October 19: OCAP Speakers Series: Canada 150 – Promise of Reconciliation or Ongoing Colonization?

Thursday, October 19 | 6:00pm – 8:00pm | CRC – 40 Oak Street
[Free Event with a meal, childcare, wheelchair access and tokens.] | Facebook Event

Why are indigenous people disproportionately poor and homeless? What are the frontlines of indigenous struggle today? How do we fight colonialism?

Join us as we discuss these and other questions that form the terrain of indigenous struggle for sovereignty and self-determination today.

Speaker: Denise Baldwin
Denise is the IDU Outreach Coordinator for the Ontario Aboriginal HIV/AIDS Strategy. The Oahas IDU program is unique, as it is the only IDU program that is Indigenous based in the entire province. For the past 8 years, she has had the pleasure, along with her peers, of building the program from the ground up. Denise has over 20 years’ experience working within the urban Indigenous and on reserve communities in several capacities. Denise currently resides in the Barrie area, and is a citizen of the Chippewa’s of NawashFirst Nation.

The monthly Speakers Series is where we discuss issues critical to the success of poor people’s movements. It’s where we build our capacity to fight to win.

Tomorrow: Speakers Series: Poverty & Disability

Thursday, July 20 | 6pm | CRC (40 Oak Street) | Facebook Event
[Free Event with a meal, childcare, wheelchair access and tokens]
[ASL-English Interpretation Provided]

Is disability biological, or is it created and reinforced by society? Why are some disabled people considered more deserving than others? Do non-disabled people have a role to play in disabled people’s struggles?

Join us as we discuss these and other questions that look at the connections between disability and poverty in our society, and what that means for our struggles.

Speaker: A.J. Withers, author and organizer
A.J. Withers is a long time disability and anti-poverty organizer with OCAP. They are the author of Disability Politics and Theory, stillmyrevolution.org, and the forthcoming book A Violent History of Benevolence: Interlocking Oppression and the Moral Economies of Social Working (with Chris Chapman).

The monthly speakers series focuses on topics central to poor people’s issues and organizing. A new topic is presented every month and all events are open to the public. Come on out, invite your friends and please share widely!

Speakers Series: Canada’s War on the Poor: At Home & Abroad

Thursday, June 15 | 6pm | CRC (40 Oak Street) | Facebook Event
[Free Event with a meal, childcare, wheelchair access and tokens]

Hardly anyone who attends the Speakers Series will be surprised that Canada’s benevolent self-image crumbles when confronted with reality. But exactly what the carefully crafted ‘Canadian’ brand masks is worth discussing. The June Speakers Series will do just that, unraveling along the way the connections between the war on the poor at home and abroad.

Speaker: Todd Gordon

Todd is the author of Imperialist Canada and co-author of Blood of Extraction: Canadian Imperialism in Latin America. He is also a member of the Toronto New Socialists and is involved in the Organizing Committee Against Islamophobia.

The monthly speakers series focuses on topics central to poor people’s issues and organizing. A new topic is presented every month and all events are open to the public. Come on out, invite your friends and please share widely!

Speakers Series: I, Daniel Blake – Movie Screening

Thursday, May 18 | 6pm | CRC (40 Oak Street) | Facebook Event
[Free Event with a meal, childcare, wheelchair access and tokens]
Watch the Film Trailer

Join us for our monthly speakers series focusing on topics central to poor people’s issues and organizing. A new topic is presented every month and all events are open to the public. Come on out, invite your friends and please share widely!

This month we are excited to screen I, Daniel Blake, the newest movie by the renowned film-maker Ken Loach. The film chronicles the calculated brutality of the social assistance systems in the UK, which parallel those in place here in Ontario.

Stay for the post-film conversation, details to be announced soon.

Speakers Series: The Trouble with the Housing Bubble

Thursday, April 20 | 6pm | CRC (40 Oak Street) | Facebook Event
[Free Event with a meal, childcare, wheelchair access and tokens]

Join us for our monthly speakers series focusing on topics central to poor people’s issues and organizing. A new topic is presented every month and all events are open to the public. Come on out, invite your friends and please share widely!

April’s topic is: The Trouble with the Housing Bubble

– What are the reasons behind the current housing crisis?

– How are people fighting evictions and exploitative landlords?

– What are our rights as tenants?

Join us for a conversation over good food as we strategize around these and other questions to build the fight for public and affordable housing.

Speakers: Gideon Kalman-Lamb & Kelly Bentley

Gideon is a PhD candidate in political science at York University, where he studies the political economy of capitalism, socioeconomic inequality, and housing.

Kelly is a long-time housing activist and tenant-rights organizer.

Come for the meal at 6pm and stay for what promises to be a a very informative and engaging session!

Speakers Series: Fighting Back in the Age of Trump

Thursday, March 16 | 6pm | CRC (40 Oak Street) | Facebook Event
[Free Event with a meal, childcare, wheelchair access and tokens]

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Join us for our monthly speakers series focusing on topics central to poor people’s issues and organizing. A new topic is presented every month and all events are open to the public. Come on out, invite your friends and please share widely!

This month’s topic is: Fighting Back in the Age of Trump
– What does the Trump victory mean for poor people’s struggles here?
– How can he be defeated?
– If Trump is our enemy, is Trudeau our friend?

Join us for a conversation over good food as we strategize around these and other questions to build a movement of capable of stifling the rise of Trump and all that his ilk stand for.

Speakers: Zabia Afzal & John Clarke

Zabia is community organizer in the Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood and PhD student at York University.

John is organizer at the OCAP.

Come for the meal at 6pm and stay for what promises to be a a very informative and engaging session!

Speakers Series: Bursting at the Seams: Film Screening & Talk

Thursday, February 16 | 6pm | CRC (40 Oak Street) | Facebook Event
Free Event with a meal, childcare, wheelchair access and tokens
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Join us for our monthly speakers series focusing on topics central to poor people’s issues and organizing. A new topic is presented every month and all events are open to the public. Come on out, invite your friends and please share widely!

This month’s topic is: Bursting at the Seams

Bursting at the Seams is the title of a 20-minute film on the crisis of brutal overcrowding in Toronto’s homeless shelters. We premiered the movie outside Mayor John Tory’s luxury condominium in November. Mayor Tory is now proposing a further cut to shelters and housing, which will have serious consequences. The cuts can be reversed and we can fight Tory’s austerity agenda.

Come join us, watch the movie, learn about the problems with the City’s so-called “Housing-First” policies that are, counter-intuitively, fueling the crisis, and hear updates on the fight to win desperately needed shelter and housing for everyone.

Speakers: Beric German and Yogi Acharya

Beric German is a long-time anti-poverty activist, a member of OCAP and, previously, the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee.

Yogi Acharya is an organizer with OCAP.

Come for the meal at 6pm and stay for what promises to be a a very informative and engaging session!