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Happy summer, everybody, now that it's here. It's been a long time coming in some parts of the country. It's an unusual summer, weatherwise, and it's also a different pace from summers gone by because we're in the leadup to the fall election. We'll be doing a lot of advance election coverage on rabble, including in our podcasts. But for today, we thought we'd do something a bit lighter related to summer reading and summer travel. 1) A couple of months ago, our podcast exec producer Victoria Fenner was in her local Chapters Indigo bookstore where she met Yahaya Baruwa. He is a young Toronto author who was promoting his first two books. She was impressed not just with the story, but also with his determination to get his books published. Being carried in a big bookstore is an accomplishment in itself. Baruwa has accomplished a lot in his young life and radiates this "get it done" kind of attitude which really drew her in. For example, he sold over 2,000 copies of his first book by going door to door in his neighbourhood in Scarborough. Yahaya Baruwa's first book is called Struggles of a Dreamer – The Battle between a Dream and Tradition. It's fiction, but largely based on his experiences as a young man who was born in Nigeria and grew up in Canada. He emigrated with his family at the age of 12 and writes about the difficult balance to respect and honour one's traditional culture and also adapt to life here in this country. Two of his books are published already, with a third coming out next month. 2.) If you're a writer or journalist, gathering stories while travelling is something we do. David Kattenburg is a freelance journalist and publisher of the website greenplanetmonitor.net. He is also a contributor to rabble radio. One of the places Kattenburg goes most frequently is Palestine. He is a fierce advocate for the end of the illegal occupation of Palestine by Israel. Over the years he has developed many friendships and journalistic sources. Victoria Fenner caught up with him via Skype from his hotel room in Beirut this week. He shared some of this year's experiences, some of which were a bit hair-raising. He talks about the significant events from this year's travels and shares some useful travel tips about travelling as a freelance journalist in places where foreign journalists aren't always welcome. You can read and listen to David Kattenburg's dispatches from the Middle East by going to The Green Planet Monitor. There are audio interviews, blog posts and stunning photography from this trip and others which he has done over the years. Image: Yahaya Baruwa. Photo: Victoria Fenner Music Sting – Drum and Bass High Hat Conga loop – RutgerMuller – freesound.org

In May and June, over a hundred groups across the country came together for town hall meetings to discuss climate change and what a Green New Deal for Canada could look like. And the energy continues – there are still a few town halls happening in the month of July. This week, a report was posted online summarizing what some of those findings were, and what communities were saying about how the Green New Deal could be applied in their cities, towns, villages and townships. The Green New Deal town halls were organized by a coalition which included the Council of Canadians, Leadnow, GreenPeace Canada, The Leap and 350.org. According to the report released this week over 7,000 people took part in 150 town halls. On today's show: 1) rabble radio executive producer Victoria Fenner went to one of these town halls in Barrie, Ontario, just north of Toronto. What she discovered was a discussion that was wide ranging, going way beyond what is usually considered to be environmental issues. In a series of questions prepared by the national organizers, participants were invited to look at issues relating to environment and sustainability in the broadest terms possible. The solutions people came up with had to do with environment, economy, transportation, health and every facet of life which is or will be affected by climate change. 2) She also talked to Tim Ellis, one of the national organizers of the Green New Deal town hall project to find out what the next steps are. He works with Leadnow. 3) Also on today's show – Johnny Got His Gun is a musical response to school shootings in the United States, performed and composed by Emilie Feldberg, also known as E.L.F. She contacted rabble radio with her song, which is on today's show, along with an interview with E.L.F. about why she wrote the song. Her songs are strongly inspired by her political views, the impact of her environment on her, and the regular life of a seventeen-year-old today. She has studied music for most of her life, receiving training in classical studies as well as performing indie music. Emilie has taught both piano and voice and plays multiple musical instruments. She completed the royal conservatory of music grades in voice and uses her knowledge of vocal technique and classical styles to inspire her songs. She first became inspired by activism through feminism at a young age and has attended protests throughout her city. Since then, her music reflects what she sees in the world around her. Image: Victoria Fenner Music: Johnny Got His Gun. Used with permission of E.L.F. (Emilie Feldberg)

Next Tuesday, June 25 marks the 100th anniversary of the end of the Winnipeg General Strike. Today's program features a panel discussion about the impact of the strike a century later. It was done by the Global Research News Hour, hosted and produced by Michael Welch in the same city where the Winnipeg General Strike happened. Global Research News Hour is produced and broadcast at CKUW, the campus/community radio station at University of Winnipeg. The strike started on May 15, 1919 and lasted for six weeks. Over 30,000 workers walked off the job and shut down factories, shops and city services, and had a lasting impact on the labour movement and workers rights in general. Today's guests are talking about that legacy: Julie Guard is Professor of Labour Studies and History at the University of Manitoba. She has authored numerous academic articles and chapters in books. Her research focuses on Canadian labour history, social movement history, history of dissent and repression, history of the Canadian left, women's history, consumer and food history She is the author most recently of the 2019 book Radical Housewives: Price Wars and Food Politics in Mid 20th Century Canada. Harold Dyck is a long time anti-poverty and welfare advocate based in Winnipeg. He has played prominent roles with a number of Winnipeg-based anti-poverty organizations including the Manitoba Committee for Economic Justice, the National Anti poverty Organization and the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg. He is also the long-time director of the Low Income Intermediary Project which conducts advocacy work for people on social assistance. John Clarke is a long time organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, a grassroots antipoverty organization based mostly in Toronto that combines collective struggles on behalf of individuals fighting for tenant rights, welfare access, and those threatened with eviction and deportation, with larger political campaigns geared toward policy changes in support of the most marginalized in our society. Image: Wikimedia – RNWMP operations in Winnipeg General Strike, 1919

This spring marks a grim anniversary. It's the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide which happened from April 7 to July 15 in 1994. Today's guest on rabble radio wants us to remember how genocides happen in the hopes that this knowledge will prevent similar tragedies from happening in the future. Heidi Berger believes that genocide education needs to be taught in Canadian classrooms. To address this need, she started an organization called The Foundation for Genocide Education. The foundation is made up of representatives from the Jewish, Rwandan, Armenian and First Nations communities. They are working with the Quebec Education Ministry to create a first-of-its-kind comprehensive, universal guide to enable high school teachers to better incorporate genocide education into their curriculum. Supported by educational videos and teacher training workshops organized by the Quebec government, the project will be piloted in schools across the province beginning in September 2019, and in use in every Quebec high school by 2020. With racism on the rise in Canada and worldwide, and with the knowledge that many high school students are graduating not knowing the meaning of genocide — including the Holocaust — The Foundation for Genocide Education is calling on governments across Canada to educate high school students on the history and consequences of intolerance. The goal is to educate the next generation of leaders on the dangers of intolerance and racism in order to prevent future atrocities. Heidi Berger is founder of The Foundation for Genocide Education. She is also a film producer, Concordia University teacher, and daughter of a Holocaust survivor. She was talking to me about the course that the foundation is developing to teach genocide education in high schools beginning in Quebec in 2020.Help make rabble sustainable. Please consider supporting our work with a monthly donation.

With the federal election just six months away, new candidates are putting their names forward to run. And some familiar names we've seen during many campaigns have assessed their future and decided it's time to move on to the next phase of their lives. Either way, it's a hard decision. Libby Davies knows firsthand what it's like to make that choice. In 2015, she decided to retire from her position as member of Parliament for Vancouver East after six consecutive terms. Her career in politics and her life in activism goes back a long way. She's been a social activist for over 40 years, beginning as a community organizer in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside in 1972. She was elected to Vancouver City Council for 5 consecutive terms, 1982-1993. She became the member of Parliament for Vancouver East for six consecutive terms, 1997-2015, also serving as the NDP House Leader, (2003-2011) and Deputy Leader (2007-2015). Libby has been an outspoken advocate for human rights, housing, peace, and social justice throughout her political life. She has written a new book called Outside In – A Political Memoir where she explores her life as a politician and as a fighter for equality and justice for some of the most vulnerable people in our country. She spoke to rabble podcast executive producer Victoria Fenner about her new book and thoughts about her life in politics. Libby Davies is beginning her book tour next week on May 15 at 7 p.m. at the Centre for Social Innovation at 192 Spadina Avenue. She'll be returning to Vancouver for a book reading and signing on May 22 at SFU's Harbour Centre. She'll also be coming to Winnipeg, Ottawa, Hamilton and Mississauga in the upcoming weeks. You can see the schedule here. Image: Libby Davies Help make rabble sustainable. Please consider supporting our work with a monthly donation. Support rabble.ca today for as little as $1 per month!

We don't usually have a lot of music on rabble podcasts, and we're happy that rabble radio is full of music on this week's show. It's a difficult theme though, related to a painful, personal story of childhood sexual abuse. Which makes it all the more important to do a program about it because a lot of the best songs expose pain and bring an awareness about the things we need to change. Alyssa Wright is a cellist, singer-songwriter and now an actor and playwright. She's based in Barrie, Ontario. Her one woman show Music for the Changing Voice is premiering tonight at Talk is Free Theatre in Barrie. In the show, she delves into the most painful of family histories — her sexual abuse by her father when she was a pre-teen. In the story, though, her father is the secondary character. The main character whom she struggles against is her grandfather, her father's father. It's a story about family reputation and about hiding secrets. Though her grandfather has been gone now for over a decade, she is reminded of him every time she sees the name, The Don Wright Faculty of Music — University of Western Ontario. He was a well known figure whom a lot of people in the music community still remember. In this interview, Alyssa talks to rabble podcast exec producer Victoria Fenner about her musical show and how especially difficult it is to escape from the memory of family members, especially when memorialized as "pillars of the community." The music from Music for the Changing Voice is available on CD. You can find out more about the CD and Alyssa's project by going to The Katie Project. The CD and the website also contains information for survivors of sexual abuse. In the credits for the CD, Alyssa writes "If this story in any way touches upon your own, please know that you are not alone, and there are many resources available to help you navigate through and heal from the aftermath." Music credits: "Katie" and "Sword and Wand" by Alyssa Wright. Used with permission. Musicians: Alyssa Wright, lead vocal and cello; Leslie Arden, piano and vocal harmonies; and Ray Dillard, marimba, percussion and vocal harmonies. Image credit: Peter Stranks. Used with permission. Help make rabble sustainable. Please consider supporting our work with a monthly donation. Support rabble.ca today for as little as $1 per month!

April 18, 2001. That's when it all started. rabble.ca was built on the efforts of progressive journalists, writers, artists and activists across the country and has a unique role of reporting on stories from civil society while providing a counterbalance to corporate-owned media. Back in 2001, online journalism was still in its infancy. In case you can't remember back that far or weren't born yet, here's a description of the internet at the turn of the century by Motherboard magazine – most Americans weren't on the internet (that would be true of Canada as well). Connections were dialup. And slow. Really slow. MySpace was all the rage. Whatever happened to Myspace anyway? A lot of those early internet spaces went the way of MySpace. But rabble.ca is still here. That's pretty amazing. We've had thousands of contributors work with us, along with many staff and interns. Today we're going to hear from the people who put rabble together for you now, in 2019. Happy Age of Majority, rabble.ca! Image: rabble kittens say Happy Birthday. Because everybody clicks on kittens. Help make rabble sustainable. Please consider supporting our work with a monthly donation. Support rabble.ca today for as little as $1 per month!

Unifor is Canada's largest private sector union with over 315,000 members. It's also a very young union. Just five years old, Unifor was formed through a merger of two unions — the Canadian Autoworkers Union and the Communication, Energy and Paperworkers Union. Today's guest on rabble radio helped make that merger happen. Fred Wilson played a key organizing and planning role in the New Union Project, which culminated in the creation of Unifor. He was the director of strategic planning for Unifor during its first three years. He's written a book, released this week, which documents the first five years in the life of Unifor. It's called A New Kind of Union: Unifor and the Birth of the Modern Canadian Union, published by James Lorimer and Company. The official publicity for the book on the James Lorimer website says "Unifor has been a source of optimism and inspiration that unions can adapt to changing times and be a relevant voice for workers in twenty-first century workplaces, and in politics. But to do that, Unifor had to be a new kind of union that would act differently." And act differently, it has. It has also developed a reputation as an outlier, taking some controversial positions and actions which have raised the ire of others in the Canadian union movement, most notably, its disaffiliation with the Canadian Labour Congress in 2018. And in the book, Fred doesn't shy away from discussing these controversies and the events which led up to the split, as well as other ways that Unifor is "a new kind of union." Victoria Fenner, rabble's executive producer of podcasts talked to Fred Wilson by skype on Tuesday while he was at the Unifor Family Education Centre on the shores of Lake Huron. To get a fuller picture of the events which preceded and precipitated the split from the Canadian Labour Congress, there are some articles on rabble you can read, including a blog post by John Cartwright, president of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council called An Open Letter to Our Movement, dated January 30, 2018. David Climenhaga also wrote Canadian Labour Movement Abuzz in Wake of Unifor Decision to Quit the Canadian Labour Congress. You can also check out an article in Briar Patch by Larry Savage, chair and professor in the department of labour studies at Brock University called Making Sense of the Unifor CLC Split, dated January 18, 2018. There are also many other articles all expressing different opinions and perspectives on the CLC split which you can read online. We mention this because it was a signature event which rocked the union movement and to which there are many opinions and interpretations to explore further. Image: from A New Kind of Union. Photo provided by James Lorimer and Company. Help make rabble sustainable. Please consider supporting our work with a monthly donation. Support rabble.ca today for as little as $1 per month!

A bill to ban the importation and exportation of shark fins received its second reading in the House last month. Bill S-238 was sponsored by Finn Donnelly, Member of Parliament for Port Moody-Conquitlam in BC. It was passed by the Senate last fall and is up against the clock to be passed before this session of Parliament is over and electioneering begins. Today's rabble radio interview is with two people who have been the driving force behind this bill, making it their personal mission to end shark finning. It's a hopeful yet also a very sad story. Brian Stewart and Sandra Campbell are continuing the life mission of their son, Rob Stewart, conservationist, activist and film maker. He completed two films which you've probably heard about – Sharkwater (2006) and Revolution (2012) . These films which busted a lot of myths about sharks which have been promoted by films like Jaws and other pop culture scare stories. He was working on his third film, Sharkwater Revolution, in Florida when he drowned during a dive on January 31, 2017. Brian and Sandra reflect upon their son's legacy and their efforts to continue what Rob started. You can read more about Rob Stewart, his work and his films here, as well as a listing of where you can see the three films. You can also hear an interview on rabble.ca with Rob about his second film Revolution, dated August 23, 2013 on the Alternatives Podcast. Image: Brian Stewart and Sandra Campbell. Used with permission. Help make rabble sustainable. Please consider supporting our work with a monthly donation. Support rabble.ca today for as little as $1 per month!

The political situation in Venezuela is a subject of extremely polarized debate which will likely continue for many months, if not years. The legitimacy of President Maduro is still in dispute, people are starving and leaving the country. It's a country in crisis, that much can be agreed upon. But it can be hard to find the middle ground between the different points of view regarding the reasons for the crisis. Today's interview guest walks that middle line well. Yes, there is a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. Few people would say that's not true. But the reasons for it are not being told in the media, except in the progressive press. Dimitri Lascaris is a lawyer, journalist and activist best known for his support of justice for Palestine. In July 2016, he retired from the full time practice of law in order to devote more time to activism and journalism. Among other things, he is now a correspondent and board member of The Real News Network. He went on a fact-finding mission to Caracas for The Real News from February 1-8, 2019 to talk to to both the supporters and the critics of Nicolas Maduro. This interview is by Dave Kattenburg of The Green Blues Show, a music and social justice podcast produced in Winnipeg by The Green Planet Monitor. Disclosure – One of Dimitri Lascaris current cases is a lawsuit against the Liquor Control Board of Ontario over the sale of two wines produced in Israel's illegal settlements. Those wines are sold in Canada bearing labels which, the plaintiffs say, falsely proclaim them to be "Product of Israel". David Kattenburg is the man who has filed the lawsuit against the LCBO. He is also a close friend of Lascaris but they don't work together on cases related to Venezuela. Image: Dimitri Lascaris in Caracas. Used with permission of Dimitri Lascaris Help make rabble sustainable. Please consider supporting our work with a monthly donation. Support rabble.ca today for as little as $1 per month!