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

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 Minister of Environment to require Xstrata to cut its hazardous air emissions immediately.

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

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

Andria Hill-Lehr, a mother whose son voluntarily signed up for the Afghanistan mission, will speak of the complicated and emotional experience of being a military mom who is critical of Canada’s role in Afghanistan. Hill-Lehr will touch on the impact of marketing the military to the youth in this country.

To arrange a media interview (between 5:00 PM -7:00 PM on Thursday or Friday morning), contact Tracy at 506.458.8747 or info@frederictonpeace.org
Rabble Book Review of “Mother’s Road to Kandahar”

FIRST CALL FOR THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF POETRY OF RESISTANCE

IN HONOUR OF THE CUBAN FIVE
Anti-terrorist fighters now imprisoned in the U.S.A.

The Co-ordinating Committee of the First International Festival of Poetry of Resistance issues a CALL to organizations, unions, associations, ethno-cultural groups, societies and individuals to gather together to celebrate resistance in various forms. The Committee also calls on all other constituencies to participate in the Festival to campaign in favour of justice for the dispossessed, the voiceless and the wounded and in defense of our environment for a world of peace with justice. This Festival co-incides with National Poetry Month in Toronto, in Canada and internationally.

We do this to promote opposition to a culture of war, violence, and greed, and to promote an end to racism and discrimination.

The Festival will encourage popular participation in creative processes which celebrate the life, needs and dreams of the common people and of their communities. We also hope it provides a space where cultural differences make us richer and where we can create without competition.

Through poetry, performance, film, visual arts, sounds, signs, music, ceremonial songs, myths, stories and events in public and other spaces, we hope to be part of the world movement of people who choose poetry and other creative expressions as a way to resist destructive globalization and to participate in a collective dream, voice and space to make a better world for everybody.

We seek representation and participation from the diverse communities nestled in so many parts of Toronto, the province and the country. Each has a role to play in this project because each has a rich history of poetry of resistance. By presenting activities during that week, communities will get to know each other and share the common goals of peace with resistance to injustice.

Statement of Principles

The organizers of the Festival believe that international solidarity can bring about cultural development for a world of peace. The diversity of our planet is to be cherished and celebrated, not marginalized or destroyed by the greed of a few. We believe that diversity is the soul of creative self-determination, individually, communally and globally.

This solidarity is what can bring justice to and freedom for the Cuban Five: Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labanino, Rene Gonzalez and Fernando Gonzalez – who tried to prevent terrorist attacks originating from southern Florida. They are now in their tenth year of imprisonment as political prisoners in the United States and this Festival honours them as symbols of courage, dignity and the world-wide struggle for peace with justice.

Well-known personalities, including Nobel Prize winners and members of parliaments of different countries, including Canada, who have already publicly endorsed the appeal for freedom for the Cuban Five, are found at the end of this Call.

Our suggestions to proceed:

1.-Please approach constituencies, organizations, societies, individuals, etc. to participate in this Festival in agreement with the aims and goals;

2.-Discuss the form, content, locale, etc. of your presentation(s) for the Week of Poetry of Resistance and let the organizers know with summaries of event(s) planned: Get in touch with Lisa Makarchuk or Maria Elena Mesa Mejia at the following email addresses or telephone number: lisamakarchuk@sympatico.ca (416-603 9858) or m_e_mesa@yahoo.ca

3.-We expect to publish a programme for the Festival including summaries of events, information about the Five; general information, advertising, etc. This will be a vehicle by which you can highlight your group, organization, etc. locally, nationally and internationally.

4.-We are expecting to have performances representing diverse communities and constituencies in various venues around Toronto at which some of the visiting international poets may attend and take part. An international Jury will choose to publish some of the poetry presented at the Festival. We also are expecting to publish an anthology of some of the poems in honour of the Festival.

“In the end, we shall repose free and victorious in that sun that for now is being denied to us…”
-Antonio Guerrero Rodriguez-one of the Cuban Five, poet

“A real public consultation process needs an informed public. Limiting the public information sessions to mill towns will leave the vast majority of New Brunswickers uniformed. Crown Lands Network member groups are calling on the government to add information sessions in all of the cities, so at least people there can have the same opportunity to become informed. Decisions made based on these reports will shape the future of our public forests for the next century,” commented Florian Levesque, President of Environnement Vie.

— Don Roberts (the CIBC analyst) began his press conference statement yesterday by saying “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” —

Read more on the options being proposed in the Erdle Task Force and how they rank in terms of conservation here: http://www.conservationcouncil.ca/files/Publications/Options_Rank_En.pdf

August 18, 2008

On September 27-28, Fredericton will host the 2008 New Brunswick Social Forum – a weekend of exciting and informative panel discussions, workshops and booths stocked with materials that are intended to enlighten and motivate the public on a variety of issues of burning concern, from language rights and tax reforms in New Brunswick to global environmental and social injustices. The 2008 New Brunswick Social Forum will be taking place at the N.B. Sports Hall of Fame (510 Queen St.) from 10 am to 4pm, that Saturday and Sunday.

The 2008 New Brunswick Social Forum Organizing Committee, a committee made up of activists in Fredericton, Saint John, Moncton and rural communities, is inspired by the World Social Forum — an annual event that has been held in such places as Mumbai, India and Caracas, Venezuela, that is committed to building sustainable and responsible alternatives to harmful economic policies.

“The Social Forum hopes to do more than talk about the many problems we face today in our communities. The forum will be an opportunity for groups and individuals to come together to share experiences, debate ideas, formulate proposals and build new alliances for mobilization and effective action. The goal is for everyone to walk away from the forum with a renewed sense of solidarity and initiative to take action and be part of the solution and not the problem,” stated Tracy Glynn, a Fredericton organizer.

Among the participants are labour unions, environmental groups, feminist organizations, the peace and global justice movement, human rights organizations, academics, activists, youth organizations and many more.

The forum is free of charge but donations are welcome. The venue is accessible. Free child care will be provided to participants by the Fredericton Child Care Collective.

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To obtain a detailed scheduled, register for the event or to obtain more information:

Tracy Glynn, Fredericton organizer, NB Social Forum Organizing Committee, 506.458.8747

Queen’s University law professor Kathleen Lahey says the government’s Discussion Paper is not really a tax policy analysis so much as an attempt to sell specific tax changes that fit into a particular focus - promoting economic development. Professor Lahey, in Fredericton to speak at a noon hour conference, said if the Government had begun by asking whether the current provincial tax/transfer system is optimal, the analysis would have considered whether the system was progressive - made people pay according to their ability to pay - and whether it was fair, efficient and provided adequate and stable revenues.
“It would also have included gender impact analysis and if that had been done, the proposals may well have looked very different.”

The government’s current proposals “will widen the existing gender gap between women’s and men’s total incomes, taxable incomes, and consumable (aftertax) incomes. They will seriously impair and destabilize the existing tax bases, with the result that the government will be able to plead poverty when faced with demands for adequate childcare resources, low-income supports and development projects that are capable of helping N.B. women overcome their disadvantaged economic status.”

She said the real problem arises not just because of greater tax cuts for higher income taxpayers, nor out of the 2% increase to HST, but out of the interaction between those two proposals. The result is to slice 28% of the personal income tax load off at the highest income levels, replace only two-thirds of that lost revenue, and replace it with the most regressive type of tax.
“This will make it more difficult in the future for women to move toward economic equality, widening the aftertax gender gap.”

The increase in HST plus the proposed universal income tax rate of 10% would leave men with $316 more in aftertax income for 2008 on average, women with $198 more. The HST increase plus the proposed lower two-tier income tax rate leaves men with $300 more, and women with $119.

Kathleen Lahey was principal investigator in a study commissioned by the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women to respond to the government’s Discussion Paper on New Brunswick’s Tax System in June 2008.

Ginette Petitpas-Taylor, Chairperson of the Advisory Council, said, “As Professor Lahey concludes, the government should not consider tax proposals that increase inequality between the sexes, given its heavy obligations to eliminate remaining areas of disadvantage faced by N.B. women.”

The study, What About Women? Gender Analysis of Discussion Paper on New Brunswick’s Tax System, believed to be the first gender analysis of a major prospective tax policy document in Canada, has been submitted to the Legislative Committee’s Select Committee on Tax Review.

The study says women in New Brunswick live in a very different social, economic, and political world than men.

“Women have substantially smaller incomes, heavier workloads, and limited access to critical resources. The overall ‘gender income gap’ in N.B. was at least 35% in 2005 and is estimated to reach 36.4% by the end of 2008. The single biggest barrier to women’s economic security and equality is lack of access to adequate childcare resources. Unlike men with wives/partners, substantial numbers of women, about 23%, opt for part-time work, often in order to balance the low money return for their labour with the high after-tax value of their own unpaid childcare and domestic work. Women who work outside the home habitually assess their earning capacity by treating childcare expenses as a cost of working, which can discourage some from paid work. At the same time, men who expect to be able to support their families on a single income can count on the untaxed and unpaid care work of their wives/partners.”

Professor Lahey says several of the benefits proposed by the government would not go to those most in need, since about 41% of all N.B. women who filed income tax returns had no tax to pay at all, nor did 27% of men.

New Brunswick’s proposal to increase the personal exemptions for taxpayer and spouse to $12,000, would create one of the largest personal tax-free zones in any province and would add to the invisible barriers to women’s paid work. The larger the tax-free zone for a high-income single-income couple, the more income the second partner has to earn to financially justify paid work.
The government’s proposed non-refundable child tax credit of up to $400/child, which Professor Lahey termed a very expensive tax benefit, would be more fully available to male taxpayers. Combined with the proposal to increase the exemption to $12,000, few lone mothers would be able to take advantage of the child tax credit. The solution would be to make it a fully refundable tax credit, based on the income of the parent with the lowest income. Similarly, the proposed Universal Child Care Benefit for every child under 6 would have a strong negative impact on women. It would not improve availability of fulltime regulated childcare, and so becomes a luxury payment to parents who can live on one income and do not have childcare expenses.

The proposed Tax-Free Savings Accounts would also have a negative impact on women, since they would be used by those with the highest incomes; and unlike spousal RRSPs, allow ‘pretend sharing for tax purposes’ without requiring actual legal sharing.
“The proposed increase in the HST would fall more heavily on those with the lowest incomes - the same group that will not be receiving any benefits from cuts to the personal and corporate tax rates, from increases in tax credits and exemptions, and will be exposed to carbon taxes and the inflationary effects of those taxes. Increasing the HST rate to 10% would produce about two-thirds of the amount of revenue lost if either of the proposed cuts to personal income tax were adopted. Women, having lower incomes, spend a greater portion of it on HST-taxable goods and services.”

For further information, contact Ginette Petitpas-Taylor or Rosella Melanson at 1-800 332-3087 or 506 444 4101 or rosella.melanson@gnb.ca.

The document, What About Women? Gender Analysis of Discussion Paper on New Brunswick’s Tax System, is on the Advisory Council website: www.acswcccf.nb.ca/english/acsw1.asp

U.S. Iraq War resister Jeremy Hinzman and his wife and two children have
been ordered to leave Canada by September 23rd.

In spite of Hinzman¹s four and a half years living, working and raising a
family in Canada, the Harper government plans to deport him to the United
States where he will likely face a court martial and a potential military
jail sentence and felony conviction. This flies in the face of democracy and
the will of Canadians: Parliament passed a motion in support of war
resisters June 3rd, 82% of Canadians oppose the Iraq war (Strategic Counsel
poll), and 64% of Canadians support war resisters (Angus Reid poll).

The Conservative Government should:
- respect Parliament and implement the June 3rd motion in support of war
resisters staying in Canada
- 82% of Canadians oppose the Iraq war
- 64% of Canadians in an Angus Reid national poll want war resisters to stay
in Canada
- Jeremy Hinzman and his family have lived and worked here for over 4 years
and made a real contribution; they should not be deported because they
oppose the Iraq war

The Hon. Diane Finley
Ottawa office: (613) 954-1064
Simcoe office: (519) 426-3400
Dunnville Office: (905) 701-1881
finley.d@parl.gc.ca

For more info, contact info@frederictonpeace.org

“Besides mandatory public consultation, the public would be surprised to learn that quarries and exploration do not require Environmental Impact Assessments in this province. Since all mining activities and phases involve an environmental impact, we want to see it all subject to an EIA,” stated Inka Milewski.

Liquidating the Forest Must Stop:
Time to get serious about protecting our forest
July 21, 2008
Conservation Council News Release

Fredericton ­ The Conservation Council is calling on the N.B. government to immediately stop exports of raw timber from the public forest after learning that the province’s three largest license holders, Fraser Papers, UPM Kymmene and J.D. Irving have been given permission to export wood from their Crown licenses. The government has exempted the companies from a clause in the Crown Lands and Forests Act that states that companies with licences to cut wood from Crown land must process the wood in that region.

Meeting the wood allocations of the sub-licensees operating on Crown land is the reason being used to justify the exports. In light of this, the Conservation Council is calling on the government to enforce selective cutting to supply the needs of the sub-licensees. Trees should be left standing to provide wildlife habitat. Trees should also be allowed to grow to a volume that provides a higher quality resource for local communities. Since only select tree species of certain grades and sizes are marketable at the moment then selective cutting only makes sense. Clearcutting and conversion to plantations simplifies our forest and destroys future opportunities for benefits from a diverse forest economy.

“By exporting raw logs, we lose the opportunity to infuse our forest resources with our own labour. We are exporting New Brunswickers’ jobs while increasing the burden on our forests. Continuing to clearcut on Crown land for export is merely forest liquidation and is not a practice of any sane forest management. Forest management needs to change if we are to have any healthy and diverse forest stands in this province,” stated Tracy Glynn, Acadian Forest Campaign Coordinator at the Conservation Council.

“As highlighted in a public survey released this year, more New Brunswickers cherish water protection as a key forest management goal. The government has an opportunity to do something different and more responsible on Crown land like managing holistically at the watershed level. The government as trustee to Crown land should heed the public’s desires for the forest and explore different tenure arrangements like community forestry that are more beneficial to local communities,” stated David Coon, Policy Director for the Conservation Council.

Media Contacts:
Tracy Glynn, Acadian Forest Campaign Coordinator, 458-8747
David Coon, Policy Director, 458-8747
Megan de Graaf, French spokesperson, 458-8747

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TORONTO, July 9 - Today’s decision by Canada’s Federal Court has peace, faith, student and humanitarian organizations celebrating and means that Corey is now free to remain in Canada while the court makes a decision on his application for judicial review. “We have not yet received the reasons for the decision but we are relieved and delighted,” says Counsel Alyssa Manning.

The War Resisters Support Campaign is now calling on Canadians to urge the government to implement the June 3 parliamentary motion. It calls for an end to deportation orders against conscientious objectors and the opportunity for them to apply to remain in Canada as permanent residents.

In the U.S. today, actions took place at the Canadian Embassy and Consulates in 13 cities requesting the government of Canada give refuge to U.S. Iraq War resisters.

The Canadian Friends Service Committee (Quakers) sponsored a letter from many of Canada’s faith communities requesting the federal government stop deportations. “Canada has always been a country of citizens who prize peace and peace making. We hope that public policy will reflect those aims,” said Jane Orion Smith, spokesperson for the organization. “Corey’s case and that of all the soldiers are based on substantive rights of conscience under international law that must be respected.”

Amnesty International Canada yesterday issued an Urgent Action calling on Canadians to contact the Prime Minister and Diane Finley, Minister of Immigration.
See Amnesty website at: Amnesty.ca.

—

For further information: Lee Zaslofsky, office (416) 598-1222 & cell (416) 567-4036; Alyssa Manning, Lawyer for Corey Glass, (416) 938-2816; Michelle Robidoux, (416) 856-5008; Media contact, Lynn Simmons, (416) 998-3157; See also: www.resisters.ca

“It’s disconcerting that the New Brunswick government sees international students one-dimensionally: as an ‘untapped resource’ for the post-secondary education system. However, exploiting international students as a means to make-up the funding shortfall is short-sighted and unfair”