–National Graduate Caucus of the Canadian Federation of Students responds to Budget 2010.

–Canadian Federation of Students respond to Budget 2010.

“Six journalists have been killed this year, with four journalists the apparent victims of targeted assassinations. Two foreign journalists, Canadian Amanda Lindhout and Australian Nigel Brennan, are still being held for ransom nearly a year after they were abducted on a road south of Mogadishu.”

“Emails secured through a recent Freedom of Information request revealed that Conservative MP Peter Kent, MPP Peter Shurman, and senior York University administrators were interfering in this year’s general elections of the York Federation of Students (YFS). … Earlier this year, Conservative MP Peter Braid was secretly recorded addressing students in Waterloo as part of a day-long workshop designed to counsel Conservative students on how to set up front groups on campuses to siphon away money intended for student activities in order to advance the Party’s agenda under false pretenses.”

Please join CUPE 2745 on Tuesday June 9th at 12:30pm – at the Legislature – Mourning the death of Education. The Liberal Government along with Minister of Education, Kelly Lamrock decided to cut Educational Support Staff as part of their provincial budget. The $2.9 million dollar cut is a tiny part of the entire Education Budget, but means hundreds of job cuts and will impact literally every child in the Education System. These cuts will mean the closure of most School Libraries, fewer School Intervention Workers and Teacher Assistants. This is the death of the Education System, as we know it in New Brunswick.

TONIGHT – Tuesday, June 2 at 7:00 pm
Renaissance College, 811 Charlotte St.

Adil Charkaoui, a Montreal teacher and father of three children, has been at the forefront of an important struggle for justice in Canada for over six years.

Don’t miss his story. Read more here.

“Individual lifestyles choices are often incorrectly blamed for high community cancer rates. Health officials still can’t accept that occupational and environmental exposure to industrial pollutants are major causes of cancer, not only for workers directly exposed but those living in communities beyond the factory gates,” said Inka Milewski, the Conservation Council’s Health Watch Director.

What about our native bumblebees? It was the dramatic decline in pollinators in New Brunswick wrought by the spruce budworm spray program which catalyzed world-wide interest in the state of insect pollinators.

The Fredericton Peace Coalition, University Women’s Centre, NBRebELLEs and CUSO-VSO have surpassed their donation goal and raised a total of $2,362.10 for the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). Most of those donations were raised at the 2009 3rd Annual RAWA Benefit in Fredericton (Photos, Gumbooting Video) while other donations were sent to us from folks far away as British Columbia. Thank you all who donated your money, time and energy to this year’s contribution to RAWA.

We would like to make one final appeal before sending our donations to RAWA. We are extending the deadline for donations until Friday, May 15. We will be sending the donation on Monday, May 18.

The reason for extending the deadline stems from recent tragic news involving women in Afghanistan. Women of Afghanistan are under attack for courageously fighting the new rape law. Sitara Achazai, a women’s rights activist and politician in the Kandahar Provincial Council was murdered in a target assassination on Sunday, April 12. On March 8, 2009, International Women’s Day, Sitara led a nationwide sit-in of 11,000 Afghan women in seven provinces who gathered to pray for peace.

When RAWA formed in 1977, RAWA was focused on involving an increasing number of Afghan women in social and political activities aimed at acquiring women’s rights and contributing to the struggle for the establishment of a government based on democratic and secular values in Afghanistan. Despite the suffocating political atmosphere, RAWA very soon became involved in meeting the basic needs of Afghans. RAWA runs schools, literacy courses, orphanages and health clinics. They help prostitutes and refugees. They take part in reconstruction of villages and aid in food distribution and income generation. RAWA is featured in the film A View from a Grain of Sand. You can order a copy online or borrow a copy from the Fredericton Peace Coalition.

If you would like to send a donation before May 15, please reply to this email or send an email to info@frederictonpeace.org and we will let you know how to drop off/send your donation.

MiningWatch Canada and Ecojustice are hailing a landmark decision from the Federal Court of Canada released late yesterday that will force the federal government to stop withholding data on one of Canada’s largest sources of pollution – millions of tonnes of toxic mine tailings and waste rock from mining operations throughout the country.

Fredericton Book Launching:

Blowback – A Canadian History of Agent Orange and the War at Home

When: Thursday, April 16, 7pm
Where: Renaissance College, 811 Charlotte Street, Fredericton, NB

Join author Chris Arsenault, the Conservation Council’s David Coon and the Fredericton Peace Coalition’s Gloria Paul to discuss the book Blowback.

Blowback is the story of a war coming home; a story of the military and economic currents that allowed Agent Orange to blow through trees and into rivers in New Brunswick. More than anything, it’s a story of soldiers, civilians and local residents who blew back against the government and companies who poisoned them.

* Book signing will also occur at Westminster Books on Thursday, April 16 at 2:00 pm. Check out the book display in their window today!

Presented by Fernwood Publishing, the Conservation Council of New Brunswick and the Fredericton Peace Coalition.

Brother Omar is leaving at 7:00pm tonight and is available for interviews from 2:00pm to 7:00pm. He is incredible speaker and wooed the crowd last night. If you would like to arrange a interview, please email: tracy jatam.org.

He is speaking at the UNB Law School and St. Thomas University today. He is visiting Fredericton as part of a delegation of Colombians going across Canada to educate Canadians on the implications of the free trade agreement with Colombia. More details below.

Read the rest of this entry »

For immediate publication

Fredericton – In anticipation of President Barack Obama’s visit to Canada
today, the Conservation Council of New Brunswick has written to the new
President to advocate for the rapid deployment of decentralized
community-based renewable energy projects. The Council hopes that forward
thinking policies from President Obama will influence energy policies on
this side of the border.
Read the rest of this entry »

The New Brunswick government’s new forest management strategy betrays New Brunswick’s future according to the Conservation Council’s Executive Director David Coon. “With the government’s decision, logging in our public forest will destroy even more wildlife habitat,” said Coon, a member of the Task Force on Forest Diversity and Wood Supply. “The area of forest managed for wildlife will be reduced by at least half to allow industry to keep cutting at current levels,” said Coon.

–The leadership in the nurses union were surprised that their members rejected the last tentative deal, let’s see what happens this time. We need better care for our nurses, or we will all end up suffering.

With the opening of the Third Session of the 56th Legislature tomorrow, Premier Shawn Graham has some heavy lifting ahead to make good on key promises made in his first two throne speeches, according to the Conservation Council of New Brunswick.

At a news conference in Fredericton today, the Conservation Council profiled commitments made by Premier Shawn Graham in his throne speeches of February 7th, 2007 and November 27, 2007, which have yet to see the light of day. These include:

* the tabling of a provincial energy policy
* the inclusion of energy efficiency standards in building codes
* the development of a public transportation strategy
* expanding the use of energy efficiency and renewable energy
* public engagement in developing new forestry rules
* the adoption of a strategy to conserve biological diversity
* regulating land use on coastal lands

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL MEDIA RELEASE

Saint John, NB – November 21, 2008 – Approximately 23,000 New Brunswick children—nearly one in six—live in poverty according to the 2008 New Brunswick Child and Family Poverty Report Card prepared by Saint John’s Human Development Council.

According to data provided by Statistics Canada, for the first time since 1995 New Brunswick’s child poverty rate (16.4%) exceeded the national average (15.8%).

After dropping in 2004 and 2005 the child poverty rate in New Brunswick rose slightly in 2006, up 0.7% from the 2005 rate of 15.7%.

In 2006 New Brunswick had the fourth highest child poverty rate in Canada, up from the sixth highest in 2005.

Single mother families and their children continue to be one of the most economically vulnerable groups in New Brunswick with half (49.5%) living below the poverty line in 2006. The average single mother family required $7,600 in additional income to meet the poverty line.

The 2008 Report Card points out that New Brunswick has the lowest minimum wage in the country at $7.75 per hour, which is not enough for full-time, full-year work to provide an income above the poverty line.

The Human Development Council is a partner organization of Campaign 2000, a non-partisan cross Canada network of over 120 organizations committed to working together to end child and family poverty. Copies of the 2008 report can be downloaded from the Human Development Council’s website at www.humandevelopmentcouncil.nb.ca (under Products/Services).

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For further information contact Kathryn Asher, 506.657.5621.

The Conservation Council wants the health department to re-open the health file in Belledune because the various health studies and risk assessments done in the area ignored the cancer-causing effects of lead. Milewski said it might be understandable why the 2005 Belledune Area Health study did not look at the cancer risk of lead. At the time, inorganic lead was classified as a possible carcinogen. But she wants to know why the 2008 Xstrata soil study didn’t examine the cancer effects of lead. “The re-classification took place in the fall of 2007 and the Xstrata study wasn’t released until June 2008″, said Milewski.

–The Conservation Council of New Brunswick questions the proposed policy of dealing with biomass and biofuels coming from the NB Government.

Air pollution results for 2007 just released by Environment Canada’s national pollution registry (NPRI – www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/npri) reveal that cancer-causing arsenic emissions from Xstrata’s Belledune smelter have tripled from 2006 levels. The amount of arsenic released to the air has increased from 3084 kilograms in 2006 to 9254 kilograms in 2007. Emissions of lead, cadmium and mercury have increased as well.

The Conservation Council wants the Minister of Environment to require Xstrata to cut its hazardous air emissions immediately.

“Police in Dayton, Ohio said no hate crime was committed when two men sprayed a gas inside a mosque filled with over 300 Muslims.”

To my knowledge, this story has not been reported in any mainstream media outlet.

Natural forests OR plantations?
Clearcutting OR select cutting?
Wildlife habitat OR herbicide spraying?

The government is looking for the opinions of New Brunswickers. Have your say!

Go to: http://dnre-mrne.gnb.ca/FTFF/default.aspx?lang=E
To view comments submitted: http://www.gnb.ca/0079/erdle/CommentsReceivedOnline-e.asp

Half of the forest in New Brunswick is Crown land – owned by the public. Who’s benefiting from the public forest? And who’s stealing the whole show?

Tell the government what you think about plantations, herbicide spraying, clearcutting and giving away the forest to three big companies. If you support long-term forest jobs in rural communities, if
you support conservation and habitat protection, then tell that you support Erdle Task Force Report options A and B. Be sure to click the box to have your comments made public. Comment deadline is October 3, 2008.

For more information: www.acadianforest.ca, www.cpawsnb.org
Government website with Erdle Task Force Report:
http://www.gnb.ca/cnb/Promos/Forest/index-e.asp