rabble.ca - Podcast

 University academic and support staff in Ontario have been put in danger by Ford's removal of COVID protection rules. Comments by the president of CUPE Ontario, Fred Hahn. Also in RadioLabour's Canada Report for the week September 19 to 24, 2021: • Alberta health care unions call for federal help to fight COVID • Global labour's plans for a post-pandemic recovery • The LabourStart report about union events  • And singing: 'A Nurse's Lullaby' Music: 'Fallen Heroes - Songs for Essential Workers'. Used by permission. 

Hello and welcome to rabble radio, the official voice of rabble.ca and our weekly audio magazine. I'm your host, and the editor of rabble.ca, Chelsea Nash. Well, the 44th federal election is behind us, and things aren't that different. Did we go through that process and learn nothing? Maybe, maybe not. We will see how Parliament plays out upon its return. I expect we won't be hearing the last of one of the biggest issues on the campaign trail: the fact that there was even an election in the first place.  It's likely that the Trudeau government will re-enter the House of Commons with its hat in its hand, ready to face regular Question Period verbal lashings from all sides of the opposition about his ill-advised decision to send Canadians to the polls. In the meantime, here at rabble we're unpacking this election one story at a time. Today on the show, I meet up with Joyce Arthur, the executive director of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada who is also a rabble columnist. You'll hear that conversation in just a moment, after which I'll take you through the stories of the week you might have missed. Maybe the election coverage was just too overwhelming, and you're taking a break from political news, or maybe you've been so oversaturated with post-election analysis you missed what was going on at rabble. Not to worry, we've got you covered.  ACCESS TO ABORTION This week, I'm joined by a special guest to talk about why on earth Canadian politicians are still making abortion an election issue. It's like clockwork, really. Will it ever be put to bed? How much influence does the deterioration of abortion rights in the United States have on abortion rights here? And, what's next in the fight for increasing access to abortion? Here's my conversation with Joyce Arthur. In case you are wondering about the banging in the background, that's just some construction noise.   IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:  This week at rabble, the anticlimactic results of Monday's election left us wondering, what is up with Parliament? What is up with our electoral system? And, what is up with the People's Party of Canada gaining nearly 850,000 votes?  Senior political reporter Karl Nerenberg weighed in on Elections Canada's decision to have fewer polls this year -- including not running its Vote on Campus program for students staying outside of their riding to attend school. We're lucky, in Canada, to have an arm's-length, independent organization like Elections Canada running our elections, he writes, rather than partisans getting involved as they do in the U.S. However, it was a short snap election, and Elections Canada did have little time to prepare. This led to long line-ups at the polls on election night, low voter turnout, and a lack of special ballots actually being delivered to those who requested them.  The truth is, writes Nerenberg, that the Trudeau government decided to call an election in the midst of a pandemic knowing full well that campaigning and voting would be more difficult than in normal times. This, despite the fact that Elections Canada had previously signalled to the government that if an early vote were to happen, they would prefer a somewhat longer campaign. Justin Trudeau ignored that request and chose the shortest campaign possible under the law: 36 days. The fact that this is the second minority government in a row, with the results eerily similar to those in 2019, has once again re-opened discussion about electoral reform. Just before election day, Trudeau said he would be open to considering a ranked ballot system, but not proportional representation.  Ole Hendrickson argues that the low voter turnout for this year's election indicates that all is not well with democracy in Canada. We need a thoughtful and detailed study of alternative electoral systems, he writes.  Hendrickson speculates that it might also give way for a progressive environmental agenda at Parliament. On the flip side of the coin, some are concerned that a proportional representation electoral system would give more power to far-right fringe parties, like the People's Party of Canada.  Speaking of the PPC, Shira Lurie, an historian of American politics at Saint Mary's University, writes that Canada had better heed the warning bells that ring loudly from across the border. The siege on Capitol Hill on January 6 to contest the 2020 American election should not be pushed aside here in Canada. "We are starting to feel the tremors of a shifting political climate here at home; one in which lies and conspiracy theories radicalize the discontented and sew distrust in our political institutions and processes. How long before those targeting campaign stops decide instead to terrorize polling places? The House of Commons?" she asks.  Maxime Bernier did, in fact allege voter fraud on Twitter early in the campaign, and after the election, was restricted by Twitter for 12 hours for putting the emails of journalists who were attempting to cover his campaign on Twitter, accusing them of "disgusting smear jobs," and telling his supporters to "play dirty."  ENDNOTES Stay tuned for more of our special election coverage next week, where of course, we will be diving deep into analysis of the results and what it all means for you. If you like the show please consider subscribing wherever you listen to your podcasts. Rate, review, send it to a friend – you know the drill. Follow us on social media, @rabbleca on both Instagram and Twitter. Got feedback on the show? I'd love to hear from you. Get in touch anytime at editor@rabble.ca. I can't always promise I'll respond, but I do read everything. Catch more of our election coverage at rabble.ca. Stay engaged, register to vote, and keep listening.  THE MUSICAL QUESTION Oh, and the music for this podcast? It’s the jazz stylings of our political boffin, Karl Nerenberg.   

Hello and welcome to rabble radio: the election edition! We're here for half an hour every week of this federal campaign diving deep into the issues that matter to you.  OFF THE HILL Last night, we heard from our amazing panelists at our live politics panel: Off the Hill. You'll hear a clip of their discussion. Host Robin Browne takes panelists through an insightful discussion of the real issues facing us on E-Day, and how we can make this election count. We're down to the wire, after all.  You'll hear from guests including former NDP MP and seasoned election veteran Libby Davies based on B.C.'s Sunshine Coast, policy expert and rabble columnist Chuka Ejeckam who is based in Vancouver, Indigenous activist and educator Rachel Snow joins from Calgary, climate activist Diana Yoon is in Toronto, and Karl Nerenberg, rabble's senior politics reporter, weighs in from Ottawa.  If you'd like to catch the rest of that discussion, you can find it here.  IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:  This week at rabble, as Election Day fast approaches on Monday, September 20, we're talking about political engagement.  The NDP candidate for Halifax -- Lisa Roberts -- hopes to follow in the footsteps of her predecessors Meghan Leslie and Alexa McDonough. Halifax is a riding that was held by the NDP from 1997 until 2015, when it was won by Liberal Andy Fillmore.  As a mother working the campaign trail, Roberts told our national politics reporter Stephen Wentzell that a September election is an even bigger hurdle for parents -- primarily for women candidates, who often take on much of the child care for their families.  "I think the beginning of September is an inappropriate time to be making important decisions about who our leaders will be," Roberts said, adding it's so far from an ideal time to be asking people to engage in political debate. "I am in a party and was in a provincial caucus with a high number of female candidates with relatively younger families, and it makes it very, very difficult," Roberts said.  Meanwhile, Libby Davies sat down -- virtually -- for a Q&A with Regina -- Lewvan candidate Tria Donaldson, who is running for the NDP.  Donaldson spoke about facing a "Blue wall" meaning in her province of Saskatchewan, there is a slate of Conservative incumbent candidates.  That wasn't necessarily what Donaldson was worried about in this election, however. Here's what she told Davies:  A lot of people are feeling powerless. Especially in Saskatchewan. A lot of folks I talked to have this idea that [the election] doesn't matter because things are decided far away in Ontario and that by the time our polls close, things are already being decided in eastern Canada.  So there's a lot of disengagement and disillusionment. The way we combat that is by getting down to what power is and what kind of power people have. Voting is one form of exercising our power, but so is mobilizing. We need to make sure that we're holding our politicians accountable. The cynicism people have is really challenging and something we all need to overcome when we're encouraging people to live their politics and get out and vote or take action for things like public health care or education funding. These are many issues people care about, but they don't feel like voting will make a difference. I think we just need to do a lot of work on getting people to engage politically. Also this week at rabble, Robert Hackett writes about how you can vote strategically and still vote your conscience: vote for the climate. Instead of voting automatically for a particular party, support candidates with a reasonable chance of winning, and a strong track record of backing climate action inside or outside Parliament. The campaigning organizations LeadNow and 350.org have identified thirty candidates as "climate champions." For a list of those champions, head to the site to read his article.  As far as strategic voting in the traditional sense goes? It's utter bullshit, writes Judy Rebick. She unpacks what a feminist vote actually looks like this election cycle. I'll leave you with her advice: Vote for the candidate you support. Having strong local and progressive representation in government matters. ENDNOTES Stay tuned for more of our special election coverage next week, where of course, we will be diving deep into analysis of the results and what it all means for you. If you like the show please consider subscribing wherever you listen to your podcasts. Rate, review, send it to a friend – you know the drill. Follow us on social media, @rabbleca on both Instagram and Twitter. Got feedback on the show? I'd love to hear from you. Get in touch anytime at editor@rabble.ca. I can't always promise I'll respond, but I do read everything. Catch more of our election coverage at rabble.ca. Stay engaged, register to vote, and keep listening.  THE MUSICAL QUESTION Oh, and the music for this podcast? It’s the jazz stylings of our political boffin, Karl Nerenberg.   

Nurses are leaving the profession as pandemic working conditions worsen. An interview with Linda Silas, the president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions. Also in RadioLabour's Canada Report for the week September 12 to 17, 2021: • How to involve young people in elections • The LabourStart report of union events • And rappin' a New Solidarity Music: Luc Roderique and Michael Rouse. CLC. Used by permission.

The Canadian Labour Congress has a plan for a post-pandemic recovery focused on workers. An interview with the president of the CLC, Bea Bruske. Also in RadioLabour's Canada Report for the week September 5 to 10, 2021: • A new safety accord for garment workers in Bangladesh • The American Federation of Labour -- Congress of Industrial Organizations's first woman president and the PRO Act • The LabourStart report about union events • And singing: A Woman's Place Is In Her Union Music: UnioNation, IAM. Used by permission.

Hello and welcome to rabble radio: the election edition! Rabble radio has its finger on the beat of the issues that matter to you. We're here once a week, for half an hour, coming to you for the last few weeks -- and just one more week after that! -- with election coverage. CLIMATE TALK This week, we're talking about how climate change has featured in this election so far. It's a critical moment. Are we rising to the challenge?  Coming to us from Toronto, climate and housing activist, and former NDP candidate herself, Diana Yoon is on the show to talk about how the issue of climate change is playing out in this election.  You can catch Diana Yoon on our election-time Off the Hill panels, where we invite political experts with a progressive point of view to discuss grassroots, community-centred issues. Our next panel, titled "Election 44: Down to the wire," will feature Diana as well as rabble's own politics reporter Karl Nerenberg, Indigenous activist and educator Rachel Snow, rabble columnist and policy expert Chuka Ejeckam, and former NDP MP and author Libby Davies. Should be a lively discussion just three days before election day -- things are getting tense, that's for sure.  Off the Hill is happening Friday, Sept 17 at 7 pm EST or 4 pm PT. Register for the zoom event to ask panelists questions directly.  IN CASE YOU MISSED IT  Now, it's time for the segment we call "in case you missed it," where we give you a rundown of all the rabble highlights you might have missed. It's never a slow news week during an election, so let's get into it.  This week at rabble, two candidates-to-watch talk about the challenges of campaigning in the midst of wildfires, the fourth wave of the pandemic, and rising hate on the campaign trail. National politics reporter Stephen Wentzell spoke to Hawa Yahia Mire, who is running for the NDP in the riding of York South -- Weston about the violent threats, and, in some cases, actual assaults on Liberal leader Justin Trudeau throughout this campaign.  Mire wants candidates, including Trudeau, to keep in mind that Black, Indigenous, and people of colour are subjected to much of the same on a daily basis in Canada. The vitriol people like Trudeau now face are the result of allowing hate to fester for far too long.  "We've seen the rise of organized hate groups across this country for a very long time. I don't think our elected officials have taken that rise very seriously," Mire said. "And now we're seeing the consequences of what happens if you don't take that hate seriously." Including rocks being thrown at the prime minister, this continues to be one of the most unique elections in Canadian history, as candidates like the NDP's Joan Phillip are on the campaign trail -- a trail that is, literally, on fire in the B.C. interior.  This week, Libby Davies interviewed Phillip, who is running in the riding of Central Okanagan -- Similkameen -- Nicola against Conservative incumbent Dan Albas, about the experience of campaigning during a climate catastrophe.  "It makes it very hard for people to focus on an election when you're talking about daily survival," Phillip said.  Mire spoke of the other big distraction in her Toronto riding: the pandemic.  In her view, a pandemic election is anti-democratic because it presents more barriers to voting for society's most vulnerable, like seniors, the immune-compromised, and people who fear contracting COVID because they cannot afford to work. This is especially true in densely populated areas, like Mire's riding, she said.  Both candidates spoke of the need to ground federal politics in the local; communities are what makes up Canada, and it's the voices of our neighbours that deserve to be heard on the Hill.  Also on the site this week, Charlotte Dalwood makes her rabble debut with an interesting analysis of Western alienation. Instead of giving up on what appear to be Conservative strongholds in provinces like Alberta, writes Dalwood, leftists should see the desire for an overhaul of the existing political and constitutional order that separatists want as a means to adopt them into the socialist movement.  And, Doreen Nicoll has the latest on the civil war in Ethiopia, where the Tigray People's Liberation Front is using child soldiers as human shields, but the international community -- including governments and NGOs -- have gone radio silent on the matter. Nicoll breaks down why there seems to be selective humanity within the realm of international law.  THE MUSICAL QUESTION Oh, and the music for this podcast? It’s the jazz stylings of our political boffin, Karl Nerenberg.  ENDNOTES Stay tuned for more of our special election coverage next week. If you like the show please consider subscribing wherever you listen to your podcasts. Rate, review, send it to a friend – you know the drill. Follow us on social media, @rabbleca on both Instagram and Twitter. Got feedback on the show? I'd love to hear from you. Get in touch anytime at editor@rabble.ca. I can't always promise I'll respond, but I do read everything. Catch more of our election coverage at rabble.ca. Stay engaged, register to vote, and keep listening. Produced by Victoria Fenner

THE RUNDOWN Hello and welcome to rabble radio, the proud reemergence of our weekly audio magazine. Rabble radio has its finger on the beat of the issues that matter to you. This week, we're talking about the issues that are conspicuously absent from the federal election thus far. And, we're talking youth voting. After that I'll take you through last week's headlines in a segment called "in case you missed it." But it's been a busy week -- so don't be too hard on yourself. That's what we're here for!  BTW, if you like what you hear, remember we here at rabble.ca cover and produce a lot more timely news, commentary and even events online. You can find it all at rabble.ca. STUDENT VOTING Our national politics reporter Stephen Wentzell joins us to talk about his story about how students feel their vote isn't valued. You can keep up with his reporting on the site, and be sure to sign up for our weekly newsletter so you never miss a beat. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT Here are some stories you might have missed on rabble.ca this week. Joyce Nelson breaks down why we should be paying more attention to military spending this election. The federal government is set to award a $5-million contract for drone procurement this fall, in addition to the upfront cost of $19 million for the 88 new fighter jets it is proceeding with purchasing (the No New Fighter Jets Coalition pegs the full life-cycle cost of these jets at $77 million.) All this spending–in addition to a recent joint statement from Minister of Defence Harjit Sajjan and his American counterpart -- could signal that Canada is planning to participate in the U.S. ballistic missile shield -- the purpose of which is to create a North American shield to enable to U.S. to wage a "winnable" nuclear war. And, Rachel Snow laments that this federal election -- much like the 43 before it -- will not advance the interests of the First Nations peoples. Instead, the Canadian electorate is focused on "first-world problems," she writes. "We live within a shadow world of structural and economic apartheid that is so ingrained that many no longer question it," Snow notes of the living conditions of many First Nations. Snow observes that talk about reconciliation during this election is all about platitudes, politics, and public perception. Take the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, for instance, the first observance of which will take place on September 30. Rather than make reparations with Indigenous folks or address systemic challenges like clean water supply and living conditions on reserves, Trudeau "stepped out in front of the parade" and created a symbol. "The catastrophic state of Indigenous communities sits in the balance as Canadians ponder which party has the more progressive policies for some future, amorphous 'reconciliation,'" she writes. Plus, Aidan Simardone writes much of the same but about the Liberals' approach to Islamophobia. The Liberals' modus operandi towards Muslims is centred around "fairness," he writes. "It means opposing direct discrimination–hate crimes, slurs and exclusion from the halls of power. Rather than being systemic, it suggests that discrimination is the fault of individuals." The solution to Islamophobia (and to reconciliation) is not found in supplying each group with equal opportunity under capitalism; rather, more radical options are necessary, he writes. Also this week, Kelly Tatham reports from the blockades of Fairy Creek where she is participating in the resistance to and protest of the logging industry cutting back the old-growth forests. Amid increasing police raids, and after witnessing police violence directed to the Black and Indigenous forest defenders, Tatham questions whether any of it is really about the trees anymore–has it ever been? Read her piece to learn about the human cost of Fairy Creek. And, senior politics reporter Karl Nerenberg brings you up to speed on the first parallel look at the five major party leaders' TV performance after Radio-Canada hosted the first such event earlier this week. Jagmeet Singh was surprisingly on top of his game, Nerenberg noted, seeming to give on-top answers in good–if not perfect -- French, and overall giving off an air of amiability. The question remains if he -- as the only party leader who wears a turban -- will be able to overcome the xenophobia he faces in that province. Check out the rest of Nerenberg's analysis at rabble.ca. Candidates to watch This week, national politics reporter Stephen Wentzell profiled Vancouver Centre candidate Breen Ouellette. Ouellette, in his second election campaign against long-time incumbent, Liberal Hedy Fry. In 2019, Ouellette managed to come second, nabbing 23.7 per cent of the vote. His career in politics has not been without its challenges, though: Ouellette told Wentzell he has been subjected to repeated violent threats from anti-maskers while out on the campaign trail. Another candidate to watch this week: Libby Davies profiled Kamloops–Thompson -- Cariboo candidate Bill Sundhu, who sees a realistic path to victory in the BC interior. Conservative Cathy Macleod is not running for reelection there, and Sundhu feels there is Conservative fatigue among voters, giving the NDP a shot at taking that seat. Sundhu -- driven by social justice and informed by his own life experiences with racism, disability services, and much else -- wants the people of his riding to know they should expect more from their Member of Parliament. In cahoots Six human rights and environmental groups are requesting precautionary measures for activists opposed to the Escobal mine in Guatemala, according to Mining Watch Canada. We can't forget: this weekend is Labour Day! UFCW Canada wants to remind you that as we recover from COVID-19, we must ensure that we do not return to the status quo. Worker's rights are a big part of that, as we've seen from this pandemic. Now for our top five headlines, all of which you can find at rabble.ca. 1.    Stephen Wentzell: Student voters decry suspension of Vote on Campus program 2.    Bruce Campbell: Climate crisis cannot be separated from extreme wealth inequality 3.    David Climenhaga: No media welcome: Jason Kenney reappears to answer curated questions on Facebook Live 4.    Yves Engler: Afghanistan and the failure of Canadian 'aid' 5.    David Suzuki: IPCC report could be a legal game-changer for climate THE MUSICAL QUESTION Oh, and the music for this podcast? It’s the jazz stylings of our political boffin, Karl Nerenberg.  END NOTES Stay tuned for more of our special election next week. If you like the show please consider subscribing wherever you listen to your podcasts. Rate, review, send it to a friend – you know the drill. Follow us on social media, @rabbleca on both Instagram and Twitter. Got feedback on the show? I'd love to hear from you. Get in touch anytime at editor@rabble.ca. I can't always promise I'll respond, but I do read everything. Catch more of our election coverage -- including some fantastic, in-depth policy analysis, more candidates to watch, and some radical opinions -- at rabble.ca. Image: Parker Johnson/Unsplash

THE RUNDOWN This first episode is the proud rebirth of our weekly audio magazine, rabble radio. Rabble radio tunes in on the issues and actions that matter to you. And, this week, what could be more timely and top-of-mind than a federal election. Well, okay, the Delta variant and Afghanistan, but it's top of mind for us because of the Off the Hill event we hosted last Wednesday night. More on that below. BTW, if you like what you hear, remember we here at rabble.ca cover and produce a lot more timely news, commentary and even events online. You can find it all at rabble.ca. OFF THE HILL Last Wednesday night rabble.ca presented our monthly edition of "Off the Hill" - a panel that takes a look at federal politics from a progressive, grassroots perspective. This month, the theme was "Election 44: No Time to Waste on the Status Quo." Our esteemed panelists included: former NDP MP Libby Davies, climate activist Diana Yoon, Indigenous activist and educator Rachel Snow and rabble's own columnist and policy expert Chuka Ejeckman. Here’s the first twenty minutes of their discussion, hosted by the Ottawa-based Robin Browne. We bring you the first 20 minutes in this podcast. If you’d like to hear the full length discussion you can check it out at https://rabble.ca/rabbletv/. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT Here's a rundown of this week’s top headlines on rabble.ca. Introducing rabble.ca's new national politics reporter: Stephen Wentzell profiled Kitchener Centre NDP candidate Beisan Zubi in his rabble debut, speaking with Zubi about how her own experience with housing precarity and the affordability crisis has informed her politics. Keep an eye out for more "candidates to watch" -- a special series profiling up-and-coming progressive candidates who are here to shake things up.  Economist Jim Stanford warns of coming austerity measures if the Conservatives manage to win a majority next month. "The pandemic proved something progressives argued for years: there is virtually no financial constraint to the ability of governments to mobilize resources in the interests of social and environmental well-being -- if they choose to do so," he writes. This challenges just about everything the Conservatives stand for, and all of the progress made during the pandemic could quickly be undone if O'Toole finds power. The election issues In this month's Pro Bono column, lawyer Celia Chandler reflects back on how she seems to be writing about the same thing every election cycle: the housing crisis. Will this time be any different? Street Nurse Cathy Crowe and professor David Hulchanski take readers through how the decades-long housing crisis has manifested.  Plus, Linda McQuaig makes the case that this election should not, in fact, be about the climate crisis, but instead about curtailing the power and influence of the fossil fuel industry, which at this point, pulls far too many strings.  Accountability on Afghanistan Columnist Matthew Behrens wrote a scathing and insightful indictment of Canada's well-documented war crimes in Afghanistan.  Monia Mazigh joined Behrens in calling for a public inquiry into Canada's involvement in the twenty-year, fruitless war. And, Rick Salutin looked back at what started it all: 9/11.  From our In Cahoots partners this week: The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees is filing formal policy grievances against employers, including AHS, for refusing to acknowledge the newly created National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. With September approaching, Ontario's teacher unions believe that everyone working in, or attending a school who is eligible and can be safely vaccinated, should be vaccinated, according to a statement from the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario. Now, a look at five not-to-be missed headlines: Rita Wong: RCMP at Fairy Creek blockade ignore the real emergency David Climenhaga: Where is Jason Kenney? Alberta premier unseen since August 9 as COVID cases rise Martha Friendly: Conservatives go back to the future for child-care proposals in this federal election Sara Speicher: Afghanistan: Is digital communication a blessing or curse? David Suzuki: Federal election requires serious shift on climate, justice and health THE MUSICAL QUESTION Oh, and the music for this podcast? It’s the jazz stylings of our political boffin, Karl Nerenberg. Such a polymath. ENDNOTES Got feedback on the show? Great. Send it along to editor@rabble.ca. We’d love to hear from you. And you’ll find lots more at rabble.ca. Until next time: Stay informed, stay active and register to vote. OFF THE HILL PANELISTS Robin Browne is Off the Hill's co-host. Robin is a communications professional and the co-lead of the 613-819 Black Hub, living in Ottawa. His blog is The "True" North. Libby Davies is author of Outside In: a Political Memoir. She served as the MP for Vancouver East from 1997-2015, and is former NDP Deputy Leader and House Leader, and is a recipient of the Order of Canada. Chuka Ejeckam is a political researcher and writer, and works in the labour movement in British Columbia. He focuses on political and economic inequity and inequality, both within Canada and as produced by Canadian policy. Read Chuka's regular column on rabble.ca. Rachel Snow is Iyahe Nakoda, the daughter of late Reverend Dr. Chief John Snow. She holds a juris doctor from the College of Law, University of Saskatchewan and is an outspoken educator, speaker, writer and co-contact person for the Indigneous Activist Networks. Rachel resides on her ancestral lands in Mini Thni which is west of Calgary, Alberta. Diana Yoon is a climate and housing justice activist and community organizer based in Toronto/Tkaronto. Diana works as the climate specialist at Toronto Environmental Alliance, a leading environmental advocacy non-profit, while pursuing her Masters. Diana ran in the 2019 federal election as the NDP candidate in Spadina-Fort York and sits as an Ontario Rep for NDP Federal Council.

In the sixth and final episode of the Courage My Friends podcast special series, we welcome eco-feminist, scientist, author and celebrated global climate justice leader, Dr. Vandana Shiva. Our discussion takes us beyond borders to the global realties of this pandemic -- a pandemic that is most acutely felt by low-income nations who must contend with deep legacies of poverty amid the callous disregard of a global economic system that continues to leave the south behind. According to Shiva: "We need to see the multiple pandemics right now. The pandemic of COVID. But there's a pandemic of hunger. There's a pandemic of unemployment and shutting down of small local businesses. There's a pandemic of heartlessness and fear." Where "these new diseases are really a result of invasions into forests," the stage had long been set for (and what many are now describing as) the age of pandemics -- COVID-19 being its most recent and opportunistic arrival. Bats and pangolins aside, the disastrous impacts, accompanying crises and worrying predictions of the current pandemic are the result of distinctly human-made systems. Systems firmly rooted within what Shiva sees as the death spiral of modern capitalism.  "I talk about this as an anti-life ideology that has been kept in place by force for over 500 years. And now at the time where the pandemic should be making us put life and care and mutuality and cooperation at center stage, that's precisely the time where this anti-life philosophy is being put on fast-forward." For the world's marginalized, especially those in the global south, this is part of the ongoing legacy of conquest and colonialism. "You know, I've never found a day when capitalism was born. I have found a process in which it was crafted. And that process is colonialism. Basically creating a civilizing mission. Giving yourself the right to invade other countries. And then declaring the land, the wealth, the economies as yours. And collecting rents and revenues from it." From structural violence -- fomented through centuries of conquest and colonization, decades of exploitative structural adjustment, debt, climate destruction and continuing plunder by the global north, its corporations and "philanthro-imperialist" billionaires, to the current vaccine apartheid, Shiva speaks to how the Global South stands at the forefront of the converging crises of COVID, Capitalism and Climate. "First you spread, in irresponsible ways, these new pandemics, because of a globalized neoliberal limitless greed system. And then you deny people treatment. This is what's happening right now. And, you know, instead of governments being able to take care of their national health systems, they're having to fight patent battles at WTO." Established in the early 90s by the Dunkel Draft, the World Trade Organization (WTO) together with the IMF and World Bank, now set the rules for global trade. Regularly finding in favour of global north economies and multinationals -- often involving the exploitation of global south markets, resources and labour -- the WTO as Shiva sees it is nothing less than, "an organization created for recolonization." As southern fields continue to feed northern appetites for 21st century cash crops, i.e. GMO (genetically modified) Soya and BT (pest-resistant) cotton; local farmers contend with hunger, poverty, desperation, and the collapse of local agricultural economies begun by the Green Revolution decades ago. The genetic material (plant, animal, mineral) of the global south and traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples the world over continue to be stolen, misappropriated and commercialized through the biopiracy of patent and Intellectual Property systems, allowing multinationals to own the very building blocks of life -- from seed to animal to water and alas to vaccines. As Shiva says, "The race for vaccines started even before the vaccines were there." And where the ensuing vaccine apartheid leaves India, the world's largest democracy gasping for breath and Africa, the cradle of humanity, at a less than one per cent vaccination rate, for Shiva this deserves nothing less than the strongest condemnation. "The big debate in WTO right now, the whole issue of patents on vaccines and denying people the right to survive is... writing their death-knell…This to me is genocide," she said. The economic orthodoxy of neoliberalism, placing the private over the public, profit over people, the corporate over the commons and industry over environment, does indeed feel like a reprise of colonialism -- but with a twist: "First of all, colonialism was about commerce. But commerce by force, commerce with military might. And commerce with a letter patent -- you know, it was a patent in involved! Columbus was given a letter patent, which according to the King and Queen, they had the power to do this from the Pope who got it from God directly. And the difference between that colonization and this colonization is the billionaires are the gods. The billionaires are the Popes -- they write the religions. The billionaires are the Kings and the Queens. They rule the world." Those billionaires who are also prolific names in charity and global "problem-solving," for Shiva, they are merely philanthro-imperialists, pretending "to be giving when they're actually grabbing." As she speaks to us surrounded by sickness and death (of what will eventually manifest as the Delta variant around the world), for Shiva, this moment reveals the true and horrifying face of colonial capitalism and its legacy, "in the virus of greed combined with a virus of impunity and of indifference." However, where she is also witness to farmers fighting for food sovereignty, Sikh langars offering food and oxygen to those in need and global south nations and their allies coming together to challenge patent monopolies held by multinationals, this also becomes a moment of hope. A hope borne of solidarity and resistance: "We need a new solidarity with the Earth. We need a new solidarity with Indigenous people. And most importantly...a leadership of Indigenous cultures. The leadership of women. The leadership of working people to bring us out of these multiple crises, which have only one outcome - extinction of humanity and collapse of ecosystems." In this age of borderless pandemics, climate destruction and global capitalism, is this a time of reckoning, redress and decolonization of the very systems that brought us to this point? Where the well-being of one is intertwined with the well-being of all, can we finally engage in a meaningful solidarity within and between nations? Can we begin to build regenerative and circular economies that protect the planet and all of its peoples? Where Shiva long ago decided that she could "take on the empire with a little seed," what possibilities lie within a global solidarity movement intent on growing "gardens of hope?" Host and co-producer Resh Budhu begins the conversation with a focus on India during the onset of the deadly 2nd wave of Covid-19 in early May, 2021. Note: All quotes in this article are the words of Dr. Vandana Shiva. About today's guest: Dr. Vandana Shiva Named an "Environmental Hero" by Time Magazine in 2003, “One of the five most powerful communicators of Asia” by Asia Week and as one of the "Top Seven most Powerful Women on the Globe" by Forbes Magazine in 2010, Dr. Vandana Shiva combines sharp intellectual enquiry with courageous activism. In 1982, she founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in Dehra Dun, to address the most significant ecological and social issues of our times. In 1991, she founded Navdanya, a national movement to protect the diversity and integrity of living resources, especially native seed, the promotion of organic farming and fair trade. In 2004 she started Bija Vidyapeeth (or Earth University), an international college for sustainable living in Doon Valley in collaboration with Schumacher College, U.K. Dr. Shiva has received numerous awards, including the Alternative Nobel Prize (Right Livelihood Award,), Order of the Golden Ark, the Global 500 Award of the United Nations, the Earth Day International Award, the Sydney Peace Prize, the Doshi Bridgebuilder Award, the Calgary Peace Prize, the MIDORI Prize for Biodiversity, and the International Environment Summit Award.A prolific writer of over 40 publications, Dr. Shiva’s most recent book is Oneness Vs. The 1%: Shattering Illusions, Seeding Freedom. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute Image: Dr. Vandana Shiva. Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Chandra Budhu (General Intro./Outro.), Miriam Roopanram, Sharon Russell Julian Wee Tom (Street Voices); Bob Luker (Tommy Douglas quote) Courage My Friends Podcast Organizing Committee: Resh Budhu, Victoria Fenner (for rabble.ca), Ashley Booth, Chandra Budhu, John Caffery, Michael Long Produced by Resh Budhu, Tommy Douglas Institute and Victoria Fenner, rabble.ca Host: Resh Budhu

Thomson Reuters' data investigation software "Clear" was used by the USA's ICE immigration authorities until February 2021 to track and deport undocumented workers. The BC General  Employees' Union (BCGEU) attended the company's annual general meeting on June 3 and used its shareholder power to force a vote on the issue. An interview with the president of the BCGEU, Stephanie Smith. Also in RadioLabour's Canada Report for the week June 20-25, 2021: • Hassan Yussuff appointed to senate • The LabourStart report about union events  • And singing: 'If It Weren't for the Union' Image: Stephanie Smith- BCGEU. Used by permission. Music: Peter Hicks and Geoff Francis. Used by permission. Editor's note, June 26, 2021: A previous version of these shownotes incorrectly stated that Thomson Reuters' software is used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), when it fact, Thomson Reuters' contract with ICE expired as of February 2021. These shownotes also previously and incorrectly referenced Thomson Reuters' Clear software as facial recognition software. The story has been updated to describe Clear -- which collects both publicly and privately available data -- as surveillance software.  Update, June 28, 2021: Thomson Reuters disputes the characterization of Clear as "surveillance software" as the software does not use cameras or facial recognition. The story has been updated to describe Clear more specifically as "data investigation software."  

Thomson Reuters' surveillance software is used by the USA's ICE immigration authorities to track and deport undocumented workers. The BC General  Employees' Union (BCGEU) attended the company's Annual General Meeting and use its shareholder power to force a vote on the issue. An interview with the president of the BCGEU, Stephanie Smith. Also in RadioLabour's Canada Report for the week June 20-25, 2021: • Hassan Yussuff appointed to senate • The LabourStart report about union events  • And singing: 'If It Weren't for the Union' Image: Stephanie Smith- BCGEU. Used by permission. Music: Peter Hicks and Geoff Francis. Used by permission.

In episode 5 of the Courage My Friends podcast, urban planner and author Cheryll Case and community organizer, author and activist Dave Meslin discuss our cities, their structures, priorities, politics and the relationships they foster with those that call them home. With more people now living in urban areas than at any other time in human history, cities are of increasing importance. Centres of commerce and industry, focal points of political and social engagement and cultural crossroads of greater and greater diversity, our cities are sites of complexity and innovation. From the opioid epidemic and the climate crisis to the current pandemic, cities also stand on the frontlines of so many of our current crises; crises made all the worse as they play out against the backdrop of deeply entrenched inequalities. What has COVID-19 revealed about our cities? According to Meslin, if we’ve been paying attention, not much that we didn’t already know:  "…all the problems we're seeing with COVID were already all there -- I mean, except for the disease itself, of course. But in terms of how it's impacted racialized communities and those with lower paying jobs, where folks have to go into a factory and then have to get crowded onto a bus. I mean, those are just symptoms of problems that have been lingering forever." Problems that are inherent to a system that insists on prioritizing economic growth over social well-being. Or as Case puts it "a system that is rigged in favour of the wealthier people…[while] past harms done unto marginalized groups, including women, lower-income people, racialized communities, and Indigenous nations is underdeveloped." From Case's human rights approach to urban planning to Meslin’s activism on public engagement across a range of areas from bicycles to ballots and billboards; much of their work (and much of this discussion) is focused on Toronto. Yet, where Toronto holds the distinction of being the world’s most diverse city, the lessons it offers are far-reaching. Toronto is plagued by deep intersections of race and class. As Meslin says: "I just think we have to stop pretending that Toronto isn't highly segregated and that income and class and ethnicity and skin color aren’t tied together...we should all be absolutely disgusted with the degree of economic segregation in Toronto, right now in 2021." By hook or by crook or just sheer short-sightedness, cities like Toronto routinely exclude its most marginalized members from having a say in the policies that directly impact their lives. Be it in our competitive winner-take-all electoral system that feeds into increasingly centralized systems of government or the lackluster (if not outright lack of) meaningful consultation in infrastructural design, vulnerable communities tend to be sidelined; sidelined in city planning, but frontline when those plans fail. However, community-centred approaches to municipal planning offers us a way forward. According to Case, this means, "building the capacities of the marginalized members of society to understand the system as it is. To develop their own opinions on how the system should function and then work with people in power so that policies can be developed -- so that their interests are also met." For Meslin, this also means moving toward decentralized systems of power, defeating top-down approaches to politics and reinvigorating local democracy by meaningfully integrating the wisdom, work and needs of communities. Perhaps even creating a fourth level of community government: "Public space should be designed in a way to maximize bottom up, neighbourhood, diverse community expression. And our democracy should be designed, not for a handful of dinosaur parties who've been around for generations, but for new innovative voices. Younger voices. Diverse voices… I think if we decentralize power, problems will sort themselves out. Because collectively we have the wisdom to figure all these things out." For Case, the work is already being done by communities themselves.  "You'll find oftentimes that the community work that they do supplements the work that cities do…The city has these visions for inclusivity and diversity, [but] the city cannot achieve this vision without the labour of these residents." This work is now being collated into the Toronto Atlas of Neighbourhood Groups and Organizations or TANGO, a collaborative project involving Case, Meslin and others advocating for a more just city. How do we envision urban centres that are built on rights rather than capital? Can we redesign more meaningful and inclusive systems of local democracy? How do we make cities a place of belonging for all of us and that we are all truly proud to call "home"? Host and co-producer Resh Budhu begins the conversation on the meaning of an inclusive and human rights approach to cities and city-planning. About today's guests: Cheryll Case  Cheryll Case practices a human rights approach to community planning. As founder and Principal Urban Planner of CP Planning, Cheryll coordinates with charities, private sector industries, and communities to resource the systems necessary to secure dignified living for all peoples. This includes housing as a human right, urban agriculture, and improving the ability for marginalized residents to access arts and culture opportunities. She has lead a Toronto wide and grassroots led consultation on housing as a human right, as well as work local to the Eglinton Avenue West neighbourhood. In partnership with Black Urbanism TO, she led Black Futures on Eglinton, an arts based community research project. She is author and editor of "House Divided: How the Missing Middle Will Solve Toronto's Affordable Housing Crisis" shortlisted for the Legislative Assembly of Ontario's 2020 Speaker's Book Award. She served as a member of the City of Toronto's Expert Advisory Committee on the 2020-2030 Affordable Housing Plan, is currently a co-chair of the Balanced Supply of Housing Node of the Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative, and is a member of the ULI Equity Diversity and Inclusion committee. Dave Meslin With one foot planted firmly in the world of mainstream politics and the other in the more vibrant universe of grassroots activism, urbanist, community organiser, trainer and political entrepreneur, Dave Meslin has found ways to turn energy into action.  Leaving a trail of campaigns and organisations in his path, including the Toronto Public Space Committee, Ranked Ballot Initiative of Toronto, Unlock Democracy Canada, Dandyhorse Magazine and Cycle Toronto, Dave has spent the last twenty years as a passionate transpartisan political disruptor and political biologist exploring the strange and mysterious worlds of protest movements, party politics and non-profit organizations. Dave has worked as an executive assistant at both city hall and the provincial legislature, painted do-it-yourself bike lanes on the street, organized hundreds of volunteers, started a handful of non-profits, worked as federal lobbyist, helped draft provincial legislation, survived tear-gas riots in three countries, buried his car and got thrown in jail. Not in that order. His best-selling book, Teardown: Rebuilding Democracy from the Ground Up, is a roadmap for change and a cure for cynicism.  His TED talk about apathy and his 90-second video clip using Lego to explain our voting system has garnered millions of views online. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute Images: Cheryll Case and Dave Meslin. Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Chandra Budhu (General Intro./Outro.), Miriam Roopanram, Sharon Russell Julian Wee Tom (Street Voices); Bob Luker (Tommy Douglas quote) Courage My Friends Podcast Organizing Committee: Resh Budhu, Victoria Fenner (for rabble.ca), Ashley Booth, Chandra Budhu, John Caffery, Michael Long Produced by Resh Budhu, Tommy Douglas Institute and Victoria Fenner, rabble.ca Host: Resh Budhu A co-production of the Tommy Douglas Institute, George Brown College, Toronto, and rabble.ca with the support of the Douglas Coldwell Foundation.  

For the first time the CLC has elected women to its two top offices. Bea Bruske (centre) from the UFCW in Manitoba is president. Lily Chang (left) from CUPE in Toronto is secretary-treasurer. Siobhan Vipond (right) and Larry Rousseau were elected as executive vice-presidents.  In RadioLabour's Canada Report for the week June 13-18, 2021: • Bruske and Chang address CLC convention • The LabourStart report about union events  • And singing: 'A New Solidarity Forever' Image: Bruske team. Used by permission. Music: UFCW Canada. Used by permission.

This is Episode Four of the Courage My Friends podcast: From epidemic to pandemic: rethinking health.  We discuss how people are coping in the pandemic and the ways populations are impacted differently. Where is the most vulnerability? The discussion highlights the realities for those in poverty, particularly the under-housed. Together we discuss how Indigenous teachings and harm reduction practices can inform our responses to these current crises and help us to move forward in a compassionate way that does not leave people behind. Today's guest host John Caffery is joined by two guests -- Zoë Dodd, community scholar at the University Health Network and harm reduction activist, and Keith McCrady, who has worked with Indigenous children and youth for over 25 years. He is now the executive director of 2-Spirited People of the 1st Nations, an organization that focuses on prevention, education and support for 2-Spirit, including First Nations, Metis and Inuit people living with or at risk for HIV and related co-infections in the Greater Toronto Area. The organization bases its work on Indigenous philosophies of holistic health and wellness. Recent studies have shown that people are struggling to cope; rates of suicide, eating disorders, domestic violence, and substance use have all significantly increased since the pandemic began. Ontario has been in an opioid crisis for a decade and the pandemic served to exacerbate the situation with overdose deaths increasing by 76 per cent according to the report Changing Circumstances Surrounding Opioid-Related Deaths in Ontario during the COVID-19 Pandemic. In discussing the social determinants of health, Dodd expressed the need to see people as whole beings.  "The pandemic has shown us we have so much grave inequality with the impacts of colonization, racism, poverty, some of the biggest social determinants of health have been around housing and income and the massive inequality in so many ways causing people to die," she said. As the conversation shifts to discussing the environmental conditions in Canada and the boil water advisories in Ontario, McCrady noted that the lack of access to drinking water on Indigenous reserves is "pure evil." "If this was any other community, I think it would be solved long ago, the people in power are failing us and adding to the problem…to even feel that you are worthy of water…we need to focus on the areas that we are failing, including Indigenous people, we need to service families as a whole." The episode is a tender, powerful, and thought provoking discussion amongst people who have worked on the frontlines for years and who share their insights of how to care for one another and create a more humane and just world for us all to live in. About today's guests: Zoë Dodd is a long-time harm reduction worker and advocate for drug user health and liberation living and working in Tkaronto/Toronto. She spent 15 years co-facilitating Hepatitis C support groups that are rooted in popular education and harm reduction. She was instrumental in developing a community-based model of Hep C care that prioritizes people who use drugs. She is a vocal critic of government responses to the overdose crisis; an expert in overdose response, she helped to establish Ontario’s first overdose prevention site, Moss Park OPS which ran illegally in a park for a year before receiving government funding. Zoë is a co-founder and co-organizer with the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society. She is currently working as a community scholar with MAP centre for Urban Health Solutions focused on the harms of involuntary drug treatment. She is an abolitionist, anti-capitalist and is strongly committed to dismantling the drug war. Keith McCrady grew up in the community of Biinjitiwaabik Zaaging Anishinaabek, and relocated to the GTA over 13 years ago and now calls Scarborough home. Keith, the proud father of four has dedicated his life to supporting the goals and dreams of Indigenous communities, particularly in Toronto. Initially, he focused on children and youth programs, and eventually expanded into Indigenous education, employment, human trafficking, physical literacy and housing. Keith McCrady’s advocacy and leadership also come with his identity as a two-spirited person. “It’s not just a sexual orientation or a gender identity,” he says. “It’s also my role in my community and a place in our circle.” As the executive director of 2-Spirited People of the 1st Nations, Keith's goal is to walk alongside the 2SLGBTQ communities and provide education and support to members of the 2-Spirit community and reclaim our place in the Circle. With guest host John Caffrey. A transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute Images: Zoe Dodd and Keith McCrady. Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Chandra Budhu (General Intro./Outro.), Miriam Roopanram, Sharon Russell Julian Wee Tom (Street Voices); Bob Luker (Tommy Douglas quote) Courage My Friends Podcast Organizing Committee: Resh Budhu, Victoria Fenner (for rabble.ca), Ashley Booth, Chandra Budhu, John Caffery, Michael Long Produced by Resh Budhu, Tommy Douglas Institute and Victoria Fenner, rabble.ca Host: Resh Budhu A co-production of the Tommy Douglas Institute, George Brown College, Toronto, and rabble.ca with the support of the Douglas Coldwell Foundation.  

The Canadian Labour Congress will hold its 2021 national convention online June 15-18. Beatrice Bruske from Manitoba is running for president on a team that includes Lily Chang (left) for secretary-treasurer and Siobhan Vipond (right) for executive vice-president. Executive vice-president incumbent, Larry Rousseau, is running with the support of the team. Also in RadioLabour's Canada Report for the week June 6-11, 2021: • What labour wants from the G7 group of countries. • And singing: 'Let's Work Together". Image: Bruske team. Used by permission. Music: The Workers. Used by permission.

In episode three of the Courage My Friends podcast, we are joined by Paul Taylor, a life-long anti-poverty activist, current Federal NDP candidate and Executive Director of FoodShare Toronto, Canada’s largest food justice organization. As Taylor says, "One of the ways I've come to think about our work is we are working alongside communities, across the city of Toronto, that have faced chronic underinvestment -- that have been on the brunt, or the receiving end, of systemic racism, sexism, those sorts of issues. And we're working with these communities… to build community-led food infrastructure." Where this pandemic seems to have reserved its harshest realities for those already most marginalized within our communities -- impoverished, Black, Indigenous, racialized, seniors -- according to Taylor this moment is only the latest development in a long-standing food crisis impacting far too many: "I think it's really important to contextualize what's happening with food insecurity in this country. Before the pandemic there were 4.5 million people that were food insecure across this country. That number has skyrocketed. The last count that I saw is now 5.5 million people that are food insecure. So that is like the populations of Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg combined." The food crisis during this pandemic is not just about food access but also about the dangers facing frontline food workers, who grow, pack, sell and deliver our food -- working populations who also, and ironically, are forced to deal with food insecurity in their own lives.  "We need to have a bigger conversation about paying the actual costs of food, and also making sure we're paying livable wages," Taylor says. This, of course, is only one of a number of painful ironies discussed by Taylor. Another is the existence of hunger and poverty in a wealthy country like Canada that celebrates corporate philanthropists for treating people as "compost bins" and policy-makers who continue to rely on the grace and commitment of over-burdened and under-resourced food banks as a way to absolve themselves of delivering on a vital social right. It is this promotion of charity-based solutions that Taylor finds particularly troubling. As he says, "We feel a moral imperative. I get it. We know that people are struggling with access to food, and we want to do something. I think the problem is what's been constructed as our default is food banking." Reflecting on his own sense of social justice and anti-poverty activism, Taylor locates his awakening in the mid-90s and the so-called Common Sense Revolution, when we were treated to the sauceless pasta and unbuttered bread of neoliberalism in Ontario. "I was raised by a single mom, powerful Black woman, you know, doing all that she could to support our family. And when I was 13, the province elected Mike Harris, and one of the first things he did was he cut welfare by 22 per cent. And for me as a child, you know, that was the first time I saw my mother cry. And it was earth shattering for me to try and understand what was happening and why someone would make a decision to make it harder for my family to eat." Food insecurity is not just a food issue, it’s an issue of systemic oppression and policy failure that demands an overarching or "joined up policy" response. According to Taylor: "I think we've really got to be challenging these underlying systems: White supremacy, classism, capitalism, all of these organizing principles, ableism...that have so much of an impact on who has food in this country to eat and who doesn't." It also demands that we do not allow ourselves to fall into resignation and hopelessness. As Taylor tells us: "I hear more and more people speaking to me as if they feel that hunger and poverty are inevitable. And I think as soon as we believe that these things are inevitable, that homelessness is inevitable, we've lost…we deserve a refund on what we've been sold from previous governments." Can we finally secure that "refund?" And is it in the right to eat in a post-pandemic world? About today's guest: Paul Taylor is the executive director of FoodShare Toronto and a lifelong anti-poverty activist. He also teaches at Simon Fraser University, is a regular political commentator on CTV and has written numerous op-eds and columns on various social issues. Growing up materially poor in Toronto has inspired Paul to commit his life to doing what he can to dismantle the systems and harmful organizing principles that cause and uphold poverty, food insecurity and wealth inequality, including racism, white supremacy and neoliberalism. In 2020, Paul was named one of Canada’s Top 40 under 40, one of Toronto Life’s 50 Most Influential Torontonians and voted as Best Activist by Now Magazine readers.  Paul Taylor is the Federal NDP candidate for Parkdale-High Park, Toronto. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute Image: Paul Taylor. Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Chandra Budhu (General Intro./Outro.), Miriam Roopanram, Sharon Russell Julian Wee Tom (Street Voices); Bob Luker (Tommy Douglas quote) Courage My Friends Podcast Organizing Committee: Resh Budhu, Victoria Fenner (for rabble.ca), Ashley Booth, Chandra Budhu, John Caffery, Michael Long Produced by Resh Budhu, Tommy Douglas Institute and Victoria Fenner, rabble.ca Host: Resh Budhu A co-production of the Tommy Douglas Institute, George Brown College, Toronto, and rabble.ca with the support of the Douglas Coldwell Foundation.

Cihan Erdal, a member of CUPE local 4600 at Carleton University, has been imprisoned without cause in a Turkish prison since September 2020. CUPE has started a global campaign for his release. An interview with his partner Omer Ongun. Also in RadioLabour's Canada Report for the week May 30 to June 4, 2021: • Teachers say curricula should include climate change • The LabourStart report about union events • And singing: "You knew granpa, you knew Image: Omer Orgun. Used by permission. Music: The Victoria Labour Choir. Used by permission.

In episode two of the Courage My Friends podcast, we are joined by anti-poverty activist and former organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, John Clarke and Paul Meinema, national president of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), representing essential workers including "food workers from field to fork." Clarke and Meinema discuss the ways in which this pandemic has forced us to confront what Clarke sees as a "crisis in capitalism" -- its path forged well before the arrival of COVID. John Clarke says "As the pandemic is unleashed in the neoliberal world, the virus literally followed the trail that was laid down for it by the whole neoliberal reordering of the workforce, and the neoliberal reordering of societies…. In a thousand ways, the neoliberal society and the neoliberal city created a route for the pandemic to go down." Decades of mounting inequality has been a defining outcome of neoliberalism. The impacts of this inequality have been disproportionately endured by our most vulnerable -- poor and largely racialized communities and front-line workers who have always been essential, but until COVID largely invisible. As Meinema describes them: "Workers that we've looked past... when you go into a grocery store, or retail store, or often a person who's cleaning your hotel room … They're almost invisible people. But they're the people that we are relying on now, to get us through this." And here we are in what Clarke sees as, "a situation of really unprecedented economic dislocation, unprecedented suffering. And clearly, governments were not prepared for this crisis. And governments have not responded to this crisis in a way that meets people's needs." Are we continuing to meet an unpredictable pandemic with predictable policy responses -- the kind of thinking that paved the way for this crisis in the first place? How can we designate workers as essential and yet treat them as though they are expendable? According to Clarke, "It's sometimes been regarded as hyperbole to say that the corporate profits are worth more than human life. But I think this pandemic and the experience of the pandemic has actually demonstrated that very, very, very starkly. ..here has been a readiness to abandon people, a readiness to, if you'd like, sacrifice people." What is the way forward? Can we move from banging pots to making policies that support our most vulnerable? Can we find an answer in a universal basic income? What is the role of unions? What about our communities? As we move toward a post-pandemic (but still perhaps pre-pandemic) world, is it possible to release ourselves from exploitative economies? Meinema reminds us that, "we cannot let any of these things that have occurred to us slip through our fingers and not remember them." What lessons do we take with us into the future? Can the post-pandemic world also be a post-poverty world? Host and co-producer Resh Budhu begins the conversation with a focus on the most critical issues facing vulnerable communities and front-line workers in this moment of crisis. About today's guests: John Clarke became involved in anti-poverty organizing in the 1980s, when he helped to form a union of unemployed workers in London, Ontario. In 1990, he moved to Toronto to become an organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty and stayed in this role until 2019. He is presently Packer Visitor in Social Justice at York University. Paul Meinema is the national president of United Food and Commercial Workers Canada (UFCW), the country's leading and most progressive private sector union with more than 250,000 members. He is also an executive vice-president of the UFCW International Union and a member of the UFCW International Executive Committee. Paul's service with UFCW spans four decades, beginning in the 1980s when he first volunteered to serve his co-workers as a shop steward while working on the floor at the Fletcher's meat processing plant in Red Deer, Alberta. Paul also serves as Canadian sector representative on the board of directors of the International Foundation of Benefits, and as a trustee of various UFCW Canada benefit and pension plans. Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute Images: John Clarke and Paul Meinema. Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Chandra Budhu (General Intro./Outro.), Miriam Roopanram, Sharon Russell Julian Wee Tom (Street Voices); Bob Luker (Tommy Douglas quote) Courage My Friends Podcast Organizing Committee: Resh Budhu, Victoria Fenner (for rabble.ca), Ashley Booth, Chandra Budhu, John Caffery, Michael Long Produced by Resh Budhu, Tommy Douglas Institute and Victoria Fenner, rabble.ca Host: Resh Budhu A co-production of the Tommy Douglas Institute, George Brown College, Toronto, and rabble.ca with the support of the Douglas Coldwell Foundation.

531 WestJet workers are now members of Unifor because at least 50% plus one signed cards saying they wanted the union to represent them. Unifor president Jerry Dias says the practice should be used in BC and Alberta too.  Also in RadioLabour's Canada Report for the week May 23-28, 2021: • The international labour movement's climate plans • The LabourStart report about union events • And rappin' a new "Solidarity" Image: Unifor. Used by permission Music: CLC, Luc Roderique, Michael Rouse. Used by permission

In the pilot episode of the Courage My Friends podcast,  we feature a conversation with Ed Broadbent former leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada and Chair of the Broadbent Institute, and Kofi Hope,  thought leader, Toronto Star columnist and CEO of Monumental. They discuss this current crisis that reveals, even as it accelerates, deepening fractures within our societies. Looking at the extraordinary crisis facing Canada and the rest of the world over the last year, Broadbent and Hope focus on the disproportionate and devastating impacts it has had on our most marginalized members -- low-income, largely Black and Brown communities, who also make up the majority of those in front-line, insecure and precarious jobs that this pandemic has made both essential and deadly. However, where inequality may have been amplified by Covid-19, it certainly didn’t start here. From employment protections to vaccine roll-outs, we discuss how current inequalities and political responses are connected to “bad policies” rooted in old systems. Systems shaped by four decades of neoliberal capitalism. As Broadbent says, "Covid came along just at the moment that the intellectual bankruptcy of neoliberalism was being revealed." Did four decades of neoliberal erosion of social welfare set us on a course of disaster? Has an economic and social ideology trumpeting unfettered profit, deregulated markets and competitive individualism torn away at the social fabric and resiliency that would have enabled us to better withstand the shock of this pandemic? As Hopes states, "equity, the idea that we have to focus on the vulnerable… it’s not enough to talk about it and to have empathy. This is where structure and systems and power actually need to change, if we’re actually going to see different outcomes moving forward." If the remedy to what Oxfam International has dubbed "The Inequality Virus" lies within equity and equality, how do we make this core to our policy, practice and political instinct? According to our guests, perhaps the answer lies in the vision set out by the Broadbent Principles for Canadian Social Democracy and in what Hope describes as the social power found within our communities and within ourselves. If COVID-19 was the trigger for a disaster waiting to happen, is it also a chance for us to redeem ourselves by building communities and nations that honour the rights and dignity of all. Host and co-producer Resh Budhu of the Tommy Douglas Institute  at George Brown College in Toronto starts by asking about our guests' initial thoughts on these unprecedented times and the convergence of Covid, Capitalism and Climate. About today's guests: Kofi Hope is a Rhodes Scholar and has a Doctorate in Politics from Oxford University.  He is the co-founder and CEO of Monumental, a new start-up focused on supporting organizations work towards an equitable recovery from COVID-19. Currently he writes a monthly opinion column for the Toronto Star newspaper and is an emeritus Bousfield Scholar and current adjunct professorat UofT’s School of Geography and Planning. He also serves as a Senior Fellow at the Wellesley Institute and is a board member at the Atkinson Foundation. In 2017 he was winner of the Jane Jacobs Prize and in 2018 a Rising Star in Toronto Life’s Power List. Kofi was the founder and former Executive Director of the CEE Centre for Young Black Professionals. In 2005 he established the Black Youth Coalition Against Violence, which became a leading voice for advocating for real solutions to gun violence in Toronto and led to him being named one of the Top 10 People to Watch in Toronto in 2006 by the Toronto Star. Ed Broadbent was first elected to Parliament in 1968, and served as an MP for 21 years, 14 of which were spent as leader of the New Democratic Party. His concern for the deepening of inequality in Canada has been a consistent theme in all of his professional and volunteer endeavours. First elected to Parliament in 1968, Ed served as an MP for 21 years, 14 of which were spent as leader of the New Democratic Party. During his time in Ottawa, his focus was on Aboriginal and economic rights, women’s equality, child poverty, ethics in government, and tax equality. The founding president of Rights & Democracy, Ed has a Ph.D. in Political Theory and has taught at several prestigious universities. He has been invested as a Member of the Privy Council (1982), Officer of the Order of Canada (1993), and Companion of the Order of Canada (2002). Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute Images: Ed Broadbent and Kofi Hope. Used with Permission Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased Intro Voices: Chandra Budhu (General Intro./Outro.), Miriam Roopanram, Sharon Russell Julian Wee Tom (Street Voices); Bob Luker (Tommy Douglas quote) Courage My Friends Podcast Organizing Committee: Resh Budhu, Victoria Fenner (for rabble.ca), Ashley Booth, Chandra Budhu, John Caffery, Michael Long Produced by Resh Budhu, Tommy Douglas Institute and Victoria Fenner, rabble.ca Host: Resh Budhu A co-production of the Tommy Douglas Institute, George Brown College, Toronto, and rabble.ca with the support of the Douglas Coldwell Foundation.