Expressing solidarity with the US and Europe, Canada has joined in sanctions against Belarus, citing its concern for human rights and democracy. But sanctions that hurt the economy are unlikely to win hearts and minds. On the contrary, they are almost certain to create misery for people in the targeted country. Since sanctions have failed repeatedly to achieve their intended results, what purpose do they really serve?

While opposing Nord Stream 2, the United States is itself importing more and more Russian oil. Meanwhile, Russia has become the third largest exporter of oil to the US, after Canada and Mexico. Sentiments against the pipeline remain high in the US, Ukraine and Poland. Affirming their sovereignty, Germany and other European countries plan to finish the pipeline. Despite the brinkmanship, the project moves ahead.

Ken Loach is one of Britain’s most revered and successful filmmakers who has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to social justice. The character assassination campaign against him is being pursued by propagandists who have shown a consistent willingness to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses while using the charge of anti-Semitism as a cudgel to silence critics of Israeli apartheid.

In December of last year, COVID-19 took the life of one of Canada’s most widely respected public intellectuals, Leo Panitch. Leo was a researcher, teacher and author whose work had a profound impact on the thinking of democratic socialists around the world. One of the countries in which Leo took a passionate interest, and in which he exercised considerable influence among leftists, was Greece.

For more than a decade, the Russian economic and political system has ceased to develop. Most of the population is barely surviving. We need to prepare ourselves for a transformation, to set to work wherever we find people who are ready for constructive joint action in the trade unions, in organizations of teachers and medical staff, in social movements. This is what we, the members of the Russian left, are seeking to do.

The saga of US actions against the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project—a system of offshore natural gas pipelines running under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany—reads like a John le Carré novel. In spite of the desire of Germany and other European allies to have it built and even though it is nearly completed, the US persists in thwarting the project. Canada is also against it. Why?

Alexei Navalny’s courage and tenacity, as well as his tactical skill, cannot be doubted. But a large majority of Russians do not see him as a credible alternative. Although Russians are far from enamoured with the present regime, in the traditional Russian fashion, based on historical memory, they fear what might come to replace it. And they do not have to look far to see the altogether dubious results of populist movements in the former Soviet Union.

Despite Canada’s long-standing support for the Ukrainian army, there has been almost no coverage of recent peace talks in the war-ravaged Donbass. More concerningly, few have analyzed the implications of stalled progress towards ending the civil war, even as the Trudeau government continues to fund a military mission in an active conflict most have all but forgotten.

Canada’s policy of providing Ukraine military aid has been disproportionately shaped by both Ukrainian far-right nationalism and the domestic right-wing lobby in Canada. The far-right in Ukraine holds a degree of military power and a corresponding threat of violence that surpasses that of other comparable European ultranationalist organizations.

In a field of relatively underwhelming candidates, the best possible outcome appears to be a Long-Bailey victory. Though far from ideal, Long-Bailey is at least the best chance the left has of keeping anti-austerity and a radical green industrial strategy in mainstream conversation, and holding the line against those who would use the U.K. election results to silence grassroots democratic socialist movements everywhere.