Email us at

info(at)londoncouncilofcanadians(dot)ca

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

ACTION ALERT! Participate in radio poll!

Please get the word out. AM980 is running a poll TODAY on whether the City should lift the ban on sales of bottled water at city facilities. http://www.am980.ca/
about half way down the right side of the page.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

London Bottled Water Ban Under Threat


From: maryanne.macd@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 16:51:48 -0500
Subject: Bottled Water on City Hall Community and Neighbourhoods Committee agenda for Tuesday February 15th
To: wastefreeworld@gmail.com


Nestle has written a letter that is included on the agenda of the Community and Neighbourhoods Committee Meeting on Tuesday February 15th. Please read it and write to your councillor to let them know your feelings on this. We have been through all of the rationale for this and the previous City Council voted in favour of banning the sale of bottled water in city owned facilities where there was access to safe, clean, municipal water. They didn't ban the bringing in of your own purchased bottled water. It is a question of City Council showing leadership. As pointed out in the letter from Nestle this not about quantity....yet they insist on pursuing it because they know it is about optics and the trend that London has set.

It was as a result of what was done in London that the Federation of Canadian Municipalities recommended that other municipalities take the same action. Thus far this has occurred in over 80 municipalities and numerous universities and colleges across Canada because it is the right thing to do. These cities and educational institutions recognize that water should be a basic human right not a commodity sold to the highest bidder. London has made a difference.

Go to the following link to see the resolution that the Federation of Canadian Municipalities adopted.

http://www.insidethebottle.org/files/FCM%20-%20Bottled%20Water%20Resolution.pdf


The bottled water item is slated to be on the agenda at 4:15 with Nestle presenting as a delegation. Anyone can attend these meetings and it would be showing the new C&N Committee that there is interest in the community about this topic if you were able to attend. You won't be allowed to speak.

http://council.london.ca/meetings/CNC%20Agendas/2011-02-15%20Agenda/Community%20and%20Neighnourhoods%20Committee%20Agenda.pdf

http://council.london.ca/meetings/CNC%20Agendas/2011-02-15%20Agenda/Item%2016.pdf

To learn more about water issues go to http://www.canadians.org/water/index.html
or to http://www.insidethebottle.org/

Please forward this e-mail to your own list of contacts.

Maryanne

Alone we are one drop....together we are a mighty river that can carve a new course to the future.

Welcome to the blog site of the London Chapter!

This blog site, formerly the blog site of the Victoria Chapter of the Council of Canadians, is now the blog site of the London Chapter. Previous blogs from the Victoria Chapter have been left in place as a courtesy.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Moving post

No, I'm not going to make you cry, but we have a new fledgling website which is ready to grow a bit, please check back to http://www.victoriacouncilofcanadians.ca.

Thanks, and peace.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Join us for a people's assembly for climate justice



  • Tired of the political system failing you repeatedly on climate change?
  • Done with Canada’s intransigence on climate change?
  • Upset with having your voice ignored while the voices of polluters destroying our planet get magnified?
  • Had it with yet another round of Climate Talks, this time in Cancun, lots of talk, hot air and no action?
  • Do you reduce, reuse, recycle, ride the bus, ride your bike, do you consider yourself part of the solution? Where do you think you can contribute next?

  • Are you eager to talk to like minded people about grassroots ground up action on climate change?

    An event co-organized by the Council of Canadians, Victoria Chapter, KAIROS, (and more)
    December 8th, Evening, 6:30 PM


    Join us for a world café style set of citizen discussions on climate change. Connect with your fellow citizens, get engaged in grassroots discussions, and talk about how to create change despite government, media and societal barriers. For more information, stay tuned to this blog, or use any of the following options! Hope to see you there.

    info@victoriacouncilofcanadians.ca http://victoriacouncilofcanadians.blogspot.com http://www.twitter.com/cocvic http://www.canadians.org/assemblies

    Tuesday, August 10, 2010

    Picnic for Public Education


    Picnic for Public Education



    Come and join us in support of a dialogue toward excellence in education

    Thursday, August 12 - 12:30 - 2:30 pm Legislature Lawn, Victoria BC Coast Salish Territory

    Welcome guest speaker Tulani Ackerman as she completes her cycling trip from Prince Rupert to Victoria in effort to encourage all people in BC to become involved in our public education dialogue.

    Sponsored by StEps for Students
    and co-sponsored by VPEC (Victoria Public Education Coalition)

    Bring your own picnic.

    Sunday, July 25, 2010

    Water Watch Coalition CALL TO ACTION



    YOUR ACTION WILL HELP

    The Provincial Government has said it will fund one-third of the cost of the CRD's sewage treatment system. They have given every indication that they will want more than one-third of the say in how the project is procured and governed.


    1) The Core Area Liquid Waste Management Committee is meeting this Wednesday, July 28th, in the Board Room at 625 Fisgard Street, 6th Floor, at 10:30 a.m. You could learn a lot about these issues at this meeting which you are free to attend. We urge you to promote the "Committee" model of governance as described in the report below:
    http://www.crd.bc.ca/reports/corearealiquidwastem_/2010_/07july28_/2010july14agendaitem/2010July14AgendaItem06EWW10-55ProjectGovernanceModelCAWTP.pdf
    The issues of governance and procurement are not necessarily separate. Please write to your Municipal representative on CALWMC (some addresses are listed below) stating your preference for the Committee model of governance and the Public model of procurement.

    2) You now have opportunity to greet the new Minister of Community and Rural Development through whose Ministry provincial funding will be channeled. Please refer to the attached brochure to see how you can get in touch with Minister Ben Stewart to let him know your feelings on this.

    denise.blackwell@shaw.ca
    council@saanich.ca
    jbrownof@telus.net
    vicderman@shaw.ca
    barb.desjardins@esquimalt.ca
    mayor@victoria.ca
    ghill@viewroyal.ca
    plucas@victoria.ca
    mayor@colwood.ca
    gyoung@victoria.ca

    Greater Victoria Water Watch Coalition


    Friday, July 23, 2010

    Lantern Ceremony

    Friday, August 6th 7:30 pm
    Hiroshima-Nagasaki remembered:

    The annual lantern ceremony, marking the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Japan
    Craigflower Park / Kosapsom
    at Admiral’s Road and Gorge Road West, Saanich

    Lantern making starts at 7:30 pm, with words and songs of peace at 8:00 pm, followed by floating the lanterns in the Gorge.

    All welcome.
    Free – (Bring a blanket &/or chair to sit on.)

    Sponsored by the Victoria Raging Grannies, Victoria Peace Coalition, Physicians for Global Survival, Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society. Council of Canadians Victoria chapter

    Call Rosa 250-665-7788

    Monday, June 14, 2010

    Issues of the Council of Canadians

    The document with this title, a link to which is given in the right hand column of this blog, will eventually need to be revised as the Council of Canadians changes direction with changing times. For now, it needs to be mentioned that two issues currently of great importance in the work of the Council of Canadians, particularly in Western Canada, are the tar sands and run-of-the-river projects. The tar sands development in Alberta and Saskatchewan is one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in history. It ties in with almost every active issue of the CoC. Run of the river hydro projects, prominent in BC, tie in mainly with trade, energy and water.

    Thursday, June 3, 2010

    Climate Change & G8/G20: Not Business as Usual


    Monday, June 14, 2010
    7:00pm - 9:30pm. Displays open at 6:30.
    St. John the Divine Anglican Church, 1611 Quadra St. Victoria BC

    Speakers: Francois Pihaatae (Pacific Conference of Churches),
    Tria Donaldson (youth representative to Copenhagen climate meetings),
    Harjap Grewal (Council of Canadians), local Indigenous leadership

    "By now, you may have read about ‘Climate Justice: Take Action for People and the Planet,’ a new development in the energy campaign. Myself, along with Maude Barlow and other Council political staff, were present at the UN Copenhagen climate negotiations last December and just last month at the climate conference in Cochabamba, Bolivia. These high-level climate talks have been key to advancing our climate justice work, including: building the international campaign against the tar sands, call the Canadian government accountable for failing to take meaningful action on climate change and ensuring energy security for Canadians, and contributing to real solutions to the climate crisis grounded in the principles of social justice and ecological sustainability.

    We are continuing to work with our chapters in Canada on these issues, including with this important and timely tour. The event is free and open to all – so bring along a friend and feel free to forward this invitation broadly!"

    If you can’t attend, take this opportunity to send the Harper government a message that climate action is needed by using our joint action alert with the Indigenous Environmental Network, Harper’s emission reduction is off target!, at: http://canadians.org/action/2010/emission-target-Jan-09.html
    Contact: Susan Draper, graceful@shaw.ca, 250-370-0121
    Sponsored by the Council of Canadians, KAIROS (Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives) and the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition (CYCC) on a cross-Canada tour for climate justice: Climate Change and the G8/G20: Not Business as Usual.

    Next Monthly Board Meeting

    Board Meeting: Wed. July 7, 2010, 7-9 pm Commons Room, 1246 Fairfield Rd.
    ***NOTE UNUSUAL LOCATION***
    All members of the Council of Canadians are welcome, as long as they are invited or approved ahead of time as attendees by the board. If you are not a board member, and you wish to attend, and/or if you have items you would like to have added to the agenda, please contact us at least a week in advance of the meeting.

    Monday, May 10, 2010

    Salmon Protest & March of May 8, 2010


    The migration event to Victoria was grassroots awesome. Thousands walked. And walking --they talked in ever changing kaleidoscopic migrating citizen knots pooling in back-eddies to surge across intersections 400 a time --unmarshalled.

    Schools of bright painted cardboard salmon on sticks jumping and twirling over the throng seething --dancing with salmon, the drumbeat, the music enjoining onlookers to feel the wild salmon imperative -our migration. Pied-pipered we follow not a street, not a direction but a calling, a need, a compelling attraction towards vitality, towards renewal.

    Through the canyon of downtown buildings, we feel a quickening intensify. The salmon inside me feels --destination, attracting, animating, joyfully moving me us blurring and like magnetized marionettes pulled towards not place, but purpose and exhilaration.

    Gathering in number, cascading, almost mindful bits of reminiscence, a place resolves itself to become a purpose and then to breathe-in, inspiration to become motivation to see and then to shout we are here --arrived to feed and nurture this place, so that it will remember us too as we remember it.

    We have a sense of useful selfless joy being in and with our noble kind. I, we are not supplicants at the legislature. We are mobile thoughtful food sharing its values and inspiration with all who eat of us. Are we not wild salmon migrating now? Are we not returning to our waters our land and our fellow beings with sustenance?

    More than four thousand* of us became the wisdom and voice, of wild salmon yesterday. If you hear this voice then you are too.


    Upstream,

    Michael Major
    -----------------------------------
    *Security at the Legislature estimated more than 5000.

    Tuesday, May 4, 2010

    Historical Background for the AGM on May 17, 2010


    As we head toward our panel discussion on “the poverty industry” at our AGM on May 17, we would do well to recall that the Council of Canadians was founded 25 years ago to counter the free trade, deep integration policies of the Reagan and Mulroney administrations.

    The crushing poverty and homelessness that we have today are the direct result of the rise of globalization and its underlying economic philosophy of "neoliberal" “trickle down” wealth. The idea is that by the rich accumulating huge fortunes from exploitation of those who are now referred to as the “working poor”, smaller amounts of this money will eventually infuse all of society with a healthy glow. This fundamentally flawed foundation of “neo-conservatism”, which has been parodied as “tinkle down economics”, simply results in an acceleration of what has always been true in capitalist economies: the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.


    This situation has now become so entrenched that even more progressive governments such as the Obama administration in the U.S. cannot escape its grasp, even though Obama campaigned on the promise of a “renegotiation” of NAFTA.


    The Council of Canadians will not rest until the wrongs of free trade and its resulting increase in poverty have been righted.

    Robert Cory

    Thursday, April 29, 2010

    Next Monthly Board Meeting

    Board Meeting: Tues. June 1, 2010, 7-9 pm Commons Room, 1246 Fairfield Rd.
    ***NOTE UNUSUAL LOCATION***
    All members of the Council of Canadians are welcome, as long as they are invited or approved ahead of time as attendees by the board. If you are not a board member, and you wish to attend, and/or if you have items you would like to have added to the agenda, please contact us at least a week in advance of the meeting.

    Call for New Board Members

    If you would like to become more active in the Council of Canadians in the Victoria area, we have openings on the Board of Directors. Let us know if you would like to put your name forward for possible nomination to the Board. The new board will be elected at the AGM on May 17. Contact us at:
    info(at)victoriacouncilofcanadians(dot)ca

    Wednesday, April 28, 2010

    Annual General Meeting/Potluck/Panel Discussion

    Victoria Chapter, Council of Canadians

    Annual General Meeting

    Monday, May 17, 2010

    BCGEU Bldg., 2994 Douglas St.

    5:45 p.m. Potluck Supper
    7:15 p.m. Panel Discussion
    8:30-9:30 p.m. AGM

    Free admission; open to the public; new members welcome

    Panel discussion:
    Jody Paterson, Moderator
    Exposing the Poverty Industry
    Are social services helpful? Solutions will be discussed.
    Panelists:
    Kym Hines, former frontline worker
    Carol Romanow, differently abled frontline worker
    Lise Wrigley, former frontline worker, active member, Committee to End Homelessness in Victoria

    info(at)victoriacouncilofcanadians(dot)ca

    Friday, April 23, 2010

    Board Member, Roberta Cory: Vic West Art Quest

    Roberta Cory is resigning from the Board of Directors of the Victoria Chapter after 4 years as the Membership Chair. She founded the Vic West Art Quest in 2007 and will now be spending more time working on her art. Her invitation to this year's Art Quest is provided below:

    Vic West artists are excited about their upcoming third annual artist’s studio tour, which is timed to coincide with the Vic West Fest! This year we have 17 artists participating.

    Vic West Art Quest

    Saturday, May 8 and Sunday, May 9, 2010
    1:00 to 5:00 p.m. each day

    Reception

    Friday, May 7, 2010
    7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

    Spiral Café and Hemp & Co.
    418/422 Craigflower Rd.

    We have two group shows this year. Hemp & Co. is currently showing our work for the months of April and May, and the Spiral Café will show our work for the month of May.

    All artist’s studios will have extra maps of the Quest for those who have not picked one up at one of many locations throughout Victoria. For additional information go to our website at http://vicwestartquest.com/

    Roberta Cory
    Vic West Art Quest


    Roberta Cory
    "Oak Bay Beach Hotel #6"
    39"h 23"w 4"d
    2010

    Greater Victoria Water Watch Coalition meeting


    GVWWC GENERAL MEETING

    Thursday, May 6, 2010

    7:30 to 9:30 pm
    James Bay New Horizons
    234 Menzies Street

    Guest Speaker:
    CRD Board Member, Philippe Lucas

    GET THE LATEST SCOOP !
    Find out what you can do to ensure that CRD sewage treatment is managed & operated on a not-for-profit basis & that sewage treatment is delivered as a PUBLIC SERVICE !

    (Coffee, tea, and cookies available.)

    Your core committee has been extremely busy on the privatization issue of late and, thanks to general membership support and community concern expressed in 4,081 petition signatures, has brought this issue to the forefront and won significant political gains on procurement of the proposed CRD sewage treatment facility.

    We need help. There are many water-related issues that need addressing, and fresh faces on the core committee would be an excellent means of dealing with them. We invite your participation in this meeting, your questions for Councillor Lucas, and your extended involvement in GVWWC programming and pursuits.

    Tuesday, April 20, 2010

    29th Annual Earth Walk


    Saturday, April 24, 2010
    Peace, Earth & Justice
    Meet at the Legislature at 12 noon.

    Begin walking to Centennial Square at 12:30 pm, arriving at about 1:15 pm for a concert, speeches and environmental fair.
    Speakers include Vicky Husband and Ross Crockford.
    The mc will be Colleen Eccleston.
    Music by Oliver Swain and Friends and the Ecclestons.
    Lots of organizations will have information tables.
    Information: SteveFilipovic@hotmail.com
    www.EarthWalkVictoria.ca

    Sunday, April 18, 2010

    MEGA-YACHT PROTEST


    RT @Denise Savoie: Victoria paddlers and residents came out in force today to protest mega-yacht marina proposal - http://denisesavoie.ndp.ca/node/1163

    There were something on the order of 200 protesters on land and 100 boats on the water! Very effective protest against corporate (developer) arrogance and disdain for democracy, destruction of a spectacularly beautiful harbour by the installation of a parking lot for the rich and their huge yachts blocking the view enjoyed by residents and tourists alike, the loss of recreational freedom of kayakers and other boaters to use the harbour, the loss of safety engendered by a far too congested harbour, and the environmental pollution of an already stressed waterway, to say nothing of the unconscionable use of fossil fuels to power gigantic toys for ridiculously wealthy overgrown boys! And all subsidized by the Campbell and Harper governments (our money), which are in power partly as a result of political donations from developers!