The Future of Our City Series
Defunding the Police
A discussion on reprioritizing city investments as we build a just Toronto
Check out the full Future Of Our City Series here
You can also view and share the video on Twitter through periscope here.
On Wednesday, June 17 we teamed up with the Urban Alliance on Race Relations to co-host a conversation with Black Lives Matter Toronto co-founder and Vice Chair of the Black Legal Action Centre Sandy Hudson (bio), lawyer, professor, author, advocate and Chair in Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University Dr. Pamela Palmater (bio), writer and community organizer with Education Not Incarceration Phillip Dwight Morgan (bio), and Executive Director of Black Creek Community Health Centre Cheryl Prescod (bio). The conversation was moderated by Toronto Star Digital Producer Angelyn Francis (bio). Before the panel began, Co-Founder of No More Silence Audrey Huntley (bio), joined us to share a few words.
More About the Panel
Historic protests in Toronto, across Canada, the United States, and around the world are demanding an end to anti-Black racism and police brutality. This includes an overwhelming wave of support for defunding the police and instead investing in communities. Here in Toronto at the June 29 meeting of Toronto City Council, two City Councillors are moving a motion to cut the Toronto Police Services Budget by $122 million and invest the funds in community services and programs.
Hear from our incredible panel about why people around the world are calling to defund the police and to learn more about what defunding the police and alternative models for both public safety and community investments would mean for Toronto.
This is a free event, but when you register you will have the chance to donate to the Urban Alliance on Race Relations’ inaugural Black Youth Fellowship program. The Black Youth Fellowship will provide 10-15 Black youth with paid experience working in a City Councillor’s office at Toronto City Hall - putting Black youth on the fast-track to sitting at decision-making tables and helping to shape the systemic changes needed. You can read more about the program here.
Wednesday, June 17, 2020
7:30pm ET
This online conversation will be hosted on Zoom and the link will be provided with registration
This is a free event, but we welcome donations to support the Black Youth Fellowship. Any donation made upon registration will be in support of this program.
Register Below:
About our panelists and moderator:
Moderator: Angelyn Francis
Angelyn Francis is a digital producer at The Star, as well as a writer, photographer, video producer and host. Francis mostly covers race, inequality, culture, food and community initiatives, sometimes all at once. She previously hosted season one of HuffPost's award-winning podcast "Born and Raised" which was about second generation Canadians and how food influences their lives.
Sandy Hudson
An award-winning public intellectual, Sandy has been honoured as one of Toronto Life’s 50 Most Influential Torontonians in 2016, Post City Magazine’s 12 Most Inspiring Women of Toronto, a recipient of the Lincoln Alexander ’53 Award, the William P. Hubbard Award for Race Relations, Now Magazine’s Best Activist Campaign, Now Magazine’s Best Social Justice Group, the Terry Buckland Award for Diversity & Equity in Education, one of Canada International Black Women’s 100 Black Women to watch, and featured in Racism-Free Ontario’s 100 People to Watch list.
Sandy is the founder of the Black Lives Matter movement presence in Canada and Black Lives Matter – Toronto. She also co-founded the Black Liberation Collective – Canada, the campus-based extension of the movement. The work Sandy has accomplished with her team has been formidable, and her efforts to publicly address anti-Black racism have resulted in concrete policy change, including the winding down of the program that places police officers in the largest school board in North America.
Sandy also helped to found the Black Legal Action Centre, a specialty legal aid clinic, which provides direct legal services and test case litigation for Black communities in Ontario. She currently serves as the organization’s Vice-Chair.
Sandy has appeared in the New York Times, Toronto Star, CP24, Global News, the Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, and TVO.org among other newsmedia. Sandy holds a Social Justice Education degree from the University of Toronto and regularly provides workshops and keynote addresses to community members, universities and conferences to share her skills and has been honoured to speak alongside Dionne Brand, Dr. Angela Robertson, Robyn Maynard, Dr. Rinaldo Walcott, Dr. Afua Cooper, Dr. Carl James, Dr. George Dei, Olivia Chow, Clayton Thomas Muller and Vivek Shraya, to name a few.
Sandy is also well known for her podcast Sandy & Nora Talk Politics and her new book Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada.
Speaker: Audrey Huntley
Audrey Huntley is the Co-Founder No More Silence. Audrey has been part of social movements fighting for a world free of racism, sexism and other forms of oppression for over 30 years. She is a filmmaker and the co-founder of the Toronto based network No More Silence. The group works to honour missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, trans and Two Spirit people by supporting community efforts to end settler colonial violence, reclaim and defend land while asserting sovereignty. In her day job, she is the victim rights paralegal at Aboriginal Legal Services.
Phillip Dwight Morgan
Phillip Dwight Morgan is a first-generation Canadian writer of Jamaican heritage. His writings have appeared in Maclean's,The Toronto Star, CBC News, HuffPost Canada, and rabble.ca, among others. In 2017, Phillip served as the inaugural rabble.ca Jack Layton Journalism for Change Fellow where he covered issues of racial justice in the Greater Toronto Area. He is also a member of Education Not Incarceration, a team of educators, students, parents/caregivers, researchers, community organizers who have come together to address the school-to-prison pipeline. In 2017, ENI played a critical role in the successful campaign to remove the SRO program from TDSB schools.
Dr. Pamela Palmater
Dr. Pam Palmater is a Mi’kmaw lawyer, professor, author, and social justice activist from Eel River Bar First Nation in New Brunswick. She has four university degrees, including a BA from St. Thomas in Native Studies; an LLB from University of New Brunswick, and her Masters and Doctorate in Law from Dalhousie University specializing in Indigenous law. She currently holds the position of full Professor and Chair in Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University.
A practicing lawyer for 22 years, Pam has been volunteering and working in First Nation issues for over 30 years on a wide range of issues like socio-economic conditions, Aboriginal and treaty rights, and legislation impacting First Nations. Her books, Indigenous Nationhood: Empowering Grassroots Citizens and Beyond Blood: Rethinking Indigenous Identity, and her other publications focus on Indigenous law, politics, and governance and the importance of native sovereignty and nation-building.
Pam was one of the spokespeople and public educators for the Idle No More movement and advocates alongside other movements focusing on social justice and human rights. She is frequently called as a legal expert before Parliamentary and United Nations committees dealing with laws and policies impacting Indigenous peoples. Her current research focuses on police racism, abuse and sexualized violence against Indigenous women and girls and its contribution to the crisis of murdered, missing, traded, and exploited Indigenous women and girls.
Pam is a well-known public speaker and media commentator – considered one of Canada’s Top 25 Influential Movers and Shakers by the Financial Post and the Top 5 Most Influential Lawyer in Human Rights by Canadian Lawyer Magazine. She has been recognized with many awards for her social justice advocacy on behalf of First Nations generally, and Indigenous women and children specifically, including the 2012 YWCA Woman of Distinction Award in Social Justice, 2012 Women’s Courage Award in Social Justice, and the Margaret Mead Award in Social Justice 2016, to name a few.
Cheryl Prescod
The executive director at a community health centre in one of Toronto’s most marginalized neighbourhoods, Cheryl strives to ensure equitable access to health services for vulnerable populations. A dedicated community leader for over 25 years, she is known as a coalition builder, bringing together diverse stakeholders in community development initiatives that reflect the real needs of the people. She facilitates numerous Community-University partnerships in research to build evidence that informs innovative approaches to complex problems such as youth violence in urban neighbourhoods. Throughout her professional and personal interactions, Cheryl continuously champions equity and inclusion, towards the creation of a more just society.
Cheryl is a proud alumnus of the University of Ottawa and University of Toronto where she earned graduate degrees in Science. She has advanced leadership training in healthcare and non-profit management from the Rotman School of Management, Schulich School of Business and Harvard Business School. Cheryl values time spent with family and friends which helps her to maintain an optimal work-life balance.