Tuesday Morning Links & Events

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- For those who missed Stephen's post on the criminalization of dissent in Canada is this weekend's must-read.

- Lawrence Martin is the latest to tear into the Cons' guilt-by-association standard:

Canadians have gained a reputation as a fair-minded people. There have been exceptions through our history, but, by and large, we have been seen as a moderate and tolerant country.

We didn’t do guilt by association, for example. But that’s what so distressing about the character of today’s Conservatives. They revel in it.
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There are countless examples of the intolerant streak that marks this government. Canada opposed the Iraq war, yet we won’t allow a haven to Americans who opposed fighting in that war, as we did with Vietnam. We’re probably the only G20 country that tried to bar George Galloway, at the time a British MP, from coming to speak. Minister of State Diane Ablonczy was stripped of some of her responsibilities for her support of Gay Pride week. Those criticizing aspects of our Afghanistan policy are berated for not supporting our troops. If a bank executive like Ed Clark criticizes government economic policy, he’s pilloried for supposedly being motivated by politics rather than economic expertise.

The tolerant Canada of old would have allowed Omar Khadr his basic Charter rights. The tolerant Canada of the past would have allowed our federal scientists to express their views, not have them vetted by political operatives. It would allow sophisticated research at the Justice Department to see the light of day even if it contradicted government sentencing policy, and it would give full wing to data collection by Statistics Canada.

One of the more remarkable observations by our Prime Minister came with his dumping of Linda Keen, the head of the Nuclear Safety Commission, after she shut down the nuclear reactor at Chalk River, Ont. The PM had reasonable grounds for arguing for a different course, and he was within his rights to dismiss her. But he then gave away his deeper motivation – he suspected she was secretly doing the handiwork of the Liberal Party. “Since when does the Liberal Party have a right, from the grave through one of its previous appointees, to block the production of necessary medical products in this country,” he said.

Guilt by association. It’s a hallmark of the modus operandi, a cheap instrument of attack politics that tarnishes the image of all Conservatives.

- Meanwhile, Murray Dobbin points out the dangers of the Cons' economic dogma:

Harper and Flaherty have set the country up for its biggest spending cuts since Paul Martin's blitzkrieg through federal social spending in 1995. Martin had the advantage of a huge existing deficit and debt, and years of media-driven deficit hysteria. The Harper government has had to create its own crisis. With his five-year, $60-billion tax cut program launched in 2007, Flaherty has taken tens of billions out of government coffers yearly, at exactly the same time that the opposition parties forced the Conservatives into stimulus spending. They now have the perfect numbers to go on a deficit cutting rampage.

A campaign against the planned austerity budget is not difficult to construct -- but it's tough to imagine anyone leading it. The key to turning back the Conservatives' austerity plan is a call for a return to a sane level of income taxes. We will have cut corporate taxes virtually in half over the past 10 years once Flaherty's program is complete. The super-rich in Canada have enjoyed a decline in their tax rate of eleven percentage points, while 95 per cent of Canadians averaged a decrease of one percentage point. The wealthiest five per cent of Canadians increased their share of the income pie by a staggering 20 per cent between 1992 and 2004.

The case for tax increases, especially a couple of new tax brackets for the rich and super-rich, are clearly justified and not just from a fair tax perspective. Countries with greater income inequality are the countries with the poorest performing economies overall.

As for bringing corporate taxes back in line with the norm in the G8 and OECD countries, there is no credible evidence that lower corporate income taxes have any positive impact on investment decisions -- either domestic or foreign direct investment. If there is no new demand for products and services, there will be no new investment, even if the income tax rate is zero.
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The Canadian economy is running on empty, a faux consumer-led recovery based on unsustainable debt. This will be Flaherty's legacy. So far he has just been bloody lucky.

- Finally, let's note that the Saskatchewan NDP nomination schedule is in full swing, with meetings set for Thunder Creek (tomorrow night in Moose Jaw), Regina Qu'Appelle Valley on the 19th, Moose Jaw Wakamow on the 20th and Saskatoon Silver Springs on the 30th (to be followed by four more meetings set for early November).