The story of grocery’s aggressive low-wage, part-time restructuring is a broader history of the vicious rollbacks of the 1980s and 1990s. But it’s also partly a history of labour bureaucracy and of how a bill had come due. The result was a mostly unchecked assault across the entire industry that decimated the key benefits that characterized grocery work for half a century prior. But the story is still being written.

This is the first article in a three-part series on Canada’s historical reluctance to ratify the United Nations’ Optional Protocol with the Convention against Torture (OPCAT). Despite being one of the early champions of this international law that exists to prevent torture in civilian and military detention centres, Canada has still not officially adopted the agreement.

Bushby’s trial is already a tragedy, no matter the outcome. But how is this crime connected to a broader system of settler colonial violence that snatches away so many Indigenous lives? And how can we move beyond the half-hearted rhetoric of reconciliation to imagine the real, substantial transformations that need to take place to ensure something like this never happens again?

The United States continues to have the largest total number of cases of COVID-19. The government continues to flounder as the number of cases escalates. Not one state in the country seems immune to the spread of the disease. Meanwhile, in China, ever since the virus was crushed in Wuhan, the government merely has had to contain small-scale localized outbreaks

Canada is in a unique position to implement MMT, perhaps better than any country in the world. Elements of UBI have been tested before, but never all of them in concert. With increasing corporate capture of our everyday lives and the states that govern us, it may be time to try something new—even if it doesn’t take us all the way to a truly egalitarian and equitable society.

What does a budget cut for the University of Alberta have to do with honouring the continuation of the linguistic and cultural communities that make up a multinational federation like Canada? It starts with the fact that this university is home to the only French speaking centre for higher education west of Manitoba—Faculté Saint-Jean.

Data and statistics will keep piling up on the desks of indifferent bureaucrats, functioning, in a sense, like political sedatives. We cannot allow the passive decorum of Canadian political sentiment to temper our latent power—justice only emerges by means of popular revolt. Resisting capitalist interests will not be an easy task, but the fight to expand medicare must be led by working people—not policymakers.

In recent weeks, multiple organizations have spoken out against the CBC’s decision to issue an on-air apology after Duncan McCue referenced Palestine during an interview with cartoonist, journalist and war correspondent Joe Sacco on “the themes of colonialism and resource extraction.” The response from CBC management, however, has not been convincing.

The left has been pushing for greater access to mental health care for years, so for many, CBT could be viewed as an exciting success. However, we need and deserve better, beginning with solutions that target systemic causes of mental distress. Building radical futures means we must reconsider how we will support our communities, and work towards healing justice.

After the pandemic, the challenge confronting the left is whether it can take advantage of the spaces capitalism has not completely conquered and the contradictions of life under capitalism that have blocked the full integration of working people, to remake the working class into one that has the interest, will, confidence, and capacity to lead a challenge to capitalism.