Accidental Deliberations

Musical interlude

2012-01-27T21:01:00.000-06:00

Delerium - Heaven's Earth (Key South Remix)

Friday Afternoon Links

2012-01-27T12:39:00.006-06:00

Assorted content to end your week.

- Jack Knox comments on how the rest of the world sees Canada under the Harper Cons:

A week after bleating about foreign radicals slowing the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal, you have to figure Joe Oliver just wishes he had kept his cakehole corked.

Instead of turning public opinion against the interference of well-heeled American environmentalists, Stephen Harper's natural resources minister succeeded mainly in A) awakening Canadians to the growing extent of Asian influence in the Alberta oil patch and B) alerting the rest of the world that the Canadian cowboy now wears a black hat.

When did the Americans sell us to China, Canadians asked.

When did Canada become a global bad boy, asked the foreign media.

- In "mostly competent government!" news, Jeffrey Simpson notes that the Cons are paying more "information officers" to release as little information as possible. Greg Weston questions the ongoing funding being thrown into supporting a public appointments commission which doesn't actually exist. And most importantly, the Cons are just now backtracking on months of assurances that they didn't need to think about alternatives to spending tens of billions of dollars on F-35s.

- Which is to say that Susan Riley is exactly right in observing that Harper's electoral success looks to be based largely on voters getting lulled to sleep.

- Stuart Trew updates us on the latest developments surrounding the CETA.

- Finally, Christine McLaughlin discusses the dangers of the Cons' bill to criminalize anonymous protesting.

On responsible management

2012-01-27T07:28:00.004-06:00

Tobi Cohen's report on fund-raising in the NDP's leadership race ends up serving largely as an analysis of Nathan Cullen's position and fund-raising to date due to his willingness to provide a donor list before it's required. (Which nicely signals the value of working with media on that type of story.)

But let's connect the dollar figures from the NDP's campaign to the ones involved in the last national leadership race.

As a starting point, the Libs' leadership candidates in 2006 ended their campaigns over $4 million in debt - meaning that their expenditures exceeded their campaign fund-raising by that amount.

For the NDP's contenders, that cumulative level of debt is simply impossible. The expense limits for the eight candidates would total $4 million if every candidate spent the maximum - which is itself a questionable assumption. But every dollar fund-raised reduces the amount of debt that could possibly be left. And Cullen's data looks like a useful data point on that front.

While I'm curious to see whether I've missed anything, I don't recall his campaign doing much on the fund-raising front that the other contenders haven't. And yet even at a stage of the race focused more on membership sales than fund-raising (which will of course change after next month's membership deadline), Cullen has managed to reach approximately a third of the total he could possibly be allowed to spend.

We can compare that number to the proportion of the Libs' ultimate expenses which they had raised by a later point in their 2006 leadership race, being the first mandatory reporting deadline 4 weeks before the vote. And the numbers show a couple of patterns which look to be radically different for the NDP's candidates.

First, the Libs' front-runners didn't have much trouble fund-raising from the start of the race, but ran into problems later due to their high spending totals. Michael Ignatieff had fund-raised over a million dollars by the first reporting period, but spent slightly over twice that for the campaign as a whole. Bob Rae raised just below a million, but spent about three times that. And likewise Gerard Kennedy, who raised just over $400,000 by the first reporting period, spent about three times that.

The pattern was relatively similar for the next tier of candidates. Martha Hall Findlay was only at about a quarter of her ultimate expense total; Ken Dryden was somewhat below the one-third threshold as of the first deadline and never got caught up; and Joe Volpe was just around the one-third level as well.

Meanwhile, Scott Brison had raised over half of his total expenditures by the first reporting deadline. And Hedy Fry, Maurizio Bevilacqua and Carolyn Bennett all dropped out of the race, with Bevilacqua the lone candidate to incur particularly large debts before doing so.

And then there was Stephane Dion. By the first reporting deadline, he had raised just over $270,000 - only to spend over seven times that in winning the race.

So what can we take from that comparison? Well, based on the NDP's spending limit Cullen is at a better place in terms of fund-raising his possible final spending total than any of the Libs' 2006 candidates except Brison in raw dollars, or Brison and Ignatieff in terms of percentages. And that's with another month left before the first reporting period used as the point of comparison for the Libs.

At the same time, based on the amount of money raised by the Libs' front-runners without seemingly breaking a sweat, there should be little doubt that the NDP's front-runners will have no trouble raising their total spending limit or more during the course of the campaign. (Though of course we'll have to confirm that when the first disclosures are made.) And unlike Ignatieff, Rae and Dion, the Mulcairs and Topps of the NDP's race won't be able to get into a multi-million dollar spending war that leaves them with debt despite strong early-campaign fund-raising.

So the NDP figures to see its front-runners easily cover their costs. And Cullen and anybody else fund-raising reasonably well from a trail position should also have relatively little trouble breaking even for the campaign period. What's more, even if a candidate somehow spends the maximum without raising a dime, the downside is roughly the average debt incurred by the Libs' candidates.

Now, none of the above should be a huge surprise based on the spending limit set by the NDP. But it's worth highlighting to show how the NDP's choice of rules nicely closed off any risk of having to spend years fund-raising to made up leadership debts - and Cullen's example suggests that the candidates themselves may be slightly ahead of even the pace we'd have expected based on that low-risk choice.

Thursday Evening Links

2012-01-26T20:47:00.003-06:00

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Andrew Jackson notes that the IMF is telling countries in Canada's position to hold off on gratuitous austerity. And Trish Hennessy wonders why so many Canadians seem to have forgotten what happened last time budget-slashing was in vogue.

- Meanwhile, Erin documents how Ontario's corporate tax giveaways have produced zero return in terms of investment. And Martin Regg Cohn wonders whether a government eager to take on bullying in schools and communities has any interest in applying the same principles when it's being pushed around by shameless corporate bullies.

- Kev notes that the Cons are giving away far more than they have to in order to complete a free trade deal with the European Union by comparing a similar deal being negotiated by India. But is there much evidence that the Cons aren't actively looking for excuses to, say, hand over another pile of free money to big pharma?

- Laura Ryckewaert points out how the NDP's planning in buying its headquarters has helped to position the party for the longer term. But I do think it's a bit speculative to suggest that the building will make a big difference in election financing: is there any evidence to suggest that any party has had any trouble securing loans for national party financing, with or without real estate to pledge as collateral?

- Finally, Greg Marchildon rightly argues that we should be looking to complete the final phase of Tommy Douglas' vision for health care - rather than looking for excuses to trash it as so many want to do.

Parliament in Review: November 23, 2011

2012-01-26T16:57:00.003-06:00

Wednesday, November 23 saw the last votes in the House of Commons on the dismantling of the single-desk Wheat Board. And to who thought there might be some suspense as to the Cons' determination to impose their agenda without listening to anybody, it's always great to welcome new readers.

The Big Issue

Of course, the passage of the Cons' Wheat Board bill started with Peter Van Loan's latest time allocation motion. Joe Comartin warned Van Loan that the NDP had plenty of material available to show the Cons once considered exactly that type of action to be profoundly antidemocratic, and Niki Ashton, Alexandrine Latendresse, Matthew Kellway and Pierre-Luc Dusseault made good on the promise.

Meanwhile, Scott Simms managed to get Gerry Ritz to admit that at least one other single-desk marketer is on the chopping block. And Garry Breitkreuz argued that the fact he's been telling constituents that the Cons planned to ram through the bill immediately and without debate somehow served as reason for them to go ahead and do so.

Once debate resumed on the bill proper, Lynne Yelich broke the Cons' streak from the previous couple of days by deigning to speak in favour of the Wheat Board bill. But she may also have proven why the Cons are less than eager to bother, as Ralph Goodale pointed out that the position of processors that they expect better prices in the absence of a single-desk Wheat Board can only mean that less money is going to farmers. Niki Ashton highlighted the total lack of study and planning as to the actual effects of torching the single desk. And Don Davies called for the Cons to let farmers decide whether they support the bill.

But sadly, the Cons rammed through motion and the unamended bill.

Consider the Source

Kirsty Duncan cited both a departmental briefing note to Peter Kent and his own written submission in response to a question as evidence that there was no duplication in ozone monitoring to be cut - only to be informed by Kent that she should "use more reliable research". Which led in turn to this before Duncan was cut off by Andrew Scheer for reasons not apparent:

Mr. Speaker, I asked the Minister of the Environment a question and cited a response to an order paper question signed by the minister himself. The minister's response was that I should use more reliable sources. The minister's answer suggests that the minister's order paper response is wrong and has misled the House.

To give him the benefit of the doubt, I suppose the minister either misled the House in his order paper response or he is misleading the House now--

And that wasn't the only odd intervention by Scheer, who also responded to a point of order about a blatant breach of privilege by Gordon O'Connor by commenting that he agreed with a later point by Ed Holder about the behaviour of visitors.

In Brief

Don Davies and Chris Charlton both raised the desperate need to alleviate poverty in members' statements, while Jean Crowder followed up in question period. Elaine Michaud noted that concerns about the appointment of a unilingual Auditor General extended to at least a couple of prominent Cons. Nycole Turmel and Jack Harris challenged the Cons to provide some evidence that their dumb-on-crime plan would accomplish anything. Olivia Chow wondered about the rationale for slashing airline safety inspections while spending millions on little-used jets. Scott Brison nicely questioned the Cons' stimulus priorities:

How could the Conservatives use GPS to track action plan signs and not bother to track how many jobs were created?

Laurin Liu questioned the Cons' lack of interest in investing in clean energy, while Megan Leslie pointed out the consequences of dirty oil when it comes to trading partners' perceptions of Canada. Francois Lapointe noted that not a single employee is currently being paid to mine asbestos in Canada, and wondered why the Cons continue to shill for the industry rather than looking for alternatives for workers. Carol Hughes introduced a bill to establish medals for military service during the Cold War, while Davies followed with a proposal to extend voting hours in federal elections. Francis Scarpaleggia spoke to his bill on water exports - with a particularly odd intervention seeing an objection to Elizabeth May's request to co-second the bill, while the Cons managed to find excuses to oppose action to prevent bulk water exports. And Sean Casey presented a petition calling for all junk mail to be made out of hemp paper.

New column day

2012-01-26T07:36:00.003-06:00

Following up on this morning's roundup, I comment here on how the NDP's group of leadership candidates includes loads of possibilities to take up Jack Layton's mantle of negotiation and cooperation.

As a brief bit of further reading, it was Dan Gardner who asked whether Stephen Harper had ever engaged in serious negotiations with parties outside his government. And it doesn't look like anybody had a single example to suggest.

Finally, for anybody interested in finding out more about the NDP's leadership candidates, the candidates' sites are accessible through my reference page among other sources.

Leadership 2012 Roundup

2012-01-26T07:04:00.002-06:00

Yes, Alice comes as close as one can to distilling the entire NDP leadership race into a single post. But there's still plenty going on as the field becomes official - so let's take a look at what's new over the past couple of days.

- Niki Ashton released a statement on foreign policy, calling in particular for the fight against poverty to be Canada's top priority around the globe.

- Nathan Cullen announced that he'll be taking time during the campaign to present at the Gateway pipeline project review panel in February.

- Paul Dewar added Maher Arar to his list of endorsements focused on human rights, while also presenting a plan for public service employment.

- Peggy Nash unveiled several more labour endorsements, while also earning Bill Tieleman's nod.

- And Romeo Saganash responded to this week's First Nations summit by pointing out the need for trust in relations between aboriginal groups and Canada's federal government.

- In more general news, last night's forum in Montreal drew five candidates, along with coverage from Anja Karadeglija and Les Perreaux. ENDProhibition released candidate responses to its questions about drug policy - with Saganash standing out in calling for "full legalization, regulation and taxation" of marijuana. And Ish Theilheimer collected explanations from key endorsers for five of the candidates.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

2012-01-25T12:20:00.004-06:00

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Nycole Turmel offers a reminder that we shouldn't allow the Cons and their proxies to distract anybody with shiny objects when they're so obviously wrong on the core issues facing the country:

In taking aim at the Conservatives’ priorities, Ms. Turmel criticized Mr. Harper for his seeming preoccupation with MPs’ lucrative pension plans rather than ensuring secure pensions for all Canadians.

“He thinks the most pressing issue right now is MPs’ pension, not the retirement security of millions of Canadians,” she charged. “Maybe it’s because I’m a long, long way from having an MP pension. But I’m here to fight for better pensions for all Canadians.”
...
As part of the government’s search for cuts in government spending – the Harper Conservatives have vowed to find $4-billion in annual savings – Treasury Board President Tony Clement has said that reforms to the MP pension plan are on the table. In fact, Mr. Clement has suggested there are no sacred cows and everything is being considered for the cuts.

Ms. Turmel’s argument – and that of her party – is that this simply a smokescreen to avoid dealing with issues such as helping Canadian families.
...
The Prime Minister recently dropped a 10-year health-care accord on the laps of premiers – saying take-it-or-leave-it.

Ms. Turmel called out Mr. Harper for again failing to show leadership on this file – and offered the premiers to join with the NDP as partners on fighting for good health care for all Canadians.

“We are New Democrats ... we will not let our health care wither and die,” she said.

- Terry Milewski points out that Stephen Harper's talking points from the free-market playbook are now out of place even among the elite gathered in Davos - meaning that they're even further from the reality actually facing most Canadians.

- The Canadian Labour Congress highlights a Corporate Tax Freedom Day as of February 1. And reporting on the same study, Elizabeth Thompson takes note of the fact that corporate tax cuts have led to massive piles of hoarded capital rather than the investment that's been promised.

- And finally, Ryan Cleary suggests that the viability of seal products should be measured based on market demand rather than a stubborn insistence on preserving the hunt. Predictably, the result is a wave of attacks from the Harper Cons, and zero defence from any free-marketeers.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

2012-01-24T21:05:00.003-06:00

Rugged cats.

On consistent distortions

2012-01-24T17:18:00.004-06:00

Of course, we shouldn't be spending too much time watching polls four years away from the next federal election campaign in the first place. But is it really too much to suggest that an eight point drop for the governing party and a near-total lack of movement get reflected in the headlines, rather than having two separate outlets put together equally-overwrought declarations that NDP movement within the margin of error is the end of the world?

On distorted outcomes

2012-01-24T12:24:00.008-06:00

Having apparently decided that two levels of government and the health systems under their control (along with multiple propaganda tanks funded by who-knows-how-much-money contributed by we're-probably-not-even-allowed-to-ask) make for an insufficient number of mouthpieces for health-care privatization, Murray Mandryk continues to take on the role for himself. But let's see what's missing from both his latest column, and the health-care debate generally.

To start off with, I'll note that the primary care clinic touted by Mandryk today is rather less offensive than some of the other, more corporate-controlled facilities which he's so eagerly lumped together as "innovation!".

As I noted in this column, though, any effort to actually test the relative efficiency of the private and public sectors should involve some basis for a fair comparison between the two. But instead, it's hard to imagine a more distorted set of incentives than the one pushing all parties toward leaving the new clinic to private physicians.

After all, in setting up a separate clinic, the health professionals involved can count on a reliable source of patients whose treatment can be billed under the provincial health insurance plan - representing a nearly-guaranteed flow of new funding for the structure that allows for private profit. And the proximity to a publicly-funded facility to deal with tougher cases who are more trouble than they're worth from a profit standpoint is an added bonus.

But if the Regina Qu'Appelle Health Region were to set up a publicly-administered community clinic to carry out exactly the same tasks, it would receive...not a dime from the provincial government beyond its existing funding envelope. Which means that *given a lack of willingness to consider publicly-administered options*, the best the health region can hope for is to push as many patients as possible toward private clinics to reduce its own backlog.

And that's a shame, because it's entirely plausible that the health region could do better managing a clinic and integrating it into our broader health-care needs if it received an equal amount of funding to do so. But the odds of that happening are of course zero.

In other words, the reason why a private clinic carries any particular appeal is that our system makes additional direct funding available for privately-delivered medicine, but not for publicly-delivered medicine. And while I'll readily acknowledge that the overall system has been in place under governments of different stripes, the Saskatchewan Party's obsession with privatizing as much as possible and refusing to fund public facilities looks to be making matters far worse.

Once again, then, the push for a private clinic to reduce ER times suggests less that privatization is the right answer than that the Saskatchewan Party won't accept any other answer. And citizens should expect better, rather than buying the Wall spin that "innovation" means moving as much care as possible toward private delivery.

[Edit: clarified wording.]

Leadership 2012 Roundup

2012-01-24T07:05:00.002-06:00

A quick look at just a couple more days of developments in the NDP's leadership race...

- Niki Ashton proposed an increase in immigration, particularly when it comes to family reunification.

- Paul Dewar challenged Thomas Mulcair to take a position on bulk water exports, provoking at least somewhat of a contentious exchange between various camps.

- Meanwhile, Mulcair released a plan on women's equality to ensure equal representation on the boards of public institutions and push toward the same end in the private sector. And tonight he'll appear on This Hour Has 22 Minutes in a sure sign that the leadership campaign is starting to sink in with the general public.

- Peggy Nash put to rest any doubt about her ability to rally a crowd in a post-protest speech in London.

- Finally, Brian Topp unveiled the endorsement of Bill Siksay - a notable addition to the extent it goes beyond the perceived NDP establishment to include an MP who was disciplined by Jack Layton for not going along with a vote for a Con crime bill. And Topp also made the point that the NDP shouldn't want to copy the Cons' voter suppression - though that would seem to make for a fairly obvious contrast to the extent limited turnout is seen to benefit right-wing parties.

- On the commentary side, Tim Harper compared the NDP's campaign to the Republican presidential primaries - and it's indeed worth noting that we have much less data to work with in analyzing the NDP's race than pollsters and pundits can sift through in the latter. And Joel French offered more thoughts on three candidates who made recent appearances in Edmonton.

Parliament in Review: November 22, 2011

2012-01-23T20:54:00.003-06:00

Tuesday, November 22 saw the Cons' refusal to debate their own government bills reach absurd levels, as Con MPs spent more time arguing against a single opposition private member's bill than they did defending some of their supposed key priorities.

The Big Issue

But then, one can hardly blame the Cons for having been distracted, as the Auditor General's report gave the opposition parties plenty of material for question period. Peter Julian pointed out the utter lack of any evidence that the Cons' much-advertised economic plan actually accomplished anything, then noted that even basic management skills involve at least some element of setting and measuring goals which the Cons completely overlooked. And Alexandre Boulerice highlighted what may be the defining feature of the Cons' government:

(T)he Auditor General's report has confirmed what the NDP has been saying for quite some time. The Conservatives have a habit of being opaque. They ignore evidence, reject the advice of experts and are not accountable to Canadians. The Auditor General said “that poor information is a widespread, chronic problem in the federal government.”

Meanwhile, John McCallum presented a grab bag of critical AG quotes. Hedy Fry and Libby Davies pointed out the failure of Health Canada to act on drug safety issues. Christine Moore criticized an evidence-free military-industrial complex. And Malcolm Allen observed that a program intended to cut down on tobacco farming had actually boosted production at a cost of $300 million.

Silent Treatment

Two government bills were up for debate. And in both cases, the Cons couldn't be bothered to actually speak up for their own legislation - a point which Mike Sullivan and Irene Mathyssen made explicitly. But the good news is that the Cons' choice not to spout talking points left plenty of time for substantive discussion of both issues.

On Senate reform, the NDP's main theme - discussed by Francois Pilon and Glenn Thibeault - was that there's a relatively easy means available to limit the cost and damage that the Senate can do as matters stand now. Here's Thibeault:

I recall one of my constituents, Craig, telling me that he did not support a triple-E Senate. He supported a single-E Senate, and that single E stands for empty.

Pilon also noted that the Cons' plan looks to have been designed to make senators accountable to nobody before being handed massive pensions at a time when MPs' own pensions are in the spotlight. Denis Blanchette observed that Senate elections held concurrently with provincial or municipal elections to save money could result in exactly the type of voter confusion the Cons seem to want to encourage. Claude Gravelle highlighted the Senate's sad legacy of bagmanship which the Harper Cons have taken to new lows, while Marc-Andre Morin mused about its other function as a recycling ground for failed Con candidates. Pierre Dionne Labelle worried that the couple of bills passed by actual elected representatives which have already been shredded by unelected Cons may only be the tip of the iceberg, while Claude Gravelle wondered whether asbestos could be the next issue to see an unelected body block a bill which could win majority support in the House of Commons. Elizabeth May went into law wonk mode in noting the mushy language intended to allow prime ministers to ignore the results of any Senate election. Alex Atamanenko mused about how the Senate could be somewhat less of a blight if it wasn't so blatantly abused for partisan purposes. Andre Bellavance made clear that the Bloc is fully onside for Senate abolition. And Fin Donnelly worried about the unintended consequences likely to come from a partially-elected body facing even more questions about its legitimacy than the Senate already does.

On copyright, honours for the line of the day went to Olivia Chow:

It will be illegal to remove a lock, even if done so for a lawful purpose. If someone locks himself or herself out of the house, we do not drag them off to jail for trying to enter his or her locked property; why should digital property be any different?

Meanwhile, Rathika Sitsabaiesan also pointed out the Cons' obsession with locks and prisons. Peter Julian contrasted the NDP's call for constructive engagement against the Cons' utter refusal to listen to anybody other than their own spinners. Scott Simms answered the Cons' usual blather about how the right time for debate is anytime but the present by pointing out that a second-reading vote would prevent any significant changes in principle. Elizabeth May looked at the positive in the bill while pointing out the desperate need for amendment when it came to digital locks. Matthew Dube expressed concern about the bill's impact on libraries. And Kennedy Stewart drew a comparison to Mulroney-era patent reforms which made loads of money for big pharma without doing any good for most Canadians.

In Brief

Nycole Turmel called for public input into the future of health care funding just before Harper decided to rule out any such possibility. Megan Leslie wondered when the Environment Minister would notice that his government is doing nothing but harm on his assigned file, while Laurin Liu pointed out the economic risks of being a laggard on climate change. Marie-Claude Morin used National Housing Day to highlight the Cons' failings on the issue, only to be met with the response that 1.5 million Canadians with inadequate housing should be satisfied knowing that one percent of that number of residents received renovation tax credits for their existing homes. Peter Van Loan announced the latest time allocation motion, this on the single-desk Wheat Board demolition bill. Denis Coderre spoke to his bill to improve some EI benefits, only to be instructed by Mike Wallace that opposition parties should stick to presenting non-binding motions rather than bothering to try to improve legislation. Brian Storseth pretended that his bill to attack protections against hate speech was something other than a top-down, Harper-approved initiative, while Francoise Boivin noted the problems with the bill. Jamie Nicholls questioned why successive Con ministers responsible for infrastructure have all failed to show any interest in planning past the next media cycle. Malcolm Allen reiterated the need for a stronger CPP as the base of Canada's retirement system. And Francois Lapointe called out Con MPs who oppose asbestos exports for their cowardice in sticking to the party line.

Monday Morning Links

2012-01-23T07:17:00.002-06:00

Assorted content to start your week.

- Erin nicely challenges Brad Wall's efforts to tilt the playing field against poorer provinces when it comes to Employment Insurance and equalization.

- But I'm not sure we can expect much change to EI in any event. After all, as Dr. Dawg notes, the current Harper-created financing board may be the ultimate non-functioning public agency to reflect the Cons' inclination toward ineffective government.

- Philip Boffey points out that the source of the U.S.' disproportionate health-care costs is precisely its reliance on market pricing that so many are eager to introduce in Canada. And Tom Tomorrow rightly notes that the U.S. health-care system isn't lacking for Wall-style innovation.

- David Akin points out a striking correlation between voting locations and outcomes.

- Finally, Daniel Lick theorizes that Canada spends roughly twice as much on corporate welfare as direct social welfare.

Parliament in Review: November 21, 2011

2012-01-22T15:55:00.002-06:00

Monday, November 21 featured the final day of debate on the Harper Cons' omnibus budget bill.

The Big Issue

Not surprisingly, the final day of debate on budget legislation gave rise to plenty of clash, with Peter Julian offering up the best summary of the contrasting positions:

What the Conservatives are saying is that the tens of thousands of seniors living in poverty in the country need to continue living in poverty because it wants to bring in more corporate tax cuts. It is saying to the one million Canadians who rely on food banks just to get through the month that they will need to keep going to food banks because it wants to bring in more corporate tax cuts. It is saying to the 72,000 Canadians who lost full-time jobs in the month of October, almost half of whom will not have access to employment insurance, that it needs to cut their benefits so that it can bring in this further corporate tax cut.
...
It is the middle-class and poor Canadian families who are paying the price for the government's irresponsible attitude when it comes to fiscal policy in the country.

Julian likewise contrasted continued tax giveaways to the corporate sector against the Cons' imposition of austerity on actual citizens, while Wayne Marston added up the cumulative effect of Lib and Con corporate tax cuts over the course of over a decade. Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet and Alain Giguere noted that the Cons' gratuitous cuts are turning Canada toward the Greek Syndrome that the government is supposedly trying to avoid. Scott Brison criticized the Cons' tax credits for being targeted to avoid anybody who actually needs help, while Alain Giguere added that needlessly complex application processes will keep hundreds of thousands of seniors from receiving the Guaranteed Income Supplement. Kirsty Duncan proposed children's nutrition funding as a far better investment than the Cons' trinkets and baubles. Alexandre Boulerice pointed out that even the IMF has recognized inequality as a serious issue that demands action, while lamenting the Cons' focus on short-term political interests rather than long-term planning. Marston and Francois Choquette pointed out that a job creation tax credit would do far more for Canadian workers than the Cons' unfocused tax hacking. Marston also called for a boost to the Canada Pension Plan, while noting that the Cons chose not to bother when there was plenty of provincial demand for action. Raymond Cote rightly criticized the Cons' now-defunct transit tax credit as having been utterly useless when it came to actually providing transit, and suggested that we shouldn't turning our economy over to the Gordon Gekkos of the world. Nycole Turmel suggested that the Cons pair their new regulatory requirements with desperately-needed investment in infrastructure. And Jean Crowder pointed out that the Cons' "jobs! jobs! jobs!" spin is far from a full answer to economic issues when the jobs actually created aren't enough to keep a worker or family out of grinding poverty.

For the Cons, Colin Mayes honestly seemed to think Julian would be able to do nothing but proclaim the Cons' brilliance in mentioning their softwood lumber sellout - only to be met with the reality of 50,000 lost forestry jobs as a result. Royal Galipeau made it clear that as far as he's concerned, Canadians should expect to fend for themselves. And Cheryl Gallant delivered a remarkable paean to the hundreds of millions of dollars the Cons have thrown into AECL even while selling it off.

Finally, Elizabeth May attempted one last time to challenge the Cons' choice to attack per-vote funding rather than exceedingly generous donation tax credits that disproprotionately help the Cons, only to be told by Randy Hoback that it had been decreed thus from on high - and in keeping with that theme, the bill passed at third reading.

Tomorrow's News Today

Once again, the NDP identified a significant story months before the media seems to have caught on, as Jasbir Sandhu and Sylvain Chicoine both questioned the politicization of RCMP communications months before the story found its way into the press. But in fairness, I'm sure plenty of media observers were once again too busy writing about how little they've seen from the NDP opposition to notice what was actually happening.

In Brief

Helene Laverdiere wondered whether the Cons' call for strong action against Syria would include any limitations on the business done there by Suncor - and Bob Dechert's answer strongly suggested otherwise. Peter MacKay answered a question from John McKay by stating that there's no expectation of reaching initial operating capability with F-35s anytime before 2020 - calling into question why there wouldn't be time to properly consider Canada's options before then. Don Davies introduced a bill to remove federal sales taxes on energy-efficient products. Dan Harris provided a few current cabinet ministers' greatest hits decrying closure and time allocation under past governments before they became Canada's leading offenders in that department. Ruth Ellen Brosseau highlighted the increase in food bank use under the Cons. Andrew Scheer issued his ruling on the Cons' refusal to respect judicial independence, choosing to punt the issue back to committee rather than addressing the problem. Tyrone Benskin called for the Cons to recognize the value of crime prevention rather than focusing stubbornly on punishment, while Francis Scarpaleggia questioned whether officials from municipalities who can't afford new wastewater requirements might be joining the new crowd in Canadian prisons. Peter Stoffer spoke to his private member's bill to stop pension clawbacks for Canadian veterans. Tarik Brahmi tried again to get some answers about the Cons' failure to do anything to rein in credit-card gauging, only to be told by Eve Adams that tax slashing for the wealthy is basically the same thing as consumer protection. Charlie Angus and Alexandre Boulerice questioned some of the new revelations about Tony Clement's G8 porkfest. Anne Minh-Thu Quach wondered why the Cons chose to have health funding studied by unelected non-representatives in the Senate rather than a Commons committee. Justin Trudeau tested whether Peter Kent would go off message long enough to demonstrate basic knowledge about ozone issues; needless to say, Kent failed miserably. Julian suggested the Cons stop asking Canadians to play retirement roulette. And Turmel called out the Cons for forcing the provinces to pay the price for so many of their policies.

Leadership 2012 Candidate Rankings - January 22, 2012

2012-01-22T13:34:00.004-06:00

For all that's happened over the past week, the ultimate result has been largely to confirm the relative placement that the NDP's leadership candidates have faced all along. And in cutting through the increasing volume of activity, this week's rankings look to be drifting back toward the first set of candidate perceptions from November - with the exception of one key development that seems to have been confirmed over the last week.

1. Thomas Mulcair (1)

Lest there be any doubt, an outburst of media kvetching over Mulcair's dual citizenship doesn't figure to affect his standing within the leadership race - and indeed, the prospect of outside attacks may be just what he needs to get other candidates' supporters working in his defence. But it's somewhat more worrisome for Mulcair that at least one competitor has somewhat validated the concern for NDP members by echoing the theme.

2. Peggy Nash (2)

Because of the need to discount for her home-field advantage, I couldn't see Nash's debate performance as hugely improving her position. But she did more than enough to maintain her position as the most likely challenger to Mulcair on a final ballot.

3. Brian Topp (4)

This week nicely encapsulated the entire campaign for Topp. His debate performance was strong in substance but lacking in audience engagement; he pulled off an effective policy release that doesn't seem likely to advance his cause all that much; and he unveiled a couple of big-name endorsements, but in the process raised questions as to whether he's reached anybody beyond his pool of immediate colleagues. But he does still climb in the rankings thanks to...

4. Paul Dewar (3)

The main question for Dewar remains his ability to communicate in French. And his Toronto forum performance wasn't a positive sign on that front, as the outcome of what was supposed to have been a concerted effort to improve in his second language over the holiday break came up wanting. At best, one might theorize that more frequent debates will ultimately help Dewar find his sea legs - but it has to be worrisome for a candidate's best hope to involve getting comfortable in a language during the home stretch of a leadership campaign.

5. Romeo Saganash (6)

In terms of visible organization, Saganash would rank a couple of spots below this. But he's put in some highly visible work to get in front of audiences beyond his core supporters - and as long as he's within shouting distance of the candidates below him for organizational strength, Saganash's resume and personal story still figure to give him the upper hand.

6. Niki Ashton (5)

Ashton didn't stand out from the crowd this past week as she did in the first official debate. And at this stage of the campaign, she can't afford to blend into the background.

7. Nathan Cullen (7)

Yes, his new caucus endorsements help. But it's still an open question as to where Cullen can possibly accumulate later-ballot support - and the Toronto response to his cooperation proposal signals that there's still plenty of concern about his primary message.

8. Martin Singh (8)

One final note that I didn't include about the Toronto forum was that Singh's performance was much improved from the first official debate: rather than sticking as carefully to his chosen themes he engaged with the other candidates on a variety of issues, and he seems to have received a positive response in doing so. Which still leaves him a long way from contention, but raises the possibility that he could assemble enough later-ballot support to play a major role at the convention.

[Edit: fixed formatting.]

Parliament in Review: November 18, 2011

2012-01-22T10:25:00.004-06:00

Friday, November 18 saw two pieces of legislation discussed. And the contrast couldn't have been much more stark between an opposition effort to develop better legislation, and a government focused on nothing more than sticking to talking points regardless of whether they made the slightest sense in context.

The Big Issue

The main topic of discussion was the Canadian Wheat Board, including debate on the opposition's amendments to at least eliminate the Cons' plan to take a wrecking ball to the elected board of directors. But predictably, the Cons offered no defence of those particular provisions - stubbornly repeating their "delay" talking point even though the bill would obviously take no longer to pass amended than unamended.

Meanwhile, Robert Sopuck's speech deserves special note as an example of a Con deliberately pretending that everything that led to his election never happened. Sopuck won his seat based in part on his firm statement that the Wheat Board should be defended - only to use his opportunity to stand up for his riding by doing nothing but spouting the same anti-Wheat Board talking points we've heard dozens of times before, including by saying that voters had already decided the issue by electing him.

Needless to say, Pat Martin eagerly pointed out the fact that plenty of western voters had taken the Cons at their word that the Wheat Board wouldn't be torn down without some opportunity to be heard, while Don Davies discussed his grandfather who was both a Conservative voter and staunch defender of the Wheat Board. Anne-Marie Day criticized the Cons' trampling of a democratically-operated institution in favour of direct political appointments and silencing affected parties, while Claude Gravelle wondered why the Cons are so eager to take Canada's farmers for granted. And Wayne Easter noted that the single-desk Wheat Board is highly efficient compared to other marketing mechanisms while also returning all surpluses to farmers (at least until the Cons decreed otherwise), while also noted that the same "producer freedom" arguments repeated ad nauseum when it comes to the Wheat Board would apply with equal force to supply management which the Cons plan to maintain.

Flag Football

The other bill debated was the Cons' first foray into literal flag-waving, as John Carmichael spoke to his private member's bill to make it a criminal offence to limit the flying of the Canadian flag. Tyrone Benskin and Guy Caron raised concerns about the heavy-handed punishment included in the bill. Scott Simms wondered whether Carmichael's bill might have served as a means to prosecute Danny Williams in the course of his anti-Harper protests. And Royal Galipeau asked a cryptic question about "civil society organizations that receive public subsidies, money from Canadian taxpayers, and refuse to fly the Canadian flag" - signalling that explicit loyalty tests may be coming in the relatively near future if he has his way.

Evolving Traditions

Lib MP Mauril Belanger made a novel request, asking that Gerald Keddy table an iPad which he had referred to in answering a question. And at the very least Keddy was willing to table the text he was referring to - meaning that the Cons aren't yet using advances in technology as an excuse to completely negate all historical disclosure obligations.

In Brief

Jack Harris and Helene Laverdiere both praised the Cons for taking at least one step to allow for proper debate and analysis of C-10, only to be met with a response that they had no interest in doing anything more. Rosane Dore Lefebvre questioned the Cons' reliance on risky and inequitable voluntary savings programs - only to receive a response from Shelly Glover highlighting the riskiest and least equitable choices the Cons have made. Francoise Boivin and Alexandrine Latendresse challenged the Cons' attacks on pay equity. Glenn Thibeault noted that a voluntary consumer protection system (which the Cons chose in favour of actual regulation) is falling apart as TD Bank pulled its previous participation. Jason Kenney demonstrated that his math tutoring from Jim Flaherty is going about as well as could be expected. Claude Gravelle asked when the Cons would bother to proclaim their long-promised emission reduction regulations for the oil sands, only to be told that the Cons don't believe anybody should even ask the question. Ryan Cleary pressed the Cons on increasing EI processing times which keep money out of the hands of workers when they need it most. Jean Crowder and Anne-Marie Day challenged the Cons to do something about poverty. And Randall Garrison questioned why the Cons are withholding funding needed to restore rail service on Vancouver Island.

Sunday Morning Links

2012-01-22T09:15:00.004-06:00

Miscellaneous material to end your weekend.

- As Thomas Walkom notes, it's an open question as to who will take up the cause of defending universal public health care in Canada - but easy to figure out who poses the greatest threat to it:

Writing in The Globe and Mail this week, political scientist Flanagan attacked the very idea of Ottawa spending money in areas of provincial jurisdiction like health. He lauded Harper for moving “incrementally” towards a more classic form of federalism, where aberrations such as national medicare would not exist.

Programs like medicare, Flanagan wrote, “create the illusion for both levels of government that they are spending something less than 100-cent dollars” and thereby lead to more debt.

All of this suggests we are in for a grim few years on the health-care front.

Don’t expect the Harper government to attack medicare directly. It’s too popular with voters.

But what we can expect is a hands-off approach from Ottawa, which, when coupled with federal transfer cutbacks, will encourage cash-strapped provinces to search for more privately funded alternatives — from user fees to private-pay clinics.

- I for one can't imagine how placing a national police force under the strict political control of a government could possibly go wrong.

- Nancy Macdonald rightly points out that the largest questions about the Gateway pipeline are being raised by First Nations in B.C. - not the foreign boogeymen being invented by the Harper Cons. But we should fully expect that the Cons will try to tie the historical occupants of the land into their spin about unworthy interlopers.

- Meanwhile, it's becoming glaringly clear who views a government which exists primarily in service of the tar sands as a enemy - and which dubious characters see that as the definition of an ally.

- And Andrew Nikiforuk highlights one of the dirty truths about the oil industry, as it provides a woefully small number of jobs for the amount of GDP generated - with the Keystone XL pipeline only figuring to make matters worse:

(For the record, the oil industry is not a jobs machine. It is the world's most capital-intensive industry and earns more than 10 per cent of the world's GDP. But it only employs less than one tenth of one per cent of the world's workers. In Canada it accounts for but 1.8 per cent of the workforce.)

No matter. TransCanada's immodest economic models, for example, piped out job estimates 13 times greater (199,000) than those done by U.S. State Department (5,000 to 8,000) over a three- year period.

A 2011 Cornell University Global Labor Institute report crunched the numbers too and revealed that the project's construction would inject no more than $4-billion into the U.S. economy and only create between 2,500 and 4,650 jobs.

Unlike Canadian Tories, the Cornell study pointed out that the pipeline, by exporting raw bitumen to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries, would steal good jobs from Canada. Every time Canada exports 400,000 barrels of raw bitumen, economists calculate that the nation sends approximately 18,000 upgrading and refining jobs abroad and reduces Canada's GDP by 0.2 per cent.

- Sixth Estate documents how the Cons have sent every important report generated under their government down the memory hole.

- Finally, Andrew Jackson points out that the roots of inequality are largely political rather than a matter of inherent economic structure - no matter how feverishly some corporate apologists are working to pretend otherwise.

Leadership 2012 Roundup

2012-01-21T17:40:00.003-06:00

Yes, we're at the point in the campaign where we can't go a couple of days without plenty of developments - even in the absence of formal debates or other major events. So let's take a look at how the week ended on the campaign trail.

- Niki Ashton received a glowing review (if not quite an endorsement) from Joe Comartin in the course of a visit to Windsor - while also drawing what may be a noteworthy contrast to Thomas Mulcair as to her choices about citizenship.

- Nathan Cullen is fitting a request for online pledges of support into an interesting multipurpose page which may serve as a poll as well.

- Paul Dewar showed plenty of determination in fighting his way through a snowstorm for an event in Peterborough, before heading to Thunder Bay today.

- Mulcair sent out what may be the most compelling fund-raising pitch we'll see in the leadership campaign, promising to devote valuable leadership resources to a Quebec membership push in advance of next month's deadline.

- Brian Topp unveiled his arts policy. And along with that, he continued his strong endorsement push from the arts community with a video from Colin Mochrie.

- On the pundit side, a disturbing amount of ink and time was wasted on Thomas Mulcair's citizenship - with little worth repeating other than Chris Selley's take to show for it. Jeffrey Simpson offered his take on the race generally. And Gerald Caplan focused in on some of Simpson's earlier comments on what comes next for the NDP once the leadership campaign is done, while indirectly refuting a few of Barbara Yaffe's doubts about the party's future.

Saturday Morning Links

2012-01-21T09:56:00.005-06:00

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Jim Stanford highlights a trend of employers forcing work stoppages in order to force massive concessions out of their employees - and notes that the Harper Cons seem to be entirely in favour of that kind of economic disruption as long as it's workers who stand to lose out:

(B)usiness leaders have warmed to work stoppages. In the current bargaining environment, companies (especially multinational firms) hold the best cards. And executives are increasingly willing to precipitate their own work stoppages – through management lockouts – to enforce demands for lower wages and benefits.

Two New Year’s Day lockouts highlighted this strategy. U.S.-based Caterpillar Inc. locked out 450 locomotive builders in London, Ont., demanding wage cuts of more than 50 per cent. The same day, Rio Tinto, the U.K.-based mining giant, locked out 755 smelter workers in Alma, Que. That company’s demand to outsource all future bargaining-unit openings would ultimately achieve an even larger reduction in wages. In both cases, the future of middle-class incomes in our manufacturing and resource sectors is at stake. And in both cases, executives are willing to lock the doors until workers swallow their pill.
...
The popularity of lockouts reflects the dramatic tilting of the labour relations playing field in recent years. With unions on the defensive, management is eager to go for the jugular. Government has stood back or, worse, egged on the lockouts (as Ottawa did with Canada Post). Multinational firms are especially aggressive, given their ability (underwritten by free-trade agreements) to shift production and capital seamlessly between jurisdictions.

This trend is troubling, for macroeconomic as well as ethical reasons. As employers ratchet down compensation, income shifts from consumers (who spend every penny) to corporations (which sit on a growing pile of uninvested cash). That undermines aggregate spending and weakens the recovery. And the more employers succeed in driving down wages, the greater the danger of setting off a cycle of deflation in wages and prices (such as the one that bedevilled Japan for a decade).

- Meanwhile, Paul Krugman cuts through Mitt Romney's spin about the tax rate Romney pays personally to raise a deeper point about the main excuse proffered for constant corporate tax slashing:

(I)t’s kind of peculiar to see conservatives jumping up and down to say that Mitt Romney does too pay reasonable taxes if you include the profits taxes on the corporations in which he invests. Because if memory serves me, just a few years ago conservatives were denouncing the “flypaper theory” of tax incidence, arguing that much of the burden of corporate taxes really falls on labor, not on stockholders. Is it just my imagination?

No, it isn’t. They really did make this argument. Repeatedly.

And the truth is that I always took this argument semi-seriously...

(T)here is a strong sense of trying to have it both ways. When people raise questions about big tax cuts for corporations, we’re told not to worry, because corporate taxes mainly fall on labor, not on stockholders. When people raise questions about low taxes on the very rich, we’re told not to worry because once you include all the taxes corporations have paid on their behalf as stockholders, their taxes aren’t really that low.

Funny how that works.

- The NCC's attacks on Bob Rae have a few of the country's better-informed political observers thinking about how to address the ability of big-money donors to exert disproportionate influence on Canada's political debate. Kady O'Malley and Scot Reid suggest that the problem can be dealt with through disclosure requirements, while Andrew Coyne proposes that third-party groups should be subject to the same pool of funds as political parties (with a cap on individual donations applying to both).

- Finally, Andrew Potter considers the Cons' latest blather about "red tape" to be just the latest example of Tony Clement being instructed to introduce policy targeted toward the non-thinking:

How does one-for-one help us determine what regulations are good, and which are bad? This emphasis on the absolute numbers of rules, as opposed to their relative effectiveness, is just as brainless as the old Soviet practice of treating hours worked or widgets produced as the mark of economic growth. Who cares what the work was on, or whether anyone wanted any widgets.

To see how confused this is, try applying the one-for-one rule to everything else the government does. How about, for every new law the government wants to enact, it has to eliminate one. For every criminal it wants to imprison, it has to release one. For every tax it wants to cut, it has to increase another. For every cabinet member it wants to add, it has to fire another.

This could actually be a fun little parlour game, but it is no way to run a country. Except it is the same brand of bucktoothed libertarianism that has become this government’s signature approach to public policy. Whether it is about treating drug abuse, dealing with crime, running a statistics agency, or engaging in just about any of the other routine tasks of keeping a G8 country going, the Conservatives have made a habit of giving Canadians policy cooked up by people who can’t figure out whether they have a bigger crush on Robert Heinlein, or Ann Coulter.

This isn’t just some amusing little fanboy fugue. It has real consequences for the country and for our ability to make sensible and effective laws and policy.

[Edit: fixed attribution for last column.]

Musical interlude

2012-01-20T20:28:00.001-06:00

Yes, some of us will eagerly await the dance mix. But the original is well worth a listen too.

Garfunkel and Oates with Weird Al Yankovic - Save the Rich

Friday Morning Links

2012-01-20T06:58:00.004-06:00

Assorted content to end your week.

- Environics' polling on inequality shows over 80% of Canadians wanting to see governments reduce the disparity between the rich and the poor - even as the current federal government moves as far as possible in the opposite direction:

More than eight in 10 Canadians suggested their governments have a responsibility to do something to reduce the gap between the wealthy and the rest of Canadians.

When asked whose job it is to address income disparities, a clear majority agreed strongly (52 per cent) or somewhat (30 per cent) that governments should actively find ways to shrink the gap.

- Meanwhile, Matthew Yglesias checks the evidence rather than taking corporatist dogma for granted, and finds that capital gains tax levels look to have little if any effect on actual investment:

Germany started charging capital-gains tax in 2009 and implemented a 25 percent rate on new investments. This seems to have changed nothing at all...

My bottom line is that while I'm not generally a deficit hawk, cutting the capital-gains tax rate without any budget offsets, as the Bush administration did in 2003, is incredibly irresponsible. Capital-gains tax cuts are extremely regressive, so if you really are a big believer in the growth-sparking impact of lower rates, the reasonable thing to do is offset the budgetary impact of the cut with a big progressive hike in ordinary income tax rates. If you're not willing to do that, then you're really just offering rich people a giveaway. Incurring the massive direct dissavings involved in a deficit-financed tax cut in exchange for some very-possibly-not-there incentive effect is crazy.

- And speaking of free money for those who don't need it: yes, the Cons are still planning to funnel an extra billion dollars per year in health-care funding toward Alberta at the expense of other provinces which need it more. And there's absolutely no way the change should be allowed to happen without some serious outcry from the regions that stand to lose out.

- Jennifer Ditchburn points out that the Cons have turned their usual smear tactics toward environmentalists and premiers, while Tim Naumetz reports on the attack ad launched by their "non-partisan" alter ego against Bob Rae.

- Finally, Dan Gardner points out the concept of fundamental attribution error as a reason to take a look at how international relations look from Iran's side.

Leadership 2012 Roundup

2012-01-19T17:13:00.003-06:00

Last night's Toronto leadership forum has received plenty of attention, including media coverage as well as personal takes from Ian Welsh and Progressive Proselytizing. Subject to the below my own take on the candidates didn't change much from what I saw in December's debate, but a few points do seem worth noting: Niki Ashton wasn't quite the standout she was in the first official debate; Nathan Cullen continues to impress in a comparative environment except when he's trying to pitch his electoral co-operation plan; Paul Dewar's French remains a major question mark; and Romeo Saganash was certainly more energetic in English than in the first official debate, but still had some issues with pacing and (which again aren't a problem for him in French).

So what were the candidates up to over the last few days?

- In what I can only take as a response to the comment about his lack of endorsements in my last candidate rankings, Cullen unveiled the support of Alex Atamanenko and Fin Donnelly. I now suggest that Brian Topp perform a soft-shoe routine to prove his versatility in entertaining audiences.

- Dewar won several more endorsements, including three more Manitoba MLAs as well a former mayor and MPP in Toronto.

- Thomas Mulcair unveiled endorsements from a former MP and MPP in Northern Ontario.

- Peggy Nash released a green cities and jobs plan. And particularly noteworthy after the last few years is her proposal to set up an inventory of pre-approved infrastructure projects which could be started immediately when stimulus is needed - which would nicely avoid the obviously ludicrous focus on shovel-readiness over long-term value in the Cons' stimulus program.

- Saganash earned some positive press in a visit to Waterloo.

- And Topp unveiled new endorsements ranging from the cheeky to the more conventional.

- Finally, on the commentary side, Malcolm offered up his personal candidate rankings. Joanna Smith assembled her own roundup of policy proposals so far. And John Ivison's placement of Mulcair in the race's pole position may not be much of a surprise, but his inclusion of Dewar in an eventual camp alongside Mulcair and Nathan Cullen is a bit more interesting.

Thursday Morning Links

2012-01-19T07:14:00.002-06:00

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- I'd planned to post on the sheer arbitrariness of the Cons' insistence on eliminating a regulation for any new one they implement. But Erin gets there first:

At best, this rule is a gimmick. At worst, it will delay or prevent the implementation of needed public-interest regulation.

The issue is not, of course, the sheer number of regulations. It obviously makes sense to review existing and proposed regulations. But an honest review should be open to the possibility that more regulations are warranted, if that is what the evidence indicates.

The One-for-One Rule will create perverse incentives for federal regulators. They will maintain and husband unnecessary regulations so that they have something to remove when they need to introduce new regulations.

- Frances Russell somewhat underestimates the exact number of citizenship types being created by the Cons by not taking into account the non-voting and employment-privileged/above-the-law versions. But she's absolutely right to be concerned about the fragmentation of Canada.

- So who had "quick flip to a media conglomerate" in the pool of possible outcomes after SCN was sold off for a fraction of its value?

- Finally, Murray Dobbin asks us to visualize the first giant oil spill of the coast of northern B.C. - and rightly questions how any government interested in the good of anybody other than oil barons could be as determined to see that day come as the Harper Cons have been.

New column day

2012-01-19T06:55:00.002-06:00

Here, on how the rewriting of Rob Ford's budget by Toronto's City Council should serve as a reminder that legislators at all levels of government can do more than merely rubber-stamp the whims of the executive.

For further reading, see the Star's report on the Toronto budget, and compare to the outcome of the council budget discussion seen in Regina last month.

Wednesday Morning Links

2012-01-18T11:45:00.002-06:00

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Seth Klein somewhat jokingly offers up 10 reasons for upper-class tax increases. But particularly paired with the Cons' fixation with tax-free savings accounts to further hand free money to the rich, this part looks like it's worth some further focus:

#4: The maximum RRSP deduction for 2011 is a whopping $22,450.

That’s the ceiling for an annual contribution (for which people receive an extremely generous tax deduction — comes right off one’s taxable income) and does not include any unused room from previous years. Who the hell has $22K in extra income to tuck into this highly publicly-subsidized savings plan? A minimum-wage earner working full-time all year would have an entire annual income of only $19,798. The RRSP is one of the most expensive and inequitable social programs in Canada. The program costs the public treasury about $10 billion a year in foregone revenues. Yet, according to the CCPA’s Alternative Federal Budget, while more than two-thirds of those making over $100,000 a year contribute to RRSPs, less than a quarter of those making less than $50,000 find themselves able to contribute.

- Donald Gutstein points out the inevitable consequences of the Cons' corporations-first economic policy:

Is Stephen Harper's goal for Canada the United States of today?

That would mean a nation in which somewhere between a half and a third of its citizens have fallen into poverty or are hovering just above, in low income. This according to latest data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, 400 Americans are worth more than $1 billion.

And the divide will likely worsen, as Congress and Republican-controlled state legislatures continue slashing programs and benefits, firing workers, and further weakening health, safety and environmental protections to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, if that is even possible.
...
(At a Fraser Institute lunch, Peter Van Loan) reminded his audience of the "fierce debates about North American free trade and the voices from the fringe telling us that it would somehow erode our sovereignty." Van Loan declared that "we need to continue building a broad base of support for the importance of a competitive, globally engaged Canadian economy of the future." He ended with an invitation: "So let's work together to continue convincing Canadians... of the importance of economic freedom."

And as Canada's standing on the economic freedom index rises, so do the number of billionaires and the ranks of the poor and struggling.

- Dan Gardner discusses the Libs' identity crisis:

The Liberals had a core identity once: “The party that governs.”

There was no fixed ideological content. There didn’t need to be. Political beliefs came and went but the Liberals were always in the centre, espousing the conventional wisdom of the day, and governing the country. “The Liberal party should be understood not as a centre-left party,” Tom Flanagan and a certain Stephen Harper wrote in 1996. “Rather, it is a true centre party. ... It avoids definite ideological commitments and brings together people simply interested in exercising power and dispensing patronage.” That last bit is too harsh. But generally, Flanagan and Harper were right.

So what happens when “the party that governs” no longer governs? It no longer has an identity.

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae frankly acknowledges that he hears this all the time. But he insists there is a Liberal identity.

“We are who we are,” he declared in a speech to the Liberal caucus last week. Rae was passionate. The speech was masterful. But “we are who we are” comes uncomfortably close to Popeye’s “I yam what I yam,” and is about as meaningful.

- And TC Norris notes that Libs pointing to past periods when they held Official Opposition status are missing the real significance of their current position - since the "default alternative" status that's normally worked to the party's advantage no longer applies.

- Finally, Paul Hanley suggests that an obsession with developing the tar sands at maximum speed reflects "uneconomic growth".

On constructive alternatives

2012-01-18T06:57:00.004-06:00

Yes, plenty of key websites will be going dark today - and for good reason based on the U.S. legislation being protested.

But today also marks one month from the February 18 membership deadline in the NDP's leadership race. So today may be a good time to sign up to elect the leader of Canada's Official Opposition - and to encourage others who recognize the dangers of regressive technology policy to do the same.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

2012-01-17T20:40:00.001-06:00

Cats taking over furniture.

Repetition for effect

2012-01-17T12:33:00.004-06:00

Since Aaron Wherry has rightly connected the NDP's response to Lise St-Denis' floor-crossing to its efforts to engage constituents on other issues, I may as well offer a similar bit of reiteration. So here's what I had to say last time it was noted that the NDP was working on connecting voters to MPs whose choices they oppose:

(T)he NDP's work to get constituents involved in letting the Cons know what they think looks like a rather significant break from the top-down messaging we're accustomed to seeing from most parties...

Of course, the effect of the call is also to let the Cons know about an unhappy constituent while setting up a conversation between a rival party and an interested voter. But the NDP's choice to treat a direct message to the Cons as a plus in terms of influence rather than a minus in terms of keeping one's cards close to the vest looks to offer an important signal that the new Official Opposition is working on changing the game rather than playing by Harper's rules of message control and secrecy.

And needless to say, a chorus of Libs taking the opportunity to shriek "dirty tricks!" about the idea of voters being heard says much more about their continued expectation of never having to answer to the public than it does about the NDP's effort to change that operating assumption.

Update: Dr. Dawg has more.

Tuesday Morning Links

2012-01-17T08:13:00.003-06:00

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Alex Himelfarb nicely summarizes the price of austerity:

Let me be clear that I share in the broad consensus that we must be fiscally prudent. But let’s pause on what fiscal prudence really means: It means spending wisely, reducing waste, collecting sufficient taxes to pay for the public goods and services we want, and keeping debt coming down, at least during reasonably good times.
...
Today’s austerity, however, is not primarily about fiscal prudence. If it were it wouldn’t be proceeding in tandem with large, unaffordable and unnecessary tax cuts for the most affluent among us. These tax cuts make deeper program cuts inevitable.

The persistent emphasis on low taxes and cuts to services and public goods looks more like ideology masquerading as fiscal common sense. In this light, austerity seems rather to be about cutting back the state and rolling out the free market agenda. Less public, more private; less collective, more individual. It is, in other words, the fulfillment of the neoliberal counter-revolution rather than an economic plan for the future.
...
I, for one, would propose that inequality, not austerity, be the defining issue for us now. Income inequality is growing fast in Canada and even the traditional deniers are coming on board. The gap is simply too big, the risks too high to ignore. Indeed, extreme inequality will continue to grow in an agenda dominated by austerity and tax cuts, an agenda that reduces our capacity for mutual aid and for collective solutions to our major challenges – our low productivity, climate change and environmental deterioration, and declining political participation.

Of course we ought to be fiscally prudent and that means asking of each cut and each expenditure, including every tax cut: will this help reduce inequality or will it make things worse?

Let’s make inequality in all of its manifestations – child poverty, the reemergence of elderly poverty, the squeeze on working Canadians and students, and the excessive incomes at the top – a national priority.

- Paul Waldie documents the results of the Cons' insistence on demolishing the single-desk Wheat Board with no consideration of the resulting consequences. And predictably, the outcome looks to be plenty of damage and confusion rather than any of the supposed benefits the Cons have been claiming.

- Meanwhile, the Cons are also working on making Canada's food supply less safe. And don't take my word for it: here's what their own spinners said in adding the jobs the Cons are now cutting:

The new investments being announced today will improve the Government's ability to prevent, detect and respond to future foodborne illness outbreaks. Among other improvements, the Government will:
-hire 166 new food safety staff with 70 focusing on ready-to-eat-meat facilities...

So if the hirings were an improvement to the "ability to prevent, detect and respond to future foodborne illness outbreaks", then surely the firings have to be the opposite. Right?

- Frances Woolley posts about the effect of moral hazards in allocating health care resources. But while the principle is worth discussing, I have to seriously question how much of a problem is demonstrated when the sole example of actual gratuitous consumption of health care comes from Homer Simpson.

- Finally, Linda McQuaig criticizes the Cons' preference for foreign capital over Canadian workers:

Ironically, the Harper government has complained forcefully about “foreign” interference from outside environmentalists protesting a proposed pipeline across the Rockies. But when it comes to foreign companies stripping Canadian workers of half their wages and then moving operations out of the country, the government hasn’t a negative word to say.

Harper is of course staunchly pro-capitalist, and has aggressively lowered corporate tax rates, while refusing to link lower taxes to investment or job creation.

But his anti-union stance, evident in disputes at Air Canada and the post office last summer, has been particularly provocative. He seems determined to turn Canada into an anti-union paradise — prompting the Ontario Federation of Labour to call for a mass rally at the Caterpillar plant in London this Saturday.

As the PM gears up for his coming battle against federal public sector unions, he will no doubt draw inspiration from Mitt Romney’s stirring words: “I like to be able to fire people who provide services.”

Leadership 2012 Roundup

2012-01-17T06:54:00.002-06:00

No, I won't claim to have entirely comprehensive coverage of the NDP's leadership race. But I do try to catch the developments that strike me as significant for each candidate and the race as a whole...so let's take a look at what's new over the past few days.

To start off with, the Laurier–Sainte-Marie debate on Sunday received one major media story as well as being live-tweeted by Alice and Justin among others. The main storylines look to have been another strong performance by Nathan Cullen and a call by Thomas Mulcair to emphasize asymmetric federalism - but I'll reserve judgment until I have a chance to watch the debate for myself, particularly since the in-debate commentary included conflicting takes on a couple of key points.

Meanwhile...

- Niki Ashton made a push for peace, highlighting the Harper Cons' attacks on Islam in particular being ill-advised. But more broadly, the use of military force may actually make for an issue to watch if the leadership contenders are pressed as to when they'd see fit to use Canada's armed forces to meet foreign policy goals.

- Paul Dewar expanded on the "Next 70" theme introduced last week while earning a supportive column from Peter Thurley.

- Mulcair became the first candidate to receive the full-on Sun Media treatment - though we can expect that there's plenty more where that came from. (And for the record, here's my take from last time the citizenship question came up.)

- Peggy Nash answered questions from CBC viewers, including one on what the NDP can do for western Canada.

- And finally, Romeo Saganash's Ontario tour featured both a new blog post on how the Cons value corporate profits over taking care of people, and some positive press from the Star.

On new challenges

2012-01-16T08:14:00.004-06:00

Every so often, it seems to be necessary to remind the pundit class that there isn't a reset button that will magically restore Canadian politics to where they were three or four election cycles ago. So let's take a look at the theory that the Bloc should be the favourite to re-emerge as the main force in Quebec federal politics.

During the election campaign, I discussed how the Bloc ended up where they were for the past two decades. But a quick refresher may be in order.

As of 1993, the three major federal parties had essentially lashed themselves together on the major issue discussed in the previous term of office. And that gave the Bloc a chance to emerge by running against effectively the entire Canadian establishment.

Once the 1995 referendum was in the rear-view mirror, however, the Bloc recognized that it would need to stand for more than sovereignty alone. And so it developed a strategy of running hard against the government of the day (which was always its strongest Quebec opponent) and serving as an opposition on behalf of Quebec alone.

That strategy was highly effective at stoking frustration against sitting governments. But in the last few election cycles, it proved somewhat vulnerable when competing opposition parties entered the picture: in 2006 the Cons did better than anticipated as the Bloc hammered away at Lib scandals, and in 2008 the Libs managed to gain ground as the Bloc launched its culture war against Stephen Harper.

And then there was 2011. For entirely rational reasons, both the Libs and Cons largely took a pass on trying for major growth in Quebec - leading the Bloc to think it might have a particularly easy election. But this time, the Bloc's focus on Harper proved all too successful, establishing a need for change on behalf of a party which couldn't plausibly offer it.

Naturally the Bloc tried to change course - first by running against the NDP, then by changing the subject back to sovereignty. But it nearly got wiped off the map despite those efforts, and has shown no sign of regaining any momentum.

But that isn't even the worst of the Bloc's problems. Instead, it's this: the strategies that worked for the Bloc in the past now figure to be entirely off the table.

No, the Bloc can't just run against the government of the day - since the NDP (and indeed the Libs) figures to benefit at least as much from dissatisfaction with the Cons.

What about a 1993-style assault on the federalist parties and system generally? Well, to get any traction, the Bloc will have to put together a narrative that involves agreement or non-differentiation between the Cons, NDP and Libs on issues controversial enough to get the Quebec public riled up. And while anything can happen, it's hard to see how that scenario is about to develop with the Cons looking to impose their will through a majority government, the NDP looking to distinguish itself as the opposition and the Libs looking for unexplored terrain of their own.

In effect, the Bloc has always succeeded by overwhelming a single national opponent which bears the burden of government in a one-province, one-front battle. But there's no way they're avoiding a multi-front challenge in 2015 - and starting from a tenth of their former caucus size and a dwindling membership will only make that challenge all the more difficult.

Again, a lot can change in four years, and I wouldn't rule the Bloc out by any means. But in ranking the threats to the NDP's current Quebec seats, I'd be hesitant to rank them any higher than second (behind a Con government using the spoils of power to pursue new target groups) - and would think it's at least as likely that the Bloc will give up the ghost entirely as that it'll hold the largest Quebec caucus after 2015.

Monday Morning Links

2012-01-16T07:03:00.003-06:00

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Roy Romanow, Linda Silas and Steven Lewis make the case for significant federal involvement in shaping health policy in Canada:

Provinces can’t transform their systems on their own regardless of how much money they spend. The politics of health care are simply too fraught, and the vested interests too powerful, to effect large-scale change. Even worse, the jurisdictions routinely engage in unconstructive bidding wars for personnel and are whipsawed by vendors, such as pharmaceutical companies, that exploit their isolation and vulnerabilities. Ottawa should play a major role in creating a more collegial and co-operative federation that overcomes obstacles to reform and bargains more effectively in the public interest.
...
Ottawa must proudly stand up for single-payer, not-for-profit health care and ensure that its financial contributions reinforce this commitment across the country. Several provinces have turned a blind eye to blatant violations of the Canada Health Act, and Ottawa has stood by in indifference. The country needs to know where its government stands on the basic character and values of medicare.

And the general public agrees in overwhelming numbers: indeed, I'm not sure I can recall any poll question receiving the 97% support given to the idea that "the federal government's responsibility for the Canada Health Act is important". Which makes it all the more maddening that it's the other 3 per cent who are in charge.

- Dan Leger remembers when Stephen Harper promised open and accountable government.

- Paul Krugman points out that the 0.1% benefitting from trickle-down politics is already a remarkably homogeneous group - and likely getting more so due to decreased social mobility linked to increasing inequality.

- Sure, it may be piling on at this point. But Sixth Estate checks Canada's lobbying records and finds that if the Cons actually cared about limiting the influence of foreign wealth, they'd be a lot more concerned about the large amount of lobbying originating from foreign corporations.

- Finally, Paul Wells compares the Libs' convention to a "controlled flight into terrain":

I keep running into Liberals this weekend who are delighted by the “turnout” and the “energy” of their event, as though those were signs of something. I don’t have the heart to remind them they’re in a convention centre, which makes millions of dollars off organizations that fill it year-round with turnout and energy. Upcoming events at this same venue include the Autoshow, the NHL Fan Fair, the Helicopter Association of Canada’s 16th Annual Conference and Trade Show, and Sexapalooza. None of them is going to lead the next government either.

What wins elections is ideas large numbers of Canadians find attractive, ideally large numbers of Canadians who didn’t vote for your party the last six or eight times you asked. At a time of widespread economic uncertainty approaching mass panic, the ideas likeliest to intrigue Canadians are the ones closest to their own preoccupations about money, family and community. No, that’s not me swallowing the Harper koolaid: it’s a pretty good summary of the contrast Jean Chrétien drew with the Mulroney Conservatives when he ran his denim-vs.-Gucci campaign in 1993.

I ran into two friends at the convention who asked me, in the tone of the Liberal times, whether Canada should abolish the monarchy. I pointed out that most Canadians could not possibly care less. (As a kind of bonus, the ones who do care are divided in surprising ways.) Meanwhile, on the convention’s first day, NDP leadership candidate Peggy Nash unveiled an innovation platform that was uneven, but superior in important ways to anything any Liberal has produced in a half decade. The NDP leadership candidates are unanimous in supporting some form of carbon pricing. The Liberals, who bet all their marbles on carbon pricing only four years ago, are not considering any resolution on the question this weekend. But they’re all over the pot legalization debate that holds the nation in the grip of apathy.
...
Students of flight safety are familiar with the terrifying, paradoxical notion of “controlled flight into terrain.” That’s when a well-functioning aircraft, with a conscious and alert flight crew, somehow flies into a mountain or the sea or a cornfield before anyone on board notices what is happening. The flight crew isn’t dead when this happens, or not until it does. They would be very upset if a prominent author tried to tell them they were dead. And in most cases they are working hard, in good spirits, until the last disaster happens. It’s just that they are distracted or oblivious, so none of their hard work does anything to change their course.

Parliament in Review: November 17, 2011

2012-01-15T15:30:00.003-06:00

Thursday, November 17 saw a Liberal opposition day turned into a discussion about the sad state of water supplies to Canada's First Nations. But while all parties were able to support the motion, there was plenty of room for contrast as to who was most interested in dealing with the desperate need for improvement.

The Big Issue

Bob Rae's motion ended up being debated and agreed to in the following form (following an amendment to substitute "forthwith" for the oddly-delayed "no later than spring 2012":

That the House call on the Government of Canada to address on an urgent basis the needs of those First Nations communities whose members have no access to clean, running water in their homes; that action to address this disparity begin forthwith; and that the House further recognize that the absence of this basic requirement represents a continuing affront to our sense of justice and fairness as Canadians.

Charlie Angus noted the gap between stringent water standards off reserve and nonexistent ones for First Nations, and lamented the apparent view of some that First Nations citizens could be treated as non-entities. Kevin Lamoureux expanded on the latter point by noting the need to set expectations for standards of living that should be available to all citizens, while Jinny Sims more concisely questioned Greg Rickford about the need to recognize and act on a right to water and Elizabeth May decried third-world conditions in Canada. John Duncan responded to repeated musings about the need for federal cooperation with the Manitoba NDP government's desire for a cooperative program by saying he'd be more than willing to participate in one, and acknowledged the reasonableness of Angus' request to ensure that a single fire didn't leave 90 of Attawapiskat's residents (currently sharing a trailer) literally out in the cold. But Jonathan Tremblay rightly noted that anything to end the hardships facing First Nations looks to be at the bottom of the Cons' list of priorities.

Meanwhile, having introduced a motion and made an initial speech which in no way mentioned First Nations self-governance, Rae questioned the lack of discussion of that side of the issue; presumably he was then relieved by Linda Duncan's thorough review of the point. Similarly, Jonathan Genest-Jourdain presented a strong analysis of the disconnect between the community values of First Nations and Canada's interest-based political system. Duncan noted that the Cons had (however reluctantly) committed to end all forms of discrimination against aboriginal Canadians through the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. And Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe's question about how matters had gotten worse in the last five years was met with a disturbing response from David Wilks that the Cons plan to continue down their current road.

Unmasked

Meanwhile, the one piece of legislation debated on the day was Blake Richards' bill to create a separate offence for wearing a mask or disguise while participating in a riot or illegal assembly. Richards made clear that his purpose was to force people participating in any mass events to make their identities known:

What if there were a measure designed to strip away anonymity from criminals during such disturbances? What if the very act of wearing a disguise in a riot became in and of itself an offence? What if police had the means to order those who were concealing their identities in a riot to remove their disguises or risk detainment or arrest? That would change the stakes dramatically.

People would then have a very clear choice in front of them. They could choose to remove their disguise, show their face and be identified and held accountable for their criminal actions, or they could choose not to and risk arrest for the offence of wearing a mask in a riot.

Charmaine Bord replied by pointing out that the bill is redundant when it comes to anybody who actually commits a crime (such that the offence applies only to spectators or others merely at the scene of an assembly), and that any legislator interested in civil liberties should be concerned about imposing additional obligations that don't serve a useful purpose. Sean Casey spoke more generally about the Cons' obsession with stoking public fear. And Jack Harris suggested that the Cons actually get acquainted with the Criminal Code before weighing it down with more useless amendments - though Randy Hoback's heckle made it clear that at least some Cons won't be reading anything other than their talking points anytime soon.

In Brief

Nycole Turmel and Wayne Marston called on the Cons to stop insisting that Canadians play retirement roulette with private retirement funds. Jamie Nicholls took a look back at one of his predecessors as MP for Vaudreuil-Soulanges, Louis-René Beaudoin - whose political career ended over a single instance of the type of stifled debate that's become commonplace under the Harper Cons. Duncan called for additional parental leave for parents of premature infants. Eve Peclet listed a few of the Con cabinet ministers still sitting on money wrongly paid to them as a result of Conadscam. Wayne Easter and Malcolm Allen both criticized the Cons' move to take hundreds of millions of dollars out of the hands of farmers to support their new, undemocratic, non-single-desk Wheat Board. Angus again tested whether the Cons are capable of shame when it comes to Dean Del Mastro's attacks on judicial independence, and again James Moore confirmed otherwise. Linda Duncan asked whether the privacy rights of an advocate for aboriginal children had been violated repeatedly by federal officials. Andrew Scheer ruled on a point of order related to the Cons' proud invocation of an individual's donations to the Liberals as disqualifying any criticism of the government, concluding with this reminder:

It is these wise cautionary remarks that have prompted me to use this occasion to remind all hon. members to use great care when referring to or singling out an individual who does not have a voice here in this House and to avoid circumstances when, by such reference, an individual could have his or her reputation damaged without having the opportunity to respond.

And finally, Tarek Brahmi questioned the Cons about consumer debt, only to be told by Shelly Glover that free money for people with $10,000 per year to sock away should be plenty of comfort for Canadians drowning in debt.

Leadership 2012 Candidate Rankings - January 15, 2012

2012-01-15T11:13:00.004-06:00

At the outset of this week's rankings, I'll offer a reminder that the below is intended to reflect my analysis as to how likely any given candidate is to win the NDP's leadership race, rather than my own personal ballot or any other endorsement of one candidate over another. And yes, the reasons for that disclaimer will soon become apparent.

1. Thomas Mulcair (1)

To the extent Mulcair was once seen as pulling away from the field, that impression looks to have evaporated. But relatively little news is good news for a favourite - and Mulcair has at worst lived up to expectations since emerging as the front-runner.

2. Peggy Nash (2)

No, her pot-luck event last weekend didn't radically transform the race. But Nash too has presented a solid mix of policy proposals and endorsements while avoiding any damage based on the increased scrutiny that comes with a top-tier position. And while I don't entirely buy the theory that she would be the favourite to win if a vote were held today, she'd definitely have a fighting chance.

3. Paul Dewar (4)

Dewar made what figures to be his big move in the race this week, unveiling the endorsements of Linda Duncan and Charlie Angus. And the effect is to give him what may be the most impressive geographic footprint of any candidate in the race at the moment: Duncan and Angus are the party's leading figures from urban Alberta and rural Ontario respectively, and if they can add a substantial amount of their regional support to Dewar's existing base in B.C., Manitoba and urban Ontario then Dewar may be able to find his way onto the final ballot.

4. Brian Topp (3)

I attended Topp's Regina meet-and-greet this week, making for the main piece of personal observation factored into this week's rankings. And contrary to what the drop would suggest for those who didn't read the disclaimer at the beginning of this post, Topp's strong admonition to ensure that an NDP government focuses on a more equal Canada and strategic acumen as to how to get there likely pushed him up among my own personal preferences.

But the problem for Topp is that it's not clear he's reaching as many members as he needs to. The turnout for the meet-and-greet was respectable in pure numbers, but was also about as elderly and MLA-heavy as any I've seen at an NDP event in quite some time. And while there may be some excuse in the fact that Niki Ashton was holding an event the same evening, it can't be a good sign for Topp's campaign if his insider appeal is failing to extend far beyond his pool of former colleagues.

5. Niki Ashton (5)

By all accounts Ashton had another successful Saskatchewan swing this week. But the big question will be whether she can add some additional support from Ontario and Quebec to what's looking like a very west-heavy campaign.

6. Romeo Saganash (6)

His campaign has still been on the quiet side, but Saganash is making the rounds in Ontario - which should at least help make sure he has some path available for an increasingly steep climb.

7. Nathan Cullen (7)

While the main issue for Cullen is still the question of whether members will accept his plan for electoral cooperation, Dewar's endorsements this week also raise the question of whether Cullen has much support from outside British Columbia to highlight. And the problems may be related, since a perception that nobody else dares to sign on to the cooperation plan may well make it more of a liability than it might have been otherwise.

8. Martin Singh (8)

There against doesn't seem to be much to report from Singh's campaign this week - and while we can never rule out some progress under the radar, that doesn't look like a great sign for the candidate with the most to prove.

Sunday Morning Links

2012-01-15T10:05:00.003-06:00

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Lana Payne juxtaposes massive profits and public concessions for Caterpillar and Rio Tinto against their attacks on Canadian workers:

(T)he demands by ElectroMotive, a subsidiary of equipment giant Caterpillar, are about as outrageous as they get, including a 50 per cent cut in pay.

These demands are coming at the same time as the corporation's revenues are projected to be about $44 billion for 2011, including billions in profits.

Certainly the CEO of Caterpillar is not hurting for a buck. And neither is the retiring boss.

In 2010, Caterpillar CEO Doug Oberhelman's compensation totaled about $10.4 million, according to an Associated Press review. Jim Owens, his predecessor, raked in $22.5 million in 2010 because of an extremely generous stock grant of about $16 million.
...
In Quebec, Rio Tinto (one of the world's largest mining corporations) locked out about 800 Alcan smelter workers. The corporation is also demanding major concessions, including cuts in pensions from its workforce.

The chief executive at Rio Tinto earned nearly $9 million in 2010, a 32 per cent pay raise over the previous year. That year, the company had profits of over $14 billion.
...
It's bad enough that workers are expected to pay the price of the financial crisis and subsequent recession - a recession they didn't cause. It's bad enough that in tough economic times workers are told to hold the line.

But now, even in the face of stunning corporate profits, even in the face of incredible corporate cash hoarding, even in the face of obscene CEO pay and billions in corporate tax cuts and credits, the living standards of workers are still under attack.

Is it any wonder these workers are angry? Make no mistake, eventually this kind of lewd corporate gluttony and the arrogant indifference of governments to it will come home to roost. It is only a matter of time.

- Kathryn May reports on the Cons' move to shutter public language training for civil servants. But it's worth taking a closer look at what's being done:

The federal government is getting out of the business of providing language training to its employees, throwing 179 teachers and instructors across Canada out of work.

The move - which started with downsizing in the 1990s, and intensified after a 2006 Treasury Board decision - marks the first time in decades that the government won't be directly offering French and English training to public servants to meet the language requirements of their jobs.
...
Until now, departments have had the option of using private schools or the Canada School of the Public Service, which charged fees, to train their workers.

In other words, departments have previously had a choice whether to use private or public training providers based on which actually provides better value for money. And the Cons have decided instead to make sure that the training money flows into the private sector to facilitate corporate profiteering - even where it wouldn't have been the better option if departments had a choice.

- But don't worry: public servants in Con ridings may yet stand a chance.

- Paul Krugman highlights the growing inequality which corporatists on both sides of the U.S. border want to avoid discussing.

- Buckley Belanger raises concerns that an industry-monitored environmental code may lead to serious damage without Saskatchewan's government having a clue what's going on.

- Finally, La Presse reports on the petition demanding that Lise St-Denis step down and face a by-election after her defection to the Libs. But in fairness, the new petition has a ways to go before matching the last similar effort.

Leadership 2012 Roundup

2012-01-14T17:23:00.004-06:00

Yes, it's only been a couple of days since my last roundup post. But I'll let the pace of news determine how often I put them up - and the end of this week offered loads of material for discussion.

- Niki Ashton made a statement on LGBT equality in the course of her latest prairie tour, and earned a positive review from Olav Rokne for her earlier Edmonton stop.

- Nathan Cullen pitched his electoral cooperation plan in Saskatoon while serving as a key voice in criticizing the Cons' attempt to force the Northern Gateway pipeline on the residents who'll have to suffer its consequences.

- Paul Dewar unveiled two huge endorsements-plus: Linda Duncan endorsed Dewar and signed on as his Energy and Environment Adviser, while Charlie Angus offered his endorsement and was named as Dewar's deputy leader charged with organizing to win the additional 70 seats to put the NDP in power. But while the endorsements put two well-respected MPs in Dewar's camp, I'm not sure the choice of roles for Angus will be much of a plus for Dewar's leadership prospects: to the extent members are concerned about his ability to connect with francophone Quebec, the declaration that another anglophone Ontario MP will be his second in command will keep him from reserving that role for somebody who can address the perceived weakness.

- Thomas Mulcair was endorsed by Carl Pursey, president of the Prince Edward Island Federation of Labour - which may not swing a lot of votes on its own, but signals that Mulcair may be ahead of the rest of the contenders in moving into the Atlantic territory vacated by Robert Chisholm.

- Peggy Nash released an innovation plan which earned a positive review from Paul Wells, and also unveiled the endorsement of Ontario NDP stalwart Peter Kormos.

- Brian Topp released a policy paper on jobs (focused on small and medium-sized businesses), while picking up another Saskatchewan NDP endorsement from former deputy premier Clay Serby.

- And on the commentary side, plenty of media doomsayers offered their firm prediction that seven out of the eight leadership candidates would have no hope of holding onto the NDP's breakthrough seats in Quebec; sadly, the list of pundits making that claim wasn't cross-referenced against a list of those who once admonished that the NDP's Quebec breakthrough was impossible in the first place. Gloria Galloway rounded up the leadership candidates' plans to win government in 2015. And Cathy Dobson covered a well-attended Sarnia forum featuring Nash and Romeo Saganash.

[Edit: added introduction.]

Saturday Morning Links

2012-01-14T10:07:00.003-06:00

Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading.

- Trish Hennessy points out that Rob Ford's contemptuous attack on the idea of secure employment may offer an ideal contrast between the right-wing view of the economy and the stability citizens actually want for themselves:

Remember when holding down a job for life was considered a sign of personal responsibility and integrity?

Remember when staying committed to a job for life was an example of how you could be relied upon, trusted? How you were viewed as stable and productive?

Remember when having a job for life was a symbol of the model citizen? A good family person? A way to contribute to our collective well-being?

And remember when the pot of gold at the end of that job-for-life rainbow was a company pension that turned retirement into “the golden years”?

A job for life. A frame worth propagating?

- Meanwhile, Karen Foster points out the disturbingly high number of workers stuck with "involuntary" part-time work due to a lack of full-time jobs.

- Rick Salutin discusses how readily-available online communications can serve as a democratizing force:

The models for major change over the past two centuries were Revolution versus Reform. Either overthrow and destroy what was in place — the ancien regime, capitalism etc. — replacing them with something new. Or reform those institutions, nibbling away at them till you’ve gradually reconstructed them. You see the mindset persisting in education: either get rid of schools as they are and replace them with free schools, home schooling and the like — or reform what’s there until it vanishes.

But tweet night did neither. It left all the appalling old structures exactly as they were: the podium, the stodgy agenda (presentation followed by Q and A). Yet it remade them simply by inserting a layer: the Internet. Nothing changed but everything was different due to that insertion. It’s radical, in the sense of transformative, yet conservative, in the sense of preservative. And it worked.

- Jorge Barrera breaks the story that the Cons tried to destroy records documenting their deliberate choice not to talk about John Duncan's callous view of residential schools.

- Finally, Erin points out that the Wall government seems to be curiously silent about BHP Billiton's plans to undermine Canpotex now that there aren't obvious political points to be scored.

Musical interlude

2012-01-13T21:51:00.001-06:00

Underworld - Between Stars

Friday Morning Links

2012-01-13T06:41:00.004-06:00

Assorted content to end your week.

- Carol Goar criticizes the tax giveaways that have blown a massive hole in the federal budget:

But there is one area of government activity that will escape (Tony Clement's budget-slashing) scrutiny. Every year Ottawa gives up billions of taxes in deductions, exemptions, deferrals, credits, rebates and concessions. Because no money actually goes out the door, these tax breaks don’t count as spending. But they cost the federal treasury billions.

Opposition MPs would like to know how much revenue the government is forgoing. The auditor general would like to do a cost/benefit analysis. Taxpayers would like to know who’s actually paying the freight in this country.

They’re unlikely to find out. The government refuses to provide a tally. All it offers is an annual compendium of all its “tax expenditures” with a warning not to add them up.
...
here is the value of all the tax expenditures in the 2011 report, released this week: $152 billion.

To put that in perspective, the government’s total program spending in 2011 amounted to $248 billion.

Since Prime Minister Stephen Harper took power in 2006, tax expenditures have grown by $20 billion. Part of the increase was beyond his control; the child tax benefit is programmed to increase annually and the aging of the population drove up the cost of retirement support. But that’s only half the story. The Tories have created a profusion of new tax expenditures.

Here is a sample: the children’s fitness tax credit, the children’s arts tax credit, the universal child care benefit, the public transit tax credit, the first-time homebuyers’ tax credit, the volunteer firefighters tax credit, the working income tax benefit, the family caregivers tax credit, plus two sheltered-savings vehicles, registered disability savings plans and the tax-free savings accounts.
...
At a time of austerity, does it make sense to sacrifice badly needed revenue to give parents tax breaks on sports equipment and dance lessons? Given its dismal success rate, is it smart to keep pouring $2.7 billion a year into the scientific research and experimental development investment tax credit? At a time when an affluent minority is acquiring an ever-greater share of the nation’s wealth, do corporations need a tax deduction for meals and entertainment?

These questions are never discussed in Parliament. They are not open for public debate. They are not part of Flaherty’s budgetary consultations. They are not part of Clement’s spending review.

- Alison catches some familiar right-wing dirty tricks at work in trying to contaminate the list of intervenors in the Gateway pipeline with false names. [Update: Though see BCL's clarification that one of the environmentalists involved has confirmed plans to participate in the process.] Andrew Nikiforuk replies to Joe Oliver's embarrassing attack on democracy in shilling for the tar sands. The Globe and Mail points out that the threat of attacks on charitable status may serve as one of the Cons' strategies to silence the environmental movement. And Susan Riley sums up the effects of the Gateway project:

Since we're using strong language, let's call the Conservative government's eagerness to ship tarsands oil to China through the Northern Gateway Pipeline what it is: humiliating, irresponsible and short-sighted.

That may sound "radical," perhaps; unpatriotic to some. But our government, in our name, is ready to accelerate climate change, imperil pristine British Columbia wilderness, risk a catastrophic oil spill on the Pacific coast - and for what? The almighty dollar. Specifically, for highly uncertain, and certainly exaggerated, economic gains.
...
There will be leaks. The Citizen's Glen McGregor uncovered U.S. figures that list 150 leaks from Enbridge pipelines over the years. The most publicized occurred in 2010, when 20,000 barrels of oil escaped, some into Michigan's waterways. There was a small gas leak from an Enbridge pipeline near Louisiana this week.

The Northern Gateway route crosses mountainous territory in central B.C., some of it prone to landslides, and some 600 streams alive with salmon and other fish. No matter how carefully crossings are built, accidents are inevitable - and potentially ruinous to an $800-million commercial fishery, to tourism, and the fresh water First Nations depend on.

As for the giant oil tankers that will ply the shallow, stormy and often fogbound channels and fiords around Kitimat, loaded with oil bound for Asia, that is another disaster in the making. And it only takes one, as the 1989 Exxon Valdez, and the ruinous spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 prove. Claims that tankers safely manoeuvre the Great Lakes daily are irrelevant; these are different, more difficult, waters.

Every megaproject has its environmental costs, but this one is particularly pernicious because it will triple production from Alberta's oilsands, pumping ever more greenhouse gas into the world's atmosphere. And is this still "ethical" oil, when the primary customer is China?

- Meanwhile, the Cons have left absolutely no doubt what they think of actual evidence in environmental policy by hacking away at 60 more scientific and research positions at Environment Canada.

- Finally, the NDP responds to the Cons' declarations that they couldn't possibly have known about federal interventions against the legitimacy of international gay marriages by highlighting the fact that Randall Garrison raised the exact same issue in question period last fall.

Burning question

2012-01-12T17:12:00.004-06:00

In re: the credibility of Stephen Harper in declaring that his government's legal stance that Canadian gay marriage can be retroactively nullified by government fiat shouldn't be taken as an indication of any greater hostility toward the gay community in "further reopening" the issue: when exactly was it that the Cons announced that they planned to attack gay marriage, but only to the extent of this particular legal position?

[Edit: fixed wording.]

New column day

2012-01-12T08:34:00.002-06:00

Here, on how the Wall government's idea of health care "innovation" utterly fails the test for reasonable experimentation by prejudging the results.

For further reading...
- The man responsible for the most thorough study of Canadian health care in recent memory reminds us that as a general rule, public service delivery of core services is more efficient than the alternative.
- CUPE points out that the Omni experiment actually resulted in less surgeries being performed in Regina than the previous year, while my earlier post highlights the region-based cuts that opened the door for private CT services.
- Frances Russell writes about some key myths in our current health-care debate.
- And assorted sources point out the problems with privatized delivery models in B.C., Ontario and the UK.

Leadership 2012 Roundup

2012-01-12T07:17:00.004-06:00

It's been another busy week in the NDP leadership race, with policies, events and endorsements galore. So let's jump right in...

- Niki Ashton released both a statement on multiculturalism and a health-care plan, with one familiar idea featuring prominently in the media's coverage in Saskatoon - and will be in Regina for a couple of events today.

- Nathan Cullen met with the Winnipeg Free Press in the midst of a prairie tour of his own.

- Paul Dewar unveiled an endorsement from former Ontario NDP leader Mike Cassidy, with the promise of another major announcement to come.

- Thomas Mulcair picked up what may be one of the more crucial endorsements of the campaign, adding a western MP to his list of supporters in Don Davies. And at the same event yesterday, Mulcair also unveiled his retirement security plan - though the idea of a voluntary top-up to the CPP seems more likely to reinforce concerns about Mulcair fitting awkwardly with the values of core NDP members, particularly since his plan sounds eerily like the one the Libs have pushed for the past few years (only with an extra dose of financial-sector involvement).

- Peggy Nash released a plan to move Canada toward women's equality, including a reinstated long-gun registry with legislated protection for its data.

- And Brian Topp released his democratic reform policy paper (featuring Senate positioning similar to what I've mused about recently), wrote an open letter in the wake of Lise St-Denis' defection, and addressed the Economic Club of Canada before a western swing of his own.

- Finally, to the reporting and punditry. Bill Tieleman offered a roundup of his second tier of candidates. Scott Stinson criticized Topp for not accepting the Cons' anti-tax rhetoric as an inviolable centrist consensus. Joanna Smith took a look at how the leadership campaigns are being funded. And Chantal Hebert's theory that the NDP's Quebec breakthrough was based on a desire for a more ecumenical form of politics figures to feature prominently in Cullen's message from here on in.

Wednesday Morning Links

2012-01-11T07:12:00.005-06:00

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Thomas Walkom puts the Cons' anti-environmental hysteria in perspective by noting how our cabinet ministers are going out of their way to sound like the most fringy of lunatic Tea Partiers:

America’s Exxon Mobil, Britain’s BP, France’s Total E&P, China’s SinoCanada Petroleum Corp. and Japan Canada Oil Sands Ltd. have all asked for intervenor status at the hearings. So has the South Korean conglomerate Daewoo.

But foreigners who support the pipeline aren’t the outsiders that Prime Minister Stephen Harper claims to be worried about. As Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver explained to CBC television on Monday, these are the good foreign interests.

The bad foreign interests are the ones who help fund environmental critics of the pipeline. Oliver calls these bad elements “billionaire socialists … people like George Soros.”

If this weren’t a cabinet minister talking, it might be amusing. The Internet is filled with conspiracy theorists who view Soros, a self-made Hungarian-American tycoon, as evil incarnate.

The biggest rap against him seems to be that he openly opposed former U.S. president George W. Bush.

In Tea Party circles, this might count as socialism. But when a Canadian cabinet minister uses the term, he sounds — well — nuts.

- Elizabeth Thompson points out that several Lib riding associations are facing deregistration or failing to submit annual returns. But it's worth taking a closer look at which ones are affected: it isn't only longtime dead zones for the Libs that are seeing a complete organizational breakdown, but ridings like the Yukon and Laval—Les Îles which the Libs held until last year's election, or Oakville which they held until 2008. In fact, of the 9 ridings which are deregistered or haven't yet filed a 2010 return, 6 were held by a Liberal MP at least once since the Libs last took power under Jean Chretien in 1993.

- Of course, it's fair to say things have changed since the 1990s. But that also serves as reason to be skeptical of the Libs' preening in Toronto-Danforth: the riding has always been one where the NDP has easily outperformed its general Ontario support levels, and so the fact that Dennis Mills held it when the party support numbers were radically different doesn't look like much of an indicator of future performance when the NDP is holding its own in province-wide numbers.

- Sixth Estate reminds us that if we go out of our way to attack the pension security of our elected officials, that will only increase their tendency to use political power to try to set themselves up to make money elsewhere.

- Finally, Frances Russell points out what may be a more important change than the raw numbers involved in the Cons' health-care diktat to the provinces, as they've also imposed a new per-capita formula designed to make sure that money doesn't flow where it's needed most. And it's worth noting that Brad Wall for one is pushing to make matters worse.

[Edit: fixed numbers in count of ridings.]

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

2012-01-10T21:11:00.001-06:00

Close cats.

On testing grounds

2012-01-10T12:48:00.006-06:00

For the most part, I'll echo Dan's take on Lise St-Denis' party switch:

As for her motives, even after listening to the press conference, that's still a bit of a mystery. St-Denis is 71 so this isn't a case of long term ambition. There's nothing in recent polls to suggest the NDP ship is sinking. There's been no high profile issue split between her and the NDP. The NDP leadership race is still ongoing, so it's not like she's upset with the new leader. And life with the third party in the House isn't any more glamorous than life with the second party in the House.

If I had to guess, I'd assume St-Denis found herself elected as an NDP MP without ever giving a lot of thought to why she was a New Democrat. After learning a bit more about the parties, she changed her mind.

If this all seems odd, it's because people like St-Denis rarely find their way to the House of Commons. She would never have been nominated if the NDP expected to win the riding. The fact that we have 50 accidental MPs siting on the NDP benches means things will happen that defy political convention. This may be the first example, but it certainly won't be the last.

That said, we may be able to tell much more from the aftermath of St-Denis' departure than from her initial move. If there's ever going to be the kind of mass exodus that some commentators have speculated about ever since the NDP's Quebec wave started developing, then St-Denis' move would seem to be as likely a precedent as any for others to follow. But conversely, if St-Denis is alone in her party switch, then there will be little reason to think that others within the NDP's set of new Quebec MPs are looking for an excuse to change their own allegiances.

Spin of convenience

2012-01-10T12:19:00.009-06:00

Following up on one rebuttal to the Cons' shilling for the tar sands on the Gateway pipeline, let's point out one other area where the Cons' attacks apply far more strongly to their own side than to the voices they're looking to silence. Here's Joe Oliver's criticism of the First Nations, people who enjoy the outdoors and/or potable drinking water, and other Canadians who have expressed concerns about the Gateway pipeline:

Virtually all our energy exports go to the US. As a country, we must seek new markets for our products and services and the booming Asia-Pacific economies have shown great interest in our oil, gas, metals and minerals. For our government, the choice is clear: we need to diversify our markets in order to create jobs and economic growth for Canadians across this country.

So which party was it that just months earlier was desperately lobbying to further Canada's dependence on the U.S. as a purchaser of its oil by pushing another massive pipeline headed southward? Take a wild guess.

Of course, the common thread is that the Cons have been consistently working to serve tar-sands operators at a time when we're already dangerously reliant on natural resources whose prices can vary wildly based on factors entirely outside our control. And the question of which of Canada's neighbours might be wooed or bashed at any particular moment in that effort is utterly irrelevant to the Cons.

Which means that the more important clash underlying the Cons' latest move isn't between foreign or domestic interests, or U.S. or China as a purchaser of oil. Instead, it's the fact that the oil industry is once again being given precedence over the mere rest of Canada - and with the Cons having picked their side, it'll take a strong response to ensure that any interests other than those of the tar sands are heard over the next four years.

Tuesday Morning Links

2012-01-10T07:17:00.003-06:00

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Stephen Maher and Barbara Yaffe have learned to be duly skeptical of the Cons' motives when it comes to Senate patronage. But John Ibbitson still has a ways to go - as he's apparently still buying Con spin about new provinces holding Senate elections which has long since been overtaken by events.

- Meanwhile, Yaffe notes that the Cons' direct attacks on anybody who doesn't want to make oil industry profits the chief goal of public policy will only call into question the validity of their own public assessment processes. And Dr. Dawg replies to Joe Oliver's shilling for the tar sands by testing who actually makes decisions based on blind faith rather than any willingness to consider reality.

- Paul Krugman points out that the U.S.' inequality crisis is just as obvious when it comes to opportunity as to condition:

Americans are much more likely than citizens of other nations to believe that they live in a meritocracy. But this self-image is a fantasy: as a report in The Times last week pointed out, America actually stands out as the advanced country in which it matters most who your parents were, the country in which those born on one of society’s lower rungs have the least chance of climbing to the top or even to the middle.

And if you ask why America is more class-bound in practice than the rest of the Western world, a large part of the reason is that our government falls down on the job of creating equal opportunity.

The failure starts early: in America, the holes in the social safety net mean that both low-income mothers and their children are all too likely to suffer from poor nutrition and receive inadequate health care. It continues once children reach school age, where they encounter a system in which the affluent send their kids to good, well-financed public schools or, if they choose, to private schools, while less-advantaged children get a far worse education.

Once they reach college age, those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds are far less likely to go to college — and vastly less likely to go to a top-tier school — than those luckier in their parentage. At the most selective, “Tier 1” schools, 74 percent of the entering class comes from the quarter of households that have the highest “socioeconomic status”; only 3 percent comes from the bottom quarter.

And if children from our society’s lower rungs do manage to make it into a good college, the lack of financial support makes them far more likely to drop out than the children of the affluent, even if they have as much or more native ability. One long-term study by the Department of Education found that students with high test scores but low-income parents were less likely to complete college than students with low scores but affluent parents — loosely speaking, that smart poor kids are less likely than dumb rich kids to get a degree.
...
(S)omeone who really wanted equal opportunity would be very concerned about the inequality of our current system. He would support more nutritional aid for low-income mothers-to-be and young children. He would try to improve the quality of public schools. He would support aid to low-income college students. And he would support what every other advanced country has, a universal health care system, so that nobody need worry about untreated illness or crushing medical bills.

- Finally, congratulations to Craig Scott for earning the NDP's nomination in Toronto-Danforth.

Parliament in Review: November 16, 2011

2012-01-09T20:19:00.005-06:00

Wednesday, November 16 saw plenty of direct clash between the Cons and the NDP on an issue that's been in the news again today. And lest there be any doubt, while the Cons have raised their level of inflammatory rhetoric, they've been less than convincing when it comes to anything of substance.

The Big Issue

In the wake of several days of criticism over Keystone XL, the NDP brought plenty of challenges to both the Cons' actions and their selective memory. Brian Masse and Kennedy Stewart responded to the Cons' criticisms of the NDP's work in Washington by pointing out who's actually taken a strong stand against Canada on the international stage. And Eve Peclet noted that refinery jobs are being lost in Canada while tar sands operators work on shipping raw bitumen out of the country for processing.

Say Anything

Meanwhile, the Libs had their own area of contention, as Geoff Regan repeatedly challenged the Cons' assertion that his party had voted against an extension of time for converting RRSPs to RRIFs. But Ted Menzies offered as reasonable an explanation as is ever forthcoming from the Cons:

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals vote against so much that it is hard to keep track of what they vote for and what they vote against.

So if the Cons lie about a competitor's actions, it's the subject's own fault. Just one more way in which the Cons keep themselves to a high standard of honesty and competence. (And no, Menzies' line wasn't an accident, as he repeated it a second time.)

And that was only the second most outrageous point raised by the Libs. Of course, Irwin Cotler's point of order has received plenty of coverage already - despite Peter Van Loan's remarkable admission that Cotler does in fact exist.

In Brief

Andrew Cash highlighted the Occupy protests as part of a proud tradition of activism in the name of greater rights and equality. Rodger Cuzner invoked Stephen Harper's past interventions in departmental issues to ask why he isn't doing anything to ensure that EI is available to Canadians who need it. Nycole Turmel challenged Stephen Harper to listen to the movement's message, while criticizing the Cons' fondness for casino capitalism. Con MP Costas Menegakis declared that he considers home retrofitting funding to be his party's housing program. Mathieu Ravignat challenged the Cons to repay the money they've now admitted they wrongly claimed through Conadscam. Charlie Angus again asked whether the Cons stood behind Dean Del Mastro's attacks on judicial independence and the CBC, and James Moore again confirmed that they do. Kirsty Duncan and Elizabeth May questioned the Cons' decision to exclude all opposition parties from the Durban climate change conference. Brian Storseth made it clear that his private member's bill to eliminate human rights legislation against hate speech has the government's full support. Linda Duncan asked when the Cons will take action based on the revelation that the Fort McKay First Nation's drinking water has been contaminated with trihalomethane 87% of the time, only to be met with John Duncan's self-congratulation for having bothered to measure anything. Masse introduced four private members' bills, including one to restore the long-form census and provide for the independence of the Chief Statistician, one to increase the tax credits available for charitable donations, one to address psychological harassment in the workplace, and finally one to provide for the labelling of products containing cat or dog fur. The Cons' bill on military judges passed with unanimous consent - which of course meant it was time for them to limit debate on their omnibus budget bill. Van Loan confirmed that he's even worse at math than Jim Flaherty. And finally, Charmaine Borg questioned the Cons on pervasive poverty and inequality in the day's adjournment proceedings.

One more front in the permanent campaign

2012-01-09T17:23:00.003-06:00

It may get lost in Aaron Wherry's story on perpetual political campaigning. But the NDP's work to get constituents involved in letting the Cons know what they think looks like a rather significant break from the top-down messaging we're accustomed to seeing from most parties:

In addition to those billboards, the NDP has been making automated calls into Conservative-held ridings in the Greater Toronto Area. Listeners—presumably suburban and urban dwellers who are more likely to support the long-gun registry—are told their MP has voted to abolish the registry. They are then invited to press a button if they wish to express their opinion to that MP, at which point they are patched through to the constituency office. The NDP is then able to track how many people were engaged enough by the message to want to speak to the MP.

Of course, the effect of the call is also to let the Cons know about an unhappy constituent while setting up a conversation between a rival party and an interested voter. But the NDP's choice to treat a direct message to the Cons as a plus in terms of influence rather than a minus in terms of keeping one's cards close to the vest looks to offer an important signal that the new Official Opposition is working on changing the game rather than playing by Harper's rules of message control and secrecy.

Monday Morning Links

2012-01-09T07:41:00.003-06:00

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Dr. Dawg views the latest attacks on workers by employers in Canada as a new front in all-out class warfare. And the New York Times notes that some of the main policies being pushed by the anti-worker side serve absolutely no purpose other than to damage unions and the workers who stand to benefit from them.

- Yes, the real story in the tar sands lobby's cynical effort to attack the international environmental movement is the fact that far more has been spent pushing for the interests of the oil industry:

West Coast Environmental Law executive director Jessica Clogg said its campaigns are not dictated by the sources of its funding.

She said, instead, they seek funding to support the initiatives they decide on as a British Columbia organization.

"Polls have shown that 75 to 80 per cent of British Columbians are opposed to tanker traffic on our coast," said Clogg.

She also argued their funding is dwarfed by that of oil producers and refiners, which put up $100 million to promote the Northern Gateway project and push it through the regulatory review.

One of those was China state-owned Sinopec Corp. Enbridge also put up another $100 million of its own money.

- But for those who do distinguish between foreign and domestic oil interests, Alison points out that even on that point there's far more reason for concern about foreign intervention on the side of the tar sands than in the opposite direction.

- Roy Romanow worries that the Harper Cons' decision to do absolutely nothing with health care other than cut back on funding expectations may do serious damage to the concept of a universal national health care system:

“To say, ‘Goodbye and good luck’ could be the beginning of the end of a reformed modern-day functioning health-care system,” said Romanow.

“If that argument is advanced, we have a prescription for a patchwork-quilt series of programs by the provincial governments based on their fiscal capacity.

“It will mean more privatization in more provinces, or some combination of private and public. It will be a very much weakened fabric of national unity without Mr. Harper’s direct involvement.”

- Finally, Joan Bryden runs down the endorsements in the NDP's leadership race. Mia Rabson hopes the leadership campaign will lead to a strong push for proportional representation. And Lou Arab offers his analysis of the candidates.

Leadership 2012 Candidate Rankings - January 8, 2012

2012-01-08T14:58:00.004-06:00

There isn't anything new in the candidate rankings for this week, as the latest developments have generally left the NDP's leadership contenders in substantially the same position they've occupied for some time. But there may be some major changes in the works over the next little while - so let's look at how those might come to pass.

1. Thomas Mulcair (1)

While Mulcair's western swing this week was by all accounts a productive one, it also featured only a couple of relatively small endorsements for a candidate who looms as a favourite at this stage of the race. And it'll be worth watching whether Mulcair can add more and bigger names to his current support base in a region with a disproportionately high number of NDP members - lest he otherwise fall behind...

2. Peggy Nash (2)

The good news for Nash is that she seems to have earned a place as the leading challenger to Mulcair. The bad news, though, is that she's now facing the extra scrutiny that comes from a front-runner's role - and after holding the #2 position in these rankings from day one, she could soon move in either direction depending on her performance under that increased pressure.

3. Brian Topp (3)

His campaign still looks to be based more on insider support and media savvy than much of a grassroots presence, and his appearance in Saskatoon this week only seems to have reinforced that impression. But Topp more than anybody may be at the mercy of his competitors: a major stumble for Nash may offer his lone path into a top-two position, while a strong showing in French by Dewar in the weeks to come could drop Topp further.

4. Paul Dewar (4)

Dewar has looked strong on the organizational front from day one, and that sense has only been strengthened with an ad release and plenty of other effective connection-building over the last few weeks. But the lack of any debate since early December has prevented Dewar from answering the key question members figure to have about his campaign.

5. Niki Ashton (5)

Ashton stays ahead of Saganash thanks to a well-placed media response to Sylvia Bashevkin's commentary on the NDP's female candidates. But it's still not clear whether she'll have much of a chance to prove herself as capable of offering s substantive alternative to the extent members end up seeing the race mostly through soundbites and press releases.

6. Romeo Saganash (6)

Saganash's increased Twitter activity makes for a potentially significant sign of life in a campaign which has been far quieter than any other than Singh's. But how much of that broadcast messaging can translate into the support Saganash will need to stay on the leadership ballot?

7. Nathan Cullen (7)

From the point when Cullen first introduced his co-operation strategy, I've figured he wouldn't have any choice but to see through the idea. But I have to wonder whether at least a subtle retrenchment - for example, suggesting that he'd allow the NDP to vote as a national party at a future convention before following through with it - might be in order before the next set of debates. Because for now, the sense that a vote for Cullen is also a vote for embracing the Liberals looks to be the crucial limiting factor for a candidate who has plenty going for him.

8. Martin Singh (8)

After going quiet for a month, Singh looks to have made some strong efforts to win over urban support this past week. But he hasn't introduced anything new by way of policy or vision, and it still remains to be seen whether he'll present a message broad enough to win over later-ballot support.

Sunday Morning Links

2012-01-08T10:25:00.003-06:00

Miscellaneous material to end your weekend.

- Chris Selley rightly points out that for all the damage the Cons can do in a term of majority government, we shouldn't overstate how much of it is irreversible. And more importantly, while it's well worth putting time and effort into defending the institutions under attack to the extent possible, the opposition parties may be able to accomplish far more by planning out what comes next after the Cons' wrecking crew is done.

- Which isn't to say there isn't plenty to be outraged about in the short term - from putting Canada's nuclear safety in the hands of a spin doctor's mother, to a new round of patronage in the Senate, to tens of millions of public dollars spent on pure self-promotion, to ominous economic figures at a time when the Cons are focused on gratuitous austerity (for everybody but a bloated Privy Council Office and spending on prisons and military giveaways) rather than remotely competent management.

- And it's also worth noting that in at least some cases, the Cons are quite deliberately lighting fuses intended to have massive long-term effects.

- But on the bright side, NOW has a rundown of the NDP's nomination contest in Toronto-Danforth - with an exceptional group of candidates seeking the chance to serve the riding.

Leadership 2012 Roundup

2012-01-07T18:06:00.005-06:00

Not surprisingly, the last week has seen the NDP's leadership candidates push their campaigns into high gear for the last couple of months of the race. So let's take a quick look at what's developed in the first week of 2012.

- Niki Ashton spoke to Andy Radia about her definition of "new politics" - noting in particular that it means building on the NDP's existing principles rather than discarding them:

I believe the [NDP] needs to use its principles as a guide; principles that led us to the historic success that we have today as official opposition.

[In the last election] we saw a record number of Canadians that haven't voted NDP before or hadn't gotten involved in politics before come out and respond to Jack Layton's message and our message.

And I think that's a sign—if we continue to build on who we are as a party and really reach out to regions where we have grown tremendously, like Quebec and Western Canada, we will continue to grow.

- Nathan Cullen questioned the ethics of the Cons' shilling for the oil industry when climate change poses a threat to people around the world.

- Paul Dewar rolled out the endorsements of NUPGE National President James Clancy and BC MLA Mable Elmore.

- Thomas Mulcair made an Alberta swing through Calgary, Red Deer and Edmonton, unveiling the endorsement of former AFL president Reg Baskin and earning positive reviews from David Climenhaga. And he then added BC MLA Leonard Krog's endorsement today.

- Peggy Nash won the endorsements of Sarah Polley and MP Dany Morin in advance of what she's touting as a major national event tomorrow.

- Romeo Saganash unveiled a blog post focusing on how the NDP can do better for families than the Harper Cons, while also seeing a flurry of Twitter activity on CETA and the economy.

- Martin Singh earned a Hill Times article pointing out that his base looks to be concentrated in the Sikh community across Canada rather than in the Atlantic region.

- And rounding out the candidate activity review, Brian Topp unveiled another big Saskatchewan endorsement, this time from former premier Lorne Calvert. But his efforts to win over the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix look to have been at best a modest success, as one has to wonder how proud his supporters can be of Les MacPherson's column in particular (featuring such prominent messages as "almost bearable" and "I probably will never vote for the federal NDP") along with an editorial that doesn't say much about Topp personally.

Meanwhile, plenty of candidates made news appearances or noise of their own on the economy, particularly when it came to the Electro-Motive lockout.

On the pundit side, Sylvia Bashevkin commented on the need for Ashton and Nash to offer some substantive difference from their competitors. [Update: And Ashton justly responded by pointing out the need for substance applies equally to all candidates.] John Ibbitson is the latest pundit to frame his own lack of knowledge about what's going on as a criticism of the NDP and its leadership process. And Justin Ling reviews the policies unveiled so far in the leadership campaign.

Saturday Morning Links

2012-01-07T10:35:00.003-06:00

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Brian Jones writes that we're well on our way to an only slightly-sanitized version of feudalism:

According to news reports this week, the average annual income of the Top 100 CEOs is $8.4 million. That’s less than is paid to superstar puckster Sidney Crosby, but then, the headaches one gets from running a major corporation, though significant, don’t necessarily rival “concussion-like symptoms.”

Also newsworthy was that the average Canadian earns $44,366 per year, and the average Top 100 CEO had already earned that amount by 2:30 p.m. on the first workday of the new year, Jan. 2.

This information, based on 2010 statistics, was in a report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, it should be noted, is “left-leaning,” meaning it still clings to the quaint and antiquated notion that fairness has anything to do with economics.
...
Despite all the boasting about technology and progress and 21st-century this and 21st-century that, there are a lot of feudal attitudes held by those with economic power.

We are reverting to a society of lords and peasants, although a main difference is that nowadays there’s less mud.
...
Some shills in the business media this week defended the salaries of Top 100 CEOs. A common argument is that Canadian CEOs are brilliant, and their competence adds value to their companies.

Fair enough. But this logic must also then be extended to other employees. Their competence creates earnings for the company, so, to be consistent, they also deserve top dollar for their efforts. Instead, Canadians’ earnings, in real terms, have been falling for years.

- And John Cole's summary of Bain Capital's operations under Mitt Romney looks like an apt description of what far too many corporatists are trying to push in Canada and elsewhere as well:

Basically, what Bain Capital did to GS Technologies and their workers is a miniature model of what they want and have been doing to America - extract the resources, enrich themselves, loot the Federal treasury, then tell the people there is no money left and we’re going to have to cut your pensions, your SS, and your medical care while they run off to overseas tax havens to deposit their loot while chanting about job creation and free markets. Bain and Mitt Romney pocketed $8 million for the price of a community, all these workers pay and benefits and pension, and $44 million in federal money.

- Meanwhile, Erin Weir highlights why the attempt to equate high-income freebies with actual economic development is doomed to fail:

Erin Weir, a Toronto-based economist with the United Steelworkers union, said having such discrepancies in wealth between regular people and the elite is bad for the economy.

For one thing, he said, it's not good for creating domestic demand for goods and services.

"People generally have less propensity to spend as their income rises," he said. "Obviously, people with higher incomes are going to spend more, but they'll tend to spend a lower proportion of their income.

"If the goal is actually to increase consumer spending to drive economic demand, a more egalitarian distribution of income would be better."

Weir added that such inequality tends to drive higher levels of personal debt, which is currently running in Canada at record levels of about 150 per cent of annual disposable income.

"People's consumption decisions are often driven by looking at those a little bit ahead of them on the income scale," Weir said. "So the more inequality there is, the more people need to borrow to keep up with the Joneses."

- Lawrence Martin points out the moral bankruptcy of the Harper Cons:

Of the many remarkable political moments in 2011, one of the most telling, for me anyway, came after the prime minister was found in contempt of Parliament. That finding, which followed a probe by the Speaker of the House, was significant enough in itself. It had never happened to a prime minister before.

But even more noteworthy was Stephen Harper`s reaction to the unprecedented condemnation. He was dismissive. Canadians “don’t care” about that kind of thing, he said. What he was saying essentially was that the process doesn’t matter. The people are concerned only with the results.

This was a point Conservatives made frequently in defending their flaunting of democratic norms in 2011. But can it be the case? Do voters not really care how the system functions?

Didn’t people in this country and around the world spend decades or in some cases hundreds of years fighting for honourable process, for the establishment of democratic systems?

Following the contempt indictment and his casual dismissal of it, the prime minister led his Conservatives to their first majority victory. His view on the functioning of democracy, as cynical as it was, could be said to have been vindicated. For evidence our system is broken, it was a fine exhibit.

If the contempt charge was just a one-off thing, it wouldn’t have been so noteworthy. But there were so many other examples showing that the system no longer serves as a check on executive power. The examples and the mild public response to them are worth recalling because what they suggest is that we have a prime minister who can get away with pretty much anything.

- And Dan Gardner notes that Stephen Harper's position on federalism - as on virtually any other matter of principle - boils down to little more than backing whatever set of talking points best suits his political purposes for the moment.

Musical interlude

2012-01-06T21:09:00.001-06:00

Melodia - Motion Theory (North Star Remix)

Friday Evening Links

2012-01-06T20:51:00.003-06:00

Assorted content to end your week.

- No, we shouldn't be surprised that the Harper Cons are allowing defence contractors to deliver nothing at all. But is it really so much to ask that they not actually provide an incentive for further delays by reducing the penalties applied as they push delivery dates ever further into the future?

- Meanwhile, Jeff MacKinnon discusses the Cons' efforts to kill off collective bargaining. But it's well worth keeping in mind that in dictating that workers have no legal means of pursuing their fair share, they're likely only opening the door for much more serious disputes.

- Fortunately, the NDP is taking the right line in response to the Cons' attacks on workers - linking it to the Republicans' anti-worker extremism and seeking to build a countermovement in Canada rather than falling into the trap of ceding principled territory in the name of false moderation for its own sake.

- Finally, Carol Goar points out how Canada's EI system is failing the citizens who need it when it matters most.

Helpful for now

2012-01-06T12:15:00.003-06:00

Frances Bula offers up what should be a good-news story about a volunteer effort to track down tax rebates for homeless people:

Ms. Lissimore did 300 tax returns last year and expects to do about the same or more this year. Most of those returns do little more than ensure that a lot of low-income people get their HST rebate.

But for some, who have been living disorganized and occasionally homeless lives for longer, she gets much more: as much as five years of GST and HST rebates (the maximum) and tax refunds from many more years for people who once worked.

“Sometimes, I’ve gone back as far as 14 years,” said Ms. Lissimore, who works out of the church most of the time using her laptop to record information and file returns.

She’s helped out by a couple of other agencies: Revenue Canada and another non-profit program.

Canada’s friendly tax agency has supplied her with forms and manuals going back to the 1990s, so she can file old returns properly.

“The income-tax people have been wonderful,” she said.

But does anybody think the Cons will see providing that type of assistance as being part of the core function of the Canada Revenue Agency? And if not, how long can we expect the good news to last as long as the civil servants who managed to assist in the effort are on the chopping block in an entirely misguided attempt to save money by attacking the public service?

Parliament in Review: November 15, 2011

2012-01-06T07:04:00.004-06:00

Much of Tuesday, November 15 was spent discussing C-13, the Cons' budget implementation bill. And with a giant and scattered omnibus bill came a Commons debate to match.

The Big Issue

The main topic of debate on the Cons' budget was once again their series of tax credits, with the opposition parties raising plenty of serious concerns. Malcolm Allen and Christine Moore noted that the Cons' upper-income-targeted tax goodies do nothing at all for anybody who can't afford to spend extra money in the first place. Moore also noted how impractical the caregiver tax credits would be for most people who would have any need for it, and suggested as a general principle that social benefits should be targeted toward people who need them most (rather than away from them as the Cons have arranged). And Rodger Cuzner pointed out that the evidence available on past tax credits showed that they did nothing at all to encourage the activities involved.

In fairness, though, the Cons did have at least a couple of answers at the ready. According to Larry Miller, it's volunteer firefighters who don't have enough income to actually get any money back will be happy just to qualify in theory for the tax credit. And in response to Pierre-Luc Dusseault, Steven Fletcher claimed that the tax credits are really just another form of trickle-down economics.

Meanwhile, Hoang Mai highlighted the pattern of the rich getting richer while most Canadians sink further in debt. Guy Caron pointed to the massive amount of cash already sitting in business coffers as evidence that more corporate tax slashing won't help matters any. Annick Papillon discussed both the importance of economic equality and the glaring lack thereof within Canada. Kennedy Stewart suggested the Cons pay attention to the effectiveness of cluster investment strategies in Nordic countries. Brian Masse noted that the Cons are following in Mike Harris' tradition of repeatedly announcing big-money programs which are designed not to be usable. Alain Giguere and Massimo Pacetti criticized the Cons' unwillingness to so much as listen to amendments to a massive omnibus bill. Dany Morin asked why no funding is available for small municipalities. Jean Rousseau pointed out a similar absence of funding for environmental projects, dovetailing nicely with questions from Ted Hsu and Caron as to why the Cons refuse to provide a stable retrofit program. Morin also raised concerns about the availability of pensions for workers who have been promised them for decades, and noted the upper-class bias in the Cons' budget. And finally, Jonathan Tremblay raised a question about the Cons' about-face on tax evasion - which they once promised to fight before deciding not to bother.

Needless to say, the Cons had no appetite for any more such discussion about their failings. And so Peter Van Loan gave notice of their intention to shut down debate on C-13.

In Brief

Fin Donnelly introduced a private member's bill to extend the maximum benefit period for catastrophic illness under EI. Peter Van Loan responded to Joe Comartin's point of order about the Cons' attacks on the CBC and judicial independence with a hearty "hey, let's just see what happens". Peter Julian was ahead of the curve in moving that the Cons not push ahead with a national securities regulator before receiving the results of their Supreme Court reference. Anne Minh-Thu Quach noted that actual border security has been suffering while the Cons have diverted border funding into Tony Clement's gazebo empire. Elizabeth May repeatedly asked why the Cons were eliminating per-vote funding but not the equally large - and far less fairly-distributed - tax rebates on political donations. Gerry Byrne called for action on airline passengers' rights, while Francis Scarpaleggia queried whether the Cons might ever bother to develop a national water strategy. James Rajotte's proposal to work on financial literacy was well-received by all parties. Irene Mathyssen demanded that the Cons stop stalling on addressing sexual harassment within the RCMP. Dennis Bevington followed up on gross mismanagement in the Con-implemented northern development agency. And Manon Perreault questioned the limited availability of CPP disability benefits.

Thursday Morning Links

2012-01-05T07:43:00.004-06:00

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Frances Russell criticizes the Cons' latest attempts to stifle parliamentary accountability. And the Citizen can only scoff at Tony Clement's claim to be an advocate for open government:

What matters is whether government makes information available. The statistics from access-to-information requests suggest that less information is getting out under this government, not more. And the Conservatives' highly defensive position on such matters as the detainee documents, or who put "not" on an international-development funding document, has not increased Canadians' trust in their government.

Public servants and scientists are too scared to talk to reporters. Even communications staff want questions in writing, and some are slow to respond.

In fact, Clement himself has damaged his credibility by refusing to be candid about the funding decisions that were made under the guise of G8 legacy projects in his riding. It's a bit much for a minister so closely identified with a slush fund and with obfuscation to be the champion of open government.

- If there's any sure signal as to how ill-advised the Cons' corporate tax-slashing strategy is, just look at Neil Reynolds' latest - where Reynolds has to selectively cite the same pack of Republican presidential candidates seen as a "hodge-podge of marginal types" who are destroying their own party to find anybody else on the planet so obsessed with handing out money to the corporate sector, and even then finds himself offside against the front-runner.

- Meanwhile, a more reasonable take on the impact of corporate tax cuts comes from Glen Pearson:

Just this week the Government of Canada reduced the corporate tax rate. It stood at 21% in 2005 but is now a mere 15%. In the last two years the government has lost $11.5 billion in annual tax revenue because of the scaled reductions.

We are constantly being informed that such reductions are necessary to keep us competitive and our economy healthy. There are surely boatloads of money being made each and every year in Canada but the 99% can’t find it or get some kind of boost in their standard of living because of it.

- And the constant corporate tax slashing looks all the more unproductive in light of the revelation that those billions of free dollars haven't stopped employers from retrenching on pension funding - not to mention the attacks on workers from Stephen Harper's own poster employer.

- Finally, Alice presents a fascinating look at a poll carried out by Brian Topp for the NDP's leadership race.

New column day

2012-01-05T07:23:00.002-06:00

Here, responding to plenty of talk about the rising West with a look at the challenges and decisions we're facing as a region.

For sources and further reading, the column refers to...
- Data on price and quantity of goods from Stephen Gordon
- B.C. economic comparison from the now-defunct Progress Board via Don Cayo
- Inequality data from Statistics Canada provincially and John Myles (via Gillian Steward) municipally;
- Vacancy rate information from CMHC
- Poverty data from Statistics Canada via Ainslie Cruickshank
- And finally, information on Alberta's Heritage Fund from Alberta Finance.

Travaillons ensemble

2012-01-04T10:50:00.004-06:00

Following up on this post, I'll expand briefly on what looks to be one of the more interesting questions for the balance of the NDP's leadership race.

I've pointed out before that one of the subtle advantages of having a leadership race immediately after ascending to Official Opposition status is that the NDP isn't facing some of the job scarcity issues that might apply in a party with more entrenched power structures.

To the best of my knowledge, the NDP hasn't yet fully staffed its parliamentary offices under a permanent leader, nor has it come anywhere close to tapping into the full fund-raising potential for an official opposition party. And so it should be possible for a new leader building the party's future organization to add together the components of various leadership campaigns along with the NDP's existing organizational base.

That is, as long as there's a mutual willingness to work together. Which means that it may be worth asking both the leadership candidates and their supporters: what strengths do are they willing to acknowledge even in the candidates they're currently opposing? And what's their strategy to get all sides to join forces again at the end of the leadership campaign (not to mention on general party priorities in the meantime)?

Wednesday Morning Links

2012-01-04T10:29:00.003-06:00

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- The Star makes the case for Canada's wealthiest citizens to pay their fair share:

Apart from their hefty pay packets, the top-earning CEOs are sitting on $2 billion in stock options that are treated as dividend income, and taxed at half the value. That’s a tax break worth $475 million, the centre calculates. Arguably, for those who need it least.

These numbers aren’t just about whipping up raw envy. They reflect public policy choices at a time when Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is looking to chop federal spending to erase Ottawa’s $31-billion annual deficit in the next few years. It’s hard to make a compelling case that the affluent need tax breaks that ordinary workers will never see when Ottawa is short on cash. And when 3.5 million Canadians live in poverty.
...
The question such numbers do raise, however, is one of basic tax fairness, and whether Canada’s personal and corporate tax systems need change to ensure that the burden is shared more progressively and equitably. In the long run, ever-growing inequality undermines prosperity and well-being for everyone – including the super rich. This is not a debate the Conservatives are eager to hold, for ideological reasons. But it will gain urgency as the Harper government rolls out its austerity budget and Ontario, too, faces tough choices.
...
As Finance Minister Jim Flaherty draws up the budget, tax reform ought to be up for discussion. If there’s one message the Occupy activists managed to get across, it’s that not all of us are contributing our fair share.

- Meanwhile, the Globe and Mail reports that at least part of the move to place corporate-friendly low-tax branding above all other priorities looks to have been put on hold, as Ontario is taking a second look at the corporate tax slashing pushed by the Harper Cons.

- Barbara Yaffe points out the cost of the Cons' attempts to shut down Insite. But it's worth noting that the financial cost of the court case may pale in comparison to the human and financial costs of refusing to facilitate harm reduction strategies elsewhere.

- Tim Naumetz reports on Paul Dewar's national organization. But the most important variable in assessing Dewar's chances may be this:

Mr. Dewar has been so determined to brush up on his French-language skills that he moved in with his male volunteer language tutor for an entire week before Christmas.
...
Mr. Dewar, taking three days with his family skiing in Quebec this week, spent his free time before Christmas with his French instructor.

“In a week of full-time French immersion leading up to Christmas and then Boxing Day, to New Year’s, he stayed in Ottawa, but he moved in with his French teacher and he was allowed two hours of family time a day, but otherwise he was living with his French teacher,” Mr. Cressy said.

Of course, it's a plus for Dewar that he's assembling a strong organization. But Dewar's success in presenting himself in French in the debates to come may well determine whether that organization can convert potential support into actual votes when it counts.

- Finally, time is running short - but anybody interested in getting around the Libs' limitation on blogger certification to live-blog their convention should drop iPolitics a line.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

2012-01-03T20:41:00.000-06:00

Treed cats.

Tuesday Evening Links

2012-01-03T17:25:00.002-06:00

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Glen Pearson follows up on the importance of organized labour - particularly as a desperately-needed counterweight to the pressures faced by public officials which may not be obvious to anybody less connected to the political scene:

I often thought about this during my time in the Canadian Parliament. Corporate presence and pressure was everywhere – hard to ignore and even harder to oppose. Politicians blessed with benefits, holiday pay, and the kind of pensions that unions struggled so hard to attain for everyone, learned to give lip-service to union representatives while at the same time passing legislation that serviced the corporate sector but deprived not only union protections, but the abilities of average workers to gain a productive wage.

And so we come to a sad truth. Beginning in the 1970s, corporations on both sides of the 49th parallel undertook a comprehensive assault on unions. In Canada, opportunities emerging in the global economy meant that they didn’t want to be linked to Canadian labour legislation anymore. While the majority of small and medium-sized businesses continued to abide by the arrangements, the large corporations wanted to slip the reins and move unhindered. Unions slowly awoke to the reality that a new unfettered capitalism was about to sever the historic link between employers and their workers.

- The CCPA has released its annual focus on soaring executive compensation. But if one needed to know how striking the 27% jump over last year actually is, take a look at Mike Moffatt's immediate suspicion that the numbers had to have been torqued by a redefinition of the term "CEO" to produce such a massive increase - followed by his subsequent recognition that in fact the CCPA has merely measured what's actually happened from a consistent baseline.

(Of course, now that the increase is known to be a real phenomenon rather than merely a shocking number, Moffatt is back to suggesting that it's nothing worth worrying our pretty little heads over.)

- Meanwhile, Frances Woolley points out how the unintended consequences can be seen in past building construction - raising a nice illustration of the importance of focusing taxes on the right sources of funds. Though I'd argue that high-end incomes which have relatively little positive impact in terms of either economic or social outcomes would look to be a more important source than consumer-based reserves.

- Jean Sorensen points out that B.C. voters have intervened in a couple of attempts to privatize drinking water.

- Finally, Anu Partanen points out that Finland's efforts at improving education as a matter of equal access to quality schools have produced far better results than the U.S.' competition-driven system.

Leadership 2012 Links and Policy Roundup 3

2012-01-03T07:04:00.006-06:00

Assorted policy and punditry from the NDP leadership campaign.

- On the policy front, it's looking like time to give Nathan Cullen full credit for being well ahead of the pack with a well-rounded and detailed set of policies. I missed his democratic reform proposal in my last policy roundup - and others have noted that Cullen goes a step beyond most of the NDP's contenders in calling for a referendum the role of the monarchy in addition to backing proportional representation and Senate abolition. Since then, Cullen has also released an Arctic policy that calls for infrastructure and resource development based on local needs rather than outside assumptions, as well as a trade policy that looks to raise global standards through trade agreements.

- Meanwhile, Niki Ashton's position on foreign investment looks like a noteworthy start in her policy development - though again I'll hope to see it fleshed out as the campaign progresses.

- UPDATE: And Peggy Nash has released a proposal of her own on foreign investment, calling for a more transparent "net benefit" test and better enforcement of investors' commitments.

- That's about it for policy news over a relatively quiet time in the campaign - but there's been plenty more to note on the candidate messaging front. Ashton has focused her public message on dealing with inequality. Cullen has called for an anyone-but-Harper movement over the next few years. Thomas Mulcair has nicely summarized his campaign theme as one of sustainable development. Peggy Nash has painted herself as a bridge-builder with a focus on the economy. And Brian Topp is rightly noting that the leadership campaign shouldn't be a boring one.

- But then, there isn't too much risk of that when pundits like Stephen Maher are having to walk back from their initial assumptions about the race to take a closer look at the field. And Bill Tieleman helps those who haven't been paying attention so far by surveying his top tier of candidates.

Monday Evening Links

2012-01-02T20:25:00.002-06:00

Assorted content to end your day.

- Yes, it's blasphemy to point out the obvious returns on public investments. But let's point out a couple more examples: Andrew Jackson wonders why we're not looking to lock in low interest rates, while Paul Krugman points out that infrastructure investments will offer even more bang for the buck than usual during an economic slump.

- But don't worry: at least our CEOs are doing just fine. So if the rest of us keep falling behind, well, what exactly is the problem again?

- Andrew Coyne gives away a few secrets to success in the field of punditry.

- Finally, Dr. Dawg shreds an Ezra Levant attack on Naheed Nenshi, and rightly questions whether there's any possible motive other than an excuse for ritual Muslim-bashing.

Anyone But

2012-01-02T08:17:00.004-06:00

As promised, let's take a closer look at the dynamics of "anyone but" movements in leadership campaigns - with a particular focus on whether one looks likely to develop in the NDP's current race.

The most obvious prerequisite for an "anyone but" movement is the perception that a particular candidate is within striking distance of being able to win at current support levels if nothing changes in a race - but not such a prohibitive favourite that it's futile to try to organize an alternative. From that starting point, the incentives that result in a two-camp race are obvious for both eventual sides of the divide: the front-runner ends up working on holding (and at most narrowly expanding) a base of support within the leadership campaign, while the competitors see a need to band together to have any hope of emerging victorious and thus end up developing deeper links between campaign organizations.

But what ultimately leads to a true "anyone but" movement is a common sense of lingering dissatisfaction with the leading candidate - in effect, a base of negative opinion that can serve as the main unifying force among multiple candidates' supporters once the outcome of a campaign hangs in the balance. (And the base needs to be stronger in a one-member, one-vote campaign rather than a delegated one - especially if a substantial number of votes are locked in prior to voting day.)

Ultimately, for an "anyone but" movement to succeed, the competitors' campaigns and supporters need to be willing to sacrifice any of the messages and values they've pushed throughout the campaign in the interest of stopping the front-runner. And that broad focus on a negative perception within a party doesn't come about as the result of a single factor; instead, it needs to find some roots in a combination of fundamental policy disagreements, personality conflicts, and perceived self-interest among other candidates' campaign teams in preventing the front-runner's organizers from ascending within the party.

Meanwhile, the front-runner can exacerbate the problem with both a commitment to a tightly-controlled inner circle, and a campaign strategy designed to limit opponents' growth which develops exactly the common sense of grievance that feeds into the countermovement. Think of the Republicans' current Iowa caucus campaign, where Mitt Romney's main plan has been to play attack-ad whack-a-mole with half a dozen "anyone but" competitors who can each be driven down to single-digit support within a week - only to find that a new leading opponent emerges within days of the last one being beaten down.

So how likely is that type of dynamic to develop within the NDP?

Well, we don't yet have any particularly compelling information as to any of the candidates' positioning in the race. And largely as a result of the NDP having just emerged as Canada's Official Opposition thanks to its surge in Quebec, it's difficult for any candidate to take any base of support for granted.

But let's assume for the sake of argument that Thomas Mulcair's support is somewhere in the range where an "anyone but" campaign might make strategic sense. The next vital ingredients for an "anyone but" campaign are then a front-runner campaign that feeds into the dynamic by failing to reach out beyond the initial support base, and a widespread sense of dissatisfaction among the rest of the party.

And those don't seem to fit particularly well with what I've seen so far. Instead, all indications are that the campaign has seen plenty of interest in developing links in both directions - both in the form of Mulcair reaching out to actual and potential members alike, and in members of all kinds of stripes showing a genuine interest in what Mulcair and the rest of the candidates have to offer. (Indeed, I've been struck by how many of my personal connections with strong left-wing backgrounds have Mulcair on a three- or four-candidate shortlist at this stage of the campaign.)

Of course, not all of those interactions necessarily lead to positive impressions. And there are a few members who have relegated Mulcair to the bottom of their lists as a result. But the number looks to be far too small to serve as a breeding ground for an all-out anti-Mulcair movement (though we may want to add any negative impressions to the list of key indicators for Mulcair).

What's more, the makeup of the rest of the field may make it difficult to assemble a united "anti" campaign even if there were a perceived reason to try. In particular, while Brian Topp has been the candidate most eager to challenge Mulcair, he's also been a fairly polarizing figure himself - creating an added obstacle on the path that leads to the non-Mulcair camps joining forces to the extent necessary to direct members' votes in a particular direction.

Naturally, it remains to be seen how the rest of the campaign will play out, and it may be that something in the next few months will create the conditions for a true "anyone but" dynamic. But for the moment, those conditions don't look to be in place - and it's hard to see much benefit for anybody in pushing to create them.

Monday Morning Links

2012-01-02T07:19:00.004-06:00

Assorted content to start your week.

- Dr. Dawg asks some rather important questions about whether we think our current checks and balances are enough to rein in the Harper Cons:

The lesson of the first story is, for me, how quickly the “normal” can be disrupted, our country taking a sharp and nasty turn to the extreme racist Right. When it came to safety over liberty, not a second thought was given by government or populace—and it didn’t hurt that the property of these instant-pariah Canadians was sold at firesale prices to their white neighbours.

The proclamation of the War Emergency Measures Act by Pierre Trudeau is another example of how quickly the “normal” can be transformed. In a trice, the country was effectively placed under martial law, our civil liberties suspended by decree. The mayor of Vancouver tried to use the legislation to round up hippies. And most of us just watched, as Trudeau suggested we do.
...
Indeed, the lines between the government, the media, industry (e.g., the Alberta oil sands) and the military (Harper’s Canada as “warrior nation”) have become blurred to the point of practical extinction. The unions are the largest independent counter-force remaining, but have been hobbled to the point of helplessness by barrages of legislation. And a crescendo of gratuitous slurs against them by Conservative front-benchers indicate that union rights, too, are on the chopping-block.
...
My single New Year’s resolution? To fight like hell against it. And it should be yours, too.

- Which means that while I don't necessarily see Murray Dobbin's proposed solution as the best one, it's well worth highlighting the problem to be dealt with over the next four years:

There is a deep malaise in Canadian democracy rooted, it seems, in a profound alienation from politics and radically lowered expectations of what is possible from government. Much of this is the result of a deliberate strategy of voter-suppression employed by the Conservatives, a strategy of making politics so offensive and good government so unimaginable that millions of people simply tune out, as if it has nothing to do with them.

For those who thought that this was a temporary attitude of the Harper anti-government, that there would be more civility with a Conservative majority, the evidence is in. This is a permanent strategy to keep the party in power. It will not diminish with time or with the advancement of the Harper agenda. This was never about Harper being frustrated with his minority status. It is about who the man is, a malignant political rogue, contemptuous of his own country.
...
(W)ith the election of Stephen Harper, everything changed. No prime minister in Canadian history has come to power with such a ruthless determination to implement an agenda so at odds with the interests of the country and the values of its citizens. This involves not just a set of policies aimed at eliminating the social and economic role of the federal government. It includes, on a parallel course, a determination to change the political culture of the country to one that either supports or acquiesces to that policy agenda. (The Governor General's Christmas message was about volunteerism and philanthropy, Harper's long-term replacement for the state.) Working in tandem, these two political streams, if allowed to proceed for any length of time, could effectively change the country permanently -- or at least for all currently living generations. Harper aims for nothing less.

- Meanwhile, Glen Pearson highlights one of the desperately-needed institutions to keep the worst corporatist instincts in check - and signals that political parties who share the same values shouldn't be shy about recognizing the value of a strong labour movement:

Governments and legislation years ago sanctioned unions specifically because the wealthy elite walked away with the money while workers toiled in poverty. Parties of all stripes supported the effort. Within a decade the middle-class in Canada began to flourish. As unions grew, their efforts at bargaining also improved the lot of those working in non-union jobs. Consider this list of what union support brought to average citizens, regardless of where they were employed.

weekends off – lunch breaks – safety standards – overtime pay – employment insurance – pensions – health benefits – collective bargaining for workers – holiday pay – child labour laws – 40-hour work week – 8-hour work day – sick leave – minimum wage – long and short-term disability – pregnancy and parental leave – the right to strike.

These are just some in a long list of hard-won options for Canadian workers. But to listen to many ardent voices these advances are the reason why companies can no longer compete. That’s also what they said 60 years ago, when it wasn’t uncommon for people to work 80 hours a week with no breaks. The companies and their agents turned out to be wrong.
...
Once a steadying reality, union density in Canada is now below 30%. Again the linkage between worker’s rights and the economic health of a nation are seen to be linked – as unions decline, so does the middle-class and the equitable strength of our economy. Wages and benefits are now in decline, even as massive profits are being accrued by companies.

This development is something that should be of great concern to all of us, but instead certain proponents of a privileged capitalism want you to believe that you and your community would be helped far more if we could just get rid of unions. Really? Since unions are in decline along with income fairness and corporate profits continue to balloon, how does that rationale figure? As citizens, if we buy into this kind of lunacy then we will all suffer in the realm of wages and benefits.

- Finally, Gillian Steward points out that the western provinces held up as the Cons' model for how an economy should operate are also the ones with the worst levels of inequality. And both Lana Payne and the CP highlight the fact that billions in corporate tax cuts are producing no apparent investment.

Parliament in Review: November 14, 2011

2012-01-01T15:28:00.004-06:00

Monday, November 14 saw MPs return to the House of Commons from a week's break. But if anybody thought the time away would lead to less contentious debate, the day instead saw one of the more fundamental debates we can expect to see out of our elected officials - with the Cons refusing to show a trace of self-reflection even when challenged on recklessly irresponsible actions.

The Big Issue

So what was the major issue up for discussion? Well, that was Joe Comartin's point of order seeking the Speaker's intervention to prevent Con-dominated committees from attacking judicial independence by summoning a sitting judge to participate in their CBC-bashing session. And other opposition speakers made strong points as to why the Speaker's intervention was needed, with Kevin Lamoureux pointing out the House's necessary supervisory role and Elizabeth May focusing on the rule of law.

Of course, Gordon O'Connor's evidence to counter his party's joint attacks on the CBC and judicial independence was a declaration that he watches hockey. But in response to Charlie Angus' questions, James Moore declared that the interference which the parliamentary law clerk described as "unlawful" was exactly what his party was elected to do.

Goverment In Hiding

Meanwhile, the Cons also shut down debate on Charlie Angus' motion to carry out follow-up work on the Ethics Committee's study on Helena Guergis. But their excuse for doing so (instead forcing a vote on the Ethics Committee's report alone) made rather little sense given that the Cons themselves went out of their way to avoid participating in debate on their own bills.

First, there was plenty of debate on the Cons' Senate election bill. Don Davies noted that the Senate is an anachronism in a modern democracy which will only become more dangerous if it's given more of a claim to legitimacy, while also duly mocking the Cons' assertion that it's in any way independent of the directions of the Harper PMO. Matthew Kellway echoed Davies' concerns, pointing out that Stephen Harper had previously declared the Senate a relic of the 19th century while noting that its anti-democratic tendencies actually date back much earlier. Alexandrine Latendresse noted the discriminatory age restrictions which limit access to the Senate. Frank Valeriote pointed out that the Cons' scheme - like so many of their policies - downloads costs to the provinces for no apparent benefit.

And oh yes, Peter Stoffer pointed out directly that the Cons weren't bothering to defend their own legislation.

Meanwhile, the Cons put in somewhat more of an appearance to discuss their copyright legislation - though as per usual they didn't bother responding to any of the opposition's substantive concerns. Andrew Cash criticized the Cons' decision to favour media conglomerates over consumers by declaring that digital locks trump all other rights, while Geoff Regan pointed out that the Cons actually had the gall to suggest we shouldn't worry about an appallingly imbalanced law because big business might not bother enforcing it. Laurin Liu and Scott Simms highlighted the need to ensure that creators benefit from the use of their creations. And Peter Julian read the portion of the bill which required distance education students to destroy their class materials.

In Brief

The NDP focused on aviation, transit and trucking safety issues in question period, culminating in Olivia Chow's introduction of a bill to require truck side guards which have been mandatory in Europe for 25 years. Meanwhile, Regan moved second reading of a bill to raise awareness of epilepsy, with the lone concerns from Djaouida Sellah having to do with the Libs' translation of the bill. Megan Leslie and Claude Gravelle both cited the Cons' Keystone XL failure as evidence that they're not accomplishing anything in dealing with Canada's closest neighbour. Pierre-Luc Dusseault presented one of the NDP's sharper members' statements in criticizing the Cons' own ad scam, while Jack Harris and Alexandre Boulerice followed up in question period. And Francoise Boivin slammed the Cons for their embarrassing gender imbalance in judicial appointments.

Book Review: Pulpit and Politics

2012-01-01T13:37:00.003-06:00

Dennis Gruending is a former journalist and NDP MP who blogs about political and religious issues - which in theory should make for an ideal background for a book focusing on the interplay between religion and politics in Canada.

And Pulpit and Politics is indeed well worth a read. But it does fall somewhat short of its potential in one key area.

By way of example, the subject of the influence of religion in Canadian politics - particularly on the right side of the spectrum - is one that's already been explored in plenty of detail by Marci McDonald. And part of what I'd hoped for out of Gruending's book was a deeper and better-connected discussion of some of the issues already made prominent in The Armageddon Factor.

But instead, Gruending's take on the religious right is limited in large part to relatively brief overviews of the same stories and personalities already covered so thoroughly by McDonald. Which means that while it's difficult to disagree with Gruending's take on her work (to the effect that people should be reporting more on the influence of the religious right in Canada), it's disappointing that Gruending's book on substantially the same subject doesn't advance the cause more than it does.

And that limited development of the theme of the religious right serves as the most stark example of the broader issue with Gruending's writing style. In effect, much of Pulpit and Politics reads as a collection of loosely-connected blog posts - detailing events and encounters from Gruending's own life, commenting on headlines, public debates and polls, and developing little by way of themes or theses from one chapter to the next - rather than the cohesive narrative that would have been ideal for a book format.

To his credit, Gruending is highly readable in that medium. In particular, his detailed discussion of polling data from the 2011 federal election and his extended review of the fate of KAIROS under the Harper Cons serve as important reminders of both what influence religious affiliation has in Canadian politics, and how the Cons are looking to change the current balance.

And the juxtaposition of political and religious institutions assembling by Gruending offers some noteworthy connections which aren't pointed to explicitly. For example, Gruending's rightful frustration as to how the Catholic Church dealt with its child sexual abuse scandal - by denying what it knew to be true, then minimizing and spinning the subject to avoid any consequences for abuses within its ranks - would ring equally true as a chronicle and criticism of how far too many political parties (particularly on the right) handle any news that doesn't suit their purposes.

But there does look to be plenty of room to expand on much of the content of Pulpit and Politics - both in doing deeper research into the areas dealt with as one-off vignettes by Gruending, and in analyzing the connections between them. And while I'll certainly recommend Pulpit and Politics as an important contribution to the discussion of the relationship between religion and politics in Canada, I'll hope to see Gruending and others engaged in moving the subject forward further in the years to come.

Leadership 2012 Reference Page Update

2012-01-01T12:30:00.004-06:00

Once again I've made some changes to my Leadership 2012 Reference Page. For those curious about the content of the candidate profiles so far, I've dealt mostly with personality and strategy based on the lack of detailed platforms for comparison so far in the campaign. But I'll continue to point out and comment on policies as they're released, and put together candidate-based policy reviews before the February membership cutoff.

As always, comments and suggestions are more than welcome.

Saturday Morning Links

2011-12-31T10:49:00.002-06:00

Assorted content to end your year.

- Paul Krugman once again laments the determination of anti-government fundamentalists to avoid learning the lessons that should have become glaringly obvious over 70 years ago:

In declaring Keynesian economics vindicated I am, of course, at odds with conventional wisdom. In Washington, in particular, the failure of the Obama stimulus package to produce an employment boom is generally seen as having proved that government spending can’t create jobs. But those of us who did the math realized, right from the beginning, that the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (more than a third of which, by the way, took the relatively ineffective form of tax cuts) was much too small given the depth of the slump. And we also predicted the resulting political backlash.

So the real test of Keynesian economics hasn’t come from the half-hearted efforts of the U.S. federal government to boost the economy, which were largely offset by cuts at the state and local levels. It has, instead, come from European nations like Greece and Ireland that had to impose savage fiscal austerity as a condition for receiving emergency loans — and have suffered Depression-level economic slumps, with real G.D.P. in both countries down by double digits.
...
We entered 2011 amid dire warnings about a Greek-style debt crisis that would happen as soon as the Federal Reserve stopped buying bonds, or the rating agencies ended our triple-A status, or the superdupercommittee failed to reach a deal, or something. But the Fed ended its bond-purchase program in June; Standard & Poor’s downgraded America in August; the supercommittee deadlocked in November; and U.S. borrowing costs just kept falling. In fact, at this point, inflation-protected U.S. bonds pay negative interest: investors are willing to pay America to hold their money.

The bottom line is that 2011 was a year in which our political elite obsessed over short-term deficits that aren’t actually a problem and, in the process, made the real problem — a depressed economy and mass unemployment — worse.

- Which serves as reason why Mike Moffatt's Keltner list for public policy proposals might be worth a look in evaluating the effect of gratuitous austerity.

- Romeo Dallaire is optimistic that the popular movements that emerged in 2011 are just starting to have their ultimate effect.

- Josh Dorner notes that "progressive" is by far the best-received political label in the U.S. - offering an opportunity to use the spillover effect of U.S. political attitudes to the advantage of the Canadian left for a change.

- Finally, David Berlin views Jack Layton's legacy as including both the building of a winning attitude within the NDP, and the transformation of that mindset into what may be the effective end of Quebec separatist sentiment.

Musical interlude

2011-12-30T22:00:00.000-06:00

EnMass - CQ