Audio

Long years of grassroots work for missing and murdered Indigenous women

Talking Radical Radio
Art installation inspired by Métis artist Jaime Black for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

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.

Defending the forest in southwest Nova Scotia

Talking Radical Radio

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.

Union members pushing their pension plan to divest from fossil fuels

Talking Radical Radio

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.

Temp agency workers getting organized

Talking Radical Radio
Logo of the Temporary Aganecy Workers Association.

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.

Dispatches from the movement for police abolition in Canada

Talking Radical Radio

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.

Demanding a just peace in Ukraine and the abolition of all war

Talking Radical Radio
Kharkiv downtown street destroyed by Russian bombardment

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.

Indigenous-led water protection in the North

Talking Radical Radio
Looking north, Mackenzie River toward the Arctic Ocean

Jesse Cardinal is a Métis woman who lives in Treaty 6 territory and is the executive director of Keepers of the Water, an Indigenous-led organization with a mission of protecting the water in the Arctic drainage basin. Scott Neigh interviews her about the threat posed by the Alberta tar sands and other resource extraction, and about the organization’s work.

Grassroots Secwépemc resistance to the Trans Mountain pipeline

Talking Radical Radio

April Thomas is a land defender and member of the Secwépemc Nation, from the Canim Lake Band in the central interior of what is colonially known as British Columbia. Scott Neigh interviews her about the trajectory of her work defending the land, about grassroots opposition to the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline expansion project, and about Secwépemc Say No TMX and the ongoing court battle in the wake of the arrest of land defenders at the Secwépemc Unity Camp.

Talking politics, arts, and social justice with BIPOC youth

Talking Radical Radio

Hanen Nanaa works in research and policy development in the federal political context and as an outreach coordinator for the Syrian Canadian Foundation, but today Scott Neigh interviews her in her role as director of the BAM Collective. The acronym “BAM” stands for “Books Art Music,” and the group is a youth-led collective based in Ontario that seeks to empower equity-seeking groups through community engagement and the arts.

High school students organizing for greater COVID safety in schools

Talking Radical Radio

Brie Villeneuve is a Grade 12 student at Grant Park High School in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Piper Lockhart is a Grade 11 student at Collège Louis-Riel, a French-language high school in Winnipeg. Both are core organizers with Manitoba Students for COVID Safety, a student-led group advocating for safer schools in light of inadequate action from the Manitoba provincial government to keep educators, staff, and students safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Next steps for sexual and reproductive rights activism in Canada

Martha Paynter and Frédérique Chabot have each spent a lot of years doing a lot of different kinds of grassroots political work related to sexual and reproductive health and rights. Scott Neigh interviews them about why such work is important, and about why in Canada today it is vital that it centre prison abolition, migrant justice, and other struggles led by people who are regularly “discarded” and dehumanized by dominant systems.

Messy activism, filling community gaps, and grassroots infrastructure

Talking Radical Radio

David Alton and William Turman are founding members of a multi-issue grassroots group in southern Ontario called GroundUp Waterloo Region. Scott Neigh interviews them about their commitment to what they call “messy activism” and about the group’s work supporting other grassroots groups, filling community gaps, building grassroots infrastructure, and holding politicians to account.

Opposing the arms industry in one Canadian community

Talking Radical Radio

Anna Badillo and David Heap are members of People for Peace, a local grassroots peace group in the city of London in southwestern Ontario. Scott Neigh interviews them about the group’s two decades of action on a wide range of issues, and in particular about their work opposing the manufacture in a London plant of the light-armoured vehicles (LAVs) being sold to Saudi Arabia in the largest arms deal in Canadian history.

Public sector workers building power in tough times

Talking Radical Radio
The administration building at the University of Manitoba.

Joe Curnow is a professor in the faculty of education at the University of Manitoba, a long-time community organizer, and a member of the organizing and communications team for the University of Manitoba Faculty Association (UMFA). Scott Neigh interviews her about UMFA’s recent strike, in which an organizing orientation allowed the union to accomplish quite a lot despite very challenging circumstances, and about the lessons it holds for other public sector unions.

Working in Canada for a just peace in Kashmir

Talking Radical Radio

Today’s guest on Talking Radical Radio is a Kashmiri-Canadian and a member of Canadians for Peace and Justice in Kashmir, a group of Canadians – some of whom have ties to the region, some of whom do not – committed to working in this country towards a just peace in Kashmir. Scott Neigh interviews him about the history of the conflict in Kashmir and about the work of CPJK.

A new look at one of Ontario's most notorious grassroots groups

Talking Radical Radio

For more than 20 years, A.J. Withers was active with one of Ontario’s best known grassroots groups, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP). Recently, Withers released a new book telling stories of and drawing lessons from four of OCAP’s key campaigns over the years related to homelessness. Scott Neigh interviews them about OCAP and about Fight to Win: Inside Poor People’s Organizing (Fernwood Publishing, 2021).

Grassroots organizing by Métis people in Winnipeg

Talking Radical Radio

Breanne Lavallee-Heckert, Chantale Garand, and Kianna Durston are Métis people based in Winnipeg. They are also members of Red River Echoes, a collective of Métis people that is focused on grassroots organizing, land back, and the active reclamation of Métis sovereignty in Winnipeg. Scott Neigh interviews them about their work.