Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Jerry Dias and Dennis Williams write about the fundamental changes which we should be seeking to make to NAFTA in order to ensure that workers' and citizens' interests aren't left out of trade rules:

Meaningful Nafta renegotiation must comprehensively focus on balanced trade that provides real wage growth for American, Canadian and most especially Mexican workers, whose suppressed wages are harmful for all three countries.

A proper trade agreement should eliminate sweetheart provisions that allow corporations to sue governments in secretive tribunals over regulations that protect workers and the environment. It must tackle unfair trade practices like currency manipulation by countries seeking to lower the cost of their exports. Finally, all three countries must step up to the plate and make lasting commitments to invest in infrastructure, crack down on corporations that manipulate tax laws to send jobs overseas and commit to immigration laws that stop businesses from exploiting immigrant workers.

- And Stephen Tapp discusses the need for trade deals to account for inequality - though he focuses unduly on theoretical opportunities which result in a few more people exploiting trade flows, rather than actual outcomes which see broader interests represented.

- Corey Robin comments on the generation of American growing up with a healthy skepticism of capitalist dogma. And Nick Fillmore discusses the need for a stronger socialist movement in Canada.

- The UK's Office of National Statistics examines the effects of "shrinkflation", as corporations reduce the size of what they sell (and concurrently increase the relative amount of waste to product)  in order to avoid being honest about price inflation.

- Finally, Clarine Ostrove writes that all Canadians have an important stake in living up to our responsibilities to Indigenous peoples. Chief Russell Myers Ross highlights the B.C. Libs' deathbed giveaway of mining approvals to a major donor in the face of a public emergency and First Nations opposition as a prime example of disrespect for Indigenous communities. And Rachel Browne rightly points out that the recent suicide crisis among Indigenous children is far from the first - signalling the need for much more than short-term responses.