Action Blast: July 22, 2026
💥 TAKE ACTION TODAY 💥
💸 Support Evacuated First Nations💸
Multiple First Nations across northwestern Ontario have been evacuated due to wildfires, with little or no support or information from government. Show up for them in this time of crisis by:
Moving money:
White Sand First Nation (Armstrong, Ontario): e-transfer to donations@whitesandfirstnation.com
(note: please add your full name to your e-transfer comment section as White Sand First Nation will issue a tax receipt)Anishinabek Nation: e-transfer to an7gc@anishinabek.ca
Moon Time Connections (for menstrual supplies)
Donating clothes, gift cards, and other items (Toronto drop off)
💧 Grassy Narrows & Indigenous Rights: 150 Years of Resistance 💧
Learn how you can help support Grassy Narrows and the broader movement for Indigenous rights and environmental justice!
Grassy Narrows First Nation has been suffering from mercury poisoning since a Canadian paper mill dumped mercury into their waters in the 1960s. 90% of the Grassy Narrows population now suffers from mercury poisoning to some degree. There have also been years of unwanted logging and mining in their territories. There are now plans for the dumping of nuclear waste at their headwaters.
Come meet the generations at the frontline of these fights. This workshop will introduce attendees to the long history of colonial, environmental degradation at Grassy Narrows, as well as their inspiring struggles for Indigenous sovereignty and to protect the land and waters.
🗓️ Thursday July 23, 2026
⏰ 7 - 9pm EST
📍Zoom - register here
♿ASL interpretation provided
Speakers: Chrissy Isaacs is a Grassy Narrows grandmother, mother, and land defender. Chrissy was one of the initiators of the Slant Lake Blockade in 2002, now Canada's longest-running logging blockade. Chrissy is also a singer, artist, mentor, community worker, and educator. Grassy youth will also be present to share their perspectives!
In March, Chrissy and other community members attended a news conference Prime Minister Carney held in Toronto. She tried to ask the Prime Minister about the mercury contamination, to which Carney replied, “I can outlast her,” laughing briefly along with Premier Doug Ford and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow. The community is demanding an apology, but so far the government has remained silent.
The youth of Grassy Narrows won’t give up their fight until the government keeps its promises to deal with the mercury crisis. This requires compensating the community, ending the pollution, and supporting Grassy Narrows in restoring their community and way of life from the damage that mercury has done.
On September 23, Grassy Narrows youth and community members will travel 1,700km to Toronto to demand mercury justice. Join them - RSVP today for River Run 2026!
We need your help to make River Run a success - sign up to volunteer! Leading up to the event, you can help with coordinating, flyering, and art/banner making. On the day of, we will need marshals, first aid, community care, access, and people to set up and take down. There are roles for any level of experience!
💉 Naloxone Training 💉
A free hands-on workshop, hosted by Toronto Street Medics, to teach the practical skill of administering naloxone and when to use it.
SURJ Toronto’s Alternatives to 911 Community Skill-Building Workshop Series is a Toronto-based workshop series which aims to equip community members with the knowledge and skills needed to engage in crisis intervention and community safety, without relying on the police.
🗓️ Wednesday, August 5
⏰ 6 - 8pm EST
📍Gazebo at Christie Pits Park, 750 Bloor St W
♿Access Information
Wheelchair and mobility device accessible but with some limitations (see notes in registration form).
You have to make your way down a small but slightly steep hill to get to the gazebo. (Want us to meet you? Let us know in the registration form!)
If you need ASL interpretation please let us know 1 week in advance.
Gender neutral, accessible washrooms available across the street.
Gluten- and nut-free snacks and water available (please let us know allergies 1 week in advance).
Masks required while not eating or drinking. We will have KN95s available.
Please avoid wearing scented products.
Event will take place outdoors, under gazebo shelter with picnic table seating.
More Actions and Resources
This is where we link to external content we found interesting, challenging, or thought-provoking this month. Our movements are stronger when we listen to, learn from, and collaborate with folks whose perspectives and approaches are different from ours. Inclusion here does not imply endorsement.
ACT:
Ontario is covered in wildfire smoke. Air quality warnings are telling people to stay indoors, avoid strenuous activity, use clean indoor air, and protect their lungs. But what happens when you are incarcerated? Thousands of people in Ontario's provincial jails and federal prisons cannot choose where they go, improve the air they breathe, or leave when conditions become dangerous. Many are older adults or live with asthma, COPD, heart disease, or other chronic health conditions that make wildfire smoke even more harmful. Contact the people responsible for prisoner welfare to demand clean air protections for incarcerated people in Ontario.
Landyn Ferris lost his life unattended in a seclusion room at a high school in Trenton, Ontario. Landyn was a bright, loving boy with a seizure disorder that required constant attention. Seclusion rooms, often disguised as 'quiet rooms' or 'safe spaces', are anything but; they represent the cruelest form of exclusion, subjecting children to inhumane treatment under the guise of discipline. Demand the elimination of seclusion rooms in Ontario schools.
Endometriosis is a condition in which endometrium-like tissue (usually found only in the lining of the uterus) grows outside the uterus, causing inflammation and scar tissue formation. It can cause chronic pain and impact mental health and fertility. Worldwide, endometriosis affects 1 in 10 women, girls, and gender-diverse people presumed female at birth, including over 2 million people in Canada. Yet, there is little research or available treatment. Tell the Government of Canada to establish a national advisory board on endometriosis education and work with provinces and territories to implement endometriosis education in health science curricula, and to increase funding for endometriosis treatment research and develop a national plan of action.
ATTEND:
July 24
50 Years of Impact: Urban Alliance on Race Relations Racial Justice Summit - conference
Mask4Mask Dance: Disability Pride Edition - fundraising dance
No More Deaths! Protect Agricultural Workers - emergency rally
July 25
Black History, Past and Present in Kensington Market - walking tour
Ford Must Go - Toronto (and locations across Ontario) - protest
The Good Fight: Remembering the Spanish Civil War - film screening, discussion, fundraiser
July 26
Rally for Cuba - rally
July 28
East End Vigil for Palestine - vigil
July 29
Disability + Racial Justice Solidarity - panel (virtual)
Jews for Grassy Narrows - webinar
Harm Reduction Kit Making - kit making & listening party
July 31
I Am Cuba - film screening
Toronto Against Apartheid II - club night & fundraiser
READ:
World on Fire
Why did members of a northwest Ontario First Nation have to be ‘their own heroes’ amid wildfire? What unfolded was a brutal manifestation of a harsh and oft-repeated truth: Indigenous people on the land bear the brunt of climate change.
Despite making up less than 5% of Canada’s population, First Nations account for one-third of all wildfire evacuations. This is not a natural disaster, it is a policy failure.
Abandoned on the road to the Ring of Fire: In the path of raging forest fires, First Nations Leaders say poor communication with the Ontario government is putting their communities at risk.
How did we get to this moment? At the same time that we are seeing reserves being underfunded, emergency services are being underfunded, we also have this legacy of colonialism that has inhibited Indigenous people’s traditional fire management processes, and politicians doubling down on fossil fuels that accelerate climate change.
Climate change is driving an increase in wildfires, and fires, in turn, release greenhouse gases that accelerate global warming - especially in the Arctic, where in addition to vegetation, fires burn through carbon-rich peat.
Even far from the fires, smoke is causing an air crisis that hits the unhoused population the hardest, especially as it mixes with a brutal heatwave that has triggered extreme heat warnings across Toronto.
Disability Justice
10 Principles of Disability Justice in English, ASL, and plain language.
Disability Justice means liberation for ALL bodies. What does it look like to really put these principles into practice in our life + work + movements?
Mia Mingus discusses Access Intimacy, Interdependence and Disability Justice: “The power of access intimacy is that it reorients our approach from one where disabled people are expected to squeeze into able bodied people’s world, and instead calls upon able bodied people to inhabit our world.”
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha shares To Survive the Trumpocalypse, We Need Wild Disability Justice Dreams: “I am dreaming the biggest disabled dream of my life — dreaming not just of a revolutionary movement in which we are not abandoned, but of a movement in which we lead the way. With all of our crazy, adaptive-deviced, loving kinship and commitment to each other, we will leave no one behind as we roll, limp, stim, sign and create the decolonial living future. I am dreaming like my life depends on it. Because it does. And so does yours.”
The Abolition and Disability Justice Coalition calls for Alternatives to Policing Based in Disability Justice.
COVID-19
Mask Up, We Need You: Palestinian Solidarity, Covid-19, and the Struggle for Liberation is a 40-page illustrated primer for those who consider themselves co-strugglers for Palestinian liberation, yet may not understand the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic as both a genocide in itself, and a tool of genocide that perpetuates all others.
Every social justice movement is impacted by the Long COVID crisis. Long COVID disrupts struggles for justice, as activists and organizers with the disease are forced to suspend or change their tactics, facing a community that largely ignores COVID precautions.
You Are Not Entitled To Our Deaths: COVID, Abled Supremacy & Interdependence: “You are not entitled to our deaths. You are not entitled to the deaths of our loved ones in the name of capital, privilege and ‘normal.’ You are not entitled to our silence about our pain and suffering and the wet tar grief that envelops us. You are not entitled to our fear and terror at the worsening conditions and chaos of this pandemic. [...] I need you to care about disabled people’s lives more than you care about a vacation, a party or a celebration.”
Comic: Reasons to wear a mask in 2026. If you truly want to build and protect your community, stop spreading a virus that hurts you and everyone else.
Dig Deeper
WATCH
Trinity McFadden shares why the 10 Principles of Disability Justice are essential for solidarity and movement building.
The Black Deaf community played a critical role in preserving ASL, and Black American Sign Language (BASL) carries its own rich history and culture. Franklin Jones Jr shares how he discovered BASL was part of his own family’s language, and why understanding its history matters. Part 1. Part 2.
The Crip Walk is Black disabled history. Leroy F Moore of Krip Hop Nation is putting crip back into the Black experience.
The Endometriosis Collective is dedicated to promoting awareness of endometriosis and raising funds for research on this condition. Watch the documentary “End of the Cycle” to learn more.
LISTEN
Disabled Refugees, Black Mental Health, Deaf in Prison, and other episodes of the Disability Visibility Project Podcast.
More podcasts exploring the intersections of race and disability: Black Disabled Men Talk, Power Not Pity, Intersections on the Spectrum, and Krip News.
David Wallace-Wells joins The Front Burner to talk about what it means that wildfire smoke is becoming a more regular part of our lives, and its place in the larger battle for clean air around the world.