Prisoners are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19, and the response to this risk within correctional facilities across Canada has only created an alternate outbreak of health problems. For prisoner advocates like Michelle Gushue of the Elizabeth Fry Society, the most compassionate and effective response to this problem is removing people from these institutions and returning them to their communities.

As gold prices soar to record levels, the Los Filos gold mine in Mexico has sat idle since early September after its owner, Vancouver-based Equinox Gold, failed to uphold its agreement with the nearby community of Carrizalillo, a small town of about 3,000 people. Equinox blames the community for the shutdown, but in reality, the company and its executives have no one to blame but themselves.

Unfortunately, Andreas Malm’s entry in Verso’s pamphlet series—Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty-First Century—reads as rushed and theoretically underdeveloped, spending more time taking shots at other leftists than fleshing out what would be required to implement what he calls “war communism” (which, as it turns out, Malm doesn’t really believe in at all).

We can expect the Conservative Party to wrap itself in the Canadian flag and fire-up the culture wars. The hotter it gets, the better, for Erin O’Toole. To respond to this political challenge, now more than ever, those on the left need to find ways to bridge the politics of recognition and redistribution—and to re-engage with working class communities.

Lately, the Globe and Mail, Canada’s ‘paper of record,’ has been so gripped with anti-Chinese fervour that it has become blind to a blatant double standard. Contrasting the newspaper’s reporting on Chinese influence in Canada with its coverage of the Israel lobby highlights the increasingly Sinophobic nature of its journalism and commentary.

Institutionalized people in Manitoba are experiencing the brunt of COVID-19—from jails, to long-term care homes to hospitals. Our demands for a just recovery must centre those most impacted by the virus, and this requires a movement away from neoliberalism towards a system of rapid decarceration and deinstitutionalization. Only then can we begin to reckon with the legacy of austerity and adopt more ethical models of care.

Yesterday was an indictment of Canadian politics. The Liberal Party, Conservative Party, and Bloc Québécois united to oppose a New Democratic Party motion which would have created a one percent tax on an individual’s wealth over $20 million. It would have also provided for an excess profits tax aimed at those who have enriched themselves while millions of Canadians suffer during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biden offers nothing beyond the visceral vindication of Trump’s defeat. An overview of his potential foreign policy picks confirms that there will be a continuity of right-wing economic and military policy under his administration, and a commitment to the old brand of awful that reigned in pre-Trump America. Biden’s campaign slogan might as well have been Death to MAGA! Long live the old flesh!

Green Party MP Paul Manly is at the forefront of a new group of progressive MPs—a ‘squad,’ if you like—willing to directly challenge the government on international affairs. New NDP MPs Matthew Green and Leah Gazan, joined by longer standing members Niki Ashton and Alexandre Boulerice, have shown the courage to call out Canada’s pro-Washington and corporate positions.

The timing of this immensely important book could not be more urgent. Just as the Canadian establishment’s early complacency (and sometimes open encouragement) towards the Klan’s hate permitted the group a foothold in the early-twentieth century, so too do foolish appeals to so-called “Canadian exceptionalism” provide an opening for hate groups to exploit today.