Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Roderick Benns points out the disruptive effect of the cancellation of Ontario's basic income trial - signalling the importance of being able to plan on a stable source of income. And Jessica Chin reports on an anticipated wave of renovictions to push tenants out of their homes in an effort to goose property rents.

- George Monbiot discusses the devastating health effects of air pollution - and the roadblocks the fossil fuel lobby has put up to try to avoid a shift toward cleaner air and improved public health. But Umair Irfan notes that the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear Exxon's attempt to suppress its own knowledge of the dangers of climate change now that some states are seeking to hold it accountable.

- Tom Parkin highlights how the Libs are more focused on playing games with by-elections than on accomplishing anything progressive voters would have expected from them as a government. And Murray Mandryk contrasts Scott Moe's words about the Sixties Scoop against his continued refusal to work even on such basic injustices as the systematic removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities.

- Finally, Seth Klein writes about the need to move past cynicism and participate in building the change which people both want and need:

(T)he truth is any of us as progressive activists, with the courage to see the world as it is and the conviction to seek to remake the world as it should be, walk a razor’s edge between hope and despair. We feel and know both. And maybe we should be more open about that.

And yet, I do see hope. I see it in the slow but sure progress of our movements. I see it in our research, which tells us that the world we want is possible given the political will. I see it in the activism and good will of people I’ve gotten to meet around the province in this job. I see it in the values of our fellow British Columbians and Canadians. From time to time, we at CCPA do polling on values (not much, it’s expensive). And when we do I’m always struck that, as a society, whenever we are given a choice between a private gain like a tax cut and a public good like spending on enhanced public services or tacking homelessness and poverty, for most people, the public good wins every time.

And so, here’s what I believe after 22 years in this job: the values of British Columbians are — in the main — good and progressive and caring. We just need a politics that allows people to give those positive values proper expression.