Council of Canadians

As a wave of new data centres threatens to reshape the Canadian landscape, join us for a timely conversation with Dr. Anne Pasek. The Trent University professor’s work challenges common assumptions about the carbon footprint of the internet, and she is the author of the widely shared zine Getting Into Fights With Data Centers. Pasek draws our attention to the infrastructure that makes AI, but also much of the online infrastructure we use day to day, and its impacts on climate and water.As our energy systems struggle to transition away from fossil fuels, data centres are multiplying demands for electricity and water. This discussion, hosted by the Council of Canadians’ Dru Jay,  will offer new ways to think about digital systems and their environmental impact.About Anne:Dr. Anne Pasek is an interdisciplinary researcher working at the intersections of climate communication, the environmental humanities, and science and technology studies. She studies how carbon becomes communicable in different communities and media forms, to different political and material effects.She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural Studies and the School of the Environment at Trent University, as well as the Canada Research Chair in Media, Culture and the Environment.

The Council of Canadians and the Canadian Health Coalition are team up to host a webinar about the dangers that Bill 11 poses to public healthcare in Alberta and across the country, featuring health policy expert Andrew Longhurst, Friends of Medicare executive director Chris Gallaway and Ann Lagacé-Dowson of the Canadian Health Coalition.Andrew Longhurst is a senior researcher and political economist, with a focus on health policy, at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. He has written several analyses of Bill 11 and its implications for Canadian Medicare. His commentaries appear regularly in news media across the country. The webinar will examine the forces behind this privatization drive and discuss what the federal government could do to stop Bill 11.Chris Gallaway is the executive director of Friends of Medicare (Alberta), an experienced community organizer and advocate for public health care. Friends of Medicare has hosted dozens of town halls on Bill 11 in the past few months and has become the leading force in the fight against Premier Danielle Smith’s drive to institute two-tier, U.S.-style healthcare in the province. This webinar was held to build support for a Day of Action for Public Health Care on Monday, March 16, 2026, coordinated by health coalitions across Canada. Over a dozen in-person demonstrations will be held in communities from coast to coast urging the federal government to enforce the Canada Health Act. For more information, check out the Canadian Health Coalition's website.The corporate assault on public healthcare won't stop at Alberta's borders, if Smith's plan is allowed to go ahead. This legislation puts public healthcare at risk across Canada by setting a dangerous precedent that other provinces could follow. So far, however, the federal health Minister Marjorie Michel has been totally silent.

While many of us spent the summer relaxing with family (and trying not to choke on wildfire smoke), Canada’s corporate elite have been designing an all-out assault on workers, First Nations, migrants and the environment—and Mark Carney’s Liberals are getting ready to carry it out. Quadrupling military spending and secretly sending arms to Israel. Slashing public services in what the Prime Minister himself is calling an “austerity” budget. Pushing pipelines and mines over the objections of Indigenous peoples. Clamping down on migrant rights, ordering striking workers back to the job and cozying up to Trump.  Is this really the kind of “nation building” Canadians thought they would get when they elected Mark Carney? This webinar, featuring anti-poverty organizer John Clarke, peace activist Rachel Small, professor and researcher Shiri Pasternak and labour organizer Mostafa Henaway, will look at how Carney is fast-tracking a billionaires-first agenda that will only make the rich even richer – and how all of us can fight back.