Hot Tubbin' For Justice

Tanya Fader (PHS), Angel Gates and the moderator from Reel Causes  My friend Dionne invited me to attend a screening of Wayne Wapeemukwa's film Luk'Luk'I at the theatre at SFU Woodward's. Organized by Reel Causes, it was a fundraiser in support of the Portland Hotel Society  (shout out to CUPE 1004 and CUPE 1936 who rep the workers). The theatre was packed by the time we got there and judging by the energy in the room, I knew we were in for an interesting evening.  Culture Saves Lives Women Spirit Drummers introduced themselves and gave acknowledgement to Tracey Morrison, a well-known DTES activist who we lost last year and before they treated us to"Strong Woman's Song," they recognized all of the sisters up at the front alongside them event if you can't see them (MMIWG). The song's history is rooted by women in the Kingston Pen. The song helped keep women strong and connect their spirits. It was the first time some of them ever per...

Scene from last years Women's March Seattle Last year's Women's March in Seattle was such an incredible experience. We stayed at Trish's parent' house and headed on the ferry to Seattle from Bainbridge with 2500 marchers. We handed out 40 pussyhats for folks and even had the Governor of Washington on our sailing. We marched up the street only to be told by the cops that the park was at capacity and we had to stay put (in front of union station). It ended up being a great option because we watched all the people march by us - and because we had little Canadian flags stuck in our hats, every Canadian ex-pat stopped to talk to us or people would just start singing "O Canada" to us. It was awesome to go from Union Station to Seattle Centre with 175k people - bigger than any Super Bowl Parade. The solidarity of that day will always be etched in my memory. That was the last time I crossed the border.  This year I stayed home to participate in March On Van...

Last night I attended a panel discussion on significant job action in Vancouver that included the 2001 Transit strike, the 2004 HEU strike, the 2007 strike in the City of Vancouver and the 2014 teachers' strike. The members of the panel were: Moderator: Irene Lanzinger, President of BC Federation of Labour Joe Elworthy, UNIFOR 2200 Donisa Bernardo, Hospital Employees Union (Financial Secretary) Aliza Nevarie, President, CUPE 391 (Vancouver Public Library Workers) Glen Hansman, President, BC Teachers' Federation Irene introduced the session with the lyric "without our brains and muscle, not a single wheel could turn" from our anthem, Solidarity Forever. Workers are the engines of our economies and the pillars of our communities and that it is important to ensure a class analysis in everything we do. When people think of unions they often think of strikes- strikes are a tool (they're not perfect) to engage, communicate, protest and press our ...

This is the first year I have attended the Vancouver Italian Film Festival. I bought tickets because they were a good deal and I love movies. My father was born in Celano and came to Canada as a child. I grew up in Vancouver around a ton of Abruzzese and Celanese, and my grandmother didn't really speak English. As a kid relatives would visit from Italy and there would be this whole other side of life that would come alive during holidays and family get togethers. I spent some time in Italy when I was 25 and had a great experience, and I also studied Italian in university. From time to time, I take a class at UBC to try and keep some of the language up - my Italian sucks, it's pretty rough, I use the wrong grammar all the time but I can fumble my way through a conversation. It's come in handy when going to the opera or when trailers of movies are shown without subtitles.  This festival has helped me reconnect to my heritage and in turn, to my dad (w...