Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Kady highlights the Cons' combination of complete incompetence in rejecting positive amendments to their dumb-on-crime bill, and dishonesty in pretending not to introduce exactly the same changes later. And if the Cons were the least bit concerned with *good* government rather than all-controlling government, there would indeed be a lesson to be learned:

In fact, aside from the occasional intervention to grumble about how much scrutiny the bills in question had undergone during previous parliaments -- an occurrence that diminished in frequency as the hours ticked by -- the Conservative contingent was largely silent throughout the discussion, popping up only to make the occasional point of order or when the chair called for a recorded vote.

Given all that, Van Loan's suggestion that he had given careful consideration to the Cotler amendments before deciding to proceed down a different route -- one that, as it turned out, would ultimately be blocked by the speaker -- is difficult to reconcile with the facts.

More importantly, though, it should also raise a red flag for the government on the wisdom of sending MPs to committee to act as automatons, rather than heed the recommendations that come forward for ways to improve a particular piece of legislation, whether it comes from a witness or from the other side of the committee table.

- Paul Wells rightly points out the trend line that's seen federal fiscal capacity drained at every turn over the past decade:

The money isn’t rushing out of Ottawa. Taken in isolation, there’s a kind of fiscal responsibility in the reduced-after-2017 rate of “health”-transfer growth. This isn’t a fire sale. Canada’s ninth-longest-serving prime minister, still seven years younger than Jean Chrétien was on the day Chrétien became prime minister, can afford to be patient.

But he will spend ever more money on jets and jails, while taxing less as a fraction of GDP than any federal government has since the 1960s, and sending a constantly-increasing share of money to the provinces, which can spend those dollars as they like. You can hear the air going out of the federal government’s — any federal government’s — ability to “encroach upon legitimate provincial jurisdiction.” From day to day this prime minister zig-zags in ways that would break a snake’s back. From 2001 to 2011 the line is as straight as a ruler.

But it's worth asking whether that trend figures to continue for long, or whether Canadians will be willing to listen to a strong pitch in favour of the type of social programs most detested by the Cons by the time 2015 rolls around. And if so, then the NDP may be in exactly the right place at the right time to present that alternative.

- Meanwhile, Leona Aglukkaq answers a few of Wells' rhetorical questions: yes, she is still around. And she is indeed pretending that the provinces will care in the slightest what she has to say now that her party has already dictated the amount of funding they'll receive for 13 years to come without any consultation or strings attached.

- Finally, Paul Dewar has launched the first major video ad of the NDP leadership race, with a strong combination of policy and personal appeal: