The city is a sweatshop

Featuring:

Adil Charkaoui - Migrant Justice Advocate
Lee Maracle - Poet and Author
Clayton Thomas-Mueller - Defenders of the Land
Uzma Shakir - Atkinson Economic Justice Fellow
Sakura Saunders - Media Activist

and many others...

Hidden behind skyscraper towers and corporate greed is a city built on the foundations of stolen land, exploitation of immigrant labor and denial of basic services to those living without full status or in poverty - Toronto. A sweatshop city.

Massive changes to the immigration and refugee system, coupled with renewed Immigration raids have created an even more precarious situation in Toronto, home to thousands of people living without full status.

Non status people are being systematically shut out of schools, food banks and hospitals, and harassed at women's shelters by Police and Immigration Enforcement while rebuilding their lives. Migrants are exploited at work, and threatened with deportation when attempting to unionize. Immigration enforcement is attacking people in their homes, at work and on the streets.

But we are taking back our city. One shelter at a time, one food bank at a time, one health care centre at a time. Breaking the walls, fences and borders in Toronto, we are creating a Sanctuary City that ensures justice and dignity for all.

Join us this year in our second annual City Is A Sweatshop series of events!

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March 19, 2010, 12:30pm
SERVICES | SANCTUARY | STATUS: ACCESS WITHOUT FEAR [2]
Health Science Building, UofT, 155 College Street

Pre-Registration required! [3]

A forum for front-line workers and service providers working with migrant communities, students, academics and activists to develop strategies aimed at ensuring access to essential services for immigrants without full status.

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March 19, 2010, 7:00pm
DISMANTLING THE SWEATSHOP CITY [4]
72 Lib, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street

A powerhouse panel discussion featuring activists who have struggled to break down barriers to justice and self-determination of all people. Focused on the ideas and ways that will break down the banks, the corporations, and the policies that are forcing many to live in indignity, the panel will forefront those that have dug at the roots of injustice and planted seeds of change in the very foundations of the system.

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March 20, 2010, 7:00pm
SANCTUARY CITY [5]
Cecil Street Community Centre, 58 Cecil Street

Come join us for food, talks and inspiring performances to celebrate the struggle to transform the city from a sweatshop to a sanctuary. Through organizing in communities, in schools and in shelters, in foodbanks and in health centres and at work places, we are creating the city we want to live in. Grassroots organisers and artists from across the city will share their vision of this city, one based on justice and solidarity.

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As we prepare to flood the streets of Toronto on May Day (May 1, 2010), and as we build our resistance to the G8/G20 Summits coming to Toronto in June 2010, this series of events will lay out a vision for a city that includes everyone that lives, works, loves and struggles here.

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