Sunday, June 4, 2017

Labour, Québec Solidaire, the CPC and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List May 28 - June 4


This week's list of articles, news items and opinion pieces that I see as must reads if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.




This list covers the week of May 28 - June 4. It is generally in order of the date of the article's release.

1) Abortion clinic ‘safe zones’ to be introduced

Kristin Rushowy, The Toronto Star

Safe zones will be created around abortion clinics so that women can access the procedure without harassment, the Ontario government announced Monday.

Read the full article.

2) Québec Solidaire Congress: United Front Against Austerity and For Independence

Richard Fidler, The Bullet

As expected, the 500 delegates to the congress of Québec solidaire (QS), held in Montréal on May 19-22, voted to work toward a fusion with Option nationale, debated and adopted the remaining part of the party's draft program with few major amendments, and elected a new leadership headed by “co-spokespeople” Manon Massé and Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.

Read the full article.

3) Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois wins Gouin byelection in landslide

Montreal Gazette

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois was easily elected as the MNA for Montreal’s Gouin riding on Monday, taking 69 per cent of the vote, with none of the 12 other candidates winning more than 10 per cent.

Read the full article.

4) B.C. Green Party agrees to support NDP in the legislature

 Justin McElroy, CBC News

The B.C. Green Party has agreed to support the NDP in the legislature, setting up the possibility of 16 years of Liberal rule coming to a dramatic end.

Read the full article.

5) Ontario becomes 2nd province to go ahead with $15 an hour minimum wage

CBC News 

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has announced a plan to increase the provincial minimum wage to $15 an hour by Jan. 1, 2019.

Read the full article.

6) The CPC's bringing back the abortion debate — bet on it

Michael Harris, iPolitics

Justin Trudeau must have slept like a baby last night. 2019 is no longer the year of living dangerously as far as the Conservative threat to his regency is concerned.
Not only did the social conservatives retain control of the Harper Party, but in Andrew Scheer, the former PM (still thought to be a behind-the-scenes puppet-master by some) likely got the candidate he wanted. At the very least, he did not get an uppity progressive like Michael Chong — who defied him in the days of Harper’s flat-out authoritarianism — or the weak tea of an Erin O’Toole.

Read the full article.

7) The US Bernie Sanders campaigners lending Jeremy Corbyn a hand

Nadia Khomami, The Guardian

Staff from US presidential candidate’s team have been helping Momentum make the most of Labour’s supporter numbers.

Read the full article.

8) Military inquiry finds failure of 'basic leadership' in handling of sex assault allegation

Murray Brewster, CBC News

A military inquiry has determined there was a failure of "basic leadership" in how the army handled a high-profile case of alleged sexual assault and harassment.

Read the full article.

9) Parkdale property CEO nearly hits tenant advocate with truck

Emily Mathieu, The Toronto Star

Tensions between tenant advocates and property management staff in Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood escalated Tuesday when a truck driven by MetCap’s president nearly ran over a man trying to deliver a letter on behalf of elderly tenants.

Read the full article.

10) How I Left B.C's Toxic Partisanship Behind

Ryan Painter, The Huffington Post

Partisanship is something that came very easily to me. As someone who felt like a loner all throughout high school and university, I was looking for a group that I could cast my lot with. I was interested in politics at an early age, and social democracy was my banner, so the New Democratic Party was a natural fit. I found the party and the people within it accepting and encouraging, and I quickly grew in confidence and embraced the partisan nature of party politics with gusto.

Read the full article.

11) A study about how endometriosis affects men's sex lives? That's enraging

Imogen Dunlevie, The Guardian

Endometriosis affects 176 million women but there is no cure, no known cause and treatment is limited. There is no case for a study about its impact on men.

Read the full article.

12) Killed by Chivalry: Everything wrong with the Men’s Rights Movement in one Tweet

David Futrelle, We Hunted the Mammoth

In the wake of the Portland train stabbings that left two men dead and one seriously wounded after they tried to stop a white supremacist from harassing several women, Paul Elam — still probably the best-known Men’s Rights Activist online — posted a tweet that spoke volumes — not about the incident itself, but about the utter moral bankruptcy of the Men’s Rights movement.

Read the full article.

13) How One Story Pissed Off Just About Every Non-Rich Person in Toronto

Alison Tierney, Vice

If you can go a day in Toronto without listening to someone droll on about gentrification or the housing crisis, then you probably have a 905 area code. One place that keeps coming up in that conversation is Parkdale. The west Toronto neighbourhood has been a symbol of gentrification in the city for about a decade now—it's often compared to Williamsburg in that respect, as the creative types who moved there after being priced out of nearby Queen West then started being priced out of Parkdale—and it continues to get more and more expensive to live there.

Read the full article.

14) Corbyn goes from no-hoper to crowd-puller in U.K. election

Thomson Reuters, CBC News

For a radical socialist written off by many as a no-hoper leading Britain's Labour Party to its worst ever election defeat on June 8, Jeremy Corbyn is pulling in big crowds.

Read the full article.

15) Landmark deal in RCMP sexual-harassment class action wins court approval

Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press

An unprecedented settlement that will pay up to $220,000 to women who were sexually harassed while working for the RCMP over the past 40 years has been approved by a Federal Court judge, who called the agreement fair and reasonable.

Read the full article.

16) Tory candidate's blogposts on rape 'absolutely shocking'

Rowena Mason, The Guardian

A Conservative candidate in a key marginal seat has said a woman’s “promiscuity” is relevant in determining how likely it is that she consented to sex in alleged rape cases.

Read the full article.

17) US anti-Trump protesters facing decades behind bars


Patrick Strickland, AlJazeera

More than 200 anti-Trump protesters are facing felony charges that could land some in prison for 70 to 80 years.

Read the full article.

18) Portland attack survivor says people are worrying about the wrong victims, calls out ‘white savior complex’

CNN Wire

Micah Fletcher, the man who survived the Portland commuter train knife attack, went on social media Wednesday to say people are worrying about the wrong victim.

Read the full article.

19) The Guardian view on the election: it’s Labour

Guardian Editorial Board

Jeremy Corbyn has shown that the party might be the start of something big rather than the last gasp of something small.

Read the full article.

20) How Theresa May went from supreme confidence to doubt and panic

Toby Helm, The Guardian

It was supposed to be a coronation for Queen Theresa … but that was back in April. Now, as the Tory leader found on the campaign trail in Yorkshire, nothing can be taken for granted.

Read the full article.

See also: UK Election, Manchester, Kerala and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List May 21 - 28

See also: Cultural Appropriation, the UK, Brazil, Venezuela and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List May 14 - 21

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