Centre for Social Justice -» Community

Apr 24, 2024 - Automating Creativity? Questioning AI’s Impact on the Arts

Dr. Tanner Mirrlees's keynote for Hot Docs Teachers' Conference on the topic of generative AI and automation in the creative industries and higher education. The keynote focuses on the disruption of the history of human-centered artistic and creative production by generative AI (e.g., ChatGPT and DALL-E) and ethical, philosophical, social and labour questions for teachers and learners. Delivered to an audience of 600 teachers at Ted Rogers Hot Doc Cinema, February 16, 2024.

Source: LeftStreamed

Apr 23, 2024 - How KingSett Capital Hijacked Toronto’s Revitalization Plans

By Gaetan Heroux

In March of 2021, Toronto's City Council directed staff to find funding sources for the purchase or expropriation of 214-230 Sherbourne Street to build "deeply affordable and supportive housing" as part of their revitalizing plans for the Downtown East. By June of 2022, the city had abandoned their plans to acquire the properties. What happened? 214-230 Sherbourne is located in one of Toronto's oldest working-class neighbourhoods. It is at the epicentre of the city's housing crisis in the heart of the city's 'skid row'.

Source: The Bullet No. 2977

Apr 21, 2024 - Protecting the Right to Protest and Picket

By Toronto and York Region Labour Council

In Toronto and York Region, we are witnessing an alarming rise in anti-democratic, anti-worker motions being introduced by municipal Councillors. Using various pretexts, members of council in Toronto and York Region municipalities are moving motions which seek to limit the charter protected rights of free expression and free assembly. In particular, these motions use the spectre of public safety to crack down on protests which disrupt "critical infrastructure," a dog whistle for anti-union interventions from government.

Source: The Bullet No. 2976

Apr 20, 2024 - Ecuador is Not For Sale

By Alexandria Shaner

Corporations and their government enablers prefer to keep the ecocidal and ethnocidal reality of extractivism hidden, but activists in Ecuador are exposing the truth. The Ecuadorian government, led by the administration of President Daniel Noboa, is forcefully and illegally pursuing mineral and fossil fuel extraction without democratic consent, tear-gassing peaceful protestors in full public view, and doing far worse to remote frontline communities. In the Andean Cotopaxi region, where Canadian firm Atico Mining plans to extract gold and copper at the expense of a key water source, repression has been intensifying.

Source: The Bullet No. 2975

Apr 17, 2024 - April 7: Six Months of Genocide in Gaza

By Independent Jewish Voices

The world has watched for six months as Palestinians are murdered, injured and displaced en masse by the Israeli occupation. Canada has aided and abetted this atrocity. Canadian arms deals with Israel flow freely in both directions: exporting military power to Israel, importing Israeli weapons "battle-tested" on Palestinian children. Since October 7, "the total value of the new permits authorised over two months exceeds the 30-year annual record high of $26-million in Canadian military exports to Israel in 2021." This is complicity in its vilest form.

Source: The Bullet No. 2974