Special to Canadian Dimension magazine

The left and the workers’ movement, broadly defined, had no horse in the Liberal Party leadership race that was run at Montreal’s Palais des congres on the first weekend in December 2006. Certainly no left dollars were plunked down on the odds-on-favorites, the jet-setting public intellectual for hire, Michael Ignatieff, and the disreputable architect of Ontario social democracy’s sorry demise, Bob Rae. (Keep reading…)

Special to Canadian Dimension magazine December 10, 2006

MONTRÉAL – Quebec’s new party of the left, Québec solidaire, held its first policy convention here on November 24-26. The 320 delegates — 48% of them women — debated, amended and adopted a draft platform for the next general election in Quebec, expected in 2007. (Keep reading…)

Canadian Dimension, November/December 2006 Issue

She’s everywhere. Less than a week after she was elected leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May was on key political-pundit television programs exuding her trademark charm and energy, and sounding supremely confident. The media honeymoon with May will no doubt continue for some time. Stephen Harper, almost pathologically arrogant, won’t engage the media. The Liberals are leaderless and their leadership campaign is pretty boring. Jack Layton is all tactics and no vision his call for withdrawal from Afghanistan being the exception as he tries to implement a long-term (twenty-year?) strategy of replacing the Liberals. He is therefore all caution and no risk. Elizabeth May looks pretty interesting at the moment. (Keep reading…)

Georgia Straight 5-October-2006

While Canadians agonize over the quagmire in Afghanistan, few people are looking at what the Harper government will do if George Bush finds a rationale for military action against Iran. That he wants to do so is clear; that he needs to do so is driven by the polls, which show the Republicans are in danger of losing control of the Congress in the November elections. The war president needs another war. (Keep reading…)

Canadian Dimension Magazine, September/October 2006 Issue

The editorial in the July/August issue of Canadian Dimension — “Building a Grassroots Opposition to Harper” — noted that some members of the CD collective have been discussing the possibility of establishing local “people’s assemblies.” In this article, CD Editorial Collective member Sam Gindin explains how a project of this type has already emerged in the U.S. — and bears close observation on this side of the border. (Keep reading…)

From Rabble.ca August 18, 2006

The upcoming federal NDP convention will be a time for debate, reflection and strategizing amongst party members. New Democrats will put forward resolutions designed to change or reinforce party policy. Yet most of these resolutions will never appear in a campaign platform or be espoused at a party news conference. (Keep reading…)

Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 10:12:09 -0400 From: The Bullet lists@socialistproject.ca

On April 21, 2006, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) broke with a tradition that extended over half a century and voted to leave the New Democratic Party (NDP). A few CAW activists shrugged their shoulders: the impact of the NDP on their daily struggles had been minimal and so setting it aside did not seem to matter much. Others, including a significant section of the Canadian Left, were outraged: leaving was a mistake because electoral politics remains crucial to our lives. We must, they argued, focus our response on getting back in. (Keep reading…)

Canadian Dimension Magazine, July/August 2006 Issue

Harold Innis died in 1952, more than a half century ago. He was never a man of the Left; in the 1930s he labeled the CCFers “hot gospellers.” Do we really have anything to learn from him now? (Keep reading…)

Canadian Dimension Magazine, July/August 2006 Issue

It hardly needs saying, but it should be acknowledged in any case: The coming period is not going to be an easy one for the Left in Canada. The Conservative government of Stephen Harper has been settling into Ottawa for the long haul. Harper has been exercising power calculatingly, confidently, ruthlessly. The spring budget was revealing. Cheered on by business associations and the mainstream media for its sober fiscal stance, it was critiqued by hard-right neoliberals for alleged fiscal prolificacy, even as it cut over twenty taxes and continued to bring down program spending in relation to a growing economy. An image of moderation was presented, even as neoliberalism was deepened. Addressing an alleged fiscal imbalance sometime in the future was enough to gain the support of an increasingly opportunist Bloc Québocois and to get the budget through the minority Parliament. (Keep reading…)

13 / 06 / 2006

The Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians welcomes the resolution passed May 27th by the Ontario branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) * as a sincere attempt to bring peaceful means to bear on the increasingly intolerable and explosive situation between Israel and the Palestinians. (Keep reading…)