This edition of Canadian Voices features Martin Van Den Borre, Co-Director of Ottawa-'s La Siembra Worker Co-op. He speaks on â Cooperation and Survival: The Fair Trade Revolutionâ, at an event co-presented by Canadian Voices and the Upper Columbia Co-op Council, in Nelson, BC, in April, 2008.

La Siembra Worker Co-op produces the award winning cocoa camino line of organic fair trade cocoa , chocolate, and sugar products, and has been a pioneer in North American Fair Trade Certification. The Co-op's mission is to offer goods that improve the livelihoods of family farmers and the well-being of communities at home and abroad. Founded in 1999, La Siembra has chosen to identify with its producer partners by adopting the same democratic, participatory and transparent model that they follow in their own co-operatives in the South.

Mr. Van den Borre discusses how cooperatives in both the North and the South are supporting a shift in international trade practices, toward fair trade, and away from the conventional free trade system, which is characterized by poor working conditions including low pay, overwork, pesticide exposure, and child labour; and by trade regulations that are biased against small southern farmers.

This edition of Canadian Voices features Michael Geist, a University of Ottawa Law School professor , a champion of copyright reform, and an internationally renowned expert on law and the internet . Dr. Geist delivered the 2006 Hart House Lecture at the University of Toronto. His talk is entitled Our Own Creative Land: Cultural Monopoly and the Trouble with Copyright.

A recording of this talk was made available by TV Ontario's Big Ideas programme, on which it was first broadcast on May 27, 2006.More information tvo.org/bigideas.

The second half of the programme features author and philospher Mark Kingwell. speaking on Boredom, Philosophy, and the Meaning of Life, at an event produced by the Necessary Voices Society in Vancouver, in November, 2003, more information on this society at www.necessaryvoices.org.

HÃbert penned her first book, French Kiss: Stephen Harperâs Blind Date with Quebec , as both a post-mortem of the Canadian federation that died on January 23, 2006, the night of the last federal election, as well as an examination of our changing political future, one that involves living with Quebec rather than just wooing it.

On that election night, Chantal Hebert explains that she stood in a Calgary convention hall with 2,000 cheering Alberta Conservatives, watching as their party captured 10 seats in her native Quebec. Before the confetti had stopped falling, she realized that she could be witnessing the start of a major political realignment.

HÃbert is one of a new breed of Canadian journalists. A francophone, she works in English as a national affairs columnist for the Toronto Star and as a commentator on CBC Television. With one foot in each of the two solitudes, she has developed a unique ability to explain the intricacies of Quebec's political arena for an English-speaking audience.

She spoke in November, 2007

She spoke in Vancouver, BC in May, 2007.

From the visual ideas put forward by Leonardo Da Vinci, musical thoughts created by Beethoven, and the pornography of Machiavelli, Paul Kennedy discusses the importance of ideas in the fields of Philosophy, Art and Politics, through the lens of his work as documentarist and radio producer.

Paul Watson has been denounced by many as a misanthrope and an ecoterrorist. He believes that government is a body that overseas the mass destruction of human and non-human life, that they sell the licences to over-fish, to clear-cut, to hunt, to drain swamps and to destroy wetlands. He finds fault in those aiming for âsustainableâ living, and has been arrested in Canada, Norway and Holland for his efforts to halt fishing and hunting of maritime animals. Paul Watson, however, has never been convicted. He defends his actions as falling within International Law, and Sea Shepherdâs right to enforce maritime regulations against illegal whalers and sealers.

He spoke on September 15, 2005 in Edmonton , Alberta.

Intent for a Nation, the title of which is followed by: â A relentlessly optimistic manifesto for Canadaâs role in the worldâ, has been called a compelling call to arms to reinvigorate our vision of Canadaâs place in the world, from one of the best of our new generation of public intellectuals.

The book plays against Lament for A Nation, the influential 1965 work of political philosophy by George Grant, which paints Canada as a country already lost to the forces of Americanization.

Called the provinceâs âoptimistic environmentalistâ, his talk was part of a symposium called Climate Change: Exploring Regional Solutions presented by the West Kootenay EcoSociety, held in Nelson , BC on April 23, 2007.

Adrienne Clarkson delivered the 2007 LaFontaine-Baldwin Lecture in Vancouver in March, 2007, and spoke on " A Society of Difference". The lecture was recorded by CBC's Ideas.

He spoke at the Vancouver Public Library as part of the Necessary Voices Lecture Series, on November 10. 2006.

The talk was recorded by Thomas Hicks of the Necessary Voices Society. 

He spoke as part of the 2007 Vancouver Institute Lecture Series in Februray, 2007.

Melanie Mark is from the Nisga'a Nation. Growing up in a disadvantaged environment, Melanie has made it her work to be an advocate for at-risk Native youth. She is the former president of the Urban Native Youth Association, and Chair of the organizations $47 million capital campaign for the development of a Native Youth Centre designed to serve as a cornerstone for the Native community on the east side of Vancouver. The Urban Native Youth Association has been working with all three levels of government to raise the funds needed to make this centre a reality.   As of the date of this talk, the Association had raised almost $6 million, including securing the land needed to build this 65,000 sq ft Centre. 

This edition of Canadian Voices features Zool Suleman, Immigration Lawyer and anti racial-profiling activist, and Jason Gratl, Chair of the BC Civil Liberites Association, speaking on the issue of Racial profiling in Canada.

In the Post 9-11 world, racial profiling has come to the forefront as a tool to aid government in creating a more secure society. In the Canadian context, where government denies that racial profiling occurs and where affected communities insist that racial profiling occurs, what are the relevant issues for consideration?

Zool Suleman and Jason Gratl spoke at a Canadian Voices produced Lecture at the Vancouver Public Library on March 7, 2007.

Sheila Watt -Cloutier is a climate change activist, outgoing Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, and nominee for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. She spoke on The Right To Be Cold: The Arctic Environment, Climate Change, and Human Rights, in March, 2006, in a lecture sponsored by the Wilderness Institute at the University of Montana, in Missoula, Montana.  

Sheila Watt Cloutier has made it her life's work to preserve the environment and advocate for the people of the circumpolar region. Born in the tiny community of Kuujjuaq in Northern Quebec, Ms. Watt-Cloutier was raised traditionally on the land for ten years, before attending school in Churchill, Manitoba. She currently makes her home in Iqaluit, in Nunavut.  In her capacity as President of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, from 1995-2002, and her election as International Chair in 2002, she was successful in persuading states to sign a global agreement to ban the generation and use of persistent organic pollutants, such as DDT and the PCBs that contaminate the Arctic food chain.

John Ralston Saul, author, essayist and philosopher, spoke at the Parkland Instituteâs Tenth Annual Conference, on November 17, 2006 in Edmonton, Alberta.  A Companion of the Order of Canada, he is also Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de France. His 14 honorary degrees range from McGill and the University of Ottawa, to Herzen State Pedagogical University in St Petersburg, Russia.

He speaks on Democracy, Citizenship and Sovereignty.

This episode features Matt Elrod, a Victoria, BC-based drug policy activist. Matt provides a brief history of what he explains as the racist origins of drug prohibition, and discusses the modern day impact of the "War on Drugs" on the civil liberties of both drug users and abstainers alike.