Photo courtesy Levant (not) Pizza

When Samer Alghosain first immigrated to the U.S. with his family in 1999, a tradition was born that paved his way to becoming a restaurateur. Every Friday, he and his family would pile dishes on the table that smelled, tasted, and felt like home, crafted with love from recipes that were handed down generation after generation. Samer’s falafel and home-made hummus became family favourites—so much so that he and his wife now run the beloved Yaffa Cafe in Abbotsford, B.C.

It just opened a few years ago, but Yaffa Cafe was named People’s Choice of Abby at Abbotsford’s Food & Farm Awards in 2024. Although there are few Palestinians in the city, visitors come from Vancouver and across the border to try Yaffa Cafe’s specialties and to show their solidarity. “It’s actually really cute,” says Samer’s daughter Nada Samer Alghosain, who does marketing and social media for the cafe. “People will come by with their keffiyehs and let us know they’re in support.”

Samer’s parents fled Yaffa, a port city in the south of Palestine, on foot during the Nakba of 1948 when native Palestinians were first driven from their land. For Palestinians in the diaspora, food is more than just a means to fill the stomach. It is a ritual to keep traditions alive, to recall and reclaim narratives, and is simultaneously a means to resist. With Israeli settler colonialism uprooting historically significant olive groves and wrongly co-opting Arab delicacies, selling them for profit under Israeli brand names, food continues to be irrevocably tied to the Palestinian cultural revolution.

Like many Palestinian businesses, the call for liberation is at the forefront of Yaffa Cafe’s identity. They display posters each week about relevant protests happening in Abbotsford. They stay in touch with local organizers, especially with the Fraser Valley branch of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), and host protesters for meals.

Across the country in Toronto’s west end is Levant (not) Pizza, a restaurant that infuses Italian flavours into Palestinian and Lebanese classics. Owned by Nader Qawasmi, whose parents hail from Nablus and Hebron in the West Bank, the restaurant opened three years ago and has been a hotspot ever since.

“It’s always rich flavours, a lot of stews and spices, that resonate with me when it comes to Palestinian foods—things like mulukhiya, bamia that I grew up eating,” Qawasmi says. “My dad owned a restaurant, so I took after him.”

With its goal to amplify and highlight the diversity of their cuisine, Levant (not) Pizza is advocating for and supporting Palestinian justice initiatives through food. They’ve hosted two charity dinners, the second of which raised $12,000, with funds going to Islamic Relief Canada, Defense for Children International – Palestine, and locals’ efforts to bring their family from Gaza to Canada. They’ve also donated to student encampments. When Uber Eats wrongly listed Palestinian restaurants as “Israeli” cuisine in December 2023, Levant was one of the foremost establishments to call for a boycott of the delivery provider.

For both families, words are also a crucial part of reclaiming Palestinian identity. The “not” in Levant Pizza signifies its departure from a conventional understanding of pizza, and challenges assumptions about both Levantine and Italian cuisine. And for the owners of Yaffa Cafe, invoking the name of their historic homeland is a means of bringing it alive several continents over in Canada.

“I think that’s the boldest move we could’ve done, is to represent where we come from,” Nada says. “I wanted to let people know we were Palestinian, one way or another.”

Photo courtesy of the Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society and Community Outreach Transit Team

They’re slumped over on the seat, head almost touching the floor of the train car. The other passengers try to politely look away, avoiding sitting in their vicinity. Is the person asleep, unconscious? Possibly unhoused, with random personal items spilling out of a ripped backpack, they might need assistance. Yet no one moves to get involved.

Concerned, someone finally calls an Edmonton Transit Service peace officer. Someone else also shows up alongside them: a Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society (BATHS) outreach worker. Together, they gather the groggy person up and help them off the train.

This new social program, the Community Outreach Transit Team (COTT), was put into action along Edmonton’s train lines as a pilot project in 2021 to help give meaningful and humane support to unhoused people and people in distress who use the trains and bus system as shelter. The wider purpose of BATHS, “is to make sure that all Indigenous children are connected to their culture and families, especially to make sure that we’re also building on the strengths of Indigenous children and families, to enable them to grow spiritually, emotionally, physically, and mentally so that they can walk both in Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities,” says BATHS senior manager Lloyd Yellowbird. Working off a similar program model as the Human-centred Engagement and Liaison Partnership in Calgary, the City of Edmonton, partnering with BATHS, felt that a related strategy could benefit the city’s unhoused people.

Together, this team is working to help end homelessness in Edmonton. Outreach workers, also staff members of BATHS trained in trauma-informed responses, connect people with inner-city programs that offer long-term solutions to those who choose to engage with the team members. They help unhoused people get ID and transportation to access medication and other services. Specialized training is important because, “a lot of times [houseless people] face living in a traumatic lifestyle to begin with. [They] don’t want to go to shelters because they don’t feel safe,” Yellowbird says.

After the successful end of the first pilot phase of the partnership in 2021- 22, 2,700 general interactions were logged, and there were 510 instances where referrals were made to assistive services. In March 2023, the city agreed to continue the COTT project, allocating funding of $2.1 million until Aug. 31, 2026. These funds are used by the outreach teams to connect their clients with housing programs and financial assistance services, and to reconnect families and communities. With seven active teams working along the transit system, from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m., seven days per week, Yellowbird says that there will hopefully be funding for four more teams soon. COTT also continues to assist those who have received support from them in the past. “It’s not just a one-off kind of system. Support is always there,” Yellowbird says.

The work that BATHS does to connect displaced people to their communities is something that could, and should, be replicated in other cities. BATHS’s success is one way to help those who have been marginalized to find the community connection that leads to personal fulfillment.

Photo by Jonathan Kemper

Kevin Sidlar’s garden has been a refuge for the past two decades, if not quite a major source of sustenance. For much of his adult life, he’s grown annual flowers, peas, and tomatoes in his backyard.

In the early days of 2020, something shifted within Sidlar. He felt nervous about disease and the security of our food systems. Surveying his abilities to meet his own basic needs in a suddenly uncertain future, the Thunder Bay resident decided to get serious about growing his own food.

Sidlar was sure that increasing his self-sufficiency would settle his nerves about what he felt could be an impending societal collapse, and spending more time with the earth would improve his mental health in the short term. He grew up on a farm that had been in his family for 100 years, and he’d absorbed the rhythms and methods surrounding him. “Gardening teaches me responsibility. Also, I’ve got more fresh food in the house, that leaves me less reliant on the grocery store and frozen foods,” he says. An application developer for the region’s major phone and internet company by day, Sidlar delves deep into one or two hobbies at a time. In his 40s, his major avocations have included foraging for wild mushrooms, sailing, and drumming with a local band. Translating that energy to food production made sense.

For one thing, grocery stores didn’t carry some of Sidlar’s childhood favourites, like kohlrabi, perhaps because it’s impossible to machine harvest large quantities. Also, shade from nearby apartment buildings and trees limits the kinds of crops viable in population-dense urban areas, and Sidlar wanted to diversify the crops he was able to grow. He found a Facebook post advertising affordable rental garden plots located a few minutes’ drive from his home, just within city limits.

Adventure 38 was Jay Tarabocchia’s response to the growing needs of his urban neighbours. He and his father were only able to use a small portion of the 38 acres they lived on, and Tarabocchia had seen how much joy and contentment gardening had brought his father in his senior years. Having moved back to Thunder Bay from Ottawa to care for his dad in the family home of 50 years, Tarabocchia extended use of the land to would-be gardeners who lacked the space. “I thought, ‘Why don’t we do some kind of project to keep expanding on the gardening theme, keep him excited for life?’ So I started making more gardens.” It wasn’t long before he thought to share the space with others.

Nutrient-rich soil and unimpeded sunlight offered exciting opportunities at Sidlar’s rental plot—he could finally grow corn after innumerable failed backyard attempts. His first growing season was a learning experience, though, and he took note of how different the conditions were between his lakeside backyard and the farm plot, which is farther inland.

Lake Superior affects the weather in Thunder Bay, which means more moderate temperatures in town. Adventure 38 experiences a shorter, more intense season. The hotter summer days offer greater outputs, provided gardeners are able to time sowings appropriately. Crops requiring higher evening temperatures, like okra, corn, and peppers, do well there. Seed packages offer guidelines, but it’s only through trial and error that farmers learn when to plant which crops, and which plant relationships are mutually beneficial when interplanted. This long-term thinking with considerations for the rhythms of the seasons gives Sidlar a sense of profound satisfaction, and an afternoon spent in the dirt offers a quiet ease that can be hard to attain in late-stage capitalism’s dizzying circus.

The deep disconnect many of us have from food sources has deleterious effects on mental and physical health. Joining a community garden like Tarabocchia’s is one way to stitch our relationships with food, ourselves, and the earth back together.

*

When food prices shot up enough that many fully employed people weren’t able to feed themselves or their families, it was time to go back to basics. Whether the unending, oppressive food scarcity is partially or entirely artificial, the only recourse many Canadians have is to seize the means of production.

Almost everyone has felt the mounting pressure from climbing food prices in the last two years. The Bank of Canada has, since 1991, tried to keep inflation to two percent yearly, yet grocery store prices have risen steadily since December 2021. The metric for prices is the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which uses a “basket” of foods most families consider staples to calculate the changing costs of a trip to the grocery store. As of August 2023 it contained hundreds of items spanning different cultural and dietary considerations: avocados, baby food, chicken, dried lentils. In 2022, the CPI for food had its largest year-over-year increase in 41 years at 11.4 percent. The metric for all items went up 6.8 percent, and that year saw an increase in average wages of only five percent. Following a 2022 poll, Statistics Canada estimated that 20 percent of Canadians would need to use a food bank in the next six months.

Primary causes for the jump in food prices include supply chain interruptions with COVID-19 outbreaks and facility closures, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and changing weather. With concurrent increases in housing and energy costs, most people have difficult choices to make. While harnessing solar or geothermal energy may be outside the budget for many, the average Canadian can take steps toward improving their food security.

Once thought of as a quaint hobby primarily enjoyed by retired folks, gardening has taken off and captured the hearts of people across demographics. Due to a surge in first-time home gardeners, stores in Canada’s cities were sold out of many gardening supplies in spring 2020, and similar purchasing frenzies occurred in 2021. As the vast majority of Canadians live in cities and lack the space, soil, and light sufficient to grow much food, community gardening solutions have proliferated to meet our changing needs.

A meta-analysis of community gardens in Canada and five other countries showed a 19 percent increase in use from 2018 through 2019. Following decreased interest at the onset of the pandemic, numbers surged again in 2021 and levelled off in 2022. The city of Edmonton created 350 ad-hoc community garden allotments in 2020, while Victoria reallocated resources at Beacon Hill Park to grow food for distribution, prioritizing socially vulnerable populations. Brampton responded to pandemic gardening needs by distributing gardening materials to home growers, who either consumed the food they grew or donated it to the community.

In Winnipeg, Wolseley Community Gardens (WCG) sprung up in 2021 as a response to some of this increased demand. They offer garden space mostly to those living in multi-family dwellings and apartment buildings. WCG co-chair Jade Raizenne says that they received 47 applications for 20 plots in 2021; 39 in 2022; and 37 in 2023. The group expanded the garden each year, so it now hosts 24 raised beds, a native pollinator garden, and an orchard of fruit trees. “Since we started, everyone I’ve talked to has mentioned how much they love coming here, and how good it is for their mental health. One man who doesn’t rent a plot, but walks through the orchards every day, said it’s often the high point of his day,” Raizenne says. At times of social unrest and anxiety, community gardens are resilient, offering respite and a relatively safe third space in cities.

*

As globalization and capitalism accelerate, operators of large farms have found it increasingly challenging to make a living growing food. Rates of suicide among farmers have soared in the past decade, and many young adults coming of age in the aughts were unable to envision a financially feasible future farming. Large farms became more technologically advanced over the past 20 years, with the proliferation of drones, robotics, and sensing technologies. While these advances can drastically increase quantities of food being produced, the ecological costs may not be fully understood.

The opposite is true for less tech-dependent, older methods. Permaculture has been a buzzword for the last two decades, and merits consideration by anyone looking to optimize their land use. It’s a framework that works with the land, rather than imposing changes in an effort to yield species that may not do well in a given region. Colonizers famously brought invasive species with them wherever they went, and despite how charming some of these species can be, like bellflower, they can choke out native plants that offer more to ecosystems. Most invasive plants, though, can be replaced by a native species with a little research.

And in a growing number of gardens, ancient, Indigenous cultivation methods are in use despite settlers’ efforts to supplant them. Three Sisters is commonly practiced among gardeners and the symbiosis of beans, squash, and corn gives each crop advantages they lack when grown individually. Intertwining stalks and varying growth habits makes that triumvirate impossible to machine harvest, so we see how cultivation with respect for innate qualities of plants and the earth they grow in is inextricably linked with slow food practices.

Regardless of what type of food plants are grown where, it is clear that monoculture is the enemy of sustainability. When agents of industry realized that one species of orange and one variety of banana performed best, those varieties were grown on huge farms to the exclusion of all others. Today, the only banana commercially available is the Cavendish seedless, which is a clone. Because every tree on a plantation has the same DNA, if a novel fungus attacks, the entire crop can be wiped out. This already happened with the Cavendish’s predecessor, the Gros Michel, in the 1950s. Without genetic diversity allowing for adaptations to changing pathogens, farmers have had to continually increase pesticide use on bananas. In the past decade, some years saw seasons of near-total losses of navel oranges and russet potatoes. Late-stage capitalism and an unconscious preference for uniformity have brought food production systems to a point where staple crops are needlessly vulnerable in ways that biodiverse farms aren’t.

At community gardens the world over, including Adventure 38, gardeners are constantly learning through trial and error, and by exchanging ideas. There are innumerable choices that farmers make, consciously and not. Whether to use pesticides, fertilizers, and whether to use cost-effective synthetic products versus old-school organics like bone meal and composted manure are just a few of the variables to consider. People are experimenting with and reviving traditions that had almost been forgotten, like hugelkultur. This German practice creates large mounds of decaying logs, offering lower-effort raised beds than the more commonly seen flat rectangles, fabricated with lumber. The sloping sides increase available growing space, and soil quality improves as the wood decomposes. One person whose plot neighbours Sidlar’s uses two-litre plastic bottles, standing upright in small hills. They fill with rainwater, overflow runs downslope, and these reservoirs keep plants happy without having to get out a hose. Not having to irrigate cuts down on labour, allowing the grower to make fewer trips to tend to their farm.

As small farmers return to pre-tractor methods that may decrease yield, they find that some kinds of input become unnecessary. Fertilizer prices skyrocketed following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and ensuing sanctions, as Russia and Belarus are two of the world’s top exporters. But bringing kitchen scraps to a composter, learning more about how to revitalize soil, and narrowing the scope of a farm have allowed hobby farmers and intentional communities to approach self-sufficiency. Sourcing hyperlocal materials such as a neighbour’s livestock manure can decrease dependence on global supply chains while building connections with others.

The idea of gardening was deeply implanted in Sidlar’s family history, but those new to gardening can consult books, radio programs, and community members. For those who are able, gardeners and small farmers are always looking for labour, and trading effort for produce is one way to broaden the reach of community gardens. For folks whose time is consumed by work, community-supported agriculture (CSA) boxes of produce can connect them with local food systems. This gives farmers more money for input at the beginning of the season, and customers get high-quality, local food at an accessible location without having to brave the markets.

It’s more of a challenge, but self-grown food is popular in the city, too. At the Thunder Bay Conservatory, a grassroots organization has put on workshops teaching alternative gardening methods, like straw-bale planting. Not everyone can rent and transport themselves to a garden, or perform the manual labour required. Time, fuel, and physical ability considerations make community gardens inaccessible to many. Planting into the surface of straw bales brings the garden a few feet off the ground, making them accessible to some wheelchair users or folks with physical limitations. Methods like these show that almost everyone can learn how to grow their own food.

*

While Canadians may be waiting a long while for agricultural trends to change, on a microscopic level, small farmers and gardeners can steer things in a more sustainable direction. Though quantities will always be smaller than what factory farms provide, the benefits to small-crop growth are immeasurable. Paying close attention to the relationships between plants and weather facilitates an attunement with natural rhythms. And being emotionally invested in food production prevents waste. “If I put my sweat into a tomato, I’m eating it before it goes bad,” Sidlar says.

CSA kohlrabi in Thunder Bay may cost more than the cheapest alternatives at big box stores. But it has more intact enzymes, a lower carbon cost, and promotes a future of resilient, biodiverse small-scale agriculture that won’t accelerate climate catastrophe or exploit disadvantaged farm labourers elsewhere. It’s probably a lot tastier, too.

Illustration by Jared Briggs

“We started this because it’s a need,” says Omar Kinnarath.

Kinnarath is the founder and one of the organizers of Mutual Aid Society Winnipeg (MAS Winnipeg). The group started in March of 2020, immediately in the wake of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. Stores across the city faced severe shortages of necessities: diapers, baby formula, and toilet paper. “Basic foods were flying off the shelves because of panic-buy,” he says. The pandemic encouraged Kinnarath and others to create a network to support their community. “It’s been an idea to create a mutual aid network in the city for years, but no one’s got around to doing it. But, when the pandemic hit, it was a necessity
that we needed to do this in this city.”

Mutual aid is a form of organizing that involves sustaining cooperation and solidarity between networks, neighbours, and communities. The projects that arise from mutual aid are entirely voluntary and without hierarchy. Mutual aid groups utilize direct action, meeting people where they are, in order to fulfill their needs.

Many of the communities that mutual aid projects arise from are populated by working-class, disabled, Black, and Indigenous people. With mutual aid, anything can be exchanged, from cash to food to clothing, even artistic goods and services.

The support systems that are created through mutual aid are built and sustained regardless of socio-political conditions. The ongoing pandemic has aroused an interest in mutual aid, and in the wake of less than ideal responses from governments of every level, people have realized the power of this particular kind of organizing and its potential for ongoing transformation.

MAS Winnipeg utilized social media to meet people’s needs. “We began organizing, and we started a Facebook group,” says Kinnarath. The group snowballed, amassing 9,600 members, eight organizers, and 100 regular volunteers, assisting with various projects.

Mutual aid is a form of caretaking outside the parameters of the state, and many marginalized communities have been doing this work long before the global pandemic. “In Winnipeg, we have a large newcomer population, and we have a huge Indigenous population,” says Kinnarath. “So, those attitudes of collectivism, of collective identity and responsibility, are already ingrained in the city—I guess why this has been so successful and has grown this much is because those ideas were already in place.”

In a world that is slowly recovering, organizers are continuing their projects. However, mutual aid commitments have not been without challenges, especially for the people involved. “There’s lots of trauma going on. It’s hard to look at every day; it’s hard to manage every day. But it feels good when someone requests something, and a community member fulfills that,” says Kinnarath.

Kinnarath also explains his external frustration that has come out of doing this organizing is just how much he and others can fulfill the needs of their neighbours with few resources, and the government, with all its resources, is seemingly unable to. “When we try our hardest, there’s great success, and we do that with zero money. You have millions, billions of dollars, and you’re failing at it,” he says. But this has not discouraged Kinnarath, his fellow organizers, or other mutual aid organizers across the country.

In Halifax, premier Iain Rankin’s words rippled across the small province as he urged residents to isolate. “He told everybody to stay in place at home, and that sort of raises the question, ‘What if you don’t have a home? Where do you stay?'” says Campbell McClintock.

McClintock is a frontline resident support worker with the Out of the Cold Shelter in Halifax and serves as the external spokesperson for Halifax Mutual Aid. HMA began around September of 2020, building tiny shelters for their houseless neighbours. “Having this type of space, where somebody can feel safe, where they can store their things and where they can be protected from the elements—that’s the very first priority of Halifax Mutual Aid,” he says.

The presence of the tiny shelters in Halifax has forced the government to reckon with their lack of support for this vulnerable group of people. And in the future, it’s clear that there is a need for groups like HMA, as there has recently been a spike in real estate investment in the province of Nova Scotia, with government response yet to be seen. “There are many housing solutions that we don’t feel they’re pursuing,” McClintock says. “The city, for example, owns a number of public properties that have been sitting vacant for years … There’s no shortage of strategies.” Like MAS Winnipeg, HMA has faced challenges with their project, primarily political ones. McClintock explains, “a lot of the obstacles revolve around people thinking and stating that these shelters are unsightly or that these shelters are unsafe, that they’re bringing more trouble into their neighbourhoods.” The confrontation, he says, is part of the strategy and ultimately will help to fight for better housing conditions down the line. “My belief is that, especially for the politicians, this issue should be right in front of their face. They should be reminded every day that these are their constituents, and these are the people they ought to be fighting for.”

Mutual aid requires relationships with those you are working with. “Mutual aid is a way to approach neighbours, people in your community, who may need support, and to engage with them to try and understand what is needed and then to work with other people to gather the resources, supplies, time, and energy needed to achieve those things, on an ongoing basis.” McClintock says. The connections built between everyone involved with HMA and mutual aid groups just like them will undoubtedly prove helpful in their next steps to holding the government accountable regarding housing.

So what does the future look like to those whose main political prerogative is the now? “Mutual aid is a philosophy. It’s a type of organizing. It’s not something that could be institutionalized,” Kinnarath says, echoing McClintock’s statements regarding community solidarity. “Whatever city you go to, mutual aid organizations are holding it down.” He references the major snow and ice storm that impacted parts of the U.S. in February 2021, specifically the organizers in Texas. “Mutual Aid Houston was out knocking on people’s doors…. They were there doing the work before the Red Cross, the state government or the federal government got there.”

Mutual aid stems from a deep understanding and skepticism of traditional systems and conduits of power. Dean Spade, an American lawyer, professor, and one of the most recognizable names when it comes to scholarship on mutual aid, writes, in his book Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) that this kind of organizing is “stemming from an awareness that the systems we have in place are not going to meet them.” and that “[t]hose systems have often created the crisis, or are making things worse.”

One person who understands this acutely is executive director Elene Lam. Lam is the founder of Butterfly: Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network, known to many as simply, Butterfly. She founded the organization in 2014, explaining, “At the time, there were sex workers who were organizing. I was involved in sex worker organizing back in Asia and realized there was no platform here in Toronto, so we had to create one.”

At the beginning of the pandemic, Butterfly created a mutual fund to support sex workers impacted by the circumstances. Precarious workers from all sectors endured a difficult time, but sex workers, in particular, faced challenges from all sides this year and the last. “People feared to disclose their work and report their income because of banks freezing their accounts and police investigations,” she says. The aid fund was necessary because sex workers are denied pandemic supports. “Sex workers are not recognized as workers or people with businesses. They didn’t receive financial pandemic help meant for workers and businesses.”

Mutual aid during the pandemic was also vital to this demographic because traditional avenues of support from governments and charities hinder the lives of sex workers, and entail surveillance. “A lot of resources go towards anti-trafficking laws. We are up against that and immigration policies, and that ends up with people being scared to ask for help,” Lam says. “People frame any Asian or migrant sex worker immediately as a human-trafficking victim. They don’t know the full story of these workers because they only listen to the mainstream media, the government, who don’t listen to workers.”

Kinnarath echoes her sentiments. “When it comes to government or institutional levels, we haven’t got a lot of support from them,” he says. Because mutual aid is not tied to governments or politicians, it is fair to question if those working toward progressive gains should abandon electoral politics as we advance into the future. Kinnarath suggests it does not necessarily have to be either-or. “You can’t have the seats without the street; you can’t have the street without the seats,” he says.

“You need to first and foremost organize communities, make sure they get everything that they need or try to the best of your best ability. And you have to create mass movements, the electoral part. That’s secondary.”

In an already deeply unequal world situated in a pandemic, it is a politics that requires frankness about the current conditions people face and is best understood as a coping mechanism for dealing with day-to-day injustices, saving people from slipping into complete purgatory. Kinnarath is honest about his personal political beliefs and how he reconciles those with his mutual aid commitments. “I consider myself an anarchist. But I consider myself a realist. I believe in this sort of politics, but I also understand the current paradigm,” he says, outlining what mutual aid is all about. Mutual aid allows us to take care of one another while we are in our current positions.

In the meantime, HMA is more than prepared to continue in a post-pandemic world. “If the city doesn’t change its strategies—if it doesn’t provide sustainable, affordable housing—fine. We’ll keep building shelters, and we’ll keep amassing people and resources to be able to provide for more than just a small wooden shelter there.… And because it’s a mutual aid group that is constantly adapting to circumstances, I do feel there is room and capacity for this group to grow and do more things.”

Lam says the same of Butterfly. “We have some funding we will put towards different projects. For us, there’s not a difference between the work we are doing now and the work we plan to do going forward. Even after the pandemic.” These projects will build on Butterfly’s already existing platform of advocacy, workshops, and financial supports, allowing them to mount challenges against government policies affecting sex workers going forward.

Kinnarath says he notices a shift in the way people in his community have reacted to mutual aid, and says that it has had a butterfly effect on organizing in Winnipeg. “It seems like everybody understands what mutual aid is. People I talked to on the street that don’t even know me will thank me for my work…. Then they read up about it and then start to organize themselves, creating their own little mutual aid networks.”
Many in the mutual aid organizing space feel that sense of inspiration from other organizers. Lam explains, “We are building solidarity with other movements as well. Abolitionist movements, racial justice movements. We now know we have so much in common. We have to work together.”

“Khaleel Seivwright and the group that he’s been working with within Toronto are a huge inspiration for Halifax Mutual Aid,” says McClintock. In Toronto, North of Bloor Mutual Aid provided people in their community with assistance when booking COVID-19 vaccines in multiple languages. They began their presence in June of 2020, and throughout the pandemic North of Bloor has hosted everything from neighbourhood cleanups to free online art classes for kids. Like other mutual aid groups, they have gone beyond just supplying material goods for people, further instilling a sense of solidarity.

Kinnarath is already considering a world beyond COVID-19 restrictions. “We’re just itching to go out into the world because now, we’ve built a reputation.” The end of the pandemic is not the end of mutual aid but the beginning of new opportunities for organizers and communities to further connect, learn, and grow. “We can start having community feasts, markets, and educational events like book fairs,” he says.

“We are going to keep doing this work,” Lam asserts. She is confident this work will continue, because it has proven what organizers are capable of. “Asian and migrant sex workers know they are strong.”

Kinnarath is optimistic, too, that this work will carry on in a post-pandemic world because of the lessons it has taught us. Speaking of mutual aid projects, he says, “It’s kind of showing a new type of organization, and a new type of leadership as well.” Kinnarath says, “The movements in the future will be led by people, or be led by organized people who just put in the work.”

Illustration by Diana Bolton

Dearest Fellow Millennial,

Self-care is a sham. There. I said it.

Look, I get it. The modern world is an exhausting one. The workday is basically whenever you’re conscious, home ownership and retirement are but a fantasy, and the spectre of global warming lurks around every corner. We’re also everyone’s favourite bad joke: a pack of entitled babies struggling to do what every generation before us has done—and failing at it.

As we cede more and more to our corporate overlords and become increasingly alienated from each other via technology, it’s understandable that we’ve also become desperate for control over something, anything.

And so, we turn inward, buoyed by media personalities, blogs, Instagram, and trendy New Age philosophy. The answer, we’re told, has been inside of us all along, we just needed to accept it. We are encouraged to distance ourselves from the problems facing those around us and to focus in on our own lives, the state of which is due to our own negative thought processes and poor decision making. We participate in a relentless drive for self-improvement—to become fitter and healthier, to purchase the right ethical products, to read the right books, to stay hydrated—to choose happiness.

But here’s the thing: this push for self-improvement is setting us up for failure.
It creates a need for perfection, for “self-optimization”—a journey without end, and one that will inevitably be disappointing because we, as human beings, are messy and imperfect. It makes us believe that happiness is a tangible thing in our control rather than merely the byproduct of meaningful activity, something that can be sought after and attained like an item at the store.

It also sets up unhealthy comparisons between us and those around us, enabled by the false perfections of social media, creating a void that can only be filled by more and more consumption: more fitness fads, more diets, more self-help guides, more expensive mindfulness classes. It pathologizes sedentary behaviour—sadness, illness, depression,
or anything remotely human—as something bad, something standing in the way of endless productivity.

And perhaps, most importantly, it makes us privilege ourselves over our communities, turning us away from larger systemic concerns and assigning personal blame for our inability to accept things the way that they are.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this cultural shift towards self-care and away from the needs of the community has endangered civil society, creating an erosion of empathy. Citizens complaining about amber alerts, the friction between pedestrians and drivers, the souring relationships between renters and landlords—these are just some examples, but they are part and parcel of a larger philosophy that positions personal comfort and convenience over the welfare of others. Self-care has slowly eroded into selfishness, and it’s a zero-sum game, creating a world where no one person is happy or safe.

We have become so self-absorbed, so apathetic, that we continue to ignore the bigger, more pressing systemic issues, or to stand up to a political status quo that continues to go unchallenged and perhaps isn’t working. We assume that the best we can do is take control of our own lives when we forget how much control we have over the world around us, how much we can accomplish when we just turn up.

So, yes, the world is currently a garbage fire. And maybe the best way to put it out isn’t to drink more water, but to grab a bucket.

Yours in Empathy,

JP Larocque