Dec 08
Note: Please click here for Part I Introduction The first time I met David Suzuki was in early 2011. I was with a friend and her daughter, exiting Banyen Books in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighbourhood (and feeling relieved as we escaped the pan flute music) when I was jolted out of nirvana as my friend grabbed …
Feb 14
Nina Wilson is one of the more interesting people who came out of the Idle No More movement. Wilson and the other three founders worked with the Suzuki Foundation to help bring the movement to public attention in late 2012. In 2013 the four founders were recognized by Foreign Policy Magazine on their annual Global …
Nov 07
This week the Conservative party held its convention in Calgary. It was a good choice, the Prime Minister’s riding is there and it’s an easy city for the CPC to round up a nice sized crowd. There’s also an added benefit- Alberta’s a lot less left-leaning than the rest of the country, so it’s more …
Oct 21
I first used the phrase “gone wild” when I posted the video of Harsha Walia Gone Wild! video- where she promoted the use of violence by the Black Bloc during the 2010 Olympics. I’ve also written about Occupy Vancouver Gone Wild!, where Occupy Vancouver’s old-left contingent tried to take the stage and publicly accuse a …
Oct 12
I’ve written about the Activistocrats before- they are who Kale Lawsn of Adbusters called the ‘old-left’. They’re the people who hijacked the Occupy movement and changed the focus from being about problems with the banks and corporations to focussing on issues like identity politics, and promoting the NDP. In Canada, one of the commonalities of …
Oct 10
There is some exciting news coming-up on the Occupy documentary front. The Occupation Documentary is being premièred in Vancouver on October 15th. The film was made by Rafferty Baker and Matthew J. Van Deventer, two BCIT journalism students who were present (with video camera) every day at Occupy Vancouver. If something significant happened at Occupy Vancouver, they probably got …
Oct 10
The old-left’s exploitation of the Occupy movement has been monumental. As soon as Occupy started, they came out with their fangs showing and grasped all the power they could. They came from all sides- radical feminists, entryist marxists, and several flavours of watermelon environmentalists (green on the surface, red on the inside.) Each of them wrestled …
Oct 05
Yesterday some interesting (though not totally unexpected) news came out on Undercover Kitty’s blog. While attending a debriefing with the leaders from the Quebec student strike, Kitty learned the at the strikes were not as spontaneous as we’ve been led to believe. According to the testimonies of the speakers, the student strikes were two years in the making. They …
Sep 30
One of the best moments in Occupy Toronto’s history was on May 1st. About 30-40 Occupiers showed-up at Queen’s Park, behind the Ontario Legislature, and ‘peasfully’ planted a communal vegetable garden that day. The Toronto police were very well-restrained, they stood back quietly while Occupiers poured out the soil and planted the seeds. When it …
Sep 18
A couple weeks ago I wrote about Take Canada Back– an initiative to get Occupiers to travel to Ottawa for ‘the mother of protests’. I left a warning for people that the entire tone of the event seemed a bit dodgy- perhaps the NDP and the unions were going to use Occupy or their own …