The end of the world?

I19

I don't believe we're that close to the end of civilization as some people would have us believe in terms of an ecological crisis. I think here, where we're situated, it'll be a long time before we feel the worst effects of that. I don't think that's true everywhere and what that leads to remains to be seen I guess but I don't think here that's imminent, at least that's my impression….Maybe I am more confident that I'm going to see the end of the world in some sense than I actually am that I'm going to see the end of capitalism.

Reimagining development

I31

To what ends are we growing this economy? I think there's sort of three fundamental objectives of development in the twenty-first century: low carbon because of climate change, adapting to climate change, [and] reconciling some of the differences that exist within the current system. We need low carbon development and we need to create food security, energy security, and robust, resilient systems that people will be able to provide for their needs, and provide for their families, and so on. It's pretty simple. It's not growing the economy, because that's what got us into this mess in the first place.

Solidarity against the prison-industrial complex

I12

Definitely supporting people who have had their freedoms taken away by the prison system and by the state...is one of my political priorities and I do that through doing fundraisers, letter writing... staying updated is another important priority. I try and check websites that have updates of global resistance movements regularly.

A revolving door of resistance

I12

I feel like it's a revolving door of resistance where people are...doing stuff and they leave or people become disgruntled with it and then [even though] more people...are becoming politicized, they're not necessarily taking it a step further and really trying to push that agenda of active resistance and direct resistance against the state. [My] frustration with that is the lack of people who really want to get involved but I also have to remind myself that the place where I am at right now has taken fifteen years [for me to get to].

Talking – or not – about patriarchy

I26

A really sad truth...is that when you start talking about patriarchy, people shut down.

No return

I22

I think the world is pregnant with dangers, to use an unfortunate metaphor, it's pregnant, it's full. War,...[w]e haven't even spoken about...the environmental crisis. People operate in sort of a linear epistemology and what we see with the environmental crisis, it's exponential. So in our lifetimes, ten, fifteen years down the road, it's not short, we could see even greater calamities because who knows how these complex systems interact? So there's all of these issues and so to solve all of these people need to realize that none of these can be solved by believing that...we can go back to the past and that these people [in power] can be pressured into going back into the past because history doesn't work that way.

Capitalism, motivation, and social reproduction

I11

I think it's really foolish to think that if the competition of capitalism was taken away or if the goal of money were taken away that people wouldn't do things…[that] people would just sit around. No, people will maintain roads if they’re important roads, and maintain the public systems that they use or whatever, or grow food, but we won't do things like build $6 000 000 passing lanes in spots we don't need them...

Political empowerment

I22

...voter turnout in provincial and national elections keeps on going down...I don't think it's a question of apathy...people have no real say in how things operate. That's one particular issue. Second, I think it's a question of empowering Canadians as a whole. I think first we have to begin with this electoral process which...serves the big parties and doesn't serve the ordinary Canadians. So how do Canadians participate in the political process? How do they make decisions? How do they control the decision makers? These are very important issues that have to be taken up but also the empowerment of each Canadian.

Resource wars

I25

Right now I think that the future is probably going to entail a lot of world crisis in terms of developing countries and resource wars and I think that'll probably hinge around three issues...peak oil, climate change, and natural resource depletion….I think resource wars are probably going to become more common. I think that as...climate change affects the world that Canada will probably gain a lot of population and be under pressure to exploit its natural resources a lot more. I'd suspect that we'll see this trend continue of sort of beefing up our borders and not letting people in almost like a worldwide [feudal] scenario, and I think that food and water are probably going to become the most valuable political tools...

A new party

I16

I think there has to be a new party. I think there has to be a new communist party, that's what I think. We see that we're not able to get legislation in this province to protect workers in the workplace. We see that we have something in the order of one in eight children living below the poverty level and families not having enough food to eat. I don't think this can be solved by tinkering around the edges and sending in a social worker. We need to have some kind of spirited organization that is going to consistently fight.