We are on holiday, plus news about our office move AND some important webinar and other updates.

Dear Friends,

Our staff has been working extremely hard since we moved to home offices on 14 March 2020. So we are taking a short break. Watch for the next blog on Friday, 21 August 2020.

And now we have made the home-office move permanent, by not extending the lease on our offices at 63 Sparks Street, Suite 608, when it expired at the end of July 2020. It was a big decision since the Rideau Institute has occupied those offices in the historic Hope Building since 2008.

We depart Sparks Street with sadness at leaving what has been the vibrant focal point of our Rideau Institute and Ceasefire.ca activities for so long, with satisfaction at all we have been able to achieve and with much hope and excitement for what lies ahead, in this new, and exciting phase of our work.

The entrance to 63 Sparks Street was immediately to the left of the James Hope and Sons building.

The photo below is the top of our building, originally called Bible House as the Mennonite Central Committee was a long-time NGO resident.

On the final day of our move, we took two pictures from inside my empty office — the first in front of the east-facing window with the National War Memorial in the background.

 

The photo below is taken from the north-facing office window, looking into the Office of the Prime Minister and Privy Council building, formerly called the Langevin Block. The Justin Trudeau bobble head is courtesy of Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.

The OFFICE TELEPHONE NUMBER IS THE SAME: 613-565-9449.

The new MAILING ADDRESS is: PO Box 11312, Ottawa H, Nepean ON K2H 7V1

Note, however, that we have MAIL FORWARDING for one year so pre-paid, self-addressed ceasefire.ca return envelopes to the 63 Sparks Street address can STILL BE USED.

Our home offices are much more cost effective than a central office location. The pandemic has shown us we can do our media, parliamentary and public outreach through video conferencing, zoom webinars, Skype meetings and other new “virtual” approaches, as well as through our usual social media blogs, posts and tweets!

SOME IMPORTANT WEBINAR AND OTHER UPDATES.

Following up on Canada’s loss in the bid to gain a UN Security Council seat for 2021-22, I took part in a lively webinar discussion on the role that Canada’s one-sided policy on Israel – Palestine might have played. To see the webinar, click on the video below:

To mark the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (CNANW), of which the Rideau Institute is a proud member, hosted a webinar on 6 August featuring many of Canada’s leading nuclear disarmament activists. I was privileged to be among them. And the text of my remarks can be found by clicking:  Mason 75th anniv webinar comments.  To see the webinar, click on the video below:

QUEBEC COMMISSION RELEASES LANDMARK ASBESTOS REPORT

Quebec’s independent Office of Public Hearings on the Environment (Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement) today made public its report on the state and management of asbestos and asbestos mining wastes in Quebec. The three-member Commission was mandated by Quebec’s Minister of the Environment to carry out an inquiry and advise the government how to deal responsibly with the more than 800 million tons of asbestos mining wastes left by asbestos mines that operated in Quebec for more than a century. In particular, the Commission was asked to make recommendations regarding multi-billion dollar projects to extract magnesium and other metals from the asbestos mining wastes.

Rideau Institute Board Member and leading anti-asbestos activist Kathleen Ruff comments:

The Commission has made an important, positive contribution to protecting the health of workers and the people of Quebec. It conducted its hearings and its investigation in a rigorous, transparent manner. Its report is thorough and its recommendations are responsible and just.

The question now is: how will the Quebec government respond?

 

 

Photo credits: 1. Rideau Institute, 2. and 3. Wikimedia images 4. and 5. Robin Collins