Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Dan Gardner writes about the Cons' backup plan of answering their own wrongdoing with criticism of anybody who dares to investigate it - and points out the dangers of that approach:

(W)hat happens if Elections Canada delivers a report even a fraction as damning as the one Sheila Fraser produced in 2004? Will the government express contrition and call a judicial inquiry? Or will it carry out the mother of all hatchet jobs on Elections Canada?
...
Stephen Harper has impugned the professionalism and good faith of everyone from the RCMP to the Supreme Court of Canada, and he has done so when the stakes were relatively small. So how likely is it that he would respond to an unfavourable report from an agency he has long despised, on a matter that could imperil his government, by launching a vicious campaign to impugn the professionalism and good faith of that agency? The answer must be “very.”

And if that happened, it would be a disaster for the country.

The goal in all of this isn’t merely to catch and punish anyone who engaged in vote fraud. It’s to assure Canadians that such despicable behaviour will not taint future elections. This is about restoring faith — in our electoral system and in the legitimacy of the governments it produces. To do that, there must be universal agreement that a full and fair investigation was conducted, as there was when the auditor general’s report on the sponsorship scandal was released.

But a campaign to impugn Elections Canada would destroy any hope of universal agreement. Instead, perceptions would break along partisan lines.

Faith in our electoral system could suffer, causing cynicism and detachment to spread like bacteria in a Petri dish.

- Steve Rennie reports that the Cons received - and ignored - advice that using the nuclear option to deal with every single conceivable labour dispute might not be a bright idea.

- Joe Couture lists some possible Saskatchewan NDP leadership candidates - with some particularly noteworthy news in that both Ryan Meili and Yens Pedersen both mention they're considering another run.

- Meanwhile, CUPE points out the mess the Sask Party is making in the meantime with corporate-first arrangements like the Amicus long-term care facility. And a group of health-care unions is reaching out with suggestions for revamping and legitimizing the essential services law that's been struck down.

- And finally, Paul Wells notes that while the Cons' attack ad on Bob Rae has drawn more attention, it's their latest bit of jingoism that looks like a sign of a worried government - and not without reason given how many Canadians are concerned about the country's direction.