Talking Radical Radio

In episode #435 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews A.J. Withers. For 20 years, Withers was active with one of Ontario's best known grassroots groups, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. Recently, Withers released a new book telling stories of and drawing lessons from four of OCAP's key campaigns over the years related to homelessness. They talk about OCAP and about *Fight to Win: Inside Poor People's Organizing* (Fernwood Publishing, 2021). For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2022/01/04/radio-a-new-look-at-one-of-ontarios-most-notorious-grassroots-groups/

The following is a rebroadcast of an episode of Talking Radical Radio originally broadcast in July 2021. In episode #412 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Vanessa Hartley. She is 21 years old, a resident of Shelburne, Nova Scotia, and an eighth generation Black Loyalist descendent. She is also the chair of the South End Environmental Injustice Society (SEED). She talks about the town, about environmental racism, and about the work of SEED. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/12/28/radio-rebroadcast-fighting-environmental-racism-in-small-town-nova-scotia/

In episode #434 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Breanne Lavallee-Heckert, Chantale Garand, and Kianna Durston. They are Métis people based in Winnipeg and members of Red River Echoes, a collective of Métis people that is focused on grassroots organizing, land back, and the active reclamation of Métis sovereignty in Winnipeg. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/12/21/radio-grassroots-organizing-by-metis-people-in-winnipeg/

In episode #433 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Natalie Jackett, a student in Legal Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa and the trans event coordinator for Rainbow Ottawa Student Experience (until recently known as Rainbow Carleton). They talk about transphobia in Canada, about a successful recent collective action that shut down an instance of anti-trans politics, and about what it looks like to be in solidarity with trans people. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/12/14/radio-mobilizing-against-anti-trans-politics/

In episode #432 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Jen Gobby and Molly Murphy. Gobby is a postdoctoral researcher at Concordia University in Montreal and the founder of Research for the Front Lines, a new organization that fosters collaboration between climate and environmental justice movements in Canada and people in universities with the time and skills to do the research that movements need. Murphy is active in front line Indigenous-led land defence struggles, most recently the forest-protection blockades at Fairy Creek in Pacheedaht territory on Vancouver Island, and has been part of a collaboration with Research for the Front Lines that unearthed important new information about how the RCMP represses land defence struggles in the unceded territories on the west coast. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/12/07/radio-research-in-the-service-of-struggle/

In episode #431 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Robert Janes. With more than 45 years of experience working in and around museums, including as a chief curator and museum director, Janes is also the founder of the Coalition of Museums for Climate Justice. He talks about the climate crisis, about the role he envisions museums playing in responding to it, and about the work of the coalition. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/11/30/radio-pushing-museums-to-take-action-on-the-climate-crisis/

In episode #430 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Tonye Aganaba and Chantelle Spicer. They are members of the Defund 604 Network, and they talk about the network's organizing around police and prison abolition in Vancouver. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/11/23/radio-police-and-prison-abolitionist-organizing-in-vancouver/

In episode #429 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Laurel Thompson. She is a retired teacher who lives in Montreal and a member of the group Trainsparence. She talks about the REM, a major new addition to Montreal's transit system, and why some residents, grassroots activists, and environmentalists fought tooth and nail against it -- and why opposition to the new phase of the REM in east Montreal may be much more successful. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/11/16/radio-a-struggle-over-the-future-of-montreals-transit-system/

In episode #428 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Brandon Doucet, a dentist in Nova Scotia and a founding member of the Coalition for Dental Care. The coalition brings together dentists, hygienists, dental students, other health care professionals, and members of the public to advocate for universal dental care in Canada. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/11/09/radio-the-fight-for-universal-dental-care-in-canada/

In episode #427 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Vicky Levack. She is a human rights advocate based in Halifax whose work focuses on disability and on gender, with a particular interest in housing issues. These days, she is active with the PADS Community Network, a new grassroots formation in Halifax fighting – as their acronym summarizes – for permanent, accessible, dignified, and safer housing for all. She talks about housing and homelessness in Halifax in the context of COVID-19, and about the role of the PADS Community Network in supporting encampments of unhoused people in the city. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/11/02/radio-supporting-homeless-encampments-in-halifax/

In episode #426 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Luisa Da Silva and Stephen Buhler. Da Silva is a geoscientist with experience in the fossil fuel and mining industries and the executive director of Iron and Earth, "a worker-led not-for-profit with a mission to empower fossil fuel industry and Indigenous workers to build and implement climate solutions." Buhler is a journeyman machinist who works in the fossil fuel industry in Alberta, and the community engagement officer for Iron and Earth. They talk about the climate crisis and about the organization's work to push for a just and prosperous transition. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/10/26/radio-fossil-fuel-workers-pushing-for-a-shift-to-renewables/

On episode #425 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Serena Mah, a media relations consultant and a former television journalist who lives in Edmonton, Alberta. They talk about anti-Asian racism, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Act2EndRacism coalition. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/10/19/radio-challenging-anti-asian-racism-during-the-pandemic/

In episode #424 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Ardath Whynacht, an activist, writer, and scholar who lives in Mi'kmaq territory and teaches sociology at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick. She is also the author of Insurgent Love: Abolition and Domestic Homicide (Fernwood Publishing, Nov 2021), which she describes as "a book about how we can think through abolition and defunding police while also being attentive to high risk intimate partner violence that leads to domestic homicide." For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/10/12/radio-prison-abolition-and-how-we-respond-to-the-worst-forms-of-gendered-violence/

In episode #423 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Don McLean, Sue Carson, and Nancy Hurst. They are active with Hamilton 350, a group that engages in a wide range of kinds of climate activism in the city of Hamilton on the west end of Lake Ontario. In this interview, they talk about the group's new Conservation Watch project -- an initiative that at first glance might seem to be pointing in a bit of a different direction than the group's usual work, but that they argue is a crucial form of "real, practical climate action." For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/10/05/radio-fighting-doug-fords-pro-developer-agenda-as-a-form-of-climate-activism/

In episode #422 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Vivan Ly, Iris Parker, and Allie. They are organizing collective members of Autistics United Canada, a grassroots organization of autistic youth and adults with thousands of members across the country. They talk about autism and about the organization's advocacy, mutual aid and peer support, and education work. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/09/28/radio-autistic-people-organizing-under-the-banner-of-disability-justice/

In episode #421 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Christopher Trider, who is a landscape architect in Nova Scotia and a former provincial civil servant with experience in planning provincial parks. He is also a member of a grassroots group called Save Owls Head Provincial Park, which is doing its best to intervene in the fate of a small piece of land on Nova Scotia's eastern shore, next to the town of Little Harbour. They talk about the land, the secretive moves by the provincial government that have put it at risk, and the campaign to preserve it. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/09/21/radio-defending-a-threatened-coastal-ecosystem/

In episode #420 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews James Ruston. He is a member of the Toronto Prisoners' Rights Project, a prisoner justice group with a long-term vision of prison abolition. Ruston is currently living on day parole, as part of serving a life sentence. They talk about Ruston's experiences of the prison system and about the work of the TPRP. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/09/14/radio-supporting-prisoners-working-towards-abolition/

In episode #419 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Peter Gilmer, a minister and anti-poverty advocate. Gilmer works for the Regina Anti-Poverty Ministry, a social justice ministry of the United Church of Canada in Saskatchewan. He talks about the ministry's work for social justice and against poverty, and about its fifty-year history. For a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/09/07/radio-fifty-years-of-faith-based-anti-poverty-work-in-saskatchewan/

In episode #418 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews Leela Acharya and Laura McCoy. They are teachers in Toronto and members of Ontario Education Workers United, a grassroots group of education workers from across Ontario committed to fighting for a strong, equitable, public, safe K-to-12 education system. They talk about the impacts of the pandemic on education in Ontario, about the group, and about the upcoming return to school. For a more detailed description of the episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/08/31/radio-grassroots-education-workers-organizing-for-a-safereturn-and-a-justrecovery/

In episode #417 of Talking Radical Radio, Scott Neigh interviews John Sylliboy. Sylliboy is Mi'kmaq and he grew up as part of Esaksoni and Millbrook First Nations in Nova Scotia. He is also the acting executive director of the Wabanaki Two Spirit Alliance, an organization that brings together Two-Spirit people in Wabanaki territory through a framework based on the Peace and Friendship Treaty to engage in knowledge sharing, research, capacity building, and advocacy. Fore a more detailed description of this episode, go here: https://talkingradical.ca/2021/08/24/radio-a-voice-for-two-spirit-people-in-atlantic-canada/