Monday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Once again, the NDP's popular support is holding up in the face of plenty of predictions to the contrary. But I'm sure we'll hear all about how the leadership race will do what the scrutiny of an election campaign, the transition to Official Opposition status and the death of Jack Layton didn't.

- It's sure a good thing our federal government is so well-attuned to the needs of business...

The almost unbroken flow of disappointing economic news has prompted economists at one major Canadian banking investment firm — Scotia Capital — to warn that Canada could be the first of the big industrial countries to slide back into recession.

And some other Bay Street economists, while dismissing fears the Canadian economy has — or is about to — slip back into recession, still question the wisdom of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s preaching and pushing a public austerity agenda here and abroad.

“The market’s big concern now is not the outsized budget deficits in the U.S., or Japan, or even much of Europe,” BMO Capital Markets senior economist Douglas Porter noted. “Its big concern is not inflation. Its concern is lacklustre or worse economic growth.”

- Of course the story is being spun around Thomas Mulcair's complaints rather than his proposed solution. But is there actually any argument against a party-wide push to boost the NDP's membership numbers during the course of the leadership race - other than to suggest that it shouldn't be limited to Quebec?

- Finally, Alice sets out the arguments for against the theory that the Cons benefitted from a rush of Lib voters in Ontario late in the May federal election campaign.