Sunday Morning Links

Assorted material for your weekend reading.

- Francis Woolley posts on the need for people to be able to delay gratification in their own long-term interests. But while I agree with his observations generally, I'd think that a huge part of a potential solution is missing.

After all, if the temptation of short-term personal spending (traceable in substantial part to rational advertising choices by businesses) is causing significant social risk, then shouldn't it be expected that we'd be best off addressing the imbalance between that temptation and any countermessages at a social level? And doesn't that necessarily involve a closer look at the quantity and type of advertising that would normally be experienced by citizens, rather than falling into the trap of hoping that individual education and training will be enough to inoculate against a substantially unlimited bombardment of messages?

- Thomas Walkom sums up how the combination of weak opposition and an ever-more-arrogant government has led to both terms of the Harper Cons' stay in power failing to reflect the will of voters:

For all of its imperfections (and they are many), the only thing close to a democratic national body in Canada is the House of Commons.

To be contemptuous of its members is to disdain those who elected them. Canadians get precious few chances to determine what their leaders do. When voters elected a minority government in 2008, they were signalling that they didn’t trust Stephen Harper’s Conservatives (or indeed any other party) to run the nation’s business single-handed.

Instead, they wanted the opposition parties to check government — to act as watchdogs, moderate its ideological excesses and keep it in line.

But throughout the life of this now-dead Parliament, Prime Minister Stephen Harper refused to accept the voters’ verdict. His decision to operate as if he controlled a majority of Commons seats may have been good short-term politics. But it contradicted both the spirit and reality of the very limited mandate voters had given him.

- Meanwhile, the Libs may be shocked to learn today that the Cons aren't about to let a denial that Michael Ignatieff wants to form a coalition stop them from repeating the term at every opportunity - now secure in the knowledge that the Libs won't say a word to defend the possibility. Needless to say, nobody could have predicted.

- Finally, a few links from the start of an NDP campaign which looks to be nicely planned to appeal to voters who want a change from the Harper Cons and recognize that the Libs aren't interested in providing it. First, there's the launch message:

“I am asking Canadians to join me to defeat Stephen Harper,” Mr. Layton said to wild applause. “This time, it’s not enough to keep Stephen Harper from his majority. This time, we have to replace him.”

Which leads to this from the campaign's Edmonton rally:

"Your health care here in Edmonton is as bad as it's ever been. You've got cutbacks, you've got long waits in the emergency room, you've got doctors being intimidated for defending the patients, and you don't hear a peep about it from Stephen Harper and his Conservatives," said Layton, who promised more family doctors, improved home care and affordable prescription drugs.

And that in turn gives rise to the strategy noted by David Climenhaga and others of highlighting health care as an issue and asking who Canadians trust to negotiate a new agreement with the provinces.