NDP Leader race crowded, on the right

Montreal MP Thomas Mulcair, a former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister who takes pride in his role in early 'free trade' negotiations, brings a decidedly pro-capitalist, anti-Quebec self-determination perspective to the New Democratic Party leadership race. When Mulcair announced his candidacy, he had the backing of 15 MPs, soon likely 30, but few supporters outside of the ranks of strongly pro-federalist Quebecers.

OPSEU threatens to split OFL

The last thing the labour movement needs at this time is division. Yet this is exactly what is happening due to a dispute between officers of the Ontario Federation of Labour, including OFL President Sid Ryan, and some affiliated unions including the Ontario Public Service Employees Union and its President, Warren 'Smokey' Thomas.

Toronto marches demand 'Canada Out of Afghanistan', Stop the cuts at City Hall

Despite high winds and cold showers, scores of anti-war activists in Toronto took to the streets on Saturday, October 15 to demand an end to the ten-year-long war of occupation in Afghanistan.

Quality of Life Declining – says study

Workers in Canada are over-stressed and under-rewarded in the capitalist pressure cooker we call every day life.

There is greater productivity, but growing inequality and less personal enjoyment, according to the Canadian Index of Wellbeing. The CIW, a 12-year study based at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, measures how people, communities, the environment and democracy are faring – not just the economy.

Proposed Mega-Quarry to face tougher review

A month before facing voters in the October 6 Ontario provincial election, the governing Liberals decided to require a more stringent approval process for a controversial proposal to dig a massive quarry in a sensitive environmental area near Toronto.

Recession with a Vengeance

As voters troop to the polls in six provincial and territorial elections across Canada in October and November, they do so in the shadow of another global economic melt down.

Tory Crime Bill Wants to Lock 'em Up

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper kicked off his first Conservative-majority Parliament on September 19 by introducing changes to the criminal justice system that seek to put more people in prison and keep them there longer.

Will Socialist Caucus Run a Candidate for Leader?

NDP socialists are looking for a left wing alternative to Brian Topp, the back room strategist who announced his candidacy for the federal party leadership. In June, at the NDP federal convention in Vancouver, Topp expressed his support for the still-born Liberal-NDP coalition that took shape two winters ago. NDP leftists strongly reject coalition or merger with the business-backed Liberal Party.

Ontario NDP brass violate party democracy

On Thursday, September 1, Barry Weisleder, chairperson of the NDP Socialist Caucus, won the nomination to be the NDP candidate in Thornhill constituency, just north of Toronto. Two days later Darlene Lawson, the Ontario NDP provincial secretary, 'rescinded' the democratic nomination, which occurred at the best-attended meeting of that NDP riding association in decades.