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It has been almost six months since the NDP's spectacular failure in the last federal election, and its precipitous plunge from first to third place, thereby squandering the best chance in a generation to win federal government to build a better Canada.

Many New Democrats are still stunned by it all. Their public reaction has ranged from denial to anger to sad acceptance. This was not supposed to be the outcome in 2015.

Today in the House of Commons Canadians will be witnessing a rare sight -- a voting marathon. I wish I could say it's a celebration of democracy, but it's not. It's a sign of a government that has lost its way and is undermining accountability with its Trojan Horse Budget Bill.

Instead of introducing a straight-forward bill that implements their budget, Stephen Harper's Conservatives decided to use the budget bill to sneak through changes that gut environmental protection, give broad new powers over employment insurance to the Minister and eliminates large portions of the Fisheries Act.

As the world turns its attention to the UN Climate Change talks in Copenhagen in mid-December, there are twin crises on the minds of world leaders.  Not only will they need to confront the growing global concern about climate change, but they also need to keep in mind the urgent economic crisis still gripping most of the world's economies. 

Surprise greeted the "good news story" on Friday that job gains were posted for the month of September. While no job increases were predicted, some 30,600 jobs were created. But hold the champagne. The job growth was due to 36,000 new public sector jobs, while the private sector lost more than 17,000 jobs. The economy is still very weak and job losses will continue for some time.

The OECD is predicting that our current unemployment rate of 8.4 per cent will rise to over 10 per cent by next year.

Looking for inspiration? Check out the Clean Train Coalition, a grassroots community movement in Toronto dedicated to clean air, good public transit and fighting against dirty, polluting diesel trains.

On Saturday, hundreds of CTC supporters created a Human Train from Weston to Queen St. to protest plans by Metrolinx, the Ontario Government's transportation agency, to run polluting diesel trains along the rail corridor from Union Station to Pearson Airport. This is a fun, funny, creative movement that is determined to protect the quality of life along this rail corridor. Check out some of the YouTube postings.