3-Gun teaches skills valued in modern urban combat. It hones the ability of men and women to move quickly around obstacles and fire at targets at relatively short distances. These skills are useful for tactical police officers responding to active school shooters. Unfortunately, the victims of mass shooters are the ones who most fully appreciate the dangers of modern firearms wielded by skilled gunmen.

On July 9, 2021, one of Canada’s oldest hate organizations, the Jewish Defence League, quietly folded up its tent and went home. The JDL was founded by Meir Kahane in 1968 as a far-right, Jewish nationalist alternative to mainstream Zionism. At the heart of Kahane’s vision was a theocratic state cleansed of Arabs who could either leave Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories “alive or dead.”

So many inequities have been with us long before COVID-19. The pandemic made them more obvious to more people. This new awareness was awakened as the loud boosterism of the slogan “We are in this together” proved itself to be so hollow. Paradoxically, the overuse of the slogan intended to hide the true nature of our political economy from us may provide the kind of fuel that is needed to light a cleansing, a transforming, fire.

Recently elected leader Annamie Paul has severely divided and damaged the Green Party of Canada, and there have been no public attempts to heal a glaring rift in the membership. If one were to ascribe motives based on her actions, it would seem Paul is aiming to purge the internationalist, anti-racist left from the party—by calling them racists. Sadly, it’s a a tactic much of the media is applauding.

With unethical conduct, French authorities sought to pull the wool over Canada’s eyes. Their act of deception and shoddy legal work reek of colonial contempt, not to mention Islamophobic bias. The mystery bomber aside, they are the guilty party, and it is high time we placed them on the hot seat and exposed their multiple crimes against the long-suffering Dr. Hassan Diab.

It is one thing to recognize our society as having genocidal roots in the distant past. But the reality of Indigenous genocide, in particular children kidnapped and killed in the manufactories of murder otherwise known as Indian Residential Schools, confronts us today, and what we see in the here and now is the ongoing genocide of Indigenous people and cultures.

Québec Solidaire was born fifteen ears ago from the unification of the principal left forces in Québec that adopted a common progressive and independentist program. As it grows, having elected 10 Members of the National Assembly in 2018, the party is tempted by the lure of power and a tendency toward the concentration of power internally. These tendencies were in evidence at the party’s May 15-16 National Council meeting.

As it stands, Israel is a racist, apartheid state that confers rights on Jews that it denies Palestinians, and its international support is deteriorating rapidly. As long as the Israeli state continues its repetitive violations of international law and maintains the oppression of its Arab minority, that support will ultimately disappear, putting Jews in Israel and around the world in increased danger.

Considering its influence and long history of racist violence, there’s been far too little critical scrutiny of the JDL. While the group has been banned from Facebook and Twitter on a number of occasions, politicians, police and other officials have turned a blind eye to its criminal acts, while major media outlets and anti-racist groups have generally ignored its political activities and ties to the far-right.

Tamara Starblanket is a Nehiyaw iskwew (Cree woman) from Ahtahkakoop First Nation. She holds a Master of Laws from the University of Saskatchewan, and an LLB from the University of British Columbia. Here, she is interviewed by Aziz Choudry, a writer and academic based in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Canada’s history of genocide, the failures of reconciliation, and the imperative of decolonization.