Saturday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading.

- Lana Payne writes about the need for a Bernie Sanders in Canada to highlight and oppose the privilege of the wealthy few:

It is in this context of blatant unfairness — rules for the rich and rules for the rest — that politicians like Bernie Sanders have become so popular.

People are angry. And rightfully so. They play by the rules. Young people did what they were told. They are more educated than at any time in history and yet they face precarious employment and uncertainty and often bucketloads of debt. People are told to lower their expectations, especially over what the state should be providing.

And along comes Bernie, who says it doesn’t have to be this way. There is wealth. The problem is not that as a society we can’t afford free post-secondary education or universal health care, the problem is as a society we can’t afford rich people who don’t pay their taxes. We can’t afford to lose billions of dollars annually in tax revenues to tax havens.

We can’t afford to have an unfair tax system and Canada’s has grown increasingly unfair.

We need a Bernie Sanders in Canada. Someone who will change the conversation and put entitlement on the table. And then squash it.

- Jim Coyle discusses the latest UNICEF report showing that the poorest Canadian children are facing increasing disparities in health and well-being. And the CP reports on the urgent need for investment in First Nations in particular to close the gap.

- Andrew Jackson points out the unfairness in using increasingly unequal lifespans as an excuse to cut pensions and other income supports in a way which places the heaviest burden on lower-income workers. 

- Tammy Robert examines Saskatchewan's archaic political fund-raising laws, and starts tracing the Saskatchewan Party's largest donors over the years. And Jon Schwarz highlights Barack Obama's take on the influence of money in politics.

- Finally, Linda McQuaig questions why we've seen a knee-jerk response attacking the Leap Manifesto, rather than the global environmental calamity it's intended to help avert.