British Columbia is at the confluence of several crises: the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic downturn; the ongoing housing, homelessness, and drug overdose crises; the climate and ecological crises; and the crisis of colonialism for indigenous peoples, which has been ongoing since the beginnings of settler society.
British Columbia is also in the throes of an election campaign. The election pits the BC NDP led by Premier John Horgan, against the BC Liberals led by Andrew Wilkinson, and the BC Green Party led by Sonia Furstenau.
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.)
[Very interesting. I'm wondering when the other shoes might start dropping. Those shoes could include evolving employment insurance into a "benefit" too small to actually live on, thus forcing people to take low-wage jobs. Or, it might transform, slowly or quickly, into what right-wingers want--a catch-all payment that replaces free health care, education, and other social services, which can then be privatised and charge fees. Gene McGuckin - ecosocialistsvancouver.org]
In the last week the NDP government has taken a host of welcome steps to deal with the Covid-19 crisis in our province. There are a number of glaring exceptions to this, however, especially including Horgan's conntinuing refusal to actually require social distancing when that policy comes into conflict with the economy. Mining and construction are explicitly exempted from this, having been designated as essential services yesterday by the Solicotor-General.
Photo: Funeral procession for Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Tehran on Jan 6, 2020 (AP photo by Ebrahim Noroozi)
On January 3, 2020, the Trump-led U.S. government carried out the assassinations of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi military commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Both men had played key leading roles for years in the war against the right-wing paramilitaries of ISIS.[1]
