In that time of morning that seems like the dead of night, I quietly get dressed. My six-year-old stirs and I ask her to climb onto my back like a tiny monkey. I leave my apartment unit and carry her downstairs to another unit where my neighbour is waiting. It’s so early and I’m so tired and my day has just begun. Who was this system designed for, and who is it working for?

The following is an excerpt from The Left in Power: Bob Rae’s NDP and the Working Class by Concordia University professor Steven High. Based on extensive archival research and interviews, the book revisits the heartbreaking years of Bob Rae’s Ontario NDP government to uncover what we can learn from one social democratic party’s mistakes about how to govern from the left.

Peter McFarlane’s Family Ties is a remarkable book on a period of history—the Second World War, before and after—that continues to haunt us. It is also a powerful antidote to Canadian amnesia and especially to the attempts to rewrite the history of that war to justify the warmongering provocations of Washington, Ottawa, London, Paris and other NATO countries.

Canada currently fulfills around 25 percent of American lumber demand, a drop from 35 percent in the 1990s. That number shrinks every time a Canadian sawmill gets dismantled and shipped to the US. It gets smaller every time a Canadian company transfers its made-in-Canada technology, financial earnings, and supermill know-how down south, too.

Most think tanks are inherently conservative because they are funded by rich people who don’t like paying taxes and instead donate that money to foundations which in turn fund a range of favoured charities. Think tanks that churn out pseudo-scholarly research designed to influence government policy and regulation, or lack thereof, are a favourite recipient.

For urban planner and professor Carolyn Whitzman, the tactics that allow tenants to challenge rent increases, resist evictions, and improve their living conditions have only a marginal place in the equation for social change. In the world of Home Truths, her new book, those who have been adversely impacted by the housing crisis are given no opportunity to fight back.

The Trump peace plan goes some way towards squaring the circle by providing some guarantees to both sides, albeit far fewer than both would like. As such it is a reasonable compromise and a good starting point for further talks. There will be some hard diplomatic work ahead, but at least the long process of negotiation is finally about to start.

Donald Trump’s failed 2020 Abraham Accords led directly to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. This agreement, initially signed by Israel, the US, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, was ostensibly designed to “recognize the importance of maintaining and strengthening peace in the Middle East and around the world based on mutual understanding and coexistence.”

As we see in the case of ongoing efforts to criminalize disruptive forms of climate protests, establishment thinking is embracing the idea that stricter limits must be set on the freedoms that have been conceded by liberal democracies. You can object to the destructive conduct of fossil fuel companies, but if you challenge their operations you will be treated as a terrorist.

The human rights situation in Cuba is bad, and about to get worse. Prisoners will be denied basic constitutional rights and reports of abuse and torture will surface. No, we are not talking about treatment of dissidents opposed to the revolutionary government—but rather to the victims of US foreign policy in the tropical gulag of Guantánamo.