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Rogers-Shaw deal to increase Internet cost

Jan 282013

Backroom deal will kill choice and make our lives more expensive.

from OpenMedia

Rogers has struck a backroom deal with Shaw to take over assets crucial to delivering our mobile Internet and phone services – assets that were promised to create new independent choices for Canadians, not more control for Big Telecom.

We do not deserve this.

The deal will allow our biggest mobile phone and Internet provider, Rogers Inc, to go around the spirit of Canada’s key digital policy rules so they can grow even bigger, jack up your bill, and all but guarantee that Canadians have only three mobile telecom giants to choose from.

The deal will allow Rogers Inc, to go around the spirit of Canada’s key digital policy rules so they can grow even bigger, jack up your bill, and all but guarantee that Canadians have only three mobile telecom giants to choose from.

Shaw and Rogers should play by the rules like everybody else. Industry Minister Christian Paradis can stop this backroom deal; he’s in the process of making that decision right now. We have to tell him where Canadians stand, or Big Telecom lobbyists will get their way.

Send Paradis a message. Demand choice for the future of Internet access before it’s too late.

Click on the OpenMedia link below and go to the OpenMedia website to send this letter:

Subject: Stand up for telecom choice

Dear Industry Minister Paradis,

Please stand up for telecom choice and affordability. Big Telecom should not be able to prevent Canadians from accessing affordable mobile phone and Internet options. Shaw obtained public wireless assets at a premium – they should use them or lose them.

I urge you to stop Rogers from taking over key wireless public assets that were set aside for independent providers. It’s wrong.

Please do the right thing.

Yours truly, etc

Reference

OpenMedia campaign on choice

Good money after bad

Jan 232013

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Tell Ontario government to demand a fixed-price contract to repair Darlington nuclear power plant.

from the Ontario Clean Air Alliance

It’s bad enough that the Liberal Government is determined to spend billions of dollars rebuilding a nuclear plant we don’t really need, but now it is layering on expensive consultants as a “cost control” measure.

Boycott the brands that blocked your right to know!

Jan 212013

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$45 million spent on lies and dirty tricks killed California's law requiring GMO food be labelled.

from the Organic Consumers Association

Please sign the pledge below to let the following companies know you're joining the boycott. These companies make billions of dollars selling organic and "natural" brands, yet they spent millions to defeat Prop 37, CA Right to Know's ballot initiative to label genetically modified food. Click the hyperlinks to contact specific brands.

• PepsiCo (Donated $2.5M): Naked Juice, Tostito’s, Tropicana, Loóza, Izze, Sabra, Smartfood, Stacy's, Mother's and Near East
• Kraft, recently became Mondelez (Donated $2M): Boca Burgers and Back to Nature
• Safeway (Member of Grocery Manufacturers Association, which donated $2M):“O” Organics
• Coca-Cola (Donated $1.7M): Honest Tea, Odwalla
• General Mills (Donated $1.2M): Muir Glen, Cascadian Farm, Larabar
• Con-Agra (Donated $1.2M): Orville Redenbacher’s Organic, Hunt’s Organic, Lightlife, Alexia
• Kellogg’s (Donated $791k): Kashi, Bear Naked, Morningstar Farms, Gardenburger
• Smucker’s (Donated $555k ): R.W. Knudsen, Santa Cruz Organic
• Unilever (Donated $467k): Ben & Jerry’s
• Dean Foods (Donated $254k): Horizon, Silk, White Wave

Download your wallet-sized boycott guide.
Download a poster-sized boycott guide.
Learn more about the boycott
Request free, printed copies of the boycott guide
Click here for a comprehensive list of all the brands owned by corporations that donated to the No on 37 campaign.

Go to Organic Consumers Association to sign and send this letter:

Subject: I'm joining the Right to Know boycott! Label GMOs!

I refuse to purchase any of my favorite brands owned by parent companies that contributed to the $46 million that helped defeat Prop 37, the California Right to Know GMO Labeling initiative

If any of these brands want to regain my trust and get off the nationwide boycott list, they will have to do two things:

Speak out publicly in favor of state efforts to label genetically engineered food.
Contribute as much money to Label-It Washington's Initiative 522 campaign as their brand's parent corporation donated to the No on 37 campaign in California.

I will also call these brands' customer hotlines, and post messages to their facebook pages, demanding that they support my right to know, or lose me permanently as a customer.

These companies make billions of dollars selling organic and "natural" brands, yet they spent millions to defeat Prop 37. Here's a list of the 10 companies I am boycotting, and their organic and "natural" brands:

• PepsiCo (Donated $2.5M): Naked Juice, Tostito’s Organic, Tropicana Organic
• Kraft (Donated $2M): Boca Burgers and Back to Nature
• Safeway (Member of Grocery Manufacturers Association, which donated $2M):“O” Organics
• Coca-Cola (Donated $1.7M): Honest Tea, Odwalla
• General Mills (Donated $1.2M): Muir Glen, Cascadian Farm, Larabar
• Con-Agra (Donated $1.2M): Orville Redenbacher’s Organic, Hunt’s Organic, Lightlife, Alexia
• Kellogg’s (Donated $791k): Kashi, Bear Naked, Morningstar Farms, Gardenburger
• Smucker’s (Donated $555k ): R.W. Knudsen, Santa Cruz Organic
• Unilever (Donated $467k): Ben & Jerry’s
• Dean Foods (Donated $254k): Horizon, Silk, White Wave

Source

World Day of Action January 28

Jan 142013

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Red background, hand holds eagle feather - We are Idle No More

Idle No More calls for global action as Parliament returns to work.

from Idle No More

In solidarity with Common Causes — a new initiative bringing together social justice, environmental, labour and other activist groups — we are planning an IDLE NO MORE WORLD DAY OF ACTION on January 28th, 2013 #J28, when Canadian MPs return to the House of Commons.

Toronto needs energy conservation, not more generation

Jan 102013

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Tell City Councillors to instruct Hydro to examine other options.

from the Ontario Clean Air Alliance

All of those glass walled condos popping up in the Toronto downtown core mean more than just more coffee bars – they also mean increased electricity demand on an aging downtown distribution grid. Toronto Hydro is proposing to spend $272 million on a new transformer station to carry on with business as usual. The problems with this approach are many:

Fast in solidarity with Chief Spence

Jan 072013

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KAIROS, others, call on Canadians to support First Nations by foregoing food on January 11.

from KAIROS

On Friday, January 4, the Prime Minister announced that he would meet with First Nations leaders on January 11, the one month anniversary of Chief Theresa Spence’s fast to bring attention to the treaty relationship between First Nations and Canada. KAIROS welcomes this meeting as a response to the Chief’s call, and as she prepares for the meeting, we call on our network to join in a Solidarity Fast with Chief Spence on Friday, January 11.

UN studies major telecom treaty

Dec 102012

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Result could be government control and censorship of Internet.

from Avaaz.org

Right now at a UN meeting in Dubai, authoritarian regimes are pushing for full governmental control of the Internet in a binding global treaty — if they succeed, the internet could become less open, more costly and much slower. We have only 2 days to stop them.

The Internet has been an amazing example of people power — allowing us to connect, speak out and pressure leaders like never before. That's largely because it's been governed to date by users and non-profits and not governments.

But now countries like Russia, China and United Arab Emirates are trying to rewrite a major telecom treaty called the ITR to bring the Internet under its control — the web would then be shaped by government interests and not by us, the users.

Tim Berners Lee, one of the "fathers of the Internet," has warned that this could increase censorship online and invade our privacy. But if we object with a massive people-powered petition, we can strengthen the hand of countries fighting this power grab.

We have stopped attacks like this before and can do it again before the treaty text is locked this week. A wave of opposition to a new ITR is already building. Sign the petition to tell governments hands off our Internet! Then share this campaign with everyone you know. When we hit 1 million signers, the petition will be delivered straight to the delegates at this cozy meeting.

To the ITU and all nations meeting at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai:

As citizens of the world and Internet users, we call on you to reject any changes to current Internet regulations that would weaken or alter the free and open nature of the Internet, or give any government or body the ability to infringe on Internet users’ rights to free speech, free access to information or privacy. We also demand that any proposed changes to current international Internet regulations be publicly debated, and subject to citizen input and approval.

Sign the petition.

World Bank backs land grabs in poor nations

Dec 062012

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Sustenance farms destroyed so corporations can grow corn for biofuels.

from Oxfam

Globally, an area more than double the size of British Columbia has been sold off in the rush for land. That's land that could feed nearly 900 million people — the number of people who go to bed hungry every night.

Stop the FIPA trade deal with China

Dec 012012

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At any moment, Prime Minister Harper could pass the most secretive and sweeping trade deal of a generation.

from Leadnow

Most Canadians have never heard of FIPA, the Canada-China Foreign Investment Protection Agreement, because Prime Minister Harper is trying to sneak it through without a single vote or debate in Parliament.

Canadians have a right to determine our future, but this agreement will undermine our democratic rights and lock us into an inescapable path of foreign-ownership and resource extraction until at least 2040.

If FIPA passes, a Chinese company can take over Canadian resources and then sue Canadian governments in secret, if the government does anything that threatens the company’s profits.

The Canada-China FIPA could be approved any day now unless we get the word out now that the Harper Conservatives are trying bypass Parliament and sneak this deal by Canadians. That’s why we partnered with SumOfUs.org on this campaign – if enough of us raise our voices now, we can create a massive public outcry to stop this devastating deal in its tracks.

Send a message to Prime Minister Harper and your MP: stop the Canada-China FIPA and the Nexen takeover.
Alongside this deal, the Harper government is trying to sell off Nexen, a major Canadian oil and gas company, to the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), one of China’s massive state-owned oil companies. The $15 billion-dollar Nexen takeover will open the floodgates to a wave of foreign buyouts of Canada's natural resources.

If FIPA passes, a Chinese company can take over Canadian resources and then sue Canadian governments in secret, if the government does anything that threatens the company’s profits

Any Canadian law or government decision – even ones that protect Canada’s environment, create jobs and stop dangerous projects – could be fought in secret tribunals outside of our legal system. Arbitrators unaccountable to the Canadian public would have the power to award billions in damages to foreign corporations if we do anything that hurts corporate profits, like improve environmental standards or slow down the export of cheap, unprocessed resources.

Tell the Prime Minister you oppose FIPA by sending a letter from Leadnow.

Tell Ottawa: no ads on CBC radio

Dec 012012

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We are in a struggle for the survival of what’s left of public broadcasting in Canada.

from Friends of Public Broadcasting

Public broadcasting in Canada is slowly slipping away in the face of budget cuts that are leading our national public broadcaster to become ever more commercial.

The latest line in the sand is public radio. CBC is seeking permission from the CRTC to place unlimited advertising on some of its radio networks — a proposal that shocks many CBC listeners and recalls the time when commercials on CBC radio were a source of revenue.

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