Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Andrew Nikiforuk distills the four myths which have resulted in Canada's political leaders plunging us into multiple avoidable waves of COVID spread. Isaac Olson and Verity Stevenson report on Quebec's latest set of public health rules to try to rein in an unprecedented number of cases, while Bartley Kives points out that Manitoba's health care system (like Saskatchewan's) is straining under the prospect of another wave without having recovered from the previous one. 

- Susan Delacourt highlights how the Libs' narrowed set of benefits - developed on the assumption that the worst of COVID was far behind us - proved to be obsolete by the time it was introduced. Christine Dobby reports on the especially severe effect on workers who may miss the threshold for even reduced federal relief, while having no say in whether they have access to employment income. And Nora Loreto reports on the 107 workers (to date) who have died of COVID contracted in Ontario workplaces. 

- Meanwhile, Walker Bragman and Alex Kotch expose how the Koch right-wing message machine has been running at full capacity to undermine any public health response to COVID.

- Angela Dewan reports on the similar lobbying and PR effort by fossil fuel interests to lock in long-term reliance on natural gas (and associated carbon pollution). And Erik Reinert writes about Frederick Soddy's prescient recognition of the problems with an economy which fails to properly value and protect our natural environment. 

- Finally, Robert Reich writes that corporate exploitation is the actual cause of the inflation we're experiencing - and that working-class and lower-income people will only be worse off if our policy response is to let even more wealth and power flow to those who already have the most.