Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your midweek reading.

- There's one more addition to the list of growing influences on the political scene which seem to have responded positively to the NDP:

“That’s just the sheer reality of minority politics – people may not do these other activities that are worthwhile,” (Con MP Rod) Bruinooge said. “Perhaps we’ve found peace in our time and maybe it will make a difference in getting in touch with more aboriginal youth.”

They need to do more than that, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo said. He called the rival NDP’s aboriginal policies “pretty progressive,” and urged MPs to come to the aid of 75,000 aboriginal Canadians with unsafe drinking water, commit to a gathering of first nations and Crown leaders, and back a summit on aboriginal energy and mining development.

- deBeauxOs points out the development in the recent election which should be seen as truly outrageous:

the critical story is the increasing use of US-style political dirty tricks exploited before and during election campaigns...

(I)t puzzles me that nobody in the purported *liberal* media has produced a thorough investigation of the MASSIVE amount of robo-calls deployed in specific ridings to deliberately irritate electors and to present false information.

It's been determined by tracing some of them to their source that most if not all originated with one US-based company. It is critical to establish who produced this carefully-crafted harassment campaign and how it was paid for.

Did #Contempt Party political operatives encourage supporters to fund this initiative and did they tell them to direct their financial contributions to a US-based company in order to evade the purview of Elections Canada?

- And Aaron Wherry rightly questions the tedious whining about on the NDP's new Quebec MPs compared to far broader issues in our political system:

Ms. Brousseau willingly put her name forward as the NDP candidate in a riding the NDP has never won. Her predecessor in Berthier-Maskinonge finished fourth—19,000 votes behind the winner—and spent just $1,358 on his campaign. Ms. Brosseau had, at the outset, almost no reasonable prospect of winning and, as noted, did nothing to improve her chances. One imagines that if the NDP had seen some reasonable expectation of victory in the riding, it would have found a more obviously qualified and committed candidate. And there seems to be some agreement that all parties allocate their candidates and resources depending on their chances of victory in particular ridings—ie. the major parties do not mount full (or at least equal) campaigns in all 308 ridings, but focus instead on the ridings they think they have the best chances of winning. Whether or not there are any candidates who failed even to visit their respective ridings, there are surely more than a few who mounted half-hearted or inadequate campaigns. The only difference is that Ms. Brosseau, quite inadvertently, won.

Is that better or worse than the various candidates who, counting on a riding’s traditional support for a particular party, avoided public forums and the like, comfortable in the knowledge that they would likely win anyway? Which is preferable: not bothering because you expect to lose or not bothering because you expect to win? Which more offensively mocks our democratic process?
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(C)onsider Ms. Brosseau’s story from one more angle: What is the difference between a placeholder candidate who inadvertently wins office and a conscious candidate who campaigns to become a placeholder MP? Is Ms. Brosseau really that much different from the other names that appear on the ballot or is she just the most glaring manifestation of a system that has rendered the actual individuals running for office almost entirely irrelevant?

- Finally, the terms "reasonable", "Saskatchewan Party" and "labour relations" haven't often appeared anywhere near each other. But the Star Phoenix rightly notes how the Wall government has taken on a responsibility to ensure fair bargaining (which it's menifestly failing to meet):

After passing a far-reaching essential services law that requires, in some cases, for 100 per cent of employees to refrain from taking job action, the government is in essence asking that union members take a cut in their real wages.

And to drive its position home, the government has denied requests for binding arbitration, and provided out-of-scope employees with pay increases as high as 37 per cent along with additional benefits.
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It makes eminent sense to enact legislation that prohibits the withdrawal of services by workers whose absence endangers the lives of Saskatchewan citizens. But in putting in place such a law the government then has a moral responsibility to act reasonably.
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The government has the responsibility to strive for a fair contract, not leave the impression that it's at war with public servants. Ultimately, it will be the patients and taxpayers who are caught in the middle - and that is the most unSaskatchewan-like outcome imaginable.