Laurel Thompson is a retired teacher based in Montreal and an environmental activist with a particular interest in sustainable transportation. She is also a member of the group Trainsparence. Scott Neigh interviews her about the REM, a major new addition to Montreal’s transit system, and the group’s opposition to it. The transit system in Montreal …
Brandon Doucet is a dentist in Nova Scotia and a founding member of the Coalition for Dentalcare, an organization that brings together dentists, hygienists, dental students, other health care professionals, and members of the public to advocate for universal dental care in Canada. Scott Neigh interviews him about how dental care currently works in this …
Thank-you to Robert Janes of Museums for Climate Justice for the interview just now. We talked about the organization’s work to get museums in Canada to take up their responsibilities when it comes to responding to the climate crisis. Listen for it on Talking Radical Radio in a few weeks!
Science fiction. Near future. A company develops technology that, when implanted in the brain, allows human beings to have much greater ability to focus on multiple things at once and to for-real multitask. This makes those with the implants considerably more productive and therefore more valued in the capitalist economy and its associated institutions (e.g. …
Vicky Levack 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 …
Historical scholarship. A sweeping history of the long sixteenth century, from the first voyage of Columbus in 1492 to the establishment of the first permanent English-speaking settlement in North America in 1607. Though it was really in the seventeenth century that it became clear that all of these interlinked phenomena would become the defining features …
Thank-you to Tonye and Chantelle of the Defund 604 Network for the great interview just now about abolitionist organizing in Vancouver. Listen for it on Talking Radical Radio in a few weeks!
Luisa Da Silva is a geoscientist who has worked in the fossil fuel industry in Alberta and in mining. She is currently the executive director of an organization called Iron and Earth, which according to their website is “a worker-led not-for-profit with a mission to empower fossil fuel industry and Indigenous workers to build and …
Historical fiction. About slavery and Scotland. Built around the actual historical case that led in 1777 to the establishment of the principle that Scots law did not uphold slavery, at least domestically. Joseph Knight is the enslaved man at the centre of this case, originally kidnapped from west Africa and brought to Jamaica, and then …
Perhaps the most famous essay by one of the twentieth century’s great essayists. About racism and the US of A, but also Baldwin’s early life and faith and pain and rage and change and freedom. Raw and lyrical. A classic for a reason. And a compelling mix of of-its-time – it was written in the …