Expats & Allies

The Canadian military’s efforts in the Second World War are often mythologized so as to portray opposition to fascism as a cross-class trait, shared by workers, bosses and politicians alike. The disturbing reality, however, is that well into the late 1930s, a significant section of Canada’s elite admired fascism in Italy and even in Germany.

We spoke to journalist Mitchell Thompson about his recent article digging into the history behind the rich and powerful figures who gave vocal support to Hitler and Mussolini in the run up to the war.

This is part of our series as selected by Maple readers exploring how the ruling elite and the wealthy shape power in Canada. Read the entire series here.

Mitchell Thompson is a writer with PressProgress, an occasional radio producer and a researcher based in Toronto. He tweets (also occasionally) at @thompsonian_m.Subscribe today and support progressive independent journalism like this for as little as $1 a week

Read Thompson's article here.

Local news begins to disappear. Coverage on important issues wanes. Year after year, headlines emerge about which media giant is buying smaller outlets. Readers encounter the same stories in several community papers, only to discover the publications are all owned by the same company.

Writer Sam Smart joins Maple Managing Editor Alex Cosh to discuss her story for the Maple titled "The Ruling Class' Domination of Canadian Media" about how Canada's media is dominated and has been destroyed by wealthy few and elites in Canadian society.

This is part of our series as selected by Maple readers exploring how the ruling elite and the wealthy shape power in Canada. Read the entire series here.

Sam Smart is a Vancouver-based freelance journalist. She has a degree in English from UBC, where she served as blog and opinion editor at The Ubyssey.  You can find her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/uglyblender

Subscribe today and support progressive independent journalism like this for as little as a $1 a week. 

This week, Annamie Paul announced that she will be stepping down as leader of the Green Party, following months of infighting and disappointing results in last week’s election.

Paul described her embattled tenure as leader as “the worst period of my life,” and has blamed “racism” and “sexism” as underlying the attacks against her leadership. On the other hand, back in May, some in the party strongly criticized Paul’s lacklustre statements regarding Israeli airstrikes against the people of Palestine, and refusal to distance herself from a staffer who called for the replacement of Green MPs who called out Israeli apartheid.

Following this dispute, former Green MP Jenica Atwin crossed the floor to join the Liberals.

With so much division, it is perhaps not surprising that the Greens’ popular vote share plummeted to 2.3 per cent. And although the party picked up a seat in Kitchener, thanks largely to the withdrawal of the Liberal candidate in that riding, the Greens lost MP Paul Manly in Nanaimo-Ladysmith.

Questions remain about who will take over as the Greens’ interim leader, and who will enter the race to take over the party’s top job permanently. We spoke to former Green Party leadership candidate and self-described eco-socialist Dimitri Lascaris, who is considering running again for the party's top job.

Further reading:

Green Party members vote to support "bold" and "progressive" policies:

dimitrilascaris.org/2021/09/04/gree…ssive-policies/

35% of Canadians would like to see a move away from capitalism:

innovativeresearch.ca/non-partisan-c…n-initiatives/

Music credit: "Fluidity," by tobylane.

pixabay.com/da/music/flde-fluid…y-100-ig-edit-4558/

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As we rapidly approach election day on Monday, September 20, the polls indicate that Justin Trudeau’s early election gamble may have been a dud. As things currently stand, a majority seems to be out of reach for the Liberal Party.

The tightening of the polls in recent weeks has prompted some Liberal campaigners to plead with voters who identify as “progressive” to vote strategically for the Liberals in hopes of shutting out Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives.

In so-called British Columbia, however, it is the federal NDP who are the leading “progressive” party in opinion polls, running neck-and-neck with the Conservatives, while the Liberals are currently in third place.

In some regions, such as Vancouver Island, the Liberals have in recent elections fallen even further behind, finishing fourth in many ridings in the 2019 vote.

At the same time, however, we are in a time of reckoning over the need for decolonization, reconciliation and more Indigenous voices in Parliament.

We spoke to the Liberal Party’s North Island-Powell River candidate Jennifer Grenz, who is nlaka’pamux and whose family is from the Lytton First Nation, upon whose territory the village of the same name burned down in June amid record-breaking temperatures, driven by climate change.

In our conversation, we discussed decolonization, Indigenous representation and party politics.

The Maple's managing editor Alex Cosh is joined by the Green Party’s Paul Manly. They discussed the situation at Fairy Creek, policing, international climate solidarity and whether the Green Party’s infighting is damaging its ability to impress the urgency of the global climate crisis onto national political conversations.

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Recently, The Maple spoke with Cheryl Cameron at Dogwood B.C. who said that the time for toeing party lines is over, and that instead voters should be looking for "mavericks" — people who are going to push federal parties to do better on tackling the climate emergency and hold them accountable in the House of Commons.

We sat down with filmmaker, educator and climate activist Avi Lewis, who is running for the NDP in the West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country riding.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Full interview transcript here.

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This election, party leaders are on the campaign trail pitching their plans to make life more affordable for Canadians. Amid a national crisis, unaffordability continues to squeeze working-class renters especially hard in the housing market.

This month, the parliamentary budget officer found that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s national housing strategy is having only a “limited” impact on addressing housing needs. As well, the PBO said, the affordability gap – or the difference between the cost of a housing unit and the price a low-income Canadian can afford – is projected to rise by 24 per cent over the next five years.

All this, while rents across the country continue to rise.

But does the NDP's housing plan go far enough to address this crisis? I asked Singh what he thinks truly "affordable" housing means, whether 500,000 affordable housing units is enough to address current shortfalls and if his proposal for a $5,000 renter subsidy is just a bailout for landlords.