The Amazon organizing model poses three tests for labour and the left. Can traditional unionism bring power to Amazon workers and if not, what kind of trade unionism might? Can the struggle at Amazon contribute to transforming the labour movement? And are unions adequate to confronting modern capitalism or do they need to be supplemented by other forms of organization?

Instead of another subsidy for a pasta factory, our Liberal-NDP supply and confidence government should announce its intention to support a wave of local democratization projects, including the expansion of food cooperatives, worker cooperatives, various employee-ownership schemes, community land trusts, and the development of sustainable procurement policies.

There have been deeply troubling developments in the implementation of the MAID program to date and the most alarming trends are discernible. If assisted dying is extended and thoroughly normalized, in the context of a deeply degraded social infrastructure, the right to choose may be transmogrified into an ugly way to reduce costs and dispose of those who have been abandoned.

The number of workers forming unions by National Labor Relations Board-supervised elections is growing, but it’s still far too slow to change the balance of power at the heart of the economy. As labour scholar Kim Moody writes, the collective awareness and coordinated use of positional power offers a powerful alternative route—and an additional organizing tool.

Critics agree that the CAQ’s reforms have politicized health care, treating it more and more as just another market sector rather than a social good. As Lital Khaikin outlines, ‘entrepreneurial solutionism’ is transforming health care in Québec into a commodity to be exploited by venture capitalists and made available differentially to those who can afford it.

Renowned legal scholar Harry Glasbeek unpacks how law has been used to ensure that workers’ aspirations are kept in check. In this excerpt from his new book, Law at Work, he uncovers how the legal system, through its structures and mechanisms, protects capitalists by legitimizing and reinforcing the exploitation of workers.

The 2024 budget does not get us anywhere near the kind of public leadership that we need. But the increase to capital gains taxes is an important, if minor, reversal of tax cuts that increased the wealth and power of the richest families at the expense of everyone else. That increase needs to be defended against the vested interests that will refuse any challenge to their power.

Budget 2024 took a significant step towards tax fairness by increasing the capital gains inclusion rate on Canada’s richest individuals and corporations. Tellingly, a measure designed to tax the rich to fund crucial public investments has caused a wave of outrage amongst a very vocal minority. Muneeb Javaid of Canadians for Tax Fairness explains.

Four weeks ago, I almost lost my life while waiting for emergency care in a Calgary hospital. The ironic part of the story is that I always thought of Canada as having saved my life from the brutal Syrian dictatorship I fled more than 30 years ago. But never would I have thought that my life would be threatened in Canada—and certainly not in a Canadian emergency room.

If the carbon tax is a dead corpse that keeps on dying, let’s make livelier offers. The transition to a sustainable energy system should have been rooted in class from the start. Let’s stop playing rhetorical tricks on ourselves, and fill the political void with actionable proposals. Along the way, we might even heal social wounds as well as environmental ones.