(with Marc Lee and Iglika Ivanova)

Most British Columbians would agree that everyone should pay their fair share of taxes. And most assume that the wealthy pay more, not only in straight dollars, but also a higher tax rate as a share of their income.

So most would probably be shocked to learn that, in reality, that is no longer how our provincial tax system works.

It’s been an important week for Quebec student protesters, and we had lots of coverage in our blogs section! Ethan Cox discusses a poll which was released Tuesday with encouraging results for protesting students, and on Thursday he argues again that if you go by the numbers, students are winning.

Tuesday started out looking like a bad day for a protest. A constant drizzle fell on Montreal's streets throughout the morning, turning my shoes into a soggy mess before I even reached the demo. In the wake of Loi 78 many expected a record turnout to celebrate the student strike's 100th day, and rage against the infringements of our civil liberties contained in the "Special Law," but with the rain I wasn't so sure.

I should have known my fellow Quebecois are made of sterner stuff! Rather than a wet dud, Tuesday turned out to be the largest demonstration in Canadian history. A moment in time I'm sure I will be telling my grandchildren about one day.

OpenMedia.ca has launched a citizen-made online video educating Canadians about the true cost of the government's online spying legislation C-30 and the threat it poses to personal privacy.

If passed, Bill C-30 will force Canadians to pay for a range of authorities to invasively access their private data, at any time, without a warrant.

Just about at the same time that people in the province of Quebec decided, in overwhelming majority, that decisive action was required by their provincial government to protect the French language, people in western Canada decided that equally decisive action was required by their provincial governments to ensure control of their own natural resources.

The federal government of the day (led by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau) more-or-less accepted the Quebec National Assembly's right to address the language issue. But the same government waged a battle of sumo-like proportions to try to wrestle control over oil, potash, uranium and other resources from western Canadian provinces.

Which didn't go over very well.

"Environmentalism has failed" is a statement that deserves attention. It comes from famed environmentalist David Suzuki marking 50 years since Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring, widely regarded as having sparked the environmental movement.

Suzuki's May 2 article on the fundamental failure of environmentalism is ominous. The world faces not only environmental calamities such as deforestation, coral reef depletion and freshwater shortages, it is also mired in economic crises and harsh political realities.

Here at rabble.ca, we've been hard at work to break through the wall of mainstream media that - either by ignoring or cynically attacking - has largely kept the rest of Canada in the dark about the historic social movement taking place in Quebec.

All across Canada and beyond, we need fair and in-depth coverage of the Quebec student strike. Not just so we can show solidarity with their efforts, but so we can learn from their creative and determined movement. Here are a few of my thoughts on the strike, which I originally wrote up for a regular column I do in The Source / La Source, a bilingual newspaper in Vancouver. 

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Exciting news!

As previously alluded to, the Babble Book Club will be hosting Vancouver-based author Kevin Chong for a discussion of his novel -- and current Babble Book Club selection -- Beauty Plus Pity Sunday June 24 3 p.m. EST/ 12 p.m. PST. Kevin will join the conversation for one hour on our previously established babble thread to answer all your questions and receive your comments.

Just in time for the 100th day of Quebec's student strike comes a birthday present of epic proportions for the indefatigable students.

They're winning.

A QMI/Leger Marketing poll released early Tuesday morning by the Journal de Montreal bore the banner headline "Le gouvernment va trop loin" (The government has gone too far).

On the central question of whether respondents supported the government or the students in the ongoing conflict over increases to tuition fees, the poll found a stunning 18 point shift from the government to the students, compared to a poll taken ten days earlier. Although this shift still leaves the students trailing the government by 8 points, the momentum is clearly on their side.

On Friday, Andrew Nikiforuk, the keynote speaker for 'Our World, Our Responsibility: Translating Knowledge Into Action,' opened the day's conference by giving an in-depth and engaging presentation on the Alberta tar sands. Three hundred people, mostly students, packed themselves into a lecture theatre at the University of Toronto Scarborough to learn about Canada’s largest and dirtiest energy project.

Nikiforuk, author of Tar Sands Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent, showed powerful images of protests against the Northern Gateway pipeline, the tar sands themselves and the pristine landscapes threatened by tar sands development and pipelines that will transport the bitumen to China.

Ryan Leef
Member of Parliament, Yukon
Open Letter #13
May, 2012

Dear Ryan,

Recently we watched a biography of Pete Seeger. We were aware of Seeger's importance to folk song traditions and his social activism. But we were surprised to learn about his contributions towards the clean-up of the Hudson River.

The Hudson was once so polluted that it was declared a dead river -- therefore an acceptable place to dump untreated sewage and industrial waste.

Harper has his majority and now he is free to wreak havoc on Canadian families. As the chosen champion of corporate interests, he has demonstrated his government's willingness to sacrifice our towns and cities, our families, our children's futures, even the very health of the planet, as he kowtows to foreign interests and grovels before the alter of corporate greed.

As students in Quebec continue their 14-week strike, students in Nova Scotia continue to be reminded that post-secondary education is not a priority for the Nova Scotia government. Students and faculty at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) in particular are bracing for severe funding cuts as the provincial government continues to target the school, which has faced financial hardship for several years. Students have already been told to expect $900 in total fee hikes, including tuition fee increases and the introduction of new fees. NSCAD will also be offering fewer classes and making further program cuts. The university is recommending laying off 26 faculty and staff members.

The Occupy McMaster movement started in November 2011, when a group of McMaster students sought to stand in solidarity with the Occupy movements around the world. More than a year later Occupy McMaster continues to grow, evolving in number and activity.

I wish I could answer the above question with absolute certainty. One thing is certain: Canada is not the only decision-maker when it comes to refusing air travellers on overseas trips, and on some selected domestic flights which pass through U.S. airspace. This fact made many civil rights activists question whether Canada has lost its airspace sovereignty.

Brian Mulroney's success in leading the Progressive Conservative Party to a second majority victory in the general election of 1988 was the last hurrah of the old Conservative Party, the party whose lineage extended back to the great days of the Liberal Conservatives of the 19th century, under the leadership of Sir John A. Macdonald. It is ironic that the party's final electoral victory was in aid of the implementation of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement that had been negotiated between the Mulroney government and the Reagan Administration.

Opponents of the Gitxsan Treaty Society spent Monday preparing themselves for arrest. For much of the day, Gitxsan community members crowded at one end of Omineca Street before the Gitxsan Treaty Society offices while police assembled a block away.

The day had a strange character. A hot, sunny day in the north, people set up lawn chairs, visited friends and family, and wandered down the block to buy ice cream. Children played on the sidewalk, while elders sat and talked. However, beneath the conviviality of community life lay deep-seated tensions.

In the 21st century, corporate bosses aren't opposed to journalists making a fortune -- as long as they make it for someone else.

So while the Toronto Globe and Mail struggles with technological and social changes that have driven its business model toward obsolescence, it is also launching an attack on its unionized journalistic workforce under the cover of Internet-caused hard times.

The world needs to hear a lot less from the mainstream media and a lot more from rabble.ca
~ Linda McQuaig

It seems that almost everywhere you turn today another government, another media organization, another pundit is worshipping at the altar of "austerity."

Not at rabble.ca. We're an alternative voice. They say austerity, we say abundance. We need an abundance of democracy, an abundance of voices calling for change. We need alternative media to trumpet alternatives. We're asking you to join us in rejecting the austerity agenda by becoming a member of rabble.ca today.

On a fine spring day with trees in soft green bloom, I left Manhattan for Pete Seeger's place, near Beacon NY, courtesy of his longtime friend and noted videographer Jim Brown. During the drive Jim and I talked non-stop: about my singer-songwriter beginnings, about the early folk music scene, Jim's work with Pete and other folk greats, the Occupy movement, the state of the world. From a local Japanese restaurant we picked up sushi enough for us and Pete, wife Toshi, and daughter Tinya.