Saturday, July 20, 2013

July 2013 Fair Vote Canada Newsletter

FVC July 2013 Newsletter
  • Bob Rae joins our National Advisory Board
  • Last Two Weeks to Help the Best Video Win
  • Biggest Democracy Week Ever in the Works
  • Fair Vote Canada Takes Toronto Reform Fight to Queen's Park
  • Executive Director Position 
  • Fair Vote Canada in Our Schools
  • Two Big Things You Can Do to Help Fair Vote Canada in Less Than 2 Minutes!

Bob Rae Bob Rae joins our National Advisory Board 
Fair Vote Canada is pleased to announce the addition of former Liberal Leader Bob Rae,  PCOC,OOntQCMP, to its National Advisory Board. “Canadians need to know that their votes will really count. This means moving beyond our first-past-the-post-system”, says Rae, a long time supporter of adding proportionality to Canada’s electoral system. Bob Rae joins Stephane Dion in endorsing adding proportionality to Canada's electoral system. Dion, who spoke at our 2012 convention is also featured on our new website, is endorsing a moderately proportional system. Bob Rae joins other notable Canadians on our Advisory Board, including Maude Barlow, David Suzuki, Ed Broadbent and Hugh Segal. Read more in our press release.

Last Two Weeks of the Fair Vote Canada Video Contest! 
Video contest pictureOn August 1 we announce the winners of our first video contest! Contestants are competing for a viewer's choice award (most views), and a judged panel award from a stellar panel of judges, including March Achbar, producer of Canada's top grossing documentary of all time, The Corporation, Jamie Biggar, ED of Leadnow.ca, and former Muchmusic DJ Jennifer Hollet. There's something for everyone in the entries we received... What happens when a 245 million dollar fast food order at the "Selections Canada" restaurant goes bad? What happens when a group of friends try to order a Pizza using first-past-the-post? Learn why we need PR and works it could work in beaver country, mouse county, and Canada! Check out the videos and help the spread the word by sharing your favourites!

Fair Vote Toronto at PrideThe Biggest Democracy Week in Canada is Coming: Sept 16 -23 
Fair Vote Canada is busy preparing for our biggest Democracy Week ever. With a record number of teams and chapters from Newfoundland to British Columbia, supporters will be helping spread the word about proportional representation in communities throughout Canada this September. We'll also be having an event on Parliament Hill to officially launch our 2015 campaign. Stay tuned for event details. If you would like to organize an info table or an event in your community, we'll give you everything you need to get started. Contact: anita.nickerson@fairvote.ca

 Fair Vote Canada Takes Toronto Reform Fight To Queen's Park
Queen's Park

On June 11, "local voting reform in Ontario took a quantum leap forward,” stated Stuart Parker, Vice President of Fair Vote Canada and chairperson of its national Fair Vote City campaign. “Activists with RaBIT, Fair Vote and a number of other key civil society organizations won an important moral victory in getting Toronto City Council to make a non-binding resolution to request from the Ontario Legislature the power to use voting systems in which electors may place marks other than ‘X’ on their ballots. This is a major development for both supporters of Instant Runoff Voting and for Single Transferable Vote (STV).” Read more...
 Fair Vote Canada in Schools
EFTO Voice
Volunteers continue to reach out to civics and social science teachers with our secondary school lesson plan. This year, we are pleased to announce that Fair Vote Canada and Fair Voting BC have been accepted as partners with the BC Social Science Teachers Association.  Fair Vote Canada member and teacher Cindy Spackman has written an excellent article -Teaching Proportional Representation- for the June 2013 issue of Voice, the magazine of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, which reaches 80,000 teachers in Ontario. If you know a teacher, share this article! A working group is helping us improve our lesson and get it out to teachers. If you would like to play a role, contact anita.nickerson@fairvote.ca
Executive Director Position
Wayne Smith, former Executive Director of Fair Vote Canada, has moved onto other opportunities. We wish him all the best in his future endeavours and thank him for his service to Fair Vote Canada. Anita Nickerson is the current Interim ED while the National Council conducts a search for a full time Executive Director. A job posting will be on the Fair Vote Canada website shortly.
 The two biggest things you can do to help Fair Vote Canada in under two minutes
1) Sign and share our Declaration of Voters Rights. We are at over 19,000 signatures. We know from the latest Environics poll that 76% of Canadians support proportional representation. if each of you can share this with friends and family, we can massively increase the number of signatures. Then we'll deliver the Declaration to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and opposition leaders, as part of our biggest campaign yet - to make 2015 the last unfair election.
2) Donate. Fair Vote Canada is a one staff, volunteer driven, non-profit advocacy organization with a big goal - to make our votes count. We can only succeed together thanks to supporters like you. We deeply value your support.

No comments: