[Sust-mar] NOVA SCOTIA HIGH SCHOOL ESSAY CONTEST 2013: Alternatives to warships?

[Tamara Lorincz]

Please distribute far & wide to high school students - deadline is June
10th!

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NOVA SCOTIA HIGH SCHOOL ESSAY CONTEST 2013

Answer this question in an essay and win! 

Question: Instead of spending $25 billion to build new warships for the navy
at the Irving shipyard in Halifax, how could the Canadian government invest
our tax dollars to make our society and our economy greener, more equitable,
and more peaceful?

1st prize: $150 cash & prize pack
2nd prize: $100 cash & prize pack
3rd prize: $50 cash & prize pack

The essay is limited to 1,000 words maximum and must be sent in English as a
Microsoft Word (.doc) attachment. Include your name, phone number, age,
grade, high school and hometown. Open to all high school students in Nova
Scotia. Deadline is June 10, 2013 (midnight). Winning essays will be
announced and posted on the web site by June 17, 2013. 

An essay contest to promote critical thinking about the Canadian
government's policies and spending. 

Background: In 2010, the Canadian government announced the National
Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy. Under the strategy, the federal
government stated it would spend $35 billion of our tax dollars to build new
combat and non-combat vessels for the Canadian Navy and Coast Guard. In
2011, the federal government awarded the $25 billion bid to Irving
Shipbuilding Ltd. to manufacture a fleet of new armed combat vessels
(warships) for the navy over the next 20 years at the shipyard in Halifax.
It is the largest defence procurement in our country's history. In 2012, the
Nova Scotia government released its Kids & Learning First policy. Under the
policy, the Department of Education has introduced a new Manufacturing
Trades course, so that students can gain the skills to help build the new
warships at the Halifax shipyard. However, our country is faced with the
serious human security challenges of climate change and poverty.

The essay contest asks high school students to critically examine the issue
of the federal government planning to spend billions of tax dollars to
acquire new warships in Nova Scotia. No warships have been built yet. Are
there other ways the federal government could spend tax dollars to make our
society and economy greener, more equitable and more peaceful?

Please send essays electronically to: peace at demilitarize.ca  

Deadline is Monday, June 10, 2013 (midnight). 

Organized by DEMILITARIZE.ca and sponsored by the Nova Scotia Public
Interest Research Group (NSPIRG). 

For more information, please visit www.demilitarize.ca

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Tamara

Tamara Lorincz
55 Willowbend Court
Halifax, NS CANADA B3M 3L3
Phone: (902) 443-2423
Cell: (902) 478-1379
Email: tlorincz at dal.ca

DEMILITARIZE: http://www.demilitarize.ca BLOG "Wednesdays against Warships":
http://demilitarize.ca/wp/ 

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not
fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not
spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius
of its scientists, the hopes of its children." - Former US President D.
Eisenhower, 1953