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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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_outline
Crisis or scandal? The deliberate dismantling of Ontario's public college system
Needs No Introduction
In our third episode we welcome support staff president for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union Local 418 at St.Lawrence College. Amanda Shaw, second vice president of OPSEU Local 415 at Algonquin College, Martin Lee and from George Brown College, member of OPSEU's part-time and sessional divisional executive, Ben McCarthy. We discuss the mass layoffs and program and campus closures across Ontario's 24 publicly funded colleges, impacts on college workers, students, and wider communities, what this means for the future of public post-secondary education and how what has been publicized...
info_outline
On September 20: Draw the line for people, for peace, for planet
Needs No Introduction
In this episode we welcome, climate justice and Indigenous rights organizer from Stellat’en First Nation and senior advisor at the David Suzuki Foundation, Janelle Lapointe; member services and movement building manager with Climate Action Network Canada, Lauren Latour and Canada organizer for World Beyond War, Rachel Small. We discuss the Draw the Line National Day of Action taking place across Canada on September 20, the reasons for this historic cross-movement coalition and the urgency of drawing the line now in this moment of converging and overwhelming crises, for people, for peace and...
info_outline
Lawless: The complete decriminalization of abortion… only in Canada
Needs No Introduction
In our season nine premiere, we welcome Martha Paynter, nurse, scholar and author of . We discuss Canada’s complete decriminalization of abortion (the only country to do so), the fascinating and often fraught history that brought us to this point, abortion as a public good, the influence of the anti-choice lobby here and the overturning of Roe vs. Wade in the US, and what it takes to make abortion truly equitable when decriminalization is not enough. Reflecting on the need to understand abortion as a public good, Paynter says: “We have these major cultural forces that just reiterate...
info_outline
Palestine and the weaponizing of hunger and the climate crisis
Needs No Introduction
In episode nine of the Courage My Friends series, we welcome visiting professor and dean of the faculty of agriculture and veterinary medicine at Gaza’s Al-Azhar University, Dr. Ahmed Abu Shaban. We discuss the weaponization of already fragile food systems in Gaza, the acceleration of the climate crisis through conflict and Palestinian resilience under occupation. Reflecting on the nexus of food, climate and occupation, Abu Shaban shares: “My father passed away in 2021 and we had a farm in Gaza. This farm was destroyed several times. And this farm is an olive trees farm. And...
info_outline
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,...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outlineIn 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 the crisis facing the children of Gaza, Al-Awqati says:
“In the first three weeks of the conflict, more children were killed than the annual total of children killed in conflict zones across the world since 2019. That alone gives you a scale of how horrific this has been, and particularly for children. We see and we hear from our staff, and we see through the news, through social media as well, the impact that this is having, in terms of mental health, but also in terms of people's ability to access their basic needs. We know that children are not able to access clean drinking water. This is a population, 80 per cent of which already depended on humanitarian aid prior to this latest escalation. There's 1,350 children that are missing in Gaza. Many of them feared to be under the rubble.”
According to Ravon, the only answer is a ceasefire:
“Oxfam and Save the Children and many other organizations around the world are calling for a ceasefire rather than a humanitarian pause or humanitarian corridors because the reality is that in these circumstances, in the way this attack is being carried out, there is no way to keep civilians safe. No corridor, no pause will guarantee safety, because people are deprived of resources. So even if you had a pause where you're safe from immediate bombing, that doesn't answer all the other immediate needs that people are facing … Depriving civilians of the means for survival is a violation of human rights; and a ceasefire is the only way to ensure that the physical violence stops and that humanitarian aid can enter in.”
About today’s guests:
Dalia Al-Awqati, head of humanitarian affairs for Save the Children Canada. Al-Awqati is the head of Humanitarian Affairs for Save the Children Canada. She has over twenty years of experience in the non-profit sector, with a specialization in emergency response and management in complex crises. Prior to joining Save the Children Canada, Al-Awqati has worked with various international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) including the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Mercy Corps, and Danish Refugee Council (DRC). As an emergency responder, Dalia has responded to crises in Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Libya, South Sudan, and Syria, amongst others. Al-Awqati grew up in the Middle East. She is a native Arabic speaker of Iraqi and Palestinian origins.
Lauren Ravon, executive director of Oxfam Canada, is a committed feminist and social justice advocate with more than 15 years of international development experience. Ravon has been with Oxfam Canada since 2011, holding a number of roles – including director of Policy and Campaigns – and working tirelessly to put women’s rights at the heart of the global Oxfam confederation. Before joining Oxfam, Ravon worked at the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development (Rights & Democracy), where she was program manager for the Americas and oversaw the Centre’s office and human rights programming in Haiti. She has also worked on programs to tackle gender-based violence and promote sexual and reproductive rights with Planned Parenthood Global and the International Rescue Committee. Lauren sits on the board of directors of the Humanitarian Coalition.
You can donate to the Humanitarian Coalition by visiting their Donation page.
Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute.
Images: Dalia Al-Awqati, Lauren Ravon / Used with permission.
Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased.
Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (Tommy); Grace Taruc-Almeda, Karin Maier and Jim Cheung (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.