Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Thomas Walkom writes that the Harper Cons' much-hyped economic record in fact offers ample reason to demand a change in government:

The Conservatives insist that the economy is their strong suit. And for a while it was. In 2011, voters bought Harper’s pitch.

But voter patience can last only so long. For too many Canadians, life is not improving. Income gaps are becoming more blatant. Wages are sluggish. Students are taking on massive debts to prepare themselves for jobs that, in the end, fail to materialize.

Those lucky enough to have jobs — even good jobs — too often find their work being sent offshore to low-wage countries.

Other Canadians find themselves in competition with the tens of thousands of temporary foreign workers let in by Ottawa.

Latest immigration department figures show that, to date, more temporary foreign workers entered the country in 2013 than during the same period of 2012 — itself a record year for importing cheap labour.

These are the things that should worry Harper.

- But then, Michael Harris discusses how ethics issues - led by the combination of bribery and cover-ups in the Senate - will likely prove the undoing of Stephen Harper and his government. John Ivison recognizes that the Cons are flailing for a political lifeline as Thomas Mulcair gets the better of Harper in the House of Commons on a daily basis - though I'm at a loss as to how a Senate referendum would help their cause when it's the NDP that's decried patronage and corruption under Lib and Con governments alike. And Jeffrey Simpson points out that nothing in the Cons' latest string of scandals and missteps is anything new.

- And lest anybody think the elected Cons are any more ethical than the unelected versions, pogge highlights the latest revelations about Dean Del Mastro's attempt to cover up illegal election expenses.

- Stephen Leahy is rightly outraged that the Cons are trying to claim a complete failure to meet Canada's Copenhagen greenhouse gas emission targets as progress. And Stuart Trew criticizes the continued lack of transparency on CETA - as the Cons try to claim victory without allowing Canadians to see what's actually happened on the field.

- Finally, Don Lenihan sees more open government as the needed solution to citizen disengagement.