During the month of March, the whole world was scrambling to wrap their heads around the scale and impact of the COVID-19 crisis. As the coronavirus was scything its way through Asia and Europe, each successive government seemed to be competing to see who was going to bungle its pandemic response more. Meanwhile a different […]
Continue Reading
On July 11, 1990, thirty years ago, one of the most longstanding violent confrontations between police and Indigenous groups in Canada began. The Oka Crisis, also known as the Kanesatake Resistance or Mohawk Resistance at Kanesatake, was a 78-day standoff between Mohawk land defenders, Québec police, the RCMP and the Canadian Army. It took place […]
Continue Reading
Karl Marx once said, “The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.” While this may be a critique of liberal democracy, it can also apply to the state of temporary foreign workers in Canada who hope to live under better […]
Continue Reading
This article is based on interviews with current and former Amazon warehouse employees. 6:30 pm: time to wake up. You’re a little peeved because your housemates have been noisy since they got home from work a half-hour ago, even though you’ve asked them time and again to keep it down just for that little bit […]
Continue Reading
Leslie interviewed a worker about her job in the time of COVID-19. Carol started at her company in a manual labour role. It was a full-time union job – a job she enjoyed. She’s now a sales representative, which is a more lucrative position. She needed to take on this non-union role to support her […]
Continue Reading
Canada is opening up after varying degrees of restrictions due to COVID-19. Retail stores, cafes, bars and restaurants, hairdressers and many workplaces are restarting operations. Of course, many businesses and workplaces deemed essential (some rather dubiously, like building luxury condos or pipelines) never closed. Schools in most provinces are closed, apart from provision for some […]
Continue Reading
Written by a BC teacher. After weeks of hearing about the nightmare of states in the US reopening their economies amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we knew it was coming. The reopening of the Canadian economy! Granted, the pandemic has not been as devastating in Canada as in the US, but that doesn’t say much. The […]
Continue Reading
The word “hero” is in vogue these days. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the importance in our society of nurses, cleaners, and grocery store workers to millions. Most Canadians are rightly grateful for the labour of these workers, who are doing their best to contain the pandemic and keep the country fed, often at great […]
Continue Reading
In 1983, The Police, recorded a song called “Synchronicity.” Some of the lyrics: We know you, they know meExtrasensorySynchronicityA star fall, a phone call,It joins all,Synchronicity The word synchronicity generally has positive connotations and is briefly defined as a “meaningful coincidence.” Could it be a coincidence, meaningful or otherwise, that the Ontario Minister of Education […]
Continue Reading
The path to remote teaching starts with cautious curiosity, goes through enraging frustration and ends with a tired, tenacious and uninspired slog. The Cautious Curiosity COVID-19 has shutdown physical K-12 classrooms across Canada. In BC spring break ended on March 30, not with a return to school but with teachers logging onto their computers to […]
Continue Reading