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Council of Canadians' blog

The Council of Canadians is Canada's largest citizens' organization, with members and chapters across the country. We work to protect Canadian independence by promoting progressive policies on fair trade, clean water, energy security, public health care, and other issues of social and economic concern to Canadians.

Blog - Council of Canadians' blog November 26
Cuban doctor administers a vaccine in Haiti in 2010. Image: United Nations Photo/Flickr
Cuba's medical internationalism during the pandemic deserves a Nobel Peace Prize
Rick Arnold, Council of Canadians | Since March 2020, Cuba has sent 52 medical teams to 39 countries to buttress often shaky health-care systems where the poor and marginalized are at the highest risk of contracting the disease.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog October 23
Mi'kmaq fishers rallying on the shore. Image: Contributed photo
How corporate mega-fishery Clearwater has set the stage for violent conflict in Mi'kma'ki
Robin Tress | What does corporate mega-fishery Clearwater Fine Foods have to do with the Mi'kmaq Nation exercising their treaty right to fish?
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog October 23
Mi'kmaq fishing boats. Image: Courtesy Sipeknekatik
Settler violence against Mi'kmaq fishermen highlights double standard in Canadian policing
Robin Tress | In the past week we've seen shocking acts of violence and vandalism in Nova Scotia as non-Indigenous fishers continue to oppose Mi'kmaq rights-holders exercising their treaty right to fish.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog June 18
Image: Submitted by the Council of Canadians
Former Ontario premier Mike Harris is raking in profits from the long-term care system he helped create
Jan Malek | Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he plans to hold long-term care companies that continued to draw profits while seniors lay sick and dying accountable. Will that include Mike Harris?
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog February 7
Image: Presidencia de la República Mexicana/Flickr
Canadians should not be lulled into ratifying the 'new' NAFTA
Rick Arnold | Civil society organizations in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada demand that Canada not be lulled into rubber stamping the new NAFTA.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog December 17
Image: LeadnowCanada/Flickr
The new NAFTA
Sujata Dey | The old NAFTA gutted local economies by putting profit and free trade over people and the planet. Will the new agreement, which will likely be ratified in 2020, be any better?
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog November 14
Image: gripped/Flickr
Western alienation isn't new, but corporate media is misdiagnosing the problem
Chris Kruszewski | Prairie communities have reasons to be upset. We feel the negative impacts of an undiversified economy daily. But corporate media is distorting Wexit, amplifying far-right voices.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog September 11
Legal challenges to Trans Mountain pipeline argue consultation is not consent
Robin Tress, Dylan Penner | The Federal Court of Appeal will soon hear six legal challenges to the approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline project. But Indigenous communities have not given clear consent for the pipeline.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog August 21
Image: Vladvictoria/Pixabay
When corporate interests hijack government, beware claims about 'public interest'
Robin Tress | Nearly any democratic institution in Canada is susceptible to manipulation by corporate interests, making claims about serving the "public interest" or "public security" highly dubious.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog August 8
Image: Sally B. Tuck/Flickr
Police surveillance stifles climate justice activism, supports fossil fuel interests
Robin Tress | From Kenney's war room to CSIS and the RCMP monitoring Indigenous activists and sharing knowledge with oil giants, democratic institutions have been captured by the fossil fuel industry.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog July 30
Photo from Reclaiming our Past, Present and Future Facebook page
Attawapiskat water crisis continues despite urgent calls from community
Vi Bui | Three weeks after Attawapiskat declared a state of emergency over its water quality, there are no signs of concrete actions from the federal government to address the community's water crisis.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog April 4
A large stack from the Sault Paper Mill. Photo: Billy Wilson/Flickr
Canada is warming faster than we thought. What can we do about it?
Bronwen Tucker | The most important thing to remember is it's still within our reach to avoid most of the future impacts the report describes. We have the solutions.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog February 25
Image: U.S. Department of State/Flickr
New NAFTA faces ratification deadlock
Sujata Dey | As ratification processes clash, the Canadian government should not rubber-stamp this deal or accelerate it through Parliament. It should take the opportunity to push for progressive changes.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog February 22
Fight to stop Trans Mountain continues as feds approve their own pipeline
Bronwen Tucker | The National Energy Board has approved the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project. Sign here to remind Justin Trudeau we won't let him build this pipeline.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog January 16
Image: Council of Canadians
Council of Canadians: We stand in solidarity with Wet'suwet'en
Council of Canadians | The fight against the Coastal GasLink pipeline is not over, and Council of Canadians chapters continue to stand in solidarity with Wet'suwet'en.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog December 12
Hundreds protest TransCanada in Toronto in solidarity with Unist'ot'en
Rachel Small | At the same time as the Unist'ot'en people began a fight in BC courts against TransCanada's injunction, hundreds gathered in Toronto in solidarity to protest at TransCanada's office.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog October 2
Trade deal protest. Photo: Fee Plumley/Flickr
The good, the bad and the ugly in NAFTA 2.0
Sujata Dey | At midnight on Sunday, Canada and the U.S. agreed on a new NAFTA deal, now called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Here is the good, the bad and the ugly within the agreement.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog April 23
Electoral reform rally in Guelph, 2017. Image: Ryan Hodnett/Flickr
Trudeau's broken promises
Brent Patterson | Justin Trudeau's government has broken its promises on democracy, the environment, trade, water, and health. The Council of Canadians is mobilizing for the 2019 federal election.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog March 26
Image: Catherine McKenna/Facebook
Minister McKenna thinks pipelines and environmentalism go hand in hand
Andrea Harden-Donahue | Suggesting that new oil pipelines can help pay for the transition off of fossil fuels is akin to going on an all-poutine diet to lose weight.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog March 19
Waterwalkers at the end of their 42 km march to the Teedon gravel pit on November 5. Image: Council of Canadians
We must act fast to stop the threat to groundwater aquifer in Ontario
Mark Calzavara | The world's purest groundwater is under threat again -- this time from a Dufferin Aggregates gravel pit in the Waverly Uplands, the recharge area for a pristine aquifer in Simcoe County, Ontario.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog January 22
Photo caption: Activists in Toronto protest the murder of 16 year old anti-mining organizer Topacio Reynoso Pacheco. She led youth in her community in opposing Canadian company Tahoe Resource's silver mine in Guatemala. Image: Allan Lissner
New human rights watchdog announced, but will it have teeth?
Rachel Small | We must hold the government accountable to ensure the new ombudsperson is effective.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog December 20
Deepwater Horizon BOP extraction. Image: Deepwater Horizon Response/flickr
BP's dirty (huge) Nova Scotian secret
Andrea Harden-Donahue | BP, the company responsible for the Deepwater Horizon spill, wants to explore offshore drilling in Nova Scotia.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog December 8
Image: Rachel Small
Today is day 142 of the vigil demanding response to Indigenous youth suicide crisis
Rachel Small | Today marks the 142nd day that a continuous 24-hour vigil has been maintained outside of the Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada office in downtown Toronto.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog December 1
Photo: "13 Brave Giants vs Hudbay Minerals," a painting by Pati Flores​
The struggle continues between Q'eqchi' communities and Hudbay Minerals
Rachel Small | “In my community we are fighting for our lands and we will protect them until we die.” Margarita Caal Caal explained to the 150+ people who had packed into the Toronto Friends’ House on November 23rd.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog November 9
Protestors in Saint John. Image: Environmental Defence Canada/flickr
Resisting a climate of misogyny
Andrea Harden-Donahue | Climate justice campaigner Andrea Hardne-Donahue details the harassment and misogyny she and many activists face in response to their fight against the fossil fuel industry.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog August 14
Rally Against Hate. Photo: Eden, Janine and Jim/flickr
Trump fails to condemn white nationalist violence in Virginia
Brent Patterson | A white nationalist rally -- that included neo-Nazis, skinheads, members of the Ku Klux Klan -- took place in the college town of Charlottesville in Virginia this weekend.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog July 28
Image: Flickr/Environmental Defence Canada
Supreme Court rules in favour of Clyde River Inuit, against Chippewas of the Thames First Nation
Mark Calzavara | The ruling more clearly defines what Indigenous consultation on proposed energy projects will look like and will shape the future of energy development in Canada.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog July 27
The Dufferin pit has opened but the gravel washing operations have not begun.
Desperate appeal to Minister Murray is all that stands between contaminating the drinking water of thousands
Mark Calzavara | While the Feds have red-flagged Atrazine, a poisonous herbicide, Ontario seems to have buried its head in the gravel.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog December 12
Flickr/Chris Yakimov
Senate report on pipelines steeped in old-school energy ideas
Robin Tress | This week the Canadian Senate committee on transportation and communication released a report on fossil fuel transportation and it was unsatisfying on many levels.
Blog - Council of Canadians' blog December 7
Flickr/Peg Hunter
Standing Rock inspires Canadian mobilization against extreme pipelines
Mark D'Arcy | Standing Rock has become the spark for an awakening of the human spirit, for a grassroots mobilization of peoples that is growing across North America and the world against extreme pipelines.

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