MEDIA RELEASE
For Immediate Release
August 11, 2009

Council of Canadians ups the ante on Site 41 with full-page ads calling for a one-year moratorium

The Council of Canadians is blanketing print media in Simcoe County with full page ads beginning on Tuesday, just two weeks before an August 25 meeting of Simcoe County Council where a moratorium on Site 41 will be considered. The full-page advertisements will run in seven Simcoe County newspapers this week, beginning on August 11, just one day before the upcoming Corporate Services Committee meeting, where the initial discussion on a possible Site 41 moratorium will take place.

The ads urge Simcoe County residents to raise their voices by calling, writing, and emailing their local councilors before the upcoming August 25 council meeting to demand that their elected representatives support a one-year moratorium on Dump Site 41. The ads are appearing less than a day after local council meetings on Monday night in Barrie and Springwater, which both voted nearly unanimously to support a one-year moratorium on Site 41 construction. Leading Site 41 proponent Simcoe County Warden Tony Guergis (Mayor of Springwater) was the only member of Springwater council to vote against a moratorium.

“The kind of public education and participation we are supporting with these ads is a cornerstone of local democracy,” says Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians. “Simcoe County Councillors owe it to their constituents to take a second look at Site 41 and consider all the facts, given how much new information has come out.”

The ads create a positive opportunity for Simcoe County to support a Site 41 moratorium at its August 25 meeting as an alternative to criminalizing its residents, says Barlow.

“Why are seniors, farmers, and First Nations members being arrested?” asks Barlow. “The solution to Site 41 is a one-year moratorium, not arresting grandmothers who are protecting the water.”

A public forum to stop Site 41 will take place in Toronto for Thursday, August 13th at 7pm, in the University of Toronto Medical Sciences Building. Featured speakers include Dale Goldhawk (Emcee); Charlie Angus , Member of Parliament for Timmins–James Bay; David Crombie, Former Toronto Mayor, former Federal Cabinet Minister; Sandy Hudson, University of Toronto Student Union President; Meera Karunananthan, Council of Canadians Water Campaigner; Vicki Monague, Spokesperson for The Anishinabe Women, Keepers of the Water from Christian Island; Mary Muter, Georgian Baykeeper for Georgian Bay Forever; and Stephen Ogden, Resident of Simcoe County & member of the Community Monitoring Committee. Details about the forum and the growing campaign to Stop Site 41 are available at www.canadians.org/site41.

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For More Information:

Dylan Penner, Council of Canadians, 613-795-8685, dpenner@canadians.org.

Click here to view ad.