Source: James D. Irving named federal budget advisor/N.B. business leader appointed to newly-formed economic advisory council, By REBECCA PENTY, Times & Transcript, Published Friday December 19th, 2008, http://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/search/article/516989

James Irving, the president of J.D. Irving, Limited, is one of 11 business and academic heavyweights who will advise federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty on the budget and deteriorating economy.... Irving helms a company with business in forestry and forest products, transportation, shipbuilding and industrial marine, retail, industrial equipment, construction services and building materials, translation and consumer products.

When: 7:00 PM, Monday, November 24
Where: Conserver House, 180 St. John St.
For more info, call: 458 8747

Friday, November 21, 2008
BECOMING A BEE
By Bruce Gagnon

Last night our local PeaceWorks group hosted an event at Bowdoin College in Brunswick that featured two activists associated with the Beehive Design Collective. The group of young folks, who are based in Machias, Maine, describe themselves this way: "The work of the Beehive Collective has three major facets: the Hive is appreciated internationally for its educational graphics campaigns, at a regional level for it's stone mosaic murals and apprentice program, and locally for it's dedication to the revitalization of the old Machias Valley Grange Hall, a landmark building in our small, rural town. The Hive has been going and growing since 2000, at full speed!"

November 24, 2008

Conservation Council of New Brunswick News Release

For Immediate Release

Fredericton -With the opening of the Third Session of the 56th Legislature tomorrow, Premier Shawn Graham has some heavy lifting ahead to make good on key promises made in his first two throne speeches, according to the Conservation Council of New Brunswick.

At a news conference in Fredericton today, the Conservation Council profiled commitments made by Premier Shawn Graham in his throne speeches of February 7th, 2007 and November 27, 2007, which have yet to see the light of day. These include:

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL MEDIA RELEASE

Saint John, NB – November 21, 2008 – Approximately 23,000 New Brunswick children—nearly one in six—live in poverty according to the 2008 New Brunswick Child and Family Poverty Report Card prepared by Saint John’s Human Development Council.

According to data provided by Statistics Canada, for the first time since 1995 New Brunswick’s child poverty rate (16.4%) exceeded the national average (15.8%).

After dropping in 2004 and 2005 the child poverty rate in New Brunswick rose slightly in 2006, up 0.7% from the 2005 rate of 15.7%.

In 2006 New Brunswick had the fourth highest child poverty rate in Canada, up from the sixth highest in 2005.

Conservation Council of New Brunswick News Release

November 10, 2008

The Conservation Council of New Brunswick says that the province’s new $4.4 billion Transportation Strategy is too focused on the development of new road infrastructure to facilitate cross-border truck transport, and not enough on providing New Brunswickers with less polluting transportation alternatives.

The provincial government has committed itself to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector by 1.2 Mt by 2012. It has also promised to develop a transportation strategy that will ensure that New Brunswickers have convenient alternatives to their private vehicles. At the recent Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers in Bar Harbor Maine, Premier Graham again reiterated his commitment to developing public transportation.

October 27, 2008

Citing the downturn in the economy and inability to compete with a chain that has cut its advertising and subscription prices to the bone for the next year, the Carleton FreePress today announced it is suspending publication.

Today’s paper will be the last.

“We have tried everything,” said publisher Ken Langdon. “Our staff has been heroic, right down to the last person. We’ve got a good paper. We’ve earned a place in the fabric of Carleton County, but in the end we simply cannot compete with Irvings’ financial power.

“Brunswick News can afford to drop a few million dollars here to get the Bugle-Observer’s monopoly back and the Irving chain’s manager is willing to do what it takes here to discourage any others who might take heart from our success to compete in other New Brunswick markets,”

This year ARSN is organizing a "Mining the Connections Forum" Thursday and Friday before the annual ARSN weekend gathering.

All are welcome to join us for 4 days of solidarity action planning! If you can only attend part of the gathering, please do!

MINING THE CONNECTIONS FORUM
10:00 AM, Thurs, Nov 27 to 4:00 PM, Fri, Nov 28
Tatamagouche Centre, Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia

The Mining the Connections Forum will deepen our knowledge and ability to act as Canadians to the crimes of Canadian mining companies at home and abroad. The Forum will also explore the possibility of developing a Maritimes-wide network or coalition. Globally we have been particularly active regarding the purchasing of coal by NB Power and NS Power from the Cerrejon Mine in Colombia and the activities of Canadian company Goldcorp in Guatemala. Locally we are connected with concerns related to gold mining in NS, strip mining of coal in Cape Breton, uranium concerns in both NB and NS, and quarry issues in Digby Neck and the Avondale Peninsula in NS.

Conservation Council of New Brunswick
For Immediate Release
September 17, 2008

Bar Harbor, Maine ­ At their annual meeting yesterday, Eastern Canadian Premiers and New England Governors adopted a Transportation and Air Quality Action Plan to combat climate change. The Action Plan will reduce the amount of driving and shift freight from our highways to our railways to help cut greenhouse gas emissions 10% below 1990 levels by 2020.

The Action Plan commits the six states and five provinces to:

* · Double the use of public transportation by 2020
* · Shift 10% of road freight from trucks to rail and sea routes by 2020

In Halifax this morning Stephen Harper spoke to a gathered group of investors and announced that he will ease restrictions on foreign ownership of airline companies and uranium companies. The Financial Post reports:

“Speaking to a Halifax audience, Mr. Harper said a new Tory government would raise the threshold of ownership of Canadian airlines by foreigners from 25% to 49%, while allowing a non-Canadian a majority ownership of a domestic uranium mining. The changes would take place over a multi-year period, he said, and in the case of sensitive deals like uranium takeovers, would be subject to a federal security audit. "We will allow foreign ownership of uranium mining and producing provided that such investments meet a national security test and that Canada receives comparable benefits from investor nations," Mr. Harper told the Halifax audience. http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=787391

This Fall 2008 North East tour will be a collaborative effort between the Beehive Collective, Rising Tide North America. It will feature a brand new interactive graphics workshop about North-South Solidarity with scenes from MESOAMERICA RESISTE, the final epic chapter in our globalization trilogy. The workshops will deal specifically with the local effects of the NAFTA-style "Free Trade" zone known as Atlantica (see below for more details on Atlantica), making striking connections with the Mesoamerican experience of "free trade" as felt over the past decade. We will take a unique approach at examining cross-border and cross-cultural solidarity. It is our hope to use this tour as a platform to open space for dialog relating to the issue of democratic control of our land and resources here in the North Atlantic seaboard.