Nick Kakeeway: a story of Indigenous survival
Nick Kakeeway with his cat, Maverick. Photo courtesy Emily Spanton/X. After a hard fight against deteriorating health, Nick Kakeeway died on October 16, in St. Catharines, Ontario. Whatever may ...
John Clarke
Carney’s attacks will unleash major struggles
Mark Carney’s austerity and fossil-fuel agenda may please the powerful, but it’s already stirring major resistance from workers and Indigenous communities. Photo courtesy Mark Carney/X. In my Ju...
Taking stock of the Air Canada strike
Air Canada flight attendants on the picket line last month. Photo courtesy CUPE. Last month’s strike at Air Canada, which saw flight attendants defiantly walking the picket lines, struck a…
When climate becomes class war
Flooded roads in downtown Houston, 2015. Photo by Elliot Blackburn/Flickr. There is a widespread and not completely unjustified perception on the left that movements that struggle for socially j...
Mark Carney’s class war
Prime Minister Mark Carney meets with US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, May 6, 2025. Photo by Daniel Torok/White House/Flickr. During the last federal election, I disagreed with…
Two housing crises in one city
Toronto’s disappearing mid-century architecture is increasingly dwarfed by glass-and-steel condos built for investors, not occupants. Photo by Can Pac Swire/Flickr. I’ve previously written...
Political policing in Canada
In 2023, peaceful activists involved in the pro-Palestine movement pasted posters and splashed red paint on the windows of an Indigo bookstore in downtown Toronto. Screenshot courtesy CP24/YouTube. ...
The world according to Trump
US President Donald Trump speaking at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo by Gage Skidmore/Flickr. Political leaders and the corporate me...
The attack on democratic rights
Activists with Just Stop Oil during a November 2022 protest near Trafalgar Square. Photo by Alisdare Hickson/Flickr. In his inauguration speech, Donald Trump proclaimed, “I was saved by God to…
Waiting for Poilievre
Trudeau may be gone but the wind is still in the sails of the Conservative Party. Photo courtesy Pierre Poilievre/X. It would hardly be groundless pessimism to conclude that a…
The role of the pro-Israel lobby
Photo by Alastair Humphreys/Flickr Toward the end of October, the fervently pro-Israel B’nai Brith Canada issued a “Seven-Point Plan to Combat Antisemitism” claiming that anti-Jewish sentiment h...
Truth takes a side
Photo by Stephen Sizer Whenever corporate magnates try to justify their destructive greed or conservative politicians whip up hateful and ignorant sentiments among their supporters, it is easy t...
One year of genocide in Gaza
A Palestinian mother holds her son while passing a residential building that was destroyed overnight by an Israeli air strike at Sheikh Radwan in Gaza City. Photo by Eman Mohammed.…
The global order and the value of human life
People wait for food relief in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza. Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua/ZUMA. As the genocide in Gaza drags on month after month, a number of commentators…
The impasse of ‘lesser evilism’
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at a Black History Month reception in the East Room of the White House, February 27, 2023. Photo by Adam Schultz/Flickr. Now…
How our struggles are contained by those in power
Public servants marched around Parliament Hill as 155,000 Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) members went on strike, April 19, 2023. Photo by Spencer Colby/Flickr. After decades of...
Peter Rosenthal fought for justice in a tough place—the courtroom
Peter Rosenthal in 1983. Photo from Medium. An obituary announcing Peter Rosenthal’s death on May 25 describes him as “an esteemed mathematician, lawyer, and political activist with an unwavering passion…
Choosing death in a society that doesn’t support life
If assisted dying is extended and thoroughly normalized, writes John Clarke, the right to choose may be transmogrified into an ugly way to reduce costs and dispose of those who…
Fighting the commodification of housing
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…
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…