The Latest from Local Orgs
Save The School House Shelter: Mass Delegation to City Council
City Hall (Bay and Queen), Wednesday, May 23, 9:30 AM
Free pancake breakfast served from 8:30 AM
The City is moving to close down the School House shelter on George St, a 55 bed facility that has provided shelter in this community for decades. It is one of the few 'wet' shelters in Toronto and those who stay there may have a drink. It has saved lives over the years.
OCAP, the Downtown East Committee of Stop the Cuts and others in the community are challenging this decision. We went to the last meeting of the Community Development and Recreation Committee of City Council and hostel services staff were instructed to bring back a full report on the closing of the School House. On May 23, that report will be presented and we will be there to demand that this shelter be kept open.
May Day 2012 Ignites the Streets of Toronto
Over 3,000 people march on Toronto's first May Day march on a working day in decades
Toronto -- Six years ago, inspired by 'A day without immigrants' marches across the United States, No One Is Illegal began organizing the May Day of Action for Status for All in Toronto. We were building for a May Day march on a working day but did not anticipate how momentous this year would be. On May Day 2012, we joined with thousands of others in over 150 cities across Turtle Island (colonial Canada and the United States) and millions around the world to mark International Workers Day and asserted the freedom to move, return, and stay for all.
What took place in Toronto could not have been possible without the commitment and energy of the May 1st Movement, Occupy Toronto, Food Not Bombs, Opirg Toronto and Rhythms of Resistance that coordinated various portions of the rally and march and the over 40 organizations that endorsed, mobilized and organized for the largest May Day in our city in recent memory.
>> Join us for a Celebration! Alien-Nation. 8pm. The Rivoli. May 5, 2012. Opening Night for Mayworks Festival. http://toronto.nooneisillegal.org/node/691 <<
"We will link our struggles", insisted Gunjan Chopra, organizer with No One Is Illegal - Toronto at the start of the rally. In one voice, the over 3,000 people assembled outside Nathan Phillips Square agreed. And link them we did. From naming war, environmental destruction, capitalism and colonization as the powers that force people out of their homes here and elsewhere, to targeting policies of immigration, policing and austerity that are making the lives of our communities miserable, May Day was a moment of unity, of building relationships across struggles, and of asserting that together, we are unstoppable.
Freedom to Move, Return, Stay
Freedom to Move: Too many of us moved because we couldn't stay. We tried to escape war, environmental collapse, and social & economic oppression. We aspire for a world where people move freely and are not pushed out of their homes.
Freedom to Return: Places we called home are lost to us due to military/corporate occupation, imperialism, and climate collapse. We aspire for a world where people can return. Without fear of being targeted as queer and trans, as women, as people with disabilities, as racialized people, as political dissidents, and as Indigenous people.
Freedom to Stay: We toil in temp jobs, often living in fear without full status, targeted by the police and the capitalist state. We prosper by the theft of Indigenous lands. We aspire for a world where Indigenous nations live freely and migrants live in solidarity, decolonizing ourselves and our communities. We desire freedom without fear or indignity.
Mayworks, May 9th - "Food Fight: Resisting Austerity"
Join the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty and Ontario Council of Hospital Unions at Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts 2012...
Food Fight: Resisting Austerity
Wednesday May 9th
7:00 pm
Free!
FoodShare,
90 Croatia Street
On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/events/245009982261422/
Poverty and Health: The Special Diet is a short video on the affects of poverty on health and specifically the provincial social assistance benefit known as the Special Diet Allowance that was recently gutted by the provincial government. It highlights the voices of people on social assistance, as well as frontline workers in the healthcare sector. The video is a joint project produced by the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) and the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) and was made to support the Raise the Rates campaign to demand a raise in welfare (Ontario Works) and disability (ODSP) rates in the province of Ontario.
Set to the musical composition and direction of Jaydahmann and accompanied by the vocals of Jacquline Dyer and Ramla Aden, Food Justice - Lawrence Heights is a video that calls for affordable, healthy food for everyone. Lawrence Heights is a multicultural community of social housing and facing significant problems accessing good, healthy, affordable food. Produced by Lawrence Heights Youth Food Justice Group, this video takes an inspiring look at the problems, the current situation and the community’s hopes for the future. A future that will likely include a 20 year revitalization process which will see the entire community transform from a ‘rent geared to income’ community into a ‘mixed’ one, complete with new buildings, people, retail and facilities.
April 26 GTWA GMM
The GTWA holds monthly general membership meetings in order to shape our organization, discuss politics and plan our work. Members are encouraged to attend and take part. Supporters and observers are welcome.
Greater Toronto Workers' Assembly April General Membership Meeting
BREAKING: OCAP Interrupts Ontario Legislature to Demand they RAISE the RATES!
Today (April 24) OCAP members unfurled a banner in the legislature, demanding an increase to social assistance rates 55%, which is needed just to bring the rates back to what they were before the Mike Harris years...
Sudbury Coalition against Poverty's Memo to Bartolucci: Stop the Cut to the to the Community Start-Up Fund
"We are his constituents," said the thirty people who crowded into Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci's office on April 19th. "He should be representing us."
They came to demand that he speak out against the proposed cuts to the provincial Community Start Up and Maintenance Benefit (CSUMB). Sudbury Police, summoned by his office staff, waited outside his office while the group read personal statements about how the Community Start Up and Maintenance Benefits have helped Sudburians. A copy of the group statement as well as the personal statements were faxed to Rick Bartolucci's Toronto office before the group left.
The Community Start Up and Maintenance Benefit is currently available for those on Ontario Works or Ontario Disability Support Program. People with children can qualify for up to $1,500 every two years. For those without children the maximum is $799 every two years. The proposed budget cuts the amount of funding in half and the program is to be transferred to the Ministry of Housing. There it would be folded into the money given to municipalities to run housing and homelessness programs. That means that half the money might be available to try to assist a much larger number of people. How it would be administered, who would be able to access it or what happens when the funding runs out remains unclear. What was made clear by the group in the MPP's office was that CSUMB as currently set up has been a life saver.
OCAP March Builds Solidarity Against Austerity: Report back from March 16th Demonstration
On March 16, OCAP and many allies took to the streets to challenge the
Provincial Government and the 2012 budget that we knew would intensify
the agenda of poverty (See OCAP's statement on the budget
here:http://www.ocap.ca/node/994). It was also our collective
grassroots contribution to the building of a common front against the
austerity that our communities are facing.
Five hundred people gathered outside the offices of the Ministry of
Housing at Bay and College to listen to a range of union and social
movement speakers and to enjoy a fine meal provided by the Ontario
Nurses Association. We began at a location operated by the Provincial
Government but we set our sights on the real architects of austerity
in the corporate towers on Bay Street. To drive this home, our March
set out in the direction of the TD Bank at Bay and King, the long time
home of economist Don Drummond whose regressive report shaped the
attacks that the Liberal Government followed through with in the 2012
Provincial budget.
Whose Borders 2. El Contrato & Borderless
No One is Illegal - Toronto Presents:
Whose Borders?
An evening of politics and picture shows!
Friday, April 20, 2012 at 7:30pm (doors at 7:00 pm)
Palmerston Library Theatre
(560 Palmerston Ave., North of Bloor St. W., west of Bathurst Subway Station - the station is wheelchair accessible)
Featuring:
*El Contrato (dir. Min Sook Lee, 51 mins.): El Contrato follows Teodoro Bello Martinez, a father of four from Central Mexico, and several of his countrymen as they make an annual migration to southern Ontario. For eight months of the year Leamington's population absorbs 4000 migrant labourers who pick tomatoes for conditions and wages no local will accept. Facing racism, exploitation, and constant threat of deportation, the workers voice their desire for dignity and respect, and better working conditions.
*Borderless (Min Sook Lee, 25 mins): They sew clothes in Montreal, clean high rises in Vancouver and build houses in Toronto. Their low wages subsidize Canada's first world economy. Using silhouetted interviews and stylized imagery shot on Super 8 and mini-dv, Borderless tells the story of Angela and Geraldo. Angela works as a domestic help caring for other people's children while her own child is growing up motherless in the Caribbean. Geraldo arrived from Costa Rica to work in
Rally and Community BBQ to Save the School House Shelter
Saturday April 14
12 noon
Outside the Schoolhouse (349 George Street)
The School House was first opened in the 1970s, it is a 55 (paid) bed facility for men in the downtown east end of Toronto. It was one of the first shelters in Canada to operate from a harm reduction perspective, and remains one of the very few harm reduction focused shelters in this city.
The City is planning to close down this shelter, meaning that all of these beds will be lost on top of the hundreds of shelter beds we have already lost in the downtown east.
This comes at a time when most shelters are at capacity and when we face deepening housing crisis. There are 79 000 households on the waiting list for social housing in Toronto, a list that is estimated to be at least a decade long. The City of Toronto has just voted to sell off close to 60 social housing units with plans to sell-off more. Most poor people are priced out of the private market with the average bachelor apartment ranging around $777 a month while the base amount for welfare is only $599.
Schoolhouse is a vital service in our neighborhood that needs to be defended! Join OCAP, the Downtown East Committee and allies on Saturday, April 14th for free food and music, and to rally for the services we need and plan to defend.
For more information contact OCAP: 416-925-6939 or ocap@tao.ca
Join the Facebook event.
Download the poster here.
Tory MP Offices occupied in FIVE cities. Actions across Canada
In a coordinated effort on Refugee Rights Day, members of refugee and immigrant rights groups including No One Is Illegal are occupying Conservative MP offices in Ottawa, Toronto, St. Catharines, Edmonton, and Vancouver Coast Salish Territories. Banners have also been dropped in Montreal and Halifax. These actions are being organized to demand that the Refugee Exclusion Act, Bill C-31, be discarded.
Update: Vancouver activists are occupying Citizenship and Immigration Canada offices.
What YOU can do to Axe the Refugee Exclusion Act
*** April 4 is Refugee Rights Day – YOU can get involved ***
Minister of Censorship and Deportation Jason Kenney has tabled Bill C-31, an omnibus Refugee Exclusion Act. It creates a two-tier system of refugee protection that mandates nationality-based discrimination, mandates incarceration for many asylum seekers, denies and revokes permanent residency for many who have already been granted refugee status, and violently targets and expels refugees and migrants from Canada. This Act also introduces intrusive biometrics data collection on all migrants and gives increased powers of arrest and detention to border guards. This racist and repressive new bill is a major roll-back on an already minimalist and exclusionary refugee system.
Learn more – Joint NOII Statement – Axe the Refugee Exclusion Act:
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/no-one-illegal/2012/03/noii-alert-axe-re...
TAKE ACTION:
KI: Organized resistance wins dramatic victory
This is the update from the Toronto KI Support Committee, March 27, 2012. Read KI Nation's own response to the GLR's buy-out, click here.
On March 29, Ontario announced that it would buy out God's Lake Resources Inc. claims to KI territory for $3.5 million dollars.
A huge part of KI Homeland, over 23,000square kilometers, or over 2% of the total area of ‘Ontario’ is off-limits to mining until KI decides otherwise.
This historic victory is a result of KI Nation asserting sovereignty over its land, refusing to compromise or negotiate for anything less. In a time of austerity, back to work legislation, where too many communities feel like no victory is possible, KI is a beacon of inspiration.
OCAP statement on 2012 Ontario Budget
Ontario Budget Declares War on Poor and Working People:
Liberals cut Community Start-Up allowance, drive down welfare/ODSP rates, impose wage freeze...
The 2012 Ontario Budget, delivered by the Liberal Government, but designed by Bay Street, goes under the title 'Strong Action for Ontario'. In reality, however, it is a blueprint for action to impose the burden of the crisis on everyone but the rich. Public Services will be under attack as the Government works to reduce spending by some $17.7 billion over the next three years. The workers who deliver those services will face a wage freeze and an unprecedented attack on their pensions.
As already announced by Dalton McGuinty, this Budget includes measures that will deepen the crisis of poverty in Ontario. A planned $100 increase in the Ontario Child Benefit will be put off until July of 2013 and social assistance rates will be 'frozen', which in real terms means a cut in income once again. People on Ontario Works are living on incomes that are a devastating 60% lower than they were in 1995 and over 20% lower than when the Harris Tories left office. Now, that wretched sub poverty income will continue to be driven down further by the 'poverty reduction' Liberals as the cost of food and other necessities increases significantly.
Conservatives using No One Is Illegal to distract from anti-immigrant record, Refugee Exclusion Act (Bill C-31)
Canada, Turtle Island - Immigrant and refugee rights groups from Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver were brought up in Parliament yesterday [1] and targetted in a press release by Minister of Deportation Jason Kenney [2]. The Tories have charged that No One Is Illegal is "not simply another noisy activist group but hard-line anti-Canadian extremists".
However as Sozan Savehilaghi from No One Is Illegal - Vancouver Coast Salish Territories notes, "It seems as if everyone who is a dissident and stands up for equality and social and environmental justice is an extremist in Harper's corporate Canada", referring to Tory government recently targeting Indigenous communities and environmentalists against Enbridge pipeline also as "extremist"‘.
#MAY1TO: May Day of Action
#MAY1TO: May Day of Action to Axe the Refugee Exclusion Act!
May 1, 2012, 4pm, International Workers Day
March starts at Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto City Hall
please share www.bit.ly/May1TO and http://on.fb.me/MAY1TO!
PLANS FOR MAY DAY 2012.
Occupy Toronto: Chess Game
12pm, more details to be announced
Occupy Gardens: Garden Party Potluck
2pm, Queens Park
http://www.facebook.com/events/176239905831606/
#May1TO: Rally & March
4pm, City Hall
Details follow
Cultural Celebration
7pm, Alexandra Park
Details follow
24 hour re-occupation: "Occupy the Heart of the Beast"
9pm, departs from Alexandra Park
http://www.facebook.com/events/440329979314259/
May 5, 2012, 8pm, The Rivoli
Party! Alien-Nation
http://toronto.nooneisillegal.org/node/691
Please note that only the 4pm and 7pm actions on May 1 and the party on May 5th are being coordinated by No One Is Illegal - Toronto along with many allies. Others are posted here in solidarity, and plans may radically change in the next week. Please check the links directly for updates.
Canada is shutting out Refugees and Families! On May Day 2012 march for Status for All!
For the last six years, No One Is Illegal - Toronto has coordinated a May Day of Action to celebrate and invigorate migrant justice struggles. This year dozens of groups across the City are collaborating in a show of solidarity and strength to mark the May Day of Action. On May 1st, 2012 No One Is Illegal - Toronto will take the streets to push back against the refugee exclusion act (Bill C-31), ensure family reunification in the face of cuts to permanent immigration for parents and grandparents, and support decolonization struggles on Turtle Island. JOIN US!
Stop the Secrecy! Pack the Courts!
Mohammad Mahjoub, a Torontonian, detained without charge for over 11 years, is going to court to seek to have proceedings against him quashed on April 23 - 25, and the proceedings are open to the public. Sign up for a morning or afternoon shift by clicking here: http://www.doodle.com/244bzmq2x9m6asdt (Federal Court, 180 Queen Street, 6th floor, Toronto).
In the summer of 2011, government officials entered Mr. Mahjoub's lawyers' room in the Federal Court, seized boxes of documents, viewed and read the materials and then mixed them up (commingled) with their own government documents. This represents a serious breach of attorney-client privilege, an essential part of a fair trial.
This latest, entirely illegal and unprecedented access to confidential defense documents by government officials representing the Department of Justice, proves yet again that no legal, fair or just processes are being followed in security certificate detentions and hearings.
OCAP Needs Your Support!
OCAP members and supporters,
Over the years there have been times when OCAP has faced serious financial shortages, and we've squeaked through with the help of our supporters. At present we are faced with another such crisis. The situation is such that we have not been able to pay our organizers as of yet this month and on top of this, the rent is coming due soon.
This ongoing problem is the result of not having a regular monthly revenue coming in. What we really, really need is to have our monthly sustainer base increased. We would urge you, if you are able, to become a monthly sustainer of any denomination, $5, $ 10, $25, $50, anything you can afford- and please ask others as well! To do this, we just need a void cheque indicating the amount you would like deducted each month. In this way, we hope to avoid this kind of emergency situation in the future. Far better that we should be able to focus on fighting (along with all of you) the brutal austerity measures that we're all facing from every level of government, as we hope you'll agree.
In the meantime - our needs are extremely urgent. If you are able, please send us a donation now, and if you have any contacts that might be able to help out please ask them to do so also! Thank you in advance for your support!
We visited 7 MP Offices. Will you call one?
No One Is Illegal - Toronto Blitzes MP offices demanding that the Refugee Exclusion Act be axed
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9jkHC5l1gQ
Members of No One Is Illegal Toronto and allies in St. Catharines hand delivered letters to seven of the twelve members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration (CIMM) today in a coordinated blitz demanding that the Refugee Exclusion Act (Bill C-31) be thrown in to the dustbin of history.
