The BC government announced a guaranteed minimum number of employer-paid sick days for most workers; there are exclusions. The Worker Solidarity Network, the BC Federation of Labour, and other allied groups, including Socialist Alternative, called for 10 paid sick days per year for all workers, as a minimum standard required to ensure the health and […]
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New Brunswick’s public sector general strike has come to an end. A majority of CUPE locals voted last week for a contract that will see a 2 percent pay raise each year of the five-year agreement. On top of this, workers will receive a 25 cent per hour wage increase per year. Crucially, casual workers […]
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Paramedics face crises everyday as a basic part of their job. In British Columbia, they are also facing entirely avoidable crises of understaffing, low pay, and burnout. All of this was cruelly exposed in the summer heat dome, with soaring distress calls, long waits for ambulances and unnecessary deaths. It wasn’t always this way. BC’s […]
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Southern British Columbia has been hit by two catastrophic weather events in a few months. First was heat and fire, now rain and floods. On November 13 and 14, the skies opened as an “atmospheric river” flowed across much of southern BC, resulting in overflowing rivers, landslides, mud slides, and ruptured railways and highways. This […]
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On Friday, November 5, there was a demonstration at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon campus, predominantly involving Indigenous students. The second demonstration within a month was this time centred on the scandal involving Dr Carrie Bourassa who had been feigning Métis heritage while a professor in the department of community health and epidemiology at the […]
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On Friday November 12, the last day of COP26, a peaceful rally of several hundred for climate justice was disrupted by over-the-top action of the Vancouver Police Department. An Indigenous man, as part of a ceremony, placed red handprints, representing Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, on the building that houses Canada’s Department of […]
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On October 8, after once again University of Saskatchewan campus security failed to protect a female student from being sexually assaulted, students held a rally in Nobel Plaza holding signs such as “Silence is Violence,” “Stop Victim Blaming,” and “Consent is a Basic Human Right.” Despite the solidarity shown among Caucasian, Indigenous and Transgender students, […]
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Albertans went to the polls on October 18, electing new mayors in the two big cities: Jyoti Gondek in Calgary and Amarjeet Sohi in Edmonton. In both cities, voters elected fairly liberal, progressive city councils, most strikingly in Edmonton, where three right-wing councillors lost their seats. Of the nine city council candidates that the Edmonton […]
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The BC Supreme Court made news in September by deciding not to extend an injunction against old-growth logging protesters at the Fair Creek watershed. This would have ended the ongoing RCMP enforcement of the injunction, had the BC Court of Appeal not granted a temporary injunction about a week later. Protesters have been in the […]
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Hospitals in Alberta are experiencing unprecedented demand for intensive care. During the week of September 12 to 18, the average number of COVID-19 intensive care unit admissions has been over 23 per day. Alberta has 10 percent of Canada’s population, but nearly half of all active COVID cases, with Albertans dying at more than three […]
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