CSJ Newsletter

September 26, 2024

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CALLS TO ACTION

Stand Against Anti-Palestinian Racism

Sign the petition to support Toronto Palestinian Families (TPF) and Toronto Jewish Families (TJF) as we urge the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) to address anti-Palestinian racism and support Palestinian students, families, and allies.

actionnetwork.org

EVENTS

Toronto Palestine Film Festival

When: Sept. 25 to Oct. 2

The 17th Toronto Palestine Film Festival (TPFF) celebrates Palestinian identity and culture through cinema, music, art and cuisine. The wide range of films showcased at the festival connects audiences to diverse Palestinian narratives. TPFF also includes panels, performances, and workshops – including a concert featuring Nai Barghouti.

tpff.ca | ticketmaster.com

Workers of the Earth

When: September 26th, 2pm EST (7pm BST)

How do we build working-class struggle for ecological transformation? How might workplace struggle, feminist struggle, and ecological struggle come together in a world on fire? Join an event to hear from Stefania Barca on their new book Workers of the Earth to start answering these questions together.

This event is hosted by RS21 and the radical eco movement publication Red Bird.

Register at outsavvy.com

Light the Spark

When: 26 September, 4pm
Where: Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, 438 University Ave

Join ODSP Action Coalition, Toronto Disability Pride March, Disability Justice Network of Ontario, and OPIRG Toronto’s movement building rally in support of folks in the Ontario Disability Support Program.

Mining and the Defense of Water Rights in El Salvador

When: Thursday, September 26th, 6pm
Where: Sidney Smith, 100 St. George St, Room 2098

The event will feature Community Water Systems expert Ever Hernandez who will discuss the persecution of his colleagues, the “Santa Marta Five,” who led a successful transnational movement for a ban on metal mining, as chronicled in the award-winning 2021 book The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed.

Their arrest and incarceration are seen as an effort to criminalize environmental activism and suppress opposition to mining in El Salavdor. He will also highlight the global solidarity efforts supporting these water defenders, including the involvement of the UN, US Congress members, and hundreds of international organizations.

yorku.ca

What is Fare Capping?

When: Sept. 26th, 6:30pm

Feeling tapped out? You’re not alone – TTC users pay one of the highest monthly transit pass costs in the country, and transit is increasingly unaffordable. Join this workshop in our transit advocacy workshop series as we gear up for Fall advocacy. This workshop will dive into fare capping, a new fare system that could make the TTC much more affordable and flexible that already exists in other cities. We will also share how you can get involved to speak up for fare capping!

ttcriders.ca

Communicating Fire: A Lecture by John Vaillant

When: Sept. 26th, at 7pm
Where: Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Ave

Launch of the Climate Communication After Climate Denialism series, featuring award-winning author John Vaillant Opens (The Golden Spruce, The Tiger). Launching our three-part series, Vaillant will share insights from his latest work, Fire Weather, by unpacking the devastating Fort McMurray wildfires and their connection to our fossil-fueled world. The discussion will be moderated by Adrienne Tanner, Editor-in-Chief of Canada’s National Observer.

This event offers an unique opportunity to engage with Vaillant’s gripping storytelling as he explores the intersection of climate change and environmental disasters, while addressing the pressing questions of how we communicate these urgent issues today.

utsc.utoronto.ca

Indigenous Legacy Gathering

When: Sept 27th, 6am to Sept 30th, 6pm
Where: Nathan Phillips Sq.

The Legacy Gathering is a free public and family friendly event held at Nathan Phillips Square to celebrate Indigenous cultural resiliency and diversity.

Toronto Council Fire will be hosting daily sunrise ceremonies, presentations, featured artists, local Indigenous performers, artisans and more!

Facebook

Public Transportation

When: Friday September 27th, 10am
Where: HNES 104, Seventh Floor, Kaneff Tower, 4700 Keele St

Although ‘the public’ in public transportation is rarely defined or interrogated, discourses about public transportation are shot through with assumptions about public space, public goods, and public life. In this panel, researchers from different disciplines engage recent critical literatures in urban governance, public space, infrastructure, and mobility studies that have opened up new avenues for thinking about the ‘public’ dimensions of mass transportation. Who is the ‘public’ of public transportation? Through what processes are these publics constituted and mobilized? In whose interest are transport systems built and managed? How are transportation systems embedded in broader political projects? To what extent do existing public transportation offerings provide universal, accessible, sustainable, and democratic urban mobility? In responding to these and other questions, we seek to explore novel sites, theories, and methodologies concerning the contentious politics of urban public transportation.

yorku.ca/robarts

Quebec Bill 69

When: Sept 27th, 11am

Bill 69 and the future of energy, electricity and decarbonization in Quebec.

zoom.us

Building Worker Power in the Digital Age

When: Sept. 27th, at 1pm

From electronic surveillance to automated management, Silicon Valley is developing new technologies for bosses to exert ever-greater power and control over workers. To fight back, we need more than turnout. We need strong, broad-based, worker- and community-led movements, in which, in the words of political scientist Hahrie Hahn, “people are power, not props.” Join workers, organizers, and tech justice practitioners to explore why, when it comes to labor and technology, popular education is uniquely suited to help us build the shared analysis, strategy, and power, with workers and community members that we urgently need to meet this moment.

zoom.us

Solidarity with Injured Workers

When: Friday September 27th, 2pm
Where: 200 Front St W.

On Friday September 27th, Injured Workers Action for Justice and Justice for Migrant Workers are organizing a solidarity action to demand action for injured workers. As Ontario students return to school, the children of injured workers are returning to school without the necessary support and supplies due to the inadequate benefits their families are receiving from the WSIB. Some are unable to attend school at all.

Injured workers will be delivering empty school bags to the WSIB to symbolize the poverty their families face as a result of the inadequacy of benefits provided by the WSIB. Injured workers and allies will also hand deliver a Back to School Report Card to convey a message of the failings of the WSIB system.

Facebook

Mid-Autumn Festival

When: Friday, September 27th, at 7PM
Where: OPSEU Office, 155 Lesmill Road (Free Parking)

Join the Chinese Workers Network celebrate Mid-Autumn festival and acknowledge National Day Truth and Reconciliation.

Featuring the screening of the film “Chinatown Rising.”

instagram.com

Young Worker Organizing

When: Saturday Sept. 28th, at 3:30pm
Where: 25 Cecil St (USW Hall)

Calling all young workers!

The Labour Council is hosting a session for all young workers to discuss effective organizing strategies.

instagram.com | google.com

Gaza Square

When: Every Sunday, 11am to 1pm
Where: 371 Wallace Ave

We’ll be at Gaza square once again this Sunday morning with hot chocolate and coffee, buttons and posters, lawn signs and colourful chalk! Come say hi and meet your fellow neighbours/organizers as we make our presence known and continue to build safety in our community!

Instagram poster

The History of Workers in the Don Valley

When: Sunday September 29th, at 2pm
Where: 67 Pottery Rd

Way back in the early 19th century, a tiny industrial community grew up on the east bank of the Don River, the village of Todmorden Mills. It once included a lumber mill, a paper mill, a brewery, and homes for working people. Nearby was the Don Valley Brick Works. Today the City of Toronto runs a museum and arts centre on the site. TWHP has arranged for a special tour of the historic buildings, which hold fascinating histories of workers in the valley.

Register by 26th Sept. at twhp.ca

Weekly Phone-zap for Palestine

When: Mondays at 12pm

Week after week, we’re keeping the momentum going with our Monday lunchtime zaps.

Our collective action is making waves, but we need to ensure our elected officials continue to feel the pressure until real change happens.

Instagram poster | Register at zoom

Every Child Matters

When: Monday Sept. 30th, 2pm
Where: Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, 16 Spadina Rd

Wear your orange shirts, bring your indigenous land back, every child matters, warrior flags, MMIW flags, women’s warrior flags, bring your medicines, come in good faith bring your drums, shakers and healing singing medicine.

We will start and end with smudge, prayer while proceeding to walk In Healing while we share our stories and head to water to offer sema, prayers to release any heaviness we carry through sharing our truth.

We will have speakers in regard to Indian residential school, Day school, Sixties scoop, indigenous prisoners and descendants of. This is NOT about reconciliation we want reconciliACTION, let’s bring awareness and educate the world on indigenous issues we face through Canadian Apartheid.

Facebook

Orange Shirt Day

When: September 30th, 3:30pm
Where: Dundas Roncesvalles Peace Garden

Join the National Day of Truth & Reconciliation as we pay respects to Indigenous children who never returned home from Canadian residential schools.

In preparation for NDTR, anyone is invited once again to lay children’s shoes at the Peace Garden. Some shoes will be carried on the Orange Shirt Walk down Roncesvalles on Sept 30th, where new Indigenous bench art murals will be dedicated, with ceremony.

On NDTR, please gather at the Peace Garden, to the music of Roncy Jam Factory. Songs composed by Tim Casswell on reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass” will be sung. Lyrics will be handed out to everyone, to join in.

Facebook

Canadian Foreign Policy Hour with Yves Engler

When: Mondays at 6pm

Join 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

Seniors for Climate

When: October 1st, 1:30pm
Where: University Ave. and Armoury

Youth and seniors will speak at the short rally. March with “Marching Disorder” band to the church.

Among speakers and performers at the church: David Phillips, David Suzuki, Lillian Allen, the Raging Grannies, Ken Whiteley.

All ages welcome. Come to both events and bring your friends and family.

Facebook event

Rebuilding Cities and Citizens

When: October 2nd, 10am

In Vienna after WWI and Berlin after WWII, the provision of mass housing not only was a response to a dire social need but also served as a key lever for building variants of socialism and liberalism. Zooming into the interplay between political ideologies and the production of space, this book shows that ideologies, understood as political beliefs that underpin everyday life, are never simply ‘written’ into space but that their meaning is made and re-made, negotiated and contested, and sometimes cunningly subverted in and through space.

Zoom.us

ARTICLES

Oil Kills

By Alexandria Shaner

A new international coalition is disrupting airports to make one demand: the adoption of a treaty to end fossil fuels by 2030. Under the banner “Oil Kills,” small groups of activists have occupied airport departure lounges, plane cabins, terminals, tarmacs, and roads across three continents – and they aren’t done yet. Here are the numbers so far: 500 people, 31 airports, 22 groups, 144 arrests, 42 people on remand in prison – all in support of their one demand.

Source: The Bullet No. 3041

Lebanon and the Israeli Strategy of Intimidation

By Gilbert Achcar

In recent days, Israeli threats regarding an imminent attack on Lebanon have multiplied, especially since the Israeli pre-emptive attack on Hezbollah on the 25th of August, which was followed by the party’s attack in retaliation for the assassination of military commander Fouad Shukr. Since that day, a chorus began to blame Benjamin Netanyahu for the size of the pre-emptive operation, which some Zionist commentators saw as less than what was required, as they wish for an attack that goes beyond military targets to reach deterrent proportions by unleashing intensive destruction on the population concentrations in which the party prevails.

Source: The Bullet No. 3042

Scholasticide at Every Level

By Judy Haiven

The beginning of a new school year. By Wednesday, everything will be open, every classroom on campus, every elementary and high school, every recreation facility, every gym, every nursery school – all to cater to returning or brand-new students. The year is full of hope for some and huge concern for those watching the Gaza genocide. The place that deserves our concern and outrage is Gaza, where from 1,000 to 5,000 Gazans, mainly children, have had an arm or leg (or both) severed by Israeli missile attacks since Oct 7, 2023.

Source: The Bullet No. 3043

Grassy Narrows River Run 2024

Grassy Narrows has the longest-running blockade in Canadian history, which has helped foster Indigenous resistance across Turtle Island and saved 15 million trees from being cut.

In September 2024, community members and leaders have traveled 1,700km from Grassy Narrows to Toronto to demand that Ontario and Canada:
1. Compensate everyone in Grassy Narrows fairly for the mercury crisis,
2. Respect the Grassy Narrows Indigenous Protected Area (end mining and logging plans in Grassy Narrows territory and keep nuclear waste out of the watershed), and
3. Support Grassy Narrows in restoring their community and way of life from the damage that mercury has done.

Source: LeftStreamed

EMPLOYMENT

Administration Coordinator

Fernwood is an independent Canadian publisher with radically left political views. For over thirty years we have sought social transformation through publishing books of non-fiction and fiction for general public, academic and scholarly readers. We publish books that acknowledge, confront, and contest all forms of oppression and exploitation. We believe that in publishing books that challenge the status quo and imagine new ways forward we participate in the struggle for a just, equitable society.

The ideal person for this position will have strong organizational and time management skills with an ability to prioritize work. They will be proficient with QuickBooks Online, Microsoft Office, and demonstrate a willingness to learn other applications as necessary. They will have an interest in social justice publishing, effective communication skills, and the ability to work independently and in a collaborative work environment as part of the Fernwood team. This job involves lifting and moving boxes of books.

fernwoodpublishing.ca
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