EVENTS & MEETINGS:
1) Monday, May 6: Mayworks Sudbury Presents "Made in Dagenham"
2) Tuesday, May 7: Meeting of Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty
3) Wednesday, May 8: Sudbury Voices Town Hall & Discussion
4) Wendesday, May 8: The Stephen Lewis Foundation Solidarity Tour in Sudbury
5) Thursday, May 9: Art Show and Book Launch for Mental Health Week
6) Saturday, May 11: Coalition for a Liveable Sudbury Fundraising Rain Barrel Sale
7) Monday, May 13: Friends of Sudbury Transit Meeting
8) Saturday, May 18: Sudbury Cyclist Union Bike Repair Barbeque
NEWS, ANALYSIS & CALLS TO ACTION:
1) Raise the Rates Campaign Statement on the Provincial Budget
2) "Oka: Origin of a Crisis" by Thomas King
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Monday, May 6: Mayworks Sudbury Presents "Made in Daghenham"
Time: 7pm
Location: Rainbow Cinema in the Rainbow Centre Mall, downtown Sudbury
A dramatization of the 1968 strike at the Ford Dagenham car plant, where female workers walked out in protest against sexual discrimination. This is a presentation of Mayworks Sudbury 2013 and the Education Committee of the Sudbury and District Labour Council.
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Tuesday, May 7: Meeting of Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty
Time: 6:30pm
Location: Offices of the Sudbury and District Labour Council (Suite 209 upstairs in 109 Elm Street, which is across the street from the Native Friendship Centre)
Matters to be discussed include the provincial budget and out response to it; housing issues; our ongoing direct action support work; setting up an S-CAP drop in space and much more. The venue is wheelchair accessible. Children are welcome to attend, or childcare support is available upon request.
S-CAP is a direct-action anti-poverty organization based in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. We provide direct-action support work assisting individuals in their struggles with welfare and ODSP, housing, employers, and others who deny people what they are entitled to in order to meet their needs. In addition, we mount campaigns against and support educational work about regressive government policies as they effect working people and people living in poverty. We believe in the power of people to organize themselves. We believe in the power of resistance!
La coalition contre la pauvreté de Sudbury (S-CAP) est un organisme d’action directe luttant contre la pauvreté. Elle se trouve à Sudbury en Ontario.
Le travail de la coalition se base dans l’action directe et consiste à apporter de l’aide aux individus dans leurs luttes pour l’assistance sociale, l’invalidité, le logement, l’emploi et à les aider à faire face aux gens qui leur refusent ce à quoi ils ont droit pour rencontrer leurs besoins. De plus, la coalition fait des compagnes de sensibilisation et de dénonciation par rapport aux politiques gouvernementales régressives quant à leurs effets sur les travailleurs et travailleuses et les personnes vivant dans la pauvreté.
La coalition croit au pouvoir des personnes de s’organiser elles-mêmes; elle croit au pouvoir de la résistance!
S-CAP on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/257339454351403/
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Wednesday, May 8: Sudbury Voices Town Hall & Discussion
Time: 5pm to 9pm
Location: Parkside Centre, Kinsman Room A, 140 Durham Street
A DISCUSSION OF COMMUNITY VALUES AND THE LAUNCH OF A NEW COMMUNITY VOICE
A panel of six citizens who are deeply engaged with questions of what our community is and what it might become will kick off the evening, leading into a larger conversation about what we want and how to get there.
The panel will feature Laurie McGauley, Linda Heron, Bruce McComber, Christy Knockleby, Isabelle Legault, and a local member of the Ontario Common Front. They bring diverse perspectives and experiences, with involvements ranging from social justice to Idle No More to subsistence living to environmental protection to labour, and much more.
Then we want to hear from you!
What values do you think should guide us a community? What’s important to you to feel at home and live a good life in Greater Sudbury? Do the priorities of decision makers reflect your own? Who and what gets left out when important decisions are made that shape our lives? If changes are needed, how can we make them?
Join the discussion, and share your thoughts and experiences. Make your voice heard.
This lively community discussion will also launch our membership drive, supporting more local grassroots voices in being heard year-round. Annual memberships can be purchased at the event (suggested amount $15 or $25). Our goal is $2000 to be able to pay local writers for grassroots journalism and help build capacity in the community for marginalized voices and grassroots efforts to be heard.
All are welcome at the event. The venue is wheelchair accessible. Refreshments will be available.
You can contact us at grassrootssudburymedia@gmail.com. Our website can be found at http://sudbury.mediacoop.ca/.
This event on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/363488603757539/
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Wednesday, May 8: The Stephen Lewis Foundation Solidarity Tour in Sudbury
Time: 7pm
Location: OPSEU Meeting Room, 866 Newgate Avenue, Sudbury
Supported by the Canadian Labour Congress and the Sudbury and District Labour Council, The Stephen Lewis Foundation presents their Solidarity Tour featuring three AIDS and community activists from Africa.
This will provide a forum for these activists to tell their stories, share their expertise and talk about their challenges and triumphs in dealing with the ravages of AIDS at the grassroots level.
Wednesday, May 8th, 7 pm
OPSEU Meeting Room
Newgate Plaza
This event on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/483043981777163
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Thursday, May 9: Art Show and Book Launch for Mental Health Week
Time: 7pm to 9pm
Location: Bertolos (270 Elgin Street, Sudbury)
NISA's Annual Art show, in support of Mental Health Week is once again coming up! The show, called "Awakenings" will feature art from NISA's fine artists, photographers and quilters.
In addition, we will also be launching two new books published by NISA writers and Open Minds Quarterly contributors.
"In New Light: The many paths of identity, struggle & mental illness" and Allan Jones’ memoir "The Book of Al: The Story of a Psychiatric Survivor, Me"
Join us for an evening of readings and beautiful art work, and support the creative engagements of those living with mental illness.
This event on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/174349226050066/
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Saturday, May 11: Coalition for a Liveable Sudbury Fundraising Rain Barrel Sale
Time: 10:30am to 1:30pm
Location: Minnow Lake Place parking lot, 1127 Bancroft Drive, Sudbury
RainBarrel.ca is pleased to partner with Coalition for a Liveable Sudbury in support of building local rain gardens to improve storm water quality in the Ramsey Lake watershed.
for more information or to order your own rain barrel please visit: www.RainBarrel.ca/LiveableSudbury
This event on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/498966096808926/
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Monday, May 13: Friends of Sudbury Transit Meeting
Time: 7pm to 8:30pm
Location: reThink Green (176 Larch Street, back entrance)
Agenda TBA.
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Saturday, May 18: Sudbury Cyclist Union Bike Repair Barbeque
Time: 2pm to 6pm
Location: 150 King Street, Sudbury
Spring is (debatably) here again!
Time to tune up your trusty bike and enjoy food and music with good friends and fellow cyclists that you may not have seen for a while during the snow season.
As in the past, there will be tools on hand for your use (but you're welcome to bring your own, the more the merrier!), and advice and/or assistance from those more mechanically inclined in attendance, and a barbeque on site to prepare the yummy food that you will no doubt bring because this is a potluck and you like to share.
New for this year, local band WHICKED BRIDGE will be coming out to play for us, so if you just hate having to go out and have fun with friends, food, bikes, and music, you should probably just stay home :P
This event on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/477706742300518/
NEWS, ANALYSIS & CALLS TO ACTION:
1) Raise the Rates Campaign Statement on the Provincial Budget
Liberals' 2013 budget insults hundreds of thousands living in poverty Business keeps getting $8.5 billion in annual tax cuts, but Ontario's poor get tiny rate increases that are wiped out by inflation and rent increases
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - May 2, 2013) - The Liberal 2013 budget insults hundreds of thousands of people living in poverty in Ontario by continuing $8.5 billion in annual tax cuts for corporations, while providing miniscule social assistance rate "increases" that are wiped out by inflation and rent increases, anti-poverty activists with the Raise the Rates campaign said today.
"Premier Kathleen Wynne has blown her opportunity to end the Harris-McGuinty era of making poverty worse in Ontario," said Liisa Schofield of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP). "She's giving $8.5 billion in tax cuts to corporations every year while leaving poor people to tread water. The government must raise social assistance rates by 55% just to recover the lost ground of the past 18 years - an increase of 1 percent is an insult."
Schofield reacted to the budget's announcement that the Liberals are creating a new cabinet committee on poverty reduction.
"The caution the Liberals exhibit when "studying" poverty is in marked contrast when it comes to the bold and direct action they take cutting taxes for corporations," Schofield said. "No more committees. No more commissions. It's time to commit action to end poverty by raising the minimum wage and raising social assistance rates."
The government's rate increase of $14 for single employable people and the $200 earnings exemption are insufficient to meet adequacy and simple human dignity, said Carrie Lynn Poole-Cotnam, chair of CUPE Ontario's Social Services Workers Coordinating Committee.
"These measures are band-aids which don't address the massive drop in income that people living on social assistance have had to endure," said Poole-Cotnam. "And now the government wants to eliminate programs that provide specialized supports for persons with disabilities, making poverty even worse for Ontario's most vulnerable people."
While Poole-Cotnam said that the proposed flat rate exemption on employment earnings is a positive step, she called on the government to maintain the existing 50 percent exemption for earnings above $200.00 and to restore the other major benefits it has cut.
"The Raise the Rates campaign will continue to press the Liberals to restore the Community Start Up and the Special Diet Allowance," Poole-Cotnam said. "We will not stand idle as the Liberal government balances its budget on the backs of Ontario's poor while giving away billions to big business."
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Oka: Origin of a Crisis
by Thomas King
(Published on Common Ground: http://commonground.ca/2013/05/oka-origin-of-a-crisis/)
The site for the Sudbury working-group of The Media Co-op has been archived and will no longer be updated. Please visit the main Media Co-op website to learn more about the organization.
The Sudbury working-group of The Media Co-op was formed to create independent media in the North, to speak to our issues and outlooks on our communities as well as the world around us. Independent media provides an avenue for people who are wishing to gain critical perspective on the issues that matter most to us, and to give a voice to those people and stories that you won't find in the mainstream media.
The Sudbury working-group site is no longer being updated and has been archived.