Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Robyn Benson offers her take on the importance of the Trans-Pacific Partnership as an election issue. Peter Mazereeuw notes that the nominal labour protections in the TPP - which were of course negotiated without workers having a seat at the table - won't mean anything if governments aren't willing to take stands against the same businesses which dominated the discussion. And Bill Curry reports that the TPP will prevent governments from doing anything about the use and abuse of temporary foreign workers.

- Meanwhile, Emily Peck highlights how many workers are being exploited through extra "voluntary work due to existing employment laws which are going unenforced. And Sara Mojtehedzadeh points out the need for more discussion and action to deal with precarious work in Canada's federal election - as well as the fact that the NDP is the one major party which recognizes the issue.

- Damian Carrington reports that even BP has reached the point of publicly acknowledging that we can't feasibly exploit all possible oil reserves. Which means that the Cons' pattern of constant obstruction observed by Marc Jaccard places them as even more irresponsible than the industry actually making money by overheating the planet.

- And Karl Nerenberg reports on one of the Libs' own internal oil lobbyists promising change while offering clients more of the same - and they figure to carry plenty of weight after an election no matter how quickly they scurry out of the light once exposed.

- Finally, Martin Lukacs writes that the real barbarism posing a threat to Canadians is Stephen Harper's disregard for civilization and human rights.