Photo courtesy of David P. Ball.

Welcome back to the rabble.ca weekly blog roundup!

This week we wish you a happy belated Earth Day by looking at the Vancouver protests against the pipelines and tar sands, and also check in with Quebec and the student protests, Vancouver and their new DTES condos, Alberta and its election, and Ottawa and the continued reproductive rights debate.

Also this Sunday, April 29 3 p.m. EST is the Babble Book Club’s discussion of Food Inc! If you have yet to read the book — that is okay because there is a movie; if you have yet to watch the movie — that is okay because we are discussing food politics in general; and if you have yet to form opinions on food politics — that’s okay, just stop by to enjoy the discussion!

Happy reading everyone!

There is something to be said for consistency, but who said it had to be a positive thing? Bernadette Wagner discusses the repetitive fight for reproductive rights in On the same issue, 25 years later.

Derrick O’Keefe celebrates Earth Day by exposing the Harper government’s shocking environmental politics (re: removing any) and protesting the tar sands, tankers and pipelines in Earth Day in Vancouver: Resistance to Kinder Morgan’s pipeline plan grows.

“That is a delusion of epic proportions.” Pamela Palmater breaks down the issues that the federal, provincial and First Nations politicians have been speaking about and the reality of the situation in When do First Nations children become a priority?

Vancouver continues to gentrify, lacking remorse for those they force out, as David P. Ball investigates in the community in City Hall protest against DTES condos: ‘Rich get rich, the poor get pushed around’.

Gender-policing in female athletes strikes again, and mixes in the familiar tones of patriarchy and racism as Elli Gordon-Moershel discovers in How a female athlete’s body became a battleground for gender assumptions (again).

“A spirit of political agitation, resistance and civil disobedience is emerging that will likely broaden in the months and years ahead.” Tariq Jeeroburkhan gives a thorough look at the protests in Quebec and how they extend beyond just a student issue in Quebec students most visible contingent of province-wide dissatisfaction.

The Alberta election is kaput, so David J. Climenhaga has decided to outline the Top 10 losers and winners of the Alberta election. Hint: there is no number one winner.

Christopher Majka warns of the detrimental effects that not only pesticides, but climate change and habitat loss have on the environment and its creatures in Quiet Spring: Fifty years since Rachel Carson.

Photo courtesy of David P. Ball.