Matt Schierz is a freelance writer, currently residing in Hanover, Ontario, Canada.
Bougainville is a Pacific island with a population of just 300,000, but its independence movement successfully challenged one of the world’s most powerful and predatory mining companies. Its people have now voted overwhelmingly to form their own state.
Agnes MacPhail, elected in 1921 as Canada’s first female MP, championed working-class farmers. Her agrarian socialism has as much to offer the decaying rural areas of North America as it did her hardscrabble constituency a hundred years ago.