SOURCE: CBC News: Harper Vows to End Party SubsidiesNow, this news should come as no surprise to anyone. After all, Harper attempted to pass legislation to this effect but had to back down when the opposition united to oppose it and him. So of course, …
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A Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Sudbury: Writing for Social Change Workshops
Just sent out the following callout for a series of three writing workshops for people interested in doing writing related to social change in Sudbury. I’ll be facilitating the middle workshop and other local writers/activists will be facilitating the …
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: New Debates, Old Debates…
I’d like to take the time today to talk a bit about the yet-to-be-announced leaders’ debates in this election cycle.As no real surprise to no one, the consortium of broadcasters decided to exclude Elizabeth May from the debates this year. This was the …
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: Takin’ Care of Business
Source: CBC News: Ignatieff, Harper Trade Barbs on Taxes, SpendingWell, it’s day three of the election campaign, and so far very few actual policy ideas have been brought forward by any of the parties. This is to be expected, given that the first days …
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Review: <I>Gay New York</I>
[George Chauncey. Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940. New York: Basic Books, 1994.]A friend suggested this book as one of several to make my sourcing for a particular chapter of my own books a bit more r…
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: Structuring the Election
Source: CTV News: Poll says Trust in Conservative Government FallingSource: CBC News/Opinions: Scott Reid: Whose Fault is it if no one Cares?Source: Global and Mail: NDP Leads Federal Parties Vying to Capture Quebec ImaginationA few weeks ago, I had a …
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: Let’s Get Ready to Rumble…Well, Electorally Speaking.
So much news, so little time.Obviously, we’ve had two budgets: The Federal one, which has a snowball’s chance in (well, you know where) of passing…Or even making it to a vote before the Opposition bring forward a non-confidence motion.And a provincia…
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: The Death Knell of Democracy?
Another abstract post today, as it’s a topic that’s been weighing on me. Though, we do have one semi-related source.SOURCE: CTV News: Don’t Force Election in Wake of Japanese Quake: HarperI’ve noticed a rather disturbing trend in Canadian politics, not…
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: What’s Good for the Goose
It’s an abstract post today, so brace yourselves.In watching Power & Politics on the CBC this afternoon, I was given what they call ‘The Firing Line’, only because of technical difficulties only former Cabinet Minister Monte Solberg, talking with the …
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Video: David Harvey on the Enigma of Capital and the Present Moment
Check out this video of a recent talk by marxist geographer (and author of A Brief History of Neoliberalism) David Harvey. He is talking about some of the ideas from his most recent book, The Enigma of Capital, which he wrote during and in reference to…
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: No, You’re Out of Order!
Source: CBC News: Speaker Rules Against Government, OdaIn a ruling that should shock no one, Speaker of the House Peter Milliken, has ruled against the Government and cabinet minister Bev Oda in two separate rulings. The ruling against Oda suggests tha…
Continue readingCanadian Political Viewpoints: Harper’s House of Cards
Source: CBC News: In-and-Out Worth $100,000 in PayoutsSource: CTV News: PMO Apologizes for Booting Media from Ignatieff SpeechSource: CTV News: Tories Defend use of ‘Harper Government’Source: CTV News: Kenny Stands Firm amid calls for his ResignationI …
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Challenging Conspiracy Theory Thinking
For more than a year, now, I’ve been toying with the idea of writing something that compares ways of knowing the world that ground materialist, radical left politics with those that are the basis of what I can only term “conspiracy theories.” (There mi…
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Review: <i>Seeing Reds</i>
[Daniel Francis. Seeing Reds: The Red Scare of 1918-1919, Canada’s First War on Terror. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2010.]We need more books like this — histories of social change in Canadian contexts written for lay audiences and with an eye to co…
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Sudbury Event in Campaign to Raise Welfare Rates
A section of the Canadian Union of Public Employees — Ontario is holding a conference in Sudbury at the end of February. CUPE-O has decided to support the “Raise the Rates” campaign, a struggle to reverse the provincial cutting of the Special Diet All…
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Review: <I>Persistent Poverty</I>
[Jamie Swift, Brice Balmer, and Mira Dineen. Persistent Poverty: Voices From the Margins. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2010.]This book is a simple one — well done within its particular bounds, the product of a lot of hard work by many people, and as a …
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Review: <I>The First World War</I>
[John Keegan. The First World War. Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1998.]I have written before about my fairly intense political and aesthetic distaste for military history. Nonetheless, a possible project I have in mind intersects some with military histor…
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Review: <I>Queer Attachments</I>
[Sally R. Munt. Queer Attachments: The Cultural Politics of Shame. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2007.]In the reading and thinking about shame I’ve begun in the last little while, this book is the first I’ve encountered that primarily app…
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: At the Radical History Conference in Windsor
From February 4th to 6th there is going to be a grassroots-organized, community-based Radical History Conference at the Workers Action Centre in Windsor, Ontario. I was a little late off the mark putting my name in, and I’m still scrambling to figure o…
Continue readingA Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land: Please Endorse Statement Against Security Certificates
In December, the Federal Court of Canada issued three interconnected decisions upholding a process whereby secret trials have been used in recent years to target and indefinitely detain a number of Muslim men of colour. The decisions were in the case o…
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