On Wednesday, May 9th, Mike Schreiner, Leader of the Green Party of Ontario, will be launching our official campaign for the 2018 provincial election.
Come celebrate with us as we kick off the biggest campaign we’ve ever run in Green Party history! We’ll have lots of excitement as the writs are drawn up and the election is officially underway. Make sure to wear Green so we can show Ontario that the Green Wave is here.
The Waterloo Region Greens are pleased to announce we have achieved a full slate of candidates for the 2018 Ontario Election. The last slot was filled when Bob Jonkman won the nomination for Kitchener—Conestoga.
Each riding has its own page ~ complete with contact information ~ in the menu bar at the top of the blog.
We’ll post important elections dates in our calendar (there’s a link in the top menu bar). Subscribe to the blog in the right sidebar) to keep up with all the WRGreens election action (you’ll receive blog posts direct to your email box!)
WRGreens are on social media:
Tomorrow GPO Leader Mike Schreiner will join the WRGreens Candidates (except Michele) in the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival Pancake Flipping Contest. If you can’t make it there between 10am and noon, there’s a good chance you’ll find candidates at our booth in the Woolwich Memorial Centre concourse.
When: 4:00pm to 6:00pm on Thursday, 22 March 2018 Where: Kitchener Public Library Location: 85 Queen Street North, Kitchener, Ontario Map
Mike will host a round-table discussion with Waterloo Region leaders and influencers to discuss the path they want Ontario take.
This inclusive meeting is open to everyone! Light snacks and refreshments will be served.
A Social Evening with GPO Leader Mike Schreiner
When: 7:00pm to 9:00pm, Thursday 22 March 2018 Where: Abe Erb Waterloo Location: 15 King Street South, Waterloo Map
Join Mike and the WR Greens for a locally brewed beverage, a locally prepared meal or snack, and meet your local Green Party candidates and candidate-nominees from the five Waterloo Region ridings.
The 2018 Ontario election is fast approaching, and it’s time to get ready. People are hungry for a different kind of politics – one based on honesty and integrity. Mike Schreiner and the Green Party of Ontario will bring that refreshing voice.
This Thursday, the five local Green Party ridings are coming together to plan our next few months. Join Stacey Danckert, candidate for Kitchener Centre, and Zdravko Gunjevic, candidate for Waterloo, in this open meeting.
All are welcome. Please bring along anyone who would like to contribute! The Green Party is committed to grassroots decisionmaking, and we are going to build a campaign that resonates for people here in Waterloo Region.
It won’t rain: Environment Canada is predicting a 70% chance of dryness. It will be cool on Wednesday evening, though, so bring a sweater or light jacket.
If it does rain, we have a Rain Date: Thursday, 31 August 2017, same time, same place (7:00pm, Picnic Shelter at Victoria Park). Keep an eye on this web page for up-to-date updates!
The Waterloo Region Greens are having a Summertime Get Together! Join us for a Potluck Picnic In The Park under the picnic shelter in Kitchener’s Victoria Park.
Bring a dish to share, and bring your own beverage (non-alcoholic; this is a public venue). To accommodate dietary preferences, please label your food if it has nuts, wheat, dairy, eggs, or meat.
Although the listed time is from 7:00pm to 9:00pm, you’re very welcome to start earlier and stay later!
What: Waterloo Region Greens Summer Get Together: Potluck Picnic in the Park When: Wednesday, 23 August 2017 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm Where: Picnic shelter, Victoria Park, Kitchener, Ontario Map
And since the rain is no stranger to Kitchener, we’ll have an alternate rain date on Thursday, 31 August 2017. Keep an eye on the WRGreens blog and @WR_Greens for rain postponement announcements.
If you’re new here, the WRGreens is an umbrella group formed by all the Green Party associations ~ federal EDAs and Provincial CAs ~ for the five ridings in Waterloo Region.
In my experience, Greens are truly grass roots people who tend to be more interested in getting green things accomplished than seeking careers in politics. And because we’re the smallest of the major parties, (and the inequity of our electoral system makes it extraordinarily difficult to get Greens elected) we have to work much harder than the big parties to be heard.
The largest barrier to electing Greens has traditionally been our unfair winner-take-all electoral system that makes people feel they need to vote strategically for other parties because they are afraid Greens can’t get elected. It’s been an ongoing Catch-22 scenario: the reason Green candidates “can’t” get elected is because too many supporters don’t vote Green because they’re afraid Green candidates can’t get elected. Fortunately that is all changing as Canadians are finally starting to realize that not only can Canadian Greens get elected, even a single Green MP can make a huge difference.
One way to do that is by getting together to discuss the things we want to do and work out strategies to make that happen. Sometimes we have planning events, sometimes social events, and sometimes organizational events. Very often they are all of the above, like last week’s excellent monthly Regional Meeting at the Queen Street Commons Cafe where four of our five Waterloo Region ridings had representation.
Everyone from long time organizers to anyone curious about what Green means in Waterloo Region is welcome to attend WRGreens Regional meetings. Come out to find out what’s coming up, to volunteer or even just to share green thoughts. We had a report from the 2017 Green Party of Ontario AGM (Annual General Meeting) and discussed plans for upcoming events– like the one coming up this Sunday!
Bob Jonkman discusses green issues at the WRGreens Open Streets Booth in 2016Storyteller, artist, graphic recorder Michele Braniff
WRGreens will again be at Uptown Waterloo’s Open Streets. The @OSWaterloo organizers have been fantastically inventive in meeting the massive challenge of LRT roadworks and keeping the awesome summer festival vibrant. This year they’ve chosen to incorporate the Uptown Waterloo trails as the “street” venues, which will be seriously awesome.
They’ve also given each of the four festival dates a theme, and the first theme for Sunday June 18th (Father’s Day) the theme is “Word.”
Naturally, there can only be one word for us: Green! So in addition to our usual information booth in the Waterloo Public Square Marketplace, our own Cambridge Green storyteller Michele Braniff will be telling Tales of Green on the Main Stage beside Laurel Creek!
7pm—9pm WRGreens Meet & Greet with Provincial Leader Mike Schreiner
TWB Cooperative Brewing, 300 Mill St., Kitchener
Green Party of Ontario leader Mike Schreiner is visiting Waterloo Region as part of his spring leader’s tour.
Come meet Mike, hang out with your fellow Greens, share your thoughts, and discuss the local issues that matter to you.
The meet-and-greet will end with a no-holds-barred live interview about beer regulation hosted by local comedian Michael Masurkevitch of We Are Millennials.
9:00am—12 noon Cambridge Community Clean Up: City Green Booths Open
Pick up your supplies from the City Green Booth nearest you and do your clean up when it’s convenient for you.
Cambridge City Green booth locations : 1. Holiday Inn Drive Tim Hortons parking lot
2. Galt Arena Gardens
3. St. Benedicts/Clemens Mill Library Branch
4. Victoria Park (Salisbury Ave corner of the park just before Highland Public School)
5. Monsignor Doyle Secondary School https://www.meetup.com/Cambridge-City-Green/events/237639111/
7:00pm—9:00pm Waterloo Greens Pub Night: Discuss International Trade Deals
TWB Cooperative Brewing,
300 Mill St., Kitchener
Would “developing” countries be better or worse off without free trade?
What benefits has NAFTA brought to Canadian workers?
Learn and discuss questions like these with our international trade learning community. Join us for some beer and casual conversation about this thorny topic.
* The event is free, purchase of beer is not neccessary, and the space is wheelchair accessible. No food available for purchase but feel free to bring your own. If you have any questions, please email the organizer, Julia Gogoleva, at julia.gogoleva@gmail.com.
Thursday May 11th, 2017
7:00pm—9:00pm
The Case for Divesting from Fossil Fuels in Canada
CIGI
67 Erb St W
Waterloo, ON N2L 6C2
Divest Waterloo/CIGI to host an evening with Jeff Rubin, a world-leading energy expert and former chief economist at CIBC World Markets. As a senior fellow CIGI, Jeff has written extensively on the future of the Canadian oil sands and the financial imperative to shift our economy away from fossil fuel dependence. Jeff will be speaking at CIGI to address pension fund managers, members of the finance and insurance industries, and the general public about the financial case for divesting from fuels.
The Green Party doesn’t have a massive “war chest.” We don’t have corporate or union donors and the big advertising budgets they bring.
Our strength is in our grass roots… ordinary Canadians who think green thoughts. People who want a greener future. Not just for us, but for our kids. And posterity.
What we do have is ideas. Ideas worked out by members. Ideas expressed in policy, blogs, and multimedia. Because the Green Party doesn’t have big advertising budgets, it is very hard to get green ideas reported in Main Stream Media (MSM).
But we can get our ideas out there— if we work together.
You can help these ideas take root and grow by sharing them with your social media network.
Some people hesitate about sharing links to articles & videos. We worry that talking about politics online will alienate our family and friends. Let’s face it: we all have family and friends with different ideas. Some support other parties, and certainly many — probably even most — don’t support any party or even consider themselves political.
The Internet is still new enough that it’s easy to forget the reason it exists is to make it easy to exchange information.
Social Media is for sharing our interests with our family and friends. Maybe you’re a Green Party member, supporter, or even voter. But maybe you’re not, maybe you don’t like the Green Party candidate in your riding, maybe you don’t agree with everything in Green Party policy. But chances are good that anyone reading this is interested in at least some green ideas.
If we each share one green idea, article, or video on social media each day, we aren’t likely to alienate anyone. Especially as Facebook and Twitter have taken to limiting which of our posts our friends and family actually see. The beauty of social media sharing is that there is no need to argue or try to convert anyone. By sharing articles that resonate with us, we’re giving our friends and family an opportunity to learn what’s important to us — very often information they won’t see in the MSM. If they aren’t interested, they won’t read that article or watch that video. But maybe they will.
Even if they just skip over that Tweet or Facebook post, the fact you’ve shared it increases how far Twitter or Facebook will share. Even if our family and friends don’t read our blog articles, or look at our videos, or look at our graphics, you’ll help WRGreens increase our “Google juice” just by sharing.
Especially in a world where the first official act of the new American president was to take down the American Government Climate Change page, it becomes more and more evident we can no longer afford a way of life that puts corporate interests ahead of the public interest. We can’t put profits ahead of clean air and fresh water. So please, help us make social media work for us.
On Sunday, October 2nd the The Brantford-Brant Women’s, Youth and Seniors’ Liberal Clubs hosted the multi-partisan Brantford-Brant Electoral Reform Community Forum in the Odeon Building at the Laurier Brantford campus.
[Note: the CPC MP attended and spoke at the LPC event, and of course Greens were there by invitation as well. Where was the NDP I wonder?]
Temara Brown described the six different electoral systems, a fairly difficult task, particularly when being challenged by unruly audience members at every turn. But she carried it off.
The event followed the usual Library of Parliament script for Community Dialogue suggested by ERRE.
The Brantford Expositor covered the event in Forum puts spotlight on electoral reform
Unfortunately there are some errors in the Expositor article. For instance, Michele Braniff was the 2015 GPC candidate. As well as being a GPO Candidate, Temara Brown is the GPO’s Shadow Cabinet member for the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change.
The article gives a capsule rundown of the 6 electoral Systems discussed, where the worst error in the article mischaracterizes the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system as “A variation of the preferential vote”. Electoral systems are complex, which is one of the many reasons why a referendum would be a bad idea at the best of times.
Historically, STV predates AV by a few decades, so it would be more correct to say AV is a variation of STV. But that’s just semantics. The real problem is that STV is perhaps the best system of Proportional Representation, while AV is a winner-take-all system much like our First Past The Post.
Even so, it was nice to see some balanced coverage of the ERRE event. For the most part, Canada’s Main Stream Media is making no bones about it’s desire to retain the status quo. That is perhaps the biggest reason Canadians are so woefully uninformed about electoral reform options. Instead of informing Canadians of our options, or even actually reporting on the ERRE consultation process, the media tables at ERRE consultation events are standing empty. So kudos to the Expositor for reporting the news!
Ken Burns (Brantford-Brant), Temara Brown (WRGreens Cambridge GPO Candidate), ________, ________, Jason Shaw (Fair Vote Canada) and Bob Jonkman (WRGreens Kitchener-Conestoga and Fair Vote Waterloo Co-Chair)
In spite of the Main Stream Media obstructionism, the process marches quietly on.
“For the past month I’ve been traveling across Canada hearing from Canadians directly on the values and expectations they feel should be reflected in Canada’s electoral system.
At every stop, it is clear; Canadians expect greater inclusion, transparency, engagement and modernization from their public institutions.”
— The Hon. Maryam Monsef,
Minister of Democratic Institutions ~ Ottawa, ON, Sept. 15, 2016
Hundreds of Waterloo Region residents crowded into the Stanley Park Community Centre on Wednesday night for a chance to participate in the Federal Electoral Reform Consultation with the the Honourable Maryam Monsef, the Minister of Democratic Institutions. Ms. Monsef shared the stage with local LPC Mps, the Honourable Bardish Chagger, Bryan May, Marwan Tabbara and Kitchener Centre host, Raj Saini, But the evening’s main course was the small group dialogues where participants considered issues and shared their views. Each group came up with a series of conclusions, all of which were duly passed along for consideration in Ottawa. The Record‘s Luisa D’amato reports:
As I felt the unmistakable sense of optimism that comes when a powerful person asks your opinion, it occurred to me that we might have got it wrong all this time.
We’ve asked young people to vote, and shook our heads when they didn’t. “Don’t complain if you don’t vote,” we said.
Yet the rules by which we held the elections seemed designed to silence their choices.
Julia and Sam (Kitchener Centre Greens) are passionate about meaningful electoral reform. The shape of their future depends on it. They’re the driving force behind our Canada’s Voting System Is Changing event at Kitchener City Hall tomorrow.
Canada’s Voting System Is Changing poster ~ click to download larger size
The main goal of tomorrow’s event is to provide public information about our options.
Every MP in Canada has been asked to consult with their constituents about what they would like to see in terms of electoral reform. Although our evening with Ms. Monsef was excellent, it would have been nice to see 4 Liberal Town Halls. Knowing how long it took me to get my head around electoral reform, more events might make it easier for many citizens.
Sadly Kitchener-Conestoga residents don’t get any Town Hall at all. Our Conservative MP Harold Albrecht has declined to conduct a consultation. Fair Vote Waterloo will be putting on 3 more Library Information nights at Elmira Library, New Hamburg and the Ayr Public Libraries.
Earlier in the year the Waterloo NDP put on an information event with Fair Vote Waterloo, but now it’s our turn.
Proportional Representation is not a partisan issue; it is simply a way to better represent citizens in Parliament. This isn’t about parties, but about what is best for all of us, the voters. That’s why each of these events have worked hard to put partisanship aside in order to both inform and converse with the public.
The Hon. Maryam Monsef, Minister of Democratic Institutions speaks to a packed house in Waterloo Region. September 14th, 2016
So many other countries have adopted meaningful electoral reform that there’s a lot of information out there. And yet, Canadians have heard almost nothing about the alternatives before us.
That’s why Fair Vote Waterloo co-chair Sharon Sommerville will give an introductory talk about Proportional Representation. Then we’ll break into small group discussions, much like Maryam Monsef’s National Electoral Reform Community Dialogue Tour the other night. We have decided to have two kinds of groups; one to help those of us just beginning to learn about Proportional Representation, and another for those who have an idea of what kind of reform they would like to see. The latter will be able to discuss the issue as a group in order to make a group submission we can forward on to the ERRE Committee.
Even if you have a pretty good handle on Electoral Reform, we look forward to seeing you in Carl Zehr Square. It is always a lot more fun to work on a submission together, and it is amazing how much discussion can help clarify the things we’re fuzzy on. The more Canadians participate in this electoral reform process, the better the outcome will be.
This is a perfect opportunity to help your friends and neighbors get the facts about electoral reform. We hope to see you there!
Canada’s Voting System Is Changing: Community Dialogue
Saturday September 17th, 2016
3:00pm – 4:30pm
Carl Zehr Square, in front of Kitchener City Hall
200 King St W, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada map
The Waterloo Region Greens are pleased to announce we have achieved a full slate of candidates for the 2018 Ontario Election. The last slot was filled when Bob Jonkman won the nomination for Kitchener—Conestoga.
When: 7:00pm to 9:00pm, Thursday 22 March 2018
The 2018 Ontario election is fast approaching, and it’s time to get ready. People are hungry for a different kind of politics – one based on honesty and integrity. Mike Schreiner and the Green Party of Ontario will bring that refreshing voice.
The Waterloo Region Greens are having a Summertime Get Together! Join us for a Potluck Picnic In The Park under the picnic shelter in Kitchener’s Victoria Park.
7:00pm–9:00 pm
8:30am—1:00pm
6:45pm—8:45pm
7pm—9pm
8:30am—12 noon
9:00am—12 noon
2:30pm
7:00pm—9:00pm
1:30pm—4:30pm
The 
“For the past month I’ve been traveling across Canada hearing from Canadians directly on the values and expectations they feel should be reflected in Canada’s electoral system.
Julia and Sam (Kitchener Centre Greens) are passionate about meaningful electoral reform. The shape of their future depends on it. They’re the driving force behind our Canada’s Voting System Is Changing event at Kitchener City Hall tomorrow.
