Action Speaks Louder Fall 2011 by OPIRG Toronto

Your Past Is A Battleground

ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER OPIRG TORONTO’S FIELD MANUAL FOR THOSE WHO’VE HAD ENOUGH FALL 2011

There is within and without the sound of conflict, the burning of body and the rending of soul; inspiration strives with doubt, and faith with vain questionings. —W.E.B. DuBois (1903)

In this issue: Organizing Against Austerity H Toronto’s Fight Against Gentrification H US Imperialism Ten Years After 9/11 H Decolonization and the Tar Sands H And More...

add it up Current City of Toronto deficit, in dollars: 760,000,000

Recommended 2011 City of Toronto operating budget, in dollars: 706,000,000

Cost of Core Service Review to assess what Toronto services to cut, in dollars: 3,000,000 Number of Toronto residents who began the city’s online survey on valuable services: 10,000 Number who gave up on it before completion: 2,100 Percentage of survey participants who voted public transit “most necessary” to city functioning: 90 Number of TTC bus routes that have been cut or are slated to be cut/reduced: 41 Percentage of property taxes in 2010 that funded the TTC: 14.1 Percentage of property taxes in 2010 that funded the Toronto Police Service: 25.6 Percentage of city survey participants who marked the police as a necessary service: 75 Proposed pay raise for Toronto police this year, in percent: 11.5 Number of City of Toronto employees to be laid off in 2012: 17,000 Current Canadian unemployment rate, in percent: 7.2 Percentage of Toronto residents who spend over half their income on shelter: 66 Percentage of property taxes in 2010 that paid for shelter, support and housing administration: 8.2 Number of Toronto Community Housing Corporation buildings/homes to be sold: 928 Amount of funding to be cut from the Tenant Defense Fund, in dollars: 100,000 Approximate number of Toronto families on the wait list for subsidized childcare: 20,000 Number of childcare spaces currently subsidized by the City of Toronto: 24,000 Number of City of Toronto subsidies proposed to be cut: 2,000 Percentage of food bank users who are children: 34 Number of students who use the Student Nutrition Program: 131,393 City grant that helps fund Student Nutrition Programs, in dollars: 3,819,580 Percentage of this grant slated to be cut: 10 Number of school communities reliant on Community Partnership and Investment Program student nutrition grants: 465 Number of HIV/AIDS prevention projects funded through the city’s Community Partnership and Investment Program: 42 Number of current residents of Toronto living with HIV: 17,000 Approximate annual health care costs for someone who is infected with HIV/AIDS, in dollars: 150,000 Number of community drug prevention projects funded through the City’s Community Partnership and Investment Program: 38 Percentage of new infections of Hepatitis C in Canada related to injection drug use: 70 City’s current investment in the Community Partnership and Investment program, in dollars: 47,000,000 Number of Community Partnership and Investment programs recommended for funding under Rob Ford’s administration: 0 Sources: AIDS Action Now; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; Daily Bread Food Bank; Human Resources and Skills Development Canada; NOW Public; US National Debt Clock; Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care; Torontoist; Toronto Children’s Services; Toronto Public Health; Toronto Transit Commission; Toronto Star; Trading Economics; 2011 City Budget Plan

THEN BREAK IT DOWN

ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER WINTER 2011

ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER

FALL 2011 actionspeaksloudertoronto@gmail.com OPIRG-Toronto 101-563 Spadina Cres. Toronto, Ontario M5S 2J7 PRODUCTION Clare O’Connor Chanda Pal EDITORIAL COLLECTIVE Lindsay Hart Clare O’Connor Chanda Pal Chanteal-lee Winchester CONTRIBUTORS Disability Action Movement Now Kimia Ghomeshi Lindsay Hart Caitlin Henry Katie Mazer Tim McCaskel Phoenix Mckee Kamilla Pietrzyk Justin Podur Kalin Stacey Faraz Vahid Shahidi OPIRG Board of Directors DESIGN AK Thompson COVER ART AK Thompson

TABLE OF MALCONTENTS Board of Directors

Radicals Know Their Roots

Caitlin Henry, You Don’t Matter: 3 Katie Mazer and Or why you should join the movement for a better campus Faraz Vahid Shahidi Phoenix Mckee

Not For Sale: Toronto’s fight against gentrification

No Fare Is Fair

Kamilla Pietrzyk

Lindsay Hart Disability Action Movement Now

Waking Up To Austerity 6 Ban The Box: 7 A campaign to keep mental health information private

Justin Podur

How The War On Terror Set the World Back Reflections on the decade since 9/11

Kimia Ghomeshi Kalin Stacey

Tar Sands Kill, Pipelines Spill: 10 The Lubicon Cree and oil and gas developments of Alberta Decolonizing The City 11

How Sex Lost Its Steam

Tim McCaskell

Action Group Listings

Resources

Action Speaks Louder is the biannual newsletter of the Ontario Public Interest Research Group at the University of Toronto. We publish articles about social and environmental justice advocacy and activism, with specific focus on issues that affect members of the campus community.

LAYOUT Clare O’Connor Printed at Thistle Printing, Toronto, ON by Union Labour Produced by OPIRG Staff, proud members of CUPE 1281

If you want to work on a radical publication, write to us: opirg.toronto@gmail.com. The newsletter committee will begin meeting in late September to start work on our Winter 2012 edition. If you would rather just write for us, submit a pitch! The submission deadline for the winter issue is Friday, October 7th, 2011 Write about campaigns you’re involved in, or your thoughts on any political or social justice issue. To send us a short pitch, please e-mail actionspeaksloudertoronto@gmail.com. Look for our winter issue on campus in the new year! If you just want to meet and talk with some like-minded people, write to opirg.toronto@gmail.com, or drop by the office: Room 101, 563 Spadina Cres (just north of College).

RADICALS 2

ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER WINTER 2011

KNOW THEIR

ROOTS GREETINGS FROM THE 2011-2012 OPIRG BOARD OF DIRECTORS

“Ultimately, history is the root of all people… A person without a history, without a past, does not exist, and has no future.” - Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos

e are embedded with scars from past struggles. Legacies of colonization, exploitation, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, abelism and capitalism shape our experiences and

underscore today’s violence. Even where scars have begun to cover old wounds, we’re bound to the oppression that precedes us. And, with our own specific motivations, each of us struggles for justice because history teaches us that we must. But to change the world, we must understand it. And history often feels like a giant leviathan, thrashing to throw us off track and always threatening to pull us into darkness. History can trick any coward; to keep a clear head we’re forced to wrestle with omission, distortion, lies and dogma. In this context, how do we prevent media sound bytes from undermining the pursuit of truth? How can we stop powerful voices from drowning ours completely? One priority is to learn from those who fought before us. As politicians advance unrelenting austerity programs – justified on the basis of an economic crisis that rich people created – we must remember that we are neither the first nor the last to fight for a better world. To this end, OPIRG volunteers and staff spent the summer developing an official archive of our initiatives over the past thirty years, since the organization was founded in 1982. We unpacked a dozen boxes overflowing with old notes, pamphlets and posters, letters, radio show transcripts, conference schedules and research projects. We listened to Toronto Mayor Rob Ford vow to eliminate city services as we sorted through faded leaflets from the late ’90s about how to stop the cuts imposed by former Ontario Premier Mike Harris. We watched the Canadian Union of Postal Workers shut down their picket lines as we read newspaper clippings about the dangers of the Supreme Court’s 1987 approval of back-to-work legislation. We learned of Israel’s new “Anti-Boycott Law” as we admired posters endorsing international boycotts against apartheid in South Africa. As we dug deeper, we began to recognize the scale of our inheritance – the road of resistance is well travelled. When contemplating the past, we can’t avoid complicated questions. For Disorientaion Week 2011, OPIRG’s annual September conference, we will be highlighting the tenth anniversary of one of the most contentious events of our time: the bombing of NYC’s World Trade Centre towers on September 11, 2001. This event shook the world and transformed global geo-politics. Join us for a keynote lecture from anti-racist, feminist theorist Sunera Thobani on the evening of September 20. And be sure to check out other events in this week of workshops, lectures, concerts and great company – the full schedule appears on the back of this newsletter, or visit disorientation2011.org. These are just two of the many OPIRG projects aimed at revealing the truest version of history. Get involved! Volunteer in our office or with our Action Groups (full descriptions available on pages 14 and 15). You may also help out and participate in our Tools for Change activist training series, where you can learn skills for effective public speaking, media work, direct action, meeting facilitation, banner making and much more. And, of course, bring us your ideas! Join an organization that will take you and your frustrations seriously. Bring your anger, your hopes and your history. In Solidarity, Johanna, Juan Carlos, Midhat, Safa, Simone, Vivien, Will and Zexi

YOU DON’T MATTER

ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER WINTER 2011

OR WHY YOU SHOULD JOIN THE MOVEMENT FOR A BETTER CAMPUS

Caitlin Henry, Katie Mazer, and Faraz Vahid Shahidi

ast year, University of Toronto President David Naylor unceremoniously ceased referring to the university as a “public” institution. Like many universities in Ontario, U of T is now formally designated as “publicly assisted.” Thirty years ago, the province funded nearly eighty percent of U of T’s revenue stream. Today, after a long and painful descent, less than fifty percent of the University’s budget is publicly funded. The fiscal crisis of post-secondary education reflects a broader structural shift, manifesting in the everyday experiences of those of us who work, live, and study on campus: class sizes increase, job security disappears, campus space becomes difficult to book, corporate influence pervades, and the bottom line takes priority over ensuring good education. While the University of Toronto never had much pretense of being a publicly accessible space of learning — rather, it’s more a training ground for the Canadian business and political elite — this shift warrants scrutiny. If autocracy, exclusion, and failure were the conditions of our “public” university, what’s in store with our “publicly assisted” university? In truth, U of T administrators have always viewed students, educators, staff and the broader campus community in terms of their market value: as workers or commodities. We don’t have a seat at the decision-making table because commodities don’t speak and workers’ opinions don’t matter. Students are “Basic Income Units”. Workers are things for deans to manage. We feel like numbers, because we are. We feel shut out, because we are. We feel like this university is failing, because it is. The privatization of post-secondary education took a particularly destructive turn in Canada in the 1970s. Between 1978 and 2008, the proportion of university operating revenue provided by government sources declined from 84% to 58%, while the proportion funded by student tuition fees increased from 12%

to 35%. In Ontario, these drops were even more dramatic, with a major hit during the reign of former Premier Mike Harris (19952002), who not only cut funding, but also deregulated tuition in many programs. Between the late 1980s and the late 1990s alone, the percentage of Ontario universities’ operating revenue composed of public money decreased almost 20%. Ontario spends less per full-time post-secondary student than any other province, and this has been the case for decades. Who has been filling the gap as the state backs out? Canadian student debt is $14 billion – evidence that this gap has been filled by tuition fee hikes. For many students, new program fees (including the introduction of “flat fees”, where students are automatically charged for five courses, rather than per course taken. The implementation of flat fees at the University of Toronto have meant a 66% tuition increase. And while students accrue insurmountable debt to complete their degrees, job opportunities are decreasing; a university degree is no longer a sure investment for a secure future. As tuition fees rise and public funding shrinks, a third revenue category is slowly expanding: corporate donations. These donations come with strings attached and have implications for research and teaching curricula. Of equal concern is that these donations only fill gaps that their donors deem lucrative – the promise of future profits is a precondition for their philanthropic offerings. Over the past few years, millions have been donated to the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, the School of Mineral Engineering, and, most recently, the Munk School of Global Affairs. This increased reliance on corporate philanthropy has left large sectors of the university, such as the Faculty of Arts and Science, under resourced. And these are the sectors serving the majority of the U of T community. CONTINUED ON PAGE 5>>

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NOT FOR SALE

TORONTO’S FIGHT AGAINST GENTRIFICATION

Phoenix Mckee

entrification is when the city decides to tear down low-income housing and then rebuilds with new upscale homes and retail shops, in what are often referred to as revitalization projects or economic development initiatives. The catch is that the residents who originally lived there become displaced. Wealthier people move in, and the poor and working class residents are pushed out. Gentrification is a direct attack on poor and working class communities, specifically aboriginal, black, African diasporic, and immigrant communities. In addition, those affected by gentrification are people with disabilities, young mothers, drug users, those living without homes, and sex workers. The city pushes an agenda of gentrification in order to ‘clean up’ an area or draw business interest, while the poor and working class are either evicted or can no longer afford the cost associated with the newly renovated neighborhood. Gentrification is infecting our city. An example of this is the Regent Park Revitalization project. Regent Park has been a home to the poor, working class, aboriginal, black, African diasporic, and immigrant communities of the city for over fifty years. For many, living in Regent Park means being close to friends, vital social services and affordable day care. However, in 2005 the City of Toronto and Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) announced the Regent Park Revitalization Project. According to the Regent Park Social Development Plan, revitalization is a process that will “add additional new housing to draw in new residents with a wider range of incomes, professions, skills, relationships and backgrounds to Regent Park.” Essentially, this

means creating a mixed-income neighborhood by eliminating 35% of the Rent Geared to Income (RGI) units – otherwise known as subsidized housing – while bringing in more affluent individuals to live in new market rent units. In order to start the project, the City had to befriend some rather slimy partners, including corporations like Daniels Corporation, Urban Realty, Sobeys, Tim Horton’s and the Royal Bank. In 2006, TCHC began relocating residents with a promise that they would have the right to return. By early 2011, only a small handful of residents had been able to return, and many have been notified they will need to permanently relocate. City gentrification projects are the result of twisted assumptions and misplaced priorities held by Toronto’s city counselors, prominently including counselor Kristyn Wong-Tam, who believes mixed income neighborhoods are the answer to all the cities’ problems. In April, The Star reported on Wong-Tam’s plans to redevelop the downtown East area of the city. Reinforcing stigma towards poor and marginalized communities, Wong-Tam stated, “the downtown east side consistently tops every major Toronto police crime indicator list. Simply put, this is the area in Toronto where, statistically, you are most likely to be shot, stabbed, robbed or sexually assaulted.” Instead of funding needed social services or finding solutions that benefit the neighborhood’s residents, Wong-Tam is determined to redevelop it. Shortly after Wong-Tam’s article was released, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) released a response, explaining CONTINUED ON PAGE 7>>

NO FARE IS FAIR

Kamilla Pietrzyk

n July 6, 2011, a coalition of Toronto transportation activists took to Dundas Square to demand free transit on heat and smog alert days. The action – appropriately dubbed “Free Transit to Cool Places” – coincided with a scorching heat-wave, but it actually emerged out of months of discussion and planning among activists working on the “No Fare is Fair” Campaign for Free and Accessible Public Transit. The Fair Fare Coalition began in April 2010 when Greater Toronto Workers’ Assembly (GTWA) members voted to do something about the high cost of transit in our city. Now, the coalition includes members from the GTWA, Disability Action Movement Now, and a range of social service and drop-in centres. Fair Fare activists understand that people who depend on public transit – students, senior citizens, low income people and people living with disAbilities – are most at risk during extreme weather alerts. Approximately 120 Torontonians die each year from extreme heat, and unaffordable transit makes it more difficult, sometimes impossible, to reach cooling centres and other shelter. Compared to other major cities, Toronto is lagging far behind in transport subsidies and infrastructure. Fares increased from $1.10 in 1991 to $3 in 2010, and now comprise nearly 70% of the TTC operating budget (compared to 56% in Vancouver), making Toronto the least subsidized public transit system in North America. Toronto is also one of the few Canadian cities that does not offer a low-income pass. Instead of addressing these dangerous

YOU DON’T MATTER >>CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3

These trends are terrible for campus workers. Universities are huge employers and increasingly polarized sites of exploitation. Most contract faculty members and post-doctoral fellows have virtually no job security; predominantly immigrant and racialized food service workers are forced to work split shifts while earning less than a living wage; women administrative staff earn less than their men counterparts; and non-tenured professors fear termination for voicing opinions on contentious political issues. Meanwhile, as the University administration fills their financial gaps by cutting “overhead,” pawning off departments, and raising tuition, students are forced to become workers themselves, taking on long hours to make ends meet, leaving less time to devote to school, family, and community. Especially in the midst of a recession, university administrators expect us to accept privatization as inevitable. In the “age of austerity” that was ushered in the 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto, we’re all being told that we need to “tighten our belts.” High-powered university administrators toe the provincial and federal line, and use fear and rhetoric about scarcity to justify dismantling jobs and education.

ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER WINTER 2011

discrepancies, under Mayor Rob Ford the City of Toronto is contemplating privatization, hiking fares, and eliminating bus routes. The Fair Fare Coalition is up for the fight. At $3 per one-way fare, the TTC is simply unaffordable for a growing number of people in the city. And with additional fare hikes on the horizon, there’s a lot of potential to mobilize a successful campaign for free transit. Moreover, this campaign can unite various forces, including anti-poverty, environmental, bike, and anti-capitalist activists – even drivers, fed up with Toronto’s gridlock crisis. Perhaps most important is the radical vision at the heart of this campaign; while some may feel it’s unrealistic to demand free transit, ambition is precisely the strength required in this so-called “age of austerity.” While the Left must fight to hold onto the gains secured through decades of struggle, we must also have the confidence to push beyond defensive postures. In so doing, there’s no harm in aiming for incremental change. While the Fair Fare Coalition is committed to the anticapitalist, long-term goal of full decommodification of public transit, working alongside allies with various perspectives has reminded us that people radicalize through action. Mobilizing around smaller, shorter-term demands can build people’s selfconfidence and appetite for more radical change. In recognition of this dynamic, we launched the campaign for free transit on heat and smog alert days. Mobility is an essential right, like free public education, water, and health care – things that once seemed utopian ideas. It took the political will, imagination and mobilization of regular people to bring these ideas to life. It’s time we did the same thing for public transit. To join the campaign, contact nofareisfair@gmail.com. Kamilla Pietrzyk is a Toronto-based activist working toward her PhD at York University.

But our university administration’s behavior precedes the recent economic crisis and the state’s misguided austerity response. And in the face of deepening assaults on education, we must focus on bringing about a university organized and operated by those who work and study here, and who desire a school that actively respects its workers, students, and society at large. The University of Toronto General Assembly intends to materialize this vision of the university. Composed of students, workers, and community members, the UTGA has quickly gained momentum—evidence of a campus whose members are ready to reclaim it. We aim to generate strategies and campaigns to combat looming threats and engage as many people as possible to shape our plans. And we aren’t alone; students and workers everywhere are mobilizing in unprecedented numbers to protest those who perpetuate the world’s multiple crises. The moment is ripe for solidarity among students, workers, and our neighbours, and for us to assert our legitimate claims to this institution. As our movement grows, so too does the reach of our efforts and our ability to transform the university according to our vision. Whose university? Not ours. At least not yet. UTGA: utgeneralassembly@gmail.com, utgeneralassembly.wordpress.com.

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WAKING UP TO

AUSTERITY Lindsay Hart

he economic climate is chillier by the day. Words like “recession” and “deficit” are commonplace again. Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney stated recently that the new “age of austerity” will entail restrained economic growth and slow recovery. But even current media hype doesn’t do justice to the painful reality of living under austerity. This era will be characterized by deep cuts to the public sector and crucial social services, and by ongoing assaults on an already weakened trade union movement – with severe consequences for those who already struggle to survive. Austerity is a popular economic plan among Toronto’s municipal politicians. New Mayor Rob Ford has promised to stop the so-called ‘gravy train’ at City Hall. Ford and his Council allies claim that these dramatic cuts are necessary because of the city’s $760 million dollar deficit. But how did the city develop this deficit? Ford did not inherit a city in financial crisis. In fact, Canada as a whole has dealt relatively well with the global recession. Canada’s debt is currently 33.7% of the GDP, far lower than that of the US or Britain. Canadian unemployment is lower than it was before 2008, when the crisis hit. Moreover, the expenses on Ford’s chopping block aren’t “gravy” at all. After spending approximately $3 million dollars (more than $300,000 per service report) to hire consulting firm KPMG to assess priorities for municipal cuts, the city is threatening to eliminate services such as the Community Partnership and Investment Programs, which fund AIDS prevention, the arts, and student nutrition programs. The City is further proposing to close library branches, reduce TTC bus routes, implement user fees at community centres and abolish the ‘Welcome Policy’, a program that allows poor people to access community services for free. Shelter beds are on the agenda to be slashed, with no

plans to develop new affordable housing. And all of these cuts will require public sector layoffs, increasing the need for the very services being eliminated. Meanwhile, the city’s deficit hasn’t prevented Ford from increasing police salaries by 11.5% or cutting the $60 Vehicle Registration tax (which brought in $64 million annually), and refusing to raise property taxes. Ford is clear about who his priority constituents are. The KPMG recommendations provoked outrage from Toronto residents. On July 28 and 29, city Council held its longest meeting ever as residents deputed long into the night and early morning. MP Joe Mihevic commented that Mayor Ford has awakened “a sleeping city.” Anger over planned cuts has prompted a swell in engagement in municipal politics, motivating many people to organize and advocate for the first time. This political engagement is important and encouraging, but to defeat Ford we must grow beyond facebook groups and City Hall deputations. We must recognize the limits of bureaucratic measures and begin directing our frustration and anger towards building mass mobilizations. Toronto’s Stop the Cuts network aims to do just that. Stop the Cuts was born out of a collective of activists who organized the “Justice for Our Communities” day of action against the G20 summit in June 2010. This group came together to fight the G20 agenda, including the austerity measures that were predictably adopted at the 2010 summit, behind closed doors and chain link fences. After Ford’s election in October, attention turned to resisting his municipal austerity program. As the City spends millions on confusing and poorly-crafted surveys, our network is running its own consultations. Stop the Cuts reads City reports and attends Council deputations, but has also created and distributed The People’s Poll, a city services poll designed to solicit feedback about Torontonians’ true priorities. Stop the Cuts holds community meetings and has built neighborhood committees that are mobilizing in specific locales against Ford’s efforts to privatize city services and eliminate jobs, affordable housing, libraries and childcare spaces. By organizing in the same neighborhoods we live and work in, we are building grassroots structures that will be prepared to defend cuts to local services when they happen in the near future. Each of these groups is encouraged to make decisions that address local realities, and to develop strategies in consultation with other neighbourhood committees, including collaboration on a People’s Declaration to deliver to City Hall during upcoming municipal budget meetings. Stop the Cuts has important regional precedents. The provincial election in October will likely remind Ontario residents of the era of former Premier Mike Harris, another right-wing populist infamous for advancing neoliberal reform from 1995-2002. In response to Harris’ attacks, poor and working class people across the province organized the Days of Action, a wave of rotating mass protests and strikes in Ontario cities. Now more than ever, we need to draw lessons from these precedents and talk about what we want to fight for. It’s time to prove that our city slumbers no more. Contact Toronto Stop the Cuts to get involved: tostopthecuts@gmail.com, www.torontostopthecuts.com. Lindsay Hart is an organizer with the Toronto Stop the Cuts Network.

BAN THE BOX A CAMPAIGN TO KEEP MENTAL HEALTH INFORMATION PRIVATE

Disability Action Movement Now

eople living with mental health disabilities in Toronto currently face ableist policies that limit their employability, and thereby threaten their livelihoods. Specifically, Toronto residents seeking employment, education and volunteer opportunities in Nursing, Social Services or any field that involves working with children are required to undergo a criminal record check called the Vulnerable Sector Screening. Despite being presented as a social safety measure, this screening arbitrarily conflates mental disabilities with criminality and fosters further marginalization of people who have become targets of the state’s destructive Ontario Mental Health Act (MHA) of 1990. Vulnerable Sector Screenings – which are implemented by Toronto Police Services – permit potential employers and volunteer-based organizations to access personal information about a candidate or volunteer’s criminal history, including details about any mental health apprehensions. Toronto-based students who are required to complete work placements for academic programs in Social Work, Child and Youth Care and Nursing may be required to undergo a Vulnerable Sector Screening that will be kept on their academic file. People are asked to consent to releasing this information, but the decision is difficult: refusing to consent will likely result in losing the employment opportunity, but consenting may lead to discrimination. If the candidate consents, their personal information can be retrieved simply by checking a small box on the Vulnerable Sector Screening form. But this small box is packed with misconceptions. Under the law, Mental Health Act apprehensions are not criminal offences. As such, records of these apprehensions are

NOT FOR SALE

>>CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4

“the problem at Dundas and Sherbourne is not the supposed moral failings of poor people or a lack of yuppie neighbors. It is the growing poverty of the neighborhood. That poverty must be dealt with and the community that faces it must be defended.” OCAP has been combating gentrification in the downtown east end for over twenty years and knows that bringing in affluent residents will do nothing to reduce poverty. In fact, according to pro-gentrification realtor Mogul Brad J. Lamb, bringing in yuppies will have the exact opposite effect. According to Lamb, condo projects in the area were most successful at bringing in artsy upscale residents: “There’s probably 300 condos in The Modern, with an average of 1.5 people living in each. Now 400 people are going to descend on the street, and you think they’re going to tolerate crackheads? They’re not. What’s

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personal medical information – something which employers are not allowed to ask for when making hiring decisions. In Toronto, however, this personal information is used to perpetuate the criminalization of mental health disabilities and of people who have been psychiatrized. Furthermore, the apprehension process is itself deeply flawed. Under the MHA, police officers can apprehend people who they believe pose a public threat due to mental disorders. Section 17 of the MHA gives police officers the power to make subjective decisions to apprehend anyone they believe has acted disorderly, is attempting to harm themselves or others, or is unable to care for themselves. On the basis of one officer’s assessment, people can be involuntarily forced to undergo psychiatric evaluation. But police officers are not trained to make psychiatric assessments; they are trained to think like cops. Nonetheless, regardless of whether a hospital or doctor concurs that the police’s concerns have merit, Toronto Police Services documents all MHA apprehensions in their official criminal records. There are two options for people trying to avoid the Vulnerable Sector Screening box. One is to undertake the strenuous, bureaucratic process to remove mental health apprehensions from your criminal record – and option with little to no success in the most cases. The second option is to use an address outside of Toronto when you undergo Vulnerable Sector Screening; people living as close as Ajax or Brampton are not required to release mental health information. Even in cases where these options are possible, neither is guaranteed to be effective. The most effective long-term strategy is to Ban the Box. The entire MHA is a tremendous barrier for psychiatrized people: it allows a variety of professionals and courts to force psychiatric “treatment” on individuals who are not consenting, and permits a wide range of psychiatric violence, including MHA police apprehensions, Community Treatment Orders, and forced psychiatrization and psychiatric drugging. In the meantime, DAMN and the Ban the Box Coalition are working to challenge organizations that choose to request Mental Health Act information on Vulnerable Sector Screenings and ultimately bring an end to the practice of releasing such information all together. Follow the Ban the Box campaign on twitter: @banthebox Contact DAMN: damn2025@gmail.com going to happen is huge pressure is going to come to bear on that intersection. And the police and the city governors are going to have to do something about it.” Criminalization and incarceration increase poverty, yet city counselors and realtors think invading poor communities will create a better Toronto. OCAP strongly disagrees and demands that, instead of spending billions of dollars to eliminate social housing spaces, the city fund services and house the 700,000 people currently on the affordable housing wait list. Right now, OCAP is working to mobilize the downtown east end against gentrification projects and cuts to social and public services. To join the fight please contact ocap@tao.ca.

Phoenix Mckee is a badass queer radical femme. She is a mother and identifies as a survivor, sex work activist, prison abolitionist who uses her life experience to drive her emotional and political soul.

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WAR SET Justin Podur

HOW THE

REFLECTIONS ON TERROR ON THE THE WORLD DECADE SINCE 9/11

BACK

hat has changed in the years since 9/11? Foreign policy has become more adventurist, and the political use of terrorism has expanded despite its ineffectiveness – signs of the decline of constructive politics and an increase in mass politics based on fear. The politics of force and terror have deferred progressive thinking on the most urgent challenges, including economic globalization and neoliberalism, climate change, and ecological crises. Meanwhile, these challenges persist, made worse by the trillions sunk into militarism and the closure of the economic debate. But US unilateralism and willingness to use force – which have become more dramatic since 9/11 – long precede 2001. Since WWII, the US has intervened repeatedly and violently all over the world (Guatemala, Iran, Brazil, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Iraq) to overthrow governments and support Cold War allies. The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 served as a template for some of the post-2001 interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and, more recently, Libya. The “War on Terror” was originally launched in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan and continued under George Bush Sr. Then as now, it served as a pretext for the US to intervene anywhere in the world. It even included some of the same personnel as the post-9/11 War on Terror: neoconservatives Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Dick Cheney. The post-9/11 War on Terror is a continuation of previous imperialist strategy, but 9/11 released some constraints on US international violence. At the time of writing, the US (with NATO, increasingly its favorite vehicle) is still bombing Libya, occupying Afghanistan and Iraq, and experimenting with new weapons systems on the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In each of these conflicts, private contractors play a large and growing role. The US tried to overthrow the Venezuelan government in 2002, and successfully overthrew the Haitian government in 2004 and the Honduran government in 2009. The restriction of civil liberties, also always present,

is now more politically acceptable in the US, and elsewhere. Media and government officials have propagated deep fear of and racism towards Arabs and Muslims. Government agencies – such as the FBI, Homeland Security, and the CIA, and here in Canada the RCMP and CSIS – have taken full advantage of increased public permissiveness for foreign wars, repression, and surveillance. In the ten years since 9/11, states other than the US have also become keener to use force, gaining US backing to do so. Israel attacked the West Bank and Gaza in 2002, Lebanon in 2006, and Gaza again in 2008/9. In Africa, Rwanda and Uganda continued their occupation of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda continued its counterinsurgency in the northern part of the country, Somalia’s civil war continued and that country suffered an invasion by Ethiopia, and Sudan undertook a counterinsurgency in Darfur. The Sri Lankan government basically defeated the Tamil Tigers militarily in 2009, and in Latin America the Colombian government attacked the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) relentlessly throughout 2008. In each of these conflicts, civilians suffered far worse than armed actors, and states (and their rivals) attacked civilians for political goals. Many of these conflicts have simmered down very recently, and South Sudan’s independence in 2011 was cause for celebration, but many conflicts persist, bolstered by a dangerous international political framework. With very rare exceptions, states do vastly more violence than insurgencies or civilians. But the political use of terrorism by non-state actors has expanded. Since 9/11, there have been many politically motivated attacks on random civilians. In South Asia, New Delhi was attacked in 2001, Mumbai in 2008, and Islamabad repeatedly bombed. There was a major bombing in Bali, Indonesia in 2002. On July 22, 2011, a right-wing, antiMuslim extremist killed 77 people in a series of bombing and shooting attacks in Norway. Media reports ultimately suggest

that his intention was to use the mass murders as a forum to publicize his political views on immigration. Before the suspect’s identity became widely known, however, most media speculation attributed the attack to al-Qaeda or similar groups. But bombing and shooting attacks are not the monopoly of any religious or political ideology. The expansion of this kind of terrorism (which was also present before 2001) raises the question of its effectiveness. In each case, terrorist actions have undermined their stated political objectives. It is likely, for example, that the Norweigian terrorist has discredited anti-Muslim racism. Similarly, al-Qaeda’s attacks in different parts of the world eventually led to widespread disgust with that organization, including - indeed especially - in Muslim countries, perhaps most notably in Iraq. If they are politically ineffective, why do such attacks persist? In part, they are a symptom of a general political decline. The dynamic is simple, and hard to escape: such attacks cause public fear, which serves repressive states can then offer to protect the public from external threats. This “protection” entails force and restrictions on liberty. Thereby, fear and repression restrict space and reduce tolerance for democratic politics. Politics then becomes a contest of violence, from which most people, and most ideas, are excluded. Neither repressive states nor attackers of civilians have been completely successful at undermining constructive democratic politics. The Arab Spring of 2011, in Tunisia and Egypt, was a very important development, even if in Libya it has led to aerial bombardment and occupation. Venezuela, Bolivia, even Brazil and Argentina in Latin America, have all

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“With very rare exceptions, states do vastly more violence than insurgencies or civilians. But the political use of terrorism by non-state actors has expanded.” opened up to greater democratic participation and economic redistribution. Anti-austerity demonstrations in Spain and Greece are also hopeful. Even the August riots in London, England, while not well-organized for winning greater political support or positive changes, are a world apart from terrorist violence, and the two must never be conflated, as some corporate media have done. Promising political developments such as these consistently reveal the limits of conventional, neoliberal economic wisdom. Venezuela and Bolivia’s leaders spent much of the decade arguing that the natural resources of the country should benefit the people. The activists of the Arab Spring were fighting for hope for an economic future. Now, western economies from the US to the UK, including the City of Toronto, are engaging in austerity-driven self-destruction while poor economies face food crises. Ten years of “War on Terror” have set the world back at a critical time. In the next ten years, these problems will have to be faced, and even more urgently. Justin Podur is a Toronto-based writer. His blog is www.killingtrain.com.

ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER WINTER 2011

TAR SANDS KILL, PIPELINES SPILL THE LUBICON CREE AND OIL AND GAS DEVELOPMENTS OF ALBERTA

Kimia Ghomeshi

or many Canadians, May 2nd, 2011 marks the dreary day when the Conservative Party won a majority in the House of Commons. With all media outlets fixated on the federal election, few people noticed that the Lubicon Cree community of Little Buffalo was struggling through their third day following the largest oil spill to hit Alberta since 1975. On April 29, only 300 metres from local waterways, the 45 year old Plains Midstream Rainbow Pipeline broke and leaked 4.5 million litres of tar sands crude. Little Buffalo wasn’t officially notified of the spill until May 3, after several days of nausea, burning eyes, and headaches. The Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) did its best to downplay the real impacts of the spill, claiming that air quality, waterways, and the forest were left intact. Meanwhile, the air quality was so poor in Little Buffalo that the school shut down for 1½ weeks. The oil had not been contained as claimed, and had moved deep into the forest and wetlands of Lubicon territory. When the ERCB didn’t show up in Little Buffalo until six days after the spill, Chief Steve Nosky said “the company is failing to provide sufficient information to us so we can ensure that the health and safety of our community is protected.” And this was merely the latest oil industry crisis on Lubicon territory. Since 1952, when the Government of Alberta discovered oil on the Lubicon Cree Nation’s unceded territory, they have neglected to respect Aboriginal and land rights as outlined in Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution. Oil development began in 1979, and 14 billion dollars in revenue have been taken from the territory with zero compensation to the people. Before these developments,

the Lubicon Cree Nation upheld traditional land-based practices, including hunting and trapping. Today, they struggle with poverty, lack of running water and sanitation, toxic contamination of the territory’s forests, rivers and wetlands, and the erosion of Lubicon culture and way of life. Human health impacts include substance abuse, maternal health issues, youth suicide, and diseases. Currently, 70% of Lubicon land is leased by the Alberta government for oil, gas, and mineral developments, with more than 2400 km of oil and gas pipelines, over 2600 oil and gas wells and in situ sites for tar sands extraction, as well as roads, processing sites, and other infrastructure. This ongoing exploitation is a case of systematic, environmental racism: when pollution disproportionately impacts low-income and minority communities. Claiming that it “does not consult with First Nations prior to disposition of Crown mineral rights, and First Nations consultation is not a condition of acquiring or renewing mineral agreements,” the Alberta government has effectively evaded accountability. The economic, social, cultural and environmental losses have been so damaging that, between 1990 and 2010, six UN bodies condemned the Alberta and Canadian governments for failure to protect Lubicon Cree land rights. Most recently, UN Special Rapporteur on Rights of Indigenous Peoples stated that no further development should take place on Lubicon territory without the consent of Lubicon people. Yet, 100 new wells, on average, are drilled each year. Tar sands developments further threaten the Lubicon Cree Nation. The tar sands gigaproject is considered the most destructive industrial project on Earth, with unprecedented rates of

DECOLONIZING THE CITY Kalin Stacey

ike many cities, Toronto is host to a range of urban settler initiatives in support of rural First Nations self-determination struggles. Settler activists travel from their Toronto homes to build relationships with and offer direct support for the Algonquins of Barriere Lake, for land reclamations such as Kahnestaton in Six Nations, and for other Indigenous communities resisting the environmental degradation caused by extractive industries. Yet, settler activists rarely discuss the assumptions that underscore this urban/rural divide. Why does so much Indigenous solidarity work take this form? My background is European, so my focus here is on white settler anti-colonial work, with acknowledgment that the work of Indigenous solidarity is different for settlers of color. Indigenous communities in North American cities struggle tremendously to protect their rights, traditions, and identities. These fights receive limited support from settlers, although they occur in or near neighbourhoods where urban settler activists live. This trend extends partly from the prominent but stereotypical conception of Indigenous peoples as inherently rural and land-based. This conception – while sometimes understandably invoked by Indigenous people in their struggles for justice – can obscure the severe impositions of colonialism and mischaracterize Indigenous people as unchanging and inevitably relegated to reserves because of their connection to the land. Indigenous writer Brock Pitawanakwat explains that “this incongruity [between “Indigenous” and “urban”] existed in the minds of settlers because of their own artificial attempts to remove Indigenous people from lands desired for European settlement.” Traces of this framework persist among white settler radicals, leading us to focus outwards on distant reserve-based communities and to deemphasize (or outright ignore) urban Native communities as sites of anti-colonial struggle and potential solidarity. While dislocation and diaspora are common for Native people in the 21st century, solidarity activists have inadequately heeded this reality and, therefore,

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have not effectively disseminated ideas about urban support. Shifting from the urban/rural solidarity dynamic might be difficult initially, but settler activists must strengthen support for Indigenous struggles closer to home, while maintaining relationships with allies beyond the borders of the city. There are many important avenues for indigenous solidarity work and anti-colonial struggle in the city, including the fight against racist policing, anti-poverty work that highlights the racialization of poverty, and support for efforts to end the genocidal pattern of missing and murdered Indigenous women. Settler activists should also support Indigenous reclamation of urban space for cultural and ceremonial purposes to address what Pitawanakwat describes as “urban alienation.” Additionally, activists can support education and exchange across the urban/rural divide. Such work is a focus of Barriere Lake Solidarity, a group geared toward supporting the rural community of Barriere Lake but also committed to city-based initiatives like the annual conference Indigenous Sovereignty Week (ISW). In 2010, ISW brought together hundreds of Toronto residents and visitors. Event topics ranged from pollution land defence struggles from Aamjiwnang to Wet’suwet’en, to Indigenous participation in postsecondary education at U of T. ISW organizers ensured that events reflected the diversity of Indigenous sovereignty struggles. But we shouldn’t understate the challenges of this type of organizing. The dynamic when a settler group takes direction from a rural Indigenous community is very different from the dynamic when a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people collaborate on a common project. With the latter, the internal group process inevitably entails significant racial tension. Organizers must navigate differences between Indigenous methodologies and the modes of organizing familiar to solidarity activists, account for a multiplicity of traditions of Indigenous participants from different nations and experiential backgrounds, and address participants’ varying degrees of comfort about settlers embodying Indigenous practices. These challenges all point to the central question for urban indigenous solidarity work: how should radicals support and make space for Indigenous activists in spaces which are numerically, culturally, and structurally Eurocentric? More so than when supporting faraway land defence struggles – which is likely to include activism typical of social justice campaigns – working for decolonization in the city and in direct partnership means actually shifting the way we work. Indigenous activist Zainab Amadahy explains that Indigenous people often have to “function within a worldview that is not always intrinsic to or based in their cultural identities, community values, and historical or personal experiences – even when they are resisting colonization.” She describes how Indigenous activists undertake cultural and ideological translation to fit their perspectives into settler frameworks of resistance, while leftist social justice movements continue to dismiss Indigenous concepts and practices such as ceremony, spirituality, and relationality. White settler activists need to understand how colonialism has necessitated such translation, and begin to engage “reverse translation” by opening themselves to the leadership of Indigenous pathways to liberation and decolonization. This means building relationships of deep trust across racial and power boundaries that can help us decolonize our assumptions, as we decolonize the city.

Kalin is an activist currently based in Kitchener-Waterloo. He has worked with Barriere Lake Solidarity, supporters of Grassy Narrows, and helped to organize Indigenous Sovereignty Week 2010 in Toronto.

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HOW SEX LOST ITS

STEAM

Tim McCaskell

ot so long ago, sex could not be spoken about in public, except obliquely, accompanied with winks and nudges or an occasional bawdy joke. Prohibitions about sex talk were widely enforced. Sexual education was an oxymoron. Dirty magazines were contraband. On TV, husbands and wives slept in separate beds. The Ontario Censor Board snipped out sexy bits in movies or, just as happily, banned offending movies altogether. Toronto plays were raided by the Morality Squad for nudity or raunchy talk. In the US, comedian Lenny Bruce (1925-1966) faced jail time for using the words “cocksucker” and “fuck” in his acts. So it wasn’t surprising that, during the 1970s, “sexual liberation” felt like the cutting edge of radical politics. The individual’s right to sexual expression went nose to nose against conservative mores sustained by church, family, nation, and state. And since these institutions were pillars of the established capitalist order, the significance of sexual liberation seemed far-reaching and aligned with national/anti-colonial, women’s, and Black struggles. Once considered “the love that could not speak its name,” gay liberation activists began shouting from the rooftops. But while we could talk about politics as much as we wanted, sex was still another thing. The only time I’ve had my fingerprints taken was after the Body Politic collective was charged with obscenity for publishing an article on fistfucking. But as long as they didn’t contain dirty words, nobody objected to our protest signs. Thirty years later, attempts to ban Queers Against Israeli Apartheid from Toronto Pride signal an attempt to silence political speech. But sex? Sex is now fine. Sex talk is encouraged. Pride is about the celebration of sexuality. But why would anybody want to bring politics into it? Something fundamental seems to have shifted. We are now incited to think and talk about sex in mainstream locations. Sex advice columns proliferate. Sexy bodies stoke consumer fantasies. It turns out that, in the interest of the market, capital was just as eager to dispense with the constraints of traditional church, family, and national mores as we were.

Under capital, the only rational model for human relations is the market. Sex thus became a truth that needed to be freed to maximize individual happiness through consumption. Adam Smith’s economic man, the theoretical incarnation of bourgeois individualism, enters the marketplace with a hard on. By turning sex into a lubricant for consumption, capital corroded traditional structures that previously harnessed sex to family, community, nation, and religion – the very structures that “sexual liberation” was confronting. One of the reasons that sexual liberation was so successful was that, rather than attacking the roots of capitalism, we were in fact fertilizing them and allowing them to overcome traditional moralities. For sexual and gender minorities, the resulting changes have no doubt been a good thing. Being a niche market is better than being a despised criminal class. It has given us space to develop identities and networks and communities. But it has also left us more vulnerable. By the mid 70s, overdeveloped countries began to experience “stagflation,” a phenomenon that traditional Keynesian economics could not resolve. In response, neoliberalism called for complete reliance on the market to shape social outcomes. But neoliberalism didn’t resolve the contradictions of capitalism. Although it overcame stagflation with the booms and busts of the 90’s, we have now returned to stagnation or worse. The system can no longer meet rising expectations or provide stability. As social anxiety increases, elites have revitalized more autocratic forms of rule to protect capital and reinvest in the rhetoric of the same conservative social structures they once undermined. In Canada, this “swing to the right” can be seen at all levels of government. The Harper government flirts openly with Christian fundamentalist sects. It cuts social services while increasing budgets for prisons and law enforcement. It embroiled the country in the US invasion of Afghanistan and remains unequivocal in its support for Israel. The Ontario Liberal government has never

“Sex became a truth that needed to be freed to maximize individual happiness through consumption.”

undone the damage caused by Harris. When faced with right wing opposition to its proposed sex ed curriculum, it ran for cover. The Hudak Tories are now poised to win the next provincial election on an even more right wing platform than their Harris predecessors. In Toronto, the Ford administration is dismantling city services. All this threatens thirty years of gains – and not just for sexual liberation. Globally, we confront an intensifying struggle over shrinking resources and a corresponding resurgence of nationalisms both among liberal democracies with neocolonial ambitions, and those resisting such incursions with recourse to traditional cultural and religious ideologies. Here, sexual diversity has become a rhetorical football, kicked back and forth to score points in debates that pit “human rights” against “western decadence.” In the face of these challenges, we are divided. The individualism of neoliberal consumer society corrodes queer communities as much as it does traditional ones. Neoliberalism has dramatically amplified class disparities. Shared sexual identities are a weak glue when compared to the centrifugal force of increasingly polarized experiences. Where our movement has been successful, “community” members who have benefited from social and legislative change and neo-liberal class disparities have been content to celebrate. Controversial political speech is an unwelcome guest at their party. But queers belonging to groups that neoliberalism has marginalized, and who don’t occupy valuable niche markets demand more. Controversial, intersectional political speech is a necessity. Once buoyed by on the liberal wave that washed over traditional structures, sexual liberation now finds itself beached, high and dry. We must ask ourselves, what forms of solidarity can we develop? What demands can we put forward? Who are our allies? Indeed, who are “we? Tim McCaskell is a long time queer activist, educator and writer.

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TAR SANDS KILL

>>CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

deforestation, toxic contamination of water, wildlife and land, health impacts including increased rare cancers for downstream communities, and skyrocketing levels of greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions. With projected growth to 5 million barrels per day by 2030 (from the current 1.5 million), the tar sands projects will spread throughout North America through a series of pipelines, refineries, and tanker ports. Enbridge’s northern gateway pipeline would cross 785 waterways, impact wildlife habitats and fragile salmon fisheries, and triple its GHG emissions. Between 1999 and 2008, Enbridge operations were responsible for 610 spills, and in Alberta alone, the oil and gas industry averaged 762 pipeline failures per year between 1990 and 2005 for a total of 12,191 failures. Unless they are stopped, new pipelines will increase the incidence of oil spills and pipeline failures to catastrophic levels. To prevent this, Indigenous communities must be able to fully exercise their rights, and to set direction for themselves.

Stop the Alberta government from approving new oil development licenses on Lubicon land without Lubicon Cree consent. Sign the petition: www.amnesty. ca/lubicon/index.php. Learn more about the tar sands gigaproject: www. ienearth.org. Join Environmental Justice Toronto: ejaction@gmail.com. Kimia Ghomeshi is a Toronto-based environmental and climate justice organizer. She is a member of Environmental Justice Toronto, a group working in solidarity with tar sands-impacted communities.

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WHERE THE ACTION IS ACTION GROUPS LISTINGS

Action Groups are at the heart of OPIRG’s work. They are volunteer collectives that organize autonomously for social and environmenal justice. The following are our Action Groups for 2011-2012.

BARRIERE LAKE SOLIDARITY TORONTO BLS Toronto is an organizing collective that provides direct support to the community of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake. This small community of 450 people is located three hours north of Ottawa, in Quebec. They live on a 59-acre reserve in the midst of the Parc La Verendrye wildlife reserve, though their entire traditional territory spans 17,000 square kilometers of the Upper Ottawa watershed. Barriere Lake’s political struggle is focused on obtaining implementation for a natural resource agreement signed in 1991 between the Algonquins, Quebec, and Canada that would give them a decisive say over the management of their lands. In collaboration with Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement Ottawa and BLS Montreal, BLS Toronto supports the Algonquins of Barriere Lake through fundraising, educational events, direct action, media work, political campaigning, and by building a strong base of support for Indigenous activism. Visit www.barrierelakesolidarity.org, barrierelakesolidarity@gmail.com. COMMUNIST STUDENT RESEARCH GROUP We are the student-front of the Proletarian Revolutionary Action Committee. We are dedicated to promoting revolutionary communist politics on campus, fighting capitalist oppressions of all forms, and developing revolutionary culture and practice through social research and investigation. We aim for collective education using both our own investigation and relevant communist texts. We plan to use this research in order to launch stronger revolutionary student campaigns with connection to peoples struggles locally and internationally. Our investigation, education and campaigns are grounded in historical materialism. We strive to curb incorrect communist approaches such as the tendency to focus on single issue campaigns, to defer to reformism, liberalism and to be dogmatic. Additionally, we are committed to combating class essentialist tendencies by connecting class politics to race, gender and sexuality. Contact us at RevolutionaryStudentsTo@gmail.com. DISABILITY ACTION MOVEMENT NOW DAMN is a direct action group of disabled people, those affected by ableism, and our supporters. We believe that accessibility is about more than adding ramps – it means ensuring that there is room

for everyone in our struggles. We strive to foster cross-disability alliances to build campaigns around disability issues, including poverty, immigration, racism, homophobia, transphobia, incarceration, and institutionalization. DAMN is currently involved in campaigns against cuts to social assistance, and campaigns for free and accessible transit for all, prisoners’ justice, and access to attendant care with dignity. DAMN critically analyzes all institutions – including academic institutions – and examines how they limit accessibility by instituting economic barriers, physical barriers, and social isolation. DAMN challenges how activism itself can be inaccessible. DAMN questions how certain bodies get criminalized, marked as hyper-visible or invisible, while always claiming our political agency and autonomy, and accessing our collective empowerment. To get involved, contact damn2025@gmail.com.

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE TORONTO EJ Toronto’s aim is to strengthen the city’s environmental justice community. Toronto-based organizers have been collaborating to hold Canadian mining companies, financial institutions, and politicians accountable to upholding human rights and the rights of Mother Earth. Canada is home to 75% of the world’s mining and exploration companies and the largest industrial project on earth, the Alberta tar sands. EJ Toronto will focus on providing local educational and skill-building opportunities related to exploitative global mining practices, tar sands issues, Indigenous solidarity, climate policy, political lobbying, non-violent direct action and creative movement-building. We seek to highlight these issues and raise the voices of those most impacted and at the forefront of these struggles. Please contact us at ejaction@gmail.com. LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN SOLIDARITY NETWORK LACSN is a non-profit, autonomous, democratic organization that coordinates and supports the work of fifteen local organizations. The goal of these organizations is to carry out community-based work that leads to long-term societal change and economic transformation in our locales. LACSN confronts and proposes alternatives to the social, environmental and economic model of neoliberalism. We focus on challenging the capitalist paradigm of overconsumption and over-production. We do this through a combination of research, analysis and actions. We work with labour, human rights, environmental, student, church groups, development and economic and social justice organizations both locally and in the global south. Additionally, the network engages in solidarity work

with progressive social movements and processes in the global south. Contact lacsncanada@gmail.com

MINING INJUSTICE SOLIDARITY NETWORK Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (MISN), previously known as Community Solidarity Response Toronto (CSRT), works to bring the voices and experiences of communities impacted by Canadian mining industries to Toronto, where much of this industry is based. As Canada is a leader within the international mining industry, we recognize the pressing need for a movement within Canada to demand justice for communities impacted by the industry. We also recognize that any activism related to these industries must take its direction from the impacted communities themselves. As such, MISN works in alliance with affected communities and aims to be responsive to their calls for support. Email: mininginjustice@gmail.com. MOYO WA AFRICA MWA is a coalition of Africans on the continent and in the diaspora committed to the reclamation of Indigenous African spiritualities, knowledge systems, economic praxis, and resources as the only viable means of addressing the colonially-induced dis-ease and dysfunction plaguing our peoples. MWA focuses on rebuilding healthy and self-sustaining societies, resisting oppression, attaining reparations and bringing about justice for Africans who have faced genocide and other human rights violations. Through outreach, collaboration and education we aim to build the consciousness and connectedness of African communities locally and internationally. Moyo hosts workshops where people of African descent can learn about, experience and celebrate African spiritualities and cultures. We also support and network with the African Reparations Fund. Please contact Amai Kuda amaikuda@gmail.com or Sedina Fiati sfiati@gmail.com to get involved. NO ONE IS ILLEGAL STUDENT NETWORK NOII student network organizes to show the truth about Canadian immigration policy, the exploitation of migrant workers and undocumented people, and the role of corporate and military intervention in displacing people the world over. Neocolonial policies such as structural adjustment programs and war/occupation have forced migrants to leave their homes and come to Canada. At least 500,000 people are denied immigration status, and with it basic services like education, healthcare, shelter and decent livelihood. NOII student network – just one of the projects of by city-wide organization No One Is Illegal-Toronto – works with students, faculty, staff and unions to build a University based movement to defend the right of all people to learn without fear of arrest or deportation. To get involved, email noiistudent@gmail.com and check out www.facebook.com/nooneisillegaltoronto. R3: ROOTS RHYTHMS RESISTANCE R3 is an artist collective focused on Resistance to colonial oppression, the attainment of Reparations for colonized peoples, and the Reclamation of Indigenous world views and ways of life. Our objective is to raise funds and awareness for decolonization work, which encompasses all the efforts of colonized peoples to heal and rebuild communities, recreate sustainable and self-sustaining grassroots economies, reclaim land and resources as well

ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER WINTER 2011

as spirituality, language, his/herstory and other aspects of culture eroded by colonization. R3 programs feature a diverse range of socially conscious artists. Our events are multi-media showcases, incorporating film, music, dance, visual art, shadow puppetry and theatre. We strive to create accessible spaces for Disabled people. Our goal is to draw in a wide audience and enough money to really effect change in our communities. We welcome involvement from UofT students and community members. Visit www.r3artists.com.

STUDENTS AGAINST ISRAELI APARTHEID SAIA is a network of university students, faculty, and staff working to raise awareness about Palestine and Israeli Apartheid. We are connected to the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) against Israeli Apartheid, and work to sever economic ties between our campuses and the apartheid policies of the Israeli state. SAIA organizes many campus actions and events, including the annual international conferences Week Against the Wall and Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). IAW began in 2005 at the University of Toronto, and has since grown into a global event held in over ninety cities around the world. The aim of IAW is to educate people about the nature of Israel as an apartheid state and to build the BDS movement. Last year, SAIA launched a divestment portfolio that highlights U of T’s ties to companies that profit from Israeli Apartheid and the occupation of the Palestinian territories. To get involved, contact saia@riseup.net. TORONTO BOLIVIA SOLIDARITY TBS was founded in January 2008 to spread knowledge in Canada of the democratic transformation underway in Bolivia, build links and solidarity with popular grassroots movements and Indigenous populations there, and spread their urgent message about climate change. Our work in 2010-11 included a teach-in on climate justice that drew 250 participants. TBS sent a delegation to New York City to meet with Bolivian President Evo Morales in preparation for the world global warming conference in December 2010. 150 activists attended a report-back from this trip, co-sponsored with several organizations. TBS sponsored a meeting for Hugo Salvatierra, a leader of the people’s movement in Bolivia, and published his remarks as a pamphlet. At present, TBS has initiated its fourth educational series, based on the 2010 Cochabamba conference. Visit our website: www.t.grupoapoyo.org or write to torontoboliviasolidarity@gmail.com. TORONTO FREESKOOL! Toronto FreeSkool is a do-it-yourself community learning project that veers away from tuition and bureaucrats to imagine and create the kind of world we want to live in, premised on utopian visions of cooperation and mutual support. FreeSkool is inspired by anarchist philosophy, anti-oppression, consensus and egalitarianism. We believe in sharing skills, ideas and curiosities outside of state and capitalist institutions, free of prohibitive costs, grades, and hierarchy. FreeSkool is a project in liberatory learning fuelled by love. Come learn with us! For a list of classes and workshops visit our website: torontofreeskool.wordpress.com. See something you like? Email the facilitator directly for more information or to enrol. Something missing from our class list that you’d like to facilitate? Email us a proposal: torontofreeskool@gmail.com.

U RESOURCES 16

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SPACES ON AND AROUND CAMPUS

ACTIVIST NETWORKS AND ORGANIZATIONS

519 Community Centre Bike Pirates: DIY Bicycle Shop Centre for Social Justice Centre for Women and Trans People at U of T Native Canadian Centre of Toronto Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/ Multicultural Women Against Rape Toronto Women’s Bookstore

LOCAL

www.the519.org www.bikepirates.com www.socialjustice.org womenscentre.sa.utoronto.ca

NEWS AND ANALYSIS

Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid Low Income Families Together (LIFT) No One is Illegal-Toronto Ontario Coalition Against Poverty Queers Against Israeli Apartheid Sikh Activist Network Toronto Stop the War Coalition Toronto Vegetarian Association Toronto Worker’s Assembly OPIRG-York

LOCAL

NATIONAL AND GLOBAL

BASICS Newsletter Toronto New Socialist Ryerson Free Press subMedia.tv The Dominion Toronto Media Co-op Upping the Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action York University Free Press

www.ncct.on.ca www.trccmwar.ca www.womensbookstore.com

basicsnews.ca www.newsocialist.org www.ryersonfreepress.ca submedia.tv www.thedominion.ca www.mediacoop.ca www.uppingtheanti.org www.yufreepress.org

NATIONAL AND GLOBAL Al Jazeera english.aljazeera.net Democracy Now! www.democracynow.org Independent Media Centre www.indymedia.org Infoshop News www.infoshop.org Rabble.ca www.rabble.ca Socialist Project www.socialistproject.ca Z Communications www.zcommunications.org Native Youth Sexual Health Network www.nativeyouthsexualhealth.com

www.caiaweb.org www.lift.to toronto.nooneisillegal.org www.ocap.ca www.queersagainstapartheid.org sikhactivist.net www.nowar.ca www.veg.ca www.workersassembly.ca www.opirgyork.ca

Animal Liberation Front www.animalliberationfront.com Assaulted Women’s Helpline www.awhl.org AW@L peaceculture.org Canadian Haiti www.canadahaitiaction.ca Action Network Canadian Tamil Congress www.canadiantamilcongress.ca Defenders of the Land www.defendersoftheland.org INCITE Women of www.incite-national.org Color Against Violence Indigenous Environmental Network www.ienearth.org Jews Against the Occupation www.jatonyc.org Justice for www.justicia4migrantworkers.org Migrant Workers North Eastern Federation www.nefac.org of Anarchist Communists International Jewish www.ijsn.net Anti-Zionist Network Palestinian Campaign for the www.pacbi.org Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel Proletarian Revolutionary www.practoronto.wordpress.com Action Committee

days of action

In 1995-1998, ontario labour unions and grassroots social movements failed to prevent conservative premier mike harris from implementing devastating cuts across the province, despite the precedent-setting

itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time to show rob ford that

we can learn from

our mistakes

dis/Orientation 2011 September 18 to September 23

THE PAST IS A BATTLEGROUND Ten years ago, two planes crashed into the World Trade Centre buildings in New York City, inspiring the US-led “War on Terror.” Within months the US invaded Afghanistan with Canadian military support. Two years later the US invaded Iraq under the pretext of eliminating “weapons of mass destruction” that were never found. These military ventures, like so many others, affirmed the simple truth about terrorism: states do it with far greater quantifiable devastation, and always well-disguised as a force of good. To counter this violence and manipulation, activists around the world persistently research, educate and organize to dig deeper than media sound bytes and fight those who distort the truth for personal gain. The tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001 reminds us that our conception of the past determines how we operate in the present. Join the Ontario Public Interest Research Group and the University of Toronto Students’ Union for a week of workshops, lectures and panels that will help us reveal the most accurate version of history, and help us avoid making the same mistakes twice. All DisOrientation 2011 events are free and wheelchair accessible. For more information, visit disorientation2011.org.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS Sun SEPT 18

WED SEPT 21

Decolonization and Identity: A first step with Amai Kuda, Victoria Mata, Sedina Fiati, and Keisha-Monique Simpson (Manifesto Festival of Community and Culture)

12pm-4pm Independent Media Fair!

Sound-making/Spoken-word with Nic (lal), Rose (lal and R3 artists collective) and Sonny B (R3) (Manifesto Festival of Community and Culture)

4pm-6pm Neoliberalism and Colonization: Canadian extractive industries and how to stop them with the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network

MON SEPT 19

7pm-9pm Labor Unionism Today: Limits and legacies with Sam Gindin

2pm-4pm More then “No Means No”: Reconceptualizing Consent with the Native Youth Sexual Health Network 6:30-8:30pm What is Anti-oppression? with Sharmeen Khan

tues sept 20 1pm-3pm Direct Action Gets the Goods with Jessica Bell 4pm-6pm Deconstructing the Immigration System: Myths and racism in Canada with No One Is Illegal 7pm-9pm Showdown at Ground Zero: A retrospective on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 with Sunera Thobani

1pm-3pm Understanding Mainstream Media with Justin Podur

THURS SEPT 22 2pm-4pm How Public Is Public Education? A game about university privatization 6pm-8pm Food Quality and Working Conditions in Campus Cafeterias with the Student-Worker Solidarity action group of the U of T General Assembly

FRI SEPT 23 12pm-2pm Sovereignty and Solidarity on Turtle Island: Indigenous Rights 101 with Barriere Lake Solidarity

3pm-5pm The Struggle for Genuine Women’s Liberation in Canada with the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance Ontario 6pm-8pm Taking Campus Space, Seriously! with members of Students Against Israeli Apartheid, The UofT Trans Inclusion Group, UTSU President Danielle Sandhu, and others

THURS OCT 7 9pm-12am *Concert!* R3: Roots, Rhythms, Resistance presents... Amai Kuda CD Launch Celebration The Tranzac, 292 Brunswick Ave. Admission: $10, $20 with cd, No one turned away for lack of funds. Featuring: lal, sonny b, Izzy Mackenzie, Sedina Fiati and Amai Kuda with full band

All locations to be announced. For more information, please visit our website.

http://disorientation.org