Granny Power – a film worth seeing

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Here’s a website well worth checking out:  www.grannypowerthefilm.com.

Have a look at clips from the documentary film Granny Power by Canadian director Magnus Isacsson.  This dynamic film traces the Raging Grannies movement from its founding in British Columbia 25 years ago, and shows examples of Granny activism in action over 10 years

The Montreal Raging Grannies gaggle has created an amazing calendar to support the film.  It shows our intrepid sisters from la belle province wearing only their hats, tastefully and judiciously placed.  Ladies, you look stunning.  You can order the calendar on the website.

 

Dump Site 41: When we the people won.

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Three years ago, on September 22, 2009, Simcoe County Council voted by a large majority to finally abandon its plans to put a garbage dump on Site 41.  This site is right on top of an aquifer containing some of the purest water in the world.  Very bad idea, but the Council didn’t seem to think so.

For over 25 years local people worked hard to prevent this from happening.  People protested in every way they could think of, through presentations and petitions to Simcoe County Council, and to the provincial government, which gave the dump site environmental approval.  Protest marches.  Letters to editors.  Songs.  At their own expense, the people hired independent scientific experts to do tests and write reports.  All to no avail for more than 25 long years.

Then things changed in 2009.

First, local First Nations people decided enough already.  In the Anishinabe culture, women are the keepers of water, so a group of Anishinabe women set up a protest camp at the site.  The men are the keepers of fire, so a group of Anishinabe men built a sacred fire and made sure it did not go out.  A local farmer let them camp on his land; being private property, no-one could come in and turf them out.  Local people brought hardwood for the fire, and food, and shared the blockades set up to stop the bulldozers.

Remember the camp?  Wasn’t that something?  The fire, the kitchen area, the teepees.  Remember the police cars roaming the roads, officers taking down car license plate numbers at protest meetings.  Some protesters were arrested and locked up.  Yeah, that happened too, it wasn’t all just sitting round the campfire.

Barrie And District Raging Grannies singing at Site 41

The camp, the passionate First Nations speakers, the protests, the arrests, it all garnered great press coverage.  Others took notice.  Environmentalists like David Suzuki expressed their support publicly.  Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians came in person and spoke at protest meetings.  Even Ralph Nader came up from the US.

And finally, we the people won.  Three years ago, on September 22, 2009, Simcoe County Council dropped the whole terrible idea of putting a garbage dump on top of an aquifer of pristine, pure water.  At the camp celebration that night, the sacred fire which had burned for 139 days, was allowed to go out.

Google Dump Site 41 to learn more about it, and the long history of local actions and protests.  Thank you to Maude Barlow and The Council of Canadians for supporting the many groups and individuals who worked for this success.  See their site at www.canadians.org/site41 for information and a good video.

Granny Mariane, who is also a member of the Council of Canadians, says, “I am proud to have been a part of Site 41.  I took part in walks, attended the night when Maude spoke – and what a cold night that was – and sang with the Barrie And District Raging Grannies.  Site 41 gave me hope and made me want to stand up and let my voice be heard, and continues to give me courage that all is not hopeless if we stand together.”

Granny Marjorie, who kept the Barrie And District Raging Grannies up to date on Dump Site 41 through those years, could not agree more.

Granny Marjorie

Granny Mariane

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the local front: Déja vu all over again

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By Granny Molly
A meeting took place in Barrie on Wednesday, August 8, concerning the establishment of a location that would provide a number of different services to the disadvantaged members of our community “Under One Roof”.  The meeting was organized to enable public input to the proposal.  I attended, recalling that we Grannies had talked for many moons about doing something for the homeless in Barrie, but as yet had done nothing more than talk.
          As I sat there, I had the weirdest feeling I had been swept backward in some kind of Time Machine.  I had heard all these protests before!  “We don’t want these people living in our neighbourhood.  Our homes will be devalued.  Our insurance costs will increase.  The crime rate in the area will rise, and how can we be sure our children will be safe?”
          These same  objections had been trotted out when, some years ago, I was involved in trying to help establish in our community, homes that would house people with developmental delays, who had lived in institutions for most of their lives.  Now, for  the second time in my life I found  myself wondering how the good citizens of Barrie could be such experts in their forecasts, when none of them had ever before lived near such a concept, because none had existed!
          My feelings were so overwhelming that almost unconciously, my hand shot up to draw the attention of the meeting’s facilitator, Councillor Nuttall.  It so happened, I would be the last speaker of the evening.  I shared my realisations about the commonality of the protests, and the same sense of fear in the room that I could just about taste.  With great self control I refrained from saying I sensed the same degree of ignorance! I told them that all those years ago, we eventually were able to obtain a house.
          Before it was occupied, our Executive Director had been visiting the house when a neighbour approached him and punched him in the face!  At that point a decision was made.  Nobody would be moved into that house until we had a greater assurance that these people would not attack their new neighbours.
          I also suggested that none of us has a crystal ball.  None of us in that room knew our future.  Was there any guarantee that, at some, time, my own circumstances might not change from the homeownership I had heard spoken of with pride so many times that evening?  I said I felt quite sure that should such an eventuality happen to me, I would be very glad there would be somewhere in my community where I could go to for help.
          Time was of the essence, so I refrained from suggesting that perhaps this new facility might one day be the last resort for our own children or grandchildren.  I just wanted to make the point that I doubted anyone using such facilities does so from choice, but simply because their choices have run out.
          I was amazed to receive great applause.  After the meeting, a stream of people came to thank me for my contribution and to give me warm hugs.  I noticed one person who turned round and mouthed “we would look after you”!  When the  Executive Director of The Busby Centre, Sarah Peddle, gave me a hug and thanked me, I told her I had really come to see how the Barrie And District Raging Grannies could help in her fight.
          Now, Grannies, it’s time to tighten our apron strings and prepare ourselves to do more than talk.

Do you recognize this woman?

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Exactly fifty years ago, in the summer of 1962, the New Yorker magazine ran a series of articles written by one of their regular science writers.  In September of that year the articles were published as a book.  During those few months, articles and book touched off a firestorm.

The author was Rachel Carson and the book was Silent Spring.

Both author and book are revered today.  Silent Spring is now regarded as one of the founding documents of the environmental movement, which in 1962 was in its early days.  Rachel Carson now has several conservation areas and wild-life refuges named for her, as well as a bridge in Pittsburg, and book and dissertation prizes.  Other honours include a posthumous President’s Medal of Freedom, and a Great American series postage stamp .

But that’s not the way it was 50 years ago.  Not at all.  When Silent Spring was published, reaction to Rachel Carson and her book was deeply divided, to put it politely.

On the one side was the chemical industry, supported by countless other businesses which were profiting greatly from the production, sale and wide-scale spraying of insecticides and herbicides.  DDT might immediately come to mind, but it was only one of many lethal pesticides.  These immensely powerful lobbies set out to ridicule and diminish Rachel Carson in every possible way, and destroy her reputation as a scientist.  She was vulnerable, a woman in a male domain, one of only a handful of female scientists.

On the other side, many scientists agreed with Carson and supported her, as did millions of people who had observed the same death and destruction of plants and wild-life, and harm to humans, that she described.  She already had credibility with them.  She was widely known and loved for her previous books, especially The Sea Around The World and The Edge Of The Sea.  And Silent Spring is beautifully written, easy to read and easy to understand.

So – did you recognize Rachel Carson?

If you want to learn more about her, Wikipedia has a good biography, or go to www.rachelcarson.org.

Celebrate the 50-year anniversary of Silent Spring by reading it again.  Or for the first time.  The book’s a good read, and sadly, the information in it is as pertinent today as it was then.  But let’s read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in honour of a quiet, thoughtful woman who had the courage to speak out, because it was right.  She would have made a marvellous Raging Granny.