Canada

Sept. 8, 2020

On Aug. 22, Vancouver immigration officers quietly deported a Danish journalist making a film about opposition to the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion (TMX). He was told that, during COVID, media is not an essential service.

As a public health physician and scientist blocking the TMX, I would disagree.

Sept. 3, 2020

Unsafe school openings remind us how easily we become expendable

My mother holds her grandson more tightly and for a few moments longer than usual, reminding him she won’t be able to do this once he’s returned to school.

My partner, a teacher, worries that it will be months before she can be in the same room as her own family, fearing she’ll expose them to something contracted from students.

September 6, 2020

AUGUST 31, 2020

Sept. 5, 2020

There won’t be any Labour Day parades this weekend, due to physical distancing. Instead, trade unions in Canada will celebrate workers’ annual day with online events and other COVID-aware activities. But the absence of physical crowds should not be taken as some kind of metaphor for unions’ declining visibility. To the contrary, the pandemic actually corresponds with a surprising rebound in unions’ size and importance. There’s nothing like a crisis, it seems, to remind workers that when times are tough it helps to have a powerful ally at your back.

SEPTEMBER 4, 2020

Thirteen groups representing 180,000 post-secondary students across the country are backing a call by SFU’s student union for the federal government to reconsider the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

Tell your city council

Stop Metro Vancouver

Transit Cuts!

TransLink has been cutting bus service for years. This Labour Day most cutbacks are in Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond and North Vancouver.

Totally suspended until 2021 are Route Nos. 32, 44, 143, 258, and 480.

 Frequency on other bus routes will be cut back by 10 to 33%. (Changing from every 10 mins to 15 mins or from every 20 mins to every 30 mins is a 33% cut.)

See video here.