In episode #452 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews A.J. Withers. For 20 years, Withers was active with one of Ontario's best known grassroots groups, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. Recently, Withers released a new book telling stories of and drawing lessons from four of OCAP's key campaigns over the years related to homelessness. They talk about OCAP and about *Fight to Win: Inside Poor People's Organizing* (Fernwood Publishing, 2021). For a more detailed description of thi...
Jan 04, 2022•28 min
The following is a rebroadcast of an episode of Talking Radical Radio originally broadcast in July 2021. In episode #412 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Vanessa Hartley. She is 21 years old, a resident of Shelburne, Nova Scotia, and an eighth generation Black Loyalist descendent. She is also the chair of the South End Environmental Injustice Society (SEED). She talks about the town, about environmental racism, and about the work of SEED. For a more detailed description of this e...
Dec 28, 2021•28 min
In episode #451 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Breanne Lavallee-Heckert, Chantale Garand, and Kianna Durston. They are Métis people based in Winnipeg and members of Red River Echoes, a collective of Métis people that is focused on grassroots organizing, land back, and the active reclamation of Métis sovereignty in Winnipeg. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/12/21/radio-grassroots-organizing-by-metis-people-in-winnipeg/
Dec 21, 2021•28 min
In episode #450 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Natalie Jackett, a student in Legal Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa and the trans event coordinator for Rainbow Ottawa Student Experience (until recently known as Rainbow Carleton). They talk about transphobia in Canada, about a successful recent collective action that shut down an instance of anti-trans politics, and about what it looks like to be in solidarity with trans people. For a more detailed description of this ep...
Dec 14, 2021•28 min
In episode #449 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Jen Gobby and Molly Murphy. Gobby is a postdoctoral researcher at Concordia University in Montreal and the founder of Research for the Front Lines, a new organization that fosters collaboration between climate and environmental justice movements in Canada and people in universities with the time and skills to do the research that movements need. Murphy is active in front line Indigenous-led land defence struggles, most recently the...
Dec 07, 2021•28 min
In episode #448 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Robert Janes. With more than 45 years of experience working in and around museums, including as a chief curator and museum director, Janes is also the founder of the Coalition of Museums for Climate Justice. He talks about the climate crisis, about the role he envisions museums playing in responding to it, and about the work of the coalition. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/1...
Nov 30, 2021•28 min
In episode #447 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Tonye Aganaba and Chantelle Spicer. They are members of the Defund 604 Network, and they talk about the network's organizing around police and prison abolition in Vancouver. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/11/23/radio-police-and-prison-abolitionist-organizing-in-vancouver/
Nov 23, 2021•28 min
In episode #446 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Laurel Thompson. She is a retired teacher who lives in Montreal and a member of the group Trainsparence. She talks about the REM, a major new addition to Montreal's transit system, and why some residents, grassroots activists, and environmentalists fought tooth and nail against it -- and why opposition to the new phase of the REM in east Montreal may be much more successful. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here:...
Nov 16, 2021•28 min
In episode #445 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Brandon Doucet, a dentist in Nova Scotia and a founding member of the Coalition for Dental Care. The coalition brings together dentists, hygienists, dental students, other health care professionals, and members of the public to advocate for universal dental care in Canada. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/11/09/radio-the-fight-for-universal-dental-care-in-canada/
Nov 09, 2021•28 min
In episode #444 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Vicky Levack. She is a human rights advocate based in Halifax whose work focuses on disability and on gender, with a particular interest in housing issues. These days, she is active with the PADS Community Network, a new grassroots formation in Halifax fighting – as their acronym summarizes – for permanent, accessible, dignified, and safer housing for all. She talks about housing and homelessness in Halifax in the context of COVID-...
Nov 02, 2021•28 min
In episode #443 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Luisa Da Silva and Stephen Buhler. Da Silva is a geoscientist with experience in the fossil fuel and mining industries and the executive director of Iron and Earth, "a worker-led not-for-profit with a mission to empower fossil fuel industry and Indigenous workers to build and implement climate solutions." Buhler is a journeyman machinist who works in the fossil fuel industry in Alberta, and the community engagement officer for Iron...
Oct 26, 2021•28 min
On episode #442 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Serena Mah, a media relations consultant and a former television journalist who lives in Edmonton, Alberta. They talk about anti-Asian racism, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Act2EndRacism coalition. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/10/19/radio-challenging-anti-asian-racism-during-the-pandemic/
Oct 19, 2021•28 min
In episode #441 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Ardath Whynacht, an activist, writer, and scholar who lives in Mi'kmaq territory and teaches sociology at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick. She is also the author of Insurgent Love: Abolition and Domestic Homicide (Fernwood Publishing, Nov 2021), which she describes as "a book about how we can think through abolition and defunding police while also being attentive to high risk intimate partner violence that leads to domest...
Oct 12, 2021•28 min
In episode #440 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Don McLean, Sue Carson, and Nancy Hurst. They are active with Hamilton 350, a group that engages in a wide range of kinds of climate activism in the city of Hamilton on the west end of Lake Ontario. In this interview, they talk about the group's new Conservation Watch project -- an initiative that at first glance might seem to be pointing in a bit of a different direction than the group's usual work, but that they argue is a crucia...
Oct 05, 2021•28 min
In episode #439 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Vivan Ly, Iris Parker, and Allie. They are organizing collective members of Autistics United Canada, a grassroots organization of autistic youth and adults with thousands of members across the country. They talk about autism and about the organization's advocacy, mutual aid and peer support, and education work. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/09/28/radio-autistic-people-organ...
Sep 28, 2021•28 min
In episode #438 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Christopher Trider, who is a landscape architect in Nova Scotia and a former provincial civil servant with experience in planning provincial parks. He is also a member of a grassroots group called Save Owls Head Provincial Park, which is doing its best to intervene in the fate of a small piece of land on Nova Scotia's eastern shore, next to the town of Little Harbour. They talk about the land, the secretive moves by the provincial ...
Sep 21, 2021•28 min
In episode #437 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews James Ruston. He is a member of the Toronto Prisoners' Rights Project, a prisoner justice group with a long-term vision of prison abolition. Ruston is currently living on day parole, as part of serving a life sentence. They talk about Ruston's experiences of the prison system and about the work of the TPRP. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/09/14/radio-supporting-prisoners-work...
Sep 14, 2021•28 min
In episode #436 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Peter Gilmer, a minister and anti-poverty advocate. Gilmer works for the Regina Anti-Poverty Ministry, a social justice ministry of the United Church of Canada in Saskatchewan. He talks about the ministry's work for social justice and against poverty, and about its fifty-year history. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/09/07/radio-fifty-years-of-faith-based-anti-poverty-work-in-...
Sep 07, 2021•28 min
In episode #435 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Leela Acharya and Laura McCoy. They are teachers in Toronto and members of Ontario Education Workers United, a grassroots group of education workers from across Ontario committed to fighting for a strong, equitable, public, safe K-to-12 education system. They talk about the impacts of the pandemic on education in Ontario, about the group, and about the upcoming return to school. For a more detailed description of the episode, go he...
Aug 31, 2021•28 min
In episode #434 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews John Sylliboy. Sylliboy is Mi'kmaq and he grew up as part of Esaksoni and Millbrook First Nations in Nova Scotia. He is also the acting executive director of the Wabanaki Two Spirit Alliance, an organization that brings together Two-Spirit people in Wabanaki territory through a framework based on the Peace and Friendship Treaty to engage in knowledge sharing, research, capacity building, and advocacy. Fore a more detailed descripti...
Aug 24, 2021•28 min
In this rebroadcast of episode #393 of Talking Radical Radio (which was originally broadcast in the first week of March 2021), Scott Neigh interviews Samir Shaheen-Hussain. He is a pediatric emergency physician in Montreal and an assistant professor in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University. He was also a central organizer in the #aHand2Hold campaign, which in 2018 won a victory against a specific aspect of medical colonialism in Quebec. In this episode, he talks about the campaign, about ...
Aug 17, 2021•28 min
In episode #433 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Kevin Skerrett and Nancy Parker. They are active with the Make Revera Public campaign, which is pushing the federal government to transform Revera -- a major provider of long-term care in Canada -- from a for-profit corporation into a public sector entity and a fully integrated element of our public health care system. This campaign is happening in the wake of the terrible impact of COVID-19 on long-term care residents, particularl...
Aug 10, 2021•28 min
In episode #432 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Areej Riaz, Faith Edem, and LJ Prabaharan. All three are very involved in taking action of various kinds related to the climate crisis. As well, Riaz is one of the key people behind *Our Climate, Our Stories*, a new book that collects essays, stories, and poems about the climate crisis written by Black, Indigenous, and racialized youth from across Canada. Edem and Prabaharan are contributors to the volume. They talk about the clima...
Aug 03, 2021•28 min
In episode #431 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Stephanie Fung and Rajani Tadaka. Fung is the communications organizer for UNITE HERE Local 40, which represents workers in the hospitality industry in British Columbia. Tadaka is a hotel worker and member of Local 40. In the wake of mass layoffs due to the pandemic, many hotels in BC have chosen to fire many of their laid off workers rather than recall them as needed, as a cost-saving measure. Fung and Tadaka talk about the BC's U...
Jul 27, 2021•28 min
In episode #430 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Matias de Dovitiis. He is a long time activist and one of the co-founders of the Canadian Latin America Alliance. They talk about Canada's orientation towards Latin America and about the work of the alliance to, according to their website, support "the development of a relationship between Canada and Latin America that is based on principles of democracy, self-determination and the defense of human rights." For a more detailed desc...
Jul 20, 2021•28 min
In episode #429 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Vanessa Hartley. She is 21 years old, a resident of Shelburne, Nova Scotia, and an eighth generation Black Loyalist descendent. She is also the chair of the South End Environmental Injustice Society (SEED). She talks about the town, about environmental racism, and about the work of SEED. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/07/13/radio-fighting-environmental-racism-in-small-town-n...
Jul 13, 2021•28 min
In episode #428 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Cihan Erdal and Ömer Ongun. Erdal is a scholar at Carleton University in Ottawa. In September 2020, while on a visit to Turkey, he was arrested and jailed. His husband, Ömer Ongun, was immediately plunged into a whirlwind of activities organizing the Free Cihan Erdal support campaign. After nine long months in prison, Erdal was released in mid-June, though he may not yet leave Turkey and is still at risk of re-arrest. This is the c...
Jul 06, 2021•28 min
In episode #427 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Russell Lavis and Michael Bueckert. Lavis is an ultramarathon runner who most recently used his skills to raise funds for Help Gaza Breathe, a campaign to ensure hospitals in Gaza have necessary equipment in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bueckert is a scholar and grassroots activist who does Palestinian solidarity work in other ways, and he is vice-president of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East. They talk a...
Jun 29, 2021•28 min
In episode #426 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Colleen Lynas and Victor Lachance. They are residents of Kemptville, Ontario, and members of the Coalition Against the Proposed Prison (CAPP) Kemptville. They talk about their town, about the Ontario government's unilateral decision to build a provincial jail there, and about what residents are doing in response. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/06/22/radio-fighting-a-proposed...
Jun 22, 2021•28 min
In episode #425 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Barbara Byers, Lori Johb, and Donna Smith. They are long-time feminists and trade unionists in Saskatchewan, and they are organizers of the Prairie School for Union Women. They talk about the 25-year history of the school, and about its current incarnation in the context of COVID-19 as an online event happening from June 22 to 25, 2021. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/06/15/r...
Jun 15, 2021•28 min
