Posts Tagged ‘Ontario’

The Sunshine Walk for Climate Justice

Monday, October 6th, 2008
A wonderful initiative to raise climate change awareness in Canada and around the world began on October 4th in Toronto and will be carrying on until October 20th when it reaches Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
 
A group of like-minded people will be walking with friends from Toronto to Ottawa to deliver their message, and yours on climate change solutions. Please join them - share your vision of the best solutions or what you or people in your community are already doing to make the shift away from dirty energy.

They’ll be visiting many towns and meeting many friends along the way in places such as Pickering, Darlington, Oshawa, Port Hope, Cobourg, Trenton, Belleville, Napanee, Kingston, Godfrey, Sharbot Lake, Perth, Carleton Place and Ottawa.

Come out at the beginning of the walk, the end, somewhere in between or for the whole thing - share your clean, green solutions with them in a letter or picture & they’ll deliver them to our new government in Ottawa on October 20.

 For updated walk routes and approximate arrival times see the Sunshine Walk blog: http://sunshinewalk08.blogspot.com/

 For more information visit:
http://www.torontoclimatecampaign.org/sunshinewalk

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Posted in climate change | No Comments »

Ontario golf courses exempt from pesticide ban?

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

Derek Malivoire of Oakville Ontario writes:

"With all the golf couses in Ontario, how can they be exempt from the pesticide ban? Half of Ontario is covered with golf courses, with lots of streams running through them. They are the bigest user.
My garden has been drug free for years., but I have seen the frogs, snakes and a lot of the good insects disappear. In fact, I have not seen any for the last three years."

Thanks for this question, Derek. According to Lisa Gue, our Health and Environment Policy Analyst, the short answer is yes, the proposed Ontario ban would exempt golf courses, as does the ban in Quebec and in most municipalities.

The Ontario legislation has yet to pass and may be amended, but in its current form, golf courses would be exempted from the ban if they comply with certain requirements. Those requirements would be specified in regulations and would likely involve measure to reduce (but not eliminate) pesticide use.

We suggest you write to Premier McGuinty and Environment Minister Gerretsen and urge the Ontario government to tighten up that aspect of the law. You’ll find a direct link to them on this page of our David Suzuki Digs My Garden site: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/NatureChallenge/GardenContest/Take_Action.asp .

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Posted in Human Health, Uncategorized, agriculture, gardening, sustainability | 1 Comment »