Internet connectivity that relies on crossing uncharted territories inevitably brings with it new forms of colonialism. Seemingly benign infrastructure and philanthropic offers of universal connectivity are in fact strengthening global supply chains that enrich the world’s most powerful billionaires. The future is cheap and fast, and the jostling of the private sector to claim a stake in satellite internet is just one small part of this absurd space opera.

I first met André Frappier in the late 1970s, when we were members of the Revolutionary Workers League, a pan-Canadian Marxist cadre organization. When the league decided to hoist its banner in the 1980 federal election campaign, André was chosen as our candidate in a downtown Montréal riding. For André, this was by no means the end of his political activism, quite the contrary, as this recent interview by Pierre Beaudet shows.

With an upcoming meeting of the World Trade Organization’s Council on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property scheduled for next month, it is not too late for wealthy countries including Canada to do the right thing and support the temporary waiving of intellectual property rights to enable poor countries to import cheap generic versions of patented COVID-19 vaccines—and save many lives in the process.

The question that needs to be asked is what sort of mindset allows this crisis to continue? It cannot be explained by political orientation as both Conservative and Liberal governments have failed to remedy the issue for decades. Until we confront the racist underpinnings of government laws and policies—like funding policies for water systems on reserves—we will never end the water crisis in First Nations.

The day after his already paper-thin constitutional legitimacy completely eroded, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse gave significant amounts of the country’s land to a light-skinned tycoon working with Coca-Cola. Why would the state offer land to a firm producing for Coca-Cola rather than invest in local food production in a country where nearly 42 percent of the population, or four million people, are experiencing acute hunger?

Liberal members of Parliament will tell you that they truly support pharmacare, but that they just don’t like the way the NDP is going about it. But, as Christo Aivalis explains, the reality is far clearer. Like with the wealth tax, the Liberals see a popular policy that their own base supports, but it is one which clashes with their core neoliberal ideology. In the end, allegiance to the latter is what matters.

Canada Goose Union is the latest iteration of a movement pushing for unionization among Winnipeg garment workers, calling out the luxury garment maker’s union busting practices, and shining a light on the hypocrisy of majority owner Bain Capital. For all the national pride associated with the “made-in-Canada” product, the company has been majority owned by the Mitt Romney-founded private investment firm since 2013.

Long-term care facilities in have been decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with almost three-quarters of all pandemic-related deaths in Canada occurring within them. But there’s another type of institution in Ontario that is somehow even less regulated and less transparent than long-term care facilities: residential service homes, also known as domiciliary hostels, which are privately run and operate for profit.

The federal government’s addition of the far-right group the Proud Boys to the Criminal Code list of terrorist entities has sparked some debate among progressive groups, including in the pages of Canadian Dimension. While street mobilization is important and necessary, it alone will not be enough to defeat the extreme right. We take this opportunity to reflect on the necessary perspectives for the left.

The arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was a colossal blunder by the Trudeau government, executed at the request of the now almost universally discredited Trump administration, which blatantly admitted that she was being held hostage as a bargaining chip in the former president’s trade war with China. Canada should release Meng and chart a new course for relations with China—before it’s too late.