Courtesy of Leftstreamed, here are some videos of events we have helped organize and/or participated in.
Privatization is everywhere in the city, our province, and across the country, whether is is selling off public resources and services; financing and managing public projects through public/private partnerships (P3s); contracting out the public capacity to manage and oversee the operation of programmes we all need.
Privatization seeks to transform our education, healthcare, energy, and transit into more assets for the 1% to profit from. It undermines public healthcare, affordable, sustainable and reliable energy, accessible transit, social and affordable housing, and the livelihoods of those who work in these sectors.
Who loses most from privatization? Workers, the unemployed, oppressed groups and the environment.
A number of movements work to challenge privatization — campaigns against the privatization of Hydro One and Toronto Hydro, healthcare, housing and transit. They include unions, community groups, ordinary people and others involved in researching and studying forms of privatization.
A forum to discuss the struggles over public transit in London, England and in Toronto, over P3s, privatization, funding public transit, and posing alternatives, such as reduced fares, free transit and increased accessibility. We are at a turning point in the struggle for public transit, particularly in Toronto. Although we have now won broad recognition of the need to expand public transit, the modes and organizational forms this will take, the fares that will be levied, the funding provisions and the operational practices remain completely unclear. There remains nothing in the way of a national public transit plan in Canada, and Ontario planning is both ad hoc and bent on privatization. There are important strategic lessons to be learned from the experience of London — a system at the forefront of these kinds of battles over the neoliberalization of transit systems. As well, there is a growing national and international free public transit movement as a central means to address global warning and for transit justice to give equal access to mobility.
Sponsored by Centre for Social Justice, Free Transit Toronto Campaign and Socialist Project.
Toronto — 1 March 2015.
The election of John Tory creates new openings and challenges for the public transit movement in Toronto, as does the large vote for Ford in the city’s inner suburban areas. How are we to understand this moment, and how do we move forward as a transit movement? These are some of the questions posed at this forum.
Toronto — 9 October 2014.
Struggles to expand public transport and to block privatization are central to overturning neoliberalism and addressing climate justice. This forum brings together some of the leading public transit activists in Europe and North America.
Toronto — 28 September 2014.
What can we learn from the free transit experiment in Tallinn, Estonia?
Toronto — 20 January 2013.
How can our campaign contribute to Toronto’s transit movement and help transform the city? How could our demand for free and accessible public transit promote environmental justice and sustainability, housing, jobs and social equality? How can we move forward the GTWA Free and Accessible Transit Campaign?
Brenda Thompson is a public transit activist living in Toronto.
Herman Rosenfeld member of the GTWA Free and Accessible Transit Committee.
Jessica Bell is an activist with TTC Riders.
Which Way Forward for the Transit Movement in Toronto?
Toronto — 3 March 2012.
Organized by the Campaign for Free and Accessible Transit – GTWA.
Toronto — 5 December 2011.
A group of people from OccupyToronto paid their fare and rode the subway cars of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). They engaged with riders using the people’s mic – about the state of the TTC and the city’s budgetary cutbacks.
No TTC Fares on Smog and Heat Alert Days!
Toronto — 6 July 2011.
During Extreme Heat Alerts, the City of Toronto counsels people to seek shelter and opens cooling centres across the City. People are at risk of death during these alerts – particularly pregnant women, senior citizens, people living with disabilities and chronic illnesses and people living in substandard housing.
We need TTC to be FREE on Extreme Heat and Smog Alert Days so that people can access cooling centres and stay safe during the summer heat and smog.
These are steps toward a free transit system for all, ensuring that public transit is a right for those who need it, while reducing smog and environmental damage.
Organized by: Fair Fare Coalition; Greater Toronto Workers’ Assembly – Free and Accessible Transit Campaign; Damn 2025.