34. From the Street to City Hall w/ Diana Chan McNally

34. From the Street to City Hall w/ Diana Chan McNally

Diana Chan McNally has been unhoused, a teen mother, a museum curator, a college instructor, a harm reduction worker, a frontline homelessness advocate, and a DJ. Now she's running for Toronto City Council in Ward 4 Parkdale–High Park.  We trace the through-line connecting all of it: organizing, interpreting, and showing up for people. Diana explains why governments allow homelessness to persist and grow, what our laws can and can't do for the unhoused, and why protest must be disruptive to be effective. She also tells me about being served a lifetime ban from the Ontario legislature, code-switching to write for the Toronto Sun, and what her first mentor Bob Rose taught her about relationship-based community work. SOURCES Diana Chan McNally for Ward 4 Parkdale–High Park [https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/council/ward-profiles/ward-4-parkdale-high-park/] The Shift — Housing as a Human Right [https://make-the-shift.org/] National Housing Strategy Act, Canada [https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/N-11.2/page-1.html] City of Toronto Housing Charter [https://www.toronto.ca/community-people/community-partners/toronto-office-of-partnerships/toronto-housing-charter/] Ontario Bill 6 — Safer Municipalities Act [https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-assembly/bills/parliament-43/session-1/bill-6] Waterloo encampment Charter ruling, 2023 [https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/2023/01/24/ontario-court-rules-waterloo-region-violated-charter-rights-of-homeless-encampment-residents.html] Maggie Helwig — Encampment (Toronto Book Award) [https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/torontobookawards/] St. Stephen-in-the-Fields Anglican Church [https://ststephensinthefield.ca/] Maytree — Diana Chan McNally Fellow [https://maytree.com/our-people/diana-chan-mcnally/] First United Church — Amanda Burrows, Vancouver [https://firstunited.ca/]https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095538715 * Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/matthewremski.bsky.social] * Instagram: @matthew_remski [https://www.instagram.com/matthew_remski/] * YouTube: @antifascistdad [https://www.youtube.com/@antifascistdad] * TikTok: [@antifascistdad] * Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast [https://www.patreon.com/antifascistdadpodcast] * Pre-order Antifascist Dad [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/]

UNLOCK 32.1 What Tommy Douglas Knew & What We All Know about Socialized Medicine

In a coda to episode 32, I reflect on what socialized medicine means not as culture or sentiment but as raw material security and the basis for working-class solidarity. I draw on Beatrice Adler-Bolton's analysis of American healthcare as organized abandonment, and personal accounts of a near-fatal DVT and an emergency C-section that would have meant financial ruin for us in the US. But where I see Tommy Douglas's strategic insight that Medicare must expand or be destroyed most vividly is in our autistic son's daily experience of exclusion. For me it grounds Robert Chapman's argument that neurodivergence is a class war issue. SOURCES Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat [https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/julian-walker/conspirituality/9781541602588/] Beatrice Adler-Bolton — Health Communism [https://www.versobooks.com/products/2739-health-communism] Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism — Robert Chapman [https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745347578/empire-of-normality/] PANS/PANDAS — PANDAS Network [https://www.pandasnetwork.org] Tommy Douglas and the Quest for Medicare in Canada — Gordon Lawson [https://www.uap.ualberta.ca/titles/940-9781772126181-tommy-douglas-and-the-quest-for-medicare-in-canada] The Telepathy Tapes — Conspirituality critical analysis [https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/241-unravelling-the-telepathy-tapes] Socials * Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/matthewremski.bsky.social] * Instagram: @matthew_remski [https://www.instagram.com/matthew_remski/] * YouTube: @antifascistdad [https://www.youtube.com/@antifascistdad] * TikTok: [@antifascistdad] * Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast [https://www.patreon.com/antifascistdadpodcast] * Pre-order Antifascist Dad [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/]

33. Antifascist Self Defence and Rewriting the Body's Response to Violence w/ Maren Forsberg

Norwegian kickboxer Maren Forsberg works as a self-defense trainer focused on building antifascist courage and resilience for women, queer, and trans people. I spoke with her about her path from childhood play-fighting with her jiu-jitsu dad through national-level kickboxing competition, to coaching survivors of violence and trauma. What is the freeze response? How can martial training recalibrate it? Why is fascist aggression fragile, and dependent on an audience? Why are physical training and nervous system training different things? And why might queer and trans people carry a secret weapon into the self-defense practice?  Follow Maren Forsberg on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/marenforsberg/]!. * Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/matthewremski.bsky.social] * Instagram: @matthew_remski [https://www.instagram.com/matthew_remski/] * YouTube: @antifascistdad [https://www.youtube.com/@AntifascistDad] * TikTok: @antifascistdad [https://www.tiktok.com/@antifascistdad] * Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast [https://www.patreon.com/antifascistdadpodcast] * Antifascist Dad — Penguin Random House [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/]

UNLOCKED 31.1 Kensington Market Palimpsest

In this coda to my conversation with Serena Purdy, I track the layered history of Kensington Market through the metaphor of the palimpsest, the medieval manuscript practice of writing over earlier texts that never fully disappear. Indigenous territory through colonial land seizure. Victorian working-class housing. Jewish Bundist labour militancy. Successive immigrant waves, encampment clearings, and the CBC sitcom that converted a neighbourhood's socialist politics into warm liberal vibes... Kensington's history is all still readable in its brickwork, its cracked plaster, and storefront signs painted over and over again. On walks through the Market with our 13-year-old, I wonder: when the political energy has faded but the cultural vibrancy remains, what are we inheriting, and what are we waiting for? SOURCES Kensington Market Community Land Trust [https://kmclt.ca/] Friends of Kensington Market [https://friendsofkensingtonmarket.com/] Kensington Market Overdose Prevention Site — St. Stephen's Community House [https://www.sschto.ca/] Gwartzman's Art Supplies — 448 Spadina Avenue [https://gwartzmans.com/] The Beguiling Books & Art [https://www.beguiling.com/] Weekend Characters — design studio, Kensington Market [https://weekendcharacters.com/] Bone and Busk — designer Katerina Mior, Nassau Street [https://boneandbusk.com/] El Trompo — 277 Augusta Avenue [https://www.eltrompo.ca/] King of Kensington — CBC Archives [https://www.cbc.ca/archives/king-of-kensington] Walter Benjamin, Berlin Childhood around 1900 — Harvard University Press [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674022225] Sigmund Freud, "A Note Upon the 'Mystic Writing Pad'" [https://www.pep-web.org/] General Jewish Labour Bund — YIVO Encyclopedia [https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/bund] Workmen's Circle / Arbeiter Ring — Toronto [https://toronto-workmens-circle.org/] Antifascist Dad Episode 31: Voices of Kensington Will Ring in Ottawa with Serena Purdy [https://www.patreon.com/antifascistdadpodcast] Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/matthewremski.bsky.social] Instagram: @matthew_remski [https://www.instagram.com/matthew_remski/] YouTube: @antifascistdad [https://www.youtube.com/@antifascistdad] [TikTok: @antifascistdad] Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast [https://www.patreon.com/antifascistdadpodcast] Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/]

32. Smith and Carney May Destroy Socialized Medicine w/ Nikolas Barry-Shaw

I sit down with Nikolas Barry-Shaw, researcher and trade and privatization campaigner for the Council of Canadians, to break down how Alberta's Bill 11 is dismantling Canada's public healthcare system, with the help of an insurgent private insurance campaign. Manulife, Canada Life, and Sun Life control two thirds of Canada's $66 billion private health benefits market. These behemoths helped draft Danielle Smith's signature legislation through covert government working groups. Meanwhile, doctors, unions, and the public were excluded. Bill 11 creates a two-tier fast lane for the privately insured and opens the door to privatizing any part of the system by administrative fiat. So far, the Carney government is refusing to enforce the Canada Health Act, and Saskatchewan and Ontario watching that closely, ready to pounce. Barry-Shaw argues this moment poses an existential threat to Medicare, from coast to coast. As Tommy Douglas warned forty years ago: the system must move forward or it will be crushed by capital. SOURCES Pandora's Box: Danielle Smith and Insurance Giants Unleash Attack on Healthcare [https://breachmedia.ca/pandoras-box-danielle-smith-and-insurance-giants-unleash-attack-on-healthcare/] Danielle Smith Admitted She Wants to Throw Out Canada's Public Health Care Law [https://breachmedia.ca/danielle-smith-admitted-she-wants-to-throw-out-canadas-public-health-care-law/] Alberta's Bill 11 Breaks Federal Law — Canadian Health Coalition [https://www.healthcoalition.ca/albertas-bill-11-breaks-federal-law/] Bill 11 Analysis — Parkland Institute [https://www.parklandinstitute.ca/] Bill 11 Report — Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives [https://www.policyalternatives.ca/] Council of Canadians — Trade and Privatization [https://canadians.org/] Friends of Medicare Alberta [https://www.friendsofmedicare.org/] Ontario Health Coalition [https://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/] Socials * Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social [https://bsky.app/profile/matthewremski.bsky.social] * Instagram: @matthew_remski [https://www.instagram.com/matthew_remski/] * YouTube: @antifascistdad [https://www.youtube.com/@antifascistdad] * TikTok: [@antifascistdad] * Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast [https://www.patreon.com/antifascistdadpodcast] * Order Antifascist Dad [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/]