List of Events for August-December 2011

More events will be added as soon as they become known to us.

http://londoncouncilofcanadians.ca/CoCLondonChapter2011ListofEventsAug-Dec.pdf

Ontario Health Coalition Provincial Tabloid

"Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Health Care and Taxes", a publication from the Ontario Health Coalition:

http://londoncouncilofcanadians.ca/OntarioHealthCoalitionProvincialTabloid.pdf

2011 Annual Chapter Bar-B-Q & Boog-a-Loo

For London Chapter members/affiliates and their families.

Sunday August 7, 2011
4:00 PM Social
6:00 PM Dinner
7:00 PM Campfire & Sing-a-long

Location and RSVP as per attached poster:

http://londoncouncilofcanadians.ca/2011CoCLondonChapterBBQ.pdf

International Day of Peace

Wed. Sept. 21, 2011, 7-9 p.m. Wolf Performance Hall, London Public Library, 251 Dundas St., London, Ontario

Come and meet James Loney, who will read from his recent book, Captivity: 118 Days in Iraq and the Struggle for a World without War. This is a powerful account of the remarkable peace activist kidnapped while leading a peace delegation and held for ransom by Iraqi insurgents until his paradoxical release by a crack unit of special forces commandos.

http://londoncouncilofcanadians.ca/JamesLoneyposter.pdf

Documentary Film: "Gasland"

7:30 p.m.
Tuesday August 9, 2011
Aeolian Hall
795 Dundas St. E (at Rectory)
London, Ontario

NOT TO BE MISSED! Fracking is coming to Ontario in the London area soon! You have been warned!

"The largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in history has swept across the United States. The Halliburton-developed drilling technology of "fracking" or hydraulic fracturing has unlocked a "Saudia Arabia of natural gas" just beneath us. But is fracking safe? When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. A recently drilled nearby Pennsylvania town reports that residents are able to light their drinking water on fire. This is just one of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called GASLAND. Part verite travelogue, part expose, part mystery, part bluegrass banjo meltdown, part showdown."

http://www.aeolianhall.ca/events/gasland

The case for a ban on gas fracking:
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/factsheet/the-case-for-a-ban-on-gas-fracking/

London Health Coalition Meeting

TODAY! 7-9 pm
Tuesday July 26, 2011
CAW Local 27 Hall
606 First St.
London, ON

Important meeting to forge a strategy for the upcoming provincial election.

Ontario Health Coalition calls for your participation!

www.votehealthontario.ca <http://www.votehealthontario.ca/>

This is your chance to help define the key health care issues this election

Every election health care polls as one of Ontarians' top priorities. So every political party pays lip service to health care. They all say they will fund it and improve it.

Unless we make it happen, the real issues in health care don't get much real debate.

For all of us who want to ensure that care is there, in our local communities, when we need it -- please help make your key issues in health care ones for which politicians have to make clear commitments leading into the provincial election in October. Take the Ontario Health Care Challenge!

More than 500 people have given their input over the last few weeks. This is a great start, but to make this a truly democratic and effective process we need to build this number to thousands!

It takes less than a minute. This is how we can make it happen, and this is how we can win!

Please go to www.votehealthontario.ca <http://www.votehealthontario.ca/>
Type in your key health care issues.

Radon threats are grounds for precaution.

Chemical Valley industries are arranging to use shale gas supplies that very likely could be contaminated with radon, given how these gas feedstocks are extracted through fracking — a technique that is used to retrieve gas from shale rock located very deep underground. Two Texas companies have agreed to send this shale gas from the northeastern United States to the Nova Chemical plant in Sarnia, and there is wider industry support for these imports of gas from fracking.

For the sake of the health and safety of the residents of Sarnia-Lambton — and others around the region — it is important that we apply the precautionary principle to this issue. We should assume that shale gas could come with radon contamination, if we cannot prove otherwise.

This gas is from shale that often contains significant quantities of uranium, as well as the products of its radioactive decay, including radium and radon, a colourless, odourless, and intensely radioactive gas. Because it is common in many rock formations throughout North America and elsewhere, radon is responsible for most of our daily exposure to damaging radiation. Radon gas that seeps up from subterranean rock formations often accumulates in basements — sometimes resulting in dangerous levels. Lung cancer caused by breathing radon contaminated air already is estimated to cause 25,000 deaths per year in the United States alone and is the second most frequent cause of lung cancer, after cigarette smoking.

It is very possible that gas from fracking frequently is radioactive, since radon could be mixed with shale gas, due to their occurrence in the same rocks. Radon is chemically inert, which means that even when radon-containing gas is burned, the radon portion emerges intact. When this radon is released into the atmosphere along with the carbon dioxide from burning the methane in the gas, the air around us would become polluted with radioactive gas. When shale gas is burned in an enclosed space (e.g. inside a building) the air inside could become radioactive if there are any leaks in the exhaust ductwork. Similarly, when shale gas is converted into other gases by petrochemical industries, those product gases might also be radioactive due to radon contamination.

The difficulty of studying the impacts of substances that already are used and produced in Chemical Valley should be clear, now that years of delays have held back regional health study plans. There is no independent and officially recognized study of any impacts from the known carcinogens, as well as endocrine disruptors, and numerous other dangerous substances, in and around the Sarnia-Lambton petrochemical facilities. Bringing shale gas that may be contaminated with radon into Chemical Valley would complicate these matters further.

Would there ever be any independent testing for radon contamination? How thorough would such tests be? Would the full results be disclosed to employees, and the general public?

We ask these questions because possible radon contamination is not being discussed by companies and organizations which are pursuing shale gas imports for Sarnia-Lambton, without addressing any pollution threats (during the recent Sarnia-Lambton Shale Gas Conference, for example — which was held to discuss and promote shale gas imports into Sarnia-Lambton).

We are focusing on threats from radon, but there are many health and environmental dangers associated with shale gas. Water contamination is the worst of the impacts around the sites which are fracked to retrieve this gas. Yet, there are plans for fracking in Ontario — beginning in south Lambton. Importing shale gas for petrochemical industries would stimulate further fracking in Ontario, and elsewhere. In the meantime, the worldwide movement to ban fracking is gaining momentum with the recent bans by France and New Jersey.

In view of the potential negative impacts on the health and well-being of our citizens, we will suggest that there should be a ban on fracking across Ontario.

There also should be an immediate moratorium on imports of shale gas to Ontario until tests for radon in the gas have been completed and publicized. If radon is found in shale gas, it would be one more good reason to ban fracking altogether.

Toban Black, Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology with Environment & Sustainability;
Robert Cory, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Chemistry

(An abbreviated version of this blog was published as a letter to the editor in The Observer, Sarnia, Ontario.)

Notes from the Toronto Water Forum

Elaine Rowe-Mahon, Secretary, London Chapter, Council of Canadians, attended this forum and took these notes:

Morning Speakers
Robert Fleming, Executive Director or Waterloo Watch
Mr. Fleming gave an account of the decision to end water Fluoridation in Waterloo.
Waterloo Watch an independent, not-for-profit organization of volunteers, professionals
and experts, responds to issues of concern in the community. Mr. Fleming, who has a
background in law enforcement, business and social activism undertook a review of the
available science wrt risks and benefits of water fluoridation, without prior bias. He
concluded there is insufficient evidence for, and mounting evidence against this
practise. A public referendum indicated, by a narrow margin, a wish to stop the practise,
municipal council upheld the referendum result. Pictures were shown of the flouridation
equipment and the simplicity of the process to, literally, turn off the tap - takes less than
a day to complete.
Some points that were made:
- science for is limited, and weak
- science against increases as time goes on
- the fluoride source is basically hazardous waste and includes trace contaminants
such as arsenic, lead, mercury and radionuclides. Although of low levels, these
accumulate in the body, toxicity results over a long period
- evidence states a lifetime of fluoridated water consumption results in prevention of <1
cavity per person
- contaminants in flouridated water are not required to be removed from waste water
- effects of waste water toxicity increased by exponential population growth
- RCDSO (? Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario) and Public Health pro
fluoride
- issue is related to bottled water issue (ʻbetterʼ tap water - less bottled water
consumption)
Canadians Opposed to Fluoridation
- new organization
- COF-COF.ca (website under construction)
Waste Water Management
Lino Grima, University of Toronto Lino.Grima@utoronto.ca
Professor (semi-retired, Centre for Environment, Geography and UTM) Grima has an
extensive C.V. including research and committee participation involving water related
matters of public importance. He gave a general account of the importance of waste
water management in the city of Toronto and some philosophical reflections after a
career devoted to issues in which slow progress has been made (emphasized the
importance of waste water management as a public health issue, importance of analysis
over emotion in process of effecting change)
- 2600 storm sewers empty directly into Lake Ontario
- 14 billion litres of sewer overflow annually
- explained with diagrams the problem of construction leading to sewer overflow and
engineering solutions
- recommended book by Peter Victor, Economist, York University “Managing Without
Growth: Slower by Design, Not Disaster” 2008
Karen Buck
Ms. Buck is head of Citizens for a Safe Environment and gave a detailed account of a
pilot project funded through Toronto Conservation Authority to divert downspout water.
The Residential Rainproofing Project was undertaken in Riverdale in association with
Mark Schollen & Co. This project identified key locations in areas with an identified
problem of combined sewer overflow. They approached homeowners of properties that
were appropriate and constructed water gardens designed to receive downspout
rainwater. These were carefully designed and constructed and also beautiful and
maintenance free. The project had lots of public support and won an award.
Noon Breakout Groups
1. CETA (Stuart Trew)
Areas of concern discussed: Green Energy Act, LCBO viability, Drug patent laws,
Agricultural issues (seed patents, food prices).
Questions of activism approach:
- who decides if water becomes a commodity
- how do we identify which organizations are at risk? How to mobilize?
- privacy of negotiation an affront to democracy. How to expose?
Points made
- provinces need to sign on to the deal individually and can opt out. Deal likely to
collapse if a number (?) of provinces do not ratify
Discussion related to Public/Private partnerships, municipal activism via councillor
communication, uniting left and interested parties with perhaps a trade forum/
convention, approaching MPPs, query legal challenge to federal government (have to
come from province), and federal need to pressure municipal, provincial governments.
2. COMMONS
Questions posed
1. Great Lakes reclamation. What initiatives to take?
2. How can Toronto join with other Lakes communities
3. Control of GL rests with people who live around them. How to control corporations?
Discussion summary:
- need to perceive things differently, adjusting personal and world view
- Action items: Kew Beach
- encourage reconnection with H2O physically, psychologically
- Water Walkers/cross-border connection
- stake holders - reach out to fishers, cottagers
3. WASTE WATER
Building a movement
“Do not accept dilution as a solution”
“Keep the rain out of the drain”
Look to Halifax, a model city that has turned around its sewage problem
NFB Documentary: Waterlife
AFTERNOON SPEAKERS
Robert Lovelace
Mr Lovelace spoke about the need to ʻre-indigenizeʼ the Commons from the perspective
of the Mishnabe people. He spoke of the processes of colonization and capitalization
as inter-related and drew a parallel between what has happened to his people
historically and what is happening today through global corporatization. Integral is the
previous view of indigenous life as inferior. A key element [in opposition] is the refusal
to commodify the natural world. Raised economic theories of John Locke:
domestication of human labour lead to exponential human growth (and a failure to
consider pollution). Now we are at the “Era of Cultures at the End of Time”
Indigenous attitude requires that we adjust our governance in association with our
ecosystems. [Complex map of indigenous languages at beginning of colonization used
to illustrate concept - didnʼt quite understand this]. Governance and social relations
largely inseparable in indigenous communities and closely related to ecosystems.
Environment determines culture:
- energy use
- food security
- population levels
- diplomacy and trade
- defensive laws and boundaries
- customary law
- balance and replenishment cycle
Philosophy is ʻonly expend [?consume] as much energy as is required to acquire items
of necessityʼ.
Water is not a renewable resource, it is a replenishment resource
While resisting colonial development, avoid becoming solely cultures of resistance.
Institute and practise customary laws at the local ecosystem level and meaningful
negotiation with macrosystems
Advise against appealing to government
Food security: local farming arganizations often have lots of info
Recommended reading: Tayaki Alfred, U. of Victoria: Peace, Power and Righteousness
Elaine MacDonald, EcoJustice (formerly Sierra Legal Defense Fund)
Ms MacDonald spoke of the National Sewage Report and the Great lakes Sewage
Report (best community Green Bay Michigan, B+; worst rated Detroit, D; London rated
C+)
Proposed Federal Regulation can be obtained in March 2010 issue Canada Gazette,
Part 1

July Newsletter

Click on Newsletter on our website.

Monthly Meeting: Tuesday July 12

Next meeting of the London Chapter of the CoC
Tuesday July 12, 2011
7:00-9:00 p.m.
Landon Branch, London Public Library (***NEW VENUE***)
167 Wortley Rd.

NOTE: This meeting is for the executive only, and the next one in August is for those members on the executive and committee chairs only. The rest of you will be welcome to attend our meeting in September. Anyone is welcome to submit agenda items for any meeting, including executive/chairs meetings in the summer.

Agenda: click here
Appendix to agenda: Resolution re Bank of Canada

Minutes of last meeting on June 14: click here
Appendix to minutes: Water

Our Facebook Group is now inactive.

Please like our Facebook Page:

http://facebook.com/londoncoc

Bar Codes: Know Where Your Products and Food Come From

http://www.wikihow.com/Read-12-Digit-UPC-Barcodes

http://www.gs1ca.org/page.asp?LSM=0&intNodeID=82&intPageID=347

http://www.gs1ca.org/files/std_BarCodingBasicsforShippingContainers_en.pdf

http://www.gs1ca.org/files/std_BarCodingforDesignersPrintersPackagers_en.pdf

Bar Code first 3 digits:

690-692 MADE IN CHINA
00 - 09 USA & CANADA
30 – 37 FRANCE
40 – 44 GERMANY
471 Taiwan
49 JAPAN
50 UK

BUY USA & CANADIAN MADE by watching for "0" at the beginning of the number.

Remember that distributor country may be different from where the product was made.

From Don McLeod

Notice of our AGM; New members welcome!

Hello Everyone!

The end of June sees another calendar year tick by for the Council of Canadians. 26 years of advocating for the rights and needs of all Canadians!

Having worked on our Chapter History over the past year, we too passed a significant milestone of 11 years. We are still waiting for more feedback to complete our Chapter's history. If you have any key dates, event stories, people/places or photos we would appreciate hearing from you.

An upcoming important date to mark on your calendars is Monday November 14, 2011 when the London Chapter will be hosting our Annual General Meeting to celebrate the successes of the past 11 years. Our keynote speaker for our AGM is Glen Pearson, Executive Director of the London Food Bank widely known as the Liberal MP for London North Centre who gave Parliament a vibrant example of decency and honesty in politics.

Our London Chapter will be taking to the streets this summer in support of Car Free Weekends in Downtown London. Look for us under the blue canopy of our new London Chapter exhibit display tent.

June is "sign up a new member month" Please ask us for a Membership application form through email at: info@londoncouncilofcanadians.ca or sign up on the Council of Canadians web site: www.canadians.org Please make sure that you fill in the London Chapter as your home Chapter. We need your support to help give Canadians a voice on important issues.

Let's get all 1800 members that are affiliated with our London Chapter out to events in the coming year!

See you on Dundas Street this summer - starting June 18/19!!

Don McLeod

London Chapter

Council of Canadians

Monthly Meeting: Tuesday June 14

Next meeting of the London Chapter of the CoC
Tuesday June 14, 2011
7:00-9:00 p.m.
Carson Branch, London Public Library
465 Quebec St. (at Dufferin)

Agenda: click here

Minutes of last meeting on May 10: click here

Save Public Medicare!

Open Letter

May 31, 2011

Premier Dalton McGuinty

Room 281, Main Legislative Building, Queen's Park

Toronto, Ontario M7A 1A1

By email: dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Dear Premier,

We are writing to express our deep concern about the “Commission on Broader Public Service Reform” announced in the provincial budget in April. According to the initial announcement, the Commission has been struck to review all of Ontario’s public services. Our concerns are threefold:

• The mandate of the Commission and the ideas for public sector reform as outlined in the 2011 Provincial Budget reflect a pro-privatization and pro-marketization ideology that is not based on evidence. Some of the privatization measures proposed in the budget have an indisputable track-record in England and in other countries, where privatizing public services to profit-seeking corporations has driven up costs, fostered inequity and reduced quality. This ideology is incompatible with both the stated goal of sustainability and with public values.
• Don Drummond, who has been named to lead the Commission, has made repeated public statements in support of privatizing our public not-for-profit health care institutions and services. These statements are in direct contradiction to both your government’s promise to safeguard public/non-profit health care in Ontario and the stated parameters of the Commission as outlined in the Budget Speech by your Finance Minister.
• Don Drummond comes from TD Economics and we believe that his appointment to review the entire public service to determine what services are to be privatized puts him in a conflict of interest. TD Economics is part of the TD Bank Financial Group. TD Bank and TD Securities Inc. are investors in the Niagara privatized P3 hospital. TD Insurance sells private health insurance.

Premier McGuinty, this Commission should be disbanded. If your government is seeking ideas for improving public services and reducing waste, such a project must thoughtful and balanced. Principles that reflect the values and priorities of Ontarians should guide the process and frame the options considered. These principles should include cornerstone public values of equity and accessibility. The leader of the Commission should be seen to embody these values, not to act as a pundit for the private interests of Ontario’s financial and insurance sectors. In fact, Don Drummond actually argued against principles of accessibility, universality and equity in his paper on health care commissioned by the Ministry of Health released last autumn.

Furthermore, any process to generate ideas and recommendations for reform should be democratic and engage the expertise and experiences of citizens and public servants. So-called evidence on international experiments with public sector reform should be subject to open discussion to test the validity of the claims. The issues at stake are serious and the public assets at threat of privatization are significant. These decisions about the future ownership and control could be difficult if not impossible to reverse. They should not be entrusted to a biased process.

Your government ran two elections with protecting public non-profit health care as a central campaign promise. In his Budget Speech, Finance Minister Dwight Duncan stated that the Commission would not recommend privatization of health care and education. Yet Mr. Drummond continues to use the platform afforded to him by your government’s appointment to repeatedly promote the privatization of health care delivery.

In a Globe and Mail interview published shortly after the budget was released, Don Drummond is quoted as stating that despite the restrictions announced by the Finance Minister, his was willing, to look at “almost anything”, including health care and education:

“While it is clear that politicians and citizens want a single public payer for health care –

in other words, a publicly funded system – “people are much less troubled right now by

private-sector delivery,” he said.”

Lest you believe that this is simply an objective observation, in a Toronto Star Opinion Piece in February, Drummond made this same assertion about health care privatization and called it “good news”. He reiterated this pro-privatization rhetoric in recent speeches at Queen’s University and in Ottawa. All this, despite evidence that profit-driven clinics have engaged in promoting user fees and extra billing of patients, undermining single-tier Medicare and violating the Canada Health Act.

In fact, Mr. Drummond co-wrote the TD Economics’ report on health care commissioned by the Ministry of Health last year, in which the authors recommended that your government “throw the door open” to the privatization of health care delivery systems and experimentation with two‐tier health care (see pages 8,9,20 and 23).

In fact, Mr. Drummond and his co-authors criticized the Romanow Commission for putting access to health care at the centre of their study on the future of health care in Canada. Mr. Drummond’s report was ideological and rife with inaccuracies and contradictions. A number of recommendations were made without any supporting evidence whatsoever. We have provided you with our analysis of that report last fall and we enclose it here again. (a link is here: http://www.web.net/~ohc/healthspendingreportsep2010.pdf )

Premier, it is not acceptable for a figure promoted to a prestigious position by your government to repeatedly use over-the-top crisis rhetoric (health care is a “Pac Man” eating the provincial budget) that is false (if anything is “eating the provincial budget” it is tax cuts, not health care) and propound privatization. All this while your government claims at the same time to support public health care. In light of his appointment, are we to treat Mr. Drummond’s public comments as a change in your government’s stated policies?

Premier, we are asking that you release the Mandate and Terms of Reference for this Commission. Further, we request information as soon as possible on how organizations such as ours will be consulted and what the projected timelines for the Commission’s work will be. Finally, we request the names of individuals and organizations that Don Drummond and any of the Commission staff meet with, along with copies of any submissions received by the Commission. At the very minimum, the activities of the Commission should be on the public record with robust opportunity for public scrutiny.

Regards,

Natalie Mehra

Director

--
Ontario Health Coalition
15 Gervais Drive, Suite 305
Toronto, ON M3C 1Y8
www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca
416-441-2502