Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Armine Yalnizyan highlights the fact that while the Cons fight for ever more inequality, even business groups are noting the risks of that direction:

That (the Conference Board of Canada and the International Monetary Fund) are worried should be a signal to Canada’s private sector leaders: pay attention to the compensation gap between your lowest paid worker and that of the CEO, because those differences may tell us a lot about the mess we’re in. After all, businesses rely on the rising purchasing power of the many, not the few, to deliver growth and profits.

But income inequality has grown more rapidly in Canada than in the U.S. lately, according to the Conference Board report. Among 32 OECD nations, Canada has gone from better-than-average to worse-than-average levels of inequality since the mid 1990s, slumping from 14th to 22nd place, despite a decade of robust economic growth and record levels of job creation. Meanwhile, 15 OECD nations -- including peers like Norway and the U.K. -- were reducing income inequality.

Its earlier report noted: “[H]igh inequality can diminish economic growth if it means that the country is not fully using the skills and capabilities of all its citizens or if it undermines social cohesion, leading to increased social tensions. Second, high inequality raises a moral question about fairness and social justice.”

The links between rising inequality, halting economic growth and increasing volatility are getting harder to ignore.

- Meanwhile, Erin Weir concisely sets out corporate Canada's cash hoarding over the past couple of decades - which thoroughly calls into question the theory that cutting corporate taxes will spur investments.

- Impolitical rightly points out the Cons' ridiculous witness list in attempting to conduct a committee show trial against the CBC - with the naming of Federal Court Justice Richard Boivin ranking as a particularly banana-republican tactic.

- Alison chronicles the trade-deal race to the bottom when it comes to ensuring that the benefits of resource development are enjoyed by the resource's owners. Which is to say that we may need to push Greg Selinger and his Manitoba NDP to change positions and stop the current spread of the TILMA.

- Finally, SGEU unveils a fairly brilliant take on the Wall government's plans for Saskatchewan: