Canadians Advocating Political Participation is a new organization born out of the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament group which has set out to get Canadians more politically engaged.
On the CAPP website you can read all about their mission.
Here’s a video introduction to the cause:
And here’s a Facebook group you can join.
Arguably, the most important UN conference started today in Denmark: The Copenhagen Conference to address climate change. This conference sets out to ensure that there will be a place for humans to live healthy and peaceful lives in a sustainable fashion.
Environmental concerns have led to food scarcity issues to potential causes of regional conflict and now countries are doing something about it. Personally, I hope that Canada stops sabotaging international conferences on climate change (like in Bali) and that Canada stops being a second voice of support for the USA’s disastrous climate policies.
Now is the time for real change.
From the AFP:
The meeting will climax on December 18 with more than 100 heads of state or government in attendance.
Opening ceremonies began with a short film featuring children of the future facing an apocalypse of tempests and desert landscapes if world leaders failed to act today.
“There will be hundreds of millions of refugees,” Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN’s panel of climate scientists, said in the film.
“Please help save the world,” said a little girl, plaintively.
Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen told opening ceremonies that the world is looking to the conference to safeguard humanity.
“The world is depositing hope with you for a short while in the history of humanity,” Rasmussen said. Poll: Public want action
“For the next two weeks, Copenhagen will be Hopenhagen. By the end, we must be able to deliver back to the world what was granted us here today: hope for a better future.”
With so many reports of Canada and the US flouting international agreements on environmental reform, it’s nice to see that we care about something. Canada, America and Mexico have just drafted a memorandum of understanding on protecting wilderness areas in the three countries.
The three nations have long cooperated on wilderness management – programs have straddle the U.S.-Canadian border since 1910 and the U.S.-Mexican border since the 1930s. Yet the memorandum of understanding is the first multinational agreement on wilderness protection, according to Vance Martin, president of the Wild Foundation.
“It’s not very easy to do anything internationally, even when the countries are neighbors,” Martin said.
With the agreement, wildlife officials said, ecological monitoring efforts such as migratory species tracking, air and water quality tests, and staff training will be better managed across the seven agencies responsible for such tasks in North America.
Despite the fact that Canada’s current Prime Minister Stephen Harper wanted to go to war in Iraq and his commitment to keep Canadian troops fighting and dying in Afghanistan, Canada has been named the most peaceful nation in North and Central America and Caribbean region.
For a list of the most peaceful nation in each region of the world you can click here.
The list was compiled by the Global Symposium of Peaceful Nations.
The National Film Board of Canada recently relaunched its website to better show the world quality Canadian films. Here’s a film about urban gardening in Halifax:
In this short film, Halifax gardener Carol Bowlby harvests a mouth-watering crop from her small backyard plot. In considering soil quality, lack of space and a short growing season challenges rather than obstacles, she offers a wealth of practical growing tips for urban gardeners. By heeding Bowlby’s advice, bountiful organic gardens work equally well on apartment balconies, in small or large city lots or in a rural setting.