Saturday Evening Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Alice provides the definitive overview of the NDP's leadership campaign, including the right perspective on who will decide the race:

It is entirely possible – and the probability can only increase with time – that at least one of the two presumed front-runners now won't be in first or second place by the end of the race. And while the story-line of a third candidate coming up the middle against two presumed front-runners is one New Democrats can easily identify with, we shouldn't assume at this point who that might be, nor that the winner in that scenario would inevitably be the weaker for it.

It won't be the party's current membership that decides a One-Member-One-Vote race based on their first choices, this is to say. It will also be the new members, and the second and perhaps third choices of all party members, whether new or old.

A story, in other words, that defies easy description now, but which promises lots of interesting twists and turns along the way.

- Alex Hibelfarb nicely points out not just why tax shouldn't be considered a four-letter word, but also how an undue focus on "economy first" spin has harmed not only other important policy priorities but the economy itself:

For too long those of us in public policy have got it wrong. Even the most compassionate among us argued that we have to get the economy right first, that we would look at social and environmental issues later when we could “afford” to. But surely it’s now clear that we cannot get our economy right if we don’t treat society, democracy and environment as central. We cannot afford to do otherwise. We will not retake the future until we change the conversation and that has to begin with a commitment to greater equality and fairness, to jobs and opportunities for the many and not wealth for the few, to dignity for all those who fall out of the market in tough times or cannot get in through no fault of their own, and a concerted effort to combat poverty and its extraordinary costs to us all.

The future will need a more innovative Canada, a more productive Canada, a more confident Canada – but none of that will happen without a more just and equal Canada.

- Ira Basen recognizes that doctrinaire economics can be its own worst enemy when its simple theories and models prove to have little connection to what happens in the real world.

- Finally, La Presse offers the first indication of how the NDP may be able to further expand from its current seat count in 2015 - as oft-mooted Quebec star candidate Julius Grey has publicly stated that there's a strong possibility he'll make a run.