good morning welcome to changes the program on sustainability i must susan gregory mccord needing producer and we are broadcasting live once again from c h o y studios in low is la this morning our host is marjorie stewart good morning margery good morning sir and you have a very interesting guest i think unimportance group in town that we would like to learn more about oh yes and a very back down but she set me there and she said he still active i wonderful resource for anybody who wants to know how to eat g m o free she she is really good at that and she she posts regularly but we got involved with the group after the march against month center last may because there's another one coming up this may and i had always thought that i would if i got the opportunity to do anything against monsanto and i question myself you know sonny you can ask me this and i thought well i'm not an activist and then i thought wait a minute why did this start this started in school i hated police and i always stood up against police if they were following me my brother anybody else that she made it very often bully me i must say but i got the message i just saw monsanto is a bully  in every every possible way that you can think about bullies coercing strong arm tactics the whole thing and i thought you know i will i will get active against this and the rest of the group all about the same time and we all sort of form together we are street or to create a group we did that we had a fundraiser last july which was very well attended and we have just proceeded from there what i'm particularly interested in at the moment jane is the meeting that the new organization if i can call it brought together last friday to discuss the whole issue and what we could do in our community so i thought i'd just start by asking you in your own way to lay out the objectives of that meeting by the fi could if i could maybe start by saying imo we are mission statement includes raising a and us and we realize that that genetic engineering and g m crops they affect so much effect on  environment biodiversity agriculture use of chemicals herbicides pesticides kill off the you know you just go on and the at the meeting the people that with their easily identified you know contamination health issues all of this stuff came out in the meeting but what what i what we started thinking was there are other groups in the i'm a who are concerned about these issues this is not this is not just about g e for you and i'm a it's hard to work if you have a small number of people and it seems to me to make sense that the more networking you can do the more that you can draw together people individuals and groups who are concerned about all these issues the more strength you've got and the more the more imput from all the different groups who have each got their own little piece of the puzzle which they can i mean they can educate us too and we can work together where you're satisfied with the response to go from groups and videos i was i was very very delighted with the group of people that we had there  i didn't actually do accounts after everybody was there but i might get my guess is about forty five to fifty people but so committed i mean turning out on a friday night lovely sunny evening but these people came and we we planned probably a way to heavy schedule for an evening but they hung in there and they really they really seem to be interested and excited to explore some of the possibilities that we might take between twelve and fourteen some drops out at the last minute but yes and then there were there were other groups in the audience who didn't actually have tables display or information tables such as they were  sort of identify special interests or caps you know like in a in a way that's really talking them down but you know i was impressed and i think that a very intelligent group and a very and i actually attended on behalf of and i'm a food chair there and to made the point twitch got people thinking about agencies which are funded to deliver project to projects in the community that while i'm pretty clear that all the members of our board as individuals would be in support of this new group as registered charity and funded by a variety of different private and public agencies use the agency for chair self does not have a policy at this time about that very important topic which is was worth some discussion in itself i think this is i'm i'm new to this whole sort of activism thing and i'm learning hugely every day i learn new things but i was appalled to understand as i have done in the last month that nonprofit groups  charitable groups have to be if they're funded by the government have to be really careful to stay within really strict lines and that i guess i'm naive but i hadn't realized that that was the case if you take the money you have to be ready for the for the pressures and the control and a certain amount of control particularly from the government the rule with charities i think is that there's a certain percentage of your educational work that is permitted to be advocacy or even lobbying but it's quite a low percentage i think about twenty percent with as with other funders the problem is that foundation sir founded down to some of the items that you identified that night and for instance there must have been a very big wish list of things that could  understand that this is about cells it's about it's about information material being passed from one bits of life to another and whenever you play around with the farmer who found some very interesting corn in his field some point in his field and he and his wife were saving farmers and they've they looked at it and i thought oh my this is this is doing very well against the weeds so they saved the seed and they re planted it and that brought down the wrath of monsanto because it turned out that it was seed the flown in from it was modified seed that had flown in from neighboring fields and from then on he's been in an interminable ferocious battle with all the power of monsanto and some of the federal government and i thought it was kind all of that was his crop actually could have been is is wheat actually approved yet in canada because i know there there was a lot of concern about that some time ago that if it ever does become approved we've got a real problem on our hands that was his wind and you can't control that you can't control with him you know you can't control where it blows right things too so a number of farmers actually have and then you know in canada and the prairie have found that their crops were contaminated by things that they didn't want buy pollens that they didn't want coming in and i think bullying people to try to stop them from doing something because everybody starts to notice i had something the other day i was to do with them you know if i'm spraying my house purple which i might well do because my favorite color and some of it drifts on to my neighbor's house traditionally i would have to apologize to my neighbors and put that right yeah but now i would sue my neighbor for having some of my paint on his house see so this is a yes the addition we have to remember that there are more and more people trying to grow organically and they're going to lose their are going to start as if some of that stuff and paid their land and that's and again how can that even be foods you need to a certified organic food that's one way but you know as i've realised recently we buy eggs from the local farmer but what i don't know is what are they feeding that the chicken so be it but it basically if you if you shop around the outside of the grocery store and you avoid packaged and processed foods the things you want to try to avoid the most are the things that are and everything really cane sugar sugar be is pretty much all genetically modified so it was caught on canola soil a lot of people there was a big big big play on soil a few years back to say that it was a much healthier thing and people in asia are at it and  many ideas that came up you know when you sort of it's ok yeah ok it's about you know how do we get there how do we get the word out i mean there's there's probably people listening maybe year i don't know where you are but whatever wherever you are in the snake this concerns you this is not like a little group on the edge of of civilization on the edge of nine imo this is this is about you this is about your children i'm a grandmother i look at my grandchildren and i think what is it going to be like for them i'm my feet would i you know like now if i had children would i be careful about what i was connection at c h l why dot ca where we streamed live and podcast and we are a little behind on the changes podcasts but we are hoping to catch up with those quite soon and meanwhile of course you can see  a whole listing of podcasts from other locally produced programs here at c h l y at c h o y dot ca just a couple of events coming up first of all oscar romero was a catholic bishop in el salvador who spoke out against poverty social injustice assassinations and torture and was himself assassinated actually in one nine hundred eighty every year there is a romero commemoration and this year it will be held in a ny minute with an and i'm a one will be held sunday march twenty third seven pm at st andrew's united church that's the one at fitzwilliam in wesley in the old city quarter and the topic will be listening to voices of women it says here each year we ask ourselves what would oscar romero be engaged in if he were alive now and our answer is remero would be listening to the voices of women speaking out about violence against women so they've actually said when blood is of a battered woman the wound is everyone's and it doesn't take a lot of thinking to see how how wide the effects go actually when someone is in that situation the speakers at this event will be bishop emeritus remy to rue charlene richardson from voices of indigenous women phil little bringing stories from central america and there will be a voice from haven house in the ny mo here as yet to be announced that particular individual is yet to be announced penney's city or if i'm pronouncing that correctly from gabriel o will sing and lead community singing charlie fox will sing his romero song and everyone is welcome and there's a reception to follow if you would like more information you can contact fill at two five zero two four five seven two four five again that's two four five seven two four five and once again the event itself is sunday march twenty third seven pm at st andrew's united church on fitzwilliam could i put in a plug for that so sound yeah i'm not going to miss this event i would go every year i would go anywhere to hear remy to rue because he is a tremendous voice of conscience in canada and has paid quite a price for it within his chosen vocation so  anybody who wants to get a feeling of uplift about social justice could go to the romero event and come away feeling better ok yes yes yes there is something else happening at the deep ba marine field station which is part of v i you actually fin to feather art from the shores of the sailors sea it's on now through april fourteenth the admission which includes admission to the station to see the aquariums and touch tanks is only five dollars for adults three dollars for students and children twelve and under are free and this is part of the brant festival this year and they say in anticipation of the arrival of the herring which of course is a big deal there's a whole thing with the herring revealed grass and the rats gays who migrate up through through the street at this time of year it says there's a tangible increase in energy and diversity of wildlife within our coastal waters and shoreline forests come in view and invest your appreciation of local ceiling artists as they capture the essence of this exciting yearly event within their realms of clay paint metal glass and wood art will be for sale and will include a public judging contest oh that so is interesting for more information on that you c contact claire viol at two five zero seven four zero six six zero nine that's seven four zero six six zero nine or email claire dot vile that c l a i r e dot v i am the late victor at vi you dot ca and as i mentioned this is part of the brandt festival which is also on now through april twenty first with a number of other events that will be coming up at the deep bay marine field station as well as other places like hamilton marsh and various other places come area and on up to bowzer i understand the station is quite spectacular and well where to visit in itself just the architecture of it is quite interesting yeah so once again that's the deep bay marine field station and you can google that i'm sure or look at up on the vi you have site to find out exactly where it is actually this thursday march twentieth at seven a well known local naturalist will be giving a talk on penguins in antarctica which seems a bit unrelated to the case opposed to the brand but you never know you never know what the connections might be tickets for that are ten dollars and are available in the ny mo at the vi you welcome center as well as the courtyard cafe and call it can be the sale is the market and  field station itself and you can get more information on the brandt festival at brant festival dot b c dot ca and will be mentioning more events in the coming weeks just lead back into the topic that we have on changes today i have the new issue of yes magazine which is one of my favorite things to promote on the show here and they have something called the page that counts it's a bit like what harper's magazine does as well and they say there that the percentage of g m o crops grown globally that are produced in the ass is sixty nine point five so sixty nine point five percent of all g m o crops globally are produced in the united states according to them and their source for that is the international service for the acquisition of agra biotech applications as of march two thousand and twelve so for what that's worth and then it says that countries other than the united states which require g m o food labels sixty four so that's not a whole lot but it is somewhat significant in the source of information for that is the center for food safety april two thousand and thirteen american so let me just say before we start back that you are listening to and canada and the us are the only countries in what we know as the developed world that do not require labeling of genetically modified organisms which is why it is so difficult to avoid them and i think that that's that's a very harsh fact we're having a lot of problem with independent science on this continent one of the things we were talking about for people locally to consider was actions that i call resistance resistance to the globalized tinkering with it with our food and one of the areas where we can resist is in retail in supermarkets when we buy our food we can ask questions which makes food managers very nervous and there's this lovely thing are very concerned about the you know opening a dialogue with grocery stores particularly their local chains we've got i think five local chains that are specific to the island and i did actually invite all five to come along to the meeting and i just did hear from one of them i don't know if you want to know which one oh let's just listen the local one so the local ones that would be get to the meeting they would really value opening dialogue with us because they have a large clientele from the cedar area which is strong in local farming well we do our scumming i always ask about the colon that's  but i did get on to the grocery this is incidental but i got onto a grocery website sometime last year and i understand that it is a very hot issue amongst grocery stores and they do you know they are going to have to make some decisions lying around for between twelve to fifteen days before they would go brown so therefore you know if you receive a little kind of caught a little you know little bit of lettuce with a few slices of apple on your plate and the apple is looking nice and white you think it's give you the names of the bacteria but i don't think i could pronounce them and what we don't know is what the new nutritional content of after a certain period because i have never gotten over being told that a lettuce is only good that that if it if those things have been put into it in order to stop the browning then they're not going to miraculously disappear and the company kind of puts it out that this is they've just turned off a little switch inside the apple we all know food so have said they won't use it so one of the things that we are doing now in canada mind you in the u s one of the things that we are doing is going into grocery stores asking the project manager will you be stocking the arctic apple the g e arctic apple and it has to be the local stores because they the big one they don't have the authority to know they don't decision and that's that is being tackled technical differences between no oh and really i think it's counting the number of financials that done so in the head of a pin but we should perhaps pay attention to what people are trying to distinguish from my understanding nigeria is that he refers to genetic engineering which uses genetic modification to create genetically modified have you have something you make them together in whatever way and you have something that results from that this is lateral this is taking a gene from from this plant and bacteria from here and a bit of this is what farmers and growers have done for for millennia from the beginning of time but genetic engineering is perhaps the most invasive method that we've there's it's all about the profit motive again and we know my know as consumers so the profit motive is usually our enemy because it means that our interests are not put first somebody else as well in this case there you know that we know that we know we've all heard about monsanto and that is syngenta and that's stupid and another of the really worrying things here is that they are they have been buying up seed between them and i i hate to quote in case i'm wrong but it's somewhere up in the high eighty's eighty seven percent ninety percent of all seed companies and now by these very this very powerful group of companies which takes us back into the local action again because we're talking about things that will be we can actually do positive flaying to look after ourselves and one of the local actions as being very selective when you buy your seats and the only way you can be selective is to learn the names of those seed companies which are independent and which do not have genetically modified connection absolutely and trading seeds is so important organically if not a can actually farming ethically and it was just a very very positive kind of event to be connected with but one of the petitions one of the five petitions at the moment that in and  i was carrying is the right to safety see eighteen you probably know a lot more about this than i do marjorie that we picked up somewhere in our you know our investigations and research that that there is a veil and going into government which might could by the wording limit pharmacy right to say see now we just feel that this is bullying at a very high level because we as human beings have a right to a garden we have a right to grow plants we have a right to say seeds how can that be taken away from us well see eighteen is going to be something that we're going to have to do a lot of work on and for those of you who aren't into  c eighteen is going to be a huge issue even as a simple thing as the older gardeners and growers in our community being bamboozled by seed companies came to mind yesterday  pacific something seeds and something else that says west coast seeds and while we're fairly sure that west code seed stone to include genetically modified s oil in our kind of weather appropriate for us kind of land you just can't be sure so it's just not worth while it's not like the old days where you could go into bucket fields and buy packets  good seeds it's just not like that thing and i've salt spring seeds is certainly one to keep in mind because we know that they they grow the plants right there on salt spring island and they they they use something to hold open pollination has something there anyway it's its heritage varieties i think very very trustworthy company you know that if they're open pollinated they have not been genetically that's the that's the opposite term so what does open pollinated me then it means that he's done it in his fields and he's allowed the plants to pollinate each other and he has grower has very carefully made sure that the plant has pollinated itself and it's interesting what you're saying about sea adapted plants adapting to the conditions that they've grown and and this again seems to me to speak for local regional growing and saving of seed and sharing of plants the seed and i think when people garden life becomes much more interesting to them and it's specially children for chair does a lot of gardening with children and then from the garden they go to the kitchen and they make salads or they cook with what they've grown and they understand their food much better and as somebody pointed out if a kid grew it he'll eat it whereas if his mother gives it to him it's a whole nother quest so that whole business of local is the way to protect yourself now there's going to be some need for action on labeling that's one of the things we can always do and as jane point to doat at the retail level is ask about labeling terminology we dealt with there's a lot of education to happen for people it's a very difficult concept to get across as as we've just mentioned it reminded me very much of the old battles for radiation dream nuclear fission plants and how in fact what the radiation  radiation and and cancer and similarly we've got a whole bunch of people another bunch of reckless people producing seeds whose end result in the human body ended that it is ok for them to rape and pillage and it does not matter about future generations as long as they make enough money to satisfy their shareholders and the now and that and that as i age that becomes really important because i think we we are renters on this and no matter how much we think we have we're here for a short very short period of time and it is our duty it is our responsibility to make sure that what we handing on what handing down after we go is something that is as good as what we have enjoyed both or preferably better one of the things i want to turn to know is to look at the challenges facing your noble little group of four chain put their hands in their pockets and hired an expensive parks and recreation room and invited people out and did all the the spade work if i can use the agricultural metaphor what what kind of challenges do you face in terms of resources both human and financial f start well financial there's always an issue we can't and we my husband and i do a lot of the printing for example ourselves often with staples help but yes we do we do end up putting some of our own money and we do have to do fundraisers we've done one but this this little group is that where we're pretty new in terms of a group we've only been around for eight or nine months  feel fundraising in the future but networking seems to me to be one of the one of the best things we can do there are a lot of issues that coming you know coming thick and fast and i'm if i can stray briefly from the from the g issue you know what people are out there protecting preserving and fighting against things that we think we've elected government to deal with so getting together and making l statements getting helping people to be more informed we're looking at some of the ideas from the meeting workshops shops on how to get the message out there council of canadians has an upcoming workshop i believe on what they call civil disobedience but it's really about making a statement you know making people understand making government understand people would like workshops to learn more about g m we thought about you know how could we get the this into the schools how can how can children be taught and growing a garden is obviously a very you know very very effective one and my daughter is involved in that in new zealand and the kids just this is a job for parents to do because parents listen to schools and those of us who are not currently parents of children in school or teachers in school who are charged with educating our children we really don't have much clout when it comes to asking the schools to pay attention so there are lots of people who think they can do nothing but because they are a person at school or a parent of a person school there's a great deal they can do in terms of opening up they opportunities for young folks to learn about these issues that they're going to have to deal with much i'm really glad that you brought that up because we were talking this morning actually before i came in about parent teacher organizations for example we have a g e freen and i'm a has a facebook page and we will be putting on to that facebook page the details of upcoming meetings we can't afford newspaper advertising so if people are at all interested you can you can contact us from our g e free facebook page everybody is welcome we'd love to have some parent teacher groups telling us how we can get that message out to children there's all kinds of possibilities in daylong workshops you know group things where we can we can sort of share our ideas and opinions and see how we can move forward and a lot of people have skills that they don't realize contributed i see i think they seem to be more parents that hope with their children these days now these are brilliant usually doing fundraising and organizing events some people it's hard to stop them from doing fundraising they love it so much and they so good at it and here's an opportunity for them to fundraise for a very important  cause that's one thing people who are computer savvy and maybe shy and a bit geeky oh how useful could they be in terms of making lists looking after names looking after  information looking after records for you and then there are those amazing people who are really good at managing money because that's always one of the tasks is keeping track of the money so that you can report out periodically what you've been doing with the money instead of just letting it slip through your fingers while you're doing good so that's one of the things but more than anything i'm concerned about the people who are  community that they feel completely powerless and i like to try and encourage such people not to get into arguments just to learn how to say i don't agree with you and there's the beginning stop the bully at the dinner table not by getting up at the ball over the head with your butt but just saying i don't agree with you and just leave it there and it's wonderful how the courage will grow and how  the topics will change and how the bullies will very often back off so we really need to be feeling our power and understanding that there's a lot we can do about issues such as this and look at this people will be looking for seats in your municipalities this november that's not very far away how are we going to get them to pay attention to this issue there are fourteen made to minister policies i believe it's fourteen at this point who have actually declared themselves g e freezer and while it doesn't affect farmers who are already growing genetically modified corn for example we know there are farmers on the island who are growing growing genetically modified corn which is being felt  cattle dairy cattle which is going into the milk so you know that's another issue but but there are there are a number of us apologies within b c who are very concerned about this and in when it comes to us questions of politicians or would be politicians and and my advice always is be sure to ask your questions of the people that you already know you want to support so that them to state their personal position on g e modified food and then hold them to what they've said so these are these are things that anybody could could get to fat people are pretty jaded about elections but it gets quite exciting when you ask really important questions in november you know yes and i mean if i could again just stray briefly from tea if you're ok with this  one of the big issues very big issues that's facing us here in and imo is the incinerator point this could very well be and should be i think an election issue for our local city council and regional district council is definitely connected to healthy food i think because because what people forget is that that stuff does not go away if there is no way there's only an away on star trek and we don't live on the here because this is another thing it's about rights the big companies are big biotech companies like monsanto if a province decided that when going to grow that say g m corn in b c monsanto or another biotech company could actually sue us under trade agreements which our government is doing probably secretly most of the time and these companies can come back and sue us what don't they have rights what about if the corporation does something which effects their rights as an organic father than this is the part that i don't understand and i and i feel that people need to be aware we need to be instead of saying oh there's nothing we can do there's nothing we can do about against government there are things and they are our elected officials you know in the end i think we have a right to say don't give us all the scientific facts don't each one of us to examine our own habits because they incinerators a very very good example it just encourages to us to waste more whereas if we knew we were running into trouble with all the junk that we can't stuff into those idiotic mini warehouses then we would presumably collect less self it and not have to try and figure out how to get rid of it or pretend to get rid of it by burning it up and making it not so obvious so it's really about what can we do as individuals the personal is the women's ones we used to say is the political personal responsibility and i think that when people feel helpless once they realize they have a responsibility they can become powerful by exercising that responsibility well jane i really want to thank you enormously for not not just for coming here today but for doing this because i'm sure you knew when you embarked on being being part of the motivating force behind and imo it's a long haul yes this is a commitment it's a long term commitment and you're going to need a lot of help with the education with the activities with the events with the fundraising and with the functional tasks group and certainly it's going to be difficult for people who are already active in the community to find extra time to be part of the network to be connected and the agencies out there will be worried that energy will be  to go into something new so we need new people and again anybody out there who is listening new people are tremendously welcome in all the codes who are in today do you have any specific information that you'd like to feed in because we're getting close to finishing only that we will have a follow up meeting to the meeting that we had last friday we will be getting those charts out we will be looking at the prioritizing deciding what actions to take what are the most important things that we need to look at and you don't have to have been at that meeting to come to a follow up meeting and the only way i can advertise that i'm afraid is through and i'm a facebook page and there's an email if you go in eleven on c h l why we will be live most of the time from now on do check out our facebook page and stay tuned now for native solidarity news on behalf of our production team thanks so much for joining us