Canadians have lately been inundated with reports of sexual assault and misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces. From politicians to establishment feminists to even progressive media outlets, the solution to sexual violence in the CAF has been consistently posited as a “fundamental culture shift.” But how do you shift a culture that is at its core predicated on the exclusive right to carry out state-sponsored violence?

According to Jeffrey Sachs and William Schabas, there are credible charges of human rights abuses against Uighurs, but those do not per se constitute genocide. And we must understand the context of the Chinese crackdown in Xinjiang, which had essentially the same motivation as America’s foray into the Middle East and Central Asia after the September 2001 attacks: to stop the terrorism of militant Islamic groups.

Fulfilling the promise of democracy is no small order. It is far easier to turn away from promises made on the campaign trail than to spend political capital delivering on pledges. Unfortunately for the Liberals and Conservatives, that is what the job demands and what Canadians expect. Obfuscation and outright lies simply won’t cut it. Can the NDP answer the call?

Most Canadians would likely be opposed to plowing tens of millions into think tanks, university programs and other initiatives seeking to convince Canadians of the the CF’s role in global affairs. Indeed, if given a choice, the vast majority of Canadians would probably disagree with the military spending large amounts of public money to persuade us of their perspective. What have they got to hide?

If capital sees the Olympic Games as the end of a pandemic and a way out of an existential crisis that could have—but didn’t—signal its collapse, the left must observe the Olympics as a beginning; as a launching point to organize and build to the next crisis, taking the failure of this one as a lesson and not an acceptance of our system’s seemingly eternal power.

Many on the social medias have given Alberta Premier Jason Kenney a nickname: ‘Bumbles.’ Reflecting on his government’s performance over the past year, I can hardly disagree. Scratch that. Reflecting on the United Conservative Party’s performance since it formed government just over two years ago, I can hardly disagree. Athabasca University professor Eric Strikwerda considers the evidence.

We are well trained in our culture not to speak of communism and love in the same breath, or indeed, of any kind of politics and love in the same breath, but Richard Gilman-Opalsky, author of The Communism of Love, defies this taboo; he cuts through the nonsensical idea of love as necessarily apolitical, and is especially against the idea of love as something to be isolated in the tiny ghetto of the romantic-erotic duo.

Tamara Starblanket is a Nehiyaw iskwew (Cree woman) from Ahtahkakoop First Nation. She holds a Master of Laws from the University of Saskatchewan, and an LLB from the University of British Columbia. Here, she is interviewed by Aziz Choudry, a writer and academic based in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Canada’s history of genocide, the failures of reconciliation, and the imperative of decolonization.

Shifting perspectives is no easy task because news media has immense power to inform public discourse about drug use. Simply put, we urgently need coverage that gives space to the most marginalized folks in our society in order to humanize decades of drug policy failures. This would go a long way in an effort to change attitudes about drug use during the worst public health crisis in a century.

We should take this moment to reflect on political writing as a collective act. The writer comes from a community, physical and digital. The writer produces material that goes into those communities, even if we do not all experience life in those communities the same. Even during a pandemic, these spaces can be productive and powerful, serving as a part of the struggle for justice and accountability.