[Sjsall] upcoming events
- Details
- Published on Sunday, 29 November -0001 16:00
- Written by editor
Dear Friends of SJS,
Jan. 16 and other dates:
Anti-Violence Project Consent Workshops (faculty, please share with students in your classes):
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Jan. 16:
Budget Town Hall Meeting
Please join us on Wednesday, January 16, 2019 for a Budget Town Hall.
What is a Town Hall?
A Town Hall is a public meeting where citizens can come and voice their opinion on certain topics, outside of a formal Council meeting.
The Budget Town Hall will be held on Wednesday, January 16 at 6:30 p.m. (doors open at 6 p.m.) and provides an opportunity for the public to ask questions about the draft budget and provide feedback.
The meeting will be interactive and webcast live. Participants will be able to attend and provide feedback in person at City Hall, or from the comfort of your own... home. Citizens will be able to submit questions prior to the event, or in real-time during the event and then watch the webcast for the answers.
Ways to Participate
In person - Attend the meeting at City Hall, 1 Centennial Square
Twitter - Submit your questions via Twitter using #VicTownHall
Website - Submit your questions or comments online
By Phone - Once the meeting is underway, call us at 250.361.0327 and we'll transcribe your question for you. Please note this number is not monitored prior to or after the Town Hall.
Find Out More
Read the full Financial Plan [PDF - 27.6 MB]
Watch our explainer video on what a municipal budget is, and why it’s important to you
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Communities Against Criminalization
Victoria Council’s Draft 2019-20 Financial Plan Needs Change: Divest from Policing, Invest in Communities
* please share widely *
‘Victoria’ City Council, a municipal government operating on stolen Lkwungen Territories, has drafted a 2019/20 Financial Plan that continues the legacy of 157 years of colonialism, prioritizing investment in policing as an enforcement of settler laws instead of addressing community needs.
For several years, affordable housing has been the #1 issue in the annual Vital Signs Survey of ‘Victoria’ residents. Yet, in the proposed budget policing is by far the highest expenditure at > $57 million per year (23.4% of the operating budget) while in contrast only $109,403 is proposed for implementation of the Victoria Housing Strategy and $250,000 for affordable housing projects (0.15% of the operating budget). The Draft Financial Plan states that a key goal is to “allocate additional city revenue to affordable housing” but the proposed budget does the opposite, decreasing the funding for the housing strategy and leaving the housing reserve annual allocation unchanged which given inflation means a decrease in real dollars. This does not reflect the widespread public concern about affordable housing, which is getting worse not better.
In the past 10 years, the VicPD operating expenditures have increased by 32%, a $13 million increase and nearly triple the rate of inflation. Now the VicPD are requesting another $3.24M increase (6.01%) for their 2019-2020 operating budget, with an additional capital budget of just under $2 million. Expanding police funding ignores the serious harms done by police, giving police more power and resources to surveil, question, detain, and arrest people who they deem as contributing to ‘social disorder’ while gutting community capacity to change the systemic conditions that are the root of many crises.
Consistent with the commitment in its 2019-2022 Draft Strategic Plan to “exercise fiscal responsibility in policing expenditures” and its 2013 endorsement of the Community Action Plan on Discrimination, the City should divest from policing as a response to health and social issues, which comprises a significant portion of the police portfolio and causes significant harm. According to the VicPD, many of the service calls that come to police are not for emergency situations involving violence but rather for what they call ‘social disorder’: policing people who are homeless (wake-ups/move-alongs, etc.), using drugs in public, or struggling with mental health. Additionally the VicPD proactively targets Indigenous and low-income communities by heavily patrolling areas where people from these targeted communities live, gather, and access services. These harmful practices must stop.
Community problems can be solved by regular people, using strategies far more creative than the police’s tactics of surveillance, punishment, and threat of force to maintain control. Cops can never create true safety, but communities can -- by expanding capacity to care for each other, increasing social cohesion, reducing inequality, and engaging in transformative justice.
Communities Against Criminalization is encouraging people to send messages to Victoria Council BEFORE JANUARY 20 (the closing date for the City’s public input process) and to consider attending Council meetings on January 17 and 31 to call for divestment from policing and investment in real community solutions.
Take Action
The City’s public input process wraps up January 20. At that point Councillors will review consolidated public feedback, decide whether to make changes to the Draft Financial Plan, and then bring it to a Council meeting to vote on adoption.
The City’s draft financial plan is 800 pages, making it a daunting read. To help make this more accessible we’ve posted notes at https://tinyurl.com/CACSurveyResponses with detailed comments on the VicPD budget, as well as notes on other budget items relating to policing-oriented approaches to poverty and substance use, social profiling, marginalized peoples’ survival, and the need to invest in community solutions. While there are a range of other social justice and environmental issues reflected in or omitted from the draft financial plan that are also extremely important and we hope people will also comment more broadly, our analysis reflects the focus of Communities Against Criminalization.
We hope you will use our notes and other materials linked below to take action. Some possibilities are:
1. Sign the CAC open letter BEFORE JANUARY 18, calling for a freeze to the VicPD budget and investment in communities
2. Complete the City’s survey BEFORE JANUARY 20 (use our sample responses if you want)
3. Send a letter to Council BEFORE JANUARY 20 (use one of our sample letters if you want): This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
4. Send in questions for the Budget Town Hall BEFORE JANUARY 16
5. Consider attending Council meetings JANUARY 17 AND 31 to call for divesting from policing and investing in communities (we can provide draft presentation materials if you want to present)
This call for action is part of a wider campaign to expose the harms of criminalization and build support for defunding policing and putting that money into REAL solutions to problems in our communities. We believe that real safety comes from building community-based prevention and response strategies rather than the surveillance and criminalization of marginalized people. We're inspired by creative solutions emerging in other communities such as the Oakland Power Projects, CAHOOTS crisis response team, Audre Lorde Project's Safe Outside the System prevention/response to anti-LGBTQ violence, People's Community Medics, and many more.
Inspiration
* Oakland Power Projects: https://oaklandpowerprojects.org
* Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS): http://whitebirdclinic.org/cahoots-faq
* Safe Outside the System: https://alp.org/programs/sos
* People’s Community Medics: http://www.peoplescommunitymedics.org
* Night Out for Safety and Liberation: http://www.nosl.us/
See also the many resources linked from our website, https://nocrimyyj.wordpress.com
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Jan. 17:
This year on January the 1st marked the 60th year of the victory of the Cuban Revolution. On Thursday, January 17 @ 2994 Douglas staring at 7pm our Friends of Cuba committee will be holding a special event for this occasion with some performances from our local talent and we will also have with us as our guest speaker Tania López Larroque who is the Cuban Consul General in Toronto.
We cordially invite you, your family and friends to join us for this event.
Victoria Friends of Cuba
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Jan. 31:
Workable Solutions to the Climate Crisis
Thursday, January 31, 2019
7:00-9:00pm
First Metropolitan Church
932 Balmoral Road, Victoria
with
CUPW Local#650
BC SEA
LEAP VICTORIA
VICTORIA COUNCIL of CANADIANS
AGM for The VICTORIA COUNCIL of CANADIANS
to be held at 6:30pm.
ALL ARE WELCOME
“As we make the needed transition away from fossil fuels, there will be no shortage of jobs.” Christine Boyle & Seth Klein-Nov. 1, 2013
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Feb. 7 and other dates (faculty, please share with students in your classes):
Anti-Violence Project Support Workshops
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March 7:
Looking for support and participation for upcoming event:
Bold Action for Forests and Climate
7 am-10 am
March 7, 2019 ( tentative)
Provincial Legislature Building
Lekwungen territory
The old-growth temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest are amongst the most biologically productive forests, storing more carbon than any forests on earth. They play a critical role in helping mitigate against runaway climate change now considered the most grave existential threat facing humanity.
Yet on Vancouver island alone, the last remaining old-growth rainforests are being logged at a rate of 10, 000 hectares per year or 32 soccer fields per day! This colossal deforestation, amongst the worst in the world, is totally unacceptable in a climate emergency and during the planet's sixth wave of mass extinction caused by the ravages of a colonial/capitalist system that seems to accept no limits to growth. The BC NDP government has been a big disappointment in failing to change course from the neo-liberal forest policies of the previous Liberal government era of gross deregulation, raw log exports and mismanagement of the forests.
There is a tentative date of March 7, 2019 for a grassroots bold action mobilization at the Provincial legislature in Victoria on Lekwungen territory that will centre youth voices and bring together broad-based representation from Indigenous peoples, climate and forest activists, the environmental community, faith, labour and social justice groups and other concerned citizens together to surround the Legislature with linked arms to tell the Horgan government that the time is now to address this crisis and to act to protect the earth's primary forests on this island, to ensure a safe climate future for all and to pass a moratorium on all further logging of the last 5-7 % remaining old-growth rainforests on the island with a just transition strategy to sustainable second-growth forestry that supports workers and forest-dependent communities.
We will surround the Legislative building for two hours with the intention of possibly and peacefully delaying its opening, followed by speakers, music and a media conference. We are hoping youth can stage a climate walkout from school on that day inspired by the Youth Global Climate Strikers movement.
The action is being planned as a family friendly event and to be accessible and non-arrestable to the majority of participants, though non-violent direct action training will be provided ahead of time for those who are prepared to risk arrest.
This initiative is being spearheaded by the Friends of Carmanah/Walbran , a grassroots, volunteer-run, direct action group that started in the early 90s in actions to defend the last great rainforests of the Walbran Valley/ Kaxi:ks, unceded Pacheedaht territory.
We are hoping to gain co-sponsorship and direct involvement of the event from engos and grassroots groups specifically: Youth Global Climate Strikers, Friends of Clayoquot Sound, Stand.earth, Tla-oqui-aht Tribal Parks, Rise and Resist, Private and Public Workers of Canada, Wilderness Committee, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Ancient Forest Alliance, Extinction Rebellion, Resistance Rising Choir, Social and Environmental Alliance, Retail Action Network, KAIROS, Unitarian Church, Council of Canadians and others.
Please let us know if your group or organization would like to endorse this day of action or help be involved in its organizing.
Much thanks,
Bobby Arbess and Jessica Demers
Friends of Carmanah/Walbran
Reuben Garbanzo This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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March 7:
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Margo L. Matwychuk, PhD
Director, Social Justice Studies
c/o Dept of Anthropology
University of Victoria
PO Box 1700, STN CSC
Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2
Office: Cornett B210
PH: (250) 721-6283
FAX: (250) 721-6215
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it."> This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
http://web.uvic.ca/socialjustice/
We acknowledge and respect the Songhees, Esquimalt and WSÁNEĆ peoples on whose unceded territory the university stands and whose relationships with the land continue to this day.
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