On the first Monday of 2023, Jan. 9, the Toronto Police Services Board (TPSB) held a special meeting to discuss and vote upon a proposed $48.3 million CAD increase to the Toronto Police Services (TPS) operating budget in 2023, which represents a 4.3% increase over the bloated 2022 operating budget. Like in most Canadian cities, TPS takes up the  biggest slice of the annual city budget at 22%. But by pushing a narrative that the city is increasingly beset by violent crime AND that the best solution is more police, Mayor John Tory and the City of Toronto keep throwing more at TPS instead of putting money towards our schools, public transit, daycare, and more. 

The lack of a unified healthcare operating system is an urgent issue facing the healthcare sector. Dr. Tam's recent report, "A Vision to Transform Canada’s Public Health System" (The Chief …, 2021) discusses how, "the national data landscape is fragmented across jurisdictions, governmental organizations, and community-level data owners” (p. 58, para. 2). Moreover, in a statement of the report, Dr. Tam says, "Our pandemic response was hindered in part, by significant gaps in our public health surveillance and data systems" (Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), 2021). These gaps in our healthcare systems are dangerous. If I were to hazard a guess - based on my experience working as a public health case/outbreak investigator from November 2020 to present in a long-term care/retirement home team – I would say we are currently 80% inefficient. I would even argue that it could be declared a logistical emergency (a type of internal crisis, a ‘code brown’).

Well folks, he’s done it again. Ontario Premier Doug Ford retrieved the major tool in his toolbox: privatization. This time, Ford brandishes privatization to hammer on the nail that is the province’s healthcare system. As reported by the CBC last week, “Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones are planning to make an announcement next week on expanding the number and range of surgeries performed in independent health facilities outside of hospitals.” Independent health facilities are generally for-profit clinics operated by the private owners.

On Nov. 10, Eli Lilly, one of three pharmaceutical companies that collectively dominate the global insulin market, tweeted out, “we are excited to announce that insulin is free now.” With the adorned blue check, normally an indicator of a verified celebrity or corporate twitter account, the announcement went semi-viral. Eli Lilly’s stock price tumbled and many online laughed at how Twitter seemed to be imploding after a few short weeks with Elon Musk at the helm. But when one looks just slightly past the weeds of trolls and memes, contradictions inherent to capitalism smack you straight in the face.

A mental health crisis continues to swell. Among those seriously impacted are the students enrolled in Colleges and Universities in Ontario. The numbers are bleak, but how did we get here? A historical and material analysis is needed to understand the ‘why’ of the crisis and how students ought to organize and fight back!

The pandemic makes clear that useful vaccines only come about as a side effect of making profit. It is time to seize the pharmaceutical companies and unleash their full potential to fight illness and promote wellness.

The working class suffers miserably under the Covid-19 pandemic. But in record time, we begin mass immunization! Is this the endgame? Despite an invaluable scientific tool, class relations threaten a second wave deadlier than the first, a botched vaccine rollout, and Sars-CoV-2 variants that might just undermine vaccination altogether.

Do pandemics emerge simply by chance? Arguing from a eco-socialist perspective, we instead highlight how the capitalist system inevitably leads to the vertically-integrated and globalized agribusiness model that serves as a breeding ground for new pandemics.

Bob Dylan’s “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” is a masterclass in painting the impression of a whirlwind romance, with all its highs and lows. Contemporary covers by Miley Cyrus and others slow down the song, giving it an entirely different feel that is at odds with the Dylan’s inspiration — a torrid love affair with a record company employee.

Everything is connected. But the profit motive in capitalism disrupts natural cycles through exponential extraction and robbing resources from workers and indigenous people. Through the lens of Karl Marx’s metabolic rift theory, we establish a basis for eco-socialism and democratic control over the economy!

An exploration of the intersection between Covid-19 and mental health. The waves of two crises crash together, and the impact can already be measured by looking at suicides in the Toronto subway system.

A personal tale of working class betrayal sets the stage for a discussion of the divide-and-conquer strategy employed by the capitalist class.

Does objective truth exist? Can humans ever uncover it? With a focus on my recent publication on oxygen-sensing proteins, concepts of Truth — qualitative and quantitative, discrete and continuous — are explored and critiqued.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, socialists insist that “Capitalism is the Virus!” Capitalist systems promote the material conditions to promote pandemics and other widespread health problems. Austerity drives malnutrition and susceptibility to pestilence, and the profit-motive leads to inappropriate usage of antibiotics. We must inoculate ourselves against corporate propaganda and wipe the system of exploitation and oppression off the face of the earth.

From Plato to Salk, scientific institutions revel in the people that think rather than the people that do. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that contemporary science is incredibly hierarchical; the trainees, technicians, and postdocs that perform valuable work are left destitute and anonymous while accolades and a living wage are lavished on the principal investigators who sit on top of the pyramid.

The non-violent civil disobedience group Extinction Rebellion continues to fight for climate justice. To close out 2019, the Toronto chapter held its first general assembly and adopted a new demand: justice for all.

The central dogma is a fundamental principle taught to all students of biology. The notion that the information stored in a protein sequence cannot serve as a template for a complementary nucleic acid strand still stands. Here, we consider the curious case of in silico reverse translation software designed by humans. Does this violate the central dogma? A discussion of society and nature is necessary to address the question.

Today, liberals and the left often are clumped together. But, a chasm differentiates the political ideologies between the two. Phil Ochs, one of the eminent folk singers on the sixties, recorded the sardonic Love Me, I’m a Liberal in 1966. The pointed satire mocking the liberal contradiction is as relevant as ever.

Society’s relationship with big pharma is love-hate. We despise how expensive new, life-saving drugs are, but we bite the bullet because the profit motive promotes the pharmaceutical industry to innovate like no other. That is a myth. Scientists working at universities and in the non-profit sector do the hard work. They lay the biological groundwork for pharma to swoop in at the last second and patent cures. Pharma is parasitic. Scientists can and should be in charge of nationalized pharmaceutical strategy because the current system is broken.

We are taught that all improvements in societal health are causally linked to a corresponding scientific advance. This is the myth of heroic science. It is clear that lifespan has steadily increased due to a decline in infectious disease mortality. However, this has more to do with improve quality of life due to labour and socialist movements than antibiotic and vaccine development. Socialism is capable of improving our material conditions through wealth redistribution and my allowing democratic control of our scientific institutions to make sure we all benefit from our collective genius and creativity.

If a family of refugees can thrive in Canada, surely our system is fair and just. Right? An honest recounting of my family’s experience reveals that our success depended on the charity of close friends. It was not the Canadian government or capitalism that lifted us out of poverty. It was two ladies.

Graduate students at the University of Toronto are poorly remunerated for our scientific labour. Our stipend is a poverty wage, and we are ripe for financial exploitation. This desperation drives graduate students to the gig economy for the money they need to survive. In the freelance editing world, trainees can expect low payouts and stressful deadlines. We need to provide a living salary for all scientists, even those who are still in training.

From poverty to climate change, many threats to the current insulin supply exist. Biological medications are controlled by monopolies and produced by for-profit companies dependent on international trade. Can communities produce their own insulin in accordance with decentralized, non-hierarchical practices?

(Sitting on) The Dock of the Bay is an undisputed masterpiece by Otis Redding. Yet, a casual listen my conjure feelings of relaxation or zen. Rather, lyrical tricks of repetitiveness and omission, combined with grim descriptions underly a morose, bleak hymn. It is clear that the dock of the bay is more prison than paradise.

Myths are made out of courageous scientists fighting against pestilence and famine. These myths naturalize the problems of the world and hides the economic and political motivations behind many famous scientific “breakthroughs.” By deconstructing the myths of science, such as the Green Revolution, we begin to ask economics-based questions about contemporary science, such as the recent development of nicotine-free GMO tobacco.

The theory of evolution is held up as a litmus test for scientific literacy. But there is a fierce debate about the relative importance of the major drivers of evolution: natural selection and neutral drift. These conceptions of evolution are not apolitical but instead influenced by the organization of our own society. In turn, these theories influence how we view not only ecosystems but also human systems and economic organization.

What ought we do with the neo-nazis taking to our city streets? As much as I advocate for awareness of the material conditions that bring about conflict between different groups of working class people, we cannot merely tolerate the intolerant. Long term solutions require economic liberation and equity. In the short term, we need to defend ourselves.

Monuments act to build and maintain national identity. So it is no surprise that rebuilding monuments are inherently political actions. In rebuilding a fallen monument, like the World Trade Center, Parthenon, or Notre Dame, the values imbued in that structure are re-affirmed. It is important to remember that these values favour those in power, the very same people who are able to build monuments in the first place.

Have we arrived at a post-sexism scientific enterprise? Or are there still biases working against women as they work towards a career in academia? A discussion of the continued barriers in place, with a focus on the University of Toronto, which suggests that, although discrimination is no longer codified, there is still work to be done.

Are humans determined? Some believe that quantum uncertainty or the destruction of information within a black hole violates determinism. Or that humans, capable of recursive thought, are naturally free. An exploration that advocates acceptance of determinism.