Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Jordon Cooper writes about the need to understand poverty in order to discuss and address it as a matter of public policy.

- John Greenwood reports on Cameco's tax evasion which is being rightly challenged by the CRA - though it's worth emphasizing that the corporate income tax at stake would figure to include hundreds of millions of dollars at the provincial level. And CBC does an undercover investigation of the types of tax evasion schemes available for a price.

- Speaking of shady practices, a witness before the Charbonneau commission has identified Harper Senate appointees Leo Housakos and Claude Carignan as recipients of largesse from corrupt construction companies. And Carolyn Stewart Olsen has been caught wrongfully claiming Senate expenses for days when the chamber wasn't sitting.

- Which, given the Cons' track record, means that we can probably expect them to launch a fund-raising appeal asking for money to ensure that their own appointees don't continue doing what their appointees do.

- Scott Stelmaschuk chimes in about the Sask Party's attack ad against on Cam Broten. And Doug Cuthand expands on the significance of Brad Wall's potshots at First Nations:

What surprised me was that the Sask. Party went after the NDP for its support for sharing resource revenue with First Nations. Is the governing party planning to use First Nations as a wedge issue in the next election campaign? Has it written off support from the province's aboriginal community, which constitutes about 20 per cent of the population? I know that aboriginal issues often are the subject of coffee row and doorstep conversations during campaigns, but this is the first time I can recall the party in power singling out support for First Nations as a liability for the province.

Resource revenue sharing is an issue that's gaining traction across Indian country. Our people have seen resources developed in their traditional territory with very little or no benefit to them. While provincial and federal coffers are getting rich from these developments, our communities remain mired in poverty.
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To see the Saskatchewan Party throw out resource revenue sharing as a negative policy is a short-term, knee-jerk reaction to a long-standing debt, and is a slight on the province's First Nations.

- And finally, Murray Dobbin asks who will save Canadian democracy from Stephen Harper - though it's well worth noting that the pattern of tying public hands through trade agreements is as much a core philosophy for the Libs as for the Cons.