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Canadian Union of Public Employees:
Tell the City of London to Protect Public Water On February 28th at 5pm, the London city council will be meeting to discuss a motion put forth by Swiss multinational Nestlé to rescind the city's ban on the purchase and sales of bottled water in certain municipal facilities. Take a moment to take the simple actions listed below to keep the ban alive and get the city to keep promoting its own public tap water! 1) Phone your city councilor and the mayor (and you can even try to arrange an in-person meeting!). 2) Email councilors with a personal message to tell them that you care! 3) Go to the city council meeting at 5pm on February 28th Ask your friends and colleagues to do the same! Things you should remind your councilors about: The bottled water ban is good public policy the city should be proud of Waste reduction should be a city-wide priority and here the city is leading by example The city should reject attempt by Swiss multinational Nestlé to influence public policy We must protect our publicly managed water and reject Nestlé's push to get privatized water, sold for profit, into public spaces CUPE and four other organizations have joined together keep the ban in place. You can read our letter to London city council for more information. Let's keep tap water accessible to all! |
Canada's Killer Red Tape
In five days, Parliament will decide if Canada joins the fight for affordable medicine. A bill is up for final vote that could provide life saving drugs for people suffering from AIDS, malaria, TB and other treatable illnesses. But some MPs, bowing to big pharma, are trying to kill the bill. Right now, Canada's Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR) doesn't work. The only company that tried to send affordable generic drugs to Africa had to wade through four years of government red tape to send enough AIDS drugs for only a few thousand people. The new bill before Parliament would end this logjam -- so that people in developing countries receive life-saving drugs. In January, when the Conservatives tried to destroy this bill on a technicality, thousands of us stood up for access to medicine and we won! Now the final vote is just five days away and forces in Parliament are again opposing this life saving measure. Sign the petition and join a national call for access to medicines. We will deliver our message in a major press conference on Parliament Hill on Wednesday, March 9 – when Bill C-393 comes up for a final vote: http://www.avaaz.org/en/medicine_for_all/?vl Canada has a chance to become a world leader in the production of affordable medication for the world’s poor. But big pharma is out to protect their patents on necessary drugs at all costs. Their lobbyists have been working around the clock to defeat the new bill to fix CAMR, even with the urgent need for affordable medicine in poor countries. We can beat the big pharma lobby. A national call, right now, could sway the votes we need to pass Bill C-393 and create a new access to medicines bill that actually works. Just last month, over 30,000 of us stood up for Parliament’s right to vote on the access to medicines bill. The Conservatives caved, promising to support a change in sponsorship and let the bill live. Now the fight for affordable medicine needs our help again. Click below to sign the petition and forward to your friends: http://www.avaaz.org/en/medicine_for_all/?vl We know that our movement has power – we have already defeated the big pharma lobby once. Now we can again call for the kind of Canada that stands up for vulnerable people around the world. With hope, Emma, Ricken, Laryn and the rest of the Avaaz team. Sources: Africa's hope: Save AIDS bill (Toronto Star): http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/930128--africa-s-hope-save-aids-drugs-bill Humanitarian aid bill will go to vote in House of Commons(Global News): http://www.globalnews.ca/story.html?id=4220057 NDP medicine bill has K'naan, Atwood singing same tune (Globe & Mail): http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ndp-medicine-bill-has-knaan-atwood-singing-same-tune/article1777112/ |
