Canada in Decline

Canada's social safety net is fraying. Why does it feel like everything is collapsing? Canada is at a crossroad. Neoliberalism has hollowed out and sold off the social services Canadians rely on now more than ever, and has brought into stark relief the dissonance among colonial, Indigenous, and some of Canada's most at-risk groups. The Social Safety Net tracks the forty-year attack on Canada's social safety net. As neoliberalism has matured in Canada, Canadians are seeing the impact of these attacks: unreliable health services, crises in education and social services, and a society that feels like it is losing cohesion. The first volume in a series by activist, author, and journalist Nora Loreto, the Canada in Decline series is the story of Canada's untenable status quo and the forces that have led us to where we are today. It outlines the choices we need to make as well as the possible paths forward to fix all that is crumbling around us.

How deep does corporate dominance go in Canada? The second book in Nora Loreto's landmark series dives into the corporate web spun around Canada's economy, society, and politics. The joke goes that Canada is three mining companies in a trench coat. Or three oil companies in a trench coat. Or three telecom companies in a trench coat. It's funny because it's almost true: a handful of corporations exert a disproportionate amount of power over Canadian democracy. Corporate profits are at a record high, and the divide between the rich and the poor has never been wider. Canadians are struggling with affordability, the housing crisis, and wages that don't cover basic needs. The combination of these forces is a pressure cooker that politicians have promised to tackle, except they can't: they are too restricted by corporate power to confront the roots of the problems Canadians face. The first book in the Canada in Decline series examines the rise and fall of Canada's social safety net. In this next volume, Loreto goes further, identifying why Canadian politicians seem impotent in the face of corporate Canada.