Dear Provencher Constituency Election Candidates, 2011

We at the SOUTH EASTMAN TRANSITION INITIATIVE believe the quality of our natural environment, our habitat, is at risk. We also believe we should be moving towards using renewable forms of energy. Our quality of life and even simple survival for us and our children is at stake. This is why we think our concerns need attention during the present election campaign. But that does not seem to be the case.

We believe that accessibility to essential goods (food, clothing, shelter, energy) is at risk because of our dependency on fossil fuels, especially since we have already reached Peak Oil. We have also reached Peak Phosphate which threatens agriculture as we know it. As well we are concerned about our massive release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere causing global warming. We also believe that most of the time our lifestyles are supporting unjust trade throughout the world today and are stealing resources from our descendants.

Our organization is partly inspired by a growing UK movement call TRANSITION TOWNS, see http://Transitiontowns.org/ and http://transitionculture.org/ .

We are a young organization in this region but since beginning our work in 2009 we have produced a monthly newsletter that we send now to over a hundred subscribers. We publish a weekly column in The Carillon on the editorial page entitled, “Rethinking Lifestyles.” Note that The Carillon sells about 9000 copies each week. As well, we organize public events at least once a month that have attracted up to 75 persons and have developed and maintain a website (www.SouthEastTranstion.com.) We are a voice with a growing audience in our community!

Topics we have covered in our monthly meetings include:

· Organic Gardening For Food

· Green Construction

· The Global Energy Crisis

· The Unhealthy Food Industry

· Energy Efficiency

· Alternative Energy

· Green Funerals

· Sustainable Woodlot Management

Here are few questions we would like to ask you. Your response will be summarized in The Carillon, with a notice that your full response will be posted on our website, in order to educate and inform the people in our constituency. We thank you in advance for your responses to our questions. If you chose not to respond it will be noted in our public reports.

Please forward your responses to Gabriel Gagné (gjrgagne@yahoo.ca) no later than Friday, April 22. Thank you and happy campain!