Over the holidays we will continue to have new videos, podcasts, blogs and discussions on babble but our feature stories and book reviews will return in the New Year. Enjoy a few of 2010’s most memorable news stories published on rabble.ca.
We’d like to hear from you over the break — what were your favourite stories, videos, podcasts or babble threads on rabble.ca in 2010? Add your thoughts in the comments.
January
Elizabeth May: Executing the Green master plan
At a time when the prime minister had prorogued Parliament for the second year in a row, rabble.ca kicked off 2010 with an interview with federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May. In it she discusses her chances at the next federal election and her policies.
February
Food alliance for the poor under attack
Ontario’s government attacks the Special Diet payment, designed to help the poorest pay for healthy food, with cuts in the upcoming provincial budget. Liisa Schofield and John Clarke explain what’s at stake and how the poor and working class are under attack.
Other stories, the impact of Haiti’s earthquake is becoming apparent, as is the interference by foreign governments in the recovery process
And who could forget the Vancouver Olympics?
March
Columnist and blogger Murray Dobbin starts his series Harper’s Hitlist: Harper’s Assault on Democracy, an in-depth look at the impact of the Conservative government on everything from agriculture to unions to civil liberties.
Israeli apartheid by any other name still stinks
Toronto writer Jason Kunin looks at Israeli Apartheid Week, a major story on the left in 2010, why the term “apartheid” as applied to Israel and criticism of its government’s decisions makes supporters of that state apoplectic with rage — and why the term is not a misnomer.
April
Court documents put spotlight on minister in banning British MP
rabble news editor Cathryn Atkinson is given access to hundreds of pages of court documents related to the attempt to ban U.K. MP George Galloway from Canada in 2009. The pages include email exchanges between the office of Jason Kenney, immigration minister of Canada, and the High Commission in London, which smacks of political interference, which are linked to in the story. Issues include the degree to which a sitting U.K. politician is being kept out of the country for political reasons, whether his rights under Canada’s Privacy Act were impinged upon, and more.
In three days, Atkinson pulls together a two-part, 7,000-word in-depth story that is covered by the Guardian newspaper.
May
Indian Act remedy Bill C-3 is flawed
An amendment to the Indian Act, Bill C-3, which the government says gives aboriginal women and their descendants more rights is a flawed document, say writers Shelagh Day and Joyce Green. They tell of the courage of First Nations activist Sharon McIvor in her fight against the bill.
June
Two activists speak out against G8/G20 CSIS intimidation
What else? The G20 Summit in Toronto, which turned into the G20 fiasco. In the run-up to the summit, Montreal activists Stefan Christoff and Freda Guttman tell how friends and acquaintances are harassed by CSIS.
During the summit, rabble.ca has 25 writers, bloggers, photographers, videographers and podcast journalists covering both the events inside the gathering and the protests in the streets and subsequent police violence (see here and here).
July
Medics at G20 protests speak out against police brutality
The resonating impact of the G20 Summit continues, with doctors volunteering during the rallies and mass arrests objecting to the treatment of protestors and their disgust at the types of wounds they had to treat.
University of Toronto plan decimates languages, humanities programs
Another story was the University of Toronto’s plan to initiate sweeping changes to its humanities departments, later reversed. Jeannine M. Pitas got the scoop.
August
Seven myths about the Tamil refugees
Tamil refugees arrive at Vancouver Island after months at sea and are apprehended by federal authorities. The myths of who they are and why they left the terror and violence of Sri Lanka are explored.
Fish Lake is a test for Canadian environmental law
And environment lawyer Josh Patterson discusses the ramifications of the federal and B.C. governments’ mulling over of allowing Fish Lake, B.C., to be turned into a large tailings pond for a mining company.
September
Writer and academic Donald Gutstein explores the connections of Stephen Harper and Rupert Murdoch as a Fox News-like station is considered in Quebec.
U.K. politician George Galloway flies to Toronto
Now ex-MP George Galloway wins much of his court case and flies jubilantly into Canada for a short visit just days later. A national tour, to make up for the one missed in 2009, would take place in November.
October
Writing about conditions in Suncor tar sands work camps got me fired
An electrician in Fort McMurray, Mike Thomas, writes about poor conditions for workers in a blog — which leads to his firing.
The horrific Williams murders were about power not fetishes
Writer Elizabeth Pickett writes about the media circus that covered the trial of murderer Russell Williams, and how power and violence over the women he hurt and killed was the issue, not the fetishes which the media fixated on.
November
Mordecai Briemberg and Brian Campbell look at the debate-crushing, invitation-only international conference held at the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, hosted by the CPCCA (Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism) and the ICCA (Inter-Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism) on anti-semitism.
rabble blogger Krystalline Krause covered live a public hearing into the G20 mass arrests.
And Sarah Ghabrial smacks down the controversial article in Maclean’s magazine about Asian students “working too hard” and other stereotypes.
December
What happened when I wrote to Canadian senators about the killing of Bill C-311
Michelle Mech writes about her letter-writing campaign to Canadian senators in the wake of the precedent-setting vote down by the Senate of Bill C-311, a bill with progressive plans to fight climate change.
Stop Canada’s cultural genocide at Barriere Lake
Corvin Russell discusses the fight by the Algonquins at Barriere Lake in Quebec, and the punishments they received by successive provincial and federal governments over decades because of their opposition to mineral development on their traditional lands.
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