The Ford agenda has very little to do with resolving a crisis, real or perceived, and everything to do with remaking Toronto in a right-wing image: a leaner, meaner city, where the market is free and the public sector and its unions disciplined.

Were it not so immediate, this shift to an ideologically-driven politics and civil service might seem like the stuff of a bleak Dickensian satire.

Contempt of Parliament was the issue that felled the Harper government and it has continued to be a focus of opposition forces in the current election campaign, along with charges of corruption, arrogance and a lack of accountability. Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin says he can name 50 examples of abuse of power. No doubt.

All over the world people are dying (literally) for the right to elect their leaders. North Africa and the Middle East are aflame with democratic revolt. These are, after all, revolts that politicians across our political spectrum claim to be in sympathy with. Yet here at home the Harperites are allowed to disparage and demean the very idea of elections. Simple point to make, but it isn’t getting made. What gives?

Canada’s foreign political goals are often painted in altruistic glory, intervening abroad to liberate women, sending children to school and partnering with allies to prevent “rogue” states from acquiring nuclear weapons. Deeply woven into this ideology are notions of humanitarianism, freedom, human rights and a tinge of social democracy that instills a sense of pride in many, if not most, Canadians.

Even when successive Liberal and Conservative governments have acted almost systematically to dismantle these values, this deep-rooted liberal ideology persists. The media are perhaps the most effective at instilling this ideology, which says something about the supposed left of mainstream Canada. And again, this ideology is no different from what has been achieved in earlier, more violent times.

Our democratic freedoms hang by a narrow thread, and a police state is always near at hand — that is one of the lessons of the G20 debacle that unfolded in Toronto on June 26 and 27.

Thousands of books describe various aspects of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict … This is the first book to focus on Canadian support for the dispossession of Palestinians, for a state based on one religion, and for the last major European colonial project.

The demographic implications of living longer present real dilemmas and challenges to our pension system. But the real choices to be made do not revolve around whether we’re rich enough to afford retirement, but the extent to which we value freedom from work over consumption, the form that freedom from work might take, and – above all – how society’s wealth is distributed

Across the advanced capitalist world, neoliberal policies have concerted to consign the welfare state to history’s dustbin. As a pillar of the social state, economic security in retirement was an inevitable target.

To kick off their hearings on antisemitism, an Israeli flown to Ottawa stated absolutely that Canada is a “pioneer” of campus antisemitism.