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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:
Others To Be Announced. St. Lawrence Centre, 27 Front St. E., Toronto Directions -> Saturday Workshops at the University of Toronto exploring topics such as 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: goto: REGISTRATION Workshops 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?
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. goto: REGISTRATION Housing Information Conference Accommodations at the Victoria University Residences in Toronto Lodging for approximately 100 people is available at the Victoria 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 Directions 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 |
Debra Harry, Indigenous People's Council on Biocolonialism, Nevada