Friday, February 26, 2021

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Jason Hickel writes that on a global scale, poverty is the result of inequality and the misallocation of resources rather than underdevelopment. And Brittany Andrew-Amofah makes the case for a wealth tax to both reduce the existing concentration of wealth and power, and fund collective benefits, while the Canadian Press reports on the inequality exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic as job losses accumulated solely on the low end of the income scale. 

- Meanwhile, Aidan Simardone discusses the limitations of trying to litigate for social justice through Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms which doesn't actually address positive rights necessary for survival, nor private intrusions on them.

- Brendan Haley points out how less-wealthy households have missed out on the gains from energy efficiency funding which requires recipients to pay for substantial renovations out of pocket. And Alex MacPherson reports on Saskatoon's steps to fill in the gap left by the Saskatchewan Party's elimination of any meaningful efficiency program at all.

- Mike Hager reports on the understandable concerns that a real estate developer's donations to a police charity will influence how downtown Vancouver will be policed.

- Danyaal Raza and Bob Bell write that the deliberate effect of Doug Ford's outsourcing of cataract surgery is to ensure the public pays more to private clinics. And David Climenhaga discusses the likelihood that the UCP's consolidation of dispatch operations (over the strong objections of the communities affected) is the first step toward mass privatization of ambulance services.

- Finally, Annie Burns-Pieper notes that it's impossible to fully appreciate the harm caused by the federal government's neglect of First Nations water systems due to a choice not to track water-related illnesses. And Zak Vescera reports that the Sask Party has followed the principle of not tracking what it doesn't want to know about in refusing to fund wastewater analysis which would give Saskatchewan more information about the spread of COVID.

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