Action

Ongoing action

Help Green ideas take root & grow ~ share on social media!

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Upcoming actions

Right now there are no any upcoming action campaigns planned. Check the calendar for other events coming up!

Past actions

September 17, 2016: Community dialogue for proportional representation

Canada’s Voting System is Changing -- Join us for a community dialogue about proportional representation and electoral reform -- Saturdary September 17th 3:00pm – 4:30pm -- In front of Kitchener City Hall -- wrgreens.ca/PR4PR -- Dialogue results will be sent directly to the Special Committee on Electoral Reform -- Hosted by the Waterloo Region Greens


Summer 2016: Telephone pressure campaign

To help encourage our government to modernize the voting system so all our votes count, our first action campaign is:

Push for Proportional Representation

Action site is offline. Click the link above for more information on why we so badly need Proportional Representation. Sign up and join the Telephone pressure campaign!


 

Have a Green Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day There’s lots to do to celebrate Canada Day locally today.

Did you know Cambridge Green Candidate Michele Braniff is CreateWaterloo’s Artist in Residence?  You can spot some of her work inside Grand River Transit buses.

Michele Braniff
Michele Braniff

To celebrate Canada Day, join Michele this afternoon between 1 – 3 for Drop in urban sketching at the old  Waterloo Train Station 10 Father David Bauer Dr, Waterloo, ON N2L 6M3 [directions here]

Michele promises a fun experience using pens on blank paper to produce your own highly personal & creative record of summer street scenes in Uptown Waterloo. There will be tips & coaching on selecting drawing sites, framing the sketch and using lines and shapes to suggest people, buildings and perspective. Bring your own tools and chair.

Then at 4:00pm Michele will be hosting a Story Telling Concert

In the tradition of campfires and listening together, Michele invites you to a storytelling event at the train station where she will use voice, expression and imagination to re-create the ancient tradition of storytelling. In celebration of Canada Day, Michele has created and collected stories to celebrate Waterloo County and Canada.

Michele Braniff sketches Bob Jonkman at the KW Multicultural Festival
Artist At Work: Michele Braniff sketches Bob Jonkman at the KW Multicultural Festival

49th K~W Multicultural Festival Weekend

join WRGreens @ K~W Multicultural Fest 2016
Visit the WRGreens info booth at the K~W Multicultural Festival  in Victoria Park
Saturday June 25th, 2016
Noon – 8pm
Sunday June 26th, 2016
Noon – 6pm

Sign Elizabeth May’s Electoral Reform Petition!

Pick up your own WRGreens sticker!

Cambridge Greens AvatarKitCenAvatarKitConAvatarKitSHAvatarWaterloo Green Party WRGREENS FINALavatar

Candidates Nick Wendler (#KitCen) and Bob Jonkman (#KitCon) at the 2015 WRGreens Booth
Candidates Nick Wendler (#KitCen) and Bob Jonkman (#KitCon) the K~W Multicultural Festival WRGreens Info Booth (2015)
Candidate Richard Walsh (#Waterloo)
Candidate Richard Walsh (#Waterloo) dispenses Green Party buttons at the 2015 K~W Multicultural Festival
Laurel & Laura "We Can Do It"
Laurel & Laura “We Can Do It”
Bob Jonkman (Kitchener-Conestoga)
Bob Jonkman (Kitchener-Conestoga)
WRGreens were selling Heritage Tomato seedlings last year.
WRGreens were selling Heritage Tomato seedlings last year.
WRGreens were selling Heritage Tomato seedlings last year.
WRGreens are always happy to talk about Green issues.
2015 #GPC Candidates Bob Jonkman and Richard Walsh
2015 #GPC Candidates Bob Jonkman and Richard Walsh

 

 

Guaranteed Livable Income Green Learning Community (2nd Session)

Basic Income Waterloo meets with Richard Walsh and Bob Jonkman at the Waterloo Greens Office during the 2015 election
Basic Income Waterloo advocates meet with Richard Walsh & Bob Jonkman at the WRGreens Office [2015]
A Guaranteed Liveable Income is Green Party of Canada policy.  During the 2015 Election it was a integral piece of the GPC’s integrated plan to eliminate poverty in conjunction with a renewed commitment to Universal Health Care, the introduction of Pharmacare, a National Housing Strategy, and the elimination of Post Secondary tuition and debt relief for those struggling under enormous student debt loads.

Oddly enough, this is not at all a new thing.  The Canadian Government partnered with the Manitoba Government to run a guaranteed annual income pilot project they called Mincome in Dauphin ~ A Town Without Poverty?  back in the 1970s.  As often happens with long term projects in countries using winner-take-all voting systems, the government changed and the new lot boxed up all the data and stored it away.

This is becoming a hot topic worldwide, and here at home we’re hearing about this from all levels of government:

FEDERAL
The Trudeau Liberals just prioritized one of Richard Nixon’s favourite conservative policies: ‘mincome’

PROVINCIAL
A Basic Income For Ontario? Province Plans Pilot Project As Part Of Budget

MUNICIPAL

The Waterloo Green Party is hosting the second Guaranteed Livable Income Green Learning Community event on Saturday to help get a handle on what this social policy is all about.

GLI slide
Announcing the GLI Learning Community @KPL

As a learning community, we’ve met once already to develop a set of questions we’d like to explore. When we meet on the 18th, we’ll dig deeper, sharing what we’ve learned and discussing more in depth.  All are welcome, there is no need to have attended our first session.

You can join the Green Learning Community Event

Guaranteed Livable Income
Learning Community ~ Session 2

Saturday
1:30 PM – 3 PM

The Journey ~ A Christian Church
16 Eby St. N.
Kitchener, ON

*note: although the venue this time is a church, it is a non-secular event

Further Reading:
The Manitoba Mincome Study; Even a small Guaranteed Income has dramatic positive effects on society
Download the 39 page PDF file:
THE TOWN WITH NO POVERTY Using Health Administration Data to Revisit Outcomes of a Canadian Guaranteed Annual Income Field Experiment

You can get more information from our awesome local advocacy group, Basic Income Waterloo Region

WRGreens at OpenStreets 2016

Join us in Uptown Waterloo Sunday Afternoon for the 2016 Open Streets launch!
WRGreens at Open Streets Uptown Waterloo 2016

The Waterloo Region Greens invite you to drop by and say “hi!” at our first ever Open Streets information booth! Grab a WRGreens sticker and sign Elizabeth’s electoral reform petition!’

Walkwalk

bikebike
scootscoot
skateboardskateboard
or fly down to check it out!fly

There’s always lots to doThings to do
seeU of W solar race car
and listen to!Badlt Sketched Poets (2013) at Open Streets
If you’ve never been to an Open Streets before you’re in for a treat!

Waterloo Region Districts

These are the 5 electoral districts of Waterloo Region.
These are the 5 electoral districts of Waterloo Region.

 

Tomorrow (Sunday June 5th, 2016) is a busy day for WRGreens.  It is the first session of Waterloo’s Kris and Bryan’s 2nd Learning Community on the topic of Guaranteed Livable Income, which features a presentation by Basic Income Waterloo‘s John Green.  [The day & time are the same but the venue did change.]

These sessions are open to the public, so feel free to bring anyone who is interested, Green or not 🙂

I am sad to have to miss this session, but tomorrow afternoon I’ll be staffing a WRGreens Information Booth at the TriPride Festival at Kitchener City Hall. I’ve been putting together some fresh materials, made stickers and I’ve put together this map.  The visual demarcation of the electoral districts was taken from the excellent Redistribution of Federal Electoral Districts website, but this is primarily a graphic representation which may not be entirely accurate around the edges. This was created to give visitors to the Waterloo Greens information booth an idea of where the #WRGreens districts are.

I also used the OpenStreetMap® which is open data, licensed under the Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL) by the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF).
Tiles by MapQuest licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (CC BY-SA)

I’m looking forward to tomorrow; maybe I’ll see you at Kitchener City Hall for the family friendly TriPride festivities!

 

Referendum isn’t the answer

Referendum talk is beginning to overshadow the real need of getting our everyday democracy into the hands of voters. Referendums work only with an engaged citizenry that is informed by a fair and unbiased media.

Truth is, every referendum on electoral reform has been sabotaged by misinformation from elite power brokers who like our flawed voting system, which promotes their will over the citizens at large. They are the ones that oppose real democracy.

To claim reform needs a referendum is to believe all major decisions should have a true majority of citizens’ consent. That’s what we’d routinely have for every decision, if we had a government with proportional representation (PR). Globally, most democracies have changed to PR voting systems.

David WeberA dozen committees and commissions already conducted in Canada all conclude that PR is needed for a government that really represents voters’ intentions. I don’t want smoke-and-mirrors propaganda derailing the public from what is in their best interest. I don’t need a referendum hijacked, again, by big money and the elite to keep our biased system that mostly works for them.

I just want a real democratic institution with proportional representation that reflects the will of the people it is supposed to serve.

David Weber
Kitchener


David Weber was the Kitchener South—Hespeler Green Party candidate during the 2015 federal election.  This letter appeared in The May 25th, 2016 Record 

Learning Community: Guaranteed Livable Income

Learning Community
Fair Vote presentation at the Proportional Representation Learning Community (at Seven Shores)The second Waterloo Green Party Learning Community will kick off on Sunday June 5th at Seven Shores Urban Market & Cafe in Waterloo.

Proportional Representation was the topic we explored in the first Green Learning Community series hosted by the Green Party of Waterloo’s Kris Braun and Bryan Izzard.

Recently you’ve likely heard of Guaranteed Livable Income (GLI), sometimes called Basic Income, which was implemented in a Western town as a pilot program called  “Mincome” in the 1970’s.  Since the GLI is an important Green Party policy plank, this is a good opportunity to figure out what this radical social policy is all about.  As a learning community, we’ll set our own direction and investigate with open minds. Our series will likely have three sessions, but you’re welcome to come to any even if you miss others.

Our first session will feature a presentation from John Green from Basic Income Waterloo Region and brainstorming on what we’d like to learn for our next session.

hosted by the Green Party of Waterloo
hosted by the Green Party of Waterloo

The event is free but signing up is recommended (in case of updates, etc) ~ you can also sign up on the Facebook event page.

Sunday June 5th, 2016
1:30pm – 3:00pm
at Seven Shores Urban Market & Cafe

10 Regina St. N Unit 4, Waterloo, ON, N2J 2Z8


UPDATE:  The first learning community date is going to be rescheduled… I’ll update this again when I know when!


FINAL UPDATE
The first Basic Income Learning Community will still be held on Sunday, but in a different venue:

Sunday June 5th, 2016
1:30pm – 3:00pm
at
The Journey – a Christian Church
16 Eby St N, Kitchener, Ontario N2H 2V6

*note: this is not a religious meeting

Leap Now

Leap for the WorldThese are the 15 Leap Manifesto Demands:

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. We want a universal program to build and retrofit energy efficient housing, ensuring that the lowest income communities will benefit first.

  6. 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.

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

  8. We need to invest in our decaying public infrastructure so that it can withstand increasingly frequent extreme weather events.

  9. 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.

  10. 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.

  11. 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.

  12. 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.

  13. 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.

  14. 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.

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

    The Leap Manifesto Petition

Leap banner_0573

The idea that going green is going to cost us jobs is purely a myth.  Alberta’s lost  jobs are directly attributable to the fact the fossil fuel companies bailed when they failed to get the profit they wanted.  There’s plenty of evidence the reverse is true.  There is good information available on the Leap site, including downloadable info, a paper sign up sheet so people can get added to the petition &tc..  Best of all, there is an online list of signatories, so we know which of our family and friends are missing  😀

And the Fossil Fuel companies want pipelines, and now they are driving the political process with fear.  That’s why, in spite of everything we know, there is talk the Liberals want to fast track the Energy East Pipeline!  We must make sure the Paris Accord isn’t just window dressing and now they can get back to business as usual.  That’s why it is important.

Please sign, share, and talk to your family and friends about this.

wind turbine

Sign the Leap Manifesto

The Green Party has been on board with the Leap Manifesto from the start. Unfortunately Canada’s political will needs a bit of a push, what with the Alberta NDP pushing pipelines…

You can help by signing the Leap Manifesto petition online and you can also download it as a printable pdf file here.

WRGREENS FINALavatarI missed it when the CBC aired the “This Changes Everything” documentary this past Sunday
night, but I understand you can still watch it online at CBC (unfortunately not available for Free Software users). I think that’s the ink (but I can’t check.)

The Waterloo Region Greens are planning a local screening. Check back for details (or subscribe to the blog for updates).