Mili Roy and Angela Bischoff are involved, in different capacities, in the Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign (OCEC), a broad, loose, non-partisan coalition of individuals and groups working hard to get Ontario to improve its response to the climate crisis.
Gladys Rowe, Teddy Zegeye-Gebrehiwot, and Liz Carlson-Manathara are part of Stories of Decolonization, a film project that is working to give people in Canada a chance to reflect on how colonization shapes our lives, on what decolonization might mean, and on how we might act to get there. Scott Neigh interviews them about the role that story and film can play in larger processes decolonization and about their many years of work on the project.
Simran Kaur Dhunna and Bikram Singh are members of the Naujawan Support Network, a group of international students and immigrant workers primarily based in Brampton, Ontario, who are challenging the exploitation and mistreatment that their members face using protest, mutual support, and collective direct action.
Sean Holman is the Wayne Crookes professor of Environmental and Climate Journalism at the University of Victoria, in Lekwungen territory on Vancouver Island. Scott Neigh interviews him about changes in the role played by journalism in our current political moment, about the news media’s response to the climate crisis so far, and about the new model for covering it that is being developed as part of the Climate Disaster Project.
Beatriz Oliver and Aabir Dey work for SeedChange, an organization based in Canada that supports farmers here and around the world in working for a more just, sustainable, and environmentally sound future. Scott Neigh interviews them about the food system as it exists today, the vision embedded in the work of SeedChange, and what they are doing to realize it.
James Barbeiro is a chef who lives in Sinixt territory in Nelson, British Columbia. Jen works in the social service sector and lives in Secwepmc territory, in Kamloops, BC. Both are tenants and tenant organizers. Scott Neigh interviews them about Rent Strike Bargain, a province-wide campaign in BC that is fighting for the right of tenants to collectively bargain with landlords, and that is also active in supporting the recent upsurge in local organizing by tenants.
Steve September was born into the struggle against South African apartheid, and today he is the chair of the Anti-Racism Coalition (ARC) Vancouver, a grassroots group working to end all forms of racial inequality through education, legislation, and social events. Scott Neigh interviews him about the work of ARC Vancouver and about the perspective he brings to anti-racist organizing based on his involvement in opposing apartheid.
Riley Nielson-Baker and Felix Vandergrift are part of Gender Affirming Care Nova Scotia, a grassroots, community-based policy process to address issues of gender-affirming care and access to health care for trans, intersex, and gender-diverse people in Nova Scotia. Scott Neigh interviews them about the process, the policy, and the work they have been doing to make it all happen.
Jordan Westfall is co-founder and president of the Canadian Association for Safe Supply (CASS), an organization that aims to reduce the immense harms of the overdose crisis by increasing people’s access to substances that are legal, regulated, and safe. Scott Neigh interviews him about the crisis and about the crucial role that a safe supply could play in ending it.
Lisa Hari and Rosemary Brown are active in We’re Together Ending Poverty (WTEP), a grassroots anti-poverty group in Calgary. Scott Neigh interviews them about what poverty looks like in their city, about the group’s evolution over the years, and about their work to bring people together to build shared understandings and collective action.
Craig Heron, Holly Kirkconnell, and David Kidd are active with the Toronto Workers’ History Project (TWHP), an initiative devoted to preserving and promoting the history of working people in Toronto. Scott Neigh interviews them about the enthusiasm they have found in the community for working-class history, the many facets of the project’s work, and the importance of history for social movements today.
Krista Wylie is a mother of one current and one former student in public schools in Toronto, and she is a co-founder of the Fix Our Schools campaign. Scott Neigh interviews her about the $16.8 billion repair backlog in Ontario schools and about her years of campaigning to get the provincial government to take seriously the impact that has on students, teachers, and other education workers, and to invest adequately in school repair and renewal.
Sally Lane is the mother of Jack Letts, a Canadian citizen who has been detained for more than five years in northeastern Syria in conditions akin to torture. Matthew Behrens is a long-time activist and a member of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture. Scott Neigh interviews them about Jack’s case and about the campaign to push the Canadian government to finally take action to bring Jack back to Canada.
Darlene Okemaysim-Sicotte is part of a grassroots group called Iskwewuk E-wichiwitochik, or Women Walking Together, that has been working for many years in Saskatoon on the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Scott Neigh interviews her about what that work has involved.
Nina Newington is a long-time activist and an organizer of the Last Hope Camp, whose participants have been living in tents on the land since December to block the logging of an ecologically important forest in southwest Nova Scotia. Scott Neigh interviews her about the practicalities of taking this kind of direct action, about the broader struggle to defend forests in Nova Scotia, and about the Last Hope Camp.
Jillian Maguire and Kim Benson are teachers in British Columbia. As such, they are both members of the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF), and they have recently been organizing to get their pension plan to divest from fossil fuel industries. Scott Neigh interview them about the BCTF Divest Now campaign and about their success in getting the BCTF to pass a motion in favour of divestment.
Alex Silas and Angella MacEwen live in Ottawa and are active in their unions and their communities.
Manuel Salamanca Cardona is an activist with the Immigrant Workers Centre (IWC), which organizes with immigrant and migrant workers in a wide range of contexts in Montreal. Scott Neigh interviews him specifically about the struggles of workers employed by temp agencies, and about the work of the IWC-affiliated Temporary Agency Workers Association, which fights for improved conditions and labour rights for temp agency workers.
Ellie Ade Kur and Abby Stadnyk are grassroots organizers with abolitionist politics. They are also both involved in Disarm, Defund, Dismantle: Police Abolition in Canada (Between the Lines, 2022), a new book collection bringing together pieces by organizers and scholars writing in the context of the constellation of efforts to defund and abolish the police in Canada over the last two years.
Sakura Saunders and Rachel Small are long-time organizers with experience in a range of movements. Both are active with World Beyond War, a decentralized global network with the goal not just of opposing the war of the day but of abolishing the institution of war.
