We Don’t Need More Homeowners. We Need Public Housing.
Free-market champions conflate homeownership and the human right to adequate shelter. To actually solve the housing crisis, we must challenge this mistaken idea.
23 Articles by: Dan Darrah
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Dan Darrah is a writer of nonfiction and poetry from Toronto. He has written about work, culture, money, and debt for Jacobin, Canadian Dimension, Briarpatch Magazine, and more.
We Need Public Housing, Not Affordable Housing
Homeownership is out of reach for millions in Canada and the US. One well-meaning response to this crisis has been to call for more affordable housing. But we should be demanding more social housing instead.
Postmedia’s “Capitalist Manifesto” Is a Confused and Embarrassing Mess
Canada’s leading right-wing news organization has launched a bizarre series that celebrates capitalism. The articles, a collection of misunderstandings and clichés, are proof that our economic system’s defenders are completely out of ideas.
Succession Is a Show About Capitalism in the Era of Economic Stagnation
Succession captures the insanity of elite culture in contemporary capitalism. Like their real-world counterparts, the show’s characters desperately fight for an ever-higher place at the top as the millions below them suffer.
Canada’s Small Business Lobby Is Working to Cut Wages and Government Benefits
Claiming to stick up for the little guy, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has consistently fought to further its anti-worker, anti–public sector agenda. The COVID-19 pandemic has made their crusade even more obscene.
Canadians Don’t Want to Work at Tim Hortons
After decades of flagrant profiteering and attacking workers’ rights, Tim Hortons is now struggling to find people willing to work for them.
Despite Record Profits for Canada’s Big Banks, Customer Fees Keep Going Up
This year alone, Canada’s big banks have made over $57 billion in profits. They are celebrating this windfall by paying out $19 billion in bonuses to their executives. Meanwhile, transaction fees and other bank charges continue to rise.
Canadians Need to Replace the Debt Economy With a Living Wage
Canada’s income supports helped avoid mass insolvencies during the pandemic, but widespread indebtedness continues to prop up the country’s ailing economy. Workers must fight to replace easy credit with living wages.
Meet the Gaggle of Ghoulish Capitalists Haunting Canada
Just in time for Halloween, Jacobin casts light on a few terrifying monsters stalking the lives and nightmares of Canadians everywhere.
“Foreign Investors” Aren’t Causing Canada’s Housing Crisis. Capitalism Is.
Ahead of the coming election, Canada’s main political parties are arguing that “foreign investors“ are causing a housing crisis. But the problem isn’t foreigners — it’s the commodification of housing.
Canada’s Housing Market Is Out of Control
House prices and rents in Canada are skyrocketing. There’s only one solution to the social crisis this has caused: a massive expansion of public housing, releasing people from dependence on a rigged market.
Justin Trudeau’s New Budget Isn’t Really a Break With Austerity
Canada’s Liberal government recently tabled its first budget since the pandemic began, and it contains some modest shifts away from austerity economics. But these policies fall far short of what’s needed, and the core of Trudeau’s budget is about maintaining the status quo.
How Customer Service Surveys Are Eroding Workers’ Rights
The use of customer reviews to evaluate workers is rising across the service sector. Once you get past the shiny rhetoric of consumer empowerment, it’s a new variation on an old story: enlisting customers on the side of management to help discipline and exploit workers.
Niki Ashton Has No Reason to Apologize for Meeting With Jeremy Corbyn
Canadian NDP MP Niki Ashton has faced absurd attacks for agreeing to join an event with British Labour politician Jeremy Corbyn. Canada’s Left should see the absurd charges of antisemitism against Ashton and Corbyn for what they are: an attempt to delegitimize socialist ideas.
Canada’s Government Has No Problem With Canadians Milking Pandemic Subsidies — As Long as They’re Rich
In response to the pandemic, politicians in Ottawa set up an emergency wage subsidy scheme that was meant to help workers. But some of Canada’s biggest firms have milked the subsidy scheme for billions while paying out dividends and laying off staff.
Philip Levine Was a Poet of the Working Class
The late poet laureate Philip Levine gave us a unique and loving set of portraits of the American working class. Six years after his death on Valentine’s Day, let’s mourn his absence and celebrate his work.
Alberta’s United Conservative Party Has Seized Control of Its Public-Sector Pension Funds
As part of its anti-union agenda, Alberta’s right-wing government has wrested control of workers’ retirement funds from a joint board that gave them a guaranteed say. Workers in the province are preparing to mount a legal challenge to the power grab.
It’s Time for Players to Tackle the Great Canadian Football Rip-Off
Team owners in Canadian football made record profits while many of their players had to work second jobs to make ends meet. Now they’re using the pandemic as an excuse to claw back wages even further — a player fightback is the only way to change the game.
By Cutting Big Pharma Out of Vaccine Production, We Can Help Neutralize Anti-Vaxx Paranoia
The anti-vaxx movement is a menace, but it feeds off public distrust nurtured by the appalling record of Big Pharma. We need an alternative model that strips out the profit motive and works for the public good — Canada’s Connaught Laboratories show how that model could work.
Ontario’s Days of Action Offer a Lesson for Canadian Workers Today
In 1990s Ontario, austerity measures provoked a long series of strikes and demonstrations known as the Days of Action. The high points of that mobilization can serve as a model for struggles to come as we face post-pandemic cutbacks.