KWPeace 2018 New Years

KWPeace Meeting Minutes for 1 February 2018

Date

1 February 2018

Location

Peace and Justice Room, Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church

(*** With apologies to all. I forgot that I hadn't done this yet. I will request that people send me their events in advance of the next meeting, if possible, and then I will include them in the minutes. And I will charge my phone before the next meeting. Sorry again, Mo)

PRESENT

Mo Markham; Bob Jonkman; Esther Kernes; Dwyer Sullivan; Laura Hamilton; Ellen Papenberg; James Sannes; Cathy Scott; Tamara Lorincz; Aleksandra Petrovitch ; Sue Klassen

Agenda items:

• what we're all doing
• what we post on KW peace …
• a KW Peace spring symposium?
• A community hub
• any money stuff or other? …
• next meeting *** likely end of March … BOB TO DO A POLL

Agenda discussion items:

• Re what we post on KW peace
  • We’ll try to be careful to be sure what is posted is in alignment with most of our values. if concern expressed then ask group and give them 24 hours to respond.

• a KW peace spring symposium
  • We discussed the possibility of having a Spring Symposium put on by kw peace
  • we discussed possibly doing it in the rotunda at City Hall and
  • we discussed having a speaker and food, and each of us at tables.
  • We discussed having a banner outside, and trying to get some press.
  • We will aim for late April, a Saturday afternoon.
  • Food not bombs can make extra soup and we won't need to worry about food
  • Laura will speak to the city, and let us know once she has a date.
  • Then we will set up a meeting for all of us to do the planning around it

Groups we belong to

Mo Markham

• fairvote
• KW Animal Save
• Kitchener-Waterloo Climate Save
• The Worldwide Save Movement
• Green party

James and Ellen Papenberg

• The Council of Canadians … bill c190 and pharmacare
• Unitarian social action committee
• Ontario oral health association ...low income people and seniors / dental care under ohip
• fairvote Canada
• a pharmacare group?

Laura Hamilton

• Faith and the common good … national organization … greening sacred spaces / reduce carbon footprint… and greening their churches (so using them for more purposes)
• Divest Waterloo
• transition KW
• food not bombs

Dwyer Sullivan

• educators for justice / diversity and equity
• conscience Canada
• camp Micah
• leadership for social justice … (Christian peacemaker team indirectly involved)

Sue Klassen

• missions peace and justice committee at Stirling mennonite church
• and she teaches alternatives to power in local prisons

Bob Jonkman

• Fairvote
• Green Party
• WR Nonviolence
• KW Peace website

Aleksandra Petrovitch

• Social Development Centre Waterloo Region (old social planning council)… does communication and organization for them

Cathy Scott

• Fairvote

Tamara Lorincz

• Canadian voice for women for peace
• Will be guest speaker for Conscience Canada in april

Jon Ellis

• Basic Income Waterloo

Upcoming Events for Our Groups:

• every third Wednesday there will be a meeting of the Council of Canadians at Bread & Roses (James and Ellen)

• ( date passed … soooo sorry … but I believe it was sent to all of the organizers previously by Sue)

Bill C-262 will ensure that UNDRIP – the human rights of Indigenous Peoples - are enshrined in Canadian law. The second hour of debate on Bill C-262 takes place on February 5th and voting on the bill will happen on February 7, 2018. We must keep the pressure on and make sure all the Liberal MPs vote for Bill C-262. (Sue)

• Feb 24th … The Co-op Kitchen at St. John's will be having cooking classes. The first will be February 24th, and tickets are $40 on Eventbrite. The ticket price covers the class, and dinner, and you get to take food home ( Laura)

• Feb 27 … the working Centre is partnering with divest Waterloo to put on a number of films. The next one is on February 27th and is economics of happiness (Laura)

• March 1... The Ambassador of Costa Rica is coming to the Balsillie School of International Affairs and screening the film "A Bold Peace: Costa Rica's Path to Demilitarization" on March 1. It is being co-hosted with Project Ploughshares - I highly recommend. More details to come.(tamara)

• March 3 ...Bridging Communities through Song (Laura)

• March 7th … the chemical Valley project, a play at the registry Theatre, regarding environmental racism and chemical Valley, which is near Sarnia (laura)

• March 21 … International Day for the Eliminatino of Racial Discrimination. If groups want to have information tables or speak, they should apply to Gehan (Gehan in absentia)

• March 23 … there will be a coffee house to fundraise for United Services committee (James and Ellen)

• . April is the Conscience Canada AGM and the Global Day of Action Against Military Spending usually on the third Monday, I (Temara?) hope we can do an action locally: http://www.ipb.org/global-campaign-on-military-spending/ (Dwyer?)

• April 7th Conscience Canada AGM speaker Tamara Lorincz 3:30 at Conrad Grebel, Center for the Advancement of Peace. Topic: Climate Costs of Canada's New Defense spending. (Dwyer)

• Sunday, April 22, Blue Scarf Earth Day Walk in Toronto with Camp Micah, CPT, Pax Christi and Kairos.(dwyer)

• Kitchener-Waterloo Climate Save will be at the Eco Market on April 21st

https://www.theecomarket.org/ (mo)

• April 26th, courthouse vigil with KW Animal Save for the 1500 pigs who were left to die … sentencing at Simcoe courthouse

https://www.facebook.com/events/848482485356583/?ti=cl (mo)

• The Pegasus: Peace, Global Health and Sustainability Conference will take place in Toronto in April 27-29, and you can propose a topic

https://www.pegasusconference.ca/#about-1 (tamara?)

• Month of May ... Mothers for Mother Earth (Climate Save etc) … brunches, raising awareness throughout May and beyond (mo)

• June 7 … is the provincial election

• July 7th, KW’s 1st Vegfest, in front City Hall (KW Animal Save is on the committee)

https://www.facebook.com/KWVegFest/ (mo)

• July 14 ...WR Nonviolence Day in the Park (Bob)

• July 14 … Nation Rising, a coalition of individuals and environmental groups and animal rights groups trying to get the federal government to stop subsidizing animal agriculture and climate change, will be holding a demonstration on Parliament Hill in Ottawa (mo)

• World Beyond War is planning a big international peace conference in Toronto on September 21 and 22. You could offer to run a session at the conference. Would be great to have a good sized group from KW going. Details are being planned now: http://worldbeyondwar.org/nowar2018/ (Tamara)

• There is an absolutely excellent CBC Ideas program with Andrew Feinstein, author of "The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade" that Temara highly recommends you listen to and share:

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas (Tamara?)

Other things we've been working on

(And things I don't have dates for)

CATHY

• Fairvote has been having meetings with Raj Saini and Bardish Chagger and Bryan May regarding election reform, broken promises, and advocating for proportional representation. January 31st was the first anniversary of the broken promise around PR.
• They we'll have information tables at the International Day of race relations
• Dave Meslin - http://fairdebates.ca/
• the city of Cambridge is asking citizens about having ranked Ballot (or PR?) for their municipal elections

SUE

• Bill C262 … there was an upcoming debate and vote on the bill, and Sue’s group was trying to get all the liberal MPs to endorse it

ESTHER

• MCC
• a lot of actions that have been doing in London in opposition to Trump and the announcement re Palestine
• a neo-Nazi group called pegida has been coming to London, and Esther’s group has been organizing counter-protests peace rallies aiming to deescalate the violence. They had 500 people out at the last one. London has a large Muslim Community. Unfortunately there are a lot of Evangelical Christians who stand with pegida.
• people for peace, the London Action Network, and CPT
• she is also a member of a working group to discuss the israel-palestine conflict with MPs
• in November and December Esther Co-chaired a delegation to Israel. She says each time she goes things are worse
• there will be a Liberation Passover meal with three United churches.

MO

• I've been working on launching a films page for the worldwide save movement, so that we can encourage groups around the world to show animal rights / climate films
• also launching a campaign with another woman from the Save movement to get mothers on board and thinking about climate issues. It will likely be called a Mothers for Mother Earth, and we are planning Mother's Day brunches in the month of May
• there have been a number of barn fires in Southern Ontario in the last couple of months. Apparently arson. Whenever possible our groups have been holding vigils for the animals who have been burned alive so that we can raise awareness about the conditions that they live in, and the lack of safety.
• we've been doing virtual reality in the schools, where we pay students to watch a short video on the life cycle of a pig. This has been very successful in getting students to rethink eating meat.
• the save movement is part of nation Rising, which will be holding a demonstration on July 14th to try to get the federal government to stop subsidizing animal agriculture and slaughterhouses

LAURA

• Niara Vangalen has started the petition to have 90% of Canada's land and seas be declared a nature reserve
• Laura is working on the chemical Valley project, to bring the play here
• she is also working on Co-op Community Kitchen, an incubator for a start-up food businesses... at St John the Evangelist
• she had a dinner on December 9th, with the Syrian community, and a hundred people signed up ... 220 showed up,
• she is also working on a doctrine of Discovery play, that talks about reconciliation
• divest Waterloo is partnering with the working Centre on a number of films. They showed Tomorrow, and on February 27th will be showing economics of happiness
• she is working on a fundraising dinner for indigenous people she from Louisiana who were displaced by climate change
• transition KW is working on getting people to tap their own trees. This is called the urban sugaring project
• she is working on “bridging communities through song” which will be on March 3rd
• a course at renison called reconciliation for communities
• and she recommends a book called quest for respect (A guide for discussing indigenous issues)

TAMARA

• she screened a Martin Luther King film at Laurier. This year was the 50th anniversary of his death. His death waswas on April 4th, so if you can use it that would be great
• a call to conscience, a PBS documentary of his last speech, which is likely why he was killed
• Canada has a 20-year plan to increase military spending by 553 billion dollars, and is intervening in other countries increasingly ... and is refusing to join the United Nations nuclear band
• she has a meeting coming up with bardish chagger to discuss spending and nuclear weapons
• the Canadian voices of women for peace is working on building a Canadian peace movement, which we don't have. Their conference will be September 21st and 22nd ( in the events). She is hoping that KW peace will have a presence there

ALEKSANDRA

• she is continuing the work looking into getting a community Hub