What's Left

Public debate, public governance: what's missing from the Sidewalk Labs project | What's Left Issue 110

2019-10-16

The dog days of summer saw a new development in what some are calling a new world-historical event, and not in a good way. It is the creation of Sidewalk Labs on the Toronto waterfront through an *innovative* (one hears this word a lot) and perhaps unholy alliance between the Alphabet subsidiary (Alphabet is both Google's and Sidewalk Labs' parent company) and an odd bird of municipal governance, Waterfront Toronto.

Basic Income | What's Left

Editors (What's Left)

2016-11-14

Economics, Neoliberalism

In a clear victory for rhetoric over substance in the age of post-truth, the Ontario Liberal government has announced that it will run a pilot project to test the so called 'universal basic income” idea. However, from the policy documents that have been released, it is quite obvious the Liberals intend to implement a more regressive version of this deeply flawed policy program. The Liberal-supporting media is tying itself in knots in attempts to support the program. First, a plea decrying Ontario's 'meagre and rule-bound social assistance program' that the provincial government has purposefully manipulated in order to limit access to supports. Then, without a sense of irony, the media say that cash to buy private services is the only way to fix the problems previous Liberal and Conservative governments created through privatization and austerity.

Equality and corporate opportunism in US debate over rights | What's Left

Editors (What's Left)

2015-04-06

There were some pretty scary laws on their way to being passed in Arkansas and Indiana last week. The good news is that the broad coalition pushing back against these regressive and hateful laws have won a minor victory. Both republican state legislators have been forced to amend the laws which would have legalized discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community.