Let us hope our white elected officials and citizens will take inspiration from Singh and also empathetically listen to the voices of anti-racist scholars and activists who have long documented the history of systemic racism in this country. This would be the first step in the struggle for an anti-racist future in Canada.

In recent weeks movements in different countries have toppled statues and put the police and other institutions upholding systemic racism on the defensive. Yet, amidst unprecedented protests against racism, there has been remarkably little interest in the white supremacist foreign policy alliance currently driving conflict with China.

This week, Justin Trudeau and the Canadian establishment will try to interrupt the pandemic news cycle and spin it into a tale of how lucky we are to be in Canada, spared the ravages and conflicts of our southern neighbour, walking a more enlightened path for the last 153 years. Let’s not be fooled. The world does not need more Canada, it needs a decolonized Canada.

To better address inequality, we might first consider the comparatively unsexy, un-new idea of pursuing public housing and housing decommodification on a massive scale—call it a public housing revolution. Building tens of thousands of new social housing units every year, thus addressing backlogs and waitlists in the major megacities, is an obvious way forward.

Insects keep the planet’s ecological system running, and ensure our food supply—75 percent of our most important crops depend on pollination by insects. Insects also improve soil quality and reduce plant pests by decomposing manure and dead plant matter. The Insect Atlas shows that insect species and pollinators are in severe decline because of pesticide-dependent industrial farming.

Should Canadian foreign policy continue to be enmeshed with mining interests abroad? That is one of ten questions put forward in an open letter calling for a “fundamental reassessment of Canadian foreign policy” following Canada’s second consecutive defeat for a seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Across Canada, the coronavirus crisis has accelerated the adoption of surveillance technologies—from systems that allow citizens to report neighbours who violate COVID safety precautions to contact-tracing through phones. But while these technologies are only beginning to be normalized among the public, they have been more commonly deployed among our most vulnerable communities.

Much is at stake in Legault’s ongoing refusals and denials. In espousing Québec exceptionalism, the premier fuels a disregard for the lives of Black, Indigenous, and racialized peoples. What is at stake in naming and addressing systemic racism in Québec is nothing less than life and death.

The Rule of Law is an attractive system because it suggests that everyone is subject to the same laws and requirements, that political or economic power is not allowed to deny anyone their entitlements or rights established in law. But, while the idea of it certainly exists in our rather self-satisfied Anglo-American settings, its implementation may leave something to be desired.

This marks the fourth 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 fourth edition is about infrastructure, with contributions from Hannah Muhajarine, Deb Cowen, Adele Perry, Dayna Nadine Scott, and Michael Mascarenhas.