Canada

Bell Tolls Once Again In Lac-Mégantic, Marking A Decade

July 7, 2023 Railroad Workers United, Popular Resistance. Educate! Canada, Lac-Mégantic, Railroads, Workplace Safety

Forty-seven chimes rang today at Sainte-Agnès de Lac-Mégantic church to honor lives lost but not forgotten by a community renowned for their strength and their ability to band together in the face of tragedy. Yet, they are now met with a threat determined to tear them apart as a plan to expropriate land in an effort to reroute the rail line rubs salt in a wound not healed. Representatives from Railroad Workers United attended Lac-Mégantic’s 10th Anniversary Memorial March to encourage residents that they're not alone. Canadian railroads are American railroads, their safety is our safety, and their struggle is also ours.

Alberta Must Do More To Address Rising Drug Poisonings

June 28, 2023 Anna Junker, Edmonton Journal. Resist! Canada, Drug War, Harm Reduction, Health Care

There is a sense of desperation on Edmonton streets as outreach workers battle drug poisonings while Alberta recorded its highest-ever number of opioid fatalities in a single month. In an update to the province’s Substance Use Surveillance Data this week, Alberta recorded 179 opioid deaths in April, the highest number of opioid fatalities recorded in a single month since 175 deaths were reported in December 2021. In total, 613 Albertans died from an opioid poisoning between January and April this year. Data for May has not been released. February saw 151 opioid deaths, up from the 115 recorded in January.

He Thought He’d Been Accepted To A Canadian University

June 14, 2023 Saurav Sarkar, The Real News. Resist! Canada, Deportation, Higher Education, Immigration, Scams

As the days and hours melted away, it was looking like all hope was lost: Tuesday, June 13, was going to be Lovepreet Singh’s last day in Canada before being deported. “[My family] sacrificed their whole life savings to sponsor my education here… and I’m facing deportation,” Singh told CBC News last week. “My dream is shattered,” he added. Now, thanks to a formidable protest mounted by international students and former students facing similar circumstances, Singh will be allowed to stay, at least temporarily. Singh, whose father is a farmer in Punjab, India, entered Canada several years ago on a student visa with an admissions letter verifying his enrollment at Lambton College’s Mississauga campus—a letter that he did not know had been doctored.

The Case For A (Mostly) Car-Free World

June 12, 2023 Anthony Leong, Canadian Dimension. Create! Canada, Car-Free Community, climate crisis, Transportation

I grew up in Los Angeles, one of the most sprawling, car-dependent cities in the world. It’s easy to find highway-sized lanes in residential areas and signposts right in the middle of tiny sidewalks in my hometown. Although I regularly cycled and took public transit right up until I was 18 and moved away, the state of my city and the way people moved through it was normal to me, a mundane fact of life—I didn’t see that it could be another way. I also didn’t understand just how systemically marginalized pedestrians, cyclists, and public transit users were until I watched a video about “stroads” by the YouTuber Not Just Bikes.

First Nations At The Frontline Of Canada’s Fires

June 10, 2023 Brandi Morin, The Real News. Educate! Canada, climate crisis, First Nations, Wildfires

As he watched the last plane lumber down the runway, Chief Allan Adam was finally able to breathe freely again. He had just posted a live video from the Fort Chipewyan airport on the evening of May 31, documenting the last flight out with evacuees fleeing impending disaster. A wildfire was advancing approximately seven kilometres from his remote community, which is accessible only by boat or plane. But the relief was short-lived. The straight-shooting leader of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, one of three Indigenous communities in Alberta who call Fort Chipewyan home, was abruptly hit with biting pain.

Activists Block The CANSEC Weapons Show In Ottawa

June 1, 2023 Brent Patterson, Peace Brigades International-Canada. Resist! Anti-war Movement, Canada, Wars and Militarism, Weapons makers

As more than 100 activists blocked the entrances to the parking lots of the CANSEC weapons show in Ottawa yesterday, traffic was snarled for a distance on Uplands Avenue and the Airport Parkway delaying many attendees getting inside the EY Centre. Canada’s Defence Minister Anita Anand, who was scheduled to speak at 7:50 am, tweeted at 9:51 am that she had “just delivered [her] remarks”. There was also a tweet at 9:17 am that suggests she was just then “officially open[ing] the event”. After Anand’s speech, U.S. Ambassador David L. Cohen visited the booth of Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons company.

Group Of Seven Should Finally Be Shut Down

May 26, 2023 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute For Social Research. Educate! Canada, France, G7, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom (UK), US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism, Western imperialism

During the May 2023 Group of Seven (G7) summit, the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, near where the meeting was held. Not doing so would have been an act of immense discourtesy. Despite many calls for an apology from the US for dropping an atomic bomb on a civilian population in 1945, US President Joe Biden has demurred. Instead, he wrote in the Peace Memorial guest book: ‘May the stories of this museum remind us all of our obligations to build a future of peace’. Apologies, amplified by the tensions of our time, take on interesting sociological and political roles.

Call For Solidarity From The #EkoniAci Movement

May 14, 2023 Montreal Counter-Info, It's Going Down. Resist! Blockade, Canada, Indigenous Rights, Logging, Solidarity

In order to enforce the moratorium on logging on their territory, Nitaskinan, members of the Atikamekw of Manawan are currently setting up a new blockade. It is located at km 16 on the road to Manawan, north of St-Michel-des-Saints. Logging companies have been informed that they will not be able to return with their machinery when the thaw occurs on May 19th. We need to be many to ensure that they respect this instruction. It is possible to come now to help set up the camp. Those who can free themselves, the most sensitive moments are likely to be from May 19 to 26. The blockade will remain in place afterwards and solidarity will still be necessary.

Canada: Federal Employees Reach Tentative Agreement, Strike Continues

May 2, 2023 Nick Seebruch, Rabble.ca. Resist! Canada, Public employees, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Most Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) employees returned to work on Monday, May 1, after a tentative agreement was reached between the union and their employer, the Treasury Board, in the early hours of Monday morning. Under this tentative deal, the union had secured for its members a wage increase of 12 per cent spread over four years, while members who are close to retirement age will receive a lump sum payment of up to $2,500 in lieu of the wage increase that they would have received. “During a period of record-high inflation and soaring corporate profits, workers were told to accept less – but our members came together and fought for better,” said Chris Aylward, PSAC national president.

Canada’s Largest-Ever Strike Against A Sole Employer Is Underway

April 25, 2023 Jeremy Appel, Jacobin. Resist! Canada, Federal Workers, Labor Unions, Strikes

Canada is in the midst of the largest strike against a single employer in the country’s history. On April 19, 155,000 public sector workers — who have been without a contract for more than two years — walked off the job, setting up 250 picket lines across Canada. Thus far, the government’s approach to negotiations with the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) has been, at best, ham-fisted. The bulk of the workers — 120,000 employees of various government departments who answer to the Treasury Board — are asking for an annual 4.5 percent wage increase retroactive to June 2021, when negotiations with the government began.

Environmental Racism And Corporate Colonialism Revealed At Canadian Bank

April 24, 2023 BDS Coalition Canada. Resist! Big Banks, Canada, Palestinian rights, Racism

Thanks to Canadian BDS Coalition member, Human Rights for All, for their solidarity at the Royal Bank of Canada's Annual General Meeting (RBC AGM) on April 5, 2023, in Saskatoon. With vehicular access blocked and two snipers on the roof, at least 150 environmental and Indigenous rights activists rallied in front of the Delta Bessborough Hotel in Saskatoon where RBC was holding their AGM. They were there to protest against RBC’s putting 99% of their energy investments in fossil fuels. Since the Paris climate agreement was signed, RBC has provided over $270 billion to fossil fuel companies, with last year representing a 45 per cent increase in fossil fuel funding from the year before.

Over 100,000 Canadian Government Workers Are Now On Strike

April 20, 2023 Emily Leedham, The Real News Network. Resist! Canada, Federal Employees, Strikes, Worker Rights and Jobs

One of the largest strikes in Canadian history kicked off Wednesday morning. Federal workers within two bargaining units, the Canada Revenue Agency and the Treasury Board, who are members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and spread across 20 departments, began a legal strike at 12:01 AM on Wednesday, April 19. The two PSAC bargaining units make up 155,000 federal workers across Canada. Over 100,000 workers will participate in the strike, while 47,000 workers deemed “essential” will remain on the job. PSAC has released a list of 250 picket line locations across Canada, including government buildings and MP’s offices.

Court Case Could Change The Future Of Mining In British Columbia

April 16, 2023 Francesca Fionda, The Narwhal. Resist! Canada, Indigenous Sovereignty, Legal System, Mining

Imagine finding someone you’ve never met digging through your backyard, looking for gold. You tell them it’s your property, but they don’t leave. Instead, they tell you they’re allowed to be there because they’ve made a mineral claim on your land — and they’re right. B.C.’s current system, governed by the Mineral Tenure Act, allows almost anyone to make an online mineral claim to explore an area for minerals and have rights over what they find. They don’t have to consult or alert First Nations or private property owners if the claim is on their land. The Gitxaała Nation and Ehattesaht First Nation are fighting to change that. The two First Nations start presenting their case against how the province gives out mineral titles on their land Monday at the B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver.

Beyond Fatalism: Renewing Working-Class Politics

March 26, 2023 Sam Gindin, The Bullet. Strategize! Canada, Labor Movement, Politics, popular power, Working Class

“We need to ask ourselves,” Leo Panitch and Donald Swartz stated in the third edition of From Consent to Coercion, “whether free pertains to those who do business or whether it pertains also to the majority of Canadians who do not do business.” Their book, now a classic, focused on a critical expression of the tension between liberal democratic principles and capitalist realities: the substantive right of workers to strike. Canadian workers were officially granted the basic democratic right to form unions, but the substance of that right – the withdrawal by workers of their labour power – was regularly suspended when workers successfully used it.

Indigenous Group Fighting Emissions Cap Supported By Oil Company

March 20, 2023 Geoff Dembicki, DeSmog. Educate! Canada, Corporatism, Indigenous Activism, Oil and Gas

A national Indigenous group is fighting a proposed federal limit on oil and gas sector emissions by arguing it will harm First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities. But the group has a powerful non-Indigenous ally, according to corporate documents from Canada’s second-largest oil and gas producer. Cenovus, a Calgary-based oil sands company that last year had net earnings of $6.5 billion, says in those documents that it has paid for membership with the Indigenous Resource Network (IRN). Yet a spokesperson for the network called that a “misrepresentation.”

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources