This week @ rabble.ca: The end of Canada's health accord

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rabble.ca - News for the rest of us

04 Apr 2014

Hey rabble readers!

On March 31, there were events of worldwide consequence and others of great importance for Canada. A new report makes the most dire climate forecasts yet, there is no more health accord in Canada, and the (un)Fair Elections trucks on. Parliamentary reporter Karl Nerenberg rounds up the top news that should be making headlines, instead of the backstabbing and f-bombs capturing mainstream attention.

This week, the Nova Scotia government passed essential services legislation, Bill 37, which restricts the right of all health-care workers to strike and puts an end to the province's nurses' strike. Our bloggers consider what it means for the health system when health-care workers have their voice taken away.

An exciting new blog by rabble books and blogs intern Christina Turner promises to examine the... politics of food. "Eat your words" will take up migrant labour in our produce industry, food security and how to take the politics of food back to your kitchen. The first installment this week is about how sauerkraut will bring down capitalism. Time to get out and ferment some cabbage!

This month the Babble Book Club is reading Joseph Boyden's The Orenda! Read an excellent review of the book here, and then get reading and join our final discussion on April 22 at 8 p.m. EST in the babble book lounge.

This week's top news

Canadian schools must be culturally inclusive. Why aren't they?
Earlier this month, the Toronto District School Board was in hot water after its plan to help Somali-Canadian youth better succeed in school became controversial.
By Amira Elghawaby

Popular memory and the economic underside of Russia's 'geopolitical disaster'
Two questions more politically useful than "Is Putin Hitler" might be: "But what does 'geopolitical disaster' actually mean in the Russian context?" And: "What did Putin actually say?"
By Ray Silvius

Alltime TV unbundles cable, hires disgraced politicians
Get ready to cancel your cable. New network takes extraordinary step of hiring a number of Canada's embattled or disgraced politicians to staff pay-per-episode programming.
By Meagan Perry

Free post-secondary education in Canada: It's not so radical
Canada needs to embrace a not so radical idea: free post-secondary education. We need to stop raising tuition fees and instead invest in Canadian education.
By Sanita Fejzic

Mi'kmaq women shut down N.S. Energy Minister event
Several Mi'kmaq women shut down a Maritimes Energy Association briefing in Nova Scotia to protest the Energy East tar sands pipeline and increased fracking pushes in Atlantic Canada.
By PowerShift Canada

Will they unionize? Unifor kicks off voting process at Toyota
After months of organizing, today Unifor announced it has officially filed to be the certified bargaining agent of Toyota workers at plants in Cambridge and Woodstock, Ontario.
By H.G. Watson

This week's top blogs

Activist Toolkit roundup: Inspiration for your activism this spring
With warmer weather comes an incredible variety of opportunities to take your activist efforts to the next level.
By Megan Stacey

'Fair elections' and ending impartial voter drives
What's more jaw-dropping is the Harper government's position: that it was important to end impartial voter drives in favour of clearly partisan ones.
By Mercedes Allen

Follow the Money, Part 2 -- Barrick Gold's Peter Munk
Barrick Gold's retiring chairman Peter Munk has pumped millions into support for the unfettered free market.
By Donald Gutstein

The three big leftist myths about Ukraine and the reasons to remember
It's time to shatter some myths about language and culture in Ukraine. Seems like Putin's propagandists have been working overtime.
By Marusya Bociurkiw

Broken promises and abdication: Flaherty's health-care legacy
March 31 marks the end of the 2004 Health Accord and the last day Canadian health care will have equalization payments to have-not provinces, national standards and federal funding tied to benchmarks.
By Adrienne Silnicki

Is digital news good for us?
Legacy media are yielding many areas of news coverage to small, new digital niche sites. But what kinds of news are they delivering?
By John Miller

This week's top columns

Patriarchal values dominate the sex work debate
The question should be: how best can we ensure the safety and rights of sex workers? But the battle has become about how best to control sex work under the guise of "protecting" sex workers.
By Joyce Arthur

IPCC report: Take action on climate change to prevent a grim future
The world's leading group of climate-change experts, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has issued its latest report, and the prognosis is not good.
By Amy Goodman

Lickspittle Harper government helps Big Oil sabotage climate action
Discussing the world's failure to tackle climate change, psychologist and death denial theorist Sheldon Solomon suggested it's because we're in death denial and busy distracting ourselves.
By Linda McQuaig

A number is never just a number: The skills gap trope
The conclusion based on a review of the "best peer-reviewed research in Canada" is that there "is no evidence of a national labour shortage." So why is the skills shortage such a popular trope?
By Hennessy's Index

Is virtual reality the next big computing platform?
Back in the early '90s I was entranced by the idea of virtual reality and cyberpunk. And now, virtual reality is the bomb all over again.
By Wayne MacPhail

Going all out: Quebec election 2014
In the last week of the Quebec election, the decades-old struggle between Quebec sovereignists and Canadian federalists for political dominance is once again centre stage.
By Duncan Cameron

MORE FROM...
Naomi Klein, Linda McQuaig, Rick Salutin, Duncan Cameron, Wayne MacPhail, Murray Dobbin and others! Read columns...

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This week's top podcasts

Unifor delays vote, escalates campaign to unionize Toyota workers
On Thursday evening, Unifor held another press conference to announce the next step in the Toyota unionization drive.
By John Bonnar

Defending affordable housing in co-operatives
Donald Altman talks about the work of the Alliance for Affordable Co-operative Housing in the face of a looming threat to social housing in Canada.
By Scott Neigh

Magneta Lane
Ariana Barer interviews Lexi Valentine, lead singer and guitarist of the Toronto-based band, Magneta Lane.
By The F Word

Strengthening the rule of law in Zimbabwe
Human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa has spent her career fighting for a strong rule of law in Zimbabwe despite facing harassment and arrest.
By Africafiles, Heather Yundt

Democracy North: Special coverage of Portland Hotel Society audit scandal
This week, Democracy North's Canadian and global news hour features special coverage of the Portland Hotel Society audit scandal.
By Democracy North

This week's top rabbletv

Canada needs to #Stand4Medicare
Monday, March 31, marked the day the federal government withdrew from any leadership role in health care in Canada. Canada needs a new health accord and Canada needs to #Stand4Medicare.
By Canadian Health Coalition

This week's top books

'Crazy Town': Doolittle does a lot with Rob Ford's story
The life and times of Rob Ford written by incredible reporter Robyn Doolittle. What more can we say?
By Heather Morgan

In this issue

Upcoming events

VancouverVancouver South African Film Festival
VSAFF is an annual cultural event with a mission to illuminate the culture, history and politics of South Africa through films that both entertain and inform.
By VSAFF

VariousBuilding Solidarity with Honduras Tour: Peoples' Rights over Corporate Rights
Prominent Honduran human rights activist Bertha Oliva, general coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared and Detained in Honduras, will be speaking in Canada.
By Common Frontiers

VariousEnergy East: Our Risk, Their Reward Ontario Tour
From April 7-16, the Council of Canadians, with local partners, will be visiting communities across Ontario to talk about why TransCanada's proposed Energy East pipeline is all risk and little reward.
By Council of Canadians

This week's top in cahoots

Refugee Rights Day, April 4, 2014
In a time when Canada should be moving towards more stringent protections for all refugees, the Harper Conservatives have done the opposite.
By United Food and Commercial Workers

Sick leave in the public sector: A reality check
The Conservative government wants to strip away sick leave rights and is thinking of contracting out the management of the sick leave system. The numbers don't add up.
By Public Service Alliance of Canada

Council of Canadians celebrates a bittersweet victory for the Experimental Lakes Area
We applaud the transfer of the Experimental Lakes Area to the International Institute of Sustainable Development but decry the Harper government's abdication of its responsibility for fresh water.
By Council of Canadians

We're trying to unionize at Toyota!
This morning Unifor applied to be the union representing workers at Toyota's three Canadian assembly plants -- in Cambridge and Woodstock, Ontario.
By Unifor

Active babble topics

Vancouver's Left Front
By Catchfire

Spring is here -- official announcement
By DaveW

Nova Scotia nurses strike
By Slumberjack

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This week's top tool

Climate change page
The Guardian's resource for all things climate change.

Poll

Who do you think will win the Quebec election?

The Quebec election is on Monday and the lead up to it has been a doozy.

Simply put, who do you think will win the Quebec election?

Choices Pauline Marois -- Parti Québécois Philippe Couillard -- Liberal Party François Legault -- Coalition Avenir Québec Andrés Fontecilla and Françoise David -- Québec Solidaire Who will win is different from who I want to win. I don't care about the Quebec election. I am uninformed about the Quebec election.

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