Well I’m happy to say that our momentum is continuing and everyday there are more signatures and turns/opportunities to move this initiative forward. Congrats everyone on helping us get over 10,000 in less than a month and we are now well on our way towards 15,000. Keep forwarding and talking with anyone you know and encounter!
Key things to share since last update:
- I had a meeting with my MLA Mary Polak who is supportive and willing to present the paper petition to the legislative assembly on our behalf, and right away (as opposition) is going to email the attorney general and the housing minister to ask what they plan to do.
- I heard very positive feedback from those who took the new poster and hung it in local community locations. Many people hadn’t heard about the initiative but were very interested to join. So please print at least one (and after that as many as you want) and put them up around your community as so many people are not on social media and don’t watch the news. Let them know about this, help us get the word out!!
- I have been collaborating with other groups with anti-smoking/secondhand smoke mandates to pull together a unified position and call to action on October 17, calling the government out on bad policy and lack of preparedness to protect Canadians suitably from secondhand smoke. More information to come but we are working on having this spread across B.C. and Canada as much as we can so stay tuned for how you can participate and stand up for your right to clean air in your home:)! If you are in the lower mainland or Victoria and able to attend what we are planning in person that would be amazing. Tentatively save some time in your schedule roughly over the lunch hour period, more info will follow.
- I was contacted personally by Kevin Sabet, non-partisan advisor to 3 US presidential administrations on drug policy and founder of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), about this petition and asked to participate in the October 17 press conference they are preparing. How humbling and what an honour to have the opportunity to collaborate.
I think that summarizes the key updates for now, as you see the initiative continues and grows. Please continue to follow along with us and participate in whatever ways you are able: talking about and forwarding this message, sharing and posting our poster, signing up for our mailing list at airweshare.ca, emailing us with detailed stories of how you are negatively affected by secondhand smoke, following/liking us on social media @airweshare, contacting your local politicians asking for change, and joining us in the coming call to action on October 17.
Don’t let your rights go up in smoke!!