For over four months now Albert Douglas has been locked up in the Barton Street jail in Hamilton, Ontario. He faces a number of charges including assault and attempted murder. The serious charges stem from an alleged confrontation between Douglas and American government agents at the Douglas Creek reclamation site in Caledonia.

On June 9th 2006 an undercover American ATF vehicle was spotted driving past the reclamation site, the occupants taking photographs of those involved. According to the police Albert Douglas hijacked the vehicle and assaulted those inside, one officer subsequently decided to jump from the vehicle and was injured. After this incident a country wide arrest warrant was issued and Douglas was arrested during a routine traffic stop on Highway 401 on September 27th 2007.

Racism is not just an individual problem of attitude toward a particular group: it is also systemic and structural, inherent in institutions such as the education, health, and justice systems. The Colour of Poverty Campaign (www.colourofpoverty.ca) raises awareness of these inequalities and suggests ways to work toward equality and inclusion in Ontario, explains Kathryn Hunt

The campaign argues that racism and poverty are inextricably linked, feeding into each other and into racialized disparity and inequality more generally, and need to be considered in relation to each other.

An increasing proportion of the population of Ontario come from what the Colour of Poverty Campaign calls ‘racialized groups’ – those of non-European background or heritage. Currently, 13% of Canadians are non-European, and projections suggest that ten years from now, people of colour will make up a fifth of Canadians and well over half of Toronto’s population.

After its recent very special edition on the tar sands, Greg Macdougall picks up a copy of the Dominion and considers its radical media making.

At 50 issues, the Dominion paper is on their Own Your Media tour across Canada this March. The name of the tour implies the concept they're trying to get across - building awareness and support for the coop model the Dominion now functions under.

The Dominion is a monthly Canadian paper and online source of news and analysis that has been operating since May 2003. "It aims to provide accurate, critical coverage that is accountable to its readers and the subjects it tackles." Its website cites its coverage of Afghanistan, climate change, and Canada's involvement in Haiti as examples of where Dominion offers a significant change from what appears in the mass media.

The Free women of Spain strikes its readers into thinking about equality, empowerment community and revolution, Karine from the Hamilton local delves in further to what sounds like a brilliant book.

Martha Acklesberg, in Free Women of Spain, reviews the history of the struggle for women's emancipation in Spain, before and during the Spanish Revolution (1936-1939), focusing on the major anarchist women's organization, the Mujeres Libres (Free Women) a group of libertarian women in many parts of Spain.

Anarchistblackcat.org is a moderated discussion board, set up by platformist anarchists. It was set up for a number of different reasons, here one of the moderators gives us her take on why the site was set up and what role it can play in our movement.

By Edward Wong

In the wake of racist remarks made by Toronto city councilor Rob Ford, where he generalizes about Asians and rhetorically suggests a 'take over' by Asians, it is imperative that we look at the history of discrimination and racism directed towards the Chinese, perpetrated by governments and business interests, here in Canada.

A full time job should keep you OUT of poverty, not IN it! Is that not the cure prescribed by politicians and much of the public for poverty: to merely have people who are homeless and on assistance get a job? Meg R. looks at the issue of a living wage.

Although never a sufficient solution to end poverty, the attainment of a full time job used to provide some recourse for the reduction of the intensity of poverty experienced.
However, this is no longer so as the ‘working poor’ are the fastest growing population experiencing poverty. In the last fifteen years, real wages have fallen significantly for middle and low income earners, especially for women, immigrants and youth. In 2005, 41% of Canadian low income children lived with families where at least one wage earner was employed full time (2007 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty).

At our founding conference in September, 2007 we decided to put in place a dues structure. This means that as members of Common Cause we agree to, as our constitution puts it “pay 1% to 3% ”of income according to the number of people financially dependent on the member concerned. , explains Alex D

We realize that this form of funding runs counter to most activist groups and the general activist culture in Ontario. The following 10 points are thus meant to explain why we choose to pay dues and why we think it's so important.

1. Let's start with the basics. It takes resources to do what we want to do such as having a mass distribution of Linchpin and a great website. Before putting in our time and effort it's nice to know we actually have the resources to carry out these projects. With dues, we have a good idea ahead of time of what we can reasonably achieve.

Common Cause is an Ontario anarchist organization that wants to see anarchists active in every town, neighborhood and workplace across Ontario.

A major focus of our activity is work at those crucial points where working class people are organizing together for control over their lives, the decisions affecting them and against oppression Our general approach is to involve ourselves with mass movements and work within these movements, in order to promote anarchist methods of organization involving direct democracy and direct action.

The methods of struggle that we promote are a preparation for the running of society along anarchist and communist lines after the revolution.