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.

More and more ECEs and care givers are leaving the sector in search of better paid work. Current early childhood education students are uncertain about their futures. Many are opting out of pursuing a career in this field altogether. Indeed, the province could be short 8,500 ECEs by 2026. Ontario needs to do better and pay its ECEs and child care workers a decent wage.

While York’s vice-chancellor, administration, and philanthropic alumni enjoy a disproportionate share of financial wealth, the workers, teachers, and students at York University remain left out in the cold, with their concerns and demands for living wages and a safe and protected educational environment going unmet.

It is rare for the Bank of Canada to say that we face a national economic emergency. But that is exactly what Deputy Governor Carolyn Rogers did on March 26. She was referring to Canada’s dismal record on labour productivity, which is indeed a major, albeit long-standing issue. Her widely publicized speech put a sharper focus on very weak Canadian economic performance, especially relative to the US.

History does not allow for a great deal in the way of direct instructions, but it is capable of identifying the times and places where people disturbed the complacencies of their time. In doing so, they brought about changes that were necessary but never inevitable. These struggles did not fully succeed, but their influence continues to be felt, and this too is one of McLachlan’s legacies.

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.

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.

Those who promote right-wing solutions for societal ills have long argued for minimal state interference with the play of market forces. It has often been suggested that all attempts to constrain unbridled profit-making are just so many barriers to ambition, hard work and prosperity. The sexist term “nanny state” is often pressed into service to make the point.

In May 2023, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike. Just two months later, the Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) joined them on the picket lines. Yet, while Hollywood suddenly ground to a halt due to these strikes, production continued and continues in “Hollywood North” without resolution.

While the bank accounts of Canada’s richest executives and CEOs bloat with money that should be equitably distributed to all, food prices, housing costs, and homelessness are spinning out of control, disproportionately impacting the marginalized and oppressed: Indigenous peoples, people of colour, women and LGBTQ+, and the working class in general.