There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering.

If Netanyahu is facing his Rubicon, the West has finally arrived at its own moral crossroads. After months of uncritical support for Israel’s assault on Gaza and weeks of equivocation as the magnitude of its inhumanity has become undeniable, there is still time to draw back from the abyss and defend the post-war order whose highest legal authority is the ICJ.

In its current war against the people of Gaza, the Israeli government has chosen to weaponize the issue of sexual violence for political gain. This statement will be delivered to Israeli officials who have mounted a public crusade manipulating this issue to both legitimize—and divert attention from—their campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Until February 2024, Canada did not have a pharmacare program. Earlier federal interest in a universal drug program seemed to be fading, ostensibly on cost grounds. Just in time, the Trudeau government announced a rather weak and diluted pharmacare proposal a few days before the deadline to save the supply-and-confidence agreement between the Liberals and NDP.

Much deserved praise has been heaped on Brian Mulroney’s legacy, but the universal lauding of NAFTA misses the mark. Mulroney made major contributions by pushing Washington to cut acid rain wafting across the border, was key to fixing the ozone layer in the Montréal protocol and took international leadership in helping end apartheid in South Africa.

While not a market-worshipper of Danielle Smith’s ilk, Québec Premier François Legault has a vision of the province that still revolves around a profit-driven market economy with growth-oriented goals. For an increasingly large body of environmental opinion, however, the very nature of such an economy undermines efforts to ‘save the planet.’

Big Media in Canada, which are ruthlessly squeezing every last loonie out of our once-profitable news media, used their remaining political influence to shake down the digital giants with the Online News Act in hopes of cashing in big on the runaway success of the platforms. In the process, they have put Canada’s emerging online media and niche publications in the emergency ward.

For a country currently grappling with its own legacies of genocide and colonialism, direct actions like the one in Peterborough help to expose how the values of setter-colonial states are not so different, and emphasize the urgent need for decolonization at home and abroad. Respect for international law, and an end to military violence, should be a priority for us all.

My vision for this CEGEP is guided by one question: What do students need from higher education as a young human on this planet at this extraordinary time? If we base the answer to that question in scientific consensus, preparing students for their futures requires nothing short of transformative systemic change in all aspects of society.

The main goal of the war is to protect the Putin regime and its autocratic vassal states, like the Lukashenko dictatorship in Belarus, from the threat of revolution. This goal coincides perfectly with the elite’s dreams of rebuilding the Russian Empire, which requires enslaving Ukraine but Russian expansion will not end there.