Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- PressProgress documents how the Cons are driving Canada's economy into the ditch. And Michael Babad reports that economists with a better grounding in reality than Stephen Harper are begging the provinces not to impose the austerity demanded by the Cons.

- Kara Santokie writes that if the Cons' balanced-budget legislation has any effect at all, it will be to attack Canada's social programs when they're needed most. And Louis-Philippe Rochon sees the false balance bill as standing out even among the Cons' bad ideas.

- Dylan Matthews questions whether workers present and future should be satisfied with low-paying, precarious jobs or contracting arrangements. But for those looking for positive ideas, the final report from Unifor's Good Jobs Summit offers some much-needed suggestions as to how we can improve matters.

- Positive Money explores how our financial system is set up to systematically transfer money from those with the least to those with the most, while LOLGOP observes that the resulting inequality is similarly caused by design. And Patty Winsa reports that increased reliance on fund-raising to support core school functions is leading to a huge and widening gap in education based on the wealth of a child's parents.

- Michael Harris argues that Stephen Harper should be appearing as a witness at Mike Duffy's fraud trial based on his close connection to every aspect of the charges. And Murray Mandryk writes that Duffy's own record of a life of patronage encouraged by the PMO offers a compelling reason why the Senate needs to be abolished.

- Finally, Stephen Maher laments the fact that the Cons' actions in office have been based solely on political calculations rather than the passing of constitutional and useful legislation - though one has to wonder when that became news.