Tag: pipeline

Birthday Party Fundraiser for Climate Action

January 22, 2020 • Tamiko Suzuki

A Night of Good Cheer and a Rousing Success! $3000 Raised for Raven Trust’s Anti-TMX Campaign!

On a cold, rainy night in January, over 50 friends and family gathered in Hewett Hall to celebrate Tamiko Suzuki ‘s 60th birthday. After a moving welcome by Sto:lo elder and activist, Kwitsel, the evening turned raucous with parlour games. Guests were given coloured dots on their name tags to show how they were connected to Tamiko (family, work, UCV, book club, etc) and asked to sit at a table with as many colours as possible! The tables then competed in games of rock/paper/scissors (in Japanese!), Name that Tune (music from TV and film from the 60’s,70’s to today), Trivial Pursuit, and Charades, all with some connection to Tamiko’s life. Try to imagine contestants acting out the charades challenges; “Being charged by a rhino” (which was a true story) and “skinny dipping on New Year’s Day (also true). The winners got to dress Tamiko with items from a box so that at one point she was wearing a diving mask, blond wig, life jacket, and belly dancer belt.

The games were followed by delivery of a cake decorated with a dinosaur and speeches both funny and warm. The evening finished with International folk dancing and many brave friends trying out Bolivian, Finnish, and Greek/Roma dances.

Instead of presents, Tamiko asked guests to make a donation to RAVEN Trust’s anti-TMX campaign and over $3000 was raised. An additional $400 was donated to support the Wet’suet’en opposition to the Coastal Gas pipeline.

A big thanks and much love to the Environment Team who sponsored the event, provided the food, set up, cleaned up, matched a portion of the donations, and took part in the games and dances with grace and humour.

“Who is Billie Eilish???” Name That Tune answer stumps contestants.

Winter News from the Environment Team

December 1, 2019 • Tamiko Suzuki

The UCV Environment Team continues to be extremely active. Here’s what we have planned for the next few months..

December 1 Forum: Zero Waste Holidays! Forum; Zero Waste Team

One of the Zero Waste ideas is to donate to a charity for someone. Here is a list of charities that the Environment Team came up with. It is far from complete, of course, but it will give you an idea of the range of international, national and local groups looking for your financial support.

charities list

Save Our Salmon sub-committee

Last month we held a petition signing event to remind MPs of their election campaign promise to move open net fish farms out of the ocean and onto land.

The SOS group is now meeting with those MPs to discuss plans of action of how we can make their promise a reality .

If you would like to get involved, contact John Boyle [email protected]

January Pull-Together Fundraiser

Saturday January 18, 2020 @ 7pm

Tamiko Suzuki, our Environment Team Outreach Coordinator, is turning 60 and she’s holding a fundraiser to celebrate!

UCV Friends and family are invited to enjoy some appies and cake, a bit of music, games and perhaps some folk dancing!

She requests no presents please but instead make a donation to RAVEN Trust’s Pull Together Campaign https://pull-together.ca/ supporting Indigenous groups’ legal challenge against TMX.

More information to come later.

If you would like to help put on the event, please contact [email protected]

A Green New Deal for All – Cross Canada Tour in Vancouver

June 25, 2019 • Rob Dainow

At least ten Vancouver Unitarians were among the 350 person sell-out crowd on June 21 at the Canadian Memorial Church to participate in the Vancouver stop of the Green New Deal for All cross-Canada tour.

All the presenters were passionate, well informed, and inspiring. It was a great event, part of the grass roots movement that started with over 150 town hall meetings across Canada – including a full house event with about 100 people at UCV on May 24.

Support for the Green New Deal (GND) is rising up across this country with the intention to become a powerful voice in the coming federal election.

The entire Green New Deal for All event was video taped and posted online, or you can watch it below. The table shows the time for each presentation to help you navigate through this nearly 3 hour long video.

  00:00 -- 07:15      Intro Slides
  07:15 -- 09:00      MC Anjali Appadurai
  09:00 -- 18:40      Chief Reuben George, Tsleil-Waututh Nation
  18:40 -- 21:00      Green New Deal
  21:00 -- 26:40      Remarks by Anjali
  26:40 -- 41:20      Youth-led Chant
  41:20 -- 1:04:30    David Suzuki
1:04:30 -- 1:24:00    Kanahus Manuel, Indigenous Activist
1:24:00 -- 1:45:10    Harsha Walia, Activist and Writer
1:45:10 -- 1:47:30    Youth-led Chant
1:47:30 -- 2:10:10.   Kim Mortel, Poet and Singer
2:10:10 -- 2:42:35.   Avi Lewis, The LEAP
2:42:35 -- 2:44:00.   Presenters' Tributes

Irreparable Harm?

May 15, 2019 • Rob Dainow

Irreparable Harm? A Tale of TMX Resistence

Documentary Theatre on the BC Supreme Court Trial
230 People Arrested for Protesting the Trans Mountain Pipeline

Wanted

mugshot

Mairy Beam — Incorrigible Author, Playwrite and Theatre Director found guilty of criminal contempt for protesting TMX

Above: Councillor Jean Swanson gets arrested. Jean represents COPE on Vancouver City Council. She is an anti-poverty activist and a recipient of the Order of Canada (Photo by Tzeporah Berman)

Update from Mairy Beam

Mairy was arrested at the Kinder Morgan Burnaby Tank Farm gates on August 24, 2018, found guilty by Judge Affleck on Dec 5, 2018 and sentenced to serve 28 days of house arrest and 125 hours of community service.

Did the protesters at the Trans Mountain facilities in Burnaby cause irreparable harm to Kinder Morgan, one of the largest energy infrastructure companies in North America, by delaying a few trucks for a few minutes on a few days in 2018? That’s what the BC Supreme Court believes. That’s why there’s an injunction barring anyone from coming within five metres of any site owned by Trans Mountain Pipeline. The 230 people who were arrested in 2018 for breaking that injunction have a different opinion as to who is causing irreparable harm to whom.

Most of those who were arrested and charged with criminal contempt of court for breaking the injunction have either pled guilty, or been found guilty by Judge Affleck – the same judge who created the injunction. These land and water protectors have made many impassioned speeches in court, trying to alert the judge to the harm that this pipeline expansion, if it proceeds, will cause to First Nations, and to the land and water that we all depend on for life. For that we have been labelled ‘sinister’, and told that by showing defiance of the law, we are inviting chaos and threatening civilization.

Several of the land and water protectors have formed the Sinister Sisters Collective to develop a documentary theatre piece about our journey through the BC Supreme Court. We are calling it “Irreparable Harm?” Using video footage from the arrests, excerpts from the court documents, and re-enactments, we will shine a spotlight on how our justice system treats those who are in opposition to the interests of large corporations.

We will be working over the summer months to compile the most dramatic moments of our encounters with the justice system. Our goal is to present a workshop in October, and then a full production of our theatre piece in the spring of 2020.

Stay tuned!

Vancouver Unitarians protest NEB approval of TMX

March 3, 2019 • Rob Dainow

Vancouver Unitarians Carry the Flame
Rally to Protest NEB Approval of TMX
Feb 22, 2019

At least 10 Vancouver Unitarians rallied around our Vancouver Unitarians banner and joined hundreds of others on Friday, February 22, to raise our voices in protest to the National Energy Board report that recommended going ahead with the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project.

We marched down Burrard Street and then along Georgia Street to the final rally on Georgia Street between the CBC and the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

We were proud to be among the voices speaking out.

Vancouver Unitarians