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Articles from non-mainstream as opposed to corporate for profit sources.
7 Times Schitts Creeks Stars Used Their Fame
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- Published on Friday, 25 September 2020 04:36
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7 Times Schitt’s Creek’s Stars Used Their Fame to Inspire Action
What Happened to PPE Production in Canada?
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- Published on Friday, 25 September 2020 02:56
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2201 ... September 25, 2020
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What Happened to PPE Production in Canada?:
Joint Statement on Domestic Production of N95 Respirators
CFNU, OCHU/CUPE and Green Jobs Oshawa
On August 21 the federal and Ontario governments announced major subsidies for 3M Canada to expand its Brockville plant, and starting in early 2021, to produce 50 million N95 respirators each year for five years. This is an important step toward addressing the existing shortage of this much needed personal protective equipment (PPE). It is also an important step, in the face of global supply chain uncertainties, to create the needed capacity to produce them in Canada. However, it is not enough to remedy the current deficiencies in the supply chain and PPE policy requirements.
First, why will it have taken a full year from the time that news of a new virus first emerged at the end of 2019 to the launching of the Brockville production? After the SARS crisis in 2003, a Royal Commission made recommendations -- called for by healthcare workers and their unions -- to respond properly to the...
Fight fire with fire
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- Published on Thursday, 24 September 2020 15:08
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Upcoming Webinar on Racism in Policing and Surveillance Tech
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- Published on Thursday, 24 September 2020 12:28
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Dear BCCLA Supporter,
Join us for our upcoming webinar in collaboration with Amnesty International—“Predict and Surveil: Racism in Policing & Surveillance Tech”, a timely event on anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism, surveillance, and criminalization through the rise of invasive digital technologies.
Date: Tuesday, October 6, 2020
Time: 11 AM-1 PM PST (2 PM-4 PM EST)
Where: The event will be livestreamed on YouTube. You can RSVP below if you wish to receive the livestream link directly into your inbox.
RSVP here to receive the link!
ASL Interpretation: One interpreter confirmed, 2nd interpreter TBD.
Police and security agencies in Canada have long subjected Indigenous, Black, and Muslim communities as well as activist groups to illegal surveillance. Algorithmic policing and technological surveillance by law enforcement and spy agencies have rapidly—and quietly—expanded in Canada. These practices threaten privacy and civil liberties, encode patterns of inequality, and solidify colonial structures.
Join us for a chance to hear from academic, community, and legal
experts on how new forms of...
Read more: Upcoming Webinar on Racism in Policing and Surveillance Tech
I am writing to ask you to chip in your first $3.50 contribution so we can organize to defund the Trans Mountain Pipeline and win a Green New Deal. If you can afford to, please make a contribution today.
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- Published on Thursday, 24 September 2020 12:20
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PAOV,
In just a moment I am going to ask you to make your first $3.50 contribution so that we can organize to defund the climate-wrecking Trans Mountain Pipeline and win a Green New Deal.
But first let me explain why this request — especially today — is so important:
In yesterday's throne speech, Trudeau's government made promising commitments to addressing the climate crisis and investing in climate resilience. It was an important step forward. And it’s all thanks to hundreds of supporters, like you, who have spoken up to demand bold climate action and a just recovery.
But here's the truth: many of yesterday's commitments are repackaged promises that Trudeau has failed to deliver on for years.
Words are not enough — we need action.
In the next few weeks, our federal leaders will make the most important political decisions of our lifetime. They will debate how to use public money to recover from the global health pandemic.
350 is building the programs and campaigns capable of bringing people together around the country to build pressure on our leaders to defund dangerous fossil fuel projects and invest in bold climate action in line with a Green New Deal.
But...
Where is the Recovery Fund to Save the Lives of Migrants?
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- Published on Thursday, 24 September 2020 04:36
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2200 ... September 24, 2020
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Where is the ‘Recovery Fund’ to Save the Lives of Migrants?
Sandro Mezzadra
There is a tendency on the part of the media and the political system to treat what is happening in the Mediterranean, and the issue of migration generally, as a separate topic in itself, usually describing it as an emergency (whether a security or humanitarian one – this makes little difference in terms of the logic of the discourse). For instance, no one would think to link this issue with the “recovery fund,” which is discussed in a completely different language and tone.
However, it seems to me that this attitude is deeply misleading. While the “recovery fund” marks a qualitative leap in the process of European integration (as to the direction, this remains to be established, of course), battles of fundamental importance are being waged in the Mediterranean for the definition of the borders of the Europe that is to be redeveloped – and therefore both for the quality of its citizenship and for its relations with the outside world,...
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Throne Speech full of big, vague promises – but will it deliver?
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- Published on Wednesday, 18 November 2020 13:22
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The Throne Speech
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- Published on Wednesday, 23 September 2020 11:58
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Paov,
I just finished watching today’s Speech from the Throne and wanted to share some thoughts.
The speech unveiled some promising commitments for climate action. I could hardly believe it when the Governor General said “climate action will be a cornerstone of our plan to support and create a million jobs across the country.” She went on to name commitments to invest in climate resilience and public transportation systems.1
This is the boldest climate commitment that the Trudeau government has ever made. And, it’s all thanks to people like you. This kind of commitment is only possible because hundreds of thousands of people spoke up and took action to demand bold climate action and a just recovery.
But, words are not enough. We need to see action. Many of today’s commitments are repackaged promises that Trudeau has failed to deliver on for years. It has been 463 days since the government declared a climate emergency and failed to act. We need to see the Trudeau government match their words with bold action.
In the next few weeks, our federal leaders will make the most important political decisions of our lifetime....
The California Disaster: What is the Link Between Wildfires and the Coronavirus?
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- Published on Wednesday, 23 September 2020 01:00
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2199 ... September 23, 2020
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The California Disaster: What is the Link Between Wildfires and the Coronavirus?
Christoph Hermann
I live in the San Francisco-Bay Area outside of Berkeley. Following the COVID-19 outbreak we went into shelter-in-place in March and officially never left after a second wave in early summer perpetuated school closures and other preventive measures. Following another dry winter and an unprecedented heatwave, Northern California is currently experiencing a series of massive wildfires, much earlier and widespread than in ‘normal’ years. As a result, the Bay Area for weeks struggled with bad air quality and occasionally with an apocalyptic orange-gleaming sky.
These are very challenging times. But the simultaneous occurrence of a healthcare and an environmental crisis, or more precisely, the inability to solve them, is not a coincidence. What they both have in common is the dependence on a technological fix for our social and environmental problems. Or, to put it differently, the unwillingness to question the rationality of our economic system and alter associated ways of living. The dependence on a technological fix, in turn,...
Read more: The California Disaster: What is the Link Between Wildfires and the Coronavirus?
Were heading to the polls
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- Published on Tuesday, 22 September 2020 06:50
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Here’s what you need to know about the BC election
We just found out that BC will be heading to the polls on October 24th to elect a new provincial government.
It may feel like a strange time to be having an election. COVID-19 case numbers are on the rise across the province, and it’s been hard to see the mountains through thick clouds of smoke blowing up from the devastating wildfires in the U.S.
But for me, these dual crises reinforce just how critical it is that we elect a government who is ready to put people before polluters, step it up on climate action, and ensure the protection of our environment. We don’t have a moment to lose.
To do that, the next six weeks will be critical. We have a major opportunity right now to influence the platforms of the major parties, and ultimately, the direction of our next government. But how we do that, and how effective it is, depends on you.
HAVE YOUR SAYAs a community, our mandate this election is to put climate issues at the top of the political agenda. Because we are running
What Questions Must Students Ask Their Educators, and Why?
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- Published on Tuesday, 22 September 2020 03:20
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2198 ... September 22, 2020
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What Questions Must Students Ask Their Educators, and Why?
Raju Das
Given the enormous problems that humanity is facing, it is reasonable to expect to see a future society that is radically different from, and superior to, the current one, that is a society which is genuinely democratic in the economic and non-economic spheres of life. And to produce a better society, we need better ideas, even if ideas are surely not enough. Furthermore, to learn good ideas, it is important to ask good questions. In this context, one might consider students in colleges and universities more specifically. Their active participation in the learning process is crucial to their intellectual success. Such participation can come in many forms, one of which is asking the educators probing questions. So for both intellectual and practical reasons, it is important that students ask good questions.
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Priorities for the Throne Speech
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- Published on Wednesday, 18 November 2020 13:22
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Transit Workers Are Still Dying -- With No End in Sight
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- Published on Monday, 21 September 2020 00:26
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2197 ... September 21, 2020
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Transit Workers Are Still Dying -- With No End in Sight
Marcia Brown
Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, public-transit workers have been called "essential" and "heroes." Yard signs plaster suburbia with "Thank you essential workers" and "Essential workers are heroes." City apartment windows boast similar signs. And every day, these transit workers show up to work, exposed to hundreds of people a day, and transport other frontline essential workers to their jobs as nurses, grocery clerks, and other jobs we can’t do without.
But their work has come at an appalling cost. Hundreds of these transit workers have died as a result of their exposure to the virus while at work. Nearly 100 members of Transit Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 in New York City alone have died. Every time there’s a hot spot around the country, labor leaders told me, transit workers in that region contract COVID-19 and some die. "As soon as I see a hot spot, I’m like ‘Oh no,’ because there’s the buses," said John Costa, international president...
Read more: Transit Workers Are Still Dying -- With No End in Sight
Episode 2: Canada in The World w/ Tyler A. Shipley
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- Published on Sunday, 20 September 2020 00:08
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A Socialist Project podcast ... No. 2 ... September 20, 2020
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Episode 2 – Canada in The World w/ Tyler A. Shipley
In this episode we speak with Tyler A. Shipley about his new book Canada in The World: Settler Capitalism and the Colonial Imagination. We dive into the juxtaposition between Canada’s performance as a well-intentioned peacekeeping force on the international stage, with its original sin of colonial genocide and its continuing behaviour as a settler colonial power.
Tyler A. Shipley is professor of Culture, Society, and Commerce at the Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning.
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Judge orders the release of defenders!
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- Published on Wednesday, 18 November 2020 13:22
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#MayflowersKill: we asked Indigenous Peoples what the Mayflower means to them.
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- Published on Friday, 18 September 2020 09:22
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Here are their powerful perspectives on why this is not something to be celebrated
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'I Am Greta' Shows the Struggle of a Teen With the Future Resting on Her Shoulders
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- Published on Friday, 18 September 2020 04:32
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'I Am Greta' Shows the Struggle of a Teen With the Future Resting on Her Shoulders
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Lessons from the Gig Economy for Transforming Public Services
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- Published on Friday, 18 September 2020 02:46
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin ... No. 2196 ... September 18, 2020
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Lessons from the Gig Economy for Transforming Public Services
Ursula Huws
Even before the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, major upheavals were taking place in the UK labour market. Between 2016 and 2019, the number of people working for online platforms such as Deliveroo and TaskRabbit doubled from 4.7% of the adult population to 9.6% – the equivalent of 5.5 million people. Lockdown caused these trends to escalate still more sharply as a housebound population switched en masse to ordering goods online.
For many, the growth of the platform economy is cause for concern. But I believe the principles of platform technology could be used by governments to transform the way public services are delivered, taking advantage of the way that they efficiently connect users with the services that they want. Under municipal control, or through public-private partnerships, platforms could transform service delivery to citizens.
Colleagues and I surveyed 28,000 people across Europe in our research on the platform economy. In the UK, we measured changes between 2016 and 2019 not just among...
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ICE & Best Western
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- Published on Thursday, 17 September 2020 22:22
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Best Western has opened its hotel doors to ICE to detain migrant children in the U.S.
Tell the hotel’s executives to stop participating in a shadowy system for secretly detaining migrant children.
A,
Since the beginning of the year, over 100 migrants — many believed to be children — have been detained at a Best Western Hotel by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contractor.
There has been no way for these kids to report neglect or abuse. No way for them to request legal help. And no way for their parents to even know where they are.
Being held in a hotel instead of a migrant detention center means that the systems put in place to protect and keep track of these children are gone. Once they walked through the doors of the Best Western, they essentially disappeared.
A babushka doll of crises
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- Published on Thursday, 17 September 2020 15:16
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