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Last night, my daughter and I put on our salwar kameez and abandoned her father and his achy back to enjoy ourselves at the South Asia Festival on Gerrard Street between Greenwood and Coxwell.  As usual, it featured wonderful music and lively dancing in the background, delicious street food smells spreading all over the street and plenty of activities for families to enjoy.  My daughter spent a few minutes pawing through a bin full of bangles to select a dozen for fifty cents.  Mango shakes are wonderfully refreshing on a hot summer day.  The festival continues today if you still want to check it out.

South Asia Festival continues
Sunday, 2010 July 18, noon to 11pm
Gerrard Street, east of Greenwood to Coxwell
free

I’ve been spending a lot of time recently organizing the climate change conference to be held at Hart House next month.  We have a great lineup of speakers to lay out the challenges we face, discuss the range of possible solutions and promote the cooperation we will need.

Climate Change Conference 2010
Unflinching science.  No-spin solutions.
Friday – Sunday, 2010 August 13 – 15
Hart House, University of Toronto

Agenda, speakers, and registration: http://ccc-toronto.ca
RSVPing on Facebook will help spread the word: http://facebook.com/event.php?eid=140438325981746

The conference is a non-profit, non-partisan event open to all.

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Canada Day today.  Between going out to meet people this morning and this evening, I hope to drop by on the action both on Gerrard Street and at Riverdale Park East and celebrate this great country we live in.

Come out and join the Green contingent marching in Pride this Sunday.  Celebrate the Green Party’s long support for gay rights.  We were the first party to support same-sex marriage and the first to have an openly gay leader.  We continue to advocate for gay rights and equal treatment.  Meet us by 12 noon at the latest on Bloor Street at Ted Rogers way.  We will have new campaign t-shirts available to wear or purchase.  Bring water, comfortable walking shoes, skimpy clothes, green body paint, water guns and noisemakers.  Be prepared to get wet.   Have fun!

Pride Parade 2010
Sunday, 2010 July 4, 11:45 am
Bloor Street at Ted Rogers Way

If you arrive late or cannot find us, call Rebecca at 905-999-5479

The main item on the G-20 agenda was whether to cut debts or invest in more financial stimulus, with Stephen Harper strongly advocating the need to cut debts.

We need to cut debts.  Large public debts leave governments at the mercy of interest rates.  Double the interest rates and suddenly the debt load becomes completely unmanageable and we’re worried about our credit rating, forcing us into all kinds of nasty measures like privatizing health care, education and even basic services like water.  So in the interest of securing high quality public services, we need to make sure we keep the debt down.   The problem is that Stephen Harper proposes to cut debts not by raising taxes or trimming perverse subsidies to favoured industries, but by attacking the very services I desperately want to protect.  I have no interest in cutting the debt to have more money to fork over to the oil industry while basic services get gutted.     Read more »