Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- David Olive weighs in on the disastrous results of the all-too-prevalent obsession with austerity when economic conditions are still fragile around the globe:

From London to Berlin, and Ottawa to Washington, the world’s leading economies reacted swiftly to the onset of the Great Recession with massive stimulus programs to relieve the financial stress of their people.

The stimulus worked like a charm.
...
Then the roof caved in after the stimulus programs dried up.

We should have known better. One of the few calamitous mistakes of Franklin Roosevelt was to ease up on stimulus efforts after his 1936 re-election landslide. Unduly sanguine that the Depression was by then a spent volcano, FDR brought on a significant increase in joblessness, wiping out much of his earlier New Deal gains.

With the world economy still in the ICU, public opinion polls now find respondents imploring governments to resume economic stimulus as their chief priority.

- It's a huge plus to see Mark Carney criticizing corporatists who want to pretend that the interests of society at large are subordinate to those of bankers who want free rein to squeeze out every dime they possibly can. But is there any reason for him not to follow up with similar commentary on other obvious examples?

- Tabatha Southey theorizes as to what might be behind the Cons' war on facts.

- Finally, Warren McCall rightly slams the Sask Party's effort to make it more difficult for First Nations citizens to vote:

The Sask Party knows full well that the NDP has enjoyed tremendous support from First Nations people across the province and in particular in constituencies such as Athabasca, Cumberland, Meadow Lake and Saskatchewan Rivers. As a matter of fact, without the support of on-reserve First Nations people, the NDP would not have won these seats in past elections. By targeting on-reserve voters, the Sask Party is trying to increase its chances of winning these seats while disenfranchising First Nations voters in the process. It is simply wrong.

There is simply no evidence of any voting irregularities that would require such legislative changes. These changes target people who are typically less likely to vote – urban poor, seniors, young people and in particular First Nations people – and who, when they do vote, don’t tend to cast their ballots for right wing parties like the Sask Party.

These changes go beyond party politics and right to the core of extending democratic rights to all Saskatchewan citizens. In particular, on-reserve First Nations people were denied the right to vote in provincial elections until only very recently and their voter turnout in elections they have been eligible to vote in has not been typically high. With the Sask Party purposely and blatantly putting obstacles in place to prevent First Nations people from voting, it will only breed more division and mistrust in our province long after this election is over.