Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- Alice posts the full party spending numbers from May's election. And the story in fact looks to have been near-maximum spending by each of the four parties then in Parliament - which of course failed to produce much return in two cases.

- thwap is understandably skeptical of the effect of the Occupy protests alone. But I'd again point out that the protests are just one step in what looks to be the wider process of change: by calling public attention to inequality and corporate control, they create an opportunity for political parties and others to carry the message into the arenas where it's possible to bring about substantive change.

- Meanwhile, there's no denying thwap's point as to the importance of protecting workers' rights. And Doug Allan notes some intriguing numbers from the past few years showing a modest rise in unionization rates since the 2008 downturn.

But the more noteworthy part of Allan's analysis relates to the fact that part of that gain results from overall job losses. After all, if it's true that union jobs have been more secure than non-union employment through a period of economic turmoil (which looks like a reasonable reading of his numbers), then that looks like a great argument for workers to make the effort to unionize before the next downturn hits.

- Finally, Eric Howe documents how investment in First Nations education would produce far greater returns (both economic and otherwise) than the corporate giveaways of the Sask Party.