rabble radio – Details, episodes & analysis

This week on rabble radio, rabble editor Nick Seebruch speaks with Dr. Yipeng Ge, one of over 4,000 people from around the world who joined the Global March to Gaza. The Global March to Gaza attempted to reach the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Palestine, aiming to draw global attention to the blockade of Gaza and call for an end to the siege.

You can read Dr. Yipeng Ge’s full reflections on the march in his op-ed for rabble—available now on our website. 

Dr. Yipeng Ge is a primary care physician and public health practitioner based on the traditional, unceded, and unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg. In his clinical practice, he works in family medicine practice and refugee health at a community health centre. He has worked on and studied the structural and colonial determinants of health in both the settler colonial contexts of so-called Canada and occupied Palestine. 

If you like the show please consider subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you find your podcasts. And please, rate, review, share rabble radio with your friends — it takes two seconds to support independent media like rabble. Follow us on social media across channels @rabbleca. 

Labour reporter Gabriela Calugay-Casuga sits down with Leo DeVries from Science for the People to discuss Prime Minister Mark Carney’s plan to boost defence spending to five per cent of Canada’s GDP over the next decade.

What will this mean for workers? For the economy? 

And more broadly, what does it signal about Canada’s priorities—especially when it comes to fighting the climate crisis and honouring Indigenous rights? Can massive military investment coexist with those commitments, or are they fundamentally at odds?

Leo DeVries is a math graduate student and an organizer with Science for the People: Ottawa. 

Science for the People is an organization of scientists, workers, educators, and activists dedicated to building a bottom-up social movement with radical perspectives on science and society. 

Through research, writing, protest, and grassroots organizing, Science for the People seeks to demystify scientific knowledge and embolden “the people” to take science and technology into their own hands. The organization's numerous publications play a formative role in the field of science and technology studies, challenging mainstream understandings of science as “neutral” and instead showing it to be inherently political.

If you like the show please consider subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you find your podcasts. And please, rate, review, share rabble radio with your friends — it takes two seconds to support independent media like rabble. Follow us on social media across channels @rabbleca. 

On April 26, a violent attack took place at the Lapu-Lapu Day festival in Vancouver — an event meant to honour Filipino heritage and community. At least 11 people were killed, and many others injured. In the days since, members of the Filipino community in Canada and their allies have been coming together to grieve, reflect, and support one another through this difficult time.

This week on rabble radio, labour reporter Gabriela Calugay-Casuga spoke with Zuha Zubair from Migrante Ottawa to reflect on the recent Lapu Lapu Day tragedy in Vancouver, and to shed light on the often-overlooked struggles faced by Filipino migrants in Canada.

Zuha Zubair is a Filipino and a community organizer with Migrante Ottawa, a chapter of an international migrants organization fighting for national liberation and genuine democracy in the Philippines. Zubair was born in the Maldives to parents who were overseas Filipino workers, known as OFWs. She came to Canada in 2019 as an international student and is currently pursuing a masters’ degree in anthropology. Zubair’s research focuses on overseas Filipino workers and the political connections they have to the Philippines.

If you like the show please consider subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you find your podcasts. And please, rate, review, share rabble radio with your friends — it takes two seconds to support independent media like rabble. Follow us on social media across channels @rabbleca.

This week on rabble radio, we share a segment from our most recent episode of the Courage My Friends podcast series, hosted on Needs No Introduction. 

In this episode of Courage My Friends, podcast series, host Resh Budhu sits down with Ana Guerra Marin and Dara Wawaite-Chabot of Iron & Earth. The three discuss what a just transition can look like for those working and living in Canada’s oil patch and for Indigenous communities.

About our guests 

Ana Guerra Marin, communities director and just transition lead, started her career in Colombia, listening to and empowering oil, gas and mining workers at various work sites through forming partnerships and understanding worker issues. As Marin delved into the extractive industries, she became more aware of how important it is to address the environmental and socio-economic impacts she was witnessing, and how urgent it is to create long-lasting solutions rooted in community-based initiatives that focus on the most vulnerable persons. 

This started a 15-year career focused on helping communities achieve self-determination through social and environmental justice in Latin America and Canada. As a white, cisgender, immigrant woman with invisible disabilities, Marin recognizes her position in the world and challenges societal ideas by creating transformative change through a praxis informed by intersectional and Black feminism, womanism, critical race theory, Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge, decolonization, and critical consciousness.

Dara Wawaite-Chabot, Indigenous lead researcher, is a single parent who studies political science full-time at the University of Ottawa and works part-time for Iron & Earth. They support their small family by creating art and working remote contracts fighting for environmental justice in so-called Canada.

The Courage My Friends podcast series is presented by rabble.ca and the Tommy Douglas Institute, with the support of the Douglas Coldwell Layton Foundation.

If you’d like to hear more from the Courage My Friends podcast, please subscribe to Needs No Introduction – a podcast by rabble which presents a series of speeches and lectures from the finest minds of our time. Available on rabble.ca, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and more. 

If you like the show please consider subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. And please, rate, review, share rabble radio with your friends — it takes two seconds to support independent media like rabble. Follow us on social media across channels @rabbleca. 

This week on rabble radio, Stephen Wentzell sits down with Red Buffalo Nova, an Ojibwe Two-Spirit, transgender artist, filmmaker, and storyteller to talk about how their multi-layered Indigenous identity informs their creative and professional work.  

About Red Buffalo Nova Weipert

Red Buffalo Nova Weipert (he/him/they/them) is an Anishinaabe Ojibwe, Two-Spirit and transgender interdisciplinary artist, writer, director, educator and storyteller. Nova is a proud enrolled member of the Pinaymootang First Nation located in Treaty 2 territory, and is a recent graduate of the Master of Fine Arts program at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. 

They are a long time collaborator, producer and video mentor with Access to Media Education Society (AMES) and their work has screened at festivals such as imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival (2021) and Vancouver Queer Film Festival (2022). 

If you like the show please consider subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. And please, rate, review, share rabble radio with your friends — it takes two seconds to support independent media like rabble. Follow us on social media across channels @rabbleca. 

This week on rabble radio, we feature a segment from our most recent Off the Hill political panel. This month, our theme was ‘Off the Hill: Truth before reconciliation.’

This month, our Off the Hill panel was informed by National Indigenous People’s Day. From coast to coast to coast, Canadians want to see reconciliation – but are they willing to hear the truth first?

Our June panel dissected this question and more. Special guests this month included: Joan Phillip, Melanie Mark and Rachel Snow. Hosted by Robin Browne and Libby Davies. 

About our guests

Robin Browne is Off the Hill’s co-host. Robin is a communications professional and founder of the 613-819 Black Hub, living in Ottawa. His blog is The “True” North.

Libby Davies is Off the Hill's co-host and author of Outside In: a Political Memoir. She served as the MP for Vancouver East from 1997-2015, and is former NDP Deputy Leader and House Leader.

Joan Phillip is a respected community leader and Indigenous Elder who has dedicated her life to fighting for social justice, human rights, and climate action. Her work experience includes youth counsellor at Britannia School, program director at the Aboriginal Friendship Centre, and lands manager for the Penticton Indian Band.

Melanie Mark served as the MLA for Vancouver-Mount Pleasant from 2016 to 2023. Mark is the first First Nations woman elected to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia and the first First Nations woman to serve in the Cabinet of British Columbia. Mark is Nisga'a, Gitxsan, Cree and Ojibway.

Rachel Snow is Iyahe Nakoda, the daughter of late Reverend Dr. Chief John Snow. She holds a juris doctor from the College of Law, University of Saskatchewan and is an outspoken educator, speaker, writer and co-contact person for the Indigenous Activist Networks. Rachel resides on her ancestral lands in Mini Thni which is west of Calgary, Alberta. Rachel is also a columnist for rabble.

Photo: Tungsten Rising on Unsplash 

If you like the show please consider subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. And please, rate, review, share rabble radio with your friends — it takes two seconds to support independent media like rabble. Follow us on social media across channels @rabbleca. 

This week on rabble radio, national politics reporter Stephen Wentzell sits down with Khaleel Seivwright, a carpenter who has made headlines over the past four years as he created tiny shelters for the houseless population in Toronto. 

Wentzell and Seivwright discuss the need to provide meaningful quality of care for the houseless and also speak about the audience response to Someone Lives Here, the recent documentary following Seivwright’s work during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

About Khaleel Seivwright

Khaleel Seivwright is a carpenter known for formerly building tiny shelters for unhoused people in Toronto in the fall of 2020. Currently he is working with a team building tiny home communities for unhoused people in Toronto.

In 2021, rabble columnist Cathy Crowe followed Seivwright’s important work and his fight with the City of Toronto and then-mayor John Tory throughout his process. 

Someone Lives Here follows Seivwright during the COVID-19 pandemic as he launched a project of building small private shelters for homeless people in Toronto, against the bureaucratic resistance of the city government. The film premiered at the 2023 Hot Docs Festival where it was awarded the Rogers Audience Award. 

Join us for Off the Hill next week for National Indigenous People’s Day

On Wednesday, June 21 at 4:30pm PT / 7:30pm ET, join us for our final Off the Hill political panel before our summer hiatus.

This month, we focus on National Indigenous People’s Day. What is causing the slow-moving action on the 94 Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada? What can Landback look like across Turtle Island? And are we any closer to true reconciliation?

Register for this free event today!

If you like the show please consider subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. And please, rate, review, share rabble radio with your friends — it takes two seconds to support independent media like rabble. Follow us on social media across channels @rabbleca. 

This week on rabble radio, rabble contributor Doreen Nicoll sits down with Ontario educator Frank Domenic to discuss the state of Ontario’s universal health care system. 

Health care privatization in Ontario is something rabble writers have been closely following over the past year. For further reading, please see the following pieces: 

Linda McQuaig – Ontario’s shift to private health care will cost much, much more (May 23, 2023) 

Doreen Nicoll – Groups working to save public health care in Ontario (May 18, 2023)

Karl Nerenberg – Doug Ford’s private surgery plan is driven by ideology not innovation (January 17, 2023) 

rabble radio – The ongoing fight against privatized healthcare (September 16, 2022) 

rabble radio – The privatization of long-term care homes in Ontario must be stopped (May 6, 2022) 

About our guests 

Frank Domenic is a teacher in Ontario who creates content on social media focusing on news and politics, ranging from global issues to niche local Ontario content. You can follow him on Twitter @TheFrankDomenic and on TikTok @frankdomenic. 

Doreen Nicoll is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to rabble.ca  She is diligently working to end poverty, hunger, and human rights abuses across Canada and the globe.

Join us for Off the Hill 

On Wednesday, June 21 at 4:30pm PT / 7:30pm ET, join us for our final Off the Hill political panel before our summer hiatus. 

This month, we focus on National Indigenous People’s Day. 

What is causing the slow-moving action on the 94 Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada? What can Landback look like across Turtle Island? And are we any closer to true reconciliation?

Register for this free event today! 

If you like the show please consider subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. And please, rate, review, share rabble radio with your friends — it takes two seconds to support independent media like rabble. Follow us on social media across channels @rabbleca. 

This week on rabble radio, rabble editor Nick Seebruch sits down with Alberta political analyst Dave Cournoyer to review the recent provincial election in Alberta, and the newly re-elected Premier of Alberta Danielle Smith. 

READ MORE: Smith’s UCP ekes out a win in Calgary, secures majority

Smith and Alberta New Democrat Leader Rachel Notley were neck and neck for most of this election; but even after scandal after scandal, and despite losing some seats, Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party was able to amass enough support to overtake Notley and the New Democrats. 

READ MORE: Despite election win, UCP shut out of Edmonton

For more analysis on the recent Alberta election and for all-things Alberta politics, we encourage you to check out David Climenhaga’s contributions on rabble.ca. 

About our guest 

Dave Cournoyer is an Edmonton-based writer, political watcher, and communications professional. He writes about Alberta politics at daveberta.substack.com and is the host of the Daveberta Podcast. He can be found on Twitter at @davecournoyer and on Instagram at @daveberta.

If you like the show please consider subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. And please, rate, review, share rabble radio with your friends — it takes two seconds to support independent media like rabble. Follow us on social media across channels @rabbleca.

This week on rabble radio, we feature a segment from our most recent Off the Hill political panel. This month, our theme was ‘Off the Hill: Labour in high gear for action and change.’

Recent months have seen significant activity in Canada’s labour movement — including a public service strike, actions against austerity across the country, and the CLC convention in Montreal. This month our panel dove into recent developments and wondered what’s next for the labour movement in Canada.

Our panel included MP Alexandre Boulerice, OSBCU - CSCSO president Laura Walton, policy expert and rabble columnist Chuka Ejeckam and rabble parliamentary reporter Karl Nerenberg. Hosted by Robin Browne and Libby Davies.

If you like the show please consider subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. And please, rate, review, share rabble radio with your friends — it takes two seconds to support independent media like rabble. Follow us on social media across channels @rabbleca.