BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Socialist Project - ECPv6.15.19//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-WR-CALNAME:Socialist Project X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://socialistproject.ca X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Socialist Project REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Toronto BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20170312T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20171105T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20180311T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20181104T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20190310T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20191103T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20200308T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20201101T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20210314T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20211107T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20220313T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20221106T060000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20210314T140000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20210314T170000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20210310T160049Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210310T232810Z UID:14935-1615730400-1615741200@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:The Big Tech Monopolies and the State /w Grace Blakeley DESCRIPTION:As the effects of the coronavirus pandemic swept through the global economy\, the average observer could have been forgiven for missing a critical piece of news: by May 2020\, the combined market capitalization of the four largest US tech companies reached one fifth of the entire S&P 500. Four companies – Microsoft\, Apple\, Amazon and Facebook – now account for 20 per cent of the combined value of the 500 largest US corporations – an unparalleled level of market concentration. Forty years ago\, these corporate entities were either just beyond being plucky start-ups\, or did not even exist. Monopolistic tendencies are not limited to the tech sector. In 1975\, the largest 100 US companies accounted for nearly half of the earnings of all publicly listed companies; by 2015\, their share reached 84 per cent. \nCapitalist corporations appear monopolistic when they are able to access the investment needed to gain total market dominance – and as the 21st Century has progressed\, this has proven easier than ever\, especially in big tech. The tech companies emerged in a world of falling profits and associated rising volatility in financial markets – both of which facilitated their access to investment. Many of these companies were initially either unprofitable or loss making\, as they had not yet developed to a sufficient size to exploit the network effects that would provide the foundation for their monopoly-like power. As a result\, they required significant amounts of upfront investment to maintain their operations and to scale up to reach a position of market dominance that would allow them to turn a profit. \nGrace Blakeley is a staff writer at Tribune and author of Stolen: How to Save the World from Financialization. \nAll events are sliding scale. No one is denied admission for inability to pay. If you are unable to pay and would like to attend the event\, please write to info@marxedproject.org. \nPart of the Socialist Register series: Beyond Digital Capitalism. URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/big-tech-monopolies/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2021/03/big-tech-monopolies.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20210228T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20210228T170000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20210215T053110Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210215T234945Z UID:18247-1614524400-1614531600@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Take the Plant\, Save the Planet: Workers and Communities in the Struggle for Economic Conversion DESCRIPTION:Please join us for a discussion of the politics of plant conversion for an ecologically sustainable future. \nThe current pandemic crisis has dramatically exposed the need for a massive shift of new resources into the caring sector and the production of medical equipment to meet social needs. But even before the fallout for workers in many sectors from the ecological disruptions already being felt from global warming had already indicated the need for a comprehensive approach to industrial conversion. Several sectors immediately stand out in demanding an approach that goes well beyond a ‘just transition’ in moving workers from one job to another. There is a need for a more radical reworking of these sectors – transportation\, military arms and fossil fuels\, with the factories\, facilities and workers steadily re-deployed to alternate socially responsible production. Ecological strategies focusing on conversion will be particularly promising in terms of their potential to actively engage working people by offering them a response to economic restructuring that emphasizes retaining our productive capacity. We need to think through the way unions\, labour councils and communities can take the lead in campaigns for forming workplace conversion committees and regional technology and environmental hubs. We need to insist\, as workers and as communities\, that productive assets should not be abandoned at the will of the corporations\, or simply accept what is being produced now no matter how destructive the good being produced. \n\nFrancesca Hannan is an active member of We Are Oshawa\, Green Jobs Oshawa\, and the Durham Food Policy Council. She has been involved in climate justice activism with Toronto-based groups\, and her professional background is in environmental policy and law.\nStephen Buhler is an organizer with Climate Justice Edmonton and a full-time journeyman machinist currently working in the oil and gas sector.\nSimon Black teaches in the Department of Labour Studies at Brock University and is an organizer with Labour Against the Arms Trade.\n\nThe event will be on ZOOM: please click here to join the meeting. \nSpread the word on Facebook URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/take-the-plant-save-the-planet-workers-and-communities-in-the-struggle-for-economic-conversion/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2021/02/feb28-Take-the-Plant-Save-the-Planet.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20210223T180000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20210223T200000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20210210T160044Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210210T164923Z UID:4526-1614103200-1614110400@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Socialists on Social Media Platforms and Imagine Platform Socialism DESCRIPTION:Communicating within and Against Digital Capitalism\nBertolt Brecht\, in the 1932 essay ‘The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication’\, made a ‘positive suggestion’ to transform radio into a dialogical medium for many-to-many communications. ‘Radio is one-sided when it should be two’ said Brecht. Brecht saw the state as the only entity capable of remaking radio in this way\, but because radio’s ‘proper application’ might make it a ‘revolutionary’ medium\, Brecht concluded the bourgeois state would have ‘no interest in sponsoring such exercises’. \nBrecht’s ‘positive suggestion’ for a many-to-many communications system seems to have come to fruition with the internet\, and more recently\, with the spread of social media platforms such as Facebook\, Twitter and YouTube. Socialists around the world are now using these platforms to produce\, distribute\, exhibit\, and consume socialist media and cultural works\, and they are openly building events\, movements\, and organizations within digital capitalism\, to go beyond it. That said\, the internet and social media platforms are surrounded by all kinds of deterministic\, optimistic\, and pessimistic rhetorics that cloud a clear view of what they give to and take from socialist communicators\, especially as compared to the twentieth century’s mass media industries\, whose state and corporate owners tended to filter out and vilify socialist ideas. \nTanner Mirrlees is Associate Professor of Communication and Digital Media Studies at Ontario Tech University \nImagine Platform Socialism\nInvestigations have demonstrated the ways that the operations of the algorithmic processes that select and sort information for users of YouTube\, Facebook\, and Twitter not only distribute such malicious content\, but also amplify its effects. In order to hold the attention of users\, platforms tend to recommend increasingly controversial and sensationalist suggestions\, leading users quickly into rabbit holes of conspiracy theories and extremist views that undermine attempts at informed and reasoned debate. Other studies showed that Google’s search engine was capable of exhibiting serious racist bias\, and that the platforms’ attempts to limit access to hate speech and misinformation were of limited effectiveness. \nAt the same time\, the monopolistic digital platforms are undeniably of great use to activists working for a more democratic world\, including socialists. The events that triggered US President Trump’s demands for stricter platform regulation were part of a mobilization of dissent that came to be known by its Twitter hashtag\, ‘Black Lives Matter’\, and numerous other examples could be found of activists raising awareness in ways that would not be possible with mass media. Social media empowers individuals to participate in the distribution of their own ideas\, although this empowerment is limited by the mediation of the flow of information by the owners of the platforms in ways that can have direct effects on how mobilizations are informed. \nThis makes it all the more necessary to explore the contradictions between our expectations of social media and the reality of its use\, and determine if there are ways to avoid the harms done to democracy while preserving the benefits. The purpose of this presentation is to inquire whether and how social media could be organized more democratically\, so that they allow our expressive capacities to be developed freely and not under conditions determined by capital. \nDerek Hrynyshyn teaches in the Department of Communication Studies at York University in Toronto\, Ontario. \nPDF poster URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/socialists-on-social-media-platforms/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2021/02/2021-02-23.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20210212T083000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20210212T110000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20210204T193005Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210204T200918Z UID:14246-1613118600-1613127600@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Remembering Leo Panitch DESCRIPTION:Global Left\, Marxism and Democratic Socialism\nSpeakers: \n\nSam Gindin\, Ingar Solty\, Ana Garcia\, Patrick Bond\, Dinga Sikwebu\, and Vishwas Satgar.\n\nLeo Panitch was a Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at York University\, a renowned political economist\, Marxist theorist and editor of the Socialist Register since 1985. He is the author of numerous articles and books including The End of Parliamentary Socialism\, Working Class Politics in Crisis\, and Renewing Socialism. \nOrganized by Co-operative and Policy Alternative Centre\, Johannesburg\, South Africa. URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/remembering-leo-panitch/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2021/02/2021-remembering-leo-panitch.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20210210T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20210210T203000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20210113T174155Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210204T144647Z UID:18140-1612983600-1612989000@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Socialist Register 21: Beyond Digital Capitalism DESCRIPTION:Join us on Wednesday February 10th for the launch of Socialist Register 21: Beyond Digital Capitalism (Fernwood Press\, 2020)\, with presentations by Greg Albo\, Sam Gindin\, Bryan Palmer\, Joan Sangster\, Stephen Maher\, Pat Armstrong\, Hugh Armstrong\, Tanner Mirrlees\, and Derek Hrynyshyn. \nIn memory of Leo Panitch\, 1945-2020. \nAs digital technology became integral to the capitalist market dystopia of the first decades of the 21st century\, it not only refashioned our ways of communicating but of working and consuming\, indeed ways of living. The Covid-19 pandemic revealed not only the lack of investment\, planning and preparation that underlay the scandalous slowness of the responses by states around the world\, but also grotesque class and racial inequalities as it coursed its way through the population and the owners of high-tech corporations were enriched by tens of billions of dollars. Rejecting both technological determinism and facile ‘cyber-utopian’ thinking\, the 57th annual volume of the Socialist Register addresses how to imagine\, struggle for\, and plan for\, new democratic socialist ways of living after the pandemic. \nFor a 20% discount\, purchase your copy of the volume from York University’s bookstore with this link. \nThe event will be on ZOOM: please get your free Eventbrite ticket by clicking here to register. \nCheck out the Facebook page for the event here. \nTickets available Friday January 15\, 12pm. URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/socialist-register-21-beyond-digital-capitalism/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2021/01/SR-21TOLaunchpng.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20210125T140000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20210125T160000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20210122T012008Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210122T020055Z UID:14296-1611583200-1611590400@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:A Tribute to Leo Panitch\, 1945-2020 DESCRIPTION:Progressives lost one of our leading lights last month. Leo Panitch died December 19 in a Toronto hospital where he was being treated for cancer. His prognosis was good\, however he contacted Covid-19 and died in a few days from a fulminating pneumonia. He is sorely missed on both sides of the Atlantic. A man with an amazing generosity of spirit\, he was a pillar of the international left. \nThe Center for Global Justice pays tribute to Leo Panitch by rebroadcasting a webinar he did with us in July on “Capitalism\, Socialism and the Pandemic.” We are joined in this tribute by Leo’s friend and collaborator Greg Albo and Dennis Pilon\, a colleague at York\, and former student of Leo. \nFor more than a quarter of a century\, Leo Panitch was editor of one of the most important journals of Marxist thought in the world: the Socialist Register. This yearbook\, in which Leo wrote significant essays\, was on the cutting edge of Left thought. For him\, the only way out of capitalism was by building on social democracy. Born to a Winnipeg working class family\, he held firmly to the centrality of the working class if the socialist project was to have any future. Nevertheless he was deeply aware of the conservatizing trend within social-democratic parties\, the increasing distance from the working class\, and the impending disaster from the managerial takeover. His last book Searching for Socialism: The project of the Labour New Left from Benn to Corbyn was written with Colin Leys. URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/tribute-to-leo-panitch/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2021/01/cgj.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20201128T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20201128T123000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20201118T170040Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201125T170734Z UID:4541-1606561200-1606566600@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:UK Launch of The Socialist Register 2021: Beyond Digital Capitalism DESCRIPTION:As digital technology became integral to the capitalist market dystopia of the first decades of the 21st century\, it not only refashioned our ways of communicating but of working and consuming\, indeed ways of living. Even as the COVID-19 pandemic revealed not only the lack of investment\, planning and preparation that underlay the scandalous slowness of the responses by states around the world\, but also grotesque class and racial inequalities as it coursed its way through the population\, the owners of high-tech corporations were enriched by tens of billions of dollars. Rejecting both technological determinism and facile ‘cyber-utopian’ thinking\, the 57th annual volume of the Socialist Register addresses how to imagine\, struggle for\, and plan for\, new democratic socialist ways of living after the pandemic. \nPanelists: \n\nIntroductions: Hilary Wainwright (@hilarypepper) and Leo Panitch\n\nUK essay contributors: \n\nGrace Blakeley (@graceblakeley) ‘The big tech monopolies and the state’\nUrsula Huws (@Ursulahuws) ‘Reaping the whirlwind: Digitalization\, restructuring & mobilization in the Covid crisis’\nMatthew Cole (@matthewacole) & Charles Umney (@CharlesUmney) ‘The political economy of datafication and work’\nBenjamin Selwyn ‘Community restaurants: Decommodifying food as socialist strategy’\nMassimiliano Mollona ‘Working class cinema in the age of digital capitalism’\n\nDiscussants: \n\nMarzena Zukowska (@MarzenaZukowska)\, Red Pepper and Radical Communicators Network\nJohn McDonnell (@johnmcdonnellMP)\, Labour MP\, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer 2015-2020 URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/uk-launch-sr-2021/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2020/11/beyond-digital-cap.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20201118T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20201118T210000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20201113T150042Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201113T151627Z UID:13134-1605726000-1605733200@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Pension Fund Capitalism and the Covid-19 Pandemic in Canada: A Socialist Perspective DESCRIPTION:The devastating social and economic impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in Canada have been felt widely. But the key statistic of the death rate has been heavily concentrated: over 80% of the deaths from COVID-19 have taken place in Long-Term Care of various types. \nHow did Long-Term Care – a vital component of the healthcare system – become so privatized\, within a system that is so widely and proudly viewed as public? \nThis talk will examine the class politics of pension fund investment into for-profit Long-Term Care as a disturbing example of the commodification of social reproduction. \nKevin Skerrett is currently serving as a Fall 2020 Visiting Professor at the Institute of Political Economy at Carleton University. He was a co-editor of the Cornell University Press volume The Contradictions of Pension Fund Capitalism (2018). He is on leave from his work as a Senior Research Officer assigned to pensions at CUPE\, the Canadian Union of Public Employees. \nStephanie Ross\, Director\, School of Labour Studies\, McMaster University\, is chairing the seminar. The talk will be followed by a Q&A period. \nRegister on zoom. \nOrganizer: Institute of Political Economy\, MA in Political Economy and Diploma in Work and Labour. URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/pension-fund-capitalism-and-covid19/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2020/11/2020-11-18.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20201004T133000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20201004T150000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20200929T203311Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200930T141132Z UID:17840-1601818200-1601823600@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Pension fund capitalism and the campaign to “Make Revera Public” DESCRIPTION:We welcome you to join us for Pension fund capitalism and the campaign to “Make Revera Public\,” a public talk by Kevin Skerrett\, co-editor of The Contradictions of Pension Fund Capitalism (Cornell University Press\, 2018)\, Senior Research Officer assigned to pensions for CUPE\, and a visiting professor at Carleton University’s Institute of Political Economy. \nThe COVID-19 pandemic has exposed some of the damage wreaked by neoliberalism to a harsh new light. The erosion of workers’ rights to basic safety and livable wages\, the particular exploitation of women\, racialized and migrant workers in our health care system\, and the destructive effects of for-profit corporate management of long-term care\, have all combined to make a serious public health crisis into something far more deadly than it should have been. In this context\, there is an especially bitter irony in the fact that one of the largest profiteers to benefit from these trends\, the corporate long-term care company Revera\, is 100% owned by the pension fund that manages the investment of federal government employee pensions (known as PSP).  However\, as awareness of this ownership relation became public amidst the spiking death rates in Revera managed homes in May\, the president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) issued a public call for the ownership of Revera to be “transferred into public hands”.  Since that time\, a growing number of public health advocates and trade unions have launched campaigns to transform all of the for-profit operations in the country’s long-term care system into properly funded and publicly managed facilities. Under a democratically accountable and public system\, we could ensure that the workers are compensated in line with the importance and value of the care work they perform\, and the residents can live their lives with dignity. \nJoin us for a discussion of these vital campaigns\, and the positive opportunities that the COVID-19 pandemic may have opened up. Also\, to learn more about the Ontario Health Coalition’s Day of Action\, click here. \nThis is a free public event on ZOOM. click here to access ZOOM room at 1:25pm). \nBio: Kevin Skerrett is a Senior Research Officer assigned to pensions for CUPE\, currently on a leave and teaching at Carleton University’s Institute of Political Economy. He was a co-editor of the Cornell University Press volume The Contradictions of Pension Fund Capitalism (2018)\, and the author of numerous articles\, including this\, this and this in The Bullet online magazine. URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/pension-fund-capitalism-and-the-campaign-to-make-revera-public/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2020/09/Kevin-Skerrett-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20200813T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20200813T210000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20200811T193027Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200811T193111Z UID:15011-1597345200-1597352400@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Book launch: Challenging the Right\, Augmenting the Left DESCRIPTION:2020 has seen an amplified struggle against the right and capitalism generally. This volume suggests it is essential to rethink longstanding assumptions\, jettison wishful thinking and dated ideas\, and recover wisdom from the past. The authors of Challenging the Right\, Augmenting the Left put forward a range of approaches to help strategize the work that awaits the left in the 2020s. \nWorking within five major thematic areas\, the contributors examine how to engage working class people in anti-capitalist struggles\, oppose ethno-nationalism\, build power inside and outside the state apparatus\, find new strategies of environmental resistance\, and promote solidarity and ecological responsibility. This book provides suggestions for working with popular disaffection by taking the left’s history of refusals and defeats as a starting point for next steps in the struggle against capitalism and the far right\, rather than as the basis for more conflict or defeatism. \nBrief presentations will be delivered by Niko Block\, Gary Kinsman\, Elise Thorburn\, Sabrina Fernandes\, David Ravensbergen\, and Robert Latham. \nFollow this link to join the event: ryerson.zoom.us URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/book-launch-challenging-the-right-augmenting-the-left/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2020/08/august-left-launch.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20200229T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20200229T153000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20200203T005519Z LAST-MODIFIED:20220909T191153Z UID:16992-1582981200-1582990200@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:RedNights presents: Socialist Feminist Cabaret 2020 DESCRIPTION:Join us for a leap year night of live music and video! \nWith: \nLillian Allen \nThe Rise Up Feminist Jazz Band \nHoney Novick in tribute to Sophie Tucker \nSongs of Chilean resistance with Ernesto J. Espinoza\, Oriana Barbato\, & Pablo Gutiérrez \nCatherine Phillips \nKate Kitchen \nThirza Cuthand’s “Woman Dress” \nComplete lists of RedNights events URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/rednights-presents-socialist-feminist-cabaret-2020/ LOCATION:The Supermarket\, 268 Augusta Avenue (Kensington Market)\, Toronto\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2020/02/SPRedNightsSocialistFeministCabaret.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20200122T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20200122T220000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20191209T233132Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200106T210417Z UID:16811-1579721400-1579730400@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Book Launch: Socialist Register 2020: Beyond Market Dystopia\, New Ways of Living DESCRIPTION:We warmly welcome you to join us for the Toronto book launch of Socialist Register 2020 – Beyond Market Dystopia: New Ways of Living (edited by Leo Panitch and Greg Albo). \nConnecting with and going beyond classical socialist themes\, this volume of the Socialist Register combines analysis of the severe contradictions of neoliberal capitalism with plans for new strategic\, programmatic\, manifesto-oriented directions for alternative ways of living. Fourteen original essays locate such utopian visions and struggles in the dystopian present. \nDoors open for food and drink at 6:30pm\, and presentations begin at 7:30pm\, with: \nAmy Bartholomew: Beyond the ‘barbed-wire labyrinth’: migrant spaces of radical democracy \nMichelle Chen: A new world of workers: confronting the gig economy \nStephen Maher and Sam Gindin: Class politics\, socialist policies\, capitalist constraints \nChaired by Leo Panitch and Greg Albo. \n— \n*** Please note that dinner reservations guarantee seating\, so book early and enjoy the show while exploring Lula’s delicious tropical fusion dinner and cocktail menus as well as their wine and beer offerings.\nVisit: calendar.lula.ca or call 416-588-0307 to reserve.\n+++ \nThe Socialist Register has been the intellectual lodestar for the international left since 1964. \n—Mike Davis \nI know the Register very well and have found it extremely stimulating\, often invaluable. \n—Noam Chomsky URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/book-launch-socialist-register-2020-beyond-market-dystopia-new-ways-of-living/ LOCATION:Lula Lounge\, 1585 Dundas St West\, Toronto\, ON\, M6K 1T9\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2019/12/SRjpeg-scaled.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20191218T103000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20191218T133000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20191212T210418Z LAST-MODIFIED:20191216T193716Z UID:16823-1576665000-1576675800@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Protest for Green Jobs in Oshawa DESCRIPTION:We Build it\, We Own It: Stand With Communities\, Not Corporations! \nWe’re excited to announce that on December 18 we will be holding an event outside the (soon to be former) GM Oshawa facility. We’re going to show GM and the Government that Oshawa needs publicly owned electric vehicle production\, NOT profit driven plant closures. But we need supporters of good\, unionized green jobs like you to do it! \nFor all those interested in joining us on Wednesday\, please let us know ASAP by contacting us at greenjobsto@gmail.com \nIf you are coming from Toronto and need a ride\, or if you can provide a ride\, please let us know. We will do our very best to ensure everyone who would like to attend has the ability to. \nLooking forward to seeing many of you on Wednesday. \nTake the plant\, save the planet! \nFor those traveling from Toronto\, here’s a link with instructions from Union Station. From Union Station take the 9:03 Lakeshore East train to Oshawa GO Station. From Oshawa GO take the Durham Transit 403 but to Malaga Road at Park Road South or take a taxi to the intersection of Malaga and Park Road South. URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/protest-for-green-jobs-in-oshawa/ LOCATION:GM Oshawa\, Park Rd South and Malaga Rd\, Oshawa\, Ontario\, L1J 4K1\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2019/12/Oshawa-Dec-18.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20191208T163000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20191208T190000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20191126T032306Z LAST-MODIFIED:20191126T032829Z UID:16751-1575822600-1575831600@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Winter Social DESCRIPTION:Join friends and old\, new and emerging comrades for some winter social and cheer! \n  URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/winter-social/ LOCATION:East of Brunswick Pub and Kitchen\, 720 Spadina Avenue\, Toronto\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2019/11/Capture.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20191130T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20191130T230000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20191030T215606Z LAST-MODIFIED:20191104T141323Z UID:16640-1575140400-1575154800@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:FilmSocial Presents: Soylent Green DESCRIPTION:FilmSocial screens the dystopian cult classic Soylent Green. Saturday\, November 30th @ 7:30pm at Eyesore Cinema (1176 Bloor\, back room). \nSoylent Green (1973) brings us to New York in the year 2022. Rising global temperatures combined with food and water shortages only serve to exacerbate capitalism’s pathological excess. Charlton Heston stars in this classic sci-fi/police procedural where the characters must navigate a world marked by deep class division\, corporate control over valuable resources\, police corruption\, and the overall monetization of fear and misery. Sound familiar? The screening follows the next Global Climate Strike event. Stay after the film for a discussion of the themes of the film in light of socialist responses to climate change. \nPDF poster URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/filmsocial-presents-soylent-green/ LOCATION:Eyesore Cinema\, 1176 Bloor Street\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M6H1N1\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2019/10/FS-Soylent-Green-revised.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20190930T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20190930T210000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20190912T191701Z LAST-MODIFIED:20190929T175813Z UID:16424-1569870000-1569877200@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Take the Plant\, Save the Planet: Creating Good Jobs\, Making Sustainable Products\, Challenging Climate Change DESCRIPTION:GM’s bosses are closing the auto plant in Oshawa but workers want to repurpose it to create good jobs and produce green and sustainable energy products. Join us for a discussion with Linda McQuaig (author and journalist)\, James Hutt (LEAP)\, Rebecca Keetch (autoworker\, Green Jobs Oshawa) and Fred Hahn (CUPE Ontario). Show solidarity with Green Jobs Oshawa\, make public ownership of the Oshawa plant an election issue. \n– \nGM Oshawa was once the home of the largest auto facility on the continent. GM no longer wants it\, aside from a small project that might at most\, provide 300 jobs. But workers do\, and they have plans for it. The Oshawa plant could create many more good\, sustainable jobs\, by converting the facility into a manufacturing hub for electric vehicles and other sustainable energy products. This requires that governments step in\, and have democratic public ownership replace corporate ownership and make products that challenge climate change. To make this possible we need to show solidarity with Green Jobs Oshawa\, the worker-led movement leading this campaign. We need to build a worker-green alliance grounded in concrete struggles\, making the idea of Just Transition\, something real. In the upcoming federal election\, we need to push politicians and their parties beyond platitudes about climate change and green jobs. Here is a concrete opportunity to really do something about it. This requires placing\, to the extent we can\, a radical transformation of economic structures and power\, led by workers\, on the public agenda. \nTell us you will attend and help spread the word #GreenJobsOshawa: \nhttps://www.facebook.com/events/2411270225607689/ \nSponsored by Centre for Social Justice\, Socialist Project\, Green Jobs Oshawa\, and The LEAP \n \n  URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/good-jobs-making-sustainable-products/ LOCATION:Steelworkers Hall\, 25 Cecil\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M5T 1N1\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2019/09/take-the-plant.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20190924T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20190924T210000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20190913T180928Z LAST-MODIFIED:20190913T182651Z UID:16434-1569351600-1569358800@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Poetry Night w/Giovanna Riccio and Alvin Wong DESCRIPTION:Toronto’s most diverse and brave poetry reading and open mic series. \nAt Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night) we don’t just wait for diversity to happen: we actively invite it. \nFeatured poets: Giovanna Riccio and Alvin Wong\nHosts: Bänoo Zan and Terese Pierre \nGiovanna Riccio immigrated from Calabria\, Italy to Canada at the age of 6. A graduate of the University of Toronto\, she majored in philosophy. She is the author of Vittorio (Lyricalmyrical\, 2010)\, Strong Bread (Quattro Books\, 2011) and Plastic’s Republic (Guernica Editions\, 2019). Her poems have appeared in numerous national and international publications as well as various anthologies\, the most recent being Dis(s)ent\, Heartwood and A Filo Doppio\, (Donzelli Editore\, Rome). Translations of her work have been published in Italian\, Spanish\, French and Romanian. She regularly participates in literary events and has performed at Blue Met\, The Edinburgh Fringe and the University of Calabria Italian Diaspora Conference to name a few. \nAlvin Wong is the senior editor of Inspiritus Press. He has poems published in Half a Grapefruit Magazine and Temz Review along with a short story in Ricepaper magazine. He co-authoured a chapbook with Stanford Cheung\, We Could be Anything from Crevasse Press in Ibaraki\, Japan. \nJPG poster URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/poetry-night-w-giovanna-riccio-and-alvin-wong/ LOCATION:Tranzac Club\, 292 Brunswick Ave\, Toronto\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2019/09/riccio-wong.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20190919T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20190919T210000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20190829T165739Z LAST-MODIFIED:20190829T202105Z UID:16378-1568919600-1568926800@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:The 1919 Winnipeg Strike DESCRIPTION:The Story of Jewish Involvement in the 1919 Winnipeg Strike\, with Roz Usiskin and Harriet Zaidman. Leo Panitch of The Socialist Project will moderate. \n\nRoz Usiskin was the first president of the Jewish Heritage Society of Western Canada and a past president of UJPO-Winnipeg. Her father\, Joseph Wolodarsky\, was a strike participant. Usiskin published two books of her father’s letters that she translated from Yiddish. Her father had written “…someday\, the historian may look into my archives as a record of our history.”\nHarriet Zaidman is a UJPO-Winnipeg member and author of the novel\, “City on Strike\,” based on the events in 1919. Her family was greatly affected by the strike. Copies of this book will be available at the event. Zaidman is also author of two children’s books\, Daisy’s Biggest Success\, and Sherman and the Sheep Shape Contest.\nLeo Panitch is a professor of political science at York University and the co-editor of the Socialist Register. He is co-author\, with Sam Gindin\, of The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire.\n\nPDF poster URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/the-1919-winnipeg-strike/ LOCATION:UJPO\, 585 Cranbrooke Avenue\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M6A 2X9\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2019/08/2019-09-19.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20190514T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20190514T230000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20190406T015236Z LAST-MODIFIED:20190411T142047Z UID:15862-1557860400-1557874800@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:General Strike: Cabaret 1919 DESCRIPTION:An exciting cabaret evening of theatre\, music and poetry on the centenary of the Winnipeg General Strike will celebrate its historical importance and enduring relevance to a diverse range of contemporary struggles. \nFEATURING \nRemembering the Winnipeg General an original play by Thomas McKechnie\, performed by Heather Marie Annis and Ximena Huizi\, directed by Erin Branderburg\, with original music composed by Kristine Schmitt. In the play\, the events of the 1919 strike are a springboard to examine the modern political moment. \nToronto 1919\, an original play written by Craig Heron and performed by the Toronto Workers History Project Theatre Group. This play returns to the exciting weeks of May 1919\, when Toronto workers organized a general strike in support of the eight hour day. \nMohammad Ali\, the socialist hip-hop artist\, performing ‘Solidarity Forever’ from his new album Labour of Love\, a hard-hitting selection of worker’s anthems. \nGeorge Elliot Clarke and Giovanna Riccio\, Canada’s celebrated revolutionary poets\, present powerful original works especially written for this occasion. \nThe Afro-Metis Nation\, a trio of Black and Indigenous musicians\, perform songs celebrating the melding of heritage and struggle. \n1919\, a short experimental fictional film directed by Noam Gonick about a group of gay men who frequent a Chinese bathhouse\, which just happens to be headquarters of the Winnipeg General Strike. \nHoney Novick\, a Toronto singer and songwriter – and the daughter of the last milkman in the city to do house deliveries with a horse and wagon – will make Joe Hill ‘alive as you and me’. \nMike Katz & Rick Pearson\, a popular Ontario guitar folk duo\, pay raucous musical tribute to Union Maids. \nZing! Zing! Zing! – the participatory singing choir of the United Jewish People’s Order – will bring down the house by leading the audience in a multilingual rendition of the Internationale. \n— \nProduced by the Cultural Committee of the Socialist Project and the Centre for Social Justice\, and co-presented by The Toronto Workers History Project and Mayworks 2019. URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/general-strike-cabaret-1919/ LOCATION:Tranzac Club\, 292 Brunswick Ave\, Toronto\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2019/04/1919_stamp_800_499_80.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20190321T183000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20190321T203000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20190225T214435Z LAST-MODIFIED:20190316T202237Z UID:15693-1553193000-1553200200@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Uber-Capitalism: Platform Mobility/Mobilizing Workers DESCRIPTION:After launching almost a decade ago\, the transportation network corporations Uber and Lyft rapidly expanded their operations into cities around the world\, disrupting taxi unions\, degrading labour rights and diminishing public transit ridership. While “uber-capitalism” was incubated in the USA\, the global system’s technological-core\, ride-hailing corporations are emerging around the world\, and workers from New York City to Jakarta are organizing to challenge their deleterious social effects. \nIn this session of The Capitalism Workshop\, Bronwyn Frey examines some of the worker organizational strategies emerging within Indonesia’s vast informal transportation sector\, where precarity is longstanding and perhaps less exceptional than in the West. Frey highlights how motorcycle taxi (ojek) drivers in the city of Bandung are collectively responding to the precarious platform labour regime of Go-Jek\, a major Indonesian ride-hailing firm. Although highly antagonistic towards each other\, ojek pangkalan (older-style informal-sector drivers) and HDBR (a grassroots app-based driver association) use similar organizational strategies to establish claims to their working lives and challenge Go-Jek. Informality in Indonesia thus offers forms of social security in a platform labour context that add to Euro-American mobilization repertoires such as policy change and platform cooperativism. By examining informal organization repertoires among app-based and older-style ojek drivers\, this session contributes to knowledge about capitalism by considering how precarity is produced\, experienced\, and challenged.  Herman Rosenfeld (TTC Riders\, Free Transit Toronto) will then discuss how municipal struggles for bigger and better public transit might be one way of contesting uber-capitalism. URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/uber-capitalism-platform-mobility-mobilizing-workers/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2019/02/Ubercapitalism.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20190204T183000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20190204T220000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20190107T174327Z LAST-MODIFIED:20190109T023029Z UID:15484-1549305000-1549317600@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:The World Turned Upside Down: Launching SR 2019 DESCRIPTION:Join us for the launch of Socialist Register 2019: The World Turned Upside Down. \nFeaturing presentations by Nicole Aschoff (“American’s tipping point? Between Trumpism and a new left”)\, Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin (“Trumping the Empire)\, and Colin Leys (“Corbyn and Brexit Britain: Is there a way forward for the left?”). \nModerated by Greg Albo. \nSR 2019 poses two overarching questions for the new period opened by the Trump election and the continued growth of right-wing nationalisms. Is there an unwinding of neoliberal globalization taking place\, or will globalization continue to deepen\, but still deny the free cross-border movement of labor? Would such an unwinding entail an overall shift in power and accumulation to specific regions of the Global South that might overturn the current world order and foster the disintegration of the varied regional blocs that have formed? \nSponsored by: York University Book Store\, Brunswick Books\, Socialist Project\, Centre for Social Justice and Socialist Register. \nfacebook.com/events/2007698415973523 \neventbrite.ca \nDinner is available and reservations guarantee seating: lula.ca \nSR Subscriptions available at: socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/about/subscriptions. URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/the-world-turned-upside-down-launching-sr-2019/ LOCATION:Lula Lounge\, 1585 Dundas St West\, Toronto\, ON\, M6K 1T9\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2019/01/The-World-Turned-Upside-Down-Socialist-Register-2019-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20190129T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20190129T220000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20190102T151512Z LAST-MODIFIED:20190125T092322Z UID:15462-1548788400-1548799200@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:FilmSocial: Sorry to Bother You DESCRIPTION:Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You was one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2018. Through a brilliant mix of satire\, drama\, and humour\, Riley is able to capture the horror\, absurdity\, and contradictions of life within contemporary capitalism. Exploring themes of exploitation\, racism\, alienation\, and the strained relationship between activism\, art\, popular culture\, and profound social change\, Riley effectively captures the tensions\, paradoxes\, and necessities of the modern political landscape. Following the film there will be a short presentation and discussion on some of the important political questions raised by the film. \nDownload PDF poster. URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/filmsocial-sorry-to-bother-you/ LOCATION:Eyesore Cinema\, 1176 Bloor Street\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M6H1N1\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2019/01/STBY.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20181212T173000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20181212T193000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20181126T020411Z LAST-MODIFIED:20181126T213706Z UID:15201-1544635800-1544643000@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Action Keele: Outreach Meeting DESCRIPTION:Join the fight for transit justice! Action Keele will be holding an organizing meeting on Dec 12. All welcome. For more information\, contact: actionkeele@gmail.com \n  URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/action-keele-outreach-meeting/ LOCATION:Downsview Public Library\, 2793 Keele Street\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M3M 2G3\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2018/10/AK-bus-logo-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20181209T163000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20181209T203000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20181128T041403Z LAST-MODIFIED:20181128T041610Z UID:15217-1544373000-1544387400@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Non-Denominational Holiday Social DESCRIPTION:Join the SP and friends for some holiday cheer! URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/non-denominational-holiday-social/ LOCATION:Pauper’s Pub\, 539 Bloor Street West\, Toronto\, Ontario\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2018/11/Marx.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20181206T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20181206T193000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20181126T020232Z LAST-MODIFIED:20181126T213612Z UID:15199-1544108400-1544124600@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Action Keele: Meeting and Public Canvass DESCRIPTION:Join the fight for transit justice! Action Keele will be holding an organizing meeting on the afternoon Dec 6\, before heading out to talk to 41 riders. All welcome. For more information\, contact: actionkeele@gmail.com \n3:15-5:15 (Meeting) \n6:00-7:30 (Canvass) URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/action-keele-meeting-and-public-canvass/ LOCATION:Downsview Public Library\, 2793 Keele Street\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M3M 2G3\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2018/10/AK-bus-logo-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20181201T143000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20181201T163000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20181112T151646Z LAST-MODIFIED:20181121T024210Z UID:15128-1543674600-1543681800@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Action Keele Campaign Launch DESCRIPTION:After months of talking with 41 bus riders about their concerns and issues\, we are ready to officially launch the Action Keele Bus Riders campaign! \nJoin us Saturday\, December 1 from 2:30 – 4:30 at the Downsview Library for a discussion with Action Keele organizers\, community members\, and labour union and social movement allies. Come together to fight back against austerity and win improved public transit for working people\, and enjoy pizza and fun! \nThe overwhelming community support for our petition for a #41 bus every ten minutes is very encouraging. Let’s keep up the momentum to meet our goal of gathering 1\,000 signatures by the time we plan to deliver the petition to Mayor John Tory and the City Council on February 1! \nPoster URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/action-keele-campaign-launch/ LOCATION:Downsview Public Library\, 2793 Keele Street\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M3M 2G3\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2018/11/Action-Keele.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20180919T183000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20180919T210000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20180909T131812Z LAST-MODIFIED:20180910T175424Z UID:14829-1537381800-1537390800@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:What's Left\, Toronto? Radical Alternatives for the City Election DESCRIPTION:As the Doug Ford Conservatives unpack their agenda\, towns and cities across Ontario are getting ready for the October municipal elections. In Toronto\, much of the early public debate leading up to the elections has been narrow and dominated by the Tories’ Bill 5\, which proposes to cut in half the number of wards for Council elections. Debates about specific City issues have been limited\, pitting a few right-populist voices from the Conservative Party against liberal and progressive voices from the Liberal or New Democratic Party. Ford’s shadow looms over every discussion and risks constraining debate about the mildest reforms even further. \nThis public forum seeks to keep alive more expansive political horizons about possible futures for Toronto. Organizers from various social movements will come together to discuss a range of issues – from migrant solidarity and economic justice to jobs\, housing\, transit\, the environment\, and the nature of electoral politics. They will bring ambitious and radical perspectives that engage with but go beyond the policy planks gaining the most attention in the corporate media. \nSpeakers: \n\nAlia Karim\, student organizer\, Fight for $15 and Fairness\nDavid Kidd\, longtime community and labour activist\nStefan Kipfer\, York University\, Free Transit Toronto\nMercedes Lee\, No One Is Illegal – Toronto\nJames Nugent\, Faculty of Environment\, University of Waterloo\nTaraneh Zarin\, Free Transit Toronto\n\nPDF poster | Facebook event \nSponsors: Centre for Social Justice\, Free Transit Toronto\, Socialist Project. URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/whats-left-toronto-radical-alternatives-for-the-city-election/ LOCATION:Friends House\, 60 Lowther Avenue\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M5R 1C7\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2018/09/Whats-Left-Toronto-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20180505T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20180505T210000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20180325T191424Z LAST-MODIFIED:20180404T184617Z UID:13790-1525546800-1525554000@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Liter-Ally: Poetry Towards Left Renewal DESCRIPTION:Liter-ally: Poetry Towards Renewal brings together Toronto-based poets to address the opportunity and challenge of Left renewal. How are poets rethinking politics on the left? What role might poetry play in left politics today? Poetry as art. Poetry as thought. Poetry as resistance. Join us for an evening of readings and spoken word performances by a former poet laureate\, a hip hop artist and more. \nFeatured poets: George Elliott Clarke – Giovanna Riccio – Honey Novick  – Jennifer Alicia  – Khalid Esmail  – Yavar Khan Qadri  – Mohommad Ali \nFacebook Event Page \nLiter-Ally \n \n  URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/liter-ally-poetry-towards-left-renewal/ LOCATION:A Different Booklist\, 777 Bathurst St\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M5S 1Z5\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2018/03/Drawing-the-Left.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20180501T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20180501T210000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20180325T190929Z LAST-MODIFIED:20180325T203249Z UID:13785-1525201200-1525208400@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Drawing the Left: Exhibit Opening DESCRIPTION:Drawing the Left exhibit opening and reception\, featuring cartoons by and discussion with Union Art Service (UAS) collective members. \nThe Drawing the Left exhibit highlights cartoonists of the Union Art Service (UAS) collective. UAS was founded by Cy Morris and Mike Constable shortly after the 1976 General Strike against Pierre Trudeau’s contract busting Wage Controls. The Wage Control act marks the birth of a neoliberal agenda that saw all the major news media like the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail dump their labour reporters. The unions responded by encouraging their locals to publish news letters to get the story out. And that is where our labour cartoons came in. The art in this show was chosen by the artists. \nFeatured artists: Mike Zaharuk  –  John Williams  –  Ruth Tait  – Alma Roussy – Jim Kempkes  – Jerry Lee Miller – Mike Constable – Seth Scriver \nFacebook Event page \nSP Event page URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/drawing-the-left-exhibit-opening/ LOCATION:A Different Booklist\, 777 Bathurst St\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M5S 1Z5\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2018/03/Drawing-the-Left.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Toronto:20180329T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/Toronto:20180329T210000 DTSTAMP:20260408T190253 CREATED:20180304T164249Z LAST-MODIFIED:20180308T151919Z UID:13471-1522350000-1522357200@socialistproject.ca SUMMARY:Book Launch: The Contradictions of Pension Fund Capitalism DESCRIPTION:Kevin Skerrett (Research Officer for the Canadian Union of Public Employees) and Chris Roberts (National Director of Social and Economic Policy for the Canadian Labour of Congress) discuss the significance of their edited book\, The Contradictions of Pension Fund Capitalism (Cornell University Press\, 2018). Heather Whiteside and Janice Folk-Dawson speak to the issues the book raises for the trade union and working class movements today. \nKevin Skerrett is a Research Officer for the Canadian Union of Public Employees. \nChris Roberts is the National Director of Social and Economic Policy for the Canadian Labour Congress. \nHeather Whiteside is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo and the author of About Canada: Public-Private Partnerships. \nJanice Folk-Dawson the president of the trades and custodial CUPE Local 1334 at University of Guelph\, the president of the Guelph and District Labour Council and sits on the OFL Executive Board. \nChaired and introduced by Greg Albo\, Centre for Social Justice and Associate professor of Political Science at York University. \nBook description: it is often hoped and assumed that union stewardship of pension investments will produce tangible and enduring benefits for workers and their communities while minimizing the negative effects of what are now global and intensely competitive capital markets. At the core of this book is a desire to question the proposition that workers and their organizations can exert meaningful control over pension funds in the context of current financial markets. Contributing authors review the recent experience of pension “austerity” by comparing the situations of Canada\, the US\, the UK and Australia. The concluding chapter argues that the central implication of this recent history is an urgent need for a re-orientation of trade union and working class movements to a demand for adequate\, universal pension provision that is no longer embedded in financial markets. \nPDF poster URL:https://socialistproject.ca/event/book-launch-contradictions-pension-fund-capitalism/ LOCATION:Steelworkers Hall\, 25 Cecil\, Toronto\, Ontario\, M5T 1N1\, Canada ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://socialistproject.ca/content/uploads/2018/03/image003.jpg END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR