Sorry it's taken me a few days to send out an update from my meeting with MLA Mary Polak. It's amazing how busy days with an 8 month old are! Anyway, here I am finally able to send out an update. First off, thank you all soooooo much for your hardwork collecting hard copy signatures for our petition. As of our visit to the post box on Friday, February 8 we have surpassed 2000 signatures, in fact we are currently at 2169!! Many of you have written saying you still have some signatures and want to know what to do....read on, we can still accept more and there's still time to get them in:) I am learning a great deal (but slowly) about politics and procedure through this petition process. Here is the update on where we stand and what happens next. It's a tad lengthy, but please read in full, or at least skip to the bottom where I have a list of the things I need your help with!!
 
MLA Mary Polak had written Honourable Selina Robinson, Housing Minister, in the fall asking what she intended to do to address the issue and request we have raised. She had also cc'd Honourable Adrian Dix, Health Minister. The response she received from Selina Robinson's office was essentially the same as that received by all of us who wrote directly to Selina Robinson....summarized.....we have no plans to do anything about this in particular, and here are all the laws/systems currently in place and available that they can use. The Health Minister never responded to MLA Polak. Since she (nor we) are satisfied with this response, and since she now has received a formal response from the Minister's office, she can take the next step which in her opinion is inviting the Ministers for a meeting with herself and me in Victoria. We discussed that she will invite three key ministers that I had originally contacted - Minister of Housing, Minister of Health as well as Minister of Child and Family.
 
In addition to organizing the above meeting, MLA Polak also has now made herself a to do list of additional action steps to help in supporting and pushing this cause forward.
She is going to look into if there is some way that we can get the change.org petition signatures admitted formally as eligible for our petition. She also is now going to go to her team of researchers to look into the various legislations currently in place and seek ways that recommendation for amendment to current legislation may be possible, rather than having to propose new law/bill per se. I mentioned for example how the Ministry of Child and Family had responded to me that they have no jurisdiction over my specific concerns (ie. smoke in multi-family homes) but they assured me they are responsible for the Foster Child Act which ensures that all foster children are placed in smoke-free homes....meaning, there must be legislation and reasoning for why these children are being afforded the health and safety of smoke-free homes....so why not all children? or all people for that matter? So it's these types of legislations she is going to look into.
 
In terms of presenting the petition formally to the Legislature, she explained that given Selina Robinson's response, MLA Polak likely will need to present the petition as a Private Members Bill. She explained to me that the issue with a Private Members Bill is that it gets registered with the clerk (ie. formally accepted), but that it is not necessarily called to be read before the Legislature.... She says there have been times in the past where a topic is of enough public interest that a Private Members Bill may be adopted, but it is not guaranteed..... So, we discussed how best to proceed at this point and that's why she suggested let's first start with the meeting that she is going to arrange as outlined above in the hope that they will see that they want to bring this matter forward. That will involve me going to Victoria whenever the meeting is, and then we can plan to hand over the petition at that time as well, and have media and everyone lined up to make a BIG DEAL about this (lol, even more than it's already made!). So, I still have all of your petitions under lock and key in our home and they will not go to waste, but we have more work to do to create the impact needed to get our desired outcome.
 
So, that's her homework....but she has given me the following homework and I am reaching out to you all to please pitch in as I can't do it alone!
- prepare a list of all organizations that are in support of this petition, including contact information for a spokesperson at each organization that will be willing to speak to the media about this issue (the list will be handed over to the media when we present the petition to Legislature so they can then run easily with the story)
- prepare a list of other people also affected first-hand by the issue of smoke in their homes willing to be part of the media coverage, with contact information and a brief summary of their issue (ie. another parent with a child who is suffering, or a person with health problems whose health problems have been made worse, or a person who has taken their case to the CRT/HRT already and the outcome of using these existing avenues has failed them) - this list too will be handed to the media so they can easily run with the story and showcase how common and dire an issue this is and the need for this issue to be addressed
- compile research and evidence to bring along to the meeting with the ministers to further support and substantiate the cause.
 
The research part is the key part that I need your help with and I'm looking for people to head up different subjects. The areas that I'm thinking so far are as follows:
- health consequences of second hand smoke exposure,
- fire risk,
- air flow/travel in multi-family housing,
- building code,
- past CRT/HRT cases and outcomes/relevant take aways,
- population statistics ie. how many people smoke/how many people live in multi-family housing/trends of population growth/densification,
- financial burden ie. frequency/cost of people moving because of smoke, decrease in property value because of smoke, increased maintenance/cleaning costs, any difference in insurance rates
- list of other places that have gone smoke-free and types of laws/rules put in place, how did they make the transition ie. all social housing in USD
 
I don't know yet when the meeting will occur, but if those with knowledge/expertise in the above areas and/or willingness to take on a section, please contact me and let me know so that I can ensure we have each area covered and then just start compiling news segments, results of studies, journal articles, professional knowledge/accounts etc. In the past people have emailed me links to some of these things and there's just too much to do on my own. So please consider taking on a section!!
 
If you are willing to be on the media contact list as you are personally affected by smoke, please email me in the subject line saying "affected by smoke - willing to talk to media" and then in the body include a brief summary of your scenario. I know many of you have shared previously but this will help me more quickly compile this list. I've received hundreds of emails and it's hard to go back and find the certain one that included the necessary info.
 
If you know an organization that would speak with the media (or are part of one, or represent one) then please email me in the subject line saying "organization - willing to talk to media" and then include the name of the organization and the spokesperson with their contact information.
 
Ok, that's plenty for now...sorry for the long update but I wanted to let everyone know where things are at and what we do now. In terms of petition signatures, you can absolutely all continue to collect signatures and don't worry about sending them in right away. Once I know when the meeting will occur I will let you all know and then you can send in any and all additional petition signatures you've been able to gather.
 
Thank you sooooooo much for your ongoing support. Do not be discouraged. We knew that getting change to happen would take time and effort. We continue to make headway and more people are hearing about this message and learning that there aren't already rules protecting people in their homes and putting pressures on their individual buildings to go smoke-free because of everything we are doing. We are not going away. We will get this done. Somehow, someway, sometime soon.....!!!!