Glyphosate brainstorming Sept 8, 2017

Some of us had our first brainstorming session yesterday, September 8th, 2017, at Richard Miller’s place, the iconic old railway powerhouse at Abbotsford.

Folks that attended in person were: Richard Miller, Tracie Caterole, Justin Cawker and Tony Mitra. Person that joined in long distance by phone, was Larry Wartels. Person that narrowly missed out finding us, was Gina Lipford.

This is an exploratory day, with brainstorming without a specific agenda. Each of us spoke on record, for very short durations on who we are and what we feel.

Tracie came before the camera for the first time, speaking about clean food as the first item to ensure clean health, from her own perspective and experience.

Justin, an 18 year old British Columbian college student of political science that is remarkably articulate, speaks about the issues surrounding food and health. Off the record he said a lot of things about the problems of the younger generation, many of whom have little social skills and even less awareness because they are raised and groomed by their phone. He recognizes some of the root issues that affects his and his family’s health as well as affects the future of his generation.

Justin is also an exceptional person because he not only loves cooking, but bought organic flour from the US to make organic bread for the family. How many of us can do what Justin does for his family?

Richard spoke about writing to Lana Popham to ban glyphosate. he repeated what Larry Wartels already mentioned over the phone, that the province of British Columbia absolutely can ban Glyphosate legally from agriculture, forests and everywhere else, despite the fact that it has been approved in Ottawa.

He warns people to try to eat organic food to avoid glyphosate, and those that cannot buy organic bread, should at least avoid ordinary bread that contain wheat bran, because conventional American and Canadian grown wheat that is almost always desiccated with glyphosate, has been found (by me from the CFIA test results), to contain astronomical levels of glyphosate in wheat bran.

Last to speak was myself. I identified the the root problem as political corruption in Canada, and identified the citizens, that is you and me, as the guilty party responsible for bringing our nation and our future to such a pitiful state.

While all this was going on, we also were shown how to roast seeds of organic pumpkins for eating. They are delicious.

Larry Wartels was a reservoir of important information. To start with, he lives in the riding of Lana Popham in the provincial map and Eizabeth May on the federal map. He provided the “Resolution FAQs”  of the NDP party – which could be used for registered members of the NDP, for raising a resolution, for example on banning glyphosate in BC.

Larry also gave us some good leads. We discussed the issue of the record breaking trio of green party MLAs that were sworn into not only the legislative assembly of British Columbia, but also in the ruling coalition that came to power. The party is expected to bring groundbreaking legislative agenda to greatly improve British Columbia’s ecology, health and environment. Toxic food and pesticides in our environment aught to be one of the high priorities. Larry singled out one of the three Green MLAs – Sonia Furstenau.

She has been a tireless and forceful warrior to protect local areas in the island from commercially induced degradation. I had a bit of difficulty figuring out how to remember or pronounce her last name correctly, and decided to call it first-to-know, thus turning her name as Sonia First-To-Know.

Sonia might be among the best candidate to write to, to transform the issue of banning glyphosate in BC from a talking point, into a crusade. So, I was going to write to her, and encourage everyone else to consider doing so as well, apart from writing to Lana Popham, to your Mayor, MLA and MP and apart from supporting the petition.

MLA Sonia (First-to-know) Furstenau’s contacts are:

Office:

Parliament Buildings
Victoria, BC  V8V 1X4

Phone: (250) 387-8347
Email : sonia.furstenau.MLA@leg.bc.ca

 Decision was to make this brainstorming a regular monthly feature for those interested. Perhaps one of the Fridays every month. Details to be sorted out.
Thats all for today. Thanks for the visit. Feel free to pen your views in comments.

 

Citizen activism against herbicide attack

Spent an evening at Richard Miller’s iconic home – a three story hillside home that once used to be a power plant and a railway station. Today, it borders a forested hill to the south where hummingbird families make nests, and agricultural flats to the north in Abbotsford.

Family of Robin Wesman of the East Kootenay had arrived to spend the night with them. I came with a pumpkin from my backyard. Richard would show me, another day, how to roast pumpkin seeds. But that was not the main reason we were there.

Richard spoke on the need of the hour, which might be to write multiple letters to the new Agriculture Minister of British Columbia. She is an NDP MLA and has a track record in the past for supporting organic farming and pushing back at industrial chemical dependent toxic farming. Now was the time to write to her, to encourage her in finding ways to push back at the use of glyphosate and reduce its presence in British Columbian agriculture. This was the time to show her the support – by the tens of thousands. His one minute talk on record was short, straight and direct.

Then it was Robin Wesman’s turn. He took two minutes to articulate his view, which is, to engage himself in a step by step process where the first step is to educate the people so they can see the picture about how our long term as well as short term health is affected by excess use of herbicides in our environment. The next step would be for the people to find ways to banish this practice of spraying herbicides in our environment. He covers his points in a two minute talk.

 

Tony explained two things from his own perspective. The first was how science has been hijacked by the industry and we do not have balanced neutral science available to judge agri-industry, GMO or herbicides any more. Science has lost its objectivity and neutrality and stopped being an unbiased tool to assess glyphosate. The second point is – it is not so much the industry such as Monsanto that is at fault. The party that ensured our environment is turned toxic is our politicians that control our government. But the root cause is not just corrupt politicians – but complacency of us, the people of Canada that refuse to perform their main task as citizens. His talk took four minutes.

I forgot to mention, Richard and Tracie made some lovely dinner for us all, with roasted chicken with unbelievably good flavour, along with quinoa and salad, that went with a glass of red wine. I also had a banana.


Received an interesting feedback from a reader on youtube:

I Macey
No I disagree the only people who can change this are the occultists who are in power glyphosate is part of ongoing eugenics and the only reason the e.u haven’t relicensed is because glyphosate is starting to effect themselves . My opinion of course

That’s it for the day. By the time I hit the road heading back to my home, light had disappeared from the sky, and there was a traffic jam due to an accident that turned my hour long drive into a two hour one, reaching back home at 10:30 PM. My wife was fast asleep by then. All in all – a good way to pass quality time, and talk about what we the people aught to do beyond eating, drinking and making money for ourselves. Do we have a responsibility towards the future of the society and the land, or don’t we?

Lana on BC Agriculture

Lana Popham  and Craig Keating met with people of North Vancouver at Buddha Full Organic cafe, to talk about BC’s agriculture. Craig introduced Lana first.ACT024_Lana_NVan1

Lana, incumbent MLA from Sanich South, and an agricultural critic for the BC Government, made a twenty five minute presentation, taking only occasional cue from her notebook. Coming from an agricultural background and having run an organic farm before becoming a politician, she described the need to place Agriculture one of the front and centre issues for the province, with a basic three point program. These three points are:

  1. Grow BC
  2. Feed BC
  3. Buy BC

ACT025_LanaTony1Below is a recording of the talk, with introduction of Craig Keating. Craig is the city councillor for North Vancouver and is standing for the provincial election this time, along with Lana Popham.

From us, the “No GMO” team, we had Wally, his wife and daughter, Phil and his son Jeff, myself and Anu. We took pictures, like the one above with Lana.

In the short video clip below, North Van councillor and NDP candidate Craig Keating introduces Lana to the crowd at the Budhha Full organic cafe.

[youtube d9ZZVn0Jg6I]

Then Lana made her speed, which I recorded on audio. Listen to her speech in the podcast link below.

A letter to an MLA

To Ms. Lana Popham, MLA, Sanich South, BC, Canada (by email)

4v082_LanaPopham

March 11, 2013

Dear Ms. Popham

I support your opposition to GM apple and would like to add my signature to the campaign.

Science’s understanding of genetics is in its infancy. How gene tampering might ultimately work out long term is not known. How the patenting process works for this Apple, and if it could cross pollinate with other apples and how those natural apples might or might not be affected, is not known.

If at all patent should be granted for life forms, where the gene was not “invented” but simply taken from one place and put into another, is a serious question – not to mention the ethical issue of owning life forms. Apple that browns has a natural function – it is an indication that it is beginning to rot at the edges. Rotting itself is a natural process which we as humans may not like, but is nonetheless a process that involves many other cohabiting organisms. So, what is the implication of an apple that will not brown? Is it because it will hide the fact that it is rotting ? That can have serious health problems.

Could it be that this GM apple simply will not rot so easily ? Why not? Since rotting is in itself a natural process where organisms consume and proces the apple, artificial gene tampering that repels microorganisms from this apple thus prevents it from rotting, can have even more serious implications. We need to know far more than simplistic explanations of a non-browning apple before it should be allowed on an unsuspecting person’s table.

I do not know if it is possible to raise all these issues with the local Government, but it is suggested that a moratorium be placed on marketing of all Genetically modified non-processed foods such as fruits, and a restriction be imposed on any further genetic modification of processed food such as cereals till sufficient information is gathered on their long term effect on humans, on soil, on biodiversity and on sustainability.


Thanking you
Tony Mitra
10891 Cherry Lane, Delta, BC, V4E 3L7, Canada
604-649 7535
Tony.mitra@gmail.com

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13th March 2013

Hi Tony,

 Thank you for this – and for the retweets and your blog post. I really appreciate your support. You ask very thoughtful questions and make a very sensible proposal at the end of your message. Great input!

 Lana

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April 7th: Lana Popham, NDP Agriculture Critic, speaks in North Vancouver. Lana  introduced our petition against the GMO apple with 5500 names on it into the BC legislature in late March 2013.

Venue : Buddha-Full 106 1st St W #101, Time: 4.30-6.30 PM

For more information contact: gefreebc07@yahoo.ca
Pls try and attend if possible. Bring friends.
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Small typo and grammar corrections done on the orignal letter – to clean up the language.