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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Update, November 25: Twelve days ago Kenney finally recognized the threat of COVID, and took some limited steps. However, it was too little and today he was forced to take more thorough actions. Even still his actions are too little and too late. Dr. Joe Vipond, a Calgary emergency room physician, stated “Now that our […]
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Julien Daigneault is a member of Alternative Socialiste (ISA in Quebec). Recently, right populists and nationalists came together to defend the leadership of Québec Solidaire (Québec’s left leaning provincial party). This is uncharacteristic of them considering the usual ease with which they put down the “radical” left party. However, when the legitimacy of hierarchical structures […]
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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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Updated with full results after postal votes counted. The New Democratic Party (NDP) strolled to a solid victory in the October 24 provincial election. After a delay of three weeks to count the 660,000 postal ballots, the NDP has won 57 seats up, taking two additional seats from the Liberals in each of the Okanagan […]
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Violent and disturbing conflicts between commercial and Mi’kmaw (also written as Mi’kmaq) fishers have been seen around the world. Videos from mid-October show commercial fishers and their supporters swarming lobster facilities, trapping Mi’kmaw fishers inside one, torching a vehicle outside the other. There are images of dumped lobsters on the ground. A few days after […]
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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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Among the many failings of our economic and political realities revealed by COVID-19, the most visible one is the fact that the pandemic is accentuating all the pre-existing inequalities. In fact, it has a much more devastating impact on oppressed sections of society who are already in fragile financial positions and living off precarious jobs. […]
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The harrowing last minutes of Joyce Echaquan, which she livestreamed in the Joliette hospital in Québec, has again shone a cruel light on the institutional racism that the Canadian state is built on. The Premier of Québec, Legault, has again denied there is systemic racism in Québec, ignoring the crystal clear evidence. A year ago […]
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Capitalism turned the coronavirus into a huge disaster. COVID-19 was not an inevitable and unavoidable pandemic; capitalism made it more likely that a virus would cross to humans and did not prepare for that. Once the virus was known to be infecting humans the response was inadequate. Almost everything capitalism did and is doing made […]
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