Support the Dominion
Donate today!
Support the Dominion
Donate today!
In June, the world's most powerful heads of state will gather in Toronto with the purpose of shaping their preferred global order. The Dominion will publish a special issue on the G8 and G20 meetings and protests. Vancouver grassroots activist group Bus Riders Union (BRU) recently enjoyed success of its 18 month "Night Owl buses, end the curfew now!" campaign when the regional transit board Translink voted to reinstate the service. The all-night buses, which were pulled off the roads in 2001, will again operate seven nights a week.
Jennifer Efting, a BRU organizer, says that she was surprised of the decision, as the Translink board met all of the BRU's demands. As happy as she is with the decision, she sees more work to be done. For example, the next major campaign is against fare increases.
Efting says the buses need to be seen as a public service, and that fare increases should be seen as a user fee on the public service. She points out that the 2001 strike had a severely negative effect on the working class and have-nots. "Everybody deserves to have access to the jobs, to have access to their family and friends," she points out.
The BRU has about 280 members, and members ride the buses (with support of the drivers, Efting says) and talk to riders about the goals of the union, find out how the commuters would like to have themselves represented, and of course, try to sign people up. Efting sees it as taking the tradition of trade unionism and taking it into the community to people who are likely not aware that they may be able to have an influence on the very system that they use every day. Or in the case of the recent Night Owl victory, every night.
» Seven Oaks: Interview with Jennifer Efting
Who owns the media in Canada? Who do they answer to? What every Canadian gets to see, hear, and read is determined by the answer to those questions. And the answers are, for the biggest media with the widest reach, pretty grim. The promise of the Dominion is of a mass media with a massive audience that is owned by that audience and that answers to that audience. That will happen if it's supported and if not, we will have to settle for corporate media that answer to the powerful and lie and deceive in their service.