At a recent bookfair in Toronto, members of an organization called, “Supreme Master” handed out leaflets on climate change. The main thrust of their argument is that greenhouse gases are not the major cause of global warming, but de-forestation for cattle grazing land is. To support this contention they offer various statistics, some of which are interesting, and could well be true, e.g. Over 75% of tree cutting in the Amazon rainforest is done for meat production. Livestock produces more greenhouse gases than all world-wide transportation combined. The Arctic sea reflects about 80% of the sun’s heat, stabilizing the...
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The Economic Crisis: Will Capitalism Fail? Despite the recent pronouncement by the governor of The Bank of Canada that the recession is over, we are suffering through the worst crisis in capitalism since the 1930s Depression. Even he had to admit that the employment figures might not recover until 2014. So for the over seven million North Americans who have lost their jobs in this recession, the recession is definitely not over. The Toronto jobless rate was recently pegged at 9.6% and 15% for the 18-24 age group. These figures are even worse as they are shamelessly manipulated and...
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Commenting on the current world financial crisis former 1968 student leader and now a Green MEP, Daniel Cohn Bendit, said that “the belief that the market is god is over” (Guardian, 17 September). Someone who should know more about God, the Archbishop of Canterbury, hopes this is so as he thinks that the Market has become a rival to his god. In an article in the Spectator (26 September) Dr Rowan Williams in effect accused “market fundamentalists” of breaking the First Commandment – “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”. He even called in Marx to back...
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A lot of people think it would be nice to have a lot of money. No more worries about paying the mortgage, putting food on the table, affording an education for the kids, and so on. But their dreams are nothing compared to the realities of the world’s rich. Dubai’s Palm Island, which opened in September and featured in the Toronto Star (28/09/08), is the latest word in Persian Gulf excess. It’s a $1.5 billion resort boasting a $25 000 per night suite and a water park with dolphins flown in from the South Pacific, all on a man-made...
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On October 8, 2008, an article in the Toronto Star (Credit Crunch Shows Futility of Money : Pope) should have set to rest the minds of any who are worried about the worlds financial crisis. “Pope Benedict XVI, reflecting on crashing stock markets and capitalism, concluded that, ‘money vanishes, it is nothing’ and that, ‘the only solid reality is the word of God. He who builds only on visible and tangible things like success, career, and money, builds the house of his life on sand’, the pontiff told bishops at an assembly in the Vatican.” This represents one of...
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Capitalism has a nasty habit of suddenly laying a ton of grief on unsuspecting members of the working class. A typical example is when the employees of Consumers Glass in Etobicoke, Ontario, were recently told the plant was going to be shut down just two weeks after they had negotiated a union contract. But the explosion at the Sunrise Propane yard in Toronto on August 10 takes some beating. This happened at 4 am in a heavily populated residential area. 12 000 people living in a 1.6 kilometre radius were evacuated, many clad only in night clothes. A 25-year...
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“Working Wounded – Board Shields Unsafe Job Sites” blared the headline of The Toronto Star, February, 16, 2008. The subheading said it all: “Workplace safety rules allow companies to keep spotless ratings even if poorly trained temps are injured and killed”. The article by Moira Welsh explained that a loophole in the rules of Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) is directly or indirectly responsible for accidents, which, legally, the companies on whose properties they occurred are not responsible. Many companies use temporary workers, especially as they can pay them less wages and no benefits compared to full...
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In the wake of the Brian Mulroney/Karl Heinz Schreiber scandal there has been an outpouring of emotion concerning politicians in general and Mulroney in particular. This has reached such an extent that on December 15th the Toronto Star published the results of an Angus Reid strategies poll showing how Canadians felt about ex-prime ministers Trudeau, Chretien and Mulroney. The headlines read, PMs evoke fear, love, loathing. The results were charted, supporters and opponents checking off their feelings about them: love, joy, wonder, optimism, acceptance, no feelings, surprise, sadness, displeasure, shame, anger, contempt, disgust, and so on read the poll....
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Imagine is the magazine of our Canadian Companion Party – the SPC. In this issue they celebrate “100 Years For Socialism”
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Last year, the Trotskyist online newspaper World Socialist Web Site, or WSWS (no relation to us and the World Socialist Movement), published a press release and an open letter to the Madrid based magazine Amanecer del Nuevo Siglo accusing them of translating and reprinting WSWS articles without their permission . The charge was compounded by the allegation that the Spanish magazine had deliberately misrepresented the source of the articles either by attributing them to their own editorial staff and writers or by removing the byline altogether. The WSWS staff was understandably surprised and upset at this unsanctioned reproduction, but...
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