Month: September 2011

Insite Can Continue to Operate: Supreme Court

- Adam Clare

Insite is a safe injection site for drug users which has had proven health benefits for individuals and the community. Through their work Insite has been able to help many addicts stay safe and secure while consuming drugs, this is in stark contrast to doing drugs on the streets which is way more dangerous.

In the past, Insite had to defend itself against the British Columbia Supreme Court and won, and today Insite won in the Supreme Court of Canada. This is a blow to the anti-safety, anti-drug, pro-prison campaign of the ruling Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and will hopefully mark a turning point in how Canadians support drug addicts.

This is a huge victory for results-based and preventative health care and for people who are unfortunately addicted to drugs.

If Insite wasn’t allowed to operate it would prevent injection drug users from accessing the health services offered at the facility, threatening their health and their lives, the ruling said. Withdrawing the exemption would even undermine the purpose of the federal drug law, which includes public health and safety, the court said.
…

Health groups, including the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Public Health Association, also applauded the decision.

The Supreme Court said that if the health minister, currently Leona Aglukkaq, receives applications for more exemptions, she must continue to exercise her discretion and aim to strike a balance between Charter rights and protecting public health and safety.

Read more coverage and see the full court report at the CBC.

Remember don’t consume dangerous drugs!

Denmark ‘Fat Tax’ Starts Saturday

- Adam Clare 3 Comments

Denmark is moving ahead with a tax on products that make people fat. Denmark already has the lost percentage of obese people in Europe and even they are concerned with the increasing girth of their people. This new ‘fat tax’ will hopefully keep the country’s slim people slim and inspire other countries to institute a similar tax.

Starting from this Saturday, Danes will pay an extra 30p on each pack of butter, 8p on a pack of crisps, and an extra 13p on a pound of mince, as a result of the tax.
The tax is expected to raise about 2.2bn Danish Krone (£140m), and cut consumption of saturated fat by close to 10pc, and butter consumption by 15pc.
“It’s the first ever fat-tax,” said Mike Rayner, Director of Oxford University’s Health Promotion Research Group, who has long campaigned for taxes on unhealthy foods.
“It’s very interesting. We haven’t had any practical examples before. Now we will be able to see the effects for real.” The tax will be levied at 2.5 per Kg of saturated fat and will be levied at the point of sale from wholesalers to retailers.

Read the rest of the article.

See Canada’s Environment in Google Earth

- Adam Clare

Tides Canada has teamed up with Google Earth to allow the world to see Canada’s precious environment using Google’s technology. Now you can visualize things like the boreal forest and the migration of many wild animals.

It’s one thing to say that the Canadian boreal forest is the largest intact forest ecosystem on earth, Ms. Moore said. Google Earth allows Internet users to “fly in and say, ‘Oh, here’s where the caribou migrate, here’s where billions of birds migrate and nest, here’s where the aboriginal communities live.’”

The Pew project was created in conjunction with the Canadian Boreal Initiative, whose executive director, Larry Innes, calls it a validation of the importance of the forests issue.

“It’s a very visual way for people to relate to an area that, for most of us, is not immediately accessible,” Mr. Innes said. Without Google, he added, a similar project would have been prohibitively expensive and difficult.

Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore has used Google Earth Outreach to depict the effects of climate change. Actor Ted Danson has advocated for the protection of oceans, and actress Sigourney Weaver has narrated a tour of the Amazon. A project that exposed the effects of coal mining on Appalachian mountaintops led to many of the mines being put on hold or stopped.

Read the rest of the article here.

No More Bull Fighting in Catalonia

- Adam Clare

Bull fighting is animal cruelty that has some legitimacy in Spain, but that has started to change. For many years animal rights activists have been championing the safety and good-treatment of bulls and in Catalonia the last bull fight happened a couple days ago.

With any luck, the rest of Spain will follow suit and ban bullfighting.

Hundreds of anti-bullfight protesters gathered outside the bull ring carrying posters reading “RIP,” “Goodbye” and “A great day for the bulls” under the watchful eyes of squads of police.

“It is a small victory, but the thought of having it in the rest of Spain and still having Correbous (local fiestas) here does not make me happy. I am here because six animals are going to be tortured here today,” said an anti-bullfighting activist who gave his name as Luis.

The law banning bullfighting in autonomous Catalonia was passed by the regional parliament in July last year after a citizens’ petition. It comes into effect in January but Sunday was Barcelona’s farewell as it is the end of the season.

Read the rest of the article.
Info on why bull fighting is not good.

Canada Can be Powered only by Geothermal Energy

- Adam Clare 2 Comments

Geothermal power is yet another proven sustainable source of energy, indeed Iceland’s geothermal production accounts for 99% of their energy production. Researchers in Canada have concluded that there is enough geothermal potential in Canada to power the country solely by geothermal power a million times over!

One of the main advantages of geothermal is that it is available 24 hours, unlike wind and solar, which face intermittency issues.

British Columbia, Alberta, the Yukon and Northwest Territories are the areas where the heat exists closer to the surface, but there are geothermal energy opportunities all over Canada. The researchers estimate that 100 projects would meet the country’s energy needs.

Check it out!

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