The following is our PETITION for National / Global LETS. Add the name of your country, print it out, and start getting your friends and family to sign. Then approach your local candidates at their public debates and ask them whether they will create some LETS employment for you.
To wave the signatures of voters in the candidates' faces will get their attention, especially during times of elections. Anyone can exert this pressure.
I hope Canadians avail themselves of this once-in-four-year opportunity to get your candidates to endorse LETS. I think any Canadian LETSers who take the next two weeks to build their petitions and present them to the candidates during meetings may be startled at the repercussions it will have. Any Canadian LETSer who sits idle may regret having let this golden opportunity slip by.
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PETITION for National / Global LETS (Local Employment-Trading System) Nation: ________________________________ I, the undersigned, urge my Federal Government to institute a National LETS and work to institute a Global LETS. Last name, First name, Address, City, Telephone, Signature: ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ Witness: _______________________ Date (YearMoDa): _____________ Address: _______________________________________________________ Send copy to: Pauline Morrissette, LETS Petition Co-ordinator 111-1505 Baseline Rd., Ottawa, ON, K2C 3L4, Tel/Fax: 001613-723-2739; Email: ax989@freenet.carleton.caPage 2:
CANADIAN TIRE LETS
LETS Greendollar money buys things from a LETS catalogue of goods and
services offered by members within the community just like Canadian
Tire money buys from a catalogue of goods in exactly the same way.
Installed in over 3,000 branches around the world as an effective
anti-poverty system, the LETS "Local Employment-Trading System" is a
multi-party barter system which uses a Canadian Tire-like Greendollar
money to facilitate trading of employment between local members. The
Unemployed, Under-employed and Under-patronized stores list their
skills and goods for trade in a LETS Directory of offers and wants.
Members get a Green LETS account starting at zero and bearing no
interest and backed up with their pledge to redeem their credit used.
3) To transfer Green to other members, they may use:
a) paper check transfers,
b) Email check transfers,
c) paper note hand-to-hand transfers,
d) telephonic transfers.
LETS in English world
LETS (SEL) in France world
Travellers cheques are a well-known private LETS-type international currency. OC Transpo bus tickets and transfers are another fine local but underutilized LETS currency. Like Sudbury residents took bus tickets from bus drivers during hard times, we could use OC Transpo Greendollars too. Granting OC Transpo staff an immediate 10% raise in bus tickets would generate a surge in ridership as those LETS bus tickets get traded in the community. Just as Torontonians took hockey tickets from builders of Maple Leaf Gardens during the Great Depression because they could spend them, accepting Ottawa Senators hockey game tickets from Senators' employees would make for pretty good "Forty- or Fifty-Greendollar" bills accepted within the Ottawa- area LETS. All such local currencies from large commercial concerns are valuable LETS currencies. Linked together for trade with the Underemployed, Greendollars would be as readily accepted as Canadian Tire money is now!
ITHACA HOURS:
The best example is in Ithaca, New York, where their LETS actually
uses Green "Hours of Time" notes worth $10 U.S. dollars as their
accounting unit. They have Quarter-Hour, Half-Hour, One-Hour and Two-
Hour notes now accepted by almost everyone in town including
businesses and the credit union. Canada could do it too. In the United
Kingdom, 1 Greenhour = 6 Greenpounds = 6 British Pounds. In Canada, a
closely corresponding value would be 1 Greenhour = 12 Greendollars =
$12 Canadian dollars. Of course, the doctor earns 3 Hours per hour
while a the baby-sitter gets paid Half-an-Hour per hour. Visit
Ithaca
for information on Ithaca LETS Hours.
LETS POLITICS:
In 1995, in Australia where LETS has been called an economic "life-
boat," Parliament passed the world's first pro-LETS legislation.
In Canada, the Liberal Government funded a University of Toronto study
on the health benefits of belonging to LETS.
In the 1996 Hamilton East federal by-election, the Abolitionist, Christian Heritage, Green and two Independents out of thirteen candidates signed a petition for a Canadian National LETS. In the 1996 New Zealand general election, pro-LETS John Wright, leader of the Democrat Party was elected along with pro-LETS Pamela Lee, leader of the Maori Party, and Jeanette Fitzsimmons, leader of the Green Party and member of Thames LETS.
In the recent 1997 UK general election, the Labour MP for Falmouth & Camborne is a Falmouth LETS member. The new Liberal Democrat member for St. Ives is another LETS supporter. More than 100 of the 400 U.K. Local governments have supported LETS. The Islamic Party officially endorsed LETS as "halal" or "healthy." Supporters have been found in the Referendum Party, Green Party, Natural Law Party, even the Conservative party. In 1997, the first PhD on LETS was granted in the UK.
WHY LETS:
There are not many problems we face today that do not stem from a lack
of money and which could be solved with more paychecks in those areas.
LETS can fill the gap where there isn't enough federal money. The
problems we do face today are life-threatening. No hope for employment
is at the root of all the despair, crime, suicides, and death of life-
support systems by budget cuts. LETS can fill the gap.
HOW YOU CAN HELP INSTALL LETS:
Are you desperate enough to try a System of Trading Employment Locally
LETS yet? If so, this is the way to help. Get your friends to sign the
Petition for National / Global LETS, make a copy for yourself before
sending it to the Petition Co-ordinator and then show it to any
politicians who claim there is nothing they can do to help your
financial plight and insist they install a LETS life-boat for every
citizen in the country and the world.
USENET NEWSGROUP
For updated information on LETS developments around the world, watch
Usenet newsgroups alt.fan.john-turmel, ncf.ca.let, own.eco.lets.
John Turmel
Ottawa-Carleton Regional Chair candidate
John C. "The Engineer" Turmel, Founder, Abolitionist Party of Canada
111-1505 Baseline Rd., Ottawa, K2C 3L4, Tel/Fax: 613-723-2739
All TURMEL posts to own.eco.lets & alt.fan.john-turmel Newsgroups