Interview Archive

Bill Robb describes how CUSO, the Saskatchewan International Labour Program, and Canadian unions built practical connections with Southern African workers through exchanges, educational campaigns, and debates over international solidarity. - Bill began working for CUSO in 1978. In the decade that followed, he also worked with the One Sky Education Centre in Saskatoon and later with the Saskatchewan International Labour Program. Bill was also a member of the Saskatoon Solidarity Committee, which created educational materials about apartheid and the Frontline States for NGOs, church groups, student groups and unions. He later went on to join the national research staff of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, where he served for 25 years until his retirement.

Bob and Jean Rutka discuss Montreal’s early anti-apartheid networks, the Mouvement québécois contre l’apartheid, and the practical work of hosting visiting activists and connecting struggles in Southern Africa with other international solidarity movements. - Bob came to Montréal from the towns of Churchill, Manitoba and St. Catharines, Ontario. As a journalist with the Prensa Latina news agency set up after the Cuban Revolution, his contacts and Cuba connections provided important networking for activists of many movements in Québec and formidable support to local and international social justice issues. Jean, from London, England, was an administrative officer at McGill University in Montréal before pursuing a career as an artist. During the 1970s, she was deeply involved as an activist with local feminist groups and was a founding executive member of Mouvement québécois contre l’apartheid (MOQCA).

Andrew Schofield and Suzanne Smythe reflect on their different paths to anti-apartheid activism, from growing up under apartheid and organizing in Montreal to their experiences in South Africa during the transition to democratic elections. - Andrew is a high school principal in Vancouver. He was born and raised in South Africa, where he joined the anti-apartheid movement. He moved to Canada in 1988 and pursued graduate studies while continuing his activism. He later returned to South Africa and worked for the African National Congress in the lead up to its first non-racial elections. Suzanne is an associate professor of Adult Literacy and Adult Education at Simon Fraser University. In the early '8os she moved to Québec to pursue her studies. She became involved in the anti-apartheid movement at McGill University and co-founded the Amandla! radio show, the progenitor of this documentary series. In 1993, Suzanne moved to South Africa, where she did frontline work in support of the movement in the lead-up to the country's first non-racial elections.

Gwen Schulman recalls organizing for divestment at McGill, visiting Southern Africa as a student activist, and co-founding CKUT’s Amandla radio program to challenge misleading coverage of apartheid and support the liberation struggle. - Based in Montréal and a translator by profession, Gwen joined the divestment movement as a History student at McGill University and became co-chair of the McGill Southern Africa Committee. She later became active with the Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa, where she pursued anti-apartheid activism, along with solidarity work with other struggles in Africa. In 1987, she co-founded and co-produced the long-lasting Amandla! radio show at CKUT. The show broadcast weekly until 2023 when she took on the challenge of writing and producing Small Little Foot Soldiers.

Stephen Seaborn recounts encounters with apartheid South Africa during a 1964 visit, his later work with CUSO in Zambia, Tanzania, and Botswana, and campaigns in Canada challenging economic support for the apartheid regime. - Stephen grew up in Montréal. He was awakened to the effects of racism as a member of a Unitarian youth group in the early 1960s, and saw apartheid firsthand as a crew member on a Norwegian vessel that docked in Cape Town. After graduating from university, he joined CUSO, first as a teacher in Zambia and later as CUSO staff in Botswana, where he met members of the anti-apartheid struggle in exile and helped develop CUSO’s policy of support for liberation struggles in the region. As the director of public education for CUSO’s head office, he developed educational materials for Canadians who wanted to push their banks and other companies to divest.

Sid Shniad discusses his work with the Telecommunications Workers Union in British Columbia, the networks that supported SACTU, and the political obstacles faced by activists bringing anti-apartheid solidarity into the labour movement. - Sid was born in Los Angeles to left-wing parents who raised him as a “red-diaper baby.” A political economist by training, Sid was hired in 1980 by the BC-based Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU). He advocated for anti-apartheid positions within the TWU and within the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). He continued to work in international solidarity as a TWU staffer for several decades until he retired.

Trade unionist Jim Sinclair traces his path from solidarity organizing after the 1973 Chilean coup to labour activism in British Columbia, reflecting on the SACTU campaign and tensions surrounding international solidarity in Canadian unions. - An activist from his high school days in the 1970s, Jim learned about apartheid from the Toronto Committee for the Liberation of Southern Africa (TCLSAC) when he was working for the Latin American Working Group in Toronto. He went on to work in radio in Vancouver, where he joined the SACTU Solidarity Committee. He promoted the anti-apartheid cause as a journalist with the United Fishermen and Allied Workers (UFAW) in Vancouver in its newspaper The Fisherman. Jim was elected for a total of 15 years as the President of the BC Federation of Labour.

Vancouver labour activist Susan Stout recalls organizing with the SACTU Solidarity Committee, bringing anti-apartheid education into union spaces, and travelling to Southern Africa as the struggle entered a new phase after Nelson Mandela’s release. - Susan began working at Air Canada in 1972 and soon became active in the Canadian Air Line Employees Association. After the merger with the Canadian Auto Workers in 1986, she was a delegate to the Vancouver Labour Council and active in many social issues along with the SACTU Solidarity Committee in Vancouver.

H. Nigel Thomas reflects on his journey from Saint Vincent to Montreal and his involvement in the Free South Africa Committee. He discusses anti-apartheid vigils, product boycotts, divestment campaigns, coalition building and the push for Canadian sanctions against South Africa. - H. Nigel is an award-winning author, with seven novels, three collections of short stories, and two books of poetry to his credit. He was born in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and emigrated to Montréal in 1968. In 1984, he co-founded the Free South Africa Committee of Montréal, which picketed supermarkets to get South African products off the shelves, and held vigils and protests outside the South African consulate. He worked as a teacher in Montréal and then as a professor of US literature at Université Laval. He retired in 2006 to write full-time. H. Nigel holds a PhD from Université de Montréal.

Members of the SACTU Solidarity Committee revisit the history of Canadian labour solidarity with South African workers in a Toronto Workers History Project presentation. They examine organizing tactics, the politics of apartheid and the Cold War, and the campaign to build international union support.

Ken Traynor describes growing up in Saskatchewan, travelling to Africa and working with CUSO in Botswana. He recalls the Soweto uprising, his growing understanding of Southern African liberation struggles and the organizing and research behind the SACTU Solidarity Committee. - Ken is from Saskatchewan. In 1976, he went to Botswana to work as a land use planner. Located near the border with Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), Ken learned from refugees about the brutality of the Rhodesian regime and the fight to replace it. He volunteered to work for the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU). Later in Lusaka, Zambia, he worked with both ZAPU and the ANC writing and researching projects for international support. He participated in the establishment of the SACTU Solidarity Committee in Toronto in 1980. His research on Canadian trade with South Africa, published as Trafficking in Apartheid, revealed Canadian businesses’ ongoing support for the South African regime despite public pressure for boycotts, sanctions and disinvestment.

Cathy Walker reflects on the British Columbia labour movement and the role of independent Canadian unions in opposing apartheid. She discusses the SACTU Solidarity Committee, international solidarity, workplace organizing and efforts to challenge Shell’s links with South Africa. - Cathy joined the Canadian Association of Industrial, Mechanical and Allied Workers Union (CAIMAW), became a local union president, then joined the staff of CAIMAW in the 1980s. As a CAIMAW representative in bargaining with Shell Oil, she pushed to have a commitment to boycotting South African products as part of the collective agreement. Upon the merger with the Canadian Auto Workers in 1992 she became Health and Safety Director for over a decade.