CONTENTS

1. CALLS TO ACTION
2. EVENTS
3. ARTICLES

End the Keffiyeh Ban

Doug Ford’s Conservatives have had multiple opportunities to overturn the racist ban on the keffiyeh at Queen’s Park. Shamefully, they continue to support it.

The ban is an attack on a deeply significant cultural symbol for Palestinians, widely understood in the Arab world and internationally as an expression of Palestinian identity.

It also represents an attack on anyone speaking up to defend Palestinian human rights.

ofl.ca

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

Rainbow Equality Action

When: Thursday, May 16th, 11:30am
Where: Barbara Hall Park, 519 Church St

Right now, hate is on the rise, powered by far-right groups and opportunistic politicians who are scapegoating 2SLGBTQ+ people for political gain.

That’s why the coalition for the Rainbow Week of Action is speaking up for the free, equal, and socially just future we all deserve – for a Canada where all our families are safe and supported. Join the Toronto action!

rainbowequality.ca

Rivers Not Highways

When: May 18th, 8:30am
Where: Nashville Conservation Reserve, Humber Valley Heritage Trail, Vaughan

“Rivers Not Highways” is a series of guided hikes along the Humber River to raise awareness of the natural environment at risk from the Ontario governments proposed Highway 413.

The May 18th hike will focus on the breeding and migratory birds that call the Nashville Conservation Reserve “habitat”! Bring your binoculars (or borrow some of ours) and help us search for birds. Learn the basics of birding and bird ID skills as well as what you can do to help protect this amazing natural heritage site.

eventbrite.ca

Land Back. Cash Back

When: May 18th, 2pm
Where: 30 College St

Beloved Kashmiris and allies, join us this Saturday May 18 for this solidarity rally and action! We look forward to seeing you.

Twitter

Arts and Tarts for Palestine

When: May 19th, 11am
Where: Junto Studio, 915 Dupont St, Unit 202

York Centre for Palestine is having an arts & tarts fundraising event.

Toronto Events for Palestine

Women & Power: Resistance and Memory

When: May 19th, 1pm
Where: 9 Neepawa Ave

Music. Dance. Poetry. Grand opening on 19 May. Show on till June 8th.

Facebook 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

Solidarity With Grassy Narrows

When: May 22nd, 7:30pm

Join this webinar to learn how to take action in support of Grassy Narrows’ demands for justice.

twitter.com | zoom.us

[Ottawa] Chili Cook-Off

When: May 23rd, 6pm
Where; 95 Clegg St, Ottawa

Fundraiser for the Coalition Against the Proposed Prison

eventbrite.ca

Comparing US and Canadian Healthcare

When: May 23rd, 7pm

Join us on May 23rd for a conversation with Dr. Robert Zarr. We will explore his insights and experiences from practicing in the US and Canadian health care systems, discuss his tenure as the president of the Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), and examine the threats and opportunities for public health care in Canada. CDM’s Chair, Dr. Melanie Bechard, will moderate this event.

Zoom.us

On to Ottawa #PeaceCaravan

When; May 24 to 26

Join @vowpeace and @wilpfcanada on the “On to Ottawa” #PeaceCaravan and meet us on May 28 at noon for a big — rally on Parliament Hill.

Canada needs to #demilitarize, decarbonize, and decolonize. Make a country of #peace, not of war and militarism.

wilpfcanada.ca

Sashbear Walk

When: May 26th, 9am registration
Where: Sir Casimir Gzowski Park

Let’s get together to raise awareness for mental health and to raise funds to help us provide life-changing skills in support of those who live with borderline personality disorder, chronic emotion dysregulation and other related mental health challenges.

The Sashbear Walk is the largest event of its kind in Canada for chronic emotion dysregulation and borderline personality disorder. We bring together families, friends, those with lived experience, mental health providers and supporters throughout the community to create a sea of orange in support of those with chronic emotion dysregulation and BPD.

sashbear.akaraisin.com

First Nation in Solidarity with McGill Students

The past two weeks [in October 2023] of horrific violence in Gaza resulted from 75 years of Israeli settler colonial dispossession, 56 years of military occupation, and 16 years of an open-air prison for 2.2 million people, half of whom are children. The atrocities of the Israeli apartheid regime in Palestine are relentless, illegal under international law, and consistent with settler-colonial projects globally.

Source: The Bullet No. 2986

What’s “hate speech” Got To Do With It?

By Michelle Weinroth

I woke up on Monday morning, April 22, 2024, to a CBC storm. A blast of CBC rhetoric shot through the airwaves repeatedly over that day like ice pellets pummelling the windowpane. The storm surged at different intervals in a loop of newscasts that decried, with a strange mix of indignation and schadenfreude, a few words captured on video (00:35-00:50) at the Palestine solidarity march of April 20, 2024, in Ottawa. Prised out of context and instantly stamped as “hate speech” – as “a glorification of October 7th” – these words were nothing more than a motivational chant, typically needed to bolster the marchers’ spirits as they trundle through Ottawa’s downtown streets, buffeted by the elements: lashing gusts of wind and driving rain.

Source: The Bullet No. 2987

Book Launch: Law at Work, with Harry Glasbeek

Book launch of Harry Glasbeek’s Law at Work: The Coercion and Co-option of the Working Class, in Toronto, May 2024. Author and renowned legal scholar Harry Glasbeek unpacks how law has been used to ensure that workers’ aspirations are kept in check, encouraging the audience to envision a future where the law truly serves the interests of all.

Source: LeftStreamed

Poisoning the American Mind: Student Protests in the Age of the New McCarthyism

By Henry A. Giroux

We live in an age of increased disasters and encroaching fascism. This is a historical moment marked by a systemic attempt by an emerging authoritarianism to disable language and dissent of any substantive meaning, remove actions from the grammar of moral witnessing, and disassociate power from institutional justice. As all levels of society are hollowed out, notions of democratic community, the social contract, and compassion give way to a politics in which all matters of responsibility are individualized, privatized, and removed from broader systemic considerations. The habits of oligarchy are animated by fear and reproduced through relentless attacks on human possibilities, while “the disorder of real history is replaced by the orderliness of pseudo-history.”

Source: The Bullet No. 2988

The Economic and Political Thoughts of Ernesto Che Guevara

By Kamran Nayeri

The early years of the Cuban revolution leading up to the formation of the Communist Party in 1965 and the departure of Ernesto Che Guevara for international missions witnessed rapid social progress with popular participation and widespread interest in socialist ideas. Ernest Mandel, a leader of the Fourth International founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938, who was visiting Cuba in 1964, had “an occasion for exchanging ideas with Cuban leaders, and these exchanges convinced him completely that Cuba ‘constitutes… the most advanced bastion in the liberation of labour and of humanity…’” Mandel reported that “Marxist classics were widely studied in cadre schools, in the ministries and beyond… The class I took part in had just finished volume one of Capital, with a minister and three deputies present… And it was serious study, even Talmudic, studying page by page….”

Source: The Bullet No. 2989