Canada’s first shelter exclusively for sex workers opened its doors on Monday in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
The temporary shelter, run by WISH, a support organization for women and gender diverse folks in the street-based sex trade, operates 24/7 and offers on-site laundry, washrooms, hot showers, a lounging area, and 23 beds, three of which are reserved for COVID-related isolation.
On Saturday, October 31, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister woke up at his $2 million Wellington Crescent residence to a couple of his least favourite things: Halloween and public accountability.
Earlier that morning, activists had installed a display of 65 tombstones on the boulevard opposite the premier’s home to recognize all those who have died from COVID-19 under his watch. This action was organized after an announcement on October 30 by the province’s Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Brent Roussin, that Winnipeg will enter the highest level—code red, or critical—of the pandemic response system and implement new restrictions the following week.
Despite an ongoing global pandemic and deadly outbreaks at long-term care homes across Ontario, Doug Ford is eyeing long-term care as one line-item where his government can save money.
According to Ontario’s newly released 2020 budget, Ford’s government is planning nearly $100 million less in spending on long-term care than it proposed in March.
As soon as he heard the news, Paqtnkek Mi’kmaw Nation’s Chief Paul Prosper’s heart began to race. A school bus, a grade school and a sign in Antigonish, N.S., the remote county on the East Coast of Canada encircling the nation’s reserve, had been tagged with anti-Black and Indigenous racist slurs. Prosper’s heartbeat was anticipating terse interactions with parents, the school board and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, not to mention the students. “You’re sort of walking into a hornet’s nest, you know, you’re bound to get stung,” he says.
But looking back now at the 2018 incident, a different detail stands out to him: a text message from Owen McCarron, warden of Antigonish, who wrote: “I heard what has happened. This is completely unacceptable, it doesn’t reflect the attitudes of the vast majority of people and I’m here to support in any way I can,” Prosper recounts.
In Alberta, it started with provincial parks. The trend towards the privatization of public services -- and the loss of public service jobs -- has only snowballed since.
Last Monday, hospital workers in Alberta walked off the job in a wildcat strike, after Alberta Health Services announced it would be laying off 11,000 public positions so their roles could be filled by private contractors. On Thursday, more rallies were held across the province.
“Why hasn’t Canada signed the UN Nuclear Ban Treaty?” is the title of an upcoming webinar featuring Liberal MP Hedy Fry, Green Party MP Elizabeth May, NDP deputy foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson, Bloc Québécois MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, and Setsuko Thurlow, who accepted the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
This is an important and timely question in light of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) recently reaching the threshold required to enter into law. On October 24 Honduras became the 50th country to ratify the TPNW, meaning it will enter into force for those states in 90 days. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the development “represents a meaningful commitment towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons.”
In January 2017, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sparked outrage when, speaking at a town hall, he remarked that Canada needed to “phase out” development of its oil sands.
"We can't shut down the oil sands tomorrow,” Trudeau said that day. “We need to manage the transition off of our dependence on fossil fuels.”
Federal New Democrats are renewing a push for Canada’s wealthiest people and the corporations thriving amid the COVID-19 pandemic to pay more to ease the country’s crisis recovery.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh announced Wednesday his party will introduce a motion in the House of Commons calling for a so-called super-wealth tax and an excess-profits tax on “big corporations profiteering from the pandemic.” The party says the estimated billions of dollars in new revenue raised by such moves should then be spent on health care and social programs.