CONTENTS

1. CALLS TO ACTION
2. EVENTS
3. ARTICLES

One Year on From French Court INJUSTICE

One year ago, on 21 April 2023, the Special Court of Assize in Paris unjustly declared Canadian citizen Hassan Diab guilty, based on unfounded allegations and flawed intelligence that is not allowed in a Canadian court. He was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for a crime he did not commit: the 1980 bombing outside a Paris synagogue.

Driven by political pressure to scapegoat an innocent man, the Special Court of Assize trial ignored exonerating evidence and the alibi firmly establishing Dr. Diab’s presence in Beirut, Lebanon, at the time of the tragic 1980 attack. The prosecutors were allowed to vilify the accused, filibuster, and steal the defense’s speaking time. The court had no transcripts or other recording of the event.

In a mind-boggling irony, the Court of Assize in 2023 relied on the intelligence that France had withdrawn from the Canadian extradition hearing in 2011 to declare him guilty, AND discarded the handwriting analysis that was used to commit him to extradition in 2014 due to its unreliability.

Sign petition at ourcommons.ca.

Stop Bill 166

Bill 166 claims to protect student safety and inclusion.  Instead, it demonstrates the Ford government’s continued failure to understand mental health and anti-racism, and its insistence on trying to control post-secondary institutions rather than fund them.   Bill 166 gives unprecedented powers to the Minister of Colleges and Universities to direct the specific topics and elements of any post-secondary institution’s mental health and anti-racism policies, and to take unspecified action if the Minister thinks the institution has not complied.  This ignores decades of research and best practices on mental health and equity, and endangers the considerable work already being done in these areas on Ontario campuses.

In short, instead of advancing student mental health and anti-racism on campuses, this bill stymies both and opens the door to a degree of political interference that would shatter the integrity of Ontario’s postsecondary institutions.  

Tell your MPP to stop Bill 166 now! Enter your address in the form on this page and click ‘Start writing’.

actionnetwork.org

Status for All

When: April 25th
Where: 48B Rosemount Ave (12pm – Ahmed Hussen)
Where: 430 Parliament St (10:45am – Marci Ien)

Migrants and supporters in over 25 cities across the country are delivering names of petitioners to Cabinet Ministers. We are showing up to local constituency offices calling on them to support permanent resident status for all undocumented people without delay.

migrantrights.ca

No Arms in the Arts Festival

When: April 25 to May 5

Join the “No Arms in the Arts Festival”, a 10-day counter-program to Hot Docs including actions, film screenings, and talks. We are calling on Scotiabank to fully divest from Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems and for all cultural institutions receiving funding from the bank, including Hot Docs, CONTACT, and the Giller Prize, to end their complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

From April 25 to May 5, join us in the call: No Arms in the Arts! Scotiabank, Divest from Elbit!

All events will be PWYC to decolonize our cultural sector and empower artists and arts workers from Turtle Island to Palestine!

noarmsinthearts.com

Day of Mourning

When: Friday, April 26th, 12pm
Where: Larry Sefton Park (Just behind City Hall), 500 Bay St

Join us in-person on Friday, April 26, 2024 to mark the Day of Mourning in Toronto and York Region. We will be holding a heartfelt tribute in two locations for the numerous workers who have tragically lost their lives, suffered injuries, or faced illnesses because of workplace incidents.

Let’s stand united in remembrance and passionately advocate for the safety and well-being of all workers.

labourcouncil.ca

End the racist keffiyeh ban!

When: April 26th, 5:30pm – 7:00pm
Where: Doug Ford’s Constituency Office, 823 Albion Rd

The Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) is calling an emergency rally at Doug Ford’s Constituency Office on Friday evening.

Join us to tell Ford and the Conservatives:
– End the racist keffiyeh ban at Queen’s Park!
– The ban is an attack on Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim communities in Ontario. No community in our province should be targeted this way.

ofl.ca

Parkdale Community Plan Launch!

When: April 27th, 1:30pm
Where: Public Library, 1303 Queen Street W

After four years of in-depth engagement and collective visioning, the 2024 Parkdale Community Plan is ready! This community plan embodies the tireless contributions, passion, and dedication of countless individuals and organizations in Parkdale.

eventbrite.ca

Labour Solidarity Against Apartheid

When: April 27th, 5pm

April 27 marks the 30th anniversary of Freedom Day in South Africa, when the first free and fair elections took place in 1994. That victory continues to inspire the ongoing fight against Anti-Black Racism, from South Africa to Turtle Island and beyond.

We mark Freedom Day this year against the backdrop of the global fight for a ceasefire in Israel-Palestine, the restoration of aid to Gaza, a two-way arms embargo, and an end to Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land.

ofl.ca

May Day

When: April 27th, 7pm
Where: Steelworkers’ Hall, 25 Cecil St

Agitate, Resist, Emancipate

Facebook event

Book launch: The Fall and Rise of American Finance

When: Saturday, April 27th, 7pm
Where: CSI Annex, 720 Bathurst St

All are warmly invited to join us for the Toronto launch of this insightful and timely book. As global left and progressive forces search for ways to meaningfully confront the ever-evolving capitalism of today, works such as The Fall and Rise of American Finance are a vital tool in understanding the shifting economic landscape we face.

tickettailor.com

Film and Q+A: Union

When: April 28th, 10am; and May 4th, 5:30pm
Where: Scotiabank Theatre, 259 Richmond St W

When some workers make history by becoming the first unionized Amazon workplace in the United States, their victory stands as extraordinary for any union, let alone the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), which succeeded with no prior organizing experience, institutional backing or substantial budget. These leaders, including the charismatic Chris Smalls, embraced their group’s unique persona and highly unconventional strategies, like wearing Money Heist costumes at press conferences or distributing free marijuana to workers, and did not back down in the face of near-impossible hurdles, including a dire lack of resources, interpersonal tensions, and the ruthless tactics of a corporate giant.

hotdocs.ca

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

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

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

Freedom for All: A Jewish-Palestinian Resistance Seder

When: Tuesday, April 30th, 6pm
Where: Nathan Phillips Square

It is a traditional part of the Seder to invite people in and to say “Let all who are hungry come and eat.” As children are dying from starvation in Gaza and the imposed famine deepens, we will refrain from eating a festive meal.

This Passover, we are calling for Freedom for All. Join us.

Organized in coalition by IfNotNowToronto, Jews Say No To Genocide, and حرية, this is a collaborative, symbolic Seder event.

Join remotely via instagram.com.

Mayworks Festival 2024

When: All of May

This year, twenty artists are featured, each of whom, with compassion, engages in the spirit of collective power.

From responses to inaccessible health care in Ontario to a fight for dignity among migrant workers in Quebec; from capturing the alienation of injured workers in Toronto to classist land grabbing in Pakistan; from an analysis of radical protests against resource exploitation in the Caribbean to clarifying the long-lasting impacts of French colonialism, and also to witnessing the endurance of Palestinian political prisoners; the artworks narrate our joint struggles.

mayworks.ca

May 1 Day of Action

When: May 1st, 4pm
Where: 3279 Caroga Dr, Mississauga

Join Unite/Here on International Workers’ Day, May 1st, outside the Hampton Inn and Suites near Toronto Pearson Airport, starting at 4pm, as thousands of hotel workers and @unitehere members across Canada and the US say: RESPECT OUR WORK!

Twitter poster

On Solidarity: An Evening of Art and Conversation

When: Wednesday, May 1st, 6pm
Where: Lula Lounge, 1585 Dundas Street W

Solidarity isn’t merely the awareness of having shared interests or values with others. Solidarity signifies something much deeper and alludes to action, a collective response to social and political change. With ever-growing economic inequality and political polarization, there is a push for solidarity across groups to confront the resulting social upheaval. Debtors’ collectives, protest marches, mutual aid, cooperative living — these are all ways that people increasingly on the margins are creating alliances. Art is yet another. What can solidarity as a political force look like? Is it possible to create a shared vision of the future? And is there a way to draw that map together?

Featuring a conversation with Astra Taylor and Nahlah Ayed, followed by a panel discussion with Suvendrini Lena, Dania Majid, Thea Lim and Nahlah Ayed.

eventbrite.ca

A Struggle: Searching for Space in Jane Finch

When: May 1st, 6pm
Where: EarlyON Centre, Jane Finch Mall

Join us this May Day for a documentary screening and panel discussion about the struggles facing a racialized working class community in search of communal spaces.

Facebook event | Twitter poster

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

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

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

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