-
The term PTSD fails to capture the Palestinian experience
In its many forms, the global protest against the continued genocide of Palestinians—the refusal to be silenced, even against threats of arrest, deportation, and physical violence—not only challenges the national collective myth of the Israeli settler state, but also enacts a refusal to be complicit in violence carried out in its name.
-
BC Conservatives adopt election strategy of attacking the media
Before our next federal election comes in the next year or so, and even before November’s pivotal US presidential vote, British Columbians will go to the polls next month, and if the ugliness already being seen out here on the so-called Left Coast is any indication, reporters could be in for a bumpy ride.
-
Far-right influencers the biggest dupes of foreign interference
Russia isn’t creating these divisions in the West, they’re attempting to exploit them for geostrategic purposes. But what the Tenet indictment exposes is that the far-right is where the money is. They’re the ones calling the shots. Anyone who suggests both ends of the political spectrum are equally susceptible to foreign exploitation is obscuring this reality.
-
Your debt is their asset
What if the value of a mortgage could be collected today? What if the bank could sell your debt on the open market? They could use the cash to lend out even more money and collect even more interest on even more mortgages. Thanks to the National Housing Act, they can do exactly that. James Hardwick on how federal housing policy has turned our mortgage system into an engine of inequality.
-
There are some ‘new mitzvot’ that many Jews follow—and they aren’t pretty
The concept of a mitzvah goes well beyond good deeds and, given current circumstances, has come to encompass some very ugly deeds. How and whether Jews observe these obligations are intricately bound up in one’s sense of what it means to be a Jew. And in fact, as the tragedy in Gaza and the West Bank intensifies, no less than the soul of Judaism is at stake.
-
Why the Russian disinfo scandal could hurt Cons at the polls
Coming so close to November’s US presidential election, not to mention Canada’s pending federal election, the Russian disinformation revelations could have an effect similar to that of the 2016 Wikileaks dump of Hilary Clinton’s hacked campaign emails. This time the revelations could instead taint Trump and help to cement perceptions that he is a Russian asset.
-
Manitoba NDP doubles down on failed ‘tough-on-crime’ agenda
One policy terrain on which Wab Kinew’s NDP has been unambiguous is law and order. Building on its already dubious legacy on this file—both during its time in power between 1999 and 2016 and while in opposition between 2016 and 2023—the Manitoba NDP is accelerating a reactionary program of policing and jailing driven largely by the interests of cops and the city’s business community.
-
Canadian forestation policies add fuel to the fires
Across Canada and abroad, the commercial forest industry has created monoculture conifer plantations of lodgepole pine, spruce and Douglas fir. It’s common practice to use glyphosate and brush saws in forests to destroy broadleaf species—such as aspen, birch, cottonwood, willow and alder—which are crucial for biodiversity and sequestering carbon.
-
Why poverty reduction under capitalism is a myth
Capitalism’s profit focus has often held back the distribution of products to drive up their prices. Patents and trademarks of profit-seeking businesses effectively slow the distribution of all sorts of products. We cannot know whether capitalism’s incentive effects outweigh its slowing effects. Claims that capitalism promotes rather than slows progress are pure ideological assertions.
-
Could I go to prison for writing this column? Under Bill C-63, I just might
I hate politicians who try to tell me what I can and cannot say. I hate governments that threaten to lock me up for something I haven’t even said yet but might just be thinking of saying. There, is that enough hate for you? Could it be enough to run me afoul of Ottawa’s latest scheme to regulate the Internet and get me arrested under Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act?


