Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Chantal Hebert wonders whether the Libs have reached the point of no return, while Stephen Maher also points out that the NDP is in a historically strong position across Canada.

- Donald Lenihan muses about what better gender balance in politics might figure to accomplish:

If women are poised to play a bigger role in politics, I believe there will be a gender effect, but I don't think left vs. right is the best way of framing it. I agree that women will make politics more progressive, but this is not necessarily the same as more left-wing.
...
Eventually, I concluded that some kind of selection effect was at work here and that women were more naturally disposed to work collaboratively than men. They seemed more comfortable with sharing recognition, resources and leadership. They were less territorial and had less need for individual praise and recognition. If women are poised to play a bigger role in politics, something similar may start showing up in our politics.
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I think women tend to be at least as concerned about how government works as they are about the tilt of its policies. As a cohort, they will lean to a style of governance that is less monolithic, less authoritative, more flexible, and more open. In a phrase, their approach to government and governance is more bottom-up.

I would also argue that bottom-up government is more progressive, in the sense that it is more likely to promote equality and inclusion, which, after all, is what it the term originally meant in politics. On the other hand, if "left wing" means assigning government an even greater share of the responsibility for solving problems, it is not at all clear that collaboration edges us toward the left.

- Marc Lee highlights the glaring disparity between profit and wage growth in British Columbia over the past 20 years.

- Finally, Matt Taibbi lists a few demands which could help the Occupy movement to bring about much-needed political and economic change.