You are warmly invited to attend an acid rain advocacy simulation workshop on Tues. Feb 9th from 2-4:30pm in the Upper Library at Massey College. 

In the 1980s, Canada was faced with dying lakes caused by acid rain, a large part of it coming from the USA. Advocacy by the Government of Canada, along with the Canadian Coalition on Acid Rain (CCAR), resulted in a bilateral accord with the United States and the passage of the U.S. Clean Air Act—one of the most successful advocacy efforts ever for Canada in influencing the U.S. legislative process. How could this be achieved in today’s 24-7 hyperactive social media world?

This workshop will use acid rain as the context for a hands-on session on advocacy. Setting the stage will be Adele Hurley, co-chair of the CCAR, who will give us a bit of history on the issue. Commenting will be Jeremy Runnalls, Managing Editor of Corporate Knights magazine—Corporate Knights called CCAR “the most successful single-issue environmental group in North American history”.

Participants will first “caucus” into groups representing different stakeholders to devise advocacy strategies from different perspectives on the acid rain issue.  Each caucus will then send a representative to discuss in mixed stakeholder groups.

Adele Hurley and Jeremy Runnalls will be available to the groups in developing their advocacy strategies, along with session moderator, Deanna Horton, Senior Fellow at the Munk School, who recently led the Advocacy Secretariat at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC.

There is no required reading for this workshop, but students who are interested can check out this interesting oral history on the CCAR.

Space is limited – anyone interested in attending can RSVP with Nathan Lemphers at nathan.lemphers@mail.utoronto.ca 

-Nathan Lemphers and Rosemary Martin

On behalf of the Massey College Environment Committee