Waterloo

Have a Green Canada Day!

Laurel L. Russwurm Cambridge, event, Green Party of Canada, Waterloo , ,

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

Laurel L. Russwurm Cambridge, democracy, Elizabeth May, event, Green Party of Canada, Kitchener Centre, Kitchener South-Hespeler, Kitchener-Conestoga, Waterloo , , , ,

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)

Laurel L. Russwurm event, Green Party of Canada, Green Party of Ontario, Green Party Policy, Waterloo

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

Laurel L. Russwurm event, Waterloo ,

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

Laurel L. Russwurm Kitchener Centre, Kitchener-Conestoga, Waterloo , , , , ,
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!

 

Learning Community: Guaranteed Livable Income

Laurel L. Russwurm Green Party of Canada, Green Party of Ontario, Waterloo , , , , , ,
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