Rebuilding The Welfare State
Canada’s welfare state does many great things. Through the welfare state, we can get care when we’re sick, income when we’re out of work, a pension when we’re retired and much more. But after decades of erosion and cuts, Canada’s welfare state is a shell of what it used to be. In this course by labour researcher Adam D.K. King, you’ll learn about why the welfare state exists, what it does, how it works in Canada and ways to reimagine it to make it better for us all.
Why The Rent Is Too Damn High
Canada recognizes adequate housing as a human right, yet every year more and more people can’t afford a decent home because of skyrocketing housing costs. The only people the housing market seems to work well for are the small number of wealthy speculators for whom housing is an investment, and nothing more.
How did we get to this point, and what can be done to fix it? In this course, Doug Yearwood explores the roots of Canada’s housing crisis, the factors that ensure it persists, and how we can ensure everyone has adequate housing in the future.
Beyond Prisons
Abolishing prisons may seem like a radical idea to many, but there’s a strong, practical case to be made for it. In this course, Ted Rutland and Virginia Adamczak look at the history of Canada’s prison industrial complex, outline the immense harms it causes, and explore strategies for dismantling it and creating alternatives that promote safer and healthier communities.
Socialism Success Stories
Official narratives in the West treat socialism as a failure wherever it has been attempted, but this is not the case. We will look at lesser-known examples of successfully implemented socialist institutions, agendas, and programs from around the world throughout history.
Deepening Democracy
Democracy isn’t easy to establish, and it’s just as hard to extend and maintain. Constantly under construction, democracy can only survive if we work at it. But too often it is constrained, made exclusive, leaving day-to-day folks out of the process of self-government, alienating them and failing to deliver the policies and laws they want and need. This course by political theorist David Moscrop will focus on where democracy is failing us and what we can do to improve it to deliver on the promise of demos-kratos — the power of the people.
How The Car Conquered The World
The car culture of North America did not develop accidentally. It was the planned result of a long and vicious fight by corporate interests to undermine public transit and sell private automobiles. In this email course, James Wilt — author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Cars? Public Transit in the Age of Google, Uber, and Elon Musk — explores the history of suburban sprawl and car culture, and how we can build a better future with high-quality public transit for all.