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Vol. 28, No. 1 Contributors ISSN X Canada Post Publication  Hanna Araza (she/her) is a Robert Hackett (he/him) is Lui Kashungnao (she/her), The Monitor is published six times recent graduate of Simon Fraser Professor Emeritus with the GottaGo! Campaign Core a year by the Canadian Centre for University where she studied School of Communication at Member. Lui is a proud mother Policy Alternatives Communications and Print & Simon Fraser University. and an outdoor enthusiast. She Digital Publishing. She is passionate Stephanie Hart Taylor (she/ has a background in community The opinions expressed in the about intersectional climate her) GottaGo! Campaign Core organizing and advocacy, and Monitor are those of the authors justice, community care, and using Member. Stephanie holds a BFA international development. She and do not necessarily reflect environmental communication and Diploma of Social Service enjoys conducting research, the views of the CCPA as a vital tool in strengthening Work (Gerontology). Currently, evaluation and training. Lui has Please send feedback to collective efficacy and co-creating she’s completing a BSW. Her two master's degrees, with a focus monitor@policyalternativesca sustainable futures. research interests include weight on participatory development and Jennifer Chen (she/her) (B.Sc., discrimination and health care. rights-based approach. Editor Katie Raso M.Sc.) is President of the Women She enjoys community organizing, Shoshana Magnet (she/her) Senior Designer Tim Scarth of Colour Community Leadership program development and making is professor in the Institute of Layout Susan Purtell Initiative Manitoba. She is a board pottery. Feminist and Gender Studies. Editorial Board Trish Hennessy member for Family Dynamics, Previous books include When Shannon Daub Katie Raso Sam Hersh (he/him) is a political Asian Heritage Society of Biometrics Fail: Race, Gender and Erika Shaker Rick Telfer and community organizer based Manitoba, Ethnocultural Council of the Technology of Identity (Duke HELP US SHED LIGHT ON THE Jason Moores in Ottawa. He is an organizer and Manitoba, and Canadian Centre for Board Member with the grassroots, UP, 2011) and Feminist Surveillance Contributing Writers Policy Alternatives. municipalist organization Horizon Studies (co-edited with Rachel Alex Hemingway Elaine Hughes Maria Doiron (she/her), GottaGo! Ottawa. He believes that bridging Dubrofsky, Duke UP, 2014). ISSUES THAT MATTER TO YOU. Anthony N Morgan Stuart Trew Campaign Core Member. Maria the gap between social movements Luxe Mulvari (she/her) is a CCPA National Office is studying Bachelor of Social and electoral-based politics is millennial, philanthropist, and  Laurier Avenue W Suite  Work at Carleton University. She key to creating change from the erotic capitalist. She is one of (we’ve got some bright ideas) Ottawa ON K P J is entering her final year in the bottom-up. the founders of Hit the Streets! Tel    BSW program, with a minor in law. Sharee Hochman (she/her) will Ottawa. Fax    Maria’s interests include social be graduating from The University Kevin Philipupillai (he/him) is ccpa@policyalternativesca policy, health, and community of Winnipeg in Spring 2021 with a a journalism student at Carleton wwwpolicyalternativesca practice; she uses critical theory, BA degree in Rhetoric Writing & University. He was previously MAKE A DONATION Tax receipts are issued for contributions of $15 or more. CCPA BC Office intersectionality, and anti- Communications and Sociology. a radio producer with AMI, a  West Pender Street oppressive approaches to guide Her writing career took off when non-profit broadcaster serving Vancouver BC VC G her work. COVID-19 first hit where she used Canadians who are blind or I would like to make a monthly contribution of: I would like to make a one-time donation of: Tel    Tim Ellis (he/him) is an organizer the pandemics disruptions to pose partially sighted. OR Fax    with Leadnow, co-Vice Chair of solutions for a more inclusive and $25 $15 $10 Other ____ $300 $100 $75 Other ____ ccpabc@policyalternativesca Ann Toohey (she/her) holds a Democrats Abroad Toronto and an sustainable world as a volunteer PhD in Population & Public Health CCPA Manitoba Office alum of Bernie Sander’s 2016 and Social Issues Writer for INKspire with a critical gerontology focus.   Ellice Avenue 2020 campaigns, among others. and as a reporter for the Urban She is the Manager, Research PAYMENT TYPE: Winnipeg MB RB Z Tim is an immigrant from upstate Economy Forum. & Scientific Programs for the I would like to receive my Tel  New York who fell in love with David Hogan (he/him) is a Brenda Strafford Centre on Aging, I’ve enclosed a cheque (made payable to CCPA, or void cheque for monthly donation) subscription to The Monitor: ccpamb@policyalternativesca Toronto’s underground dance specialist in geriatric medicine. University of Calgary. I’d like to make my contribution by: VISA MASTERCARD CCPA Nova Scotia Office scene and never looked back. He is the Academic Lead for the By e-mail PO Box  Paula Ethans (she/her) is a Brenda Strafford Centre on Aging, Mailed to my address Halifax NS BK M writer, organizer, and human rights University of Calgary. 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Yes, I prefer to receive my tax receipt Please do not trade my name with other and updates by email. organizations. REGISTERED CHARITY #124146473 RR0001 Up Front Wealth tax would raise far more money than previously thought Alex Hemingway / 5 Canada and the COVID-19 waiver Gavin Fridell / 8 Enforcing the new NAFTA, but for workers or the bosses? Stuart Trew / 10 “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Anthony Morgan / 14 In Focus Reinvigorating climate organizing Features Paula Ethans / 18 Alphabet workers go wall-to-wall An organized system of organized labour Kevin Philipupillai / 12 Declan Ingham / 20 The farmers’ protests The oil blotter and the looting of India Robert Hackett and Hanna Araza / 22 Asad Ismi / 16 Organizing accessibility Perspectives and intersectionality through 15-minute cities Trust and relationships Sharee Hochman / 27 in community organizing Jennifer Chen / 11 The Bernie blueprint Tim Ellis / 31 The future is municipal Sam Hersh / 25 Staples Public toilets—unquestionable From the Editor / 2 and essential public health infrastructure Maria Doiron, Lui Kashungnao, Letters / 3 Stephanie Hart Taylor / 30 New from the CCPA / 4 Hit the Streets Index / 7 Luxe Mulvari / 34 CCPA Donor Profile / 26 Worth Repeating / 33 The Good News Page Elaine Hughes / 36 Get to Know the CCPA: Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood / 37 Picture books for big feelings Shoshana Magnet / 38 More than an urgent need Ann M. Toohey and David B. Hogan / 39 From the Editor

KATIE RASO What’s below the surface

HAVE SOIL on my mind. fungi (AMF), and they are known is wrapped up in the ethos of “one It’s partially the time of the to support 85% of plant families, great man” —the single visionary year—I just nestled 144 seeds into including major agricultural crops, who leads the way, corrects the their starter pods today. Seedling trees and grasses. course and guides us forward. But day is one of quiet awe for me. I I think a lot about about unseen organizing is inherently a collective Ilove to set up at the kitchen table, fungus networks, how an ectomy- action, recognizing that everyone has carefully dropping each seed into corrhizal mushroom that pops up a role to play in shaping an equitable its new home, covering it over, then in my yard seems to have arrived and just future. So much of the work sitting back to marvel at the idea that out of nowhere overnight but is, in is unseen: the sharing of knowledge, the future contents of my winter fact, part of a large, intricate system resources and food across our pantry, hours of fall canning, and that extends beyond the property largely invisible channels. the ripest, freshest flavours of my lines for my garden (a single fungus’ There are powerful, loving, summer—at this point, they all fit in mycelium network can extend over life-sustaining networks of two trays on my table, dormant. six square kilometres) and predates hardworking people committed to We moved into our house two my arrival in this place (it’s believed creating better futures connected years ago and were blessed to find that plants started trading with fungi from end to end across this country, a yard that had been left to grow roughly 400 million years ago). in this moment. They are caring for without pesticide or much distur- If you’re wondering if this editorial people that brutalist policies have bance. The result is a supernetwork is supposed to be running in the failed. They are organizing workers of fungal activity. After every big upcoming issue on food, I promise it in previously non-unionized fields. rain, a new type of mushroom is not misplaced. Part of the reason They are imagining hopeful futures blooms in a different corner of that I think so much about soil and beyond fossil fuels. the yard. Prior to this, I had never fungus networks is that I am fascinat- It is my hope that the articles in realized how at the mercy you are to ed by the similarities between these this issue provide a peek behind the last homeowner’s predilections systems and the systems of commu- the curtain, or perhaps below the for RoundUp. And I’m grateful to nity care, activism and mutual aid surface, at this work and how it is Judith, the previous owner, for that exist all around us. Unless they resisting inequity to shape a just her stewardship of this place that are part of our own networks, we are future. has made it a safe and successful rarely aware of them until a boiling Before I close, I would be remiss home for our bounty of tomatoes, point or milestone makes them if I didn’t acknowledge my own peppers, squash, and sunflowers. visible. It can seem that an issue unseen network for this issue. I had Judith’s wisdom, to let the soil appears overnight, when a move- the privilege of working with Kevin be, is shared by many organic ment suddenly comes within public Philipupillai on this issue. In addition farmers across the country. There’s view. But our lack of experience to providing thought-provoking re- a growing no-till movement that with an issue is not the same as the search for our Index, Kevin’s feature recognizes the critical role that related network not existing. article on the Alphabet Workers fungal networks play in the growth I think about soil and community Union truly speaks to both the and survival of plant life. Mycorrhizal networks, how the latter don’t just opportunities and challenges facing fungi form symbiotic relationships shape the lives of those within the the future of worker organizing. I with plants, exchanging nutrients network, they deliver hard-fought want to thank him for his incredible as part of the soil food web. While victories for the society as a whole. efforts and energy. M plants can access sugar through pho- Organizing is the network that tosynthesis, they may need to gain carries change through our commu- access to additional water, nutrients nities and sustains us. And I think and protection against pathogens. about how every young organizer These are offerings that mycorrhizal I speak with wants to talk not only fungi exchange for the plant’s excess about the future but about the rich sugars. The most common mycor- history that makes their work pos- rhizal are the arbuscular mycorrhizal sible. So much of Western culture 2 were some new affordable Thanks for all you do. energy is much cheaper housing investments, Linda Munroe than wind for space although on a much less heating and industrial generous basis than the heat applications. Further, programs abandoned in The nuclear option nuclear downtime can be the 1990s. scheduled for low demand Bill Johnston, Chair, I’d like to refute arguments periods or on a rotation Affordable Housing Team, made in Ramana and if there are 10+ reactors, First Unitarian Church of Schacherl’s article on as Ontario has, however, Hamilton nuclear power in the Jan/ wind power follows its own Letters Feb issue of the Monitor. schedule and so requires First, the article’s more backup power. Highlighting India’s portrayal of nuclear safety Finally, every wind farm Credit where it’s due farmer protests and waste result from the site has different costs and misleading idea that any wind availability. In his otherwise excellent I read the most recent amount of radiation can The third error concerns article in the Monitor on issue of the (March/April) be deadly. For example, what an SMR is for. The the right to housing, Paul Monitor with great inter- decades ago people article suggests an SMR in Taylor repeated a common est. I found the articles became convinced that Canada’s North would be error, that cuts to housing engaging and I appreciate plutonium in nuclear waste for electricity generation. programs “were deepened hearing points of view is extremely toxic and will In fact, they produce heat in 1993 when Paul Martin, being expressed by diverse cause harm thousands of first, then electricity. A in his role as finance Canadian voices. The focus years from now. This is SMR can be sized for the minister, abruptly can- on housing and health care not true. Radiation is only community and produce celled all spending on new is critical—understanding dangerous at high dose both heat and electric- social housing projects.” that the environment rates. ity for: industry, space It wasn’t Paul Martin who trumps everything. The idea that there is no heating, clean water, and did that; it was the last In particular—I loved safe level of radiation has residential use. budget of Brian Mulroney’s André Picard’s Five books caused serious harm. By SMR and CANDU power Conservative in April 1993, to understand…a pandem- contrast to the excellent plants can be run safely with Don Mazankowski as ic. I have read two of the safety record enjoyed by and reduce greenhouse finance minister. See page books and I am looking nuclear power in Canada, gas and other pollutants. 55 of the 1993 budget forward to the others. Health Canada estimates The federal government on the Government of I loved Hadrian Mer- there are 14,600 air wants to build SMR in Canada’s website for more tins-Kirkwood’s Parable pollution deaths per year Canada’s North because it information. of Two Roads. I found the in Canada. Nuclear power will provide reliable heat, Martin’s first budget Index informative as well as reactors and Small Modular clean water, electricity, and was in early 1994. And in the articles and opinions. Reactors (SMR) have neg- process heat for residents, his 1996 budget, he went I loved the graphic art by ligible greenhouse gases or mines, and industry. Critics a step further on social Katie Sheedy—somehow it other emissions, conse- of nuclear power would housing, announcing that hit the spot! I also appreci- quently, nuclear decreases have us use only renewa- the federal government ated the editorial. the number of air pollution bles; let’s listen to reason. “will phase out its remain- I wonder if there would deaths by allowing coal Ken Chaplin ing role in social housing, be a place in the Monitor plants to shut down. We except for housing on for reporting and analysis are in the strange situation Indian reserves.” on the Kisan movement where people prevent Letters have been edited Martin was still Finance against the Farm Bills nuclear power from for clarity and length. Minister when the Chrétien in India. I see these reducing greenhouse gases, Send your letters to monitor@ government had to reverse demonstrations as direct air pollution, and water policyalternatives.ca. course, a bit, when those opposition to the IMF degradation in the present, 1990s decisions made policies favoring factory because they are afraid of a homelessness—a growing farms which benefit the fictional hazard in the form problem since the early extremely wealthy at the of plutonium causing harm 1980s—even worse. expense of everyone else. thousands of years from There was some money There are many concerned now. for homelessness in late Canadians in the Indo-Ca- The second error 1999. Then, in 2001, there nadian diaspora. concerns cost. Nuclear 3 in the Atlantic provinces. McCracken rightly points private sector property The new report, released out that “Manitoba gets $1 developers as the primary at the start of April, reveals billion more in equalization builders of housing is not that the annual cost ranges payments than it did in working. Check out Lee’s from $2 billion in Nova 2016 and our per capita new report for a prom- Scotia to $273 million in allocation is $3,477, well ising, scalable alternative Prince Edward Island. It above the national average housing plan. costs close to $959 million of $2,181.” She also notes in Newfoundland and that recent research The life and death New from Labrador and $1.4 billion in from David Macdonald of NAFTA’s Chapter 11 the CCPA New Brunswick. revealed that the federal The report authors, government had, thus In his final report as the CCPA-NS Director far, been responsible for Director of the CCPA’s Mapping Ontario’s Christine Saulner and footing 89% of the bill Trade and Investment pandemic school Houston Family Research for COVID-19 spending in Research Project, Scott funding Fellow Charles Plante, Manitoba. Thus, Manitoba Sinclair provides an analy- argue that the funds has the fiscal room to fund sis of the North American Ontario Education Minister currently spent on these a robust and inclusive Free Trade Agreement’s Stephen Lecce can’t stop costs could be reallocated recovery plan that benefits Chapter 11 and how it has talking about millions and to affordable housing, food all of its citizenry. informed subsequent trade millions of dollars in COVID security, and programs to agreements’ investor-state funding, thousands and address intergenerational Building affordable dispute settlement clauses. thousands of additional trauma rather than being housing is possible Sinclair’s research reveals teachers, and endless spent to keep people en- that Canada has incurred measures to make schools trenched in poverty. “This The accepted narrative more than $113 million safe and operational. So costing exercise shows about rental housing in in unrecoverable legal CCPA-Ontario Senior that there is an economic Canada is that affordability costs (up to March 2020). Researcher Ricardo Tranjan benefit to eliminating is a thing of the past. But Furthermore, Canadian asked, what’s the true poverty, and an economic a new report from CCPA- governments have paid out story about Ontario’s cost to having poverty in B.C.’s Marc Lee suggests more than $263 million in schools funding during the our communities.” that we can achieve the damages and settlements pandemic? goal of affordable housing. resulting from ISDS claims. New analysis from Building a feminist Doing so requires us While the ISDS clause Tranjan reveals that, COVID-19 recovery to, first, stop relying on was removed from the new on average, Ontario’s for Manitoba private, for-profit housing Canada–United States– 72 boards added the to solve the crises in B.C. Mexico Agreement, Sinclair equivalent of just 1.5 staff Following the release and Canada. Then we cautions that Canada per school to deal with of Katherine Scott’s must expand the stocks remains vulnerable to ISDS all of the pressures from national report, Work and of both non-market and lawsuits through the web school closures, online COVID-19: Priorities for co-op housing and adopt of bilateral and regional learning, preventive health supporting women and the public-led approaches and accords Canada has signed measures, additional economy, CCPA-Manitoba non-profit development. onto, which do contain mental health challenges, Director Molly McCracken Lee’s new report finds ISDS clauses. The report and growing learning published an inclusive and that non-profit housing offers a step-by-step ap- gaps. Readers can find an just feminist recovery plan builds could offer average proach for removing ISDS interactive map with the for Manitoba. The policy break-even rents as low from all Canadian trade board-by-board break- brief focuses on invest- as $1,273 per month for a agreements to remove this downs on the Monitor ments in three areas: social one-bedroom and $1,641 vulnerability. M website. infrastructure and the care for a two-bedroom. By economy; living wages, contrast, Padmapper’s Accounting for paid sick leave, EI and CPP March 2021 Rent Report the cost of poverty reform; and help for those pegs current one-bedroom in Atlantic Canada who were marginalized apartment prices at prior to the pandemic. “record low prices” of New research from On the question of how $1,900 in Vancouver CCPA-Nova Scotia provides Manitoba could fund an and $1,750 in Toronto. the total cost of poverty ambitious recovery plan, It is clear that relying on 4 Up front

Alex Hemingway / B.C. Office It should be accompanied by a suite of other tax fairness policies, including ending the costly special Wealth tax would raise treatment of capital gains income in the Canadian tax system and closing far more money than a range of other tax loopholes that previously thought benefit the affluent. Updated wealth tax revenue estimates: the details HILE THE LIVES of millions of national accounts data and estimat- This analysis’ updated estimates of working people have been ing tax avoidance and evasion based wealth tax revenue corrects for two upended by the COVID-19 on the latest academic research. A limitations in the most recent and pandemic, the wealth of 1% tax on wealth over $20 million in commonly cited wealth tax revenue the richest few has contin- Canada would generate about $10 estimate from the Parliamentary Wued to balloon in Canada. A wealth billion in revenue in its first year, sub- Budget Office (PBO) in July 2020, tax on the super rich is an important stantially more than the commonly while maintaining the core of the policy needed to address extreme cited estimate of $5.6 billion. PBO’s methodology. inequality and help raise revenue for With a $10 billion boost to annual First, the PBO’s July 2020 estimate sustained, long-term increases in public revenue, Canada could lift of wealth tax revenues reflected a public investment in key areas after hundreds of thousands of people large drop in asset values early in the pandemic. out of poverty, implement long-term the pandemic (a factor that the PBO Inequality has reached new increases to funding for important acknowledges in its publication). heights in Canada in recent years. social programs like child care, Asset values have since rapidly The richest 1% now control 25% health care and seniors’ care, and bounced back in Canada. In the of Canada’s wealth, according to a help pay for more ambitious climate current estimates, I use the most recent Parliamentary Budget Office action. recent Statistics Canada data to (PBO) report. Research from the A moderately more ambitious update the PBO’s wealth data set. Canadian Centre for Policy Alter- wealth tax could further reduce This is done using the methodology natives shows that the 87 richest inequality and fund additional that the PBO provides in an earlier families in the country each hold, on investments. For example, a wealth report for updating its wealth average, 4,448 times more wealth tax with rates of 1% on net worth distribution data set.1 than the typical family. Together over $20 million, 2% over $50 million When the latest aggregate wealth these 87 families hold more wealth and 3% over $100 million could raise data is used, this adds $800 million to than the bottom 12 million Canadi- nearly $20 billion in its first year. the projected net revenue for a 1% ans combined. Wealth taxes of these kinds, wealth tax, compared to the earlier Inequality is linked to worse per- targeted to net worth over $20 PBO estimate of $5.6 billion. formance on a wide range of health million, would apply to only about Second, and more significantly, and social outcomes, as international 25,000 wealthy families, representing the PBO assumed that 35% of the epidemiological research shows. the richest 0.2% of the country. wealth tax base would be wiped out High levels of inequality also damage This tiny fraction of Canadians—the by “behavioural responses” such as economic growth, as organizations richest of the rich—together control tax avoidance and evasion.2 However, like the IMF and OECD have begun to $1.8 trillion of the country’s wealth. this estimated behavioural response acknowledge in recent years. Notably, these wealth tax rates do rate is out of line with the latest Tackling inequality with a wealth not even approach the much higher economic research on wealth taxes. tax on the super rich is hugely rates called for by Bernie Sanders Surveying academic studies of popular, backed by an overwhelming and Elizabeth Warren in the United European wealth taxes, University majority of Canadians across party States. Their more aggressive plan of California, Berkeley economists lines in the most recent polling. This would apply rates as high as 6% on Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman approach is also supported by a wealth over $1 billion and 8% over estimate a substantially lower growing body of economic research $10 billion. average behavioural response of 16%. and analysis. A wealth tax is just one piece of Furthermore, they suggest that this Our latest analysis provides a new the puzzle when it comes to tackling figure should be understood as an estimate of the revenue potential inequality and raising revenue for “upper bound.” That is, behavioural of a wealth tax using up-to-date important public investments. responses to these European wealth 5 taxes were higher than they needed revenues than the earlier PBO I also include estimated revenues to be as a result of policy design flaws estimate. for a moderately more ambitious that can be readily avoided. For a small 1% wealth tax, this wealth tax with additional brackets The large-scale use of tax havens analysis uses the midpoint of the (1% over $20 million, 2% over $50 and other large-scale tax avoidance UK Wealth Tax Commission’s 7–17% million and 3% over $100 million), and evasion is often assumed to be behavioural response range, applying using Saez and Zucman’s higher inevitable, whether it relates to a a 12% reduction in the wealth tax 16% behavioural response to be wealth tax or the existing tax system. base. This yields net revenues of more conservative in the estimate. But, as leading experts like Saez and $10 billion in the first year of the This moderate wealth tax would Zucman emphasize, we largely know tax. If we use behavioural response raise an estimated $19.4 billion in how to crack down on this behaviour estimates across the full 7–17% net revenue in its first year (net and how to design a wealth tax that range, revenues vary from a high of of administration costs), though minimizes it. What’s been missing $10.8 billion to a low of $9.2 billion. this estimate has a higher level of is the political will to challenge the The chart below shows the uncertainty. interests of the wealthy and powerful estimates of the gross revenue, Following the PBO’s methodology, who oppose these steps. administration costs and net revenue I have deducted 2% of gross revenue Key measures include increasing for the 1% annual wealth tax, for administrative costs. In absolute funding for enforcement efforts alongside the PBO’s older revenue terms, these estimates allow for focused on the rich, steeper pen- estimate. administrative costs nearly double alties for tax evasion, enforcement those earmarked by the PBO for against financial services providers a small wealth tax ($204 million that help organize and enable compared to $113 million), which evasion, and imposing stronger double again for a moderate wealth transparency and third-party tax. This approach adds a layer of reporting requirements on financial 1% wealth tax conservatism to my net revenue institutions doing business with July 2020 PBO estimate estimates and allows for substantially Canada. Focusing a wealth tax on a Net Revenue more investment in enforcement. narrow band of the richest 0.2% also  billion These administrative costs are a facilitates a high rate of audits. The drop in the bucket compared to $10 growing body of economic research Administration costs billion or $20 billion in revenue. on wealth taxes outlines the various  million practicalities of enforcement in more Tackling the super rich detail. and funding the public good Notably, Saez and Zucman applied 1% wealth tax When it comes to taking on the their 16% behavioral response New estimate super rich and expanding public estimate to the much more aggres- services, a wealth tax is only one sive wealth tax proposals of Bernie Net Revenue piece of the puzzle. In the area of Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, which  billion tax policy, a range of additional use higher tax rates than have so measures is needed. far been proposed in Canada. We First, Canada needs to end the would expect a smaller behavioural Administration costs preferential treatment of income response to a well-enforced wealth  million from wealth (i.e., capital gains from tax at the low 1% rate proposed by stocks, real estate, etc.) compared to the federal NDP. income from work. Currently, capital An extensive new body of research gains are taxed at half the rate of Moderate wealth tax produced by the UK Wealth Tax 3 income from work, costing billions Commission, based out of the 1%, 2% and 3% brackets of dollars in lost public revenue. London School of Economics, Ninety-two per cent of the benefits reinforces this view. For a 1% annual Net Revenue from this policy flow to the top 10% wealth tax in the United Kingdom,  billion of income earners. Recent estimates the commission’s review of the from University of Toronto economist evidence suggests a 7–17% behav- Michael Smart suggest that closing ioural response rate. this loophole could raise nearly $16 Using behavioural responses Administration costs billion in annual revenue to federal that are in line with the scholarly  million and provincial governments. economic research on wealth taxes Canada should also end a prolifer- yields substantially larger projected ation of other tax expenditures that 6 4,862,300 226,000 $2,000–$3,000 The total number of The approximate The “resignation bonus” workers in Canada with number of private rental that Amazon offered union coverage, according apartments in Berlin workers at its warehouse in to Statistics Canada’s that affordable housing Alabama in February 2021, January 2021 Labour Force activists are trying to during their seven-week Survey. That’s 31.8% of the turn into public housing. union election period. overall workforce. The campaign is using a Workers had to have been Index clause in Germany’s 1949 with the company for two Numbers for Organizers 17.7 constitution to try to force peak seasons or longer The percentage of workers a city-wide referendum to accept the offer. The aged 15 to 24 across on expropriating the resignation bonus resem- COMPILED BY Canada who have union property of all landlords bles Amazon’s “The Offer” KEVIN PHILIPUPILLAI coverage, as of January that own more than 3,000 program, where workers 2021. 24.8% of workers homes. The city would are offered up to $5,000 to 37.5 65 and over are part of a have to raise the money to quit and never return. The percentage of migrant union, which means that buy the properties from care workers, mostly the youngest and oldest these private landlords, $16.5 million women of colour, who workers are the least likely the largest of which owns The amount that Toronto reported that they were to be part of a union. approximately 110,000 Police agreed to pay to not allowed to leave their rental homes. settle a class action lawsuit employer’s home during 4.69 to 1 brought by people who the pandemic, according The ratio of non-union job 48 were arrested or detained to a report released in losses to union job losses The number of accounts during the G20 summit in October 2020 by the across Canada between that U.S. technology Toronto in June 2010. The Migrant Workers Alliance February 2020 and April company Clearview AI police surrounded and for Change. 40% of the 2020. Unionized workers in created for Canadian law detained approximately respondents also reported every province were more enforcement agencies, 1,100 protesters and that they were not paid likely to keep their job than according to a joint bystanders and held them for the additional hours non-unionized workers. investigation by the in a temporary detention of work that employers privacy commissioners centre. Each member expected of them during 551 of Canada, Quebec, B.C., of the class is entitled the pandemic. The report The number of Instagram and Alberta. Clearview AI to between $5,000 and estimates an average of followers that workers maintains a database of $24,700. The police also $226 in unpaid wages at an Indigo store in more than three billion agreed to acknowledge per worker per week, or Mississauga, ON gathered images scraped from the wrongdoing and expunge $6,552 over the first six as part of their successful internet. Canadian law arrest records.1 months of the pandemic. union drive. The workers enforcement agencies started posting to Insta- performed thousands of 7 gram in September 2020 searches before Clearview The number of languages to counter disinformation AI voluntarily withdrew served by the Workers about unions. Workers from Canada in July 2020, Action Centre, an organi- at other Indigo stores saying that it was prepared zation in Toronto serving took note, and there have to stay away for two years. workers in low-wage or un- since been successful stable jobs. WAC staff run union drives at stores in a telephone hotline and Montreal, Coquitlam, B.C. provide online resources and Woodbridge, ON. in Bengali, Cantonese, English, Punjabi, Somali, Spanish, and Tamil.

Statistics Canada (2021). Table 14-10-0069-01 Union coverage by industry, monthly, unadjusted for seasonality; The Caregivers’ Action Centre (2020). “Behind Closed Doors—Exposing Migrant Care Worker Exploitation During COVID-19”; Workers’ Action Centre; Nathaniel Flakin (2020). “Red Flag: The people vs Deutsche Wohnen”, The ExBerliner; CBC News (2021). “U.S. technology company Clearview AI violated Canadian privacy law: report”; Brett Nelson (2021). “The story of the union drives sweeping Indigo stores”, Briarpatch; Alana Semuels (2018). “Why Amazon Pays Some of Its Workers to Quit”, The Atlantic; Eric K. Gillespie Professional Corporation (2020). “Settlement reached in 2010 G20 Summit class action between Toronto Police and 1,100 mass arrested demonstrators”, Cision; Superior Court of Justice Ontario (2020). Court Files No: CV-10-408131CP, CV-15-524523CP Note 1. Settlement Reached In 2010 G20 Summit Class Action Between Toronto Police And 1,100 Mass Arrested Demonstrators. CITATION: Good v. Toronto Police Services Board, 2020 ONSC 6332 COURT FILES NO.: CV-10- 408131CP CV-15-524523CP DATE: 20201022 SU 7 disproportionately benefit the afflu- Gavin Fridell / Trade and Investment Research Project ent, reform corporate taxation based on innovative models, implement an inheritance tax on estates over $5 Canada and million, and substantially raise the top marginal income tax rate. the COVID-19 waiver But a wealth tax can play a unique An unethical position that needs to change role by honing in on the richest of the rich. While a broader group, like the top 10% of income earners, can afford to pitch in more to help VER THE PAST few months, a bit contradictory. At the same time increase public investments, they will Canada and a group of mostly as the government is claiming to be be more willing to do so if the wealthi- wealthy nations blocking the a leader in global efforts to produce est 0.2% are paying their fair share. proposed World Trade Or- and deliver affordable vaccines and Of course, the tax system itself ganization (WTO) COVID-19 treatments, it is blocking a major is only part of the solution. A whole Owaiver put forward by South initiative led by Southern countries range of other actions are necessary Africa and India have come under to scale up manufacturing and to take on extreme wealth and increasing pressure to change their distribution of those same vaccines equalize economic power in Canada, position. The waiver now has the and treatments. including the strengthening workers’ support of over 100 mostly low- and Looked at another way, however, rights and new models of public, middle-income nations, the WHO, there is great consistency in Canada’s employee and community ownership. several UN agencies, and a growing approach. Taxing the super rich enjoys global solidarity movement that has While the Canadian government overwhelming public support among organized public events, civil society certainly wants vaccines and Canadians across party lines. So why letters, and petitions signed by treatments rolled out as quickly as is a wealth tax not front-and-centre hundreds of thousands of people. possible, its definition of what is in our politics? Governments do pay In Canada, on March 10, 2021, a possible is tightly constrained. The attention to public opinion, but when coalition of over 40 organizations, number one constraint, and Canada’s the interests of the wealthy few including Amnesty International, clear priority at the WTO, is the are at stake, the will of the majority Unifor, the United Church and defence of intellectual property (IP) often doesn’t translate into substan- the CCPA, wrote a forceful open rights. tive policy change. letter in support of the waiver to There are many complex reasons The economic and political Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. This why Canada is such an adamant power of the super rich is real. But movement has put the Trudeau defender of IP rights. Direct lobbying there has always been an answer to government in a difficult bind. On by large pharmaceutical firms is organized money: organized people. the one hand, Trudeau and several no doubt one major consideration. Building on a deep well of public ministers have echoed the call that According to the Government of support and backed by a growing “No one is safe until everyone is Canada’s Registry of Lobbyists, over body of research, a wealth tax can safe.” Canada has contributed $940 the past 12 months, the pharma- be won if Canadians get organized to million to the ACT-Accelerator, ceutical lobbying group, Innovative demand it. M a global collaboration aimed at Medicines Canada, has met with Acknowledgements developing and distributing government officials 44 times. These Thanks to Gabriel Zucman, Rob Gillezeau affordable COVID-19 vaccines and meetings covered a range of topics, and Rhys Kesselman for comments on earlier treatments. On the other hand, while including explicitly IP rights at the drafts of this analysis. claiming it does not outright reject WTO. Notes the waiver, Canada has also refused Beyond this, it is likely the 1. Specifically, I use the latest Statistics Canada population data and the National to support it. Instead, it has held firm case that many Liberal politicians Balance Sheet Accounts data (Q3 2020) to with a group of wealthy countries believe the arguments made by big bring PBO’s High-net-worth Family Database blocking and delaying the waiver, pharma, and the corporate sector (HFD) up to date. See page nine of PBO’s June 2020 report for a full description of how dragging things on with requests for more broadly, that unbreakable it describes updating its 2016 HFD data set information and clarifications, with IP protections are needed to spur using these same population and NBSA data no end in sight. vaccine innovation. This position has series from Statistics Canada. 2. In brief, it scales down the aggregate wealth been criticized on numerous fronts, totals on its High-income Family Database by Canada’s position: including by those who have pointed 35% before applying the 1% tax. contradictory or consistent? out that tens of billions of dollars 3. Rates of 1% on net worth over $20 million, 2% over $50 million and 3% over $100 million. On the face of it, Canada’s position in public funding has played a key on the COVID-19 waiver might seem role driving vaccine development, 8 along with billions of dollars more vaccines, which will not be ready is that it seeks to replace urgent in guaranteed, advanced contracts for many months. This has involved demands for reforms, such as those from governments for the vaccines. tens of millions of dollars upgrading represented by the WTO waiver, Critics, moreover, argue that facilities, including $126 million for with paternalism and charity. The existing IP protections have been a facility in Montreal in partnership money comes with acceptance of the blocking low- and middle-income with the private company, Novavax, status quo. countries and their industries from and $173 million to produce vaccines In this case, the status quo making better and quicker use of in Quebec with Medicago. means that millions in low- and new knowledge around vaccines and These strategies are entirely middle-income countries will have to treatment, ramping up the manu- consistent with Canada’s resistance wait much longer for vaccines than facture and distribution of needed to the WTO waiver, as it avoids those in rich countries like Canada, medicines and equipment. any changes to the existing vaccine and longer than the world would be Wealthy countries have argued production system in favour of capable of if the existing IP barriers that existing flexibilities within WTO doling out support and subsidies to were eliminated or reduced, rather rules allow countries sufficient space private companies. than preserved and protected. By to address the crisis through such Perhaps most significantly, this some estimates, the majority of mechanisms as compulsory licensing. strategy is a common one in neolib- people in low-income nations may South Africa, India, and their eral times, pursued by relatively rich not have access to vaccines until supporters. However, counter that countries that have the money to do 2024. such mechanisms are too slow, exist so. Many low- and middle-income Canada’s charitable position, only on a “product by product” or countries, however, are not in the moreover, falls short compared to “country by country” basis, and do position to follow suit, and will the efforts of emerging powers like not protect low- and middle-income find themselves increasingly falling China, India, and Russia. China, in countries from the very real threat behind in vaccine manufacturing and particular, has massively ramped of costly litigation with big pharma access, now and into the future. up its own vaccine production and or Western governments down the pledged half a billion doses to more road. The age-old strategy than 45 countries. This means that Canada, for its part, remains of aid and charity China is offering 10 times more undeterred and firmly committed to Confronted with the injustices of vaccines abroad than it has distribut- defending IP rights at all costs. the global vaccine rollout, Canada ed at home. has drawn upon the age-old strategy While some have raised concerns Canada: a world leader of aid and charity. In particular, that Chinese companies have not in “vaccine nationalism” Canada has sought to position itself been fully transparent on the trials Despite its faith in the global as a leader in the COVAX initiative, of their vaccines, they have been pharmaceutical industry at the a global vaccine alliance aimed embraced internationally in a context WTO, the Canadian government is at providing equitable access to where rich countries have been anxious about the relatively sluggish vaccines for low- and middle-income buying up so much of the potential rate of vaccine distribution at home. countries. supply. As a result, Huizhong Wu Here, its primary approach has been Canada has pledged $220 million and Kristen Gelineau from the spending on two main fronts. to COVAX to purchase vaccines for Associated Press suggest that, “a First, Canada has pledged over other countries, combined with $220 large part of the world’s population $1 billion in advanced purchases for million for vaccines for Canadians. will end up inoculated not with the vaccines, all of which are produced While Canada’s involvement has fancy Western vaccines boasting elsewhere. In doing so, Canada has been welcomed, its reputation has headline-grabbing efficacy rates, but emerged as a member of a small been tarnished by the decision to with China’s humble, traditionally group of countries that represent draw 1.9 million doses for Canadians made shots.” around 13% of the world’s popula- in the first round of availability. As a growing chorus of nations, tion but have bought up over 50% of While technically this is within movements, and international the world’s promised vaccines. Canada’s rights, COVAX was organizations call out the unethical Even within this elite group, designed first and foremost to hypocrisy of Western nations, Canada is a leader, having bought assist low- and middle-income valuing IP rights over human lives, more vaccines per capita than any countries and not necessarily, in the time has come for Canada to other country, enough to eventually the first round, Canada, a wealthy change its position at the WTO. The vaccinate 4 or 5 times the Canadian country and world leader in “vaccine global appeal that “no one is safe population. nationalism.” until everyone is safe,” is not just a Second, Canada has also begun to Either way, what is perhaps most slogan, but a call to action. M spend money on “made in Canada” notable about the COVAX strategy 9 hangs in the balance), Mexican health labels on packaged food, Canadian plans to regulate single-use plastics, Trade and and Mexico’s proposed phaseout of GM corn and the investment herbicide glyphosate. STUART TREW As anyone with a bit of common sense will tell you, chewing that much gum can be dangerous, walking or no walking. And Tai should recall how badly her predecessors blew this particular game of chess with the corporate class. Obama, no slouch in the walking and chewing gum department, attempted to trade Enforcing the new government-wide business-friendly regulation and an Asia-Pacific FTA (the TPP) for corporate investment in NAFTA, but for new economic growth. Business held onto its cash, while Obama’s regulatory reforms laid the foundation for workers or the bosses? significant deregulation under the Trump administration. Back to CUSMA enforcement, it was expected the first dispute under the new NAFTA’s strengthened labour HERE’S A NEW trade sheriff in Washington and she protections would be against Mexico. But on March plans to “walk, chew gum and play chess at the 23, the Centro de los Derechos del Migrante claimed same time.” Katherine Tai laid down her challenge that milestone by filing a challenge that accuses U.S. on February 25, in opening remarks to the Senate employers of regular sex-based discrimination under two Finance Committee, then considering her nomina- migrant visa programs. According to the centre: Ttion for the job of United States Trade Representative. Through discriminatory recruitment and hiring practices, Both Democrats and Republicans expect top-notch gum women are largely excluded from accessing these visas. chewing from their USTR, but the chess-playing really For example, in 2018 3% of all H-2A visas were issued to impressed. The senate confirmed Tai’s nomination with a women, while women made up approximately 25% of vote of 98–0 on March 17. all farm laborers in the United States. Migrant worker The question now is where Biden’s new USTR plans women who are hired on H-2 visas are often channeled to walk, at what pace, and whether she is a spearmint or into lower-paying jobs under the programs and face peppermint kind of person. During a public webinar in gender-based violence. December, Senator Rob Portman, one of Tai’s predeces- sors as USTR, said he would hope that the Biden trade Mexico’s labour ministry must agree to investigate the team could conclude Trump-era free trade deals with the complaint, which will “test the new, stronger language U.K. and Kenya while still pursuing reforms to U.S. trade on migrant workers…and on discrimination against policy promised during the election. No reason why women,” said Lance Compa of Cornell University, a panel Biden “can’t walk and chew gum at the same time,” said member on the CUSMA Rapid Response Mechanism for Portman. Indeed. labour complaints. So, ¿Pueden caminar y mascar chicle However, the U.K. and Kenya bilaterals do not seem al mismo tiempo? In other words, will the Mexican gov- to be Tai’s immediate concern, nor does jumping back ernment of Andrés Manuel López Obrador be so bold as into the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiated by Obama to challenge the Biden-Harris regime on migrant rights then ditched by Trump. Since her senate hearing, Tai has while it is also testing corporate America’s patience with clarified to congress, her staff, the media and several energy re-nationalization and domestic farm supports? foreign governments that her immediate priorities will The CCPA’s Trade and Investment Research Project be 1) holding China to its commitments under a “phase (TIRP), a network of academic, labour and NGO one” trade deal struck at the beginning of last year by researchers, will be chewing on all of this. In a recent the Trump administration, and 2) solving a 16-year video call, TIRP members were especially interested in aerospace subsidy dispute with Europe, and 3) enforcing Tai’s plans to review past U.S. trade agreements for their Canadian and Mexican commitments under CUSMA (the impacts on workers (intended or unintended), women, new NAFTA). incomes, the environment, and communities of colour, The tough-but-constructive approach to China is and to develop a climate- and worker-focused trade exactly what the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce policy. called for last November, claiming the U.S. “can walk The Obama administration promised the same and and chew gum at the same time, which is why we also disappointed. But these are different and probably support efforts to keep pressure on trade practices more urgent times for a Democratic establishment that are harmful and unfair.” Outside of China, those that appears, so far, ready to do something to level the allegedly harmful practices include Canada’s allocation playing field between bosses and workers—even in the of new dairy imports (a Trump-initiated CUSMA dispute chewed, flavourless realm of trade policy. M 10 Perspectives

JENNIFER CHEN Trust and relationships in community organizing

HEN WE TALK about en- up conversations in the halls, and care workers during COVID-19. gaging and empowering students were easy to find. We could All of this has been developed to under-represented popu- take one issue, like rising tuition build relationships and trust with lations with the purpose fees, and mobilize our community the community. The community we of increasing awareness of around it. work with is traditionally averse to Wthe issues that affect their lives, or However, after graduation when political engagement for a range of increasing their influence in policies I ventured out into the community reasons. Now that we have shown and decision making, community and tried to mobilize, I found there up for the community, when we organizing is fundamental. Tra- were no shortcuts, no “lobby kits”, organize webinars and rallies on ditional “western” approaches and not even a “community of education reform and anti-racism, to organizing, which often begin interest” the way there had been there is greater interest and turnout with issues and then action (think at university. The stakes were from the community, and people are election organizing), or begin with completely different and trust had not shy to express opinions because organizers—often external to the to be earned. they trust the organizers. Organizers community (think international Some people may have a roman- who don’t see the value in a cooking development approaches)—may ticized vision of what community night, or a walking club, will fail to not work with diverse communities. organizing is, where they can jump truly mobilize their community. When we organize within ethnocul- in with their passion and make When we do community organiz- tural communities, we need to use meaningful change within a couple ing with ethnocultural communities, a different approach. Sometimes, weeks. But true organizing isn’t we also shouldn’t assume that indeed most times, organizers just a project. It’s people’s lives. It’s relationship building is done by an external to the community may do long-term. It’s a relationship. organizer, or organization alone. more harm than good, no matter Why do trust and relationships Communities have multiple layers how well-intentioned. matter in community organizing? of involvement, from individual Organizing within diverse When jumping into issues too families to faith-based groups to communities takes time, trust, and a soon, it turns people off. For many informal women’s circles. All of lot of patience and flexibility. ethnocultural communities, there these networks exist before and In newcomer communities, may already be trauma and mistrust after the organizer is gone. So, when where I organize, people talk about directed to anyone who attempts to organizing, you should always ask current issues but understand the introduce issues to the community yourself, “will I stick around too”? system differently, with different or group. You can’t assume the The answer to that will determine interpretations and expectations. community will see things the way your success as an organizer, and Organizers need to first build you see them. In organizing, trust the value of the impact you hope to relationships and trust with com- is more valuable than a PhD. It’s achieve. munity members, and listen to how important to know that conversa- Community organizers play an they understand the issue. tions about issues will happen in important role in the fight for social I became involved in organizing time, and until that time comes, you justice, racial justice, and gender while at university as an interna- have to continue putting in work on equality. The connections organiz- tional student from China. I joined the community’s timeline, not your ers can make between critical issues my student union, where I learned own. and peoples’ daily lives is crucial to campaign strategies and how to Over the past few years, a helping build capacity as a com- lobby effectively. The student union women’s organization I’m working munity. But it takes a lot of work, had the resources and capacity to with has been organizing family and shouldn’t be seen as a project make change, and I was impressed activities, hosting programs or something you can list on your at how the movement could including a walking club and new curriculum vitae. If you want to be fight. Gaining the trust of fellow skills for newcomers, and more a community organizer, you have to students was a matter of striking recently delivering meals to health be in it for the long haul. M 11 KATIE SHEEDY KEVIN PHILIPUPILLAI Alphabet workers go wall-to-wall

N JANUARY 4, 2021, workers at the union has decided not to pursue “there was nothing. There was no Alphabet, the parent company a vote under the United States’ conversation about unionization in of tech giant Google, an- National Labor Relations Board, these spaces.” nounced through an op-ed meaning it remains a minority or There are no Canadian tech in the New York Times that solidarity union as opposed to a companies that rival Google for size Othey had formed the Alphabet legally recognized bargaining entity. and complexity. But the momentum Workers Union (AWU), as part of Still, news of the union spread and the political consciousness that the Communications Workers of quickly. “It’s a big signal,” says motivated these Alphabet workers America (CWA). This would be Johanna Weststar (she/her), a pro- is not confined by borders and a wall-to-wall union, meaning it fessor of labour relations at Western industries. For organizers looking would be open to all employees at University in London, Ontario. “The to pick out trends or ideas from the Google and its affiliated entities, fact that there is a unionization Alphabet experience that might be across all departments and regard- movement going on at Google really relevant for the future of Canada’s less of whether they were full-time, changes the tone in the industry.” labour movement, it may be surpris- permanent employees, contractors Weststar has studied recent de- ing to recognize the degree to which or temporary workers. velopments in organizing in creative Alphabet worker-organizers looked At that point, 226 workers had and high-tech fields, including the to examples of organizing from the signed union cards with the CWA. gaming industry. She says there has late-nineteenth century and the Several hundred more signed up been a noticeable increase in union early-twentieth century, specifically in the following weeks, out of an activity in the wider digital sector in wall-to-wall organizing and organiz- Alphabet workforce totalling more recent years. “When I first came to ing as a minority union outside of a than a hundred thousand. Thus far, study industrial relations,” she says, legal regime. 12 uni Ahsan (they/them) is a software engineer at Ahsan, who was born in Bangladesh and now lives Google and a member of the AWU executive council. in Boston, first became involved with organizing as a AThey know some people wonder why Alphabet student at the University of Toronto. But they didn’t workers need a union. “Our conditions are much better initially see Alphabet as a place to do organizing work. than the average worker in America, at least as far as That changed when employees found out that some full-time workers goes,” says Ahsan. “But it’s because of them had unwittingly been contributing to Project of the dirty secret that Google doesn’t like to talk Maven, a contract with the Pentagon to use artificial about, which is that over half of the global workforce is intelligence to improve the imaging systems of U.S. contracted.” drones. “These workers are Google workers,” says Ahsan. “I work at Google Cloud,” explains Ahsan, “and “They work on Google stuff. They keep Google going. seeing the brazenness with which our executives were But they’re not treated with the same dignity. They’re willing to pursue these military contracts to work with not treated with the same benefits, basic pay, job the Defense Department and really go against all of the security. I’ve known people who are waiting months stated values of the company by doing so, that’s when it and months to know if they’ll have a job next month. became too close to my situation, to my job, for me to And they find out at the end of the month whether their ignore. contract will be renewed the next day.” “But at the same time,” Ahsan says, “we should be “I think some of the shine has come off the idea of careful about the distinctions that we draw. Because ul- the new economy,” says Weststar. “There was a real timately these are working class issues. War is definitely excitement around about the idea of a post-bureau- a working class issue.” Ahsan points to the example of a cratic time… That workers and capital are no longer in bomb falling on a worker in the Global South. “Some of antagonistic class positions. I think there is a growing the brightest moments for the labour movement in the understanding, now that we have learned a lot more past have been when these issues come together and we about what these, quote unquote, new workplaces look understand a global working class solidarity.” like, that they’re actually not so different overall.” “I think there’s a stronger political consciousness Workers have also become more vocal about a wider in some of these emerging organizing groups,” says range of issues, including diversity and respect in Weststar, the labour relations professor. She points out the workplace. “In the past it was always better pay, that the wall-to-wall approach that the AWU adopted better working conditions,” says Martin O’Hanlon, recalls an earlier approach to unionization. “If you the president of CWA Canada. “The standard things. look back in labour history,” she says, “there were the And we were very well versed in handling that… In the industrial unions that emerged with the rise in facto- last few years, we’ve noticed a bit of a change. It’s not ries, and those unions really had a stronger ideology necessarily all about pay.” towards thinking of unionizing everybody. Historically “Every group of workers we’ve heard from in recent there were unions called ‘one big union’… To really stop years has had these broader goals of equity,” says Kat reproducing class distinctions even within the labour Lapointe, an organizer with CWA Canada who works movement.” primarily with digital media workers. For educators As a wall-to-wall union, the AWU is open to all Alpha- at Second City, racial and sexual orientation diversity bet employees regardless of their job or whether they were driving factors in their recent union drive with are permanent or temporary employees. As a minority the CWA. And Canadian game workers have made trans union, there is no obligation for the employer to talk to rights an issue in their organizing in the last two to them, but there is also more flexibility. three years. “What that allows them to do,” says Weststar, “is “It is certainly driven by young people,” O’Hanlon completely disregard the precedent in the legal system says. “The new generation that are coming up have that says you wouldn’t have a union with programmers a different sense of what’s right, and they’re more and cleaners and massage therapists and contract sensitive to the fact that if their coworkers aren’t being workers and full-time workers.” respected for their diversity and their differences, that “The first thing employers do when you apply for they’ve got to stand up and fight for that.” legal certification of a union is essentially try to dispute Ahsan says larger societal problems, such as climate the bargaining unit that the union is putting forward,” change, the ethical use of artificial intelligence, and the says Weststar. “Because the employer wants to shrink role of technology in the workplace, are important to that bargaining unit down… And then that just creates many union members at Alphabet. These were also a the circumstance where you have a group of privileged key focus of earlier advocacy efforts at the company. workers who are unionized, and a group of other Ahsan’s first experience with advocacy at Alphabet workers who aren’t.” was with a walkout in November 2018 to protest the “The industrial union movement of the 1930s is such company’s handling of sexual harassment and abuse of an important and inspiring part of the history for me,” power, and its broader treatment of women. says Ahsan, who was involved in the initial process of 13 deciding which established unions to approach, if any. “A big part of our confidence in the Communications Colour-coded Workers of America is that they Justice organized under this model.” The ANTHONY N. MORGAN CWA was founded in 1938 as the National Federation of Telephone Workers, at a time when minority unions were more common. There are other wall-to-wall and “The first thing we do, minority unions under the CWA umbrella today. “People love talking let’s kill all the lawyers.” about Google in the press,” says Ahsan, “but the Texas State Employ- ees Union and the United Campus HESE ARE WORDS uttered by the fictional character, “Dick the Butcher”, Workers are unions in the South in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2. In the play, this line is shouted out where many of the workers don’t during a rallying speech given by a rabble-rousing rebel leader named have any access to a legal bargaining Jack Cade. Dick the Butcher’s comical and crude call for lawyer-cide process or legal union recognition. punctuates a pause in Cade’s inspired speech to a mass of bloodthirsty But they’ve formed unions all the Trebels, which Cade uses to declare his aims to lead a people’s revolt, same, with full voting power in the ostensibly to help better the lives and lot of poor, oppressed, landless and CWA. illiterate classes of 14th century London, England. What actually happens in “We’re not re-inventing the wheel the play is that the frenzied rebels brutally murder their countryfolk for such here. It did take something special whimsical deeds as being able to read and count. Their brief tyranny, fuelled to do this at Google, but ultimately by contorted notions of justice, is quickly put down. we followed the same playbook that There’s much debate about the meaning of Dick the Butcher’s declara- thousands of unions have followed tion. One school of thought holds that it is meant to be a jab, pointing out before us.” that they tend to maintain systems of social, economic, political and cultural “The principle that we have disadvantage by serving as the gilded agents of the propertied and powerful, demonstrated with AWU,” says at the expense of the oppressed. As this line of thinking goes, the Butcher’s Ahsan, “is that we have a union words acknowledge that defeating structures of power also requires ridding because we say that we have a society of the primary protectors of the status quo, namely lawyers. union. And it doesn’t matter what An alternative school of thought holds that the famous line serves as the law says because the law was a coded compliment to lawyers for being protectors of justice. This line made by workers forced into of thinking relies on an interpretation of this scene in which these rebels concessions in the first place, back recognize that succeeding in violently stealing power and summarily execut- in the 1930s.” ing anyone who gets in the way of this requires that there be no lawyers to “What’s happening in this space defend the rights of the hapless victims of their revolt and/or to prosecute then, is unionization has become the rebels for the violence inflicted in the name of their unrighteous rebellion. much more of a political space, like Anyone who has led or supported social justice organizing and advocacy it used to be,” says Weststar. “Like would likely say that regardless of what Shakespeare actually intended to it was in the late-1800s, where convey with this line, based on continuing struggles against social inequities, unionization was not legal. And both interpretations are valid and accurate. Whether it’s righteous resist- what workers had to do was go on ance in support of rights of Indigenous people, Black communities, people strike and agitate and struggle, and of colour, workers, women, queer and trans folks, religious minorities, the politically force their employers to disabled community, or climate justice, lawyers often feature quite signif- recognize them. Because there was icantly on both sides of social struggle: on one end as agents and, on the no legal regime to force the employ- other, as assailants of justice. er to the table. The histories of global Black freedom struggles provide prime examples “They’re just plowing ahead with of the somewhat inescapable involvement of lawyers as significant actors their political campaign and social who serve to propel or impede progress of social justice organizing efforts. campaign, knowing that the legal The Afrophobic institutions of slavery, segregation, colonization, apartheid, regime is a stumbling block for systemic anti-Black racism in education, employment, housing, health care them right now,” says Weststar. and the systems of policing, prison and immigration have all been most “What will be very interesting to effectively resisted, reformed and/or more fairly reshaped or restructured see is whether they can sustain through the insistent and incessant collective organizing efforts and mobili- that.” M zations of Black people, communities and our allies. But within struggles for 14 Black communities to realize greater forms of freedom Contemporary American Democracy. Pratt argues that in relation to these institutions, the letter, spirit, through race-conscious lawyering, Black lawyers improve interpretation or total absence of law, policy and legally and enhance democratic citizenship and participation of protected practice has often played a central role in the the African-American community. She identifies three outcomes of Black justice struggles. ways in which Black lawyers satisfy this role: First, she Take, for instance, the U.S. civil rights movement argues, Black lawyers serve a representative function in of the ’50s and ’60s and the current global Black Lives U.S. democracy by acting as ambassadors to democratic Matter movement. Indeed, it is millions of everyday institutions such as courts, legislatures and executive Black individuals and allies who’ve been at the centre of agencies. Secondly, she asserts that Black lawyers serve forcing change and freedom for Black lives through these an interpretive function by speaking the language of movements. However, systemic, structural and sustaina- democracy and being able to translate that information ble changes, both then and now, often rely on law, policy, into language that is meaningful and helpful to the Black practice and legal interpretations argued and determined community. Thirdly, she reasons that Black lawyers serve by lawyers. Examples include the Civil Rights Act and the a connective function by acting as a conduit that affords Voting Rights Act, which had to be passed to protect the both Black and non-Black citizens of lesser economic rights African-Americans mobilized en masse to affirm means access to democratic institutions we call courts through the civil rights movement. Today, the letter, spirit and justice institutions. and scope of laws granting the power of a police officer Pratt provides a framework of analysis that allows and/or civilian to shoot and kill a person who triggers a us to explore the question of Black law and leadership fear for their life is one of the central concerns of the beyond the individual, and consider it in the context of its Black Lives Matter global uprising. Personal, social and broader social significance for Black community organiz- political convictions concerning who has the legitimate ing. In Pratt’s essay, she explores the question of whether right and/or duty to what is the fundamental tension racial status of Black lawyers enables them to serve any within all progressive struggles for justice, including unique functions in democracy. Guided by this question, organizing against anti-Black racism. When it comes to she ultimately argues that when committed to a practice achieving substantive change laws, policies, programs and of race-conscious lawyering, as opposed to what she practices impacting the material realities of Black com- refers to as “bleached out” colour-blind lawyering, Black munities, managing, resolving and/or resisting this tension lawyers “enhance the participatory dimension of citizen- almost inevitably involves lawyers, on one side of the ship for Black citizens.” Pratt describes race-conscious issue or other. Given these considerations, it is difficult lawyering in this context as Black lawyers embracing their to imagine realizing liberation for Black people without ‘dual membership’ in both the Black community and the critically considering the role of lawyers in the struggle. legal profession and leveraging this status to marshal the This is not to say that the future of racial justice power of the law to serve the democratic interests of organizing must involve lawyers. It is only to suggest that individuals and institutions within the Black community. a credible and defensible account of the future of Black Though Pratt’s article focuses only on the American intersectional organizing must critically consider the context, because Black communities in Canada are so past, present and potential function of lawyers as crucial similarly situated with their African-American counter- actors in fostering, and too often, frustrating racial pro- parts on the margins of social, economic, political and gress sought through global and local Black organizing cultural well-being of society, I find Pratt’s framework and advocacy. In other words, a seemingly unavoidable deeply relevant, persuasive and instructive for racial question to contend with when considering the future justice struggles of Black communities in Canada. of progressive Black racial justice organizing is, “what The future of organizing for Black freedom, justice is the role of lawyers?” More specifically, “how can, and and equity in Canada will be meaningfully influenced should, progressive Black organizing engage lawyers in by the role lawyers play in justice struggles for Black the struggle given that the inevitable resistance to their communities, good or bad. As such, it is up to Black Black freedom fighting will be supported and sealed in lawyers and lawyers progressively allied in support of some significant measure by lawyers serving the institu- Black communities to serve as vehicles and vessels for tions of power that purvey systemic anti-Black racism?” seeking and securing the rights and remedying the social Because I am a Black lawyer with an interest and wrongs suffered and faced by Black communities. For commitment to lawyering for Black lives, I happen to be lawyers to play this progressive role effectively and invested in an even more specific question, namely, what ethically, as Pratt suggests, they must retain an authentic is the role of Black lawyers in particular, when it comes to and genuine connection with the Black communities progressive organizing for the betterment of Black lives? they aim to serve. Without this, lawyers risk reproducing The most effective answers to this question that many of the same oppressive power dynamics within I’ve come across come from African-American legal Black organizing that this organizing aims to resist. M scholar, law professor and dean, Carla Pratt, in her 2009 Anthony N. Morgan is a Toronto-based human rights lawyer, policy article, Way to Represent: The Role of Black Lawyers in consultant and community educator. 15 International

ASAD ISMI The farmers’ protests and the looting of India

N RECENT WEEKS, the farmers’ Under these new laws, farmers Prior to these new laws, farmers protests in India have become sell directly to corporations, which in India had already been suffering an international cause célèbre, in India often assert monopoly profoundly for three decades due attracting support from Rihanna, control over markets and so can to the steady withdrawal of official Greta Thunberg, Susan Sarandon dictate low prices to farmers. This supports. In 1992, neoliberalism Iand more. The women farmers new process could result in small became government policy in India. at the front lines of the protests and marginalized farmers—who Since then, 330,000 farmers have were featured on the cover of Time make up 85% of all of India’s died by suicide. Modi’s new laws magazine in early March. One farmers—losing their land to have now pushed farmers complete- month prior, in Canada, labour and corporations. The three laws, which ly to the edge. community organizations took out were passed without any consulta- “The farmers’ agitation has a full-page advertisement in the tion with farmers and in violation enormous transformative potential Toronto Star voicing their support of of parliamentary procedure, are for Indian society,” Prabhat Patnaik the farmers. Despite only recently so blatantly pro-agribusiness that tells me. Patnaik is Professor gaining attention in the West, the they even forbid farmers from suing Emeritus at Jawaharlal Nehru farmers’ protests in India have been corporations, leaving the former University in New Delhi and a ongoing for over half a year, making completely at the mercy of the latter. leading Indian expert in economics. them, by Time magazine’s estimate, As farmer Sukhdev Singh Kokri For Patnaik, the farmers’ movement “the world’s largest ongoing demon- told the BBC, “This is a death is “a reminder” of the anti-colonial stration and perhaps the biggest in warrant for small and marginalized Indian struggle for independence human history.” farmers. This is aimed at destroying against British rule, which sought About 41% of India’s 501 them by handing over agriculture to build “an egalitarian democratic million-strong workforce is and market to the big corporates. society” that would improve the involved in agriculture. The 300,000 They want to snatch away our land. peoples’ “conditions of life.” Patnaik protesting farmers—mainly But we will not let them do this.” emphasizes that “this conception from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar The government’s reaction to alone can enable India to survive Pradesh states—are demanding the protests has been suppression. as a nation” and that the farmers’ the repeal of three laws passed by It has shut down the internet movement “is a struggle for the the Hindu supremacist, neofascist in the area of the protests and revival of the life of the nation.” and neoliberal government of repeatedly pressured Twitter to Satya Sagar agrees with Patnaik Prime Minister Narendra Modi suspend accounts critical of the when he tells me that “the farmers’ and his Bharatiya Janata Party BJP government. In February, movement is a turning point in the (BJP) in September 2020. These Twitter cooperated by suspending battle against the fascist designs of laws open up India’s agricultural 500 accounts, later restoring some the upper caste Hindu supremacists sector to corporate domination by accounts associated with the [led by Modi and the BJP] and truly eliminating the officially guaranteed protest, including the enormously historical—on par with the Indian minimum support price (MSP) popular Kisan Ekta Morcha and struggle for freedom from British to farmers for their crops and the Tractor2Twitr. On the ground, colonialism.” Sagar is a prominent government-controlled markets protestors are met with govern- leftist Indian journalist and asso- (mandis) that the crops have been ment-backed violence including ciate editor of the online magazine sold in. The laws also undermine tear gas, water cannons and police Counter Currents. the agricultural produce marketing barricades, and alleged state-sanc- The rule of Modi and the BJP, committees (APMC) and state tioned attacks on farmers. So far, which won their second majority in procurement. These safeguards have 248 have died from state-sanctioned the 2019 elections, is characterized protected India’s farmers from total violence in response to the protests, by blatant discrimination against exploitation by the free market for as well as from suicides and the cold and violent attacks on India’s decades. weather in December. minorities. Discrimination has been 16 most acute for the 200 million Muslim Indians who its success through its divide-and-rule policy of collectively make up 14% of the country’s population. vilifying minorities, which is how it wins elections. But At the same time, the BJP promotes a culture of this policy has been significantly undermined by the Hindu domination—Hindus make up 84% of India’s farmers’ protests, which are uniting farmers, workers, population—particularly that of upper castes, while Hindus, Muslims, Dalits—the lowest caste in Hinduism advancing an agenda to ensure corporate control over known as “untouchables”—and Adivasis —Indigenous the Indian economy. Modi uses neofascism to spread Indians. Altogether, Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis neoliberalism. constitute close to half of India’s 1.3 billion people. As Patnaik argues in a recent interview: “Neofascism Patnaik explains that the farmers’ protests are is the culmination of the global pursuit of neoliberalism evolving into a national political movement against the which greatly widened income and wealth inequalities BJP by allying the groups listed above. “The farmers are in every country and led to an absolute immiseration making common cause with other struggling sections of vast masses of the working people in [countries] like the workers against whom too repressive laws were like India.” To enforce such massive deprivation, “the passed during the pandemic-induced lockdown.” corporate-financial oligarchy forms an alliance with Similarly, adds Patnaik, Jat [an ethnic group prom- neofascist elements to shift the discourse away from inent in agriculture] farmers and Dalit agricultural conditions of material life towards vilifying the ‘other’, labourers, who have both “a class and caste contradic- typically a hapless religious and ethnic minority.” tion”, are united in opposition to the farm laws. “These Sagar describes the particular corporate interests are fundamental shifts in the political landscape of that Modi is serving in the farmers’ case. “Modi is India,” emphasizes Patnaik, “and they will have great nothing more than a facade for the designs of large importance in the future.” corporations…The main beneficiary of the new farm Sagar agrees that the BJP’s “attempt to terrorize, laws is expected to be Mukesh Ambani, India’s [and corrupt and suborn all institutions of Indian democracy Asia’s] richest business tycoon [and Modi’s biggest is being challenged very seriously by the farmers’ funder].” Ambani has received US$21 billion in movement, which is also inspiring other sections of the investments “from Facebook, Google, the Saudi and Indian population to join it.” Abu Dhabi sovereign funds. This was possible mainly Lagging behind the farmers are India’s opposition because Ambani is known to be close to the current political parties, the most prominent of which is the regime and investing in his business is expected to Congress Party, that the BJP’s political victories have ensure profitable returns.” reduced to near irrelevance. Sagar likens Congress Sagar points out that “Facebook is the biggest to “a dead horse whom the bravest of knights cannot investor in Ambani’s Jio Platforms, that owns both motivate to give chase.” However, even in its weakened Jio—India’s largest mobile network—and Jio Mart state, Congress swept the recent municipal elections which hopes to dominate the country’s fast-growing in Punjab due mainly to the farmers’ protests, kindling e-groceries market. The plan is for Ambani’s telecom hope that it could make a comeback. Patnaik is opti- empire to join forces with Facebook’s messaging service mistic that as the farmers’ movement gathers further WhatsApp, which has over 400 million users in India, to steam it will also have the effect of galvanizing political expand Jio Mart’s consumer base. parties. “While e-groceries companies like Jio Mart will The BJP’s political power is not as solid as it looks. control purchase, processing and retail of food The party actually wins about 37% of the national products, large agribusinesses are likely to enforce vote, which is enough to give it a majority under everything from choice of crops to selection of seeds, India’s British-style first-past-the-post parliamentary fertilizers and pesticides. Digital payment services— system. This means that more than 62% of Indians vote that include the Facebook-owned WhatsApp—will against the BJP, but for different parties, thus splitting provide credit, finally reducing farmers to the status of the vote. The farmers announced on March 2 that in wage earners permanently at the mercy of whimsical alliance with 10 Central Trade Unions (CTUs), they corporate executives and investors. The new farm laws will campaign against the BJP in upcoming elections are meant to facilitate the growth of such ventures and in five states. “The farmers have certainly reduced the without this legal framework no foreign investor will electoral prospects of the BJP,” says Patnaik. want to put money in India.” Ramzan Chowdhary, a farmer from Haryana, told Sagar calls Amazon, Facebook, Google and Walmart The Hindu newspaper that people have decided to successors of the British East India Company, which break the “cycle of division in India’s social fabric by along with the British Crown, colonized and looted the BJP. We will not sit back and watch this force divide India for 200 years, condemning it to an abyss of Jat-versus-non Jat, Sikh-versus-Hindu. This movement poverty. will link Indians together everywhere.” M The continued neocolonization of India by corpora- tions is, however, dependent on the BJP maintaining 17 In focus

PAULA ETHANS Reinvigorating climate organizing From climate action to climate justice

019 WAS A YEAR with unprece- an issue that’s superseded by other digital campaigning. Sometimes the dented climate action. concerns? How do you execute simplest tactics can be the most The climate crisis was at the mass mobilization during social effective.” forefront of everyone’s mind. distancing? How do you command Not surprisingly, we’ve seen a Prominent climate action government attention from your huge uptick in online organizing: 2groups like Fridays for Future and living room? webinars, social media campaigns Sunrise Movement, were reframing Actions have been cancelled, and online petitions. Earth Day the climate change conversation government budgets have been 2020 was the biggest online mass from one of piecemeal policies to a rewritten and every conversation is mobilization in history. global emergency. about the pandemic. For the climate Despite recognizing the bene- A new generation of young movement, it’s an uphill battle. fits, some activists know online activists were spearheading First, the audience is barely there. organizing isn’t enough on its own. climate strikes to challenge the People are in crisis—tracking daily “In-person connection is incredibly complacency of political elites. Mass death tolls, clinging to their jobs, valuable and I don’t think it will mobilizations became a key tool worrying about the health of loved ever be replaced…,” says Lee. in their arsenal for affecting real ones—and they don’t have the transformation. Indeed, the 2019 capacity to think about the existen- A “Just Recovery” Climate Strike saw four million tial threat of climate change. for twin crises people take to the streets. Second, organizers themselves The COVID-19 pandemic and the The momentum was there. 2020 are struggling to cope. Several climate crisis are deeply intertwined promised to be filled with sit-ins, climate activists cite burnout, and can teach the climate movement marches and strikes. Organizers job insecurity and isolation as big many valuable lessons: what does a were counting on these tactics challenges to organizing. Dominique state of emergency look like? What to keep pushing for meaningful Souris, Co-Founder of Youth can governments accomplish when change. Climate Lab, says her team is not they take threats seriously? What’s Then the pandemic hit. The world doing well. “Mental health is all an “urgent” timeline? turned upside down and climate time low, and climate anxiety is all In many ways, the pandemic is a change took a back seat. time high.” preview of what’s to come for the But if times of crisis are oppor- Still, humans are resilient and climate crisis. Just like COVID-19, tunities to rebuild, how can the climate groups have modified their the climate emergency is a threat climate movement harness this strategies, changing their focus and to humanity and governments must moment to reinvigorate itself and finding creative ways to organize. act accordingly. Like COVID-19, fight for radical transformation? They’ve reflected, imagined and climate change doesn’t respect After a year of seeing the repositioned themselves. borders, but it harms the most pandemic expose stark economic Naia Lee, an organizer with the marginalized and gets exponentially inequities, and Black Lives Matter youth climate movement in Vancou- worse when decision-makers down- (BLM) spearheading unprece- ver, says that Climate Strike Canada play its harm and ignore science. dented organizing around racial has capitalized on this time when The climate movement in Canada justice, climate organizers must in-person organizing is hindered to has caught on to these intersections, use this juncture as an opportunity focus on training, intake and other rhetorically weaving the crises to rebuild as a more just, more foundational work. together in an effort to capitalize on intersectional movement. Atiya Jaffar, a senior digital this moment. strategist with 350 Canada, says the Climate activists are saying Organizing in the time organization always had a digital the pandemic is just a preview of of COVID-19 focus and has used this opportunity what’s to come with climate change, The implications for climate organ- to help other organizers develop arguing that the pandemic lays bare izing during a pandemic are obvious. the same. Jaffar believes, “Any the inequalities that will only be How do you maintain interest in group has the power to engage in exacerbated by the climate crisis. 18 It’s a smart move on multiple fronts. First, they’ve has seen unprecedented momentum. “White people in inserted their agenda into the dominant conversation, the climate movement…have always centered them- ensuring it maintains visibility. Second, by acknowledg- selves in the movement, so it’s an important moment of ing the intersections, it demands governments address de-centering.” the pandemic and the climate crisis in tandem. From that perspective, 2020 wasn’t a loss for the As Daniel Friesen, an organizer with Manitoba movement; it was necessary. Organizers, especially Energy Justice Coalition, says, “Change has never been white organizers, did a lot of learning and reflecting, more possible or needed than with the massive disrup- and will hopefully take this new understanding to their tion to normalcy that is the pandemic.” collectives and classrooms, transforming how the In Canada, the clearest iteration of the connection climate crisis is conceived. between the pandemic and the climate crisis has been And the climate crisis must be conceived differently. the coalition of 500 organizations calling for a “just The movement needs to push its outdated boundaries recovery.” It’s an intersectional approach, grouping and expand its focus to include racial, gender and environmental, housing, disability and migrant organ- economic justice. It needs to recognize that these izations. The call has six principles, calling for things issues are interconnected and borne out of the same like: build resilience to prevent future crises, strength- system. en safety nets and prioritize the needs of workers. “Climate organizations working within capitalism They’re broad and that’s what’s promising. No longer won’t achieve any form of justice…because it’s always are environmental issues kept in their own silo. They’re tweaking a fundamentally flawed system,” says Rebecca now assembled with other social justice demands. Granovsky-Larsen, an environmental organizer in There have long been calls to pursue a “green Regina. “You need to shed the systems if you’re going to recovery”—focusing on melting ice and carbon combat the problem in the time we have.” emissions—but it needs to be more. A “green recovery” As Larissa Crawford, the founder of Future Ances- doesn’t address the cruel capitalism that has devastated tors, recently said in an interview with Oxfam Canada, the planet for profit. It doesn’t account for unfair “These practices of colonialism and capitalism have led labour practices harming migrant communities and de- to the climate change that we see today. So, if we are veloping countries. It doesn’t address how colonialism to say that we are working in the environmental sector, has ignored, jailed and killed Indigenous land defend- that we’re trying to address climate change, then we ers. Building bike paths and banning plastic bags won’t cannot do that work, without recognizing how certain abolish these systems. As Lee says, we need to provide people have been dehumanized in the interest of the “an alternative that everyone can see themselves in.” practices that have led to climate change.” If Black lives really do matter, if we really do believe The future of climate organizing women and if we are truly committed to reconciliation, The pandemic has exacerbated the inequities and injus- then the movement will tackle climate change in a way tice in society. Billionaires have gotten richer, wealthy that honours those communities. It will acknowledge white people have remained wealthy, while poor, mainly that these communities bear the brunt of the climate BIPOC, families have suffered. crisis and are on the front lines fighting it. It will tear Friesen believes the pandemic has helped the climate down the systems that perpetuate harm. movement understand which problems it needs to Friesen says it’s imperative climate groups “consider tackle. “The pandemic provides really clear examples of how we are supporting and advocating for those who issues that we need to address to create a better world. have no choice but to make this fight their lives.” Not From workers’ rights, to wealth inequality, to racial necessarily advocating for one giant group, Friesen injustice…so many of the problems that have been urges environmental organizations to examine where highlighted by COVID-19 are also at the root of the power in the movement lies and consider how it can be climate crisis.” shifted to serve where it is most needed most. Armed with this knowledge, it’s time for the climate “If there’s one thing I’d hope be extrapolated from movement to conduct high-level analyses and build this year, racial capitalism is the biggest threat we intersectional coalitions with other movements. have to combat,” says Granovsky-Larsen, “and that Courtney Strutt, a climate organizer in Thunder movements should be working together if they’re going Bay, says this moment presents an opportunity for the to be effective.” M overwhelmingly white climate organizing circles in her city to form new relationships. As the movement pushes forward, she hopes white people can approach organizing with more solidarity. “Climate as climate isn’t a strong enough movement.” Indeed, Souris thinks it’s been beneficial for the climate movement to be in the background while BLM 19 In focus

DECLAN INGHAM An organized system of organized labour An introduction to sectoral bargaining in Germany

ANADIAN LABOUR HISTORY can is a shift from firm-level bargaining shop floor. In the words of Stephen sometimes appear trapped to sector-level bargaining. Rather J. Silva, an American industrial between the dramatic rise and than unions negotiating collective relations scholar, “German indus- fall of the American Labour agreements with employers one by trial relations institutions extend Movement and the tragic one, the agreements would cover into the boardrooms, workplaces, Cerosion of European trade union multiple employers in an industry and government to a degree that power; never quite reaching the or sector. is unimaginable in most other heights or defeats of the American Trade unionists and advocates countries.” movement, but also never achieving have submitted various proposals The context of German industrial the institutionalized policy-making over the years to this effect. Recent relations begins, as most things in influence enjoyed by unions in submissions made by the United Germany do, in the “hour zero” Europe. Steelworkers and Unifor to Ontar- of the post-war period. Exhausted After reaching a high-water mark io’s Changing Workplaces Review and traumatized by the tumultuous of 37.9% in 1984, there has been (2015) advocated for this in the inter-war and fascist era, labour a steady decline in the number form of broader-based bargaining. and business both sought auton- of unionized Canadian workers. Proposals of this nature, espe- omy from the state and shunned Still, since 1999 the unionization cially those inspired by European class conflict in favour of a more rate has held steady at just under examples of industrial relations, apolitical relationship, now known 30%. Declines in the private sector, are sometimes difficult to imagine as Sozialpartnerschaft, or social where union membership has fallen because of how enormous a partnership. from over a quarter (26%) in 1984 departure they are from our way of The post-war German state to around one-in-seven (14.3%) doing things. By the same token, quickly moved to secure the legal by 2020, have been offset by gains we are often uncritical in our desire framework for this autonomous in the public sector, where union to simply import a solution and bargaining by constitutionally density has gradually risen from overlook the fact that industrial re- guaranteeing under Article 9, The 69.8% in 1997 to nearly 75% in lations systems are dynamic, under Freedom of Association, so that 2020. enormous pressure domestically, workers can organize trade unions Even with the 8th highest and the result of class struggle and and managers can form employer union density in the OECD, the compromise in particular places and associations. Later, jurisprudence Canadian labour movement has times. Still, it is a telling exercise enshrined the inverse: no one shall been hard-pressed converting this to explore what sectoral bargaining be compelled into association working-class currency into political looks like in practice. Germany’s in- and union benefits shall not be or economic change. Unions in dustrial relations regime, held up as secured only for union members. Canada have been unable to secure an archetype of sectoral bargaining, Effectively, this closed the door on a more comprehensive welfare state offers exactly this critical example. the closed-shop model of mandatory or institutionalize their bargaining union membership in unionized power to the same degree as their The German context workplaces. comparators in western continental Germany is often heralded as an Europe and the Nordic countries. economic marvel, but what is Collective bargaining To that end Canada ranks near the missed by the headlines of the in Germany bottom in public social spending as business press is the extraordinary Collective bargaining is set out in a percentage of GDP. One answer degree of union involvement in the Collective Agreements Act of 1949, to this deficit of worker power is the economy. Through collective which lays the groundwork for reforms to our industrial relations bargaining, board-level co-de- voluntary sectoral bargaining. Col- system that make it friendlier to termination, and local works lective agreements are negotiated in worker organizing and collective councils, unions set wages across each sector between the employer’s bargaining. A proposal that is always the economy, sit on company association and that sector’s leading on the table but never on the agenda boards, and even co-manage the union. These agreements determine 20 compensation for, among other things, a majority of also has one of the biggest low-wage sectors in Europe, German employees, but with extraordinary variation according to research by the German Institute for between sectors as coverage is based on voluntary Economic Research. This is explained by the unequal membership in an employer association. divergence taking place in the German labour market. According to 2014 figures from the Federal Ministry Take, for instance, the 20% difference in labour costs for Labour, 50% of workers are covered under sectoral between those in private services (retail, hospitality, agreements, 8% under company-level agreements, and etc.) and those in the more prestigious German 21% under contracts using sectoral agreements as ref- manufacturing sector. Much of this wage inequality erence. While some sectors, like banking, have national is explained by the decline in bargaining coverage in agreements, the cornerstone of the system is regional certain sectors. agreements with each sector divided into districts. Like many other industrial relations regimes around Formally, negotiations take place in each individual the world, Germany is facing continual erosion regional district, but in practice the unions engage of coverage and this contributes to labour market in pattern bargaining. They identify a ‘pilot’ district “dualism” where bargaining power, pay, and working where they hold the most bargaining power and work to conditions vary widely by sector. Rather than tradition- negotiate a model agreement. This is fairly effective in al union-busting as we know it, German employers have setting a national sectoral standard, as employers and engaged in different tactics—fleeing their employer unions are both committed to limiting differences in associations, refusing collective agreement coverage, or labour costs. Yet, management has retained the prerog- using local agreements to undercut sectoral standards. ative to improve compensation and benefit packages This is experienced across the economy but, also, by “unilaterally above the rates (but not below) spelled out workers in different sectors. Coverage of the pivotal in a region-wide collective agreement” and they use it. industry-level agreements has fallen from 70% in 1996 to 49% by 2018. In certain sectors, like financial Co-determination in the boardroom services (91%) and the metal sector (67%), a majority The industrial relations regime in Germany extends of workers are still covered by sectoral agreements, but beyond collective bargaining into a specific framework in retail trade (28%), hotels and restaurants (23%) and for industrial democracy called Mitbestimmung, or IT-services (15%) coverage is disappearing. co-determination. The institutional stability of the Sozialpartnerschaft Under the Codetermination Act of 1976 and the One- has done little to stem the decline in union membership third Participation Act of 2004, firms of a certain size are in Germany which stood at just 17% in 2016, over 10 required to have worker representatives on their corpo- percentage points lower than Canada in the same year. rate supervisory board. The supervisory boards, distinct While this mirrors a global decline in union member- from the management board which is composed of ship, scholars blame the decline on the disappearance corporate executives and chaired by the CEO, are made of trade unionism as a social custom as much as up of shareholders and employee representatives who industrial restructuring. scrutinize firm strategy, performance, and hold the The German experience demonstrates the trade- right to appoint and dismiss the management board. offs inherent to any industrial relations system. The number of worker representatives ranges from Broader-based bargaining boosted collective agreement one-third to one-half, depending on the size and struc- coverage and raised living standards but created ture of the firm. Generally, employee representatives distance between grassroots members and their unions. make up one-third of the board for companies with The social partnership enabled unprecedented gains between 500 and 2,000 staff and one-half for companies when unions were strong but gave employers the over 2,000 staff and for limited liability corporations flexibility to undermine the system in the long run. over 500 staff. The worker representatives, except in The unfortunate reality for many of us who wish the coal, steel, and iron sectors, never constitute a to re-organize Canadian workers and re-energize the majority on the supervisory board as the chair is elected labour movement is that there are no shortcuts to by shareholders and holds the tie-breaking vote. organizing for power. Each system has benefits and The worker representatives are directly elected by drawbacks, and the German model has its fair share of the workforce but, again, depending on the firm, the both. M process looks different. A special thank you is reserved for Julian Brummer, who expounded the intricacies of German industrial relations over many beverage- No utopias based conversations and to Anke Hassel, a leading public policy professor at the Hertie School in Berlin and a former research director Even with a legislative framework amenable to union at the Hans Böckler Foundation, who was exceptionally gracious with organizing and economic involvement, Germany is no her spare time and gave me a master class on the German model. worker utopia. While it has one of the highest labour costs per hour at US$42.00 (compare that with Canada’s US$26.27) it 21 In focus

ROBERT HACKETT AND HANNA ARAZA The oil blotter Postmedia and Big Oil’s symbiosis

ANADA’S FOSSIL FUEL industries, “Their opinion pieces and uncrit- and the implicit assumptions backed by a network of allies, ical industry reporting are a major of their social and professional anchor a “regime of obstruc- source of content for the social cultures, than by their individual tion” against effective climate media feeds of pro-oil advocates, backgrounds. They accept the policy. As identified by the who recirculate this content to legit- extractivist narrative linking fossil CCCPA’s Corporate Mapping Project, imize their own talking points,” says fuels to jobs and prosperity, because Canada’s Fossil-Power Top 501 Neubauer. “Moreover, accessing they don’t understand the alterna- includes emitters, the extractive cor- ‘legacy media’ is a common use of tive and don’t want to be seen as porations with the greatest carbon social media for many Canadians, outliers. footprint; enablers, mainly banks especially on Facebook. Thus, legacy Canadian reporters have been less and industry-friendly regulators; media are still very important, even likely than their U.S. counterparts and legitimators, who publicly ad- if their modes of content circulation to sacrifice truth-telling about vocate against an urgent shift from have changed.”4 climate change to the ethic of fossil fuels. Legitimators include Does that matter? Yes, if Cana- neutrality between scientists and industry associations, think tanks, dians want a conversation about deniers. But, arguably, there is still a lobby groups, business councils and energy and climate policy undistort- comparative reluctance to challenge pro-oil advocacy groups. ed by Big Oil’s outsized influence. conventional wisdom. Compared to That list should also include some Calgary-based journalist and the crusading climate journalism of of Canada’s corporate-owned news researcher Sean Holman found the Guardian, writes journalist and media—particularly the largest that in covering Canada’s “big five” Ecotrust founder Ian Gill, Canadian newspaper chain, Postmedia. Re- petro corporations—Canadian mainstream journalism has been so searcher Marc Edge estimated that Natural Resources, Suncor Energy, pale that “nobody comes anywhere by 2016, Postmedia published 37.6% Cenovus Energy, Imperial Oil, near as close to calling our energy of Canadian paid daily newspaper Husky Energy (now merged with sector (and our investment commu- circulation—75.4% in the three Suncor)—Canadian newspapers nity) to account.”7 westernmost provinces—and owned conducted relatively few interviews There’s little evidence that 15 of the 22 largest English dailies.2 with environmentalists, and reporters soft-pedal news, eyeing It’s fashionable to dismiss news- downplayed negative news about better-paying corporate public papers as yesterday’s news. Their the fossil fuel industries’ economic relations jobs. But don’t discount advertising-based business model prospects; their damage to the Big Oil’s efforts to win media’s is collapsing, circulation declining, environment, society and economy; hearts and minds. A mini-scandal newsrooms shrinking and audiences or environmental impacts of climate erupted in 2014 over the lucrative turning to online distractions. Yet, change. Postmedia newspapers, in honoraria paid to Peter Mansbridge, as Edge argues, reports of their particular, tend to favour fossil fuel then anchor of CBC’s The National, death are “greatly exaggerated.”3 development and to bash climate for public appearances to industry Newspapers remain profitable on action.5 groups. Public exposure by the an operating basis. They are still With some notable exceptions, watchdog website Canadaland engines for originating news, retain- like the Globe and Mail’s feature6 on forced the CBC to beef up its ing residual prestige, and branching the enormous cost of remediating conflict-of-interest policies.8 heavily into digital operations. Alberta’s abandoned oil wells, Unlike reporters, columnists Researcher Robert Neubauer Canada’s corporate press hasn’t are expected to express their found that of the top 10 mainstream paid much critical attention to this opinions. As Neubauer notes, they media outlets whose opinion powerful industrial sector. Why not? are a key link between the press articles were most often cited in and the petro-lobby. Two types of Facebook posts by six prominent Are journalists at fault? columnists appear to predominate pro-petro groups, all but one (the Within a hierarchical media organ- at Postmedia. There are political Globe and Mail) were Postmedia ization, journalists are arguably analysts who aren’t explicitly dailies. more influenced by career ambitions ideological; they represent politics 22 as a game, analyzing the strategies of players without interest. Postmedia circumvents the Canadian tax laws challenging extractivism’s basic assumptions. intended to preclude foreign ownership of Canadian Then there are hardcore ideologues—Postmedia’s media, by making the U.S.-held shares non-voting—an carbon-coddling conservative columnists. Some are end-run approved by the Harper government. Postme- veteran journalists with Jurassic political views, like dia dailies are still profitable, in that operating revenues libertarian climate denier Terence Corcoran, hard-right exceed expenses—but at the cost of cutbacks that political columnist John Ivison, and Claudia Cattaneo, arguably reduce its asset value. Growing digital revenue described by Hislop as “an attack dog” for “the rabidly has not offset declining revenue from print circulation conservative part of the Alberta oil patch.”9 Others and advertising.15 have been actively involved in right-wing politics, like Does Postmedia’s petro-boosterism derive from former Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith, and Licia a board with intercorporate connections to Big Oil? Corbella, who—unbeknownst to her editors—was a Not directly. The biographies of nine Postmedia board voting member of Alberta’s United Conservative Party directors reveal that just one, Wendy Henkelman, had while touting Jason Kenney’s 2017 leadership bid in direct links. Most of the others have experience in the Calgary Herald.10 Some of the most widely read other private-sector corporations. columnists are not employees of Postmedia, but guest Several board members have strong ties to con- commentators with extractivist credentials. These servative politics. Janet Ecker was a senior cabinet include researcher Vivian Krause, who touts the conserv- minister under two Ontario Tory premiers and a fellow ative conspiracy narrative that Canadian environmental at the C.D. Howe Institute. Ex-CEO Paul Godfrey is non-profits are dupes of American foundations.11 a longstanding and active Conservative. Along with What’s missing, of course, is sustained analysis from Postmedia’s previous board chair, Rod Phillips, Godfrey the left. held a $1000-a-head fundraiser for the Ontario Con- Journalists do not work in a vacuum. Political servative party in 2019. Phillips was finance minister interventions and top-down orders to avoid a topic are in Premier Doug Ford’s cabinet until his COVID-19 infrequent, though they do occur—like the Postmedia advisory-breaking Caribbean vacation. directive to its dailies to endorse Harper’s Conserv- A right-wing political stance is also about market atives in the 2015 federal election.12 More typically, positioning. The National Post has long presented management and ownership exert influence through itself as a voice of thoughtful conservatism, including key decisions about resource allocations, marketing support for fossil fuel expansion and climate skepti- strategies, newswork routines, and hiring. In recent cism. In Canada, neoliberalism comes marinated in oil. decades, media corporations have rationalized their In 2013, Douglas Kelley, then publisher of the National resources and trimmed costs while intensifying produc- Post, described his paper as a “leading voice…on the tivity demands on journalists. Under these conditions, importance of energy to Canada’s business,” promising more reporters become generalists covering a range of to “leverage all means editorially, technically and topics in multiple platforms rather than specializing creatively to further this critical conversation” and to in particular beats. Coverage thus tends to be reactive, “work with CAPP [Canadian Association of Petroleum offering little background, sometimes just reproducing Producers] to amplify our energy mandate.”16 Energy press releases, helped by readily publishable data and mandate, not journalism? graphics from the petro industry. Investigative jour- More recently, Postmedia ownership promoted Kevin nalists can still be found, but they need senior editors’ Libin, arguably one of the chain’s most conservative green light to pursue particular stories. As Postmedia editorial voices.17 Libin’s mission as “executive editor consolidated operations to create “common pages” of of politics” is “to oversee…political reporting and political and national coverage centrally prepared and certain commentary published across Postmedia’s distributed to the local dailies, homogenized editorial newspapers”, and to move the chain even more reliably positions became more possible. to the right. What is the rationale?18 Some observers see narrowly Postmedia and Big Oil: corporate symbiosis? political motives, such as the political ambitions of Postmedia emerged from previous owner Canwest’s board members, while others interpret it as a business ill-fated gamble on multimedia “convergence” between decision to “capture the mainstream conservative broadcast, print and digital media. The papers were audience segment while competitors fight for other bought at bargain prices by its creditors with U.S. pieces of the pie.”19 One observer sees the columnists’ hedge fund backing.13 Since 2016, Chatham Asset extremism as “rage-bait”, intended to provoke online Management has held about 66% ownership, the same readers to “hate-click” on their articles.20 company with an 80% stake in American Media Inc., Another speculation focuses on “sponsored controversial for its ties to Donald Trump.14 content”—articles, resembling regular news, generated In effect, Postmedia is a revenue conduit for the by journalists but paid for by advertisers. That gambit is U.S. hedge funds, which extract loans at a high rate of part of a broader trend in the corporate print media.21 23 Sponsored content can be Between 2016 and 2020, Post- colonialism and dispossession of deceptive, difficult to differentiate media published at least 19 articles Indigenous people, and frankly, from news reports. Moreover, by CAPP CEO Tim McMillan and systemic racism. writes researcher Victor Pickard, several by other CAPP directors So it’s not about demonizing one it fosters a “pay-to-play” society or executives. CAPP appears to company or denying columnists’ where “inequalities are increasingly find a higher chance of editorial right to rant. Postmedia’s relentless inscribed into its media system.”22 acceptance and a more receptive ‘petroganda’ amid our climate Those inequalities include Big Oil’s readership in Postmedia papers, emergency exemplifies a larger potential influence through both the compared to other outlets—al- problem—the lack of ideological direct purchase of news media space, though CAPP also talks to other diversity in Canada’s press. The and implicit pressure on outlets not leading media, such as the Globe and moderate environmentalism, some- to bite the clients who feed them. Mail. times found in CBC or Toronto Star, There is a potential inter-industry In short, Postmedia and Big Oil is not an adequate counterbalance. symbiosis. With their advertising share an agenda around institutional Public policy can address that revenue siphoning off to the giant legitimacy, political influence, and issue. It can build on the Trudeau Internet platforms, newspapers economic interests. Their relation- government’s belated recognition need cash flows and can offer a ship is often personal and informal, of journalism as a “public good”—a “trusted brand”—in the words of anchored in a shared ideology in service valued by society but Postmedia’s website23—something a polarized political environment. difficult to finance through market that Facebook ads can’t deliver. The result: journalism that treats mechanisms. The $600 million Conversely, Big Oil is a wealthy Big Oil with kid gloves and environ- journalism support program28 could industry with public image problems mentalists and climate scientists be confined to Canadian-owned and a need to reach decision-makers with hostility. media, and/or to journalists and public. As described by indus- themselves, not to foreign-owned try-friendly journals, the industry’s The bigger picture corporations that channel subsidies PR challenges include attacks from Some obvious caveats are in order: to shareholders while continuing environmental groups, low trust Newspaper-owning corporations to cut reporters. Increased support in the industry, growing public other than Postmedia also have to non-profit and independent concern about climate change and strong ties to Big Oil, from LNG-in- outlets is justifiable on grounds pipelines, and insufficient advocacy vestor David Black’s community of representative, democratic from the industry itself.24 weeklies in B.C., to the Irving family diversity; as a by-product, they are Indeed, in 2014, the Vancouver industrial-media complex that dom- more likely to offer critical energy Observer disclosed a proposed inates New Brunswick’s three major and climate coverage.29 If Postmedia partnership between Postmedia and dailies and its domestic oil refinery is eventually bled dry by the hedge CAPP to “bring energy to the fore- business. Postmedia sometimes funds, facilitate acquisition of its re- front of our national conversation” publishes dissident voices on energy maining dailies by local newsworker and “link Postmedia’s sponsored policy, like David Hughes’s critique co-operatives. Stronger enforce- energy content with CAPP’s of the Trans Mountain pipeline ment of competition policy could ‘thought leadership’.” The proposal expansion, in the Vancouver Sun.26 preclude one-company dominance suggested “topics to be directed by Scholarly research27 and of the press in the future. CAPP and written by Postmedia,” conversations with journalists Above all, let’s recognize that a with a series of 12 single page “joint over the years identify many habitable planet, a healthier democ- ventures” in the National Post and influences on news narratives, racy, and independent journalism other major newspapers.25 beyond corporate self-interest. are overlapping goals. M However, there is little evidence Local markets and social ecologies. This analysis was undertaken as part of the that this relationship continued Routine dependence on official Corporate Mapping Project, a research and on an ongoing basis. Around 2016, sources. Governments and leading public engagement initiative jointly led by the University of Victoria, the Canadian Centre the industry shifted its PR gears, politicians as “primary definers” of for Policy Alternatives’ BC and Saskatchewan mobilizing its own “natural” the terms of political debate, even Offices, and the Alberta-based Parkland constituency—its employees and in an era of cynicism and populism. Institute. This research was supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research resource communities—through Implicit acceptance of extractivism Council of Canada (SSHRC). References are weaponizing social media and and economic growth, in corporate available on monitormag.ca. supporting grassroots engagement. newsrooms and senior governments But the industry still sees news- alike. Canada’s historical status papers as important in shaping the as a resource hinterland—hewers narrative, and Postmedia appears to of wood, drawers of water, and be a particularly reliable partner. now, drillers of oil—related to 24 Perspectives

SAM HERSH The future is municipal How city-based movements have become the key to progressive policy change

HEN ONE THINKS of progres- The pandemic has forced us to move toward participatory budget- sive campaigns around radically re-imagine our cities. On ing, a process where residents get the world that have made top of that, many of the movements an actual direct say on a proportion waves in politics, there are we have seen come to the fore in the of a city’s budget. In 2020, for a few obvious ones that past year around policing, mutual example, 5% of the city’s budget, 75 Wcome to mind such as the campaigns aid and housing evictions have been million euros, was completely in the of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy primarily based at the local level. If hands of the public. Corbyn. Although both campaigns anything, COVID-19 has shown us Although Barcelona is a were successful in significantly the importance of getting involved noteworthy example, leftists and shifting the policy window, both at the local level and relying on the progressives have been winning at campaigns were ultimately un- solidarity of our neighbours. the municipal level all around the successful in posing a successful One such movement that has world from Democratic Socialist challenge to the nation-state. This shown this potential in action of America candidates in the U.S. then leads us to ask: what is the has been Barcelona En Comu, the to city councils across Europe and best way to challenge the state and current governing faction in Barce- Latin America—and it makes sense; put power back into the hands of lona. In June 2014, they launched a as leftists, our campaigns are usually average people? platform that was collectively built more grassroots and funded by An often-overlooked form of upon by months of consultations smaller donors. The lower barrier political organization by the left is with residents. To ensure the to entry in local politics makes movements based at the local level. platform had the “people’s endorse- it possible to go up against other What has been dubbed as “munici- ment” they set and reached their competitors in a more meaningful palism,” this approach to organizing goal of having 30,000 individual way. sees the city as the most effective residents sign on to their platform. At its core, municipalism means vehicle to implement significant This allowed those across the city to that fighting the status quo starts at social, economic, and environmen- feel as though they had ownership the local level but is not confined to tal change. over the platform and persuaded the local level. The fight must also The issues that centre around more people to get involved. Unlike extend to creating a reality in which municipal politics affect people’s the hyper-centralized political progressive cities work hand in hand daily lives. Will my bus show up? election platforms that most of us across borders to strive for a world Will my street be plowed? Will I are used to, this showed residents where the priorities of governments be able to find an affordable place what real community consultation are not the profits of wealthy to live? The experts on issues are looked like. A couple of months developers but human dignity, not highly paid teams of political later, Barcelona went from being sustainability, and social equity. M staffers but those who live in and led by a mayor who was mentioned experience the city every day. It is in the Panama Papers for hiding this type of neighbourliness and millions in tax havens to Ada Colau, solidarity that makes the potential a former housing activist who had of city-based movements so pow- been arrested while occupying erful, especially in a world where major Spanish banks. far-right movements across the Since coming into power, globe have been feeding off the idea Barcelona En Comu has embodied of the unknown. the principles of municipalism and Fundamentally, municipalism is has been fighting to reclaim public about decentralizing politics and spaces from wealthy property making it more accessible—and developers and putting power back could not be any more relevant than into the hands of residents. One during the COVID-19 pandemic. significant example of this is their 25 CCPA DONOR PROFILE Meet Keith Oliver, CCPA donor Meet Keith Oliver, a longtime supporter of the CCPA. For years, Keith was a monthly donor to the CCPA, but he recently made the decision to get in touch with Katie Loftus to set up a legacy gift. Keith tells us about what he’s been reading and what gives him hope.

Tell us a bit about yourself. Sept. 2004 book-length piece I’m 83 and a retired architect Home Truths... Why the housing with considerable urban design system matters to all Canadians experience. To me good architecture written by Andrew Jackson, and and the design of the space between continued right on down to March buildings is about much more 2020 and The Rent is Due Soon by than aesthetics; it’s about what Ricardo Tranjan. As for politics, encourages and supports desirable there is the Oct 22, 2020 analysis, human behaviour; what supports an Talk vs Action: Doug Ford’s inadequate integrated, healthy community. response to the second wave of COVID- 19. As for inspiration, which at my What is an experience that had age is in short supply, there is the a big influence on your life? Jan. 1, 2019 piece written by two I’ve made it a point to vote in every CCPA fellows, The right to the city as election since I was first eligible. a foundation for social justice. In doing so, I tried as best I could to stay informed. Twice I ran for You recently changed your municipal office; once in London, support from monthly to an Ontario, and once in Cobourg. When Why did you become a estate gift. Can you share what going door to door and talking with CCPA supporter? your decision process was? voters, I was impressed, at times, One reliable source of well thought I’ve always tried to support both the with how little voters knew about out opinion and objective infor- smaller and larger community in important issues. News broadcasts mation products is the Canadian which I live. As a result, my income and the dwindling number of news- Centre for Policy Alternatives, is both low and fixed. I’ve had to papers alert the public to various which produces publications, blogs stop my long history of monthly issues. They tell us what is happen- and, of course, the Monitor. Because donations to a number of causes ing, but few go into reporting the of the quality of information I’ve and devote the funds to getting my details as to why they’re happening. found, I’ve been a monthly donor heritage home ready for sale. In I believe that an informed voter is for many years. There is much to compensation, I have bequeathed key to the success of any democracy, read and I’ve had to be selective. 5% of my estate to the CCPA. I do regardless of how it’s structured. I feel it’s the right decision and the believe in being skeptical but not If you had to curate a list sum will be meaningful. I won’t be cynical. What I’m looking for are of recent favourite CCPA around to receive the thank you, but different points of view, not just the publications, what would that’s okay. It’s part of the burden ones I agree with. The experience be on the list? of being active and caring about of the pandemic seems to be a very In support of both my personal the future that the benefits of your real opportunity to debate and and professional concerns about actions will only be realized at some undertake meaningful change. housing, I started with the distant time.

A legacy gift is a charitable donation that you arrange now that will benefit the CCPA in the future. Making a gift to the CCPA in your will is not just for the wealthy or the elderly. And a legacy gift makes a special impact—it is often the largest gift that anyone can give. To ask about how you can leave a legacy gift to the CCPA, or to let us know you have already arranged it, please call or write Katie Loftus, Development Officer (National Office), at 613-563-1341 ext. 318 (toll free: 1-844-563-1341) or [email protected]. HANNAH GELDERMAN SHAREE HOCHMAN Organizing accessibility and intersectionality through 15-minute cities

INCE THE first COVID-19 within 15-minutes of walking or stratify neighbourhoods along class lockdown sent many people biking. Moreno believes that cities lines. home, a sense of locality has will not return to their old “normal” Anne Hidalgo, the Mayor of been building throughout post-pandemic and this is a great Paris who used the 15-minute city communities as people became opportunity to reorganize how we as the core of her successful 2020 Sreacquainted with nearby parks, live to become more sustainable and re-election campaign, says the shops and neighbours, leaving large more accessible. Many Canadian concept is “a city of proximities— city centres, malls, and office build- municipalities seem to agree. not only between structures but ings empty. But, what about the Cities across Canada, including people”. Hidalgo’s hope is to use the people who have sheltered in place Edmonton, Victoria, and Ottawa 15-minute model to bring people without green spaces and grocery are engaging with some version together. However, this is easier said stores nearby? of a 15-minute model in their new than done in Paris, an infamously This resurfacing sense of locality official plans for city development. segregated city and home to the has sparked a new interest in the Though, to truly improve the quality banlieue neighbourhoods, which concept of the 15-minute city, an of life for all residents, the design have concentrated Paris’ most urban design that reshapes how we of 15-minute cities must include an marginalized communities in the live. Developed by Carlos Moreno, equity analysis. Without built-in North Seine-Saint-Denis region. a scientific director and professor intersectionality accounting for how This disparity was laid bare by specializing in intelligent control of socioeconomic disparity between COVID-19, which left affluent complex systems at the Sorbonne, races, genders, mobilities, and quartiers virtually untouched while the model prioritizes a higher classes manifests geographically, the it ripped through the banlieue. “We quality of life and sustainability by 15-minute city model will entrench are locked down in our inequality,” ensuring everyday needs are reached pre-existing inequalities and further the Seine-Saint-Denis MP Alexis 27 Corbière tells the Guardian. bring about further discrimination to meet community housing needs “The virus has just amplified the and inequality and territorial by including social, affordable, problems the banlieue has had for a stigmatization.” and family housing in new resi- long time. It has revealed how wide Zoning bylaws are a critical dential projects. Under the bylaw, and deep the social fracture really tool in the fight to build vibrant, developments greater than 450 is.” Introducing a 15-minute city equitable communities. The bylaws square meters—approximately five model requires more than thinking that uphold affordable housing units dwellings or more—are required to about integrating new services into in residential developments, for dedicate 20% of space to each social, communities; it means addressing example, can ensure the quality of affordable and family housing. The the multiple dimensions of race facilities is spread throughout cities, new measure will create an esti- and class and how they currently rather than concentrating them in mated 600 social housing units and interact with one another to keep higher-socioeconomic neighbour- 500 family housing units per year, marginalized communities pushed hoods. Vienna has implemented dispersed throughout the city. To to the edges. This requires reexam- a municipal housing zoning law maintain long-term availability of ining affordable housing allotments, committed to create affordable appropriate housing for all Montreal zoning bylaws, and what spaces are housing. The city’s initiative acts residents, the 20-20-20 ensures dedicated to organizing to build as a positive example and builds that a variety of units are built in all community in order to live better on its history of prioritizing mixed neighbourhoods: as we live together, to remodel an housing availability, with 62% of • Affordable units whose rent or inclusive social fabric. residents already living in public purchase price will be 10% or 20% housing. This commitment has (depending on their location) How affordable housing contributed to Vienna being ranked below market value; and zoning laws ensures as the city with the highest quality 15-minute cities are diverse, of living worldwide on Mercer’s • Social housing units whose inclusive, and accessible Quality of Living Ranking for 10 construction is subsidized by Given the history of socioeco- years in a row. In 2015, the city’s social and community housing nomic stratification by zoning, the new municipal housing construction programs administered by the BBC’s Peter Yeung reports many programme was launched with Québec government; community advocates caution the the goal of developing 4,000 new • Family housing that includes at 15-minute city will worsen social housing units. In 2018, Vienna least three bedrooms and has divides between people, increasing passed a new law requiring all new additional living space that is the inequalities between poorer and buildings of 5,000 square meters or adequate for a family. Adequate richer neighbourhoods. These fears more to use at least two-thirds of area is set at 86 m2 and 96 m2, are valid and it’s important cities space for affordable housing. depending on the sector of the who embrace this model ensure In Canada, Montreal’s new city the housing is being built in. its use is wielded in a way that it 20-20-20 development bylaw aims becomes a tool of equalization, Magda Popeanu, the executive rather than entrenching inequality. committee vice-chair and Côte des To do so, it’s important to balance Neiges councillor says the 20-20-20 the quality and number of facilities rule was initially a strategy of and amenities in each neighbour- inclusion, rather than an adopted hood to serve diverse populations official bylaw. But as such, it wasn’t equitably. Flavio Coppola, C40 uniform nor respected by the city’s Cities’ program manager for existing zoning and bylaws. “Now urban planning, argues that the it’s official,” Popeanu says, adding neighbourhoods that need the most that through years of consulting investment should be redeveloped with the public and affected com- first, ensuring they are not left with munities, the bylaw represents the lower quality resources. needs of the constituents. Elisa Pieri, a sociology professor Popeanu’s approach to consulting at Manchester University believes a variety of private and public if 15-minute cities do not find stakeholders to create an inclusive this balance, marginalized neigh- development bylaw demonstrates bourhoods can end up with fewer the importance of organizing resources, including scarcer and with your community, for them. lower-quality medical professionals Additionally, her efforts attest to and schools. The result, “could the fact that neighbourhoods can be 28 developed to be more inclusive, if community engage- available space around residential buildings allows ment is the starting point. community members to mix and interact, creating shared identity, building trust and social bonds. Cars keep marginalized communities out— another reason to ditch them Repurposing office spaces could be Apart from the benefits of affordable housing and the next horizon for imagining 15-minute social inclusion, the 15-minute city also addresses a cities, post-pandemic fundamental social issue in city life—transportation. At the time of writing, office vacancy in downtown Low-income residents living on the outer edges of cities Calgary had reached a new peak of 27% and is expected are less likely to own a car, making daily commutes to reach 30% within two years. Calgary is not alone as longer and more complicated to reach basic amenities. businesses across Canada reorganize and cancel their In North America, where outer-ring communities are traditional office space leases during the COVID-19 not designed to be walkable or rely solely on public pandemic. In this time of profound shifting in the ways transit, households often feel that, where financially that we live and work, there is space to repurpose to feasible, the decision to invest in a car is a foregone create more accessibility for a variety of shared services conclusion. Both scenarios: low-wage workers stuck for a variety of people: particularly those who live in on multi-transfer transit commutes and outer-ring downtown centres. communities relying on cars to reach services are not When repurposing buildings to increase community sustainable: both from an equity perspective and the engagement, it is important to ensure structures latter from a climate perspective. are converted with multi-functionality in mind. For As the 15-minute city prioritizes walking and biking example, a variety of public spaces and buildings can be over driving, the design ensures that lower income used at different times of the day and week. demographics have greater proximity to basic amenities In Texas, a local church opens its doors as a cowork- without needing access to a car. Steven Farber, a ing hub from Monday to Friday, outside of their hours researcher from the University of Toronto Scarborough of operation on the weekends. In Paris, school play- found that, at present, families who do not own a car grounds provide residents access during the evenings, take part in 0.6 activities a day in comparison to 1.1 weekends, and summers as a space for recreation and activities a day for families who do own a vehicle. community gardening. Similarly, office buildings, sport Reclaiming urban space for walking and biking also complexes, parks, gardens, and schools could serve frees up space that has been inefficiently relegated to residents a new purpose outside hours of operation. vehicles. Moreno, reports 66% of public space in Paris Allowing access to a variety of people to collaborate, is committed to cars despite, “individual cars only organize, and engage, overcoming the challenge of mov[ing] 17% of the population”. Between the space accessibility many people face now. dedicated to cars and the number of people without them is room to reimagine how to better use this space Moving forward in a 15-minute city to serve historically marginalized communities. Moreno believes humans are increasingly turning into This city reimagining is already underway in Am- an urban species, though, urban environments remain sterdam, where 10,000 parking spaces from the city uninhabitable for everyone. As cities swell in size, centre have been removed and transformed into parks creating vibrant shared spaces will be vital to their— and public spaces, encouraging residents to spend and our—future. more time in this green space, away from the built If the model is used to centre the needs of residents environment. This project contributes more broadly to and address the inequities that are currently exacer- Amsterdam’s half urban and half green neighbourhood bated by how our cities are structured, the 15-minute plan, which offers a free space to residents to develop city has the potential to flourish as a tool to increase inclusive projects including gardens, clubs, fundraisers, well-being and resiliency. and organized meetings. What we commonly see in our cities are neighbour- hoods segregated by class, immigration status, and ince Hidalgo took office in 2014, Paris’s neigh- race. For a 15-minute city to properly serve all people, bourhoods have seen a significant transformation. it needs to be undertaken for all people. Cities do not SRoadways have been repurposed as greenspaces need new developments without adequate affordable and paths for pedestrians and cyclists. Not only have and social housing or streets dedicated strictly for busi- emissions been reduced, but the changes are “tracing a nesses. Both reproduce the segregation cities that we path of community resilience” reports Coppola. already experience, allowing exclusivity and inaccessi- When necessities and housing are in a walkable and bility to persist. It’s time to champion multi-functional bikeable proximity to each other, repurposing roadways zoning of neighbourhoods in the best interest of and parking lots becomes possible and allows more increasing inclusivity and accessibility, to reduce the space for community engagement. The increase of distance between communities and services. M 29 Perspectives

MARIA DOIRON, LUI KASHUNGNAO AND STEPHANIE HART TAYLOR Public toilets—unquestionable and essential public health infrastructure Why do safe, clean and accessible public toilets matter? It is about human rights and dignity, public health and creating a liveable city.

CCESS TO TOILETS is a universal achieved notable accomplishments prevent incidents from happening. need and a basic human right. including organizing a letter writing But with an intuitive facility design Safe, clean and accessible campaign to have public toilets and operations plan, keeping public toilets are a health included in Ottawa’s 2020-21 mu- toilets open, accessible and safe is issue, and they are essential nicipal budget; successfully having possible. GottaGo! draws attention Ainfrastructure1 to maintain a healthy two additional toilets added to to successful, operational toilets in and inclusive society.2 Despite their light rail transit node stations and Canada, including Winnipeg’s and importance and benefits, toilets portable toilets at parks and sports Kelowna’s pop-up toilets, which might be the most overlooked piece fields; and garnering increased have support staff to monitor the of essential public infrastructure media attention for the overlooked conditions, support marginalized risking the health, safety and dignity but serious public health issue that people and provide harm reduction of the people who rely on them. is the lack of toilets in our city. services. Rather than ignoring COVID-19 has made it clear This work is vital. As author the realities of peoples’ struggles, just how essential toilets are as a Lezlie Lowe writes, municipalities these toilets take a health-focused public health service and municipal rarely have a formal department or approach to support people. The infrastructure. Pandemic closures committee responsible for toilets. result: clean and safe toilets. have exposed the highly inadequate So, without responsible staff and After months of public pressure, public toilet access and deeply coupled with scarce policy ensuring the City of Ottawa started installing rooted disparities, inequities and public access, what safeguards are in portable toilets in high-traffic areas systemic discrimination. Before the place to ensure access? in the summer of 2020. Ottawa now pandemic, the limited availability And here we are, in the midst of a plans to build two new permanent of toilets was hidden, as many of us global pandemic, advocating for rec- facilities. This is more than an could access facilities in businesses ognition of a centuries-old forgone acknowledgement that toilets are an and public buildings. But as the conclusion that sanitation is key to essential public health service and pandemic continues and facilities ensuring the health of a population.3 infrastructure. It demonstrates that remain closed, there is no place “to But as the pandemic offers us the our collective voice matters; we can go”. This predicament has shown opportunity to rethink how our bring change. the urgent need for policy-makers cities operate, now is the time for us This is a wakeup call: we can work to step up and make public toilets to advocate for a network of public together to put pressure on policy a priority in order to build a robust toilets. makers to review outdated policies and secure public health system. Often the operational cost of and create meaningful change. If Since 2013, the GottaGo! Cam- maintaining toilets are considered there’s anything we’ve learned, paign, a grassroots organization a significant expense. Yet the current toilet access is far from ade- formed by concerned citizens in consequences of inaccessibility quate. Cities across Canada, cannot Ottawa, has advocated for a network and the costs to public health, city carry on with “business-as-usual,” of safe, clean and accessible public maintenance and local businesses using fragmented initiatives. toilets. Like many cities across are rarely held in balance. This is an opportune moment for Canada, Ottawa needs an extensive Similarly, we are not deterred all cities, including Ottawa, to take a network of toilets to serve its by arguments that public toilets hard look at existing urban planning. ever-growing community. GottaGo! could be sites for drug use activity. We need leadership to prioritize proposals include signage for exist- Instead, we look at how other cities developing inclusive urban planning. ing toilets and installing permanent have successfully alleviated these This starts with safe, clean and toilets in high traffic areas. In our concerns. There is no single set of accessible toilets—to care for our eight years of organizing, we’ve approaches that will completely most basic, universal need. M 30 In focus

TIM ELLIS The Bernie blueprint The nuts and bolts of distributed organizing

N JANUARY OF 2016, I spent nearly and suddenly our team swelled to nation” primary state is tiny, rural my last 80 bucks, hopped on a include hundreds of thousands of and overwhelmingly white. Michi- Greyhound bus and left for New volunteers in all 50 states. gan is a very different landscape. Hampshire. I was putting aside my But in the U.S. primaries, states I arrived to find an incredible career as a rave DJ and writer to don’t all vote at once. Instead, it grassroots operation already Istart a new job: building the move- unfolds over months, as each week a humming, thanks to local volun- ment to elect Bernie Sanders. few more states vote. The challenge teers. It was encouraging, but polls I was about to get an inside then became marshalling all of that were against us here too—and look at history in the making, as volunteer energy in a useful way this time, they showed no signs of Bernie’s upstart campaign helped to for a long stretch of time across the budging, despite our efforts on the rekindle the American progressive entire country. ground. movement. I didn’t know it at the The answer: phone calls. When it came time for Michigan time, but I was also about to learn, With distributed organizing, to vote, most polls still showed us first-hand, a new model of organiz- our campaign was able to centrally over 20% behind our opponent. One ing that would empower a scrappy determine the most strategic groups poll had us down by 37 points that band of rebels and revolutionaries of people to call, equip volunteers week. But alongside an impressive to redefine the political landscape. to call into those targets from and determined ground game, anywhere in the country, then turn Bernie’s distributed program had Distributed organizing on the firehose and point it where it started to fire on all cylinders. On So what is distributed organizing? could do the most good. one call I remember hearing one of If organizing is sharing a vision of our field teams telling us that we a better future and then driving Distributed had nearly 3 million phone calls into collective action to achieve that organizing in action the state —in just the final week. vision, then distributed organizing After we won New Hampshire, I As we wrapped up our final shift is the same, but using technology, moved on to Michigan. We were on election day, one of our canvass- toolkits and trust to empower buzzing from the big upset in New ers in the Ann Arbor office where geographically dispersed volunteers Hampshire, but the “first in the I was stationed asked me, “do you to take on “rinse-and-repeat” tasks think we’re going to win?” Con- that advance a central goal. scious of the polling, but also aware Whew! That’s a mouthful. The of how strong our canvass operation simpler version: when volunteers was, I felt confident replying, “I can use technology to quickly plug think we’ll do better than the polls.” into a campaign from anywhere and Sure enough, we beat the polls. begin meaningfully contributing to We won by a point and a half. It was the campaign’s goal, you’re doing one of the biggest upsets in primary distributed organizing. Not everyone is a history, described by Politico as the Although likely not the first “Michigan Miracle.” Distributed version of distributed organizing, gruff-but-beloved organizing unlocked a nationwide Bernie 2016 took it to the next level Vermont socialist... army of volunteers that helped put out of necessity. When Bernie began us over the top. the race, he had hardly any name So how do you recognition nor national support; in build a distributed Building a program early polls, he often came in at sin- But not everyone is a gruff-but-be- gle-digit support. Shocking upsets in organizing program loved Vermont socialist who’s been the first two contests propelled the without a national on the right side of history for 50 campaign into contention. When years. So how do you build a distrib- we won in New Hampshire, Bernie presidential uted organizing program without a raised a million dollars that night campaign? national presidential campaign? 31 To be successful, a distributed Supplementing communication • A clear, accessible path for organizing campaign must have: from staff organizers with lateral involvement. Volunteers need to communication between vol- be able to plug in quickly, easily • A people-powered theory of unteers allows those volunteers and accessibly from a multitude change. Volunteers have to to support each other, build of points of entry. believe that their efforts can each other’s capacity and begin make a difference. When they • Volunteer leaders. A successful to self-organize—a hallmark of do, they’ll work hard to make it campaign depends on volunteers distributed organizing. happen. People believed Bernie taking ownership of the effort and could win and that winning would • Digital infrastructure. The organizing among themselves. make a big difference. Becky Bond technology connects people at If you’re starting from scratch, says of the Bernie campaign: “As scale. Google Docs allow for a you’ll save yourself a lot of stress by it turned out, people were just central toolkit, Slack or Discord putting real thought into your plan waiting to be asked to do some- provide a shared communications before you launch it. Write a com- thing big to win something big.” space, and Callhub or Thrutalk prehensive toolkit. It’s better to be allow for remote dialing and • A support network. Volunteers long and thorough than to shorten texting campaigns; whatever must know where to get answers, it but miss things. Have a very clear your needs, there’s likely an app whether that’s a toolkit or a map of the journey a volunteer to solve it. Just don’t forget that phone call, and oftentimes this goes on when they get involved, all the technology is in the service of is with other volunteers. In the the ways they can join, what roles people, not the other way around. most recent primary, Bernie’s they can take on and what actions If it doesn’t make things easier volunteer Slack, email inbox and they can take. Know how you’re for your volunteers, keep looking. even his Twitter DMs were all going to identify leaders and give managed by volunteer teams. them essential roles. And set up and thoroughly test your technology before you start rolling—though don’t be afraid to ask volunteers to help with that too! When you’re ready, kick things off with a launch event. Bernie pio- neered a tactic called a “barnstorm” —an organizing meeting where the campaign’s purpose and theory of change is explained, the tactics are laid out and then everyone leaves with a job. For example, we might be running phone banks. After we explain how it all works and why it will help us win change, we’ll ask people to raise their hand (or fill out a Zoom poll) if they’re willing to host a phone bank. Once everyone willing to lead has been identified, we’ll ask everyone else to find their own phone bank host and sign up with them. Just like that, organizing teams have been formed. In 2016, barnstorms were run by staff at first, but the program really took off when the keys got turned over and volunteers started hosting their own barnstorms for each other.

The key principles After the Bernie campaign ended in 2016, I spent some time on other campaigns in the U.S. before 32 returning to Canada and taking a job with Leadnow, a people-powered progressive advocacy organization. At Worth Repeating Leadnow, I’ve had the chance to be a part of many more distributed organizing campaigns, as we fused Bernie- style tactics with Leadnow’s already impressive digital Born to fight organizing chops. “The picture-perfect image I had of my home growing We’ve coordinated spontaneous rallies against TMX up was broken some time ago. But I’ve come to realize I outside over 100 MPs’ offices across the country in just wasn’t seeing all of the pieces. And that, behind the a matter of days, and poured tens of thousands of shadow of corporations, beyond governments turning calls into key swing ridings during the recent federal [away from] the citizens it has made most vulnerable, election. Most recently, COVID has driven us to push a love for nature and one another can prevail... There’s distributed organizing to its limits, and we have learned no way we can know what the future holds, for them, or to apply a few key principles every time: for our planet, unless we look to each other and those in power to be held accountable, unless we start to shift our • Turn over the keys. As Zack Exley and Becky Bond view to see beyond ourselves, to see that what affects one write in “Rules for Revolutions”, their account of us affects us all. of the 2016 campaign, “the revolution will not be “You share DNA with a fruit fly. You are connected to staffed”. We hand over as much of the operation to every living thing on earth. You have the power of life. Use our volunteers as possible, ensuring they help set the it.” agenda and can take ownership of the operation. —Elliot Page, There’s Something in the Water, 2019 • Deep, in service of wide. If you’ve heard of the 80/20 rule, it applies. You’ll have some volunteers who want to give 20 or 30 or more hours a week and Pulling the pin you’ll have others who want to pop into an event “In that room, it’s not just people who look like me. In that once every couple of months. By having a core team room, it’s not just people who are black and brown and of highly engaged supporters who can go deep, melanated. In that room is the diaspora that is Alabama. It understand the ins and outs of your systems, and is the tapestry that is America. It is black, white, woman, offer support to the more casual volunteers, you can man, every other race and ethnic group. And we should unlock the full extent of their capacity and service a be ashamed of ourselves for allowing companies to come wide range of activities for more casual volunteers. in and pillage our people. We should be ashamed of ourselves for allowing our need and want for a package • Live by the toolkit. I cannot stress this enough— to get there in two days to cause a woman with an injured every question you answer in the toolkit is a question arm to be told by a company, ‘no matter your injury, you you won’t get asked 5,000 times (you’ll get asked it can exercise it off’.” 300 times instead, which is at least more managea- ble). Your toolkit is your volunteer’s one-stop-shop —Run the Jewels’ Killer Mike speaking at a rally for for information about the campaign. Let them know Amazon workers in Bessemer, AL on March 26, 2021. what you’re asking them to do, how they can do it, how they can get help, and how they can find each other, all in a single, centrally managed document. Google Docs is great for this because you can share a single link and if you update the central document, reason, and there are plenty of off-the-shelf automa- everyone’s toolkit gets updated at the same time. tion tools you can find online for cheap. Every step Remember: the strategy is centralized, but the work is of the process, you automate adds up quickly when distributed. repeated 5,000 or 50,000 times, and every freed up • Eat the burrito. You might think you make a great moment is time your volunteers can spend building burrito, but until you try it for yourself, you don’t real human connection know what it’s like to eat your burrito. In the same way, it’s great to come up with cool actions for your What Bernie unlocked in 2016 has empowered a trans- volunteers to take, but until you’ve taken that action formative wave of grassroots activism and innovation. yourself, you don’t know what that experience is like. The technology will continue to advance, new tactics Try out your phone calls and rallies and technology will be tested and deployed; but the underlying princi- for yourself early in the campaign so you know what ples of empowering volunteers, and using technology you’re asking your volunteers to do. to connect people and build relationships at scale, are redefining organizing and will be with us for a long time • Automate it. You are going to experience so many to come. This is the political revolution in action—and repetitive tasks. Automation exists for exactly that now, everyone can be a part of it. M 33 Perspectives

LUXE MULVARI Hit the streets Organizing community care in the face of criminalization and COVID-19

N SEPTEMBER 29, 2014, Bill actual sex workers or sex worker As a result, on April 1, I began to C-36, the Protection of organizations such as the Sex make my way back east. On the way Communities and Exploited Professionals of Canada (SPOC), back, I reconnected with another Persons Act (PCEPA) passed, Maggie’s Toronto Sex Worker’s friend, Kingsley, who I had met banning the purchase of sexual Action Project or Prostitutes of several years ago in similar circles Oservices—despite it being legal to Ottawa-Gatineau Work, Educate within the music scene and activism sell sexual services in Canada. Bill and Resist (POWER) have received communities. She had just lost her C-36 also makes it illegal to adver- any of this funding nor have they job, so I stopped by the Durham tise sexual services in newspapers received any funding for other Region to pick her up and we headed and magazines, making it illegal, vocational training or education. to her hometown before driving to too, for website administrators and Before COVID-19, I had travelled my home in Ottawa to figure out web hosting services to publish such frequently within Canada for work. what to do next. advertisements. This legislation has I’ve been a sex worker for most of The Canada Emergency Response taken away the opportunity for sex my life, touring between strip clubs Benefit (CERB) gave employed workers to contract the services of and private entertainment on and and self-employed Canadians support staff such as receptionists, off for the last decade. At the begin- who were impacted by COVID-19 accountants, drivers, and body- ning of March 2020, I was working financial support, as long as they guards. The ability to screen our my regular route between Ottawa filed taxes in previous years and had clients for safety purposes, which and a long trip down the 401 to my made a specific amount of money has given people with nefarious usual haunts in Southern Ontario. in the 12 months prior. The legal intentions the upper hand and more I felt amazing when I was pulling grey area in which sex work exists opportunities to abuse workers with into the city and to be in the south, has made it difficult for many sex no way for us to have legal recourse. where the atmosphere was more workers to access CERB, CRB or EI Despite our communities’ outcry forgiving. My spirits were raised, during the pandemic over fears of for decriminalization and against happy to be back in my hometown privacy and safety when declaring the damage done by the Nordic after a brief trip to London to visit a income from sex work and receiving model—the criminalization of long-time gentleman caller of mine judgment-free tax help. Even as the buyers—and the evidence who was always amusing. taxpayers, we are not granted the provided by Nordic countries that After my visit, I got a text from same opportunity to participate this approach doesn’t work, we another lady I know, “Syriah”. Like fully in Canadian society as a continue to be ignored and left me, she would tour the south of vulnerable and stigmatized group out in the cold. C-36 turned our Ontario frequently and has several that is virtually invisible in the clients into criminals overnight. In years experience in the industry. eyes of our governments. It’s also our already stigmatized reality, the We were planning on going up to not safe for us to work during the Nordic model has placed many more Sarnia and dancing in one of the pandemic, given the close nature of barriers between us and safe work. clubs there. As is common practice, our professions. Those who are still When C-36 was announced, we submitted our photos via email working despite the risk are facing then-Justice Minister Peter MacKay to the club and waited for the additional barriers to income such and MP Joy Smith announced a manager’s approval. The phone rang as curfews and hotel lockdowns. $20-million fund that would help minutes later, with the manager By mid-April, Syriah had come sex workers get out of the industry. informing us that the club had up to Ottawa to join us and The $20 million offered —consid- been shut down temporarily over the three of us began isolating ered by frontline organizations and concerns of the novel coronavirus. A together. One day, we were out in law enforcement to be “woefully week later, we turned on the TV just Dollarama, where we would make inadequate” and “peanuts”— went as Premier Doug Ford announced small trips to wander the aisles to to non-profit organisations working that the province was under a state distract ourselves from the reality to end human trafficking. No of emergency. of COVID-19. As we checked out, 34 I realized that I had forgotten to get tinfoil and went back to grab it. When I did, I saw a small aluminium single serving container on the shelf, and I thought to myself, “let’s feed some people tonight.” We bought pasta, sauce, parmesan, food containers and cutlery. We also picked up boxes of cake mix, granola bars, juice boxes, snack packs, and cases of water. We got back to my place and went straight to work: boiling, chopping and baking until we finished forty plates and snack bags with hand-written labels pro- moting the recently opened emergency respite centre where people could shower and use the washroom. My superintendent lent us a two-level trolley cart, which we loaded up and set off into the night. The three of us took turns pushing the trolley and walked up and down the streets of Centretown to deliver our homemade goodies. We connected with familiar faces of community members we saw daily on street corners, under bridges, and on the steps of rooming houses and under-resourced bawdy houses. We repeated the following week, and the week after that, and so on—from Centretown to Byward Market to Vanier, extending to Alta Vista, Carlington, Gatineau, and, more recently, Nepean. Eventually, we created a social media account, launched a GoFundMe, calling ourselves Hit the Streets Ottawa. Friends, families A photo from Hit the Streets’ Instagram channel from a run and strangers began donating funds, resources, and distributing 80 bags across three neighbourhoods. “Our mixed bags time. We would consult the neighbours we met up consist of water, juice, chocolate pudding or applesauce, granola bar with on a weekly basis on which items they needed or cookies, and fresh fruit. Written on every bag is information for and would then bring the required items to them, no free washrooms & showers at McNabb Arena.” questions asked. Local businesses like Sala San Marco, a banquet hall in Little Italy, stepped up by initially donating kitchen space for us to cook in, then taking transit passes, restaurant vouchers, phones and a it upon themselves to cook up to 100 meals a week on resource directory of services related to mutual aid, our behalf while we prepared hygiene kits, respite and mental health, physical health, employment support, community support resource pamphlets, and snack housing, legal assistance, and more. bags. Our team is growing—composed of community In addition to street and house outreach, Hit the members with lived experience and spanning multiple Streets Ottawa now collaborates with community part- generations; boomers, gen Xers, millennials, and ners and small businesses on free respite events and zoomers. Our generations see the errors in existing services for the community to access including laundry, policy and neglect from government institutions and HIV testing, hair cuts, acupuncture and more. We hook the resulting damage that’s incurred, which directly up neighbours with cell phones to stay connected and impacted us growing up and continuing in life today. check in with their loved ones and case workers, public But we aren’t the only ones doing this. Mutual aid transportation fare, and appointment liaison. Hosting collectives such as Ottawa Street Medics and Food Not community garbage clean ups. Facilitating affordable Bombs are taking to the streets to fill gaps and meet housing for street-involved neighbours, plus rent the needs of our neighbours, too. Recently the Ottawa help and eviction relief has been added to our list. As Street Medics raised enough funds to secure a vehicle of October, we’ve been on 211 Ontario and have had to further its barrier-free reach and support. an increase of elderly people reach out. We’ll also be Sex workers have formed collectives across the launching a new partnership with the Criminalization country. Ottawa Independent Companions (OIC), and Punishment Education Project (CPEP)— we will of which I am a member, is essentially a business support neighbours released from the Ottawa-Gatineau association, and fundraises to provide medical, dental, carceral facilities by providing them with necessary education, housing and mental health care to its items, resources, and services. Our starter packs will members. As a Canadian sex worker under the Nordic include clothes, PPE, harm reduction supplies, books, model, we’ve had to learn to take care of our own and care packages, foodstuff, spiritual and religious items, by extension our neighbours as well. M 35 the desert’, a title he won announced that it will Audubon Society, Lights after tweaking a traditional aggressively pursue solar Out programs have sprung farming method, Zaï, of energy while continuing to up in 20 different states, growing plants in pits to close coal mines. CIL plans as well as Washington, D.C. trap water. A 2018 study to invest in a 3,000-mega- and Toronto, and involved credits the implementation watt solar energy project enlisting the help of land- of the Zaï method with in a joint venture with lords, their tenants, and playing a vital role in state-run NLC India. This business owners to make improving food security, announcement marks a cities safe for migratory The good groundwater levels, tree major shift for the firm, birds in the spring and fall. news page cover and biodiversity in which produces most of / Smithsonian Magazine, the region. / Reuters India’s coal. / BBC News Bird Watching Daily

COMPILED New ways forward For the birds We see them nearly BY ELAINE HUGHES everywhere we go, we For more than a decade, The endangered California hear them every day, they mycelium—the root condor could return to live in every environment, We’re still here network of fungi—has the Pacific Northwest for and now, two new studies been considered a green the first time in 100 years. have shown their mere For her historic March 18 substitute for materials The U.S. Fish and Wildlife presence makes us swearing in ceremony to including leather and Service plans to release happier. German research become the first Native plastic. Now it’s being captive-bred giant vultures has even found that being American to hold a cabinet eyed for its potential as a into Redwood National surrounded by a wide position in the United building material. Myceli- Park as early as the fall of variety of birds can offer States, Deb Haaland um is attractive because it 2021. The project will be increasing life satisfaction, wore a ribbon skirt. The can be grown from waste headed by the Yurok tribe, equivalent to C$190 per colourful skirt, adorned materials such as sawdust which traditionally consid- week of added income. In with a cornstalk, butterflies or agricultural residues ers the California condor a the second study of note, and stars, was created by like plant stalks and husks, sacred animal and has been California Polytechnic Agnes Woodward, a Plains recycling them into a new working for years to return University covertly Cree dressmaker from material within weeks in the species to the tribe’s subjected Colorado hikers Kawacatoose First Nation a low-cost, low-energy ancestral territory. to a test that measured in Saskatchewan. Haaland process. At the end of the / AP News their sense of well-being worked directly with product’s lifecycle, the by placing speakers Woodward on the ribbon mycelium can be triggered Last fall, the Philadelphia that played a variety of skirt’s design. The bands to biodegrade, eliminating Inquirer reported that an bird songs along certain of colour represent all the practice of piling estimated 1,000 to 1,500 sections of a popular hiking people, while the cornstalk up demolition waste in birds died in a roughly trail network and then represents Haaland’s own landfills. / CBC News three-block radius located interviewing the hikers community, the Laguna in downtown Philadelphia about their experience. Pueblo, an Indigenous tribe Harnessing tidal energy, on a single Friday night. As a bit of CCPA National in New Mexico. a Scottish electric vehicle Partially in response to this trivia, it’s worth noting that / CBC Radio News charging point has started news, Philadelphia is one our office has a small but operations, providing road of the latest recruits to the mighty bird appreciation Droughts in the 1970s and users on an island north Lights Out program. Along society and these studies 1980s devastated farmers of mainland Scotland with with Fort Worth, Texas, have only emboldened in Burkina Faso, with many a new, renewable option Philadelphia has joined us. / Toronto Star choosing to leave their for running their cars. The the Lights Out program to land. One farmer, Yacouba Scottish government is one reduce deadly collisions Sawadogo, decided to of many around the world for migratory birds. Since stay and try to rehabilitate looking to move away from 1990, cities across the U.S. the land. Adapting a internal combustion engine have gradually been cutting centuries-old technique, vehicles. / CNBC or dimming outdoor lights the now-70-year-old in order to help birds Burkina Faso farmer is The world’s second largest travelling at night. Organ- hailed across his province coal mining firm, Coal ized by conservation and as ‘the man who stopped India Limited (CIL), has civil society groups, like the 36 YOUR CCPA Get to know Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood

OFFICE: NATIONAL POSITION: SENIOR RESEARCHER YEARS WITH THE CCPA: SIX Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood is a Senior Researcher with the CCPA’s National Office in Ottawa. He specializes in issues related to trade and climate change. Most recently, Hadrian published a paper detailing how Canada could implement a Just Transition Act. The report, Roadmap to a Canadian Just Transition Act, co-authored with Clay Duncalfe, details how Canada can achieve a managed transition to a lower-car- bon economy that minimizes the potential harms and maximizes the potential benefits for workers and their communities. Hadrian took some time out of his busy schedule to tell us about his work and what he’s excited for in 2021.

This issue is all about the future Outside of the CCPA, what to be phased out anyway. We need of organizing. What are you most progressive policy issues do you to ensure that our recovery from hopeful about when it comes stay up to date on? Since becoming COVID-19 is a just and green recov- to the future of organizing? The a father, I’ve taken a keen interest ery, not a return to an unsustainable youth climate movement totally in the effects of air pollution on status quo. inspires me. To see thousands of vulnerable populations. Like so many young people so passionate, engaged “externalities” in our economy, Have you picked up any new and vocal about one of the defining the health consequences of poor hobbies during the pandemic? challenges of our time is a great sign air quality are felt most acutely I’ve always loved board games and for our political future. by already marginalized people, roleplaying games but the pandemic including the young, the elderly and has taken that to the next level. I’m What are you most excited to do low-income communities. The good now playing Dungeons & Dragons with the CCPA team in the coming news is that we can tackle climate virtually several times a week with year? The pandemic has forced us to change and air pollution at the same friends from across the country. experiment with new approaches for time by getting fossil fuels out of our getting CCPA research out into the economy. What is something that our world, like offering live video Q&A supporters might be surprised to sessions between our supporters What are some of the biggest learn about you? I’m a competitive and researchers. I’m excited to build challenges on Canada’s climate ultimate frisbee player. I interviewed on what we’ve learned and continue file right now? In their rush to get for my job at the CCPA from Italy, to come up with creative ways to back to “normal” many governments where I was playing in the World drive change during these unusual are propping up industries, like Ultimate Club Championships! times. fossil fuel production, that ought 37 Books

SHOSHANA MAGNET Picture books for big feelings

N THE MIDST of COVID-19’s third and other terrible calamities. She yet death is part of the cycle of life. wave, it seems an opportune dissolves into a flood of tears and Death is, in Higginbotham’s words, time to think about picture books runs into talk to her grandmother. an “ordinary terrible thing” and we that might help both children Her grandmother reminds her, must find ways of having open and and parents contend with daily gently, that we don’t know what the honest conversations about it. This Ilife and expand their emotional future holds, but “there must be book is wonderful, partly because it skills. Children’s picture books are more” than just a horrible future or teaches us how to listen to people in unique—they’re aimed at distilling a sunny dystopia. Her grandmother pain. The author notes: “Even the complex messages with clarity and reminds the girl that children are people who care about you may not brevity, and they’re free from the often offered a binary set of choices: know what to say.” terrible burden of adult cynicism. a cat or a dog, the park or inside, As Death is Stupid reminds us, You might not have time to read bell but that the world is full of beautiful “It takes courage to go on living… hooks’ amazing trilogy on love or and endless possibilities that will when the one you love has died.” Brene Brown’s book on vulnerability, only be revealed with time. I think Higginbotham also notes that we but you and your child likely can this book is helpful for any person can remain connected to people share a children’s picture book. I’ve to remind themselves of the gentle who have died by remaining open included two books that are about aphorism that “worry is a rocking to grief. Although “we don’t get to death, fear and grieving, because the chair, it gets you going and it takes keep everyone we love who has ever challenging reality of our time asks us you nowhere.” I find Yoshitake’s lived” we do “get to remember them to think about these hard questions. writing be a helpful part of an long after their lives have ended” anxiety toolkit, and alongside deep by keeping up our connections breaths and noting the sounds and with them. The book suggests sights of our environment when we a number of practical ways of get stuck on an anxious thought, I remembering our loved ones that can now remind my sons that we are child-friendly: whether (1) don’t know what the future holds, by doing something they enjoyed but there must be more than just doing (2) by talking to them out the anxious option with which they loud or in your mind (3) by wearing are presenting me. something they wore or (4) by playing something they played with you (5) by reading what they read or (6) by making what they made. Death is Stupid helps both children THERE MUST BE MORE THAN THAT! and adults to understand that you SHINSUKE YOSHITAKE can feel your feelings just as they Publisher, 2020 are, even if nobody understands you or only offers minimizing words Although there are many books out or gestures. This book is rare in its there for children on how to help combination of unflinching honesty them deal with anxiety, this book and child-centered suggestions for is my preferred one. My partner coping mechanisms after loss. For and I have two kids who both tend DEATH IS STUPID a book on the importance of the toward anxiety. This book is perfect ANASTASIA HIGGINBOTHAM dangers of shutting down after loss, for people of any age who struggle Publisher, 2020 check out Oliver Jeffers’ beautiful with worrying about the future. It book The Heart and the Bottle. M features a little girl who is racked While I love all of Anastasia Higgin- Shoshana Magnet’s current research is in with anxiety and terror because botham’s books, her book Death is using children’s picture books to make the her brother has just told her that Stupid is a favourite. Talking to kids world more socially just. If you’d like to be on her listserv about feminist picture books, the future is sure to be terrible, about death can be so frightening. please email her at [email protected] filled with alien invasions, disease, We don’t want them to fear loss and 38 Books

ANN M. TOOHEY, PH.D. AND DAVID B. HOGAN, M.D., F.A.C.P., F.R.C.P. (C) More than an urgent need

cycle will simply continue—when prescription to remedy them. Picard resources are constrained, older is an eloquent and authoritative adults’ lives simply don’t matter voice on public health matters in in the grander scheme of setting Canada. We thank him for focusing society’s economic priorities. our attention on the widespread Dr. Bayne’s powerful message devaluing of older, vulnerable adults about the current state of long-term and, arguably, those who care for care in Canada clearly validates (and about) them in Canadian the importance of André Picard’s society. We hope his contribution newest offering, Neglected no more: will help galvanize the needed broad the urgent need to improve the lives and deep reform of the long-term of Canada’s elders in the wake of a care system. As he and others have pandemic. This is not a book about pointed out, though, finding the will the pandemic, though the pandemic and commitment to do the needed N FEBRUARY 2021, Canada lost a has highlighted the deficiencies of work has proven elusive. distinguished citizen: Dr. Ronald this sector. Rather, it is a compre- In Neglected no more, Picard Bayne. Bayne was an early and hensive review of the long-standing deconstructs the problems in highly respected geriatrician who systemic problems in long-term Canada’s long-term care system. devoted much of his professional care that need to be addressed. He gives examples of the shocking Icareer to building a person-centred Picard exposes the personal impact harms that have occurred and long-term care system in Ontario of these problems on the lives of everyday indignities all too fre- modelled after Marjory Warren’s Canadians—principally older adults quently suffered by those receiving pioneering efforts in Great Britain. but, also, Canadian families and facility-based care. He writes with Yet, his vision for this system was workers—and offers a thoughtful passion and first-hand knowledge gradually eroded to the point of of the shortcomings of the system, being unrecognizable. At the age having tried to navigate it while of 98, when his physical condition helping his own parents deal with had deteriorated, Bayne opted for their declining health and escalating medical assistance in dying (MAID) care needs as they aged. rather than spending his remaining Picard notes that both home and days in the long-term care system. institutionalized care have become In a moving interview with the Globe Picard reflects on transactional rather than per- & Mail, Bayne counted this decision son-centred and relational, which as a defeat of his earlier efforts. how commonly has allowed the system to become He was blunt. Of the future many increasingly fractured and impervi- older adults face, “They look around older persons ous to the experiences and wishes and what do they see happening to of those it is designed to serve. He them? Put in long-term care, where and their families offers a litany of egregious examples care is terrible. Long-term care of neglect and mismanagement that can be so extraordinarily painful. encounter came to light during the pandemic, And distressing. And difficult.” but also reminds us of other Bayne’s warning about the future obstacles as they high-profile cases in long-term care of this sector was particularly dire. that fleetingly caught the media’s “You’ll find that with the problems attempt to access attention and then disappeared. of recovering from COVID-19, and Picard reflects on how commonly recovering from the environmental appropriate older persons and their families hazards that we’re creating every encounter obstacles as they attempt year, there’s not going to be any personalized to access appropriate personalized money left over for seniors and long care that addresses their needs in term care.” He worried that the care. later life. This situation is often 39 tragically complicated by progressive cognitive decline adults as a group require protection and assistance, and dementia. Social inequity, devaluing of the aged in excluding rather than including their views on if, when society, and a regulatory system based on tasks rather and what type of help they need.5 By stripping them of than care are common underlying themes to this sad their voice and agency, it excludes older adults from story. important conversations that must involve them. We agree with much of Picard’s prescription to heal This subtle form of ageism is rampant across society, the system. His comprehensive solutions aptly reflect including within academic walls, and even appears the complexity of care delivery and support for an aging between the covers of Picard’s book. For instance, he population. They range from focusing on the facilities mentions “senior proofing” homes to protect older themselves (i.e., appropriateness of the physical people from injury. This may seem, on the surface, to setting, adequate staffing and workforce issues, availa- be caring and sensible. Indeed, there is a growing lit- bility of palliative services), supporting aging in place erature on physical and technological adaptations that (i.e., addressing informal caregivers’ needs, improved will allow us to safely age in our homes. Yet, the term access to appropriate and affordable home care), is unintentionally demeaning. It suggests that older addressing policy and program issues (i.e., adequate people must be saved from themselves, the way babies funding, informed regulation, appropriate structure, and toddlers receive such protection from adults. A improved access to information, assistance in system more positive framing is that we should advocate for navigation), and, finally, to the need for advocacy universal design and adaptations that curtail limitations aimed at countering both perpetuated systemic inequi- caused by disability. To quote another early geriatrician, ties and shortfalls in treating older persons with dignity Bernard Isaacs, “Design for the young and you exclude and respect. the old; design for the old and you include the young.” There is no lack of evidence to support these initia- Relatively absent from Neglected No More was a strong tives. They align well with the views of experts in the call to include older adults themselves and disempow- field, as reflected in the 2020 Royal Society of Canada ered members of the workforce such as personal care Restoring Trust report2 as well as the Reimagining assistants and licensed practical nurses in re-imagining Long-term Residential Care report recently published in the long-term care system. We feel that both groups the Monitor.3 Yet, despite all that we know—and have must be recognized and directly involved in the call known for a long time—the current system remains to finally prioritize the funding needed to address the solidly entrenched. A recent example of this was the failings of the Canadian continuing care system. announcement by our own provincial government of We fully support André Picard’s call for change and the construction of another 198-bed continuing care encourage others to read this important work on the facility in Calgary that emphasizes the number of current state of long-term care in Canada. As Picard well-paying construction jobs this will create and how attests, evidence of both the limitations of the status it will “address a shortage of spaces.”4 One can only quo and the direction forward are plentiful. What is wonder how the approved budget of $130.5 million needed is the will to act. M might have been used, instead, to improve communi- 1. The Globe and Mail. (2021) “Dr. Ronald Bayne: ‘People Are Not ty-based care. This example represents yet another lost Afraid of Death, What They’re Afraid of Is Dying.’” The Globe and Mail. opportunity to do something different, of which Picard Retrieved March 7, 2021. 2. Estabrooks CA, Straus S, Flood, CM, Keefe J, Armstrong P, Donner has plenty to say in his book. This is not to dispute the G, Boscart V, Ducharme F, Silvius J, Wolfson M. (2020) Restoring trust: need for state-of-the-art facilities, or that much good COVID-19 and the future of long-term care. Royal Society of Canada. work is happening across Canada in long-term care. 3. Armstrong, P, Armstrong H, Choiniere J, Lowndes R, and Struthers J. (2020) “Reimagining Long-Term Residential Care in the COVID-19 Rather, it raises the necessity to rethink what we are Crisis.” The Monitor, July/August, pp 12–19. currently doing and to be truly open to new ways of 4. Government of Alberta. (2021) “Creating Jobs and Improving Access meeting the challenge of societal aging. to Care.” Retrieved March 7, 2021. 5. Cary, Lindsey A., Alison L. Chasteen, and Jessica Remedios. (2017) We agree with Picard’s conclusion that indifference “The Ambivalent Ageism Scale: Developing and Validating a Scale to is at the root of today’s long-term care crisis. This Measure Benevolent and Hostile Ageism.” The Gerontologist 57(2): indifference is linked to widely held values around e27–36. social productivity and political economy, as well as an entrenched modus operandi that prioritizes regulatory frameworks and operating efficiencies over quality, ap- propriateness and flexibility in providing support. But we also think that a less-recognized contributing factor at play is benevolent ageism. Ageism is discrimination and exclusion based on age. Overt malevolent or hostile ageism is easy to identify. Benevolent ageism, though, is easily missed. It involves positive yet patronizing views of older people as a collective. It presumes that older 40 HELP US SHED LIGHT ON THE ISSUES THAT MATTER TO YOU. (we’ve got some bright ideas)

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