reed writes

Hi Everyone – please read this carefully and consider sending a letter on Bill C-474 to Ben Lobb – it’s easy to do – using an online process – and you will be helping to protect our markets from harm! – support Bill C-474 – before Monday March 29, 2010 – Support Canada’s Farmers! You can stop GE Alfalfa and GE Wheat!

If your member is someone else you can find him/her at the link below.

Write a letter to your MP asap. Click on the link for the tool to use.

http://www.cban.ca/474action

Bill C-474 will be debated for a second hour in Parliament  March 29. The vote will happen a few days later. Even if you have  already written your MP, you are encouraged to send another letter  before March 29.

Your concrete action could stop genetically engineered (GE) seeds from  causing chaos in Canadian farming! Europeans call them “Monster Seeds”.

Bill C-474 would require that “an analysis of potential harm to export  markets be conducted before the sale of any new genetically engineered  seed is permitted.” The Bill could stop GE alfalfa and GE wheat.

they're called "monster seeds"

This Bill is critically important because, as we know from experience,  the introduction of new genetically engineered (GE) crops can cause  economic hardship to farmers. Farmers are at risk when GE crops are  commercialized in Canada without also being approved in our major  export markets.

Flax farmers in Canada are now paying a heavy price because of this  exact problem. Late last year, Canadian flax exports were discovered to be contaminated with a GE flax that is not approved in Europe or in any  of our other export markets (except the U.S.).

Flax farmers actually  foresaw that GE contamination or even the threat of contamination  would close their export markets. That’s why they took steps in 2001  to remove GE flax from the market.

Despite this measure, flax farmers  were not protected. The GE flax contamination closed our export  markets in 2009. It has created market uncertainty and depressed  prices. Farmers are also paying for testing and cleanup and may be  required to abandon their own farm-saved flax seed and buy certified  seed instead. These costs are an unnecessary and preventable burden.

We cannot allow GE seeds to harm our export markets. Please support  Bill C-474 and protect Canada’s farmers.

Write a letter to your MP immediately from http://www.cban.ca/474action Take action before March 29, 2010.

Bill C-474 was introduced by Alex Atamanenko, the NDP Agriculture  Critic and MP for British Columbia Southern Interior. However this goes well beyond politics and to the heart of Canadian agriculture.

For updates, more info and action options  see http://www.cban.ca/474

or contact Lucy Sharratt, Coordinator, Canadian Biotechnology Action  Network coordinator@cban.ca 613 241 2267 ext. 6

This action alert was issued by the Canadian Biotechnology Action  Network (CBAN) http://www.cban.ca

Lucy Sharratt, Coordinator
Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN)
Collaborative Campaigning for Food Sovereignty and Environmental Justice
431 Gilmour Street, Second Floor
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K2P 0R5
Phone: 613 241 2267 ext.6
Fax: 613 241 2506
coordinator@cban.ca
www.cban.ca

Your action to support Bill C-474 is making a difference! Support  Canada’s Farmers!

Write to your MP please – from http://www.cban.ca/474action
Take action before March 29, 2010.

Thankyou

The first 2 weeks of March are designated as Israel Apartheid Week.

It’s a harsh term, but those who support honesty, equality and above all justice – and that includes lots of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, even some Rosicrucians and Freemasons – recognize that colonialism, occupation and yes – Apartheid – is alive and functioning in the Middle East.

To recognize that Israel is in the process of implementing full-blown Apartheid is not to be anti-Semitic.

It is, however, a mark of a person’s ability to separate fact from fiction…something that most of our leading politicians seem unable to do.

This appeared in a recent edition of “The Tyee” one of Canada’s most prestigious online publications:

“Even members of the Israeli political elite use the term apartheid to describe the system they administer — the latest being the current defence minister (and former prime minister) Ehud Barak who stated: “If there is only one political entity, named Israel, it will end up being either non-Jewish or non-democratic… If the Palestinians vote in elections, it is a binational state, and if they don’t, it is an apartheid state.”

Shulamit Aloni, who once served as Minister of Education under Yitzhak Rabin, wrote: “The state of Israel practises its own, quite violent form of apartheid with the native Palestinian population.” And in November of 2007, Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: “If the day comes when the two state solution collapses, and we face a South African style struggle for equal voting rights, then as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished.”

Michael Ben-Yair, Israel’s attorney general from 1993 to 1996, described Israel’s approach to the Palestinian territories captured in 1967 as apartheid in 2002:

“We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities… We developed two judicial systems: one — progressive, liberal in Israel. The other — cruel, injurious in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture.”"

The above quote is the core of the Tyee piece by Murray Dobbin. The rest can be seen here.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Most of this information comes from  Offsetters Climate Neutral Society, a not-for-profit organization established by two professors at the University of British Columbia.

Environment Minister Jim Pretence (oops, Prentice)  announced this week that the $150,000 Canada is spending on carbon offsets will “help offset the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of its Olympic Games.”

The 2010 Winter Games’ footprint will be an estimated 118,000 tonnes of direct carbon emissions – all emissions that are directly attributable to the 2010 Winter Games like venue construction, facility heating, and athlete travel. Additionally, this event will produce 150,000 tonnes of ‘indirect’ emissions – emissions that are largely attributable to flights and accommodation for spectators, media, corporate sponsors and their partners.

 That runs to 268,000 tons at $25 a pop. Or seven million. Having spent 66 million of taxpayers money on Own the Podium, did none of our eggheads consider incorporating the carbon-cost in there? Or pick up the entire carbon-tab afterwards,  to show we mean to be green?

This cheesy  gratuity does nothing to boost Canada’a shrinking  environmental stature.

Remember, this is only the estimated carbon cost, not the aftermath clean-up. For context on this mountainous problem, a recent Vancouver initialtive to reduce garbage generated at Christmas-time had the target of the equivalent of 85,500 full garbage trucks.

By all accounts the games were a roaring success commercially. Where is the carbon-offset contribution from Vancouver businesses? 

Dear Mr. Lobb,

I wrote to you weeks ago with some thoughts and a few concerns.

You sent me back a form letter, which I thought was quite rude, since you were on vacation, you are a backbencher and you had time to reply if you wanted to or if you cared.

But you didn’t.

Well – Wednesday is “Speech-from-the-throne” Day…and I am sure you’ll be in your seat, listening closely.

I’m hoping that sooner or later you will send me a real reply to this letter.

Sincerely,

Jim.

____________________________________________________________

Letter to My Member of Parliament,
Mr. Ben Lobb,
Member of Parliament,
Riding of Huron Bruce,
Ontario, Canada.

Dear Mr. Lobb,

(more…)

Ehud Barak

According to Ehud Barak – Apartheid is standing in Israel’s doorway, and if it hasn’t already, it is about to take a seat at the table.

Ehud Barak, is Israel’s Defence Minister.

Is he too an anti Semite…?

Stephen Harper might Think so. You can read his remarks here.