A man walks past a mural depicting Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chávez, Latin American independence hero Simon Bolivar and Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas. Photo by Marco Bello. One of the most compelling aspects of Venezuela’s ongoing Bolivarian Revolution, founded with the election of Hugo Chávez in 1999, is
Continue readingAuthor: Owen Schalk
Canadian Dimension: Remembering Canada’s support for the Greek military dictatorship
A tank taking up position in Athens during riots in which nine people died when students demonstrated against NATO and the rule of the Greek dictatorship, November 20, 1973. Photo courtesy Keystone/Hulton Archive. Last week, tens of thousands of Greeks marched in remembrance of the Athens Polytechnic massacre, a student
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Trudeau sending more Canadian soldiers to the Pacific
Members of the Royal Canadian Air Force instruct members of HMCS Winnipeg during Operation Neon, November 27, 2020. Photo by Sailor 1st Class Valerie LeClair/MARPAC Imaging Services. At this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, held in Thailand, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the Canadian military presence in the Pacific—which
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Canada’s ‘sustainable transition’ is increasingly tied up with Washington’s war on China
Image by Viperagp/Bigstock With commodity prices high following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Europe looking for alternatives to Russian energy resources, many leading politicians in the West have been championing a transition to sustainable energy. While Western countries’ words speak much louder than their actions in this regard, their statements
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Billionaires and the planet cannot coexist
Representative image of industrial emissions with an aircraft in the background. Photo by Mladen Borisov/Unsplash. A recent report by Oxfam finds that the C02 output of the average billionaire is one million times greater than 90 percent of the world’s population. Unsurprisingly, there is also a clear disproportionality of billionaires
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Global community condemns US blockade of Cuba for 30th time
Photo by Steward Cutler/Flickr On November 3, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voted overwhelmingly to condemn the US government’s economic, commercial, and financial blockade of Cuba. Of the 189 member states present at the vote, 185 called for the blockade’s immediate lifting, equal to 98 percent of the General
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Why isn’t Canadian media condemning Nazi collaborator Roman Shukhevych?
The Roman Shukhevych statue at the Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex in Edmonton. Photo courtesy CTV News. Last year, a statue in Edmonton honouring Roman Shukhevych, a Nazi collaborator and a perpetrator of the Holocaust who participated in the genocide of 100,000 Polish and Jewish people, was vandalized. In August 2021,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Lula’s victory foretells challenges at home, integration regionally
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva greets supporters, October 19, 2022. Photo by Ricardo Stuckert/Twitter. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victory in Brazil’s October 30 presidential vote is worth celebrating. Indeed, the last few years have been a sustained test of the former president’s popularity among the Brazilian population. From the
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: As climate change worsens, the Liberals are spending $300 billion on new warships
The Canadian Surface Combatant project will replace both the Iroquois-class destroyers and the Halifax-class multi-role patrol frigates. Image courtesy Public Services and Procurement Canada. At this point, we should be accustomed to political leaders in Ottawa being alarmingly out of touch with the needs of ordinary Canadians. And yet, the
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Human rights tribunal rules Indigenous compensation plan insufficient
Thousands take part in the Every Child Matters march in Toronto on July 1, 2021. Photo by Michael Swan/Flickr. On October 24, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT), the federal agency that decides whether a person or organization has violated the Canadian Human Rights Act, rejected the Trudeau government’s compensation
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: BC NDP shreds its credibility again with Appadurai disqualification
Climate and social justice advocate Anjali Appadurai was disqualified from running for the BC NDP leadership on October 19. Image courtesy Anjali For BC NDP Leader/Facebook. In British Columbia, the last hopes for a progressive insurgency against the ossified leadership of the provincial NDP were scuppered on October 19. Prior
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Haiti deserves respect, not another invasion
US Marines patrol the streets of Port-au-Prince, March 9, 2004. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. There is something astonishingly shameless about the way the global community treats Haiti. Its former colonizer, France, made sure to stunt Haiti’s development on the way out in the form of a crushing indemnity it refuses
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Double standards on full display with Western Sahara occupation
The world’s longest conveyor belt in Boucraa, a Moroccan controlled region of Western Sahara. Photo from Reddit. When it comes to Western Sahara, the West’s collective silence can be called nothing but a double standard. Western Sahara is a founding member of the African Union and a full member state
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Thomas Sankara remains a global icon
This file photograph shows Thomas Sankara as he reviews troops in a street of Ouagadougou, during celebrations of the second anniversary of the Burkina Faso’s revolution. Photo by Daniel Lane/AP. “We encourage aid that aids us in doing away with aid,” asserted Thomas Sankara, president of Burkina Faso from 1983
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Canada voices approval of IMF austerity program in Zambia
Photo by Cliff Owen/IMF/Flickr On June 26, 2022, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema. According to the prime minister’s office, the two leaders discussed the “close bilateral partnership between Canada and Zambia” and “agreed to deepen economic cooperation.” Of course, the mining sector merited special mention:
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Cuba’s Families Code a bold step forward for LGBTQ+ rights in the hemisphere
On September 18, Cuban citizens abroad voted in a popular referendum on the country’s proposed Families Code, a comprehensive revamp of social policy that includes some of the world’s most progressive laws concerning women’s rights, familial rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. On September 25, citizens in Cuba voted, and on September
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Lester Pearson at the World Bank
Lester Pearson at Germany’s accession to NATO, 1955. Photo courtesy NATO. In August 1968, the World Bank assembled a team of “stature and experience” to study the impact of twenty years of international development aid, identify missteps in its allocation, and offer recommendations for the future. President of the World
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Gustavo Petro’s environmental protection plans face pushback from extractive companies
Colombian President Gustavo Petro at his inauguration on August 7, 2022. Photo courtesy USAID/Flickr. The progressive Colombian government of Gustavo Petro is drafting legislation that, if enacted, will require mining companies to obtain environmental licenses for mineral exploration. Currently, Colombia only requires environmental licenses for the extraction and production phases
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The power of peasant farmers
A large farm growing a variety of foods in Vietnam. Photo by Dennis Jarvis/Wikimedia Commons. Tiny Engines of Abundance: A History of Peasant Productivity and Repression Jim Handy Fernwood, 2022 When we imagine alternative, sustainable, economically and socially equitable futures, agriculture must be front and centre of the program. It
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: When Queen Elizabeth helped overthrow Australia’s left-wing government
Queen Elizabeth II departing Australia in 1973, farewelled by then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Photo courtesy the National Archives of Australia. In Canada and throughout the Western world, the fêting of the late Queen Elizabeth II is inescapable. Meanwhile, racialized people throughout the Americas and Britain’s former colonies are condemning
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