Monthly Archives: March 2007

Kyoto Rallies Across Canada This Sunday (And I’m Speaking)

climate crisis, conservative party, green party, liberal party, ndp, toronto

Details below. It’s important that we get a good turn out to these events, as the only way to actually cause governments to act is to demonstrate a strong public will for action.

I’ll be speaking at the Toronto event representing the Green Party of Canada. Liberal and NDP representatives will also be there. The Conservative Party declined the invitation, presumably because they’re allergic to booing.

THIS SUNDAY, 2007 March 11, across Canada:

Halifax Race for Kyoto
Victoria Square at 1 pm

Toronto Rally for Kyoto
Nathan Phillips Square at 12 noon

London Rally for Kyoto
Victoria Park at 12 noon

Calgary Rally for Kyoto
Harry Hays Building (outdoors) at 12 noon
4th Ave and 1st St S.E.

Edmonton Climate Change Rally
Sir Winston Churchill Square at 12 noon

Lethbridge Rally for Kyoto
Galt Gardens Park at 12 noon

NOTE: Daylight Savings Time starts that day.
At 2 am Sunday morning, the time changes to 3 am.
If you forget this, you’ll arrive at the rally an hour late!

We’re asking everyone concerned about climate change to please come out this Sunday and rally for Kyoto. Bring your family, friends, children and pets. This will be a fun afternoon with speakers, musicians, comedians and other performers, but we need large numbers of people to demonstrate the breadth and strength of commitment in Canada to combatting global warming. We cannot afford to look feeble.

The Toronto rally will be hosted by Lisa Merchant of Train 48. Speakers at the rally include John Bennett, Executive Director, Climate Action Network; Keith Stewart, Climate Change Campaign Manager WWF Canada; Jose Etcheverry, Research and Policy Analyst, Climate Change Program, David Suzuki Foundation; Cameron Stiff, Founding Member, Canadian Youth Climate Coalition; Olivia Chow, NDP MP; Maria Minna, Liberal MP; and Chris Tindal, Green Party nominated candidate. Juno award winners Richard Underhill, Madagascar Slim, Matt Barber, and a very special platinum selling musical guest will be among the musical entertainers. Comediennes for Kyoto will include Deborah Kimmet, Elvira Kurt and Dawn Whitwell.

Canadians for Kyoto is a newly formed non-partisan coalition of Canadians dedicated to combatting climate change. We are supporting rallies in cities throughout Canada on this Sunday, March 11. Learn more about us — and what’s happening in all the cities — here:

ttp://www.canadiansforkyoto.com/

Global warming is threatening to have catastrophic consequences unless emissions go down worldwide. The Kyoto accord, the only international climate change treaty we have, was supposed to be an easy first step to reducing emissions. Instead, through years of inaction, we’ve allowed Canada’s emissions to rise to levels that make meeting our Kyoto requirements an enormous challenge. Canada, once a world environmental leader, is now an environmental pariah, partly because our emissions are among the highest in the world and partly because our government has stated that not only will we not meet our Kyoto requirements but that we will instead do so little that our emissions will rise at an increasing rate. In 2008, Canada will have an opportunity to legally withdraw from its Kyoto obligations. We cannot allow our government to believe this is acceptable. Let’s send a strong message to Ottawa that Canadians demand a recommitment to our Kyoto obligations and immediate and meaningful measures to dramatically curb our emissions.

Please download these posters and put them up at your work, school, local shops and community centres:

ttp://www.canadiansforkyoto.com/volunteer/torontoposter1.pdf
http://www.canadiansforkyoto.com/volunteer/torontoposter2.pdf

Please forward this email widely.

We’re looking forward to seeing you at the rally this Sunday!

Mind The Gap

economy, social justice

A new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, titled “The Rich And The Rest of Us,” finds that the top 10% of Canadians are getting richer while the vast majority (80%) aren’t moving, and some of the bottom 10% are getting poorer. What’s worse, is that those 80% of Canadians in the middle are working harder (200 hours a year more compared to nine years ago) just to earn the same amount of money, while the 10% at the top are working less.

That’s an unsustainable situation if I’ve ever heard one.

In his new book The Upside Of Down, Thomas Homer-Dixon names the growing gap between the rich and the poor as one of the main threats facing our global society. He also points out how rapidly this problem is developing, explaining that “in 1950, there were about two poor people for every rich person on Earth; today there are about four; in 2025, there will be nearly six.

The good news in the report is that government policy can make a difference. “If they had to rely solely on market earnings,” the report says, “40% of Canadian families would have experienced significant losses in incomes compared to a generation ago — even though they are working more. Canada’s tax and transfer system stopped the freefall of incomes for almost half of the population raising children.” Government can also help with the problem of people who are working more for little to no gain by cracking down on unpaid overtime.

The report concludes with a very interesting statement:

An intractable growing gap between rich and poor, in good times and bad, oblivious to work effort, is akin to the slowly building impact of climate change — a clarion call for action which, ultimately, cannot be ignored.

And, like climate change, we will continue to see rising inequality until we understand our connectivity to each other and to our environment.

Amen.

Greens and NDP Tied

green party, ndp, polls

From cbc.ca:

The poll also suggested the Green Party continues to show momentum across Canada, with 13 per cent support nationally, tied with the NDP for the first time in Decima’s polling, the agency said.

The poll recorded 35 per cent support for the Bloc Québécois in Quebec, down significantly from its numbers in the run-up to the last election, when the Bloc was regularly closer to 50 per cent support in its home province, Decima said.

“It seems more the case that they can find little to rally anti-Ottawa emotion with,” Anderson said Thursday in a release. “And so those voters in Quebec who are nationalist but not separatist feel free to consider their other options, which now decidedly include the Green Party.”

The Liberals followed the Bloc in Quebec with 23 per cent, with the Green Party at 13 per cent, and the NDP with seven per cent.