Election Day April 28 2025 CILU News Cited

April 28 2025 Election Day

Featured Podcast Episode:

Greening Provincial Policy. - a conversation with Mike Schreiner, MPP for Guelph and Leader of the Ontario Green Party. Listen on your favourite podcast provider - or here

Improve Society:

Polls close at 9:30

Go to Elections Canada Find-My-Riding, Bring Two Pieces of ID (1 can be your Voter Registration Card) OR someone with their ID who can vouch for you (Arno forgot his DL)

Efforts by Shelter House & NorWest Community Health Centre to help those living without home of their own to vote: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6732758

The band Weather Station issued a plea to Canadians to vote in this Federal Election, after a tour in the US had them worried about parallels between the Canadian Conservatives and Trump's Republican goals and perspective.

Song: To Talk About

Mike Schreiner - doing politics better

clip

Representational Government:

https://www.fairvote.ca/ Canada's movement to promote the adoption of proportional representation & Citizen's Assemblies

Ireland's Citizen's Assemblies https://citizensassembly.ie/ have since 2013 have made broadly supported and deeply reforming recommendations on: the constitution (including making abortion and family planning legal); supporting an aging population; becoming a leader in Climate Change action; Gender Equality; Dublin and municipal vs. National governance; Biodiversity Loss and (in 2023) Drug Use.

https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/how-trudeau-missed-the-opportunity-for-electoral-reform-in-canada/ UK's proportional representation support group's perspective on Canada's last decade re: electoral reform

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City Council Composition Thunder Bay Current & history: https://www.thunderbay.ca/en/city-hall/city-council-thunder-bay.aspx

Composition Committee's recommendations Voted Down: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/council-composition-thunder-bay-1.7505607 & https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/council-composition-reaction-1.7501388

New Childcare support parents to get post-secondary education in Kenora. Manitou Baawaatig Kenora Campus Centre with have space for 24 new preschoolers, thanks to Federal Funding and the Seven Generations Education Institute's Kenora Campus in partnership with Kenora District Services Board

Repairs to Neskantaga First Nation Nursing Station started Tuesday (flooded 10 days earlier), moving it temporarily to a Duplex while the station gets repairs over next couple of weeks. 350 people evacuated to Thunder Bay, leaving 100 behind to manage. Nursing station flooding this time of year for years, this time with smell of fuel = evacuation. Recent evacuations in 2019 & 2020 because of water treatment Over 30 year boil water advisory = longest in the country. Indigenous Services Canada funding emergency measures and repairs -includes "long term service delivery" solutions. Neskantaga Community calling Emergency, securing promised support. Not giving up. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/neskantaga-nursing-station-update-1.7514936

Fort Frances Library, unionized one year, called out municipal decision to grant $2K additional funding when $27K requested as impacting staffing, hours and services. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/fort-frances-library-budget-2025-1.7511825

RFDA Funded to expand their warehouse: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/rfda-provincial-funding-warehouse-expansion-1.7517954 respect as community hub for 47 first nations and 37 service providers in Region with ceremonial circle, living wall, job training, food education, more storage and more capacity in their teaching & commercial kitchen space.

Overlap: Improve Society & our relationship to the natural world:

Premiere Screening of Finding Happiness: Walking Bhutan's Snowman Trek Sat May 3 two screenings at COnfederation College 5:00 & 7:30 w discussion Samantha Plavins, Thunder Bay writer produced and is featured in the film. Bhutan famous for measuring the "happiness index" of citizens since the 1970s - their King's idea. And the hike begin famously hard - even for a seasoned hiker like Sam. Samantha's interview on CBC Radio

Bells Larsen, Montreal songwriter recently forced to cancel US tour because as a Trans person, they felt they couldn't meet the US's new requirements that gender on all of your ID, from birth certificate to current VISA and passport are the same. Song: People Who Mean So Much To Me

Support Carbon Sinks (Restore Good Relationship with land & all our relations)

May 4 noon: Paddle the Kam from St. James Bridge to Lake Superior

April 29 to May 2 (tomorrow through Friday) City Nature Challenge - inaturalist - Track progress: https://inaturalist.ca/projects/city-nature-challenge-2023-thunder-bay-district-on-canada

May 1 Art exhibit Opening at TBAG: The Planet Welcomes Me - celebrating the art of Thunder Bay Salvage Sculpture Robert Derbouka died last year. Opening Thursday evening. Art Walk led by his wife Donna Pheonix on Saturday. Built their Earth Sheltered House in Neebing. Title drawn from the obituary he wrote for himself: “The planet welcomed me with many voices and languages, its elements caressed and nurtured me."

Sat May 3 bid on painted Rain Barrel in support of Eco Superior's programs at the Craft Revival at Good 'n Co. Limit storm run off your roof, use sweet rainwater in your garden. https://www.ecosuperior.org/cbc-interview-30th-anniversary

Register now for the Dorion Bird Festival in Hurkett Cove the weekend of May 24 & 25 hosted by the Lakehead Region Conservation Authority

Improve Society - through shared Art:

Lakehead Choral Group Spring Concert this Wednesday April 30 Be The Change 7 pm at St Agnes Church corner of Brown and Mark Streets - tickets are $20 and donations of non-perishable goods or cash for the RFDA is also welcome. https://www.tbnewswatch.com/classifieds/events/live-music/1942230

May 2 Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Dulchisono Chorus and the Lakehead Choral Group perform Mahler's second symphony Resurrection - from the depths of dispair to sheer life affirming joy. Community Auditorium 7:30 pm

Get GHG emissions to NET ZERO (waste less, transition from Fossil Fuels & so much more!)

Federal Party Platforms: Liberals make federal buildings fossil-fuel-free by 2030, return the EV subsidy program + home retrofit program; improve industrial carbon-pricing systems to keep us competitive on global level; Conservatives tax incentives to businesses to reward emission reduction measures; NDP w liberals re: supporting global standards re: industrial carbon pricing + return of EV rebates plus will cut gas & oil subsidies. Green party matches NDP and raises the game with commitments to 100% renewable energy federally by 2035 + new National Emergency Response Agency

Focus on affordability, improve support of our healthcare, minimum income and housing stock all = waste less

Not calling it Climate Action. Or Talking about Climate Emergency, yet proposing actions that help.

Clip: why Ontario isn't see the sun and wind and energy storage development exploding in other provinces and countries around the world:

Also invited to address the Northern Ontario Municipal Association was the Thunder Bay Climate Transition Collaborative. They asked City Council to consider adopting Green Building Standards April 14th. Council decided to invest two years in development of a plan to do just that. Solutions Council invests in developing don't always then get adopted, particularly when the council that decides to invest in developing a solution, is not the council that decides whether to adopt that recommended solution (two years = after next municipal election). But Collaborative engaged 15 local organizations through two roundtables, worked Nationally with similar initiatives across the country through support they engaged with the Tamarack Institute - odds of success are better than those of the City Committee I volunteered to join around City Council COmposition...

Song by Digging Roots - Plant the Seeds

In the meantime - Thunder Bay's Housing Accelerator Fund has $ for home & business owners in the City who want to expand our housing stock: Additional Dwelling Units in home or yard + help w permits, zoning etc.

City is reviewing their "assets" looking to shift spending from some, onto others. Right now asking what we value when it comes to Childcare Services in the City & Emergency Services outside the City. Very few people answer these surveys, they are far from statistically sound - but they are very influential. And a clue to what way Administration is leaning going into this discussion. A very impactful way to have your say

Which makes we think one more time of my conversation with Mike Scheiner - which you can hear in full on my podcast Something Different This Way Comes. Available on your podcast provider of choice or at SomethingDifferentThisWayComes.ca - where you can also find a blog linking you to every news article and primary source I referenced in today's show.

When I spoke with Mike Schreiner of the Ontario Green Party last week, he talked about how doing better, doesn't have to mean spending more. It can mean spending smarter.

clip - Mike we can do it!

Song by Bruce Cockburn: They Call It Democracy

Spring up to Clean Up Launches this May 1 - runs all month c/o Eco Superior. Party to kick it off Thursday May 1 10:30 am at NorWest Community Health Centre and the beautiful Community Garden next door at 525 Simpson St. Contests to win: photo; data collection. Wraps with a party at Sleeping Giant Brewery at the end of the month

Mentioned the Book Abundance by Seth Klein and Derek Thompson & the impact of fences