June and July saw 59 posts published on The Left Chapter. It was also, in terms of hits, the most successful two-month period in our history to date and the post
Etobicoke "park stairs" story is a perfect example of the crass, reactionary, anti-regulatory nonsense that led to the Grenfell disaster received more hits than any other single article on the blog has to date.
Thanks very much to all our readers and contributors.
If you have an article, editorial, analysis, recipe or story you would like to contribute there are details on how to do so on our
Submissions page as well as at the end of this post.
Please note that The Left Chapter is still interested in getting different perspectives on the NDP leadership race including from those both inside and outside of the party, from partisans of various candidates (perhaps explaining why), from critics of the race or those who think supporting any of them is perhaps a mistake, from those who would like to see a candidate who has yet to emerge, analysis of the candidates from an objective left perspective, etc.
But time is running out to try to influence the narrative for The Left Chapter readers as the cutoff for new members in August 17 and the voting begins a month later.
If you have perspectives about the NDP leadership race specifically that you would like to share in blog/article/editorial form please contact us via theleftchapter@outlook.com
Without any further ado the top six posts from the two months, in terms of hits, are:
1) Etobicoke "park stairs" story is a perfect example of the crass, reactionary, anti-regulatory nonsense that led to the Grenfell disaster
By now almost everyone in Toronto would have heard the story of newly minted Etobicoke folk hero Adi Astl and how he built stairs quickly in a park for only $500 when city officials said building the stairs would cost $65,000 or more.
Read More!
2) Niki Ashton releases strongest Canadian federal social democratic tax platform in a generation
Niki Ashton, who has been running for the leadership of the federal NDP on a platform that would see it turn sharply to the left, released her tax policy platform today and it is the best we have seen from a Canadian federal social democratic politician in a very long time.
Read More!
3) NDP needs to remember that it is really the centrists and 'Third Way' that lost in the US and UK
In what can only be read as a rather defensive and bizarre apologia for the NDP's election strategy catastrophe in 2015, former National Director of the NDP Karl Bélanger has penned an op-ed (in the Toronto Sun no less!) called "NDP needs to remember that Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders lost". It is the saddest attempt that I have seen to date from a Canadian 'progressive' to downplay and minimize exactly what it is that Corbyn recently accomplished in the UK.
Read More!
4) Omar Khadr is 'innocent' even if he is 'guilty'
After enduring an horrific ordeal of torture despite being a child soldier, abandonment by his own government, and being used as a political pawn by the hypocritical sick sadists who make themselves out to be Canada's conservative movement Omar Kahdr is getting a justly deserved apology and settlement.
Read More!
5) Conundrum: Niki Ashton and the NDP leadership campaign
Given the truly inspiring turn of events within the Labour Party in the UK under Corbyn over the last couple of years it is not at all surprising that leftists in Canada are hoping that perhaps these conditions can be recreated here and within the country's mainstream social democratic party the NDP.
And then there were four.
With the withdrawal of Peter Julian from the NDP leadership race the remaining candidates met for the fifth official debate (there was one "unofficial" one held in Toronto) Tuesday night in Saskatoon. While for the most part it was a fairly tepid affair (perhaps due to the reversion to the bizarre format that does not allow applause or audience feedback until the very end) it did have some lively moments notably when both Charlie Angus and Guy Caron sparred with Jagmeet Singh over the 'universality' of Old Age Security.
Do you have a left point-of-view or opinion, event or petition, a recipe or a story you want to share?
Send them to The Left Chapter via theleftchapter@outlook.com!
