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.

The political base cultivated by mainstream conservative politicians has been in a snarly mood for some time and the current cost of living crisis is exacerbating it. Those who look to the right for answers in this situation are hardening their outlook and the politicians and parties seeking their political support must take this into account.

The drastic weakening of social benefits for unemployed and disabled people has been a central component of the whole neoliberal agenda. It has contributed enormously to the intensification of exploitation, the growth of a vulnerable and low-paid workforce and the undermining of union strength. The present moment, however, makes the need for stronger income support systems an even more vital working class issue.

Elections are important and this one is significant. In the current period, however, a preponderant focus on electoral politics is misplaced. We need rejuvenated powerful unions and a strong sense of unity and solidarity among communities under attack. Such a social mobilization would actually generate the conditions where a serious left electoral force could make enormous gains.

The present inflationary shock is one more confirmation of the need for militant and powerful social resistance in the post-pandemic period. Working class people didn’t cause the pandemic, nor did they provoke the crises that are emerging in its wake. But to foil the attempts to impose the burden on us we must be prepared to organize resistance in our workplaces and communities.