Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Trish Hennessy's latest Numbers consist of a comparison between Canada and other OECD countries...featuring some great news on the social front:

84

Percentage of Canadians, on average, who report the highest community tolerance of ethnic minorities, migrants, gays and lesbians. Higher than the OECD average of 61 per cent.

...some rather more sobering news on the economic front:

320

Minutes of paid work or study, per day, reported by Canadians. Higher than the OECD average of 277 minutes per day.
...
85

Percentage of jobless households with children in Canada who are poor. Much higher than the OECD average of 53 per cent.

...and on the crime front, of course yet more Evidence that Stephen Harper has Turned Canada into a Conservative Country:

1

Percentage of Canadians who reported falling victim to assault over a 12-month period, lower than the OECD average of four percent.(Source)

17

Percentage of Canadians who feel unsafe on the street after dark, much lower than the OECD average of 26 per cent.

- Naturally, the NDP should avoid the kind of arrogant victory lap we've seen from the Harper Cons - particularly when it's rightly highlighting the sense of entitlement the Cons have developed.

- But David Climenhaga's post is still worth pointing out in defining a reachable goal for 2015 and beyond:

(W)hile it is certainly true that Harper's government is attempting to move Canada in a conservative direction (if by "conservative" we mean "radical and market-fundamentalist"), whether this is what Canadians want or what they were trying to achieve when they elected a Conservative majority in May is an entirely different matter.

Add up the numbers. The demise of the national Liberal Party combined with the well-known rejection by Canadian voters of so-called conservative values could be what it takes turn the Orange Wave into an Orange Crush and usher in a long and happy era of New Democrat government.

- Finally, it will certainly be interesting to see the Sask Party's spin as to how nobody in Saskatchewan particularly needed a kidney transplant until 2012. But it's hard to imagine an instance of glaring political failure with a more obvious human cost.