Join us for the launch of Confronting the Resurgent Right. Scholars and activists take Canada’s 2022 “Freedom Convoy” as a recent manifestation of deep-rooted extremism and provide intersectional commentary on the resurgence of the political right, demonstrating how its ideology permeates and shapes the structures of our society.

With evidence-based research, and careful analysis of the genesis and methods of the right, contributors to this volume model pathways of resistance and charge us with our most urgent collective tasks: finding ways to work together, building coalitions in civil society, and exposing and countering the regressive forces that spew hate.

The evening features a panel discussion about the book’s themes with the editor, Miriam Edelson, and contributors Peter Smith, Tim McCaskell, Judy Rebick and John Cartwright followed by Q&A.  

John Cartwright is the former national Chair of the Council of Canadians and past president of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council. A carpenter by trade, John has served on a number of public boards and co-chaired the Toronto Community Benefits Network, focused on winning community benefits and equity hiring on major infrastructure projects. Over the years he has helped develop the Campaign for Public Education, Public Transit for the Public Good, and Toronto Waterwatch campaigns to defend vital public services in Toronto. John has been deeply involved in anti-racism work and political bargaining for worker’s rights. He has written extensively on Just Transition and climate justice.

Miriam Edelson is an independent researcher, writer/editor and settler living in Toronto, Canada. She worked in the Canadian labour movement for thirty years specializing in communications and human rights, then earning her doctorate in 2016 at the University of Toronto focused on mental health in the workplace and the role of unions. She served as a member of the Workforce Advisory Committee of the Mental Health Commission of Canada during this time. Edelson is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW-ICREF), a feminist think tank that studies regressive movements in Canada, among other issues. She was a contributing author of a groundbreaking study about the impact on women of rising right-wing forces operating in Canada. Her literary non-fiction, personal essays and commentaries have appeared in The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, in various literary journals in the United States, the UK, Canada, and on CBC Radio. Her first book, My Journey with Jake: A Memoir of Parenting and Disability, was published in April 2000. Battle Cries: Justice for Kids with Special Needs appeared in late 2005. The Swirl in My Burl, her collection of essays, came out in 2022.

Tim McCaskell is a writer, activist, and educator. He worked at the Toronto Board of Education, developing and delivering programs on racism, homophobia, class bias, and sexual harassment for over twenty years. He was a member of The Body Politic, Canada’s first national magazine for Lesbian and Gay Liberation, and the Right to Privacy Committee, which galvanized community response after the 1981 bath raids. He was part of the Simon Nkodi Anti-Apartheid Committee, a solidarity group in the South African struggle, and later a member of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. He was a founding member of AIDS ACTION NOW!, an activist group that won access to experimental treatments and funding for medications. He is the author of Race to Equity: Disrupting Educational Inequality, a history of the struggle for equity in Toronto schools, and Queer Progress: From Homophobia to Homonationalism, a history of queer activism in Toronto.

Judy Rebick is one of Canada’s best-known feminists. While she is retired, she continues to work for change as a speaker, advisor, and writer. She is the author of six books; her latest is a memoir, Heroes in My Head. Judy was the first CAW Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson. She hosted two national TV shows on CBC in the 1990s and is also the founding publisher of rabble.ca, Canada’s most active independent online news and discussion site. She is the former president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women and was a spokesperson for the pro-choice campaign that won legal abortion in Canada in the 1980s.

The Toronto Workers History Project (TWHP) is a large group of workers, unionists, professors, students, artists, teachers, librarians, educators, researchers, community activists, and retirees dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the history of working people in Toronto.

University of Manitoba Press is dedicated to publishing books that combine important new scholarship with a deep engagement in the issues and events that affect the lives of Canadians.

Another Story Bookshop is an independent bookshop committed to equality & diversity featuring a wide selection for kids & adults.

The Leo Panitch School for Socialist Education is a space to listen, discuss and challenge the contemporary relevancy of socialism.