CONTENTS

1. CALLS TO ACTION
2. EVENTS
3. ARTICLES

Stop Two-Tier Healthcare

Premier Danielle Smith has introduced Bill 11 to let doctors work in both the public and private systems. They bill the public plan for some services and charge patients directly for faster private procedures. This creates a private fast lane and slows the public system for everyone else.

This is a Canada-wide issue. Alberta’s Bill 11 changes the rules for the whole country. If Alberta is allowed to bring in paid fast lanes inside a public system, other provinces will follow. That means longer waits, higher costs, and weaker public care where you live. The end of Universal Public Healthcare.

The Canada Health Act applies to every Canadian. When one province breaks it, equal access breaks everywhere.

notwotier.ca

Venezuela in Washington’s Crosshairs

When: January 6, 8, and 13th, at 4pm

This three-part webinar series brings together scholars, lawyers, and organizers to explore the many dimensions– in Venezuela, in the USA, and in international law– of the Trump administration’s belligerent actions against Venezuela. Sponsored by Just World Educational and the Task Force on the Americas, and with a growing list of organizational co-sponsors, this series offers public discussion grounded in international law, history, and global solidarity. Find details of the schedule, the speakers, the co-sponsors at bit.ly/VZ-proj-deets.

justworldeducational.org | zoom.us

Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism

When: January 8th, 4pm
Where: Jackman Humanities Building, Room 100A, 170 St. George St.

Will green capitalism save us from the climate crisis? “Clean” technologies and renewable energy and certainly growing sites of capitalist investment, with government policies playing a key role in making these sectors profitable. But the supply chains that produce the technologies pose vexing dilemmas for the energy transition. These dilemmas are most dramatic at the extractive frontiers of green capitalism: where the natural resources needed to manufacture electric vehicles and build windmills are extracted. In this talk, I will unpack these challenges through the lens of lithium, a so-called ‘critical mineral’ essential for its role in decarbonizing one of the most polluting sectors: transportation.

eventbrite.ca

Kidnapping Venezuela’s Sovereignty

When: January 10th, 7am

An urgent conversation on imperial pressure, economic warfare, and military and political intervention against Venezuela.

Speakers
* Carlos Ron – Former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for North America, Venezuela
* Stephanie Weatherbee – Operative Secretariat, International Peoples Assembly
* Vijay Prashad – Director, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research

zoom.us

Anti-Eviction Movement in Venezuela

When: January 10th, 12pm

As a part of our “Building an Anti-Imperialist Neighbourhood Struggle” Public Educational Series, please join us to hear from Rigel Sergent, Spokesperson, Movimiento de Inquilinas e Inquilinos, anti-eviction movement in Venezuela. They are a part of their parent organization: Movimiento de Pobladoras y Pobladores, combative Chavista platform for urban struggle, that occupies unused urban land.

We will also be joined by Blanca Eeekhout, who has previously served as the Minister of People’s Power for the Communes and Social Movements of Venezuela, a leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and is the current president of the Instituto Simón Bolívar for Peace and Solidarity Among Peoples (ISB), which advocates for peace, solidarity, and human rights in Venezuela!

docs.google.com

No To Hate!

When: January 10th, 12:30pm
Where: Nathan Phillips Square

The anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant group “Canada First” are bringing their hate to Nathan Phillips Square on January 10th. This far-right group, inspired by UK fascist Tommy Robinson, is part of a growing threat around the world. They blame immigrants for crises in housing, jobs and social services, instead of pointing the finger at the true causes – failed government policies that prioritize profit over people. Say no to these hate groups poisoning our communities and our streets with their white supremacist, anti-immigrant and Islamophobic rantings. On January 10th, we say Solidarity not scapegoating! No to racism and Islamophobia!

Organized by Community Solidarity Toronto, which includes Toronto & York Region Labour Council, Urban Alliance on Race Relations, Toronto East Anti-hate Mobilization, Steelworkers Toronto Area Council and more.

Facebook

Indigenous Perspectives on the Global Critical Minerals

When: Tuesday, January 13th, 10am

The first webinar in this series will bring together five Indigenous speakers from around the world to discuss global, regional, and local fights for justice related to the global push for “critical minerals” extraction. Panelists will discuss specific harms and rights violations they are facing, what a “just” energy transition might look like, and what civil society groups working on related issues should know.

zoom.us

Performance: The Battle for a Shorter Working Day

When: January 14, 15, and 16th, 7:30pm
Where: Steelworkers’ Hall, 25 Cecil St

There was a time when workers sweated through ten or twelve-hour working days. How did we end up with more time off the job? By unions demanding it, again and again.

It all began in 1872. That year a movement for a nine-hour day burst onto the public stage in cities and towns across central Canada. Toronto was the site of one of the most famous incidents in that campaign when the printers went on strike against almost all the city’s newspapers.

eventbrite.ca

Higher Education Organizing Meeting

When: January 15th, 6:30pm
Where: College Street United Church, 502 Bathurst St

Building on our first successful meeting in November, we’re forging ahead with our sectoral-wide organizing strategy in the higher education sector. Our second organizing meeting, which will be held on January 15th, is focused on creating a Solidarity Pact for higher education workers. Sean Smith – a former activist and organizer with the Toronto Airport Workers Council – will be joining us to discuss what a solidarity pact is, how Toronto Airport Workers used it as an organizing tool, and how we can develop something similar to build our collective power across the education sector.

The purpose of January’s meeting is threefold: (1) understanding what a Solidarity Pact is and how it can help us develop unity across the sector; (2) begin constructing our own Solidarity Pact; and (3) strategize ways we can use our Solidarity Pact as an organizing tool across the higher education sector.

tally.so

Booklaunch: Cancelling Billionaires Before They Cancel Us

When: January 21st, 6:30pm
Where: Tranzac Club, 292 Brunswick Ave

Join authors Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks to celebrate the launch of their book Cancelling Billionaires Before They Cancel Us: The Urgent Case for a Wealth Tax.

Music by Three Chord Johnny. Everyone is welcome.

dundurn.com

Cybernetic Circulation Complex

When: Friday January 23rd, 7pm
Where: College Street United Church, 502 Bathurst St

Big Tech firms dominate the global economy. But what value do they actually produce? In Cybernetic Circulation Complex: Big Tech and Planetary Crisis (Verso, 2024), Nick Dyer-Witheford and Alessandra Mularoni argue that the role of firms like Amazon and Google, Palantir and Uber, is in the speeding up and automation of the circulation of commodities. Big Tech aims to subject everything, from advertising and shopping, to logistics and financial services to the level of control and predictability that capital has secured in industrial production.

tickettailor.com

First Venezuela (Then China?)

By Atilio A. Boron

The escalation of US aggression against Venezuela seems unstoppable, while extrajudicial executions by US forces accumulate in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Threats are becoming increasingly vocal in Washington, and naval and air blockades are intensifying by the hour. These measures violate the United Nations Charter and international law, but US President Donald Trump and his henchmen seem determined to do whatever it takes to subjugate the South American country. It remains to be seen, however, whether with an invasion they want to create their own Vietnam or Afghanistan; in other words, whether they are stupid enough to start another fire but this time not in distant lands but in the front yard of the United States.

Source: The Bullet No. 3241

Alberta is Privatizing Healthcare

Alberta’s government, led by Danielle Smith and the United Conservative Party, passed a new law, Bill 11: The Health Statutes Amendment Act, last week. With its passage the existential threat to public medicare in Canada is here. The new law sets up two-tier medicare and private health insurance in Alberta. It is terrible for Albertans, destroys single-tier public medicare in Canada as a national achievement, and puts at threat public healthcare across the country. It follows on the heels of the Alberta government’s repeated use of the Notwithstanding Clause to enable violations of the Canadian Constitution and Charter of Rights and an emboldened push for Alberta’s separation from Canada among some forces in the province.

Source: The Bullet No. 3242

#Insorgiamo: A Factory Occupation for the Climate

By Lukas Ferrari and Julia Kaiser

Imagine a climate strike in which 40,000 industrial workers, climate activists, pacifists, and other non-politically active people are brought together. In their speeches, they denounce the shutdown of an automotive supply factory. They all agree that what is needed is a conversion of production instead of layoffs. The bloc right at the front of the demonstration is made up of workers from the affected factory, and behind them are masses of militant climate activists and spontaneous demonstrators.

Source: The Bullet No. 3243

Is Israel’s Genocide Economy on the Brink?

Since October 2023, Israel has faced a convergence of economic shocks. Tens of thousands of residents have been displaced from border regions in the south and north as a result of hostilities with Hamas and Hezbollah, while hundreds of thousands of reservists were pulled out of the workforce for extended periods, leaving key sectors short-staffed and productivity depleted. Public services, education, and healthcare have deteriorated as state spending was diverted to the war, and almost 50,000 businesses have gone bankrupt.

Source: The Bullet No. 3244