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.

Rally in support of Wetlands and Conservation Authorities! 1pm Sat, 4 Feb 2023

Rally in support o wetlands and Conservation Authorities. | And against Bill 23, dismantling of the Greenbelt and Conservation Land sell-offs. | 1-2pm, Saturday February 4, 2023 | Dumfries Conservation Area | South-west corner of Hespeler, & Dunbar, Cambridge | Rain or shine! (black text on a light green background, a small image of a poster in the bottom left corner "Doug Ford: Keep your Greenbelt Promise greenbeltpromise.ca" and an image of a wetland along the right with the World Wetlands Day logo and wordmark in the top right corner)
Doug Ford: Keep Your Greenbelt Promise: https://greenbeltpromise.ca/

Can you spare an hour to stand up for our wetlands?

Our wetlands support us in many ways including:

• Filtering and cleaning our water,
• Preventing flooding, erosion and landslides,
• Offering trails and recreation opportunities that contribute to public well-being, and
• Supporting biodiversity by accommodating endangered and threatened species.

Now we need to stand up for them. 72% of wetlands in south-central Ontario – including swamps, marshes, bogs and fens — have already been lost. Bill 23 and other recent legislation threaten our wetlands further by:

• Treating each wetland in isolation without considering the system as a whole,
• Making protected status harder to achieve and subjecting existing protected wetlands to re-classification,
• Permitting previously prohibited development on wetlands,
• Barring Conservation Authorities from considering land conservation and pollution in their decisions, and
• Requiring Conservation Authorities to identify their lands that could be sold off for development.

This World Wetlands Day, let’s stand together in support of local wetlands and our Conservation Authorities. And against Bill 23, dismantling of the Greenbelt and Conservation Land sell-offs.

Bring a creative sign or wave one of ours.

Transit stop at Hespeler and Dunbar.
Local parking available, including on nearby Briarwood Drive.

Rain or shine!

Questions? Connect with Colleen Cooper at colleencoopwa@gmail.com

#NoFighterJets Rallies in Waterloo Region, 6-8 January 2023

&DropTheF35Deal | WEEKEND OF ACTION | January 6-8, 2023 | Write Call Speak out. March. Disrupt. | Call on the Trudeau Government to Spend $19 BILLION on Human Needs, NOT Warplanes | &0x0016;NoFighterJets | nofighterjets.ca

There will be rallies in Waterloo Region in:

Cambridge

What: Protest at Liberal MP Bryan May’s office
When: 2:00pm to 2:30pm, Friday 6 January 2023
Where: 534 Hespeler Road, Cambridge Map 1

Waterloo

What: Protest at Liberal MP Bardish Chagger’s office
When: 3:00pm to 3:30pm, Friday 6 January 2023
Where: 100 Regina Street, Waterloo Map 2

Kitchener

What: Gathering at Kitchener Farmers Market
When: 10:00am to 11:00am, Saturday 7 January 2023
Where: 300 King Street East, Kitchener Map 3

#DropTheF35Deal Weekend of Action – January 6-8, 2023

From

Silhouette of a fighter jet with a "No" symbol over it (red circle with a diagonal line)
No Fighter Jets
https://nofighterjets.ca/dropthef35deal/

Peace activists will be on the streets from January 6-8, demanding that the Trudeau say no to the F-35 fighter jet deal. The No Fighter Jets campaign encourages peace-loving people across Canada to join demonstrations and activities across Canada for the weekend of action from or to organize your own actions.

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

@KWPeace@KWPeace.ca is now in the #Fediverse!

(multi-coloured pentagram with a full mesh of links to each vertex, whcih are represented by a coloured circle)

Attention Fedizens!

You can now follow @KWPeace@KWPeace.ca, or any other author in the Fediverse.

If you use Mastodon, GNUsocial, Pleroma, or any other application that uses ActivityPub you’ll see all the articles and events on kwpeace.ca as they are posted.

KWPeace is always looking for additional contributors. If you’re an organizer for a Peace, Nonviolence, Social Justice, or Human Rights group active in the Waterloo Region (Ontario, Canada) you can post announcements of your upcoming events here. They’ll show up on Twitter @KWPeace as well as on every Fediverse instance where someone has subscribed to @KWPeace@KWPeace.ca

List of all authors on kwpeace.ca

Looking for a Fediverse instance to join? Try the Canadian https://mstdn.ca/ or the Waterloo Region https://wrmstdn.ca/

Questions? Check out the tips on https://fedi.tips/ as posted by @feditips@mstdn.social (a Fediverse ID), or you can ask us at info@kwpeace.ca (an e-mail address).

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.

Rural Rainbow Ride, 6pm on Wed 31 Aug 2022 at Northfield Station

25K Rural Rainbow Ride | 6PM Wednesday August 31 at Northfield Station | Ending at Central Station. Approx 2 hrs. | All Are Welcome | No Cost | In response to comments made in a recent Woolwich Council meeting, we are bringing some pride from the city to the township to show support for LGBTQ2+ folks in Woolwich.

25K Rural Rainbow Ride

When: 6:00PM to 8:00pm on Wednesday 31 August 2022
Start: Northfield Station Map 1
End: Central Station Map 2

All Are Welcome
No Cost

In response to comments made in a recent Woolwich Council meeting, we are bringing some pride from the city to the township to show support for LGBTQ2+ folks in Woolwich.

See Andrew Jacob Rinehart’s post on Instagram

Route

Image of map showing bike router and text that says 'St. Jacobs, Conestogo, Snyder's Flats Conservation Area, Bloomingdale, Northfield Station (Start), Kiwanis Park and Pool, Rosendale, University of Waterloo, Conestoga College Waterloo, Laurier, Bingemans, Waterloo, Central Station (end), Kitchener'.
Rural Rainbow Ride Route

Rally to Stop NATO, 4:30pm Tuesday 28 June 2022 at Waterloo Square

Stop NATO (illustration of a person in the style of Picasso's Guernica holding a Stop sign and a broken NATO plane, all on a red background)Today is start of NATO summit, join Tamara Lorincz at Waterloo Public Square to say stop the war, stop NATO!

Tamara Lorincz writes:

Hello everyone,

A friendly reminder that I will have a small rally “Stop the Weapons, Stop the War, Stop NATO” on Tuesday, June 28 from 4:30-5:30 pm at the Waterloo Public Square. Map

This action is in solidarity with the actions taking place across Canada, the UK and Spain during the NATO Summit in Madrid.

Yesterday in Madrid, 20,000 people were on the streets saying No to NATO.

It is because of NATO that the war in Ukraine is raging, that Canada has increased military spending by 70% over the past 7 years and will increase it another 70% over the next 5 years, why Canada is not joining the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, why Canada is buying fighter jets, attack helicopters, armed drones and warships.

NATO’s militarism and military spending is the greatest threat to people and the planet.

Please join me! See more details below and here: https://peaceandjusticenetwork.ca/stopnato/

Tamara

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.

Say No To Encampment Evictions – Rally 5:30pm Wed 22 June 2022 at Speakers Corner

Say No To Encampment Evictions | Say Yes To Housing | Rally + March | Bring Your Signs | Stand In Solidarity with Our Unhoused and Vulnerable Neighbours | Wednesday June 22 5:30pm | Speakers Corner King & Benton | Downtown Kitchener

Download the poster (272 KB)

Say No To
Encampment Evictions
Say Yes To Housing

Stand In Solidarity With Our Unhoused and Vulnerable Neighbours
Stand In Solidarity With Our Unhoused and Vulnerable Neighbours
Rally +
March

Bring Your Signs


Wednesday 22 June 2022 | 5:30pm
Speakers Corner | King & Benton Map
Downtown Kitchener