Newsletters, articles and events for Kitchener-Waterloo's Peace and Social Justice activists
Personal health, and health/medicine policy
Eleanor Grant writes:
On Sat May 25 many communities around the world will hold a March Against Monsanto. Read why here:
Council of Canadians: March against Monsanto Everywhere on May 25
(As yet I haven’t heard that anything is planned in KW.)
Eleanor Grant writes a semi-regular e-mail newsletter on social justice issues. You can contact Eleanor at eleanor7000@gmail.com
The 2013 Ontario budget will be announced this Thursday. We need your support to help us raise the minimum wage!
Eleanor Grant writes:
Peace and Justice Friends –
Please join in the May 1 Twitter / E-mail campaign to Premier Kathleen Wynne, in time for the Ontario Budget on May 2. Tell her Ontario needs a minimum wage of $14 now!
Initiated by Workers’ Action Centre in Toronto.
Let’s flood the Premier’s computer! Simple steps in forwarded msg below.
More articles on minimum wage:
“Melt the Freeze! Campaign to Raise Ontario’s Minimum Wage” by Jean Kenyon
“Behind the Numbers: Boost the Minimum Wage, Boost the Economy, from the bottom up” by Armine Yalnizyan
Trish Hennessy “What if the minimum wage were a living wage?”
Armine Yalnizyan: Welcome to the wageless recovery!
Eleanor
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: “Special Diet” <forspecialdiet@gmail.com>
Date: Apr 29, 2013 5:49 PM
Subject: action alert – may day email and twitter campaign!This International Workers Day – May 1st – take a moment to tweet or email Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, demanding a raise in the minimum wage.
$14.00 Now!
The 2013 Ontario budget will be announced this Thursday. We need your support to help us raise the minimum wage!
Please forward this call-out to your networks, friends and family. We only have a few days, and every message counts!
Callout adapted from Workers Action Centre, workersactioncentre.org:
Take action on Mayday to send a message to Premier Kathleen Wynne before the May 2 budget. Ontario needs a minimum wage that lifts workers out of poverty now; no delays, no commission to study minimum wage.
- Send a tweet to @Kathleen Wynne, #14now
- E-mail Kathleen Wynne at premier@ontario.ca – or write a letter from your organization supporting our call for an immediate increase and no panel! (Sample E-mail)
- Submit a letter to your local paper on why your community needs a raise now
- Like the Campaign to Raise the Minimum Wage on Facebook to get regular updates
Why we need a minimum wage increase now!
In March, communities across Ontario came together to launch a campaign for a minimum wage increase. Creative actions took place in 15 different cities, calling for a raise in the minimum wage to $14. The message was clear, we need an increase now!
As we get ready for the 2013 budget to be announced on May 2, we are calling on the government to raise the minimum wage to $14 and not to delay with an advisory panel or commission.
We need a raise in the minimum wage to $14 an hour now because:
- A strong minimum wage will help workers, our communities and boost our economy.
- Working full-time should raise us above the poverty line. Working 35 hours a week, we need $14 an hour to get 10% above the poverty line (LIM) in 2013.
- The minimum wage has been frozen for 3 years while rent, food and transit costs have soared! It’s time to melt the freeze, and then index the minimum wage to the cost of living each year.
Don’t delay with an advisory panel
If the Minister of Labour creates an advisory panel to study the minimum wage:
- It will be a deliberate strategy to have a minimum wage rate set below the poverty line while trying to avoid responsibility for that decision.
- It will be a way to distance the government from a decision to keep minimum wage workers in poverty.
- It will be a waste of time and taxpayer’s money.
We have seen other examples of the Ontario government under Dalton McGuinty establishing panels and commissions to make recommendations that were inadequate, or that the government didn’t follow, such as the long-term affordable housing strategy and Social Assistance Review Commission.
Ontario workers don’t need a panel or commission to study the minimum wage. We need an increase now to bring us out of poverty!
For more information, visit: workersactioncentre.org
Take action!
The Campaign to Raise the Minimum Wage is coordinated by ACORN, Freedom 90, Mennonite New Life Centre, OCAP, Ontario Campaign 2000, Parkdale Community Legal Services, Put Food in the Budget, Social Planning Toronto, Toronto and York Region Labour Council and the Workers’ Action Centre.
For additional info and local action visit povertymakesussick.wordpress.com PMUS is a proud member of the Raise the Rates campaign, and actively participates in the #14now Raise the Minimum Wage campaign
Eleanor Grant writes a semi-regular e-mail newsletter on social justice issues. You can contact Eleanor at eleanor7000@gmail.com
From Toronto Media Co-op via @alexhundert:
Report back from the (En)gendering Resistance conference
Community accountability was the buzzword of this year’s School of Public Interest, titled ‘(En)gendering Resistance: Exploring the possibilities of gender, resistance and militancy.’ The weekend long conference, organized by the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group at the University of Waterloo, was an engaging, though sometimes disjointed, community affair which played host to a diversity of feminists from across southern Ontario and beyond, converging around the question of gender liberation.
Read the rest at Report back from the (En)gendering Resistance conference | Toronto Media Co-op.
Re-blogged from WPIRG
(En)Gendering Resistance: Exploring the Possibilities of Gender, Resistance and Militancy
WPIRG’s 2013 School of Public Interest Conference
April 19th-21st
engenderingresistance.noblogs.org
Examining the social, political and economic realities of gender, as well as the liberatory possibilities of militant resistance to gender based oppression, WPIRG’s 2013 School of Public Interest will focus on the theme of (en)gendering resistance. A purposeful play on words, the conference theme is intended to encompass reflections on the lived experience of gender, the gendering of activism, and strategies for fostering vibrant resistance movements.
Taking place April 19th-21st at the University of Waterloo, the weekend long conference will bring together community organizers, activists and students, to critically discuss issues related to gender and resistance/resisting gender. Shaping, while simultaneously being shaped by the ways in which we live, love, fuck and resist, the intricacies and potentialities of gender will be explored.
Our vision is to provide an inclusive space to engage in dialogue that challenges the narratives of the mainstream feminist movement, expanding its critique and radicalizing its practice. We dream of a feminism that does not seek the inclusion of marginalized identities within the dominant order, but rather, strives to unapologetically challenge the dominant order itself. How can we develop a movement for gender justice that is necessarily anti-capitalist, anti-colonial and critical of state institutions? How can we foster resistance practices that are firmly rooted in anti-racism and an intersectional analysis of gender?
Patriarchy and gendered oppressions are everyday perpetuated within our communities and movements. Sexism, queer and transphobia permeate social justice groups and organizations. Gender violence and sexual assault occur with tragic frequently within our ‘safe’ spaces. How can we challenge the reproduction of gender oppression within broader social and environmental justice movements? How can we develop non-state responses to issues of sexual violence? What potential exists for the construction of holistic and nurturing communities of resistance? How can we strengthen our ongoing work, and build our collective capacity to resist?
In the spirit of engendering resistance, WPIRG invites community-based activists, those struggling everyday against gender oppression, supporters, and anyone who sees value in gathering to resist and share strategies, to participate!
Sunday, 28 April 2013, 10:30am: LABOUR DAY OF MOURNING
Victoria Park, between the Pavilion and the river (map).
This annual event commemorates those killed or injured on the job.
According to the Ministry of Labour, “every day in Ontario, an average of nearly 50 young workers under age 25 are injured or killed on the job”. Eroding labour standards are a huge issue, that’s not getting nearly enough attention.
Just testing . .
I just learned of an initiative by Results Canada www.results-resultats.ca to urge the Harper government to maintain Canada’s funding for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, at the UN on Sept 27.
Here’s the letter I sent, with copies to the appropriate Opposition critics:
———–
To the Hon Julian Fantino, Minister of International Co-operation:
Dear Minister,
Global Polio Eradication Initiative
On Sept 27 at the United Nations General Assembly, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative will be asking the nations of the world to replenish funding for their work for 2013 and beyond.
I understand that Canada intends to reduce its contribution to the GPEI from $35 million to $14.5 million in 2013.
Such a reduction in funding would be tragic and premature. Countries previously free of polio are still experiencing re-infections because the vaccination effort is not complete.
Do not let this dreaded disease make a comeback! I urge you to maintain Canada’s level of funding, and even increase it, until polio is truly gone forever.
Please read more at
www.theendofpolio.com .
Yours sincerely,
Eleanor Grant
Waterloo, Ont.
cc PM Harper
cc Opposition critics: Romeo Saganash MP, Mark Eyking MP, and Elizabeth May MP
cc Peter Braid MP
———-
Here are the politicians’ e-mail addresses in a block, for ease of copying into the To line:
pm@pm.gc.ca, fantino.j@parl.gc.ca, sagana.r@gc.ca, eyking.m@parl.gc.ca, may.e@parl.gc.ca
and add your own MP.
Please also sign the petition on the End of Polio site mentioned in the letter above.
Thanks.
Just learning how to start a new blog! Lots of exciting things coming up – stay tuned!
Eleanor