We are proposing a grassroots horizontal approach to organizing a Peoples' Social Forum across Canada as a means of stimulating debate, discussion and further our sense of community and collective action. The process of the social forum seeks to reach out to a plurality of social movements, groups and progressive institutions across Canada, Québec and Indigenous communities. The short term goal being to build on existing struggles by building a united and cohesive front against the Conservative agenda of austerity and privatization but long-term to help transform the current political, economic and social paradigm, by employing creative resistance while proposing alternatives solutions.

 

So far several organizations and individuals have come together to form Expansion Commissions in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. Discussions are going on to form similar commissions in Vancouver, Calgary, St. John’s, etc. The Expansion Commissions will focus on involving as many other organizations and individuals in the process. 

The first social forum was the World Social Forum held in January 2001 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Simply put, it was a response to the growing neoliberal agenda of the ruling parties in many parts of the world. It challenged the TINA ('there is no alternative') syndrome as well as the right-wing theses of “the end of history” and “clash of civilizations.” It also proposed the slogan “Another World is Possible.”The World Social Forum was intended as a regular meeting of activists to move experiences from the individual to the collective.