Redeye

Earlier this month, Israeli soldiers raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a Muslim holy site in Jerusalem. Soldiers threw teargas and stun grenades as they entered the compound and mosque, assaulting hundreds of people. Arming Apartheid is a new report by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East. It says that Canada’s arms exports to Israel have been accelerating in recent years and reach...

FortisBC, the largest natural gas distributor in BC, has developed learning resources for schools, marketed as a free K-12 online curriculum developed by teachers and based on BC’s current curriculum. The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment is raising the alarm over this type of biased content in schools. We speak with Dr. Lori Adamson, an emergency room physician in Salmon Arm...

While the April 7 budget did include some money for housing coops and non-profit housing, there is little to improve the situation for renters across Canada. We speak about housing and the federal budget with Ricardo Tranjan, political economist and senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ Ontario office.

Brent Eichler has been on hunger strike since March 25, calling for a public meeting with Forests Minister Katrine Conroy about the protection of the province’s old-growth forests. Brent has since been joined in his hunger strike by a number of other members of Save Old Growth. In addition to hunger strikes, the group also resumed its blockades of the Trans-Canada Highway at various locations in t...

Hotel workers at the Hilton Metrotown in Burnaby are involved in the longest hotel lockout in British Columbia’s history. We speak with Stephanie Fung, Communications Organizer for UNITE HERE Local 40, the Union representing the workers. She’s also a member of Asian Canadian Labour Alliance.

It has been 100 years since Vancouver developed a city-wide plan. That plan reserved over 70% of the city for single family residences. A century later, Vancouver has a new draft city plan. Public comment is open until April 24th and then it goes to council in June for debate. Ian Mass is here with City Beat to discuss the Vancouver plan, the capital budget, the police budget, a mansion tax, 2030...

The Alberta government’s recent public inquiry into “anti-Alberta energy campaigns” was set up to find out how much money was flowing from US foundations to Canadian environment groups. The inquiry was not tasked with finding out how much foreign money was flowing into the Alberta oil patch and influencing Albertan and Canadian politics along the way. Gordon Laxer has done his own investigation. W...

Ukraine’s total external government debt amounts to $54B. The country is set to pay more than $7B in debt repayments this year alone. Lenders have responded to the war and the financial crisis in Ukraine by lending even more money. The Jubilee Debt Campaign in the UK says now is the time to cancel Ukraine’s debt and allow it to spend its money on urgent humanitarian needs.

At the end of February, the Social Media Lab at Ryerson University launched the Ukraine-Russia conflict misinformation dashboard. The dashboard is a website for monitoring online misinformation and disinformation about the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. It tracks debunked claims from fact-checkers from around the world. We speak about the dashboard with Professor Anatoliy Gruzd, Canada Research...

Although the municipal elections are not until October 15, Vancouver candidates are positioning themselves in advance of debates on public safety, the 2030 Winter Olympics, housing and cultural heritage, coming to City Council this upcoming week. Ian Mass joins us with his regular City Beat report.

The rapid pace of growth in Vancouver means many of the city’s small restaurants, grocery stores and other neighbourhood spaces are being lost to redevelopment. Bill Yuen is the Executive Director of Heritage Vancouver. talks about this aspect of a community’s intangible cultural heritage.

As the war in the Ukraine rages on, Canada is under increased pressure to re-arm. The Trudeau government response is a plan to buy 88 new fighter jets for an overall price tag of $76 billion. In response to that plan, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Canada has released a report titled Soaring: The Harms and Risks of Fighter Jets and Why Canada Must Not Buy a New Fleet. We speak...

On March 12, Saudi Arabia executed 81 people, the largest mass execution in the recent history of the country. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the killings and said UN monitoring indicates some of those executed were sentenced to death after trials that did not meet fair trial guarantees, and for crimes that did not meet the most serious crimes threshold, as require...

Anyone travelling on West Broadway between Main and Arbutus knows the area is a huge construction zone. The new Broadway Skytrain development, set to be finished by 2025, has created a planning process that will radically change the character of Kitsilano, Fairview and Mt. Pleasant. Ian Mass joins us to discuss this developing Broadway plan, along with a bunch of other issues, in his regular City...

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report on Feb 28. The report says that human-induced climate change is causing dangerous and widespread disruption in nature and affecting the lives of billions of people around the world. We’ve contacted Jens Wieting of Sierra Club BC to get a Canadian perspective on the report.

As the Russian war on Ukraine rages on, Canadian immigration minister Sean Fraser has responded with a new visa program for people fleeing that war. The program will cut red tape and allow Ukrainians to live in Canada for up to two years, with fewer restrictions and conditions to come here. While the program has been welcomed by refugee advocates, it raises questions about Canada’s response to peo...

In January, a subcommittee of the Halifax Board of the Police Commissioners released a report, which is Canada’s most detailed blueprint to defund, disarm, and dismantle the police. It lays out a plan for how to redirect funding from police to other organizations and pursue police accountability. The subcommittee was chaired by Dr. El Jones, poet, journalist, activist and assistant professor of po...

This will be a critical year for wild salmon as all BC federal licenses for fish farms expiring this June. British Columbia is now the only jurisdiction on the west coast of North America still allowing salmon farms. The federal government promised in 2019 to remove all open-pen salmon farms from BC waters by 2025. We speak with Dan Lewis, executive director of Clayoquot Action.

Diet for a Small Planet was the first major cookbook to address the environmental impact of meat production. Author Frances Moore Lappé advocated for a vegetarian lifestyle out of concerns over animal-based industries and products. She also argued that world hunger is not caused by a lack of food but by ineffective food policy. Frances Moore Lappé joins us to discuss the new 50th anniversary editi...

First Nations in BC are working proactively towards re-establishing sovereignty over their territories in British Columbia. Asserting sovereignty over mining activities is a critical part of that work. A recent report by the BC First Nations Energy and Mining Council aims to provide First Nations with tools to guide the development and implementation of new ways for mining to occur on their lands....

In his newly released book Becoming Vancouver, Daniel Francis follows the evolution of the city, tracing decades of transformation, immigration and economic development. Daniel Francis speaks with Ian Mass, our City Beat producer.

Noam Chomsky has been an anti-war, anti-capitalist activist for over 60 years and continues to call liberal elites to account for propping up unjust systems that have brought us to the brink of climate catastrophe and nuclear annihilation. Chomsky spoke at a recent webinar organized by Canada-China Focus, a new pan-Canadian, anti-racist project promoting critical conversations and policy initiativ...

Tens of thousands of Canadians are asking the federal government to pause any further construction on the TMX pipeline. The Canadian government bought the project from Kinder Morgan in 2018. The last update in 2020 revealed that the expansion cost had ballooned to $12.6B, and now Trans Mountain Corporation says it will cost $21.4B, four times the original estimate. We speak with Eugene Kung, staff...

Criminology Temitope Oriola says that the truckers convoy is a fascinating study in the sociology of law enforcement. Oriola is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Alberta and joint Editor-in-Chief of African Security journal. His research interests include policing, terrorism, social movements and political violence. His recent article in The Conversation talks about what the co...

At the end of November last year, people in Honduras voted overwhelmingly for the platform of democratic socialism put forward by Xiomara Castro. Her Libre Party was formed in the aftermath of the coup that deposed Castro’s husband, Manuel Zelaya. We talk with writer Owen Schalk about the 2009 couple and Canada’s role in Honduras during the reign of terror that followed.