Canada is rapidly losing any hope of being able to claim that it is an honest international broker or peacemaker. The international niche that Canada had carved out for itself twenty or more years ago is a thing of the past and the world will not be a better place for it. These are sad days for Canada and its reputation in the world beyond its Western backyard.

A coordinated movement between Indigenous peoples, settler environmentalists, organized labour, and many others is the precise opposite of an apocalyptic scenario. We think it’s the one thing that could bring us back from our current slide into climate collapse, colonial genocide, and extreme inequality, and towards a better world where we live in balance with land and life.

Ford endlessly claims that all services will be paid for through OHIP, but research conducted by the Ontario Health Coalition clearly shows that for years private clinics took public funding and extra-billed patients. The Ford government has done nothing to stop this—although it is contrary to the Canada Health Act and limits access to care, particularly for lower income families and elders.

The issues our group grappled with at SFU have more to do with the future than the past. Where’s the transformational energy needed in an era of ongoing emergency? Has Canadian democratic socialism revitalized itself? How can we articulate socialist ideals and practicalities to the wider public in an era when the topic remains taboo for most corporate media?

In a recent article published by Canadian Dimension, Taylor C. Noakes eschews the idea of increased privatization in favour of a national health care system with federal oversight. Yet, as Ashley Holloway argues, transferring the administrative woes of managing the system from the provinces to Ottawa would turn the current less-than-perfect system into an even greater disaster.

By targeting the mythical threat of the foreign home buyer, the Liberals seek to divert our attention from the real factors driving our intensifying housing crisis. In doing this, they are ready to fan the flames of the ugliest xenophobic sentiments in a way that makes a mockery of their progressive credentials. We should treat this measure with contempt and focus on the struggle to make housing a human right.

You can provide healthy profits to the shareholders of a small number of transport companies in Canada, or you can provide comprehensive service to all corners of the country, but history has demonstrated you can’t do both. Whether Canadians have the right to publicly-funded transport options, and whether they have the right to expect a decent quality of service, are two parts to the same question.

Although the absurdity of the Juan Guaidó era is drawing to a close, one can be certain that Ottawa will seek new ways to promote the opposition in the upcoming presidential elections in 2024, which will surely see the Venezuelan right adopt new tactics in their unceasing quest to overturn the Bolivarian Revolution.

Does the Competition Bureau have a hope of stopping Rogers from swallowing Shaw and creating a nationwide cable monopoly? Probably not, but that’s just the point, and it’s a point the bureau itself has been trying to make for years. Its enabling Competition Act is not just unfit for purpose, it was seemingly designed to actually prevent competition.

The federal government has a strong incentive to improve health care access nationwide, where artificial provincial borders wouldn’t constrain accessibility. Canada’s major cities, with unique health care needs and resident populations whose needs are often ill-represented by populist provincial governments, could be arguably better served by a federal system rather than the status quo.