From ecosystems to economics: How Canada’s conserved and protected areas contribute billions to the economy
Needs No Introduction
In episode six we welcome national director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Sandra Schwartz and CPAWS economic analyst, Jason Wong, lead author of the CPAWS white paper, . We discuss the first of its kind report that offers a new way of valuing conservation and the protection of our lands and waters, not as barriers to economic growth,but as long-term and essential green infrastructure that enriches our lives,our communities and our economy. Explaining the reasons for the report, Schwartz says: “The point was actually to have a different way to talk to...
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Labour Fair 2026: The radical labour of care
Needs No Introduction
This latest episode of the Courage My Friends podcast series features “The Radical Labour of Care” panel discussion with: Indigenous midwife, leader, and educator, Claire Dion Fletcher; crisis outreach worker, case manager, and advocate in Toronto’s Downtown East, Lorraine Lam; and program director of the Latinx Womyn’s Program at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape, Grissel Orellana. It is moderated by Eliza Chandler, associate professor in the School of Disability Studies and executive director of the Office of Social Innovation at Toronto Metropolitan...
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Mining, militarism and organizing against the march to war
Needs No Introduction
In the latest episode of the Courage My Friends series, we welcome organizer with the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network Kara Anderson and welcome back Canada organizer for World Beyond War and coordinator of the Arms Embargo Now Campaign, Rachel Small. We discuss Canada’s radical turn toward militarism and its ramping up of defence spending, the many and deep connections between militarism and mining in the mining capital of the world and solidarity organizing against the march to war. Reflecting on Canada’s increased defence spending, Small says: “ Canadian military spending...
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Pension divestment: From funding crises to a radical pension politics
Needs No Introduction
In our third episode of the season, Tom Fraser, a union researcher and author of Invested in Crisis: Public Sector Pensions Against the Future, and Becca Steckle, a research and policy analyst with Just Peace Advocates, join us to discuss how Canada’s public sector pensions are funding crises from housing to genocide, the restructuring of Canadian retirement security into capital funding for militarism and welfare erosion around the world and the urgent need for divestment toward a radical pension politics. According to Fraser: “What I see as specifically contradictory about the structure...
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Oxfam Inequality Report 2026: Resisting the rule of the rich and protecting freedom from billionaire power
Needs No Introduction
In our second episode of the season, executive director of Oxfam Canada, Lauren Ravon returns for our annual focus on the Oxfam Inequality Report and this year we are also joined by senior director of Strategy and Innovation at Family Service Toronto and national director of Campaign 2000, Leila Sarangi. We discuss Oxfam’s latest report on global inequality, Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom from Billionaire Power, the capture of political power by the billionaire class, the rise of authoritarianism and how this is being lived in Canada. Ravon says: “One of the...
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Venezuela, Canada and the “Donroe Doctrine”
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In the season 10 premiere of the Courage My Friends podcast series, we are pleased to welcome back journalist, author and director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, Vijay Prashad and professor of International Relations at St. Thomas University, Shaun Narine. We discuss the recent US military attack on Venezuela and the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores, the Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy (the so-called “Donroe Doctrine”) and what this means for Canada, and how all of this is connected to the decline of US...
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December 10th Human Rights Day panel discussion: The ongoing struggle for rights in Canada
Needs No Introduction
Our final episode of this Courage My Friends season features a December 10th Human Rights Day Panel Discussion, the first of a series of events celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Community Worker Program at Toronto’s George Brown College. Community workers and human rights advocates, Brianna Olson Pitawanakwat, Samira Mohyeddin, Diana Gallego, Desmond Cole and Diana Chan McNally discuss the meaning of human rights in Canada 77 years after the UN adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, critical issues facing us today and the power of solidarity-driven, rights-based...
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The AI hype-machine: Canada’s ill-advised ‘national sprint’ on artificial intelligence
Needs No Introduction
In episode six of the Courage My Friends’ season nine, we welcome impact strategist with Animikii, Indigenous Technology, Jeff Doctor, technology and human rights lawyer with Tekhnos Law and senior fellow with The Citizen Lab, Cynthia Khoo, senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood. We discuss Canada’s accelerated approach to artificial intelligence and the mobilization of civil society groups against it, multiple impacts of largely unregulated AI on people, planet and democracy, Indigenous perspectives on data sovereignty and...
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You Will Not Kill Our Imagination: Author Saeed Teebi on Palestine, writing and imagination
Needs No Introduction
In episode five, we are pleased to welcome award-winning author Saeed Teebi who speaks to us about his powerful new book, You Will Not Kill Our Imagination: A Memoir of Palestine and Writing in Dark Times. In our annual focus on the power of storytelling, we discuss what it means to be a Palestinian writer in these times, the challenges of writing against dehumanizing narratives, complicity in the attempted erasure of Palestinian life, identity and art through both violence and silence and how imagination, story and writing become profound acts of resistance in a time of genocide. On the...
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Bills C-2 and C-12: How Canada’s border security acts endanger refugee rights
Needs No Introduction
In episode four, we welcome co-executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, Karen Cocq, advocacy and media relations coordinator at The Refugee Centre in Montreal, Alina Murad and President of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, Aisling Bondy. We discuss the Carney Government’s new border security acts, Bill C-2 and its questionable make-over with the recently tabled Bill C-12, how they effectively rewrite Canada’s approach to refugee rights and protections, whether this new security regime is a response to the Trump tariff demands or an opportunity to continue...
info_outlineIn the first episode of our fourth series, we welcome CLiFF (Canadian Labour International Film Festival board members, Lorene Oikawa and Derek Blackadder and George Brown College faculty and organizer with the Labour Fair, Kathryn Payne.
We discuss the importance of bringing labour education to post-secondary and wider communities through the 31st annual Labour Fair at Toronto’s George Brown College (organized by the School of Labour and the Tommy Douglas Institute) and its collaboration with the Canadian Labour International Film Festival (CLiFF). This episode sets the stage for the re-airing of major Labour Fair events on this podcast as well as on rabbleTV over the coming weeks.
Reflecting on the Labour Fair at George Brown College, Payne says:
“The Labour Fair initially was meant to make sure that working class students .. had some knowledge of the unions in their sectors so .. they could find folks who could help them out and who could represent them. And also teach them the basics of organizing. Right? I mean, the main thing that we are always teaching is that we are stronger as a collective.…Our theme this year is P3s, so Pandemic, Privatization, and Precarity. But in our conversations, both with teachers and amongst each other, we've also sort of added a fourth P, which is the Planet.”
Speaking to the importance of CLiFF in these times, Blackadder says:
“Its ongoing relevance is that it shows working people a mirror. .. it lets them look at a film that represents them in some way, shape or form.That will allow them to ..make that connection that in that bigger world, workers have a great deal more in common, than they do those things that divide us.”
Oikawa points to issues that demand attention:
“There's still that issue about workers' rights, workers' safety, having fair wages, safe workplaces for workers - ongoing, still needs scrutiny. Environmental issues… That's the brilliance of CLiFF. A number of issues will continue to be reflected in the films that we show at our labor Film Festival, but have been shown as well….There's never a point where, ‘oh, we're done. We don't need to know our history.’ We have to continue to know our history.”
About today’s guests:
Lorene Oikawa is on the board of the Canadian Labour International Film Festival and helps organize screenings in British Columbia. She started volunteering for CLiFF in its inaugural year, 15 years ago. She is past president on the board of the National Association of Japanese Canadians and a human rights activist. Lorene is a fourth generation Japanese Canadian and a descendant of survivors of the forced uprooting, dispossession, incarceration, and exile from 1942 to 1949. She is a co-editor of the book, Honouring Our People: Breaking the Silence. She was the first Asian Canadian executive vice president for the BC Government and Service Employees’ Union (BCGEU).
Derek Blackadder spent over 30 years working for several trade unions in a variety of roles. He currently volunteers with LabourStart, writes the Webwork column for Our Times Magazine, is Co-Chair of the Northumberland (ON) Coalition for Social Justice and is a contributor to RadioLabour. He combines his commitment to the labour movement and his love of film by serving on the board of the Canadian Labour International Film Festival (CLiFF).
Kathryn Payne is a full-time educator in the School of Labour at George Brown College in Toronto. Her areas of interest include labour and working class culture, women's work, diversity and sexuality studies, colonialism, and neoliberalism. Her work for the School of Labour is multifaceted: she designs curricula, liaises with union educators, teaches General Education courses at George Brown, and helps organize the annual George Brown Labour Fair. She has also been active in the sex worker rights movement, queer activism and was one of the founding members of George Brown's Positive Space Campaign.
Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute or here.
Image: / Used with permission.
Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased.
Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (Tommy); Injila Rajab Khan and Danesh Hanbury (Street Voices)
Courage My Friends Podcast Organizing Committee: Chandra Budhu, Ashley Booth, Resh Budhu.
Produced by: Resh Budhu, Tommy Douglas Institute and Breanne Doyle, rabble.ca.
Host: Resh Budhu.