First, another huge thank you to everyone who has helped make Membership Month a success so far, especially in the past week. Your generosity and support not only gives us the resources to keep producing co-operative, grassroots news across Canada, but it also inspires and gives us the energy to keep pushing ahead.

 

Second, we know: it's been a lot of emails. Our pestering twice a week for the last four weeks can seem over the top. But like PBS and NPR south of the border, we see this as a necessary evil: we push and push during 31 days a year, and the rest of it we get back to focusing on solely what you (and we) want: creating news and providing information that you won't find in the corporate media. 

 

If we could reach our fundraising needs in a week, we would stick to a week, but so far that hasn't proven possible. But it's almost done! We'll be sending one last email for Membership Month next week, so help us go out with a bang! If you've been waiting on becoming a sustainer, the next few days are your last chance to sign up and run the chance of winning some great prizes. This week, sign up by Sunday night and you could win a great gift pack from Fernwood Books!

 

What does your financial support helps us to accomplish? This past week we published two timely, hard hitting pieces, one revealing the extent to which the Canadian government has been working with big oil companies to push tar sands oil in Europe (Canada on Secret Oil Offensive: Documents, by Martin Lukacs), the other providing important context and up the minute information about deaths and arrests at Canadian mining company Barrick Gold's North Mara mine in Tanzania (Barrick's Bodysnatchers, by Sakura Saunders). It's your support that allows us to produce these kinds of important articles that you won't find anywhere else. So, please, sign up as a sustainer today and help us continue to print investigative, grassroots journalism. 

 

And if you live in Toronto, Halifax, Montreal of Vancouver, half your funds as a sustainer goes to your local Media Co-op. What does that help with? Here's what a long-time member, and one of the founders of the Vancouver Media Co-op, has to say:

 

"The Vancouver Media Co-op has redefined the potential of local, independent media. We produce accurate and timely updates on actions that matter, open a critical space for reflection, debate and analysis, and form a strong connective tissue between diverse movements for justice and liberation. If you don't already support the Media Co-op, please consider throwing down: every penny goes to producing the kind of media the world so desperately needs."

—Dawn Paley, journalist and organizer with the VMC

Thanks again for all your ongoing support, and sign up to own your media today!

Tim

Editor and Montreal Media Co-op member.