Meeting Notes

First Open VEG Meeting Focuses on Joint Action, Unions, and  Education
by Gene McGuckin, VEG member

VANCOUVER, October 8 – The need for unified actions by British Columbia's numerous environmental groups was primary among a few recurrent themes at the first open meeting of the Vancouver Ecosocialist Group, held this evening.

Finding ways to get the union movement and its members involved in the fight against climate change was also stressed repeatedly.

A dozen people with a wide variety of political interests and backgrounds attended the invitational meeting to find out about the newly-launched group.

Several voiced strong support for uniting the fight to solve the eco-emergency with the socialism's historic struggle for social justice and democratic economic planning.

Making its public debut at well-attended September 23 and 24 public forums in Vancouver and Victoria , the VEG held tonight's meeting as part of its efforts to actively seek more members.

Included among those attending were widely varied people who are, or have been, community organizers, an officer of a province-wide union local, a university student, a city councilor, feminists, and environmentalists. The large majority were activists, as were the nine VEG members at the meeting.
Several spoke of the need to pull together the wide variety of environmental groups, who are "fragmented" (in the words of one participant) into their own separate organizations and campaigns. At least occasionally, most agreed, these groups should mobilize their members and sympathizers into joint actions.

Other speakers expanded the need for unity even further. Environmentalists need to link up and fight battles side by side with social justice activists of all types.

Due to the fact that several VEG members have experience as trade union activists, one of them proposed that the group could make a unique contribution to the environmental movement by working to get union members active in it.

Education about what eco-socialism is was also strongly supported by several of those at the meeting. This should take place within the group and among its supporters, but also through more public forums, people said.

Many other proposals for what VEG should do over coming months and years were thrown out and argued for, but most acknowledged that until we have more committed members VEG will have to move forward one step at a time, always pushing to increase our activities as our capacities grow. 
Crucial to this growth, numerically and politically, will be more people actively participating in or with the VEG, and the group making links with other organizations.