I live in a city where we spend over 25 percent of our municipal budget on policing. If we did a value-for-money audit on policing and carceral systems and the outcomes they produce, I think we would realize we could be using those resources in a more productive way. Policing and carceral systems won’t solve crime. Building strong communities will. 

This marks the first installment in an ongoing curated series that asks contributors to imagine the perils and possibilities that will ground our collective response to or emergence from the COVID-19 crisis. The first edition features contributions from Rosemary-Claire Collard, Zoe Todd, Kendra Coulter, Stephanie Rutherford, and Jonathan Luedee.

The power of transit isn’t simply about helping people get from one place to another in a timely and free way—although it is, of course, that. The fight for genuinely public transportation is one for democratic control over communities. The universal right to transportation serves as a foundation of a broader struggle against capitalist commodification and exploitation.

Unlike what many liberals claim, police cannot be reformed with better training, oversight, or diversity. Nor can police violence be eliminated by following the victim-blaming advice from (mostly) white social media users. Both of these supposed solutions reflect deeply naive and ahistorical understandings of what it is that police do.

Having been in government for the majority of the last two decades, the NDP is largely responsible for Manitoba’s outsized carceral system. While in power, the NDP introduced a bail breaches policy and an Integrated Warrant Apprehension unit while also welcoming the Harper government’s draconian Bill C-10, which among many things introduced mandatory minimum sentences for many offenses.

The NDP, Canada’s supposedly leftist party of labour and solidarity, cannot bring itself to issue a statement condemning the coup. Over the last four days, in spite of consistent demands from NDP membership and allies, the party has refused to even acknowledge that a coup has taken place, let alone issue a strong statement to draw the public’s attention to it. 

Winnipeg’s media outlets are salivating at the chance to create a moral panic over alleged liquor store thefts. Nearly non-stop headlines regale readers with seemingly horrific stories of brutal crimes: an old man has his hand slashed while trying to prevent a robbery, guns and pepper spray are wielded, and businesses face the “darkest time in Winnipeg history” (according to the CEO of a security company).

It is the absence of any legitimate consideration of public transportation during this election that is most shocking, particularly given the focus among ostensibly progressive parties on climate justice, racial and economic equality, and accessibility for seniors and people with disabilities.

The Manitoba PCs have rammed through a barrage of major right-wing changes during their brief stint as provincial overlords. As many Dimension readers are aware, the litany of cuts to public funding initiated by the Pallister government will be felt for many years to come. This article is the first attempt to analyze the full breadth of the Conservatives’ austerity regime in the province.

Western imperialist forces are attempting to overthrow the Venezuelan government to attain more profitable and stable sites for long-term investment. We can’t come anywhere close to combating climate change without preventing the violent privatization of oil assets in the few remaining countries that adhere to a set of anti-neoliberal politics.