Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Amy Goodman interviews Joseph Stiglitz about the corporate abuses the Trans-Pacific Partnership will allow to take priority over the public interest. And Stuart Trew and Scott Sinclair offer some suggestions to at least ensure that Canadians have an opportunity for meaningful review and discussion before being stuck with the TPP.

- Robert Benzie reports on a financial accountability officer's review finding that like so many other privatization schemes, the Ontario Libs' Hydro One selloff will only end up costing the public money.

- Jeff Sallot wonders whether the Trudeau Libs have the political will to keep their promise of electoral reform. And Chantal Hebert writes that the NDP has every reason to press the issue, particularly if the Libs show signs of reneging on their commitments.

- Finally, Andrew Mitrovica says good riddance to Stephen Harper, but also reminds us of the need to be wary of the Libs' incoming regime:

Lest we forget, Trudeau and the people around and behind him are the same Liberals who worship his father, helped get Chrétien elected and got Paul Martin anointed prime minister in what amounted to an insider-engineered coup d’état. That means they’re card-carrying members of the Liberal party establishment, not rabble-rousing outsiders inclined to upset or tinker with the status quo. So spare me the delusions that Trudeau Jr. is his “own man” who will do politics in a “new way.”

For goodness sake, Trudeau wasn’t even elected before his campaign co-chair, Dan Gagnier, quit after it was revealed that his was secretly telling his pals in the pipeline industry who to lobby — nudge wink — in the new Liberal government to shape national energy policy. These guys aren’t exactly tie-dye T-shirt-wearing radicals, OK?
...
...I take Trudeau at his self-serving word when he told us many times that he and the  Liberal party supported C-51 — with a few minor caveats — principally because he didn’t want to damage his chances of getting elected, even though the bill has unquestionably damaged the country.

Peter Pan isn’t going to get rid of C-51 as he should. He will make cosmetic changes to the law and call it “reform.” He’ll trot out the trope that he’s “balancing” our rights in the name of “security.” Indeed, his people are already leaking word to friendly reporters in Ottawa that he plans to “overhaul” C-51 not by ditching it, but by resurrecting old ideas about how to keep an eye on the spooks now armed with it.

You see: new crowd, same old story.