August 21–22: A Look Back at a Busy TeC Summer Camp!

✅ Unveiling the highlights of the Democracy and TSÉ Forum, which will take place on November 26

✅ Refine the proposal to establish neighborhood delegations in preparation for the Forum

✅ Introduce the JEDI delegation, which was recently formed to help us achieve our goals in this area

✅ Create special spaces to discuss a variety of topics that are important to members: economies in transition, the role of storytelling and culture, communities’ climate resilience, and, of course, the crucial issue of funding for our groups and organizations.

💡 A huge thank you to everyone who attended. Thanks to you, it was an event full of meaningful discussions and learning. Each workshop helped push our thinking a little further on issues that are crucial to the alliance and its community.

More details on the findings of the various workshops:

🗣 Workshop on establishing a JEDI delegation in preparation for the Forum:

The JEDI workshop reaffirmed our commitment to placing JEDI issues at the heart of the alliance’s mission. A new delegation, composed of two members from each Working Group and TeC Cluster, is being formed in preparation for the Forum. Our discussions also highlighted the need to explore the various ways in which we can collectively address the fight against poverty in all its forms: through the lens of inequality, the fulfillment of basic needs, and tax justice—all of which are central to the demands raised by many of our members, particularly the community sector, and which enable us to link social and environmental struggles with ever-greater clarity.

🌱 Community Climate Resilience Workshop:

The group highlighted the need for collaboration among the various stakeholders working on resilience in Montreal. Participants discussed the possibility of creating a collective dedicated to resilience and to a systemic and political perspective, to avoid an approach that would ignore inequalities, while also ensuring that efforts effectively build on existing initiatives. Building connections, sharing projects, and identifying avenues for collaboration were highlighted, in part thanks to a segment of the workshop dedicated to mapping community resilience assets—a project led by the CMTQ and the DRSP.

🏙️ Open discussion on the creation of neighborhood delegations in preparation for the Forum on Democracy:

We outlined the feedback we received from various neighborhoods and agreed on two types of delegations: those with preparation and those without (more details to follow). We emphasized the importance of building on existing structures and ensuring inclusive leadership that does not reproduce power dynamics.

💡 Economies in Transition:

The discussions focused on the creation of a $100 million fund to support the local economic transition and on the involvement of various stakeholders, such as Montreal’s small and medium-sized enterprises and the Caisse d’économie sociale.

🎭 Culture and Transition:

We explored democratic innovations in the cultural sector and the importance of supporting existing projects. The group took on the role of an ally to promote cultural initiatives that support the transition.

📜 Stories and Transition:

Discussions on collective narratives highlighted the challenges posed by divisions. We agreed that the Forum would be an ideal space to experiment with new forms of democracy and to discuss the points of convergence and divergence in our approaches.

🚀 Next Steps:

The event marked the beginning of a new phase of maturity for the alliance. Several members volunteered to get involved in various ways, including by helping to organize the upcoming Forum, the neighborhood delegations, the JEDI delegation, and the emerging Resilience collective.

You’ll find all the photos from the event here!

Once again, thank you to everyone for your dedication!