May 30th

Janet Hatcher Roberts is the executive director of the Canadian Society for International Health, where she has overseen the design and implementation of global health systems strengthening projects since 1997. She is also the co-director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Technology Assessment, Knowledge Translation and Health Equity with the Centre for Global Health, assistant professor in the Faculty of Medicine and an affiliate scientist at the Institute for Population Health with the University of Ottawa.

Roberts has extensive experience in international public health policy, health systems capacity building and research. Over the past three decades, she has been involved in global health and development and gender health projects at the International Development Research Centre, the Canadian International Development Agency, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada. She has also served as director of the Migration Health Department with the International Organization for Migration in Geneva.

Toronto vs. the G20

Community action for global justice

Saturday, June 5

10:30am-6pm

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

252 Bloor Street West

What are we protesting, again?

It’s a good impulse to feel contempt for the G20. It’s a better impulse to want to talk about it. Join student and community activists to learn about the G20 and current social and environmental justice campaigns in Toronto, and to get involved. Free citywide teach-in. Lunch included!

PROGRAM

10:30 WAKE UP. COFFEE.

11:00 INTRODUCTION: What is the G20 and why should we care about it?

11:30 OPENING PLENARY

Economic Justice in Ontario: Poverty, Disability, and Workers’ Rights

The theme of this G20 summit is “recovery and new beginnings.” But the G20 isn’t pursuing anything new. The G20 has used the economic crisis to reinforce the myth of its own legitimacy, on the backs of poor and working people around the world. In Canada, austerity measures have already provoked outrage and opposition. Why should poor and working people pay for a crisis that capitalism imposed? Hear from anti-poverty activists, union organizers and workers.

1:00 FREE LUNCH

1:45 SESSION ONE (choose one)

Migrant Justice, Imperialism and the G20

Food and Water Security

At Home and Beyond: Gender Justice in a Neoliberal World

G20 and the University

3:15 SESSION TWO (chose one)

Climate and Environmental Justice

Indigenous Sovereignty and the G20

Apartheid and the G20: Palestine Solidarity in Canada

4:45 CLOSING PLENARY

On the Ground in June: Know your rights!

Massive demonstrations, black blocs, human chains and nonviolent resistance, police brutality, tear gas, and mass arrests. Sound dramatic? Romantic imagery of protests and demos can obscure the realities of the work that goes into making them happen and the range of skills and knowledge that make them successful. From Seattle WTO to Quebec FTAA; from Pittsburgh G20 to Vancouver anti-Olympics; and finally in Toronto this June, prepare for what’s coming by learning from the past. Join us for an historical workshop on demos, a primer to your legal rights on the street, and an overview of possibilities for participation, presented by the Toronto Community Mobilization Network.

[[ All events are wheelchair accessible. ]]

FULL PROGRAM AVAILABLE AT http://g20.torontomobilize.org/torontoVSG20.

ON FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=111541778889778&ref=ts

RSVP to toronto.vs.g20@gmail.com

Sponsored by University of Toronto Students’ Union * Ontario Public Interest Research Group * Toronto Community Mobilization Network * Sierra Youth Coalition * Science for Peace * Canadian Youth Climate Coalition * University of Toronto Graduate Students' Union * Health Studies Students' Union * Diaspora and Transnational Student Union * Native Students' Association * Caribbean Studies Students' Union * Equity Studies Students' Union * Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3902 * No One Is Illegal - Toronto * Ontario Coalition Against Poverty * And others!

May 2nd

On Sunday May 2^nd we interviewed Fariah who spoke about the action (rally and march) that was organized to bring awareness to the federal government’s proposed changes to immigration law that will target refugees. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is pushing a bill that will dismantle the Immigration and Refugee board, deny the Pre-Removal Risk Assessment or the Humanitarian and Compassionate Application to many claimants and ban claimants on the basis of their country of origin. The Canadian government will have a list of countries they deem safe inspite of refugee claimants’ lived realities. Proposed changes also shift responsibility of refugee sponsorship to families and private organizations. http://toronto.nooneisillegal.org/node/442

We also interviewed Juanita Peters from the Council on African Canadian Education (CACE). The Council on African Canadian Education (CACE) is the outgrowth of the Black Learners Advisory Committee (BLAC). Formed in 1990, the BLAC was the response to ongoing struggles of African Nova Scotians to eliminate racism and receive equity in education.

In order to fulfill its mandate, the BLAC released a comprehensive study in December 1994. Encompassing 46 recommendations, the report was entitled the BLAC Report on Education - Redressing Inequity, Empowering Black Learners. One of the primary recommendations stated that the BLAC have its status modified to a provincial advisory council. In January 1996, the Nova Scotia Legislature formalized this recommendation. http://www.cace.ns.ca/home.shtml

Juanita joined us on Sunday May 2, after a three day youth conference which included African Canadian students from across Nova Scotia. There were more than 150 youth who attended the conference where the discussion centred around challenges that African Canadian youth are facing within the education system and how that can be addressed. The conference also helped to work around ascertaining the support that the youth need to succeed. We also spoke with Juanita about her recently released documentary addressing the history of Africville. The African Canadian community established in the 1800s was destroyed by the Halifax municipal government in the 1960s and the residents of Africville were scattered throughout Halifax, Nova Scotia. The property owners of Africville were never compensated in spite of promises from the government. The people of Africville even though they were uprooted and scattered continued to meet at the location every year and their determination eventually paid off with an official apology from Mayor Peter Kelly on February 24, 2010, too little too late for many. http://www.africville.ca/society/media2009_coast0730.html

http://www.africville.ca/society/apology.html

The songs we played were:

Faith Nolan Viola Desmond

Sibongile Khumalo Ancestral Ways

Faith Nolan Womon in the World

Nina Simone   I wish  I knew how it would feel to be free

Faith Nolan Africville

April 25th

We talked with Marcia Brown who is a plaintiff in a multi-million dollar law suit against the Government of Canada, which neglected its fiduciary duty to first-nations communities by transferring child welfare to the province. The law suit is brought forward by survivors of the “sixties scoop,” including Marcia herself. Thousands of first-nations children were taken from their parents, removed from their communities and forced into the foster care system where they were assimulated into non-native families. This resulted in “identity genocide” and long-standing difficulties for the individuals and for indigenous communities. Marcia talked about her own traumatic experiences within the foster care system and later as an adopted child in a white family. She regrets the little time she spent with her grandmother who taught her all she now knows about medicine and her families heritage. She brought forth this legal case when she realized that there were thousands like her. The legal case will set an important precedent along with providing closure for many families still in search of lost relatives. The hearing is taking place in court room 6 at 361 University Avenue between April 26-30. Please try and come out and show your support!

We also talked about Kimberley Rogers- a woman who was nine months pregnant, was put under house arrest for supposedly defrauding the welfare system (when she took student loans to return to school to improve her life and get out of poverty) and who died in her non-air conditioned apartment in Sudberry Ontario on a sweltering August day while on house arrest. This is a glaring example of poor bashing and the attacks on our poor and working classes while we ride out this recession, while there are bail-outs for banks and corporations. The poor are once again being taxed to support the upper classes with the recent announcement by the Provincial government to slash the special diet allowance for people on Ontario Works and ODSP. You can hear about the impact this will have on the affected communities as the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty gathered testimonials from people on OW and ODSP. These are in three parts and can be found here:

· Part 1/3 (10 minutes)

· Part 2/3 (9 mins) which we partially played on the show, featuring Dr. Roland Wong

· Part 3/3 (10 minutes)

The footage from the rally can be found here

We also talked about the recent pardon granted to Canada’s Rosa Parks- Viola Desmond. Viola Desmond, an African Canadian woman, was forcibly removed from a movie theatre on November 8, 1946 for sitting in the whites-only section of the Roseland Theatre, a movie theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. Her activism had a lasting impact on the African-Canadian community and led another African-Canadian woman, Carrie Best (who herself and her son) had had a similar experience to found a newspaper "The Clarion" (the first African Canadian-owned and published newspaper in Nova Scotia) to publicise Desmond's story and the issue of racism. Desmond was granted a free pardon by the lieutenant-governor of the province of Nova Scotia and an apology from its premier for the institutional racism she had suffered (this was intended as an apology for her family and for all African-Canadians). Her sister and remaining family were present for the historic event- an apology that came almost 63 years later. We talked both about the relative obscurity of Viola Desmond compared to her counterpart in the States (Rosa Parks) and also about the tendency in some mainstream media outlets to pronounce the apology as somehow indicative of an end to institutional and systemic racism. The apology and free pardon came about a month and a half after a similar apology for the destruction of Africville in 1967.