CONTENTS
CALLS TO ACTION
Protect the Right to Protest
The City of Toronto is holding consultations for a proposed bylaw that would restrict public demonstrations (rallies, vigils, etc.) within a certain distance of “vulnerable institutions,” including schools, churches, and nearby City-owned property including sidewalks and streets.The bylaw’s intent is to prevent property damage, hate crimes, and violence. But these things are already illegal, and the Toronto Police Service is already empowered to prevent these things from happening. Instead, peaceful protests throughout the City would be restricted.
If adopted, this bylaw would have a chilling effect on all protests in the City of Toronto, whether they’re tenants protesting rent hikes in their neighbourhood, or striking workers picketing for better working conditions. Violators will be on the hook for a $10,000 fine—a penalty that in and of itself would prevent Torontonians from taking direct action to transform their communities and their city.
Toronto ACORN is demanding the City of Toronto immediately drop its consideration of the demonstration bylaw, and protect Torontonians freedom of expression!
acorncanada.org | progresstoronto.ca
CLC Labour Canvass Events
Even an hour to knock on doors or make phone calls will help elect worker-friendly representatives. Join the Canadian Labour Congress at neighbourhood canvassing events. Follow link for details on upcoming election-related events this week, and see all events here.EVENTS
Protect Canada’s Charter
When: Thursday April 17th, 11:30amWhere: Nathan Phillips Square
Rights and Freedoms turns 43 years old on April 17? The Charter outlines our rights and freedoms to expression and protest. With Trump threatening Canada’s sovereignty and attacking free speech south of the border, now more than ever we must rally in support of our basic rights and freedoms!
At the same time the city is considering a bylaw that could restrict protests. This would violate our Charter Freedoms and Rights. Let’s protect our Charter and make sure its 43rd birthday isn’t its last!
docs.google.com
Resistance Behind Bars
When: April 17th, 6pmLocation TBA
Since 1979, April 17 has marked Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, a day of solidarity with imprisoned Palestinians and the resistance they represent. Join us this year as we continue to honour their strength and resilience.
This educational exhibit will reflect on prisoner history, share the significance of their experiences, and highlight their critical role in the broader resistance movement.
instagram.com
Election Teach-In
When: April 18th, 6pmRSVP for location (Kitchener/Waterloo)
Join PYM and N4P for a teach-in all about Canadian federal elections and why they matter for our Palestine solidarity work.
Learn:
* How Canadian elections work
* What the different levels of government do
* How Canada is complicit in the genocide in Gaza
* Why elections are important
* How to vote
* What MPs can do to support Palestine
instagram.com
Trump, the State, and Global Capital
When: Saturday April 19th, 2pmIn the early weeks of the Trump administration in the United States, we have seen on-again, off-again tariffs; bluster against longstanding allies and friendly approaches to erstwhile foes; alarming threats to civil liberties and press freedom; accelerating deportations of immigrant workers, mass firings and layoffs of Federal employees; dismantling of key Federal agencies; and indifference toward threats of measles and bird-flu epidemics – and that’s only a partial list. Looking at all this through a Marxist lens presents a major challenge, but who better to meet it than Steve Maher and Clara Mattei, whose historical analyses of finance capital and the capitalist state have garnered well-deserved praise.
marxedproject.org
Caribbean Community Study Circle
When: Saturday April 19th, 2-4pmWhere: A Different Booklist, 779 Bathurst St
The Caribbean Community Study Circle will be discussing Strategy and Solidarity in Migrant Farmworker Organizing with Chris Ramsaroop.
Gather for a discussion of the precarious, exploitative and dangerous conditions that migrant farmworkers endure. While they may often be erased from the wider labour movement, migrant farmworker organizing presents some of the most ambitious and important fights for worker’s rights in Canada. By better understanding the strategic ways that the law can be used as a tool to fight for better working conditions and overall justice, we are better equipped to organize not just in solidarity with migrant farmworkers, but our own communities as well.
instagram.com
From Cuba to Occupied Palestine
When: April 19th, 6:30pmWhere: A Different Booklist, 779 Bathurst St
On April 17,1961, the US government sent about 1500 ClA-trained mercenaries to invade the Bay of Pigs (Playa Girdn) on the southern coast of Cuba in an attempt to overthrow the young Cuban Revolution. By April 19th, in less than 72 hours, Cuba had DEFEATED THE U.S. EMPIRE!!! The Cuban Revolution and the mobilization of the Cuban people led by Fidel Castro had been grossly underestimated!
Today, the successful resistance of heroic Palestinians in Gaza stands as testament to the fact that when a nation is united for a just cause, even the most barbaric genocidal acts cannot bring them to their knees!
Featured Speakers:
– Jorge Yanier Castellanos, Consul General of Cuba
– Message from Zafar Bangash, Director of Contemporary Islamic Thought
– Sarah Abu-Sharar, Palestinian Story Teller
forumoncuba.com
Canadian Foreign Policy Hour with Yves Engler
When: Mondays at 6pmJoin author Yves Engler on Mondays for a weekly news roundup and interactive discussion about Canada’s role abroad. This weekly session will delve into the latest developments on subjects ranging from military affairs and Canada’s role in Ukraine to its contribution to Palestinian dispossession, and the exploitation of African resources. Join Yves for a critical take on Canada’s foreign policy. Questions, comments, and criticisms are all welcome.
zoom.us
Indigenous Resistance from Coast to Coast
When: Monday April 21st, 7pmA panel discussion led by elders and movement leaders from across the country. These activists, thinkers, land- and water-defenders have been at the front line of the struggle for Indigenous Sovereignty for decades. They are teachers, mentors, and leaders. Their wisdom is crucial anti-racist education for every single person in so-called Canada. Come join us to learn together!
The webinar is being hosted and organized by Showing Up For Racial Justice (SURJ)
Panel discussion featuring Judy Da Silva (Grassy Narrows First Nation), Tsakë ze’ Sleydo’ Molly Wickham (Wet’suwet’en Gidimt’en clan), Kuku’wis Wowkis (Mikmaq grandmother).
Facilitated by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer and artist)
zoom.us
Justice for Workers
When: Tuesday April 22nd, 7pmJoin us for this pan-Canadian organizing meeting, where we’ll check in on how we’re doing in the fight for emergency supports for workers and communities.
Everything we do right now, from sending an email to postering your neighbourhood, will help us be better prepared for the fights that are sure to come after the federal election on April 28.
justice4workers.org
Health workers at Justice for Workers
When: Tuesday April 22nd, 7pmAs tariff take effect, workers are already facing job loss, financial instability, and deep uncertainty about their future. With rising costs and job insecurity, many patients are struggling to meet basic needs and worsening physical and mental health. The federal elections are fast approaching, and now is the moment to bring attention to critical policies that will improve health equity. Advocates are calling for immediate income support, permanent reforms to Employment Insurance, and lasting protections like rent control and a moratorium on evictions.
decentworkandhealth.org
Theory of Water
When: Wednesday April 23rd, 7pmWhere: Toronto Reference Library, Bram & Bluma Appel Salon
Acclaimed Nishnaabeg writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson discusses her new book, which takes a revolutionary look at that most elemental force, water, and suggests a powerful path for the future.
Theory of Water is the culmination of Leanne’s quest to discover, understand and trace the historical and cultural interactions of Indigenous peoples with water in all its forms. In it, she shows how a “Theory of Water” might lead to a radical rethinking of relationships between beings and forces in the world today.
torontopubliclibrary.ca
A Left Program for the Future of Labour
When: Thursday April 24th, 3pmWhere: Room 140, HNES Building Keele Campus, York University
Raquel Varela is a social historian and researcher in global labour history. She is an assistant professor at Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Autonomous Section on Education and General Training). She is the President of the Observatory for Living and Working Conditions and coordinator of Social Data/Nova Sustainability. Her area of research pertains to social sciences and humanities, with an emphasis on the subjects of history of revolutions and the labour movement, history and global sociology of work, and a global perspective on education and work. She is the author of A People’s History of the Portuguese Revolution and A People’s History of Europe From World War I to Today (Pluto Press).
facebook.com
Trump’s Tariffs: Building a Working-Class Response
When: Thursday April 24th, 7pmWhere: College Street United Church, 502 Bathurst St
US President Trump’s tariffs and trade policies represent a fundamental attack on Canadian working people. In our workplaces and communities,we are faced with layoffs, intensified attacks on social programs and rights, job security and potentially deep economic recession.
Given Canada’s integration and trade dependence with the US, working class, left, and environmental organizations have to find ways to debate collective strategies, share our analyses, defend working people, and build a challenge to business and business-oriented governments.
tickettailor.com
The World Under Capitalism
When: Thursday April 24th, 7pmWhere: Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St
TPL and Toronto Metropolitan University present Serbian-American economist and Senior Scholar at the City University in New York, Branko Milanovic, in conversation with Sanjay Ruparelia at the Toronto Reference Library’s Appel Salon.
As a leading economist best known for his work on income distribution and inequality, Branko Milanovic holds a profound understanding of how economic theory and history are intertwined.
We live in a world defined by capitalism. Historically, it has delivered general prosperity through a variety of systems, from liberal market economies to progressive social democracies. However, capitalism always comes with moral costs. It often celebrates material success at the expense of growing economic inequalities and generates political instability.
eventbrite.ca
People’s Assembly for Housing Justice
When: April 25th, 6:30pm and April 26th 10amWhere: Toronto PWA Foundation, 4th floor, 163 Queen St E
Building a powerful movement for #housingjustice in Toronto.
A coalition made up of neighbourhood groups including 230 Fightback, York-South Weston Tenant Group, and others, are inviting the community of housing advocates to convene for a People’s Assembly on Housing Justice with the goal of networking, educating, and mobilizing.
tdin.ca | docs.google.com
ARTICLES
How Amazon Workers Can Organise Globally
By Jonathan RosenblumWhen will Amazon workers around the world enjoy collective bargaining agreements with good pay, union job rights, and safety protections? The challenges facing this lofty goal remain daunting. One only needs to look at the pictures of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos mingling with his fellow centi-billionaires at Trump’s inauguration to understand that workers are up against the merged power of private corporations and hostile governments.
Source: The Bullet No. 3120
Facing Trump: What Perspectives for Quebec’s Ecosocialist and Ecofeminist Left?
By Bernard RiouxThe new era is characterised by far-right parties taking power in different parts of the world, including Donald Trump’s party in the United States. This situation poses a series of challenges to the ecosocialist and ecofeminist left and to the political and social left as a whole worldwide, in Canada and in Quebec. Québec solidaire also faces these challenges and must develop a programme, strategies and actions to address them. To do this, it is important that a broad debate opens up within the political and social left, particularly within Québec solidaire.
Source: The Bullet No. 3121
Trump’s Tariffs Seen from Contradictory Angles
By Patrick BondDonald Trump’s paleo-conservative, isolationist attack on global capitalist trade is already having formidable impacts. If tariff levels and targets announced on “Liberation Day,” April 2, are sustained, a full-blown economic catastrophe could result, perhaps reminiscent of 1930s-scale Make America Great Depression Again. The worst danger: national elites in victim countries will be divided-and-conquered.
Source: The Bullet No. 3122
From Bad to Worse: The New Political Setting and Challenges for the Canadian Left
By Socialist ProjectThe current political conjuncture can be defined by an unfolding sense, in Canada and around the world, that neoliberal policies have failed and even capitalism itself is not working. This is driven by the weakening, dismantling, or even destruction of the things that had made the capitalist system seem ‘legitimate’ and ‘fair’ in the eyes of the working classes – rising wages, affordable housing, improving healthcare, and protecting the environment. This constitutes a growing legitimation crisis.
Source: The Bullet No. 3123