Audio

Migrant worker organizing in Nova Scotia

Talking Radical Radio

Stacey Gomez lives in Halifax (aka Kjipuktuk) in Nova Scotia, within Mi’kmaqi, and she is a migrant justice organizer with No One Is Illegal – Halifax/Kjipuktuk. Scott Neigh interviews her about the group’s origins and about its work as the first grassroots effort in Atlantic Canada focused on organizing with migrant agricultural workers.

Bringing sustainability and justice together in a small community

Talking Radical Radio

Jason Mogus is a long-time climate campaigner and a co-founder of Salt Spring Solutions, a local group on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia that is seeking to address their community’s housing crisis in sustainable ways, in the face of opposition that is framed in environmental terms.

Feminism in the arts

Talking Radical Radio

Shawna Dempsey is an artist and the co-executive director of Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art (MAWA). Scott Neigh interviews her about feminism in the arts, and about MAWA’s decades of work.

Older adults and the fight for climate action

Talking Radical Radio

Betty Plewes is a co-founder and steering committee member of Climate Legacy, a group of retired people working together to engage and mobilize other older adults in climate action. Emma Bider is the organization’s communications coordinator. Scott Neigh interviews them about the roles that seniors are playing in addressing the climate crisis.

British Columbia's general strike that almost was

Talking Radical Radio

David Spaner is a long-time Vancouver-based writer and the author of Solidarity: Canada’s Unknown Revolution of 1983 (Ronsdale Press, 2021). Scott Neigh interviews him about the book and about the uprising against a right-wing government in British Columbia that it documents.

Low-wage workers organizing in Newfoundland

Talking Radical Radio

Mark Nichols is an organizer with the Workers’ Action Network of Newfoundland and Labrador, which brings together workers in low-wage, precarious jobs to support each other and to fight collectively for decent work for all. Scott Neigh interviews him about what low-wage work looks like in Newfoundland and about the network.

Practical climate action in Atlantic Canada

Talking Radical Radio

Emma Norton is a climate activist based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, in Mi’qmaki. She is the operations director at the ReCover Initiative and the Atlantic director with the Climate Emergency Unit. Scott Neigh interviews her about her work on climate issues, and about the crucial interconnection between practical measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and grassroots political work aimed at policy change.

Anti-ableism and disability justice education

Talking Radical Radio

Kate Welsh and Dev Ramsawakh are co-creators of the CRIP Collective, a small group of Toronto-based disabled educators and artists who do anti-ableism, anti-oppression, and disability justice-related workshops, and various other kinds of community building with disabled people, using an intersectional approach.

A broad coalition pushing for climate action in Ontario

Talking Radical Radio

Mili Roy and Angela Bischoff are involved, in different capacities, in the Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign (OCEC), a broad, loose, non-partisan coalition of individuals and groups working hard to get Ontario to improve its response to the climate crisis.

Story and film as tools for decolonization

Talking Radical Radio

Gladys Rowe, Teddy Zegeye-Gebrehiwot, and Liz Carlson-Manathara are part of Stories of Decolonization, a film project that is working to give people in Canada a chance to reflect on how colonization shapes our lives, on what decolonization might mean, and on how we might act to get there. Scott Neigh interviews them about the role that story and film can play in larger processes decolonization and about their many years of work on the project.

Immigrant workers confronting the people who exploit them

Talking Radical Radio

Simran Kaur Dhunna and Bikram Singh are members of the Naujawan Support Network, a group of international students and immigrant workers primarily based in Brampton, Ontario, who are challenging the exploitation and mistreatment that their members face using protest, mutual support, and collective direct action.

Climate disaster stories as a catalyst for change

Talking Radical Radio

Sean Holman is the Wayne Crookes professor of Environmental and Climate Journalism at the University of Victoria, in Lekwungen territory on Vancouver Island. Scott Neigh interviews him about changes in the role played by journalism in our current political moment, about the news media’s response to the climate crisis so far, and about the new model for covering it that is being developed as part of the Climate Disaster Project.

Advancing a vision of ecological farming and farmers' rights

Talking Radical Radio

Beatriz Oliver and Aabir Dey work for SeedChange, an organization based in Canada that supports farmers here and around the world in working for a more just, sustainable, and environmentally sound future. Scott Neigh interviews them about the food system as it exists today, the vision embedded in the work of SeedChange, and what they are doing to realize it.

Fighting for collective bargaining rights for tenants

Talking Radical Radio

James Barbeiro is a chef who lives in Sinixt territory in Nelson, British Columbia. Jen works in the social service sector and lives in Secwepmc territory, in Kamloops, BC. Both are tenants and tenant organizers. Scott Neigh interviews them about Rent Strike Bargain, a province-wide campaign in BC that is fighting for the right of tenants to collectively bargain with landlords, and that is also active in supporting the recent upsurge in local organizing by tenants.

A veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle talks about anti-racism today

Talking Radical Radio

Steve September was born into the struggle against South African apartheid, and today he is the chair of the Anti-Racism Coalition (ARC) Vancouver, a grassroots group working to end all forms of racial inequality through education, legislation, and social events. Scott Neigh interviews him about the work of ARC Vancouver and about the perspective he brings to anti-racist organizing based on his involvement in opposing apartheid.

A grassroots re-imagining of gender-affirming care

Talking Radical Radio

Riley Nielson-Baker and Felix Vandergrift are part of Gender Affirming Care Nova Scotia, a grassroots, community-based policy process to address issues of gender-affirming care and access to health care for trans, intersex, and gender-diverse people in Nova Scotia. Scott Neigh interviews them about the process, the policy, and the work they have been doing to make it all happen.

Confronting the overdose crisis, demanding a safe supply

Talking Radical Radio

Jordan Westfall is co-founder and president of the Canadian Association for Safe Supply (CASS), an organization that aims to reduce the immense harms of the overdose crisis by increasing people’s access to substances that are legal, regulated, and safe. Scott Neigh interviews him about the crisis and about the crucial role that a safe supply could play in ending it.

Against poverty in Calgary

Talking Radical Radio

Lisa Hari and Rosemary Brown are active in We’re Together Ending Poverty (WTEP), a grassroots anti-poverty group in Calgary. Scott Neigh interviews them about what poverty looks like in their city, about the group’s evolution over the years, and about their work to bring people together to build shared understandings and collective action.

Preserving and popularizing the history of working-class Toronto

Talking Radical Radio

Craig Heron, Holly Kirkconnell, and David Kidd are active with the Toronto Workers’ History Project (TWHP), an initiative devoted to preserving and promoting the history of working people in Toronto. Scott Neigh interviews them about the enthusiasm they have found in the community for working-class history, the many facets of the project’s work, and the importance of history for social movements today.

Pushing Ontario to fix its massive school repair backlog

Talking Radical Radio

Krista Wylie is a mother of one current and one former student in public schools in Toronto, and she is a co-founder of the Fix Our Schools campaign. Scott Neigh interviews her about the $16.8 billion repair backlog in Ontario schools and about her years of campaigning to get the provincial government to take seriously the impact that has on students, teachers, and other education workers, and to invest adequately in school repair and renewal.