rabble radio

We're in the home stretch of Election 42. Just a little under three weeks to go. We're not running out of things to talk about yet. Far from it. On today's show — 1. We hear from Amara Possian of LeadNow about their campaign Vote Together. It helps us figure out who we should vote for to get rid of Stephen Harper. Especially in the swing ridings where a Conservative upset is a possibility. 2. And you know how Stephen Harper is always going on about how he's the best manager of the economy? The Conservative government's reliance on austerity and trickle-down economics has led to the most poorly-performing Canadian economy since the Second World War, according to Jim Stanford. He's co-author of the recent report, "Rhetoric and Reality: Evaluating Canada's Economic Record Under the Harper Government." Jim Stanford is an economist with Unifor. He spoke with Redeye host Jane Williams. 3. And finally, remember that Harperman song that everybody was singing a couple of weeks ago? You heard the song .. now … The Movie! When Ottawa civil servant and folk singer Tony Turner created his now wildly popular singalong Harperman, he didn't anticipate getting suspended from his job. Since then, the song has spread. Harperman singalongs happened in over 40 communities across Canada on September 17. And people are still singing it. And now, there's not just a song. There's a documentary in the works — two versions — a short one which is planned for release two days before the election. And a longer, full 90-minute piece which will explore some of the larger themes. Cody Lanktree and his company HamiltonSeen is doing the documentary. He talked to me enroute to a shoot in Ottawa this week. Photo: Sean Connors/flickr

It felt like summer was over when we got word of the election call, didn't it? OK, so now that Stephen Harper has spoiled our summer fun, time to spoil some of his. It works in the favour of Stephen Harper's Conservatives if voters stay home. Today we'll talk about why it's necessary for YOU … to get out and vote. We'll also hear about strategies to get out the vote among people who traditionally don't vote. Item 1: Be the Vote is a new organization that's taking action. It was started by a group of young Canadians passionate about getting youth to vote. They believe that youth must be an active and relevant force if they want politicians to listen to them. Victoria Fenner talks to Grace Kennedy, a student of Social Work at McMaster University in Hamilton. She's the founder and executive director of Be The Vote. Item 2: Getting Out the Student Vote – In July of 2015, the Canadian Federation of Students lost a court challenge and subsequent appeal in an attempt to have the Fair Elections Act ruled unconstitutional. Roman Jakubowski is president of the Lakehead Student Union in Thunder Bay. He spoke to the National Campus Community Radio program and the rabble podcast Groundwire, produced this month by Kootenay Co-op Radio in Nelson, B.C. They talked about how the Lakehead University Students Union will be supporting students' access to voting. Item 3: Voting in prison is a constitutional right. According to CBC News report last week, 54 per cent of federal inmates cast a ballot in the last election. The following is an excerpt of a an interview with Joan Ruzsa, first heard on The Prison Radio Show. The Prison Radio Show is broadcast from CKUT in Montreal. The show seeks to confront the invisibility of prisons and prisoner struggle, by focusing on the roots of incarceration, policing, and criminalization, and by challenging our ideas about what prisons are and the people inside our jails. Joan Ruzsa speaks on behalf of Rittenhouse, an agency dedicated to bringing healing, transformative justice instead of retributive justice in the criminal justice system. She explains the process for voting inside federal prisons. Thanks to the NCRA's program Groundwire for that clip. Item 4: Here at rabble.ca, we've been preparing for the dropping of the writ for many months. One of the highlights of our winter/spring season was an event which we sponsored with Canadian Dimension magazine. George Lakoff is an American cognitive linguist and author of Don't Think of an Elephant. He spoke to a crowd in Toronto about how conservative values have come to dominate public discourse. One of the things he talked about was voters in the middle, the ones who are conservative (small c) in some ways, progressive in other ways. Everybody is courting the centrist vote. Those are the swing voters. They could go any which way. They represent growth for every political party. That's why it's so important for political parties to try to understand them. George Lakoff provides these insights into the mind of the moderate conservative. Chip in to keep stories like these coming.

We're very proud of the fact that a lot of our podcasters at the rabble podcast network have their roots in community radio. A lot of our programs on the rabble podcast network are rebroadcast on community radio. On rabble radio 167, we're going to focus on community radio — both here in Canada and also in a couple other parts of the world. Because there's so much that we share with our comrades on the airwaves… we're doing media our own way, for our listeners and our communities. Not the advertisers. Over the past year, the rabble podcast network has developed our relationship with the National Campus and Community Radio Association and now have their ambitious news program, Groundwire, as part of our podcast network. Barry Rooke is the NCRA's new executive director about new directions in radio and new media. He talked to Victoria Fenner about what campus and community radio is doing to integrate new media into what has been traditionally, one-way communication over a transmitter. Continuing with our community radio theme, Frieda Werden of the Women's International News Gathering Service podcast and radio show prepared this feature this month on community radio in Ghana. And it begins with a community radio song! Women and Community Radio in Oaxaca — Loreto Bravo is a feminist hacker and anthropologist. She currently coordinates Palabra Radio, a collective based in Oaxaca, Mexico that uses community FM radio and other communications technology as tools of struggle. They have a special focus on women's and Indigenous peoples' rights and liberation. In this excerpt, Loreto Bravo spoke about the 2006 uprising in Oaxaca, Mexico which lasted more than seven months. It resulted in the deaths of more than 17 people. She began by talking about what happened the day that women took over the airwaves. Please support our coverage of democratic movements and become a supporter of rabble.ca.

Happy Birthday to us! Has it been 10 years of podcasting at rabble.ca already? Let the celebrations begin! rabble.ca led the pack when it came to podcasting. In 2005, iTunes didn't yet exist. There were no iPhones. It was truly the dark and silent ages. But our visionary crew saw and heard great potential. Today as we begin our celebrations we talk about the original idea behind the podcast network. Victoria Fenner, current rpn executive producer, talks to Meagan Perry, former exec of the rpn and now rabble.ca's editor-in-chief, for some of the highlights. Wayne MacPhail, The Podfather of the rabble podcast network, and director of emerging media for rabble.ca, talks about how it all got started. Charlotte Scott, the first exec producer of the rpn takes us to Podfest in Ontario, California in 2005, where people were marvelling that there were 15,000 podcasts on the Internet. (Apple says there are now 250,000 podcasts in 100 different languages on iTunes) A couple of Meagan's faves. Kevin Neish was detained in Israel for two days after the humanitarian ship Mavi Marmara, part of the Free Gaza Flotilla, was attacked and activists arrested. In this podcast he talks about his release and what activism means. From rabble radio 109. The Queering of Alberta: Darrin Hagen is a ground-breaking drag artist and author of a book about the drag scene in Alberta called "The Edmonton Queen." He is also a longtime producer for the Loud and Queer cabaret and writer of Queering the Way: an anthology from the Loud and Queer Cabaret. rabble.ca's Kaitlin McNabb called Darrin Hagen to talk about the book and some of the myths about queer culture in the place formerly known as Texas of the North. From rabble radio 137. You are invited! Come join the rabble podcast network as a volunteer. We're always looking for new podcast series, as well as people to do single interviews and recordings for our rabble programs rabble radio, rabble book lounge and Needs No Introduction. Email Victoria Fenner, the rabble podcast network's executive producer, at victoria[at]rabble.ca. Help us build the next 10 years of progressive Canadian history in sound! RABBLE IS READER-SUPPORTED JOURNALISM Like this article? Chip in to keep stories like these coming.

Pigs flew, hell froze over and the voters of Alberta elected a majority NDP government. We're coming up to the one-month anniversary of the election that shook up the whole country and struck fear into the hearts of the Harper Conservatives. Now that the initial euphoria is starting to subside, rabble radio invited two of rabble's own Albertans to weigh in on the discussion. Roshini Nair is the rabble podcast network's new intern. She's a student in Vancouver but born and raised in Edmonton. And rabble.ca's editor-in-chief Meagan Perry is also a proud Albertan, though she makes her home in Ontario now. Also featuring interviews with Geo Takach, author of the book Will the Real Alberta Please Stand Up, and Tom Radford, film director, writer and producer of many documentaries about Alberta, including Tar Sands – The Selling of Alberta.

It's getting green out there. Finally. It's been such a long winter. So this is the Get Growing edition. Today we have an assortment of stories related to how we get our food. Losing our grip on the family farm. Most people still believe that the land should be owned by independent local farmers who directly farm the land. But this system has been under serious threat for many decades now. Twenty years ago, the concern was that land was being bought by individual farmers with ever-larger land holdings, huge machinery and hired people to work the land. Now, even the large-scale individual farmer is being squeezed out by corporations and investment groups who are running these farms as agricultural businesses from afar. In 2010, the National Farmers Union authored a report called Losing Our Grip. The report looked at family farms and food sovereignty. The NFU has just revisited and updated the report. Jan Stromp is the president of the National Farmers Union. Jane Williams of Redeye asked him why so called "land grabbing" is harmful for local communities and economies. Community-supported fisheries. For people who want to know where their food is coming from, community-supported agriculture allows consumers to share the risks of food production with their local farmers in return for a share of the benefits, usually in the form of a box of produce that shows up on their doorstep all summer. It's known as Community-Supported Agriculture. Here's a twist on that theme .. what about Community-Supported Fisheries? Rob Johnson is Atlantic Coordinator with Seachoice, a national program that works to foster sustainable fisheries. He spoke to Moira Donovan about creating sustainable fisheries by supporting your local fisher people the same way you support your local farmers. Seed liberation. Modern agrobusiness techniques come with a high cost. In economic terms, farmers have become reliant on expensive seed and fertilizer. Intensive agriculture has also significant contributed to the degradation of land quality. And the change in farming techniques has also changed the way communities work. The Rural Reconstruction Project in the Western Highlands of Honduras are proving that progress which works in harmony with traditional ways is possible. Their partner, World Accord from Waterloo Ontario, has been working with PRR for 25 years. Beginning as a literacy project to teach farmers how to read and write at a Grade 6 level, the farmers are now producing their own varieties of seeds based on those which their ancestors have been growing for hundreds of years. Victoria Fenner, the exec producer of the rabble podcast network and rabble radio co-host, visited Honduras in 2010 and did this documentary with farmers high up a mountainside who are bypassing the multinationals and are farming their own way.

There was a time when we thought we'd have to be ready for a spring federal election. That hasn't happened, which gives us even more time to get information out about the various nefarious ways the Harper government has changed our country. And it gives us time to come up with more reasons why the Harper government needs to go. Today's program is an early spring warm-up for the fall election. We've got lots of reasons to get rid of the Harper government. You might already know what they are, but there are always some new perspectives to share. Especially after the March protests of Bill C-51, the so-called "secret police" bill. Good to see the resistance is strong. We'll play some highligts from the day of protest, March 15, 2015. And an interview by Redeye in Vancouver about what is already being done to spy on us, even though Bill C-51 hasn't even been proclaimed into law yet. Our parliamentary reporter Karl Nerenberg talks about what he's seen in his years as rabble.ca's Parliamentary reporter. And we listen to the sounds of protest .. hey hey ho ho, Stephen Harper has got to go .. hey hey, ho ho …

Halifax has been in the news over the past few months, and it's not been good press. We're talking about the infamous case of the so-called "Dalhousie Gentleman's Club" where misogynistic and sexually violent comments were made by 13 male students in the Faculty of Dentistry on Facebook. The story is no longer front-page news, but there were, and still are, a number of controversial issues that arose from the university's handling of the case. The university's solution was to deal with the issue through restorative justice. Moira Donovan is an an intern with the rabble podcast network. She also wrote a compelling article for rabble.ca exploring the question, what is restorative justice? Today on rabble radio, we're handing the microphone to Moira as she introduces us to some of the answers she's found. Featuring: Fia Jampolsky, a Whitehorse-based lawyer whose work in Legal Aid and Yukon Human Rights Commission has drawn on the principles of restorative justice. El Jones, Halifax's Poet Laureate and a PhD student and faculty member at Dalhousie. She's also a prison rights activist who works with incarcerated individuals in Nova Scotia. She discussed the systemic racism in the justice system and how restorative justice was used at Dalhousie to maintain the privilege of the 13 students involved, when in fact restorative justice, or as she calls it "transformative justice" is an important tool to acknowledge and address the marginalization of communities of colour. Being a dentist, she points out, is not a right, and a career is not more important than the lives and safety of women. Sue Goyette, a Halifax-based poet. She's also being trained as a facilitator to work with young offenders who've opted for the restorative justice process. Sue discussed the role of both of art and restorative justice in allowing people to have their stories heard, the role of listening and empathy in healing, and how art offers an opportunity to mend social wrongs by providing an avenue for people to experience vulnerability. Art, she says, teaches us to be better people, and provides a way to move forward in a direction that we haven't envisaged before. Read Moira Donovan's article for rabble.ca, "Because Dalhousie: A Closer Look at Restorative Justice." Photo: Esther S./flickr

These days we're hearing a lot of voices encouraging all of us to be entrepreneurs. And it's not just from Chamber of Commerce types these days. Even the progressive community is saying that we all need to create our own jobs. On one hand, being self-sufficient is a good thing. But maybe not entirely. Today we're going to be looking at both sides of the entrepreneurial spirit and how it's practised. Especially in progressive circles where we're likely to hear words like "social enterprise." Things have really changed from the days when everybody had a job that they went to, with job security, benefits, and good pay. We'll also hear how one union is trying to diversify and represent some of those entrepreneurs. To celebrate this new entrepreneurship or not? On this episode of rabble radio, we look at that from several different angles. Imre Szeman is a member of Toronto's social enterprise community, The Centre for Social Innovation. He is also Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies at University of Alberta. Dr. Szeman has written an article with Dan Harvey in a recent edition of University Affairs questioning the recent zeal at university campuses for entrepreneurial education. Called "Are We All Entrepreneurs Now?", the article raises some of the same issues you just heard about in the interview we just did. Datejie Green — Canadian Media Guild. In the cultural industries we've always been entrepreneurs. Except for the people who are lucky enough to have a staff job at one of the big newspapers. Or TV stations. Or the CBC. Well, times are changing for everybody, as we see fewer and fewer people in the media and culture who used to be called "employees." With fewer and fewer employees to represent, the Canadian Media Guild is one trade union which is looking at ways to represent self employed workers in greater numbers. So, what good is a trade union to entrepreneurs with no job security, no collective bargaining? Winnipeg Social Enterprise Centre — And finally, despite all the questions we've raised in this program, we'd like to end by saying that there are a lot of great social enterprises and businesses happening across the country. What we're seeing is that starting a business isn't just something that people are doing for profits to benefit oneself and one's own family. And despite the questions raised in other parts of this program, we'd still like to recognize the good work and the good people who are doing this for the best of motives. And we want to acknowledge the success stories. Produced by the podcast The Green Planet Monitor, David Kattenburg, Executive Producer.

Yes, it's a been a tough, tough year. I'm feeling it. We're all feeling it. But… all that bad news is not the totality of life. With this being the holiday season, this rabble radio show is the "Light the Fire, Pour the Eggnog and Think Philosophically For a While" edition. We thought it would be a good time to play some of the hidden gems that have shown up on the rpn this year. So go get that eggnog, light the fire and just enjoy being here with us for the next half hour. Season's Greetings. We've had some really great new podcasts this summer and fall on the RPN. One of them is MsRepresent: Behind the Face, a Fierce Woman by Charlene Sayo of Vancouver. Charlene spent some time in the Big Apple where she had the amazing opportunity to hang out with super fierce women in the arts and activism. One of the women she met up with was Safia Elhillo. Safia is Sudanese by way of Washington, D.C., currently living in New York City. Among her many literary credits, she is a founding member of Slam NYU, the 2012 and 2013 national collegiate championship team, and was a three-time member and former coach of the DC Youth Slam Poetry team. We don't get enough documentaries on the rabble podcast network. And sound documentaries are such a wonderful art form. That's one of our goals for the new year. Our next piece is a treasure. The Swan Song is an eclectic podcast that covers a wide range of topics about the human condition. David Swanson, the show's producer, recently did a documentary called The Latvian Art Diaries, based on an exploration of heritage through sound. Here is an excerpt of this excellent sound work. And finally, to wrap up. We like sound that is collected in adventurous places. This next excerpt was first played on Lynn Thompson's Living on Purpose, one of the longest running podcasts we have on the rabble podcast network. In this next piece, Lynn goes travelling deep underground with Jamie Thompson and his flute. Jamie is a Toronto musician who takes his flute to some unusual places: abandoned buildings, under bridges with traffic roaring above, ravines and haunted houses. In this excerpt, we go deep into the Diefenbunker, the cold war bomb shelter near Ottawa that was intended to be the residence of John Diefenbaker's Conservative government if the bomb fell… But the bomb didn't fall. And we're here to see another New Year. Happy 2015! Photo: sbluerock/flickr