Toronto Police arresting a man for illegal possession of alcohol, September 16, 1916. Photo courtesy of Library and Archives Canada. On a Saturday afternoon in mid-January, Winnipeg musician John K. Samson witnessed several plainclothes “loss prevention officers” violently handcuffing three Indigenous girls for alleged theft from a liquor store. “As
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Canadian Dimension: Fighting for prison abolition across the Prairies: An interview with Free Lands Free Peoples organizer Karrie Auger
Barbed wire along a prison wall. Photo from iStock. Along with the North, the Prairies is the most heavily incarcerated region in the country. Canada has a national incarceration rate of 83 adults per 100,000 people. Each of the Prairie provinces well exceeds this: Alberta with 111, Saskatchewan with 207,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: ‘Either you are fighting to eliminate exploitation or not’: A leftist critique of the Green New Deal
Clean technology is not a panacea for climate change. Photo by ThoroughlyReviewed/Flickr. The catastrophic economic fallout from COVID-19–millions unemployed, skyrocketing food bank usage, uncertain job futures–has provided a major boost to the case for a Green New Deal. The version of the idea (which traces back to a 2007 column by Thomas Friedman, of
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: ‘Carceral systems won’t solve crime’: An interview on theft, policing, and disability justice
A cyclist talks to a Winnipeg Police Service officer. Photo by Dave Shaver/Flickr. Allen Mankewich is a disabled resident of downtown Winnipeg. His handcycle was stolen in May. Although he filed a police report about the theft, Mankewich was hesitant to further involve the police. He also turned down several
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Abolishing the police is the only reasonable response to Winnipeg Police killings
Winnipeggers gathered in the cold outside of the Winnipeg Police Headquarters in early March to demand justice after a police shooting left Machuar Madut, 43, dead. Photo by Quincy Houdayer/The Manitoban. On the afternoon of Wednesday, April 8, Winnipeg Police officers shot and killed Eishia Hudson, a 16-year-old Indigenous girl.
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Manitoba’s NDP and unions are helping advance a police state
Winnipeg police officer at work. Photo by Dave Shaver (Flickr). Late last month, Arthur Desjarlais, a 38-year-old Indigenous man, was sentenced to 110 days in jail for six separate thefts from Manitoba Liquor Marts over the past year. He had just finished serving a sentence for liquor store thefts when
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The NDP is complicit in imperialist violence in Bolivia
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh speaks at the Shaw Centre in Ottawa on Sunday, October 15, 2017. Photo by Obert Madondo (Flickr). It’s now been four days since the right-wing coup in Bolivia, where President Evo Morales — the first Indigenous president of the Indigenous-majority Latin American county — was violently
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Winnipeg’s media are stoking a racist frenzy with coverage of alleged liquor store thefts
The Ellice Liquor Mart in downtown Winnipeg. Photo by Austin Grabish/CBC Winnipeg’s media outlets are salivating at the chance to create a moral panic over alleged liquor store thefts. Nearly non-stop headlines regale readers with seemingly horrific stories of brutal crimes: an old man has his hand slashed while trying
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Dude, where’s my bus? How the election failed public transit
Public buses line a busy street in Ottawa. Photo by Dylan Passmore (Flickr). We are now only days away from the federal election, with the Liberals and Conservatives locked in a neck-and-neck race for what will likely result in a minority government for the victor. Many political headlines since the
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The devastation of Manitoba: An autopsy of Pallister’s austerity regime
Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister has called a snap election for September 10, over a year before required under the province’s fixed election law. It would be a mistake to think the abbreviated term served by the Progressive Conservatives was in any way less effective than if Pallister had waited until
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: We can’t confront climate change without stopping imperialism
Photo by Juan Barreto After months of sabre-rattling from Venezuelan opposition forces led by Juan Guaidó, a small and pitiful coup attempt finally erupted in the streets of Caracas on Tuesday. While the coup — which many mainstream media outlets insisted on erroneously describing as an “uprising” — was by
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: What a false accusation of antisemitism from Winnipeg’s mayor reminds us about political power
Photo by Festival of Faiths On Tuesday, Winnipeg mayor Brian Bowman delivered a press conference calling for Linda Sarsour, a prominent Palestinian rights activist and New York-based co-chair of the Women’s March, to be removed from an upcoming speaking event for the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg’s centennial anniversary event.
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Energy economics
Photo by US Bureau of Land Management Our world is on the brink of climate catastrophe. Most of us are keenly aware of the fact: it has embedded itself within our spirits, tainting every small victory with the reminder that the ship is sinking — and threatening the lives and
Continue reading‘It’s Very Misleading’: Energy Experts Critique Canada’s Rosy Carbon Pricing Report
Earlier this week, the federal government published a bombshell report on carbon pricing, predicting that a nationwide price of $50 per tonne by 2022 will cut emissions by 80 to 90 million tonnes of carbon pollution. That’s equivalent to shutting down up to 23 coal-fired power plants or taking as many
Continue readingImperial Oil Could Face Charges for Violent Flaring Incident in Ontario’s Chemical Valley
It was just another evening in Sarnia, February 2017, when the apocalyptic flaring began. Without warning, enormous flames engulfed Imperial Oil’s petrochemical refinery, spewing plumes of smoke into the air. Nearby houses in Aamjiwnaang First Nation and south Sarnia shook and windows rattled. A foul odour overwhelmed the area. For the next
Continue reading10 Handy Facts About Canadian Energy that You Actually Probably Want to Know
Every day, we’re assailed with dozens of facts and figures about energy issues in Canada: how many jobs or royalties will come from a new pipeline, the annual growth rate of renewables, our per-person energy consumption. But it’s often tricky to decipher truth from fiction. That’s where the new 176-page encyclopedic report
Continue readingHow Likely is a Canadian Oil-by-Rail Boom?
In the weeks since Kinder Morgan’s announcement that it was suspending all “non-essential spending” on the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline, we’ve seen yet another round of concerns about a spike in the shipping of oil by rail. The argument goes that failing to build Trans Mountain means that excess oil from
Continue readingThe Myth of The Asian Market for Alberta’s Oil
For years, we’ve been told again and again (and again) that Kinder Morgan’s proposed expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline is desperately needed for producers to export oil to Asian countries and get much higher returns. The way it’s been framed makes it seem like it’s the only thing standing between
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Canada Moving to Exempt Majority of New Oilsands Projects From Federal Assessments
Photo by Eryn Rickard After more than a year of public hearings, the federal government unveiled its new and improved environmental assessment legislation in February 2018 with much ado. But the new rules — designed to restore public trust in Canada’s process for reviewing major projects — didn’t contain any
Continue readingHow Kinder Morgan Could Sue Canada In a Secretive NAFTA Tribunal
All hell is breaking loose over the Trans Mountain pipeline. On Sunday, Kinder Morgan announced it was putting all “non-essential spending” on hold until it could be guaranteed “clarity on the path forward.” That sent both the Alberta and federal governments into a near-frenzy — Premier Rachel Notley pledged to buy
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