Photo from Public Domain This is the third and final piece in a three-part blog series. In the first post, I provided an overview of Manitoba’s activist left. In the second piece, I explored reasons why the Manitoba activist left is struggling. In this final entry, I offer five modest proposals
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Canadian Dimension: Why is the Manitoba Left Struggling?
Photo by Terence Faircloth, This is the second piece in a three-part blog series. In the first post, I provided an overview of Manitoba’s activist left. In this second piece, I explore reasons why the Manitoba activist left is in its current state. In the final entry, I offer some
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The State of Manitoba’s Activist Left
Photo from Solidarity Winnipeg Twitter page This is the first in a three-part blog series. In this post, I give a brief overview of Manitoba’s activist left. In an upcoming second post, I will explore reasons why the Manitoba activist left is in its current state. In the final entry,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Comic collection inspired by everyday heroes
Drawn to Change: Graphic Histories of Working-Class Struggle Edited by The Graphic History Collective with Paul Buhle Between the Lines, 2016 Comic books have a political substance whether we like it or not. The gender dynamics are overt in mainstream comics, with aggressive male characters and hyper-sexualized female characters. This
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Building Manitoba’s Fightback
Photo by Tony Hisgett The upcoming provincial elections in Manitoba are worrying. The provincial NDP may cling to power come April, 2016, but a Progressive Conservative government might get elected instead that will impose significant and lasting damage. The priority is to keep the PCs out of office, but people
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: Grassroots movement needed, says Labour Congress candidate Husseini
Hassan Husseini is intent on forming a grassroots wave to revitalize the labour movement regardless of whether or not he wins the Canadian Labour Congress presidential election on May 8. Incumbent CLC president Ken Georgetti is facing his first contested election since 2005 in what is turning into a bitter
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: A grassroots perspective on the Québec elections
In many respects, nothing has changed following the April 7 Québec elections. Big business remains in power, only its colour has altered from light blue to a Liberal shade of red. Profits, not party stripes, are what concerns the shareholders of Québec Inc. That said, the political landscape has altered
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: People need to launch their own takeover bid
When people find themselves nodding in agreement with Andrew Coyne and the National Post, questions ought to be raised. Coyne titled his latest piece “rogue Québec billionaire launching takeover bid,” addressing Québecor CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau’s decision to run for the Parti Québécois. The reality is that billionaires have already
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: People need to launch takeover bid of their own
When people find themselves nodding in agreement with Andrew Coyne and the National Post, questions ought to be raised. Coyne titled his piece his latest piece “rogue Québec billionaire launching takeover bid,” addressing Québecor CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau’s decision to run for the Parti Québécois. The reality is that billionaires
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: Clearing the Indigenous Plains Today
Official bicentennial celebrations of the “affable drunk” who founded Canada will likely mask John A. McDonald’s history of racism and deliberate starvation of First Nations, and similar policies continue today with the tar sands and fracking expansion. Author James Daschuck addresses Canada’s history of disease, deliberate starvation, ethnic cleansing, tar
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: We All Lose in Canada’s Austerity Olympics
As fallout from the largest economic crisis since the Great Depression continues, the federal Conservatives continue to take part in the global austerity Olympics with their 2014 budget, and people and the planet are suffering as a result. Nobody wins with this approach. The winter Olympics will overshadow the budget,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: Undoing Border Imperialism with Harsha Walia
Harsha Walia is first-and-foremost an activist. Writing is simply another tool for her movement-building work, which spans over a decade with some of the most marginalised communities in Canada. While much of the Canadian left is focused on important populist issues like Canada Post, Harsha’s work stands out for its
Continue readingCanadian Dimension | Articles: Ending Canada’s shameful practice of indefinite detention
Migrant prisoners in Canada have been beaten back into their cells, imprisoned for “preventive” reasons, reallocated to prevent political organising, and lied to by prison authorities in an ongoing and historic migrant prisoner strike. Activists are calling on people to take part in a national day of action this December
Continue readingCanadian Dimension Feed: Student movement victory? The Québec Strike
governing Liberals to call an election, which resulted in a Liberal defeat and the repeal of tuition fee hikes and anti-protest legislation. The movement in itself is something worth celebrating. Students mobilized themselves to enforce a student strike that lasted for 8 months and, in the process, fostered a broad
Continue readingCanadian Dimension Feed: Corporate Propaganda and the Student Strike
Montreal Gazette columnist Henry Aubin makes some interesting claims in his latest tirade against the student strike. The movement is composed predominantly of an “Internet generation” who read “only that which comforts – rather than challenges – their opinions.” Immersion in social media fosters radicalism as protestors feed off their
Continue readingCanadian Dimension Feed: The Student Movement: Radical Priorities
The student movement in Quebec is an incredibly important development, with implications that reach well beyond provincial borders. The movement emerged in response to a 75 per cent increase in tuition fees to be implemented over the next five years, but it has quickly evolved into something far more significant.
Continue readingCanadian Dimension Feed: Ideas to Work With
David Harvey addressed a crowd in the heart of London’s financial district early in November 2011. “We need to mobilize in such a way that we can genuinely threaten major commercial and financial interests,” Harvey said in his speech at Occupy London. “You’re in the heart of the beast, the
Continue readingCanadian Dimension Feed: Canadian Elections and the Substantial Class
The 2011 federal election shares compelling parallels with an earlier time in Canadian history. A British colonial official, T.L. Wood, expressed a popular sentiment of the time in a speech to the Legislative Assembly in 1870, shortly after the British…
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