Century home and adjacent lot comprising the 214-230 Sherbourne properties. Photo by Andre Bermon. For the last year and a half, I have been part of a local grassroots struggle that is unfolding in Toronto’s poor working class Downtown East community. We are challenging the commodification of housing, the destructive
Continue readingAuthor: John Clarke
Canadian Dimension: The myth of the ‘nanny state’
Margaret Thatcher served as British prime minister from 1979 to 1990. Photo by Tim Roney. Among many stories related to austerity and social abandonment that came across my news feed in the last several days, I noticed a Global News headline that read, “Stress builds as deadline to vacate some
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: From vilification to criminalization
Pro-Palestine demonstration in downtown Toronto, January 21, 2024. Photo by John Pinel Donoghue. It has become almost routine for people who express solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people to be subjected to ugly intimidation tactics from Israel’s supporters. A depressingly long list exists of those who have endured
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Gaza and the fault lines of empire
A Palestinian child stands among the ruins of a destroyed building in Gaza. Photo courtesy the United Nations/Flickr. Shortly after the news broke of the United Nations General Assembly’s December 13 vote to demand an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza, I bumped into a neighbour who has been following events
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Confessions of a hatemonger
Pro-Palestine rally in Melbourne, Australia, May 22, 2021. Photo by Matt Hrkac/Flickr. The recently deposed British Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, has claimed that those participating in the massive protests taking place across the country in solidarity with the Palestinians are “hate marchers.” Meanwhile, here in Ontario, Premier Doug Ford told
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Ontario NDP’s expulsion of Sarah Jama is a flagrant betrayal
Sarah Jama and Ontario NDP leader Marit Stiles. Photo courtesy Marit Stiles/X. There can be few on the left in Canada who remain unaware of the vile treatment of Sarah Jama, an elected member of the Ontario legislature, in response to her condemnation of Israel’s horrific assault on Gaza. When
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Doug Ford’s failed grab for the Greenbelt
Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Photo from Facebook. As a right-wing conservative, Doug Ford has some things in common with Margaret Thatcher, but with a very significant difference: while Thatcher could fairly describe herself as “not for turning,” Ford is less steadfast in the face of major challenges. His crass capitulation
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The changing climate of class struggle
Wildfire smoke from Canada consumes New York City, June 7, 2023. Photo by Anthony Quintano/Flickr. Two very different developments in the last year, each affecting the lives of workers in the United States, bring home the degree to which the impacts of climate change are redefining the nature of the
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Cheers for Chow must be accompanied by vigilance
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow greets council, July 12, 2023. Photo from Twitter. The election of Olivia Chow as mayor of Toronto has captured attention across Canada. The largest city in the country will now have a long-time NDP politician in the top position of political leadership. This is a highly
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The Socialist Register on the state and the transition to socialism
“Let’s consolidate the victory of socialism.” Artwork by Konstantin Vyalov, 1932. Image courtesy Ogiz-IzoGiz. At the invitation of the Socialist Project, I recently wrote a review of the 59th annual volume of the Socialist Register, which is devoted to assessing capital and politics in this extraordinary period. It aims to
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Inciting anti-Chinese hatred
Photo courtesy China Photos/Getty Images The Trudeau government has moved to expel Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei on the grounds that he has been involved in targeting members of Conservative MP Michael Chong’s family who live in Hong Kong. The Globe and Mail informs us that a 2021 CSIS report had
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Fossil fuel capitalism rewards John Horgan
Former BC Premier John Horgan. Photo courtesy the Province of British Columbia/Flickr. When former BC premier and NDP leader John Horgan announced that he is joining the board of a coal company, it was inevitable that some critical voices would be raised. Writing in the Prince George Citizen, John Steidle,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Combatting the ruinous greed of the developers
Condo towers in Toronto. Photo courtesy PARTISANS Projects/Flickr. Last November, Gaétan Héroux and I wrote an article for Canadian Dimension on an emerging struggle to prevent the construction of a 47-storey condominium tower in Toronto’s Downtown East. We argued that this project would serve to drive up land prices and
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The life and death struggle for public health care
Of the many manifestations of societal crisis we face in these harsh and uncertain times, the threat to public health care systems is among the most serious. The defence of health care against austerity and privatization is in fact a defining struggle of the present period. As the pandemic began
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The foreign home buyer as scapegoat
On January 1, the Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act became law. This initiative by the Trudeau Liberals will have the effect of preventing businesses and individuals outside of Canada from buying residential properties for a two-year period. The Act will apply to census metropolitan areas
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Doug Ford’s trashing of the Greenbelt
Changes to Ontario’s Greenbelt Act are in the works that would remove 7,400 acres of protected land and hand them over to developers. Photo courtesy Greenbelt.ca. In Toronto, even though hundreds of thousands of people can barely pay their rent and homeless shelters are overflowing, it is still not really
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The security state’s double standards
Members of the so-called ‘Trucker Convoy’ drive towards the Alberta legislature from Acheson, just west of Edmonton. Photo by Naomi McKinney/Unsplash. The institutions of law enforcement and security in Canada are often involved in monitoring and overseeing protest activities. When these go beyond the ‘family friendly’ format and adopt tactics
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Putting royalty to rest
“The Funeral Ceremony of Her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte of Wales and Saxe Coburg,” by Thomas Sunderland (1818). Image courtesy the National Portrait Gallery/Wikimedia Commons. It was hardly surprising that the death of Queen Elizabeth II was marked by a grandiose and carefully crafted public spectacle. The scale and
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Sweatships on troubled waters
Symphony of the Seas, an Oasis-class cruise ship owned and operated by Royal Caribbean International. It was the largest cruise ship in the world by gross tonnage when built in 2018. Photo by roli_B/Flickr. Now that the grandees of global capitalism have decided to act as if the pandemic were
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The political death of the ‘moderate’ Tory
Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre walks with James Topp, a former army reservist and key figure of the far-right so-called trucker convoy. Photo courtesy Pierre Poilievre/Twitter. There was much alarm and considerable dismay when Tory leadership contender, Pierre Poilievre, was photographed last month marching in solidarity with some unsavoury representatives
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