Archive for Shameless fawning

Here are some photos of Adriana     Read more »

Celebrating Frank de Jong
Saturday, 2009 Sep 12, noon – 7 pm
1 Donlea Drive (Bayview/Eglinton)

    Read more »

Hear about the Green Party’s future from the women who’ll help shape it!

There will be an opportunity to mix and meet our honoured guests and you’ll have the opportunity to choose and own one of the books by our distinguished authors.

You will also have the chance to schmooze with other well-known personalities and enjoy a buffet reception.

Speakers and host     Read more »

While canvassing today, I met a nice man who recommended this site and movie to me.  I just watched it.  It sort of languishes lovingly over primarily aerial images of tremendous beauty, both natural and man-made, while soaring music plays in the background and frightening assessments are made about our climate, our energy sources, and our ability to feed and water humanity.  It ends with a worried but uplifting message of hope.  It’s well worth the hour and a half.

As a young woman, I heard the story of the Danish people wearing armbands marking them as Jews in solidarity with the Jewish people when their country was occupied by Nazis.  It turns out this detail is false.  Danish Jews were saved through the courage of their countrymen, primarily because a transport to neutral Sweden was arranged, not because Danish non-Jews also wore yellow stars.  But I find it inspiring to think of facing injustice by insisting on imposing the same limitations on yourself as those suffered by the people you are fighting for.  It is a powerful image.     Read more »

Donna Dillman has moved her hunger strike for a moratorium on uranium mining to Queen’s Park.  Her rally this morning got a significant group of supporters out in the cold at Queen’s Park.  It felt good to be there.  The press was there taking pictures and talking to people.  It feels like something powerful is in the works.  Donna was gracious and informed and sensible even though she’s starting to feel weak and she’s always cold.  Our MPP, Peter Tabuns, was out there in support, as well as a lot of faces from Toronto-Danforth including our candidate Sharon Howarth and Green Party of Ontario staff Jeff Brownridge and Jessica Fracassi.  The Green Party of Ontario issued a press release in support of Donna, and the Green Party of Canada has been behind her all along. Peter scheduled an interview with Donna following the rally and has promised his support for further media opportunities.  Thanks Peter.  And thanks Donna, for your courage.

Tonight is your opportunity to meet Edward Burtynsky, the photographer of those spectacular photos that look so achingly beautiful until you realize what you are seeing.  He photographs the impacts of industry on the environment, but infuses an aesthetic sense even to the most disturbing scenes.  The bright ribbon is a river flowing red, the lovely pattern of concentric rectangles is a deep open-pit mine, the people in it no bigger than pin pricks, the little flickers of lights on the monolithic shadow are the torches of workers in Bangladesh painstakingly deconstructing the hulks of decrepit ships.  There are orderly stacks of tires and compressed telephones, piles of computers and televisions and clothes.  They’re very eye-opening.

Edward Burtynsky at Worldchanging at the Berkeley
Wednesday, 2007 November 14, 7 pm
315 Queen St East

I spent much of the summer in Central Nova, helping Elizabeth out in her New Glasgow office and staying at her home.  I’m completely convinced she’s going to be the next MP from Central Nova.     Read more »

I’ve been trying to get my house in order after burning myself out on Power to Choose, but I’m pretty worn out and prone to feeling ill instead. There is also still a lot of follow-up work with Power to Choose, including fora in other locations and editing and compiling the information gathered. And soon we’re about to announce another nomination meeting.

But I wanted to let everyone know the highlights from last week. I’m going to do a special entry about the Pride Parade, which I wish I would have written about a long time ago. I also want a special entry about the Portlands Energy Centre CLC walkout. Here’s the rest of the news:     Read more »

In the end I made it to the discussion on the basics of the Green Party. It’s very hard to recap all that was said, but one of the things that really stuck with me was David Chernushenko‘s notion of majority.     Read more »

The Barrie Greens are hosting a talk by Elizabeth May this Monday.

Monday, 2007 April 2, 6:30 pm
MacLaren Art Centre
37 Mulcaster St, Barrie
(Highway 400 to Bayfield, south to Collier, east to Mulcaster)
Limited seating — $49 includes dinner.

There will be luncheon and book signing with Elizabeth May in Brantford on Tuesday.

Tuesday, 2007 April 3, noon
98 George St, in downtown Brantford
$75 (includes a $50 charatible receipt)

Elizabeth May will be speaking as part of Laurier Brantford’s Contemporary Studies External Speaker’s Series.

2007 May 3, 7 pm
Grace Anglican Church
15 Albion St, Brantford

Politicians are afraid of telling the truth. They are afraid of the power of the people, of real democracy.

Elizabeth May is, no pun intended, a divining rod of that motherlode of what people really need and want.

Only for our children and their children, and inspired by the only Canadian politician who displays LEADERSHIP, Elizabeth May, would I enter politics.

Elizabeth May will be the special guest at Workshop C — Identify and get out the vote. 

Next to you, the volunteers, the most important tool we have to win an election is our amazing new leader.  Come meet Elizabeth May and hear first hand how she and her team used the tools being taught in this seminar to make Green Party history with never-before achieved election results in the recent by-eleciton.  Come prepared with your questions for the Q&A session which will follow.

Workshop C is just one workshop in a whole day of workshops.  For more details and registration information, see Everything you always wanted to know about how to win an election*.

Watch Elizabeth May talk about strategic voting and the environment issue with Peter Mansbridge.  She’s wonderful as always.

This just in.  Brennan Louw is apparently singlehandedly trying to organize a protest about Canada reneging on its Kyoto commitments.  Over the last week he’s gotten over 150 supporters and called me about strategic help.  He wants a large protest so he’s looking ahead to early March as a target date.  I’ve suggested that he get an organizing committee together.  He works evenings so this will mostly be organized during the day.  If anyone else wants to get on board, and has a somewhat flexible daytime schedule, please contact Brennan at 416-520-3892.  Bravo, Brennan and thank you for your initiative.

I’m spending the day preparing for tonight’s YEP debate on the Portlands Energy Centre, which I’ve now been asked to participate in, even though I’m not an energy professional and I’m certainly not young.

Tomorrow, I’ll be participating in Ontario’s Climate Change and Clean Air Plan consultations on energy, which I’ve yet to prepare for either.

But in between all this preparation, when I take a break, I’d like to blog about Elizabeth’s campaign, which we can all learn from.  All our candidates can’t be former Executive Directors of the Sierra Club, and they can’t all have Elizabeth’s unique blend of knowledge and experience.  But there are still a lot of things to be learned about what made Elizabeth’s campaign so effective.

Elizabeth radiates good feelings and positive messaging.     Read more »

I have never gotten around to writing about our AGM and that election.  It’s never very interesting to write about one’s own election, but the election of 11 other members onto our executive ought to have inspired me.

But I was busy.

And now, the excitement of London’s byelection has temporarily removed everything else from my mind.  I’ll write tomorrow about how exciting Elizabeth’s campaign was, but I wanted to go to bed only after writing a quick thought.     Read more »

The Young Environmental Professionals are hosting a debate between the PEC‘s exceedingly polite Public Relations guy, Ted Gruetzner, and our own Greg Bonser.

YEP Debate on the Portlands Energy Centre
Tuesday, 2006 November 28, 6 pm
Duke of York Pub
39 Prince Arthur Ave
(1 block North of Bloor at the Bedford exit of St George Station)
$5, food will be provided
RSVP events.yep@gmail.com

Greg was one of our young locals who immediately understood the problem the PEC posed.     Read more »

I’ll be maintaining a list of Elizabeth May’s campaign supporters from Toronto-Danforth here.

Money

Adriana Mugnatto-Hamu – $400
Jim Harris – $400

Volunteers in London

Adriana Mugnatto-Hamu – November 25-26
Andrew James – November 19, 26
Jim Harris – October 24 – November 2

Telephone canvassing from Toronto

Charlie Halpern-Hamu
Mary Ann Grainger
Sharon Howarth

London Centre North will be having a byelection on November 27, and the Green Party candidate will be – our leader, Elizabeth May.  Former Green Party leader and Toronto-Danforth local Jim Harris just announced it in his blog, and explained why we very well may get our first elected Green.

You can wish Elizabeth luck or pledge to donate to her campaign at leader@greenparty.ca.

If you’re interested in starting a blog, but don’t know how to start, the Green Party of Canada has just made it a little easier.  They have a new blogging resource for members at:

http://greenparty.ca/blog

Jim Harris, former GPC leader and one of our Toronto-Danforth members, just wrote to me earlier today (well, actually yesterday now, as the site was down so long it’s now the morning after) to announce the appearance of his blog there, which you can see at:

http://www.greenparty.ca/en/blog/358

Count on Jim to write well. I think his blog should be one to watch for, and I’ve linked our EDA blog to his.

I’ve looked the blog area of the GPC site over and there is room for improvement.  For one thing, there’s no link from the main site.  For another the “new members” listing isn’t a link, and it should be.  But it’s a start and will surely improve.  I’m looking forward to watching it grow.

Edward Chin is [was, in 2006] running for City Council in Ward 30 (the bottom half of our Toronto-Danforth riding), and looking for help from environmentally-minded residents…

I met Ed Chin through the Toronto Energy Coalition, when he came to a Steering Committee meeting.  He struck me as quiet and knowledgeable, and committed to the idea of reducing harm.  I soon discovered that he had an incredible array of experience, from biochemical research to paralegal to many positions in the theatre industry.  Now retired, he gives a great deal to the community, working in tax clinics, setting up computer centres, teaching ESL, and sitting on the Board of the Ralph Thornton Centre.

Last week, he sat down with me to tell me more about himself. He is a fascinating man.  Born of Chinese parents in Boston, Ed grew up in what he calls “Boston’s Chinese ghetto”, where he was painfully aware of the exclusion suffered by racial minorities.  Ed studied chemistry and math as a young man at Columbia University before spending a year in Germany and Denmark.  He speaks a version of Cantonese, English, German, and some French, some Danish and some Russian that he is learning for fun.  He returned from Germany to register for the Vietnam draft, but was prepared to face military jail if ordered to fight.  Instead, he was assigned to working in biomedical laboratories.  When his service ended, he went on to work at Columbia’s medical school, while simultaneously returning to study molecular biology at the University.  Nearing the end of his studies, he was recruited by the University of Pennsylvania to a teaching position.

The Columbia riots intervened.  Sympathizing with the students who opposed the Vietnam draft, Ed made the difficult decision that he needed to devote his life to helping people.  He spent the next years working as a paralegal focusing on housing for the poor.  He organized rent strikes for people living in substandard housing and offered other legal services.

Eventually, a friend arranged for Ed to get a job as a projectionist, which Ed thought was an easy way to make some money, while still leaving time to do other things.  He ended up spending 20 years in the theatre industry, both in film and on Broadway, working in production, post-production and backstage tech.

He came to Canada in 1980 on a work visa, married a Canadian in 1983, immigrated in 1984 and became a citizen in 1989.  He has one son and one grandson.  As a retiree, he dabbles in many interests.  He sits on the Board of the Ralph Thornton Centre and on 3 committees of the Riverdale Co-op, where he has lived for 13 years.  He enjoys computers, and helped incorporate the GTA Linux Users Group, a public freeware advocacy group.  He is setting up the Computer Learning Centre at Banglatown, a Bangladeshi community centre, and helped them incorporate.  He studied to become a financial investment advisor, and has been in charge of the tax clinics at Woodgreen for 8 years.  He is also a qualified ESL teacher and taught at Woodgreen.

He is the only candidate who opposes the construction of any power plant on the Portlands, and was one of the first signatories of my plan.  He would like, through legislation or incentives, to encourage greater energy efficiency in new construction.  He is particularly annoyed by the inefficiency of all-glass exterior construction.

Ed is interested in reaching out to immigrant communities and addressing their needs for improved access to services and employment.  He feels that our community has become a dumping ground for unwanted development because it has traditionally had the highest new immigrant population in the city.  He feels that new development should be integrated with new communities and planned in consultation with existing residents.