Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Pratyush Dayal reports on the COVID outbreak which has infected every single resident of a Regina care home. And Dan Scheuerman reports on the effect the drug poisoning crisis is having on people's health generally by further straining already-limited health care resources. 

- Don Pittis writes about the shock treatment being administered to the economy through interest rates hikes - and the explicit goal of suppressing wages so they don't catch up to locked-in increases in prices and profits. And Marc Fawcett-Atkinson points out that Alberta is both Canada's wealthiest province and the one with the most hunger - confirming again that mere GDP numbers don't translate into reasonable standards of living when the spoils of development are funneled to the privileged few. 

- Ben Sichel discusses the need to build organizing unions rather than mere service providers to members. And Eric Blanc interviews Harper McNamara, Sam Smith, and Atulya Dora-Laskey about the factors which enabled them to organize the first successful organizing drive at Chioptle - including workers' desire to have a say in working conditions which are otherwise set by management detached from the realities of the workplace. 

- Erika Shaker discusses what Canada should learn from the U.S.' partial forgiveness of excessive student debt. 

- Finally, Tracey Ferrier discusses the International Cleanup Conference's recognition that chemicals are already affecting food supplies (and stand to do so all the more based on a climate breakdown). And Dorothy Woodend interviews George Monbiot about his book Regenesis and the importance of ensuring that our methods of food production don't destroy the soil and natural environment necessary for our survival.