Thursday 20 December 2012

CUSJ Supports Chief Spence


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Canadian Unitarians for Social Justice
A national faith-based organization founded in support of Unitarian values
P.O. Box 40011, Ottawa, ON, K1V 0W8
President, Rev. Frances Deverell                                                                          president@cusj.org


December 20th, 2012

Open Letter to the Media


Canadian Unitarians For Social Justice have written to ask our Federal Government to properly represent Canadians in their responsibilities to First Nations people.  We want to ensure they have the levels of education, health, quality of environment and economic opportunity promised to them through the treaty process.  The Conservative Government dismantled the agreement between all parties known as the Kelowna Accord.  It has never replaced this with a different policy agreed to by First Nations, provinces, and the Federal Government.  An apology without significant agreements is simply not enough.  It is time the Federal Government came to the table and negotiated an acceptable deal with First Nations Leaders.

Furthermore, Bill C-35 affects the basic rights of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.  It not only violates international human rights standards, it falls far short of the legal requirements established in Canadian law.  We have to do better than this.  We must give First Nations the respect of full consultation regarding activities in their territory and respect their rights.

We fully support Chief Spence in her call for these negotiations to begin in the New Year.  As Canadians, we must not let this situation turn into a tragedy that will humiliate us for generations to come.  We must step up to the plate and negotiate a fair deal for all Canadians.  We will all do better when our First Nations grow and prosper and become a full partner with us in this country.

In faith,


Rev. Frances Deverell
President,
Canadian Unitarians For Social Justice
613-747-7584




Thursday 6 December 2012

Dec 6 - Gun Control and the Montreal Massacre


2012 12 06 -- Gun Control and the Montreal Massacre

What an amazing coincidence that a report recommending what kind of gun legistlation we should have would be issued today—December  6th,--25th  anniversary of the Montreal Massacre.  6 women were murdered for the crime of taking engineering at the École Polytechnique.  The event has become the Canadian symbol of the rampant problem in our country of violence against women.  Issuing this report today is like throwing sand in the face of the families and loved ones of those in this country who have lost their lives because of violence against women. 

Violence against women takes many forms:
o   Domestic violence (including premarital date rape) (Aggravated by addictions)
o   Economic violence (Incomes of $500-1000 per person per month for social assistance leaves people vulnerable and exposed)
o   Cultural  violence  caused by different view of acceptable male-female roles and relations.
o   Residential schools resulted in a complex set of disease and dysfunction that often results in violence against women
o   Violence against women in the sex trade.

All of the people who are affected by this violence want to see that steps will be taken to address these issues.  We want to know that if a crime occurs against a woman, no matter who she may be, she deserves a full investigation of the situation.  We want to know that known crime prevention measures are being implemented to reduce these social problems that result in violence.

We want a full evaluation to determine if the long gun registry was at all effective in reducing gun crime.  If it was, we want it back.  If it was not, we want measures implemented that will reduce gun crime.  Too many of us are on the wrong end of a gun.

The report reflects the point of view of those who supported abolition of the long gun registry.   The body creating the report had no mandate to obtain the views of either police chiefs or victims of crime or their families.  The recommendations include extending license renewals to ten years from five.  It proposes to loosen gun control rules.  They say there is no relationship between these actions and violence against women. 

The police disagree.

Again and again the government acts to reduce the safety of Canadians while claiming to be the government of law and order.  What can we do to stop this militarization of our culture? 

Thursday 8 November 2012

A New Energy Policy, A New Economy


A New Energy Policy, A New Economy

It is the day after Obama was re-elected and the Dow/Dao fell 312. The TSX fell 130.  It was not a free fall.  It held steady the last 3 hours before the close.  Pundits are suggesting this is not a reaction to the renewed Obama presidency.  In fact, futures were going up after the President was declared re-elected.  The fall may be more related to negative speeches made in the early morning about the financial crisis in Germany and concern over a possible contraction in the American economy if Obama cannot negotiate an acceptable strategy for dealing with taxes and the debt.

But there could also be some anxiety over Obama’s approach to energy security.  In his acceptance speech he actually drew attention to the looming problem of climate change.  What will be the US energy policy to deal with this developing crisis?  The environmentalists voted for him because he delayed the XL pipeline.  Romney said he would approve it the first day of his presidency.  Will Obama delay that pipeline with investigation and environmental assessment?    Will the people's will or the oil company interests prevail?

Harper is not pleased to have to do battle with the President of the United States who is supposed to be his buddy and ally.  Harper will not like begging to be allowed to set up systems for delivering a higher volume of dilbit to the United States.  The US was supposed to want an unlimited amount of our dirty oil.   Maybe industry and the stock market are nervous that energy policy is about to change.

But if Obama focuses on renewables (as we want him to do), the demand for oil might not come back.  It might even continue to contract.  This could leave oil companies over-extended and in trouble.  As anti-pipeline activists let us separate our objectives.  Our objectives are not to destroy oil companies.  Our objective is to work with energy executives to plan the down-sizing of the oil sands in order to focus on energy conservation and renewable energy.  The big money will no longer be made from ecocidal mining of oil and other minerals.  

We want the big money to be made in making anything that uses power to be more energy efficient:  anything that improves on current batteries and energy storage systems;  anything that sets up systems to make hydrogen whenever there is electricity being wasted;  innovation in networking complex power grids and setting up systems for maximum efficiency.  Maximum innovation must be stimulated in these areas.  The oil, coal, and nuclear industries must learn to change their focus and make money in the new economy.  We may need transition programming to help them convert.  We need energy executives to lead us forward toward a greenhouse gas--free world.  

We need to understand as a society that when we conduct such activities as mining, we must, intentionally, design the mining or forestry processes for minimum impact on the surrounding ecosystems.  We must internalize the cost of preserving the environment into the price of any activity we undertake. 

Both companies and government must incorporate environmental and human well-being indexes into the measure of how successful our economy is.  GDP will be one among several indicators tracked on a regular basis.   

In my dream world, during this time of transition, the United Nations would be leading a political dialogue with all the leaders of the world on how we could build a world at peace and stop spending the world's resources on manufacturing weapons and nuclear power plants.

I would like to see the world organized by watersheds such as the Athabasca Watershed.  Very large river catchment areas would be countries.  They might be broken into several provinces drained by main feeder tributaries.  Municipalities would centre around local watersheds.  People would be intimately connected with the water that provides the life-giving capacity of the land.

In my dream world, the law would be changed so that private corporations would have equal fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders and to the community.  We need a market-based economy to ensure that we encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.  We also need it accepted in the core values of society that the activities of private companies have a big impact on the communities in which they are located and on the surrounding environment.  No activity that produces a negative bottom-line for the community or the environment can be considered to be beneficial to shareholders.  The co-op model of enterprise where workers own their own means of production is to be encouraged.

In my dream world we would also substantially reduce military spending.  We can solve the world’s oil crisis by massively reducing consumption.  We need to take similar steps with water.  We cannot afford a century of war over these precious resources.  Instead, we need to develop peaceful means to negotiate, and share the resources we have.  With the financial dividend achieved by reduced military spending, we create jobs in environmental reclamation, environmental assessment, environmental management, health care, education, social work, transportation, and so on.  We build the new infrastructure and work out piece-by-piece which parts are best done by the public and which by the private sector and how the two complement each other.  This is how we must share the wealth in a service-based economy where everyone has worth and dignity and all who are able have the opportunity to contribute through meaningful work.


Tuesday 6 November 2012

Raven Courtney: Sandy and Climate Change


Dear friends and family, many questions came in my inbox regarding this weeks oncoming of events with Mother Earth and my opinions on it. I will be very honest and very open minded about it....I love Mother Earth with deep love and will go that extra mile and some to bring voice to her to help protect her.
My deepest feelings are that we are faced with natures comings and goings and we cant control it in however we try to.....if earthquakes are going to happen, they will, if cyclones are going to happen they will, if tsunami warnings are going to come then they will....that is the nature of our Mother Earth, it breathes and it lives and that is why we need to bring her rights and protect her. No....Mother Earth is not capable of punishing us, its our own conciousness that punishes us for what we do or what we know. We live in this world and all we have to do is learn how to live and care for ourselves in this world of natural elements that come to us. Mother Earth is a huge force and it can be gentle or the opposite but only becuz it breathes and lives on its own and not to punish us.
"we the people" have to work alittle harder together to bring our Mother Earth rights and end the era of ecocide and protect her. Even with the earthquakes, cyclones and tsunami warnings we must still move forward in bringing her voice and taking care of our home.
Yes, we do irresponsible actions towards our Earth but we can still help make it stop today and make that difference....for a better tommorow. We will still have our earthquakes, cyclones and tsunami warnings but we will get stronger each time.
Climate change and does it do this? Can we isolate climate change with what is happening today with the superstorm? many questions are asked and sometimes we just have to sit back and think about the facts we gather ie:Atlantic Ocean is 5" f warmer then average, warmer water equals more evaporation and heavy rains, higher sea levels cause storm surges.....the warmer weather makes these storms more intense then usual, it makes strong storms even stronger. In my own opinion I believe that that the extreme weatheris a strong signal for climate change, in the last two years we had extreme weather conditions, with hurricanes, earth quakes, tsunamis, heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and the epic melting in the Artic. We all have our own thoughts, opinions and stories but we all know we have to change in how we treat our precious Mother Earth.....end the era of ecocide and make ecocide against the law, we can all do this together........love and peace, Raven
www.eradicatingecocide.com
www.eradicatingecocideincanada.org