Making hope in 2026

Welcome to the new year friends of public education.

I write this as news emerges about the American invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores. This independent nation may now be turned over to American oil producing masters in an operation that their president Donald Trump says will be paid for by Venezuela.

In counterpoint to this latest act of U.S. piracy, if you haven’t already watched it, I’d suggest you listen to the inauguration speech of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Here’s a small piece of it – in stark contrast to the cultural/political zeitgeist of the current fascist regime in America:

“As we embark upon this work, let us advance a new answer to the question asked of every generation: Who does New York belong to?

For much of our history, the response from City Hall has been simple: It belongs only to the wealthy and well-connected, those who never strain to capture the attention of those in power.

Working people have reckoned with the consequences. Crowded classrooms and public housing developments where the elevators sit out of order. Roads littered with potholes and buses that arrive half an hour late, if at all. Wages that do not rise and corporations that rip off consumers and employees alike.”

This is not radical; it’s a statement of common understanding. How audacious to say something as simple as this without moderating its tone and trying to ease the outrage of those immensely powerful real estate and banking oligarchs who collectively donated about $22 million to ensure Mamdani wouldn’t get elected. The forces opposed to the new mayor are formidable “unethical and rapacious” as journalist Chris Hedges noted in a recent Al Jazeera report.

And why? He promises a rent freeze for New Yorkers, affordable child care, “fast and free” buses, city-run grocery stores. His platform is reasonable in a world where there is a yawning division between the extraordinarily wealthy and the rest who struggle to get by, but it represents an unacceptable ideological challenge to the rulers of the capital of capitalism.

Who does New York belong to? What a remarkable question! That’s not just because the answer is so obvious in a city like New York but because it’s obvious everywhere else that public goods are diverted, sold off, left to die and simply stolen by those whose sense of entitlement is insatiable. Whatever comes of Mamdani’s mayoralty, he has already done something fundamentally important; he has underscored possibility and imagination at a time when both of these are scorned by the powerful owners of the marketplace and their toadies.

Who does our country, our province, our city, our town, our home belong to?

Imagine, friends of public education, if we allied with other citizens distraught about the evaporation of human rights and democracy, environmental collapse, cost of food and its offspring, malnourishment, housing and its offspring, homelessness. What if there were others who would join to demand redress for unmet obligations and further incursions on the rights of Indigenous peoples, deteriorating conditions of work, health and public education; all of it overseen by governments buoyed by a culture of cronyism? Imagine if we organized, if we had a political party and unions with the focus and discipline to organize a common front of citizens to demand that governments be open and accountable to address these eminently reasonable concerns.

Here in Ontario, with the backing of such a common front, imagine if we organized a recall campaign for MPPs and a premier, who have never been “for the people” as they deceitfully claimed in 2018, but who have cut services and basic democratic institutions while embroiling themselves in scandals like the sale of Greenbelt lands to developers and now alleged handouts to friends through the Skills Development Fund.

Imagine dropping the exemption on rent control legislation reintroduced by the Ford government in 2018. What if collective bargaining rights were extended to renters? What if governments became more involved in developing not-for profit housing to fill the gaps left by developers relying on profit to build homes for citizens who can afford them?

Imagine if our governments accepted that nutritious food isn’t just a requirement for those with the means to afford it, but a right for everyone. What if these governments invested the money required to ensure that people have enough to eat, controlled the shocking prices set by massive grocery chains and even competed with them?

Imagine if we stated the obvious: that paying Canadian CEOs as much as $16.2 million dollars per year according to David Macdonald of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – is absurd, an insult to average workers taking home $65 548. What if, as Macdonald suggests, Canada imposed a millionaire’s tax, a higher rate on every dollar grasped beyond that million mark? What if our country looking for revenue to build infrastructure, imposed a wealth tax for those sitting on over $10 million in assets?

Imagine if organized citizens held sufficient power to demand an end to the Section 33 of Canada’s constitution, “the notwithstanding clause” that enables governments to ignore fundamental human rights in order to break strikes, limit trans rights and the right of some to observe their religions openly and in public.

What if educators took control of their work and ignored diktats by their provincial ministries of education to prepare students for a “good job” in a world run according to business interests? What if they used their training and experience to make sure, that aside from everything else, their students could observe the events swirling around them and pick out lies and obfuscation – among the tools of the powerful to ensure  their assumed entitlements?

A scattering of disparate groups has no hope to oppose the power, money and entrenchment of those who see authoritarianism as a means to even greater wealth. But remember, Zohran Mamdani was elected with the support of 100 000 well organized-volunteers, people willing to put in the time and effort to improve their conditions of life.

Imagine that!

Will Paul

Editor