This episode of AW@L Radio (recorded June 30, 2017), opens with a quick rant about Trudeau’s massive increases to canada’s military budget, and a brief chat about local ripening fruits.

For the remainder of the show, we are joined by Dr. Stephen Svenson for a discussion around #canada150 and the lingering “unproductive fictions” that deal with the establishment of this settler colonial state and which lay the foundation of racist canadian nationalism. Throughout the discussion we swing back to the question of “what are we celebrating?” when people choose to celebrate canada.

“canada’s creation story, as it were, is genocidal maniacs trying to wipe the indigenous people off the map.” – @DocSvenson

On June 1, the Algonquins of Barriere Lake continued their struggle against mining on their territory as they confronted Copper One($CUO.v) at the company’s AGM in Toronto. Copper One has been attempting to mine on Barriere Lake territory without the community’s consent since they took over mining claims there in 2011. Barriere Lake is firm in their stance that they do not want mining on their territory–much of which is also known as La Verendrye Wildlife Reserve–since it would cause irreparable harms.

The community is party to Bilateral and Trilateral Agreements with the provincial and federal governments that make the need for the community’s say in resource projects clear. However, the Quebec and Canadian governments have not held up their side of the agreements, forcing the community to continue to fight for their right to make decisions about what happens on their territory. Currently, Copper One’s claims are suspended, a status which the company is fighting in court.

Community members have attended Copper One’s AGM in the past, and expressed their opposition to the company’s mining plans. This year, Copper One took a more aggressive approach at the meeting, having called law enforcement which attempted multiple times to forcibly remove community representative Norman Matchewan before and during his statement to the company’s board.

In this episode you will hear drumming from Barriere Lake Youth, followed by a speech Norman delivered in the lobby of the building where copper one was holding their AGM. You will then hear an interview with Norman, and another clip of a speech he gave outside the AGM.

We then speak with Shiri Pasternak of Barriere Lake Solidarity (http://www.barrierelakesolidarity.org/) and hear speeches from the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network and Barriere Lake Solidarity.

As this piece was being published, journalist Jorge Barrera tweeted, “Quebec has refused Copper One’s permits to cut down trees in Barriere Lake’s traditional territory, it emerged Thursday evening.” AW@L Radio will follow up with Barriere Lake as the impacts of this news becomes clear. Check http://grandirvermc.ca for updates. (https://twitter.com/JorgeBarrera/status/872976449866747905)

The following audio and interviews were gathered by Rachel Avery on a noisy afternoon in downtown toronto, please enjoy.

From the March 24th edition of AW@L Radio, the show starts with a run down of the events at a Peel regional school board meeting, where anti-muslim bigots ripped up a Koran and yelled at people shaming them. The meeting was then shut down, but as host dan kellar notes, the bigots have names, jobs and addresses… (check this Tamara Khandaker piece from vice, including the videos, for more – https://news.vice.com/story/the-quran-was-torn-to-shreds-at-a-raucous-school-board-meeting-in-peel-region)

After a clip of Lowkey’s Ahmed (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNqum-_5RhY), we speak of the protests against M-103 (a motion to study the rise in hate in Canada – specifically anti-muslim hate) and we get into a report back from the counter-demo in Kitchener, where antifa contained and outnumbered the confused members of the CCCC. While under the bogus guise of “free speech”, all of the anti M-103 protestors AW@L Radio spoke with, asked if we had read the Koran.

We also note the apparent success of the #IAMWRAgainstRacialDiscrimination campaign (despite the length of the hashtag…), and hype of the antifa resistance worldwide.

“The facists already have unfettered access to the mainstream media, it is the people’s job to keep the bigots off the streets and out of public places.” – antifa at the counter demo at the KW anti-m-103 protest.

This episode starts with a quick plea from host dan kellar to stop the march to war in Syria, including calling out Justin Trudeau for his quick support of Trump’s recent bombardments, calling on NDP leadership hopefuls to clarify thier position on the attacks and on imperial wars in general, and noting that there is no verified proof of who launched the apparent chemical weapons attack in Syria.

To set a base for the rest of the episode, we then read “Racism, Violence, And Thunder Bay Reporting: An investigation of racism on Lakehead University campus and Thunder Bay’s complicity with anti-Indigeneity and systemic violence against Indigenous women” an article by Brady Coyle and Leah Ching if the Argus newspaper in Thunder Bay (http://theargus.ca/features/2017/racism-violence-and-thunder-bay-reporting/).

The rest of the episode is then spent with organiser and social justice activist Alex Hundert, who re-joins AW@L Radio to update us on several campaigns he is working on with folks from Grassy Narrows, specifically the #Justice4Azraya campaign and the Grassy Narrows Youth Media project (https://www.facebook.com/GrassyNarrowsYouth/, twitter: @GNYouthMedia). We also discuss #JusticeForDelaine and bring in discussion of systemic racism present in Kenora, Thunder Bay, and indeed, all across Canada.

The episode ends with *BONUS* content fom Alex, also discussing war (what is it good for?).