I am not a member of a political party. I recognize the importance of elections, participate in election campaigns (including canvassing and raising money for good candidates), and engage heavily in election-related debates (like the detailed critique of the Harper government’s economic record I co-authored, with Jordan Brennan, for Unifor).
The clearest outcome of this historic federal election was an overwhelming call from Canadians for a change in government, and a change in direction for our country. The Liberals have been tasked with delivering progressive change.
But achieving real, lasting change is never easy – and it cannot start and stop at a ballot box.
Eleven weeks to go and Stephen Harper’s “no Netflix tax” is an early campaign gimmick.
It is a predictable anti-tax pitch from the PM, but it says a lot about his chaotic public policy in Canada’s multi-billion dollar broadcasting industry. Not even the wealthiest American media company operating in Canada, Netflix still rakes in $400 million a year in Canada, employs no Canadians, and contributes nothing to the Canadian television system or the Canadian economy.
Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz didn’t actually use the ‘r-word’: recession. But his monetary policy report last Wednesday said it all the same, using numbers instead of words. By projecting that Canada’s economy shrank 0.5% in the second quarter of 2015 (following a similar decline in the first quarter), the Bank joins a growing list of others who have concluded that Canada’s economy is now in recession (traditionally defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth).
Lisa Kelly is part of an international delegation of trade union women leaders attending the 59th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW59), taking place in New York from March 9-20 2015. The session marks the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – signed onto by governments who committed to action on a number of issues related to women and girls including violence, poverty, education and training, power and decision making and many other areas.
Lisa Kelly is part of an international delegation of trade union women leaders attending the 59th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW59), taking place in New York from March 9-20 2015. The session marks the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – signed onto by governments who committed to action on a number of issues related to women and girls including violence, poverty, education and training, power and decision making and many other areas.
There's nothing that brings our country together like a game of hockey.
Whether it's the Olympics, a team in the Stanley Cup finals or the World Juniors, millions of Canadians are vicariously living out the excitement through our cherished players.
A woman living with a violent partner may try as many as seven times to leave before being able to make a permanent break— if she can. Each year, as many as 80 women are not able to get out. They, and often their children, are murdered by an abuser because the system has utterly failed them.
This year has been a year of tragedies for many in the world, from missing planes and sinking ferries, to armed civil unrest and schoolgirl abductions. But closer to home, 2014 marks an important anniversary in the lives of Canadians both young and old. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre in which 14 women were killed at École Polytechnique in Quebec. The reason for this brutal attack: a man “fighting feminism” and seeking revenge for the women he believed ruined his life.
