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Kairos Times: October 2007. Vol 6, #8
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| I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. |
--Helen Keller |
In this edition:
- Urgent Action Alert on Corporate Accountability
- Final Call: Raise Your Voice Against Poverty This Week
- Re-energize Rolls Out!
- G8 and IMF Hinder Aid for Zambia While Vultures
Attack
Urgent Action Alert On Corporate Accountability
This is a critical moment in our campaign for new corporate accountability measures in Canada. We are requesting you and other KAIROS supporters to call your Members of Parliament today and urge the Harper government to fully implement 27 recommendations contained in the report from the 2006 national round tables on corporate responsibility in the mining, oil and gas industries. The recommendations represent only the first step in promoting greater corporate responsibility and accountability – but it’s a crucial first step!
Please join us in contacting MPs before the Speech from the Throne
on October 16, when the government will outline its priorities for
the next session of Parliament. Please call your MP before October
10th, especially if you have a Conservative MP in your riding! Below
is a sample script with four key “talking points” to
help you prepare for your call.
Thank you in advance for taking action with us at this critical
juncture. Collectively, our calls will send a strong signal to those
in power.
For more information, please contact Ian Thomson, Program Coordinator, Corporate Social Responsibility: 1-877-403-8933 x 229.
Sample Script for MP Phone Call “Hello, my name is (your name). I am asking you, as my representative
in Parliament, to urge the Prime Minister and Federal Cabinet to
take real action on corporate social responsibility for Canadian
companies operating overseas.
As a faith-based social justice activist in the KAIROS network,
I am deeply concerned about the impact of our mining, oil and gas
companies on human rights and the environment. I believe that we
need to hold our companies to internationally recognized standards
when they go abroad.
I want to the federal government to adopt and implement all 27 consensus recommendations from the National Roundtables on Corporate Responsibility held last year – recommendations that represent an unprecedented agreement between industry and civil society.
In particular, the federal government needs to create an extractive
industries ombudsman to investigate incidents of serious human rights
violations and environmental disasters in which Canadian companies
are implicated.
The round table recommendations represent only the first step in
promoting corporate responsibility and accountability – but
it’s a crucial first step! All 27 recommendations must be
implemented together.
I will be listening to the Speech from the Throne on October 16 to gauge the government’s commitment to these issues. Thank you.”
To find your Member of Parliament’s phone number, you can
either call the Government of Canada’s toll-free information
line at 1-800-622-6232, or use this handy tool on the Parliamentary
website:
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilations/HouseOfCommons/MemberByPostalCode.aspx?Menu=HOC
This action alert with background is also available on our website
at
http://kairoscanada.org/e/urgent/uaCorporateAccountability071003.asp
Top
of pageFinal Call: Raise Your Voice Against Poverty This Week
Take action today as part of the International Week to End Poverty (October 14-21).
- Sign the International October 17 Call to Action.
- Download the KAIROS action resource and circulate the two-page bulletin insert at your church on Sunday, October 14
- Call, email or meet with your MP (see http://www.canada.gc.ca/directories/direct_e.html)
and urge him or her to work to ensure that the federal government:
- adopts a poverty reduction strategy – with targets and time lines – for Canada, as governments in Quebec, Newfoundland, United Kingdom and Ireland have done, and the UN Committee on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights has called upon us to do;
- raise Canada’s Official Development Assistance to 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) by 2015 as per our commitment to the UN;
- pledge $900 million over the next three
years to the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria in fulfillment
of Canada’s G8 commitment to universal access to AIDS
prevention, care, and treatment programs.
For more information please contact Michael Polanyi at mpolanyi@kairoscanada.org or 416-463-5312 x237.
Re-energize Rolls Out!
According to the British newspaper The Independent, the Vatican has just become the world's first carbon-neutral state, offsetting its emissions by planting a forest in Hungary and installing solar panels on the roof of St. Peter's Basilica. The World Council of Churches has been a leader in the global battle against Climate Change for years, Pope Benedict is expected to issue a papal encyclical on the topic next year, and KAIROS has just launched its three-year campaign on energy justice, "Re-energize: Time For A Carbon Sabbath."
Why is the church going green? When so many people suffer from lack of access to the necessities of life as water, food, shelter, and human safety, why are the churches engaged in campaigns that we usually associate with environmental organizations? We are involved in this campaign for ecological justice because it is about taking responsibility for the damage we cause to the oikumene -- the whole inhabited earth. It is about saving polar bears from melting ice caps, and South Pacific Island communities from devastating floods and storms. It is about protecting access to water to India and preventing desertification and crop failure in Africa. It is about halting human rights abuses and conflict in oil extraction zones in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.
Our campaign is up and running, and ready for you to join in. To
find out more, visit http://www.re-energize.org
or contact Campaigns Coordinator
Sara Stratton at 416-463-5312 or 1-877-403-8933 x 241.
G8 And IMF Hinder Aid For Zambia While Vultures Attack
Zambia is a prime example of an impoverished country betrayed by the failure of industrialized countries to deliver on promises of more aid and effective debt relief. This latest KAIROS Policy Briefing Paper chronicles how Group of Eight promises of debt cancellation have been of little benefit to the poor due to a decline in Official Development Assistance and the International Monetary Fund’s obsession with low inflation and restrictive fiscal policies.
An online copy of G8 and IMF Hinder Aid for Zambia While Vultures
Attack is available on our website at http://kairoscanada.org/e/resources/policyBriefing12Zambia0709.pdf.
For more information contact
John Dillon, Program Coordinator, Global Economic Justice, telephone
416-463-5569 x 231.
You’ve been reading Kairos Times, a monthly e-bulletin from KAIROS, the social justice organization of eleven Canadian churches and church agencies. Sign up for this free bulletin and occasional urgent actions or email us or call us toll-free 1 877 403 8933.
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