ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER OPIRG TORONTO’S FIELD MANUAL FOR THOSE WHO’VE HAD ENOUGH FALL 2014
“We can’t have education without revolution. We have tried peace education for 1,900 years and it has failed. Let us try revolution and see what it will do now.” - Helen Keller
DEFIANT SPACES
ADD IT UP Debt incurred by Montreal to host it’s 1976 Olympics: $1.6 billion Number of years it took Montreal to pay off this debt: 30 Initial cost estimates provided to justify the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver: $600 million Initial cost estimates provided for security at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver: $175 million Actual security expenses incurred during the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver: $1 billion Actual cost of hosting the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver: $6 billion Average cost overshoot for Olympics games over the last 50 years: 179% Cost incurred by Brazil while hosting the 2014 FIFA World Cup: $13.3 billion Current projected costs of hosting the 2015 Pan Am games in Ontario: $2.5 billion Current projected costs for the construction of the Athelete’s Village for the 2015 Pan Am games in Toronto: $1.8 billion Approximate size of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Athlete’s Village: 1 million sqare feet Projected size of the 2015 Pan Am Athlete’s Village in Toronto: 1.8 million square feet Current projected security expenditure for the 2015 Pan Am games in Ontario: $239 million Total amount of levies imposed by UofT Scarborough on students to cover cost of Pan Am Aquatics Centre: $30 million Number of Ontarians currently living in poverty: 1.7 million Number of Ontario familes currently on affordable housing waiting list: 158,500 Number of Ontarians waiting for hospital and long-term care beds: 30,000 Amount of money needed to address the repair backlog faced by the Toronto Community Housing Corporation: $862 million Annual income for a single individual considered to be at the poverty line in Ontario: $19,930 Annual income provided to a single individual on Ontario Works as of March 2014: $7,452 Annual income provided to a single individual on the Ontario Disability Support Program as of March 2014: $13,032
Sources: Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, CBC News, OCAP, Poverty Free Ontario, Canadian Business, Forbes.
THEN BREAK IT DOWN
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TABLE OF MALCONTENTS
ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER
FALL 2014 actionspeaksloudertoronto@gmail.com OPIRG-Toronto 101-563 Spadina Cres. Toronto, Ontario M5S 2J7
OPIRG-Toronto Board OPIRG-Toronto Staff
PRODUCTION ASL Collective
Sriram Ananth
EDITORIAL COLLECTIVE Yogi Acharya Fakiha Baig Zareen Din Brad Evoy Melody Lotfi Housam Silim
Mary Jean Hande Melody Lotfi Brad Evoy
CONTRIBUTORS Yogi Acharya Sriram Ananth Fakiha Baig Brad Evoy Mary Jean Hande Melody Lotfi OPIRG-Toronto Board DESIGN ASL Collective
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Fakiha Baig
The Public is Political
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Nurturing Campus Activism for Three Decades
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The Re-emergence of a Fascist Hindu Government in India
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Building Community Resistance for the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games
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Justice for all Workers: Migrant Workers Resistance to Canada’s Exploitative Temporary Foreign Worker Program
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Legal Clinic Mergers Meeting Resistance in the GTA
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Feminist Struggles Within the Arab Spring
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Action Group Listings
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Resources
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COVER Brad Evoy
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 Yogi Acharya Lindsay Hart 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 October to start work on our Winter 2015 edition. If you would rather just write for us, submit a pitch! The submission deadline for the Winter 2015 issue is Friday, October 17, 2014. 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 2015 issue on campus next January! 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 Crescent (just north of College).
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THE PUBLIC IS POLITICAL OPIRG-Toromto Board of Directors
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ogether, we have a long history of agitation and education on this campus and across the city, a history we cherish and continue to live actively at the Ontario Public Interest Research Group-Toronto (OPIRG-Toronto). Yet, while we look at the past, we turn our eyes to the future and to renewal. Within OPIRG, this means renewing our dual commitments to the campus and the community—serving as the radical bridge that joins peoples in struggle together. A renewal that includes being more present directly to you, reader, and a renewal that focuses on our capacity to build points of resistance in all spaces that we operate within, be it through our research or our support of action. More widely, though, this means a renewal of the public. Together, we must put our politics to the forefront and take back communal space in and for the public. As the University and other institutions in society hack themselves to pieces, handing chunks of public space and communal worth to corporations, we must stand for another way. As our environmental stability is shattered, with its pieces bought, packaged, and sold, we must fight back. As Aboriginal treaty rights and migrant justice are both disregarded by the colonialist State, we must provide fuel for resistance. But, this can only be accomplished through collective, open spaces to organize and dissent. The regressive forces which seek to inflict intersectional injuries upon our campus and in our communities are the very same that work day and night to dispossess us of these public spaces. Instead, they hand us circus spectacles, like that of Pan American Games to be held in Toronto in 2015. Games that will inevitably impact low-income communities in the city while stealing away resources and spaces on campus for the vanity projects of self-serving administrators. As we have learned from the well-documented impacts of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics or the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, it is always low-income and otherwise vulnerable communities that are trampled upon to create such grand spectacles. Some of the very constructs created for the games, such as that of the Back Campus Field Project, will be integrated
into other related vanity projects. These include the Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport—a centre built to memorialize the arch-capitalists of the Goldring Family such as Governing Council Chair Judy Goldring, who continues the family’s legacy within AGF Management Limited—a Canadian mutual fund and investment behemoth. While the vanity of administrative figures like Goldring is satiated, graduates continue to earn wages below the poverty line, undergraduates face ever-ballooning class sizes, faculty are undermined by precarious contractualization, and the surrounding community’s needs are pushed aside for gentrification and the voracious expansion of our three campuses. In the wider community, this trend towards the capitalist destruction of the public holds true as well. Just north of Toronto, Enbridge prepares to deface Turtle Island once more with its reversal of the Line 9 pipelines. Throughout the east end of downtown, Toronto Police Services unleashed the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS) to reinforce the targeted marginalization and harassment— through increased carding, searches, and arrests—of the homeless, sex trade workers, drug users, immigrants, indigenous people, and people of colour. In the heart of City Hall, Mayor Ford and Council continue to divert funds from and push cuts to needed city services, all while distracting with personal behaviour and political theatrics. In the end, all of these actions are being taken in ways that reduce or eliminate public spaces and the means for expressing dissent be they through the means of legal wrangling, state-driven violence, or the death-by-a-thousand-cuts of slow defunding. So then, if such spaces are not given, we must create or take them back for ourselves. This is why the Board is devoted to bringing back the University of Toronto General Assembly, so that we may build an alternative to the Goldring-led Governing Council that runs the University. This is why we are ready to support our campus labour unions, like the Teaching Assistants of Canadian Union of Public Employees 3902, as we enter the next round of collective bargaining within the University. This is also why we side with the summer blockades that are being held in resistance to the oil-driven destruction brought forth by the greed of Enbridge, so that the rights of First Nations peoples and the sanctity of the environment might be defended. In the coming year, OPIRG-Toronto is committed to increasing our focus on research, to connecting campus with the community, to fighting for public space, and to raising our collective, political voice. Most of all, remember: OPIRG is your PIRG. Together, through research, education, and action, we can resist and build a better university. Sincerely, Michelle Arley Abarca, Brad Evoy, Ahsan Moghul, Jenna Murrell, Housam Silim, Adam Woerlein
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NURTURING CAMPUS ACTIVISM FOR THREE DECADES
Yogi Acharya & Lindsay Hart, OPIRG-Toronto Staff
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ampus activity at the university may seem slow over the summer, but things here at OPIRG-Toronto have been anything but. We started the summer with a round of hiring. Baolinh Dang, our Coordinator of Administration and Finances, went on maternity leave and Lindsay Hart, the Coordinator of Programming and Volunteers, moved into Dang’s position. Yogi Acharya joined us as the new Coordinator of Programming and Volunteers along with Summer Program Coordinators Fakiha Baig and Mary Jean Hande. We have since been hard at work organizing the publication of this edition of Action Speaks Louder, piloting our exciting new Toronto Research and Action Community Exchange (TRACX) program, creating a vision for the year ahead with our newly elected board of directors, and are now putting those plans into practice through organizing DisOrientation Week, Tools for Change skills-building workshop series, and more. We are committed to bringing you another great year of programming that pushes the limits of our collective knowledge and creates spaces for you to get introduced to (or continue your engagement with) campus and community activism, meet new friends, and build alliances that will have lasting impacts. For over three decades OPIRG-Toronto, like other Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) across Canada, has been working diligently to build critical analysis and skills among students who yearn for social and environmental justice and who are willing to put their thoughts into action. Now in our 32nd year of nurturing campus activism, we are proud to be part of a growing student movement that recognizes the irreconcilable differences that exist between the current socio-economic order and our aspirations for a just society. As some of the articles in this issue of Action Speaks Louder demonstrate, attacks on ordinary people around the world are on the rise. Sriram Ananth talks about the reemergence of a hard right Hindu fundamentalist government in India led by a fascist known for his orchestration of a pogrom against Muslims. Melody Lotfi demonstrates through her interview with the Workers Action Centre (WAC) the deplorable nature of the Canadian immigration system that is designed to marginalize migrant workers and pit those with immigration status against those without. Meanwhile, Mary Jean Hande unmasks the monstrous social and economic costs that lurk behind the façade of the upcoming Pan American games in Toronto and helps us understand how these mega-sporting events guzzle public funds, privatize profit, and ravage poor and working
class neighbourhoods. Brad Evoy shows us the implementation of an austerity agenda on the local level, when he reports on the current attempt by Legal Aid Ontario to eliminate 17 neighbourhood-based legal clinics in the Greater Toronto Area used by poor and working people, and replace them with just five “mega clinics.” What seems clear is that as the age-old colonial pursuit of finding exploitable new frontiers abroad has begun to show dwindling returns, the efforts at hyper-exploiting resources close to home has found renewed fervor. The sections of people struggling to survive under this socio-economic system called capitalism have been rapidly expanding. In this context, the powers that be can no longer ignore, or lull those previously privileged enough to not live under its crushing indifference to ignore, the gratuitous nature of this injustice, or obscure the violence that is needed to preserve the established order. Discontent and popular resistance to capitalism has been spreading the world over, and it is at this critical juncture that we seek to redouble our efforts at building a radical student movement that is revolutionary at its core and relentless in its pursuit of social and environmental justice. Our DisOrientation week of events (see back cover) is meant to do exactly that: create spaces for us to collectively analyze the historical moment we find ourselves in, and facilitate dialogue to create plans for collaboration and collective action. This also includes space for critical self-reflection of oppressive dynamics within the social movements we build and which, in turn, shape us. Fakiha Baig’s article, for instance, addresses the important but often overlooked question of feminist struggles within the coalition of movements termed the Arab Spring. Reflection on the spaces we occupy and the spaces we fight for is a key theme of this year’s DisOrientation week. Whether it is building direct democracy through U of T General Assemblies or defending our neighbourhoods against increasing gentrification and heightened policing, space, both as geographical terrain and as a political idea, plays an important role in shaping our social movements. Perhaps the notion of implementing radical transformation seems unattainable to some in the current climate of rising repression and increasing corporate control. In a world that stifles dissent, it is indeed difficult to struggle against the grain of the status quo. But we don’t have to fight alone. In these tough times we can draw inspiration from struggles of those that have come before us, and from our elders, and comrades who continue the struggle today, from right here in our city to around the world. Together we can build a movement strong enough to create the world we want to live in. Join us at OPIRG-Toronto to educate and agitate for social change.
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THE RE-EMERGENCE OF A FASCIST HINDU GOVERNMENT IN INDIA
Sriram Ananth
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ecently, on May 16, 2014, India entered its darkest phase with the election of the right-wing, Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister of India. Modi was found guilty of orchestrating gratuitous violence in 2002 against the Muslim and Christian minorities of Gujarat, a state in Northern India that he was the Chief Minister of at the time of the massacre.1 Social and political scientists, like Gyanendra Pandey and Martha Nussbaum, as well as human rights groups, like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, referred pointedly to the violence as a pogrom and brutal episode of minority ethnic cleansing. I personally witnessed this violence and worked as a human rights activist along with countless others during the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat, seeing the brutality first-hand but escaping it because of my middle-class privilege. I highlight 1 Human Rights Watch, “We have no orders to save you: State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat.� April 2002. (http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/india/)
this issue not only because of my own personal experience but also because Modi is a threat to communities in India and the world. This man, who actively orchestrated brutal violence against oppressed minorities, is now going to head the fourth most powerful military in the world with a heavily armed nuclear arsenal. It is of concern to all of us, especially those committed to fighting for equality and justice around the world. Numerous pogroms have been conducted by Hindu nationalist groups throughout the 20th century, soon after their founding under a virulent ideology known as Hindutva (roughly translated as Hinduness) that attempted to homogenize a remarkably rich and diverse body of philosophy, rational thought, and faith into a dangerously narrow, religo-cultural, ethnocentric vision for India. The meteoric rise of the political wing of the Hindutva brigade, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), started in 1992 when Hindu nationalist groups destroyed the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, resulting in yet another pogrom against Muslims in the country, particularly in the city of Mumbai, the economic centre of India and home to Bollywood. But it was in 2002, when the Hindutva brigade had
consolidated power in the center, that we saw the worst that they had to offer when they went on a rampage against Muslims in the North Western state of Gujarat, following the tragic death of 58 Hindus who were killed when two compartments of a train caught on fire. Without investigations or proof, the deaths were squarely blamed on Muslims and, with the blessings of the Gujarat government and the active collusion of the Gujarat police, over 2,000 Muslims were slaughtered across the state by Hindu fascist groups, some in the most heinous ways imaginable, with macabre cases of brutality and sexual violence. A 2007 investigative journalistic exposé by Tehelka magazine documented the fascist leader speaking openly about how he had “blessed the anti-Muslim pogrom” and made efforts in his capacity as the Chief Minister to ensure the rioters were “given three days to do whatever [they] could.”2 What does all this mean for the average reader of Actions Speak Louder however? First off, information is key. Few people outside India know about this man, his acolytes, and their crimes against humanity. And, if there’s one thing the Indian state hates—regardless of which political party has managed to force themselves into power in the center—it is bad publicity. It is the reason why the State has gone to enormous lengths to cover up the violence it has meted out to the people of northeast India, indigenous communities in Central India, and Kashmiris, who continue to reel under Indian militarism for over 60 years. One of the greatest tools at our disposal when fighting vastly superior political and economic powers has always been consistent peace and justice work with cross-pollinating solidarity campaigns that make interventions in public discourse. Palestine-solidarity activists and others resisting Israeli apartheid would be interested to know that India is the number one buyer of military hardware from Israel,3 a country where the military exports are absolutely vital to its economy. The increased military flexing (India is the number one purchaser of military hardware in the world alongside a sizeable domestic military industrial complex), and sub-imperialist ambitions in its backyard do not bode well for lovers of peace, when nuclear-armed Pakistan (with its own Islamic fundamentalists at the helm of affairs) lies right next door. Environmental justice activists would be horrified to know of the ecological devastation and disenfranchisement to local communities caused by the neoliberal “economic development” that the Modi government plans to carry out for India ranging from Special Economic Zones to providing unfettered access to land and water for mega corporations via the utilization of the State’s powers of eminent domain 2 “Gujarat 2002: The Truth in the words of the men who did it,” Tehelka.com, accessed August 25, 2014, http://archive.tehelka.com/ story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107gujrat_sec.asp 3 Ullekh NP, “$10bn business: How Israel became India’s most important partner in arms bazaar,” The Economic Times, April 9, 2010, accessed August 25, 2014, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes. com/2012-09-23/news/34022998_1_defence-supplier-india-and israel-anti-ballistic-missile-systems
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(a continuation from past Indian governments ever since the country neoliberalized in the early ‘90s). The possibilities for cross-solidarity campaigns are immense. So learn about this man and highlight his crimes any way you can; Ask, think, write, organize, and agitate. Every little bit helps. Millions of us have been fighting fascists in India for decades with our blood, sweat, and tears. For justice-loving South Asians the world over May 16, 2014 will forever represent itself in our memories as the day that evil raised its head again. The fight goes on. We will neither quit nor go quietly into the night. But we would love for others to join us.
Sriram Ananth is a writer and activist currently living in Toronto, leading a scatter-brained but politically enriching transnational life between Canada, India, and the United States.
Ananth’s first book, Across the Sabarmarti, based on his experiences as a human rights worker in Gujarat in the aftermath of the violence in 2002, is now out. You can find out more about it on his blog: http://acrossthesabarmati.wordpress.com/
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BUILDING COMMUNITY RESISTANCE FOR THE
TORONTO 2015 PAN AM GAMES
Mary Jean Hande
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hether you know it or not, Toronto will host the 2015 Pan and Parapan American Games in the summer of 2015. Despite close to six 6 years of extensive and costly preparation for the Games, including an expansive Athletes’ Village and construction or retrofitting of 32 Olympic-sized competition venues in 16 municipalities, there has been minimal media coverage or fanfare. Most residents know nothing about the Games, let alone what impact the events would have on their communities. Nevertheless, the budget is already skyrocketing with no target or promise to keep spending under control.1 Despite the perception that the Pan Am Games are a “non-event” in comparison to the Olympics, the cost of Pan Am is already projected at $2.5 billion and rapidly nearing the $6 billion spent on the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.2 According to Pan Am CEO, Saad Rafi, the 2015 Games will host 51 events, over 7,600 athletes and a projected 250,000 tourists. The Games will be the largest, and perhaps 1 Richard J. Brennan, “Can’t guarantee Pan Am games will be on budget, sport minister says,” Toronto Start, July 10, 2014, accessed August 21, 2014, http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/panamgames/2014/07/10/cant_guarantee_pam_am_games_will_be_on_ budget_sport_minister_says.html 2 Adrian Morrow, “Total cost of 2015 Pan Am games pegged at more than $2.5 billion,” The Globe and Mail, November 20, 2013, accessed August 21, 2014, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/total-cost-of-the-2015-pan-am-games-pegged-at-over-25-billion/ article15526211/
most expensive, event in Toronto’s history and will serve as a stepping-stone to larger events in the future. Helen Lenskyj, University of Toronto Professor Emerita, has been researching and writing about the negative impacts of mega-sports events for more than 20 years. As part of groups like, No Games Toronto,3 she knows that, in spite of preconceptions, there is little difference between mega-sports events like Pan Am and the Olympics. “So many people just see dollar signs when they hear about these events,” Lenskyj says, “[but] there’s no free lunch. If it brings in money, it’s because the city has spent lots of money on infrastructure and facilities.” The public sector pays, the private sector benefits. One need only look at the massive public debt incurred and the well-documented social impacts of the Vancouver Olympics to predict the legacy that will be left by the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games. No Games Toronto was a coalition of community organizations, activists, and students, including No One Is Illegal, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), and the University of Toronto’s Association of Part-Time Undergraduate Students (APUS), formed during the Pan Am Games bid process in 2009. Students and unions became particularly vocal when plans developed to replace the APUS building with a $50 million Centre for High Performance Sport on the St. George campus and a new student levy was introduced on the Scarborough campus to pay for a $30 million Pan Am Aquatics Centre. Since the Pan Am bid was won, the coalition mostly dissolved and public criticism faded. Lenskyj hopes the coalition will regroup as a kind of Pan Am watchdog in the months leading up to the Games. 3 http://nogamestoronto.blogspot.ca/
According to Lenskyj and other No Games organizers, there is a predictable pattern in the way mega-sports events impact host communities. In addition to divesting billions from the public good for private enterprises, common trends include: aggressive gentrification schemes involving rent increases; mass evictions of people in subsidized housing; artificially inflated estate prices; temporary or permanent privatization of public spaces like parks and recreational facilities; temporary or permanent suppression of human rights, particularly freedom of assembly; criminalization of poverty by increasing police and military surveillance in poor communities; and increased exploitation of temporary and migrant labour. Many of these trends have already begun around the Greater Toronto Area. While the 2015 organizing committee boasts about new affordable housing units offered in the Athletes’ Village in the West Don Lands and state-of-the-art sports facilities to be opened to the public after the Games, Lenskyj warns that there is little public accountability around how these facilities are used. Often taxpayers need to shell out more money to reconfigure the facilities for public use and there is virtually no recourse for residents if developers change their minds. So far critical media coverage has been minimal. The Toronto Star and CBC/Radio Canada are official 2015 Pan Am sponsors and often (re)produce Pan Am propaganda such as “Toronto 2015 Countdown Clock” and infomercials narrated by news reporters. According to Lenskyj, most mainstream journalists have “absolutely no interest in covering the negative aspects of these games,” preferring to position the Games as a welcome reprieve from depressing or more serious news stories. Mainstream media often accuse critics of being “spoil sports” rather than seriously engaging in the unpleasant realities of the Games. Meanwhile, unrestrained public spending for the 2015 Pan
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Am Games continues to mount. Lenskyj explains that CEOs of large mega-sports events increasingly argue that it’s impossible to accurately project spending, so no fixed targets are set or reported to the public. Rafi gets away with saying the Games are “absolutely” on budget only because there is actually no firm budget, and thus no public accountability when spending doubles or triples. Security, in particular, is a wild card. The 2015 Games security budget is considered a “living document” indexed to “threat level,” as determined by the Ontario Provincial Police, who are partnering with the Toronto 2015 Organizing Committee to coordinate Games security. At $239 million, security spending has already doubled from initial estimates, and it’s expected to rise exponentially before the Opening Ceremonies on July 10, 2015. With the Games fast-approaching, it’s time to organize our communities and resistant public divesture, the escalation of criminalization of poor communities, and suspension of human rights. OPIRG Toronto is committed to building resistance to the 2015 Pan Am Games both on and off campus. OPIRG Toronto’s new Toronto Research and Action Community Exchange (TRACX) program is partnering with OCAP and U of T student researchers to collect data on the impacts of the Games on poor and disabled people, migrant workers, sex workers, and service users in the downtown east end. This research is intended to counter the propaganda of the 2015 Games and help communities prepare and resist the changes underway. Visit opirgtoronto.org for more information about TRACX and the Toronto Pan Am Games Resistance Project. MJ Hande is an OISE PhD student currently working as a Community Research Coordinator with OPIRG Toronto. Her recent work focuses on financialization, anti-poverty organizing, and disability justice.
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JUSTICE FOR ALL WORKERS: MIGRANT WORKERS’ RESISTANCE TO CANADA’S EXPLOITATIVE TEMPORARY FOREIGN WORKER PROGRAM Melody Lotfi In June 2014, the Canadian government implemented changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) after controversy over the ways employers were using the program.1 The controversy mostly revolved around fears that migrant workers were taking Canadian-born workers’ jobs. During this time, limited attention was given to the experiences of migrant workers who arrive to Canada through the TFWP, including their vulnerability to abuse from employers due to their precarious status. Despite the risks associated with speaking out publicly against abusive employers, workers have mobilized to raise awareness and promote policy changes that better protect migrant workers. In August 2014, I interviewed Sonia Singh of the Workers’ Action Centre (WAC) to discuss the changes to the TFWP and the ways in which migrant workers and advocates have been challenging oppressive policies and attitudes to gain better rights and protections.
Can you talk about how the government consciously frames the discourse around the TFWP? The government is always framing the discourse around how employers are misusing the program; however, it has been set up exactly for that end. The program is structurally set up to create cheap and flexible labour that is a revolving door, so workers aren’t able to stay and have roots here in Canada. The discussion is never about how employers are misusing this program by ensuring that workers are not able to access rights and protections or a path towards permanent residency. The changes that were introduced in June did nothing to address the concerns that migrant workers and advocates have raised around what happens when you tie someone to one employer. This structure inherently makes workers more vulnerable and prone to abuse. What is the terminology that you use in discussing workers who arrive under the TFWP? 1 CBC News (2014). Temporary foreign worker program to be made more transparent, http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/temporary-foreign-worker-program-to-be-made-more-transparent-1.2681436
We try to describe workers as ‘migrant workers.’ Nandita Sharma has a book that really breaks down how calling workers ‘foreign’ really makes them the ‘Other’ and legitimizes the completely separate set of legal rights they possess in comparison to other workers. On the government TFWP website, the homepage has a banner that reads: “Putting Canadians First.” What do you think this statement means? WAC has tried to challenge this ‘Us’ vs ‘Them’ mentality. This program, as well as many other policies that the federal and provincial governments have implemented, is part of a larger low-wage agenda. Solidarity amongst workers is what’s needed to challenge these attacks. We can’t build our power if we’re saying that migrant workers don’t deserve the same protections as Canadian-born workers. We need to break that ‘Us’ vs ‘Them’ mentality down: Where is it coming from? What does that nationalism help to hide? And who does that benefit at the end of day? It’s not benefiting the working people, that’s for sure. How do you address the real issues at stake for migrant workers? We hear a lot about protecting Canadian jobs. The percentage of migrant workers working in Canada is so small in relation to the rest of the population that banning them will not address what’s going on in the job market. The reduction of the quality and quantity of jobs is connected to the neoliberal agenda, which includes cutting back services and the deregulation of labour standards. Our work at the WAC includes pushing for an increase in the minimum wage for all workers. We want to see good jobs created and that means having protections that we can count on. I think our message has to be a counter message to those blaming migrant workers for the lack of good jobs. Decent wages, benefits, and working conditions, as well
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as a government actively working to create good employment opportunities, are what create good jobs. Some migrant workers can gain permanent residency through involvement in the TFWP. What does that involve? The majority of migrant workers don’t have any access to permanent residency. There is one program that allows permanent residency, the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP). Caregivers work for a certain period of time and can then apply for permanent residency status if they meet all the requirements. But the Seasonal Agricultural Work Program and the Low-Skill Worker Pilot Project don’t have any provisions for permanent residency. There are some provinces where workers can be sponsored by their employer through the Provincial Nominee Program, but Ontario is not one of them. The majority of workers come to Canada and work hard, but at the end of their contracts will have to go home. And in terms of the LCP, what would you say is the lived reality for workers in that program? A lot of caregivers that call our phone line have been working incredible amounts of overtime and are not being paid for it. There are also many other employment standards violations. Often, workers don’t feel like they can speak up until they have gained status. However, we have worked with some amazing caregivers who have filed complaints against their employers and have spoken publicly. We work with a group called the Caregivers’ Action Center, many of whose members went public about how they were being charged recruitment fees to get jobs and once they had come to Canada, those jobs didn’t exist. Their speaking out publicly led to Ontario’s ban on recruitment fees for caregivers. Why is Ontario not implementing protective measures for migrant workers? One issue is that the Ministry of Labour is so under funded that it is unable to enforce proactive inspections of workplaces where low wage and migrant workers are involved. The Ministry needs the resources to inspect workplaces on a regular basis without having to be notified of laws potentially being broken. Across Ontario, there is less than a one percent chance of your workplace having a proactive inspection without someone having to alert the Ministry. The government needs to feel the heat. They need to be hearing from workers and advocates and over the last 10 years, there’s definitely been a shift of workers speaking out. There have been some amazing actions like The Pilgrimage to Freedom, where migrant workers marched 50 kilometers from Leamington to Windsor in 2010. It was the first action led by migrant workers, calling for an end to recruitment fees but also for better health-care and better rights on the job. So it’s a slow process working with those communities and for people to have the confidence to tell their stories. But I think that it’s a
process that’s gaining a lot of momentum and it’s going to be hard for the government to keep looking the other way. Right now it seems the program is very enmeshed in our culture and the way we frame labour in Canada. What do you see as an alternative to this program? That’s where our campaigns have different levels. The Make it Right campaign is around pressuring the provincial government to ensure that migrant workers have equal access to rights and protections. For example, making sure that workers don’t have to pay recruitment fees to get a job, have equal access to health-care, get paid the minimum wage and overtime. Those are the interim steps to bring up the floor of standards. But at the end of the day what we need to see is a lot of restructuring of our immigration system. Our demand is permanent residency on arrival. Workers should have access to citizenship, because we see that as the root of what makes workers vulnerable. There’s a much larger discussion we can have about why workers are pushed to leave their country to find work in the first place. That’s a bigger, global picture of how neoliberalism and capitalism have shaped migration. At the WAC, we focus on what we can win, step by step. And it is about shifting a narrative and the discourse and building power with workers. At the end of the day that’s where we have to start, to ensure there’s a base of people who are taking leadership to fight for the changes they need to see. So that day to day work is what sustains us for the longer struggle. For more information on the TFWP and upcoming events in support of migrant workers: • http://www.workersactioncentre.org/ • http://www.migrantworkersalliance.org/ • http://www.justicia4migrantworkers.org/ Melody is a member of the Action Speaks Louder editorial collective. She is completing her final year of the Master of Social Work program at the University of Toronto.
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LEGAL CLINIC MERGERS MEETING RESISTANCE IN THE GTA
Brad Evoy
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rom the early 1970s, low-income communities have utilized the expertise of community-minded legal clinics. However, there is a controversial proposal to alter the current distribution of community legal clinics in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), which has created local resistance to such plans. As part of this resistance, Andrew Cox, a Board Member with Kensington-Bellwoods Community Legal Services, has expressed grave concerns about the uncertainties around the status of extra-legal and community work currently done by clinics in this proposed system of large super clinics, removed from their current community settings. While impacts of these mergers are disputed, the uprooting of clinics from the community has the potential for various problems. For example, transportation can be a wide barrier for low-income communities. Cox notes that, “more centralized clinics are harder to get to and will likely increase the transit costs for clients.”1 Traveling farther for these disconnected clinics, Cox believes, could cause other problems as well, for without a presence in the community these new clinics would be “less well known and trusted among residents and more like many of the other bureaucratic institutions they interact with and are accessing 1 Cox, email message to author, July 23, 2014
the clinic to deal with.”2 But how would a project of this sort arise? Well, a few years ago, 16 of the 17 community legal clinics in the GTA signed a Memorandum of Understanding, formally initiating the GTA Legal Clinics Transformation Project. According to the co-chairs of this process, Marjorie Hilley of Flemingdon Community Legal Services and Jack de Klerk of Neighbourhood Legal Services, the Project arose from “discussion[s] between clinic Boards who were unhappy with their respective ability to serve their clients’ needs. Those discussions led directly to the research project conducted on behalf of the six ‘east of Yonge’ clinics which itself led to the current project. The initial research suggested inter alia that more co-ordination could be realized more easily if clinics were larger.”3 The Project is not alone in moving this process forward, however. According to Jayne Mallin, Senior Counsel for Clinical Transformation, Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) “supports the GTA Transformation project determination that larger clinics will provide greater capacity for enhanced service delivery and create opportunities to streamline administration in order to allow clinics to focus on their core business of delivering 2 Ibid.
3 Hilley & de Klerk, email message to author, July 17, 2014
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poverty law services.” This position is supported by the LAO with an agreement between the parties to maintain consistent funding for participating clinics from 2014 through 2016 and the first year of the transformation process, along with the LAO becoming a party to the project itself. Oriel Vargas of the grassroots Stop Clinic Mergers believes that LAO has had a greater role in the determinations of this process than Project organizers are willing to admit. While noting disagreement with the Transformation Project on this point, Vargas notes that, “a lot of the ideas that are being presented by [the Project] go back already before the establishment of the group.”5 She pointed to documents, like the “Discussion Paper on Clinic Administrative Costs,”6 prepared by the LAO in 2010, which propose clinic mergers from the perspective of the LAO. Even then, the consultants used by predecessor groups to the Project were paid for by the LAO and presented very similar recommendations, which impresses upon Vargas the existence of this deeper connection. While the co-chairs of the Project reject that mergers were the end-game for the process, it is clear that both they and their resistance are preparing for this very direction at this time. In solidarity with these affected communities, the Board of OPIRG-Toronto sent a letter to the Province, the LAO, and to the GTA Transformation Project relating concerns on the issues raised by the Project’s work. Joining with community resistance and the Law Union of Ontario, the Board stated that they “believe that increased funding is needed in areas that are reflective of community needs. As poverty rises in Toronto, cuts to service, space, and staff are entirely unacceptable. LAO and the Province of Ontario must instead ensure that existing clinics are adequately resourced with enough lawyers, community legal workers, and administrative staff to deliver services to the GTA’s diverse communities.”7 In response to opposition, the co-chairs stated the following: 4
Formal opposition from within the community legal clinics at this point has been limited to one clinic. Our position with respect to their position has been articulated to them and in on our website. There has been other opposition, for instance the “stopclinicmergers” group. However, as was clear at the meeting you referred to, no one seemed prepared to take ownership of this group and one leading participant acknowledged she had no real interest (other than perhaps an intellectual one) 4 Mallin, email message to author, July 17, 2014
5 Vargas, email message to author, July 19, 2014 6 Legal Aid Ontario, “A Discussion Paper on Addressing Clinic Administrative Costs,” May 5, 2010, accessed July 19, 2014, http://www.legalaid.on.ca/en/publications/downloads/ clinicconsultation/2010may5_clinicconsultation.pdf 7 “Letter of Support Against Legal Clinic Mergers,” OPIRG Toronto Board of Directors, sent and posted July 16, 2014, accessed August 21, 2014, http://www.opirgtoronto.org/node/213
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in community legal clinics. More recently, OPIRG-Toronto has stated its opposition to the Project as has the Law Union of Ontario. Both these organizations have objected in part to our process (allegedly lacking sufficient consultation) and we have asked both of them to explain their own process in coming to their conclusions. There are many Law Union members who do not share the opinion expressed in the Law Union’s public letter and who had no opportunity to discuss the matter. With respect to OPIRG-Toronto, they have no apparent history of dealing with legal aid matters and seem to have come up with a strong opinion on a complex matter without any background information. Neither group talked to us about their concerns.8 Meanwhile, according to the co-chairs, “the Project has undertaken to provide backup support at [town hall] meetings as well as to Boards in their own meetings.” With greater resources, the Project is clear in its aim to have its voice predominate discussion on the future of legal clinics, yet with organizers on the ground and inside the legal clinic system, resistance continues forward. 8 Hilley & de Klerk, email message to author, July 17, 2014
Brad Evoy is a Board member for OPIRG-Toronto and Masters’ students in the History of Education. His focus is upon historical models of governance and policy at the University of Toronto.
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FEMINIST STRUGGLES WITHIN THE ARAB SPRING
Fakiha Baig
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s revolt in the Middle East continues with protests, riots, hunger strikes, and marches for sustainable living conditions, the incongruity of the Arab Spring has never been so clear. The Arab Spring, a movement designed to remove corrupt institutional, political, and social constructs, has overlooked women’s security and rights as a political issue. The Arab Spring has been unable to reward those who have helped the movement sustain its foundation since its launch in Tunisia with the ousting of President Ben Ali. It has been repeatedly proven how prosperous a country can be once its women are given a voice in political situations and freely given access to education and safety. Women continue to struggle and be spearheads in several political movements throughout the Middle East, regardless of how little recognition their efforts receive. Women’s struggles are evident in the graphic video of a 19-year-old bloodied and naked woman, being dragged through Tahrir Square in Cairo amidst protests fighting for change. These struggles are also evident through several reports of rape, disappearances, beatings, and detainment of Middle Eastern female activists and journalists. As Iman Bibars, the co-founder of the Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women, said: These are important topics which we need to address in our fight for women’s rights, for safe streets, and freedom of movement. But we have to be careful that they do not divert our attention from what, I firmly believe, is an
organized plot to undermine women and exclude us from public life. When they attack us, they attack the fabric of Egyptian society and seek to impose an ideology that is narrow-minded and reductive, sweeping aside a culture that has been enriched by women’s participation as equals to our male counterparts. It is imperative that we do not let this happen.1 In Egypt women have been excluded from important decision-making bodies, and fewer than ten women won seats in Egypt’s last election, less than two percent of the 498 seats. 2 Women in Egypt, fighting shoulder to shoulder in protest against the corrupt system, found themselves in an environment where they were more prone to violence. As the Arab Spring remained under the heated spotlight of the social media and international news outlets, Egypt gained its place as being one of the worst places to be a woman. This was due to several issues including lack of reproductive rights, little to no inclusion in politics and the economy, and the ill treatment of women in families. The Arab Spring, a revolution currently on hiatus, would be helped greatly by allowing half their population, women, to progress with it. 1 Iman Bibars, “The Middle East: Fighting for Women’s Rights,” Reuters, June 21, 2013, accessed August 25, 2014, http://www.trust.
org/item/20130621101103-68ft5/?source=dpagerel 2 Isabel Coleman, “Women’s Voices on the Arab Spring: Isabel Coleman,” Vital Voices, accessed August 25, 2014, http://www.vitalvoices.org/node/2404
Tahrir Square, Feburary 11, 2011, the day the President Mubarak officially steps down from office
However, despite both the odds against them and Western stereotypes of Muslim women, women in the Arab Spring made their stand on the streets of the Middle East. It began in Tunisia where hundreds of female university students, professors, doctors, and lawyers joined together to express their anger towards the system. When Yemeni President Saleh said it was un-Islamic for women to be protesting with men, female protesters continued to resist.3 This included Tawakul Karman, a young activist who led student protests at her university campus to overthrow Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen. Karman is the youngest Nobel Peace laureate and became known as “Mother of the Revolution” and the “Iron Woman”4 within the movement. Social media also became a significant outlet for female activists, like Leil Zahra Mortada,, who kept the world updated on the events taking place in Tahrir Square through her blog.5 For those who have been blinded by images and stories about Middle Eastern women as voiceless, oppressed, and submissive, they should know about feminist activists from Jordan and Syria who continue to resist by drawing attention to the unstable and uncertain situations in their countries. It is in Syria where women are actively taking part in public actions despite rising voices from Islamist groups demanding that women stay out of politics and public decision-making. Groups like the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights are currently working with local organizations in Egypt that use the law as a foundation for building access for women to 3 Rice, Xan, Katherine Marsh, Tom Finn, Harriet Sherwood, Angelique Chrisafis, and Robert Booth. “Women Have Emerged as Key Players in the Arab Spring,” The Guardian, April 23, 2011, accessed
August 25, 2014 4 Juan Cole, “Five Women Human Rights Activists Who Are Changing the Middle East,” Informed Comment, December 12, 2013, accessed August 25, 2014, http://www.juancole.com/2013/12/activistschanging-middle.html 5 Leil-Zahra Mortada, accessed August 25, 2014, http://www. leilzahra.com/
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justice and organizing campaigns that call for direct amendment of the laws and policies that refuse to acknowledge the issues of women. It is alarming that large groups of women, who are fighting for the same democracy in the streets of the Middle East and are putting in the same effort as their fellow menfolk, are finding difficulty in achieving recognition and representation in parliament. But, women need to stand their ground. Only time can tell how true revolutionists in the Arab Spring can remain to the very democratic ideals that created them. If democracy is at the heart of the spring then it is expected that amongst several issues a voice for women will be echoed in all the parliaments throughout the Middle East. There is an important lesson that we can learn from events that have occurred in the Arab Spring: true democracy does not only entail and is not limited to the fall of dictatorship, but rather it is achieved once all bodies are represented in government regardless of race, religion, ability, sexual orientation, and gender. Fakiha Baig is a Radio and Television Arts student at Ryerson University. She is a producer and host for News Now on CHRY 105.5FM and an aspiring journalist.
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WHEREACTIONTHE ACTION IS GROUP UPDATES
Action Groups are at the heart of OPIRG’s work. They are volunteer collectives that organize autonomously for social and environmenal justice. Here are a listing of all 9 action groups for the 2014-2015 academic year. If you are interested in forming your own OPIRG-Toronto action group, we accept new applications in the summer. Please get in touch with us at opirg.toronto@gmail.com
FILIPINO CANADIAN YOUTH ALLIANCE UKPC/FCYA-ON (Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance/ Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada—Ontario) is a progressive Filipino Canadian youth and students organization that is committed to educating, organizing and mobilizing Filipino Canadian youth as a transformative and dynamic force that will build a movement 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@makaisacentre.org. MINING INJUSTICE SOLIDARITY NETWORK Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (MISN) is a grassroots, volunteer-run group that works to bring the voices and experiences of communities impacted by extractive industries to Toronto, Canada, a country where over 75% of global mining businesses are based. As Canada is a leader within the international mining industry, we recognize the necessity for a movement within Canada to demand accountability in this sector. As such, MISN organizes to highlight and confront negligent mining practices. We do this by (1) educating the Canadian public on mining injustices in Canada and around the world; (2) advocating for stronger community control and supporting self-determination in mining affected areas; (3) denouncing corporate impunity and seeking substantive regulatory change. Our work is in solidarity with affected communities in an effort to be responsive to their calls for support. For more information on the group, please visit www.solidarityresponse.net. To get involved, e-mail us at mininginjustice@gmail.com
PRISONER CORRESPONDENCE PROJECT The Prisoner Correspondence Project is a collectively-run initiative with chapters in Montreal and Toronto. It coordinates a direct correspondence program for people in prison who are connected to, or have, trans and queer identities (including gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, gendervariant, twospirit, intersex, queer and questioning). To address the specific issues faced by trans and queer prisoners, we pair inmates with folks outside of prison who share similar identities. In addition, the project coordinates a resource library with information regarding harm reduction practices (safer sex, safer druguse, clean needle care), HIV and HEPC prevention, homophobia, transphobia, coming out, legal resources, smut, activism and art. The Prisoner Correspondence Project also aims to make prisoner justice and prisoner solidarity a priority within queer movements on the outside through events which touch on broader issues relating to the criminalization and incarceration of queer and trans folks. One core problem is the isolation and lack of support faced by these communities. We seek to break this through creating penpal connections, and providing resources that educate and explicitly express our support for prisoners. Our work is based in an abolitionist perspective, and we believe that creating strength, support and solidarity through communication and non-judgment is a powerful tool of resistance and movement building. Contact us by e-mail at prisocoprotoronto@gmail.com. prisonercorrespondenceproject.com REVOLUTIONARY STUDENT MOVEMENTThe Revolutionary Student Movement (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, ableism and all other form of oppression through their foundations in the material conditions of capitalist society. To strike these oppressions at the root and demand liberation, we believe revolution is necessary. We are dedicated to social investigation, which means figuring out what the concrete circumstances affecting a population are. This could mean the issues affecting students, such as havinglittle or no political power. We plan to use our research to launch student campaigns. The goal is to connect the struggles youth face in Canada with struggles faced by youth around the world. We are also dedicated to education. Education is key in order to develop a communist culture and practice in Toronto youth. We regularly host communist schools, where we study and discuss issues of relevance, or interest, to youth and students. We strive to offer a real alternative to the liberalism, revisionism and reformism that currently plagues youth and student movements in Toronto and beyond.
RISING TIDE TORONTO Rising Tide Toronto (RTT) is a grassroots collective that challenges environmental injustice and the root causes of climate change on Turtle Island through direct action, in solidarity with people’s struggles locally and globally. Over the past year RTT has been working especially on resisting tar sands production and pipeline projects. For instance, RTT has been working with other groups throughout Ontario and Quebec to stop the Enbridge Line 9 reversal. RTT is committed to stopping the destruction of Turtle Island and creating a just transition to sustainable livelihoods that foster local autonomy and self-sufficiency. Please get in touch if you would like to join RTT, or collaborate with us on a project! You can reach us at risingtidetoronto@gmail.com, and follow us on facebook at https://www. facebook.com/RisingTideToronto. STUDENTS UNITED TO RESIST THE FEDERATION Students United to Resist the Federation (SURF) is a new action group of OPIRG-Toronto. Through the promotion of anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian horizontal structures, we hope to engage students in progressive resistance against the homogenizing force of the Canadian Federation of Students on campus. With a starkly un-glossed style, we reject the hollow rhetoric and aesthetic which has stalled the student movement in Canada and Quebec from reaching the ultimate aim of free, accessible education for all peoples. We plan to hold several organizing meetings over the coming term to build to a province-wide conference to be held to discuss the building of an alternative to the monoliths that currently dominate our movement. Follow us on Twitter (@SURF_UofT), Facebook (surf.uoft), and Tumblr (surf.uoft.tumblr.com).
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TORONTO ANARCHIST FAIR The Toronto Anarchist Fair (TAF) feels it’s vitally important that anarchist gatherings take place in this city, while also being reimagined and reflecting a vibrant multitude of anarchisms. Gatherings for those interested in or curious about anarchism are places to share our stories and ideas, connect our struggles, build our movements, and deepen our affinities. We aim to keep expanding the horizons of anarchism in this city beyond a once a year fair and the traditional bookfair model through incorporating a wider range of events. Throughout the year, we are especially interested in events that look back and provide opportunities to learn from past movements and local organizing. [Please note: TAF was first organized in December 2013 and is a separate event series organized by a different collective than the Toronto Anarchist Bookfair.] For a more Anarchic Toronto and a freer, more joyful, and just world! You can reach the TAF crew at torontoanarchistfair@gmail. com, become our facebook friend by adding “Torontoanarchist Fair” or get more information by visiting our website at http://torontoanarchistfair.noblogs.org. TORONTO QUEER ZINE FAIR COLLECTIVE Toronto Queer Zine Fair seeks to make space for traditionally marginalized voices in the zine community. While accepting applications from all self-identified queer/trans* folks, TQZF chooses to prioritize the voices of trans women, trans women of colour, queer people of colour, indigenous/two-spirited folks, and non-binary folks. Toronto Queer Zine Fair is an alternative zine fair focusing on the radical and political history/philosophy of zines and giving a platform to those often under-represented in zine culture. For more information, please visit: torontoqueerzinefair.tumblr.com facebook.com/torontoqzf WOMEN’S COORDINATING COMMITTEE FOR A FREE WALLMAPU The Women’s Coordinating Committee For a Free Wallmapu [Toronto] (formally known as Women’s Coordinating Committee Chile-Canada) is an indigenous Mapuche grassroots organization based in Toronto, Turtle Island. Our goal is to link the struggles of indigenous sovereignty (specifically the Mapuche Peoples of so-called southern Chile) with that of other indigenous, anti-colonial, community based struggles across Turtle Island, by creating awareness through events, protests, publications, etc…. We work to build our communities and solidarity across different struggles in the hope of seeing our Mapuche Territory in liberation. To get in touch with us, please e-mail wccc_98@ hotmail.com
U RESOURCES
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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
Queers Against Israeli Apartheid
LOCAL BASICS Newsletter Toronto basicsnews.ca New Socialist www.newsocialist.org Rabble www.rabble.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 Socialist Project Tuition Truth Campaign Z Communications
AIDS Action Now www.aidsactionnow.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 Prisoners with HIV/AIDS Support Action Network www.pasan.org
www.aljazeera.com www.democracynow.org www.indymedia.org www.nfb.ca www.rouge.onf.ca www.rabble.ca www.socialistproject.ca www.tuitiontruth.ca www.zcommunications.org
www.queersagainstapartheid.org
Sikh Activist Network sikhactivist.net Toronto Drug User’s Union www.tduu.blogspot.ca 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 Earthroots www.earthroots.org Greenpeace www.greenpeace.org/canada 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 Palestinian Campaign for the www.pacbi.org Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
Are you interested in community based research?
OPIRG’S Toronto Research and Action Community Exchange Program The Toronto Research and Action Community Exchange (TRACX) is a new program intended to match University of Toronto students with Toronto-based community organizations to engage in community-based social justice research for credit. This program is modeled on similar programs at other PIRGs across Canada, such as SFPIRG’s Action Research Exchange (ARX), OPIRG-Ottawa’s Community Research Program (CRP), and QPIRG’s Community-University Research Exchange (CURE). In keeping with OPIRG Toronto’s mandate to direct resources and research towards anti-oppressive, social and environmental justice projects, we hope TRACX will create critical links between the university and Toronto community organizing, by educating students about how to make research accountable and connect research with community-based action and organizing. Ultimately, our goal is also to help transform the privilege and resources of the academy into socially relevant, community-based research and political action. Over the next year TRACX will be supporting a community-based research project with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty on the impacts of the Toronto 2015 Pan/Parapan Am Games. This research will be featured in our Action Speaks Louder newsletter and at a Research in Action Symposium in March 2015. Visit our website for more information, or contact the TRACX Research Coordinator at opirg.crep@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