McMaster students begin 2nd week of hunger strike for a fossil free university

by Tom Baker,  March 27, 2023 On March 24 over 100 students and community members rallied in support of five students from the McMaster Divestment Project (MacDivest) who are on a hunger strike against a duplicitous “green washing” university administration. …

Carleton University Workers Strike against Poverty Wages and for Quality of Education

Education workers at Carleton University are set to commence strike action on March 27 in an effort to reach a fair deal with the University. CUPE Local 4600 President Noreen Cauley-Le Fevre states that despite months of negotiations, the University…

Socialist Digest –  February 2023

Discontent with the capitalist status quo is spreading rapidly. At the forefront are mobilizations in France against President Emanuel Macron's reform of the country's retirement law. Under Socialist Party President Francois Mitterrand and up to the 1990s the legal retirement age with full pension was 60 years. Since then, right wing governments have pushed it up to 62 years. Macron announced a move to raise it to 65 years, but backed down. He now proposes age 64. Mass action involving strikes and demonstrations, one day at a time, usually once or twice a week, have followed the parliamentary calendar. More militant sectors in the union movement have been calling for renewable strikes from one day to the next, towards a general strike.

Windsor City Council Backs Natural Gas Power Plant Expansion Despite Opposition from Residents and Environmental Groups.

By A. Ellis (MSA Shadow Councillor in Windsor-Essex). Published on the Municipal Socialist Alliance website on Jan. 24, 2023. On January 16, 2023, Windsor City Council supported a proposal from Capital Power to add two natural gas turbines to their…

woman in yellow protective suit wearing white face mask

Ford’s Healthcare Privatization — A Slippery Highway to Hell

Well folks, he’s done it again. Ontario Premier Doug Ford retrieved the major tool in his toolbox: privatization. This time, Ford brandishes privatization to hammer on the nail that is the province’s healthcare system. As reported by the CBC last week, “Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones are planning to make an announcement next week on expanding the number and range of surgeries performed in independent health facilities outside of hospitals.” Independent health facilities are generally for-profit clinics operated by the private owners.

Socialist Action Among Hundreds of Protestors at Toronto City Hall Opposing Toronto Police Budget

Socialist Action Joins Hundreds of Protestors at Toronto City Hall to Oppose TPS Police Budget

As the city’s Budget Committee wrapped up for the year, hundreds of demonstrators, including Socialist Action Canada and members of the Municipal Socialist Alliance, rallied outside of Toronto City Hall, demanding that the Toronto city council divest from the Toronto police budget and invest in Toronto communities. Socialist Action member Sean Ihn spoke at the rally, representing Students Mobilizing Against Systemic Hardship at U of T (SMASH U of T)

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Socialist Digest –  January 2023

Canada’s 100 highest-paid corporate executives made an average of $14.3 million in 2021, exceeding the previous record of $11.8 million set three years earlier.  By January 3, the average CEO on that list made $58,800, the amount an average Canadian worker earns in an entire year, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

gray fighter jet flying over the mountain

No More ‘Red-Baiting’ — Letter to the Hamilton Spectator

Regarding “Scrap fighter-jet purchase plan” (Jan. 6): I have serious reservations about the Trudeau government’s decision to procure F-35 fighter jets at a life-cycle cost of over $70 billion. Despite previous Liberal government statements that the F-35’s “stealth first-strike capability” was not needed to defend Canada, Minister Anita Anand now asserts that the F-35 is needed to protect Canada and fulfil its obligations. In truth, funding these costly carbon-intensive war machines will drastically undermine our capacity for Indigenous reconciliation, adequate housing, accessible health care, education and urgent climate action.

Radical Vancouver Politics — The Birth of Vote Socialist

Radical Vancouver Politics — The Birth of Vote Socialist

On May 1st, 2022, a new united front electoral alliance launched in Vancouver. With demands to defund the Vancouver Police Department, build public housing, and to tax big corporations, Vote Socialist ran a five month whirlwind of a campaign that netted its three candidates — Sean Orr for city council, Dr. Karina Zeidler for school board, and Andrea Pinochet-Escudero for park board — a combined 45,000 votes. This is the story of how Vote Socialist came to be.

monochrome photo of resist signage

Socialist Action | Looking back at 2022, and Going Forward in Struggle

Socialist Action is a growing revolutionary workers’ party that puts a great emphasis on political education. At the same time, SA is an activist organization. It has many practical accomplishments to its credit, including achievements in local elections, in building a fighting left wing inside mass working class organizations, and in promoting international solidarity. From Iran to Haiti, from Britain to Ontario, 2022 has been a year of revolt against austerity, authoritarianism, and repression.

photo of woman painting on wall

New Brunswick Artists in Survival Mode

If you were a New Brunswick artist would you be able to eat well and drive a functional car? Would you be able afford day care for your children or receive a pension? Would you be able to establish a viable business based on selling your art? Probably, the answer to all of the above, and more, is No. According to Future First, a report of the Premier's task force released last year, artists in NB face economic insecurity with job instability, low income and a limited regulatory framework. The report was debated by dozens of artists at a contemporary arts conference in Saint John, NB in late October 2022, titled "Future Possible." It was, perhaps, the first opportunity for artists to confer in person about the report which was released last year.

Socialist Digest: School Support Staff Rock the Casbah in Ontario

On the domestic landscape, the biggest development in November 2022 was the two-day walkout by CUPE-Ontario education support workers. They defied a law that pre-emptively banned strike action. CUPE and allies, including OPSEU, forced the Thug Ford Conservative government to rescind Bill 28 and its use of the notwithstanding clause to violate the federal Charter of Rights. CUPE school workers still do not have a deal to enable them to rise above poverty wages. But everyone knows that Ontario was, as Socialist Action labour leader Julius Arscott put it, 30 minutes away from a general strike. The struggle continues!

RBC CEO Dave McKay awarded Climate Villain of the Year Award at Recent Toronto Demonstration

RBC CEO Dave McKay given Climate Villain of the Year Award at Recent Toronto Demonstration

Knock knock, who's there? Climate villain of the year. On Thursday, climate activists from the University of Toronto, Banking on a Better Future, Climate Justice TO, and Stand.Earth participated in a demonstration to disrupt the Ivey Business School's presentation to RBC CEO Dave McKay with the 'Business Leader of the Year Award' Demonstrators presented McKay with an award of their own, the highly disdained 'Climate Villain of the Year Award,' which the RBC executive won in near won hands down. The Royal Bank of Canada has profited from climate chaos to the tune of more than $263 billion dollars in fossil fuel investment, including the Coastal GasLink pipeline project that is currently being constructed on the unseeded sacred Indigenous territory of the Wet'suwet'en people.

Municipal Socialist Alliance Canada

Municipal Socialist Alliance Candidates Earn More Than 14,000 Votes Combined Across Ontario in 2022 Elections

The fledgling Municipal Socialist Alliance exceeded most expectations by garnering 14,870 votes across Ontario, despite getting almost zero coverage in the commercial mass media, amid a very low voter turnout to boot (about 29 percent in Toronto). Official Municipal Socialist Alliance candidates ran for city council, school board, and, in one city, for the office of mayor.