Election 2011: rabble.ca has chosen 10 key ridings across Canada for progressives to watch in the run-up to the May 2 vote, and asked local writers to assess them. The profiles highlight why the riding profiled is important and issues local campaigns are focused upon.
politics
politicsTen ridings to watch: Burnaby-Douglas, an NDP homeland
Election 2011: rabble.ca has chosen 10 key ridings across Canada for progressives to watch in the run-up to the May 2 vote, and asked local writers to assess them. The profiles highlight why the riding profiled is important and issues local campaigns are focused upon.
The riding of Burnaby-Douglas was created in 1996, with the majority of residents coming from a wide number of communities. The various Chinese communities make up more than half of that majority, with South Asians at 15 per cent and Filipinos at seven per cent. English is the language spoken at home in 60 per cent of Burnaby homes, with one in five households Chinese speaking. French is not among the top 10 languages and is spoken at home by less than one per cent.
Ten ridings to watch: Will Elizabeth May and the Greens take Saanich-Gulf Islands?
Election 2011: rabble.ca has chosen 10 key ridings across Canada for progressives to watch in the run-up to the May 2 vote, and asked local writers to assess them. The profiles highlight why the riding profiled is important and issues local campaigns are focused upon.
Will Elizabeth May pull off one of the most heartening upsets in the 2011 federal election campaign?
The 56-year-old Green Party leader and candidate for Saanich-Gulf Islands on Vancouver Island has been running against Conservative Gary Lunn, the minister of state for sport (and the 2010 Winter Olympics), an old-school Alliance/Reform Party stalwart with five successful terms of office behind him.
Ten ridings to watch: No Bloc party in Gatineau as NDP pursue
Election 2011: rabble.ca has chosen 10 key ridings across Canada for progressives to watch in the run-up to the May 2 vote, and asked local writers to assess them. The profiles highlight why the riding is important and issues local campaigns are focused on.
In Gatineau, incumbent Bloc MP Richard Nadeau is fighting hard to retain his seat, which he won from the previous Liberal MP with a handful of votes. That MP was no one else than Françoise Boivin, now running for the NDP!
Boivin's defection from the Liberal Party was controversial, linked with allegations (not proven) of malpractices. It now seems in any case that Françoise has the capacity to regain her seat as she is benefiting from the orange crush "wave".
Spread the red square everywhere: Why solidarity with Quebec students is crucial
The Charest government has turned to repression to try to break the largest and longest student strike in Quebec history. Students had already endured heavy-handed policing, including hundreds of arrests and brutal attacks by riot cops on campuses and in the streets.
Globalizing resistance: Marxism conference this weekend in Toronto
This time last year, the effects of the Arab Spring had already inspired millions of people around the world to think about the possibility of revolution - and the role that they themselves could play in creating a better world.
While political pundits and right-wing leaders argued that the revolutions would never last (and that they had no connection to what was going on over here), activists had other ideas.
Occupy shines light on capitalism's inequality
Important things missing from report on G20 policing
During the G20 meetings in Toronto in June 2010, police arrested over 1000 people. In the lead-up to the G20, police carried out extensive infiltration of activist groups, and a number of activists remain in jail today. Victims of the police repression have waited two long years without anything resembling accountability. rabble.ca correspondent krystalline kraus reported live from the streets of Toronto during the G20.
Appeal from Quebec: Solidarity and legal support needed
Sisters, brothers,
We write you during a dark time for democratic, human and associative rights in Quebec with the following appeal for your help and solidarity.
As you have no doubt heard, the government recently enacted legislation that amounts to the single biggest attack on the right to organize and freedom of expression in North America since the McCarthy period and the biggest attack on civil and democratic rights since the enactment of the War Measures Act in 1970. Arguably, this recent law will unduly criminalize more law-abiding citizens than even McCarthy's hearings and the War Measures Act ever could.
UN report bolsters Canada's right to food movement
"Canada has long been seen as a land of plenty. Yet today one in ten families with a child under six is unable to meet their daily food needs. These rates of food insecurity are unacceptable, and it is time for Canada to adopt a national right to food strategy." - Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.
Yesterday Olivier De Schutter concluded his first official visit to Canada as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, a whirlwind fact-finding mission and tour across the country conducted on the invitation of the Canadian Government.
Has the Arab Spring given way to a Dark Fall?
In order to provide an intelligible understanding and analysis of the current situation in the Middle East, especially regarding Syria, it is important to briefly discuss the current Middle Eastern context within the larger frame of U.S. and European imperialism.
Throughout the last year, people all over the globe - especially on the left, the young and progressives - have been living the excitement of the achievements of the peoples in various parts of the Arab world, especially Tunisia and Egypt.
I am sure that also many of us were cheering for the NATO invasion - at the request of most members in the Arab League - which at the time we thought of as a life-saving intervention!