee in their last term of office. Tobi chaired the Housing Advisory Planning Commission and developed the outreach strategy with a team of dedicated volunteers during the challenging first months of COVID. The GabriolaHousingMatters.ca website hosted information for the public to complete three surveys, and garnered approx. 350 qualitative responses for each survey around housing, environmental protection, and conservation considerations to development. The resulting findings and final report are available at GabriolaMatters.ca
Volunteer Service:
Volunteer hours are devoted to advocacy for diverse forms of housing, social wellbeing, and supporting reconciliation initiatives ongoing on the island.
Currently serving on the Gabriola Local Trust Committee’s Housing Advisory Planning Commission (HAPC) since 2020
Currently serving on the board of the Gabriola Island Land Stewards Society (GILSS) since 2021
Currently serving on the board of the Gabriola Co-op Development Network
Values
Tobi's passion is sourcing solutions from people in community so we can collaborate and balance housing and environmental needs in the Islands Trust Areas.
Everyone deserves respect, equality and to be included in their community’s decision making processes
Diversity in community is our strength
Collaborative approach to any work I do… because the only way to get anything done is through teamwork!
Film background
Tobi Elliott’s abundant curiosity has led her to document trappers in Canada’s far north, horsemen in Brazil, and the restoration of Canada’s oldest sailboat on Gabriola Island, where she has lived for 8 years. In addition to producing video shorts for businesses and non-profits, her TV/film credits include: production coordinator "Watchers of the North” (2009); associate producer “Granny Power” (2014), “Goodwin’s Way” (2017); cinematographer “Inhabited” (2021), and editor for the interactive documentary, "In the Name of Wild" (2021). Her foundation in Journalism (BA, 2010) and Leadership Studies (MA, 2021) ensure that her creative approach to storytelling remains grounded in community values.
Living by the ocean on Gabriola Island has given Tobi a new appreciation for British Columbia as a maritime province. BETWEEN WOOD AND WATER (est. release 2018), brings West Coast history to life as it follows the life and ultimate restoration of Canada’s oldest sailboat, Dorothy.
WILD HORSES / CAVALOS SELVAGENS (60 mins, 2016, Portuguese/English) follows a cross-cultural family in the making as a world-renowned natural horsewoman and her Canadian husband undertake the challenge to turn a wild group of orphan Brazilians into leaders – and sons.
Tobi associate produced for GRANNY POWER (2014), a feature documentary about the Raging Granny movement (directed by Jocelyne Clarke and the late Magnus Isacsson) and GOODWIN'S WAY, about a BC town's resistance to a coal-powered future 100 years after the killing of controversial local labour activist Ginger Goodwin. She also worked as production coordinator in Nunavut for the Watchers of the North series for Picture This Productions.
After graduating from Concordia University with a BA in Journalism in 2010, Tobi founded Blue Cyrus Media with Charlotte Gentis. Together they produced a short film Horses for Orphans - Brazil about a natural horsemanship program for troubled orphans in Brazil, which was broadcast on the cable channel RDF-TV in the U.S. in 2012.
Tobi was selected as a Bell Media Fellow to attend the Banff Media Festival in June 2013.