Good Sunday morning!
In some very local news, we had three very welcome reversals in government decisions. One for a very sick little girl, one for a very old maple, and another for the Giant Sequoia and Morioka Cherry trees in Victoria’s Centennial Square. Not national, not even big in the scheme of things, but any time citizen action moves governments, it is good news to share. On Friday, the BC health minister reversed an earlier decision to stop funding critical medication for little Charleigh Pollock who suffers from a very rare condition called Batten disease. And Friday, the municipality of Saanich reversed a decision to cut down a very old tree, dubbed Mother Maple by her defenders. The developer of four new homes, pegged at over one million dollars each, thought avoiding the one-hundred-year-old tree might add to costs. Saanich ordered the tree to be cut down. The neighbourhood mobilized with an on-line petition. Expert arborists joined the effort and, hooray! Mother Maple will live on! In Victoria, 6,600 people signed a petition to save the trees they love in Centennial Square. In the end, citizens proved to be more influential than the design firm hired to give the square a new look. Brother Sequoia and sister Cherry will live on!
Other news to share this morning involves deadlines! Key deadlines coming up so please do make a note to act fast.
The first is for British Columbia readers.
The Special Committee on Democratic and Electoral Reform is wrapping up its consultations. Sometimes it is referenced as though it is narrowly focused on electoral reform–getting rid of first past the post. But its terms of reference are broader including how to increase voter turnout and citizen engagement, to improve education about our democracy, whether to lower the voting age to increase youth engagement, as well as whether to move to fair voting and proportional representation.
The deadline to submit your views is in FIVE DAYS! You have until 2 pm. July 25 to send your views to [bcleg.ca/consultations%20]BC Leg Consultations. Please do! And if you are looking for some inspiration, listen to this YouTube recording of Sonia Furstenau’s testimony from last week. As ever, she is so inspiring, thoughtful, and caring. With thanks to Bob MacKie for posting.
As well, we had some good news from the UK. Having put forward and supported a number of private members bills to change the voting age to 16, I was thrilled to see this news: Voting age to be lowered to 16 across UK by next general election
The other deadlines are also about voting, but in internal Green Party leadership questions. My role as leader of the Green Party of Canada will be put to a vote soon. Under our Constitution, it is mandatory that within six months of every election, a vote takes place to review leadership. As you have likely noticed, I have not clung to the role of leader. First elected in 2006, I stepped down in 2019 when I had broken through a number of barriers—being the first elected Green in Canada, provincially or federally, leading to Greens elected in four provincial legislatures, and with three Green MPs at the time I resigned. Leadership renewal is rarely smooth in any party, and for us as Greens, it was fairly disastrous. I returned in 2022 and am so pleased we were able to adopt a model where our members can choose whether to elect co-leaders or a single leader. I know if we had not been thrown out of the 2025 election’s national debates, just hours before the first debate, MP Mike Morrice would have been re-elected in Kitchener Centre where he had a spectacular record of achievement, and we would have done much better across the country. Former co-leader Jonathan Pedneault would have represented us so well in the debates! As it was, our results across Canada were, honestly, disastrous. Leadership in the Green Party, whether in Canada or around the world does not have the same meaning as in other parties. We are not top-down. As leader I play a role in decision-making, but we work as a team, staff and volunteers, by consensus. Still, there will be those who feel I have failed the party. I am hoping the membership will give me a strong vote of confidence. We need to eliminate campaign debts, stabilize and grow our Parliamentary role before the next leadership race. As a practical matter, the Green Party of Canada must avoid any disruption. We need more people to join and support the Green Party of Canada to have more Green parliamentarians with me in Ottawa and soon. So, with that in mind and knowing quite a few of my regular Good Sunday Morning subscribers are not necessarily members of the GPC, please check and join, or renew your membership as soon as possible, and certainly before the end of August. In early September, all members in good standing for at least 30 days will be sent a ballot to vote on my leadership. Please join now. Some people assume they are members if they have made a donation. This is not automatically the case. Others may be members of the Green Party at the provincial level, but not members of the Green Party of Canada. So please, to be on the safe side, go to this link and join!
Another leadership question is fully underway for the B.C. Green Party! The deadline to join to vote for the next leader of the Green Party of British Columbia is August 10! We have three terrific Green champions running to be leader. I am so frustrated that the media is all but ignoring this race. With two elected MLAs, Rob Botterell and Jeremy Valeriote in the provincial minority government, Green MLAs are playing an outsized and consequential role in the BC government. In fact, it was Green MLAs who insisted on the special committee studying our democracy. The next leader of the Green Party of BC could be our next premier, but we see so little coverage in the daily press. So please join the Green Party of BC and consider which one of these leadership candidates you will support. Please also consider donating to their campaigns!
Each of them has strengths. Jonathan Kerr is a family doctor and already elected locally in Comox BC, serving locally and regionally. Emily Lowan is an impressive young activist. I know through her global climate work as well as her solidarity networks with Indigenous peoples. And Adam Bremner-Atkins has been a long-standing BC Green, having stood for election twice and served in internal BC Green governance. I am so grateful to all three of them for making this an exciting race. As you can tell, I am trying to remain neutral–at least for now!
And, in closing, one last deadline and request for your help. Again, I am raising an issue that has had almost no media coverage at all. Going back through the Canadian government’s love affair with nuclear energy, the taxpayers have been repeatedly fleeced. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL) was created in 1952 as a Crown corporation. Over its lifespan AECL has received close to $18 billion in federal funding. During the Harper years most of AECL’s assets, including Canadian Nuclear Laboratories were sold for the bargain basement price of $17 million to that old corrupt insider firm of SNC Lavelin, now renamed Atkins Realis.
Fast forward to a recent decision taking effect in mid-September. Atkins Realis is now selling AECL assets to a consortium of US-owned firms. And the US firms will be getting the largest contract in Canadian history. Elbows up??
A great citizen activist, Ole Hendrickson drafted the petition below and asked for me to sponsor it. Please read, sign and share! It is only open for signatures until September 8! Please also write your local newspaper. How can this be going on right under our noses without a murmur?
Petition to the Government of Canada
Whereas:
- Canada is poised to award a multi-billion-dollar contract — the largest federal contract ever—to a consortium of U.S. companies;
- If this happens, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, a former Atomic Energy of Canada Limited subsidiary, will be owned by American firms calling themselves “Nuclear Laboratories Partners of Canada.”;
- The new contract would last up to 20 years, cost taxpayers over 24 billion dollars, and allow private commercial work at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited sites across Canada;
- Hundreds of millions of dollars in contract management fees would be paid annually to firms that operate U.S. nuclear weapons facilities;
- Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ current projects include a $1+ billion facility to enable plutonium research, and a tritium extraction facility; plutonium and tritium are key explosive ingredients in nuclear weapons;
- Parliament appropriated over $10 billion to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited under a current 10-year contract, more than half for decommissioning and waste management, but the federal nuclear liability increased;
- Canadian Nuclear Laboratories proposes to dump a million tonnes of radioactive waste in an earthen mound beside the Ottawa River, and bury the radioactive remains of two reactors beside the Ottawa and Winnipeg Rivers; and
- Atomic Energy of Canada Limited’s performance under the current contract has never been publicly audited.
We, the undersigned citizens of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to order the Auditor General to conduct an independent, objective and systematic assessment of how well Atomic Energy of Canada Limited is managing its activities, responsibilities and resources; and prohibit AECL from issuing a contract to Nuclear Laboratories Partners of Canada, or any other private body, until the audit is complete and its results are made publicly available and discussed in Parliament.
History
Open for signature
July 10, 2025, at 12:20 p.m. (EDT)
Closed for signature
September 8, 2025, at 12:20 p.m. (EDT)
And with all these requests and pleas, I close for the day! John and I are off to hear the Gospel music of Sojourners at the fabled Utah Phillips Stage 2 at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival!
Love and thanks, and as RuPaul says, “Can I get an Amen up in here?”
Peace always!
Elizabeth
Saanich-Gulf Islands Greens
https://www.sgigreenparty.ca/