Oxfam Inequality Report 2025: The takers not makers of billionaire colonialism
Release Date: 02/05/2025
Requiem for Gaza: In Conversation with Joe Sacco
Needs No Introduction
In our third episode of the season, we are very pleased to feature celebrated cartoonist, author and pioneer of cartoons journalism, Joe Sacco and his recently released Requiem for Gaza, a profound work of graphic reportage co-authored with journalist Chris Hedges. We discuss the experience of Palestinian families displaced by the ongoing genocide, the imprint of history on the current moment, the killing and chilling of journalism and the obligation to truth in a time of relentless and arrogant power. On the dedication of Requiem for Gaza to Palestinian journalists, Sacco...
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What Is Reconciliation Without Truth? Protecting Residential School Survivor Records
Needs No Introduction
Kimberly Murray and Connie Walker discuss the impending destruction of 38,000 residential school survival records and the project to preserve them. In our second episode of the season we are joined by co-leaders of the Indian Residential School Records Project, Pulitzer and Peabody award-winning journalist Connie Walker and former Executive Director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Kimberly Murray. We discuss the scheduled destruction of 38,000 records containing the testimonies of Indian Residential School survivors, the resilience and courage of survivors,...
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The carbon bootprint: How Canada’s war economy fuels the climate crisis
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In the season 11 premiere of the Courage My Friends podcast series, we are pleased to welcome environmentalist, feminist, peace activist and Senior Researcher with Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, Tamara Lorincz and climate policy researcher and advocate with Greenpeace Canada, Keith Stewart. As we head into the Global Week of Action for Peace and Climate Justice, we discuss Canada’s accelerating shift toward a militarized economy, what this looks like and how this is not only failing to address our true security needs, but is coming at considerable cost to our sovereignty, people...
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Diana Chan McNally: Bringing community work to Toronto’s City Council
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This week, we welcome and spotlight community worker, homelessness advocate, and candidate for Toronto City Council, Diana Chan McNally. We discuss Chan McNally’s run to become City Councillor for Toronto’s Ward 4, Parkdale-High Park, top-of-mind issues for the Ward and the city, provincial encroachment on municipal government and her vision of bringing community work to municipal politics. Chan McNally says: “Part of why I'm running too, I also very much do not appreciate the provincial encroachment on municipalities. I have a history of fighting Ford. I have won resources from...
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Labour Fair 2026 Keynote: New modes of organizing for a working peoples’ city
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Today’s episode of the Courage My Friends podcast series features the keynote discussion from the 34th annual Labour Fair at Toronto’s George Brown College. Founding representative of the Toronto Airport Workers’ Council Sean Smith and member of the Parkdale Housing Justice Network (PHJN) Matt Whitfield, discuss the crises of labour precarity and housing insecurity, how these are the outcomes of systems rigged against workers and communities and methods of effective grassroots and labour organizing toward the building of working peoples’ cities. On the housing “crisis”, Whitfield...
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From ecosystems to economics: How Canada’s conserved and protected areas contribute billions to the economy
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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...
info_outlineIn part one of this discussion, executive director of Oxfam Canada Lauren Ravon returns to discuss Oxfam’s latest report: Takers Not Makers: The Unjust Poverty and Unearned Wealth of Colonialism. 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 held by the very few, but the fact that this is not wealth that is earned in any sense. This is wealth that has been taken, whether through corruption, through cronyism, through monopolistic power, through connections through inheritance, but also through the legacy, the very life legacy of colonialism."
About today’s guests:
Lauren Ravon, executive director of Oxfam Canada, is a committed feminist and social justice advocate with more than 15 years of international development experience. Lauren 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, Lauren 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 has conducted extensive policy research and campaigned on issues of food justice, women’s economic equality, sexual and reproductive health and rights and the role of women’s movements. She holds master's degrees in international affairs and development studies from Columbia University and the Paris Institute of Political Studies. Lauren sits on the Board of Directors of the Humanitarian Coalition.
Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute.
Image: Lauren Ravon / Used with permission.
Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased.
Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (Tommy)
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.