One could spend much time and effort dissecting Poilievre’s 20-year parliamentary track record and conclude, correctly, that he offers nothing to workers and cannot be trusted, but this does nothing to explain the populist strategy he is pursuing and why it appears to be succeeding, as it did recently in the European Union elections.

The Manitoba government can expect opposition to each move it makes to enhance worker rights. Nevertheless, it should embrace labour issues as critical to the future of our province and our country. In so doing, New Democrats will earn support from the workers who put them into office, as well as the wider population who understand that rising inequality is not the way forward.

At this critical time a voice that challenges the power of capital is a welcome prospect. Avi Lewis is not afraid to ask and tackle the tough questions we face collectively. He has both the moral courage and the policy credentials that have the potential to add substance to the NDP. The party must embrace the opportunity that his candidacy represents.

Author and investigative reporter, Linda McQuaig’s latest publication offers a very readable and succinct review of the history of key Canadian public services and the threat that privatization poses to our country’s public wealth. She lays out how the virtues of public ownership have increasingly been replaced by the dogma that the market does all things better. McQuaig documents how this agenda has accelerated in the past four decades through deregulation, privatization and free trade initiatives.

The vast majority of water and wastewater systems in Canada are owned, operated and maintained within the public sector. Essential to our public health system, municipal water systems were one of the first major services to be publicly delivered in Canada. The reason why water infrastructure is overwhelmingly public is because the private sector could not be relied upon to deliver a quality service at a price that all residents could afford. It’s therefore ironic that water corporations from rich countries like our own are now trying to persuade developing countries not to develop water resources publicly but to experiment with the private sector instead. What’s more, the belief that the private sector can manage our public water resources is now gaining ground in Canadian government and policy circles.