Meg Borthwick

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Meg Borthwick (aka Rebecca West) is a babble moderator and has been a member of rabble.ca since 2001. She has a decorative liberal arts degree in Quoting Chaucer at Dinner Parties (English/Drama double major)from the University of Toronto, and has a piece of paper that says she has completed the extremely practical Non-Profit Management program at the University of Western Ontario. A veteran community radio broadcaster and journalist, Meg has devoted several decades to social justice advocacy and interminable board meetings. Despite being a socialist feminist, Meg enjoys such bourgeois hobbies as gardening, cookery and talking about real estate at social gatherings.

Foodstock showcases Ontario agriculture under threat from quarry

Foodstock. Photo: LexnGer/Flickr
Stopping the destruction of prime farmland.

Related rabble.ca story:

Everywhere there was song and celebration: Foodstock fights the mega-quarry
Tags:
Ontario agriculture Stop The Quarry

Melancthon quarry unites diverse communities

Aquifer supplying water for a million people endangered by massive quarry project.
Aquifer supplying water for a million people endangered by massive quarry project.

Related rabble.ca story:

Melancthon quarry galvanizes opponents
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Melancthon

Wikileaks in Canada: Federal failure on aboriginal rights

The U.S. Wikileaks cables on the treatment of First Nations by the Canadian government tell of a painful tale of Conservative cynicism, intransigence and disrespect that is played out in the cost of real lives.
The U.S. cables on the treatment of First Nations by the Canadian government tell of a painful tale of Conservative cynicism, intransigence and disrespect that is played out in the cost of real lives.

Related rabble.ca story:

Wikileaks comes to Canada: Federal failure on aboriginal rights
Tags:
wikileaks
Meg Borthwick

rabble Vegan Challenge Diary: What I'm eating on the Vegan Challenge

By
Meg Borthwick
| April 16, 2013

Follow rabble staff and contributors as they take the 2013 Vegan Challenge in our rabble Vegan Challenge Diary, where participants will chronicle their experiences eating vegan throughout the week!

So here's what I'm eating: cucumber, avocado, bean sprouts, tomatoes, potatoes, spinach, refried beans, tortillas, tortilla chips, pasta and veggie sauce, and soy milk. With the exception of the soy milk, all of these foods are a regular part of my diet. The chocolate soy 'beverage' is actually really good. Must be all the cane sugar and cocoa because the last time I had soy milk it was, let me say, barftastic.

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Meg Borthwick

rabble Vegan Challenge Diary: Shopping vegan at the grocery store

By
Meg Borthwick
| April 16, 2013

Follow rabble staff and contributors as they take the 2013 Vegan Challenge in our rabble Vegan Challenge Diary, where participants will chronicle their experiences eating vegan throughout the week! Read on for the first instalment on Day One of the Challenge.

Today is Day One of rabble.ca's Vegan Challenge. It's also the first day of my Vegan Challenge.

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Learning from a victory: How Ontario communities stopped a mega quarry

Residents of Melancthon Township are breathing a sigh of relief as years of activism have paid off.  Highland Companies has withdrawn its application for a license to mine aggregate from some of the most productive farmland in Ontario.

In 2006 Highland Companies, backed by a multi-billion dollar U.S.-based hedge fund, began buying up land in Melancthon Township, a community some 120 km north of Toronto. Highland told the community that their only goal was to grow potatoes, after buying out the community's two most productive potato farming operations.

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Tags:
environment Canadian politics Ontario Politics No Mega Quarry
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Occupying solidarity: Activists in London, Ontario protest Israeli attacks on Gaza

Protest for Gaza in London, Ontario. (Photo: Kevin Jones)

Rallies for Gaza took place this past weekend in cities and towns across Canada. Meg Borthwick reports on the gathering in London, Ontario. The Canadian Peace Alliance has called for a pan-Canadian weekend of action for Gaza Nov. 23-25. 

You wouldn't think of London, Ontario as a hotbed of civil unrest. It is, after all, home to the Labatt brewery, the London Knights,and General Dynamics (part of Canada's modest military industrial complex). If you're thinking that London is a tidy, by-lawed-to-death city, you'd be wrong.

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Tags:
Canadian politics Gaza occupy occupy London Ontario
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Stomp the Mega Quarry: Ontario farmers fight back

Two of the participants in the Stomp the Mega Quarry walk/run.

What happens when you combine a group of hard-working agriculturalists with a threat to the land they love? You get a serious force to be reckoned with.

Stomp the Mega Quarry was only the most recent event organized to raise funds and promote awareness of the fight against a U.S.-owned hedge fund that wants to dig a 200-foot deep hole in some of Ontario's most bountiful farmland. As if this weren't serious enough, the limestone, worth an estimated $14 billion, the Boston-based Baupost Group wants to gouge out of the earth, is an aquifer that filters the drinking water of over two million people.

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Tags:
environment Ontario politics in Canada mega-quarry
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Greed comes first: CP Rail strikers ordered back to work

Teamsters rally on Parliament Hill earlier this week. (Photo: Karl Nerenberg)

Hey, it's all about the economy, right? Well, maybe not so much.

Earlier this week Conservative Labour Minister Lisa Raitt introduced bill C-39 - back to work legislation targeting striking Canadian Pacific Railroad engineers and conductors (TCRC).

It's the sixth time in five years that the federal government has issued back to work legislation that effectively defeats the bargaining position of unionized employees. In this particular instance, the Teamsters' union is being told that they can't strike because not moving freight in and out of the country is negatively impacting Canada's economic recovery.

Keeping corporate profits going: An essential service? 

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Tags:
environment Stephen Harper labour Canadian politics federal politics workers rights CP rail
rabble news

Maude Barlow on the Great Lakes: 'They must be protected for all time'

The Council of Canadians' Maude Barlow has been visiting communities around Ontario's Great Lakes, talking to people about the urgent need to address the toll industrial pollution, climate change, over-extraction, invasive species and wetland loss are taking on the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world.

Last night she spoke at London's Aeolian Hall, the last stop on her "Great Lakes Need Great Friends" tour.

"We're living in a world that is losing water," says Barlow. "We're taking water and removing it, polluting it and mismanaging it." Studies support Barlow's assertion, showing that by the year 2030 demand for water in the world will outstrip supply by 40 per cent. That, says Barlow, is catastrophic.

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Tags:
environment Ontario maude barlow council of canadians Canadian politics great lakes
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