In the context of a concerted movement to rid the country of the Tory government, the FPTP system put enormous pressure on anti-Tory voters to “vote strategically,” i.e. for any other party that had the best chance of defeating the government. The Liberals won that wager.

At stake in this election is the fate of the Harper government, the most reactionary government since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Only two opposition parties can realistically hope to replace the Conservatives: the New Democratic Party and the Liberals. Both are neoliberal, with no substantial programmatic differences.

Will the hardline neoliberalism advocated by the new empire dare to show itself more human, more understanding toward Greece, if only out of fear of pushing it into the arms of Putin? Or will Syriza put enough water in its wine to lose its soul, and quite probably the next elections?”

The unifying slogan of these protests is “Je suis Charlie!” I am Charlie, the implication being that the targeted publication — notorious in France for its ridicule of minority religious beliefs, especially Islam — had merely been exercising its right to “freedom of expression.”

Meeting in Havana December 14, the 13th summit of ALBA leaders endorsed a Bolivian proposal to host an international assembly of social movements in 2015 to discuss and adopt a united strategy for fighting climate change.

Quebec’s movement against climate disaster has been given a major boost by Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the former student leader who just received the Governor General’s Literary Award for his book on the 2012 student strike.

We are “ecosocialists” because the climate crisis now bearing down on us is the major issue facing the world’s peoples. It threatens the very survival of human life. It is directly caused by capitalism as a system. The alternative to capitalism is socialism, and our socialism must reflect the centrality of climate crisis in our thinking and actions.

Superficially, the 55-45 victory of the No in Scotland’s referendum on September 18 was a clear rejection of independence. The Yes forces won a majority only in the four poorest and most deprived of the nation’s 32 local divisions, although a class breakdown of the vote would show a majority of the working class voted for independence.

The radical anti-imperialist and ecological content of a recent G77 Summit offers the possibility of another possible world.

The Assembly on Climate Change will be the first initiative gathering forces from all Canadian territories. Indigenous and environmental groups, citizens’ associations, scientists, youth and all those who are active on this issue will be present.