Newsletter #12
Sierra Club - Chebucto Group
Welcome to issue number 12 of Sierra News from the Chebucto Group.
In this issue: Upcoming Events
Conservation Committee Update
Volunteers Needed
Cape Breton Outing
New Premier and Minister--Action Please!
Multilateral Agreement on Investment
Updated Excomm List
We always need volunteers. Please see below for more information.
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Thursday, September 4, 7 p.m.
Meeting of the Chebucto Group Excomm, 2099 Gottingen St. (Oxfam office).
If you are not a member of the excomm and will be attending, please
contact Nadia, 425-5119.
Tuesday, September 9, 7 p.m.
Conservation Working Group meeting, 2099 Gottingen St. (Oxfam office).
Everyone is welcome. For more information, please contact Nadia,
425-5119 or Cass
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CONSERVATION COMMITTEE UPDATE Contributed by Nadia Stuewer
Point Pleasant Park
After being represented by two members of the Conservation Committee at a
meeting with Point Pleasant Park Manager Stephen King, we've decided on a
strategy for further action.
There will be a series of public workshops in the fall as part of the
process of preparing a management strategy for all aspects of Point
Pleasant. We think that it is important that as many environmentalists as
possible attend these workshops, as informed participation is crucial to
the process. We are going to encourage local organizations to send
representatives, and send several ourselves.
The other focus will be public education. The park is very interested in
making the public more aware of issues in the park, both in terms of
biological issues, i.e., why it's irresponsible to go barging through the
underbrush, and in terms of communicating the park's management decisions.
The park would welcome our help in a public education campaign. So far we
are thinking of creating leaflets and perhaps PSA radio announcements, and
we're looking for other ideas and volunteers.
If you're interested in getting involved in any way, please contact Nadia
(425-5119, n_stuewe@bass.stmarys.ca) or Arciris (425-7744,
af169@chebucto.ns.ca).
Sheet Harbour
Ron Fortune is working on the issue of the wood chip factory in Sheet
Harbour. Currently he is making links with local sawmill owners and
environmental groups to work out a cooperative approach to the issue.
Contact Ron for more information: quest@ns.sympatico.ca, or 452-8499.
Concerns have also been expressed by Conservation members over the
proposed developments at Crystal Crescent Beach. If you're interested in
that issue, contact Nadia, 425-5119.
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VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!!
We are looking for a new editor of sierra-news (the very newsletter you
are reading). If you are interested, please contact Paul
. It is not difficult to put together and training
will be provided!
We are also looking for someone to help with publicity and someone to help
with fundraising. If you are new to publicity, the former publicity chair
is willing to show you the ropes. For more information, please contact
Nadia (425-5119) or Paul
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CAPE BRETON OUTING Contributed by Nadia Stuewer and Arciris Garay
At the beginning of August a group of Sierra Club members travelled to
Cape Breton to visit Elizabeth May and the Jim Campbells Barren. The trip
included a visit to a bog in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park that
is similar to Jim Campbells Barren (due to the fire hazard we could not
get to JCB itself), a presentation and update on the JCB issue, a meeting
with Cape Breton members of the JCB Coalition, a meeting with Elizabeth
about administration and conservation issues, and a visit to a salmon
hatchery on the Margaree River. For more details on the trip or anything
discussed, contact Nadia, Arciris, Heather, Ron or Shannon.
Jim Campbells Barren Update
In Cape Breton, John May, John Hart and David Lawley presented various
aspects of the Jim Campbells Barren issue, including a description of the
wildlife, plantlife and surrounding river systems, the Heritage Rivers
conservation plan, and details of the delisting process and subsequent
actions and reactions by Regal, the government and environmentalists that
led to the establishment of the coalition, the chance of Regal actually
finding any gold (very small) or other valuable minerals (somewhat more
likely). The next stage of the JCB campaign is a return to hounding the
politicians. For more info., see below.
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NEW PREMIER AND MINISTER--ACTION PLEASE Contributed by Colin Stewart
Endangered Species Act
As you know, Nova Scotia has changed Premiers - Russell MacLellan (the
premier's office is still Box 726, Halifax, B3J 2T3) and Natural Resources
minister - Ken MacAskill (of course that address remains Box 698, Halifax,
Nova Scotia, B3J 2T9).
Our Endangered Species Act was to have been dealt with in the spring
session that was curtailed by the liberal leadership race. It is not at
all clear how well species will do against the other issues in the 'more
issues than time' reality of the current government's remaining
session(s).
The public proposal of last year was clearly the best species legislation
existing or proposed in the country. Although the former minister,
Eleanor Norrie, decided not to release it to the public before tabling it
in the house, we are reassured that the legislation still merits our
support.
Please contact the new minister and / or premier reminding them of the
issue and urging that it be dealt with in the Fall session.
Jim Campbells Barren and Protected Areas
Russell MacLellan agreed to meet with reps from the Coalition to Relist
the Barren when he spoke at the Liberal leadership meetings in the early
summer. Members of the coalition are now working to arrange a meeting
with the new premier.
Don't let Premier MacLellan and new Natural Resources Minister Ken
MacAskill forget this issue. Write or call to remind them that the Barren
should be relisted and that protected areas legislation should be enacted
this Fall (addresses are at the top of this item). Urge your own MLA to
make this issue a priority.
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MULTILATERAL AGREEMENT ON INVESTMENT
Following is an article by Stephen Kimber on the Multilateral Agreement on
Investment (MAI) which the Sierra Club of Canada is actively fighting.
Friday, August 1, 1997
Canada's yawner of a threat
Don't be fooled into thinking this agreement is good for you
By Stephen Kimber
Its title - Multilateral Agreement on Investment - is so mind-numbingly,
sleep-inducingly innocuous, it's no wonder so little has been written
about it.
Its language - "a level playing field for international investors,"
"eliminating distortions to investment flows" - is so blandly,
reassuringly bureaucratic, it may even be understandable that people have
been lulled into believing it must somehow be good for them.
It isn't.
The Multilateral Agreement on Investment, in fact, poses at least as great
a threat to Canadian sovereignty as Lucien Bouchard. Perhaps an even
greater threat because it could hobble the ability of any future Canadian
government to do almost anything in the public interest - from assisting
non-profit daycares over for-profit ones, to protecting Canadian
publishing from total foreign ownership and control, to requiring outside
corporations to provide social benefits in exchange for the opportunity to
exploit our natural resources.
Incredibly, if the MAI had been in effect in the 1980s, it could even have
prevented Canada and other countries from imposing the kind of economic
sanctions on South Africa that eventually helped end apartheid there.
That's because the deal, if agreed to by the 29 member states of the
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, would essentially
create "a bill of rights and freedoms for transnational corporations" at
the expense of nation-states and their citizens. No wonder the
negotiations for this agreement, which began back in 1995, have been
conducted in such virtual secrecy that the Chretien government never even
announced publicly that Canada was participating. Even though it is now in
the i-dotting and t-crossing phase at OECD headquarters in Paris, there's
still been almost no public debate on the terms of the deal in Canada.
In theory, the MAI is being promoted by the United States, Canada, the
other 27 members of the OECD, the world's richest nations club, and a
cabal of footloose multinational corporations and their lobbyists as a way
of extending and broadening the "benefits" of North American free trade to
the world.
But its real prime objective, according to all-too-candid American
officials, is to "protect U.S. investors abroad." It does that by
crippling the powers of national governments to exercise any degree of
control over them.
According to an analysis of the treaty by the Canadian Centre for Policy
Alternatives, an Ottawa think tank, the MAI will "establish a whole new
set of global rules that will give transnational corporations the
unrestricted right to buy, sell and move their operations whenever and
wherever they want around the world completely free of government
intervention or regulation. While corporations are to be granted new
rights and powers under the MAI, they are to have no corresponding
obligations and responsibilities related to jobs, workers, consumers or
the environment."
There is no longer any such thing as the public interest. That means that
Ottawa - or Nova Scotia, for that matter - would no longer be permitted to
establish policies that direct job creation to economically depressed
areas such as Cape Breton. It would also mean the federal government
couldn't make any rules that would prevent foreign companies from buying
up CTV or perhaps even the CBC. It also - and perhaps most alarmingly -
could undercut even the feeble exemptions currently in place under NAFTA
to protect medicare.
And, under its terms, it would bind future governments by forcing them to
not only give five years' notice to get out of the treaty but also
enforce the provisions of the treaty for 15 more years after that.
It's time for a full, open debate about MAI. Before it's too late.
For Canada. For Canadians.
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CHEBUCTO GROUP EXCOMM
Chair (away til Sept.) Paul Falvo 492-1995 pfalvo@chebucto.ns.ca
Vice (Acting) Chair Nadia Stuewer 425-5119 n_Stuewe@bass.stmarys.ca
Conservation Nadia Stuewer 425-5119 n_Stuewe@bass.stmarys.ca
Cass Elliott 455-3852 au361@chebucto.ns.ca
Outings Henrietta Mann 496-8235 HMANN@shark.stmarys.ca
Programme Jack Devenney 463-0090 jack.devdart@ns.sympatico.ca
Henrietta Mann 496-8235 HMANN@shark.stmarys.ca
Youth Arciris Garay 443-8472 af169@chebucto.ns.ca
Membership Allison Denning425-1379 adenning@is2.dal.ca
Derek Fenton 423-6486 derek.fenton@maritimes.dfo.ca
Secretary Allison Denning425-1379 adenning@is2.dal.ca
Publicity vacant
Treasurer Jack Devenney 463-0090 jack.devdart@ns.sympatico.ca
Fund Raising vacant
Web Master Ben Tremblay 423-8682 ab006@chebucto.ns.ca
Visit us on the 'Net!
Halifax ---> http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Environment/Sierra/
Cape Breton ---> http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/fran.morrison/SIERRA.HTM
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