Needs No Introduction

Chief Derek Nepinak was one of the youngest people to be elected Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. He is quickly becoming one of the strongest voices in the struggle for Aboriginal rights in Canada. Born in Winnipeg, Chief Derek Nepinak, spent his first few years living in the home of his grandparents on the Pine Creek First Nation where he was able to live and observe the ways of hi...

rabble readers and listeners and anyone who follows and supports progressive politics in Canada know the work and writing of Linda McQuaig.  A journalist and best-selling author, McQuaig has developed a reputation for challenging the establishment. As a reporter for  The Globe and Mail , she won a National Newspaper Award in 1989 for a series of articles which sparked a public inquiry into the act...

Naomi Klein  is an award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist and author and one of the most influential voices on our political and cultural environment, nationally and globally.   Her new book,  This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate  is due to be released this month.   She spoke to the gathering at  the Peoples' Social Forum  on August 21, 2014 in Ottawa.

rabble.ca   and the B.C. office of the  Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives  co-hosted a standing-room only event at the Round House in Vancouver on August 12, 2014 to talk about some important questions as we approach the federal election in 2015. It was called Living Consciously: Reinventing Democracy to Save Canada.  The evening's discussion focused on the issue of "agency": if our traditio...

With a federal election only a year way, we are facing crises in democracy, inequality, climate change, and peak oil. However, our collective institutions are at their weakest points just as we need to them to at their strongest and most imaginative. Our democracy, including political parties, is increasingly unable to deliver what it once promised let alone what we want. Universities are increasi...

On July 29, 2014, a group of people from Grassy Narrows spoke at a public forum about the current conditions on their reserve. Several generations have now been affected as a result of the mercury which settled at the bottom of the river in the 1960s and '70s. And now, Grassy Narrows is also faced with a threat by the Ontario government to clear-cut on their territory. The people of Grassy Narrows...

Several high-profile rapes in India have made headlines around the world and have drawn attention to the need for change in laws and attitudes on the subcontinent.   Much of the call for change is coming from Indian women themselves. Poonam Kathuria is an Indian woman who has been working for change from her home base in Gujarat, India. She is the founder and director of  SWATI -  the Society for...

Please help  rabble.ca  stop Harper's election fraud plan.  Become a monthly supporter .   Here at rabble, we had a very busy month of June. Not only was it (and still is) our donor drive, we've been having launch parties all over the country for our new book  The Best of rabble 2014 - The Year of Living Consciously , edited by Meagan Perry and Michael Stewart. June 17 was the Ottawa launch, at th...

Please support our coverage of democratic movements and  become a monthly supporter of  rabble.ca .  rabble.ca  launched a book this month. Called "The Year of Living Consciously," it features some of the best writing which has appeared on  rabble.ca  over the past year. The  Best of rabble.ca 2014 Edition  is an anthology of analysis and commentary on the top issues and social justice movements t...

A continuation of a talk by Dr. Vandana Shiva featured on the last episode of Needs No Introduction. Born in Dehradun India in the foothills of the Himalaya, Shiva got her training at the University of Western Ontario in Canada as a physicist. In 1982, she shifted her focus to inter-disciplinary research in science, technology and environmental policy and moved back to India. Dr. Shiva is the foun...

"We know that the industrial model of farming is destroying the planet," says antiglobalization author, environmentalist and eco feminist Dr. Vandana Shiva in this first of a two-part speech in Winnipeg on March 29, 2014.  Dr. Shiva is well known internationally as an anti-globalization author, environmentalist and ecofeminist. Born in Dehradun, India in the foothills of the Himalayas, she is a wo...

Sponsored by  rabble.ca  and IRIS, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives hosted a vibrant dialogue on taxes during the Canadian Labour Congress Montreal convention. Called "Tax is Not a Four Letter Word," a crowd gathered on the evening of May 8 at the Convention Center to hear the exciting lineup of speakers. The evening was chaired by CCPA President Larry Browne, who introduced the evening...

Jarrah Hodge is a feminist blogger from Vancouver. She started her award-winning blog Gender Focus in 2009 and and tweets about feminism/gender, geekery, politics, and labour issues.  In this edition of Needs No Introduction, she is speaking from the Women's Forum 2013: Fighting the Inequality Agenda, held in Ottawa on October 29, 2013. At this event, 22 feminist activists under 40, from across th...

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz  is a prolific author who connects the personal with the political. Her work has taken her around the world. One of her best known works recounts her experiences in Nicaragua between 1982 and 1991. It's called  Blood on the Border: A Memoir of the Contra war . She spoke with me about the history of liberation movements, her work with the UN Indigenous Rights working group, pip...

Alternative Radio  host David Barsamian has been a voice of dissent heard across the airwaves around the world for over 28 years. Barsamian injects  humour, poetry and outrage while addressing bleak topics like U.S. news propaganda, hypocrisy and climate refugees. He  was at SFU Harbour Centre in Vancouver B.C. on March 28, 2014 for the Counter Culture Speaker Series, David Barsamian: Media, Capit...

Last month  B.C Ferries  announced they would cut ferry services in British Columbia and discontinue the  Discovery Coast  Ferry located on the central coast. The Ferry services three routes along BC's northern coast. The cuts will have major consequences for coastal communities, many are First Nations who live and work in the Great Bear Rainforest. Tourism on B.C's central coast is essential to t...

TBD. 

Ellen Besso  is a life coach counsellor and author who helps women find new direction in their lives. Besso recently published  An Indian Sojourn: One woman's spiritual experience of travel and volunteering  a book detailing her travels with her partner in India and her work as a volunteer with Tibetan refugees in Dharamsala. Besso's volunteer work overseas came home with her. When the government...

A new project in east Vancouver aims to collect and remember one neighbourhood's black history. The project starts with an online map and leads to videos that detail the black history of a number of iconic intersections. It's called  Black Strathcona : One Community, Six Decades, Ten stories. The project was conceived by filmmaker Gordon McLennan over ten years ago and was brought to fruition with...

The year 2014 has been proclaimed the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People by the United Nations. In fall 2013, the  Palestine Awareness Coalition  posted four maps on Vancouver`s TransLink buses and SkyTrain stations entitled Disappearing Palestine. Dr. Hani Faris, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia, President of...

Income-splitting, along with the government's zero dollar spending on child care, and detaxation is an attack on women's equality in Canada.  Kathleen Lahey  made that argument at the inaugural  Women's Forum  in Ottawa, Ontario in 2012. Lahey is a specialist in feminist legal studies, teaching law and sexuality, and taxation and tax policy at Queen's University.

On December 20 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada in an unprecedented ruling, struck down three provisions in Canada's prostitution laws. The Supreme Court of Canada found that bans on street soliciting, brothels and people living off the avails of prostitution create severe dangers for vulnerable women A month after the ruling, a panel of experts gathered at the University of Toronto to talk about...

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...