Manitoba NDP turns housing crisis into P3 corporate welfare handout

“We are going to be unlocking the power of business to help us grapple with some of these challenges,” says Manitoba's NDP Premier, Wab Kinew.

While Manitoba's prior two-term Tory government shuttered more public housing units that it created, the Manitoba NDP has gone further than mere cuts and has started sending millions of dollars into the coffers of private developers in a doomed, corruption-prone bid to create affordable housing.

 

October 8, 2024 press conference where Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew announced $10 handout to Business Council of Manitoba.

Who is CUPE National's Comms Director?

On the Fred Hahn Affair, it was excellent to see CUPE member, Katherine Grzejszczak, go public with the connection between CUPE National's Communications Director, Karine Fortin, and Richard Marceau, the VP and general counsel of The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), the notorious lobby group in Canada that defends Israeli apartheid and genocide.

It seems Fortin's connections with CIJA were becoming something of an open secret in certain labour circles in recent weeks. In addition to what Grzejszczak exposed, here are more facts that significantly tighten the link between Fortin and Marceau/CIJA.

Will Wab Kinew become Prime Minister of Canada?

There's a network of Liberal and NDP powerbrokers, including former Liberal cabinet minister, Lloyd Axworthy, and former Manitoba Premier and Harper's ambassador to the US, Gary Doer, who are collaborating on putting Manitoba NDP Premier Wab Kinew in the Prime Minister's Office. Kinew is being positioned to knock off Pierre Poilievre, whose Conservatives are likely to win the 2025 federal election.

 

Lessons from Britain: Anti-fascism after the Convoy

The anti-fascist protests in Britain are almost the opposite of what happened in Ottawa during the fascist mob "Freedom Convoy" occupation. Following the British policing example, the Convoy fascists were not cleaned out by the Ottawa police. Inevitably, a local street response was needed to confront the Convoy fascists and drive them out.

Resistance sends Israeli war machine into crisis

Political crisis. Economic crisis. Diplomatic crisis. Israel's genocidal fascism combines all these elements. However, there is another element: a profound military crisis. There is mounting evidence that Israel is facing a severe shortage of tanks and other armoured vehicles because of the prowess of the armed resistance sharpened through decades of experience of Israeli high-tech brutality. In response to a Israeli Supreme Court petition to mobilize women for combat operations in Gaza, the IDF has disclosed severe tank and tank ammunition shortages that require the IDF to delay such training until late 2025.

War for what?

It looks like Ukraine's democracy is toast, and Zelensky is a de facto dictator at this point. The first round of legally-mandated presidential elections were supposed to start last month but they've been put off.

For all the bullshit we were fed about defending democracy in Ukraine, none of Ukraine's international backers made a public push to have Zelensky hold elections. No public concern was raised by Trudeau and Freeland.

Romeo Dallaire's Peace of Shit

Retired General Romeo Dallaire, famous for his UN command in Rwanda and his book about the Rwandan Genocide, "Shake Hands With the Devil", has finally emerged into public view again now that a genocide is being inflicted upon Palestinians - with open Canadian complicity in arming Israel's death squads.

As it turns out, Dallaire does not say a damn thing about today's genocide. There isn’t a single mention of Palestine or Israel, although the Holocaust and "never again" is cited in the first paragraph after Dallaire reminds us he was in Rwanda in 1994.