Last week, the release of the long-awaited Forde Report totally vindicated Jeremy Corbyn regarding the tirade of bigotry accusations he endured as leader—cold comfort, of course, given that his opponents in the political and media class long ago neutralized any chance that Corbynism would bring even minimal social, political, or economic progress to the United Kingdom.

Reducing barriers to dental care and other medical services not covered by Canada’s meagre and underfunded health care system is an improvement over the status quo. But if the NDP or any other party wishes to take up the cause of the left in Canada, its demands must be shaped by a commitment to universality and the expansion of publicly controlled and administered social services.

Rebuilding a left that can confront contemporary challenges will be an enormous task, and if there are hopeful and positive features in LFI, there is still a very long way to go. But the left around the world can take some encouragement from a small but real victory. As we used to say in 1968, Ce n’est qu’un début; continuons le combat. It’s only a beginning; the struggle goes on.

So, is this the moment of collapse in the Chinese model of development and the end of all that talk about ‘moving towards socialism’ and so on? Many Western experts think so. What will cause this collapse, in their view, is the failure of the Chinese leaders to ‘liberalize’ the economy and open it up even more to capitalist companies and markets.

Following the US, Canada was the second country to recognize self-declared “president” of Venezuela Juan Guaidó as the country’s leader, and Trudeau has shown a fervor for regime change in Caracas that nearly matches that of Donald Trump and former Colombian president Iván Duque. Indeed, Canada has always had a retrograde view of political and economic affairs in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Last month we lost a brilliant activist-scholar. John W. Warnock passed away on May 27, after a long struggle with ALS. I was just arriving for a stay in Tokyo when I received the news, and have been processing it ever since. Jack was a lifelong, committed political, social justice and environmental activist, political commentator, writer, and university teacher.

Paris Marx is one of the leading authorities on all things “tech.” As host of the award-winning Tech Won’t Save Us podcast and author the upcoming Verso book Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation, Marx expertly dissects the countless promises—and far more often, failures—of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and fads like cryptocurrency and the Metaverse.

In contrast to the simplistic notion that capital unilaterally imposes consumption upon us, German scholars Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen, authors of The Imperial Mode of Living, emphasize a dialectical analysis in which capitalist domination “draws on the wishes and desires of the populace … becomes a part of individual identity, shapes it, and thereby becomes all the more effective.”

Gustavo Petro’s election victory in Colombia is a major blow to Justin Trudeau’s bid to bolster reactionary and pro-Washington governments in the hemisphere. Sunday’s presidential vote strengthens the socialist and regional integrationist forces Ottawa has sought to undercut. An ex-rebel fighter, Petro is widely considered Colombia’s first ever left wing leader.

The NDP has the time and window to take this moment not just to reset but to tear the party down and rebuild. That work can only be done by listening to its members and empowering them from the grassroots up. The province doesn’t need another liberal party. It has one and that’s more than enough. It needs an unabashedly left party. And now the NDP has a chance to give it one.