“You don’t get me, I’m part of the union.” The Strawbs, 1973 Something is stirring among Canada’s workers. The percentage of unionized workers is up. This might seem surprising given the widespread closures and hundreds of thousands of layoffs due to COVID and the world recession. Jim Stanford (former economist at Unifor) wrote in the […]
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In Lewis Carrol’s book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland there is a character, the Queen of Hearts – a foul-tempered monarch who takes offence easily and is quick to hand out death sentences. One of her most famous lines is “Off with their heads!” From all reports, it seems that Ms. Payette, even though supposedly a mere representative […]
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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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Ford and for-profit homes to blame At the height of the first wave of COVID-19 in Ontario, the Canadian army released a searing report of what the troops found when deployed in some of the worst affected long-term care (LTC) homes. Nearly 77 percent of total COVID-19-linked deaths in the province were residents in LTC, […]
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There was that old Victorian, moralistic saying of drink being the curse of the working classes. Oscar Wilde wittily turned it around to read that work is the curse of the drinking classes. Can we consider work as a curse? A recent US survey found that 36 percent loved their job and was meaningful, nearly […]
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Kermit the frog used to sing: “It’s not easy being Green. It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things and people tend to pass you over.” That wouldn’t be a bad characterization of the Green Party of Canada. The Greens have just elected a new leader, Annamie Paul, the first Black woman […]
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The Ford government in Ontario, using the COVID-19 crisis as an excuse, has launched an attack on the principle of union seniority as it pertains to the hiring of new teachers. The seniority principle, often simplified to “last in, first out” has been incorporated into the language of union collective agreements going back to the […]
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Most people have a healthy scepticism of politicians and their promises. As Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet president in the 1950s, observed, “politicians are the same all over, they promise to build a bridge even when there’s no river.” So, to last Wednesday’s throne speech, either written or pre-approved by Justin Trudeau and delivered by the […]
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Tim Heffernan and Martin LeBrun are Ontario and BC educators. They say that school days are the best days of our lives. This may be debatable at the best of times. But as the topic of this year’s return to school dominates media and family discussions, one thing is certain: everything is uncertain. With the […]
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In 1967 the Boxtops sang “Give me a ticket for an aeroplane, ain’t got time to take a fast train.” 53 years later in the Canada of COVID-19, the chances of going anywhere, whether by plane or train or even long-distance bus, are severely limited. Even before COVID, Canada’s transportation system between towns and cities […]
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