Have you heard about the record-high level of workers’ actions in 2023? Has it been all over the news and social media? No. Big business does not want workers to know that “When You Strike, You Can Win!” Strikes in Canada hit the highest level in 2023 since 1986! The bosses lost 6,631,724 days of […]
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On Saturday, January 14, members of Socialist Alternative joined four hundred supporters of Drag Queen Story Time at Coquitlam Public Library. All were there to reject discrimination and in favour of choice. This was the second time the library hosted a Drag Story Time event in support of accessible, diverse, and culturally-inclusive family programming. However, […]
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For over ten days central Ottawa has been blocked by the so-called “Freedom Convoy,” a nationwide protest calling for an end to all federal and provincial COVID measures. Some have gone further and called for the removal of the elected government. It has totally dominated Canadian news all this time. Contrast this to the lack […]
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After years of hard campaigning by tenants, the SRO Collaborative and Vancouver City Councillor Jean Swanson, a victory! In mid-November 2021, Vancouver City Council approved real rent control for the private single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels that house many of the city’s most vulnerable people in the Downtown Eastside. SROs are usually small single rooms, about […]
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Defund the Coastal GasLink Pipeline! On a cold grey December 21, sixty people rallied outside the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) branch on 1st Avenue and Commercial Drive in Vancouver. All of Canada’s major banks invest heavily in the oil and gas sector; RBC leads the pack in pushing climate change. It owns 8 percent […]
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The emergence of the Omicron variant of COVID highlights the ongoing failings of governments around the world to tackle this pandemic. Vaccine hoarding by rich countries, companies putting profit before human need, governments failing to do outreach to hard-to-reach and hesitant communities and people have all contributed to this ongoing misery. The COVID pandemic drags […]
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Renovictions, when landlords feign the need for renovations to evict tenants and jack up the rent, are a fundamental part of why housing is so unaffordable in Canada. Regulations governing rent increases vary from province to province, and the pandemic has brought some temporary rent freezes. In non-pandemic times, BC, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia […]
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The 2003 film The Corporation explored the question “if a corporation is a person, what kind of person is it?” The film’s answer, in one of the best documentaries condemning corporations and capitalism, was that corporations are psychopaths. Psychopathy manifests itself in superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self-worth, a manipulative personality, pathological lying, lack […]
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In early March 2020, BC’s first confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths occurred in a long-term care facility. Most of the early deaths were in care homes but, after a slow start, BC’s government acted to restrict staff to only working in one facility, to stop spreading of the virus, and boosted their pay to a […]
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On October 16, 1970, Liberal PM Pierre Trudeau enacted the War Measures Act, its only usage in peacetime. Québec was flooded with 6,000 armed troops. The Act suspended democratic rights, allowed censorship, and authorized the police to search and arrest people without warrant. The spur for this huge attack was the Quebec Liberation Front’s (FLQ) […]
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