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NDP needs to leave its comfort zone
Canadian PoliticsCandidates seek to strike a series of sensible balances between the economy and the environment, between free and fair trade, between husbanding taxpayer’s dollars and meeting social needs. There is nothing wrong with balance as a principle, but these are not equivalencies, and treating them as such will mean the former always undermines the latter. This is not a path to the radical passion that has propelled recent electoral success on the Left.
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Canada’s NDP backs American Empire
Canadian PoliticsDoes the NDP consistently support a foreign policy that benefits ordinary people around the world? Or does the social democratic party often simply fall in line with whatever the American Empire demands? Hélène Laverdière certainly seems to support the US-led geopolitical order. The NDP foreign critic has aligned with the Empire on issues ranging from Venezuela to Palestine, Ukraine to Syria.
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Ezra Levant’s Hateful News Outlet Enabled by Canada’s Media Establishment
MediaLevant and his crew of propagandists exist because the Canadian media establishment allowed them to. Journalists and industry associations should have denounced the outlet and its correspondents as hateful and dangerous and refused to defend it when it encountered problems while attempting to gain press credentials. They could have taken a stand on behalf of oppressed peoples.
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Why is Canadian labour so slow to support BDS?
Human RightsIn the South African anti-apartheid struggle, the tide turned when rank and file activists organized in union halls and on convention floors in support of the international boycott movement. Today, Palestine solidarity activists within the labour movement must come together, chart a strategy to educate, mobilize and organize workers to support the Palestinian people
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Québec solidaire gains ground
QuebecThe PQ has outlived its “best before” date. It no longer has anything to offer other than an appeal to defeat the (admittedly heinous) Liberal government of Philippe Couillard. Meanwhile Québec solidaire is gaining ground. It now has 15,000 members, including 5,000 who have joined since Gabriel came aboard. It is becoming the party of unity and hope for enlightened voters in Québec.
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Five vital issues facing the Left in Canada: Questions for NDP leadership contenders
Canadian PoliticsCD approached the candidates running for the NDP leadership - Niki Ashton, Guy Caron, Jagmeet Singh, and Charlie Angus - with what we felt were some of the most important questions facing both the party and the country. Here we present our reasons for asking these particular questions, followed by the answers from all the candidates
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Noam Chomsky: Antifa is a ‘major gift to the right’
Social MovementsIn the UK, anti-fascists mobilised against Blackshirts led by Oswald Moseley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists, in Cable Street in East London in the 1930s and in many other instances. Chomsky has previously warned against conflating the rise of fascism in Europe and the situation in America today. He has also argued that tactics need to be reassessed in the light of the current context.
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A Plea for Nonviolence: Fighting Fascism in Trump’s America
CultureImages broadcast into households of rabid right-wing bigots violently suppressing peaceful progressive activists will mobilize the country to pressure government to intervene on the side of sanity, and against fascism. We can choose to be a nation of democratic principles that embraces equality and the rule of law, or we can escalate the current conflict in favour of greater violence.
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How (Not) to Challenge Racist Violence
CultureAs white nationalism and the so-called “alt-Right” have gained prominence in the Trump era, a bipartisan reaction has coalesced to challenge these ideologies. But much of this bipartisan coalition focuses on individual, extreme, and hate-filled mobilizations and rhetoric, rather than the deeper, politer, and apparently more politically acceptable violence that imbues Us foreign and domestic policy.
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For the 150th, let’s also re-make our economic myths
Canadian BusinessEvery society needs its myths. But as much as myths and stories can empower, they can also be damaging. Here are three economic myths about Canada that could use re-writing. The first economic myth to remake is that we are “hewers of wood and drawers of water” — or, in more contemporary terms, extractors of some of the dirtiest fossil fuels known to humankind.
