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Now is the time to turn the tide on the deindustrialization of Canada
The rise of the populist right in deindustrialized areas, like the US Rust Belt, is a legacy of neoliberalism and free trade. We need to break this cycle. If we want to turn the tide of deindustrialization and create manufacturing jobs for the economy of the future, we need to be bold. And it starts now, not in some distant future.
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Predatory capitalism: Neo-mercantilism and the Canadian economy
Canada is no longer dealing with a globalizing neoliberalism that extracts surplus value from developing countries, the domestic working class, and racialized minorities. Instead, the American alt-right works with and through a different regime of accumulation that bears more affinities to mercantilism than the neoliberal order it is in the process of supplanting.
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Mobilizing Canada for economic battle?
Over the past 60 years left-leaning folk have largely turned a blind eye to the decay of Canada’s distinguished military heritage and typically cast a jaundiced eye towards any talk of significant reinvestment. At this moment in history Canadian governments need to respond with the same energy and urgency that mobilized efforts to make our economy battle-ready in the face of war.
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Building self-reliance: the alternative to free trade
In order to achieve self-reliance several complementary, integrated components must be pursued. At the centre is an industrial strategy, which should be accompanied by appropriate monetary policy, regional development, fiscal policy, social policy, technological innovation, property ownership and control over investment, and international relations.
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Trudeau government gets failing grade on tax fairness
While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau portrayed himself as a progressive champion, his policies failed to meet the big challenges of our time. Tackling the affordability, housing, and climate crises head-on will require bold action—half-measures are not enough. Progressive parties must put forward bold solutions that can meet these challenges head-on.
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With Trump’s tariffs, it’s time for a more self-reliant Canada
By raising tariffs unilaterally, Trump will grossly violate USMCA, the former NAFTA. It’s no use doing deals with Trump, that he will break. Instead, let’s dust ourselves off and make things by Canadians for Canadians. Canada was tossed out of similar arrangements before. We picked ourselves up, became more self-reliant and thrived. Can we do so again?
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Responding to Donald Trump with a popular democratic project for Canada
The unfolding climate catastrophe, growing inequality, the disintegration of the country’s social safety net, and the rise of profoundly reactionary yet increasingly viable political forces at home and abroad make it imperative for Canadian socialists to develop strategies to begin to substantively challenge Canadian elites at the national scale.
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The Waffle Manifesto: For an Independent Socialist Canada
In 1969, a caucus of NDP members known as the Waffle organized to promote a socialist and nationalist agenda, which included the replacement of US private ownership of Canadian industry with Canadian public ownership. Many of the core ideas that the Waffle stood for were first developed and debated in CD—by the very people who eventually emerged as Waffle leaders.
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The foreign interference report’s great anticlimax
The conclusion that one can draw from this is that by helping discredit Canadian institutions, the false accusations and exaggerated claims that have been made about foreign interference appear to have done far more damage than the actual interference itself, whose impact was “limited,” “marginal” and “largely ineffective,” according to the Hogue report.
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Canada’s vassal status on full display with return of Trump
Following the Danish example and hoping that playing along will win us favours is unlikely to produce significant dividends. If Trump’s bluster and threats force Canadian leaders to realize this and to reconsider the nature of their relationship with our southern partner, in a perverse way he might even end up doing us some good.