Land Over Landings – Update 4

 Inline image 2

UPDATE #4     September 19, 2013
Dear Land Over Landings supporters,
September is barely half over and there’s already lots to report. But first, another call for volunteers:
NEEDED URGENTLY
Can you help?
We’re looking for:
  • more volunteers to coordinate teams at events and food markets
  • fundraisers
  • folks to help paint signs. Students, this activity is fun and counts as community service!
Please e-mail us at info@landoverlandings.com or phone 905-649-2433. We need YOU.
SINCE OUR LAST UPDATE…
On the political scene
  •  Last month we met Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada, who joined our cause with her personal pledge of support.
  • The Ajax-Pickering Federal Liberal Association is working with us to draft a resolution in support of saving these Lands.
  • The federal NDP has launched an initiative called Farm to Fork, with a petition urging a comprehensive national food policy. http://petition.ndp.ca/farmtofork
  • We have yet to hear from the federal Conservatives — except that we know Jim Flaherty has said there’s NO plan for agriculture on this prime farmland. We have written to the new Transport Minister, Lisa Raitt, requesting federal government transparency on the Pickering airport issue. www.landoverlandings.com/beinformed.html
  • Provincially, Premier Wynne has announced a new Local Food Fund: Growing More Local Food. We loudly applaud this initiative. Now we must get Ontario’s Agriculture Minister (also Ms Wynne) to formally recognize the urgency of protecting the land the food is grown on!http://news.ontario.ca/omafra/en/2013/09/growing-more-local-food-opportunities.html
In the media…
This is just a taste. There’s lots more on the Articles page of our website and on our Facebook page, which is one click away from 1,000 Likes!
Surveys and things
Take a minute or two to participate in our Public Opinion Survey. And show support by joining our Twibbon campaign! Here are the links:
Land Over Landings depots
Thanks to supporters in Ajax, South Pickering, Whitevale, Claremont, Uxbridge, Stouffville, and Markham, we now have depots for the distribution of signs, T-shirts, buttons, bumper stickers, and literature. Contact us for the distributor nearest you. 
Inline image 1
Showing off signs are the children of Dave Spylo,
our new event co-chair, from Stouffville.
COMING UP…
Claremont’s Heritage Festival: A Celebration of 175 Years, Saturday, Sept. 21
Don’t miss Claremont’s big party this weekend! Land Over Landings will be there, showcasing and selling fresh local food and rallying folks to the cause. The weather’s promising to be perfect and a full day of events has been planned for the whole family. Come and have a great time.http://landoverlandings.com/events.html
Purple Onion Harvest Festival, Peterborough, Sunday, Sept. 22
Thanks to a Peterborough-area supporter, farmer Pam Ellison Maitland, we have a booth at the Festival. The annual event celebrates local food, sustainability, and food security, with farmers and chefs from the area. Great place to schmooze! http://thepurpleonion.org/
Public Information Meeting, Claremont, October 22
NOTE CHANGE OF DATE!! Join us for an entertaining and highly informative evening — nothing like Transport Canada’s “public information” sessions in June! Our featured speaker will be that dynamic farmer Carl Cosack, the man who led the successful mega-quarry fight and who now heads up Food & Water First. We will also report on the reasons why a Pickering airport would fail, and why preserving farmland — the land that feeds us — is essential to our future and makes good economic sense, too.
Place: The Claremont Community Centre, 4941 Old Brock Road, Claremont, L1Y 1A9
Time: Doors open at 7 p.m.; meeting starts at 7:30 
Mark your calendars and spread the word. This is an evening you won’t want to miss.
Spring Planting
We’re already planning our spring planting — but this time, we’ll be planting seeds of change. We want to change the government’s plans for the “airport lands” and sow seeds for the future federalagricultural lands. We’re teaming up with People or Planes icon Bill Lishman and his partner in activism, Al Graham, as well as Donna Tranquada, formerly of the CBC and now with Food & Water First. People or Planes stopped the airport in ’75 and Food & Water First stopped the mega-quarry this year. What a team this will be! We’re looking at a huge food-and-music event in May, 2014, to celebrate this fabulous farmland. Stay tuned!


Land Over Landings

Because Food is a GROWING concern