We must do all we can to counter the climate of war fervour being incited as rivalry intensifies, writes CD columnist John Clarke. The current anti-Chinese campaign has some very powerful backers and it is being pursued relentlessly. It is ugly, toxic and reactionary to the core and we need to build a united opposition to challenge and defeat it.

When John Horgan announced that would be joining the board of a coal company, it was inevitable that some critical voices would be raised. Writing in the Prince George Citizen, John Steidle, was particularly sharp in his response, in which he made the observation that “If you actually worked for the people, I can guarantee you the corporate sector wouldn’t want to touch you with a ten foot pole.”

The acceleration of upscale redevelopment will force up rents, drive out low income tenants and facilitate the removal of the numerous homeless shelters and other vital services that have long been based in this area. This clearing process will be conducted ruthlessly, as property values and developers’ aspirations take priority over human need.

As health care provision moves closer to collapse, the most destructive course of action is to offer privatized medical care to those with the means to pay for it, while forcing the rest of us to line up for the sub-standard remnants of the public system. Given the prevailing political agenda, it is hardly surprising that this threat is looming over us.

By targeting the mythical threat of the foreign home buyer, the Liberals seek to divert our attention from the real factors driving our intensifying housing crisis. In doing this, they are ready to fan the flames of the ugliest xenophobic sentiments in a way that makes a mockery of their progressive credentials. We should treat this measure with contempt and focus on the struggle to make housing a human right.

The Tory regime in Ontario is very much a sign of the times. Earlier conservative notions of relative compromise and of the need to restrain, to a limited degree, the worst instincts of capitalists have been set aside. There is now only reckless indifference and a no-holds barred “open for business” ideology fixated on immediate returns with scant regard for longer-term consequences.

Seven empty lots that could be used to create desperately needed housing in a poor community have been left sitting empty in Toronto’s Downtown East. For years, anti-poverty activists and community members have been demanding that the city expropriate the vacant lots at 214-230 Sherbourne Street and build affordable housing on them. Now, they’re gearing up for a fight with developers.

We are dealing with more than the biases of individual cops or a right-wing police culture. The institutions of enforcement serve and protect capitalist interests and this shapes their conduct fundamentally. They will always take the side of employers against workers, oil companies over environmentalists and resource extraction over the rights of land defenders.

Countries that have taken a republican direction under the banner of “liberté, egalité, fraternité” have found other means to enforce social hierarchies and exploitative social relations. Still, the monarchy remains an exceptionally potent weapon in preserving a notion of a ‘natural’ social hierarchy that normalizes social inequality.

We should support all efforts to protect the natural environments that cruise ships threaten, the destinations they plunder and the workers they exploit. These floating palaces represent everything that is greedy and destructive in this society and we must struggle for a world based on principles of rationality, global justice and ecological sustainability.