Green Festival This Weekend

This Labour Day weekend do something green! ECMA award winning country band, The Divorcees take the stage with 30 other groups covering music genres ranging from folk and blues to rock and jazz at the first annual Green Festival being held near Clairville, NB, from 10am Saturday August 30th until 6pm Monday, September 1st.

Enjoy the great outdoors, catch some live music, buy natural products from local artisans and learn about practical and affordable eco-friendly energy and consumer choices, all while the kids have a blast in a supervised play area featuring bouncy castles, games, face painting, pony and hay rides. With over 100 acres of onsite camping available you can plan to enjoy a few cold ones at the beer garden, catch even more live music, sleep over and do it all over again the next day.

Advance tickets are $10 per person per day, $25 for a 3-day pass, kids under 16 $5 per day, and children under the age of 5 get in free. At the gate it's $15 per day, $35 for a 3-day pass, and $7 per day for kids under the age of 16. Buy your tickets online here. Tickets are also being sold at various locations throughout the province, for a detailed list visit www.thegreenfestival.ca.

Going green is affordable! Plan to enjoy a family fun day out AND save money! For a detailed list of bands, vendors, weekend highlights and directions to the festival site visit The Green Festival online at www.greenfestival.ca.

Coming Election Must Focus on Knowledge Economy Issues -- PWAC

The Professional Writers Association of Canada (PWAC) encourages Canadian voters, media and politicians to ensure information economy issues are front and centre in any coming federal election, and into the next legislative session.

“Canada needs a sharper focus on the new economy of ideas and the rights of knowledge workers,” advises PWAC President Tanya Gulliver. “Over the past decade, successive governments have talked up the knowledge economy, but directed policy and legislation have been woefully lacking. We are in serious danger of being left in the dust of the global marketplace.”

PWAC points to the recently introduced Bill C-61, the proposed amendment to the Copyright Act of Canada, as an example of potentially stalled information-age legislation. As well, the recent $45 million in arts funding reductions indicate Canada is moving in the wrong direction when it comes to cultural economics.

“PWAC has consulted with government after government on copyright reform and cultural funding,” notes Gulliver. “Just when we get a copyright bill to consider and shape, it looks like it will die on the order paper because of an election. How long will the country wait for another such bill, and how far behind the rest of the world will we fall in the meantime?”

Canada’s cultural sector is vibrant and poised for explosive growth. Cultural industries already contribute upwards of $46 billion to the Canadian economy, and employ hundreds of thousands of Canadians. Ironically, Canada’s cultural workers remain largely underpaid, and continued funding cuts do nothing but sap the energy of a painfully underfunded sector.

“It’s time for all of Canada’s politicians to get serious about culture as business,” insists Gulliver. “Canada should be leading the way, not joining the knowledge economy third world.”

Established in 1976, PWAC is the national organization representing 660 professional freelance writers and journalists in Canada.