Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Tim Harper comments on the Harper Cons' collusion in a war against Canada's middle class:

Under the Investment Canada Act, (foreign) takeovers are supposed to demonstrate a “net benefit” to Canada, but, in fact, are acting as an anvil on wages, living standards and the prosperity of communities in central Canada.

MacDowall says breaks should only be offered to small or medium companies that actually want to set up shop and create jobs here.

Both opposition parties in Ottawa have called for a review of the Investment Canada Act, which has been exposed time and time again as a paper tiger by foreign corporations in this country.

The NDP says tax credits to companies should be tied to job creation — the credit would only kick in when the jobs are created.

Federal Conservatives largely ran for cover but the few who were brave enough (or ordered to) face the cameras Friday were quick to engage in buck-passing.
...
Every politician, federal or provincial, who stood by and watched this performance — where a 50 per cent pay cut was somehow described as an “offer” rather than the threat it was — has to answer for their neglect.

- Meanwhile, David Olive rightly criticizes Caterpillar's bad-faith actions as just a particularly galling example of the type of corporate-dominated economy the Cons are trying to push.

- And Sixth Estate nicely demonstrates another facet of that utterly unbalanced business-first ideology in challenging one of the more ludicrous examples of Fraser Institute astroturfing - this time in the form of a claim that thousands of preventable deaths from air pollution should be considered acceptable if they serve the cause of corporate profits.

- CfSR catches Vic Toews claiming a need for secrecy over information that's available on a public website in order to avoid answering for his government's actions.

- Finally, Andrew Jackson answers the nonsensical line that the existence of Old Age Security somehow prevents anybody from working past 65 as a matter of choice by pointing out that actual data proves otherwise. Elizabeth Thompson breaks down seniors' income by geography and gender to point out who stands to lose the most in attacks on retirement income. (Who would ever have guessed that the Cons might make women take the brunt of their ill-advised policies?) And Robert Brown suggests putting any debate about the OAS on a factual foundation - though when (as Brown notes) those facts are that the current system is entirely sustainable and the Cons' anticipated change would be deliberately and gratuitously regressive, the question of what should be done answers itself. [Update: see also Dave and Owen]