CONTENTS
CALLS TO ACTION
Healthcare referendum
The Ontario Health Coalition is organizing a province-wide referendum to stop privatization of our hospital services. In-person voting will take place on Friday May 26th and Saturday May 27th at locations across the GTA. Online voting is also open until May 27th.On May 8th, the Ford government passed Bill 60, which will take thousands of surgeries and diagnostic tests out of our local public hospitals and privatize them to for-profit hospitals and clinics. The government has no mandate for these changes. In the lead-up to the provincial election campaign last year, the Ford government claimed that the use or function of private hospitals and independent health facilities in Ontario was not being expanded or changed. Once re-elected, the government moved quickly to expand private, for-profit clinics.
On May 26 and 27, please vote in the referendum to stop privatization of our hospital services – see publichospitalvote.ca for polling locations or to vote online.
EVENTS
MayWorks 2023
When: All of May, 2023Throughout May, we offer 24 free events with 29 participating artists across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and online. Whether through zine, installation, film, performance or dialogue – the festival presents the realities of contemporary labour.
This year’s artists critically investigate various forms of work from arms manufacturing to flower arranging. Their artworks, informed by personal histories of social activism and research, recognize workers as agents of social transformation.
mayworks.ca | Closing Ceremony (May 27th)
Injured Workers Town Hakk
When: Thursday May 18th, 1pmJoin the Injured Workers Town Hall this Thursday, May 18 and have your voice heard! When KPMG was hired by the WSIB to complete an audit of the appeals system, the consulting group offered recommendations that are damaging for injured workers. This Town Hall event is an opportunity to hear from injured workers and community members.
zoom.us
Book launch: White Riot: The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots of Vancouver
When: May 18th, 5:30pm sharpWhere: 20 Willcocks St (at Spadina)
Join Henry Tsang and the Asian Canadian Labour Alliance at the Toronto book launch of White Riot: The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver.
FREE roti dinner (vegan and gluten free options available) will be served at 5:30. Program starts at 6:00pm.
eventbrite.ca
Tune In: For a better Toronto
When: May 18th, 7:30pmWhere: The Great Hall – Longboat Hall, 1087 Queen Street W
Tickets: From $26.89 (fundraiser)
A night of finding joy in music, art, and community focused on the Toronto we could become. There is no better time than now to tune in.
We are coming up to a once-in-a-decade opportunity to reshape Toronto’s future. Imagine a city where music and arts thrive, where we care for our most vulnerable, and where real action on climate change is taken. All of this is possible if we come together and act now.
Green Majority Radio, in partnership with CIUT 89.5FM, The Grind, and The Green Line are bringing together incredible musical talent, artists, and community organizations to put together a night of joy in envisioning a Toronto we can all be proud to call home.
eventbrite.com
Ontario Place 50 + 2 Birthday Celebration and Rally!
When: May 22nd, 1pmWhere: Trillium Park, Ontario Place Blvd
Join us on May 22, Victoria Day, for a 50 + 2 anniversary celebration and rally for Ontario Place. We have some great surprises planned. Do you have an idea or want to volunteer for the celebration? DM or email info@ontarioplaceforall.com! We missed celebrating Ontario Place in person for its 50th birthday due to the pandemic, so this is a great opportunity to get together and celebrate its past, present, and future!
Facebook event
Canadian Foreign Policy Hour with Yves Engler
When: Mondays at 6pmJoin 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
Progress vs. 2023: A Guide to the Fight Ahead
When: Tuesday, May 23rd, 6pmWhere: Student Learning Centre, Toronto Metropolitan Univ., 341 Yonge St.
The 2023 Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture will be delivered by economist Armine Yalnizyan—a leading voice on Canada’s economic scene. Her lecture, entitled “Progress vs. 2023: A Guide to the Fight Ahead,” will present her sweeping vision of what it means to be a progressive in 2023, taking us on a tour of the evolution of progressive ideas and its constancy. She will show how context has shaped strategy and will lay out the push and the pull of the moment: the challenges facing the progressive agenda and the momentum building for it. You are invited to listen to an energizing take on what and who is at stake in this fight for our collective wellbeing.
broadbentinstitute.ca
Justice4Workers
When: Tuesday May 23, 6pmWhere: WAC, 720 Spadina Ave
We are fighting for a $20 minimum wage; 10 paid sick days; increasing social assistance rates; status for all; equal pay; and real protections for frontline workers, including gig workers, temp agency workers, part-time workers and casual workers.
justice4workers.org
Mayworks: The Professor’s Desk
When: May 24th, 7pm (doors open at 6:30pm)Where: University of Toronto, 563 Spadina Cres.
The Professor’s Desk is a photo-based project by Zinnia Naqvi that combines archival materials and ephemera from the past 20 years of the Asian Canadian Labour Alliance (ACLA). This project looks particularly at four cases of discrimination on or relating to Canadian universities; the W5 Campus Giveaway TV Special from 1979, Professor Kin-Yip Chun’s case of racial discrimination against the University of Toronto, MacLean Magazine‘s “Too Asian” article from 2010, and current barriers facing international students in Canada.
Join this conversation on migrant justice and academia with artist Zinnia Naqvi, Professor Kin-Yip Chun, and organizer Chris Ramsaroop.
eventbrite.ca
Book club: Toronto Workers History
When: Wednesday, May 24th, 7pmThe final book club of the 2022-2023 season. (The book club will resume on Thursday, September 21st).
We are asking participants to either read a book (fiction or non-fiction) of their choice or to pick something the Book Club has already discussed.
zoom.us
ARTICLES
South Korea Pivots to Conflict
By Dae-Han Song and Alice S. KimSouth Korea’s far-right President Yoon Suk Yeol is rushing South Korea headlong into the middle of the new Cold War that the United States is waging against China. Yoon’s aspiration to position South Korea as a “global pivotal state” is turning South Korea into a bigger cog in the US war machine and stakes South Korea’s security and economic future on a declining US-led global order. Yoon’s support of the US global order has taken him on a flurry of visits and meetings around the world from the virtual Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) summit to the NATO summit in Madrid to high-level meetings in Japan and the United States.
Source: The Bullet No. 2823
Nakba at 75: Nakba is More Than One Day
On May 15, 2023, we commemorate 75 years dispossession and violence faced by the Palestinian people, beginning in the late 1940s, and continuing to this day. Palestinians refer to these events collectively as the Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe,” to describe the devastating and on-going impact on their people, cultural and heritage. Today, Palestinians in Israel live as second-class citizens, those in East Jerusalem and the West Bank live a daily nightmare of occupation, colonization and apartheid, and the Palestinians in Gaza live under a devastating blockade and occupation. With Nakba75Action.org, we draw awareness to the suffering endured by the Palestinian people, admire their resilience, and call for an end to the ongoing Nakba!”Source: The Bullet No. 2824
Ontario Tories Pass Bill to Privatize Hospitals
By Ontario Health CoalitionWhen the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) warned last spring leading into the election that the Ford government was planning to privatize surgeries and diagnostic services, Ford repeatedly denied that was his plan. Those claims are shown to be totally false with Bill 60, the Ford government’s hospital privatization legislation passed into law yesterday. With no mandate from Ontarians, the government is moving to cut core services including surgeries and diagnostics out of our public hospitals and transfer them to private for-profit hospitals and clinics.
Source: The Bullet No. 2825
A Geopolitical European Union?
By Klaus DragerOn taking office as President of the EU Commission in 2019, Ursula von der Leyen said she wanted to create a ‘geopolitical Commission’: “We have enormous tasks ahead of us: Brexit, climate change, 5G expansion, the rise of protectionism, and the reform of the European asylum system – to name just a few. To manage these upheavals, Europe must stand united and assert itself more globally.” Her goal, she said, is to achieve ‘strategic sovereignty’ for the EU on a par with the US, China, and Russia. Since the Ukraine war in February 2022, the EU grandees have outdone themselves with buzzwords on the topic of geopolitics. Recently, EU ‘geopolitical subsidies’ were also announced.
Source: The Bullet No. 2826