Christine McLaughlin

Solidarity Revisited: Resisting Cuts in Ontario

April 23, 2012

By Christine McLaughlin This past weekend I gathered with thousands of protestors at Queen’s Park who were demonstrating against pending public service cuts and wage freezes in Ontario. Spun in some quarters as a protest by organized labour, the crowd contained a multitude of groups. Many in the crowd wore “We Are Ontario” stickers, a [...]

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The Race Is On in Canada and the United States: A Tale of Two Political Cultures

February 6, 2012

While watching the NDP and Republican leadership races unfold in Canada and the United States, I’ve been struck by the very different political cultures of these two countries. This can be partly attributed to the divergent political philosophies of the right-wing Republican Party and the centre-left NDP. But the roots of these political cultures also [...]

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Bill C-309, Preventing Persons from Concealing Their Identity during Riots and Unlawful Assemblies Act

December 12, 2011

My Conservative MP sent the following question to his constituents this week: “Debate has now begun on [Conservative] MP Blake Richards’ Private Members’ Bill C-309. The Bill proposes creating a new criminal offence for those that wear ‘a mask or other disguise to conceal their identity without lawful excuse’ during a riot or unlawful assembly. [...]

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Connecting Past, Present and Future: A Website Review of Stacey Zembrycki’s “Sharing Authority With Baba”

October 31, 2011

Internet sources can present challenges in the university classroom, but they also offer many new, exciting, creative learning opportunities. Rather than barring internet sources altogether, we should be teaching our students to engage critically with a range of sources, including the many great digital projects available online. One such example is Stacey Zembrycki’s website, “Sharing [...]

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IQT “Solutions”: Company Closures, Workers’ Rights, and the State of the Canadian Labour Movement

July 25, 2011

How does it feel to arrive at work one day to find the doors locked permanently? Most of us can imagine how cataclysmic an event this would be; unfortunately, 1200 more workers had to experience this recently, as IQT Solutions closed its doors in Canada. Claiming bankruptcy (no official filing could be immediately located), the [...]

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