Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Larry Beinhart argues that aside from the gross unfairness and economic harm from growing inequality, there's a basic problem trusting the uber-rich to make reasonable decisions with massive amounts of wealth. And George Monbiot makes the case that even as he pretends to be an outsider, Donald Trump epitomizes the problems with a political culture designed to serve those who already have the most.

- Leo Panitch points out that more "trade" deals such as the CETA being pushed by self-proclaimed progressive governments will only strengthen the prejudiced right. Thomas Walkom writes that we shouldn't see a slightly modified side deal as reason to be satisfied with the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement - and notes that in fact, additional protections for European signatories only confirm that Canada is giving up more sovereignty than it needs to. And the Mound of Sound weighs in on the Libs' obsession with trade over people:

Trudeau's Harperesque pursuit of CETA and TPP demonstrates that he means business. This goes straight back to those mandate letters he issued to his freshly minted cabinet ministers as they were sworn in. Even Catherine McKenna's marching orders stipulate that her priorities are to be the economy and the environment. There's no doubt that she meant it when she said she was "as much an economic minister as an environmental minister."

Trade it is then. But, if you're going to make trade your priority, your dominant responsibility, then surely you have to accept full responsibility for the fallout from that pursuit. That's on you, Slick.

One element of that fallout is the rise of Canada's homegrown "precariat." It's a term used to describe the future this free-trading government has bequeathed to our youth. In case you're wondering, that's a future fraught with insecurity and economic peril.
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Morneau won't mention how his own government and its predecessors laid the foundation for this upheaval and uncertainty through its obsessive pursuit of neoliberalism and global free trade, the constant downward spiral. He won't explain why, when even the World Bank and International Monetary Fund can no longer remain silent on the social and economic damage inflicted by globalism, his government remains a faithful adherent to this toxic ideology.

I'm sorry Morneau and you too, Trudeau, but, when you tell Canadians to forego their hopes and resign themselves to a future in the precariat, what you're really telling them is that you won't change course and liberal democracy be damned.

- Kelly Rose Pflug-Back and Ena͞emaehkiw Kesīqnaeh write that one person's accumulation tends to be directly linked to another's dispossession - particularly when it comes to resource extraction over the objections of affected First Nations communities.

- Ryan Maloney reports on Charlie Angus' continued efforts to get the Trudeau Libs to stop discrimination against children on reserve - this time by having to point out that tribunal-ordered funding to meet children's basic needs is not "confetti". And Jonathan Charlton notes that the Saskatoon Health Region's own research show the Lighthouse homeless shelter saving more than twice what it costs - meaning that the Saskatchewan Party's arbitrary cuts to it represent nothing but gratuitous harm to everybody concerned.

- Finally, Emily Peck discusses the World Economic Forum's latest report showing that women work far more than men while being paid significantly less.