NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh found a way to avoid a federal election, and to gain a vague promise of health service reforms – likely at the cost of huge increases in military spending. The Liberal-NDP deal paves the way for Justin Trudeau to stay in power until 2025, at least. That goes to serve capitalist political ‘stability’ in the relentless march to climate catastrophe, growing social inequality and the horrors of inter-imperialist war.
In this bonus episode of The Red Review, brought to you by Socialist Action, Daniel talks with comrade Yvonne from Vancouver about what happened on the streets when the anti-mandate convoy came to town. This episode includes audio recordings from the anti-mandate convoy in Toronto.
Enjoy Socialist Action's wonderful webcast for the 2022 celebration of International Women's Day!
The technology of blockchain continues to gain in popularity. It’s been advertised as disruptive, even revolutionary. Proponents believe it will change the world economy for the better, making it a more fair and equitable place. From the rooftops they shout, “Decentralization! Immutability!”
But is the hype all it’s cracked up to be? Is this a fad destined to fizzle? Or, even worse, is the blockchain push just a smokescreen for something much more sinister?
Responding to the call of Toronto Rise-Up, some seventy people, including members of at least four socialist parties, held a rally at the Toronto intersection of Christie and Bloor Streets to “take back (public) space” from far-right organizations. The latter recently led the anti-vax, anti-Covid-mandate, so-called Freedom Convoy that blockaded border crossings and occupied downtown Ottawa for nearly three weeks.
In this episode of The Red Review, brought to you by Socialist Action, Emily and Daniel take you on a deep dive into the anti-mandate convoy? Is this a working-class movement or a eugenecist and reactionary movement led by the petit-bourgoiesie? What fueled the anti-mandate convoy, and what role did mainstream coverage of China's zero-covid strategy play? We end with a discussion about who ought to respond to the convoy — the police or labour?
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been condemned. The suffering of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers is horrible. Righteous fury has been aimed at the primary architect of this crime against humanity. But save some anger for those who will use the invasion to push other agendas that are bad for humanity and other life on our planet.
As state power is reluctantly and belatedly deployed against the far-right’s laughably named Freedom Convoy, it’s time for the political left in Canada to ask itself some very serious questions. How could a gaggle of white supremacists manage to capture the political momentum and undertake “the biggest protest organized by the Canadian far-right since the 1930s”?
The Province of Alberta, led by Kenney’s United Conservative Party (UCP), faces an ambulance shortage. Articles in 2019, well before the pandemic of Covid-19, described a sharp increase in code reds, where no ambulance is available to respond to a call. With increased rates of infection impacting both the number of healthcare workers isolating at home and the number of calls for ambulances coming in, the crisis of ambulance coverage in Alberta surpassed any reasonable notion of a tipping point. The existing system isn’t failing — it’s failed.
As neoliberal governments faced yet another wave of Covid-19 in December 2021, this time fueled by the even-more contagious Omicron variant, politicians and corporate-owned media began laying the ideological groundwork for the scrapping of all public health protections. Despite workers and oppressed people continuing to get sick, developing chronic illnesses, and dying, and the ongoing uncertainty about new variants emerging, the resumption of maximum production and consumption again stands as the only priority. As the exploited classes are primed to acquiesce to an erosion of our right to a safe workplace, media and politicians work overtime to discredit any alternative pandemic response. In this quest, the biggest obstacle remains China’s successful and dynamic Covid-zero strategy.
