Out of Left Field

We're back, folks! After a bit of a hiatus we return to chat about the recent American election, some of our favourite moments from the Trump presidency, the upcoming economic collapse and of course everybody's favourite: COVID-19.

The crew returns today for some hop takes on all the recent elections! From the NDP's crushing victory in British Columbia, the ongoing bedlam South of the border in the United States, and even further South with the victory of the Movement Towards Socialism party in Bolivia. We give our thoughts on how the NDP will govern BC, what's going to happen in a few short days in America, and how the MAS victory in Bolivia might affect the region. We also take a few moments to dunk on Elon Musk near the end of the episode, because why not? You can read the article Ben mentioned here: https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/after-john-horgans-smashing-bc-ndp-victory-now-is-the-time-to-be-bold

Today we are joined by director of the Centre for Future Work, Jim Stanford! We discuss his recent findings regarding how union organising has increased during the pandemic, how COVID is laying bare the contradictions in Canadian capitalism, and how in times of crisis people need someone to have their back. You can check out the Centre for Future Work as well as Jim's article below: https://centreforfuturework.ca/ https://centreforfuturework.ca/2020/09/09/in-a-crisis-you-want-someone-at-your-back/

Senior BC Political Correspondent Ian Bushfield is back on the show for a very special BC election forecast episode! With the first (and only) leaders debate just behind us, we explore the political situation in British Columbia, the state of the BC NDP, Green and Liberal parties, and what this might mean for the politics of BC going forward. You can watch the full leaders debate here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELFmhJ0x7oY Check out Ian's podcasts below for more BC and Vancouver political commentary: https://www.politicoast.ca/ https://www.cambiereport.ca/ You can follow Ian on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/ibushfield Also, apologies for the lacklustre audio quality on this episode, Ben was not in his natural recording habitat so we had to improvise!

Today we are joined by three activists from the Victoria based Retail Action Network! We chat about their organisation, their work in the community helping retail and service sector workers, union activism and more! If you want to get involved, or if you live outside of Victoria and want to network with them check them out here: https://retailaction.ca/