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Sudbury Social Justice News - April 20, 2014

Blog posts reflect the views of their authors.

EVENTS & MEETINGS:

 

1) Monday, April 21: Meeting of Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty

2) Tuesday, April 22: Screening of *The Change Agents*

3) Thursday, April 24: Rwanda20 Film Screening & Discussion

4) Thursday, April 24: Water Water Everywhere...or Not?

5) Saturday, April 26: Greater Sudbury Earth Day Festival 2014

6) Wednesday, April 30: Open Stage for Radicals and Progressives – May Day Theme

7) Monday, April 28: International Day of Mourning for Workers Killed & Injured on the Job - Sudbury

8) Thursday, May 1: May Day Movie Night

9) Tuesday, May 6: Town Hall With UK Disability/Anti-Poverty Activist

Ellen Clifford

10) Tuesday, May 6: Meeting of Sudbury Cyclists Union

 

 

NEWS, ANALYSIS & CALLS TO ACTION:

 

1) “Kitimat Vote – A Lesson for Sudbury” by Karen Bringleson

2) “Austerity and the Attack on Disability Benefits: Facing Resistance in Ontario” by John Clarke

 

 

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Monday, April 21: Meeting of Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty

Time: 6:30pm
Location: Offices of the Sudbury and District Labour Council (Suite 209 upstairs in 109 Elm Street, which is across the street from the Native Friendship Centre)
 
The venue is wheelchair accessible. Children are welcome to attend, or childcare support is available upon request. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. If you arrive late and doors are locked, please call the S-CAP phone (249-878-7227).
 
S-CAP is a direct-action anti-poverty organization based in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. We provide direct-action support work assisting individuals in their struggles with welfare and ODSP, housing, employers, and others who deny people what they are entitled to in order to meet their needs. In addition, we mount campaigns against and support educational work about regressive government policies as they effect working people and people living in poverty. We believe in the power of people to organize themselves. We believe in the power of resistance!
 
La coalition contre la pauvreté de Sudbury (S-CAP) est un organisme d’action directe luttant contre la pauvreté. Elle se trouve à Sudbury en Ontario.
 
Le travail de la coalition se base dans l’action directe et consiste à apporter de l’aide aux individus dans leurs luttes pour l’assistance sociale, l’invalidité, le logement, l’emploi et à les aider à faire face aux gens qui leur refusent ce à quoi ils ont droit pour rencontrer leurs besoins. De plus, la coalition fait des compagnes de sensibilisation et de dénonciation par rapport aux politiques gouvernementales régressives quant à leurs effets sur les travailleurs et travailleuses et les personnes vivant dans la pauvreté.
 
La coalition croit au pouvoir des personnes de s’organiser elles-mêmes; elle croit au pouvoir de la résistance!
 
Please call us (249-878-7227)
 
Email us at sudburyCAP@gmail.com
 
S-CAP on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/257339454351403/

 

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Tuesday, April 22: Screening of *The Change Agents*

Time: 6pm to 9pm
Location: Tom Davies Square (200 Brady Street, Sudbury)
 
PLEASE WATCH THE TRAILER
http://www.thechangeagents.net/

Sudbury is one of the first cities in Canada to screen the movie because we have a direct contact with the director.

Tom Davies Square
Sudbury's City Hall

6:00 to 9:00 pm

6:00 - doors open
6:15 - introductions and brief discussions
6:30 - movies starts
8:00 - deeper facilitated discussions
____

Screened during the day at a high school
  

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Thursday, April 24: Rwanda20 Film Screening & Discussion

Time: 6:30pm
Location: The Open Studio (93 Cedar Street, Sudbury)
 
On April 6, 1994, Rwanda, a tiny land-locked country in central Africa, spiraled downward into a putrid stew of massacre and bloodshed. Between 800,000 and one million people were killed during 100 days of genocide. Approximately 80 per cent of Tutsis were murdered and entire families vanished from existence. The genocide in Rwanda remains unparalleled in its vastness and efficiency.
 
“The nature of the killing, with so many thrown into pit latrines or buried and dissolving in dank mass graves, makes an accurate count impossible,” writes journalist Scott Peterson in his 2000 memoir, Me Against My Brother: At war in Somalia, Sudan and Rwanda. “They were murdered eyeball to eyeball by friends and neighbors. A mathematical calculation of Rwanda’s national suicide makes the speed of any other recorded catastrophe or single act of war pale by comparison. … No system of genocide ever devised has been more efficient: the daily kill rate was five times that of the Nazi death camps.”
 
On Thursday, April 24, Cambrian College commemorates 20 years since the terror with an evening of documentary film and uplifting discussion. The 2012 film Rising from Ashes tells the story of cycling phenom Jock Boyer’s efforts to build a national cycling team in Rwanda. A discussion and Q&A panel follows the screening. Markus Schwabe, host of Morning North on CBC radio, hosts. The film’s trailer is available online at www.risingfromashesthemovie.com.
 
For more information, please e-mail Mary Katherine Keown at mary.keown@cambriancollege.ca or call 705.566.8101 ext. 6876.
 
This event on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/737922762896098/

 

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Thursday, April 24: Water Water Everywhere...or Not?

Time: 6:30pm
Location: Science North (100 Ramsey Lake Road, Sudbury)
 
As climate change,s how does our relationship with water need to change? Discover why and how we need to adapt to current climate change in relation to our lakes, city, and own backyard. An Earth Week open panel discussion.
 
Sponsored by the Greater Sudbury Watershed Alliance and Science North.
 
This event on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/303807523104371/

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Saturday, April 26: Greater Sudbury Earth Day Festival 2014

Time: 10am to 5pm
Location: Ecole Secondaire Du Sacre-Coeur (261 avenue Notre-Dame, Sudbury)

 

Details TBA!
 
This event on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1510817362478795/

 

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Wednesday, April 30: Open Stage for Radicals and Progressives – May Day Theme

 

Time: 8pm – 10pm

Location: Townehouse Tavern, 206 Elgin Street

One Struggle Sudbury presents our fourth monthly Open Stage for Radicals and Progressives on May Day Eve! We’re particularly keen to see May Day-themed contributions this month, but regardless, we want to share politically progressive/radical/revolutionary culture with you. Bring your songs, poems, raps, skits and excerpts. You are welcome to share your own original art, another artist’s work, or pieces that are open to radical interpretation, or you can just come out and enjoy the show. Contributors are needed to make the show all that it can be!

 

This is a monthly event, so remember the last Wednesday of every month!

 

An easy way to help with this event is to share it: https://www.facebook.com/events/526832447426797/.

 

If you would like more information, please contact Rachael Charbonneau at rachaelcharbonneau@vianet.ca or 705-670-1982.

 

 

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Monday, April 28: International Day of Mourning for Workers Killed & Injured on the Job - Sudbury

Time: 10am to 11:30am
Location: Fraser Auditorium, Laurentian University
 
The International Day of Mourning is observed yearly on April 28th. It commemorates workers who have been killed, injured or suffered illness due to workplace related hazards and incidents.
 
The International Day of Mourning began in Sudbury in 1984. The Canadian Labour Congress officially declared it an annual day of remembrance the following year (1985). With the passing of the Workers Mourning Day Act, in 1990, the day became a national Canadian observance: April 28, 1991, was the first official “National Day of Mourning for persons killed or injured in the workplace”.
 
Since its inception in Sudbury, the observance has spread to over 80 countries around the world. April 28th was chosen because, on that day in 1914, the Workers Compensation Act received its third reading.
 
The purpose of Day of Mourning is twofold- to remember and honour those lives lost or injured and to renew the commitment to improving health and safety in the workplace – to prevent further deaths, injuries and diseases from work. Typically flags are flown at half-mast, and workers and employees observe this day in various ways including: observing moments of silence; lighting candles; and donning ribbons and/or black armbands.
  

 

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Thursday, May 1: May Day Movie Night

Time: 6pm – 8pm

Location: The Parkside Centre, 140 Durham Street, Kinsmen Room B

 

The Condition of the Working Class presented by One Struggle Sudbury

“This film is inspired by Engels’ book written in 1844, The Condition of the Working Class in England. How much has really changed since then?

In 2012 a group of working class people from Manchester and Salford come together to create a theatrical show from scratch based on their own experiences and Engels’ book. They have eight weeks before their first performance. The Condition of the Working Class follows them from the first rehearsal to the first night performance and situates their struggle to get the show on stage in the context of the daily struggles of ordinary people facing economic crisis and austerity politics. The people who came together to do the show turned from a group of strangers, many of whom had never acted before, into The Ragged Collective, in little more than two months.

This film, full of political passion and anger, is a wonderful testament to the creativity, determination and camaraderie of working people that blows the media stereotypes of the working class out of the water.”

“This is not a film, it’s a rehearsal for revolution.” Film International

 

Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evuKUkU9zGo

Watch and read reviews: http://www.conditionoftheworkingclass.info/media

More substantial of these reviews: http://leftunity.org/film-the-condition-of-the-working-class/

http://www.lenspolitica.net/en/blog/35-working-class-in-a-classless-society

 

An easy way to help with this event is to share it on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/235067470029078/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming

For more information contact Rachael Charbonneau at rachaelcharbonneau@vianet.ca or 705-670-1982.

 

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Tuesday, May 6: Town Hall With UK Disability/Anti-Poverty Activist

Ellen Clifford

 

Time: 7 pm

Location: Kinsmen Room A of the Parkside Older Adult Centre (140 Durham Street, Sudbury)

The Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty (S-CAP) will be hosting Ellen Clifford from Disabled People Against the Cuts (DPAC) of the UK at a Town Hall meeting on Tuesday, May 6, 2014.  This is part of an Ontario-wide speaking tour organised by the Raise the Rates Campaign that will be visiting Toronto, Kitchener, Sudbury, North Bay, Kingston and Ottawa.  

Who is DPAC:  The Cameron Government in the UK has implemented brutal cuts to programs for unemployed and disabled people.  This includes a system called the Work Capability Assessment that has been used to deny benefits to thousands of people. Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) is an organization in the UK that has been at the forefront of challenging this situation.  It has mobilized disabled people to fight back and formed alliances with community organizations and unions in resisting the austerity measures of the Cameron Government.  The hated private company, Atos, that was carrying out the assessments of sick and disabled people has been forced to quit as a result of the powerful resistance DPAC and others have taken up.

Here in Ontario, we also face major attacks. Ontario Works (Welfare) and ODSP (Disability) rates are too low to enable people to pay their rent and eat properly. The Special Diet and Community Start Up have been slashed by the Ontario Liberal government. And now, based on recent reports, there is a very real threat that the Government here will now move to merge OW and ODSP and bring in a UK style assessment system.  We need to understand what is happening elsewhere and how people are fighting back and winning against the attacks. Austerity is global – but so is our resistance.

Ellen Clifford has been campaigning with the disabled people’s movement for 15 years and, since 2011, has sat on the National Steering Committee of DPAC.  She is also a member of Unite the Union and works to build solidarity between workers in unions and those forced to live on social benefits.

Everyone is welcome to join us. A light snack will be served.

For more information, please visit the SCAP website at sudburycap.com or reach us by phone at 249.878.7227 or by e-mail at sudburycap@gmail.com.

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Le 6 mai prochain La coalition anti-pauvreté de Sudbury reçoit l’activiste Ellen Clifford du mouvement britannique contre les coupures aux prestations d’invalidité, Disabled People Against the Cuts (DPAC). Il y aura une réunion publique à la salle Kinsmen A du centre Parkside Older Adult Centre, rue Durham à 19 h. Tout le monde est le bienvenu.  Une légère collation sera servie.

Le mouvement DPAC.   Le gouvernement Cameron au Royaume-Uni a fait des coupures draconiennes aux programmes pour les sans-emplois et les personnes handicapées. Cela comprend un système de réévaluation axée sur l’aptitude au travail qui a servi à refuser des prestations d’invalidité à des milliers et des milliers de gens.  Le mouvement Disabled People Against the Cuts est l’un des groupes menant la lutte contre cette situation. Il a organisé la résistance des personnes handicapées et bâti des liens avec des organismes communautaires et syndicaux pour combattre les mesures d’austerité du gouvernement Cameron. La compagnie privée ATOS détestée en raison de ses réévaluations des gens malades et handicapées a été obligée de démissionner à cause de la forte opposition menée par DPAC et ses alliés.

En Ontario nous aussi faisons face à des attaques importantes.  Les taux de l’aide sociale (Ontario au travail, OT) et de l’invalidité (Programme ontarien du soutien aux personnes handicapées) sont trop bas pour permettre aux récipiendaires de payer leur loyer ou manger comme il faut.  Le gouvernement libéral a sabré dans les prestations pour régime alimentaire spécial et éliminé le soutien au loyer (Prestation pour l’établissement d’un nouveau domicile et le maintien dans la collectivité). Et selon des rapports récents il y a la menace bien réelle de l’adoption d’un système de réévaluation à la britannique par le gouvernement. C’est pour cela qu’il est nécessaire de comprendre ce qui arrive ailleurs au monde et comment on mobilise l’opposition à ces attaques pour bâtir une résistance efficace.

Ellen Clifford milite au sein du mouvement des personnes handicapées au Royaume-Uni depuis 15 ans.  Elle siège au comité de direction nationale de DPAC depuis 2011.  Elle est aussi membre du regroupement Unite the Union et travaille à bâtir des liens de solidarité entre les travailleurs syndiqués et ceux qui sont obligés à vivre sur l’aide sociale. Sa visite a lieu dans le cadre d’une tournée ontarienne organisée par la campagne pour une augmentation du salaire minimum et une hausse des taux de l’aide sociale.  La tournée se rendra à Toronto, Kitchener, Sudbury, North Bay, Ottawa et Kingston entre autres.

Pour de plus amples renseignements, veuillez contacter S-CAP au 249-878-7227.

 

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Tuesday, May 6: Meeting of Sudbury Cyclists Union

Time: 7pm to 9pm
Location: reThink Green (Suite 305, 176 Larch Street, Sudbury)
 
Agenda TBA.
 
This event on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/events/600471723355643/

 

 

NEWS, ANALYSIS & CALLS TO ACTION:

 

1) “Kitimat Vote – A Lesson for Sudbury” by Karen Bringleson

2) “Austerity and the Attack on Disability Benefits: Facing Resistance in Ontario” by John Clarke

 

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“Kitimat Vote – A Lesson for Sudbury”

by Karen Bringleson

(From the Sudbury working-group of The Media Co-op: http://sudbury.mediacoop.ca/blog/karen-bringleson/22555)

 

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“Austerity and the Attack on Disability Benefits: Facing Resistance in Ontario”

by John Clarke

(From The Socialist Project: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/967.php)


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