In the midst of a Canadian federal election, the fossil fuel industry’s impact on climate action barely figures into the discussion. Photo by Patrick Hendry/Unsplash. For years, it was assumed the world wouldn’t start seriously tackling climate change until we were directly confronted with its horrors—thereby revealing how truly reckless
Continue readingAuthor: Linda McQuaig
Canadian Dimension: In a compelling call to arms, Seth Klein presents inspiring vision of Canada’s response to climate crisis
A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency Seth Klein ECW Press, 2020 In May 2019, the The Guardian made an important decision when it decided to stop using the neutral terms “climate change” and “global warming” and start using terms that more accurately reflect what’s going on—“climate emergency”
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: How privatization became the economic dogma of our time
“Public Transit Privatization”, an illustration by Aaron Millard used during a public protest of a Metrolinx Board meeting in Toronto. The following is an excerpt from Linda McQuaig’s new book, The Sport and Prey of Capitalists: How the Rich Are Stealing Canada’s Public Wealth, released this year by Dundurn Press.
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Canada’s Auto Workers: GM Closure and the Struggle for “Green Energy”
GM’s CAMI assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ont. Photo by General Motors. In November 2018, Detroit-based General Motors dealt a staggering blow to 2,700 Canadian workers when it announced plans leading to the closure of a key automotive assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario. In its heyday decades earlier, GM Oshawa had
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Big Oil is the real foreign meddler in Canadian affairs
With the exception of Donald Trump’s claim that he’s draining the swamp, it’s hard to imagine a clearer example of gibberish than Jason Kenney’s claim that he’s defending Alberta against “foreign-funded special interests.” The Alberta premier has launched a public inquiry to expose the foreign funding behind environmental groups opposing
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Canada’s Venezuela sanctions inflict hardship, endorse right wing elite
Photo by Carlos Díaz In terms of foreign policy damage, whatever harm Justin Trudeau did by parading around India in colourful outfits is a nothing-burger compared to the severe hardship he is inflicting on Venezuela. And yet media commentators have been full-throttle in denouncing the prime minister’s alleged wardrobe malfunction
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Rather than fearing the Leap Manifesto, let’s bring on the debate
Photo by Connor Mah
That silly Leap Manifesto – giving itself away right in the subtitle, which calls for “a Canada based on caring for the Earth and one another.” No wonder it provoked fury an…
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Let’s not mix xenophobia with legitimate resistance to corporate trade deals
Photo by Alex Garland
The decision of British voters to leave Europe has been treated as evidence that they’re intolerant xenophobes keen to seal themselves off from the world. That Donald Trump is on thei…
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Harper ramps up his war on independent thought
Photo from Public Domain In the conservative quest to shape public debate in recent years, no tool has proved more useful than the think tank. Nobody understood this better than the director of the ultra-right wing U.S.-based ATLAS Foundation, who once stated that his mission was “to litter the world
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: Harper ramps up his war on independent thought
In the conservative quest to shape public debate in recent years, no tool has proved more useful than the think tank. Nobody understood this better than the director of the ultra-right wing U.S.-based ATLAS Foundation, who once stated that his mission was “to litter the world with free-market think tanks.”
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: Death, denial and the toxic politics of climate change
This piece was originally published on iPolitics and is republished here with the author’s permission. At first, it sounded like the smartest guy in the room had just made an awesomely smart observation. Social psychologist Sheldon Solomon, on a panel this week discussing the world’s failure to tackle climate change
Continue readingCanadian Dimension Feed: Harper stokes resentments in discreet class war
The willingness of much of the Canadian media to go along with the Conservative narrative about Stephen Harper’s “moderation” has allowed the prime minister to wage a discreet class war against working people without attracting too much attention. Canadians don’t like Harper’s anti-worker agenda — when they notice it. That’s
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