With his May 22 election victory, Gary Doer is only the second premier in recent Manitoba history to win three consecutive majority governments. The first was Duff Roblin back in the 1960s. In fact, since the election of Ed Schreyer in 1969, the New Democratic Party has been in office for all but a dozen years of the past four decades – nearly enough to consider the NDP Manitoba’s natural governing party.

Without the assent of the NDP, Harper’s Conservatives are unlikely to remain in power much longer. Chances are that, in the coming months, Layton & Co. will once again bring down a minority government, sending Canadians to the polls for the second time in a little over a year.

It is the case that folks seriously interested in transforming society seldom consider achieving their objectives through changes in the tax system. Nevertheless, tax reform should be on the agenda of all those who want to change the world in more modest ways.

We are seeing an international paradigm shift on climate change, which will bypass Canada if we remain locked into unlimited energy exports. Until Canada gets a “Mexican exemption” and exits NAFTA’s energy-proportionality clause, there is little chance of Canada fulfilling its modest, international Kyoto targets, let alone going far beyond them.

magining an alternate global politics could hardly be more pressing. Mounting global inequalities, the turbulence of climate change and recurring military interventions by Western powers has been the daily fare of the neoliberal world order. This world order was constructed over the last two decades under the hegemony of the U.S., in alliance with key European, Japanese and Canadian al

While global warming is now garnering citizens’ attention around the world, the Canadian government’s abandonment of climate policy has awakened the public to the need for action. In October, 2006, Stephen Harper attempted to hoodwink us with a PR strategy taken straight from George Bush: Promise “clean air” and phony targets for emissions that mirror business-as-usual, while raising doubt about the science of global warming and the economic consequences of taking action.

It is clear that in the November 27 London-Centre by-election, Elizabeth May drew votes from past supporters of all political parties, but especially from the NDP. With her as Leader, the Greens are increasingly likely to draw support from the NDP across the country. Through cooperation rather than competition, however, the prospects of both parties could be enhanced.

as Canada become an imperialist state, as some on the Left argue? On the surface, a case can be made. Why did Canada participate in the kidnapping and expulsion of Haiti’s elected head of state, Jean-Bertrand Aristide? Why are Canadian troops fighting the insurgency in Afghanistan while supporting a regime dominated by feudal warlords? Is it not true that Canadian mining companies are scouring the world from Guatemala and Colombia in Latin America to Indonesia and Mongolia in Asia, exploring and tearing up the earth and taking full advantage of cheap labour in these countries? And is it not also true that in recent years Canada has become a large exporter of capital - some say it exports more capital than it imports - a sharp reversal from its former days as a dependency of the U.S.?

Scott Taylor is a Canadian journalist, as well as an editor, publisher, storyteller and ex-commando. He has reported from Serbia, Cambodia and Western Sahara, and is the veteran of 21 (unembedded) trips into Iraq. In September, 2004, he was betrayed by Iraqi police and kidnapped by anti-Western insurgents. After four days of captivity and beatings, Taylor was released through intervention by Turkish intelligence services. Undeterred, he returned to Iraq in 2005.

There has been much gnashing of teeth over Canada’s foreign-policy stance since the day Stephen Harper and his Conservative government was elected to office.

Canada’s relations with the U.S. on a phalanx of fronts have been at the centre of controversy.