Erik BJORGAN for Parliament

For the first time in 2008, the Greens ran a real Campaign in Okanagan Shuswap. Before that, candidates simply had their names on a ballot and got about 4% of the votes.

When I got nominated candidate in 2007, I started out by letting people know I was willing to work at being candidate so that we’d really increase the vote. I asked friends to invite me to every social event so I could meet their friends and neighbours, I went to all “business after 5″ meetings, spoke at Rotary breakfasts, and did a “listening tour” of my riding announcing I wanted to hear from people.

I used that tour to also build a good team of solid people that could be active throughout the whole riding. It is a huge riding, rural for the most part, with one city at the north end and one at the south end. Then I started raising funds to buy signs, cards, banners, and all that is needed for a real campaign. We even had a donor pay for a billboard!

Well, it worked. People got excited at the thought of a real campaign, everyone held Green events, saw us at parades, and knew that Greens were now a force to contend with. We quadrupled the vote getting 17.3%.

Then I quit. Read the rest of this entry »

The numbers say it all: Canada is a climate-change miscreant

by Jeffrey Simpson,

When the Harper government has something it wants everybody to know, it sends the Prime Minister to make an “announcement,” gathers a gaggle of ministers to nod their heads at the words of their sage boss, issues press releases and, if necessary, buys newspaper and television advertising to trumpet itself.

When, however, the news is bad, well, standard procedure is either not to release the information at all, or to post it on a website without
telling anyone, hoping the news will pass unnoticed.

Such was the case this week when quietly, of course, Environment Canada posted on its website the embarrassing news about the government’s expensive and largely futile measures to combat greenhouse gas emissions.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-numbers-say-it-all-canada-is-a-climate-change-miscreant/article1591592/

Tories rewriting safety regs with no input from their own expert panel, says member.

By Mitchell Anderson

http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/05/31/OilSpillPrevention/index.html

Government memos reveal fish farmers pressured government to keep sea lice drugs secret, six years before biologist Alexandra Morton made it public. Read the rest of this entry »

The US military has warned that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact.

The energy crisis outlined in a Joint Operating Environment report from the US Joint Forces Command, comes as the price of petrol in Britain reaches record levels and the cost of crude is predicted to soon top $100 a barrel.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/11/peak-oil-production-supply

Groups applaud MPs for moving Bill C-474 to Committee for study

Ottawa. Last night, Parliament passed Private Members Bill C-474 through second reading, in spite of intense pressure from the biotech industry. The Bill, which would require analysis of potential harm to export markets before the sale of new genetically modified (GM) seeds, will now be studied by the House of Commons Agriculture Committee. Read the rest of this entry »