[4G – 5G – AT&T – BC Hydro Radio-Off Smart Meters Photos – Bruce Kushnick – Catherine McKenna – CPUC – Customer Harvesting – Data – Elizabeth May Press Release re CEPA Review – EMF – FCC – Fibre Optics – Microcells / Small Cells Flyer & Letters to Government & Newspapers by Oona McOuat – Removal of Landlines – SB 649 – UBCM Conference – TURN The Utility Reform Network – UN – Verizon – Wireless | BC – California & Florida & New York, USA]
1) Elizabeth May responded to a member who is a constituent who cc’d her on an email about the recommendations for the Environmental Protection Act. She had sent out a Press Release in June in support of strengthening our current weak Act but I never saw it. Perhaps I missed it or perhaps the media neglected to publish it. It is below in Letters.
(click on photos to enlarge)
http://www.ec.gc.ca/lcpe-cepa/default.asp?lang=En&n=26a03bfa-1
2) Microcells are being installed across BC as well as across many parts of North America in preparation for 5G technology. A member of the Coalition, Oona McOuat, is taking the lead on this issue, hoping to inform people and to solicit their support in educating their Councils and Mayors in advance of the upcoming Union of BC Municipalities conference at the end of September. She has written the following documents and I hope you all will consider sending these to your Councillors and Mayors.
Please participate in a quick and easy campaign to educate the public and your local government officials on microcells and EMF.
At the upcoming convention of the Union of BC Municipalities taking place between September 25 and 29 in Vancouver, mayors and councillors will be voting on a resolution that supports more local authority over the placement of microcells on our streets.
We must work together to create a critical mass of awareness before this vote takes place. Passing this resolution at the UBCM will greatly increase our leverage in lobbying our provincial and federal governments for a more participatory wireless technology placement policy.
Please take a few moments to:
1. Sign and submit this letter to your local newspaper:
2. Sign and submit this letter + two-page flyer to your elected Mayor and Councillors or your Islands Trust representatives:
www.stopsmartmetersbc.com/wp-content/uploads/Microcells-Small-Cells-Letter-to-Government-Reps.pdf
https://stopsmartmetersbc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Microcell-Flyer-for-UBCM-revised.pdf
Thank you!
3) Another member found a meter reader taking a photo of her smeter.
“Serendipity…Walked into the garage this a.m. when the BC Hydro reader was there…really a nice guy.
I asked him about the picture taking. Yes, they’d been asked to do so as Hydro wants to be sure when they tell someone they have a radio-off it really is! At least that was what he was told.”
I don’t know if this makes any sense. How can a photo show that someone’s meter has the transmitter disabled? I know that there is “RAD OFF” written across the face, but couldn’t BC Hydro tell that a smeter is not sending signals to confirm this?
4) Found by a member in the USA, in California, money that was supposed to be used to provide fiber optic service is being diverted to provide wireless (and remove landline) services. Fiber optics are being used to support the microcells, to provide power for the 5G technology that is being planned. The resultant rate increases for landline phone service are driving people to look for alternatives — and there is VOIP or wireless – which allows phone companies to say they don’t have enough people to keep the copper line land service. We have lost this option in BC without our even knowing it.
Californians Paid Billions Extra: The State Assembly Should Investigate AT&T’s Cross-Subsidies.
The current California State Assembly is contemplating a new bill, SB-649, that is once again supposed to bring wondrous new technology if only we get rid of pesky regulations and preempt any zoning or customer challenges. It is based on “5G”, which doesn’t exist yet and whatever shows up will require a fiber optic wire and will have a range of a ‘small cell’, a city block or so.
One wireless expert put it this way—“5 comes after 4. We have 4G; we now have 4G+Hype.”
Instead of being conned yet again by the promise of a fabulous broadband future, California should start investigations and audits of the companies for overcharging local phone customers and cross-subsidizing the wireless company (a separate subsidiary) or the other subsidiaries of AT&T, with the state communications utility, AT&T California. And the Assembly should be examining the failure to deploy fiber optic broadband, even though customers have paid billions and billions over the last two decades.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/599d26bee4b0b87d38cbe637
Letters:
Committee recommends right to a healthy environment in Canadian Environment Protection Act review
June 15, 2017
*(OTTAWA)* – Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada (MP, Saanich-Gulf Islands), released the following statement regarding today’s report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable
Development:
“In reviewing the Canadian Environment Protection Act (CEPA), the cross-partisan standing committee has recommended that parliament recognize the right to a healthy environment. This is a significant breakthrough for a country that has not previously recognized this right, and the committee’s combined recommendations would provide much-needed strengthening of CEPA.
“Key recommendations from the report include that the preamble of CEPA be amended:
* to recognize a right to a healthy environment;
* to mention the importance of considering vulnerable populations in risk assessments; and
* to recognize the principles put forward in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
“Other recommendations include that the government consider amending CEPA to include the right to a healthy environment in the administrative duties of the Government of Canada; to give greater force and effect to environmental rights; to create better monitoring and reporting of federal-provincial climate agreements; and to require mandatory hazard labelling of all products containing toxic substances.
“The combined effect of these recommendations and others would be a huge leap forward for Canadian environmental protection. It is a shame the Conservative Party has filed a dissent. I would have hoped that post-Harper, the Conservatives would be more open to environmental protections.
“I urge my fellow parliamentarians to review this excellent report and ask Environment and Climate Change Minister, Catherine McKenna, to move quickly to draft a bill to adopt all recommendations,” Ms. May concluded.
Sharon Noble
Director, Coalition to Stop Smart Meters
The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice — it is conformity.
~ Rollo May