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.

It is clear we need to expand our resistance and critique of the Fraser Institute beyond the reports it publishes and the ideologues and media pundits it puts in front of the television cameras. If these ideas go uncontested, we stand to lose a growing number of students to far-right economic views. The Peter Munk Centre for Free Enterprise Education is a real threat and we should treat it like one.

Internet connectivity that relies on crossing uncharted territories inevitably brings with it new forms of colonialism. Seemingly benign infrastructure and philanthropic offers of universal connectivity are in fact strengthening global supply chains that enrich the world’s most powerful billionaires. The future is cheap and fast, and the jostling of the private sector to claim a stake in satellite internet is just one small part of this absurd space opera.

Canada Goose Union is the latest iteration of a movement pushing for unionization among Winnipeg garment workers, calling out the luxury garment maker’s union busting practices, and shining a light on the hypocrisy of majority owner Bain Capital. For all the national pride associated with the “made-in-Canada” product, the company has been majority owned by the Mitt Romney-founded private investment firm since 2013.