The Leap Manifesto

This post is uploaded from The Leap Manifesto - put together by a group of Canadians including David Suzuki and Naomi Klein, to address the looming crisis of environmental and social breakdown.


Sign the Leap Manifesto:

"The leap must begin by respecting the inherent rights and title of the original caretakers of this land, starting by fully implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The latest research shows we could get 100% of our electricity from renewable resources within two decades; by 2050 we could have a 100% clean economy. We demand that this shift begin now.

No new infrastructure projects that lock us into increased extraction decades into the future. The new iron law of energy development must be: if you wouldn’t want it in your backyard, then it doesn’t belong in anyone’s backyard.The time for energy democracy has come: wherever possible, communities should collectively control new clean energy systems.

Indigenous Peoples and others on the frontlines of polluting industrial activity should be first to receive public support for their own clean energy projects.We want a universal program to build and retrofit energy efficient housing, ensuring that the lowest income communities will benefit first.

We want high-speed rail powered by just renewables and affordable public transit to unite every community in this country – in place of more cars, pipelines and exploding trains that endanger and divide us.

We want training and resources for workers in carbon-intensive jobs, ensuring they are fully able to participate in the clean energy economy.

We need to invest in our decaying public infrastructure so that it can withstand increasingly frequent extreme weather events.We must develop a more localized and ecologically-based agricultural system to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, absorb shocks in the global supply – and produce healthier and more affordable food for everyone.

We call for an end to all trade deals that interfere with our attempts to rebuild local economies, regulate corporations and stop damaging extractive projects.

We demand immigration status and full protection for all workers. Canadians can begin to rebalance the scales of climate justice by welcoming refugees and migrants seeking safety and a better life.

We must expand those sectors that are already low-carbon: caregiving, teaching, social work, the arts and public-interest media.

A national childcare program is long past due.Since so much of the labour of caretaking – whether of people or the planet – is currently unpaid and often performed by women, we call for a vigorous debate about the introduction of a universal basic annual income.

We declare that “austerity” is a fossilized form of thinking that has become a threat to life on earth. The money we need to pay for this great transformation is available — we just need the right policies to release it. An end to fossil fuel subsidies. Financial transaction taxes. Increased resource royalties.
Higher income taxes on corporations and wealthy people. A progressive carbon tax. Cuts to military spending.

We must work swiftly towards a system in which every vote counts and corporate money is removed from political campaigns.


This transformation is our sacred duty to those this country harmed in the past, to those suffering needlessly in the present, and to all who have a right to a bright and safe future.
Now is the time for boldness.
Now is the time to leap."

It is incumbent upon us to care about the world because we can

Sheila Haniszewska - on UN resolution condemning "glorification of Nazism"

Memorial to the Jews who perished at the end of WWII*

In November 2014, the Harper Conservative government, along with the USA and Ukraine, voted against a United Nations resolution that condemned the “glorification of Nazism”. This resolution also called for the condemnation of “other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.” It also asked member nations to take legislative measures in order to stop Holocaust denial.

115 countries supported the resolution, 55 abstained. We were one of the three countries who did not support this.

Why isn't this more widely known? This is scandalous. What does this unwillingness to condemn Nazism say about the Harper government? What does it say about Canada? Does this represent our values? Do people need to be reminded what Nazism is? Why did Canada vote this way? 

I think this issue needs to be raised as soon as possible with our current government.

We have the Anti- Terrorism Act, just passed this spring, and yet we are willing to turn a blind eye to Nazis? This is especially significant with the rise of ultra -right forces in many European countries and particularly Ukraine, where the United States and Canada are providing military and other support.

It needs to be an election issue.

(After the Nazi's left Budapest the Arrow Cross party rounded up the remaining Jews, marched them to the river, ordered them to take off their shoes and jump in the river.)

The Leap Manifesto

"We could live in a country powered entirely by truly just renewable energy, woven together by accessible public transit, in which the jobs and opportunities of this transition are designed to systematically eliminate racial and gender inequality. Caring for one another and caring for the planet could be the economy’s fastest growing sectors. Many more people could have higher wage jobs with fewer work hours, leaving us ample time to enjoy our loved ones and flourish in our communities.

We know that the time for this great transition is short. Climate scientists have told us that this is the decade to take decisive action to prevent catastrophic global warming. That means small steps will no longer get us where we need to go." The Leap Manifesto

Sign The Leap Manifesto

Requiem for a Nation (reposted)

This post was first published in May 2011 just after the Federal Election. I re-blog to revisit my thoughts during that time, as the 2015 elections approach and the stakes seem much higher. The world has become even more barbaric and suffering globally and nationally more evident. 

In spite of all the efforts of good people to inform the public, 40 % of voters chose the party that promised to deplete  the programs that make us rich with a quality of life such as good education, health care, social services to help those at risk, programs that promote civic engagement.  

Over the last thirty years we have seen how the natural wealth and beauty of this country have been eroded in the name of the "economy", and we have watched our leaders become vague on policy in exchange for populist slogans. The air waves are filled with entertainments where discourse used to be. And we have seen how nations have scuttled out of environmental stewardship.

Politics has become another new product. It can't be complicated with real issues that will make voters seem uninformed. It musn't make them feel stressed or pressured. It must be easy, make them feel superior, that their prejudices are right and their intuitions on track. The campaign must be shiny and slippery. 

Sure there have been other voices alerting us to the danger ahead, giving us statistics, calling out errors made by the government, and even though they didn't get much in mainstream coverage they got the majority of votes. But not enough for our first past the post system.

Canadians did not win, the military industrial complex did. That vast and resounding voice that comes through hundreds of TV's and most corporate sponsored newspapers, that huge global propaganda machine, that ideology that we must worship profit instead of people, was the great winner tonight. And that isn't hard because sub-consciously we all sense where power is invested and it's much safer to get behind the bully rather than confront him.

Hidden behind the pre-packaged images and formatted perceptions, the real world will continue to unravel. There will be more unemployment, more homelessness, more domestic violence. Beyond the facade of morality, abortions will be illegal, purportedly to save the unborn who will be left to starve once they are born. Our youth will be sent to war in countries they have never heard of for reasons they'll never know. Prisons will be filled with conscientious objectors tortured by the criminals in charge. And the earth with its inhabitants will die a slow death through poisoning.

This may sound too far fetched, but consider the difference thirty years has made in our expectations of what a functioning democracy means. A good standard of living where we thought hard work and education would pay off, where we expected our government and corporations, guided by reason and knowledge, worked for the people. Remember when we thought we lived in a fair and progressive country full of people who had risen above prejudice and racism?

What was it that changed? People or the theatre of  information we are bombarded with?  What instruments and strategies have been at play to make us believe people (and when we say people we mean other) have become stupid? 

Absolute power corrupts absolutely and we are no longer in a friendly beautiful place, but a place that has been co-opted, extracted, re-interpreted by power interests that feed us what they want us to feel.

What has happened is that power has been centralized and life is merely its meat. What has happened is we do not see the ways we are manipulated because we can't see the strategies used against us.

Before we can win back democracy we must examine and interrogate this power that we have enabled, that has become the monster. To believe in our own power to change the world for the better is a good start.

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING | Int'l Trailer

Syrian Refugee Crisis

To: Stephen Harper, Thomas Mulcair, Justin Trudeau, Elizabeth May and Gilles Duceppe:

I am calling on you to set politics and campaigning aside to urgently address the mounting Syrian refugee crisis. Immediate, concrete and generous steps must be made to significantly increase Canada’s contribution both to resettling refugees and international efforts to resolve the conflict and human rights crisis in Syria. 

I am urgently calling on the government to: 

• Announce a program to immediately resettle a minimum of 10,000 Syrians through government sponsorship and provide support for generous levels of private sponsorship of Syrian refugees.

• Lift obstacles to speedy family reunification and allow refugee cases to be processed within Canada.

• Launch an immediate review of Aylan Kurdi’s uncle’s case to identify any obstacles that stood in the way of approval of his family’s application for resettlement to Canada.

• Intensify Canada’s efforts to ensure more effective international action to resolve the conflict and human rights crisis in Syria, including increased humanitarian aid and pressing for a comprehensive arms embargo.

All parties should articulate a concrete policy for Canada's response to refugees, including this current crisis.



  

Is CBC doing the work that our government doesn't want to do?

Missing and Murdered Women 

THERE'S ALWAYS MONEY FOR A WAR

Early Voting in the Canadian Federal Election

For those who are away on Election Day October 19th, here, courtesy of Jennifer Davidson, is some information on when and how we can all cast our ballots.

1. The easiest way if you are not leaving until after Thanksgiving is to vote in the

advanced poll on October 9, 10, 11 or 12. Location TBA – should be in paper or use contact t information for Elections Canada below.

2. If you are leaving before Thanksgiving, you can vote by mail-in special ballot as follows:

• Ballots can be picked up at Elections Canada office at the old Dufferin Crescent Elementary school at 1111 Dufferin Crescent. Apparently it is a bit of a process to register, so leave yourself lots of time. Ask for the Special Ballot Coordinator
• You can fill out and return your ballot at the office or take it away and mail in later
•  Registration must take place before October 13
• Ballots mailed in must arrive at Elections Canada in Ottawa before 6 pm on Election Day.
• Elections Canada office is open as follows:
• August: 10-5, Mon-Fri, but the Special Ballot Coordinator is only available from 10-1pm. September/October: 9-9 Mon-Fri; 9-5 Saturday and 12-4 Sunday.

You will need the following for ID: 

i. Drivers Licence with current address OR
ii. Government issued photo ID with current address OR
iii. 2 pieces of Id showing photo, name and residence address e.g. passport and Hydro bill

More information can be found at www.elections.ca or by phoning 1-866-545-0624
Hope this helps you to get out and vote!