Privatization of public health: Protecting universal healthcare for the common good
Release Date: 09/14/2022
Labour Fair 2025: Labour now: Union responses to the polycrisis
Needs No Introduction
In episode eight, we return to the George Brown College Labour Fair and a discussion with Ontario Federation of Labour president Laura Walton and chief steward and second vice president of OPSEU/SEFPO Local 556 Jeff Brown. We discuss the multiple issues facing the labour movement, union priorities and, in this age of polycrisis, what exactly we are working for. Speaking to the upcoming federal elections, Walton says: “I think we all can agree it's not going to be an NDP federal government. It's either gonna be Liberals or Conservatives. And I call them cancer and chemo; one's gonna kill you,...
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Labour Fair 2025: Building a workers' first emergency response to the tariff crisis
Needs No Introduction
In episode seven, we are pleased to feature executive director of the Workers’ Action Centre, Deena Ladd. In her keynote address for the 33rd annual Labour Fair at Toronto’s George Brown College, No One Left Behind: Building a Workers’ First Emergency Response to the Tariff Crisis that Unites Us, Ladd discusses the current trade war, the dangers facing workers and a solidarity-driven plan that puts workers first. Reflecting on what’s needed in a workers’ first approach to the tariff crisis, Ladd says: “Our communities are already in trouble. And we know that the tariffs imposed are...
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Labour Fair 2025: The critical need for labour education
Needs No Introduction
In episode six, we feature the opening discussion of the at Toronto’s George Brown College. Under this year's theme, What Are We Working For? JP Hornick, president of OPSEU/SEFPO, (Ontario Public Service Employees Union), speaks on the critical need for labour education, labour organizing amid the changing nature of work and the crisis facing Ontario colleges. Reflecting on the need for labour education Hornick says: “These are the spaces where we learn how to organize, where we learn how to build community – it provides the critical analysis that people need to understand why there are...
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Rebranded fascism, higher education and the burden of conscience
Needs No Introduction
In episode five, we are pleased to welcome back Henry Giroux, scholar, cultural critic and author, most recently of The Burden of Conscience: Educating Beyond the Veil of Silence. We discuss the rise of authoritarianism in the US and around the world as an updated fascism, its attack on democracy and higher education and the urgent need for solidarity, critical pedagogy and resistance in the face of the unspeakable. Reflecting on the necessity of higher and critical education in these times, Giroux says: “Education is the glue. Education is the bridge that stands between fascism and...
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George Brown College’s 25th annual Mental Health Conference: Decolonizing learning and creating conditions for student well-being
Needs No Introduction
In episode 4, we focus on the upcoming at George Brown College in Toronto and this year’s theme, Thriving Together in the Classroom: Creating the Conditions for Student Well-Being. Author, storyteller, Indigenous academic and conference keynote speaker Carolyn Roberts; dean of the Centre for Preparatory and Liberal Studies, Susan Toews; and director of Student Well-Being and Support, Alex Irwin discuss this year’s conference and its focus on teaching, the mental health and well-being of post-secondary students, decolonizing learning and Indigenous resurgence through education....
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Oxfam Inequality Report 2025: Billionaire colonialism in Canada
Needs No Introduction
In part two of our focus on Oxfam’s latest report: , we welcome associate professor and faculty chair of the Indigenous Relations Initiative at McGill University, Dr. Veldon Coburn. Reflecting on his 2022 book (co-edited with David Thomas) , we speak of the growth of billionaire colonialism and corporate power in Canada and the ways in which this is anchored in Canada’s continuing history of settler colonialism. Reflecting on corporate extraction and dispossession of Indigenous resources, Coburn says: “It's easier to steal and to take what's existing there, exactly what the Oxfam Report...
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Oxfam Inequality Report 2025: The takers not makers of billionaire colonialism
Needs No Introduction
In part one of this discussion, executive director of Oxfam Canada Lauren Ravon returns to discuss Oxfam’s latest report: . Ravon and Resh Budhu explore the extreme wealth and power of the billionaire class, this era of “billionaire colonialism” and what it will take to decolonize economies in Canada and throughout the world. According to Ravon: “I would say the highlight of this year's report is really well captured by the title Takers Not Makers, because we're focusing not just on this extreme and I'd say obscene wealth accumulation, not just the amount of wealth that's being...
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Do we need a new progressive alternative in Canada?
Needs No Introduction
In our season eight premiere, we welcome independent journalist and public historian Taylor C. Noakes, author, political economist and senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Ricardo Tranjan and welcome back writer, social justice activist and former organizer for the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, John Clarke. The group reflects on the current state of progressive politics in Canada, the Liberal legacy and the possibility of a Conservative win. They discuss the need for a new progressive alternative and wonder aloud what this could look like. Reflecting on...
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BRICS, de-dollarization and Canada in a multipolar world
Needs No Introduction
In our final episode of the Courage My Friends podcast series, season seven, we are joined by author, professor and director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group at the University of Manitoba, Dr. Radhika Desai, and author, professor and Chair of International Relations and Political Science at St. Thomas University, Dr. Shaun Narine. We discuss the shifting balance of power in global politics, BRICS, de-dollarization, the rise of Asia and the Global South, the challenges it poses to the rules-based international order of the Global North and Canada’s place within an inevitably...
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Who’s Hungry? More than ever before
Needs No Introduction
In episode six of the latest season of the Courage My Friends podcast series, co-executive director of Food Secure Canada, Marissa Alexander and executive director of North York Harvest Food Bank, Ryan Noble discuss the alarming outcomes of Toronto’s Who’s Hungry report, the growing food and poverty crisis in Toronto and across Canada and urgent actions that need to be taken by policy-makers and civil society in averting this ever-worsening crisis. Reflecting on reasons for the record number of food banks visits this year, Noble says: “It's not as if there's been a sudden shock over the...
info_outlineIn the launch of our third season, JP Hornick, President of OPSEU/SEFPO and Dr. Naheed Dosani, Palliative Care Physician and Health Justice Activist, discuss the current crisis facing public healthcare in Ontario and the alarming turn toward the privatization of our healthcare systems by those prioritizing profit over patients.
In speaking to the ways in which the healthcare crisis is both the result and rationale for erosion and greater privatization, JP Hornick says: “...you've got a kind of perfect storm that COVID maximized a crisis that was already existing. Decreased funding, unanticipated service costs, then you throw in on top of that supply-chain issues, particularly around PPE, but also, tools and resources. And then you've got an ongoing problem with recruitment and retention of staff. These are the new realities that hospitals have to tackle at the same time, trying to care for patients. And they're not allowed to carry deficits. So in the absence of additional funding, it means that the choices that hospitals regularly resort to are service cuts in order to try and balance budgets.But all this comes back to a very simple thing. It is a failure to adequately fund healthcare, both before and during the pandemic. And then the deterioration of the public system that results is used as an excuse in itself for increased privatization.”
According to Dosani: “...often conversations like this can get tucked away in the category of health policy. This is about much more. This is about our way of life. This is about our way of being. This is really an attack on the common good that is so core and foundational to what it means to be Canadian…Public healthcare is a national treasure that makes us unique on the world stage. That really allows us to say to each other, I care about you.
And I care about you so much that I will pay into a collective pool with you to care for you. Even if I don't get sick, I care for you. And that doesn't just emanate in the healthcare world and the healthcare sphere that affects the way we treat each other. We care for each other. We communicate with each other…And that is worth saving. That is worth protecting.”
About today’s guest:
Prior to being elected president of OPSEU/SEFPO (Ontario Public Service Employees Union), JP Hornick was chief steward for more than a decade within the College Faculty Division, representing instructors at Ontario’s 24 public colleges. She chaired the College Faculty bargaining teams in 2017 and 2021-22.
JP grew up in a family of public service workers – educators, correctional workers and many more. She is a labour educator and previously served as the coordinator of the School of Labour at George Brown College. She has served as chair, treasurer and director on several community boards and has been on the front lines of activism to advance issues of equity, women’s rights, LGBTTIQQ2S rights, anti-racism and decolonization.
JP was elected OPSEU/SEFPO President in April 2022 on a platform that includes strengthening union democracy, building bargaining power, ensuring financial responsibility, fostering an inclusive union culture, and deepening connections to the labour movement and community.
As a palliative care physician and health justice activist, Dr. Naheed Dosani is dedicated to advancing equitable access to healthcare for people experiencing structural vulnerabilities like poverty and homelessness. He founded the Palliative Education and Care for the Homeless (PEACH) Program at the Inner City Health Associates, serves as the Health Equity Lead at Kensington Health in downtown Toronto and provides palliative care at St. Michael’s Hospital at Unity Health Toronto. He is also an assistant professor with the department of family and community medicine at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Dosani is the recipient of numerous awards including the Meritorious Service Cross for Humanitarianism from Canada’s Governor General (2018), a humanitarian award from the Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians (2019) and the Early Career Leader award from the Canadian Medical Association (2020). In 2022 he received an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Laws) from Ontario Tech University.
Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute.
Image: JP Hornick and Naheed Dosani / Used with permission.
Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased.
Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Kenneth Okoro, Liz Campos Rico, Tsz Wing Chau.
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.