Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.
- Alex Hemingway writes about the need for Canada's federal election to include a discussion about democratizing ownership and control of our economy. Nicole Aschoff notes that any discussion about industrial policy needs to include a serious analysis as to who benefits from economic development. And Tristan Hughes argues that the SNC Lavalin scandal represents only a tiny slice of the problem of government subservience to the corporate sector - and that we can't ignore the structural problems in favour of disputes over the scandal's specifics.
- Gamechangers points out how federal corporate tax cuts - like those in so many other jurisdictions - have failed to produce any promised returns for anybody outside the shareholder and executive classes. And Allan Lanthier notes that estate freezes represent one more mechanism for wealth to accumulate across generations without helping to fund the society which enables it.
- Mae Nam writes about the need for unions to push for better workplace conditions. And Kayla Blado rejects the claim that "self-care" is any substitute for collective action.
- Finally, Elizabeth McSheffrey reports on the systemic culture of cover-ups when it comes to health and safety dangers caused by the fossil fuel sector. Justin Nobel discusses how North Dakota's regulator helped an operator misreport the size of an oil spill by a factor of a million. The Canadian Press reports on the new Bonterra spill which has dumped oil into a creek feeding into the North Saskatchewan River and Edmonton's water supply. And Morgan Krakow reports on a cyanide spill which affected drinking water in Michigan for days before the public was made aware.
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Monday, August 19, 2019
Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week.
- Tom Parkin talks to Toby Sanger about the utter failure of corporate tax cuts to produce anything other than concentrated wealth and increased inequality.
- Steven Greenhouse offers suggestions both as to how governments can level the playing field between workers and employers to reduce inequality, and how workers can have a voice even before those structural fixes are made.
- Alan Freeman examines the dangers associated with the Boeing 737 Max as a prime example of the consequences of deregulation.
- Robert Benzie reports that groups helping people with disabilities in Ontario are the latest to find out that Doug Ford isn't prepared to provide the funding needed to perform their work. And the Canadian Press reports that the same municipal cuts which were hastily reversed due to their devastating effect on communities are now set to be imposed again beginning in 2020.
- Martin Regg Cohn points out the absurdity of Ford ordering gas stations to display political propaganda.
- Finally, James Cairns writes about the selective nature of right-wing "free speech" messaging - which is in fact designed to do nothing but silence anybody other than their own reactionary movement.
- Tom Parkin talks to Toby Sanger about the utter failure of corporate tax cuts to produce anything other than concentrated wealth and increased inequality.
- Steven Greenhouse offers suggestions both as to how governments can level the playing field between workers and employers to reduce inequality, and how workers can have a voice even before those structural fixes are made.
- Alan Freeman examines the dangers associated with the Boeing 737 Max as a prime example of the consequences of deregulation.
- Robert Benzie reports that groups helping people with disabilities in Ontario are the latest to find out that Doug Ford isn't prepared to provide the funding needed to perform their work. And the Canadian Press reports that the same municipal cuts which were hastily reversed due to their devastating effect on communities are now set to be imposed again beginning in 2020.
- Martin Regg Cohn points out the absurdity of Ford ordering gas stations to display political propaganda.
- Finally, James Cairns writes about the selective nature of right-wing "free speech" messaging - which is in fact designed to do nothing but silence anybody other than their own reactionary movement.
Sunday, August 18, 2019
Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading.
- Aditya Chakrabortty writes about the consequences of the UK's choice not to fund its or social infrastructure:
- Andrew Mitrovica highlights the significance of Justin Trudeau's ethical violations. The Globe and Mail's editorial board lists the many failings which went into the Libs' attempt to twist laws and constitutional principles to serve SNC-Lavalin. And Andrew Coyne zeroes in on the deception involved in Trudeau's interventions - including toward the Attorney General he'd appointed to uphold the rule of law.
- Ben Smee reports on a prime example on the contempt fossil fuel spokesflacks have for the lives of people affected by a climate breakdown. And Rick Salutin calls attention to Canada's appalling support for anti-democratic corporate repression in Honduras.
- Finally, Oliver Franklin-Wallis discusses the limited effectiveness of plastic recycling.
- Aditya Chakrabortty writes about the consequences of the UK's choice not to fund its or social infrastructure:
We are right in the middle of an infrastructure breakdown – we just haven’t named it yet. You’ll know what I mean when we list the component parts. More than 760 youth clubs have shut across the UK since 2012. A pub closes every 12 hours. Nearly 130 libraries were scrapped last year, and those that survive in England have lopped off 230,000 opening hours.- Chris Varcoe reports that the UCP's corporate tax giveaways are predictably leading to no economic benefit to anybody other than shareholders and executives. And Jessica Elgot reports on UK Labour's plans to give municipalities the power to restore abandoned shops to public use.
Each of the above is a news story. Each stings a different group: the books trade, the real-ale aficionados, the trade unions. But knit them together and a far darker picture emerges. Britain is being stripped of its social infrastructure: the institutions that make up its daily life, the buildings and spaces that host friends and gently push strangers together. Public parks are disappearing. Playgrounds are being sold off. High streets are fast turning to desert. These trends are national, but their greatest force is felt in the poorest towns and suburbs, the most remote parts of the countryside, where there isn’t the footfall to lure in the businesses or household wealth to save the local boozer.
...
When it comes to transport or energy or sewage, Britain has a National Infrastructure Commission that monitors the country’s needs and guides parliament on where to direct spending. After all, the quality of such hard infrastructure influences where multinationals set up shop: it is money-making. But parks and libraries don’t generate cash. Social infrastructure has no lobby, no registry of assets and certainly no government agency. No Whitehall official monitors how much of it has closed or withered away – that relies on civil society groups to file freedom of information requests or badger town halls with survey. Everyone knows we need it, yet just as our economic model prizes shareholder returns over investment in the National Grid, so our politics relies on drawing in the voters with unfeasibly low taxes. Until one day, something breaks and all hell breaks loose.
So here is a suggestion for Jeremy Corbyn or Nicola Sturgeon or Adam Price or whoever else fancies it. Talk about the importance of social infrastructure. Promise to set up a commission explicitly to audit what we have and help protect it. Commit public money to it, alongside gentle pressure on the private sector to do its bit. That way, we can publicly mark the public institutions we all know we need – and show the esteem due to the people who keep them going and use them. The spirit we need is that summed up by the librarian who rhapsodises to Klinenberg about his branch: “The library really is a palace. It bestows nobility on people who can’t otherwise afford a shred of it. People need to have nobility and dignity in their lives. And, you know, they need other people to recognise it in them too.”
- Andrew Mitrovica highlights the significance of Justin Trudeau's ethical violations. The Globe and Mail's editorial board lists the many failings which went into the Libs' attempt to twist laws and constitutional principles to serve SNC-Lavalin. And Andrew Coyne zeroes in on the deception involved in Trudeau's interventions - including toward the Attorney General he'd appointed to uphold the rule of law.
- Ben Smee reports on a prime example on the contempt fossil fuel spokesflacks have for the lives of people affected by a climate breakdown. And Rick Salutin calls attention to Canada's appalling support for anti-democratic corporate repression in Honduras.
- Finally, Oliver Franklin-Wallis discusses the limited effectiveness of plastic recycling.
Saturday, August 17, 2019
On selloffs and sellouts
So far, there hasn't been much follow-up since the revelation that the Saskatchewan Party set up (PDF) a committee, and arranged for sensitive operational details to be handed over to bidders in the process. But while there's plenty left to be investigated about how both the secret committee and the Crowns themselves tried to sell off public resources behind closed doors, we can already identify some glaring dishonesty from the Saskatchewan Party government.
Here's what was revealed as a result of SaskTel's submissions to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner about information never before revealed to the public. See para. 97:
So when Moe - who was of course in Cabinet at the time - now tries to claim there's no reason to doubt any assurances about the future of the Crowns even as SaskTel explicitly argues that it's leaving the door open for future takeovers, he needs to be met with some sharp questioning as to when he'll disavow his predecessor for misleading the province. And if Moe actually expects voters to trust him no matter how often his government lies and gaslights about its intentions, then the only reasonable response is to prove him wrong.
Here's what was revealed as a result of SaskTel's submissions to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner about information never before revealed to the public. See para. 97:
In its submission, SaskTel indicated the following:So how forthcoming was the Saskatchewan Party about its having taken the time which could have been spent consulting on tragic budget decisions to work on handing over equity stakes in the Crowns? For the answer, let's go to the March 6, 2017 Hansard (PDF) - in the first question period after Brad Wall secretly set up his selloff committee:
- the Cabinet Committee on Crown Structure had been set up to oversee the potential sale of up to 50% of crown corporations. It was created by the Premier at the March 1, 2017 Cabinet meeting.
- the Vice-Chairperson of the Cabinet Committee on Crown Structure (Vice-Chairperson), who was also the Minister Responsible for SaskTel and SaskTel Holding Corporation (SaskTel Minister), verbally asked SaskTel’s President and CEO to prepare the slide decks (records 10 and 11).
- SaskTel’s President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) prepared the slide deck to allow the Vice-Chairperson/SaskTel Minister to review the progress that had been made and to ultimately make decisions and determine next steps, if any, to achieve a partial sale of SaskTel.
- SaskTel’s President and CEO was advised that the slide deck would be shared with the Cabinet Committee on Crown Structure where further decisions would be made.
- The content of records 10 and 11 would clearly be so important that Cabinet and its committees would had to have been involved in a decision.
Mr. McCall: — Mr. Speaker, it’s cold comfort to the 40,000 Saskatchewan people that are out of work on this government’s watch. The Sask Party’s callous cuts are putting thousands of jobs at risk, more jobs, Mr. Speaker. And their plan to sell off up to 49 per cent of our Crowns without a referendum puts even more jobs at risk along with hundreds of millions of dollars in dividends that help to pay for health care and education.Of course, it took two and a half years and a change in the Premier's office for the public to find out that only five days before providing his assurance - in a forum where it constitutes contempt to make misleading statements - that SaskTel was "not for sale", Wall had himself put a process in motion to sell it. And the OIPC's report confirms that the process continued long after the above answer.
The Sask Party’s plan to sell our Crowns to pay for their mismanagement was given a resounding no in the Meewasin by-election, Mr. Speaker, and the Sask Party should listen to that message. Will the Premier honour his promise from the last election? Will he stop the attempted sell-off? Will he scrap Bill 40 today?
Hon. Mr. Wall: With respect to the Crown corporations, Mr. Speaker, let me say this: what we said in the wake of the MTS [Manitoba Telephone System] takeover, Mr. Speaker, is that were we, as the representatives of the shareholder, to get an offer with respect to SaskTel to buy SaskTel in its entirety, were we to get an offer that checked off a number of boxes including better coverage and jobs here in Regina and across the province and a good price, that we would take that deal to the people in a referendum.
What has become abundantly clear to members on this side of the House, what has become abundantly clear to me — yes, and including what we heard in the Meewasin by-election but not limited to that — is that the people of the province aren’t interested in it. They’re not interested in a referendum. They oppose the sale of SaskTel, Mr. Speaker. That is what we campaigned on.
So, Mr. Speaker, I will just confirm for members of the House that notwithstanding if there ever is an offer to purchase SaskTel, we’re not going to take it forward. It’s not for sale.
So when Moe - who was of course in Cabinet at the time - now tries to claim there's no reason to doubt any assurances about the future of the Crowns even as SaskTel explicitly argues that it's leaving the door open for future takeovers, he needs to be met with some sharp questioning as to when he'll disavow his predecessor for misleading the province. And if Moe actually expects voters to trust him no matter how often his government lies and gaslights about its intentions, then the only reasonable response is to prove him wrong.
Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading.
- Nicholas Kristof writes about Donald Trump's choice to put the most virulent anti-worker cronies imaginable in charge of U.S. labour policy. David Climenhaga weighs in on the UPC's laughably biased committee charged with the task of driving down wages for service workers. And Joel French comments on the need to be wary of the panel intended to provide political cover for public-sector austerity.
- Sarath Pereis discusses how Scott Moe is treating Saskatchewan's citizens as pawns in an effort to influence the federal election.
- Jacquie Miller writes about the effect of private money in creating inequality within Ottawa's education system. And Jennifer Francis reports on one teacher's attempt to coordinate wholesale fundraising to patch over the holes in Saskatchewan's funding for schools.
- Meanwhile, Paul Willcocks points out the desperately reality-averse response of Lib mouthpieces to the finding that Justin Trudeau's efforts to put the thumb on the scales of justice on behalf of SNC Lavalin breached his ethical obligations.
- Finally, Robert Skidelsky makes the case for a guaranteed job program - though it's worth questioning his focus on "want of work" as a matter of greater urgency than the ability to afford the necessities of life.
- Nicholas Kristof writes about Donald Trump's choice to put the most virulent anti-worker cronies imaginable in charge of U.S. labour policy. David Climenhaga weighs in on the UPC's laughably biased committee charged with the task of driving down wages for service workers. And Joel French comments on the need to be wary of the panel intended to provide political cover for public-sector austerity.
- Sarath Pereis discusses how Scott Moe is treating Saskatchewan's citizens as pawns in an effort to influence the federal election.
- Jacquie Miller writes about the effect of private money in creating inequality within Ottawa's education system. And Jennifer Francis reports on one teacher's attempt to coordinate wholesale fundraising to patch over the holes in Saskatchewan's funding for schools.
- Meanwhile, Paul Willcocks points out the desperately reality-averse response of Lib mouthpieces to the finding that Justin Trudeau's efforts to put the thumb on the scales of justice on behalf of SNC Lavalin breached his ethical obligations.
- Finally, Robert Skidelsky makes the case for a guaranteed job program - though it's worth questioning his focus on "want of work" as a matter of greater urgency than the ability to afford the necessities of life.
Friday, August 16, 2019
Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.
- Richard Cannings comments on the need for governments to collect a fair share of revenue from wealthy individuals and corporations. And Erin Weir argues that Canada's federal government shouldn't subsidize Jason Kenney's corporate tax giveaway with abatements on federal taxes.
- Meanwhile, Paul Krugman discusses the damage being done by the U.S.' plutocrats who are happily accepting the destruction of their country's social and economic infrastructure in exchange for short-term tax handouts.
- Jennifer Szalai reviews Christopher Leonard's Kochland, including a look at how the Koch brothers have manipulated governments and employees alike to wring out every possible dollar with no regard for any community interests. And David Olive notes that a reckoning is coming for the pharmaceutical corporations which have created North America's opioid crisis - while also observing that government acquiescence has played a role in an issue which hasn't similarly taken hold elsewhere.
- Karl Nerenberg discusses the role Canada's successful but incomplete public health care system is playing in elections on both sides of the border. And A Montgomery et al study the consequences of widespread burnout among health care workers facing increasing demands and decreasing resources to fund them.
- Finally, Mary O'Hara writes about the connections between poverty and mental health - and the need for public policy which properly invests in ameliorating both.
- Richard Cannings comments on the need for governments to collect a fair share of revenue from wealthy individuals and corporations. And Erin Weir argues that Canada's federal government shouldn't subsidize Jason Kenney's corporate tax giveaway with abatements on federal taxes.
- Meanwhile, Paul Krugman discusses the damage being done by the U.S.' plutocrats who are happily accepting the destruction of their country's social and economic infrastructure in exchange for short-term tax handouts.
- Jennifer Szalai reviews Christopher Leonard's Kochland, including a look at how the Koch brothers have manipulated governments and employees alike to wring out every possible dollar with no regard for any community interests. And David Olive notes that a reckoning is coming for the pharmaceutical corporations which have created North America's opioid crisis - while also observing that government acquiescence has played a role in an issue which hasn't similarly taken hold elsewhere.
- Karl Nerenberg discusses the role Canada's successful but incomplete public health care system is playing in elections on both sides of the border. And A Montgomery et al study the consequences of widespread burnout among health care workers facing increasing demands and decreasing resources to fund them.
- Finally, Mary O'Hara writes about the connections between poverty and mental health - and the need for public policy which properly invests in ameliorating both.
Thursday, August 15, 2019
Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.
- Ben Parfitt comments on the dangers of captured regulators such as B.C.'s Oil and Gas Commission who end up serving corporate "clients" rather than the public interest. And Bryan Walsh discusses the discounting effect which makes it all too frequent for people to avoid seriously considering the long-term effects of a climate breakdown (among other policy choices).
- But if we needed an example as to how pollution affects people every day, Allison Aubrey discusses new research showing that smog and other air pollution can be as harmful to a person's lungs as being a heavy smoker. Pheobe Weston reports on the spread of microplastics to the most remote areas of the globe. And Jillian Ambrose reports on new research showing how fracking results in the emission of large quantities of methane with severe climate consequences.
- Meanwhile, Michael Salmato points out that plenty of coal workers (among other people currently tied to fossil fuels) recognize the need for a just transition to more sustainable energy sources.
- In the wake of the Ethics Commissioner's report finding Justin Trudeau to have broken the law by pressuring Jody Wilson-Raybould in SNC Lavalin's interests, Paul Wells highlights the reminder that a government's decisions and actions have consequences beyond immediate public relations effects. And Andrew Coyne notes that the problems with Trudeau's actions also extend beyond a conflict of interest alone.
- Finally, Paul Karp and Ben Butler take note of the attempt by Australian corporate giants to avoid any use of the Panama Papers which revealed their tax evasion - along with the rejection of that argument by the courts.
- Ben Parfitt comments on the dangers of captured regulators such as B.C.'s Oil and Gas Commission who end up serving corporate "clients" rather than the public interest. And Bryan Walsh discusses the discounting effect which makes it all too frequent for people to avoid seriously considering the long-term effects of a climate breakdown (among other policy choices).
- But if we needed an example as to how pollution affects people every day, Allison Aubrey discusses new research showing that smog and other air pollution can be as harmful to a person's lungs as being a heavy smoker. Pheobe Weston reports on the spread of microplastics to the most remote areas of the globe. And Jillian Ambrose reports on new research showing how fracking results in the emission of large quantities of methane with severe climate consequences.
- Meanwhile, Michael Salmato points out that plenty of coal workers (among other people currently tied to fossil fuels) recognize the need for a just transition to more sustainable energy sources.
- In the wake of the Ethics Commissioner's report finding Justin Trudeau to have broken the law by pressuring Jody Wilson-Raybould in SNC Lavalin's interests, Paul Wells highlights the reminder that a government's decisions and actions have consequences beyond immediate public relations effects. And Andrew Coyne notes that the problems with Trudeau's actions also extend beyond a conflict of interest alone.
- Finally, Paul Karp and Ben Butler take note of the attempt by Australian corporate giants to avoid any use of the Panama Papers which revealed their tax evasion - along with the rejection of that argument by the courts.
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