Update from Canada
FROM Avi Chomsky
Mar 25 (2 days ago)
Jose Julio finishes the Canada portion of his tour today, returning to Boston for one night and taking off for Arkansas-Los Angeles-DC tomorrow. Here's a summary of how things went in Canada from Garry:
It has been an amazing week in New Brunswick and here in Halifax. Jose Julio did a live interview on CBC radio yeserday morning and both Halifax dailies interviewed him and published articles. He met with NSP for two hours and they were cautiously positive about moving ahead with some sort of code of conduct and continuing discussions around these issues. The public event last night at Dalhousie University was fantastic! We had about 70 people turn out and the response was electric. Jose Julio also had a breakfast meeting with MP Alexa McDonaugh, who is the NDP's foeign affairs critic in Ottawa. She has been one of the driving forcing behind a parliamentary bill that will hold Canadian companies responsible under Canadian law for engaging in practices overseas that would be considered illegal in Canada. She is really progressive and a wonderful person. She suggested that an NDP member of the provincial government go on the delegation and will help us try to facilitate it. The NDP is the number two party in Nova Scotia and just might win the next provincial election, which is terrifying for NSP because the company was only privatized about nine years ago and if anyone is going to reverse that process because of public discontent with the company it will be the NDP. We also got lots of interest in the delegation at the public event from members of different unions. I have a feeling you might have a whole bunch of Canadians on your delegation.
Jose Julio will be flying back to Boston this afternoon. It has been a great week and I think he is really happy with the way things have gone. People were really taken with Jose Julio and we had some at the public event last night ask if we can post updates from the rest of his tour (in the US) on ARSN's website so they will know what is happening.
Avi----------------------------------------
North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee: http://home.comcast.net/~nscolombia/
Posted by nscolombia
at 7:32 PM EST
