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On the longest night, we gathered at Home Street Mennonite Church for an Advent vigil for Palestine. The liturgy below was adapted from  Preach Palestine 2025: Advent of a revolution and birth of a movement by Freedom Church of the Poor; FOSNA; Kairos - the Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice and Red Letter Christians: God with us: faith in the face of genocide and the service was a response to the Red Candle Advent challenge . In longing and grief, we also heard about Kairos II, the “Moment of Truth,”  whose challenge we took up to name occupation , apartheid , and genocide . From Preach Palestine, opening reflections included... “We live in a time of monsters. “The story and tradition of Advent reminds us that the time of monsters is also a time of powerful expectation. A time when we see the signs of something new breaking through. “The Advent story was intended to affirm a new way, realized in the lives and struggles of the poor and dispossessed, that se...

It’s not just Gaza anymore (it never was). The attempted erasure of Palestinians from the West Bank – the West Bank *of the Jordan River*, not of Israel – is ramping up. The spitefulness of the tactics is appalling: in a moment of climate change, in a precarious desert-adjacent ecosystem, would who uproot thriving olive trees that are 100s of years old, providing shade, water cycling and beloved food? And so, a letter to the foreign minister courtesy of Kairos Canada (not to be confused with Kairos Palestine).  I am deeply concerned that the Israeli military and settlers are escalating the displacement,  dispossession and violence of Palestinians in the West Bank.  Ms Anand, your failure to say anything substantive in condemnation of Israel’s denial of entry to 6 MPs deepens that concern. In a recent report (Dec 4, 2025) the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) provides the following update on the humanitarian situation in the West Bank (Januar...

...but sent anyway. I discovered the link to this message languishing in my inbox long after the budget had been voted on but I still wanted to get my voice out on this subject.  This message is too late, I know. The budget has passed -- because our silly system forces budgets to be nonconfidence votes, which is the exact opposite of collaboration and negotiation, which is how budgets should be approached by all parties seeking the best for Canadians -- and I didn't get this message to you in time to urge you to vote it down.  But budgets are always a plan not a fait accompli, so I'm writing anyway, in hopes there is the possibility to alter course.  I am alarmed by the federal budget tabled by the Carney government. The corporate handouts, vast expansion of military spending, and outright attacks on public services will hurt everyday people and put more public money in the hands of corporations and billionaires (who, in case you aren't following why that's a problem, ...

 This week saw all three bikes in use.  Tuesday night, Idid not listen to the little voice that suggested I ask if I could bring my bike in tothe lobby at Cinematheque. I was really late for the movie already and I don't know how to use the elevator while the stairs are tall and high so it is prohibitive to carry her up.  When I came out 1 hour and 40 minutes later, I swung my bag off my shoulder to put it on my rack only to discover the rack was gone, my cables were dangling loose from being cut and the front fender was loose.  After bellowing in rage and cursing loudly and repeatedly, I began a cold and angry walk home. A short chat with a homeless guy huddled in an alcove (beginning with a probably unwise "did you take stuff off my bike?!") cooled me down a bit as I realized how grateful I was to have a warm home to go to with food in the fridge to eat and no relationship drama preventing me from seeing beloved family members. The futility of the theft still makes...

Another adapted form letter:  As ICE invades American cities, schools, and workplaces, I am joining Microsoft workers and concerned citizens to demand that Microsoft stop aiding mass kidnappings in the U.S. and stop powering genocide in Palestine. All over the world, people are using Microsoft products daily, just trying to get tasks done, not thinking they are contributing to genocide.  Yet research from your workers and former workers has uncovered $20 million in third-party contracts through Dell for ICE.  This is on top of millions of dollars of support for the Israeli government and military.  This is unacceptable to me -- and probably most Microsoft users whose payments for your products add to the profits that allow you to build out these services for even more profits at the expense of lives.  I implore you to stop supporting ICE and Israel's ongoing genocide.  Click to send your own letter

Another letter calling for Canada to close the loopholes. This time, it’s Greenpeace getting in on the action. Mostly them, a little bit of me: Dear Prime Minister Mark Carney/ Minister Anita Anand, Although a ceasefire has been called, Israeli forces continue their assault on Palestinians while they are trying to rebuild from the ruins. What kind of ceasefire is that? Not surprising, though, from a government that lies frequently and fails to keep their side of the bargain. Ninety-two percent of human beings in Palestine have no home to return to; hundreds of bodies are still being pulled from the rubble; and 85,000 children have been orphaned. Let that sink in. Imagine your own children or grandchildren with no bed to sleep, no parents to comfort them, or worse, dead under a pile of rubble.  Prime Minister Carney, “peace” in name alone is not enough. Furthermore, the violence will not end with this ceasefire even if it is ever observed by Israel. Canada has a *lega...

Carney's budget sounds like a plan to destroy Canada, not to build it.  There is no future in oil and gas – and Carney knows it. Canadians by and large oppose this, which is why he wants to bypass their input. Stop it. We clearly voted *against* the politics of the Orange Man to the south. Why then is that exactly what Carney is giving us? Here’s what Environmental Defence Canada says: Bill C-5: Climate Action  is  Nation Building!  Building up Canada as a strong nation means being a strong climate leader, not backpedalling on progress in favour of polluting industries.  Yet that’s what our federal government is at risk of doing in response to Trump’s attacks. The Prime Minister has committed to making Canada an ‘energy superpower,’ but what does that  really  mean?  The rushed  Building Canada Act  or Bill C-5 gives the federal government sweeping power to fast-track mega-projects of ‘national interest’ without environmental re...

A very nice form letter to send to the Canada Pension Plant Investment Board about the egregious – in fact, possibly illegal – continued investement and abandonment of net zero targets. Can you tell which part I added? ;)  To CPPIB directors and senior leadership, As one of the 22 million Canadians whose retirement savings you manage, I’m beyond disgusted to learn that CPPIB quietly abandoned its already pathetically weak and ill-intentioned net-zero by 2050 commitment in May 2025. This reversal signals that CPPIB is only interested in short term financial gain while the world literally burns. You know better than I how quickly oil and gas will stop being viable, but you're trying to bamboozle Canadians into thinking you have their long-term interests at heart with your villainous investments, rather than the reality that continued fossil fuel investment feeds the swiftly approaching climate catastrophe that will be utterly unaffordable for all of us and will not be assuaged by th...

This letter with a few KB personalizations is from World Beyond War.  Send your own letter here. I am extremely concerned about the upcoming budget.  Government announcements over the past few months point to a budget that will steal tens of billions of dollars from health, education, public services, and climate action, and pour it into buying American weapons systems and quadrupling Canadian military spending to record-breaking levels. This is appalling. War causes destruction, harms ordinary people and is a terrible place to be spending money when crucial services that improve life for people are being cut.  I am upset that this budget will bring tax cuts for the wealthiest corporations and individuals in the country while the rest of Canadians find life increasingly less affordable; increased border militarization and attacks on migrants at a time when our neighbours to the south are being menaced by their own government and more people than ever have their homes made...

 Just a short personal insertion in this form letter from LeadNow. Sign your own message here To Mr Carney & the finance minister  I am deeply concerned about Prime Minister Carney’s upcoming “generational budget”, which has been described as an austerity budget that will require “sacrifices.” Let’s take a moment to ask who are we NOT asking to sacrifice: those who can best afford it and who bear the greatest responsibility for bringing climate change around our ears.  Enough! We can’t sacrifice our planet. The real route to a resilient economy isn’t more fossil fuel infrastructure and climate regulation rollbacks — it’s investing in people and clean energy. It looks like a 100% renewable East–West power grid, and fair taxes from mega-corporations. I believe that investments in the public good are what make Canada strong — which is why I’m convinced that in the face of Trump’s tariffs, we must prioritize spending in the 2025 budget that puts people a...

Sent in response to the Oct 7 homepage.  Dear Winnipeg Free Press Your homepage above the fold right now is sadly one-sided.  Now I suppose Russians may say the same thing about the FreeP's coverage of the war in Ukraine; but you've sided against the oppressor in that conflict, while you've sided with the genociders in Gaza, contrary to international law. Of course the Jewish community is entitled to feel relief and joy that the Israelis taken hostage on 7 October 2023 have been released. They may also feel rage and despair that those hostages weren't released on 9 or 10 October 2023 when there was already a hostage deal on the negotiating table.  But to spill an entire article of ink on Jewish grief for the ~1500 (rounded up) with nary a word of Palestinian grief for the 67,000 (likely an undercount by a factor of 10) is unbalanced.  To only mention the “relatively good shape” of Israeli hostages without mentioning the shockingly poor physical condition of the tiny ...

Yet another bunch of boats on a humanitarian mission have been illegally boarded and their passengers illegally abducted by the completely rogue state. And nations sit silent. Shameful.  I whipped off this letter to the PM, the global affairs minister, the armed forces minister and the local MPs of the Canadians on board, CCd also to the leaders of the other political parties and my local MP.   Dear government leaders including the MPs for the Canadians aboard the Conscience As a Canadian, I simply cannot understand why our country is standing by and allowing a government who has demonstrated flagrant disregard for international law and wanton unconcern for human life to illegally abduct Canadian citizens without a peep of protest.  You claimed, Mr Carney and Ms Anand, back in May and again in summer, that you were "prepared to take action" if Israel did not change its behaviour. Not only has it not changed, but it has doubled down on its illegal and inhuman activiti...

Frankly, it's getting exhausting how many problematic things there are to push back against. Can our government do nothing to build a just and sustainable society without immense pressure? With thanks to the  International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG) for the letter Send your own letter here To...  Mark Carney (Prime Minister) Sean Fraser (Minister of Justice) Patricia Lattanzio (MP) Larry Brock (MP) Rhéal Fortin (MP) I am alarmed at the newly proposed Combatting Hate Act (Bill C-9). The government has said it is meant to prevent hate crimes, yet instead it threatens the  Charter rights and civil liberties of all people in Canada, including those communities that the government wishes to help protect. New provisions in the bill would outlaw the display of symbols associated with listed terrorist entities. The listing of terrorist entities is secretive, politicized, discretionary and *violates due process*. It has been used to target groups that have foug...

 Another form letter with personal adaptations. Thanks to Kairos Canada for this one. https://kairoscanada.org/gaza-letter-campaign   Dear Mr Carney and Ms Anand (I wish they would copy this to all the shadow ministers too)  “The level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable,” you declared on May 20. Along with leaders from Britain and France, you promised further action if Israel failed to halt its offensive and lift restrictions on aid. You have since made similar public statements and promises,  with other countries and allies, stating that you are prepared to take further action. We welcome your words and intentions.  But no meaningful action has taken place — only continued Israeli bombardment, displacement, blocked aid and the deaths of more and more civilians, many of them children, desperate for food and water. Despite agreement on a ceasefire proposal from Hamas, Israel continues wanton bombing, blockades and dehumanization of ille...

Just move that little blue box off the park and onto the yawningly large and empty parking lot. Everyone is happy! :) A letter to CoW councillors, riffing off a Right to Housing Coalition letter campaign: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/in-support-of-supportive-housing-rezoning on this proposal: https://www.winnipeg.ca/building-development/housing/housing-accelerator-fund/city-sites-supportive-housing  Why do we make parks fight with housing while parking lots get a free pass? There's a lot of horrific “not in my backyard” rhetoric about the proposed supportive housing sites, so I am writing to support supportive housing. Yes, I support rezoning of City-owned properties to support the construction of supportive housing. I also strongly support the sale or long-term lease of these properties to non-profit housing providers at nominal rates. The City has a key role to play in addressing the housing needs of Winnipeg residents and this is an important way to support to our nei...

Dear Prime Minister Carney & Minister of Foreign Affairs Anand CC local MP, leaders of other parties Thank you, Mr Carney, for recognizing Palestine (alongside the UK and Australia), and for following the recent examples of Ireland, Spain, and Norway, which recognized Palestine last year. While this was a necessary step forward, it is not enough to address Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its plans to annex the occupied West Bank; it will not automatically end Israel’s unlawful occupation of Palestine; it won't even stop the flow of arms from Canada to Israel (which has been demonstrated to still being going on, your protestations to the contrary notwithstanding).  It should be noted that the International Court of Justice is clear that the Palestinian people have an inalienable right to self-determination, so this shouldn't even have been a question in the first place. Furthermore, more than 140 UN member states already recognized Palestine. Canada is not leading here or be...

To Carney again, along with a bunch of cabinet ministers. This one courtesy of Lead now with additions from yours truly. Send your own letter here: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/no-cuts-ett Dear Prime Minister Carney and Cabinet Ministers, I’m writing to express my concern about your government's proposed $25 billion in federal budget cuts. These cuts risk gutting the very public services that working people across this country rely on every day — health care, housing, EI, child care, and more. It's funny how there's no hesitation when MPs believe they need a cost of living wage increase or when MPs assemble a staff to support their work, but when ordinary workers ask for fair compensation (Canada Post workers, Air Canada flight attendants, just to name a few) or to keep their jobs, they're told to take it in the chin for the good of the economy. We are in a moment of overlapping crises: climate disasters, a worsening housing emergency, and under-resourced health ca...

Dear Mr Carney While your desire to hear a variety of perspectives is commendable, perhaps there are certain people we've heard enough from, and whose perspective is not valuable enough for the leaders of our country to spend time on. May I draw your attention to a recent piece in The Tyee : “It's honestly mind-boggling why any Liberal government would invite a key figure involved in the horror show that is Project 2025,” Dwivedi told The Tyee over text. “The Carney government has not made clear what kind of particular insight or expertise this person would have had into active trade negotiations and Trump’s mindset within them, but what is clear is that Project 2025 seeks to erode basic norms of democracy, limit women’s access to reproductive health (including contraception), and to roll back rights for the LBGTQ+ community.” Read more:  https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2025/09/05/Liberal-Backlash-Carney-Invite-Project-2025/ Mr Carney, you promised Canadians “elbows up” and ...

Re “Temporary foreign workers taking jobs from young Canadians” This [wire service article reproduced in the FreeP] article is deeply troubling, in large part for the way it has been framed. You have a choice with a headline. The story is really about how the Conservatives accuse the Liberals have broken their promise to Canadians about limiting immigration numbers. The “stealing jobs” boogieman headline is clickbait, not actually elucidating the article. Equally irresponsible: nowhere in the article does anyone clearly and in simple language refute the obvious mendacity about temporary foreign workers stealing jobs from young people. Canada is a deeply racist country that maintains a temporary form worker program to obtain a workforce do the jobs Canadians won't do, certainly not for those wages nor under those conditions. In fact, immigrants create jobs. It takes an entrepreneurial spirit to leave the familiarity of home to strike out somewhere new. That courage and in...

 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/spruce-woods-byelection-1.7617699 “In a tight race, Robbins defeated NDP candidate Ray Berthelette by just 70 votes — 2,805 for Robbins to Berthelette's 2,735, with all polls reporting as of about 9:30 p.m.” When will we as citizens rise up en masse to say we are fed up First Past the Post and demand a voting system where our choices can be properly accounted for in the final numbers. My objection is not the candidate or party who won. It's that 70 votes isn't a decisive enough lead. What about the 2,735 votes for the runner up candidate? What about the 444 for the third place candidate? And why was there no Green candidate? (I know, I know, because the Green Party of MAnitoba is in absolute shambles, and because people don't view it as a viable choice,but as long as we have FPTP, it will be a self-defeating cycle of people voting other than Green because they don't think it's viable enough, which gaurantees it can ne...

“Marooned by Air Canada flight attendant strike? Here are your options”. A headline in the news. Biased framing right off the hop. Here’s the thing. It's not the flight attendants who marooned folks. It’s corporate greed.  It’s funny how frequently the general sentiment is to begrudge other people getting fairly compensated for their work. Yet each one of us would be unhappy to have our job demand hours of unpaid labour. Okay for thee and not for me? This is why I am troubled by this framing. Sure, it’s just a headline, but it directs the understandable frustration of disrupted travel plans at the folks who are just asking for fair wages instead of at the executives who would rather create travel chaos than pay their staff. It directs the blame for the strike at the workers who are exercising their right to strike when their reasonable demands are not met rather than at the executives who didn’t make any contingency plans for the strike because they expected the government to f...

 This letter comes from Kairos with additions from me. Sign your own version here Israel’s blockade is pushing Gazans deeper into famine. On May 20, you joined leaders from Britain and France in stating that “the level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable,” promising further action if Israel failed to halt its offensive and lift restrictions on aid. You have since made similar public statements and promises with other countries and allies, stating that you are prepared to take further action. We welcome your words and intentions. But where are the actions? An ultimatum means nothing when it is not followed up on. You cannot keep using “strong words” with no action and think history will absolve you of complicity in war crimes. The bombardment, displacement, blocked aid and the deaths of civilians – desperate for food and water – continues.  Now is the time for action, including the use of all  diplomatic, political, and economic measures to: Secure an imme...

I’m getting pretty tired of not being able to read the news without an urgent need to write a letter to at least one if not several levels of government regarding the wrongheadedness of their pursuits.  Today, at least, I got a little encouragement. PM Carney’s office replied to me regarding *one* of my messages, assuring me it had been read. Of course, it was the one where I thanked them for deciding to recognize Palestine and stayed mostly in the realm of positivity.  So *I* replied:

 A letter adapted from #BreakFreeFromPlastic’s campaign regarding the UN negotiations regarding a Global Plastics Treaty taking place in Geneva right now.  Send your own letter here Dear Minister Dabrusin CC Leader of the Green Party, interim NDP leader, interim Conservative leader, local MP This is urgent. Manitoba was under the highest air quality advisory yesterday after a summer of smog and cancelled activities. This isn’t just seasonal forest fires or silly accusations of arson. Drought and extreme heat are driving these wild fires – and those are caused by climate change, which in turn is caused by massive industrial extraction of fossil fuels.  Plastic is driving climate change and polluting oceans, rivers, soil, air, impacting humans and other beings. Plastic is poisoning our communities, our homes, and our bodies. Citizens should and must make better choices regarding how they manage the plastic that comes through their hands but we desperately need you ...

A little letter to the FreeP: Thank you for the work of your newsroom. Hearing how PostMedia has taken over Canada, including the major newsrooms in the largest Canadian cities, I'm proud scrappy little Winnipeg has maintained an independent free press.  If I may be so bold as to offer some suggestion/critique... The constant air quality warnings and drought conditions we're experiencing are deeply worrying. What is equally disturbing is the general conversation around it which acknowledges the unpleasantness, blindly hopes it's temporary, and moves on, without addressing the climate change at the root of the conditions – and most importantly, that it is crucial we act in as many ways as we can as quickly as we can to do things to address it. Notably, pressuring our politicians that more pipelines are not the direction to go.  Public transit is an important climate mitigation as well – getting people out of wasteful private vehicles into more efficient buses and onto ...

Another form letter adjusted with my own sentiments added. Click here to send your own, either as is or comments added . 

To the 20 (re-elected) Liberal MPs who signed the Vote Palestine platform.  You signed the Vote Palestine platform.   The time to fulfill your pledge is now.  Gaza is facing mass starvation. This isn’t food scarcity. This is intentional blockage of food as a tool of genocide. Canada’s joint statement with 25 other nations called on all the parties to “uphold the obligations of international humanitarian law.”  But Israel has been flagrantly violating multiple obligations of international law almost daily since October 8, 2023 and certain on every day since Canada’s statement was released. There is no need to wait, to give Israel the benefit of the doubt to do the right thing.  “We are prepared to take further action”, the statement reads. So do it.  Canada must immediately impose a true arms embargo on Israel – a two-way arms embargo – and it must actually put it into force and close all loopholes.  Canada must immediately levy sancti...

 A letter to the organizers: While Russia is carrying out unprovoked war against Ukraine, Folklorama is eschewing holding a Russian pavilion, even though such a display is about 100s of years old Russian culture, not today’s regime led by Putin. That’s a fair and compassionate decision.  So why is the Israeli pavilion allowed to continue without any censure while Israel commits war crimes condemned by the International Court of Justice? *Jewish* culture is thousands of years old but it’s not a Jewish pavilion, it's an explicitly *Israeli* pavilion. It’s celebrating the state that is committing genocide. It’s celebrating settler colonialism that is going on to this very day. Why are you allowing the Israeli pavilion to continue?

 How many times can they make utterly meaningless, toothless "strongly worded" statements and keep doing nothing while hundreds die from Israeli violence each day and hundreds more quietly slip away from starvation? Dear Minister Anand and others If you are truly "prepared to take action" to respond to the suffering of civilians in Gaza, the time to do so was more than a year ago. The time to do so was the day after your May statement when it was obvious there was no "if", but Israel would continue its actions unabated. The time to do so is now.  There is no need to wait and see. We know Israel is ignore this statement as it did every other one.  You will not escape the charge of genocide for having made these "strongly worded" statements accompanied by no meaningful action.  You must enforce ​ a two-way embargo now. You must use all the means within your power to get food into Gaza now.  There is no time to wait.  No more meaningless word...

Famine is not a natural disaster -- it is caused by political decisions. Gaza is already in a medical crisis due to bombed hospitals and blocked supply chains, it's already in a humanitarian crisis from relentless bombing turning entire cities into rubble and now it is in crisis due to starvation. Famine.  I saw the outline of the synagogue in Heidelberg (destroyed on Krystallnacht) today, and I walked past gold blocks on the sidewalk marking the homes of Jewish people who perished in the Nazi era. What are these memorials doing if not urging us not to stand idly by as atrocities happen again to a group that has been dehumanized? Mr Carney and Ms Anand, I wrote you the letter below back in May when you came out with a joint statement opposing Israel's military operations in Gaza.  It is long past time to stand up and do something about it.  The Hague Group has already done so. The Western nations no longer have any claim to moral high ground on international...

A response to Winnipeg's Executive Policy Committee regarding their endless delays on making modifications to Wellington Crescent after a cyclist was killed 6 June 2024.  A piece of context that is needed is that this stretch of roadway was identified by the bike advocacy organization as a crucial stretch with inadequate protections for more than a decade before the vehicular murder occurred. Every day, I open the news in the morning, and the frequency of times death due to road violence is one of the items is shocking. What's even more shocking is how blasé this carnage is treated.  Why do we accept these deaths without question? But folks like to focus on the positive, so I'm coming here to be positive. And I'm writing to you from the Netherlands, where I'm feeling really positive about riding bike. To address the road carnage, you're recommending a bike lane on Wellington. I support the recommendation to fund a bike lane. I support reducing the speed l...

  A tweet. A cry of frustration:  I am sick and tired of beig lied to. Sure, we all know it's a lie, but it insults my intelligence and besmirches your credbility, MailChimp, to say you are 'currently experiencing a higher than expected wait time.' No, you're not.  You're just unwilling to hire enough help staff.    It continues. AI only makes it all worse as corporations fall over themsevles in delight to cut jobs (and their associated cost of labour) to replace with climate-killing AI bots that waste everyone else's time with nonanswers and frustration.   

Dear Mr Carney and Ms Anand The nations of the Hague Group have plenty of black marks to their names regarding human rights abuses. Yet even they can recognize and condemn genocide when they see it. Even they declare " Either we act together to enforce international law or we risk its collapse.... Let this moment mark the beginning of a renewed commitment to internationalism and the principles that bind us as a global community.”   I join with them to beg Canada to support the findings of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice with more than words. We must take meaningful action to stop the genocide.    I join with Greenpeace to demand  that Canada: support an immediate and permanent ceasefire; halt all arms sales and military cooperation with Israel; ensure the safe and unrestricted delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza; uphold international law and human rights; and actively work toward a just and lasting peace for both ...