[opirgyork] Digest- August 20th

Mon Aug 20 10:20:43 PDT 2012

Hi Everyone,

OPIRG York is keeping very active in the summer! Although our office is still
under construction, we look forward to a bright and brand new office look in
another week! We should be re-opening the office on Monday, August 27th, and
will send you updates!

Please see below for some volunteer opportunities, exciting events, and
information on the upcoming OPIRG York/OPIRG U of T Building Bridges
Conference, which will now be held from November 17-18th (We've changed the
date in order to accomodate another conference on the weekend before!).

More information about DisOrientation, and other up,comg OPIRG York activisties
will be coming your way within the next few days- stay tuned! We're looking
forward to an exciting year!

OPIRG York Staff and Board
---
OPIRG York
www.opirgyork.ca
416-736-5724

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SUMMARY:

1. Rebuilding Bridges Conference- Date Change + Submission Extension! - Deadline
September 1
2. Hands Off The School House Shelter! Rally, Free Meal, and March, August 23rd
3. Follow the Expedition to Protect KI First Nations Watershed
4. See Stockwell (Day) Squirm! + Noon Teach-In & Performances at Mohammad
Mahjoub's "reasonability" hearings - September 6th
5. Callout for Proposals! TransForming Feminisms: Trans Access (The Redux)
6. Queeriot Toronto 2012: August 31-September 2

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1. Rebuilding Bridges Conference- Date Change + Submission Extension! - Deadline
September 1
*ReBuilding Bridges*
November 17th-18th, 2012
Toronto, ON.

Rebuilding Bridges is a convergence of community organizers, educators, radicals
and activists from across different social movements, intent on engaging in
conversations and discussions about our political work.

We are in a time of intense uprising, social unrest and student strikes, but our
movements remain fragmented and our campaigns mostly one-dimensional. How have
our movements lost out on valuable cross-movement collaborations in the past?
What can we learn from each other?

Though we may employ different tactics or prioritize certain issues, we all
envision and work towards dismantling a system built on exploitation,
colonialism and oppression, and building a better, more just world. Lets start
speaking and sharing with each other!

Both the Toronto and York PIRGs will be celebrating our anniversaries through
reflecting on our history of work in this city. With a mandate for education,
action and research on social and environmental justice, OPIRG is bridging gaps
everyday between different movements and campus and community based organizing.
Rebuilding Bridges is about connecting and reconnecting movements, sharing
skills and knowledge and building people power. We are stronger when we work
together towards grassroots social change!

*SUBMIT A PROPOSAL!*

We know that there are so many incredible organizers in this city and beyond
making amazing contributions to our movements. Please share you knowledge,
experiences, successes and failures, thoughts and reflections with us!

We are accepting proposals for workshops, panels and caucuses that promote open
dialogue between movements and that fit within OPIRGs mandate of analysis and
action on intersecting forms of oppression.

Please submit proposals to rebuildingbridgestoronto at gmail.com.

Please e-mail us to join the organizing committee or to volunteer with
Rebuilding Bridges.

DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: September 1st, 2012

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2. Hands Off The School House Shelter! Rally, Free Meal, and March, August 23rd

The City is determined to close down the 55 bed School House wet shelter
on George Street. Already most of those staying there have been forced out
and much needed shelter beds are sitting empty.

How can you fight back?

1. Rally, Free Meal And March To Save The School House
Thursday, August 23, 5:00PM at Moss Park (Queen and Sherbourne).

2. Community Meeting To Stop The Closing of The School House Shelter
Thursday, August 16, 6:00 PM at Parliament Library (just west of
Parliament on Gerrard)
Child Care, Snacks and TTC Tokens provided

Local councillor, Kristyn Wong Tam, and fellow councillors on the
Community and Recreation Committee, have led efforts to put a lock on the
door of the School House shelter. They claim that this is not a cut and
want us to believe that they will spend the money they save by closing
School House on new housing initiatives. We know better. This is a huge
cut to a vital service in the midst of a crisis - the waiting list for
Toronto Housing is 10 years long, shelters are already overcrowded with
tensions flaring up, and people's health and lives are on the line.

Closing School House is not about saving money or reallocating resources.
The truth is that decisions like this are made to benefit rich developers
who are moving in on the Downtown East neighborhood. First the shelters
close and then the condos go up. This cant be allowed to happen. We cant
lose this shelter and we have to fight for it to stay open. This is the
place where we draw a line.

When the last resident is forced out of the School House, OCAP is ready to
mobilize the community to take it back. We are preparing to occupy it,
keep it open. Our march on August 23rd, will be about building our
strength and showing those who want to clear poor and homeless people out
of this neighbourhood that they can expect a fight.

Help us draw a line and save the School House!

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/events/474679085894487

Download posters and flyers here:
http://ocap.ca/files/OCAP-schoolhouse-aug-poster.pdf
http://ocap.ca/files/OCAP-schoolhouse-flyer-aug-front.pdf
http://ocap.ca/files/OCAP-schoolhouse-flyer-aug-back.pdf

Get Involved! Contact the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty:
416-925-6939 / ocap at tao.ca

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3. Follow the Expedition to Protect KI First Nations Watershed

(Please forward)

>From August 24 to September 7 a team of paddlers from Kitchenuhmaykoosib
Inninuwug (KI) Indigenous Nation, will venture 300 km beyond the nearest road
to paddle the ancient route from the KI village to the Arctic Ocean at Hudson's
Bay along the free-flowing Fawn and Severn Rivers.  Along the way they will
document and promote this wild watershed and the deep connection the community
has to their life-giving river.

Help KI Protect their Land and Water
 Share KIs story. Follow the KI Watershed Expedition at
http://kilands.org//waterexpedition/. We will be posting blogs, photos, videos,
action alerts and more throughout the expedition.  Please share the story
through your networks by re-posting emails like this one on on facebook,
twitter, websites, and email lists.

 Tell the Ontario government to respect KIs demands to govern their territory
and protect their land and water from unwanted mining. 
http://kilands.org/tell-mcguinty-to-respect-ki-sacred-landscape/

 Join the KI Supporter facebook page
at:https://www.facebook.com/TorontoKISupport

 Link to the KI Watershed Expedition page.  We have a web button for you to
embed and share. http://kilands.org/?p=997

Through bold action campaigns KI and their supporters have stopped mining
companies Platinex and God's Lake Resources from exploring on their land.  The
community has also successfully pressured the Ontario government to withdraw
approximately half of their watershed from all mining activity.

But the fight isnt over yet.  Ontario has yet to recognize KI's right to
protect their entire watershed of 13,025 square kms and to control their
Homeland. The rest of the communitys watershed remains open to speculation by
gold, diamond, and metals miners seeking to capitalize on Ontarios mining
boom.

Indigenous communities like KI depend on the clean water and the fisheries that
these rivers provide, and KI is determined to safeguard their water.  Last year
the KI community voted overwhelmingly in favour of the KI Watershed Declaration,
which places the entire 13,025 square km of their vast intact watershed off
limits to industry under KI's Indigenous Law.

The Boreal Forest of KI Homeland is part the worlds largest carbon storehouse
on land  a critical buffer against runaway climate change.  The Boreal is also
the world's greatest reservoir of fresh water, and is among the largest unlogged
forests left on the planet. Some of the greatest wild rivers in the world flow
through Ontarios Far North, each running free for many hundreds of km without
any dams or diversions. Their clean source waters are filtered by the mossy
forest and wetlands of extensive pristine watersheds.  Join us as we partner
with KI to protect this precious land through Indigenous Law.

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4. See Stockwell (Day) Squirm! + Noon Teach-In & Performances at Mohammad
Mahjoub's "reasonability" hearings  - September 6th

https://www.facebook.com/events/357657004312960/

September 6, 2012
Court: 9:30am - 4:30pm
Potluck Teach-In & Performances: 12pm
180 Queen Street West, Toronto

Former Cabinet Minister, current corporate lobbyist and all-in-all right-wing,
racist, homophobic, war-mongerer, Stockwell Day has been forced by Mohammad
Mahjoub's lawyers to testify in  Mr. Mahjoub's case and will finally appear on
September 6th.

Join us in court to see Stockwell Day try to squirm his way out of taking
responsibility for targetting Muslim men to create Islamophobic and xenophobic
fear.

Bring lunch for a noon hour potluck teach-in + performances where we'll discuss
the links between security certificates, racism, immigration and the prison
industrial complex.

Stockwell was responsible for bringing in new security certificate legislation
in 2007 over broad public protest. He personally signed new "security
certificates" against Mohammad Mahjoub, Mahmoud Jaballah, Mohamed Harkat, Adil
Charkaoui and Hassan Almrei in 2008, condemning them to further years of
humiliation and arbitrary detention.

Its rare to see Tory elites being held to account in court so this a not-to-be
missed event. Make sure you come out, and let your friends know too.

Background

After a years delay, Mohammad Mahjoubs reasonability hearings have started
again. Reasonability hearings are what pass for a trial in security certificate
cases. In parallel to the secret hearings in which secret information is
presented to the judge in the absence of Mr. Mahjoub and his lawyers, public
hearings, which Mr. Mahjoub, his lawyers and the public are allowed to attend,
will resume this summer and continue through the fall. A secret hearing to
cross-examine CSIS#2″ took place at a secret location in Ottawa on July
6th.

Its been an eventful year: In the summer of 2011, Department of Justice
employees made off with boxes of Mr. Mahjoubs confidential defense documents,
leading to the suspension of reasonability hearings for an entire year. In
December 2011, the media released confidential memos dating from 2008 in which
CSIS admitted that the bulk of their case against Mr. Mahjoub was based on
information likely obtained under torture. In February 2012, for the first time
in 12 years, Mr. Mahjoub was permitted to leave Toronto; he immediately embarked
on a seven-city speaking tour to tell his story to the public. In May, the
Federal Court dismissed 11 government lawyers and clerks who were involved in
seizing Mr. Mahjoubs confidential defence documents  but ruled that the case
should proceed. Finally, in June, on the eve of 12th anniversary protests in
support of Mr. Mahjoub, the Federal Court threw out key parts of CSISs case
against Mr. Mahjoub: after 12 years, the court acknowledged that CSIS-prepared
summaries of some conversations were not reliable as evidence and were no
substitute for the original transcripts, which CSIS had destroyed.

Mr. Mahjoub is one of three Muslim men, including Mahmoud Jaballah (arrested
2001 in Toronto) and Mohamed Harkat (arrested 2002 in Ottawa) still fighting to
free themselves from the injustice of security certificates.

More information:
Justice for Mahjoub Network
www.supportmahjoub.org
justiceformahjoub at gmail.com
www.facebook.com/SupportMahjoub

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5. Callout for Proposals! TransForming Feminisms: Trans Access (The Redux)

September 28-30th, 2012

This September The Centre for Gender and Social Justice is hosting
Peterboroughs 3rd trans conference titled TransForming Feminisms: Trans Access
(The Redux). The theme intends to reflect on Peterboroughs past trans
conferences, contribute to the enhancement of TransFeminist praxis, and foster
dialogue regarding trans inclusion and accountability in feminist spaces.

To make it as successful as our first two conferences, we need you to come
present! Have an idea for a workshop youd like to run? A discussion youd like
to facilitate? Information to distribute? Wed love to hear from you! Please
send your proposal, including a description and brief bio for each presenter.
Proposals focusing on the theme of the conference are especially encouraged,
but any topics of interest to a trans audience are welcome!

Send your proposals to *centreforgsj at gmail.com* by August 27th.

It's going to be an amazing weekend of coming together, sharing of information,
and partying, plus we've booked Julia Serano, the author of Whipping Girl: a
Transexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity to come to give a
keynote address Friday, September 28 for the conference: Trans Feminism: A
Performance and Discussion which is part talk, part spoken word performance.
You're going to want to be a part of this weekend!

*please circulate widely!*

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6. Queeriot Toronto 2012: August 31-September 2

QUEERIOT is coming!!

August 31st- September 2nd, some radical queers in Toronto will be hosting the
3rd annual Queeriot!
Workshops, Panel, tabling and lively conversation: Saturday September 1st &
Sunday September 2nd, 10 AM - 4 PM
Bahen Centre, 40 St. George Street (near College and Spadina)

Save the date and bring your fierce bodies out!

We are calling on all anti-authoritarian queer and trans folks to join us for a
weekend of fabulous, glittery, accessible, consensual, anti-capitalist fun!

Lets converge to talk about how we queer organizing spaces! How do we talk
about queer & trans struggles as interconnected with anti-racist, disability
justice and feminist organizing? How do we bridge the gaps between sexual
liberation politics and liberation from the exploitation of the capitalist
system?

And after all that
dont forget to de-stress at the queer dance party!

Want to host a workshop? Have a skill to share?
Interested in tabling?

Please get in touch with us!
E-mail queeriotTO at gmail.com for information about the schedule, accessibility
concerns and billeting requests.
More details at queeriotto.tumblr.com

****Queeriot was initially scheduled for August 1st-3rd. We apologize to those
who took the time off or have planned around our initial date to travel and
make it to toronto. We hope  you can make our new dates****

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Get Involved with OPIRG York:

OPIRG York
www.opirgyork.ca
416-736-5724