CONTENTS
CALLS TO ACTION
Protect your right to public healthcare
Every single one of us is at risk of losing our right to quality public healthcare.Our public health system is under threat of privatization — which is often touted by politicians as a solution to the current healthcare crisis, but will actually make it much worse.
Privatization puts an increased strain on frontline workers and struggling hospitals. It creates a system where the wealthy can afford to quickly skip the line, while everyone else is forced to wait — even longer than we currently are.
Simply put: private, for-profit medical clinics are focused on making money for their shareholders. Health care in Canada must prioritize patients’ needs over profiteering.
action.healthcoalition.ca
EVENTS
Jane Street bus service cuts and stop removals
When: March 23rd, 2pmThe TTC and City of Toronto are planning big changes to bus service on Jane Street, including eliminating some local bus stops on Jane Street.
Attend this workshop to learn about what is planned, share your views, and gain tools to involve our communities.
All invited, especially residents, workers and employees and volunteers with community organizations that might be affected by the proposed changes to the 35 Jane and 935 Jane.
zoom.com
Ontario Health Coalition Townhall
When: Thursday, March 23rd, 7pmWe will be building toward a province-wide referendum. To do this we will hold a large regional online mobilizing meeting followed by in-person meetings in every community in which we can get volunteers to help. Thank you to everyone who volunteered.
Greater Toronto & Surrounding Area Regional Organizing Meeting (Toronto, Scarborough, Etobicoke, North York, Peel, Caledon, Newmarket, Aurora, Markham, Stouffville)
zoom.us
TWHP Book Club
When: March 23rd, 7:30pmJoin TWHP on Zoom as we discuss Susan Crean’s Finding Mr. Wong.
Susan Crean’s memoir chronicles her effort to piece together the life of the man she knew as Wong, a cook and housekeeper to her Irish Canadian family for two generations.
zoom.us
Four Winters: A Story of Jewish Partisan Resistance
When: March 24 to April 1Tickets: $15 (members from $10)
“All I owned was my camera, leopard coat, rifle and a grenade in case I’m captured…the pillow was the rifle, the walls were the trees and the sky was the roof,” says Faye Schulman, one of over 25,000 Jewish partisans who fought back against the Nazis and their collaborators from deep within the forests of WWII’s Eastern Europe, Ukraine and Belarus. Against extraordinary odds, they escaped the Nazis, transforming from young innocents raised in closely-knit families to courageous resistance fighters. The last surviving partisans tell their stories of resistance in Four Winters, revealing a stunning narrative of heroism and resilience.
hotdocs.ca
End the War in Yemen
When: March 26th, 2pmWhere: Meet at Simcoe Park, 255 Front Street W
ALL OUT on the eight-year anniversary of the brutal war in Yemen to demand #CanadaStopArmingSaudi and denounce Canada’s deadly hypocrisy in fueling the war with billions of dollars in arms sales.
March 26 2023 marks eight years of the brutal war in Yemen. A war that has killed over a quarter of a million people. A war that Canada has armed by sending over $8 billion in weapons to Saudi Arabia since 2015, the year the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen began.
peaceandjusticenetwork.ca
Stop TTC Cuts
When: March 27thWhere: select your location
TTCriders will be flyering, postering and canvassing across the city, mobilizing transit users to call on their city councillors to reverse damaging service cuts approved under the 2023 TTC operating budget. Service cuts and fare increases could send our transit system into a ‘death spiral’ where ridership declines lead to more service cuts. Under these service cuts you’ll be waiting longer for your bus, streetcar or subway and paying higher fares. Take action with us on March 27th.
ttcriders.ca
Harvesting Freedom
When: March 27th, 6pmWhere: Ivey Library, 20 Willcocks St
Please join this in-person Toronto book launch of Gabriel Allahdua’s Harvesting Freedom: The Life of a Migrant Worker in Canada.
In this singular firsthand account, a former migrant worker reveals a disturbing system of exploitation at the heart of Canada’s farm labour system.
Free admission; dinner will be provided. eventbrite.ca
Forgotten War: Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and the Canadian arms trade
When: Monday March 27th, 7pmEight years ago, the Saudi-led coalition began an armed intervention in Yemen. An estimated 377,000 people have died because of the conflict. Millions more have been displaced across the region.
Leading organizations have repeatedly accused the Saudi-led coalition of perpetrating gross violations of human rights in the conflict and have called for an end to weapons transfers to the warring parties. Yet in these eight years, Canada has exported record numbers of arms to Saudi Arabia.
ploughshares-ca.zoom.us
Is Building a Better Toronto Even Possible?
When: March 29th, 6pmA Conversation with Gita Madan from Another Toronto Is Possible, Reps from @SmashUof, Sam Tecle from @JFAAP.
zoom.us
Book Launch Webinar: Advocating for Palestine in Canada
When: March 30th, 8pmThis webinar will feature contributing authors from Advocating for Palestine in Canada to share their unique views and wide experiences advocating for Palestine in Canada, revealing a solid civil society movement in the face of strong institutional opposition. Our panelists share how they came to Palestine activism, why they continue and where they see the movement going.
zoom.us
Racial Capitalism: From Slavery to Trumpism
When: June 5th to 16thWhere: York University
Each summer the Graduate Program of Political Science (LAPS) along with the Graduate Program in Environmental Studies and Geography (EUC) co-sponsor the International Political Economic and Ecology Summer School (IPEE).
The guest Course Director this year will be Dr. David McNally. The topic will be “Racial Capitalism: From Slavery to Trumpism”. The course will be for two weeks (3 hours/day) from June 5 – 16 from 10:00 – 1:00. The application deadline is April 17th.
Prof. McNally was a faculty member in the Department of Politics until a few years ago. We are happy to be able to invite him back for the IPEE.
For more information, please see www.yorku.ca
ARTICLES
Ten Years of Citizens’ Assemblies in Slovenia
Alexandria Shaner interviews Iniciativa Mestni ZborCitizen assemblies are valued and promoted by a wide spectrum of advocates for increasing grassroots participation, democratization, diversity, solidarity, inclusion, sustainability, public health, community resources, transparency, and many other benefits to society. They are a favorite social prescription from prominent activists, academics, and organizers, yet are rarely actualized and sustained.
Source: The Bullet No. 2794
Beyond Fatalism: Renewing Working-Class Politics
By Sam Gindin“We need to ask ourselves,” Leo Panitch and Donald Swartz stated in the third edition of From Consent to Coercion, “whether free pertains to those who do business or whether it pertains also to the majority of Canadians who do not do business.” Their book, now a classic, focused on a critical expression of the tension between liberal democratic principles and capitalist realities: the substantive right of workers to strike. Canadian workers were officially granted the basic democratic right to form unions, but the substance of that right – the withdrawal by workers of their labour power – was regularly suspended when workers successfully used it. This was so especially, but not only, in the public sector.
Source: The Bullet No. 2795
Worse Than You Thought: Ontario Hospital and LTC Staffing
By Doug AllanBy 2027 the PC healthcare funding plan falls $21.3-billion short, their hospital bed plan falls 500 beds short, their plan to free up hospital capacity by moving hospital patents to long-term care is unlikely to work, and their nurse and PSW staffing plan will fall 33,000 short according to the Financial Accountability Office (FAO). Important and appalling news. But the human problems are actually much worse.
Source: The Bullet No. 2796
The Iraq War Changed Our World for the Worse
By Ingar SoltyTwenty years ago today, the US government and a “Coalition of the Willing” invaded the sovereign country of Iraq. According to Richard A. Clarke, former US chief counter-terrorism adviser, US President George W. Bush approached him on the day after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, asking him to establish a connection between the attacks and the Iraqi regime. Clarke told Bush that Iraq had nothing to do with it. In his 2004 book Against all Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, Clarke wrote that Bush and US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had wanted to come up with a pretext to bomb Iraq. For the moment, however, these plans fell through.
Source: The Bullet No. 2797
EMPLOYMENT
Production and Design Coordinator
Fernwood is an independent Canadian publisher with radically left political views. We seek social transformation through publishing books of non-fiction and fiction for general public, academic and scholarly readers.The ideal person for this position will have demonstrated design skills, strong proficiency with Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office applications, accessible eBook development skills, impeccable workflow management skills, commitment to justice-seeking activity, strong communication skills as well as the ability to work independently and in a collaborative work environment as part of the Fernwood team. This position requires extensive time working on a computer and an ability to work within tight timelines.
This is a full-time position. The salary is $55,300 and includes health benefits. The start date is June 5, 2023. Ideally this position will be located in our Winnipeg or Halifax office, but a remote position will be considered. We encourage and actively seek applications from BIPOC and individuals from systemically marginalized communities.
Please send your resume and cover letter as a single PDF file to production@fernpub.ca by April 17, 2023.
fernwoodpublishing.ca