There is so much out there to get mad about. Social injustices, class warfare, continued

colonization, the act of destruction of our planet by those focused on prophets and not

people. We can find it overwhelming at times. The good news is there are equally as many,

if not more, stories of people coming together and rising up against the forces at play. So

the creators of Blueprints of Disruption have added a new weekly segment, Ravel Rants, where

we will unpack the stories that have us most riled up, share calls to action, and most importantly,

celebrate resistance. Welcome to another Ravel Rant. We have a few items that we need to talk

about today. Of course, our minds are still with Palestine and there is a lot of updates

to unpack there. We're also going to talk about the privatization of healthcare, mostly in

Ontario, but trending right across Canada. And then we're going to talk about the vulnerability

of students, the cost of living that affects them, the high tuition rates, unpaid internships.

There's a lot there that really lends to the rates of poverty that students experience,

and Santiago has a few stories to share with us there. Before we get into some important

updates in terms of the siege on Gaza, we were trying to decide what we were going to talk

about and it's hard. It's hard for me to keep pace with all of that's happening, all of the

updates coming in from Gaza and surrounding that issue, and then to try to keep on top

of the other politics in our life. and our lives. And I think like I've seen a lot of posts recently

that let me know that I'm not the only one feeling exhausted. Right, and that's not to center

myself because I can only imagine what it's like to also be Palestinian in these times

and consistently waiting for updates from back home and seeing the erasure of your people.

And organizing through that and continuing to resist through that is taking a toll I don't

think many of us have experienced before. You texted me last night something along the lines

of like, I don't know how we're staying sane. And my response was, I'm not. Yeah, when I

said that I was more maybe trying to convince myself that I was still holding on to my sanity.

But it's been difficult. You know, these things come in waves and I think like, reach definitely

a point of just like sheer exhaustion from the toll of everything that's happening. Not just,

I mean, everything that's happening in Palestine, everything that's happening in Canada too,

the global issues in general. I made the mistake of, well. not a mistake because it's helpful,

but I started like reading about genocide. And I started reading about genocides around the

world in the third course of history. I was shocked at the sheer number of genocides that

occurred in the 20th century, even the 21st century that we know nothing about. It was

difficult. read about that and but at the same time I think that so I mean yeah not holding

on to sanity in a way I think is also the same thing to do because I think the state of things

are such as at such a level where if you're not feeling that I would almost like I would

almost be concerned if I was doing perfectly fine right now. with how things are? I think

like the people that are doing fine have in a way switched off their humanity to a degree.

I think we started to see it with the pandemic and people's just detachment from. responsibility

of keeping each other safe and only worrying about yourself and it became like a triage

where that's all you could do right you're in the state of survival trauma and you kind of

carp compartmentalize that and shut everything else out that you feel like you can't control

And it's so hard, like I feel it, but when I hear you say like, I'm so exhausted, that makes

me so frustrated too, because it's like the time right now that people need to be as fierce

and resistant as possible. And I really, really worry about the organizers, you know, within

the Palestinian youth movement especially and other folks that we see that are doing consistent

actions daily. Like that's a lot. this has been a lot and then you pair that with the sheer

horror of having to bear witness to what's happening in Gaza and balancing that, you know, do I

not look because it, you know, you can't unsee those images. They create feelings in you that

may or may not be useful. But then do you look away? you look away and not bear witness and

then this genocide ends up like the other ones that you're talking about where we don't know

anything because I feel like it's not, it's only because of the sheer tenacity of the Palestinian

diaspora that we've been surrounded by that we first knew the predicament Gaza was in when

this all started, but that feels such an affection for the people of Gaza, right? Somehow we've

made that connection there where we haven't made it in other communities. And so Even though

we might have had tidbits of information that come through that let us know that genocide

is happening, we don't latch onto it and refuse the narrative to be changed in the way that

we have pushed back on Palestine. So I'm thankful for that, but it does draw into question how

important that pushback is and bearing witness is, even though it's so hard to do. Like I

don't really want to keep up with these updates, but we absolutely need to know what's happening

in places like the Al-Shifa hospital, where UN groups with the World Health Organization

finally went to witness what they now call a death zone. And just like the statements from

the Red Cross that we've seen, these are typically very uncharacteristic statements by the World

Health Organization as to what they witnessed in that hospital in terms of mass graves, shrapnel,

signs of bombardment and gunfire. And at this point, we have 300 patients that are absolutely

immovable. And this used to be one of the prestige hospitals in Gaza. It had incredible infrastructure.

in terms of healthcare capacity and it's essentially just an empty building, half destroyed, with

25 staff left in it. So now you're down to one healthcare facility in the south of Gaza where

they've told people to evacuate from there now. So the Hamas headquarters that they were expecting

to find at Al-Shifa Hospital, did you see the photos Santiago? What photos? Well, I… I think

the caption was countless arms and you could quite count them. There was about 14 automatic

weapons, the clips that go with them. My terminology for weaponry is awful. So there's not even

as many clips as there are weapons. So there was also WD-40 laid out on the table. They

tried as hard as possible to make this look like some sort of control center. So now apparently

that headquarters... didn't materialize. And so now they say it's actually underneath another

hospital. I can't even, it's like the onion writes this stuff. So it's at, under a hospital

in the south of Gaza now, but they're trying to tell us after 75 fucking years of occupation,

the resources that their intelligence services have and that the IDF has, they don't know

exactly. exactly where Hamas is within Palestine. I find this very hard to believe considering

what the capacity and the aid that they get from the US special forces is, not to mention

their own special forces. Did you see the BBCs? They did a segment talking about

exactly this, right? And essentially they were saying, you know, like that The BBC sent in

their own teams and they were starting to, like they were essentially saying, like all of these

claims made by Israel were not able to verify. Like they were starting to have some pushback

from the BBC about the validity of the claims being made. And you know, you mentioned, you

know, Israeli intelligence. I mean, do people have any idea what the Mossad is? You know,

like, we're talking about what is considered to be one of the most sophisticated intelligence

agencies in the world. That they sell their technology to other parts of the world. They

collaborate with other world intelligence agencies. Like, supposedly they're the best of the best,

right? And you're telling me that they don't know? They're getting this wrong? I mean, what

happened to that video they released of- all the tunnels and everything. Like, are people

under the impression that if that wasn't it, like if that was there, it would be everywhere.

We would be seeing it everywhere. It would be plastered all over social media. I have no

doubt that Hamas has tunnels and that Palestinian resistance movements utilize tunnels. They

have a finite amount of space in Gaza and it's the most densely populated area around. So...

They're going to use any means necessary to create more space. And we know even the Israeli

army helped build underground capacity underneath that hospital. So of course they know that

there's something there. If Israel is flattening neighborhoods, the most logical thing would

be to go underground. You know, it's not exactly... That's a great point. They fucking demonize

these tunnels that they talk about, but yet every Israeli household has to have a bomb

shelter. Now, do you think all of a sudden Gazans are going to be able to afford bomb shelters

or do they just don't fucking deserve them? No, right. And so it's like tunnels, real nefarious

kind of undertones, yet a safe room in every Israeli house is perfectly normal. It's it's

the deep. There's some imagery here, you know, like there's some symbolism to the way that

this portray, you know, like there's so many. It comes back to dehumanization, right? Like

this, this caricature of like, you know, the rats. or the mole or like underground creatures,

you know? Like you feel that in how they're depicting this, you know? Like those who seek

shelter underground are not human. That's kind of in the subtext of this. I think like some

people will wonder why though, like why then bomb hospitals, right? Why would a state do

that? Like it's such an evil thing to do. And I think another scene that we witnessed this

week helps tell that story, even though we've already talked about how this is essentially

just a land grab, it's an annexation. We've seen them raise flags over top of these destroyed

hospitals. They've been using bulldozers to carve the star of David in a park that used

to be for children. This is colonialism happening in front of our eyes. But when you see them

capture a government building. and then days later, demolish it. It becomes clear that they

are trying to make Gaza unlivable. So even if they were forced to allow people to return,

which we know they won't, they've never gone back to the borders after the wars. It's always

been land grabs. But even if they did, there would be no ability to live there. The health

infrastructure has been destroyed. The water infrastructure has been destroyed. the government

infrastructure has been destroyed and they've delegitimized in the eyes of the world Hamas,

who although the election has not been for a very long time, were the only political representation

in town. And so by destroying all of this, they are essentially, that is what makes it genocide

because people will not be able to go back and live here. They will be dispersed throughout

other Arab communities. or taken within the refugee programs of European cities and made

to live in poverty there. Let's talk about that word for a second, right? Genocide. Because

people don't know what that is. And I found it interesting because I saw there was a debate,

I've been watching entirely too much Piers Morgan. It's kind of almost like an anthropological

experiment at this point, but the stuff you see, too much, I've been watching too much

of it. just to kind of get a feel for like the narratives, right? And I saw there's this one

American rabbi who kind of like was asking this guy, he was debating, I forget if he was Palestinian,

I know he was Muslim, but like, oh, like you use the word genocide, do you even know what

that means, right? Like, do you know what the term is? And he didn't go on, he did not go

on to explain it, but I was curious, cause like, I mean, I know what genocide is, but I wanted

to see like, you know, like the actual. definition of genocide, remind myself what it is, right?

And, you know, the United Nations Geneva Convention defines genocide very clearly as any of five

acts committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethical, racial

or religious group. These five acts were killing the members of the group, causing them serious

bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing birth,

and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Yeah, all five of those are happening,

to different extents, all five of those. And you can, like, these are documented things,

you know? There are, how many children are detained without charge in the West Bank? We know that

that's happening. Not to mention seven, up to 70% of the victims of Israel, sorry, up to

70% of Palestinians killed. since October 7th have been women and children. So if you. Remove

the fact that you have exiled people from where they live. That is a criteria, but you are

wiping out their women and children and the means for them to have children safely. 50,000

women at the beginning of this in Gaza were pregnant. So there's been, it's about 180 to

100 women a day having to give birth in these conditions. And the... They are not surviving.

The maternal health rate there was already abominable. And it's worse. It's you can only imagine what

it is now. There's a really one thing people are not talking about enough. If there's a

really gross culture, that's a part of, you know, Zionism that around, you know, I don't

even know how to describe this at this point, but it's, it's around demographic makeup. and

births and children that is really fucking icky. Like, not like they're really obsessed with

this. And I'm sitting here going, are you going to talk about? Yes. Yes, I am going to talk

about how, you know, birthright. And people need to look this up because there is a lot

around this is kind of a sex cult. And a lot of people don't know that. But a lot of birthright

is designed to create Jewish babies is essentially what it is. And that's not that's not hearsay.

This is this is documented. That's not even what I thought you were going to talk about.

Oh, what do you think I was going to talk about? Is it the sterilization of non white Jews?

No, this just keeps getting worse. It's about the fact that Israel actually tweeted out a

story Yeah About an Israeli woman who needed to retrieve the sperm of her husband who had

been killed in the line of apartheid duty and That this was not just a one-off occurrence

that There are reports, there is a unit within the Israeli army that does try to do this.

And so I know I kind of interrupted your talk, but I feel like it fits along the same thing.

Like the most important thing is, is populating that area with Jewish folks. And we've seen

people that hadn't fully converted not being buried in the same cemeteries and stuff. And

so it's like... People need to understand how ethnically based this state of government is.

I don't think that's anything that we're used to that is so explicit. You know, like the

Canadian government does this, but not just so explicitly. No, there's levels here happening.

There are layers at work here. Like there are several, like the sterilization. And none of

this was even in the notes. No. Like, it's not just Jewish babies, they want white Jewish

babies, right? Like we've heard about how, I forget the different terms for different Jewish

people. I know Ashkenazi, but I forget the other ones. But there was the Ethiopian Jews who

were being sterilized. upon immigrating to Israel because they didn't want them reproducing.

That that's one thing, you know. Yeah, the birthright thing is really fucking unhinged. And like,

I don't want to also get into that like moral equivalency test where it's like, look how

they live, it's immoral or anything like that, because that's not. It's more of a philosophical

thing here. Like I'm like I'm all for a good time But what we're talking about here is racial

supremacy, you know, like we're talking about like really I'm almost at a loss of words for

how to describe this because I'm not used to having to talk about this But this is racism

is like it and it's a certain type of racism. That's like wow You're really going for it,

you know like This is part of, like, when we talk about genocide, this has, this is a part

of it, because they're trying to make it so that this land is a particular ethnicity. And

I think what's most ironic is the fact that Netanyahu has been reported to be essentially

an atheist. And like many other struggles in history where they're framed in religious ways,

that Zionism has just been co-opted. It's an ideology that has been utilized by imperialists

to a certain end. And though there are populations within that are inherently racist and talk

about racial superiority, Netanyahu likely doesn't even give a shit that it's all about imperialist

gains. It's about taking land, having power. being a so-called war hero and that the malicious

ends that he has in the end have nothing to do with all of that. That's how they've created

that workforce around them and help prop up and legitimize the type of government that

they have because the Zionist ideology is permeated through that. That's the only way that you

could even... convince people, you know, hunger game style, the people in the capital surely

know how the other, what do you call them, districts live. They just don't see them as, as human.

They're less than. And this is important to maintain that or else surely they would not

allow for in the same way, hopefully we would not allow something like Gaza to exist, even

though we have First Nations reserves. But at some point you have to maintain that. facade,

right? So your populace doesn't fight back or demand an end to that. And so he uses that

ideology to his gain and the powerful use that to their gain, which is in the end US based

interests, right? Oil, gas, and proximity to other nation states that they need to have

military bases there. But I think You know, a couple of the other things that we heard

this week tell us that the tide is turning a little bit. You talked about the BBC actually

fact checking, which is that is new in terms of the October 7th length of time. I think

we're at day 44. And at the beginning, they were just reiterating everything Israel said

without check, without even critique. That's changing. Also the US is starting to shift

their position a little bit. Now we still have Biden saying ceasefire. In fact, there's footage

of him saying there's no way that's going to happen. However, his focus is on what's happening

on the West Bank, in the West Bank, in terms of settlers. And he's gone as far as to call

them extremists, which I would not argue with that label. But it makes it really hard for

them to maintain this war on terror, war on Hamas facade. if they're going to continue

to harass people in the West Bank and steal that land, as well as Israel destroyed a Fatah

administrative building inside a refugee camp in the West Bank. And so I think it's becoming

more clear and harder politically for US and Canada to maintain these positions. Surely

Trudeau is feeling the heat. We've seen him harassed at dinner, fundraisers canceled. There's

comrades out across our… country here that have done a phenomenal job of interrupting business

as usual. I feel like I can't keep up with the boosts in terms of people sending me their

actions in different cities and finding these politicians everywhere they go. So I think

that public pressure teamed with the absolute abhorrent way the Israeli army has tried to

manage. their propaganda. It's just been done so badly that nobody can defend them anymore.

And I'm really feeling for the folks who a week ago simply reiterated what they were reading

on electric Infantara, or electric Intifada, where they reported that the Israeli Apache

helicopters that responded to the music festival likely fired on Israeli citizens, causing a

lot of death and destruction. If you look at a lot of the kibbutz that have been... attacked

by Hamas, they too have blown out walls and appear to be damaged by a lot more than simply

just fire and small arms. So it's becoming more clear to the world that we're not getting the

full story out of Israel, which is typical of any army at war, but there are a lot of people

removed from their positions and really demonized in the media for saying this a week ago, simply

because an Arab outlet reported it. media sources are now repeating these claims and verifying

them. And so it just goes to show that this bias that exists in everything that we've talked

about exists in who we listen to here in Canada even. Right? Hopefully those people are feeling

a little bit more vindicated as well as other people are starting to open their eyes that

it's quite astonishing that after 44 days, we don't know exactly what happened on October

7th. And I feel like that would help in most situations and in terror attacks across the

world. We are given the most, you've seen it, right? You've seen the diagrams. They'll show

the diagrams of where people entered. horrible details that were provided with but this is

like this fog of war and it just you know it's starting to become a little too thick and folks

are starting to notice. So side note uh we interrupt uh the broadcast to announce that I might have

COVID. I'm starting to feel a tickle in the back of my throat as I'm recording this so

as we're doing this I'm gonna do a COVID test because I have them in front of me and I kind

of want to know but um Uh, yeah, no, um, I'm not sure when we'll have a full picture of

what happened on October the 7th. For me, my thing is when I look at this, and it's very

similar to, you know, when we have conversations about 9-11 and other similarly polarizing events

where it's like, you know, to a certain extent, That's not what's important is what happened.

And I say that like, you know, either way, whether or not it was, you know, Hamas carried all

of them and they, and they committed multiple war crimes and, you know, all of that, or Israel

killed half the people with Apache helicopters. For me, what's important is what happens after.

Right? Because...

And before. Yeah. But what I see after it's to say that you can't bring them back. You

know? You can't. And how we choose to respond speaks to our humanity. Right? And so, same

thing with 9-11. You know, people wanted revenge. And then Afghanistan was invaded for... for

20 years for nothing. There was nothing, barely anything came out of that, right? There was

the war in Iraq, which had nothing to do with it, but the sentiments around 9-11 were used

to justify the war in Iraq, and the region has not recovered. Was that like, does horrible,

like do we live in an eye for an eye society? Or do we try and rise above and try and say,

something horrible happened here. How do we stop this from happening again? And I think

the most foolish thing is that there's so many people out there who believe that something

like Hamas, oh, we have to get rid of Hamas. Oh, we have to do it with weapons. That's not

how that works, idiot.

Like Hamas, there's people in Hamas, yes. And you can go and kill all of them. But really

what it is an idea, right? And you can get rid of Hamas and another organization will take

its place because along the way, how many orphans are you creating? How many people are you radicalizing

with the violence who are then going to grow up and take arms, right? Because I gotta be

honest, if looking around at my life, if all of my, if my family was killed, if all of my

friends were killed and I was still alive, can I say that for certain that I'm not gonna rise

up in arms? No, I can't say that. And I don't think anybody can say that. Right? Cycles of

violence, we've seen it everywhere in different examples, in different forms. But cycles of

violence is what happens when you meet violence with more violence. The idea that Hamas is

something that can be defeated with violence is foolish. Just like, you know, oh, we got

to defeat Al-Qaeda with violence. Well, and then they created ISIS and then he would like

to feed ISIS. And I mean, has anything changed? No. And I think like, I agree with you 100

percent on how we react is important and the context in which everything happened is important.

But also uncovering exactly what happened on October 7th does have value to me for a few

reasons. One, part of what Hamas did and why they did it, if we're following the patterns

of other resistance movements, was to expose Israel for what it is. And that may sound so

heinous because in the end it's acknowledging that they knew what the repercussions would

be. But also it's important to show that illegitimate state for its callousness to civilian life.

I think the world needs to see this. And that's part of the work of the resistance is to show

the world. what Israel is really about, what they have been doing for the last 75 years,

so that it will stop. So it's not so much about lessening the crimes you could possibly charge

Hamas operatives, leaders with, but to demonstrate just how this state responds and their callousness

even towards their own civilians is demonstrated by like... the fact that they don't care that

they might be bombing hostages as they do that, but also how they responded on October 7th.

That indeed it was always about just instigating this, which feels like a final siege of Gaza.

Before we go on to our other topics, though, I want to go back to the point of retaining

one's humanity. And I read a piece this week and I've lost track of where it is. It was

talking about a protester for the Vietnam War who held a nightly candlelight vigil outside

the White House for an extended period of time, mostly by themselves, and when interviewed

and asked about the effectiveness of a one-person protest, one candle. in the night. Their response

wasn't that, yes, I think, you know, people will see me and be inspired and do the same,

or a politician will feel so bad that they will change their mind. They were doing it to retain

their own humanity. They were doing it so that the times around them wouldn't change them,

that they would not become complacent in the violence that they were seeing. that they would

resist in whatever form or capacity that they had in that moment. And that would, that was

all that they could do to just keep their humanity. You know, I imagine they use that time to feel

and reflect and not just. shut it away and forget about it because it hurts too much. Right,

so that drew inspiration like even for small acts of resistance, how sometimes it might

just be to preserve your own sanity, your own sense of fight and responsibility. And sometimes

if that's all you can do, that's what you gotta do. I remember I heard about the same thing

and it definitely spoke to me. And, you know, that feeling of standing alone, I can relate

to that at times because it can feel like that sometimes, even when we're not alone, it can

feel like that in our day to day as we, when we're not, you know, protesting, when we're

not. online but you know just like existing school work whatever it is and I'm and I'm

thinking about these things and it feels like how are we expected to just act like everything's

normal when it's not and trying to remember you know our humanity through it all I've been

thinking about that a lot. and I We're in a world that's designed to make us forget that,

you know. It becomes very difficult though, too, right? It becomes a lot of burdens to

carry at once and there is a huge emotional, even physical toll on bearing witness and carrying

other people's stories and fighting back constantly. So to anyone out there that's just feeling

extra irritable, super sad. unable to sleep very well. I'm sorry, but that is a sign that

you are still human and you're definitely not alone feeling that way. You know what I envy

sometimes? I look at my cat and I just think he doesn't have any concept of geopolitical

conflict or nation-state or capitalism. It's just lounging, chilling. I envy it sometimes,

but then it's like, but at the same time, like, at the same time, there's a fight to be had.

And I I'd rather be here fighting it than not. It seems hard to do, but we're going to refocus

back to Ontario politics, Canadian politics here. There are still things that are happening

that will also make a huge impact on us. And surely there are things that politicians are

doing right now that we can't let them get away with. So we're going to touch base. on a couple

of things this week. First off, I'm hoping a lot of you have heard the CBC breaking and

other folks have been talking about a certain clinic, Don Mills Surgical Unit here in Ontario,

where they are being, they provide surgery. It's a privately run clinic, for-profit clinic

that provides OHIP users. with surgeries. So this is not somewhere where you're expected

to pull out your debit card. So Doug Ford can still get away with saying, you're not paying

with your credit card. However, the Ontario government is paying them over twice the rates

that they're paying hospitals to do the exact same service. Now, they're not hiding this.

When you ask them about it, they acknowledge it. They'll even tell you they're doing everything

they can to address waitlist times. They call them premiums. They're paying these folks premiums

to incentivize the clinics to perform surgeries like cataract surgeries, hip and knee replacements,

things that have a long waitlist here in Ontario because of underfunding. Now just so folks

know, our hospitals don't lack the infrastructure or room. to perform these surgeries, they simply

don't have the staff. We know about the nursing shortage and the doctor shortage, and we know

that is directly tied to private clinics popping up as well, is the fact that we don't treat

our nurses well, we don't pay them enough money, and we make their jobs as hard as possible

because of underfunding in the system. And so they're walking away from the job at record

rates or going to more... private enterprises, like staffing agencies, where they'll get paid

even more to do the same job as a visiting nurse, as a traveling nurse. These incentives though,

what they're doing is by paying for twice the rate for these surgeries, is they're paying

for these clinics to one, make a enviable profit so that they can even want to be in this kind

of business, right? Cause private companies want to make as much money as possible. If

it's not profitable, they won't do it. There's no doubting that. But again, that's why we

have our healthcare under the private structure. They're also paying for these folks to actually,

they're upstart costs. So if you didn't perform cataract surgeries before, there's room, there's

equipment. So they gave them a quarter of a million dollars just to this clinic alone for

that kind of stuff that a hospital already has, that we've already paid for out of public funds.

And this... This fee that we're talking about doesn't even include what the surgeon actually

gets paid because that surgeon gets to bill OHIP as well at the same rate. But the clinic

that they're working for is making twice the money. We have to remember our hospitals are

already run by private companies. So when we've created now a more profitable model, we are

going to start to see a real shift. not that we haven't seen that shift before, but it is

going to be more pronounced now with the emergence of more and more private clinics in Ontario.

This is something Doug Ford promised to do back in January where he had this three-step plan

on how to basically open up. He says it's to reduce wait times again, but it's essentially

to just make it more profitable and easier for these clinics to show up. I wish folks looked

at Healthcare providers, private healthcare providers in the same way they looked at developers

because then they'd really see the almost criminal, the almost criminal element, the real corrupt

element in all of this. Because I don't know if anyone remembers a certain MPP, Christine

Elliott, Newmarket Aurora, she's just south of me so we've tussled. I served her with a

petition or two. But I... digress, she was the minister of health for quite some time, the

worst times, you know, before most recent times, it just keeps getting worse. But Christine

Elliott has just recently registered to lobby the Ford government on behalf of the parent

company of this Don Mills surgical unit. So like this isn't their only surgical unit. This

is one of the biggest. the biggest companies in terms of private clinics in Canada. And

now, yes, the former health minister of Ontario is getting paid top dollar by them to lobby

her old friends in forward nation to allow them to open more clinics. And it's fucking working.

I know she just registered a week ago, but don't tell me you haven't been talking to them, Christine.

Don't even try that. We know that obviously they've been working really hard because that

clinic, they had steady payments at $1.32 million for a few years leading up to 2020. And after

that, they are now talking like $5.27 million a year from our provincial government. And

so another really maddening thing about this, I don't think our audience needs much help

realizing how bad this is. I mean, it's just on face value. It's awful. down the road, these

assholes are going to be able to say that they spend more on healthcare now. Right? They're

going to be able to say, oh no, last year we spent 40 billion. Now we spent 60 billion.

And the reality is all of that extra money didn't give you one extra service. It just gave extra

profit to private clinics and set the pattern to normalize the absolute destruction of the

public healthcare system. And so he's done similar things like this in the past with education

funding, you know, where they wrapped up like child services with education in the budget.

So they are able to say that they spent more on education, but it was just a fudging of

numbers. This is even worse. This isn't even another service that's been brought in under

it's you're actually going to get less service. Because if we look at the patterns that have

been set by BC, yes, the BC NDP and Alberta to provinces that heavily depend on the use

of private clinics to deliver public health care. Imaging is one of them. We've talked

about that on the show. It actually increases the wait lists because doctors and nurses will

continue to move over to these higher paying clinics where they're able to get not just

the fee from OHIP, but they get a cut of the profits. Ford even says himself, this is just

so class act because he has just been warring with the nurses since he took off this. I imagine...

wait. So now he's trying to pretend like this is a good spot for nurses to earn money in

their spare time. They can earn a few extra bucks at a private clinic for all that spare

time that they have from being a nurse. So... Because they're not overworked enough, right?

No, no, apparently not. So obviously time will tell how this will impact... Ontario's healthcare,

but surely folks can see the writing on the wall. And then you get to Danielle Smith in

Alberta and she's dismantling, that's not hyperbole, that's not just trying to describe what she's

doing. This is how she has described what she's doing. She's dismantling what the service provider

for public health and they're going to restructure. I can only imagine what that's going to look

like. So we'll have to just stay tuned on that. And sorry, it wouldn't be a story if we weren't

able to point out the hypocrisies of capitalism here because quite often the narrative that's

used to bring in public sector to do private work, oh sorry, the narrative used to bring

in private companies to do public services, to provide public services is that they do

it more efficiently, more cost effectively. Now you surely can't make this argument if

you're forced to pay them double. what you pay the public sector. So that just lays that argument

bare that the private sector is not what it's cut out to be. No, no, it's not. And it's really

exposing again. And I was kind of reminded of this when I was thinking about the state of

our essential goods and services about how. how dominated it is by private industry right

now and how completely unfunctional, I don't even know, I don't have an adjective for this.

Just what a fucking mess all of our essential goods and services are right now. And it's

like, you know, it's, a few years ago, you know, people would find ways to still kind of, you

know. believe in some sort of Canadian dream or something, but everyone at this point is

feeling it in every single way, right? Students especially. Yeah, because we can't catch a

fucking break, you know? Like our healthcare system, something that we were so proud of

is being eroded in front of our very eyes and their aim is to make it like the US where what's

the number one cause of bankruptcy? You know? medical debt, right? Where people, I remember

I saw this video the other day where like a bicyclist, a cyclist, it fell off their bicycle

in the middle of the road and the ambulance was right there and it picked them up and all

the comments were like, oh, well, that's one way to go broke. And all the Europeans in the

comment were so confused. They're like, what are you talking about? Ambulances are free.

and it was like a real cultural contrast. They're not even free in Ontario. You'll be billed

for an ambulance ride here in Ontario. Yeah, and that's the thing, right? So, okay, healthcare,

disaster. Our education system falling apart, and I'll get into that. We pay the highest

prices for internet. We pay the highest prices for telephones. Our public transit systems

are fucking embarrassment. What am I missing here? There's so many levels to this. Food!

You know, food. Jesus. Even water. My water bill here where I live, the tax rate for the

water rates are going to go up 9% this year for water. There you go. And how many... And

like, I mean, we have water in Southern Ontario. But you know who doesn't have water? A lot

of people in Northern Ontario. A lot of people across the country, especially a lot of indigenous

communities who have been waiting decades to have safe drinking water. So they are water

a mess, food. I still remember those episodes we did a couple months ago on agriculture and

I have not emotionally recovered from those episodes in the slightest because it's like

every single thing to do The production and consumption of our food is a complete disaster.

And the new reports coming out about food bank usage are deeply depressing. So it's like,

OK, everything is a mess. And everyone wants to point fingers. Oh, it's Chideau's fault.

Oh, it's Ford's fault. It's like, it's this is the system. This is all of their fault.

It's everyone's fault. Everyone who had a part in this. And they keep doing this. And it comes

back to, you know, like, just a reminder. Supply and demand is the biggest fucking scam in the

history of economics because it doesn't fucking apply to essential goods and services It doesn't

so you want to think the markets gonna fix this like if anyone ever tells you Oh, it's just

supply and demand. Tell it like please expose the fuck out of that argument Because it does

not work when someone needs something because if you need it if it's essential Then whatever

is charged you have to find a way to pay it, right? Yeah, the theory is that if someone

prices something too high, the market will not buy it, it will be too expensive, or they won't

sell enough of it and force the price down. So Santiago's point is, yeah, we're not going

to stop buying water, we can't stop buying food. I forgot housing! Housing, and all of these,

like when we're making the notes for our next topic, talking about how vulnerable students

are, especially international students who can't work more than 20 hours. how they are expected

to keep up with all of these essential goods rising in costs, including the cell phone bill

that they definitely have to have as a student. And then on top of that, having to do unpaid

internships. Yeah. So I was reminded as a student right now about unpaid internships this week

when... a friend of mine was, they got an unpaid internship, which was then, they were informed

by the college that it would not count towards their internship hours for some reason. And

I was reminded like, oh my goodness, unpaid internships, we just accept that as a part

of society. But. It is so deeply exploitative and students right now, with all of the overwhelming

issues facing them, how are they expected to labor for free, get nothing out of it because

you're not even gonna, and a lot of times you don't even get a job out of it at the end of

it, as a way to graduate, which is the thing that we're told that we need to do to survive,

you know? We need to get that piece of paper. Yeah, yeah, like we need to get that piece

of paper. Oh, sorry, my 15 minute timer just yelled in my ear. Let's check if I have COVID

real quick. Looking good, looking good. Okay, I don't definitively not have it, but at least

it's not positive, so that's good. Anyways, what was I saying? Yeah, that piece of paper

that we're told, we need to survive in society, and it's been increasingly difficult to get

it. See, I didn't have to do an internship for my diploma, but you were giving me quite a

few examples, and it's 400 hours. That's 10 weeks of unpaid work. Who has the time, let

alone the financial capacity? And that's not to say that all internships are unpaid. You

can get a paid internship. But I'm going to use journalism as a fun little example, where

students are competing with journalists who have been laid off due to

layoffs. structural changes right of Canadian media? Yeah, so they're competing with people

with industry experience for these internships, so those paid internships, no way they're getting

them. No one's getting those paid internships. Those unpaid internships, what happens when

you only have ten dollars in your bank account? You know and that's not like I know so many

people who are like look at my bank account and it's literally like ten dollars, you know,

and I was hearing about students at Humber who were fainting from malnutrition because they

can't afford to eat. Right? So we have to... Like being a student right now, I can't...

I have to paint this picture because it's so deeply depressing to be a student right now.

And I kind of had like a reality check on this because I operate on the assumption that, you

know, we're all fucked and that I'm be pretty poor and you know, made my peace with that

to a certain extent. But you know, a lot of young people here, you know, they're being

told go, go get your degree, get your piece of paper, you'll get a job out of it, and you'll

be able to live your life, you know. And what they're facing right now, rent is higher than

ever before, right? These food prices are squeezing students.

I think it's on pause right now, but who usually have a limitation on the amount of hours that

they're allowed to work for a week are barely able to make enough money to keep up with these

things, right? I mean, for as long, like it's been decades since, you know, there's been

like the image of the ramen eating college student, right? Because students have always been broke.

Now ramen packs cost like three, four dollars now. You know? Gotta get the five thousand

Walmart. Yeah, but like...

That's a major financial decision for me at this point in time. Like I said, Santiago,

it's an investment. I have to check if I can afford instant ramen nowadays. You know, so

it's a story. And I'm seeing effect students, especially when they get to their last year

and they're looking around and they're like, oh, I'm fucked because they're not getting

those internships they need. And, you know, I've been in two, I've been in three programs

at college now, and I talk to people in a lot of other programs. How many of them, how many

people aren't even there by the time you're in your final year? How many people have dropped

out? Because it's, it's like 70% in my program. You know, I remember when I was in Humber Music,

I was one of eight trumpet players, and when I dropped out, I was the last one left. You

know, so, so many people are paying these massive prices, dropping out. So a lot of people don't

even get the piece of paper. And then those who make it to the finish line have all of

this debt and nothing to show for it, because then they're going into this fucked up world

that we're in. We're trying to be entry level right now, trying to like start your career

right now. There is no opportunity for anybody. Even if there is, it's like $18 an hour and

they want a master's degree. Yeah. And so, and, and that's another scam because I know so many

students who like, they go, they're like, oh, no, there's no jobs for me. I gotta go continue

my education. One more piece of paper. We'll do it. One more. We'll do it. Graduate certificates.

I mean, that, like those one year pro, those are going up. A lot of people are, you know,

and, and so it hit me because. When my friend heard that they denied his internship, he broke

down. And just the despair in his voice really impacted me. Because it's, it was true, like,

it's not fair what he's going through, what so many people are going through. It's not

fucking fair. And the school doesn't care. Because we were lied to. Right? Like, our education

institutions, although they're, you know, they receive public funds, they are consumer-based

models. Right? They don't, they're not education-based models. in that they're not there for your

needs and to best prepare you for the world. It's just to make money. It's just to, yeah,

students are cash cows, especially these international students. And then we don't even have representation.

You don't have a student union. Because at Humber, we, not really, we have something, a night,

which it's supposed to be our student union. It's an event. planning committee is how I

would describe it. And this is not my words. This is like, every- Sorry, have you seen the

movie Trotsky? No. God damn it. Are you serious? That's my answer to 90% of times when someone

asks me, have you seen, have you heard? No. I'm serious about this. This is mandatory,

rabble rousers watching. You need to watch it because I will make references to this, but

basically he finds his student union, right? He thinks he's the reincarnation of Trotsky

himself. So he is full blast and he's going into the public school system for the first

time and he finds out they have a student union and he is stoked and he goes and he gets there

and they're just smoking cigarettes in a broom closet, planning the school dance. And you

know, I will give it away. He makes it what it needs to be, but either way, he walks into

a student union like you just described. Well, and that's the situation, right? And Humber

has like all of these international students who are coming here without a voice, you know,

in a very vulnerable position, not knowing people, you know? And so this isn't my opinion that

Ignite is a fucking event plan. This is like an open secret. Everyone knows this, you know?

Everyone knows that Ignite is- Not all student unions are created equal, but yours sounds

particularly bad. Yeah, no, no. Like, I know that, like, other schools actually have student

unions. Great for them. We don't, you know? So, there's nowhere to turn to at Humber. There's

nowhere to turn to. And this story is so common. It's so fucking common. And I don't know how

we're expected to do it, you know? Well, you're not. I've considered, you know. Leaving before

I'm almost at the finish line. So at this point, it's like fuck. Okay, I'll finish it whatever

but like I Don't know how people are expected to do this and then like the ones who succeed

because there'll be like a few You know it's like The the colleges almost are like look

at our successful alumni These are our successful alumni. Anybody can be like our successful

alumni. You too can be like that. And it's like, okay, no we can't. A recent graduate of the

journalism program who I was talking to, he was talking about how, he did two internships,

right? To get all the hours that he needed, those 400 hours. He worked his ass off. He

built his portfolio. He, he, he was doing everything he needed, you know, and he can't find a full-time

job. He's got a part-time job at Humber, but yeah, but he can't, he said there's just no

full-time jobs and what's he saying is like, oh, you know, in comms, they start at salary

start at 80,000 versus 35,000 for journalism. If you can get the job. Right. And can stomach

doing public communications. So a lot of people who study journalism are now going and doing

comms. And I mean, when we talk about the state of Canadian media, that might be a fucking

part of it. You know, all of this work. And what's your salary? Thirty five thousand. I

know people like who have worked like. That's jobs where you do almost nothing all day. with

salaries of upwards of 50,000. Journalists nowadays are expected because they cut all the jobs.

So journalists nowadays are expected, you gotta write the stories, but you also gotta be able

to film, you gotta be able to edit, you gotta be able to do TV, radio, you gotta be able

to lay things out, you gotta be able to do graphic design, you gotta be able to, you gotta do

it all. You gotta be able to do it all. And you gotta hustle like crazy. And what do you

get? $35,000 at the end of it. And people still shit on the trades, which is like, I don't

understand whatsoever. It's that in ideal world, yes, we can go to university, learn critical

thought, gain extra skills because we need them in life. But the reality is we also have to

be equipped to survive, which means selling our labor. The trades are an incredible place

to do that because most of them are unionized as well. So it's funny that we still gear people

towards, you know, I'm one to talk, I have a degree in the liberal arts. I felt like I learned

a lot from going to university, but I don't think it does anything for my resume to be

perfectly honest. So I almost wish I had gone into the trades. I still would have been politically

minded and could have done that kind of work, but It's people still shit on folks that use

their hands to do work or choose not to go to post secondary school and get into the trades

as well. So when we talk about, you know, free education.

There's so many more reasons behind that than just simply students not ending up in debt.

I don't... the mental load that one has to carry in order to maintain this juggling and then

to be treated that way, that was probably the worst four years of my life. Even though I

did enjoy being in university, it was so stressful. I ended up in the hospital with anxiety and...

just the high pressure stakes that are also involved with like being the top of your class

so that you do get the jobs that are available. And it's absolutely incredible. And under this

today's, you know, political climate and cost of living, it's gotta be too much for folks.

And yeah. Yeah, I feel that for sure. You know, I've been here for going on eight years, you

know, cause I switched programs. Um, and it's just, I've seen how many people have fallen

through the cracks and not because they didn't know how to work, not because they didn't want

it or weren't trying. You know, I've seen so many times where students are raising issues

that fall on deaf ears. I made it my... mission to advocate for the students. So last year

I spent a lot of time bringing up concerns to our program coordinator that those concerns

fell on deaf ears as well. Nothing changed. And what happened? Those students who were

raising those concerns that never got met, they left. And they don't feel the need to change

anything because those students are now gone. So the students who this does work for, who

are still around because it works for them. Oh, they use that as a way to validate the

way that they're doing things, you know? It's a really, really hard time to be a student.

And You know, it's, I don't know, it's just, it's tough. It's tough and I really feel for

all my fellow students out there because it's fucking tough. I just wanna add a little side

note because you said it a few times and I know you don't mean it like you say it but we can't

edit it out or else your statements won't make sense. But when we say fall on deaf ears, I

just wanna acknowledge the little bit of. ableism that exists in a lot of our language, because

in fact, it's not that they don't hear it. It's that they don't value the voices in it. Right?

So these are things that I'm learning from helpful disabled advocates that helped me unlearn some

of the language that they use. But I just thought it could be a learning point for our audience.

And I'm not coming down, you know, you know, coming down on you. I just want to like. It

makes it worse, right? It's not just they didn't hear. And that's what deaf means, right? Like

the inability to just like have sound input. They take that input in and they callously

reject it. That's what that term actually means. So I wish we had a better way of saying, you

know, they heartlessly ignored it. Anyway, I do need a better term for that. There's so

many of those, you know, and you did just like a As I'm speaking, there's like a little part

in the back of my mind that feels like the little cognitive dissonance of like, oh, you know,

like I get like the, I was like, oh, yeah, no, that's uncomfortable. And I said it like twice

too. And it's, yeah, you'll see I'm like making a face trying to wave me up. But I know there's

a few, you know, if we say people are blind to something, we actually mean they're ignorant

to it. Not that they don't actually see it. Right. it doesn't imply an inability, almost

a refusal. And so when there is someone helping you, it's unreal how ableist our language is

and racist. So like there's a lot of terms that we use, we don't understand their root origins

and then we learn better. But it really is incredible how extensive it is. And then it does reinforce

things that we don't think that we're reinforcing, right? But anyway. This was quite the eclectic

episode in the end, for those who stuck through it. Yeah. This is like, to justify my scattered

brain, I'm really burnt out right now. My brain, I'm operating at like maybe 40% of my ability

to think with clarity. Also, I had to, I'm sorry, I do not feel so great, so I did a COVID test

halfway through, so yeah. It's been a fun episode in that sense. Um, and yeah, everything is

deeply depressing right now. You can't make that the last thing we have on there. Go just

whatever it is, just we'll end it now, but you can't make that the last line promise. Oh,

okay. Well, what do I got? What do I got this part of that? Um, nah, I got, I got, I got

nothing. I'm making my own ramen.

That sounds bougie. Nah, I'm making it cheap. I'm not cheap, so I can make bigger batches.

It's funny, it does get cheaper. You can link the recipe in the show notes. I'm still waiting

for my bolognese, bastard. If people want a cooking talk show where we cook while talking

through things,

can make that happen. I'm here for that and I'm hungry. Alright. I'm ending it. That's

all folks. Just to stop this madness. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of

Disruption. Thank you for joining us. Also, a very big thank you to the producer of our

show, Santiago Jaluc Quintero. Blueprints of Disruption is an independent production operated

cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter at BPofDisruption. If you'd like to help us

continue disrupting the status quo, please share our content. And if you have the means, consider

becoming a patron. Not only does our support come from the progressive community, so does

our content. So reach out to us and let us know what or who we should be amplifying. So until

next time, keep disrupting.