Inequality Inc: Corporate power vs. workers’ rights
Needs No Introduction
The season’s third episode takes us back to George Brown College’s 32nd annual Labour Fair in Toronto, ‘Corporate Power vs. Labour Power: It’s Our Work!!’ Professor Benjamin McCarthy facilitates a discussion featuring Lauren Ravon, executive director of Oxfam Canada and Jared Ong, organizer and case worker with the Workers’ Action Centre. Together, they discuss how this new age of corporate-driven inequality impacts workers on the ground and the hope that lies within working peoples’ solidarity. Reflecting on how government should be investing in work, Ravon says: “...
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JP Hornick on Corporate power vs. labour power: It’s our work
Needs No Introduction
The season’s second episode focuses on George Brown College’s 32nd annual Labour Fair in Toronto and the opening keynote discussion with president of OPSEU/SEFPO JP Hornick on this year’s theme ‘Corporate Power vs. Labour Power: It’s Our Work!!’ Opening a week of labour focused events, and speaking to George Brown College students and faculty, our conversation focuses on labour power and union organizing in this era of corporate driven inequality, privatization and the erosion of the rights of working peoples. According to Hornick:: “So everybody remember a year ago with...
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Climate, conflict and the meaning of peace
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We launch our sixth season with Tamara Lorincz, environmental and feminist peace activist and Linda Thyer, founding member of Doctors for Planetary Health - West Coast and a discussion on the interconnected impacts of war and occupation on both people and planet, the costs of Canadian militarism and our involvement in NATO and the possibilities for global cooperation, peace, and climate justice in times of conflict. Reflecting on the twin impacts of conflict on climate in Gaza and Ukraine, Lorincz says: “The Middle Eastern region has suffered from drought and from excessive heat. This...
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Inequality Inc: Corporate power vs. public action
Needs No Introduction
For our sixth episode, Lauren Ravon, executive director of Oxfam Canada and Michéle Biss, national director of the National Right to Housing Network, discuss Oxfam's latest report, Inequality, Inc.on the growing power of corporate monopolies, the unprecedented rise in global inequality and the urgent need for public action. Speaking to Oxfam’s latest report on global inequality, Ravon says: “This has been a decade so far that has been full of pain for most people around the world. The decade of a pandemic, of rampant inflation, food prices going up, war, climate chaos, climate...
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Menopause and work in Canada: Menopause is natural, suffering is not
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Crushing fatigue, hot flashes (or should we say hot flushes), burning, itching, mood swings, heart palpitations, brain fog, anxiety, loss of self. What’s happening to me? Who can I talk to? How do I work? Sound familiar? After a bit of an extended pause, we begin the new year with the Menopause Foundation of Canada’s latest report: Menopause and Work in Canada. Foundation co-founders Janet Ko and Trish Barbato discuss the complex issues impacting a quarter of Canada’s working population as they embark on an important milestone in the prime of every woman’s life; yet one that is still...
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Gaza: Humanitarian agencies call for a ceasefire now
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In our fourth episode Dalia Al-Awqati, head of humanitarian affairs for Save the Children Canada and Lauren Ravon, executive director of Oxfam Canada discuss the humanitarian crisis taking place in the Gaza Strip. How do we understand the devastating toll of death, displacement and destruction upon the largely civilian Palestinian population, almost half of them children? What of the impossible choices facing aid workers and colleagues on the ground as they are caught within the turmoil of Gaza? Why are humanitarian pauses not enough? And why is a ceasefire the only answer? Describing...
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Mouth open story jump out: Storytelling for change
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It’s Halloween again and for the Courage My Friends podcast series, this means it’s a time for stories. Returning with our annual ‘mouth open, story jump out’ episode, storytellers Kesha Christie of Talkin’ Tales, Njoki Mbũrũ recent recipient of the Community Foundations of Canada Transformational Storytelling Fellowship and Rani Sanderson, storytelling workshop facilitator with StoryCentre Canada, share in stories and conversation about the power of storytelling for community work, transformation and social change. Christie reflects on the power of stories: “When we...
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At the Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival
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Our second episode quite literally puts the lens on climate as we spotlight the 24th annual Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival (PIF), running from October 12th-22nd at Toronto’s Paradise Theatre. PIF executive director Katherine Bruce speaks with us about the continued and growing importance of Canada's largest and longest running environmental film festival and this year’s program of shorts, speakers and feature-length films. Filmmaker Deirdre Leowinata discusses her film Keepers of the Land and its themes of reclamation and reconciliation. We are...
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BRICS: Summits, coups and a changing world order
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In the launch of our fifth season, we are pleased to welcome back author, public intellectual and director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Vijay Prashad. Taking us through the recent economic summits of BRICS and the G20, as well as the cascade coups in West Africa, Prashad delves into the rapid and stunning changes taking place in the world today, where they came from and what this could mean for a changing world order. Is it multipolarity or is it something else? In speaking of the origins of the BRICS bloc of economically emerging nations, Prashad says: “You know, it's...
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Labour Fair 2023: Food Justice, labour rights and social gastronomy
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For our season finale of Courage My Friends, we return to this year’s George Brown College Labour Fair, The other P3s: pandemic, privatization, precarity,,, and planet!! In the panel on ‘Food Industries: Feeding Ourselves on a Precarious Planet’, moderator Lori Stahlbrand is joined by guests: Joshna Maharaj, a chef, social gastronomy activist, educator and host of the Hot Plate podcast; Chris Ramsaroop, an organizer, educator and activist with Justice for Migrant Workers; and Charlotte Big Canoe, partner and membership director at The Full Plate. The four discuss food...
info_outlineIn the sixth episode, Linda McQuaig and Ian Thomson discuss the rising fortunes of the billionaire class amid shrinking incomes and opportunities for the vast majority before and during the pandemic.
In speaking about the impacts of billionaires on our democratic systems, McQuaig says, “this accumulation of wealth in the hands of billionaires... It’s not just that it’s tremendously unfair, which of course it is, it’s that it gives them so much political power that they get to effectively control the world… The wealthy corporate elite now has so much power that it can effectively block any kind of collective action. And that’s exactly what they’re doing. The reason that there isn’t progress on climate change isn’t that the public is resistant. The public would actually like there to be action on climate change. It’s the immensely powerful interests in the fossil fuel industries that are single-handedly blocking that.... it’s not just unfair they have all that money; it’s detrimental to the survival of the human race… So when I talk about a wealth tax, I’m not just talking about it so we can get money from them. I’m talking about a wealth tax that will curb their political power, economic and political power. So they can’t control things and prevent us from taking the collective action we need to take.”
According to Thomson, and the most recent Oxfam International report Inequality Kills “Whether it’s from the climate disasters that are taking lives. Whether it’s the vaccine inequality that means that COVID-19 is taking more lives - these are deaths that could be easily prevented if we had a more equitable vaccine distribution. And people are also being pushed to the brink of extreme hunger and actually are dying of starvation. These are the sorts of real-life impacts of this extreme wealth inequality, largely in the lowest income countries, but also lower income people in all countries are suffering from. And when you take the numbers, you just see that actually people are dying every four minutes due to inequality. The numbers are so staggering that it is hard to wrap your head around what kind of suffering this is bringing about.”
About today’s guests:
Award-winning journalist and activist Linda McQuaig is also the author of best-selling books, including: Shooting the Hippo: Death by Deficit and Other Canadian Myths; It’s the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil and the Fight for the Planet; The Trouble with Billionaires (co-authored with Neil Brooks) and most recently The Sport and Prey of Capitalists: How the Rich Are Stealing Canada’s Public Wealth. A long-time and powerful voice of dissent against economic injustice and extremes of wealth, Linda has been described as “an indispensable public intellectual” and “an irritant to Canada’s 1%” one of whom, Conrad Black, even suggested that she be “horse-Whipped”.
Ian Thomson leads Oxfam Canada’s work on government relations, corporate engagement and feminist policy influencing in Canada and internationally. Prior to joining Oxfam, he coordinated the human rights and natural resources program of a national ecumenical coalition and chaired the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability. He is a board member of MiningWatch Canada and the Maquila Solidarity Network, and holds engineering degrees from Queen’s University and the University of Toronto.
The Courage My Friends podcast series is a co-production between The Tommy Douglas Institute (at George Brown College), rabble.ca, with the support of the Douglas Coldwell Layton Foundation.
Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute.
Image: Linda McQuaig and Ian Thomson / Used with permission.
Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased
Intro Voices: Chandra Budhu (Podcast Announcer), Nayocka Allen, Nicolas Echeverri Parra,
Doreen Kajumba (Street Voices); Bob Luker (Tommy Douglas quote)
Courage My Friends Podcast Organizing Committee: Resh Budhu, Breanne Doyle (for rabble.ca), Chandra Budhu and Ashley Booth.
Produced by: Resh Budhu, Tommy Douglas Institute and Breanne Doyle, rabble.ca
Host: Resh Budhu