Putting Housing Poverty on Notice
In our first issue following the outbreak of COVD-19 in Canada, Monitor contributors assess the federal and provincial government responses to date and propose how we might use this moment of government activism to fix the gross inequalities in our society—by improving social programs such as employment insurance, income assistance and our health care system, for example.
Our cover story centres Canada’s decades-old housing affordability crisis, which will compound hardship for millions of people who are out of a job, or on drastically lower hours or pay, during the “Great Lockdown” of 2020. To find all of the CCPA’s work on Canada’s pandemic response, see our Behind the Numbers blog.
Here’s a sample of what you’ll find in this issue.
- Canada after the “Great Lockdown” — Monitor Editor Stuart Trew welcomes the return of activist government, but the money needs to keep flowing.
- An opportunity to end housing poverty — Natasha Bulowski speaks to housing experts and city councillors about what it will take to make housing affordable and available to all.
- Gig workers win right to unionize in Ontario — Lawyer Fathima Cader looks to the “Foodsters” about how to build real-world solidarity and trust in an online age.
- Bangladeshi workers on the edge — Asad Ismi interviews Canadian and Bangladeshi labour unions on how their international solidarity efforts are affected by the pandemic.
- When artificial intelligence becomes artificial intimacy — Cynhtia Khoo unpacks the brave new world of online dating and therapy chatbots.
- Policing dissent, from the Toronto G20 to the Wet’suwet’en conflict — Paul Weinberg looks back on the the June 2010 mass arrests and asks what has changed, if anything, in how the RCMP polices activism.
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Cover illustration by Maura Doyle.
