Over the last two years, thousands of people have gathered to counter the annual conventions of the biotechnology industry in Boston and San Diego. This year, people will be converging on Toronto to broaden the biojustice movement and challenge the biotechnology industry and their vision for our future. It will be a gathering to learn, strategize and network about genetic engineering in agriculture and pharmaceuticals, biowarfare, genetic and non-genetic discrimination, trade regimes and corporate control, patenting of life and more. This event is timed to challenge the industry’s annual convention BIO2002, Toronto, June 9-12.
Friday Night Panel: Biotechnology, Food and Health Care: Exposing the Myths
Speakers include:
Dr. Vandana Shiva, author, physicist and philosopher of science, founder of the Research Foundation on Science, Technology, and Ecology (India) and recipient of the 1993 Right Livelihood Award.
Dr. Nancy Olivieri, professor of pediatrics at the University of Toronto, and head of the thalassemia and sickle-cell anemia research programs at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children, and co-founder, Doctors for Research Integrity
Dr. Gregor Wolbring, research scientist, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary; member of the Ethics working group of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO and founder of The International Network on Bioethics and Disability www.bioethicsanddisability.org/
Others To Be Announced. St. Lawrence Centre, 27 Front St. E., Toronto Directions ->
Saturday Workshops at the University of Toronto exploring topics such as
Full listings below
8:30AM to 6:00PM at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) – University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto Directions ->
Saturday Evening Panel: Biowarfare: Is the Biotechnology Industry Profiting from War?
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) – University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto Directions ->Speakers include:
Other speakers To Be Announced
Sunday: bioDIVERSITY GMO-Free Picnic: A Festival of Alternatives
12 noon – 4 PM, Grange Park Directions ->
Featuring:
go to: REGISTRATION
Saturday Workshops at the University of Toronto, June 8:
8:30am to 5:00pm at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) –
University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto
Opening Panel 8:30 – 9:45
Workshops 10-1 and 2- 5
13 bioJUSTICE Workshops For Movement Building:
PLEASE NOTE: additional workshop leaders will be added to this list. Times
are to be confirmed. The workshops are 3 hours each to enable full
participation and action strategizing; there are two workshop slots of 10-1
or 2-5. There is no workshop sign-up but when you register please indicate
your workshop preferences. Thank you.
1. Public Health, Biotechnology and the Corporatization of Medicine
What new pharmaceutical drugs and therapies are being created? What are the
safety concerns – how is research being conducted and how is the government
regulating products? How is our health care system being reorganized by
genetic technologies and how can we organize to protect public health and
our public health care system?
2. The Tyranny of “Normal”: Disability, Culture and Human Engineering
How can we start to talk about the challenging issues raised by new human
genetic technologies and who has a voice in this debate? This workshop will
cover: discrimination/equality rights; human genetic/non-genetic before and
after birth screening, deselection/selection, fixing, and enhancement
technologies; stem cells; wrongful life/birth suits; artificial womb; and
bionics.
3. Indigenous Knowledge, Biopiracy and Colonialism
How is genetic engineering an attack on indigenous knowledge and how are
genetic technologies used to further colonize native peoples? How are native
peoples across the world fighting biopiracy and bioprospecting – the efforts
to steal genetic materials from plants and people?
Debra Harry, Indigenous People’s Council on Biocolonialism, Nevada
4. The Farm Crisis, Genetic Engineering and New Technologies
Hear from Canadian and US farmers about how genetic engineering and other
corporate technologies are working to shut down the family farm. What
government polices are assisting the industrialization of agriculture and
what can we do to support farmers and protect rural communities in Canada
and the US?
5. Survival Guide to Shopping and Campaigning: How to Shop and Campaign for
GE-Free Food
Discuss ways you can avoid GE foods in your grocery cart and explore how you
can campaign to get GE food out of your grocery store! Strategize how to
join and strengthen campaigns in Canada and US to pressure major retailers
and bring basic decisions about our food supply back into our local
communities.
6. Building a Movement for Healthy Food and Healthy Food Policy
Find out how agricultural subsidies and other policy tools can be used to
re-orient the food system away from technologies like genetic engineering
and toward a sustainable, local food supply. Strategize on fair trade, buy
local campaigns, organics, and talk about what kind of strategies and
movement we are going to have to build to promote alternatives on a broader
scale.
7. Why Biotech Will Not “Feed the World”: Food Security in the Third World
Learn from first hand experience about the destruction wrought by the “Green
Revolution” of the 1960’s and why biotech is only replicating this disaster
for farmers and biodiversity across the world. Find out what peoples across
the South are doing to feed themselves – without corporate technologies –
and how we can work to support these efforts.
8. From WTO and G8: The Threat to Biodiversity, Democracy and Our Food
Supply
How are international trade regimes designed to assist the biotech industry
use patents to lay claim to our biodiversity, weaken food safety standards
and override political and ethical concerns. Come and join actions people
are taking in Canada and around the world to resist the WTO and the G8’s
agenda of exploitation!
9. Challenging the Biotech Engines: How big corporations are re-organizing
their push for a biotech future and what can be done to challenge this
agenda.
An informative and action-oriented workshop that will focus on building
grassroots campaign strategies to counter the multinational agro, food and
pharma biotech corporations.
10. Manipulating Natural Resources: Genetically Engineering Trees
How and why is genetic engineering being used to create trees that are
insect resistant, herbicide resistant, and grow faster? Where is this
research being done and why does it matter? Find out what are the risks are
and how GE trees are connected with justice and environmental struggles
across Latin America, Canada and the US.
11. Public Policy and Government Accountability in Canada
How is the fight for government action on genetic engineering part of a
larger struggle for democracy in the face of corporatization and
privatization of government? Find out who makes the decisions behind the
scenes, learn about successes so far, and strategize to take government back
into our hands!
12. Patenting Cruelty: Transgenic Animals and Biotech Animal Research
How is the biotechnology industry using and abusing animals in their
research to create transgenic animals for xenotransplantation (human
organs), food and pharmaceutical production (animals as “bioreactors”);
animal cloning, the patenting of animals, and what the ethical and legal
challenges are surrounding these issue? Explore how food biotech opponents
can get together with animal-rights advocates to build a more unified and
comprehensive challenge.
13. Ethics of Genetic Engineering: It’s about a lot more than science!
Do we object to genetic engineering because it is ‘risky’ or ‘unsafe’ or
because it is an unconscionable assault on life and a violation of the
integrity of organisms? How are we to treat the other inhabitants of this
place? Ethics is about examining limits and respecting boundaries, which is
directly opposed to the philosophy and practice of genetic engineering.
Ethics is about recognizing that there are some things we cannot and will
not support or do, and why.
go to: REGISTRATION
Housing Information
Conference Accommodations at the Victoria University Residences in Toronto
Lodging for approximately 100 people is available at the Vic vala University
Residences during the conference period. The residences are located on the
University of Toronto campus in downtown Toronto and consist of single or
twin-bed rooms – all have shared mixed-gender washrooms. The accommodation
rates are, for adults, $45 single and $65 twin, and for students and seniors
with valid ID, $39 single and $57 twin. These prices do not include tax.
Local phone calls and a continental breakfast are included in the rate of
stay. Additional meals can also be purchased. There are laundry facilities
in the residences. Some wheelchair accessible rooms are available upon
request.
For more information or to fill out a mail-in registration form, visit the
Victoria University summer accommodation website at:
http://www.vicu.utoronto.ca/accommodation/summer.htm. The reception desk is
open 24 hours. The number is (416) 585-4524. The email address is
accom.victoria@utoronto.ca.
The Victoria College reception desk’s address is 140 Charles St. It is a
five or ten minute walk from Victoria College to OISE, the site for
Saturday’s conference activities (the St. Lawrence Centre for Friday night
is also not too far). Directions are as follows: -walk West on Charles to
Queen’s Park, then turn North (right) -walk one block to Bloor St. West,
turn West (left) on Bloor St. West and walk two or three blocks to OISE.
The College is located near the Museum subway stop (exit on Charles St. –
one minute walk) and near the point where the Bloor/Dansforth and University
bus lines intersect.
Please see mapquest to type in the address of the college
and then get directions.
Comfort Hotel Downtown
15 Charles Street
416 924 1222
Rooms are approximately $150 Canadian
Friday Night
St. Lawrence Centre, 27 Front St. E., Toronto navigate
Saturday
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) – University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto navigate
Sunday
Grange Park navigate
