For the tenth straight year, Los Altos Institute is proud to offer reading groups, open to all members at no additional fee. Our reading group chairs for 2024 are Amrita Parmar and Nancy Rupert.
The Canadian Nationalist Left
Chair: Amrita Parmar
Co-chair: Stuart Parker
Vancouver Meetings: Fortnightly, 7:00pm, day TBA at the Downtown White Spot (405 Dunsmuir)
Start date: September 2025
After many tears, land acknowledgements and CBC think pieces about how the Maple Leaf is a far-right, white supremacist endorsing genocide, all it took was a certain pro-wrestling character to return to office south of the border for the left to suddenly rediscover Canadian nationalism. But this is hardly the first time the Canadian left has taken a nationalist turn.
The Waffle Movement of the 1970s was a radical left nationalist movement that nearly took over the Canadian NDP and was then purged from the party. Its leaders remained important intellectuals in Ontario and helped to shape the subsequent anti-free trade and anti-globalization movements of the 80s and 90s, which were also left-led, to say the least.
While doctrinaire Marxists might argue that nationalism is a retrograde force, nationalism has been embraced by every shade of the left, from European social democrats to the North Korean Workers Party. This reading group will take its time reading writings on Canadian nationalism by thinkers and politicians, Mel Watkins, John Ralston Saul, James Laxer, Stuart Parker and Tim Buck.
Gender Critical Discussion and Support
Chair: Nancy Rupert
Meetings: Monthly (Wednesdays) in Vancouver at Trocadero Restaurant (2411 Nanaimo Street)
Start date: Underway
We will also be continuing our in-person gender critical discussion group, which is not attached to a reading program.
