Monday Morning Links

An opinion-heavy set of links to start your week, as there's been some great commentary worth highlighting...

- Greg pins down Stephen Harper's governing philosophy:

Since Canadians insist on paying their taxes, we must spend the money as wastefully and thoughtlessly as possible until such time as we can convince them that taxes should be abolished.

- Chet offers his theory as to why the Cons are so eager to trash Canada's census:

I think that what Harper really doesn't want is for the census data to show what the effects of his own policies have been in the here and now. Harper appears to like control more than anything else, and there's just no way he can control what a thorough and complete census will tell. He's perfectly happy to take the limited data that he gets from Bay Street which seem to show that Canada's economy is doing all right in the abstract: he may not be so happy about broader census data that may show that such prosperity is not getting through to average people.

This is why governments of all stripes have often grumbled about StatsCan: the facts are usually any government's most powerful critic. Want to gauge how a party has fulfilled its election promises? The numbers can tell you a lot about that. But this government is going farther than just complaining about its marks: it's burning its report card before Mom and Dad ever get to see it.

This is in part a legacy matter: Harper wants to control his own reputation long-term, and the one thing he can't control is reliable, independently collected and analyzed data. Therefore, he's just going to prevent its collection in the first place.

- Michael Byers points out that the Cons' $16 billion fighter jet purchase looks to be based more on what the U.S. wants us to buy than what Canada actually needs:

The cost of developing the F-35 is estimated at an astonishing $276 billion (U.S.). The cost of the F-22, which is based largely on the same technology, is even higher.

The United States is desperate to spread those costs, without selling its very best planes. It needs Canada firmly on board so that other allies — some of whom are wavering — will also commit to buying F-35s. It can't wait for a tendering process.

Neither can the Harper government. For opening the procurement to tenders would require revisiting the ridiculously narrow operational requirements, and reveal that we've been sold a pig in a poke — on instructions from the Pentagon.

- Finally, lost in the revelry over the fact that the CRTC rightly denied Fox News North's application for a mandatory license is the fact that the Cons' former spinmeister apparently doesn't plan to take "no" for an answer:

Kory Teneycke, a former chief spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper who is at the helm of the new channel, said the company is preparing an amended Category 1 application and will soon try again with the CRTC.

"We're optimistic that this will be resolved in a way that works for us and allows Canadians from coast to coast to have access to the channel," he said. "We're confident that we'll have a licence in place that meets our needs prior to our scheduled launch in the new year."

Which leads me to wonder: will anything be "amended" on the new application aside from a hand-written note saying "Approve this or die. - PMSH"?