March 16: University of the Streets Café

March 16: University of the Streets Café

Where are the legitimate spaces for citizens to participate in democracy? Are the available spaces diminishing? Is our participation limited to deciding periodically who our decision-makers should be? These were some of the critical questions that participants gathered to discuss on March 16th as part of a University of the Streets Café event co-hosted with Bridges that Unite in Montreal.

Lance Evoy, former head of Concordia’s Institute for Community Development and founder of University of the Streets Café (embed  link: http://instdev.concordia.ca/ourprograms/universityofthestreetscafe/abouttheprogram/), presided, while Amanda Sheedy, the National Coordinator of the People’s Food Policy Project. (http://peoplesfoodpolicy.ca/), facilitating the discussion.

In a lively and wide-ranging conversation, students, academics and activists expressed their concern that in Canada politics is increasingly dominated by corporate interests; the citizen is equated with the consumer, and only those with money have the luxury of choice.

Yet there are signs of hope. Evoy noted that while Concordia has a huge school of business, it also has a pioneering program in Community Economic Development, which has nurtured numerous hopeful community-based enterprises in impoverished urban neighborhoods.

Sheedy stressed the importance of sharing stories about these initiatives as an important stepping stone in creating alternative pathways to democracy and economic opportunities for the poor and marginalized. Participants also noted the importance of social media in sharing information, knowledge and creating links between groups dedicated to social change, here in Canada and abroad. In other words, bridges that unite.