Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Gwynn Guilford and Lauren Weber report on the recognition by economists that COVID-19 continues to be a mass disabling event - even as public health officials and politicians try to pretend the pandemic no longer exists. And Cory Franklin and Robert Weinstein discuss the potential social effects of an attitude dispensing with social responsibility. But there's little indication that people are actually as irresponsible as their political class, as Melissa Lopez-Martinez reports on a new survey showing a supermajority of Canadians support or somewhat support a return to mandatory masking if necessary.

- Chris Christensen offers his take on how a failure to invest in preventative measures is overloading our health care system. And Andrew MacLeod talks to Robert Brown about the dangers of turning family care into a corporate profit centre rather than a social priority. 

- Brett Wilkins reports on the recognition by the U.N.'s High Level Expert Group that there's no value to "net-zero" spin from businesses and governments using vague and distant commitments to excuse continued carbon pollution. Barry Saxifrage points out that we can't claim to be making progress in averting a climate breakdown while greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. And Miryam Naddaf offers a reminder that lower-income countries are bearing the brunt of a changing climate while having contributed little to its causes. 

- Matt Lundy and Vanmala Subramaniam discuss how Canada systematically relies on temporary foreign workers to suppress wages. And Yvette Brend reports on how the failure to ensure an adequate supply of housing serves to reinforce anti-immigration messaging. 

- Finally, Luke LeBrun reports on the background of Pierre Poilievre's director of communications Sarah Fischer as a supporter of the #FluTruxKlan (even at its most destructive) and general alt-right extremist - as well as the lack of any recognition by her or the Cons that there's any problem with those affiliations.