Needs No Introduction

The City of Vancouver, B.C. is having a food revolution . For the past three years urban farms and gardens have expanded across the city to strengthen local food production. Michael Abelman  is a long time farmer and food activist and one of the founders of  Sole Food  street farms. Sole Food is doing something a little different from other urban farming ventures. Not only do they have a network o...

The United States is on its way to a revolution, according to Chris Hedges. The Pulitzer prize-winning reporter has written and reported around the globe. For his latest project, he traveled to some of America's most economically depressed areas with co-author Joe Sacco, then wrote about what he found. The book is called  Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt . The author, educator, journalist and a...

This episode features a panel discussion which looks at undercover issues in the B.C. election and what our province's independent media outlets can offer to counter the more limited coverage in the mainstream media. The panel  was presented as part of the  CounterCulture Speaker Series  run by the Media Democracy Project, the SFU School of Communication, and the SFU Institute for the Humanities a...

This talk, by Richard Wilkinson, was recorded at at a three-day conference on  Labour Rights and Their Impact on Democracy, Economic Equality and Social Justice , which was held in Toronto from March 26 -28, 2013. Wilkinson is one of the world's most respected researchers on social inequalities, and is the author of  Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone . His keynote talk brings in ex...

rabble.ca  editor Derrick O'Keefe and Jahanzeb Hussain of  W2 Media Mornings  interview journalist Robert Fisk about Stephen Harper's foreign policy, the Arab Spring, and the wars in Syria, Mali and Afghanistan. Fisk is currently completing a cross-Canada speaking tour organized by  Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) .

Barack Obama recently declared January National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. Recognized as a modern day version of slavery, human trafficking is an issue that impacts the most poor and vulnerable globally. For women, trafficking most often means prostitution. On January 14,   Lila Shahani , of the National Anti-Poverty Commission and the Human Development & Poverty Reduction Cab...

On this episode of Needs No Introduction, Derrick O'Keefe interviews activist and author, Judy Rebick and Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs about #IdleNoMore, which began as a series of actions back in October in response to  Bill C 45 . The grassroots movement has since swept the nation, as First Nations peoples and allies rally against the Harper government's lack of a...

Jeff Perera is a community and youth engagement manager for the White Ribbon Campaign. The campaign is the world's largest effort to engage men and boys in working towards a new vision of masculinity and ending gender-based violence. He has delivered talks from Vancouver to Taiwan and has started the site  Higher Unlearning  for men and young men to explore how gender impacts everyday life. At the...

Deb Singh is an activist feminist warrior and a settler on Turtle Island. She uses the tools of anti-oppression to transform hate into a tool for learning and healing. Sing is a survivor and an activist, counsellor with the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre: Multicultural Women Against Rape. She spoke at Speak UP! an event in memory of the Montreal Massacre at the Centre for Social Innovation about how l...

Mike Layton is the Toronto City counsellor for Ward 19, Downtown Toronto. Before being elected in 2010 to serve as one of the Toronto's youngest counsellors he worked for political change from the other side of the table, as an environmental leader and community organizer. As the deputy out reach director for Environmental Defense he championed a number of successful initiatives including the gree...

Steph Guthrie is a communications professional and community organizer based in Toronto. She is the founder and executive director of  Women in Toronto Politics  where she coordinates events to promote discussion in Toronto politics on and off council floor. This past summer she led a spontaneous effort to hold the maker of a misogynistic game against feminist pop culture critic Anita Sar-kee-si-a...

Tony Loeffen speaks with rabble contributor, Murray Dobbin about  an article he wrote  calling for Canada to nationalize the oil industry. This interview originally aired on a show called  Election Fallout on Opposition Radio .

From October 26-29 1000 youth from across the country participated in a historic climate justice conference in Ottawa. Powershift worked to train a generation of climate justice activists to usher in a clean energy revolution. Clayton Thomas-Muller is an indigenous and environmental justice activist. He has been organizing grassroots efforts for the last ten years and currently works with the Indi...

From October 26-29 1000 youth from across the country participated in a historic climate justice conference in Ottawa. Powershift worked to train a generation of climate justice activists to usher in a clean energy revolution.    Keira-Dawn Kolson is a Tso'Tine-Gwich'in youth from the North West Territories.  She is a multi-discplinary artist and motivational speaker, singer-songwriter, leader, dr...

From October 26 to 29, 1000 youth from across the country participated in a historic climate and economic justice conference in Ottawa. Powershift aimed to train a generation of climate justice activists to usher in a clean energy revolution. Joshua Kahn Russell is an organizer working to bridge climate justice and racial justice. He is a non-violent direct action trainer with the Rukus Society an...

From October 26 to 29, 1000 youth from across the country participated in a historic climate and economic justice conference in Ottawa. Powershift aimed to train a generation of climate justice activists to usher in a clean energy revolution. Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois is a prominent Quebec student activist and former spokesperson of CLASSE, a coalition of student associations against the tuition fee h...

Melina Laboucan-Massimo spoke at the Powershift kick-off about how climate change and the tar sands have affected her First Nation's community and their traditions. 

Sheila North Wilson is a former CBC journalist and indigenous advocate working with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. She spoke about her own experiences with violence at the Women's Forum in Ottawa on October 18.

A year-long study into hate-based attacks against Muslims shows that incidents of violence are on the rise. In this podcast, Dr. Barbara Perry tells interviewer Amira Elghawaby about her study and what it found.

'Human Rights Fatigue.' It's the feeling that people are weary of hearing stories of victimization in the media. Monia Mazigh knows all about it. The Canadian academic and politician's husband Maher Arar was held without charge and tortured for almost a year by the government of Syria. The whole time, Mazigh fought to have his story heard, and get him home to Canada. In this lecture, she discusses...

Chris Hedges says America is experiencing a coup d'etat in slow motion. The American liberal class has allowed an unregulated, unfettered capitalism to create an empire of consumption. At the same time, the anonymity of the corporate state has corrupted the very fabric of social institutions. With American investigative journalism all but dead and legislation in place severely curbing civil libert...

  Janine Brodie knows we live in a world unsettled by multiple and overlapping crises of the political, economic, social and environmental. But this pervasive uncertainty has not dampened popular demands for social justice and equity. In fact, they have intensified. However, according to Brodie, the assault on social knowledge has obscured the traditional role academia plays in "speaking truth to...

What is wrong with civilization, and how can we fix it? It's no small question, but Don Tapscott has a few theories. He says, that unless organizations like Wall Street change to meet the digital age, they are doomed to repeat the failures that led to the collapse of global capitalism in 2008. In this lecture, he explains how the first generation to have "grown up digital" are, potentially, a solu...

According to Governor General David Johnston, it's the best time in history to be a scholar, as knowledge becomes ever more accessible to world citizens. But providing access to knowledge is still a challenge, and that's something he wants Canadian academics to change. On the opening day of Canada's largest annual gathering of scholars, the 2012 Congress of the Humanities, he laid out a five-part...

Three-time Juno Award nominee and Métis musician Jani Lauzon believes in the power of story. In this podcast, she gives a talk on storytelling and embodied knowledge at the Democratic Dialogue Via The Arts Symposium held at the University of Ottawa. In the process, she shares tidbits of wisdom from her past mentors and winds up telling a story of her own.