By Graham Beverley - 19 March 2013

...Thomas Mulcair and several other leading New Democrats traveled to Washington, D.C. and New York City last week for a series of closed-door talks with Obama administration officials, Democratic Party politicians, business leaders and other representatives of American and international capital. Mulcair used the opportunity to demonstrate to the U.S. ruling elite that the New Democratic Party (NDP) is dedicated to defending the interests of big business and a dependable ally of U.S. imperialism.

By Duncan Cameron - March 12, 2013

It remains to be seen if the [Conservative Party of Canada] drawing on a conservative movement made of libertarians, militarists, resource extraction champions, and environmental charlatans can hold on to power, let alone build for future success.

By Alex Hundert - March 15, 2013

While I have been imprisoned at the CNCC, every attempt that I have made to act against the deteriorating conditions in the prison, though mostly in accordance with authorized structural mechanisms, has not only been negated or dismissed but also at times criminalized. This very much parallels some of my pre-imprisonment organizing experiences as well, where sometimes those efforts most in accordance with so-called “proper channels” were often those most targeted by authorities for criminalization.

By Paul Kahnert - March 11, 2013

Creating legislation that takes away human rights in the workplace, and claiming that it is giving you rights, is deliberately dishonest. What it's really about is greed and low wages...The top 1% love their money. They also love the processes that make them even more money...The only way to get low wages and dramatically increase profits for the wealthy is to get rid of unions.

By Mike Blanchfield - 6 March 2013

Venezuela has sent a formal protest to the Canadian government for Prime Minister Stephen Harper's "insensitive" remarks on the death of President Hugo Chavez...A statement from a senior Venezuelan government official says a "card of protest" was sent to Ottawa after Harper expressed what he called insensitivity at a time when their country is grieving.

By Dru Oja Jay - Media Co-op

To Canadian journalists, it's obvious that Chavez was a dictator, an autocratic man who fooled millions into voting for him and made a mess of his country. So obvious, that they don't need to cite evidence...[T]he establishment's visceral and irrational response has...complex underpinnings. It comes down to a failure of imagination. Venezuela forces pundits and leaders uncomfortably close to thinking two thoughts which are unthinkable in Canada: that oil revenues and society's wealth might be used for the common good, and that Canada might have a foreign policy substantially independent of the US.

By Dennis Gruending - March 8, 2013

The conservative movement has been quite successful in building a network in Ottawa and across the country in the past 20 years...The list of Manning’s chosen speakers in Ottawa is always interesting for what it reveals. The group comprises conservative politicians, past and present, the usual suspects from public relations and government relations firms, some business people, but also a slice of the media...There are also academics, pollsters, representatives from right-wing think tanks and advocacy group and elements of the religious right.

By Vic Neufeld - 8 March 2013

Recent media reports have noted research showing that at least 3,000 children are now known to have died while attending Canada’s aboriginal residential schools. The findings were released last month by...[the] Truth and Reconciliation Commission...[It] claims that the results are part of the first systematic search of government, school and other records, and provide primary documentation identifying deaths, when they occurred, and the circumstances.

By Ted Snider - March 7, 2013

Harper should take a better look not only at Chavez, but at himself, before he insensitively responds to the death of a man whom a majority of Venezuelans had just re-elected and lectures them on economics and democracy...As Harper has no right to criticize Chavez on economics, so he has no right to lecture Venezuelans on democracy.

By Yves Engler - March 6th, 2013

The protests against the Keystone XL pipeline have already focused a great deal of attention on the Conservatives’ terrible environmental record and if Obama rejects the project, it would deliver a major blow to their tar sands oriented economic policy. It could also precipitate a sort of existential crisis within the ardently pro-US Conservative party.

March 5 - Dulce Et Decorum

There’s something about the free speech debate that makes everyone act as if they have one of those long white body worms in their brains, writhing to get out through the thinnest pore possible...It makes people state things as fact that would normally only be appropriate in a George Orwell novel...Take, for example, the statement made by Jason Kenney on Israeli Apartheid Week.

By Carl Bronski - WSWS

A February 15 report in the Toronto Star has detailed the close collaboration between the federal Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Ontario and Quebec provincial police forces with leaders of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) to “exchange information about protests and develop common stances” in the run-up to a 2007 day of action launched by aboriginal activists to draw attention to the abysmal living conditions of native people in Canada.

By Tobold Rollo - March 4, 2013

Every field has its embarrassing cousin who lives in the proverbial attic...For his part, Flanagan published a book in 2000 titled First Nations? Second Thoughts, in which the rights of Indigenous peoples in Canada were disparaged and denied...Today the book enjoys a cult following...Since 2000, Flanagan...[has] contributed to the public discourse on Indigenous rights in a manner not unlike a lonely conspiracy theorist that the media has mistakenly identified as an "expert."

By Gar Lipow - March 05, 2013

The 2012 Canadian science fiction series Continuum...is a warning sign. It represents, possibly without intent, an escalation in the way media drums up support for increased police power, and repression of civil liberties and dissent...At first glance, this series is a mix of a standard science fiction trope with a police procedural.

By John Soos - March 3, 2013

John Baird, Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs is confirmed to deliver a keynote address at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual policy meeting taking place March 3 – 5, 2013 in Washington, D.C....His presence there further cements the Harper government's uncritical support of Israel in face of its deteriorating record of massive human rights violations in Occupied Palestine...His invitation to address AIPAC reflects that this government's position has not altered in face of Israel's widening breaches of international and humanitarian law against the people and land of Palestine.