Climate change is real, and its impacts are clear. Increasingly the climate disaster feels apocalyptic. The real issue is not: is there climate change? What is to be done? – that is the question. Some, especially young people, feel despair worrying about the future state of the world. If the governments and corporations that dominate […]
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The long months of COVID have been brutal for many people in Canada and around the world. COVID has exposed and pressure cooked many of the pre-existing conditions and problems: inequality, run-down public health systems, utterly inadequate care for seniors, opioid pandemic and more. Repeated government failures have made COVID far worse. The delayed response […]
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A Good War outlines a path for Canada to successfully respond to the climate emergency, and in the process tackle poverty and inequality. The title refers to World War II, when all of Canada’s resources, money and labour was mobilized for victory. By way of disclosure, I know the author, Seth Klein. I’ve worked with […]
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Greyhound has closed all its services across Canada. In 2018, it announced the closure of all its services in Western Canada and the federal government did nothing. This was a criminally missed opportunity to take over the entire, already-existing, Canada-wide bus network. Will they fail again this time? The loss of Greyhound leaves hundreds of […]
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The third COVID wave is crashing over most of Canada, and much of the rest of the world. Governments are blaming new variants of the virus, but the problem lies deeper than the variants. To be hit by three waves is a failure of governments. In Britain in the autumn of 2020, the new variant, […]
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Amazon’s warehouse in Brampton, on the edge of Toronto, was ordered to close by Peel Public Health…
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“We’re all in this together” has been a constant refrain from politicians during the course of the pandemic. From the beginning, there was never any truth in this. In the same storm, yes, but the boats that became available for this storm ranged from yachts, to rowing boats, to scraps of wood. Given what’s happened […]
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A towering figure of music, Beethoven was born on December 16, 1770. He grew to be a genius of the European tradition of classical music. His life was a time of turmoil and revolution and at a crossroads of an artist’s relation with society. Beethoven’s musical beauty and genius is best understood in the context […]
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On December 14, the first COVID vaccinations were given in Canada. This gave hope that there may be an end in sight, in this dark winter. Politicians were keen to highlight the vaccine, less enthusiastic in addressing the current reality. COVID is largely out of control across much of Canada. November and the first half […]
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The ruling class of society keeps control through a mix of repression, ideology and material provisioning of the population it rules. Repression alone is expensive and, in the long run, ineffective to keep power. Rulers usually have to provide some material protection and provisioning of society, whether that is keeping the people of a city […]
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