By Nooria Alam On June 24th, the Toronto Baha’i Centre hosted a public forum called “Conversation on Carding”, where community members came together to discuss the Toronto Police Service’s’ policy on carding, lately a hot topic in Toronto media. Conversation focused on recent appearances by new TPS Chief Mark Saunders, who has defended carding as …
by the BASICS Editorial Committee Dennis Edney has spent the last decade of his life defending Omar Khadr. He may have done more than any living person to rescue Khadr from the racist collusion of the Canadian and American governments, which together sought to keep him locked up in military prisons for the rest of …
by Harshita Singh In 2014, the Toronto Community Housing Corporation issued its annual Performance Report, a document which measures whether TCHC reached its own targets in providing repairs and “sustainable living” conditions for tenants. Last year’s report included a section for Resident Satisfaction. This new section meant to examine whether there was an “increase …
by Ellie Adekur-Carlson When Mark Saunders and Peter Sloly were shortlisted as candidates for Chief Bill Blair’s job, it struck up a city-wide dialogue around diversity and the role of a Black police chief in tackling issues of anti-Black racism within the Toronto Police Service. Communities were proud to watch, for the first time, as …
By Julian Ichim On August 8th, 2015 people across the world will be joining in actions demanding the release of the Craigavon Two, Irish Republican prisoners unjustly imprisoned for the murder of a RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland) police officer. In Kitchener and Toronto local organizers are planning demonstrations and a public event around …
by Nooria Alam “I saw Omar on a screen, stretched out and tied to this wire mesh, crying, screaming in pain; his body had suffered such terrible wounds, and the torturers, these evil men, when Omar had to pee, they would take him down and they would use his head as a mop to …
by Michael Romandel On May 1, 2015, the board of CHRY 105.5 FM—the York University community radio station—fired all of its volunteers and community programmers and re-branded itself as VIBE 105.5. VIBE 105.5 now advertises itself as an alt-urban music station, playing electronic music, reggae, soca, r&b and hip-hop. Upset and offended community residents, …
by Harshita Singh “Two people have been killed since I moved in here. Of course I feel unsafe. I feel more safe in the street than in my home.” This is how Maryam*, a woman in her early twenties and a three-year resident of 3171 Eglinton Avenue—one of the TCHC high-rises at the intersection …
by Liam Fox CUPE 3902 Unit 1 represents more than 6000 teaching assistants, part-time lecturers, lab demonstrators, graders, and invigilators employed at the University of Toronto. In the early hours of February 27th, a tentative agreement between the employer and the union was reached, awaiting a ratification vote from its members. The vote, which took …
In December 2014, BASICS people’s journalists Shafiq Aziz and Steve da Silva travelled to Mishkeegogamang First Nation, a remote Ojibway reserve located 7 hours north of Thunder Bay as part of a serve-the-people project launched by the First Nations Solidarity Working Group of union local CUPE 3903. Through a look at the housing situation on the reserve, BASICS …
