The Montreal News Group

The Montreal News Group

Over the Christmas holidays, I found myself in a Facebook conversation with some like-minded people. We were expressing our concern about the direction of our country's government and our feelings of powerlessness. Our leader has a majority government, and he appears to be forging ahead with his own conservative agenda, regardless of  opposition. To make matters worse, our corporate mainstream media appear to be in the pocket of our leader and have seemingly failed in their duties as the fourth estate. As a result of this conversation, I contacted two Facebook friends who continually post interesting articles and asked them to assist me in curating news stories from alternative and mainstream media that shed light on our Prime Minister's daily deeds, particularly with respect to the environment. And to keep things positive, we could post stories about the Occupy movement and other non-violent ways of protesting. My favourite thus far has been singing in Brooklyn to prevent home foreclosures. See video below.

After just one month of curating the Montreal News Group, I no longer feel all the doom and gloom I felt over the holidays. I've learned the following:

1. Canadian mainstream media still cover what the Prime Minister is doing. You just have to dig a little.

2. The alternative media outlet that continually covers what is actually going on with great editorial is the Vancouver-based Tyee.ca.

3. The French media in Quebec cover many stories that are completely ignored in the rest of Canada. For this we need a French-language curator who can also make some comments about the stories s/he is posting. You can contact me by clicking here.

4. Facebook and Twitter are forces to be reckoned with. Just ask the Texas-based Susan G. Komen Foundation. It announced it would no longer fund clinical breast examinations and mammograms through Planned Parenthood, an organization that is constantly under threat of closing. The annual $680,000 that was going to Planned Parenthood helped provide breast exams for some 170,000 low income women. There were over 100,000 tweets from January 31 to February 2. As a result, the Foundation's Board of Directors reversed its decision. The success had to do with a broad-based network of journalists, organizations and feminists. For further reading on the Twitter tidal wave click here.

5. A little closer to home, Avaaz.org has shown just how powerful a petition can be. At the beginning of January, the organization began circulating a petition to stop the Harper government from privatizing a portion of Jasper National Park to put in a 300-metre metal walkway. Within three weeks, over 180,000 signatures were collected, and on January 31, Parks Canada announced that it was delaying its decision. For further reading, it's covered here in the Globe and Mail.

Molly Katchpole, a 22-year-old Washington, DC resident, was offended when Verizon tried to charge her $2.00 to pay her bills online. Through Change.org she started a petition, which soon had 165,000 signatures. Verizon backed down within just a few hours. Katchpole was also behind the petition to stop Bank of America from charging its customers a $5.00 debit card user fee, which garnered 300,000 signatures. The fee was subsequently dropped. For further reading about the force of viral petitions click here.

All this to say, social media and petitions are very powerful means to make our voices heard. We just need to establish a network to have a broad enough base to get our message out and work together in sharing targeted messages.

As you know, the upcoming federal budget will largely decide the fate of our national news network, CBC-Radio Canada, which continues to cover, albeit timidly, the national political scene. We have a plan to mobilize. We just need your support. Please "like" the Montreal News Group and "share" it with your friends.

All the best, Montreal News Group, Curator



Please sign the petition below. There are already over 156,000 signatures. Cheers.

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The Path of an Activist

The Path of an Activist

Riding along the bicycle path on De Maisonneuve  last week, I looked up to see a sign (photo left) dedicating the path to cycling activist Claire Morissette. Apart from Jeanne Mance, the founder of the Hôtel Dieu Hospital, the names of very few women grace our urban landscape.

On June 16, 2010, the Montreal city council voted unanimously to name the bike path after Morissette, and just one week later, the Bixi bike-share program reached its one millionth ride this season. If you remember, it took until October 22 to reach this milestone last year. Although many people will attribute the success of the bike-share program to a great product or an innovative idea, Morissette's tireless 30 years of activism to give urban cyclists their rightful place on our streets undeniably paved the way for Bixi's success.

Morissette began her cycling activism in 1976 when she and some 100 others staged a "die-in" at the corner of University and St. Catherines streets in downtown Montreal. She and fellow protesters lay down in the intersection, applied ketchup to symbolize blood and set damaged bicycle frames atop of them to protest the impact of motorists on cyclists and pedestrians. She and others also took ladders and toboggans aboard metro cars to protest the no-bike rule, which has since been changed.

Morissette went on to establish Communauto, an urban car-share program with now more than 300 parking stations in 4 Quebec cities. Communauto members can reserve a car for an hour, a day or longer at a reduced rate, which covers fuel, maintenance and insurance costs. In addition, members have access to child car seats, roof racks and other accessories and are eligible for special Bixi and public transit packages. Some 20,000 members have opted for the car-share program rather than buying their own cars, thus reducing pollution, fuel consumption and the number of vehicles on the road.

However, one of Morissette's greatest achievements was founding Cyclo Nord-Sud, a non-profit organization that ships our unwanted bikes to countries in the southern hemisphere. Since the group began collecting bikes in 1999, they have shipped over 32,000 bikes abroad. Our cycling activist has been quoted as saying that it broke her heart to see a bike in the trash heap when it could  make such a difference in the quality of life of another person, particularly women. As many of you know, women and girls in Africa spend on average 5 hours a day transporting 50 kg of water and wood for cooking and heat, and girls between the ages of 11 and 17, spend three times more time at this chore than boys the same age. As a result, girls spend less time at school. A bike is obviously a valuable resource, helping women to travel 3 times faster and carry heavier loads, freeing up time that could otherwise be spent at school or at some kind of paid employment. If you would like to donate a bike, just contact Cyclo Nord-Sud. There were 58 bike collection events last year.

Claire Morissette was an author, social activist and cycling advocate who fought for safer bike paths and better cycling infrastructure. Sadly, she died in 2007 after a long battle with breast cancer and was never able to see the Bixi bike-share program up and running.

She was more than worthy of having the bike path named in her honour.

Sources:
(1) PHILPOTT Julia, "Women, Transportation and Poverty: the role of Non-motorized Transport", Perspectives mondiales sur le vélo, Conférence Vélo-Mondiale, Vélo-Québec, Montréal 1992. (2) International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), "Report Finds Severe Gender Inequities".[Cyclo Nord-Sud]
Communauto


Related posts:

Fun Way to Track Bike Use and Carbon Foot Print
3 Compelling Reason For A Bike Share Program in Your City
City Cycling: Why Renting Beats Owning
A Review of Montreal's Bixi Rental Bike

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Never Losing Sight of the Big Picture

Never Losing Sight of the Big Picture

In my previous post, I described my parents and their proclivity to rant. Their rants often exposed the ills of humanity: unfairness, selfishness and greed. In my father's blog post on May Day, he writes about the middle class being financially ruined by a select few, and he finishes with this diatribe,

If I were King, I'd line them up and shoot them and charge them for the ammunition to do it.

(Please bear in mind that my father has a dark sense of humour. He is not serious.)

Unfortunately, my parents' rants, which always had some basis in truth, never translated into any concrete action. Although I understand that this was my parents' method for teaching us values, as a child, I saw this as little more than wasted energy--all talk, no action.

True, raising awareness is the first step towards change, but concrete action has to follow...Otherwise, it's pointless to rant in the first place. I'm more interested in coming up with a plan, or the steps to take, to bring about some sort of transformation.

Yes, the plan and the various steps are important to bring about change, but as I discovered a few days ago, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture.

This weekend I went to the hardware store for materials to make seed bombs (see recipe here) with my daughter, and on my way home, I walked past my guerrilla gardening plot. Much to my chagrin, I noticed that someone had already cleared the debris and planted flowers. In addition, I noticed that a row of expensive seedlings had been planted alongside the sidewalk for a fair distance down the street.

Just then, I saw Mariette, the former Olympian handball player who had lent us a hand getting our guerrilla project started last year. She is the neighbouring condo association's paid gardener. I stopped to chat with her, still slightly taken aback by losing my gardening plot.

She told me that I was responsible for getting the condo association involved in beautifying the street. She also added that she had the property owner's permission to garden, something I never had.

Anyway, I was miffed about losing my spot until I realized that my ultimate goal, or the big picture, was to beautify our dirty, industrial, unloved street. And now, a condo association was actually paying for flowers, seedlings and a professional landscaper to reach that goal. So, although I initially felt like I had been hip-checked by the Olympian and her condo association, other people were getting involved, and the entire street would reap the benefits.

Besides, there are lots of unloved plots in our area. I'm sure I'll find another one. Like the one below:

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