By: Nooria Alam It has been over five months since the victory of Liberal party leader Justin Trudeau in the Canadian federal elections, ending Stephen Harper’s nine-year rule of tyranny in Parliament. Canadians rejoiced, thinking that there has finally been an end to the racist fear-mongering tactics of the Conservative party leader. But what has …
By: Michael Romandel In Toronto, one of the main ways that working class people find work when they find themselves out of a job and need to pay bills is through various temporary agencies. These agencies play the role of middlemen between corporations and workers. Corporations use them for a number of reasons, though they all add …
by the BASICS Editorial Committee Dennis Edney has spent the last decade of his life defending Omar Khadr. He may have done more than any living person to rescue Khadr from the racist collusion of the Canadian and American governments, which together sought to keep him locked up in military prisons for the rest of …
by Nooria Alam “I saw Omar on a screen, stretched out and tied to this wire mesh, crying, screaming in pain; his body had suffered such terrible wounds, and the torturers, these evil men, when Omar had to pee, they would take him down and they would use his head as a mop to …
In December 2014, BASICS people’s journalists Shafiq Aziz and Steve da Silva travelled to Mishkeegogamang First Nation, a remote Ojibway reserve located 7 hours north of Thunder Bay as part of a serve-the-people project launched by the First Nations Solidarity Working Group of union local CUPE 3903. Through a look at the housing situation on the reserve, BASICS …
by PJ Lilley This article is reprinted with permission from the Red Sparks Union In early August a massive tailings pond at Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley copper and gold mine burst. The Secwepemc, the Xatsull and Esketemc Nations in the Cariboo region of BC immediately mobilized as the toxic waste spilled through their territories. Further north, in …
by Yumna Siddiqi Immigrant workers are the first to experience the shift in the labour market towards an increase in temporary work, and the reduction of permanent jobs with benefits and legally enforceable health, safety and labour standards. Many immigrant workers obtain temporary jobs through agencies that are unregulated and fly-by-night. R’s experiences shed light …
by Yumna Siddiqi As changes are being considered to the Live-In Caregiver Program that would increase eligibility requirements for participants, decrease the number of applicants accepted, and make it more difficult for participants to obtain permanent residency, it seems timely to reflect on the experiences of caregivers who are presently in the program. B’s story, …
by Nahnda Garlow SIX NATIONS – Late Friday, Two Row Times learned that the CAS and McMaster Children’s Hospital are seeking a push from the courts to forcibly return Jada Johnson into chemotherapy. The 11-year-old female from Six Nations was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in August. Initially the CAS did inform the child’s mother …
by Aiyanas Ormond Reproduced with permission from author and The Mainlander: Vancouver’s Place for Progressive Politics AUTHOR’S NOTE | This article emerges from 5 years of working as a community organizer for the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU). Thank you to the VANDU Board for allowing me to lean on their community organizing work and …
