- Not surprisingly, the numbers on the limited amount of stimulus money actually spent confirms the concern that the Cons' choice of photo-op-friendly infrastructure projects would lead to little money being distributed when it was most needed.
- Murray Dobbin notes that it isn't just banks who have responded to decades of getting everything they want on policy by failing to provide the public benefits claimed in return:
Governments since Brian Mulroney's have given Bay Street virtually everything they have asked for: the lowest corporate taxes in the developed world; twenty years of "labour flexibility" which has flat-lined wages since 1980; massive deregulation; a plethora of free trade agreements; huge cuts to EI -- the whole corporate wish-list.- Gerald Caplan reminds us that while Abousfian Abdelrazik has at least made it back to Canada despite the Cons' best efforts, he's still stuck in legal limbo due to the arbitary application of anti-terror rules despite a lack of evidence against him.
None of it has made one iota of difference except that Canadian corporations have a tonne of cash sitting in their coffers, cash they were supposed to spend on innovation, technology, training and -- gawd forbid -- taking risks.
- Kevin Donovan continues to set the pace in reporting on Rahim Jaffer's efforts to peddle government influence, this time with a remarkable set of revelations about Jaffer's business partner.
- Finally, Susan Delacourt points out a couple of the key questions about Helena Guergis' dismissal from Cabinet and the Cons which Stephen Harper can't avoid no matter how desperately he tries to hide behind the RCMP.
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