rabble radio

Why are so many people saying that we can deal with climate change, or we can put all of our efforts into stopping COVID-19, but we can't do both at the same time? Today's show is about a report that says we can, and  must , look at this in a holistic way. Farmers for Climate Solutions is putting forward proposals that link recovery from COVID-19 with solutions to mitigate the effects of climate c...

This year's Pride celebrations all over the country are very different from years past because of COVID-19. It's taking a lot of creativity, amidst a whole bunch of disappointment to create celebrations which can't include getting together in person. A lot of festivals are going online.  Pride Hamilton  just had its online festival online this past Sunday, June 14. This year's festival would have...

In the ongoing coverage of the COVID-19 crisis, there are many places that we don't hear a lot about. One of the places is Africa. On today's rabble radio, we're playing two interviews from rabble contributors who have reached out to their colleagues and contacts in Africa -- one in Mozambique, another in Tanzania. In some ways, the challenges people face there aren't a lot different from here. Bu...

Liz Marshall's new film  Meat the Futur e  focuses on a new way of producing meat -- one where the animal doesn't have to be killed. Instead, cells are taken from a living animal and meat is produced from those cells. The possibility presents a brave new world of animal agriculture, a world where we can still eat meat without participating in the harm and suffering that is rampant in the current i...

The seeds we buy to plant our gardens are an exercise of hope in a tiny package. After all, how do we know that those little bitty things are ever going to amount to anything? For farmers, the annual spring seed shipment can bring with it a whole mixture of emotions as they wondered what those bags would bring. What kind of weather conditions will exist this year? Will it be a full harvest, or wou...

Being an activist brings an emotional burden. The issues we deal with are intense, difficult and sometimes without any immediate solution. And often, we try to deal with these issues through logically planning a strategy and communicating issues using words. It's an intellectual process, but with a lot of underlying emotional baggage. Elisa Lee has some thoughts about how to get under the intellec...

Last year, when  rabble.ca  staff had one of our rare in-person staff retreats, we were talking about the climate crisis and how difficult it was to get around the fear that we all felt. So we decided to make it an editorial focus. That was back in August. At the time we came up with the idea, we had no way of knowing that our fear would be even greater because of the COVID-19 pandemic. So, when w...

Are you one of those people who would like to try vegan cooking but you just dont know how to get started? On today's rabble radio, we'll help you out, as our contribution to  rabble.ca 's  vegan challenge . The vegan challenge is a good way for "veg-curious" people to try a vegan diet for a short time in a fun environment along with other rabble staff and readers. It's a way to encourage each oth...

Covering a country like Canada while COVID-19 is wreaking havoc is a difficult thing to do. Canada is so large with lots of regional differences. And nowhere in the country is the difference so stark as it is between Canada's North and the rest of the country. Today we have two interviews from two different parts of the north --  one from  Cumberland House  in northern Saskatchewan, and another fr...

There are thousands of people in Canada involved in international humanitarian work. According to CARE Canada in a 2011 study, there were 14,000 full-time and 32,000 part-time workers working in international development in our country. And there are also thousands of volunteers who go oversees to provide health-care relief, build schools, help out in community radio stations, and assist in enviro...

Gaza is only 365 square kilometres and home to almost two million Palestinians. It's been under a comprehensive Israeli land and sea blockade for 13 years. Israeli military assaults in 2008-2009, 2012 and 2014 have laid waste to much of its infrastructure. Poor sanitation, lack of clean water, poverty, unemployment and an acute shortage of hospital beds and equipment are a perfect storm for diseas...

Lois Ross , our agriculture columnist at  rabble.ca  has been a frequent visitor to Cuba. This year's trip was a little different and somewhat unnerving as she watched the COVID-19 pandemic cross the ocean and start to affect North America. She got home over a month ago, and the situation she was seeing was worrying, though not like it is today. She's home, she's safe ... with some thoughts about...

Those of us who are gig workers and small business owners were relieved to hear the announcement yesterday that there will be some support for people like us in this time of COVID-19. But, we're not out of the woods yet. We don't know how it's all going to work. And if it works like employment insurance does, 55 per cent of already marginal incomes isn't much money. On today's rabble radio, Victor...

People who haven't been to university in a very long time might think of a student union as a club on campus. The reality is that most student unions in Canadian universities are sizeable employers. The student unions at larger universities employ a few hundred people, and not just students. Full-time people rely on their jobs with the students union to pay their mortgates and feed their families....

Podcasters Itisha Giri and Bhrikuti Rai are fed up with the male-dominated discourse in Nepali media and are determined to change it. The hosts of Boju Bajai are using their platform to speak to women, for women and about women in a space where many voices are left behind. Giri, a writer, and Rai, a journalist, met in 2016 at an audition for  The Vagina Monologues  in Kathmandu. They bonded over h...

Increasing diversity in the newsrooms of the nation is a topic which has been talked about and strategized around for several decades. But has all that talk resulted in action which has increased the number of people of colour and Black journalists in Canada's news media? Our two guests on rabble radio today say there is still a long way to go. Anita Li of  Canadian Journalists of Colour ; and Nad...

Video gaming is a pastime which keeps growing and growing with no signs that it's ever going to stop. According to the Entertainment Software Association of Canada in a  2018 report , 23 million people in Canada play video games. They say that makes Canada one of the biggest per capita populations of gamers in the world. They also have another surprising figure -- half of those gamers are women. F...

Too often, the issue of climate change is believed to be an either/or situation, as in, we can have a healthy environment, or we can have economic growth. Farmers tend to be a fairly cautious bunch of people who are slow to change when they perceive that what they're doing is working fine. There isn't widespread agreement that change is necessary. Or when there is agreement, what to be done about...

The long awaited overhaul of Canada's broadcast and telecommunications acts came another step closer to realization last week with the release of the report " Canada's Communications Future: Time to Act ." The report was commissioned in June 2018 by the Trudeau government because the current acts are outdated, especially because of all the changes that have happened because of the internet. The re...

We're hearing a lot about the benefits of 5G wireless networks , the next generation of broadband which will give us faster speeds on our wireless devices, but the downside of the technology isn't getting near as much press. Among its benefits: it will make self-driving cars possible, enable robotics in factories which are managed from remote servers, and improve the delivery of remote medical car...

Finding care for a loved one with a serious ongoing medical condition is heartwrenching for families. When long-term care or homecare is needed, it's also frustrating and confusing. There are few options, and the standards of care can vary significantly from one provider to another. And most of the time, there are few choices. Though the provinces are supposed to fund this kind of medical care, it...

Many people were frustrated and angry when the federal Liberals broke their 2015 campaign promise that electoral reform would happen before the next election.  Dave Meslin , community activist and organizer from Toronto, decided that it was only a setback. He's continued doing his research and organizing people to fight for proportional representation. On December 1, he launched a  Kickstarter cam...

Anybody with a family who has to rent will tell you that a lot of landlords don't like to rent to families. This is especially true if the head of the family is a teenager with very small children. Today's guest is  Melissa Tremblay , a University of Alberta assistant professor in educational psychology. She has received a Mitacs Award for Outstanding Innovation in the Indigenous category, present...

COP 25 , this year's United Nations Climate Change Conference, was scheduled in Madrid from December 2-13. It went into overtime and didn't end until two days later on December 15. Simon Chambers, today's rabble radio guest, was at COP 25 in his capacity as communications director for the ACT Alliance. The  ACT Alliance  is a global organization of more than 145 churches and related organizations...

Now that the holiday season is upon us, you're maybe thinking about what kind of gifts to give that doesn't add to the amount to the stacks of stuff that so many people already have too much of. Here's a gift idea — you can give a piece of land to the people of your community. Or, if you don't have land to give, you can make a financial gift to your local land trust, if you have one. Or you can vo...