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The Maple | Canadian governments have failed to use the tools available to them to build affordable housing and impose substantive rent control measures.
The Breach | A new book provides the most authoritative study of Mykhailo Chomiak and the history of Ukrainian Nazis in Canada
The Breach | For everyone from Donald Trump to the United Nations, Canada’s system is seen as a highly effective way to control and manage migration for the needs of the corporate class
Without the foregrounding of root causes, utilitarian piecemeal attempts at improvements to a weakened, degraded system are destined to failure. If decisive action is not taken against the privatizers and their enablers in government, then we are in grave danger of losing a vitally important part of what defines us as a decent society: a system in which one and all have access to quality health care.
Canadian Dimension | The financialization of housing is a result of policy choices made by successive federal and provincial governments over decades. The Federal Housing Advocate points to three major policy drivers: the retreat of the welfare state in Canada; the removal of rent control and tenant protections; and financial liberalization and deregulation.
What does windfall spending on NATO do for Canada’s national security? As the militarization of the North proceeds against an inflated eastern threat, eroding Canadian sovereignty through Cold War aerospace programs such as NORAD, it remains difficult to portray Canada’s increasingly assertive global deployments as a matter of national defence.
Canadian Dimension | Using an African country as a political and economic tool is as old as colonialism itself. If this is what Canada’s new politics are on the African continent, it is indeed retrograde. Canada should not be engaging with, or buttressing a nation that has inflicted so much harm on innocent people. We should not be aiding and abetting crimes abroad.
The fight for Palestinian freedom—as well as for Canadian democracy—will be long and arduous. And it will require our collective resistance to evolving tactics of censorship. The TMU law students, and all the students setting up encampments around the world (including in Israel), have had an immense impact.
Canadian Dimension | To end homelessness we must reclaim housing from the investor class, produce homes as if they were essential goods rather than investment vehicles, and ensure that all Canadians have the resources necessary to lead dignified, comfortable lives. We can do all these things. We can restore housing affordability and end homelessness. The only thing we lack is political will.
The Breach | A heavily-resourced Hate Crimes Unit has engaged in surveillance, night raids, and ‘trumped up charges’ against the Palestinian solidarity movement A heavily-resourced Hate Crimes Unit has engaged in surveillance, night raids, and ‘trumped up charges’ against the Palestinian solidarity movement
Jacobin | A new report reveals how Canada’s Trudeau Liberals have repeatedly rewarded contracts to McKinsey & Company, flouting procurement rules along the way. The report sparks serious concerns about cronyism and government outsourcing practices.
How will Canada deal with Mexico’s new president? As long as she continues the Fourth Transformation, argues CD columnist Owen Schalk, readers can surely guess what Canada will do: apply diplomatic and legal pressure against the Mexican government on behalf of Canadian capital. These are measures Ottawa usually takes against progressive governments in Latin America.
The Maple | The managers’ association sought a ruling that excluding them from collective bargaining infringed their rights to free association.
The Breach | Letter from pharma giant-connected advocate helps reveal blood plasma products from paid collection centres to be sold abroad by Spanish company
Few people have even heard of Bill C-70, yet the Liberals and opposition parties are hoping to ram it through without debate
Canadian Dimension | One could spend much time and effort dissecting Poilievre’s 20-year parliamentary track record and conclude, correctly, that he offers nothing to workers and cannot be trusted, but this does nothing to explain the populist strategy he is pursuing and why it appears to be succeeding, as it did recently in the European Union elections.
The Breach | The anti-establishment circus in Ottawa isn’t for the corporate class—it’s meant for the rest of us
Canadian Dimension | We cannot allow ourselves to be misled by property hoarders who want to blame the housing crisis on economically precarious temporary residents while they collect the rent. As Laurence Braun-Woodbury writes, this is not a population crisis; this is a commodity bubble created by investor enthusiasm and avarice.
Jacobin | Canada boasts one of the world’s highest assisted-death rates, supposedly enabling the terminally ill to die with dignity. However, this suicide program increasingly resembles a dystopian replacement for care services, exchanging social welfare for euthanasia.
The Breach | What should the Canadian government do to address the ongoing crisis in Haiti? The answer, says Professor Jemima Pierre, is simple: “Leave Haiti alone.”