The Dump will extend underground to approximately 400 meters below the lake level. Some of this nuclear waste remains toxic and lethal for over 100,000 years.

On August 21, 2017, then Minister McKenna announced her decision would be delayed pending receipt of additional information from the Saugeen Ojibway Nation and OPG.

This dump puts at risk the fresh water of the GREAT LAKES, relied upon by 40 million people in two countries.

Any risk of buried nuclear waste entering the largest body of fresh water in the world is too great a risk to take, and need not be taken.

We can and must deliver an overwhelming wave of opposition to OPG's plan. Tell current Minister Wilkinson and the Canadian federal government to stand up for the protection of the Great Lakes.

Tell your friends on Facebook, Twitter and email.

The second edition has been delivered to Premier Christy Clark via Pamela Martin, Minister Terry Lake and Minister Thompson during 2012. Behind the scenes we have worked with MLA Jane Thornthwaite to try and effect change. Sadly this effort has yet to yield results for Minister Thompson still strongly supports unconditional Wolf and poorly managed trophy bear hunting.

Imagine making a difference. The Faltering Light visual petition is a high quality book containing an open letter to the BC government demanding that trophy hunting of bears is stopped. It contains insightful essays from leading environmentalists, stunning sepia toned bear photographs and 1,000s of signatures from British Columbians supporting the termination of the trophy hunt. Please join us in signing the book today.

Faltering Light II by Andrew S. Wright | Make Your Own Book

This petition is supported by:

The Spirit Bear Youth coalition, Pacific Wild, Bluewater Adventures, Bears Matter B.C., Ursa Freedom Project, NaturalArt - Brad Hill Photography, Sierra Club B.C., Ocean Adventures, Maple Leaf Adventures, Valhalla Wilderness Committee, Wilderness Committee, Ecojustice, The BC Environmental Network, Knight Inlet Lodge, Forest Ethics, Grizzly Bear Ranch, Cold Coast Photography, Wildernessprints, Rainforest Kayak Adventures and John Marriott Photography.

Updates to Ontario’s sexual education curriculum have been dogged with controversy since they were last proposed back in 2010 when Kathleen Wynne was Education Minister under then-Premier Dalton McGuinty.

Parents objected to the young ages at which graphic content and morally contentious topics were being introduced.

Then, as now, Ontarians want to send the strongest possible message to stop the delivery of contentious and age-inappropriate material to our children at school. We urge concerned parents and grandparents, as well as other Ontario voters to petition the Liberal government to drop the proposed changes by adding their signatures to this petition.

Please also share this petition link widely on social media and by email!!

Creating a coalition government will not help our economy and will affect our reputation around the world.

The opposition parties are simply looking out for their financial coffers.

THAT: We are adamantly against any increase in the existing residential rate structure for Nova Scotia Power Incorporated (NSPI) and that we feel with the huge net profits collected by NSPI under existing rates, and with the protection of the Fuel Adjustment Mechanism that NSPI currently enjoys, any increase to current residential rates is pure greed and usury on the part of NSPI and its shareholders.

The Opposition Parties in the House of Commons have agreed to sign an accord between themselves to form a majority government in early December of 2008.

This action will bring about a constitutional crisis.

Sign this petition demanding that the Governor General require that this issue be taken to the people of Canada by way of an election.

In changing the long-standing terminology "Government of Canada", the current governing party is seeking to equate its leader, Stephen Harper, with the the act of governing this country.

As a democracy, Canada is not run by one individual. It is a country run by an elected body, which is accountable to the people and answerable to the opposition.

In the words of Abraham Lincoln, "Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people."

The government of Canada is not Stephen Harper and Stephen Harper is not the government of Canada.

The government of Canada is the people and the people are the government of Canada.

One collective body, not one man, forms this government and make this country a beautiful place.

- - - -

Contexte :
Le Parti conservateur, parti actuellement au pouvoir au Canada, a émis une directive voulant que toute référence au « Gouvernement du Canada » dans les communiqués issus des ministères soit remplacée par « Gouvernement Harper ».

En remplaçant l’appellation traditionnelle « Gouvernement du Canada », le parti au pouvoir tente de mettre de l’avant son leader, Stephen Harper, comme le centre de l’activité gouvernementale.

En tant que démocratie, le Canada n’est pas dirigé par une seule personne, mais plutôt par un parti élu par le peuple, lequel est tenu de rendre compte à la population canadienne ainsi qu’à l’opposition.

Pour reprendre les termes du président américain Abraham Lincoln, « La démocratie, c’est le gouvernement du peuple, par le peuple, pour le peuple ».

Le gouvernement du Canada n’est pas le gouvernement de Stephen Harper et Stephen Harper n’est pas le gouvernement du Canada.

Le gouvernement du Canada, c’est le gouvernement du peuple, et le peuple est le gouvernement du Canada.

Ce gouvernement est constitué d’un regroupement de personnes élues; il ne repose pas sur un seul homme, ce qui fait du Canada un merveilleux endroit où il fait bon vivre.

Le gouvernement Harper entend supprimer le questionnaire long du prochain recensement et le remplacer par une enquête à participation volontaire. Le questionnaire long est une source d’information inestimable pour les affaires, la recherche et l’évaluation des programmes et des politiques.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST.
TERESA WOO

Notes from the first annual meeting of the International Society of Neurovascular Diseases
by Anne Kingston on Tuesday, March 22, 2011

‘This is what it must feel like to witness medical history in the making’

Notes from the first annual meeting of the International Society of Neurovascular Diseases
by Anne Kingston on Tuesday, March 22, 2011 1:38pm - 58 Comments

Sitting through two days of research presentations at the first annual meeting of the International Society of Neurovascular Disease (ISNVD), three things became manifest: One, that this is what it must feel like to witness medical history in the making. Two, that science is just beginning to twig onto the complexity of the venous system—and the vascular system’s role in neurodegenerative diseases. And three, that Canadian multiple sclerosis patients bear a double burden—living with a devastating, degenerative condition and residing in a country that’s increasingly exhibiting a singular lack of political or medical will to treat them for something as basic as insufficient blood flow.

The three-day conference held last week in Bologna, Italy, focused on venous abnormalities and the association of these abnormalities in people with MS—a condition identified as chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, or CCSVI, by Italian doctor Paolo Zamboni. Impaired blood flow in the jugular and or azygos veins, Zamboni posited, caused blood to reflux to the brain, where it creates iron deposits that could trigger MS symptoms. Administering an angioplasty—sending a tiny balloon up the vein to restore blood flow—caused MS symptoms to abate, sometimes dramatically, and even halt the disease’s progression, he found.

Since Zamboni’s research made headlines in November 2009, CCSVI has been hotly debated, embraced, rejected as scientifically unproven, and even ridiculed. The notion that MS might have a vascular component, a theory that’s lurked in the background for more than a century, represents a huge paradigm shift for the medical establishment which has long defined the disease as a neurological-autoimmune condition, even though the autoimmune theory too remains unproven. MS is a medical mystery—its cause unknown, no cure in sight. Symptoms and prognoses vary radically. Drug therapies, a $10 billion industry primed to grow to $15 billion by 2015, modify and reduce symptoms for some patients but come with exorbitant price tags and a host of side effects that can include death.

Dissatisfaction with the MS status quo can be measured by the number of patients estimated to have received CCSVI treatment internationally—more than 12,000. Among them are hundreds, maybe thousands, of the 75,000 Canadians with MS. Venous angioplasty is not available to MS patients here, so they’re flocking to clinics in the U.S., India, Mexico, Poland, Costa Rica and Bulgaria, willing to pay upwards of $10,000. Traveling offshore can be risky. Screening and treatment protocols are inconsistent. Some patients who’ve received treatment say they’ve been dropped by their doctor and denied aftercare. Use of stents to keep veins open, contrary to Zamboni’s protocol, adds another level of uncertainty. Ontario resident Mahir Mostic died in Costa Rica last year after being forced to return to that country with post-surgery complications.

Still, CCSVI has gained international traction. The International Union of Phebology, of which Canada is a member, recognized it as an official stand-alone medical condition last year. Last July, Zamboni founded the ISNVD with a multidisciplinary group of vascular surgeons, interventional radiologists, physicists, even a few neurologists, including San Diego neurosurgeon David Hubbard, who broke ranks with colleagues after his 27-year-old son Devin was diagnosed with MS. Initially a CCSVI skeptic, Hubbard changed his mind after reviewing the science and observing improvements in his son after his treatment. He’s now conducting research through the Hubbard Foundation, which investigates the vascular component of neurological disorders. Some of his findings presented at the ISNVD conference, which have yet to receive peer review, confirm sluggish blood flow in MS patients and quantifiable post-treatment improvements.

The forum brought dozens of medical specialists from around the globe—the U.S., Poland, Jordan, the UK, New Zealand, Italy, India, Greece, Kuwait, Russia—to share research, and establish standardized protocols for diagnosis and imaging. There were sessions on the role of iron in the brain, oxygenation and tissue drainage, blood flow rates in MS patients, advanced diagnostic imaging, and the development of mice models of CCSVI. At a workshop, Zamboni demonstrated new technology designed to improve the ease and accuracy of CCSVI diagnosis.

Thanks to new scanning technology, the complexity of the brain’s vascular network is revealing itself. Toronto-born physicist Mark Haacke, a world leader in diagnostic imaging affiliated with Detroit’s Wayne State University and Hamilton’s McMaster University, made two presentations in Bologna. His research has identified over 60 categories of vascular abnormalities in the chest, head, neck, and spine

Zamboni called the meeting “an overview of the possibilities.” In an interview with Maclean’s, he expressed delight with the quality—and quantity—of the research presented, which included positive results from the first double-blinded study on CCSVI treatment from the U.S. Zamboni was particularly buoyed by epistemological data from Greece, Jordan and northern Europe. “All of it shows a strong association between CCSVI and MS in more than 90 per cent across latitudes and genetic groups.”

Still, these are early days. Many questions remain unanswered. Why are not all MS patients candidates for CCSVI treatment? Why do a small percentage of non-MS patients have CCSVI? Why do people respond differently to treatment? And what is CCSVI’s role in unlocking the mysteries of blood-brain-barrier neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s?

Ongoing research and the growing number of CCSVI procedures conducted internationally should shed light. Numerous clinical treatment trials are underway in the U.S. In the UK, British GP Tom Gilhooly, who has set up a clinic in Scotland, plans to open one in London.

Then there’s Canada, which increasingly is odd-man-out in denying treatment—even in clinical trials. Yet venous angioplasty is a standard procedure in Canadian hospitals: if someone without MS exhibited compromised venous blood flow they’d be treated—and it would be covered by provincial health plans.

There’s also odd symmetry in the fact the people making the decisions about CCSVI know the least about it—or have proved the most resistant to Zamboni’s hypothesis. The “expert” panel convened by the Canadian Institute of Health Research and MS Society of Canada last August that recommended the federal government not fund clinical trials, for example, actively excluded anyone with experience diagnosing or treating CCSVI—i.e., actual “experts”—though it did include several doctors who’d expressed criticism of Zamboni’s hypothesis.

The MS Society of Canada has adopted a “wait and see” attitude. Last year it donated $700,000 to co-fund seven studies with its U.S. counterpart, none involving treatment, to investigate whether CCSVI warrants further investigation. Still, there’s indication the society sees promise in CCSVI: it secured the domain name ccsvi.ca in November 2009 after Zamboni’s research became public.

Liberal MP Kirsty Duncan, a Ph.D. scientist who led a House of Commons Sub-Committee on Neurological Disease that investigated CCSVI, has been a tireless advocate for clinical trials. “People are dying every day of this disease,” she says. “We have to examine the science.” The tragic example of Bill Peart of Pictou County, N.S., drives that point home. Peart appealed to the Nova Scotia government earlier this month to receive CCSVI treatment on compassionate grounds because his declining health prevented him from traveling to New York state for a scheduled appointment. His request was denied. He died on Saturday.

There are signs of snail-like movement—much stemming from patient pressure or elected officials who have relatives suffering from the disease. Saskatchewan, the province with the highest incidence of MS, is funding clinical trials, though they don’t include treatment. Newfoundland and Labrador have also committed to observational studies of post-treatment patients. Earlier this month, Ontario announced it would set up a medical panel to investigate after-care for CCSVI patients, though the group won’t be assessing the merits of CCSVI treatment.

The small Canadian contingent at the ISNVD included some of this country’s most vocal CCSVI advocates, including Dr. Bill Code, who saw his career as an anesthesiologist cut short after his MS diagnosis 16 years ago. Since then, the Vancouver Island resident has written several books on living with MS that focus on an anti-inflammatory diet, nutrition and adopting an integrative medical approach. After Code received CCSVI treatment in California last fall, many of his symptoms—headaches, balance and bladder problems, fatigue—disappeared, he reports. “I have no doubt CCSVI is the real deal,” he says.

Other doctors also participated in the program. Mark Godley, the medical director of Vancouver’s False Creek Medical Centre, who has been stymied in his quest to offer the procedure at the private clinic, acted as a chairperson for the Congress committee and moderated several panels. Godley likens the flight offshore for CCSVI treatment to the black market created for alcohol during Prohibition—and a sign of a broken Canadian health-care model.

Vascular surgeon Sandy McDonald, the only Canadian doctor to conduct clinical treatment trials of CCSVI, sat on the faculty that established a standardized CCSVI screening protocol. Last year, the Barrie, Ont. resident conducted a pro bono trial on six MS patients—all of whom he claims experienced salutary results—before it was shut down by the College of Physicians and Surgeons. McDonald, whose Barrie clinic now sees people from around the world for CCSVI scanning, was impressed with the quality of the research—and the caliber of minds present. “The first reported North American trial indicates significant improvement in quality of life and reductions in MS symptoms, physical health decreased fatigue and improvement in balance, cognitive function, coordination, heat intolerance and memory loss,” he says, adding: “All in all, an amazing meeting. I can only hope that several Canadian ‘experts’ were in attendance.”

Indeed, a few people in a position to influence policy were there: Julian Spears, co-director of the neurovascular program at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital, who will sit on the Ontario after-care committee; the MS Society of Canada sent Karen Lee, assistant vice-president of research and programs. What they took away from the conference is unknown, at least publicly. Both declined to be interviewed by Maclean’s.

Zamboni expresses surprise that his procedure has become so politicized. It was never his intent that CCSVI cut neurologists out of the equation. “No. They want to take care of one aspect of this complex disease.”

Resistance to any new approach is predictable, particularly in medicine, he says: “It’s very difficult when you produce something so different. You need time—digestive time.” Of course, time is something MS patients don’t have—as witnessed by the once-unthinkable spectre of Canadians flocking to Bulgaria for medical treatment to restore blood flow. The ISNVD’s next annual meeting is scheduled for Miami this time next year. It’ll be fascinating to see where we are then.

CTV.ca News Staff

Date: Mon. Mar. 14 2011 12:29 AM ET

A controversial treatment for multiple sclerosis will come under international scrutiny at a conference in Italy this week. Among the research to be discussed is a paper by a doctor who was intrigued by the treatment and decided to test it on his son.

Neurologist Dr. David Hubbard was drawn into the controversial Zamboni treatment after his son Devin, 27, developed MS.

"I wasn't going to sit on my hands and watch him end up in a wheelchair," Hubbard says.

Hubbard, who lives and works in San Diego, Calif., attended a meeting in Hamilton, Ont., last year, where scientists discussed the theory of Dr. Paolo Zamboni: that patients with MS often had sluggish blood draining from their brains.

Zamboni believes that the culprit is blocked veins, and his treatment involves re-opening the blocked blood vessels.

Hubbard was skeptical, but launched a study to measure blood flow in MS patients. In his preliminary study, which has not yet been scrutinized by peer review, he reports that MS patients do indeed seem to have some sluggish blood drainage from their brains. The blood is lingering and taking longer to get out again, he says.

His patients include some Canadians who have travelled to California to participate in the study. The results: when they are treated for block veins, the blood flow looks normal.

The data still have to be reviewed by independent scientists.

With a report from CTV's medical specialist Avis Favaro

-November 25 2009
I am confident that this could be a revolution for the research and diagnosis of multiple sclerosis ”— Dr. Paolo Zamboni.

More radical still, the experimental surgery he performed on his wife offers hope that MS, which afflicts 2.5 million people worldwide, can be cured and even largely prevented.

A layman's explanation of CCSVI
Chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI) is a condition found in twice the number people with multiple sclerosis than in the average population, where blood doesn’t properly drain from the brain because of a narrowing in the veins that bring deoxygenated blood from the brain to the heart. The main veins are the jugular veins and the azygous. Due to this partial blockage, deoxygenated blood either stays too long in the brain or can reflux back into the brain causing various adverse effects, including:

1) a lack of oxygen (hypoxia) in the brain;

2) inflammation caused by plasma and blood, which can also set off an autoimmune reaction; and

3) iron from blood deposited on brain tissue can damage myelin, and over time results in nerve damage (think of rust build up on a motor).

Source: MS LIBERATION
http://www.msliberation.ca/MS_Liberation_Group/Welcome.html