Sun May 5 at 10:20 a.m: First United Church, Waterloo (King & Wm) – Outreach church service focussed on homelessness in our community.
Sun May 5 at 7 pm AND Mon May 6 at 9:15 pm: Princess Twin – Movie: HIT ‘N STRUM, a drama about a homeless musician in Vancouver.
Stepping Up: Monday May 6th 2013, 11:30am -1:00pm: Join us for a silent walk with masks, from Waterloo Square to Kitchener City Hall, to raise awareness of homelessness in the Waterloo Region.
RSVP to Mike Savage by Phone: (519-579-5268) or by email : msavage@golden.net
Speaking Up: Tuesday, May 7th, 1:00- 2:30pm at Kitchener City Hall Rotunda: Speakers from all walks of life will discuss personal experiences of homelessness as well as challenges of service provision in the Waterloo Region. Light Refreshments will be served.
Tues May 7 at 7 pm: First United Church – Discussion of Hit ‘n Strum movie. (This is not a screening of the movie.) Please RSVP to Mike at msavage@golden.net
Thurs May 9 at 5:30 pm at Kitchener City Hall: free BBQ sponsored by Downtown Kitchener Community Health Centre – followed by Kindred Spirit awards.
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.
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
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!
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
Please take a moment to sign the appeal below from IndustriALL global union.
It calls on Bangladesh to guarantee freedom of association (including the right to unionize), and improve building and fire safety and the minimum wage for the more than 3 million garment workers in Bangladesh. (According to Global Labour and Human Rights, the starting wage in these awful garment factories is 14 cents an hour, and many women work more than 12-hour days. Read more at http://www.globallabourrights.org/ )
And meanwhile, consider joining in the annual Labour Day of Mourning to commemorate workers who’ve been killed or injured or made ill on the job. SUNDAY APRIL 28, 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. in Victoria Park at the workers’ monument – between the pavilion and the river. Hosted by Waterloo Regional Labour Council. All are welcome.
CasiNO – Kitchener Public Consultations – When: Tuesday, 23 and 30 April 2013 starting at 6:00pm with a presentation from OLG; public consultations for those who have registered to speak will follow. A second session will be held April 30. Pre-registration for the 30 April session is not mandatory but is strongly recommended and can be done on the City of Kitchener’s Casino web page or by calling Linda Korabo at +1-519-741-2200;ext=7591
Location: Kitchener City Hall Council Chambers, 200 King St. W., Kitchener, Ontario (map)
Monday, 29 April 2013, 7:00pm: Fair Taxation For All with Dennis Howlett, executive director of Canadians for Tax Fairness.
First United Church Waterloo (King and William St) (map).
Dennis Howlett is touring to launch CTF’s new book The Great Revenue Robbery. The book will be available for sale at the event.
Very timely in light of new revelations that $32 trillion worldwide is deposited in tax havens, with billions in lost revenue to governments that are struggling with deficits and austerity.
Event sponsored by KAIROS Grand River as part of series Restoring A Good Life for All. Co-sponsored by Waterloo Region Labour Council.
Town Hall Meeting: Save the Community Start-Up and Maintenance Benefit (CSUMB)
Thursday, 25 October 2012
18:30 until 20:30
Kitchener Downtown Community Centre, 35B Weber St West
Presented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees
and the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
Join the province-wide mobilization to protect this vital benefit!
Calling all individuals, unions, agencies, community and faith groups:
Build a united front against austerity! Demand economic justice for all!
Hosted by Kitchener’s Poverty Makes Us Sick (PMUS)
If you want to help build this event or learn how you and
others in your community can receive the CSUMB, contact us today.
Poverty Makes Us Sick: ph: 226-789-6786 or forspecialdiet@gmail.com
Background:
The 2012 Ontario budget calls for the cancellation of the Community Start-up and Maintenance Benefit and the Home Repairs Benefit (CSUMB). The cuts are scheduled to take effect in January 2013. A province-wide campaign is being built to save the CSUMB and, in Waterloo Region, local organizers are looking to contribute to this in a number of ways.
• October 24th mass call-in to local MPPs, demanding their commitment to saving the CSUMB.
• October 25th Town Hall Meeting, with featured speakers from OCAP and CUPE will help to situate local efforts within the larger provincial campaign to save the CSUMB and to build solidarity between labour and community struggles to promote economic justice for all in Ontario.
• Mass clinics will be held over the next month (beginning on Saturday, October 20th) to make people aware of how they can apply for CSUMB and to help all those who wish to obtain it to fill out application forms.
What is the CSUMB?
The CSUMB provides funds of up to $800 for individuals and up to $1500 to families, once every two years for people on Ontario Works (OW) and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) to maintain their housing. Essentially, this is a homelessness prevention benefit. It is also about offering people the necessary economic mobility required to keep themselves and their children in safe living conditions.
The CSUMB helps the nearly 900,000 people on OW and ODSP pay for things like first and last month’s rent deposits. It helps people buy or replace furniture. It helps people put down deposits on utilities or pay overdue utility bills. More than 16,000 people are currently forced to use this benefit every month.
The existence of this program highlights the fact that current OW and ODSP rates are woefully inadequate, leaving those receiving assistance living in deep poverty. These cuts will only further the current crisis in this system. Along with the recent cuts to discretionary benefits, surviving on these meager benefits becomes even less possible.
Cutting the CSUMB will particularly hurt:
• women and young adults fleeing violence at home;
• people trying to move from shelters into permanent homes;
• individuals transitioning from prison back into society;
• people leaving psychiatric units and attempting to resume life in the community;
• people dealing with housing situations that threaten their health, e.g. insufficient insulation and roofing, bedbug infestations or mold;
• people who cannot afford the rising cost of energy.
NO MORE CUTS! Join the growing community response and help to protect the CSUMB!
First, Congratulations on winning Kitchener-Waterloo!
I’m writing out of urgent concern about the Comprehensive trade agreement with Europe that Harper is finalizing right now, and how it will affect our localities and our autonomy.
I was glad to hear that Waterloo, Kitchener, and the Region have all asked to be exempted. But will that be enough to protect us from lawsuits and other pressures from huge corporations?
Here are a couple of videos:
The Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement Primer (CAW):
CUPE Video exposes CETA dangers:
CETA is the New ACTA (internet restrictions):
Today [Oct 16], twelve members of the Conservative federal government will be negotiating the final details of the CETA, the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement.
This deal is NAFTA ON STEROIDS and far larger than any Canada has ever constructed. Lawyer Steve Shrybman calls the CETA “a rewriting of the economic constitution”.
The recent slash and burn budget was preparation for CETA protocol, and the budget to come out this week will cut much more, to prepare for the demands in the CETA.
The urgency of the CETA is that, as international trade law, it is a permanent plan. It is not as difficult to change national policy as international, legally-binding policy between 13 countries!
CETA’s primary content is your city’s water, energy, buses, subways, hospitals and schools, to be opened permanently for bidding by transnational corporations. It also includes the sale of some crown corporations like Canada Post. This means that your town’s hydro, buses, drinking water, mail and more, could very well be run by foreign-owned corporations from the EU, the USA or Mexico.
The CETA will not give any more possibilities to Canadians, as foreign corporations can already have access to any of the contracts. But, the CETA will encourage cities to take these deals from foreign corporations much more often.
The largest ethical question is the Investor State style enforcement of the rules, borrowed from NAFTA. This means that if your city hall decides to keep an asset in public control by turning down the lowest bid from a foreign corporation, your city hall will be sued for damages. You and your fellow taxpaying community members will have to cover the costs.
Ask NFLD and Labrador how they were sued by AbbittibiBowater for 120 million when this American corporation used NAFTA to receive compensation for what they deemed their corporate rights to east coast land and water even after they shut down all their factories. There have been numerous such cases since NAFTA. CETA, being much more comprehensive, will cause an increase in these corporate attacks on citizens and our assets. Ultimately, with the CETA, it is the people who will have to pay.
Citizens from Southwestern Ontario have named Tuesday, October 16th, the second day of the final round of behind-closed-doors CETA negotiations, as an Ontario lobby day.
We are contacting MPPs to express our concerns about CETA.
* We demand a full public hearing, like the one Quebec people had two weeks ago.
* We urgently ask that the opt-out process written by city councillors across Ontario be honoured by the McGuinty government.
It is the provincial government that makes the decision on who and what is included into the CETA. However, as the vast majority of government officials have not been told about the contents of CETA, they do not recognize that this is an unprecedented Canadian moment, and some are merely going by the party line, that trade will be good for the economy.
The jobs, service and quality of life for your family, your children, your community, and your city are all at stake.
Kairos Grand River is presenting a series of evenings on poverty and inequality.
All events will be at First United Church in Waterloo (King & William) on the last Monday of the month.
Details:
All events will be at First United Church
King & William Street, Waterloo
at 7 p.m. (doors open at 6:45 p.m.)
September 24
The movie – “Poor No More” – a documentary film directed by Canadian filmmakers Bert Deveaux and Suzanne Babin, executive producer, David Langille.
October 29
Based on “The Spirit Level”(Why equality matters) by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, winner of the 2011 Political Studies Association Publication of the Year Award.
