Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Linda McQuaig writes about the myth that we have no choice but to pursue privatization - and notes that electric vehicle production represents an ideal opportunity to build public economic capacity:

Is it feasible to save the once-vibrant Oshawa complex and transform it into a publicly owned plant producing environmentally essential products, as part of a Green New Deal?

Gindin notes that during the Second World War, GM facilities were converted to produce military vehicles. He insists that the Oshawa plant be expropriated today without compensation since Canadian taxpayers have already generously subsidized GM. While he acknowledges that the project is a long shot, he adds, “it seems criminal not to at least try.”

Indeed, what is needed is some bold, out-of-the-box thinking that takes us beyond the current dogma of privatization. Given that Canada’s historic auto-making centre is about to be shut down, we should consider creating a publicly owned facility that could potentially start a transformative industry here. If that idea is ultimately rejected, the rejection should be based on something more than the notion that such a project is too ambitious for public enterprise and is best left to the private sector.

In truth, the very ambitiousness of the project seems to call out for public enterprise. For most of our history, we’ve been mere "hewers of wood and drawers of water" and operators of branch plants. When we’ve risen above that, it’s usually been because we’ve created public enterprises that served a broader public purpose than what private interests were offering. We became the country we are today in part because, at key moments our past, some visionary Canadians had bold, ambitious ideas for public enterprises and weren’t deterred by the admonitions of the business elite.

There may be reasons not to turn the Oshawa plant into a green production facility, but let’s not succumb to the ill-informed notion that Canadians aren’t up to the task or that we don’t know how to do public enterprise in this country.

- Jon Milton discusses the importance of treating housing and transit as social goods rather than profit or revenue centres as part of any viable climate plan. And Bill Blaikie writes that we should be far more concerned about a long-term environmental deficit - the extreme damage we're inflicting on our planet - than about incremental differences in budget expectations.

- Erika Shaker compares how Canada's federal parties are addressing the increasing unaffordability of post-secondary education. And Anne Gaviola examines the numerous positive spinoff effects of forgiving student debt.

- John Geddes points out the minimal differences between the tax tinkering of the Libs and Cons (at a galling cost to the federal government's fiscal capacity).

- Finally, Michal Rozworski writes that it should be a no-brainer to bring in more revenue from Canada's wealthiest few, both to fund needed programs and to try to reduce the inequality in power which comes from the concentration of wealth. And Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman write that the U.S. too should be determining how to tax its way toward increased social justice.