CINEMA POLITICA LONDON REVIVED! TODAY!

Cinema Politica London is happy to be back under new management after a two year hiatus! It is now being run by the Solidarity Film Coalition, a committee of the London Chapter of the Council of Canadians. Co-sponsors include L.A.C.A.S.A. (Latin American Canadian Solidarity Association), the London Public Library, and Seeds of Hope. Our kick-off film is, appropriately, "We Are Wisconsin", a rousing cheer leading inspiration to action for grassroots movements! It is guaranteed to knock your socks off! 

TODAY! Monday Sept. 8, 2014 at 7 pm in Stevenson & Hunt Room, London Public Library, 251 Dundas St.

All of our showings are free of charge, but we do welcome donations any time.

http://www.cinemapolitica.org/london

World Water Day Forum

Saturday March 23rd World Water Day event-
9:00AM to 3:00PM in the Stevenson and Hunt Room of the Central Library
Speakers include:
The CoC's own Louise Hollingsworth
Barry Orr - City of London
Maryanne MacDonald - Waste Free World
City of London spokesperson for the Urban Watershed
Steve Sauder of the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority
Dr Slobodan Simonovic - Chair of Engineering Institute of Catastrophic Loss Reduction

FREE OF CHARGE (donations welcome)


World Water Day Event Media Release 

The London Chapter of the Council of Canadians welcomes all to our World Water Day event, held on Saturday March 23rd – In the Stevenson and Hunt Room of the Central London Public Library from 9:00AM to 3:00PM.
Speakers Include:
The Council’s own Louise Hollingsworth – Speaking about The Water Cycle and how it affects vegetation. She will also be providing information on ReForest London.
The City of London’s Planning, Environmental and Engineering Services for Wastewater Treatment Operations ‘ Barry Orr – Providing a great audio/visual display about what Londoners are putting down their drains.
Maryanne MacDonald from Waste Free World – Discussing why we need to turn away from bottled water.
From the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority, Steve Sauder – Talking about the health of the Thames River Watershed and about the Authority’s efforts to maintain the health of the Watershed.
Ending the day with Dr. Slobodan Simonovic, the Chair of Engineering for the Institute of Catastrophic Loss Prevention - From Water Conflict to Water Cooperation - A Systems Approach. How to solve conflicts resulting from the sharing of water between different stakeholders.
His talk will be a very topical discussion considering the current condition of our Great Lakes.

****
For more information please contact:
Rod Morley
rmorley1@sympatico.ca
519 872-0008

Linda McQuaig: The Trouble With Billionaires

Poster: click here.

Citizens' Inquest and the London Chapter of the Council of Canadians is proud to present Linda McQuaig speaking on, “The Trouble with Billionaires: Gluttony and Hubris in an Age of Epic Inequality,” at the Wolf Auditorium, London Central Library on Thursday April 5, 2012 at 7:00 pm. Doors open at 6:30 pm. Please mark your calenders. Linda McQuaig will also be speaking at the Vitali Student Lounge, Wemple Building, King's University College, 266 Epworth Ave., London on Thursday April 5, 2012 at 1:30 pm until 3:30 pm. Linda McQuaig well-known journalist and co-author of The Trouble with Billionaires. She will talk about how today’s extreme concentration of wealth at the top threatens the well-being of the 99 percent, and undermines our very democracy. Copies of her books will be available for purchase. Please forward to your friends and post on web sites and to your lists. Phone #: Contact Ed Corrigan Law Office 519-439-4015 Biographical Information on Linda McQuaig: Journalist and best-selling author Linda McQuaig has developed a reputation for challenging the establishment. As a reporter for The Globe and Mail, she won a National Newspaper Award in 1989 for writing a series of articles which sparked a public inquiry into the activities of Ontario political lobbyist Patti Starr, and eventually led to Starr's imprisonment. And as a Senior Writer for Maclean's magazine, McQuaig (and Ian Austen) wrote two cover stories probing the questionable business dealings of Conrad Black in connection with a U.S. takeover bid in the early 1980s. An irate Black suggested on CBC radio that McQuaig should be horsewhipped. In 1991, she was awarded an Atkinson Fellowship for Journalism in Public Policy to study the social welfare systems in Europe and North America.Since 2002, McQuaig has written an op-ed column for the Toronto Star. She is author of eight books on politics and economics – all national bestsellers – including Shooting the Hippo (short-listed for the Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction), The Cult of Impotence, All You Can Eat, It's the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil and the Fight for the Planet, and Holding the Bully's Coat: Canada and the U.S. Empire. Her most recent book, co-authored with Neil Brooks, is The Trouble With Billionaires. Here is Linda McQuaig's recent article published by the Toronto Star on the London Electro-Motive locomotive, owned by US Multinational, Caterpillar, lock out in London, Ont. http://www.thestar.com/​opinion/editorialopinion/​article/​1116562--ottawa-favours-for​eign-businesses-over-canad​ian-employees Ottawa favours foreign businesses over Canadian employees Published On Mon Jan 16 2012 Locked-out workers at the Electro-Motive facility in London, Ont. U.S.-owned Caterpillar, Electro-Motive's parent company, wants to cut wages in half. Locked-out workers at the Electro-Motive facility in London, Ont. U.S.-owned Caterpillar, Electro-Motive's parent company, wants to cut wages in half. DAVE CHIDLEY/THE CANADIAN PRESS Image By Linda McQuaig Columnist Hundreds of shivering factory workers locked out of their plant by manufacturing giant Caterpillar in London, Ont., might well draw some warm comfort from — of all things — the sayings of Newt Gingrich. Of course, the conservative Republican presidential contender is no friend of labour or social justice; he recently proposed that poor children be schooled in the ways of free enterprise by being hired to clean school washrooms. Nonetheless, Gingrich, one of the stars of the Republican freak show, is desperate to defeat front-runner Mitt Romney. With the mitts off, Gingrich is denouncing Romney’s background as a Wall Street corporate raider, accusing him of practising a form of capitalism where “you basically take out all the money, leaving behind the workers.” The multi-millionaire Romney showed his empathy for working people by noting, in a discussion about private health care, that “I like being able to fire people who provide services” and insisting that comments about the rich having too much money should be confined to “quiet rooms.” All this has unleashed an unexpected and fierce debate about the brutality of unbridled capitalism — a debate the Republican establishment is scrambling to sweep back into the quiet rooms as quickly as possible. Here in Canada, Stephen Harper has tried to head off a similar debate, dismissing the relevance of Occupy Wall Street on the grounds that “we have a very different situation here than the United States.” In fact, under the Harper government, the slightly milder Canadian version of capitalism is rapidly giving way to a more virulent U.S.-style variant, with even greater wealth concentration and fewer protections for working people. Indeed, Gingrich’s depiction of a capitalism where “you basically take out all the money, leaving behind the workers” seems like a perfect description of what’s going on in London, where the highly profitable U.S.-owned Caterpillar is demanding its Canadian workforce accept a 50-per-cent wage cut. When the workers declined this take-it-or-leave-it offer, they were locked out on New Year’s Eve. If this isn’t ruthless, heartless capitalism — enough to make even Newt’s blood boil — it’s hard to imagine what is. Yet, as the 500 London workers have bundled up in the cold, the Harper government refuses to get involved, sitting silently on the sidelines as Caterpillar brings its notorious anti-union fervour to Canada. In fact, the Harper government is involved, having played a key role in bringing about this disaster for the London workers by approving the sale of the company, Electro-Motive Diesel, to foreign-owned Caterpillar in 2010, after supposedly investigating whether the deal was in Canada’s interests. The Canadian Auto Workers, which represents the locked out workers, believes Caterpillar purchased the plant with the intention of gaining technology and market share and then moving operations south. The Harper government also approved a foreign takeover by another notorious union-busting company, mining giant Rio Tinto, which has now locked out 800 workers in Alma, Que. The Canadian Labour Congress is demanding that Ottawa strengthen its foreign takeover laws to make the secretive review process more open, with public hearings in affected communities and publication of the conditions imposed — if any — on foreign owners. Ironically, the Harper government has complained forcefully about “foreign” interference from outside environmentalists protesting a proposed pipeline across the Rockies. But when it comes to foreign companies stripping Canadian workers of half their wages and then moving operations out of the country, the government hasn’t a negative word to say. Harper is of course staunchly pro-capitalist, and has aggressively lowered corporate tax rates, while refusing to link lower taxes to investment or job creation. But his anti-union stance, evident in disputes at Air Canada and the post office last summer, has been particularly provocative. He seems determined to turn Canada into an anti-union paradise — prompting the Ontario Federation of Labour to call for a mass rally at the Caterpillar plant in London this Saturday. As the PM gears up for his coming battle against federal public sector unions, he will no doubt draw inspiration from Mitt Romney’s stirring words: “I like to be able to fire people who provide services.”

OCCUPY UWO: A Symposium (details)

Speakers, Song, Art, Ideas

Live stream: click here.

OCCUPY UWO: Our Communities Are Not For Sale 2

Local Impacts. Local Outreach. Local Solutions.
Featuring: Mary Lou Smoke, MP Irene Mathyssen, Gina Barber, Dr. Linda Wayne, Occupy London, London Labour Movement,
Justice Folk music by Jill Smith, Erynne Gilpin, Margo Does
Art Intervention by Jeremy Jeresky

Where: Room 105, Labatt Hall, King's College, UWO
When: Thursday, March 1st
Time: 7 pm event followed by reception
Cost: Free

A free & fabulous reception to follow

Sponsored by The Social Justice Peace Club & stopCETA -- a committee of The Council of Canadians -- London Chapter

Occupy UWO is the second in a series of symposiums that aims to open public discussion on CETA – a trade contract that is threatening to put the MUSH sector, Municipalities, Universities, Schools and Hospitals up for contract to European corporations. Following the first symposium featuring internationally acclaimed Canadian Maude Barlow, the second will include First Nations leaders Mary Lou and Dan Smoke, MP Irene Mathyssen, former City Councillor Gina Barber, local independent business activist Dr. Linda Wayne, as well as representatives of regional unions and London’s chapter of the global Occupy movement. Sponsored by King’s College Social Justice & Peace Club, participants will be invited to connect the dots between Canada’s turn toward CETA, loss of full-time jobs and benefits, and the Occupy Movement. These are politics that impact the quality of life of students, faculty and other members of Western.

Kept from the press, Canada is in the final stages of negotiating the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement with the European Union. More potent than NAFTA, for the first time municipal government will be forced to adhere to trade law and respond to corporate lawsuits. Far beyond a trade agreement, CETA is the impetus for long-term restructuring of Canada through the sale of public infrastructure to foreign corporations. Essential service rates are certain to rise including an estimated two billion dollar per year increase for drug costs out of Canadians’ pockets. If signed, CETA will threaten Canada’s municipal economies, public service jobs, buy local movements, and more. This long-term trade contract will set new policy that will limit London’s economic choices. A growing national movement is responding with thirty-five municipalities and school boards already having passed resolutions to protect them from CETA. A similar resolution will be discussed by the legislature of Manitoba for protection of the whole province.

OCCUPY UWO press release

PRESS RELEASE
Occupy UWO: Our Communities Are Not For Sale!
For Immediate Release 2012-02-24
Although many don’t know it yet, Canada is in the final stages of negotiating a trade agreement with the European Union that is much more powerful than NAFTA. Known as CETA, the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement, will be putting things on the table that are not normally considered trade items such as drinking water and the entire MUSH sector – Municipal services, Universities, Schools and Healthcare. More than just a trade agreement, CETA is the impetus for long-term restructuring through the sale of Canadian public infrastructure to foreign corporations. Costs of essential services are certain to rise including an estimated two billion dollar increase for drugs per year. If signed, CETA will threaten Canada’s municipal economies, public service jobs, environment, buy local movements, and more. This long-term trade contract will set new policy for Canadian cities including London that will limit our economic options. A growing national movement is responding with thirty-five municipalities and school boards already having passed resolutions to protect them from CETA. A similar resolution will be discussed by the legislature of Manitoba for protection of the whole province. Occupy UWO is the second in a series of London symposiums that aim to open public discussion on CETA. Following the first successful symposium featuring internationally acclaimed Canadian activist Maude Barlow, the second will include First Nations leaders Mary Lou and Dan Smoke, MP Irene Mathyssen, former City Councillor Gina Barber, local business owner Dr. Linda Wayne, as well as representatives of local unions and London’s chapter of the global Occupy movement. Sponsored by the London Chapter of The Council of Canadians and King’s College Social Justice and Peace Club, participants will connect the dots between Canada’s turn toward CETA, loss of jobs, and the Occupy Movement. Politics that will impact all of our day to day lives, you are invited to get informed at this evening of speeches, discussion and the arts. Occupy UWO takes place on Thursday, March 1, 2012, 7 pm, at Labatt Hall, King’s College, The University of Western Ontario. The event is free with a reception following.
#### For more information contact:
Rod Morley
stopCETA committee of The Council of Canadians – London Chapter
519 872-0008 or rmorley1@sympatico.ca

OCCUPY UWO: A Symposium

From Occupy UWO

Solidarity Rally Saturday January 21, 2012

Our London Chapter will be out in great force on Saturday to support the Electro Motive workers & CAW in solidarity to achieve fair wage and benefits. Please schedule this event on your calendars!

London Chapter Members will be meeting with other Council of Canadians Chapters that will be attending this rally. Hamilton is confirmed with 6-8 members coming. Please give them a warm London Chapter welcome!

Please meet around 10:30am at the William Cafe Pub on Richmond Street at Central. From there we will march as a group to the Victoria band shell nearby at 10:45am for the 11am start of the rally. (grab a coffee/tea before we go!). I will have the COC Occupy banner. If you have yellow jackets/outerwear it will help us stand out as a group.

The rally will assemble for speeches at Victoria Park at 11am then head to the Electro Motive plant on Oxford Street.

There are 70 buses coming in from out of town plus local unions, organizations and supporting citizens numbering possibly around 10,000!

It would be a good idea to review all the materials noted in our January newsletter so that you are familiar with Electro Motive's December 27 Final Offer and the efforts that the CAW has made, starting in 2010, to have the Government complete due diligence on the foreign ownership of the plant and to negotiate fair wages and benefits for the workers.

Other groups meeting:

Green Party - SE Corner Victoria Park - near cenotaph

Occupy London - Reg Cooper Square - north side of City Hall

See you then!

Yours from the Chapter,

Don

Parking Outdoor: Available at street meters and downtown outdoor self serve parking lots - check hourly rate as the one across from the Courthouse (Talbot & Queens) is expensive.
Central Secondarys School lot - might be free if the school is not using it for a fundrasier - then $5 - located on Dufferin Street - east of Wellington Street
Convention Centre - off York Street (south side) - east of Wellington Street
Horton Street & Ridout Street - City lot - self serve - a bit of a walk to Victoria Park - 8 blocks - but it is large - good for buses after drop offs

Indoor parking lots.
Central library underground lot off of King Street (north side) east of Clarence is good for 2 hours free with library card & parking card stamped.
Citi Plaza - enter off of York Street or Clarence Street - west of Wellington Street
Dufferin Street - west of Richmond - two - one on the north side and one of the south side.
Convention Centre - off of York Street (north side) - east of Wellington Street

Use mapquest to locate.

Monthly Meeting: Tuesday January 10, 2012

Next open meeting of the London Chapter of the CoC

7:00-9:00 p.m.
Tuesday January 10, 2012
Carson Branch, London Public Library
Queens at Dufferin

Special presentation:
Jeff Fitchett
"Canada's Ethical Oil Fallacy -- The Alberta Tar Sands"

Minutes of last open meeting on October 11, 2011: click here.

Minutes of open meeting on September 13, 2011: click here.

CETApus Diorama Comes to London!

CETApus diorama Dec 22 2011

Stop CETA Action Planning Meeting

Greetings Folks,

This week's meeting is on Wed. Nov. 16th at 7 pm at the East Village Cafe

(785 Dundas St. just west of Aeolian Hall).

We will mainly be working in small groups on a number of actions.

Action One: A Canada Post CETA video

Play a 30 second role in the video teaching how CETA will affect our day to day lives.

For anyone who wants to take part in a video of a cast of many, each person will read a question about CETA demonstrating its daily effect on our lives. Participation involves choosing one of the scripted questions or if you are so inclined, coming up with your own that demonstrates its dangers and saying it on camera. See attached starter script "A Canada Post CETA". We will add two details of first name and title: For example, Sarah: School Teacher or Thomas: Farmer or Rene: Gardener.

Action Two: Make a Date with Your Favourite Canadian: Writing to Canadian Celebrities and People in the Media to let them know about CETA and its far reaching effects on Canadian culture and society.

Action Three: Spreading the Word about our biggest local awareness campaign, Maude Barlow's CETA talk at Wolf Performance Hall on the 1st of Dec.

Action Four: Contacting the CBC. Crafting and sending emails and calls to the CBC.

Action Five: AVAAZ blitz. This super-powered justice provoking, human right violation take-down organization founded by some Ontarions, needs to hear us say how bad CETA will be.

There will be other actions if folks bring an idea they want to do.

If you have one, it may be useful to bring your laptop. The Cafe has wireless.

Hope to see you out Wednesday! If you can;t make the meeting, take one of these actions on your own and let us know. Also, we will continue filming up until the Barlow event at which we will first show the video.

Sincerely,

The Protect the Commons from CETA team

stopceta@gmail.com

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Proposed script for video:

"A Canada Post CETA"

Do you want to a mega corporation from Europe in charge of the quality standards of our drinking water?

Do you want our kids to go to school at a place where the agenda is shaped by corporate interests and hiring of some of the staff is done by multinational corporations?

Do you like being able to call up your local contractor to build stuff for you? You get to talk to them, tell them exactly what you want?

Do you want to pay for each hospital visit you or your family has – for a cast, for surgery, for child birth?

Do you want to pay much more for drug costs – up to 2 billion more country wide a year?

Do you think every child should have access to medicine and the hospital when they need it?

Do you want a multinational corporation in charge of Canada’s mail?

Do you want our last strong Canadian news source, the CBC, to be sold in part or whole out from under us?

Do you want the CBC radio to be downsized and the standards of Canadian content lowered putting at risk some of our most important news sources from The Current to Q?

Do you enjoying watching some favourite Canadian TV from the Ricker Mercer report to Dragon’s Den and would you like to see more?

Do you want our farmers to go further into debt and more and more be bought out by growers thousands of kilometres away?

Do you want more of our food industries to close down from breweries to mills?

Do you want more of our companies to close factory and head somewhere else from clothing to cars?

Do you want to the cost of food to rise higher?

Do you want to proliferate our gmo foods around the world further with no labels and no long-term testing?

Do you want corporations to be able to sew our municipalities for enacting bylaws to protect us and our environment?

Do you want the Tar Sands further entrenched?

Do you want city services such as waste water and garbage disposal to be owned and controlled not by government but by non-Canadian corporations?

Does all this sound like madness?

If you said yes to any of these things, CETA matters to you. All of these are possibilities when the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement is enacted. It was called Comprehensive by Stephen Harper for a reason. It is the most far-reaching document ever written to shape the way our country works besides the constitution. Stephen Harper wants to close the deal as early in 2012 as he can.

Get informed at www.tradejustice.ca and www.canadians.org . Tell everyone you think should know. Have your city council pass a resolution to exempt your municipality from CETA as many have done.

Brought to you by a collective of concerned Canadians at stopceta@gmail.com in cahoots with the Council of Canadians.

Monthly Meeting: Tuesday November 8, 2011

Next open meeting of the London Chapter of the CoC

Tuesday November 8, 2011
6:00-9:00 p.m.
VICTORIA PARK!!!

Agenda: Stay tuned

Minutes of last open meeting on October 11, 2011: click here.

Minutes of open meeting on September 13, 2011: click here.

Videos: CETApus in the Oakland Solidarity March

Slide Show: CETApus in Oakland Solidarity March

CETApus in Oakland Solidarity March on Nov. 2, 2011