Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
“André Ouellet, Canada’s [Liberal] foreign affairs minister, threw human rights out of the whole issue of trade,” He [Craig Kielburger] told the delegates indignantly. “He said that Canada isn’t the world’s Boy Scout.” (Laughter. Meaningful pause).
“Well, I’m a Boy Scout-” (Prolonged surge of laughter (...)
Crises sometimes bring out the best in society, and sometimes – or even at the same time – they clarify what is so darkly wrong within. In the particular case of the commitments and risks taken by the front-line workers that we apparently value so deeply now, the contrast lies in how little they (...)
The 2018 national assembly election in Québec marked a breakthrough for the Left. While a right-wing coalition won the most votes, the election’s biggest surprise was the unprecedented success of the left-wing, pro-independence party Québec solidaire (Solidarity Québec, QS). It broke out of its (...)
During the federal election, Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet presented himself as Québec’s spokesperson while defending the policies enacted at the provincial level by the majority CAQ (Coalition Avenir Québec) government led by François Legault. He thus took up the cudgels for the CAQ’s (...)
On October 21, 2019, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party was re-elected in Canada, but this time with a minority government.
The elections failed to address Canada’s real issues (Photo: Mark Klotz)
In Canada’s parliamentary system, the Prime Minister is not elected directly, as the President is in (...)
It is still early to interpret fully the results of Canada’s October 21 federal election. But behind the immediate results some trends are clear.
Canada’s Federal Election, 2019
2019 2015
Party Seats Votes % of vote Seats Votes % of vote
Liberal 157 5,915,950 33.1 184 6,930,136 39.5 (...)
The SNC-Lavalin scandal and what it teaches us
Canadian voters will elect a new federal government on October 21. Over the next few days I will draw attention here to some important issues of particular concern to progressive opinion that have been largely overlooked or ignored during the (...)
By now most environmentally conscious people understand that Jair Bolsonaro is a bad guy. Brazil’s president has scandalously blamed environmentalists for starting fires burning in the Amazon region, after having called for more “development” of the huge forests.
Canadians are lucky we have a (...)
AGAINST THE CURRENT interviewed Todd Gordon, co-author (with Jeffery Webber) of Blood of Extraction: Canadian Imperialism in Latin America about mining operations in Canada and internationally. He is a socialist activist in Toronto and a member of the Toronto New Socialists.
Against the (...)
Party seeks to reclaim secularism from conservative political trends in Quebec
This weekend, at a CEGEP in Quebec City, Québec Solidaire continued its transformation of left-wing politics in the province.
No longer does the party support banning police officers, judges and Crown prosecutors (...)
Last fall, Quebec saw over 58,000 students participate in a week-long strike. From November 19 to 24, students at universities and junior colleges (CEGEPs) walked out on classes, held street marches, and formed picket lines in front of their schools to enforce strike mandates.
Now, another (...)
There was good reason to fear the worst when Ontario’s Minister of Children, Community and Social Services, Lisa MacLeod, announced that the new government was engaged in a “100 Day Review” of social assistance. Mike Harris’ infamous 21.6% cut to welfare rates may be 20 years old, but the memories (...)
The political landscape in Québec changed radically last Monday for the first time since 1972. A radical left-wing party emerged as an unavoidable political force, a new right-wing populist party took power, and the old mainstream parties sustained historical defeats.
The Liberal Party of (...)
One of the Liberal campaign promises in 2015 was to modernize the rules governing charities to allow them to make important contributions to public debate and policy.
This promise came a step closer to realization when the Mandate Letter for Minister Lebouthillier specified: “Allow charities (...)
Report by Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found the net worth of the richest was 4,448 times the average Canadian in 2016
Canada’s richest 87 families have roughly the same amount of wealth as that held by 12 million of their compatriots, or about a third of the country’s population, (...)
Ontario judge’s ruling wipes out section of Income Tax Act limiting political activity by charities
An Ontario judge has pulled the rug out from the Canada Revenue Agency’s political-activity audits of Canadian charities, ruling the Income Tax Act infringes on the constitutional right to free (...)
In the dark of a frigid February morning on the outskirts of Ottawa, Canada, a convoy of trucks pulled up to the loading docks of a refurbished Hershey’s factory that’s now the headquarters of the world’s largest marijuana company—Canopy Growth Corp. Horticulturists in Tyvek suits began loading the (...)
François Laporte, the President of Teamsters Canada, wrote to Prime Minister Trudeau on 23 March, about trade negotiations between Canada and the Mercosur bloc of nations. The union is concerned that the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) could be used as a model for (...)
Introduction
The 2017 edition of the Université populaire (the People’s University), meeting in Montréal August 17-19, included a panel of speakers from Quebec and English Canada on the possibilities for building a convergence of left forces in both nations.
It was chaired and introduced by (...)
The following article by André Binette, a prominent constitutional lawyer in Quebec, was first published in L’Aut’journal . The translation and notes are mine.
Richard Fidler Canada’s 150th anniversary: Why celebrate colonial autonomy?
Each sovereign state can choose the date of its national (...)
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