Your Streets Are A Battleground
ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER OPIRG TORONTO’S FIELD MANUAL FOR THOSE WHO’VE HAD ENOUGH FALL 2012
“Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time, and the arena, and the manner of our revolution, but more usually we must do battle where we are standing.” - Audre Lorde (1984)
IN THIS ISSUE: Updates from the Quebec Student Strike • 25 Years of AIDS organizing • Fighting Prison Expansion • Social Movement Strategy • Indigenous Solidarity • And More..
ADD IT UP Total amount McGuinty plans to cutback over the next three years: 17 700 000 000 Percentage rate at which general corporate income tax will be frozen: 11.5 Gross operating budget for the Toronto Police Service (TPS): 1 000 778 700 Percentage increase in TPS budget over the past year: 4.6% Total number of fire- arm related deaths involving TPS over the past 7 years: 11 Percentage of women affected by low income in Canada: 54 Percentage of visible minority and Aboriginal families affected by low income: 30 Approximate percentage of Toronto rental stock that is privately owned: 75 Number of Canadians affected by unaffordable housing, (paying> 30%): 3 100 000 Number of people on the waitlist for Toronto Community Housing: 85 088 Average wait time to secure housing with TCHC, in years: 24 Approximate number of proposed TCHC dwellings to be sold off : 700 Amount Harper government contributed, to student financial assistance, in 2009- 2010: 5 100 000 000 Amount Ontario Ministry of Training contributed in OSAP support, in 2009- 2012: 240 000 000 Tuition revenue in Ontario, in 2010: 3 000 000 000 Number of full-time students enrolled at 20 publicly funded universities: 355 500 Current average cost of tuition, for domestic students, in Quebec: 2411 Current average cost of tuition, for domestic students, in Ontario: 6316 Average cost of tuition, for domestic students in Ontario, 5 years ago: 5388 Cost of tuition, for international students, at the University of Toronto: 28 209 Percentage of Aboriginal population with university degree: 3 Percentage of non- Aboriginal population with university degree: 18
Sources: Michael Shapcott- Wellesley Institute, OCAP, Ontario Ministry of Finance, Special Investigations Unit (SIU), Statistics Canada, TPS 2011 Annual Statistical Report, University of Toronto.
THEN BREAK IT DOWN
ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER
ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER
FALL 2012 actionspeaksloudertoronto@gmail.com
PRODUCTION Lindsay Hart Simone Akyianu
CONTRIBUTORS Maryam Adrangi Simone Akyianu Maxine Bower Baolinh Dang Yutaka Dirks Lindsay Hart Juan Carlos Jimenez Gretchen King Annika Ollner Joan Ruzsa Kalin Stacey DESIGN Lindsay Hart Simone Akyianu COVER ART ASL Collective
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TABLE OF MALCONTENTS
OPIRG-Toronto 101-563 Spadina Cres. Toronto, Ontario M5S 2J7
EDITORIAL COLLECTIVE Simone Akyianu Shatha Al-Husseini Lindsay Hart Estefania Rueda Daniel Vandervoort
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Fighting Words
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OPIRG-Toronto Staff
Choosing our Weapons Wisely
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Simone Akyianu & Juan Carlos Jimenez
A Gun Story
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(Un)safe Streets and Criminalized Communities
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AIDS Action Now & Then: An Interview with AIDS ACTION NOW
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Gretchen King
Red Square Wildfire: The Quebec Student Strike
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Maryam Adrangi
Land in Their Hands: The Struggle of KI Nation
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Celebrating the Protected Place: Kanonstaton & the April 28th Coalition Steps to Victory: The Toronto Budget Cuts & the Need for Strategic Planning in Activist Campaigns
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Maxine Bower
Joan Ruzsa & Annika Ollner Lindsay Hart
Kalin Stacey Yutaka Dirks
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Action Group Listings
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Resources
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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 ASL Collective 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 5th, 2012 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).
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FIGHTING WORDS ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER
FALL 2012
Maxine Bower Board of Directors, OPIRG-Toronto
“ Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge” - Toni Morrison
A
usterity has become a trendy word with activists and their detractors alike. Taking after its fashionable nature, it is a word that finds itself in privileged circles. The word appears often in conference proposals, in newsletters, on activist mouths
and academic’s lips. Discussion of austerity floats in the air in spaces that are intimidating and pretentious, amongst those often least affected by the consequences of such an agenda. I would invite folks to problematize austerity: what does it mean and who experiences it? The simple usage of the word ‘austerity’ is an indicator of privilege. Privilege makes austerity a reality felt for most only in times of belt-tightening and purported financial crises. In other spaces, however, austerity is a perpetual, re-occurring, real experience. It is an everyday reality; not a new era of pool closures and reduced library hours. Austerity is not only drastic cuts in education funding, health care and other social services. It has been and is present in the experience of poverty that has existed for certain communities for years and will continue for years to come. It can be seen everyday in the poorest neighbourhoods, when affordable housing is cut and shelters are closed, while empty lots are sold for condo development. This will all continue uninterrupted, unless we can begin to work together, recognizing that some come into this space with resources and advantages others don’t. It might be suitable to caution against the sense of entitlement and self-importance that the fight against austerity might motivate. It would be wise to remember that the fight against austerity can overshadow other struggles against oppression, and to be truly successful, it must be a united struggle against all forms of oppression. Resisting austerity for the continued comfort of one group of people, at the expense of others, weakens us all. The fight against injustice is a fight for everyone, a fight that must incorporate an analysis of the racism, colonialism, ableism, sexism and other forms of oppression that keep certain people and communities poor. The student movement against tuition hikes, decline in the quality of education and the privatization and corporatization of universities are all valuable concerns, but in the practice of campaigning have the potential to neglect consideration of the accessibility of those spaces. Recently, I was frustrated to encounter a caption within the Quebec student strike movement suggesting that, “students are the niggers of the world.” The passionate pursuit and outcry of the student movement has, in this particular situation, resulted in the complete disrespect and dismissal of the severity of racism and racialized oppression. To compare the plight of University students and student loans with people who have endured generations of injustice, suffering, slavery and de-humanizing treatment is beyond disrespectful. It is an example of the racist narratives that persist in social movements, and continue to fragment our collective resistance. Critiques of the student movement in Quebec have been numerous. Putting the sovereigntist elements that have cropped up in this strike aside, this student movement still has much work to do. Statements on anti-racism and decolonization have now been adopted by the
student unions, but statements will only go so far. Resisting austerity should include a fight against all the forms of inequality and injustice capitalism produces. People are not one-dimensional, and so neither can our movements be. Let our work not be an impediment to solidarity. Let us not forget that even when a battle against austerity, or any other form of oppression might exist, privilege will also always be there.
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CHOOSING OUR WEAPONS WISELY Baolinh Dang & Lindsay Hart Over two years ago, Toronto police showcased to the media a collection of ‘weapons’, seized from protestors during demonstrations to oppose the G20 summit. Amongst the weaponry on display was a copy of Upping the Anti, a bi-annual journal of articles and interviews on social movements. Knowledge is power, and if wielded correctly, it can be a powerful weapon in an increasingly hostile world. Dark days are ahead of us. With this in mind, we’d like to take stock of what’s in our arsenal. The Toronto G20 summit 2 years ago was only a small part of a plan for an era of austerity. We have already witnessed this agenda play out in the attacks on public sector workers, proposed shelter, school, and library closures and other social service cuts here in Toronto. Austerity is hitting home, and institutions of higher learning and knowledge production like ours will not be immune to its effects. This past spring, the Ontario government announced its plans to reduce the deficit of 16 billion dollars by 2018. According to the budget released in late March, the McGuinty government intends on cutting $121 million dollars in post-secondary education funding while allowing tuition fees to increase by 5% province-wide. A number of grants and bursaries, along with funding for the popular Work-Study program, have been eliminated. This move by the Liberal government targets financial aid and is clearly an attack on those students who can least afford to attend post-secondary institutions in the first place. Furthermore, changes to the eligibility criteria for the work-study positions at the University of Toronto will no longer require that a student be on OSAP, another blow for students in serious debt as a result of their education aspirations. At the University of Toronto, the administration contends that it’s forced to reshuffle its operating budget to make up for the 2.5 million dollars they ordinarily receive from the province to fund work-study. Essentially, this 2.5 million dollar shortfall is to be offset by monies generated through tuition fees. While top university administrators, including president David Naylor and vice-president and provost Cheryl Misak all firmly made a commitment in one form or other to continue funding the work-study program, it is unclear whether those students with the most financial need will be prioritized in the university’s new work-study scheme.
OPIRG STAFF EDITORIAL
The University of Toronto administration has made it explicit what forms of knowledge and experience should be prioritized. Student based organizations, including the major student unions and levy groups on all three campuses, will no longer be granted workstudy students. This is a devastating blow to the OPIRG-Toronto community, as our work-study students not only contribute valuable manual labour to our operations, and obviously to the alternative “student life” on campus, but often continue on as volunteers at OPIRG. Their time at OPIRG serves as an entry point into advocacy, research and action on a variety of social and environmental justice issues, and many former volunteers and contract employees have gone on to jobs in the non-profit sector, as well as many becoming respected community organizers in Toronto. While this university markets itself in terms of “experiential learning,” we at OPIRG are concerned that the new work-study scheme will privilege some forms of learning over others. Classrooms are by far not the only spaces of education on this campus, and what’s more, much less likely to move their discussions from theory to praxis. How do we put our knowledge - of injustice and oppression- into action? This is where knowledge should sit: in the hands of the people, as a tool for resistance. Efforts such as this cut, which limit student interaction with campus organizations that put knowledge into practice for social change and connect students with community projects, can be seen as efforts to prevent this knowledge from becoming a tool for analysis, movement strategy and community building. Major education reform is in the works, and not only in the context of program cuts and tuition hikes. The University of Toronto is making plans to move to a post-secondary model like that of Europe, and they’re not the only one. Universities in Ontario are discussing instituting 3 year bachelor degree programs, to run throughout the year, as well as a move towards more online courses. This model will inevitably be more profitable to the University, at the expense of the quality of education to students and the financial opportunities summer breaks provide. In Italy, students opposing increasing costs for education and wider social service cuts took to the streets in a book bloc, pictured above, using books as the ultimate symbol for fighting injustice, as shields against police violence. It’s time to do battle, in the classrooms and in the streets, with all the tools we have.
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A LOVE GUN STORY
Simone Akyianu & Juan Carlos Jimenez
Racism refers to “a system of hierarchy and inequity, primarily characterized by white supremacy- the preferential treatment, privilege and power for white people at the expense of Black, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Arab and other racially oppressed people” (Lawrence & Keheler, 2004).
B
etween May 2004 and September 2011, Jeffrey Reodica, Alwy Al- Nadhir, Byron DeBassige, Junior Manon, and Eric Osawe were murdered by Toronto police officers. These youth are part of Black, Southeast Asian and Aboriginal communities pushed into impoverished areas by gentrification and housing discrimination. As African and Latino authors, our analysis unapologetically reflects that of members of indignant communities under siege by a racist, white supremacist state. Constant police surveillance and the disproportionate use of force are not new in our neighborhoods. Black, Latino, and Aboriginal bodies have endured racial profiling and police violence throughout North America for decades. A recent study found that over 25% of police contact in Toronto was with Black youth and adults1. This signifies a gross overrepresentation of police interactions, as only 8% of the Toronto population is of Black/African descent. In February 2012, the officer who shot and killed Eric Osawe in his home on September 29th, 2010 was charged with 2nd degree murder. For the first time in the history of the Toronto Police Services department, an on duty police officer is being charged with committing murder with the intent to kill. The head of the Toronto Police Association expressed outrage with the charge and the judicial process, prompting us to ask: how do we conceptualize justice within a state that denies its implication in racist processes of oppression? Police brutality on non-white bodies is undoubtedly a legacy of slavery and indentureship, where Black, Latino and Asian bodies were thought to be able to withstand brutal labour, and were often 1: www.thestar/racematters
victims of lynch mobs and beatings committed by military personnel. It becomes clear that youth of colour are being systematically targeted by a white supremacist ideology that sees Black, Latino, and Indigenous peoples as inherently violent and criminal. In this respect, those classified as white by society are conceptualized as the ones in need of protection from those “inherently violent” Others. The rhetoric of multiculturalism and a colour-blind society is bolstered by the growth of diasporic populations, but is contradicted by the characterization of impoverished neighborhoods as “at-risk”. The Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS) calls for additional policing in communities that experience “heightened” levels of violence2. Jane & Finch is an area of particular interest in TAVIS operations, and expectedly, has one of the highest concentrations of visible minorities and immigrant families3. A strategy of TAVIS operations is hosting or attending public events in these communities, such as BBQs and communal games, co-opting the rhetoric of community-building in order to present themselves as an ally to those they seek to control and reprimand. Provincial funding for TAVIS has totalled over 37 million since 2006, ensuring the institutionalization of this ‘at-risk’ discourse and the hyper-surveillance of communities racialized as Black. The day after the July 16th Scarborough shooting, which claimed the lives of Shyanne Charles and Joshua Yasay, Rob Ford called for additional funding for TAVIS. We strongly condemn the use of this and other band- aid solutions. Programs such as TAVIS fail to address the root causes of violence such as poverty, lack of educational and employment opportunities, mental health issues, racism, sexism and other forms of trauma. So, what does it mean to talk about justice in the face of state violence? For Eric Osawe, among the other sons, brothers and fathers murdered by police officers, justice will never be found in the courts. Canada’s history of colonialism, racism, and the state-imposed mass extermination of Indigenous peoples has ensured this. Their justice system requires racialized victims to CONTINUED ON PAGE 13 >> 2: Toronto Police Services, 2012 3: Access Alliance, 2011
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CRIMINALIZED (UN)SAFE STREETS AND COMMUNITIES Joan Ruzsa & Annika Ollner
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n March 13, 2012, the Conservatives government’s Bill C-10 was passed into law as the Safe Streets and Communities Act. Bill C-10 brought together nine bills that the Conservatives had been unable to pass as a minority government and made sweeping amendments to current crime legislation. These changes included the creation of mandatory minimum sentences for some drug offences, the elimination of house arrest for certain crimes, longer wait times before one can apply for a criminal “record suspension” – previously called a pardon – and harsher measures for youth in conflict with the law. Further changes through Bill C-10 to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (the legislation that governs prisons) make incarceration more punitive and parole more difficult to achieve. The Conservative government pushed C-10 through Parliament despite a steady drop in the crime rate and crime severity index in Canada since 19911. In the face of widespread opposition from community groups, the government justified their “tough on crime” agenda by raising the spectre of an increase in “unreported crime”2, while media outlets ran sensationalistic stories to create the impression that violence awaits us the moment we walk out the door. The reality is that 80% of offences in 2010 were non-violent crimes3, and numerous studies show that harsher sentencing has no deterrent effect on crime 4. 1:http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2012001/article/11692-eng. htm 2:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/stockwell-day-citesalarming-rise-in-unreported-crime-to-justify-new-prisons/article1375836 3:http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2011001/article11523-eng.htm 4 :http://www.children.gov.on.ca/htdocs/English/topics/youthandthelaw/roots/
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To understand the full impact of the Safe Streets and Communities Act, it is important to recognize that laws are not applied equally. Certain communities are overpoliced and over-represented within our criminal “justice” system. Prisons thus become warehouses for Indigenous people, people from racialized communities, drug users, youth, people with cognitive, intellectual and physical disabilities, queer and trans people, people living in poverty, and people who express political dissent. Indigenous people, for instance, make up 3% of the Canadian population, but 22% of the federal prison population5. If one were to look at these statistics alone, they might come to the conclusion that Indigenous people are more inherently criminal. However, when we recognize that these numbers are tied to historical and ongoing colonization, racist and exclusionary policies, and the continuing impact of the residential school system, it becomes clear that our criminal justice system and legislation contribute greatly to the systemic oppression of Indigenous peoples by the Canadian government, its courts and the police. Changes to the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) and their impacts on young people are also troubling. Enacted in 2003, its intention was to address the underlying causes of youth engagement with the law, and to incorporate community sentencing– using prison only for serious offences. The Safe Streets and Communities Act makes it easier to keep youth in pre-trial detention, allows the court to remove the publication ban on the names of any young offender convicted of a “violent offence” (including threats and dangerous driving), and increases the use of incarceration rather than community sentencing. CONTINUED ON PAGE 7>> volume5/preventing04_deterrence.aspx; https://canadasafetycouncil.org/ 5:http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/090721/dq09721b-eng.htm
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AIDS ACTION NOW & THEN Lindsay Hart
In recognition and celebration of 25 years of AIDS organizing in Toronto, Lindsay Hart interviewed two organizers from AIDS Action Now on the past and future of the group. Tim McCaskell is a long-time Toronto writer, activist and educator. He was a founding member of AIDS ACTION NOW! which won access to experimental treatments, funding for medications and the establishment of a national AIDS treatment information service. He is presently a member of the Ontario Advisory Committee on HIV and AIDS Education subcommittee. Alex McClelland is an activist, community organizer and researcher. Alex is currently a member of the AIDS ACTION NOW! steering committee, and is the Chair of the Canadian Treatment Action Council (CTAC). Alex co-curates the AIDS ACTION NOW! POSTER/virus community-art project, which will be launched at the Art Gallery of Ontario again this year as part of the Day With(out) Art 2012. Alex has been living with HIV for 15 years. 1) How did AIDS organizing in Toronto begin and what are the distinctions between the organizing at its start and what it looks like today? Tim: Organizing at first was focused on meeting sick people's needs. The AIDS Committee of Toronto was formed in 1983, even before an HIV diagnosis was possible. Early organizations took up the task of safer sex education once HIV was identified. The effort was largely organized within the gay community and deployed a gay identity to produce solidarity. The second stage began in the late 1980's with the emergence of ACTUP NY (1987) and AAN! (1988). They were focused on political action to change government and institutional policies, such as access to experimental treatments. This was increasingly organized around an HIV Positive identity as AIDS spread outside the gay community. Alex: We recently went through a period of time where the sense of urgency and number of people engaged in AIDS
organizing lessened. This was for a wide range of reasons, including that many of those before us passed away. Today, we are seeing a resurgence in our movement. People are still dying. Our activist movement is smaller then in the 90s, but the need for action and mobilizing has re-emerged. Now, we rely on garnering media attention through small actions, instead of the massive rallies of earlier years. There are now 70,000 people who are HIV positive in Canada, and that number is slowly increasing. At greatest risk are those who are co-infected with HIV and Hep C, are current or former drug users, and/or are people living in poverty. They are denied or not able to access medication due to homelessness, citizenship status, location, or face intense HIV stigma and discrimination and are not connected to services. Our work now focuses on addressing these gaps in the response that other organizations can’t. Our current political climate is the same or worse than in the 1980s and 90s. The AIDS response infrastructure built up through activism in the 90s is slowly being eroded through funding cuts and political attacks, so our work is becoming increasingly vital to the survival of the overall HIV response, and to those most impacted by the virus. 2) What would you see as some of the major ongoing campaigns for this movement? Tim: At present the campaign against criminalization is a major effort. There is an ongoing campaign to reform the Canadian Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR) to allow Canada to produce low cost generic drugs for use in poor countries. There have been sporadic campaigns against cuts to government services, most recently to refugees, and increasing poverty resulting from neoliberal restructuring. Alex: At the recent International AIDS Conference in Washington D.C., we called on Harper’s government to end the war on people who use drugs, to support the science and evidence of harm reduction, to stop HIV criminalization and state-sponsored stigma, reverse their ideological cuts to health and HIV social services, and to stop their moves to erode our democracy by silencing dissenting voices and attacking advocacy. 3) Have there been any significant turning points in relation to this organizing over the past 25 years? What would you characterize as the major successes and setbacks of the movement? Tim: Some major successes have been: access to experimental treatment with the opening up of the Emergency Drug Release Program in 1989, access to information with the establishment of CATIE in 1990, a place at the table on the Ministry of Health’s Ontario Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS in 1990 and access to affordable treatment with the establishment of the Trillium program in 1994. Some setbacks have included the loss of critical services and undermining of public medical care during the Harris years, and continued neo-liberal restructuring since, as well as the failure to adequately reform CAMR two years ago. Alex: I think a big turning point was 2010, when AIDS ACTION NOW! re-emerged as a force to be reckoned with. Due to the increasing need for advocacy and the strangle-hold that government CONTINUED ON PAGE 7 >>
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AIDS ACTION
UNSAFE STREETS
agencies have on most organizations involved in HIV response effectively preventing advocacy, a bunch of us who couldn’t take it anymore joined AAN. We’ve had a number of successes, including working with the Toronto Stop the Cuts Network to save HIV and Harm Reduction grants in Toronto from Ford’s proposed funding cuts. We have been working to raise the profile of the need for re-politicizing the HIV response, as the response has mostly NGOized. Using creative methods, we are reimagining responses to this epidemic. Our POSTER/virus project took the messaging of HIV away from a public health model and, in collaboration with artists, put it in the hands of people living with and most affected by HIV. You can check out the POSTER/virus project at http://aanposter-virus-2011.tumblr.com/
These amendments are incredibly regressive. In New Zealand, where youth crime is now addressed through a community restorative justice practice called family group conferencing, the recidivism (or re-offending) rate is much lower than it was when youth were placed into custody. And, once someone has entered the criminal justice system, it is very difficult for them to get out. Most people in adult jails have spent time in juvenile detention. In implementing this “tough on crime” agenda, the Conservative government has paved the way for greater numbers of people in prison, for longer periods of time. In spite of this, the recent federal budget included plans to cut $295 million from the federal correctional budget by 20151, in line with the Conservatives’ other main focus: austerity. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews also recently stated that the government will not be building any new prisons2; however, this is somewhat disingenuous considering 2700 new units are being built into existing prisons. While this may seem contradictory, it actually makes sense when we consider that one of the biggest lobby groups behind Bill C-10 was Geo Group3- a company that has built private prisons in the US, UK, Australia and South Africa. It would appear that the Canadian government is setting the stage for overcrowded, unmanageable prisons so they can then argue that private corporations are better suited to manage our incarceration needs. So what can be done to fight the Safe Streets and Communities Act, and the prison industrial complex in general? Encourage lawyers to take on cases for free for those who have been charged under the new legislation, or to start constitutional challenges to try to overturn some of the amendments in Bill C-10. Do your own research about the prison system in Canada and the government’s crime agenda, and share what you learn with others. Fight misinformation about prison expansion in the media, write comments or letters to the editor. Vote in the next election. If you know someone who has a loved one in prison, offer your support. Consider writing to a prisoner, volunteering for a prisoners’ rights organization or tapping into existing networks and coalitions that are organizing around prison issues. While the Conservative government may have no interest in the damage they are causing through this legislation, we must continue to push, fight back, and stand in solidarity with prisoners, their families and communities. Punitive and lengthy incarceration hurts us all.
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4) Why did AIDS organizing become so central to radical queer struggle throughout its history, and do you think it still plays the same role today? Tim: AIDS seemed a challenge to the physical existence of the gay community at time when institutional homophobia was unremarkable and acceptable. Despair led to anger when there was a glimmer of hope with the development of AZT in 1986. We realized we were dying of neglect, not a natural catastrophe. Everybody was desperate, but with the development of treatment predictable disparities around access to health care reasserted themselves. The emergence of radical queer struggle in the 1990s reflected the growing class disparities in pre crisis neo-liberal capitalism which produced a sensibility similar to that of ACTUP style activism. AIDS activism drew from that cultural space in the 1990s, but AIDS is not connected with sexual orientation or identity. The most radical AIDS organizing now takes place in South Africa and draws from the culture of anti-apartheid activism that preceded it. Alex: AIDS organizing has always been about a fight for survival of the most marginalized in society. Although our movement has learned a lot from the feminist and gay liberation movements, we are not well connected to queer movements anymore. The mainstream LGBT movement de-AIDSed itself long ago, favouring causes focused on identity politics or garnering public recognition and symbolic acceptance. While I have a lot of affinity with queer movements, I am often disappointed by the lack of engagement and support from other queers in our work. Over time there has been an erasure of the impacts of AIDS on queer and LGBT communities. HIV itself is still highly stigmatized and as a result is easily made invisible, so many people are not aware of how present HIV still is for queer folks. Interestingly, the most active and powerful AIDS activist organizations in North America today are in New York - such as VOCAL NY, who are driven by communities of colour and people who are current or former drug users, and who face mass incarceration and criminalization on a daily basis. These folks are bringing back the sense of power, urgency and radicalism that had been lost within AIDS organizing for many years.
Lindsay Hart is the Programming & Volunteer Coordinator at OPIRG-Toronto.
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Joan Ruzsa is an abolitionist who does public education about alternatives to prison, as well as providing support and advocacy for prisoners and ex-prisoners through her work at Rittenhouse and PASAN. Annika Ollner does HIV- and hepatitis C-related work with federal prisoners at PASAN, a community-based prisoners’ rights and AIDS Service Organization. 1http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/03/29/canada-budget-2012-highlightscuts n 1384089.html 2http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/12/prison-population-not-increasingdespite-tories-tough-on-crime-laws-vic-toews/ 3http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/19/private-prison-companiescanada-lawsuits
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THE QUEBEC SQUARE STUDENT STRIKE
RED WILDFIRE Gretchen King
H
ow did the Quebec student movement cultivate the largest push back in Canada against neoliberalism? With the goal of reviewing the beginnings of the ongoing student strike in Quebec, this article aims to highlight some successes that strengthened the movement, helping expand the protests from merely fighting proposed tuition hikes to opposing the neoliberal agenda of the ruling Parti Liberal du Quebec (PLQ). Six Months Ago By the time we found out Francis Grenier had lost an eye (the first of two student strikers to lose an eye during police violence), we were in the midst of a strike vote at the annual general meeting of the Post-Graduate Student Society (PGSS) at McGill University. From inside the Thomson House perched on the side of Mount Royal, we could hear the Montreal police helicopter buzzing above the demonstrators. The debate continued on the impacts of the proposed tuition hike on low-income students and those from marginalized communities, questioning whether education is a commodity or a public good under attack. The AGM of the PGSS voted nearly unanimously that night for its first three-day strike, and the same evening, the largest general assembly ever held by the Concordia Student Union (CSU) approved an unlimited general strike. The Anglophone universities were making history alongside other Quebec students in university or CEGEP (college) who had already voted by the tens of thousands to go on strike. This was March 7, 2012 – the end of winter and the beginning of a spring that Quebec, and hopefully the rest of Canada, will never forget. Students Did Their Homework In Quebec, student strikes have fundamentally shaped the public education system. Prior to the student strike in 1968, there was little secular university-level education offered in French in Quebec. Students in the current movement are also
building on the lessons learned from recent strikes in 2005 and 2007. The current strike has been growing since the hikes were announced in March 2011 by Finance Minister Raymond Bachand. Students immediately produced their own research on the potential impact of the hikes and circulated tens of thousands of booklets detailing the results in French and English on campuses across the province (see “Do We Really Need to Raise Tuition Fees?”). Other groups prepared guides such as “Why Should We Strike? 23 Answers for Students” (Free Education Montreal) and the Simone de Beauvoir Institute issued their own report on the tuition increases. While some student associations have mobilized to maintain the status quo and simply stop the proposed tuition increase, the greatest proportion of students on strike are demanding free education. For these strikers and their supporters, an educated society is the best solution for the current economic and environmental crises. Momentum from the Grassroots The initial strike votes drew historic numbers on most campuses, and where associations did not exist, students organized to hold general assemblies. The coalition built by the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (ASSE – one of four Quebec-wide student federations) or CLASSE grew to represent the largest portion of students on strike. The momentum of this mobilization is a direct result of the coalition’s democratic principles that invite delegates, rather than representatives, to participate in assemblies. During this time, students also presented motions in their local assemblies calling for solidarity at the negotiation table, non-recommendation (i.e. giving members the right to vote on any government offer), and non-denunciation (i.e. among student associations). This push from the bottom for a united front and direct democracy has reaped political power for the student strike in Quebec.
Deploying Creative Tactics Many of the actions, picket lines, and demonstrations are not organized top down. Rather, a plethora of affinity groups and networks deploy a diversity of tactics, including “action surprise” (non-violent direct actions often with the goal of economic disruption), “maNUfestation” (demonstrating in the nude), and nightly marches winding through the downtown core. Wielding Twitter, Facebook, newspapers/blogs, radio reports, and live video streamed by CUTV (Concordia University Television), student strikers engage multiple platforms to amplify their message. Students also built several collective workshops for producing art for the mobilization and used creation nights across the city to tap into the creative pulse of the movement. Targeting Charest and Neoliberalism When 300,000 students across the province mobilized a oneday strike last November, Premier Jean Charest declared he would not back down on the hikes. When the numbers of students on unlimited general strike climbed into the hundreds of thousands and nearly quarter of a million protestors took to the streets of Montreal on March 22nd, the Minister of Education Line Beauchamp said she would not negotiate. Daily economic disruption followed the week after, and finally the government was ready to talk. By this time, students were already preparing for a general strike, or grève sociale. Focusing on the neoliberal agenda of the Charest government, students strikers called for a Quebec Spring, or Printemps Érable. The student
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“When thousands of student and nonstudent demonstrators showed up to protest the PLQ Convention in Victoriaville, the opposition to Charest’s neoliberal agenda was clear.” movement was widening its target and found allies among labour, anti-poverty, and environmental movements. The disruption of Salon Plan Nord, which aimed to promote Charest’s latest extraction project targeting northern Quebec, was followed by the largest Earth Day demonstration in Canadian history, both actions exposing the environmental, social, and economic exploitation being waged by Charest and his corporate cronies. When thousands of student and non-student demonstrators showed up to protest the PLQ Convention in Victoriaville, the opposition to Charest’s neoliberal agenda was clear. This opposition is now echoed in the pots-and-pans demonstrations, called casseroles, that are spreading across Canada. In Montreal, neighbourhood assemblies are joining the student struggle against Charest, using the momentum of the strike to spark local mobilizations against other austerity measures, including newly imposed healthcare user fees and increasing electricity costs. The preparation before the strike built a solid platform on which to grow this movement and these are only some of the successes thus far. After nearly six months of protests, the number of arrests has exceeded 3,000 – a historic number for Quebec and Canada that is still growing. Most of the arrested are facing criminal charges and heavy-handed conditions, such as curfews and being barred from assemblies deemed unlawful. Students and their allies are preparing to continue the strike mandate, even with the criminalization of dissent. The draconian measures imposed by Bill 78 include high fines for association with picket lines, mandates that police be notified in advance of protests of more than 50 people, and bans on any demonstration within 50 meters of any campus. The climate of repression and the accompanying summer vacation season has not deterred demonstrators. Indeed, tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Quebec on the 22nd of July and again on August 22nd, and will continue to do so until the hike is canceled and the PLQ is defeated. For many it is clear that this strike will likely be renewed, and while we wait for elections to know the fate of the PLQ, most of us are hoping the red square revolution in Quebec will spread like wildfire. Gretchen King – PhD student on strike at McGill University, mom of two young protesters (3 and 6 years old), and a professor in Concordia University’s School of Community and Public Affairs (which has also been on strike). For more information on the Red Square, the symbol of the Quebec student strike movement since 2005, check out: http://freeeducationmontreal.org/so-what-does-red-squaremean/
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LAND IN THEIR HANDS: THE STRUGGLE OF
KI NATION
Maryam Adrangi
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magine your land and water is threatened by a mining company. They threaten to dig up the place where your ancestors are buried and take the land you hunt and fish on to survive. The company plans to drill into the land and sell what they find. Would you let them? This is a reality Indigenous people have faced for hundreds of years. The stealing of indigenous lands for the use of settlers is nothing new, but today mining and other extractive industries are taking land without consultation or consent from the people who live there. The racist underpinnings of Canada’s history continue today, where the lives of people of colour and Indigenous people are seen as dispensable and their land is so easily taken and destroyed, allowing the slow genocide of entire cultures and communities. The fly-in Oji-Cree community of Kitchenehmaykoosib Inninuwig (KI) found themselves in this position, for the second time, in 2011. Their first “victory” was against Platinex, a mining company which was paid $5 million dollars plus court fees by the province to agree to leave the territory in 2009. Joined by Toronto supporters, KI ran letter-writing and petition campaigns, and held a sleep-over in Queen’s Park. The KI community also led a blockade which eventually stopped mineral exploration, but led to the imprisonment of the chief and 5 other community members for 6 months. After Platinex left the territory, KI instituted by referendum a Water Declaration and Consultation Protocol on July 5, 2011. It was brought into force as Indigenous law through a Band Council resolution along with a spiritual ceremony and blessing of the results. The Declaration protects 13,025km2 of boreal rivers, lakes, forests, and wetlands and enacts KI authority over logging, mining and other
external development actions. The Declaration also calls for supporters to pressure the Ontario government to respect the declaration. In late 2011, it became public that God’s Lake Resources Inc. (GLR), a small Toronto-based mining firm, was granted license to drill on KI sacred burial grounds. KI initiated a campaign against this new intrusive company, hoping to push the company out while keeping community members out of jail. A group coalesced, Toronto KI Support, that helped coordinate days of action to pressure Ontario to force GLR to stop operations and respect the Water Declaration and Consultation Protocol. In the lead up to the annual Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) Convention in Toronto, KI and their supporters organized a rally. Unbeknownst to KI, the province announced that 23,000 km2 of KI homeland would be off-limits to mining. While a success in some regards, the fact that the government felt it was their land to deem off-limits and not KI’s land undermines traditional governance. Soon after, Ontario announced that it would buy out GLR’s claims to KI territory for $3.5 million dollars. This siphoning of public funds into private companies indicates corporate influence over provincial operations. Ontario believes it can determine what land can and should be leased; thus they could also take any of these inappropriate leases away. Instead of acknowledging its oversight in leasing KI’s land and ordering the company to leave without compensation, the government has shown its true priorities. The government has manufactured an economic crisis filled with drastic social spending cuts, while brokering relationships with corporate elites and their political cronies. While communities are fighting an austerity agenda filled with cuts to social services, the extractive industries are subsidized by the government. It is clear who benefits from this agenda. This partial victory resulted from the efforts of KI Nation to take responsibility for the future of their resources. The fight continues, as KI lands are not yet off-limits to mining, and the watershed is still under threat. Until the Province acknowledges KI’s self-governance and grants stewardship and responsibility of the land to the KI community, their land will continue to be exploited. Supporters know the land remains threatened. Solidarity with Indigenous land defense continues to grow, particularly when we see that indigenous communities and supporters are fighting back against colonial processes through land claim and defense struggles. Government and corporations act with complete disregard for First Nations’ ability to manage their resources and communities. In order to respect indigenous communities, governments founded on hundreds of years of colonial expansion will need to change their paternalistic behaviour and stop deciding what Indigenous communities need. Imagine that communities didn’t just let these things happen— that all communities would fight public service cuts like those to health clinics and education that often result in user fee hikes like we see now with tuition fees. Imagine communities that would say “no” to environmental injustice. If governments can imagine that they have the power over other people’s land, the rest of us should imagine sovereignty over our lives, land, and livelihoods. We should be able to imagine the power of communities, and with that—we can make it happen.
Maryam Adrangi is a researcher, writer, and organizer involved in struggles for environmental justice, Indigenous sovereignty and anti-war. She is an anti-capitalist who believes in you.
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CELEBRATING THE PROTECTED PLACE: KAHNONSTATON AND THE APRIL 28TH COALITION Kalin Stacey
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n April 28th, 2012, over half a dozen buses of activists, unionists, and supporters of native rights arrived in Edinburgh Square, Caledonia, where both residents and those from the neighbouring community of Six Nations were gathered. After a thanksgiving prayer spoken in Kanienke:ha (Mohawk), the assembled – who now numbered nearly a thousand – flowed onto the streets, carrying with them a billowing 75-foot Two Row Wampum banner, the symbol of an ancient treaty representing relations of peaceful coexistence and non-interference between Settlers and the Haudenosaunee Six Nations Confederacy. Despite jeers from onlookers and a failed attempt to blockade the walk, the walkers proceeded through the town peacefully and festively until they arrived at Kahnonstaton, the Protected Place. Front-line land defenders from Six Nations greeted them with joy and tears, awed by the power of the march and the message of peace, respect and friendship it brought to a conflict that had raged since the winter of 2006. In February 2006, development on contested lands led activists from Six Nations to set up a permanent reclamation on the Douglas Creek Estates, which was renamed Kahnonstaton. The reclamation sparked one of the most heated and widely publicized conflicts between natives and settlers in recent history, lasting for months into the summer of 2006. This was marked by demonstrations, highway blockades, angry white mobs threatening violence, and even an organized anti-native militia based in Caledonia. Eventually, in an effort to subdue the open conflict and Six Nations uprising, the province “bought” the DCE property from Henco Industries and allowed the activists to stay. When the federal government began to negotiate with Six Nations and the blockades came down, the conflict subsided and peace was ostensibly restored.
However, it wouldn’t take long for the government to lose interest in negotiations and for the conflict to begin again. The neighbouring town of Caledonia became the site of recurring anti-native rallies organized by CANACE (Canadian Advocates for Charter Equality) and led by white-supremacist agitator Gary McHale, who repeatedly called for increased police violence against indigenous activists. While clearly unpopular, these rallies have been silently tolerated by Caledonians, and have had broader impacts, including further criminalization of Six Nations activists. Throughout this period, non-native activists began forming relationships of solidarity across cities and movements to support the reclamation. The Six Nations Solidarity Network was formed, which organized the August 2008 Peace and Friendship Gathering, as well as ongoing anti-racist work against McHale and his cohorts. However, due to G20-related waves of criminalization and the resulting restrictive bail conditions for many Network members, organizing was eventually diminished to largely reactive measures. Following a series of events in the winter of 2012, such as a CANACE rally that resulted in charges laid against several land defenders, as well as an attempted suicide attack by a Caledonian youth who drove a truck into the reclaimed house, activists were driven to reorganize themselves into the April 28th Coalition. Through the Coalition, solidarity organizers hoped to refuel their initiative with a larger show of support for a meaningful resolution to the conflict and Six Nations’ longstanding grievances. The April 28th event was envisioned collaboratively between Haudenoasunee land defenders and solidarity activists as a celebration of unity and a demonstration of how significantly regional support for land rights outweighed local support for “white rights.” CONTINUED ON PAGE 13 >>>
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STEPS TO VICTORY THE TORONTO BUDGET CUTS AND THE NEED FOR STRATEGIC PLANNING IN ACTIVIST CAMPAIGNS Yutaka Dirks
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s activists, we often forgo strategic thinking in favour of planning immediate responses to injustice. However, in the absence of coherent strategy, victories may be hard to come by. The best way to build a campaign strategy is by clearly defining what a victory will look like and planning a path to get there. Many campaigns are built around complex and long-term aspirations, which can only be achieved through smaller steps and definable goals. If we can win these short-term goals, we can build the strength of our movement and shift the balance of power, bringing us closer to our larger aims. When the Ford administration put forward a budget that included serious cuts to social programs, the movement against austerity in Toronto found it easy to identify a strategic goal: to force city council to approve a budget without any cuts. Once goals for a campaign have been set, strategic targets must be identified: who has the institutional authority to give us what we want? To reach the goal of a budget with no cuts, Toronto activists needed to ensure that 23 councillors – half of council, plus one – voted against the proposed cuts. Defining your target is essential in any campaign. For example, environmentalists seeking to stop clear cuts can target the logging company president, or a government official who has the power to enforce a ban on logging. When we plan campaigns, we need to identify both existing and potential allies to mobilize and radicalize. We also need to prevent people from moving right towards our opponents. By identifying where groups in our community fit on the spectrum of allies and opponents, we can plan specific educational activities or actions to move them to the left. We do not need to convince every group to join us; often a slight shift in support is enough to tip the balance. We also must consider our opponents and how we can isolate them from popular support. Using the example of the budget cuts campaign, some community activists researched the 44 councillors’ voting habits and public positions, and placed them along this spectrum. They did not bother with actions specifically targeting Ford or his allies, except to shame or isolate them – and put little effort in reassuring councillors who were already vocally opposed to the cuts. Instead, they focused their energies on pressuring those councillors in the middle: who were undecided, not actively opposed or supportive of the cuts.
Once a target has been identified, strategic approaches should be developed that are suited to the task of pressuring those people to concede to the demands. Not all targets are vulnerable in the same way; identify each target’s weakest point(s) and plan your actions accordingly. City councillors are vulnerable to a withdrawal of support from their constituents or those that fund their campaigns. Activists had to determine where each councillor got their support, and then ask if they could turn these supporters into allies, or target their supporters to put pressure on the councillors. Corporations or businesses are threatened most by a loss of profits so strikes and boycotts may be effective. If your campaign began with a march and rally, and you can’t double or triple your numbers, try something completely different; nothing rattles a target more than something outside their experience. To force our targets to concede to our demands, they need to feel increasing pressure from our actions. In the final Budget vote, 23 councillors voted against most of Ford’s proposed cuts. Activists should acknowledge this as a partial victory: public services workers continue to be threatened and social housing is being sold off. The fact remains that people were successful in pressuring councillors who formerly supported the Mayor to abandon his agenda. Interestingly, while activists marched through the streets under anti-Ford banners, it seems that it may have been phone calls and visits by Torontonians living outside the downtown core that swayed the vote of councillors in the ‘middle’. Rookie councillor Josh Colle, who put forward the omnibus motion that reversed the cuts said, “I just think what I was doing was listening to what I was hearing from constituents.” Often our activism attempts to build campaigns that are harder for our neighbours to relate to: the tar sands in Alberta or the situation in Gaza may not affect as many people in Toronto as directly as will library closures. We can still build campaigns that stand a real chance at victory. We should remember the importance of strategic planning: developing clear and winnable goals, identifying the targets who can give you what you want, finding their weaknesses, isolating your opponents and developing specific action plans to shift the spectrum of allies. Yutaka Dirks has been active in social justice campaigns for the last 15 years in both Calgary and Toronto. He is a tenant organizer and a member of the Movement Defence Committee.
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GUN STORY
KANONSTATON
appeal to a state entity that is wholly complicit in the oppressive policies and practices that puts them in contact with the state to begin with. Resistance to state violence is as old as the colonial history that birthed it. Just as Black and Latino groups like the Black Panthers and the Brown Berets fought state violence through policing the police, holding breakfast programs, and hosting reading cells, today our communities continue to resist in ways that preserve our dignity and undermine the racist narratives of a capitalist society. We see this in the work of Justice for Alwy, a collective of youth which came together following the brutal death of 18 year-old Alwy on Halloween five years ago. What is most important about their work is that they begin a dialogue on unlearning systems of thought that pathologize and dehumanize people of colour. Resistance tears down dominant discourses that construct racialized people as prone to criminal activities. Every time there is a community gathering, a teach- in, a celebration – we resist and contradict these prevailing images of our communities. We offer a way of seeing ourselves that is deeply rooted in dignity and in love. The question of whether justice is being served is not one that can be answered through a racist, colonizing state. Rather, it is answered in the spaces we reclaim as our own. Simone Akyianu is a mother, sister, aunt, daughter and is driven by a reckless revolutionary spirit. Juan Carlos Jimenez is a Toronto based community organizer studying equity studies and political science at the University of Toronto.
Despite dire predictions from both the Mayor of Haldimand County and the Council Chief of Six Nations, the event’s successes are undeniable. Nearly a thousand native and non-native people participated in a walk that remained entirely peaceful in a powder-keg environment. Moreover, for the first time in recent history, Caledonians were welcomed to organize and participate in the walk. The event demonstrated that the message of peace and respect, underscored by a desire for a just resolution, has begun to resonate with townspeople sick of hostility. The April 28 event represented a new phase of bridge-building. For instance, connections established between residents of Dundalk, ON, and Six Nations in April have blossomed into an unprecedented alliance to protect the land from a toxic sludge facility being planted on the headwaters that flow into the Grand River and downstream, through the reserve, to Lake Erie. This collaboration between Haudenoasaunee land protectors and non-natives, conducted through the Two Row Wampum framework, has enormous potential to transform dynamics of white retaliation to native resistance in the Haldimand Tract. Opportunities for increased public education and intervention by solidarity activists continue to develop along the Grand River and in cities like Toronto and Hamilton. It remains to be seen whether the Coalition will continue in its current form, or transform once again. The effectiveness of the Coalition’s new approach of bringing settlers and Haudenosaunee together to work towards common goals shows that there are multiple ways to successfully navigate such relationships. Whatever form “solidarity” looks like moving forward, native and non-native members alike hope to build a movement that can pressure the government to finally account for its legacy of betrayal. Kalin Stacey is an indigenous solidarity activist based in Kitchener-Waterloo (in the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory) and currently organizes with Grand River Indigenous Solidarity and Barriere Lake Solidarity
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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 2012-2013.
ART FOR JUSTICE Art For Justice aims to bring a radical and progressive approach to art-making within student and community organizing. We utilize different sorts of art not only to provide materials for movements, but also as a movement itself. This action group initially started at OPIRG-York, where we held various radical art-making workshops such as silk-screening, rebel film camp, and a graphic design workshop series in collaboration with Radical Design School. Our goals are to share skills and resources by organizing accessible arts-based workshops for students and community members and to work in collaboration with other OPIRG working groups and student/community organizations that mobilize for social/environmental justice.
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.
CLIMATE JUSTICE COLLECTIVE The Climate Justice Collective (CJC) is an anti-capitalist, anti-colonial organization in the GTA that works within an anti-oppression framework. We believe that environmental justice is inextricably linked with struggles for social justice, human rights, and the rights of Mother Earth. Working towards climate justice necessarily means working to dismantle all forms of oppression. We aim to work with and take direction from those most impacted by extractive industries. CJC will focus on producing research and educational materials on environmental justice issues like Enbridge’s Line 9, tar sands, and environmental racism in Ontario. We will strive to connect local movements
and build campaigns. We will also work to provide skill-building opportunities on campus and in the broader community through workshops on topics like anti-oppression, environmental justice, and non-violent direct action. We welcome new folks into the organization and share and build on each other’s experiences.
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 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. To get involved, contact damn2025@gmail.com.
FILIPINO CANADIAN YOUTH ALLIANCE UKPC/FCYA-ON (Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance/Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada—Ontario) is a progressive youth and student’s organization that is committed to educating, organizing and mobilizing Filipino Canadian youth as a transformative and dynamic force that will nurture the new path towards the Filipino Canadian community’s just and genuine settlement and integration in Canadian society. We move to address our issues towards our community’s empowerment and genuine development through community mobilizations, research projects, public policy engagement, art and cultural productions and more. Contact us at ukpc-on@magkaisacentre.org.
JUST RIGHTS RADIO Just Rights Radio is a new show broadcasting on CIUT 89.5fm every Saturday morning at 8:00am. We are committed to bringing issues of social justice to the forefront of ongoing and topical conversations in a way that highlights the work of those social actors that are most connected and invested. Our mission is to inform our listeners on issues of equity, add depth to mainstream conversations, and promote a social justice agenda by drawing connections between broader social issues and local contexts. JRR will also be hosting a series of workshops on topics such as the use of equitable language, media literacy, audio editing, and interviewing skills.
LATIN AMERICAN & CARIBBEAN SOLIDARITY NETWORK The Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Network (LACSN), is a non-profit, autonomous, democratic organization that coordinates and supports the work of 13 local organizations. The goal of these organizations is to carry out community based work that leads to long-term societal and economic change in our communities. Our Network confronts, and proposes alternatives to the social, environmental and economic model proposed by neo-liberalism. We focus on challenging the capitalist paradigm. LACSN bases its work on the following principles: anti-imperialism, economic and environmental justice, defense of the environment and a rejection of discriminatory practices.
MINING INJUSTICE SOLIDARITY NETWORK Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (MISN), previously known as Community Solidarity Response Toronto (CSRT), bring the voices and experiences of communities impacted by Canadian extractive 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 accountability in this sector. 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.
PLATYPUS TORONTO
The Platypus Affiliated Society organizes reading groups, public fora, research and journalism focused on problems and tasks inherited from the “Old” (1920s-30s), “New” (1960s-70s) and post-political (1980s-90s) Left for the possibilities of emancipatory politics today. It strives to bring together in debate different perspectives on the Left for the purpose of open political inquiry for all students and members of the University of Toronto community, inclusive of all races, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientations, gender identities and class status.
QUEERIOT TORONTO
Queeriot is an autonomous collective of queer identified radicals in Toronto committed to injecting anti-capitalist political ideology into queer community organizing, as well as ‘queering’ spaces in the city. We fight the “pinkwashing” of the police, the state and the corporations and will not be co-opted or assimilated into heteronormative patriarchal racist systems of exploitation and consumerism. We work to bridge the gaps between sexual liberation and queer struggles with anti-racist, feminist, and disability justice organizing, and see all forms of oppression as interconnected. Contact: queeriotTO@gmail.com
R3: ROOTS RHYTHMS RESISTANCE R3: (Roots Rhythms Resistance) is an artists’ collective recovering indigenous roots and resisting colonial oppression through music, dance, visual art and theatre for and by marginalized peoples, with a particular focus on Queer Indigenous and Queer communities of colour. We use the arts to raise awareness, energy and funds for decolonization work that heals and rebuilds our communities and culture. The R3 collective focuses on Resistance to colonial oppression, the attainment of Reparations for colonized peoples, and the
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Reclamation of Indigenous world views and life ways. Our art is created with the hope of fostering a dialogue that reaches across diverse communities, and promotes anti-oppressive education and expression! We always welcome new members who would like to work with us towards our goals; as well as partnerships with groups who have related visions!
REVOLUTIONARY STUDENT MOVEMENT The RSM aims to promote a revolutionary communist politics among students and youth in Toronto’s high schools and post-secondary institutions. We try to understand racism, sexism, colonialism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and all other forms of oppression through their foundations in the material conditions of capitalist society. To strike these oppressions at their root and demand liberation, we believe revolution is necessary. To that end, this year we invite you to join us in the struggle to mobilize Toronto’s high school students to understand and address issues that are affecting working class youth. We will host events and “communist night schools” (because we’re all still learning about this stuff) along the way so please get in touch with us if you are interested or have any questions! revolutionarystudentsTO@gmail.com and http://rsmtoronto.wordpress.com/
STUDENTS AGAINST ISRAELI APARTHEID Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) is a non-hierarchical organization committed to supporting Palestinian Civil Society’s call for Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) until Israel ends its occupation and colonization of Arab lands, dismantles the wall, gives full and equal rights to Arab-Palestinians within Israel and respects the right of return for all Palestinian refugees. To work towards these goals, SAIA organizes actions and educational events on campus throughout the year, including the annual international conferences Week Against the Wall and Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). Moreover, SAIA continues to challenge the University of Toronto’s complicity with Israeli violations of international law, and therefore, demands that the university divests its stock in BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, Hewlett Packard and Lockheed Martin, four companies that are implicated in war crimes and violations of Palestinian human rights.
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. To start an action group at OPIRG-Toronto, get in touch with us at opirg.toronto@gmail.com and check out www.opirgtoronto.org for more information.
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SPACES ON AND AROUND CAMPUS
ACTIVIST NETWORKS AND ORGANIZATIONS
519 Community Centre A Different Booklist Centre for Social Justice Centre for Women and Trans People at U of T Grassroots Youth Collaborative Native Canadian Centre of Toronto Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/ Multicultural Women Against Rape
LOCAL
www.the519.org www.adifferentbooklist.com www.socialjustice.org womenscentre.sa.utoronto.ca www.grassrootsyouth.ca www.ncct.on.ca www.trccmwar.ca
NEWS AND ANALYSIS LOCAL BASICS Newsletter Toronto basicsnews.ca New Socialist www.newsocialist.org Ryerson Free Press www.ryersonfreepress.ca subMedia.tv submedia.tv The Africana www.the-africana.com Toronto Media Co-op www.mediacoop.ca Upping the Anti: A Journal www.uppingtheanti.org of Theory and Action York University Free Press www.yufreepress.org
NATIONAL AND GLOBAL Al Jazeera Democracy Now! Independent Media Centre National Film Board of Canada Quebec Rabble.ca Socialist Project Tuition Truth Campaign Z Communications
www.aljazeera.com www.democracynow.org www.indymedia.org www.rouge.onf.ca www.rouge.onf.ca www.rabble.ca www.socialistproject.ca www.tuitiontruth.ca www.zcommunications.org
Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid www.caiaweb.org Fightback www.marxist.ca Jane & Finch Action Against Poverty www.jfaap.wordpress.com Lost Lyrics www.lostlyrics.ca Low Income Families www.lift.to Together (LIFT) No One is Illegal-Toronto toronto.nooneisillegal.org Ontario Coalition Against Poverty www.ocap.ca Queers Against www.queersagainstapartheid.org Israeli Apartheid Sikh Activist Network sikhactivist.net Toronto Stop the Cuts Network www.torontostopthecuts.com Toronto Worker’s Assembly www.workersassembly.ca OPIRG-York www.opirgyork.ca
NATIONAL AND GLOBAL Assaulted Women’s Helpline www.awhl.org AW@L peaceculture.org 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 Justice for www.justicia4migrantworkers.org Migrant Workers Native Youth Sexual Health Network www.nativeyouthsexualhealth.com
QUEBEC STRIKE SUPPORT RESOURCES Coalition Large de l’Association pour une www.stopthehike.ca Solidarite Syndicale Etudiante (CLASSE) Concordia Mobsquad www.concordiastudents.ca Free Education Montreal freeeducationmontreal.org Translating the Printemps Erable www.quebecprotest.com
HELP OPIRG CELEBRATE 30 YEARS!
2012 is OPIRG’s 30th Anniversary! We’re celebrating with a full year of research, education, and action for social and environmental justice. OPIRG provides students, workers and members of the University of Toronto and surrounding community with opportunities to develop skills and analysis for effective advocacy against injustice and oppression.
DISRUPTION! ANNIVERSARY PARTY DECADES OF RESISTANCE, DECADES MORE TO COME Friday September 28th, 2012
REBUILDING BRIDGES OPIRG TORONTO/OPIRG YORK ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE November 16-18th, 2012
DOORS 8 PM, MUSIC 10 PM United Steelworkers Hall, 25 Cecil Street Suggested Donation: $5
Rebuilding Bridges is a convergence of community organizers, educators, radicals and activists from across different social movements, intent on engaging in conversations and discussions about our political work.
In celebration of over 30 years of student and community organizing, OPIRG-Toronto, OPIRG- York & the We are in a time of intense uprising, social unrest and York Graduate Student’s Association invite you to join student strikes, but our movements remain fragmented us for a night of art, music, food and drinks. and our campaigns mostly one-dimensional. Let’s share and speak to each other! Featuring performances by Progress, LAL, Maiko Watson and Wolf J, video testimonials, speeches and Get in touch with us! anniversary swag! rebuildingbridgestoronto@gmail.com Come by the office! Please contact OPIRG for more information about our events and projects.
Ontario Public Interest Research Group- Toronto
563 Spadina Cres. Suite 101 • 416-978-7770 • www.opirgtoronto.org • opirg.toronto@gmail.com
dis/Orientation 2011 September 17 to September 21
THE CITY IS A BATTLEGROUND Austerity. What is it? What does it mean for our communities? How can we resist it? It isn’t always easy to understand it as a concept, but we know what it looks like on the ground. Attacks on public sector workers and cuts to social services have been on the rise in Toronto and abroad. This is only the beginning. The local cutbacks are only a small part of a larger agenda. This fight against austerity also resists the same exploitative system that keeps particular communities and people poor, and works to end a system built on a continuing history of white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and the colonization of indigenous people. A brutal era of austerity is already being felt, but so too is the resistance to it. There are the striking students in Quebec and local organizing against city cuts. Communities are refusing to pay for an economic crisis they didn’t create, and students are an crucial part of this fight! Join the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (www.opirgtoronto.com) and the University of Toronto Students Union (www. utsu.ca) for a week of discussion, debate and direct action!
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS MON SEPT 17
12-2 PM: Exploring the Austerity Agenda With the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty 4-6 PM: Demystifying the University With Students For Barrier Free Access, UNITE HERE, Mining Injustice Solidarity Network & The Africana
TUES SEPT 18
All Disorientation 2012 events are free and wheelchair accessible.
WED SEPT 19
12-3 PM: Art Attack & Bloc Party With Quentin Vercetty and Art for Justice Performances by Test their logik and R3: Roots, Rhythms, Resistance 4-6 PM: This is Not a Trans 101 Workshop With the Centre for Women & Trans People and Revolutionary Student Movement
12- 2 PM : Resisting Mentalism: Becoming 6-8 PM: No Time for Pipelines an Ally to Mad People with Climate Justice Collective With Mad Students society 3-5 PM: Neighbourhood Watch Toronto: Resisting Police Brutality & the Prison System With Justice is Not Colour Blind and the Prisoner’s HIV/AIDS Support Action Network 6-8 PM: Who’s Afraid of an AntiCapitalist student movement With CLASSE, CFS & Fight Back 6-10 PM: Organizing Marches and Rallies With Tools for Change and No One is Illegal
THURS SEPT 20
11-1 PM: Our Home on Native Land: Building Indigenous Solidarity 2-4 PM: Is a Love Ting: Recovering our Integrity as people workshop With D’bi Young
FRI SEPT 21
11-1 PM: Get in Gear: Bike Repair Workshop With Bike Chain 2-4 PM: Queer Resistance and Pinkwashing Workshop
FRI SEPT 28
9 PM- 2 AM: Disruption! Anniversary Party Presented by OPIRG-Toronto, OPIRG-York and the York Graduate Student’s Association Performances by Progress, LAL, Maiko Watson and Wolf J
WED OCT 3
2-4 PM: The University is Ours! Presented by OPIRG-Toronto and the University of Toronto Mississauga’s Student Union
All locations to be announced. For more 7-9 PM: We the People, We the Planet information please visit our website. For Keynote Talk & Performance by D’bi Young inquiries about accessibility and childcare e-mail disotoronto@gmail.com * ASL Interpretation provided*
disorientation2012.org
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