Perspectives: A Canadian Journal of Political Economy and Social Democracy
The Perspectives Journal Podcast complements the journal and opinions content of Perspectives: A Canadian Journal of Political Economy and Social Democracy, to bring out left-wing ideas and strategy in a new and ever-evolving format. The podcast features interviews with policy experts, to dig deeper into the progressive angles of the issues affecting working-class, ordinary Canadians.Hosted by editor-in-chief, Clement Nocos, the Perspectives Journal Podcast aims to bring forward timely analysis on issues from the multiple crises of the economy, cost-of-living and the environment, to the labour movement, as well as the state of Canadian democracy. The wide reaching breadth of...
How a Progressive Government Builds Digital Sovereignty
Chile’s former Minister of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation explains how her progressive government built capacity for digital sovereignty in anticipation of the age of AI.
The global economy is overly dependent on U.S. tech giants for digital infrastructure, data, and artificial intelligence. U.S. laws and corporate dominance threaten external control over digital systems, putting sovereignty, privacy, and democracy at risk.
Meanwhile, AI as a tool for the profit of Big Tech companies is threatening jobs, undermining public education, healthcare, and public services, and eroding public trust.
But Canada can’t si...
Class & Climate: Debunking Degrowth with Matt Huber
Author and professor Matt Huber argues that solving the climate crisis doesn’t require economic "degrowth".
On this episode of Class & Climate: Perspectives on a Green Economy, Matt Huber, author of Climate Change as Class War, challenges commonly-held assumptions about responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions, debunking the myth of "degrowth" as the sole solution to our planetary climate crisis.
Class & Climate is a podcast series from Perspectives Journal and the Green Economy Network that maps how climate action can deliver jobs and long-term affordability for workers — while debunking myths that these goals are a zero-sum trad...
Social Democrats of the North: Frank Calder, Living in Two Worlds
Early Canadian social democrats routinely ignored the issues facing Indigenous communities, despite regularly claiming concern with poverty and social justice. Frank Calder fought to change this when he was elected as an MLA for the British Columbia CCF in 1949.
As the first status Indigenous person to be elected at either the federal or provincial level in Canada, Calder used his position to advocate for a modern, comprehensive land claims policy to facilitate the negotiation and claims process. His long political career was marked by many successes as he navigated through the different worlds of Indigenous and provincial p...
Social Democrats of the North: M.J. Coldwell, From the Prairies to Parliament
CCF Leader M.J. Coldwell fought in Parliament to establish unemployment insurance and old age pensions.
When the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation burst onto the Canadian political scene as a new socialist political party in the 1930s, there was no guarantee it would survive. Building the CCF during the Great Depression required dedicated organizers and leaders willing to fight for the working class. M.J. Coldwell took on leadership of the CCF, and made it into a well-entrenched and long-lasting force in Canadian politics.
As a Saskatchewan MP and CCF Leader, he fought in the House...
Class & Climate: Workers' Safety in the Climate Crisis
How are unions protecting workers’ health and safety as temperatures rise, fires and floods increase, and environmental regulations are gutted?
On May Day 2026, the Green Economy Network's Em Thompson brought together union health and safety experts for a public conversation on workers’ safety in the climate crisis. How is the labour union movement protecting workers from rising temperatures, increasing disasters, and weakening environmental regulations? Panelists include:
Alex Callahan, National Director of Health, Safety and Environment with the Canadian Labour Congress.Anne Tennier, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Cent...Socialism After Capitalism
2026 Ellen Meiksins Wood Prize and Lecturer Bhaskar Sunkara spoke to Luke Savage at Toronto Metropolitan University about what a modern 21st century socialism should look like. What’s worked, what’s failed, and what comes next? Is economic democracy compatible with capitalism? When so many figures, from Rosa Luxemburg, to Ed Broadbent, to Tony Blair, have at one point called themselves “social democrats,” is there a tension or confusion between social democracy and socialism? Sunkara’s discussion previews his forthcoming, co-authored book entitled The Blueprint: How Socialism Can Work in the Real World, as well as...
Social Democrats of the North: Moses Coady, Antigonish Awakening
Coady's ideas about collectivism and co-operation represented the first real challenge to the conservatism of Nova Scotia’s political culture.
Moses Coady was a Catholic priest, a scholar at St. Francis Xavier University and, most importantly, he was an organizer who was best known for leading the Antigonish Movement: a co-operative movement focused on adult education, microfinance, and rural development.
The Antigonish Movement, based at St. FX, sparked a co-operative movement wave across the Maritimes, establishing credit unions, schools, and co-ops throughout the region during the early 20th century. The co-operative and collectivist institutions he de...
Shaping Canada’s Economic Future with Barry Sawyer, Bea Bruske, and Magali Picard
At the 2026 Progress Summit: Defending Democracy Across Borders, Canada’s labour leaders discussed what labour is fighting for: a different economic and trade future that puts workers at the centre.
As Trump-era trade and economic policies reshape decisions about jobs, industry, and investment, workers and communities in Canada are feeling the effects. From manufacturing to public services to war-shock inflation, economic choices are being made that will reshape the future of work on both sides of the border, often without workers at the table. Panelists include:
Bea Bruske, Canadian Labour Congress, President...Class & Climate: The Politics of Electrification with Stephen Thomas
The David Suzuki Foundation's Stephen Thomas discusses the political challenges and possibilities for building a truly green Canadian electricity grid.
Stephen Thomas is a climate campaigner, policy analyst, and engineer working on the front lines of Canada’s transition to a 100% zero-emissions electricity grid as the Clean Energy Manager for the David Suzuki Foundation.
For Class & Climate: Perspectives on a Green Economy, Green Economy Network National Convenor Em Thompson sits down with Stephen to discuss the politics of electrification and the challenges, and the opportunities fo...
Defending Democracy Across Borders with David Adler
To defend democracy across borders, we must understand the global right-wing network and build the power to confront it.
At the 2026 Progress Summit, David Adler highlighted the organized right-wing network of actors and institutions — what he calls the 'Reactionary International.'
Adler is the Co-General Coordinator of the Progressive International, an group that unites, organizes and mobilizes the world’s progressive forces to fight for democracy.
On March 5, 2026, he delivered a keynote on the theme of the 2026 Progress Summit: Defending Democracy Across Borders, and moderated a panel discussion featuring:
Social Democrats of the North: George Hara Williams
In 1944, the Saskatchewan CCF formed the first social democratic government in North America. Behind this landmark achievement was George Hara Williams, the oft-forgotten architect of the CCF’s success in the province, who laid the organizational groundwork that brought together labour and farmers movements to produce the history-making victory. After building these foundations, he left to fight in the Second World War while still a Member of the Legislative Assembly. He became Minister of Agriculture, returning in time for the election of the CCF government, but this victory was short-lived for Williams. His seldom told story is in...
Class & Climate: The COP Folly with Martin Empson
The UK-based climate activist and writer explains how the Conferences of Parties have bureaucratized climate organizing.
Martin Empson is a climate activist from the UK and the editor and a contributor to System Change not Climate Change, a book of essays from socialists around the world on the nature of capitalism's ecological crisis and the radical response that is needed.
On this eighth episode of Class & Climate: Perspectives on a Green Economy, the Green Economy Network's national convenor Em Thompson sits down with Martin Empson to reveal how...
Social Democrats of the North: École Sociale Populaire
Learn about the unique Catholic roots of Quebec's social democratic tradition.
While Quebec's social democratic tradition is often traced back to the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, the province's left-wing roots are planted deeper than that. This episode examines the Catholic roots of social democracy surrounding L’École Sociale Populaire. This socially-driven organization of Jesuit priests had a dramatic effect on Quebec politics during the 1930s, revealing Quebec social democracy to be a genuinely homegrown phenomenon, unique from its left-wing counterparts in English Canada.
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Social Democrats of the North: Canadian Visions for Jus...
Social Democrats of the North: Ernest Winch and Harold Winch
Social democracy has long been a powerful political force in British Columbia. This episode explores its origins in the province through the lives and ideas of two of British Columbia’s left-wing pioneers: Ernest Winch and Harold Winch. This father-son duo was known for uncompromising Marxist defence of the interests of workers against exploitation by big business, enshrining a class dynamic to BC politics that impacts electoral outcomes to this day.
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Social Democrats of the North: Canadian Visions for Justice & Equality from Confederation to the Quiet Revolution is a new podcast series from Perspectives Jo...
Social Democrats of the North: League for Social Reconstruction
The League for Social Reconstruction was a group of socialist thinkers, brought together by the crisis of the Great Depression, that laid the intellectual foundations for modern Canadian social democracy.
Through the crisis of the Great Depression, Canadian socialist intellectuals came together as 'The League for Social Reconstruction' to lay out the political and economic ideas that would become the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the 1933 Regina Manifesto; the party's policy program. The LSR was described as the CCF's "brain trust" and can be seen as a prototype of the modern "think tank." It was instrumental in developing...
Activists Make History: Winning for Working People with Rob Ashton
The longshoreman and leadership hopeful shares his vision for Canada's NDP as the party of workers and everyday people.
SUBSCRIBE to the Perspectives Journal Podcast and Activists Make History for previous interviews with the 2026 NDP leadership race candidates.
Rob Ashton is a trade unionist, longshoreman, and candidate running to be the next leader of the federal NDP. He has spent more than three decades working on Canada’s docks and in the labour movement, rising through the ranks of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. He...
Activists Make History: A New Era for the NDP with Tanille Johnston
The NDP leadership hopeful reflects on her roots in student organizing to usher in a new era for progressive organizing in the federal NDP.
SUBSCRIBE to the Perspectives Journal Podcast and Activists Make History for previous and upcoming interviews with the 2026 NDP leadership race candidates.
Tanille Johnston is a social worker, city councilor, and candidate running to be the next leader of the federal NDP. A member of the We Wai Kai First Nation, she has led an impactful career in Indigenous health and social...
Social Democrats of the North: Agnes Macphail, Canada's First Female MP
Rather than treating feminism and social democracy as separate projects, Agnes Macphail understood both as essential to building a more democratic and equal society.
A committed social democrat, Agnes Macphail was Canada’s first woman elected to Parliament and a leader whose politics were shaped by a lifelong opposition to patriarchy and sexism. Over two decades in the House of Commons, she used her parliamentary career to champion causes including peace, prison reform, progressive taxation, and strong social programs. Rather than treating feminism and social democracy as separate projects, Macphail understood both as essential to building a mo...
Extreme Wealth’s Threat to Democracy with Patriotic Millionaires Canada
Even the rich agree: extreme wealth inequality is a threat to democracy. In a new survey conducted by Patriotic Millionaires of millionaires and billionaires across G20 countries, 65% agree that extreme wealth is a threat to democracy. Yet, in front of billionaires on the Davos stage of the World Economic Forum, Prime Minister Mark Carney touts tax cuts and subsidies for AI data centres while mourning the end of the liberal world order and democratic backsliding. On the other hand, NDP leadership candidate Avi Lewis asks bankers on Bay Street whether they are aware of the societal and democratic benefits...
Activists Make History: Big Tent Organizing with Heather McPherson
Heather McPherson is channeling value-driven politics in her campaign for NDP leadership.
SUBSCRIBE to the Perspectives Journal Podcast and Activists Make History for previous and upcoming interviews with the 2026 NDP leadership race candidates.
Since 2019, Heather McPherson has been Member of Parliament for Edmonton Strathcona, securing a once-contentious parliamentary seat through three federal elections. Raised in a working-class home in Edmonton, she spent more than 15 years working with Canada World Youth and the Alberta Council for Global Cooperation before entering politics.
On this episode...
Activists Make History: From the Ground Up with Tony McQuail
Tony McQuail is channeling decades of grassroots activism to platform rural issues and a green progressive vision for the federal NDP.
Stay tuned for future episodes with other candidates in the 2026 NDP leadership race.
Tony McQuail is an organic farmer and candidate running to be the next leader of the federal NDP. A lifelong activist, he has run for office multiple times, served on the Huron County Board of Education, and spent decades organizing around sustainable farming, rural issues, and green progressive politics.
On this episode of Activists Make History, host...
Activists Make History: Stories that Change the World with Avi Lewis
Peggy Nash is bringing conversations from the campaign trail to Activists Make History, speaking with candidates running to be the next leader of the federal NDP.
Avi Lewis is a journalist, documentary filmmaker, and candidate running to be the next leader of the federal NDP. Born in Toronto, he built a career telling stories about movements for economic and social justice, from worker-run enterprises to global climate campaigns.
On this episode of Activists Make History, host Peggy Nash talks to Lewis about his efforts connecting social movements for a common political front.
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Social Democrats of the North: William Irvine, The Power of Persistence
This Scottish-born preacher turned politician helped lay the foundation for early social democratic electoral success in Alberta and across Canada.
William Irvine’s life and career reflects the power of persistence in struggles. Born to a working-class familyin the Shetland Islands, Irvine immigrated to Canada to lead a Unitarian church congregation in Alberta. After arriving in Calgary in 1916, he was swept up by the social gospel movement of the time. He ran for political office with the Labour Party in Alberta, and then as a candidate for the United Farmers of Alberta, before being elected as an MP...
Social Democrats of the North: E.A. Partridge, The Great Builder
A pioneer of Canadian prairie socialism, E.A. Partridge was a radical farmer who organized Saskatchewan grain growers in the face of rampant price fixing. The founder of the 'Grain Growers' Grain Company' cooperative and publisher of the Grain Growers' Guide, Partridge was a major player in the history of Canadian social democracy. Learn about his "Partridge plan" and the social democratic roots of western Canadian alienation on this episode of Social Democrats of the North.
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Social Democrats of the North: Canadian Visions for Justice & Equality from Confederation to the Quiet Revolution is a...
Social Democrats of the North: J.S. Woodsworth, A Man of Faith
One of the most iconic socialists in Canadian history, most on the Canadian left may likely identify J.S. Woodsworth as Canada's first social democrat. Woodsworth was an organizer of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike and the first leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, founded in 1932. This episode of Social Democrats of the North reflects on the Social Gospel that saw Jesus as a radical socialist, the farmers and labour movements that struggled for power over the Canadian Prairies, and their expansion into a national social democratic movement.
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Social Democrats of the North: Canadian Visions...
Activists Make History: Women United — Toronto Book Launch
The new book by Peggy Nash & Julie White tells the untold stories of dozens of women leaders in the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Union.
In November 2025, Between the Lines books published Women United: Stories of Women’s Struggles for Equality in the Canadian Auto Workers Union by Peggy Nash and Julie White. The co-authors were interviewed by Tricia Wilson, Director of Equity and Racial Justice at Unifor, at their November 13 book launch in Toronto.
About Women United:
Based on the firsthand stories of do...
Social Democrats of the North: Francis Marion Beynon, Feminist Firebrand
What was the place of feminism in early Canadian social democracy? This episode looks at one of the first feminist social democrats in Canadian history: Francis Marion Beynon. Her work as journalist in Winnipeg in the early 1900s was critical for pointing out how exploitation wasn’t just about workers and bosses — it was also about the way that women were being treated by their husbands at home.
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Social Democrats of the North: Canadian Visions for Justice & Equality from Confederation to the Quiet Revolution is a new podcast series from Perspectives Journal by Broadbent Resea...
Social Democrats of the North: Olivar Asselin, The Radical Journalist
In the early 20th century, Montreal was a hotbed of radical thinking on working-class politics and Quebec’s place in Canada. Amidst working-class poverty and the upheaval around the First World War, Olivar Asselin emerged as one of Montreal's most famous journalists who advocated for Quebec's working poor. Named, in-part, after Latin American revolutionary Simon Bolivar, Asselin foray into the military was more misguided than his namesake's campaigns for liberation, but still established himself as a social democratic force in Quebec's nationalist politics.
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Social Democrats of the North: Canadian Visions for Justice & Equality from Con...
Activists Make History: Draw the Line with Atiya Jaffar
The 350 Canada Campaigns Manager collaborated with climate, labour, Indigenous, and social justice movements to draw the line against fossil fuel expansion.
On September 20, 2025, thousands of Canadians took to the streets uniting climate justice, migrant justice, economic justice, Indigenous rights, and anti-war movements, calling for government action. Helping coordinate the more than 70 community demonstrations across Canada was Atiya Jaffar, National Campaigns Manager at 350 Canada. Activists from interconnected movements refused to stand by and accept the status quo.
On this episode of Activists Make History, host Peggy Nash talks to Jaffar...
Social Democrats of the North: Phillips Thompson, Labor Reform Songster
The prolific satirist-turned-labour-leader penned the first full account of working-class struggles in 19th century Canada.
Shortly after Confederation, Canadian cities were teeming with impoverished workers and rapid industrialization. While socialist movements were taking shape across Europe, Phillips Thompson became a leading voice for Canadian labour in Southwestern Ontario. Writing sharp political satire under the pen name “Jimuel Briggs,” Thompson gained recognition as one of Canada’s earliest labour journalists, and a spokesperson for the Knights of Labor, North America’s largest labour organization of the late 19th century.
His 1887 book The Politics of Labor was one of th...
On Fascism with Jon Weier
In September 2025 the Broadbent Institute joined left–wing think tanks from Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay and Spain to support the establishment of a global network of think tanks that produce rigorous analysis, foster data-driven debate, and contribute to the search for proposals in defense of democracy.
In the declarative agreement behind the establishment of the new Red Internacional de Pensamiento Democratico or International Network of Democratic Thought, progressive civil society groups acknowledged that although the new radical right is heterogeneous and shifting at the local level, it is rapidly expanding its ideas elsewhere, undermining the institutional fo...
Social Democrats of the North: Médéric Lanctôt, Canada's First Social Democrat
It’s 1867 and Canada has just officially separated itself from Great Britain and become its own country. But, are there any social democrats around? In this episode, we meet Médéric Lanctôt - the journalist, politician, and union leader from Montreal who can be considered to be Canada’s first social democrat. From working with the homeless to organizing a federation of unions, learn about how Lanctôt fought back against the political and economic elites of his time who were selfishly lining their own pockets while thousands starved in the streets.
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Carney and the Calgary School with Mack Penner
In the the Summer 2025 issue of Perspectives Journal, University of Calgary post doc and Parkland Institute board member Mack Penner wrote ‘Carney and the Calgary School: or, Passive Revolution and Canada’s Social State in the Neoliberal Era,’ tracing the origins of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s economic thinking to the Calgary School. The Calgary School is described as an informal grouping of conservative academics that played an active and significant role in Canadian politics during the 1990s and 2000s, whose members centred around the University of Calgary. What united otherwise disparate neoliberal and neoconservative thinkers at the Calgary School w...
Activists Make History: Holding the Line with Wesley Lesosky, CUPE Air Canada Component President
Peggy Nash chats with Air Canada flight attendants union leader Wesley Lesosky about the recent strike and the fight for fair pay in the airline industry.
In August 2025, Air Canada flight attendants made headlines for striking when the employer left the bargaining table and for refusing to follow back-to-work orders issued by the Carney government at the behest of business. Leading the charge was Wesley Lesosky, a steadfast union leader and president of the CUPE Air Canada component. From his start among the rank-and-file to leading the rally for unanimous support...
Naomi Klein: The Rise of End-of-the-World Fascism and Resistance from the Global South
At the 2025 Panamerican Congress in Mexico City, held August 1st to 3rd, hosted by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and her Morena Parliamentary Group, Canadian journalist Naomi Klein gave remarks at the Esperanza Iris theatre.
The author of 'The Shock Doctrine,' 'No Logo,' and most recently the memoir 'Doppelganger,' presented remarks to delegations at the Panamerican Congress, an annual conference of progressive legislators from Nunavut to Tierra del Fuego, entitled: 'The Rise of End-of-the-World Fascism and Resistance from the Global South.'
See other political speeches from Álvaro García Linera, Clara Brugada, Il...
Canada’s Tax Haven Dilemma with Jared Walker
At this time last year in late July 2024, Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad announced that G20 finance leaders were poised to endorse a joint declaration on international tax cooperation that would hopefully help to clamp down on so-called “tax havens” by encouraging G20 countries to standardize taxes on billionaires.
Since then, Canada, a G20 country, has not moved to act on the recommendations to cooperate and coordinate with other countries on taxes, spearheaded by the Brazilian government. In fact, the federal government has reduced the workforce at the Canada Revenue Agency, the government agency responsible for taxing bill...
Carney's Cuts with Angella MacEwen
Angella MacEwen explains what is at stake with Carney’s chosen course of “cuts, cuts, and more cuts.”
Mark Carney’s new liberal government is making it loud and clear that they’re switching things up on economic policy. Following record high public service growth under his predecessor, Carney’s recent call for massive cuts to public services have sounded the alarm for Canadians concerned about a worsening trade war with the Trump administration.
A year after dispelling the myth of Canada’s so-called “productivity crisis,” Angella MacEwen joins the Perspectives Journal podcast to explain the threats behind...
Activists Make History: Mobilizing a Movement with Sandy Hudson
Peggy Nash sits down with Sandy Hudson to talk about the roots of Black Lives Matter – Toronto, and her new book Defund.
In this episode of Activists Make History, Peggy Nash sits down with Sandy Hudson—organizer, author, and co-founder of Black Lives Matter – Toronto. Reflecting on the movement’s grassroots foundations, Hudson shows the value of Canadian organizing for racial justice and shares insights from her new book Defund: Black Lives, Policing, and Safety for All.
From challenging the status quo to creating safer communities through collective action, their conversation shows what it takes to create...
Class & Climate: Colombia’s Just Transition with Lala Peñaranda and Matt Kirkegaard
Colombian oil workers and la Unión Sindical Obrera (USO) are leading the charge for a just transition. Here's what Canada can learn from their worker-led climate plan.
Lala Peñaranda of Trade Unions for Energy Democracy Matt Kirkegaard of Progressive International present the Colombian Oilworkers' Plan — a bold strategy for a worker-led public pathway to transition off fossil fuels, with vital lessons for the Canadian labour and climate movements.
Colombian oil workers are at the forefront of this strategy. Peñaranda and Kirkegaard explain why workers, not corporations or the profit motive, are leading substa...
Class & Climate: Winds of Change with Alex Connolly
The fight for better workplace conditions doesn’t stop at renewable energy. Workers in renewable energy need union representation, collective bargaining and a voice in their workplace for the energy transition to benefit all Canadians.
Alex Connolly, a renewable energy worker in Nova Scotia, compares the workplace conditions from his time in the oil sands to his current work putting up wind turbines. He shares how quality wages and work closer to home aren’t at odds with lower emissions.
But the fight for better workplace conditions doesn’t stop at renewable energy. Workers in renewab...
