Needs No Introduction

A series of speeches and lectures from the finest minds of our time. Fresh ideas from speakers of note.

Inequality Inc: Corporate power vs. workers’ rights 04/24/2024

Inequality Inc: Corporate power vs. workers’ rights 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: “ …When we think of what the government can invest in, when we talk about a Green Transition, the care economy is a great one. We have an aging population. Care services provide huge value to communities and also just create happier and healthier communities and they're low emissions. One of our alternatives is saying tax windfall profits, tax the super wealthy and invest in the care economy. This is also a sector that employs mostly women and racialized folks. You're creating employment opportunities. They're seen as less desirable jobs, not because they're inherently less interesting jobs than working in mining ... It's because they're not well paid. But we really see investments in the care economy as actually one of the solutions to the inequality crisis today and the climate crisis.” On the necessity of being politically engaged, Ong says: “..when we talk about how we organize, sometimes people say we have the power to vote. But I would say voting is just one piece that people do every four years or less that actually changes the government. We can do things in between to actually make changes happen. I used to have hair, and then I became an activist and look at me. So sometimes I think, you know, all that work and why did I do it? But people have been winning. When I first started out, people were like $15 minimum wage, it's never going to happen. And today, a couple of years later, people are like $15, hell no, that's not enough ... So I do tangibly feel on the street that things are changing.” About the guests: Lauren Ravon, executive director of , 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 . Jared Ong is an organizer and case worker with the . He empowers workers with the tools and community to stand up against bad bosses and protect themselves at work. But he also knows that systemic changes must happen Ontario-wide to raise the bar for all our workers because our minimum labour standards are not enough. Panel Moderator, Benjamin McCarthy is a faculty with the School of Labour at George Brown College and an organizer with the College Annual Labour Fair. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at . Image: Lauren Ravon, Jared Ong / 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. /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/30960328

JP Hornick on Corporate power vs. labour power: It’s our work 04/02/2024

JP Hornick on Corporate power vs. labour power: It’s our work 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 CUPE, the education workers, OSBCU had organized themselves to the point where the government was like, ‘We are going to preemptively remove your right to strike.’ In other words, remove your Charter Right to withdraw your labour, because we're scared of what you're asking for. They did the same thing with Bill 124, where they imposed a three year moratorium on your ability to actually argue for a wage increase that was commensurate with inflation … Now, these attacks on workers happen constantly right. Whether you're a migrant worker, whether you're an international student, whether you're unorganized or organized. But what we are seeing right now, is that workers are fed up ... I think that we've hit a tipping point culturally, where people can see it in their neighbors, in their kids, in their friends, that the impact of income inequality, that corporate greed, that corrupt governments, actually are as bad as we thought. And it's adding up. So workers are kind of pushing back and saying enough! And then all of labour jumps in … Because we know that a fight with this government, a fight for what's happening right now, is not a fight for someone else, it's a fight for all of us together.” About JP Hornick: 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. They 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. They are a labour educator and previously served as the coordinator of the School of Labour at George Brown College. They have 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, 2SLGBTQIA+ 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. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at or here. Image: JP Hornick / 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. /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/30647218

Climate, conflict and the meaning of peace 03/12/2024

Climate, conflict and the meaning of peace 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 genocide in Gaza is just horrendous for the people and it's exacerbating the climate emergency as well. These fossil fuel powered weapon systems that Israel is using, not just fighter jets, but attack helicopters and tanks.And the fact that Canada took over two and a half months for us finally to support a ceasefire, but we've been continuing to send weapons … we're prolonging the genocide and we are contributing to a climate emergency. Canada is doing the same thing in Eastern Europe by continuing to send arms to Ukraine. We're prolonging a conflict instead of calling for a ceasefire …We are contributing to human suffering, to a lot of death and destruction and contributing to the environmental harms.” Thyer says of our military spending: “Canadian military spending around $36 billion per year recently. So this is a massive amount of money, could certainly be much better … used to mitigate climate problems, used in new technology ... And could be used to help recoveries internationally as well as locally from these extreme weather events that we're seeing. In some of these war zones, people are being conscripted against their will to fighting. In Canada, our conscription is through our taxes that we are paying for this militarism, for the harms that are being done to the planet and to other people through our taxes every year.” About today’s guests: Tamara Lorincz is a PhD candidate in Global Governance at the Balsillie School for International Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University. She has a Masters in International Politics & Security Studies from the University of Bradford and a Law degree and MBA specializing in environmental law and management from Dalhousie University. Her research is on the climate and environmental impacts of the military. She’s a member of the and the . Tamara is also on the advisory committee of the , and the No to NATO Network. She’s a long-time environmentalist, feminist and peace activist and a mother with two teenage boys. Linda Thyer is a mother of 3 youth, practicing family and sport medicine on traditional Coast Salish territories. She is a founding member of and active member of several community and medical organizations working towards peace and a healthy living home. She is grateful for the many healing and nourishing gifts of Mother Earth and works towards restoring health and peace for all. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at or here. Image: Tamara Lorincz, Linda Thyer / 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) /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/30344768

Inequality Inc: Corporate power vs. public action 01/29/2024

Inequality Inc: Corporate power vs. public action 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 emergencies … But this is also the decade where the wealth of the five richest men doubled. 5 billion people became poorer. So this report that Oxfam released Inequality Inc., is really painting this picture of a decade of division where you have huge wealth concentration in very, very few hands and more and more people on the planet struggling to get by. And this is not a coincidence that wealth is ballooning on one end and people are seeing the bottom fall out on the other end. Inequality is by design. It's not an accident. It's not inevitable. The super, super rich and their corporations are funneling wealth towards the top and robbing the rest of humanity of the very resources they need to survive.” Biss reflects on the role of communities in pushing back against corporate power and inequality: “I think about this context as well in terms of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals agenda, right? We have a goal of no poverty by 2030. And as the Oxfam report said, 230 years away from no poverty, right? It's a long way to go. And it can really seem overwhelming in the face of this vast inequality.But if we want to get involved, if we want to push our governments to make better choices around regulation, around taxation, around investment in our social safety net and away from the private sector, a lot of that takes community engagement..And remembering that economic, social, and cultural rights, the right to housing, the right to food, the right to health, those aren't just words, they're actual human rights ..And so finding ways within communities, within the national context to exercise those rights is going to be really key to being able to turn the tide.” Read the latest Oxfam 2024 Report, About today’s guests: Lauren Ravon, executive director of , 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 . Michèle Biss is the national director of the . As an expert in economic and social rights, she has presented at several United Nations treaty body reviews and at Canadian parliamentary committees. Prior to her work at the NRHN, Michèle was the policy director and human rights lawyer at . In 2016, she graduated from the Advanced Course on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights at Åbo Akademi University in Finland. She has extensive professional experience working for marginalized groups, particularly women, persons with disabilities, newcomers, and Indigenous persons through casework, research, and community legal education. In her local Ottawa community, she sits on the board of directors of Ottawa Community Legal Services. She is a human rights lawyer and was called to the Ontario bar in 2014. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at . Images: Lauren Ravon, Michéle Biss / 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. /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/29700823

Menopause and work in Canada: Menopause is natural, suffering is not 01/15/2024

Menopause and work in Canada: Menopause is natural, suffering is not 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 subject to the heavy silences surrounding women’s health, in policy, in healthcare and in the workplace. Reflecting on women’s experiences as well as her own, Barbato says: “[I]t's almost shocking to think that every woman is going to go through this and yet it's so misunderstood and not understood and feared … When I think about all of the stories that we've heard and even my own experience, we don't connect the dots and certainly a supervisor, male or female, may not connect the dots on how the symptoms are showing up at a workplace … brain fog, anxiety, all of these things are going to have an impact … think of my experience of going through really horrific, extreme symptoms while at work and just not being able to perform. I think I was probably way worse on myself than maybe I let on to my colleagues where I hid a lot of my symptoms and managed them as best as I could.” According to Ko, we need to dispel the negativity and silences around menopause: “Menopause is overwhelmingly viewed as negative in our society. And because of that, there's a lot of silence associated with it, stigma and shame … most women do not want to be associated with that negative image of the menopausal woman. And then there's this notion that there's nothing you can do about it, so why bother having the conversation? And we know that our healthcare providers received almost zero education on something that's going to happen to half of the population. So we're at this really exciting place in time where we're changing that conversation and it's a great opportunity for women to really focus on themselves and their health. There's preventative care, there's lifestyle changes, and there's safe and effective treatments that are available. Women should not suffer through this period of time. Menopause is natural, suffering is not.” Read the ’s latest report You can also find out about the and check out the About today’s guests: Janet Ko is president and co-founder of , a national non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to breaking the silence and the stigma of menopause. Janet had looked forward to menopause as an exciting second act in life. Instead, she was blindsided by a host of symptoms that she did not understand were part of the menopause transition. She realized that women – like her – were struggling to find answers and to get help. Together with co-founder Trish Barbato and a medical advisory board of the country’s top menopause specialists, she launched the Menopause Foundation of Canada. Ko has held numerous senior leadership positions in the pharmaceutical, global life sciences and senior living sectors. She has served on the management teams of leading Canadian companies as senior vice president, Communications and has led marketing and organizational development functions throughout her career. Ko is dedicated to helping women thrive through their menopausal years and is a passionate speaker and menopause advocate. She is honoured to be one of the top 25 Women of Influence Award recipients for 2023. Trish Barbato is the co-founder of the . She has been a vocal advocate for the rights of menopausal women for the last decade. The Menopause Foundation of Canada released its landmark report “The Silence and the Stigma: Menopause in Canada” in 2022 and recently released its groundbreaking report “Menopause and Work in Canada”. Barbato has spoken internationally and is working with leaders in the Middle East Northern Africa (MENA) region to support a community-based initiative for mature women. Barbato is currently president and CEO of and has held progressive leadership positions in healthcare for the last 20 years. Barbato is a chartered professional accountant, published author, award-winning innovator, and recipient of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Award for her volunteer work. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at . Images: Janet Ko, Trish Barbato / 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. /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/29496553

Gaza: Humanitarian agencies call for a ceasefire now 11/13/2023

Gaza: Humanitarian agencies call for a ceasefire now 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 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 . 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 , 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 . You can donate to the by visiting their Transcript of this episode can be accessed at . 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. /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/28619493

Mouth open story jump out: Storytelling for change 10/30/2023

Mouth open story jump out: Storytelling for change 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 share stories openly and honestly, we hear the heart of the other person. We're able to understand each other. It's the way that we pass down our beliefs and traditions. And it's also a way for us to question the society around us. It gives us a different view.” Reflecting on transformative storytelling, Mbũrũ says: “If storytelling continues to be extractive and commodified, then it becomes a product. And transformative storytelling is not about producing a series that is a hit show. It's not just about a product that is sellable. Transformative storytelling is really about honoring the dignity, the consent, the self determination and the sovereignty of whoever is giving a story.” Sanderson talks about how stories build connection: “Stories breed stories ... Somebody tells a story and then somebody else tells a story and then somebody else tells a story … Oh, that reminds me of this. That reminds me of this thing. And suddenly you have a whole room of people talking where maybe nobody, especially younger people [who] were a bit reticent to speak about some issues, some topic, just something. And during the pandemic, a lot of that was just about being isolated and lonely.” About today’s guests: Kesha Christie is an accomplished storyteller who uses African and Caribbean folktales to connect people and cultures. Her engaging performances and insightful commentary have earned her a reputation as a respected voice in the storytelling community, and she has performed at a variety of venues and events across Canada. Kesha also runs her own platforms, including the “Walk Good” podcast and “Talkin’ Tales” YouTube channel, where she shares her passion for storytelling and its ability to bring people together. She is deeply committed to preserving and promoting African and Caribbean cultural traditions, and her work continues to inspire audiences of all ages. To learn more about Kesha and her work, visit Rani Sanderson has a background in film studies and production, later obtaining her Masters of Environmental Studies, where she concentrated on community-engaged arts and environmental education. For the past 15 years she has been facilitating workshops, with a focus on digital storytelling. In 2015 she was invited to head up , (building on the work of American partners) where she develops and implements digital storytelling workshops for non-profit organizations across the country.StoryCenter founded and pioneered the Digital Storytelling methodology of participatory media creation in 1992, and has since taught hundreds of workshops around the world with a variety of communities and organizations. Njoki Mbũrũ is a storyteller, poet, and immigrant from Kenya who is currently living on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Building on her completion of the through the Vancouver Foundation in 2020, she has continued to advocate for policies, projects, and partnerships that uplift the leadership and voices of Indigenous and Black people and communities. Between November 2022 to August 2023, Njoki completed a with the ; an experience which has now propelled her to deepen her exploration of the relationships between public policy, emerging technologies, and philanthropy. As a guiding framework for her relationships and imagination work, she is guided by the question: "What else is possible?" Transcript of this episode can be accessed at . Image: Kesha Christie, Njoki Mbũrũ, Rani Sanderson / 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. /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/28465118

At the Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival 10/16/2023

At the Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival 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 also joined by Liz Marshall and Alfonso Salinas on the premiere of their powerful feature-length film, s-yéwyáw: Awaken. Speaking about this year’s Planet in Focus Film Festival, Bruce says: “This year's program represents something that's broadened our definition of environment enormously over the last probably eight years, to include social justice, climate justice is racial justice … We really decided this year to create a tighter program with as many panels and speakers, filmmakers present as possible … People long for connection when they've seen these films that we present. They come away with questions. They come away with concerns. They come away with a desire to be involved, to be engaged with the issues … And that's what I think is so beneficial about always offering an audience an avenue, but also a space – a space to gather.” On her festival short, Keepers of the Land, Leowinata says: “I hope that it'll get people really excited about what's happening in Canada. Because this is just one Indigenous community in Canada, and there are so many other communities who are doing work like the Kitasoo Xai'xais Nation, and who are really moving the needle in terms of Indigenous-led Conservation, and that's what our film is about. ” Reflecting on S-YéwYáw AWAKEN, Salinas says: “We've gone on this journey where we've learned so much about each other and what happened on the film, on and off the film, it was a lot of healing. And now we get to share that story with the world, which I think is the most important thing. ” The , running until October 22nd in Toronto at the Paradise Theatre (1006 Bloor St West). Check out for future viewing dates and locations. About today’s guests: A part of the Planet in Focus team from 2010-2012, executive director Katherine Bruce was delighted to return to the festival in 2016. She has worked extensively in the arts sector as a producer in film, theatre and visual arts including the UK-based Cape Farewell – The cultural response to climate change as Development Director for Carbon 14: Climate is Culture in partnership with ROM Contemporary Culture. She also serves on the steering committee of CREW Toronto (Community Resilience to Extreme Weather), the advisory committee for Youth Unstoppable and on the board of the international Green Film Network. Deirdre Leowinata was born in Jakarta, Indonesia to an Irish father and a Chinese-Indonesian mother. After spending much of her childhood in an international community in Dhaka, Bangladesh, she moved to Ottawa where she did her bachelor of science in evolution, ecology, and behaviour, focusing on the impacts of climate change on butterfly ecology and physiology. Compelled by a growing need for science communication, she moved to Toronto in 2013 to complete a post-graduate program in environmental visual communication through the Royal Ontario Museum and Fleming College. Since then Deirdre has led multimedia communications and reporting for local and international organizations of various sizes. A cinematographer, writer, and director and working in music videos, shorts, and feature-length films, she continues to facilitate impactful multimedia stories that address our relationships with the natural world. Kwamanchi, Alfonso Salinas is a shíshálh Nation member and the traditional wellness coordinator for the Nation. In his role, he creates programs to practice shíshálh traditions and opportunities for those who want to pass down their gifts. Alfonso received his drum from his grandfather in 2009 to become a song carrier. A graduate of the Indigenous filmmaker program at Capilano University, Alfonso worked for the shíshálh communications department and produced the “Voices of shíshálh” TV series. Later, he became a guide in Stanley Park teaching visitors the history and traditions of Coast Salish people. Alfonso continues to document important events for the Nation today. Working with diverse teams and communities, global funders and influencers, Canadian filmmaker Liz Marshall has written, directed, produced and filmed multiple impactful documentary projects around the globe since the 1990s. Motivated by the transformative language of film and television, her award-winning work is exhibited and reviewed widely. Feature length and broadcast titles include: s-yéwyáw / Awaken (2023) Meat the Future (2020) Midian Farm (2018) The Ghosts in Our Machine (2013) and Water on the Table (2010). Transcript of this episode can be accessed at . Image: Katherine Bruce, Deirdre Leowinata, Alfonso Salinas, Liz Marshall / 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. /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/28333091

BRICS: Summits, coups and a changing world order 09/20/2023

BRICS: Summits, coups and a changing world order 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 interesting because it's almost as if people in the West were blindsided by the appearance of this thing called BRICS and recently, of course, the term Global South … there's a straight line between the anti-colonial struggles of the 19th century and these developments now … And so the BRICS isn't some invention of the Goldman Sachs economists. It didn't come out of nowhere. It's part of a long history by these countries to fight for economic sovereignty, political democracy on the world stage in one sense or the other, and then some kind of economic parity.” Prashad also reflects on the history of coups in the Global South and those now taking place in West Africa: “In many parts of the Third World, especially during the period of the debt crisis and subsequent to that. .. there was a sense that nothing is going to change. You know, people resigned themselves to a kind of futility ...There is a sense of resignation to decay. We are not going to be able to develop. We're not going to be able to advance ... These coups, two of them in Mali, two of them in Burkina Faso, one in Niger, one in Gabon, these coups ... represent the frustration of their populations. And that's a reality. That's hard to take away. And that's why millions of people across the Sahel have been coming out to defend these coups.” Tune in to my conversation with Vijay Prashed on summits, coups and an empowered Global South that says, “we are not afraid of the West anymore.” About today’s guest: Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Vijay Prashad is an historian, journalist, researcher, activist and a prolific writer. He has over 30 books to his name, including: The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World; The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South; Red Star Over the Third World; and Washington Bullets: A History of CIA, Coups, and Assassinations. He is the chief correspondent for Globetrotter, a columnist for Frontline News and chief editor of Leftword Books. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at . Image: Vijay Prsahd / 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. /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/28071624

Labour Fair 2023: Food Justice, labour rights and social gastronomy 07/17/2023

Labour Fair 2023: Food Justice, labour rights and social gastronomy 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 justice, social gastronomy and the rights of workers from farms and factories to fine-dining and food agencies in these times. Maharaj explains: “Social gastronomy is a practice about the power of the kitchen to change lives. Now that is a giant thing to say. But essentially what we're talking about is a growing movement of chefs who are finding really meaningful ways to use our craft to support and nurture communities. It's using our celebrity, our purchasing power and our influence to build a more just and sustainable food system … But also it's about taking the idea of hospitality beyond restaurants, to institutions, to community spaces, and to public policy.” Ramsroop likens the current migrant worker system to that of indentureship: “People who come to work in Canada are on a Tied Work Permit … They have no labour and social mobility. And once they try to exert their rights or if they get injured and sick, in most cases they're sent home and they will not be so-called, named or able to return back to Canada… [Under] ‘agricultural exceptionalism’ or ‘corporate exceptionalism’ … we create something as a crisis, you get rid of all the rules and regulations and you say that the industry can … .ramp up production, bring people to come to work and face no accountability when things hit the fan … We tried to warn people to say, look, you cannot have workers coming to work in Canada under very precarious conditions, people are going to die. Nobody listened. Nobody took the initiatives or steps to protect workers. And lo and behold, we saw what happened during the pandemic and farm workers.” Reflecting on her organization and supporting food industry workers, Big Canoe says: “So what we want to focus on at The Full Plate is thinking about those little things that might make a difference for you in this role and might make it so that you feel you can stay in hospitality a little bit longer … Often you get to a point where your body can't take it anymore. You're mentally drained. You just want to do something else and kind of exit. And that's a really hard place to be in because it makes it so that people don't value this industry and ..we want people to love it. Because for a restaurant setting, people come to you on their best days. They come to you to celebrate … milestone moments in their life. And they also come in on some of their worst days and they want a little bit of a lift up...It's not just a set of hands bringing food to a table … For the people there to stay in that industry and continue to provide hospitality to others, we have to also give the hospitality back to those folks.” About our guests: Joshna Maharaj is a chef, a two-time TEDx speaker and activist who wants to help everyone have a better relationship with their food. She believes strongly in the power of chefs and social gastronomy to bring values of hospitality, sustainability, & social justice to the table. Maharaj works with hospitals & schools in Canada to build new models for institutional food service. Her first bookTake Back the Tray (May 2020) captures the lessons and experience from her work in changing institutional food systems around the globe. She is an enthusiastic instructor of both culinary and academic students, constantly finding ways to make food stories come alive. Maharaj hosts Kitchen Helpdesk, a weekly call-in food show on CBC Radio, and she co-hosts a food and drink podcast called HotPlate, currently in its fourth season. Charlotte Big Canoe is the partner and membership director at The Full Plate, a Toronto based non-profit that provides access to services and supports to hospitality workers in need. The Full Plate was founded in early 2020 by a group of women in the hospitality industry, and has grown to include access to produce boxes or grocery gift cards, wellness programs for hospitality workers, and training focused on inclusive environments in restaurant spaces. Big Canoe is of mixed heritage, with her father's family from the Chippewas of Georgina Island, and her mother's family being Irish settlers. Big Canoe has worked in various roles in the hospitality industry over the past 14 years, with a focus on wine and spirits education. Chris Ramsaroop is an organizer with , a grassroots activist collective that has been organizing with migrant workers for nearly 20 years and whose work is based on building long term trust and relationships with migrant workers and includes: engaging in direct actions, working with workers to resist at work, launching precedent setting legal cases, and organizing numerous collective actions. Ramsaroop is an instructor in the Caribbean Studies Program at the University of Toronto and a clinic instructor at the University of Windsor, Faculty of Law. Ramsaroop is working to complete his PhD at OISE/University of Toronto. Chris is also currently assistant professor at New College, University of Toronto, Community Engaged Learning. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at or here. Images: Joshna Maharaj, Chris Ramsaroop / Used with permission. Charlotte Big Canoe / . 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. /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/27468783

Iron & Earth: From the oil patch to the renewable economy 06/26/2023

Iron & Earth: From the oil patch to the renewable economy In our sixth episode of the Courage My Friends podcast, series 4; Ana Guerra Marin, communities director and just transition lead, and lead Indigenous researcher, Dara Wawaite-Chabot discuss the mission of worker-founded Iron & Earth to create pathways for workers from traditional (carbon-based) energy jobs to jobs within renewable energy sectors and how green transition meets climate justice when it comes to the needs of workers, Indigenous communities and the country. According to Guerra Marin: “Iron Earth started in the oil sands in Alberta, where some workers were concerned about one of the many boom and busts of the industry cycle. They were also concerned about what they were seeing with the environment … [O]ur mission and vision … right now is to empower fossil fuel workers and Indigenous workers to build and implement the climate solutions required to transition. It's not just the workers. The workers, their family. When a refinery shuts down in a town that affects commerce, education, churches, it affects everything … So we are currently in the process of doing that internal work. Our audience right now is workers, their communities and Indigenous peoples across nations and urban centers.” Wawatie-Chabot explains: “I work from an Indigenous perspective, given that I'm Algonquin Anishnaabe. I have grown up on the land with my family and I have that relationship with my communities that I'm from … To do any of this work in a just way requires acknowledging the history that Canada has socially, historically, economically, with Indigenous peoples across this land. So what that means for me, is that these relationships are our primary focus.We don't just meet with Indigenous people, we meet with politicians, educators, community leaders, different organizers and frontline activists so that we can assess the needs of everyone living in so-called Canada. The principles around this are really just to highlight the holistic nature of the work that we do. And ensuring a future for all really does mean for all. It's not exclusive.” About the speakers: Ana Guerra Marin, communities director and just transition lead, started her career in Colombia, listening to and empowering oil, gas and mining workers at various work sites through forming partnerships and understanding worker issues. As Marin delved into the extractive industries, she became more aware of how important it is to address the environmental and socio-economic impacts she was witnessing, and how urgent it is to create long-lasting solutions rooted in community-based initiatives that focus on the most vulnerable persons. This started a 15-year career focused on helping communities achieve self-determination through social and environmental justice in Latin America and Canada. As a white, cisgender, immigrant woman with invisible disabilities, Marin recognizes her position in the world and challenges societal ideas by creating transformative change through a praxis informed by intersectional and Black feminism, womanism, critical race theory, Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge, decolonization, and critical consciousness. Dara Wawaite-Chabot, Indigenous lead researcher, is a single parent who studies political science full-time at the University of Ottawa and works part-time for Iron & Earth. They support their small family by creating art and working remote contracts fighting for environmental justice in so-called Canada. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at or . Image: Ana Guerra Marin and Dara Wawaite-Chabot / 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. Special Thanks fo Joel Ornoy, Iron and Earth Host: Resh Budhu. /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/27282612

Labour Fair 2023: Gig workers and precarity in the 21st century 06/05/2023

Labour Fair 2023: Gig workers and precarity in the 21st century In our fifth episode of this season of Courage My Friends, we revisit the George Brown College Labour Fair. This year, the theme of the fair is: The other P3s: pandemic, privatization, precarity,,, and planet!! In this episode, we share the panel discussion on ‘Gig Workers and Precarity in the 21st Century.’ Moderator is joined by panelists Simran Dhunna and Jobanjeet Kaur of the Naujawan Support Network and Jennifer Scott from Gig Workers United. The groups discusses the tribulations faced by those working in precarious and gig jobs, increasingly exploitative employment structures and organizing for the rights and dignity of vulnerable workers. Reflecting on the meaning of exploitation for precarious workers, especially international students and immigrant workers, Kaur says: “Exploitation involves taking from workers that is rightfully ours. Wage theft, sexual harassment, inadequate job training, threats of deportation are all the forms of exploitation because they rob us of our earnings, safety and dignity.Sometimes people just take it as we are not being paid and it's just exploitation of our money or something. No, it's also the exploitation for the dignity of a worker. Because we go there professionally, work and put in the hours and everything, and it's like they take our dignity away when they refuse to pay us.” Speaking to the situation facing gig workers in Ontario, Scott says: “Gig workers are misclassified workers. And so that means that we don't have basic workers' rights and protections … because apps, you know, our bosses, are disrupting employment standards and putting downward pressure on wages, on employment standards, on working conditions, not just for gig workers, but for all workers in the delivery and logistics sector … Bill-88 was something that apps like Uber and other bad bosses lobbied quite aggressively for … because it creates a standalone piece of legislation with separate and lesser protections, which really reinforces the narrative that apps use, that gig workers are not real workers.” When it comes to organizing workers, Dhunna says: “There's the legal realm and then there's the realm in the streets. We don't rely on lawsuits or kind of the legal system to build our power, but it is a reality. It is a tool and a weapon that is used by employers just as they have done with Bill-88, and with other legal mechanisms to silence workers. And it's not something that's going to intimidate workers, of course. We're thankful for some of the support that's come from other labour organizations and publications like Briar Patch, because this is kind of the way we've begun to connect with groups … that are waging similar struggles across the country.” About our guests: Simran Dhunna is currently studying medicine at Queen’s University. She is a member of Naujawan Support Network. Jobanjeet Kaur is a former international student who immigrated from Panjab in 2018. She was an active organizer in the Alpha College protests, and is now a member of Naujawan Support Network. Jennifer Scott is a gig worker and the President of Gig Workers United CUPW. She began delivering on apps in 2017 as a bicycle courier. She was a member in the Justice for Foodora Couriers CUPW campaign where workers won the right to unionize with 90% of workers voting YES to their union. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at or here. Images: Simran Dhunna, Jobanjeet Kaur, Jennifer Scott / 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. /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/27008469

Asking for a friend: Living organ donations, a gift beyond words 05/22/2023

Asking for a friend: Living organ donations, a gift beyond words Our latest episode of Courage My Friends takes its inspiration from friend and guest William Woolrich as he begins his search for a living kidney donor. He and Candice Coghlan, education and outreach coordinator for the University Health Network Ajmera Transplant Centre and host of the Living Transplant podcast, discuss the search for and ultimate gift of living organ donations. Speaking to how non-related or anonymous donors can help shorten the organ transplant waiting list, Coghlan says: “So these are people who have no connection to the recipient at all. They don't know them, but they decide to step forward out of the goodness of their heart, and they donate either a portion of their liver or a kidney to anyone who is in need, who would be a compatible match to them. ..For kidneys also, they can donate into the Paired Exchange Program.. that happens through the Canadian Blood Services; where if someone has a donor who is a healthy, great candidate, but they're not compatible with their recipient, they can go into this "chain" we call it, and they can swap kidneys… There's an algorithm that happens about three times a year that matches people across the country with donors. And so these anonymous donors can also donate into that pool. Which means not only is someone getting a kidney, but it's taking someone off that wait-list as well.” As Woolrich begins his search for a living kidney transplant, he reflects on the meaning of living organ donations: “[Even] if you aren't a match for me, you might be matched for someone. And, you know, I can't describe the gift that you would be giving to someone that you may not ever meet. ..you have managed to save their life. I mean, how many of us can say that, that we managed to save a life somehow. And this does that. So I really, really encourage people to get involved. .. Look at the resources that Candice mentioned, that you're going to post, Resh on the podcast. And really consider it. Because it does mean the world to someone. And I think that it provides that sense of altruism, a reward even to the giver as well. There is a feeling that someone can get, that I'm sure is indescribable from having saved a life.” If you are interested in finding out more or becoming a donor for William or someone else, please visit these links: And check out the hosted by Candice Coghlan. About our guests: William Woolrich has had kidney disease since he was a teenager as a result of an autoimmune disorder. More recently, he has needed to go on peritoneal dialysis and is hopeful of a transplant. He earned his Doctorate in Education in 2019 from York University. Although currently on long term disability, he is a full-time professor at George Brown College in the Social Service Worker program. He is married and the father of two. Candice Coghlan is the education and outreach coordinator for the Centre for Living Organ Donation at UHN’s Ajmera Transplant Centre. She is also the host of the Living Transplant podcast. Coghlan not only works in the world of organ donation, but her passion also comes from her lived experience. When Coghlan was 24 years old, she was a crash start onto hemodialysis, with no prior knowledge of renal disease. She did both hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. After 15 months, Coghlan’s mother became her kidney donor, giving her a second chance at life. Since then, Coghlan has accomplished many things, including finishing her degree, getting married, travelling, and welcoming a healthy baby girl in 2021. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at or here. Image: William Woolrich and Candice Coghlan / 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. /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/26894178

Good jobs, clean economy: Pushing for a Just Transition 04/24/2023

Good jobs, clean economy: Pushing for a Just Transition In our third episode, Jaime Kirkpatrick, senior program manager of Blue Green Canada, discusses the need for a Just Transition, what it should look like for labour, and how Canada is doing in its move toward a clean energy economy. Speaking to joint climate and labour demands and the idea of a Just Transition, Kirkpatrick says: “Blue Green and a number of allies have been advocating ...the idea of buying clean..You're keeping people employed here at home. You're keeping plants up and running … It's 100 per cent about keeping jobs, reducing the carbon, building out a future together … If everyone is struggling to get by, you are living paycheck to paycheck and if that paycheck disappears, you're in deep trouble. And that's why we talked about the care economy … the importance of good union jobs and all of these things that don't always necessarily seem to be connected, but they very much are … Change is inevitable, but justice is not.” About the speaker: Jamie Kirkpatrick is the senior program manager for , an organization founded in 2010 by an alliance of Canadian labour unions, environmental groups, and civil society organizations. Blue Green Canada advocates for working people and the environment by promoting solutions to environmental issues that have positive employment and economic impacts. Kirkpatrick has over 25 years of campaign, research, and leadership experience, running successful campaigns related to climate change, public transit equity, air quality, and protecting natural spaces. Prior to moving west to Saskatoon, Jamie was the chief of staff to Toronto city councillors’ Mike Layton and Shelley Carroll. Jamie is a graduate of the University of Toronto with an Honours BA focused on environmental studies and environment and resource management where he studied under the late Jack Layton. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at or . Image: Jamie Kirkpatrick / 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. /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/26636115

Senator Hassan Yussuff on 'The other P3s: pandemic, privatization, precarity … and planet!!' 04/10/2023

Senator Hassan Yussuff on 'The other P3s: pandemic, privatization, precarity … and planet!!' The second episode of this season, features a recording of the keynote address delivered by past president of the Canadian Labour Congress, Senator Hassan Yussuff at George Brown College’s 31st annual Labour Fair. Anchoring a week of labour focused discussions and speaking to George Brown College students and faculty, the Senator focuses on this year’s theme, 'The other P3s: pandemic, privatization, precarity,,, and planet!!' Reflecting on federal workers delivery of CERB during the pandemic, the Senator says: “Those workers, six weeks it took them to create that program, to build it from scratch and to make sure it was working so we can get people money ... That's never happened in the history of this country ... Everybody always says, 'The public service cannot perform to the speed of the private sector.' Well, guess what? In the pandemic, it was the public service that was there looking after Canadians and meeting the needs of Canadians.. we need to recognize that because these are working men and women in our country that we need to celebrate.” In terms of workers’ rights during and after the pandemic, the Senators asks: “How is it that we asked workers to go to work day in and day out and that workers don't have access to paid sick days in this country? ... Many of the workers who are working in grocery stores and other places are in precarious jobs ... It speaks to the need for reform to our employment standards. How we can get those workers to be treated in a fair way and of course to have fundamental rights when they go to work. Because the dignity of work is fundamental to the kind of economy we want to build in this country." The Senator remarks on one of the hypocrisies of the gig economy: “Why does the corner-store person who operates a business and employs people have to contribute to EI and CPP for their employees, but yet a corporation as large as Uber, as an example, doesn't have to contribute because they say 'The people who work for us are not our employees.' How is that right? And how is it fair? How could you tell the corner-store that they have to comply with employment standards, but yet none of that applies to a large corporation such as Uber? I think it speaks volumes to the challenges we face.” Speaking on the possibility for change, the Senator says: “I learned a long time ago that without tension, there is no change.If you want the status quo to remain, do nothing. If you want it to change, you'll create some tensions. And it's necessary, by the way. That's how we achieve change. And the systems that are wrong and are unfair to working people in this country can be changed.” The video recording of the Senator’s address is also featured on rabbleTV. About the speaker: Hassan Yussuff was appointed to the Senate of Canada to represent Ontario in June 2021 and sits as a member of the Independent Senators Group. Senator Yussuff is one of Canada’s most experienced labour leaders. An immigrant from Guyana, he has had a long and accomplished career as a union activist, recently serving two terms as the president of the Canadian Labour Congress from 2014-2021; the first person of colour to lead Canada’s labour movement. In addition to his work in Canada, Yussuff is a prominent international activist. In 2016, he was elected for his second term as president of the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas, an organization uniting 48 national organizations and representing more than 55 million workers in 21 countries. Yussuff has also served on numerous task forces and organizations, including the Government of Canada’s NAFTA Council and its Sustainable Development Advisory Council, and co-chair of the Task Force on Just Transition for Canadian Coal Power Workers and Communities. Senator Yussuff is a member of the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce, the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, and the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs. Introduction to Senator by George Brown College president, Gervan Fearon. Session Moderator, Susan Heximer. Student Vote of Thanks: Danesh Hanbury. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at or here. Image: Senator Hassan Yussuff / 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. /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/26470434

Labour education: film, fair and organizing 03/27/2023

Labour education: film, fair and organizing In 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 . 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 or . 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. /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/26324895

Telling Black Histories: Writing, Recuperation and Resistance | Part II 03/01/2023

Telling Black Histories: Writing, Recuperation and Resistance | Part II In this two part episode of the Courage My Friends podcast, Telling Black histories: writing, recuperation and resistance, we are very pleased to welcome the 4th Poet Laureate of Toronto and the 7th Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate, George Elliott Clarke. As we continue our conversation, Clarke reflects on past and current struggles against White western power, the meaning of decolonization and shaping effective resistance in Canada and beyond. Clarke discusses ongoing legacies of colonialism and racist imperialism in global politics,: “As Malcolm X said, ‘"you're a bunch of hypocrites’"...At the same time as you're expressing all these nostrums and parables of your supposed virtues, you are armed to the teeth. You are armed to the teeth! You are building jails to house masses of people seeking relief from the oppression that you have engineered in their home countries… And then these oppressed peoples flee for the refuge of your democracy and your attitude is to let them drown in the Mediterranean. .. let them drown in the Atlantic.”. For Clarke, achieving real change in Canada is very much in our hands: “We want to end police killings of unarmed Black men and Indigenous men and women and youth? Oh, we can do that, but we're gonna have to vote in place governments that will put in place very strict regiments on police forces..Whatever it is that you, the people together, collectively want in a democracy, you can have it. ..You can have an end to war. You can have more distribution of income and wealth. In a democracy you can actually vote yourselves this…So what's stopping us? Well, actually nothing is stopping us, except our own blind obedience to the way things have always been.” Speaking to the failures of “cancel culture”, Clarke says: “The woke/cancelers have power to destroy individuals, which they can do, and they've done it. ..On the other hand, as they have also proven, they cannot destroy oppressive institutions. How nice it would be if they could, but they don't have that ability. They can destroy individuals, but not institutions. I think that's a problem.Because to go after individuals, any mob can do that. But to go after institutions, a mob isn't what you need. You need a revolutionary movement”. About today’s guest The 4th Poet Laureate of Toronto (2012-15) and the 7th Parliamentary/Canadian Poet Laureate (2016-17), George Elliott Clarke was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1960. A professor of English at the University of Toronto, Clarke has also taught at Duke, McGill, UBC, and Harvard. His recognitions include the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre Fellowship (US), the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellows Prize, the Governor-General’s Award for Poetry, the National Magazine Gold Award for Poetry, the PremiulPoesis (Romania), the Eric Hoffer Book Award for Poetry (US), and International Fellow Poet of the Year, Encyclopedic Poetry School [2019] (China). His acclaimed titles include Whylah Falls (1990, translated into Chinese), Beatrice Chancy (1999, translated into Italian), Execution Poems (2001), Blues and Bliss (selected poems, 2009), I & I (2008), Illicit Sonnets (U.K., 2013), Traverse (2015), Canticles II (MMXX) (2020), and J’Accuse…! (Poem versus Silence) (2021). Transcript of this episode can be accessed at . Image: George Elliott Clarke (Portrait by Katerina Fretwell) / Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (podcast announcer); Bob Luker (voice of Tommy Douglas); Kenneth Okoro, Liz Campos Rico, Tsz Wing Chau (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 /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/26097966

Telling Black Histories: Writing Recuperation and Resistance | Part I 02/27/2023

Telling Black Histories: Writing Recuperation and Resistance | Part I In this 2-part episode of the Courage My Friends podcast, Telling Black histories: writing, recuperation and resistance, we are very pleased to welcome the 4th Poet Laureate of Toronto and the 7th Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate, George Elliott Clarke. In Part I of our conversation, Clarke takes us on a journey through Black and Africadian history in Canada, his life and work and discusses the importance of recuperating Black and colonized histories through writing and resistance. Reflecting on the history of Black communities in Nova Scotia, Clarke says: Africadia is built, is constructed in complete defiance, of white supremacist, racist governmental decisions including environmental racism - placing dumps beside Black communities, placing polluting factories on the doorsteps of Black communities and so on. Those people, my ancestors, decided that they were going to construct communities. Church-based, church-anchored communities all around mainland Nova Scotia, in complete defiance of the racist oppressor and the oppressor's attempt to create a Nova Scotia as a White person's paradise. As a White person's dream. About today’s guest The 4th Poet Laureate of Toronto (2012-15) and the 7th Parliamentary/Canadian Poet Laureate (2016-17), George Elliott Clarke was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1960. A professor of English at the University of Toronto, Clarke has also taught at Duke, McGill, UBC and Harvard. His recognitions include the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre Fellowship (US), the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellows Prize, the Governor-General’s Award for Poetry, the National Magazine Gold Award for Poetry, the PremiulPoesis (Romania), the Eric Hoffer Book Award for Poetry (US), and International Fellow Poet of the Year, Encyclopedic Poetry School [2019] (China). His acclaimed titles include Whylah Falls (1990, translated into Chinese), Beatrice Chancy (1999, translated into Italian), Execution Poems (2001), Blues and Bliss (selected poems, 2009), I & I (2008), Illicit Sonnets (U.K., 2013), Traverse (2015), Canticles II (MMXX) (2020), and J’Accuse…! (Poem versus Silence) (2021). Transcript of this episode can be accessed at Image: George Elliott Clarke (Portrait by Katerina Fretwell) / Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (podcast announcer); Bob Luker (voice of Tommy Douglas); Kenneth Okoro, Liz Campos Rico, Tsz Wing Chau (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 /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/26060319

Capitalism and the mental health crisis 02/13/2023

Capitalism and the mental health crisis In this episode of the Courage My Friends podcast, Capitalism and the mental health crisis, social worker, researcher and writer, Madeleine Ritts, researcher on mental health of Black communities, Michelle Sraha-Yeboah, and researcher and educator in labor issues, Jon Weier, discuss the current mental health crisis as an inevitable outcome of capitalism and whether good mental health is a benefit or a boon to our economic system. According to Ritts: “...Poverty, exploitation, alienation, these are inherent features of capitalism. So the degradation of physical and mental health is inevitable as long as we continue to live under the domination of the market. And I think in our system of racialized capitalism those forces will continue to disproportionately impact racialized people.” Speaking to impacts on Black communities, Yeboah says: “The field of psychology was born at the height of imperial expansion and colonial conquest. It was created to reinforce and serve the interests of the state. And so we see a lot of colonial rhetoric being processed through some of the methodologies and ideologies used in the field to reinforce a narrative about Black communities as being less than, as being subhuman, as misrepresenting their racial suffering. And these things have an impact today.” Reflecting on workers, Weier says: “I think gig work, contract work has been.. breaking down the bonds that can exist at a workplace..It's very hard to build solidarity. It's very hard to build a response or resistance to neoliberalism as these traditional sites of community and solidarity are being undermined in favor of an increasingly atomized workforce.” About today’s guests Madeleine Ritts is a researcher and social worker based in Toronto. Her writing has appeared in Jacobin, Health Debate, Now Magazine, Aeon, and the Toronto Star. She has worked as a mental health clinician for over seven years, and has experience organizing around issues of homelessness and poverty in Ontario. Maddie worked on a community, outreach-based mental health and addictions team in downtown Toronto and recently transitioned to a position in long-term care where she provides psycho-social and palliative care support to residents and their loved ones. Michelle Sraha-Yeboah is a doctoral candidate at York University in the Department of Social Science. Her research examines medical histories of racial and colonial violence, mental health care service use disparities and holistic wellbeing. Her work is particularly concerned with the intersections of socio-historical and political factors impacting Black Canadians’ mental health care service use patterns and treatment preferences. She attends to Black feminist theorizations of care to achieve anti-racist and decolonial mental healthcare service delivery for Africans in the Diaspora. Jonathan Weier is a professor in The School of Labor and The School of Liberal Arts and Sciences at George Brown College. An established historian and educator, policy professional and commentator on social and labor movements, his research focuses on voluntary organizations, trade unions, political parties and other efforts by workers, social activists, and reformers to achieve progressive political, social and economic goals. Jon has been active in the labor movement and in Left politics for over 20 years and is currently a board member and the academic advisor for the Douglas Coldwell Layton Foundation. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at Image: Michelle Sraha-Yeboah, Madeleine Ritts, Jon Weier / Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (podcast announcer); Bob Luker (voice of Tommy Douglas); Kenneth Okoro, Liz Campos Rico, Tsz Wing Chau (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 /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/25917126

COP15 and 30x30 Pt. II: Indigenous led conservation and saving the Greenbelt 01/30/2023

COP15 and 30x30 Pt. II: Indigenous led conservation and saving the Greenbelt In the second part of this two-part episode of the Courage My Friends podcast COP15 and 30x30: Indigenous-Led Conservation and Saving the Greenbelt, manager at Springwater Provincial Park and former Chief of the Beausoleil First Nation, Jeff Monague, discusses principles of Indigenous-led conservation, the dangers facing First Nations communities from Greenbelt development and the need to shift our thinking in order to reconnect with the natural world. Reflecting on the meaning of reconciliation, Monague says: “We can't think about conservation if we don't live or try to live that conservation…We're not doing that enough. In Canada, the government needs to do more. If it is reconciliation that they're talking about, then they need to do more...Reconciliation won't happen if all of your partners are not included. Let's say we're going to spend $30 million on a project and then we'll give 1% of that to First Nations. That's not reconciliation.” About today’s guest Jeff Monague is a member of the Beausoleil First Nation on Christian Island and currently resides near Coldwater, Ont. Presently, he is the manager at Springwater Provincial Park. He has been an instructor of the Ojibwe Language and has taught at every level, from junior kindergarten to post secondary at Georgian College. His book Ahaw Anishinaabem for beginners of the Ojibwe Language is available on Amazon. He is a former Chief and Councillor of his community on Christian Island and has been the Treaty research director for the Anishinaabek Nation. He is also a Canadian military veteran. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at or here. Image: Jeff Monague / Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (podcast announcer); Bob Luker (voice of Tommy Douglas); Kenneth Okoro, Liz Campos Rico, Tsz Wing Chau (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 /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/25772220

COP15, and 30x30 Pt.I: Turning the Tide on Biodiversity Loss and Mass Extinction 01/16/2023

COP15, and 30x30 Pt.I: Turning the Tide on Biodiversity Loss and Mass Extinction In this two-part episode of the Courage My Friends podcast, Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence and Sandra Schwartz, national executive director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) discuss the crisis of biodiversity loss and mass extinction, Canada’s commitments under the Kunming-Montreal agreement coming out of the global COP15 gathering on biodiversity, and challenges and strategies toward meeting this very ambitious and even more necessary target. According to Schwartz: the UN has reported recently,.. that around a million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction. And that is really within a few decades. That's more than ever before in human history. And that's largely a result of human interaction with nature. So whether that is from exploration, from mining for example, forestry, …clearly we need to act now to save the natural world, because it is sustaining us as humans. Speaking to the recent Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, Schwartz says: [I]t was a huge win, both for people, but also for the planet. .. Target Three of the framework is requiring the protection of at least 30% of land and ocean is protected globally by 2030…a requirement that Indigenous rights are respected and that Indigenous territories are recognized…And, all together the goals and targets of the agreement really do present a comprehensive plan to protect and restore biodiversity. But it's ambitious. And really, from our perspective going into the conference, what we were most holding out hope for was that the Framework Agreement would be ambitious. Reflecting on proposed development on the Ontario Greenbelt, Gray says: 70% of the lands to be removed, is in something called Dufferin's Rouge Agricultural Preserve. It was both part of the Greenbelt, but also had its own separate protective legislation, which was removed by Bill-39 at the same time that Bill-32 was going through…This was formally publicly-owned land, sold to the farm community with legal easements to keep it as farmland forever, which have now been removed and open for development. So threats both to forest and wetland systems that are associated with the National Park, contrary to Indigenous rights and Indigenous opposition, threatens the viability of farming in that area. ..And so the viability of the farm community is threatened, major river systems, federally listed species at risk, fisheries habitat, migratory birds. The list is very, very long. In terms of the implementation of global agreements, Gray says: [O]ne of the real challenges that we face is that, even as we sign international agreements that commit to stopping loss, increasing protection, advancing restoration to address biodiversity loss is that we see, like in particular in Ontario right now, a massive race in the opposite direction with dismantling of protection regimes for woodlands, wetlands, massive encouragement of sprawl development at the expense of building denser cities with transit, etc. So it is a real challenge to see the most populist, most wealthy province with a huge amount of the the biodiversity that this country holds, literally racing in the direction of further destruction About today’s guests Tim Gray is the executive director of . Gray has over 25 years experience developing and implementing environmental policy change efforts. These have included major shifts in land conservation, forest practices and climate change. Starting out his career as a biologist and policy analyst, Gray has spent a lot of time learning skills that move complex environmental issues toward resolution. He has worked with other change makers on the front lines of conflict and has also taken his skills inside to work on government advisory committees and in complex negotiations with industry. Gray completed an H.BSc. at Wilfrid Laurier University and a M.Sc. at the University of Toronto. Sandra Schwartz is the national executive director of the . With master’s degrees in management, and environmental studies and over 20 years of experience, she is a strong advocate for sound environmental policy and has championed progressive ideas for clean energy and tackling climate change. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at . Image: Sandra Schwartz and Tim Gray / Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (voice of Tommy Douglas); Kenneth Okoro, Liz Campos Rico, Tsz Wing Chau (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 /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/25604283

Who’s hungry… and why? Food banks, food insecurity and ending hunger for good 12/19/2022

Who’s hungry… and why? Food banks, food insecurity and ending hunger for good In this episode of the Courage My Friends podcast, Neil Hetherington, CEO of The Daily Bread Food Bank and Maria Rio, director of development and communication for The Stop Community Food Centre discuss the current state of food insecurity in Canada’s largest city, how we got here and what we need to end decades of hunger. Of the growing reliance on Toronto’s food bank system, Hetherington says: “What is startling is the fact that there are over 9,000 new registrants to the Foodbank system in the Toronto area, served by Daily Bread and North York Harvest each month.. almost 10,000 people are putting up their hand and saying, "I am in a position where my income does not meet the expenses that I have and I need to rely on food charity this week or this month. …Prior to the pandemic, 15% of the people that came to the food banks were employed fully. That number has doubled to 30%. And just around 50% of food bank users have a post-secondary education. And so people have done what we told them to do growing up. Go get an education, grab a job and you'll be fine. You'll get that house with a white picket fence. And that's not the reality.” Rio describes the current and increasing challenges facing organizations like the Stop Community Food Centre: “The Stop is also being hit by inflation. So not only are we paying more for food because there's decreased food drives and all those things. There's more people coming to our services ..it's been an exceptionally challenging time. We've had to make really difficult decisions around how do we keep serving our community, but not go into an extremely unsustainable position as an organization? We have to remain open next year. as more and more people run out of other options, such as friends or using credit cards or predatory payday loan services, they're turning to us and we're kind of left scrambling to meet the need with less volunteer help, with less energy than we had two years ago and strain on our resources because our donors are also feeling the pinch.” Speaking to the importance of food banks, Hethrington says: “What we have set out to do over the last number of decades is remind people that food banks are not the answer to food insecurity; we've never claimed that we are. But we do make food available this week for people. .. where we do claim that we are fighting to end hunger is around our advocacy efforts and taking a leadership position?” Reflection on Canada’s failed commitments to end hunger, Rio says: “Canada first signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights at the UN, where they ratified the right to food, right to adequate food, clothing, and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. And to know that we've been talking about this issue for so long, we've had so many consultations at all levels of government…we've known for a really long time that social assistance rates are abysmally low. That it's a lot of newcomers who are experiencing these barriers. Racialized people, people with disabilities and an intersection of all those identities. We've known that for more than the 40 years that The Stop has been around, or food banks have been around.” About today’s guests Neil Hetherington joined The Daily Bread Food Bank as CEO in January 2018. Beginning his career in project management at Tridel Construction, in September 2000, he made a career change by joining Habitat for Humanity Toronto, at the time as the youngest CEO of a Habitat affiliate in the world. Neil’s non-profit experience includes 16 years as CEO of Habitat for Humanity in Toronto, and then New York City, and two years as CEO of Dixon Hall, a multi-service agency serving thousands of people in Toronto. Neil holds credentials from the University of Western Ontario – Huron College, Seneca College, Harvard Business School, and the University of Virginia – Darden Business School and obtained his MBA from the University of Western Ontario’s Ivey Business School in 2013. He is an active pilot and sailor. He enjoys furniture making and in his spare time plays tennis terribly, snowboards poorly and bikes slowly. Maria Rio has over a decade of fundraising and non-profit experience. As a woman, a racialized person, an immigrant, and a member of the LGBTQ2+ community and from her early experience as a refugee, Maria’s experience shaped a passion for human rights that fuels her drive to give back and make a difference in the lives of people of various marginalized and often intersectional and underrepresented groups. Her op eds have been featured in publications such as the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ magazine. She was a finalist for the national 2022 Charity Village Best Individual Fundraiser Award, and has a deep passion for non-profit work. Maria also sits on the Board of Living Wage Canada and is often asked to speak on issues related to poverty, innovative stewardship, building relationships, and Community Centric Fundraising. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at or . Image: Neil Hetherington and Maria Rio / Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (voice of Tommy Douglas); Kenneth Okoro, Liz Campos Rico, Tsz Wing Chau (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 /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/25358883

From contract negotiation to political protest: reflecting on Ontario’s education workers’ fight for jobs, rights and dignity 12/12/2022

From contract negotiation to political protest: reflecting on Ontario’s education workers’ fight for jobs, rights and dignity In this episode of the Courage My Friends podcast we welcome Laura Walton, president of CUPE’s Ontario Schools Boards Council of Unions. Just days after CUPE education workers voted to ratify a new four-year contract that includes a hard fought for $1 flat-rate hourly wage increase and two days repayment for a fraught political protest, we reflect on the momentous and contentious labor action taken on by Ontario's education workers. Reflecting on how essential these education workers are to our schools, Walton says: "From the minute that a child or a member of the public steps into a school; you are stepping into a space that is impacted by the work performed by CUPE members … the cleanliness of the school, the safety of the school. Being buzzed in the door in our elementary schools. The supports that students need in order to be successful and to thrive are all performed by education workers." Walton describes Bill 28 and its use of the notwithstanding clause: “Bill 28 was actually a two-headed beast ... Not only did it impose a contract which would've provided poverty wages, attacked our sick-leave- …. It also put in place the notwithstanding clause. But also taking the notwithstanding clause one step further: we wouldn't be able to take them to court, but they also put in pieces where we wouldn't be able to take them to the human rights tribunal. We wouldn't be able to arbitrate it. Really removing any sort of legal avenue that a worker may have and really interfering with the charter rights of workers." Of the unprecedented coming together of public and private sector, Walton says: "I have been a worker for my entire adult life. Started working at 13. And I've been a union activist for 20 years and you know, I remember reading about union activism. I remember reading about labor history ... And I always kind of pictured ‘what did that feel like?’ ... How did you know you were in that moment, when you were in that moment. ..Those became very real. And one of the comments that I made that day is, 'Workers are like a family. We may not always agree, but when you attack one of us, you attack all of us.' And I really hope that it becomes a catalyst for solidarity moving forward.” About today’s guest Laura Walton is an educational assistant from Belleville, Ontario. First elected to the role in 2019, she is the president of CUPE’s 55,000-worker strong Ontario School Boards Council of Unions (OSBCU). Transcript of this episode can be accessed at or . Image: Laura Walton / Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (voice of Tommy Douglas); Kenneth Okoro, Liz Campos Rico, Tsz Wing Chau (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 /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/25282329

Home is where the earth is: The climate crisis meets the housing crisis 11/28/2022

Home is where the earth is: The climate crisis meets the housing crisis In this episode of the Courage My Friends podcast, Emmay Mah, executive director of the Toronto Environmental Alliance (TEA) discusses the many intersections between the climate crisis and the housing crisis and the potential fallout from Ontario’s proposed housing Bill 23: More Homes Built Faster. According to Mah: “We need to acknowledge that we are experiencing a deep, acute housing crisis. And this is also an environmental crisis.” Reflecting on the Ford Government’s proposed Bill-23: The Better Homes Built Faster Act, Mah says: “The title of the Bill .. is incredibly misleading. It is both bad for addressing the housing crisis and bad from a climate perspective, and there are no two ways around that. ..Basically what this bill proposes to do is it's going to gut about 10 existing provincial laws, which will ultimately strip local governments of their ability to build and protect affordable housing and achieve their climate goals and basically protect the environment and plan communities within municipalities.” In refuting the tension between development and conservation, Mah says: “It is in all our interest to build green affordable housing. It is also in our interests to preserve natural land and resources and food growing areas. So these things should not be pitted against one another. And I think that it is a falsehood that is purposely being constructed to serve these development interests. And so we really need to push back against this. This is incredibly shortsighted.” For Mah, communities are themselves modeling the change we need to see: “Community members often have the deepest perspective on what solutions will work locally, and understandably so. They bring a lot of knowledge and wisdom and lived experience to working on solutions. So I want to strongly encourage folks that have the impetus to really, really move forward with solutions they know are going to work with their communities. And organizations like TEA should be supporting them and so should local government.” About today’s guest Emmay Mah joined the Toronto Environmental Alliance as executive director in 2019. For the last 20 years, Emmay has worked in the non-profit sector locally and internationally, developing and managing programs focused on child rights, health, and the environment. She is passionate about building local movements to achieve healthy, equitable and climate-friendly cities. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at or here. Image: Emmay Mah / Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (voice of Tommy Douglas); Kenneth Okoro, Liz Campos Rico, Tsz Wing Chau (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 /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/25151490

Mouth open, story jump out: The power and purpose of storytelling in these times – Part two 11/07/2022

Mouth open, story jump out: The power and purpose of storytelling in these times – Part two In part two of this special two-part episode of the Courage My Friends podcast ‘Mouth Open, Story Jump Out: The Power and Purpose of Storytelling in These Times,’ we continue our conversation with storyteller, actor, playwright and filmmaker, Rhoma Spencer; storyteller and teacher, Lynn Torrie; and storyteller, teacher and founder of Queers in Your Ears, Rico Rodriguez. Speaking to the origins of Carnival and the meaning of stories for the formerly colonized and enslaved, Spencer reflects: “Stories [are] indeed a part of resistance. These are stories that my mother talked about. Some she would've experienced and some that would've been passed on to her..These are stories that was told to me. Carnival as manifested through the post-emancipated African was a form of resistance. When we were emancipated in 1834, we took to the streets to celebrate our emancipation, and we did so by mimicking our colonizer.” According to Torrie, stories are a vehicle to deal with even the most sensitive of subjects: “What I find is sensitive topics like addiction, people have strong opinions about them. And sometimes when you approach them directly, people shut down, it's hard to listen; either because they've been personally touched by the issue or because they have strong opinions about how the issue should be dealt with … Sometimes if you approach something in the context of a story, it's easier to listen to than if you speak to the issue directly. A story gives people room to listen to the feelings and perspectives of the characters involved rather than getting stuck on one side or the other of an issue.” Reflecting on the need to be included in stories and storytelling communities, Rodriguez says: “When we grew up as queers, we're sitting around the table and the stories that are being told are stories that are gonna shape our lives sometimes, even if they're fairy tales, personal stories. Stories that are told at Thanksgiving or big family events or family reunions. Stories are being told around the table, they're not queer affirming … And I think that’s what led me to tell more of my personal stories, especially with Queers in Your Ears, is that I wanted to create that dinner table for queers where they came and listened and they got affirmed.” About the storytellers Rico Rodriguez is a storyteller and a teacher who specializes in Latinx tales and writing and telling personal and fictional stories that are infused with equity and social change themes. He founded “Queers in Your Ears” a 2SLGBTQI storytelling event. Rico has facilitated workshops on the art of storytelling in educational settings and community and health promotion agencies. He has told in schools, theatres, libraries, festivals, pubs and conferences as well as on CBC Radio in Canada and on National Public Radio in the U.S. His story credits include: Do The Best You Can In the Place Where You Are And Be Kind, Your Value Does Not Decrease Based On Someone's Inability To See Your Worth, When A Flower Doesn't Bloom, You Do Not Fix The Flower, You Fix The Environment In Which The Flower Can Grow. Rhoma Spencer is an actor, playwright, docu/filmmaker, director and comedian. When not doing all of the above she can be seen at her Sweethand Delights turning a random pot of gastronomic pleasures. Critically acclaimed by the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and NOW Magazine, her works include: Biomyth Mono Digiplay and Login Password Logout ( Aluna Theatre, Caminos Festiva, 2021). Her film, My Execution will be Televised recently won the Impact Award at the Caribbean Tales International Film Festival and her film, A Pile of Dirt will premiere at the Regent Park Film Festival in December. Rhoma can be seen in the award-winning Canadian film, Scarborough. Lynn Torrie is a Toronto storyteller with a passion for traditional folk tales and Canadian history. Her original adaptations have been performed at the Toronto Storytelling Festival, The Word on the Street, StoryFusion Cabaret, the Ottawa Signature Series and Guelph’s Tea ’n Tales. She is a member of the York storytelling Guild and a regular host at both Storytelling Toronto’s Storytent and 1001 Friday Nights of Storytelling. She designed and taught over 100 workshops to teachers and educational assistants with the Toronto District School Board and is currently the project co-ordinator for Storytellers of Canada’s workshop series and teaches “The Art of Storytelling” at Toronto Metropolitan University, Continuing Education. Since COVID 19, Lynn has travelled the virtual world, hosting, teaching and telling on Zoom. Teagan de Laronde is Métis and a citizen of Red Sky Métis Independent Nation. A graduate of the University of Toronto Teagan was president of the Indigenous Studies Student Union, co-founder/VP for 'BIPOC in Politics', and serves on various committees focused on Truth and Reconciliation including the Victoria College (Re)Conciliation; The Truth is not Fully yet Told". She is currently a project manager with UofT’s Department of Religion on the "Relations on the Land" project. In August 2022, she worked with the City of Toronto and Indigenous partners to Decolonize Museums. Teagan works as a First Story Storyteller, a community-based project that researches, preserves, and shares Indigenous history and perspectives within what is now known as ‘Toronto.’ An avid jigger (dancer) and beader, Teagan’s work can be viewed at @birchbeadwork on Instagram. Richardo Keens-Douglas M.B.E is an award winning actor, playwright, author, storyteller and proud Grenadian-Canadian. From drama, dance, and comedy, to musical theatre, storytelling, and directing, Richardo also hosted national radio storytelling show Cloud 9 and Sunday Arts Entertainment on CBC television in Canada and was the host of the television hit Who Wants to be A Millionaire Caribbean. He has appeared on a variety of stages in North America and the Caribbean, including Stratford, Canadian Stage, Factory Theatre, TWP, and Theatre Fountainhead in Canada. His play The Nutmeg Princess won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Musical of 1999. In 2003, Richardo was inducted into the Caribbean Hall of Fame for Excellence in Theatre. Dan Yashinsky is a storyteller, writer, and community animator. His books include Suddenly They Heard Footsteps - Storytelling for the Twenty-first Century, and Swimming with Chaucer - A Storyteller's Logbook. In 1999 he received the Jane Jacobs Prize for his work with storytelling in the community. His pandemic project was to record 16 folktales with his donkey Eysele. You can see them on Youtube by searching for The Storyteller's Ass. Info: . Transcript of this episode can be accessed at . Image: Rico Rodriguez, Rhoma Spencer, Lynn Torrie, Teagan de Laronde, Richardo Keens-Douglas, Dan Yashinsky (photo by Jacob Zavitz), / Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (voice of Tommy Douglas); Kenneth Okoro, Liz Campos Rico, Tsz Wing Chau (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 Special Thanks to: Debra Baptiste (Executive Director, Storytelling Toronto), Audrey Rochette (Director, Indigenous Initiatives, George Brown College) Host: Resh Budhu /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/24907587

Mouth open, story jump out: The power and purpose of storytelling in these times 10/31/2022

Mouth open, story jump out: The power and purpose of storytelling in these times In the fourth, two-part, episode of the Courage My Friends podcast, series III, we are joined by six Canadian storytellers In this special, and very storied, two-part episode of the Courage My Friends podcast Mouth Open, Story Jump Out: The Power and Purpose of Storytelling in These Times, we are very pleased to welcome six Canadian storytellers. In part one, we begin our conversation with First Story storyteller, Teagan de Laronde; actor, author, and storyteller. Richardo Keens-Douglas; and community animator, author and co-founder of Storytelling Toronto, Dan Yashinsky. Within her story within a story, storyteller, de Laronde says: “In Toronto, like many places, there are many stories of the land; in the land, based on the land. I think one of the biggest misconceptions about Toronto is that there are no Indigenous stories. We tend to see urban places as non-Indigenous spaces.Toronto though is a city, is an urban space because of Indigenous design. It was a meeting place, a council ground, a shared space, and it still is.” Before launching into the story of La Diablesse, storyteller Keens-Douglas describes storytelling as: “connecting through the soul. Storytelling for me is a passing on. It's a sharing of yourself. It's a sharing of where you came from. It's a sharing of a history. It's a sharing of knowledge. And when I connect with my audience, when I tell my stories, I want them to go through the process with me.” Prefacing the story of the tortoise and the leopard, Yashinsky says,“Stories have a way of crossing borders. They don't really respect political frontiers. They slip through all the barricades and they end up being subversive because of that. They're deep and they're personal. and they live by word of mouth. And every attempt to control them has failed. So I've always thought about that, storytellers are the enemies of all champions of control.” About the storytellers Teagan de Laronde is Métis and a citizen of Red Sky Métis Independent Nation. A graduate of the University of Toronto Teagan was president of the Indigenous Studies Student Union, co-founder/VP for 'BIPOC in Politics', and serves on various committees focused on Truth and Reconciliation including the Victoria College (Re)Conciliation; The Truth is not Fully yet Told". She is currently a project manager with UofT’s Department of Religion on the "Relations on the Land" project. In August 2022, she worked with the City of Toronto and Indigenous partners to Decolonize Museums. Teagan works as a First Story Storyteller, a community-based project that researches, preserves, and shares Indigenous history and perspectives within what is now known as ‘Toronto.’ An avid jigger (dancer) and beader, Teagan’s work can be viewed at @birchbeadwork on Instagram. Richardo Keens-Douglas M.B.E is an award winning actor, playwright, author, storyteller and proud Grenadian-Canadian. From drama, dance, and comedy, to musical theatre, storytelling, and directing, Richardo also hosted national radio storytelling show Cloud 9 and Sunday Arts Entertainment on CBC television in Canada and was the host of the television hit Who Wants to be A Millionaire Caribbean. He has appeared on a variety of stages in North America and the Caribbean, including Stratford, Canadian Stage, Factory Theatre, TWP, and Theatre Fountainhead in Canada. His play The Nutmeg Princess won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Musical of 1999. In 2003, Richardo was inducted into the Caribbean Hall of Fame for Excellence in Theatre. Dan Yashinsky is a storyteller, writer, and community animator. His books include Suddenly They Heard Footsteps - Storytelling for the Twenty-first Century, and Swimming with Chaucer - A Storyteller's Logbook. In 1999 he received the Jane Jacobs Prize for his work with storytelling in the community. His pandemic project was to record 16 folktales with his donkey Eysele. You can see them on Youtube by searching for The Storyteller's Ass. Info: . Rico Rodriguez is a storyteller and a teacher who specializes in Latinx tales and writing and telling personal and fictional stories that are infused with equity and social change themes. He founded “Queers in Your Ears” a 2SLGBTQI storytelling event. Rico has facilitated workshops on the art of storytelling in educational settings and community and health promotion agencies. He has told in schools, theatres, libraries, festivals, pubs and conferences as well as on CBC radio in Canada and on National Public Radio in the U.S. His story credits include: "Do The Best You Can In the Place Where You Are And Be Kind", "Your Value Does Not Decrease Based On Someone's Inability To See Your Worth", "When A Flower Doesn't Bloom, You Do Not Fix The Flower, You Fix The Environment In Which The Flower Can Grow" Rhoma Spencer is an actor, playwright, docu/filmmaker, director and comedian. When not doing all of the above she can be seen at her Sweethand Delights turning a random pot of gastronomic pleasures. Critically acclaimed by the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and NOW Magazine, her works include: Biomyth Mono Digiplay and Login Password Logout ( Aluna Theatre, Caminos Festiva, 2021). Her film, My Execution will be Televised recently won the Impact Award at the Caribbean Tales International Film Festival and her film, A Pile of Dirt will premiere at the Regent Park Film Festival in December. Rhoma can be seen in the award-winning Canadian film, Scarborough. Lynn Torrie is a Toronto storyteller with a passion for traditional folk tales and Canadian history. Her original adaptations have been performed at the Toronto Storytelling Festival, The Word on the Street, StoryFusion Cabaret, the Ottawa Signature Series and Guelph’s Tea ’n Tales. She is a member of the York storytelling Guild and a regular host at both Storytelling Toronto’s Storytent and 1001 Friday Nights of Storytelling. She designed and taught over 100 workshops to teachers and educational assistants with the Toronto District School Board and is currently the project co-ordinator for Storytellers of Canada’s workshop series and teaches “The Art of Storytelling” at Toronto Metropolitan University, Continuing Education. Since COVID 19, Lynn has travelled the virtual world, hosting, teaching and telling on Zoom. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at . Image: Teagan de Laronde, Richardo Keens-Douglas, Dan Yashinsky (photo by Jacob Zavitz), Rico Rodriguez, Rhoma Spencer, Lynn Torrie / Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (voice of Tommy Douglas); Kenneth Okoro, Liz Campos Rico, Tsz Wing Chau (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 /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/24836649

Home is where the community is: Homelessness, housing insecurity and housing as a human right 10/11/2022

Home is where the community is: Homelessness, housing insecurity and housing as a human right In the third episode of the Courage My Friends podcast, Series III, Dania Majid, director of the Tenant Duty Council Program at the Advocacy Center for Tenants Ontario (ACTO); John Ecker, director of Research and Evaluation at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness; and Haydar Shouly, senior manager of Shelters and Shelter Programs with Dixon Hall discuss the current crisis of housing insecurity and homelessness facing our most vulnerable communities. Ecker describes some of the ingredients of the housing crisis: “In Toronto we're seeing an emergency shelter system that's stretched to the limit, which is turning people away because there aren't enough beds available. ..We're seeing a significant increase in the number of people experiencing chronic homelessness or homelessness lasting six months or longer in Toronto…About half of people accessing emergency shelters can be defined as chronically homeless. We're also seeing a burnt out workforce that is leaving the homeless system for other opportunities. We're seeing a social housing wait-list that continues to grow due to the lack of housing stock that is being created. Rising rental costs, which is even pushing people out of not just the housing market, but the rental market as well. There's a lack of rental control measures put in place by the provincial government, allowing landlords to increase rent without that typical government oversight on units that were built after 2018.” Reflecting on how the pandemic impacted Toronto shelters, Shouly recalls: “So I remember early 2020, probably February, March 2020 when we started to feel the heat of this pandemic. We had 91 people at Heyworth House, a hundred people at 351 Lake Shore. And we were talking about 2 to 3 feet apart. And that was just not feasible anymore. It was a disaster to keep people in that kind of environment. So collectively as a sector, and the city obviously led that, we moved clients from the traditional shelters and respites to hotels. The city secured a number of hotels to create that kind of social distancing that we were talking about in early 2020. It was really difficult. It was complicated to try to make that move. To transport people to a hotel. And trying to use the city's transport vehicles or taxis... It was a really challenging kind of reality. But with that action, I think we managed to keep the numbers of positive cases low and we managed to create social distancing in those programs. But I think moving people from where they were in congregate settings into more isolated rooms in hotel programs, we actually created new sets of challenges..” Speaking to the financialization of the housing market, Majid says, “Companies like Blackstone, and they're definitely not the only one, they do see housing as an investment vehicle, and that's their primary lens on housing. So what we've seen these types of companies doing is what I call "home hoardership"; they are just accumulating homes just for the sake of accumulating these homes. It deprives people like first time home-owners and renters from accessing these homes. And it's driving the cost of the housing up. What we're seeing in Canada has been happening in the United States for a lot longer and it's a little bit more terrifying when you start putting the pieces together and it's technically already here. About today’s guests: Dania Majid is a staff lawyer and director of the Tenant Duty Counsel Program at the , a legal aid clinic in Ontario. Prior to joining ACTO, Dania was a legal analyst with the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, and a lawyer with the Human Rights Legal Support Centre and Neighbourhood Legal Services. She is also the founder and executive member of the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association and the Toronto Palestine Film Festival and sits on the steering committee of the Hearing Palestine program at the University of Toronto. Dania is also the lead author of ACLA’s 2022 report “Anti-Palestinian Racism: Naming, Framing and Manifestations.” John Ecker, PhD is the Director of Research and Evaluation at the . In this role, he has been fortunate to collaborate with a number of community partners on their research and evaluation activities. He attained his Ph.D. in Community Psychology from the University of Ottawa where he received advanced training in qualitative and quantitative analyses, as well as program evaluation theory and practice. His research interests are varied and include homelessness, housing, Housing First, community integration, and LGBTQ2S studies. In his spare time, John is an avid tennis player/fan and has a love of pop culture. Haydar Shouly, is Senior Manager of Shelters and Shelter Programs with in Toronto. Haydar spent more than 18 years in the Community Development, Housing & Homelessness sector with stints in Youth Homelessness Supports, Housing Advocacy, Food Security and Newcomer Settlement sectors. Most recently, he has been working and advocating to enhance the well-being of marginalized and vulnerable populations in our community. In the past 14 years, Haydar’s work at Dixon Hall has been focussed on building strategic responses to homelessness in the City of Toronto, primarily in partnership with the Shelter, Support and Housing Administration (SSHA) Division. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at Image: Dania Majid, John Ecker, Haydar Shouly / Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (voice of Tommy Douglas); Kenneth Okoro, Liz Campos Rico, Tsz Wing Chau (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 /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/24609078

Migrant workers and 'the pandemic paradox': The unseen hands that truly keep us afloat 09/26/2022

Migrant workers and 'the pandemic paradox': The unseen hands that truly keep us afloat In the second episode of the Courage My Friends podcast, Series III, Jhoey Dulaca (caregiver and organizer with the Migrant Workers’ Alliance for Change), Ethel Tungohan (Canada Research Chair in Canadian Migration Policy, Impacts and Activism) and Chris Ramsaroop (activist and organizer with Justicia for Migrant Workers) discuss temporary foreign workers in Canada, the multiple and barriers they face and the struggle for recognition, rights and belonging. Speaking to the situation facing foreign migrant workers, Dulaca says, “In the beginning it was a dream. It's not what happens in reality. The promise of Canada is when you get in, you are allowed to apply for permanent residence. That's the selling point, why I came here… They allow you to come here, but they won't allow you to have permanent status. And with permanent status, you are exercising your rights.” Dulaca continued: “A lot of these people are tied to their employers. When I was working as a caregiver, I was tied to my employer and I couldn't do anything. If I was being abused, I couldn't just go and look for [other] work. Just like the farm workers, they're tied to their employers and the system is made for them to shut up. First and foremost migrants come here to support their family. ..That's what makes it hard for workers to stand up for their rights.” As Tungohan says, the situation facing these workers is structured into the system itself: “The thing about Canada that I find very perplexing is that it's always been constructed as a liberal immigrant receiving state. And to a certain extent that's true, but only for certain groups of people. So the easiest way to think about Canadian immigration policies is that there's citizen-track immigration and non-citizen- track immigration. And I would argue that temporary labor migrants tend to fall [in] the latter group.” On speaking to the need for organized resistance, Ramsaroop says: “It's about the role of power and asymmetrical power imbalances..There are no industry specific regulations. And coupled with this constant threat of deportation and permanent loss of work, this is why workers are .. working at heights without protections, being sprayed with pesticides and chemicals, working at a peace-rate system which has numerous and multiple forms of injuries on their bodies.So it is critically important to see this as structural violence .. This is an entire system that's been built to meet the needs of the employers, not thinking about the needs of workers. And this is why trying to build power across the industry and across all forms of temporary work is necessary and essential to change the power imbalance that exists.” About today’s guests: Ethel Tungohan is the , and associate professor of and at York University. She has also been appointed as a . Previously, she was the Grant Notley Postdoctoral fellow at the . Her research looks at migrant labor, specifically assessing migrant activism. Her forthcoming book, “From the Politics of Everyday Resistance to the Politics from Below,” won the . Her work has been published in academic journals such as the International Feminist Journal of Politics, Politics, Groups, and Identities, and Canadian Ethnic Studies. She is also one of the editors of which was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2012. Dr. Tungohan specializes in socially engaged research and is actively involved in grassroots migrant organizations such as Gabriela-Ontario and . Joelyn Dulaca is a careworker organizer with Migrant Workers Alliance for a Change which is a coalition of migrant careworkers, healthcare workers, farmworkers and international students. A former careworker herself, who had to work away from her children to chase the Canadian dream; she had experienced the struggles of working as a live-in caregiver and is now dedicated to organize caregivers to fight for better immigration, labour laws and permanent status for all. Chris Ramsaroop is an organizer with , a grassroots activist collective that has been organizing with migrant workers for nearly 20 years and whose work is based on building long term trust and relationships with migrant workers and includes: engaging in direct actions, working with workers to resist at work, launching precedent setting legal cases, and organizing numerous collective actions. Chris is an instructor in the Caribbean Studies Program at the University of Toronto and a clinic instructor at the University of Windsor, Faculty of Law. Ramsaroop is working to complete his PhD at OISE/University of Toronto. Chris is also currently assistant professor at New College, University of Toronto, Community Engaged Learning. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at . Image: Ethel Tungohan, Jhoey Dulaca, Chris Ramsaroop / Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (voice of Tommy Douglas); Kenneth Okoro, Liz Campos Rico, Tsz Wing Chau (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 /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/24474030

Privatization of public health: Protecting universal healthcare for the common good 09/14/2022

Privatization of public health: Protecting universal healthcare for the common good In 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 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. /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/24362199

Climate anxiety and climate justice organizing: Fearing the future, finding hope and fighting for our planet – Part 2 07/18/2022

Climate anxiety and climate justice organizing: Fearing the future, finding hope and fighting for our planet – Part 2 In the final episode of our summer series, climate justice organizer and activist Aliya Hirji and National Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students, Mari Dolcetti-Koros, discuss the global climate crisis, its impacts on our younger populations and the ways in which youth are organizing and taking leadership in securing a truly just and sustainable world for us all. In speaking to the need for youth leadership, Hirji says: “I think I hear a lot from world leaders, the phrase like “young people are leaders of the future”, but the truth is that we are the leaders of right now. There's so much on every scale - local, national, international - so much of this climate action and this ambition and real progressive ideas that are coming from young people. I think young people have an insane amount of optimism and passion and drive that you may not see from other generations. … I think that our optimism and our outlook on life is really unique. And because we have so much of our lives ahead of us, well, hopefully ahead of us, that's going to be affected by the climate crisis, I think that we take it very seriously and that we are incredibly motivated to do something about this. And given that young people are going to be incredibly affected by the climate crisis, .. people of color, marginalized communities - I think that leadership needs to be held by the most affected people…” Connecting a just transition to student debt, Dolcetti-Koros says, “I think it's really important to acknowledge that the reality of the exorbitant cost of tuition in Canada right now, and the student debt crisis, which is in the billions of dollars just in federal debt, is very much tied to a form of classism. And when we’re imagining and building a world beyond capitalism, we really need to take stock and evaluate and I would say democratize the access to knowledge and evaluate different forms of knowledges that have been subjugated; particularly Indigenous knowledges. I think a lot of folks are doing this work. A lot of scholars are doing this work. And there are lots of avenues or bridges to explore when thinking about how we evaluate our education system and how we can imagine a different, better, stronger one that is a pillar of a just and livable future.” About today’s guest: Aliya Hirji is a 17-year-old Indian-Canadian woman and climate justice activist in pursuit of a socially inclusive response to the climate crisis. She often works in the climate divestment movement, challenging individuals, governments, banks, and more to divest from fossil fuels. She is very passionate about ensuring the climate justice movement is anti-racist, anti-patriarchal and anti-colonial. In 2021, Aliya was recognized by Corporate Knights as one of Canada's Top 30 Under 30 Sustainability Leaders. She is about to start a dual arts degree with Sciences PO and UBC, where she wants to study Politics and Environmental Sustainability. Aliya is also working with . Marie Dolcetti-Koros is the National Chairperson of the , back with the Federation after completing a first term as National Treasurer. Marie studied Contemporary Philosophy and Political Science in Halifax, starting in the student movement with the King's Students Union. One of her first experiences of student organizing was taking over the lobby of the main administrative building on campus with Divest Dal. Marie finds energy and strength in knowing that young people are an integral part of shaping a just and livable future. She firmly believes that education is a public good and that free and accessible education for all is possible. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at Images: Aliya Hirji (photographer, Joshua Best) and Marie Dolcetti-Koros / 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 /episode/index/show/needsnointroduction/id/23777822

Needs No Introduction

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