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March 2014

Hailton West - Ancaster Dundas

Liberals

Summer 2014

Red Tent is published for the members and supporters of the HWAD-FLA . Contributions welcome. Please email Lisa at

hwadliberals@gmail.com for more info or to join Communications Committee.

DIALOGUE ON MARIJUANA:

Separating

Fact from Fiction

UPCOMING EVENTS WHAT’S INSIDE

Join a committee, come to an Executive Meeting or kick up your heels at The Red Tie Gala!

Learn More………… p.6

Report on HWAD-FLA May 22

Community Dialogue Meeting

by Denise O'Connor

Read Article………………. p. 3

Message from HWAD-FLA President p.2

Report From Julia Brown, VP Youth

HWAD-FLA p.4

“Why Bother?” by John MacAlpine p.5

Chrystia Freeland’s Plutocrats Book

Talk—Recap by -David Jones p.6

From The Desk of the VP Policy- Keith

Robson p.7

Victory Fund , Sarah Van Geffen p.9

Social Media Tips and Contact Info p.10

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Hello friends,

Please enjoy our second newsletter

that reaches out to our members,

supporters, volunteers and so many

more of the shared contacts of the

Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas

(HWAD) Federal Liberal Association!

My name is Greg Van Geffen and I am

your new president for our HWAD

FLA; please check out our riding’s

webpage to learn more about me. We

wish our past president, Aidan

Johnson, all the best as he steps

down to focus on his municipal run

for Ward One on Hamilton City

Council.

It has been a busy first month for me

as president, but with the

tremendous help and support of

what I believe to be the hardest

working riding executive council in

Canada, we are working harder and

more efficiently and effectively than

ever! We encourage you to come to

our next meeting on Tuesday, June

3rd at 7:30 pm in the council

chambers of the Dundas Town Hall.

Over the past month, we’ve engaged

Hamiltonians in a variety of functions.

On May 21, our Policy VP Keith

Robson, Director Denise O’Connor,

and I participated in a roundtable

discussion on the issues surrounding

the Temporary Foreign Workers

Program with Liberal Immigration

Critic John McCallum. The next day,

our Outreach Committee hosted a

community dialogue on Marijuana:

Separating Fact from Fiction at the

McMaster Innovation Park.

Additionally, the HWAD volunteers

were out on June 25th to help our

provincial counterparts as we did a

literature drop in the Meadowlands

of Ancaster for ADFW Provincial

Liberal candidate Ted McMeekin.

It’s worth noting that with the last

canvas we completed, our riding

association has canvased four times

in the last four months and the

response we’ve received from homes

in HWAD has been terrific. People are

excited and eager to be a part of the

change taking place in Canadian

federal politics; positive change from

Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party

of Canada. If you would like to join in

our canvassing, please contact us and

we will inform you the next time we

go out. It’s a great way to connect

with the community, get some

exercise and promote/prepare for the

next election. Our riding is also in

need of phone canvassers to help

inform people who don’t use email.

Please consider becoming a

volunteer, a little help goes a long

way.

While we work hard publicly, there is

so much more being done by our

tireless executive behind the scenes.

For example; our executive VP, Marg

Stewart, who chairs our election

readiness committee, is busy laying

strong foundations through careful

preparation for next federal election.

Additionally, our candidate search

committee, led by Denise O’Connor

with John MacAlpine, Andy Tapajna,

Julia Brown and Eric Hovius, are busy

arranging our nomination process to

select the next HWAD Liberal

candidate. If you are interested in

running or know someone that may

be, I encourage you to learn more

about the process.

Finally, I would like to welcome our

two newest VPs; John Elliott for

membership and Sarah Van Geffen

for Victory Fund. John has been a

fixture at our executive meetings,

during our canvasses and at our

events. John is a great choice for the

difficult task of managing our riding’s

contacts and I encourage you to

connect with John for all of your

membership requests. Sarah Van

Geffen, will now manage the most

important fundraising tool for our

riding, the Victory Fund donation

program. If you are not a Victory

Fund donor, I encourage you to check

out the program and read Sarah’s

Victory Fund report. I’m not just

saying that because she’s my wife; it’s

a really a great program that helps

put on events, supply canvas

material, help our McMaster and

Young Liberals, and most importantly

build reserves for the next election,

among a great deal more!

Please contact me with any

questions, comments or concerns

you may have and I will do my best to

work with our great executive to

address your needs or forward you

on to someone within the Liberal

Party of Canada.

Have a fun and safe summer. I look

forward to working with you in the

near future.

Sincerely,

Greg Van Geffen

P.S. Sarah and I would love for you to join us at the Red Tie Gala on October 17th!

UPDATE FROM HWAD-FLA PRESIDENT

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We Heard from three panelists.

Beth Bromberg is a highly regarded criminal lawyer with over 20 years experience who started and evolved Hamilton’s Drug Court. The Drug Court recognizes that many of the people who land there do so because of addiction to hard drugs – crack cocaine, meth amphetamine and the like. The approach is to deal with the root causes of their criminal behavior; addiction and mental health issues. What’s interesting is that you don’t find marijuana users in this court. Their habits do not result in addiction and crime to feed their addiction. She took us through the consequence of being caught for possession of marijuana and the steps that were taken in the past to avoid people ending up with a criminal record.

We heard how the introduction by the Harper government of mandatory minimum sentences has changed everything. Despite warnings from American Republican politicians and others that this approach is a recipe for disaster and ruined lives, the Conservatives introduced this legislation in 2012. People in the audience asked why the Harper government would have gone ahead, given the policy’s failure in the US? While Beth was at a loss to explain Harper’s reasoning, an audience member suggested “sometimes bad policy makes good politics”.

Mark Coakley is also a lawyer, but in the last ten years has turned to writing as his primary occupation. His most recent book Hidden Harvest tells the riveting story of a group of criminals — Ontario police have called them “a gang with no name” — whose most famous exploit was turning an abandoned Molson beer factory north of Toronto into a giant indoor jungle of cannabis. Always engaging, Mark describes how the operation, which produced tens of millions of dollars in profits involved gun smuggling, slavery, violence, pornography, and running cocaine and other illegal chemicals. When police raided the grow-op in 2003, the massive scale of the operation drew international media attention. The true masterminds behind the operation were not arrested until 2011. Then the real story came to light and Mark captured it in this book available from Mark, through Amazon or the Hamilton Public Library.

Mark is working on a new book, Weed World , which will examine the policy approach of countries that are pioneers in the legalization of marijuana – Uruguay, Israel, Brazil and others. Clearly we are reaching a tipping point in how we view and regulate use of this relatively innocuous plant.

Former Youth Corrections Officer, Alison Myrden, was the third panelist. She brought a very personal story to the dialogue. Twenty years ago Alison became Canada’s first legal medical marijuana user. Diagnosed with MS she was told by doctors that by age 40 her family would be spoon- feeding her. Yet Alison, at 50, is a vibrant, articulate advocate for the legalization of all drugs. In her experience using marijuana as medicine has saved her life and her work helps her save others. Her personal mission is to take drug profiteering out of the hands of criminals, and regulate them so youths access to drugs is controlled. Over the course of the evening, Alison was using a vaporizer to inhale marijuana, the only thing that controls an extremely painful symptom of MS she experiences called “tic douloureux”. Alison is a member of LEAP, an international organization of law enforcement practitioners who believe in legalizing and regulating marijuana and, in fact, all drugs. Alison told us how the machinations of the Harper government as it “reformed” the regulatory regime on medical marijuana is yet another example of bad public policy and human suffering that has resulted. We encourage you to read her story. www.alisonmyrden.com

About 30 people attended this event – despite the provincial election and the Montreal-New York game. We saw some new faces and I think it’s safe to say we all learned a lot. We look forward to continuing this conversation.

David Jones did a sensational job as the emcee. Thanks to John MacAlpine and the Outreach Committee for another fantastic effort.

On May 22 HWAD’s Outreach Committee hosted a Panel Discussion that highlighted the high social and economic cost of the current regulatory framework that criminalizes people who use marijuana. Whether usage is for pain management or pleasure, the current approach is highly pu-nitive, impinges on human rights, and expands the reach of organized crime while driving up the cost of running our criminal justice system. All of this for no real social good and, in fact, great social harm.

Dialogue on Marijuana: Separating Fact from Fiction

By Denise O’Connor

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FALL IS COMING…

Contact Greg Van Geffen for Tickets. gregvange-

ffen@hotmail.com

Sunscreen. Sunscreen is a young Liberal's best friend right now. With the provincial election getting more intense by the day and the looming federal by-elections already heating up under the summer sun, the highest SPF to be found is a campaigner's must have. However, last Thursday, the leaders of both the provincial and federal Liberal parties decided to bring all of their hard-working volunteers indoors at the Mod Club in Toronto to share their visions of both a prosperous Ontario and Canada. This sign of unity between the federal and provincial Liberal parties is refreshing and most certainly needed in both of their elections. Ontario needs a stable government come June 12th, just as Canada will need one for 2015. With both parties coming together I'm sure we could accomplish this. We just need to combine our hope and hard work to show this province and country what real leadership is.

Report From Julia Brown, VP Youth HWAD-FLA

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It’s a statement I often hear when it comes to politics.

I don't follow sports very closely except for the NHL playoffs, the Olym-

pics, and the World Cup. But I have followed politics as long as I can re-

member. Why is hard to say. Many people get inducted into sports by watching them on TV. I suppose I got

involved in politics not only by going to rallies, but by watching politics on TV, especially the Watergate trial.

I think being involved in politics makes me a more engaged citizen. I find it interesting to talk with people

about political issues whether they agree with me or not, and I think it’s important to talk about the issues not

only at election time, but all the time. That’s how we can reach the best decision about the government we

want, provincially and federally. This is particularly important now given the clear contrast in visions Liberals

and Conservatives have for our province and our country.

Outreach community dialogues are helping in the decision-making process by providing background on im-

portant policy issues. Over the last year we have held several such meetings. The levels of engagement by the

people who have joined us and the quality of our speakers have been excellent. Starting last fall we worked

with other ridings on an event about neonicotinoids and their effect on bee populations. We integrated this

theme with other events including the Ancaster Fair and the Cactus Festival. For me this was particularly re-

warding as I worked hard with others to bring awareness of the issue to our region and develop policy for the

biannual convention in Montreal in February.

Our riding and several others brought forward resolutions and a moratorium on neonicotinoids became party

policy at the convention. Not a small task when you consider the thousands of policies that started through the

process. The success of this resolution proves that involvement does matter. That’s something to keep in mind

as we move forward with future regional events leading up to the next federal election. In that regard Out-

reach has been supported by the Liberal Party of Canada (Ontario), which has offered ongoing assistance in the

planning of events and has asked for feedback regarding our activities and the response to them.

Outreach is continuing to innovate. At our last Pub Night in April we held a book talk about Liberal

MP Chrystia Freeland’s book Plutocrats (in which she examines the rise of the 1% and its impact on everyone

else). We watched a TED talk featuring Freeland and participated in a thought-provoking discussion of her

book.

At another we had Brian Griffith and Gwen French from the Brant- Hamilton-Halton local of the National Farm-

ers’ Union, who discussed the challenges farmers face with regard to world trade talks and Canadian trade

deals with Europe and Korea. Domestically, they talked about the mess

the Harper government has created for western farmers by dismantling the Canadian Wheat Board. All

these outreach activities have helped expand my view of the world we live in and the complexity of the topics

we looked at.

So…why bother getting involved? Because it does make a difference.

Watching sports? I’d rather get out and play.

“Why Bother?” By John MacAlpine, VP of Community Outreach HWAD -FLA

“So…why bother getting involved?

Because it does make a difference.”

HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED

Volunteer

Donate

Get HWAD-FLA Newsletter

Join Us on Twitter

Join Us on Facebook

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Upcoming Events

Upcoming Events

3 Committees, 1 Night May 29

7:00 For Dinner (optional) 7:30 Meeting Starts

Community Outreach, Policy and Communications Committee Meetings

Nostalgia Restaurant, 25 King St W, Dundas

Note: These 3 committees meet last Thursday of month.

Monthly Executive Meeting June 3rd

All Members welcome and encouraged to attend.

60 Main St, Dundas, ON 7:30 pm

The HWAD Executive meets 1st Tuesday of Month (excluding July& August.)

Cruisin’ With Carolyn

Fundraiser for Hamilton Centre and Glanbrook—Flamborough FLA’s

Tuesday, July 8th

Contact Anne Tennier

amtennier@sympatico.ca

Sixth Annual Red Tie Gala on Oct. 17th

Contact Greg gregvangeffen@hotmail.com

CHRYSTIA FREELAND’S PLUTOCRATS BOOK TALK – APRIL 16, 2014 -David Jones

Is capitalism in its contemporary form working for

the 99% as well as the 1%? What are the

implications for democracy of the rise of the

global super-rich? What is the role of government

regulation in checking the negative impact of

capitalism? Does Canada and the world need a

new “New Deal?”

Chrystia Freeland’s award winning book,

Plutocrats, focuses on these and many other

provocative questions and prompted a wide-

ranging discussion at a HWAD Book Club meeting

at the Westminster Arms in Dundas on April 16.

After we viewed Freeland’s TEDTalk presentation

and explored ideas raised in the video and the

book in small groups, Denise O’Connor led us in

an open forum which extended the discussion

into several related political and social concerns

including infrastructure development, taxation,

and a guaranteed annual income.

Although the issue of the 1% and the rest of us is,

without doubt, a challenging one, we left the

meeting feeling optimistic about the proposed

solutions and enthusiastic about working to

promote them

throughout HWAD and beyond.

Thanks to John MacAlpine for organizing the

evening!

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FROM THE DESK OF THE VP POLICY- Keith Robson

1. The Temporary Workers Program. (TWP)

Last week I attended a round table with John

McCallum Liberal critic on Immigration on the issue of

the TWP. It is clear that the TWP program is flawed

and changes made over the last few years have led to

its abuse. The extent of that abuse is unclear but

there is little doubt that it is being abused. The

reasons for the changes were largely due to the

failures in the immigration program with huge delays

in processing legitimate applicants. It became clear

during the discussion that solving the TWP problem

will really require a thorough overhaul of the

immigration process.

I think it is fair to say that just about all around the

table were either first or second generation

immigrants who have become successful Canadian

Citizens and so there was no anti immigrant bias in

the discussion. It also became clear that the seasonal

program for agricultural workers is working and has

worked well for many years, and the agricultural

industry and therefore all of us depend on these

workers for successful harvests. It was generally

agreed that nothing should be done to interfere with

that program.

Similarly the "live in caregiver program “is working

and has a feature that allows people to become

Canadian Citizens, albeit not an easy process but at

least the process does exist and can be improved.

So what are the problems with the temporary worker

program. First it has ceased to be a temporary

program as it now allows companies to hire

temporary workers for four years, hardly temporary.

For all but the most specialised jobs it should be

possible to train a Canadian Citizen,(or a Canadian

Resident/landed immigrant) in four years. Part of the

problem is that there is little, if any, incentive for

companies to do this when they can hire a temporary

worker for a relatively small fee and a somewhat

flawed process to identify suitable Canadians. In the

construction industry the demand for large numbers

of workers will increase as the infrastructure

investment, vital to our future economic growth, is

made. In this industry the union (Liuna here in

Hamilton) already carries out a lot of training and

could be a major contributor to meeting future

needs.

There is also evidence that the expansion of the

process has compressed wages in Canada and that

temporary workers are being exploited by their

employers and working in almost slave labour

conditions. When their term ends do they go home or

become illegal immigrants? There is certainly

anecdotal evidence of Canadians being fired and

replaced by Temporary foreign workers.

We need better labour market information to make

good decisions,. We need an open and transparent

process and an improved immigration process which

allows the possibility of temporary foreign worker

becoming a Canadian Citizen with the appropriate

checks and balances. It should take no longer in this

information age to process a Canadian Resident/

landed immigrant, with the right to apply for

Canadian Citizenship in due course, than to process a

temporary worker. He or she could still be sponsored

by a company. The temporary worker program could

then revert to its original aim of providing short term

workers in very limited special circumstances.

2. Infrastructure Investment and Economic

Growth

The correlation between Investment in Transport

Infrastructure and Economic Growth is unassailable.

The historical evidence is there for us all to see from

Canals to Railways to Highways, so why aren`t we

investing more in Infrastructure to get our products

to world markets be it resources, agricultural

products or manufactured products? Canada is a

large country and a long way from major markets

other than the U.S. so an efficient transport system is

vital to our success especially now that the growth

markets are in Asia. While the US will probably

continue to be our major export market for some

time to come, it is growing slower than Asian markets

These will also have their ups and downs so we need

to diversify our markets.

Continuing Reading p. 5

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FROM THE DESK OF THE VP POLICY- Keith Robson

Continued...

The GTHA and the Golden Horseshoe contain close to

a third of Canada's population, but it is already

suffering from enormous congestion problems that

can only get worse without significant expenditure.

This would impact the whole of Ontario and Canada

so everyone has an interest in making sure that this

economic powerhouse continues to operate as

efficiently as possible. Mr Hudak's proposal to cut

spending on infrastructure would not help to create

one million jobs, but more likely reduce them by that

amount.

Infrastructure investments are long term investments

for our future. The reason why we are in this situation

is because previous governments at all levels and all

stripes have not invested when they should have. The

accompanying chart shows why this is. In the 60's , all

three levels of governments spent approximately 5%

of GDP. In the eighties this dropped to 3%. In the last

ten years the Ontario Liberal Government and the

municipal governments have recovered to a level

approaching the sixties but the Federal Government

has not, meaning we are still only spending less than

4.5%. In the last 10 years the Ontario Liberals have

spent $17.6 Billion on highway and transportation in

Ontario whereas the Federal Government has only

spent $652 Million.

Figures from MTO.

3. Revitalising Manufacturing.

The future of manufacturing in this country does not

rely on cheap labour but productive labour. This

requires capital investment and training. It requires a

government to work with industry that understands

that it needs to contribute to the provision of a

trained work force, to research and to capital

investment. While this may not be the pure idealist

capitalist approach, we live in a real world that is

extremely competitive and our governments need to

be prepared to invest for the future in the right

circumstances. Capitalism and free markets are

fundamental to the economic welfare, but where

governments and industry work together within a

free market framework the results can be extremely

positive. It can no longer be subsidising industry

either by protecting markets or providing government

authorised monopolies through regulation (which is

why our TV and communications industry is such a

mess for example, as technology has raced ahead of

regulators.)

I recently visited a foundry in England. It is one of a

few foundries that were once common in the West

Midlands area of the UK, still referred to as the Black

Country. A few years ago this company seriously

considered closing the foundry as it was steadily

losing profitability. Instead they decided to invest in

new equipment and have invested in two automated

moulding lines and are about to install a third with

larger component capability. This will replace five

earlier facilities and produce approximately twice the

volume with much higher quality product and with

much tighter environmental performance. The

number of jobs with the current two lines is 25 down

from 48 five years ago, but the reduction has been

made with retirees and some redundancy, often with

placement in one of their other manufacturing

facilities. The business is now growing again, and is

profitable and has introduced an apprentice program

with four apprentices as part of the planned

succession of skilled workers needed as the current

crew reach retirement. This is a family owned

company which has been in business since 1920 and

this was a substantial investment for a company of

their size ,but they are focussed on the long term

health of their company. Continue Reading p. 8

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FROM THE DESK OF THE VP POLICY- Keith Robson

Continued….

The second example of revitalisation in the UK ,is also

relevant to Ontario and that is the recovery of the

automotive sector. The UK industry was written off for

dead, a lot of it due to bad management and interference

of the wrong sort from government in the UK owned

business. It is now booming with exports in 2013 higher

than for many years. This is due to the success of several

companies investing in the UK but certainly government

policy was major factor in the rebirth of the industry. It is

now driving the industry to look at its supply chain to

encourage investment in automotive suppliers to

manufacture locally wherever it can be done economically

and has the added benefit of reducing the greenhouse gas

emissions from transportation. Government grants

towards research and training as well as some contribution

towards capital investment in certain areas are also

available. Governments on their own cannot create jobs-

except in the public sector, but they can provide incentives

and the right environment to attract the private sector to

invest.

As the new Chair of the Victory Fund Committee, I was

excited to see how many HWAD members contribute to

Victory Fund,-almost a third of our membership base!

Victory Fund is a monthly contribution made by members

that helps build a stable revenue base in our riding and at

the national level. Victory Fund contributions make a

significant impact on our riding’s ability to function at a

successful level by funding events and helping to promote

the Liberal message, while building reserves for the coming

election in 2015.

Last year, ADFW held its first Victory Fund Appreciation

event in early Fall as a thank you to our donors for their

generous contributions. The Victory Fund Appreciation

event will be held again in September. Place and date will

be announced in the weeks ahead.

If you are interested in becoming a Victory Fund contributor, your donation will have a considerable impact in HWAD and at the national level. The standard donation is $10/month, with $5 going to our riding and $5 going to Ottawa to help The Liberal Party of Canada. Being a Victory Fund contributor allows you to take advantage of a tax credit of up to 75 per cent, so your donation of $10 could cost you as low as $2.50 a month! A Victory Fund donation automatically includes your yearly membership to the Liberal Party. If you would like to contribute to Victory Fund, you can do so on the HWAD website or contact me directly at sarahvangeffen@hotmail.com. Thank you for your support!

Sarah Van Geffen

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SOCIAL MEDIA IN ELECTION READINESS

Stay in Touch!

Email: hwadliberals@gmail.com

Phone: 289-799-2546

Mailing address:

Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas Federal Liberal Riding Association

HWAD-FLA

P.O. Box 63039

Hamilton, ON L9H 6Y3

HWAD Liberal Riding Association Social Media

Website: www.hwad.liberal.ca

Twitter: @hwadliberals

Facebook: www.facebook.com/hwadliberals

Why Use Social Media?

Using social media is an excellent tool for riding to use in a time of election readiness.

Engaging with followers on Facebook and Twitter helps you identify your support and keep in touch with

riding members.

You can use Twitter and Facebook to promote an upcoming social or fundraising event and reach out

potential new members.

Social media keeps riding members informed and in touch . All are important part of team building skills that

we need to win in 2015!

Twitter Hashtags to Know:

#hamont = Hamilton , Ontario ( All things re-

lated to Hamilton)

#cdnpoli = Related Canadian Politics

#FocusedOnYou

#ndp= New Democrats

#cpc = Canaidan Conservative Party

#legalizeit = related to marijuana legalization

Keep up with the by-election campaigns using

these hashtags: #ScarboroughAgincourt,

#TrinSpa, #Macleod, #FortMcMurray,

#FocusedOnYou, and #LPC.

Want to be a part of the HWAD-FLA Social Media and

Communications team? Contact Lisa Stewart

hwadliberals@gmail.com or @LisaStewart