Tag: Government

“It’s going to be very painful without the anaesthetic in your toe.” My face twists in anticipation. “Maybe we could give you something to relax a little, send you off to sleep.”

Haiti is an avant-garde microcosm of the privatization, deregulation, and loosening of state structures and protections that is happening everywhere.

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a new name for the old concept of humanitarian intervention, or humanitarian imperialism.

In 2006, the Conservative government cut the funding of Status of Women Canada (SWC) by 38 per cent, to the tune of $5 million, in a move to enhance “fiscal responsibility.”

Will the comprehensive changes to labour legislation that unfold in Saskatchewan be a model for right-wing parties across Canada?

More than two years after the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti, there’s little to show for the $200 million in donations pledged to the Canadian Red Cross for reconstruction efforts. After historic outpourings of support, why has there been so little progress on the ground in Haiti?

The first and only time he gave blood, Nick Shaw felt like a hero. The Canadian Blood Services (CBS) advertised a clinic at his high school with posters, announcements over the PA system, and in-class talks by teachers and nurses. Blood donation was touted as a moral imperative.

Evidently, the Conservatives’ “most-wanted” list has become a permanent and ongoing means of enlisting public support in the burgeoning business of deportation.

At the same time, the austerity assault continues in Toronto and across Canada with slashes to social services ranging from libraries to daycares, emergency services, and public transit.

As both Canada and Israel come under increasing scrutiny on the world stage for their crimes against Indigenous peoples, their fates are increasingly bound together.

With the country’s largest reserves of oil, natural gas, uranium, and potash, much of which is found on Indigenous land, the Prairies will continue to be at the front lines of capitalist expansion for years to come, and are poised to become a hub of resistance. It’s time for us to imagine the West as a different kind of “land of opportunity.”

The first question asked when the issue of fracking on Kainai territory is presented to new ears is often, “How could this happen?” It is a difficult question to answer, but there are four major players: the gas and oil companies; government, both provincial and federal; the Blood Tribe chief and council; and the Blood Tribe member population.

For three decades, the traditional territory of the Lubicon Cree in northern Alberta has undergone massive oil and gas development without the consent of the Lubicon people and without recognition of our Aboriginal rights.

On October 14, 2011, the University of Saskatchewan board of governors formally approved the incorporation of the Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation (CCNI) “to stimulate new research, development and training in advanced aspects of nuclear science and technology.” Tracing corporate connections and developments behind the scenes shows how a coordinated strategy can be implemented largely outside public purview and beyond generally accepted public accountability.

In the summer of 1962, Saskatchewan was beset by a doctors’ strike intent on preserving physician privileges and opposing public health care. Fifty years later, Canada’s medicare system is again under threat.

In the face of drastic social service cutbacks, community organizers and volunteers are stepping up to fill the void. For the optimistic, this represents opportunity for building the capacity of communities to become more independent of the state. Others critique the impact this offloading has on longer term organizing for social change.

Canada’s Extradition Act allows the deportation of Canadian citizens on the simple say-so of a foreign government, even when the case against them is groundless.

After enduring 10 years of overpriced housing in booming Whitehorse, Yukon, Helen Hollywood pitched her tent on the front lawn of the territory’s legislature. Frustrated with antiquated, one-sided provisions of the Yukon Landlord and Tenant Act, she vowed not to leave until her concerns were addressed.

The federal government should get serious about supporting the queer community through progressive policies, strategies and funding to allow queer communities to develop the programs that our youth so desperately need.

The Labour Issues campaign is broadening the base of people who can speak confidently about these issues, organize their communities, and ultimately make demands on government – regardless of which party happens to be in power.