CONTENTS

1. CALLS TO ACTION
2. EVENTS
3. ARTICLES

Stop TTC Cuts!

Tell Mayor Tory and your Councillor to fund lower fares and improved TTC service — not increase fares, policing, and make service cuts!

Toronto City Council is voting soon on the 2023 budget. Fare increases for adults and youth, allowing more crowding, and service cuts are proposed — 9% less service in 2023 than pre-pandemic levels. That’s why your Councillor needs to hear from you! Remind them of their promises made before the election, or ask them to commit now to protect the TTC from cuts.

ttcriders.ca

Black History Month 2023

When: February 2 to 28

Black History Month is a distinct period for honouring history, negotiating current realities, and imagining potential futures for Black communities. In recent years, the Harriet Tubman Institute has celebrated Black History Month by focusing on the achievements of Black people; looking back to examine their accomplishments as a path to move forward as well as to spotlight Black knowledge about health in its multiple dimensions, highlighting the work of Africans on the continent and of people of African descent across the diasporas, especially here in Canada.

yorku.ca

Today in Palestine with Diana Buttu

When: February 16th 12pm

In a period of increasing settler-colonial violence, renowned Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu has been traveling through Palestine to keep up with events. Come hear the story that mainstream news isn’t covering.

eventbrite.com

UNDPAD: A National Conversation with Labour

When: February 16th, 6pm

The United Nations Decade for People of African Descent is coming to an end in 2024. How has labour moved the needle on anti-Black racism? Do we need more time?

Please join us for an evening where we will hear from experts from both Labour and Community discussing how the first 8 years of the Decade for People of African Descent has progressed and consider where we need to focus going forward.

communitybenefits.ca

TWHP Book Club

When: February 16th, 7pm

Our next book club read is Carolyn Strange’s Toronto’s Girl Problem: The Perils and Pleasures of the City, 1880-1930.

mailchi.mp | zoom.us

Haiti Betrayed: Canada’s role in the current crisis

When: February 16th, 7:30pm

Join this free online panel discussion with Elaine Briére, filmmaker of “Haiti Betrayed,” and special Haitian-Canadian guests Jafrikayiti Jean Saint-Vil, Georges Gabrielle Paul & Garry Auguste, who will discuss the current crisis in Haiti and Canada’s role past and present. The event is being held to remember the coup orchestrated by Canada, France and the United States against the democratically elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and to demand accountability. It is also held to recognize Black History Month and to stand in solidarity with Haitians who continue to resist the ongoing neocolonial oppression and violence by Canada in their country.

You are encouraged to watch the film Haiti Betrayed before the panel discussion. The film is available for free at foreignpolicy.ca (code: HB1915).

Facebook event

Learn Your Rights! For Black Workers

When: February 18th, 11am

Learn Your Rights is continuing to advocate and support Black workers through another Black workers’ rights information clinic.

TYRLC is glad to be one of the co-hosts! Partnered with the Scarborough Hub to create a space of learning, support and networking. There will be community organizations available to provide resources, answer questions and chat!

labourcouncil.ca | eventbrite.ca

No to War, No to NATO

When: Sunday, February 19th, 12pm

For the last year, the war in Ukraine has been reflected daily in mainstream news, but remains an issue clouded by confusion. While events of the last year are front page news, there is little talk about the many years of NATO provocations, aggression and military buildup against Russia. More and more each day, NATO countries including Canada, the US, and England are fueling the war, funneling even more weapons into Ukraine. Join the Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network for a webinar featuring speakers from Canada, the US, and Ukraine.

actionnetwork.org

The Black Race by Ho Chi Minh

When: February 19th, 2pm

The panel will discuss the contents of the book The Black Race by Ho Chi Minh and Selected Works on Systemic Racism, compiled by Dai Trang Nguyen and edited by Luis Silva. The publication is a collection of 20 essays that were written in the 1920s and 1960s by the Vietnamese revolutionary leader that trace the roots of institutional racism within the United States to the European enslavement of Africans through colonial imperialism. His essays delved into such topics as lynching, the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow and racial injustice, and the panel will examine how his past work is still relevant today within the social context of the Black Lives Matter movement.

canada-asean.org

Celebrating Black labour leadership in Canada

When: February 20th, 6pm

Black History Month is an opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the contributions and accomplishments of Black leaders, workers, cultures and communities across Canada. Our labour movement has been shaped and fortified by the leadership of people of African and Caribbean descent, and we are proud to build and grow in solidarity together toward a more equitable future.

This Black History Month, PSAC invites you to register for a national virtual panel discussion on February 20th, with Black leaders in Canada’s labour movement.

psacunion.ca | Zoom.us

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 exploitation of African resources. Join Yves for a critical take on Canada’s foreign policy. Questions, comments and criticisms are all welcome.

zoom.us

Rally to Stop the Privatization of Healthcare

When: Wednesday February 22nd, at 5pm

It’s time to push back on Ford! We deserve to access healthcare when we need it with our OHIP card, not our credit card! A two-tiered healthcare system will leave millions of Ontarians behind. Access to health care shouldn’t depend on the size of your wallet. Stand up for #Healthcare4all!

jessicabellmpp.ca

Organizing on the Front Lines of the Class War

When: Thursday February 23rd, 5:30pm

Amidst a rekindled interest in the efforts of student radicals of the 1960s to industrialize the workers’ movement as part of a larger social transformation, Jon Melrod’s Fighting Times: Organizing on the Front Lines of the Class War could not be more timely. Fighting Times recounts the thirteen-year journey of Jon Melrod to harness working-class militancy and jump start a revolution on the shop floor of American Motors. Melrod faces termination, dodges the FBI, outwits collaborators in the UAW, and becomes a central figure in a lawsuit against the rank-and-file newsletter “Fighting Times,” as he strives to build a class-conscious workers’ movement from the bottom up.

Speakers:

– Jon Melrod is a former student radical and rank and file militant, as well as a lawyer in San Francisco representing political refugees. He is the author of Fighting Times: Organizing on the Front Lines of the Class War.

– Barry Eidlin is an associate professor of sociology at McGill University and the author of Labor and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada.

eventbrite.com

Colonial Canada and the Caribbean

When: February 23rd, 7pm

To mark Black History month, this webinar will discuss Canada’s colonial role in the Caribbean, past and present, from Canadian trade relations with the slave plantation economy to gunboat diplomacy and Canadian banking power in the late 1800s.

This event will feature discussion and Q&A with Paula Hastings (author of Dominion over Palm and Pine: A History of Canadian Aspirations in the British Caribbean) and Peter James Hudson (author of Bankers and Empire: How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean).

zoom.us

Western Efforts to Interfere in Iran’s Civil Uprising

By Fereshteh Ahmadi and Sharareh Akhavan

Over the past three months, the news media have focused on the recent protests in Iran. We are writing this essay in order to draw attention to the current risks to the Iranian feminist revolution. We are writing to highlight what is happening in our country of birth, Iran, a country that has always been of interest to the Western world, a country that during the last 100 years has frequently stood up for democracy only to be suppressed by domestic forces backed by Western powers. Iran’s women and young people are now rising up again, and their slogan “woman, life, freedom” is heard in all parts of the country.

Source: The Bullet No. 2779

Provincial Schemes Will Destroy Public Healthcare in Ontario

By Ontario Health Coalition

For decades the Ontario Health Coalition has been on the front line of the fight to safeguard public healthcare against privatization and to protect patients from extra-billing. Few have followed the behaviour of the private clinics in Canada more closely. Today, the Coalition warned that the unprecedented healthcare crisis is, in significant part, due to our government’s cutting and privatizing public hospital services beyond all reason and evidence. Public hospitals are a target because they represent billions in public funding that vested interests want for themselves in profits, tax giveaways and other redirections of that funding.

Source: The Bullet No. 2780

The Earthquake in Turkey and Syria is Not Just a Natural Disaster

By Meghan Bodette

The earthquake that devastated southern Turkey and northern Syria in early February was a natural disaster – but the decades of war, sanctions and exploitation that made it so deadly were man-made. If the earthquake recovery can become a recovery from endless war and corrupt, far-right nationalist rule, the people of the region will be better protected from all future disasters – natural or otherwise.

Source: The Bullet No. 2781

Roger Waters United Nations Speech: Ceasefire Now!

The invasion of Ukraine by The Russian Federation was illegal. I condemn it in the strongest possible terms. Also, The Russian invasion of Ukraine was not unprovoked, so I also condemn the provocateurs in the strongest possible terms. We the people, want universal human rights for all our brothers and sisters all over the world irrespective of their ethnicity, religion or nationality. To be clear, that would include but would not be limited to the right to life and property under the law, for instance, Ukrainians, and for instance Palestinians.

Source: LeftStreamed