The labour issue. Workers on the front lines of the opioid crisis are burning out. Challenges of earning a stable living as a freelancer while parenting. Letters between two labour movement vets. Brazilian activists rebuild a local economy after a mining disaster. Meet the workers who took on Canada’s casino giant. Is scientific labour really unencumbered? An excerpt from Robyn Maynard’s Policing Black Lives, and more!

What's strangling access to Canada's state archives, research for transforming the world, the role of consent in social movements, behind Canada's predatory lending crisis, and winners of our 11th annual Writing in the Margins contest.

In this issue's cover story, Irene Bindi speaks to police-free school organizers across Canada about what it takes to kick cops out of schools – and keep them out. Molly Murphy and Research for the Front Lines investigate the C-IRG, the arm of the RCMP enforcing resource extraction injunctions in B.C. Lianne Marie Leda Charlie and Josh Barichello speak to the Kaska Dena hunters fighting to care for their land and animal relatives. 

Plus a book review about the war on drugs, a parting shot about reproductive justice for trans women, and more. 

In our annual Labour Issue, contributors write about work, unions, and the labour movement. Inside, you'll find a profile of Canada's sole sex workers' union; an article about the subminimum wage workers who make Canada's Remembrance Day poppies; an argument for removing police from the labour movement; a look inside the short-lived union at HuffPost Canada; and more.

Our special Prison Abolition Issue features writing and art by prisoners in the U.S. and Canada. As COVID-19 has ravaged prisons, and uprisings against police brutality and anti-Black racism have spread across the globe, prisoners write about feminism, Indigenous issues, surviving a pandemic, and fighting to abolish prisons from the inside.

In rural Saskatchewan, a network of settler landholders and Indigenous people are finding a new way to share land. Plus: A recap of a year of COVID-era hunger strikes in Canadian prisons; mutual aid's history of Black and Indigenous resistance to state violence; celebrating the 40th anniversary of CUPW’s 1981 strike, which won postal workers paid maternity leave; and reporting on the future of anti-colonial journalism. 

A year into COVID-19, this issue explores how to build a transformative mass movement against pandemic-era injustice. Plus, stories about Ontario's Ring of Fire and Anishinaabay stewardship of the land; realizing the revolutionary role of migrant workers; surveillance pills; Canada's most notorious strike-breaking company; COVID in Saskatchewan's long-term care homes; and abolishing the monarchy. 

Queen Shikwambi's baby book for her son, Angelou, documents the ups and downs of her pregnancy and parenthood while living without immigration status in Canada. The winners of our 2020 Writing in the Margins prize showcase photography, creative non-fiction, and poetry about decolonial direct action, the fallout of the Vietnam war, and diaspora blues. Plus: stories about Ducks Unlimited's control of the largest  freshwater delta in North America; building internationalism from below amid a U.S.-China trade war; Land Back beyond borders; and Métis feminism. 

As Toronto evicts thousands of people from their homes during a pandemic, our cover story – a six-page comic by artist and Keep Your Rent organizer Paterson Hodgson – looks at the housing struggle that will determine the fate of Toronto. Plus, stories about Black Lives Matter in rural Canada; an investigation into the colonial practices of public housing in the Northwest Territories; an explainer on Gender-Based Environmental Violence; voices from the front lines of the Anishinaabe moose-hunting moratorium; and a look at the history of the Winnipeg police union.

COVID-19 has been called the biggest workplace issue of our lifetimes. In our special Labour in the Pandemic issue, we talk to the workers on the frontlines of the pandemic. Inside, you'll find a roundtable with Foodora couriers, a call from Amazon workers asking for salts to help them unionize warehouses, a discussion on Black women's labour during a time of two crises, a timeline of migrant agricultural workers' organizing during the pandemic, and a feature on the rural postmasters braving an avalanche of parcels from the shift to e-commerce. 

Our special 60-page Land Back issue looks at how to return land in what is currently called Canada to Indigenous Peoples, and promote the flourishing of Indigenous life, law, and governance on those territories. With timelines of 100 years of land struggle; essays on overlapping territory, sex work, and land as a social relation; case studies on Land Back projects on the ground; and investigations into resource extraction and land theft. 

Features on how a public-sector union became the biggest cheerleader for jail-building in Manitoba; how prisoners are organizing to keep each other safe as COVID-19 rages through Quebec prisons; reviving Indigenous ecological practices; pension funds' investment in the housing crisis; abuse at humanitarian aid organizations; and transformative justice.

In our May/June issue, Owen Toews writes about a northern Manitoba town's history of racial capitalism, protest, corruption, and murder. Jane Shi explains the importance of grassroots translation work in the movement for Wet'suwet'en sovereignty. Jeff Abbott investigates the ancestral Indigenous authorities battling municipalities and transnational corporations for control of their land in Guatemala. Plus, articles about the COVID-19 crisis and state responses; the Democratic Socialists of America Canada; Toronto's Tamil working class; and a book review of A Planet To Win.

In our March/April issue, Todd Gordon and Geoffrey McCormack chart Canada's path toward another economic crisis – one that may well be deeper than 2008. Plus, articles about the new group helping rich kids redistribute their wealth to social movements; "migration diplomacy" and the global erosion of free movement; the anti-colonial, anti-oppressive roots of Sikhi;  how immigrant settlers can cultivate an ethical relationship with the land; and winners of our ninth annual Writing in the Margins contest.

In our January/February issue, Abdul Malik tells the story of climate justice organizing in Alberta: how a group of young activists learned to lose, and keep fighting. Plus, articles about democratizing digital platforms; an investigation into tourism, Gwich'in culture, and climate change in the Yukon's northernmost community; an ode to picket line gardens; and emails between friends in Pakistan and Kashmir. 

Our annual labour issue has stories about the risky business of sex work in the gig economy; airport workers organizing in Canada's biggest workplace; how a Canadian garment company is fleecing women maquila workers in Honduras; the reinstatement of Canada's prison farms; a planned economy for a just transition; Alberta's public-sector unions rising to meet the challenge of a UCP government; and student journalists reviving the labour beat. Plus a book review, comic, and interview with writing contest judges. 


Corporate media owners are killing local news – and with it, our ability to understand climate change on the ground. Conversations with disabled, trans, and racialized disaster preppers. Lessons from high-school organizers fighting Ford’s education cuts. The fight against new security screening at Winnipeg’s downtown library. Canada’s population is aging – what will it take to offer people the death they deserve> Plus a book review, comic, and more. 




The fight to halt the construction of a new migrant detention centre in Laval. The women activists who are setting out to transform electoral politics in Canada. How the techlash is getting organized in Toronto. What happens when Islamophobia infects anti-racist organizations? In Mexico, resource extraction is the Achilles’ heel of the new anti-neoliberal government. Is voting really “harm reduction”? Plus a book review, comic, and more. 

How do we transition to a low-carbon future, in a way that's just for Indigenous peoples and workers? This issue is both a vision and a plan. 

With articles on the history of the just transition movement; what "giving land back" really means; case studies from the Wet'suwet'en nation's reoccupation of territory to the Imagining 2030 Network in Nova Scotia; unbordering the transition; the degrowth movement in Quebec; and more.

Inside Indian-occupied Kashmir’s deadliest year in a decade. The fight to protect an Algonquin sacred site from a condo development. The resurgence of the Jewish left in Canada. Saving Canada’s supply management system. Indigenous opposition to Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement. Winners of the Writing in the Margins contest, a book review, and more.

The leftist's case against the carbon tax. What does the death of Josephine Pelletier tell us about the interplay between colonialism, incarceration, and police brutality? The grunt work of antifascism. Are Ontario's Indigenous child welfare agencies much better than their colonial predecessors? Jason Kenney is borrowing from Israel's anti-BDS playbook to take down Alberta's environmental activists. Plus a book review, comic, and more.

The Labour Issue.  Why Palestinian workers in illegal Israeli settlements are calling for BDS. The "cost to your soul" of working in oil. During the 2018 York strike, workers on the picket line found themselves being watched. Why did Chinese communities in Toronto's commuter belt vote for Doug Ford? Plus a book review, comic, and more. 

Faced with ignorant and unwilling doctors, trans people are accessing healthcare and hormones on their own terms. The grassroots fight against one of the largest eviction campaigns in the country. Why are so many activists burning out, and what can be done about it? A climate justice reporter ventures inside the 50th annual Global Petroleum Show. Plus a book review, a comic, and more. 

Trump is threatening to rip-up NAFTA, and others seek to "modernize" it – what does this mean for the Indigenous peoples of Mexico? A report from the Zapatistas' Women In Struggle conference. Small P.E.I. farms battling for food sovereignty against big agribusiness. Throwing open the doors to unions' collective bargaining meetings. The shallow solidarity of social media, the techwashing of Israel's apartheid state, and more.

Could Saskatchewan resurrect the idea of a Crown-owned oil company to tackle the twin crises of climate change and ongoing colonialism? Surviving the Sixties Scoop on the Prairies. Remembering the 1919 Drumheller strike. A new form of legal intimidation of Winnipeg land defenders. The radical history and victories of the National Farmers Union, two book reviews, and more. 

"A Thousand More Beds": the fight for shelter beds in Canada's largest city. Writing letters to LGBTQ2S prisoners. The Punch Up Collective on building strong movements. The Wobbly Print Project talks radical art in the labour movement. The Honduran election crisis. The lawsuit facing opponents of the Site C dam. Winners of our Writing in the Margins contest, reviews, and more.

"We go where they go": Anifa is back to confront white supremacists in Canada. Plus: Nature tourism in Atlantic Canada, how student solidarity affected a faculty strike, six reasons we need pharmacare, why we need anti-oppressive reproductive care, understanding the doubts around climate change in oil-producing regions of Saskatchewan, and an excerpt from Tanya Talaga's Seven Fallen Feathers. 

Labour should fight for a shorter workweek. Corbyn's solidarity with social movements. So long, Saskatchewan pastures? Paying attention to gender in harm reduction infrastructure. Saskatchewan's renewed anti-austerity movement. Did Syriza cave to Canadian capital? When calling out makes sense. Plus a book review!

Windigo – a haunting, cannibalistic beast – is at the core of the Canadian government and society, and the best defence against it is Indigenous resurgence. How women's labour got organized in industrial Montreal in the 1930s. A timeline of resistance and insurrections. Has Trudeau changed anything about Canada’s foreign policy in Latin America? A researcher accessed documents revealing the Canadian government’s internal position on historic treaties. A land protector and a journalist talk about the future of activism and freedom of the press. A brief history of mental health and collective care. How to embolden the left in Canada. Two reviews of children's books on residential schools. And more! 

What can donations to non-profit political organizations reveal about political involvement? Building solidarity in times of precarity, Islamophobia, and Kellie Leitch. Communities in Labrador are preventing a hydroelectric project from contaminating their hunting and fishing territories. The Kingston group that wants to transform prison farms into animal sanctuaries. Does corporate sponsorship affect the politics of the Prairies’ queer film festivals? How to prevent police from undermining grassroots solidarity. Plus a book review and more.

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Briarpatch is an award-winning magazine of politics and culture. Fiercely independent and proudly polemical, Briarpatch offers original reporting, insight, and analysis from a grassroots perspective. As a reader-supported publication, Briarpatch is not just devoted to reporting on social movements — it’s committed to building them.

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Briarpatch - November/December 2017

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