Simon Black, lead organizer with Labour Against the Arms Trade, speaks to Sam Gindin, former research director of the Canadian Auto Workers and co-author of The Making of Global Capitalism (with Leo Panitch), about the promise of repurposing the Canadian arms industry’s resources for socially useful production—and winning a just transition for arms industry workers.

The nationalization of the Kumtor gold mine has made Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov powerful enemies within Centerra and the Canadian government, which continue their legal attacks on the country while Japarov increases his presidential powers. As the optimistic January 2022 deadline approaches, there is little indication the hostility that has characterized the Kumtor negotiations will subside in the coming weeks.

Extractive exports represent around 40 percent of the Dominican Republic’s total export revenue. The two largest extractive operations remain the Canadian-owned Falcondo holdings and the majority Canadian-owned Pueblo Viejo mine. As protests around Pueblo Viejo intensify, it is no wonder that the Canadian government remains silent, allowing Barrick and the Dominican government to dominate the narrative.

As the legal battle over the Kumtor gold mine rages on, Centerra’s legal options for extending its management of the mine look more limited by the day. Any Canadian who is interested in how their country’s capital functions on the global stage, and how affected countries are trying to resist this neocolonial domination, should eagerly follow new developments in the case.

One of the most profound changes over the past 40 years has been the ever-increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny number of individuals. This increasing dominance of billionaires—and how it renders us powerless to protect ourselves in the most basic ways—should be front and centre in the current federal election campaign. Instead it’s barely even identified as an issue.

Private control over Canada’s agricultural sector now extends well beyond farms and into the food processing and retail space, effectively securing policy and regulatory influence along the supply and value chain. The harms perpetuated by this model are having grave consequences, expanding the power of corporate players at the expense of local producers—jeopardizing livelihoods that once existed within a well-balanced landscape.

While there are thankfully an increasing number of serious books proposing what can be done to actually meet the scale of the crisis we face (including Seth Klein’s A Good War and Max Ajl’s A People’s Green New Deal), it is still worth giving a nod to the essential works that expose the forces holding us back from climate action in Canada—especially because these works get little attention from mainstream media.

The rich get richer. It is a notion that has come to be accepted in our society. But, when Canadians hear that the 44 richest have amassed an additional $78 billion to their net worth during the COVID-19 pandemic, the natural reaction is anger. The idea that just a few dozen people would add so many zeros to their banks accounts while so many Canadians are struggling is offensive.

Leaving those in financial difficulty behind for a lower-wage future isn’t a bug in the Canada Recovery Benefit system—it’s a feature of a program designed and redesigned to crack down on recipients and maximize “incentive to work.” The CRB was, to this end, designed within the ‘workfare’ tradition that’s marked every social program in Canada since at least the mid-1990s.

Early in the pandemic, it was clear that the economic fallout would be unequally distributed. However, few anticipated that the pandemic could mean boom times for some. But that is precisely what happened. While lost wages, lost jobs, and small business closures generated headlines, many of Canada’s largest corporations quietly managed to achieve record profits.