I stopped by my MLA's office this morning. This is a watershed election, folks, make no bones about it, and we have just a week to get out the progressive vote. VOTE and vote early. May 6-9 you can cast your advance ballots. A lot is at stake:
the future of BC Hydro as a crown corporation;
the health of our rivers, and public power;
our salmon;
the livability of our region...
as promised we have narrowed the voting choices down to five finalists in the ChangeSomething contest. voting closes October 25th 2007. now is your last chance to support the cause you feel should get the money. where will you direct your vote?
From the time B.C. Hydro was sold to a private corporation in 2002, the Gordon Campbell administration has been selling stretches of B.C. wild rivers to private energy corporations. This sale has generated revenue for the province, but has also made us dependent on private corporations for our energy. The goal of this project is to restructure the North American Electricity Industry in order to coincide with the U.S. structure, and to create an economy out of energy sales.
Waste-Wood Burning Energy Plant in Southeast False Creek.
Southeast False Creek (SEFC), the last undeveloped waterfront land near downtown Vancouver, and site of the Olympic Village, might also house a waste-wood burning energy plant. The City of Vancouver and a developing company called the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) have been working together to transform Southeast False Creek into a model sustainable development. CMHC was to ‘provide technical assistance and best practices to the design process’ to construct a ‘net-zero-energy, healthy housing project’. This was promised to be “The Greenest Urban Neighbourhood on Earth.”
I was doing some Internet researching and came across this really cool site. It's at globalcitizens.ca and it facilitates massive voting by community members on issues that the government commonly ignores us on. The topics up right now are:
-the wood burning power plant scheduled to be built in Southeast False Creek
-the Expansion of the #1 Highway
-the privatization of our energy sources (how our rivers are being contracted for 40years to private companies)
-the scheduled developments on UBC campus including the clear cutting of the endowment lands in order to build residences.
I sent the website an e-mailed and they got back to me letting me know that there would be more topics up soon, and inviting me to post my own topics. Apparently what they wanted was to have the whole community posting topics, and voting on them, in order to redirect power over local issues to the citizens of that local community. Anyways, check it out. If everyone started using this system we could really evoke change!
If you'd like to vote in the Webby awards, you can. But you will have to do it before Friday April 27th when polls close.
I just cast my votes. In the Charitable Organizations / Non-Profit category I selected Nothing But Nets because it stuck me that the work they are doing to save lives by preventing malaria, the #1 killer of children in Africa is an important way to prevent unnecessary suffering. I thought I would share this with you, because by voting for them we increase their chances of winning. When they win they will be better positioned to raise even more money to save more lives through this work. See how voting makes a difference?