Labour Fair 2026: The radical labour of care

This latest episode of the Courage My Friends podcast series features "The Radical Labour of Care" panel discussion with: Indigenous midwife, leader, and educator, Claire Dion Fletcher; crisis outreach worker, case manager, and advocate in Toronto's Downtown East, Lorraine Lam; and program director of the Latinx Womyn's Program at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape, Grissel Orellana. It is moderated by Eliza Chandler, associate professor in the School of Disability Studies and executive director of the Office of Social Innovation at Toronto Metropolitan University. 

This latest session of TMU's Transformation Café series was hosted at the 34th annual Labour Fair at George Brown Polytechnic. Under this year's Labour Fair theme, "Building a Working Peoples' City," the panel discussed the essential, but undervalued labour of care, interventions in the increasingly inaccessible, unaffordable and hostile city and building practices of mutual aid, community safety and collective survival toward caring and liveable cities.

Fletcher explains:

"My work is very grounded in an Indigenous feminist perspective, and that self-determination of our nations cannot be fully realized unless all members of our nations are included.And that means we must address the gendered nature of colonization. And that sovereignty of our nations cannot happen without sovereignty of our bodies. And so this has led me to a deep commitment to reproductive justice"

According to Lam:

"The root of care for me is really about compassion.And the original Latin meaning of the word compassion comes from two different words ... "to suffer" and "with." And so for me, the radical root of care … is really about compassion, which is different from pity. 'Cause you can walk by someone and have pity on them. You can have sympathy for them. You might even get empathy for them. But the goal is really about: what does it mean to suffer with? And I think that's what pushes us towards thinking about solidarity."

Orellana says:

"The frontline work as labour, it's so devalued. When we're doing so much caring, so much support, so much healing going on, so much advocacy … And I find it difficult … I mean, I've been working in the field for a long time. But more Latin American people are coming in. And every time I sit down with a person it is like when I came here 38 years ago, it's the story over and over again … But we are all needed, needed, needed. We're all important and beautiful."

About today's guests: 

Eliza Chandler (she/her) is an associate professor in the School of Disability Studies and executive director of the Office of Social Innovation at Toronto Metropolitan University whose work is grounded in disability arts. As a scholar, curator, and organizer, she explores how disability arts reshape cultural spaces through critical access, disability justice, and disability-led creative practice. Chandler's work highlights disability arts as a vital site of political, aesthetic, and world-making knowledge.

Claire Dion Fletcher (she/her) is a Lenape- Potawatomi and mixed settler registered midwife. Fletcher is current vice-president of the Canadian Association of Midwives and past co-chair of the National Council of Indigenous Midwives. She is an assistant professor at the Toronto Metropolitan University Midwifery Education Program. Her teaching focuses on Indigenous midwifery and social justice issues. Fletcher is deeply committed to increasing diversity in the midwifery profession through Indigenous-led education. 

Lorraine Lam (she/her) is a Chinese-Canadian daughter of a solo parent, with an education in music, sociology and social work. For over a decade, she has worked in Toronto's Downtown East, walking alongside community members navigating homelessness, drug use, incarceration, poverty, racism, and systemic injustice. Her work is shaped by these communities that have taught her to centre harm reduction, anti-oppression, and trauma-informed practices. She is currently a caseworker at Amadeusz, supporting individuals with firearms-related charges, and she serves on the board of Building Roots and organizes with Christians for a Free Palestine: Toronto and Shelter & Housing Justice Network. Lam also co-authored a chapter in Displacement City (University of Toronto Press, 2022) Find her at www.lorrainelam.me, IG: @lorrainelamchops, X: @lorrainelamchop, Bluesky: @lorrainelamchops.bsky.social and Tiktok: @lorrainelamchops.

Grissel Orellana (she/they) is from El Salvador, Central America and lives in Tkaronto/Toronto. She identifies as Indigenous, from Mestiza ancestry. Grissel is a feminist, a human rights activist/defender, a lesbian femme, a mother, a healer, and a survivor of war and gender-based violence. Orellana has worked at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape for 26 years. She is currently a program director of the Latinx Womyn Program at the Centre, where she continues to triumph for a diversity of Latin American survivors. This program is a space for support, personal growth, collective development and dialogue about our role as Latinx immigrants, political refugees, and survivors of multiple abuse and human rights violations, here in Toronto, Canada. In her work at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape, Orellana is part of a collective that advocates for liberation from all forms of violence.

Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute. 

Images: Eliza Chandler, Claire Dion Fletcher, Lorraine Lam, Grissel Orellana (Used with permission)

Tech & Recording Support: Ben McCarthy

Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased. 

Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (Tommy) 

Courage My Friends podcast organizing committee: Chandra Budhu, Ashley Booth, Resh Budhu. 

Produced by: Resh Budhu, Tommy Douglas Institute of Labour and Social Justice and Breanne Doyle, rabble.ca. 

Host: Resh Budhu.