Jennie is another YouTuber who produces content from a vegan perspective that isn't necessarily about veganism. She is a comic artist.

That was a biblical downpour and I ran out to enjoy it! Too bad we never get useful data on precipitation from the weather station.

Video description:

6 Jul 2023
Here is a short video of our protest at Shoppers who is owned by Loblaws, to protest and demand a new date for them to only sell cage free eggs in their store. While their own PC brand is Cage Free, in 2016 they said their entire stores supply would be cage free by 2025. They have since gone back on there word, yet again, and now the hens will be confined for even longer, undetermined amount of time. We are holding Loblaws accountable and will be doing this again very soon.
Be Vegan

My Contact information
veganpoet1973@gmail.com
https://www.patreon.com/veganpoet_1973

Mike Morrice wrote:

Summer Update from Mike

Hi again r/kitchener! Mike Morrice here, Member of Parliament for Kitchener Centre.

Parliament has risen for the summer, so my team and I thought it would be a good time to share a brief update with y’all on some recent advocacy we’ve been focused on for our community. Feel free to ask any questions here – I’ll be monitoring over the coming days to answer as many as possible.

Housing Affordability

As I’ve shared here before: how we respond to the housing crisis has already, and will continue to, define our community. It’s why I’ve been so focused on advocating for policies that prioritize homes as places for people to live rather than commodities for institutional investors to trade, as well as for investments in deeply affordable housing at a scale we haven't seen since the mid 90s.

Thanks to all of you that signed our petition calling for a reasonable step in the right direction: an end to tax exemptions for real estate investment trusts, and for the revenue from this to be put towards building more affordable housing.

Since my last post, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has costed our motion, showing this would generate at least $289M for affordable housing over the next five years.

Recent article in The Record on this: https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/2023/04/10/kitchener-mp-proposes-removing-tax-exemptions-for-reits-report-finds-it-would-save-hundreds-of-millions.html

Blog post from last fall: https://mikemorricemp.ca/motion-71-one-solution-to-the-housing-crisis/

Report from the PBO: https://www.pbo-dpb.ca/en/publications/RP-2324-001-M--cost-removing-tax-exemptions-real-estate-investment-trusts--estimation-couts-elimination-exemptions-fiscales-accordees-fiducies-placement-immobilier

Example of my advocacy on this in Parliament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHqK0cWeFbo

Climate Action

In the midst of wildfires across the country, I’ve continued to call for an end to all fossil fuel subsidies, for a windfall profit tax on oil and gas companies that are gouging Canadians, and for these funds to be re-invested in proven climate solutions instead.

Recent op-ed in The Record offering ideas for folks to take action: https://www.therecord.com/opinion/climate-generation-needs-wildfires-devastation-to-serve-as-a-wake-up-call/article_dd87d491-323d-52db-9902-530b7f44ac8d.html

Text of my motion calling for an end to fossil fuel subsidies: https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/mike-morrice(110476)/motions/12245924/motions/12245924)

Examples of my advocacy on this in Parliament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSe5nBeKMCg and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j4r-wNTjXI

Media event in the midst of wildfires, with Elizabeth May: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1J-OdyCs_8, which led to media that picked up on quotes like this one -

“What will future generations think about us,” asked Morrice, “that we were in the closing window of opportunity to invest in climate solutions, and we were so busy looking at what kind of fossil fuels subsidies we want to keep?”

https://www.hilltimes.com/story/2023/06/15/canadas-coming-announcement-on-fossil-fuel-subsidies-will-set-a-global-precedent-for-better-or-for-worse-say-environmental-advocates/390467/

Ending Legislated Poverty for People with Disabilities

Since being elected, I’ve been calling on the governing party to follow through on their promise to lift people with disabilities out of poverty (over 40% of those living in poverty are Canadians with a disability!).

Just before Parliament rose, while very much imperfect, a bill that would move us in the right direction – the Canada Disability Benefit Act - finally received royal assent. This is after my team and I secured 5 out of 9 successful amendments to improve the bill, all of which came directly from the disability community.

Recent article in The Record on this: https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/kitchener-s-mike-morrice-makes-his-mark-in-parliament-54-seats-behind-the-prime-minister/article_6df0db9d-a85d-5b62-844a-69abdc5c71c9.html

Examples of my advocacy on this in Parliament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hpVRGJPLKs and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0Ea-S53jDE

Example of an amendment passing in committee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYPFvkrX7Zk

Blog post from last April: https://mikemorricemp.ca/cross-party-push-for-canada-disability-benefit/

Electoral Reform

So many people in our community feel disenfranchised by politics, and this is made worse by our 'winner take all' voting system (here’s some background on the issue put together by Fair Vote Canada).

I believe every vote should count. And that the governing party should follow through on what the Prime Minister promised over 1,800 times in 2015. It’s why earlier in this Parliamentary session I put forward a motion calling for a national citizens’ assembly on electoral reform. This would bring together a diverse group of Canadians to recommend to the government the best way forward for our democratic system.

We've been building momentum ever since. Working alongside volunteers across the country from Fair Vote, we maxed out the number of MPs that could joint second it. More recently, I found another MP willing to bring it forward for a debate and vote in Parliament, sooner than I would have been able (resulting from bad luck in the lottery system that decides who gets to bring legislation forward first for a vote!).

Recent article in The Record on this: https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/kitchener-mp-finds-support-for-electoral-reform/article_45e2ffdd-2ca2-55b8-909b-774d0413b9c1.html

Announcing the partnership with MP Lisa Marie Barron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C15sIlXHgFI

Example of my asking the PM about this in Parliament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOl-w7BGP6E

More background on this campaign: https://nationalcitizensassembly.ca/

Search for yourself

At the bottom of this post I’ve included a handful of other examples of recent advocacy.

If you’re curious where I’ve stood on other issues important to you, here are a few tools to search based on your interests:

• Easily searchable database of everything I’ve ever said in Parliament and in committee: https://openparliament.ca/politicians/mike-morrice/
• Text and video of all 485 times I’ve spoken in Parliament since being elected: https://www.ourcommons.ca/publicationsearch/en/?per=110476&pubType=37
• List of every bill and motion I’ve put forward or seconded: https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/mike-morrice(110476)#work#work)
• List of all 401 votes I’ve taken in Parliament (note I missed 6 while travelling for the annual climate negotiations; MPs are not permitted to vote when out of the country): https://www.ourcommons.ca/Members/en/mike-morrice(110476)/votes/votes)
• Online repository of each paper newsletter sent to constituents every 3-4 months (most recent June 2023): https://mikemorricemp.ca/newsletters/

Feel free to connect

My sense is that I’ll be a better MP if I’m informed by a wide mix of perspectives and experiences from across our community. If you’re a resident of Kitchener Centre and you’d like to chat more about any of these or other issues that are important to you, feel free to email me at mike.morrice.C1@parl.gc.ca, or call my office here: 519-741-2001. My team can setup a 15 min phone or zoom chat.

I’m door knocking again all summer (including tonight!), I’ll be at community events, and hosting backyard chats – I hope between all of this, if you would like to chat, we could find a way for this to happen.

Mike

Additional Priorities

Here’s a smattering of other recent points of advocacy that came from our community:

• Amplifying a petition started by former SPECTRUM President and trans activist Cait Glasson (now the 3rd most signed petition of any ever presented in Parliament), calling for trans and non-binary folks to be able to successfully claim asylum in Canada: https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/kitchener-mp-mike-morrice-champions-refugee-status-for-trans-and-non-binary-asylum-seekers/article_b6335219-666f-5a86-b2fe-002295d03e2a.html and https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/06/23/canada-asylum-petition-trans-us-uk/
• Calling for action to address the deep injustice that 96% of those in solitary confinement in federal women's prisons (like the Grand Valley Institution for Women in our community) are Indigenous:
  • Letter: https://mikemorricemp.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Minister-Letter-Indigenous-Inmates.pdf
  • Question in QP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v46baAofSQ
• Calling for the federal government to stop the province of Ontario from adding natural gas to the electricity grid by implementing strong Clean Electricity Regulations:
  • Letter: https://mikemorricemp.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Guilbeault_Dec-2022.pdf
  • Question in QP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhGxHBV_zNA
• Advocating for federal leadership to address the poisoned drug crisis, following calls from Health Canada’s Expert Task Force on Substance Use recommending decriminalization, safe supply and harm reduction:
  • Press conference with Moms Stop the Harm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUkShYXdjOs
  • Question in QP (note this is less recent but very relevant, related to a bill that was voted down last June): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cZ5f7uqXj0

Back in the day, we had Cybernetic Bazaar and other such shops in town where you could go to get used, older components for computers. I don't think there's anything like that in town right now. How far do you have to go to find a computer junk shop?

Veganism doesn't come up very often in his work but when it does he is not shy about it. Otherwise, it's nice to have a comic I know isn't going to say something stupid and cruel.

So do we still have Chinese police working in Waterloo or did they fix that? I feel like they would have said something if they fixed that.

There are some perennial debates in online communities so let me just get ahead of a few and state the editorial position of this lemmunity. I don't see my position changing a great deal but you're welcome to share yours.

• Veganism is about animal rights and animal exploitation. If those things cannot be shown relevant, it's not about veganism. A plant-based diet intended to lose weight and save the climate doesn't especially have anything to do with veganism.

• "Exploitation" is taken to mean to use for any benefit, without additional connotations, such as in: "She exploited her superior knowledge of the rules to outperform her opponents." If you're getting something out of it, it's exploitation. The negative connotations of the word only come up when it involves unconsenting, sentient creatures.

• "Animals" are taken to mean non-human animals. Vegan philosophy does not concern human-human interactions. Humans may sometimes exploit one another, because humans have the capacity to consent when it is mutually beneficial. Veganism assumes that an animal does not have the capacity to consent to exploitation, in the same way that mainstream moral philosophy assumes that children do not have the capacity to consent. It is an assumption we make for the protection of the vulnerable, even though there is no hard line between adult and child, or animal and human.

• Owning an animal for companionship is exploitation.

• Attempting to make another creature unnecessarily dependent on you is abuse, whether it's an animal or a human.

• All the intelligent creatures we create are our children and are all owed unconditional love from their creators.

• No one is perfect. We all have blood on our hands.