VEFOFEST Popup + Jaqui NDS Tribute

Join UW Animal Rights Society for an evening of powerful music, speakers, poetry, art, estatic dance, food, & inspiring performances.

Instagram: @UWAnimalRights, @VEFOmusic

Saturday July 29th (2023) 4pm at University of Waterloo Arts Quad (Dana Porter Library) | VEFOFEST Popup + Jaqui NDS Tribute | Join us for an evening of powerful music, speakers, poetry, art, estatic dance, food, & inspiring performances. | @UWAnimalRights @VEFOmusic (black letters on a gradient purple-to-green background, with a clip art image of a leaping dancer, a staff of musical notes, and a ribbon microphone)

Waterloo Region Health Coalition and Ontario Health Coalition Referendum on Hospital Privatization, Friday and Saturday, 26 and 27 May 2023

People’s Referendum to stop the privatization of Ontario’s public hospitals planned Friday & Saturday

Almost a thousand voting stations across Ontario will be staffed by thousands of volunteers in a massive effort to force the Ford government to respect democratic process and input on their hospital privatization plans.

A map listing all voting stations across the province is available online at https://publichospitalvote.ca/find-voting-station:

Google Map of Southern Ontario with colourful markers showing locations of polling stations for the referendum

On the website, you can zoom in for details, and a list by region is below the map. Media are invited to see the voting taking place at voting stations across Ontario.

  • Online voting is also available for all Ontario residents at PublicHospitalVote.ca
  • Voting closes on Saturday, 27 May 2023 at midnight.
  • At time of writing, more than 160,000 votes have been received online and in advance polls.

Province-wide results will be announced outside Queen’s Park on Wednesday 31 May 2023 at 10:00am.

A massive pile of ballots from the people’s referendum will be brought in from across Ontario and piled in front of the Legislature to be delivered to the government.

Local health coalitions across the province will be counting ballots on Saturday evening 27 May 2023 or Sunday 28 May 2023, announcing results locally on Tuesday, 30 May 2023.

Waterloo Region:

  • Vote counting will take place at the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario-Waterloo Region Office 610 Wabanaki Drive, Kitchener, on Sunday 28 May 2023 from Noon to 5:00pm.
  • Vote results will be announced on Tuesday, 30 May 2023 at 8:30am outside the Main Entrance to Grand River Hospital, 835 King Street West, Kitchener.

Media contacts to view vote counting and receive local/province-wide results:

Natalie Mehra, Executive Director, Ontario Health Coalition

Jim Stewart, Chair, Waterloo Region Health Coalition

For other regions see Key Contacts for the Referendum to Stop Hospital Privatization on the Public Hospital Vote website.

KW Vegfest at Waterloo Town Square, 11am on Saturday 13 May 2023

Caterina Lindman writes:

KW VegFest is back for its 6th year, with a pop-up event. Everyone is welcome!

Kitchener Waterloo VegFest | New Date! Mark your calendars! | Sat, May 13, 2023 | 11AM-3PM | Waterloo Town Square | **Food from around the world, and free samples**What: KW VegFest Spring Pop-Up
When: 11:00am to 3:00pm on Saturday, 13 May 2023
Where: Waterloo Public Square, 75 King Street South, Waterloo Map
Contact: caterina.lindman@gmail.com

Highlighting plant-based foods, we’ll have foods to buy and sample to help everyone see how delicious going plant-based for our health and for the planet’s health can be, and we’ll provide lots of info! People can drop by for free samples of plant-based cheeses, milks and sausages, and purchase their dinner from foods from across our beautiful planet, including Africa, Asia, Canada, Eastern Europe, and India!

There will be baklava, gourmet donuts, tropical juices, curries, pierogi, Korean bao, and Canadian favourites like mac and cheese.

KW VegFest’s Earth Day Pop-up is brought to you by Waterloo Region Climate Initiatives, with assistance from VegFund and the City of Waterloo. Music generously provided by vegan artist VEFO / (Mirror-image letters F, as though semaphores, at an angle in the form of a V, with leaves in the stems, all in varying shades of green)@vefovision. With such a small window of time left for us to turn things around for the planet, scientists tell us that turning our attention to the food we eat is essential, and VegFests across the planet celebrate and promote the benefits of plant-based living for everyone, and for our children’s future.

Here is the link to the Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/3445829798966896

With thanks, Mo Markham and Caterina Lindman for KW VegFest and Waterloo Region Climate Initiatives

P.S. If you are interested in helping out with VegFest for a few hours (eg. giving out pamphlets or free samples), please let Caterina know.

Two Pickets for the Ontario Nurses’ Association, Thursday 23 Feb 2023

The Better Staffing Care Wages | ONA Ontario Nurses' Association (pink and white lettering on a black background. "Better" is tilted on its side so it's an adjective for all three of "Staffing", "Care", "Wages")Ontario Nurses’ Association, the Waterloo Region Health Coalition | Promoting Public Healthcare for all (a red umbrella covering black and red lettering)Waterloo Region Health Coalition and the (a yellow 5-sided shape over an orange parallelogram, separated by a diagonal space, all on a grey background)KW Council of Canadians are collaborating in support of all actions to counter the Ontario government health care policies.

Please join one or both of these pickets if you can.

Two Pickets

The Waterloo Region Health Coalition has confirmed that Thursday’s pickets are on, regardless of weather.

Where: St Mary’s General Hospital
Location: 911 Queen’s Boulevard, Kitchener Map 1
When: Thursday 23 February 2023, One Hour commencing at 11:00am until Noon
Contact:

Jennifer Cepukus,
ONA Local 139 Coordinator/Bargaining Unit President
Grand River Hospital local139@ona.org

Where: Grand River General Hospital
Location: 835 King Street West, Kitchener Map 2
When: Thursday 23 February 2023, One Hour commencing at 12:30pm until 1:30pm
Contact:

Deanna Dowsett,
ONA Local 55 Coordinator/Bargaining Unit President
local055@ona.org
   or
Stephanie Hamill
ONA Local 55 Vice President
St. Mary’s General Hospital
l55vpsmgh@ona.org

Please join us on the Picket Line to demonstrate to our Nurses just how much we value them

Lets all join in the Fight against the Privatization of our Public Health Care system

More information on pickets across Ontario: https://www.ona.org/bettercare/feb23/

Listen to CKMS 102.7 FM Radio Waterloo | Community Connections (black and purple lettering on a teal background)CKMS Community Connections for 20 February 2023 with Jim Stewart of the Waterloo Region Health Coalition.

Protests to Protect Public Medicare – MARCH to “Save our Hospitals”

Jim Stewart of The Waterloo Region Health Coalition writes:

MARCH to “Save our Hospitals” & Million Medicare Defenders

Thank you very much to all who came to our Waterloo Region Town Hall. We discussed how to make the fight visible, to show real resistance to the Ford government’s refusal to take urgent action on the hospital crisis while at the same time privatizing our hospitals. We must come together to share our concern and make it very clear that privatization is not the solution to our hospital crisis.

Now it is time to make this clear to Ford and demand urgent action to fix the hospital crisis and stop privatization. Join our protests in Waterloo Region.

If you were not able to make it to any of the Town Halls the recordings are available on our YouTube channel: Waterloo Hospital Emergency Town Hall Meeting

As outlined below, the first stage of our plan is to hold a major protest to show our support and solidarity with our hospital staff and leaders and also send a strong message to the Ford government. Please share it widely with everyone you know and help to make it a huge show of strength. Thank you! ❤ We will look forward to seeing you all there.

The call-out is below.

The Ford government has done almost nothing to fix the crisis in our hospitals.

Force Ford to act urgently to support our public hospitals now and stop privatizing their services!

Region of Waterloo

Where: Waterloo Public Square
Location: 75 King Street South, Waterloo, Ontario Map
When: Noon on Monday, 12 December, 2022.

We will March to the Grand River Hospital in Kitchener across from CTV News.

If you are able to make it please contact: Jim Stewart at waterlooregionhealthcoalition@gmail.com

Collage of people holding placards and protest signs
Ottawa Protest

You can also bring signs and messages to Doug Ford to finally take urgent action to restore and rebuild our public hospital services, STOP privatizing them.

Also, please consider becoming one of our million Medicare Defenders. This is not a membership list and you can click NO on the registration and we will not contact you or use your information for anything. This is to tell Doug Ford in no uncertain terms that he does not have a mandate from Ontarians to privatize our public health care. We need to get as many people as possible to scare the Ford Government away from their plans to privatize and do nothing to help the crisis in our hospitals.

You can become a Medicare Defender at https://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/

You can also help by:

Become One of Our Million | Public Medicare Defenders | Sign Up | Spread The Word | Take Our Survey | Show Up | Join us at www.OntarioHealthCoalition.ca | Ontario Health Coalition (pastel coloured text with icons on a faded background of people holding hands in solidarity)
Thank You.

–Jim Stewart, Chair
Waterloo Region Health Coalition

I Am Not Invisible – Panel Discussion by The Disabilities and Human Rights Group

(three concentric flames, outermost green, middle blue, innermost yellow)
Social Development Centre Waterloo Region
Kitchener Public Library logo (graphic of three folded rectangles, coloured green, blue, purple, arranged orthogonally to form a six-pointed object)

The Disabilities and Human Rights group, in partnership with Kitchener Public Library and the Social Development Centre Waterloo Region, is proud to present I Am Not Invisible, a panel discussion to shine the light on the living experience of young people with invisible disabilities, their challenges, successes, and accomplishments.

What: I am not Invisible: See Me, Hear Me

Where: Kitchener Public Library, Central Branch, Auditorium

When: Saturday, 3 December 2022 at from 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm

About one in four Ontarians live with a disability and face various types of accessibility challenges in their every day life (Government of Ontario, 2019)

Globally 1 in 7 of us live with a disability. And of those, 80% are invisible. That is 1 billion people who are living with a non-visible disability. (Hidden Disabilities)

Join this important discussion!

About the Disability and Human Rights Group

The Disability and Human Rights (DHR) Group is a forum for educating, raising awareness and advocating for meaningful change.

Do you have an invisible disability? Are you an ally? Join our voices for greater accessibility.

Find more information about the DHR at http://www.waterlooregion.org/disabilities-and-human-rights or email admin@waterlooregion.org.

Media contact: Charles Nichols <nicholscharlesedwin@gmail.com>

December 3rd, 2022 United Nations International Day for Persons with Disabilities:

Not all Disabilities are Visible (theme 2022)

In 1992 the United Nations proclaimed December 3 as the International Day for Persons with Disabilities.

The annual observance of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) was proclaimed in 1992 by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 47/3. Celebrated on December 3 around the world, IDPD mobilizes support for critical issues relating to the inclusion of persons with disabilities, promotes awareness-raising about disability issues and draws attention to the benefits of an inclusive and accessible society for all. UN agencies, civil society organizations, academic institutions and the private sector are encouraged to support IDPD by collaborating with organizations for people with disabilities to arrange events and activities.

Pro-Abortion Rally, 7pm Wed 29 June 2022, Clock Tower, Willow River Park

SHORE Centre writes:

We are angry, outraged & heartbroken about the fall of Roe v Wade. Now more than ever, we need to be loud in our support of abortion rights and access! Join us to rally on June 29 @ 7PM – Clock Tower in Willow River Park (formerly Victoria Park), we can raise our voices together📣

What: Pro-Abortion Rally
When: 7:00pm, Wednesday, 29 June 2022
Where: Clock Tower, Willow River Park Map

Illustrations of protest signs with the text "Bans Off Our Bodies", "Abortion Is Healthcare", "Proudly Pro-Choice", "Abortion is a Human Right", and the Shore Centre logo+wordmark

Statement from SHORE Centre:

2022-06-24

Kitchener, ON – As the news of the fall of Roe v Wade spreads, we are standing with you all in anger, grief, and outrage that anyone believes they can regulate our bodies and restrict reproductive healthcare. We grieve with all those who have spent their lifetimes fighting for abortion rights. Today the Supreme Court has actively chosen to abandon women, trans and non-binary people. Abortion access, which was already limited, will become near impossible for many – Indigenous, Black and racialized people, queer folks, those with disabilities, those living in poverty and those facing other marginalization will continue to face increasing barriers to access. We know that this devastating decision will impact not only those seeking abortions in the US but will also impact attitudes, stigma, and access in Canada.

SHORE Centre is here for you. Our counterparts across the country are here for you. We are grieving too, but we will never stop fighting. You deserve bodily autonomy. You deserve judgement-free abortion access. Today we rage together – and let us keep that fire burning as we speak loudly and clearly that abortion is healthcare. We know there is a lot to process, and we are currently organizing a rally for the evening of Wednesday, June 29th where we can gather and raise our voices together. More details to come. Take good care of yourselves.

For interview and inquires please contact:
TK Pritchard, Executive Director at director@shorecentre.ca

About SHORE Centre

Sexual Health Options, Resources & Education – SHORE Centre was founded in 1972 to provide all residents of our community with sexual health information and support. Today we offer medical services including birth control, medication abortion and related care, counselling, outreach, workshops, trainings and other educational activities. SHORE Centre operates physical services in Waterloo Region and Guelph and provides virtual care in various underserved areas of the province.

#KWVegfest Is Going Virtual! Saturday and Sunday, 4 and 5 July 2020

KW Vegfest 2020 | We're Going Virtual! | Saturday 4 July 2020 | Sunday 5 July 2020

Join the 3rd annual KW Vegfest!

This will be an Online Event, taking place on on Saturday July 4, 2020 and Sunday, July 5, 2020.

We will be sharing Sanctuary tours, cooking + zero-waste demos, speakers, a health panel and holding giveaways!

Stay tuned to the event page for more details!

The event is sponsored by Kitchener Waterloo Climate Save and the City of Kitchener, and powered by a group of hard-working volunteers. 🌎❤️🌏.

Online:

Letter to Interfaith Grand River

Thank you for organizing the Interfaith Community Breakfast. It was good to hear many talk about peace, love, love for animals and so forth.

Many of us are respectful of people’s choices to provide sustenance and mostly do not comment about the food offered. However quite a number of people have chosen to live a vegan lifestyle to inflict as little harm to animals and the environment as possible and sadly there was very little
choice available at this breakfast. My wife refused to come to the breakfast as being diabetic she knew there would be nothing much to eat.

The fresh fruit, especially the berries where particularly welcome. None of the food was labeled as vegetarian, vegan or gluten free. I had no idea what the granola (?) was and I could not partake, as there was no alternative such as soy or almond milk. No protein for vegans.

So I only had fruit and cucumber for breakfast. Here is a simple U-Tube showing seven vegan breakfasts

At the end of the day there was lots of scrambled egg, which I don’t eat, but no more fresh berries when I went back for a possible second. Here is a viewpoint from many vegans about eggs.

The eggs are produced in horrendous conditions on factory farms where the male baby chicks are suffocated or ground to death alive. The milk and milk products are produced from cows who are raped to keep them pregnant (needed to produce milk) and whose lifetime is cut short to four or five years when they stop producing milk at commercial rates. The mothers cry for days after their babies are removed forcibly within a couple of days after birth.

After your $25 breakfast I needed to return home for a bowl of oatmeal, raisins and berries and to enjoy my coffee with soy milk. Quite disappointing.

I am sure the kitchen could have provided other alternatives such as beans on toast that do not involve animal suffering. With all the talk of peace and love for the creatures on this planet and the environment, one would have thought the breakfast itself could have been a testament to God’s love.

James Sannes

Canadian Representative for

Unitarian Universalists Animal Ministry

 

Pharmacare Town Hall in Burlington — Monday, 5 March 2018 at 7pm

Pharmacare for all -- why not?

Monday, March 5 at 7 PM — 9 PM
Art Gallery of Burlington
1333 Lakeshore Road
Burlington, Ontario

PHARMACARE FOR ALL — WHY NOT?

An event sponsored by Council of Canadians (Halton Chapter) — Monday, March 5 at the Art Gallery of Burlington, 7 PM to 9 PM.

This event intends to inform the public about the health, social and economic impacts of universal Pharmacare, and intends to help keep this issue at the forefront of the political agenda for Ontario and Canada as a whole

Keynote Speakers

Maude Barlow:

Maude Barlow is the Honorary Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and chairs the board of Washington-based Food and Water Watch. She serves on the executive of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and is a Councillor with the Hamburg-based World Future Council. Maude is the recipient of fourteen honorary doctorates as well as many prestigious awards for her environmental activism. In 2008/2009, she served as Senior Advisor on Water to the President of the UN General Assembly and was a leader in the campaign to have water recognized as a human right by the UN. She is the author of dozens of reports, as well as 18 books, including her latest, Blue Future: Protecting Water For People And The Planet Forever and Boiling Point: Government Neglect, Corporate Abuse, and Canada’s Water Crisis.

Prof Emeritus Brian Hutchison:

Brian Hutchison is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University and past Director of the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis at McMaster University. He practiced comprehensive family medicine for five years in a fee-for-service group practice, followed by 25 years in a McMaster University academic family practice. Among other senior roles, he was the Co-Chair of the Canadian Working Group for Primary Healthcare Improvement from 2008 to 2014 and is currently a vice-chair of Canadian Doctors for Medicare. In 2015 he was named as one of 20 Top Pioneers of Family Medicine Research in Canada by the College of Family Physicians of Canada.

Following their presentations, there will be a panel including a local pharmacist, a retired benefits specialist and a health professional. The audience is welcome to participate in the discussion.

Canada is the only developed country with a universal Medicare program without a universal Pharmacare plan. This event intends to inform the public about the health social and economic impacts of universal Pharmacare and keep this issue at the forefront of the political agenda for Ontario and Canada as a whole. Ontario has already improved Pharmacare coverage to Age 25 but it is time to complete the process.

Free Admission
For parking, there is street parking available nearby, free after 6 PM. Also, the AGB parking lot (see map http://bit.ly/2EtoJck) requires payment only until 7 PM.
https://artgalleryofburlington.com/

Please bring your own reusable water bottle

Let us know you’re coming on our Facebook Event page.

Pharmacare Toolkit — https://canadians.org/pharmacare-toolkit

Pharmacare Town Hall – Halton Chapter