The federal government’s major infrastructure legislation, Bill C-39, is in the hands of a special committee, which is planning to finish its work by mid-November in line with Mark Carney’s intention to bring the legislation into force as soon as possible.  The bill has been widely condemned for undermining labour protections as well as weakening environmental protections and sidestepping the Crown’s duty to consult Indigenous nations. We speak with Labour Studies prof Simon Black about how the bill will impact labour disputes in federally regulated sectors, such as airlines, postal service and banks.

Bill C-39 threatens right to strike for  Canada’s biggest unions

The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group has released a report detailing how financial institutions are penalizing NGOs and individuals they suspect of supporting terrorist organizations, but without substantial evidence or due process. We speak with Tim McSorley, national coordinator of ICLMG.

Canada’s policies to counter terrorism financing unfairly driving financial exclusion

As municipal and provincial elections approach, BC’s biggest, most expensive cities aren’t doing enough to help solve the current housing crisis. So says Alex Hemingway in a recent opinion piece in the Vancouver Sun. He argues that the BC government allowed cities to do an end-run around provincial zoning reforms, with the result that people continue to be pushed out of their communities. Alex Hemingway is a senior economist and public finance policy analyst with BC Policy Solutions.

BC’s biggest cities must do better if they want to fix the housing crisis

In the run-up to Vancouver’s municipal election, Women Transforming Cities consulted widely to see what policies people want City Council to focus on. Now WTC is calling on all candidates for Mayor and Council to take the Our City Hall Pledge and commit to implementing six policy asks if they are elected.  We speak with Clara Prager of Women Transforming Cities.

Women Transforming Cities has their six policy asks for candidates

On October 19, Albertans will vote on ten referendum questions put forth by Premier Danielle Smith and her UCP government. Five out of the ten questions in the referendum are directly related to immigration.  A new report, published by the Parkland Foundation seeks to answer two questions: Why immigration? And why now, when immigration and temporary resident numbers have declined in both Alberta and Canada? We speak with Bronwyn Bragg, assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Lethbridge.

Why so many of Alberta’s referendum questions are about immigration

In 2020, Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 departed Tehran carrying 176 passengers and crew. Minutes after takeoff, the aircraft was struck by two surface-to-air missiles, killing everyone on board.  Director Soran Mardookhi’s feature documentary The Flight, produced by the NFB, follows the lives of family members left behind in their pursuit of truth, justice and accountability. The Flight has its world premiere at VIFF Oct 8.

Soran Mardookhi on The Flight, his new documentary premiering at VIFF

Municipal elections on Saturday, October 17 are just 2 weeks away. With us to talk about some of the Metro Vancouver races is Redeye collective member Ian Mass with his City Beat report for October 3.

City Beat for Oct 3: Mayoral races in Richmond, Surrey, Burnaby and New West

There is growing evidence that phone use and social media are harming youth, and having a negative impact on their learning and their mental health. Concern about the impacts is driving cell phone bans in both primary and high schools. The question is, are these policies effective? And what makes them succeed or fail? New research with Toronto area teachers set out to discover some answers. We speak with Sachin Maharaj of the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa.

Assessing the effectiveness of the Toronto School Board’s cell phone ban

In June this year, hundreds of people took to the streets in Vancouver to oppose the construction of two new AI data centres in the city. Vancouver city council has shunted the decision for a Telus-Westbank data centre in Mount Pleasant until after the municipal election but there are many more coming down the pipe across Canada. We speak with Anne Pasek, associate professor at Trent University and one of the authors of the toolkit Resisting Data Centre Development in Canada.

Toolkit: Resisting data centre development in Canada

In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released its Final Report and showed Canadians the evidence of how residential schools constituted genocide. Despite six volumes of historical documents and survivor testimony, some Canadians chose to deny and disparage these findings. A new book published this month by the University of Manitoba Press tackles this denialism head-on.  We speak with Niigaan Sinclair and Sean Carleton of the University of Manitoba. They are co-editors of Truth Before Reconciliation: Confronting Residential School Denialism.

Truth Before Reconciliation: Confronting Residential School Denialism

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Redeye (@redeye)

A progressive take on current events. Produced by an independent media collective at Vancouver Cooperative Radio.