PREVIOUS COURSES
Our past courses are listed below. If you, or your organization, are interested in having an expert from Montreal in Action team offer a course at your organization, or to work with our team to create educational material for you, please contact us by email at info@montrealenaction.org or use our contact form.
From Africville to Hogan's Alley: The importance of Black spaces in Canada
"Having Black spaces allow us to be together and be our true selves without the pressure of minimizing or changing who we are". In this class, Dr. Sabrina Jafralie will discuss the lack of spaces in Canada for Black people and how those missing or disappearing spaces impact the lives of Black Canadians. Jafralie, she will also provide a historical overview of prominent Black spaces in Canada. In doing so, Jafralie will take us on a coast-to-coast journey of Black spaces starting in Nova Scotia, with the story of Africville, and ending in British Columbia’s ethnically diverse Hogan's Alley. Finally, Dr Jafralie will argue for the critical need to create and sustain Black spaces in Canada and discuss the steps necessary to take to build these missing spaces.
Sabrina Jafralie, PhD, is an Educator, Co-Founder of the Centre for Religious Literacy, and a Social Justice Advocate. Dr. Sabrina Jafralie has led an impressive career as a secondary school teacher at Westmount High School and a university course lecturer at McGill University in the Faculty of Education. In 2018, Jafralie received the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence. Her research includes pedagogy, anti-racist and anti-Blackness education, religious literacy and purposeful dialogue. Beyond her teaching and research activities, Jafralie is a dedicated activist. In 2020, she was recognized as Activist of the Year by ByBlack.com. Jafralie holds a B.Ed. in history and religious education, a Master of Arts in Theological Studies from Concordia University, and a doctorate in Educational Studies from McGill University. Jafralie is published in the emerging field of religious literacy in Canada, where she recently co-authored the article Recognition of context and experience: a civic-based Canadian conception of religious literacy.
This webinar has been made possible through sponsorship from McGill Unviersity's Labour Law and Development Research Laboratory (LLDRL).
details: WED, OCT 28, 2020 6:00 PM (EST) VIA ZOOM
EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION
This webinar on employment discrimination will be led by Dr. Adelle Blackett. In this webinar, we will explore the recommendations from the public consultation on systemic racism to understand the problem as solutions associated with employment at the municipal level in Montreal.
Adelle Blackett, Ad. E., is Professor of Law and Canada Research Chair in Transnational Labour Law and Development at the Faculty of Law, McGill University, where she teaches and researches in the areas of labour and employment law, trade regulation, law and development, critical race theory and slavery and the law. Professor Blackett holds a B.A. in History from Queen’s University, civil law and common law degrees from McGill, and an LL.M. and a doctorate in law from Columbia University. Widely published in English, French and Spanish in the emerging field of transnational labour law, in 2015, she co-edited a Research Handbook on Transnational Labour Law. Her book manuscript entitled Everyday Transgressions: Domestic Workers’ Transnational Challenge to International Labour Law (Cornell University Press) was published in Spring 2019.
DETAILS: WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 12 2020 18H00 (EST) VIA ZOOM
TO DOWNLOAD THE COURSE SLIDES, CLICK HERE
Environmental Violence: A Framework for Understanding the Social Justice Dimensions of Race, Place & Space in Canada
In this presentation Dr. Ingrid Waldron (Ph.D. Associate Professor Faculty of Health Dalhousie University) examines the social justice dimensions of race, place, space, and the environment in Indigenous and Black communities in Canada by exploring how hierarchies and intersections of race, culture, gender, income, class, and other social identities are spatialized in rural and urban settings. She discusses how these identities are imbued in the places and spaces where we live, work, and play by unpacking the larger socio-spatial processes that create disproportionate exposure and vulnerability to the harmful social, economic, and health impacts of inequality in Indigenous and Black communities. At the same time, she maintains a sustained and critical focus on race as an important analytical entry point for understanding spatial violence in urban and rural spaces where racialized people are harmed by police brutality, unemployment, income insecurity, poverty, public infrastructure inequalities, gentrification, and proximity to polluting industries. In other words, she argues that the lived experience of spatial violence and toxic exposure live together and that it is not possible to understand the disproportionate impacts of these issues in Indigenous and Black communities in isolation. In so doing, she disrupts traditional notions of “the environment” that are centered on harmonizing cities and nature by engaging in a conceptual re-imagining of the environment as a product of both the symbolic meaning of space and the materiality of space.
DETAILS: TUESDAY AUGUST 18 2020 13H00 (EST) VIA ZOOM
POLICING BLACK LIVES IN CANADA
During this webinar, Robyn Maynard, will explore the phenomenon of policing Black lives in Canada along with the defunding and disarming movements that have gained momentum around the world. Robyn Maynard is the author of Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present. Currently in its third printing, Maynard's book is a CBC national bestseller and has been designated as one of the “Best 100 books of 2017” by The Hill Times.
DETAILS: MONDAY AUGUST 10 2020 12H00 (EST) VIA ZOOM
THE HISTORY OF THE PRESENCE OF AFRICAN HERITAGE AND SLAVERY IN QUEBEC
Hip-hop artist Webster will give a conference about the presence of African heritage in Quebec going back to the era of New France, and of black and indigenous slavery.
DÉTAILS : TUESDAY JULY 14 2020 12H00 (EST) VIA ZOOM
Indigenous Rights in Montreal
In 2017, Montreal announced its intention to become a metropolis of reconciliation with Indigenous people; however, that has not benefited the experiences of First Nations, Métis and Inuit populations. In this class, Nakuset, the executive director of the native women’s shelter in Montreal, will expose the realities and experiences of indigenous people in Montreal. From policing, to health and overall access to public services, this class will address the issues, and lay out the reforms and solutions necessary to remedy the inequities that indigenous peoples face in Montreal.
DETAILS: TUESDAY JUNE 30 2020 12H00 (EST) VIA ZOOM
Racial profiling in Montreal, effects of organizational policies and practices
This Montreal en Action class will be taught by Dr. Anne-Marie Livingstone a Montreal native who is a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. She was one of the leaders of the research team of the qualitative study #MTLSansProfilage, which looked into racial profiling by Montreal police. In this class, Dr. Livingstone will address racial profiling in policing and its effects on young people in Montreal. Moreover, she will analyze the organizational policies and practices that aggravate equality by perpetrating racial profiling. Lastly, Dr. Livingstone will address the recommendations related to racial profiling from the Public Consultation on Systemic Racism and Discrimination.
DeTAILS: FRIDAY JUNE 19 2020 12H00 (EST)
TO DOWNLOAD THE COURSE SLIDES, CLICK HERE
SYSTEMIC RACISM 101
This class will be hosted by Balarama Holness, a teacher with a Master's in Education who studies law at the McGill University. Balarama will take you on a voyage through slavery in Quebec: the civil rights movement from a Canadian perspective, up until the formation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We will traverse legal and historical benchmarks to inform our current understanding of the protests ignited by the killing of George Floyd. Moreover, we will unpack the unresolved grievances of protesters: unemployment, housing, racial profiling and police brutality, under-representation in democratic institutions to better understand systemic racism and discrimination. By the end of the class, you should not only understand systemic racism and discrimination, but understand how it is maintained and perpetuated. Lastly, Balarama will provide you with some fundamental tools to become an effective change-maker, able to make concrete changes, specifically in relation to the recommendations from Montreal's public consultation on systemic racism and discrimination.