New column day

Here, on how the Saskatchewan Party's climate obstruction is entirely out of touch with the province's citizens.

For further reading...
- Abacus Data's national poll of attitudes toward climate change policy is here, with the separate chart pointing out the views of Saskatchewan and Alberta respondents looking to be particularly significant.
- And again, James Wilt has discussed the public's appetite to fight climate change here.

Saturday Morning Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Abacus Data has polled the Canadian public on climate change, and found far more appetite for meaningful action than we generally hear from the political class (and particularly right-wing parties):

Twenty years ago, when the world’s leaders were debating the Kyoto Accord, a case could be made that politicians who chose to be early champions of action to reduce emissions were running a certain amount of political risk.  The public consensus on the need to act was not fully formed, the risks of inaction not as widely perceived, and the alternatives to producing high levels of carbon seemed elusive and expensive.

Today, in Canada, the risk equation has changed. The bigger political peril lies in appearing indifferent to a matter of widespread and growing public preoccupation.

Half of Canadian voters (49%) won’t consider a party or a candidate that doesn’t have a plan to combat climate change.  Only 6% prefer a party or a candidate that ignores the issue.  The rest (44%) are “willing to consider” a party that doesn’t make the climate a priority.
...
Canada’s political parties do not all see eye to eye on climate change, but our numbers reveal that many Conservative voters share the sentiments of other voters: 85% believe there is a moral responsibility to act, and two thirds (67%) see a looming financial disaster if we fail to do more.  It is inaccurate to imagine a “conservative base” that broadly rejects the need to act on the climate issue.  Most 2015 Conservative Party voters believe the world faces a catastrophe if we do too little and that action will create new opportunities for the economy.

- Meanwhile, Michael Harris criticizes the Libs for being asleep at the switch when it comes to the potential environmental calamity arising from neonic pesticides. 

- Lana Payne writes about the sense of entitlement behind the offshoring of wealth to avoid taxes. And Thomas Walkom notes that governments are finally being forced to pay attention to the problem - but seem all too likely to leave plenty of loopholes to be exploited by the wealthy.

- Martin Regg Cohn discusses the politics behind perpetual poverty. And Trish Garner rightly argues that social supports should be sufficient to provide for basic human dignity.

- Colin Phillips points out the need for a national housing strategy backing by meaningful investments.

- Finally, Kevin Schnepel studies the connection between work opportunities and recidivism rates among people released from prison, and finds that stable jobs with fair wages are crucial in reducing the likelihood of repeat offences.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Naomi Klein examines how climate change has contributed to a summer of extreme weather disasters, while David Suzuki highlights how we can work with nature to respond to increased flooding. And Emily Atkin discusses the outsized damage 90 corporate behemoths have done to our climate.

- Meanwhile, Abacus Data polls Canadians about energy development, and finds both strong support for a shift toward renewables and an expectation that we'll begin a transition away from fossil fuels (even among the provinces and parties which operate based on demanding increased production). And Dave Cournoyer rightly argues that Alberta (like other provinces) needs to start reducing its reliance on ongoing resource royalties.

- Sara Mojtehedzadeh offers a disturbing look at how fake temp agencies are used to saddle workers with precarious employment and unacceptable working conditions. And Adam Turner talks to Dennis Skinner about ensuring that the working class is represented in government.

- Monika Dutt rebuts the claim that privatized health care does anything but undermine the public system Canadians depend on. And Alex Munter makes the case for mental health care to be added to our public health care system.

- Finally, Alan Freeman asks for some reasonableness on all sides of an overheated debate over a proposal which involves closing only a few tax loopholes for a modest revenue benefit.

New column day

Here, on how the North Saskatchewan River oil spill may not lead directly to a needed reevaluation of the risks of pipelines - but a public expectation that we'll shift away from dirty energy may be more significant in the long run.

For further reading...
- I've previously posted about Brad Wall's response to the spill here. John Klein and David Climenhaga offer their own justified criticism of Wall's choice to hide behind oil-industry spin rather than recognizing the social and environmental damage caused by the spill.
- The Leader-Post reports that North Battleford and Prince Albert aren't interested in letting Wall hold photo ops to savd his own skin now. Betty Ann Adam notes that affected First Nations are being kept out of the loop.
- Carrie Tait examines the public impact of contaminated drinking water sources. And Jesse McLaren notes that there's been a much faster move to clamp down on individual water users than to ensure any accountability for Husky as the source of the spill.
- CBC follows up on Emily Eaton's observation that spills from Saskatchewan pipelines are a regular occurrence.
- Jordon Cooper highlights the Sask Party's tendencies toward corporate self-regulation, while Justin Fisher discusses the urgent need for far more effective monitoring of hazardous industries. And Elizabeth McSheffrey reports that the province's neglect has resulted in the federal government having to step in and investigate the spill.
- Finally, Abacus Data's poll on how Canadians see our own future is here - with people expecting that in the next two decades we'll see storage of solar and wind energy (86%), a majority of vehicles being electric (66%), and sharp declines in carbon emissions from Canada (59%) and the world (51%).

[Edit: updated link.]

On political evolution

Both Chantal Hebert and the combination of Bruce Anderson and David Coletto have written recently about the state of federal politics in Quebec, with particular emphasis on what we can expect as the Bloc Quebecois appears to crumble. With that in mind, I'll offer a quick reminder as to one of the more subtle factors behind the 2011 Orange Wave - and how things have changed less than we might think at first glance.

As I've mentioned before, the NDP's relatively strong push into Quebec happened to coincide with an election where both the Cons and Libs had obvious reasons not to put much effort into the province - based in large part on the Bloc's success in campaigning against their preferred themes.

Which isn't to say that the NDP was obviously ahead of its competitors at the start of the campaign (see: polling prior to April 2011 passim). Instead, its increased strategic focus figures mostly to have counterbalanced the Libs' and Cons' historic advantages. And with no national party going into 2011 with much expectation of winning over a substantial amount of Bloc support, the outcome might be seen as reflecting two factors: not only the popularity of Jack Layton, but also the growth of natural voter preferences in a rare case where political targeting played a relatively small role.

Of course, that's all changed going into the next federal campaign. Now that the obvious obstacle to growth in Quebec for all of the federal parties is seemingly disintegrating, every party has an incentive to test its prospects within a much larger pool of available voters and seats. And there's reason to think the NDP, Libs and Cons have all done just that.

In turn, that makes the lack of change in voter support just as noteworthy as any further shift would have been. The NDP's change in leadership from Jack Layton to Thomas Mulcair hasn't affected its massive advantage on that question. And renewed pushes from both the Libs and Cons haven't significantly altered the party standings aside from the Bloc's further decline - which, as noted by Anderson and Coletto, may actually bolster the NDP's position compared to its competitors.

Not that any party can rest on its laurels now: after all, it's the illusion of stability over an even longer period that caught nearly everybody off guard in the last election. But if 2011 showed us what the Quebec electorate looks like following relatively little work to cultivate party interests, the last few years seem to indicate that voters are comfortable with the landscape.

On potential support

Abacus' latest federal poll includes some noteworthy data on which voters see a real prospect of shifting their preferences - and particularly on the number of voters who are willing to entirely rule out a vote for either the Cons or the NDP.

In particular, Bloc and Lib supporters are roughly twice as likely to say there's "no chance" of their supporting the Cons than the NDP (72%-37% and 50%-24% respectively), while the Greens aren't far behind at 52%-30% - all of which suggests that plenty of non-supporters are somewhat leaving open the possibility of uniting behind the NDP as the leading alternative to the Cons. And even comparing the parties' own supporters, more NDP than Con voters rule out a vote for the other party by a 63%-56% margin.

Which leaves one noteworthy group of voters where the Cons point to a slight advantage in growth potential: those who are truly undecided, who rule the Cons out slightly less than the NDP (43% compared to 48%, with a comparable advantage in respondents indicating a "fair chance" of support).

Now, I'd be interested to find out what group of voters is mostly represented in the "undecided" group to produce that result. (Perhaps Red Tories and blue Libs who aren't currently satisfied enough with any of the options to indicate a preference?) But it's noteworthy that the NDP looks to have far more room for growth than the Cons among every other party's supporters - meaning that the Cons' hold on power may depend on their being able to reach voters who haven't yet found any reason to support them, rather than merely catering to their current base.

Leadership 2012 Roundup

In the lead-up to tomorrow's official debate in Halifax, the end of this week saw plenty of developments in the NDP leadership race - including both the familiar combination of endorsements, videos and policy releases from the campaigns themselves, and an increase in outside reporting that took coverage in a few perhaps-unexpected directions. So let's take a look at what's new.

At the outset, Abacus' first polling of the campaign received radically different interpretations in the media. But the key takeaway looks to be that experience as an MP hasn't translated into name recognition for the likes of Nathan Cullen and Niki Ashton, while Brian Topp's media blitz has managed to get him known as well as anybody else in the race. (Of course, that doesn't mean that familiarity necessarily translates into votes based on Forum's polling so far - and I wouldn't be surprised if Topp's warm and fuzzy family videos reflect an effort to close that gap before anybody else knew it existed.)

Meanwhile, Glen McGregor started a tempest in a teapot with his story about past donations to the NDP by the candidates.

As for the candidates themselves...

- Nathan Cullen released a food security plan. And he then highlighted his campaign's volunteer leaderboard - which may make for a means of motivating some types of supporters which the party will want to replicate in the future.

- Paul Dewar received two more MP endorsements and released a set of family policies which ambitiously seeks to build a more caring Canada.

- Thomas Mulcair unveiled the support of MP Ryan Cleary, adding another to his list of prominent Atlantic endorsers.

- Peggy Nash released a child care plan designed to pay for itself, while also receiving some positive press from Le Devoir.

- Romeo Saganash offered a reminder of the need to protect Canadian families from the Harper Cons' business-first agenda.

- Brian Topp released a family support policy including a national child nutrition program, while also taking some questions from Aaron Wherry.

- Finally, on the commentary side, Dr. Dawg wondered whether Topp's lack of a seat in Parliament should be seen as a major negative. Nelson Wiseman noted that the NDP's membership-driven approach means that we shouldn't expect leaders to be able to plan to dictate party policy to the same extent we'd anticipate from the Libs or Cons. Tim Harper highlighted Mulcair's message that the NDP has plenty more work to do to build strength in Quebec. And John Wunderlich released a well-received open letter on the factors he considers important in choosing the NDP's next leader.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Abacus' Canadian polling on the Occupy protests suggests that there's loads of public sympathy for the view that there's a need for change in how wealth and power is distributed - with the main concern being whether there's any viable means available to get that done:

Large majorities of Canadians agree with the arguments being made by Occupy Canada protestors.

* 81% agree that corporations and the rich have too much influence over public policy and politics in Canada.
* 81% agree that the gap between the rich and poor has grown too large in Canada
* 64% agree that Canadian financial institutions have been reckless and greedy.
* 51% agree that most Canadian corporations are unethical.

- Which offers yet more reason to think that the Cons' war on labour will do more to isolate themselves from a wide swath of Canadians than to establish the foundation for a long-term stay in power.

- Meanwhile, John Ibbitson manages to write a column on the Cons' push toward private charity while entirely missing one of the largest impacts of such a move: the more we rely on such a system, the more people with money to throw around get to dictate which causes are pursued (and which are ignored).

- Don MacPherson focuses on the apparent weakness of Pauline Marois and the PQ. But the news that several MNAs are participating in Quebec Solidaire events would seem to be equally relevant to the extent it signals the growth potential of an unabashedly left-wing provincial party in Quebec.

- Finally, Erin points out how the Saskatchewan Party is acting more as a shill for the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan than a voice for the province in the provincial election campaign.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Heather Mallick highlights the dangers of the permanent unemployment which regressive politicians around the globe are so vociferously demanding in the guise of austerity:

As we fend off a double-dip recession, we tend to forget about the collateral human damage. This is a great mistake and not just because our own jobs could be the next to go.

There’s a difference between unemployment that is relatively brief and perhaps driven by one industry, and the permanent unemployment that results from recessions, particularly in this global economy. People look for work until they utterly despair and give up. These people are tracked in “labour force participation” numbers but not in the unemployment numbers sent out each month.
...
Permanent unemployment (as North American manufacturing erodes, never to repair itself) is known in economic terms as “hysteresis.” It kills health, marriages, stability and parents’ ability to send a child to university. It destroys cities and neighbourhoods, and sends young people into the workplace with mortgage-level debt. Those children, raised with self-esteem, will lose it in the most painful way possible.
...
Relations between the sexes sour, between everyone. Status anxiety rules. So we lash out — against workers with pensions, for instance — and vote against our own long-term interests. Irrational thinking prevails.

I will leave you with Peck’s story of a senior financial analyst laid off at 59. After a year of humiliation, he found a part-time cashier’s job at Wal-Mart for $8.50 (U.S.) an hour. He rang up purchases for some neighbours recently, he said, people who had not lost jobs. “They didn’t greet him, and he didn’t say anything,” Peck wrote.

The man looked down at the table, paused, and then looked up again. “I know they knew me,” he said. “I’ve been in their home.” They had cut him dead.

- And not coincidentally, Abacus Data finds a stark division between Con supporters who want to see continued slashing even if the economy takes another nosedive, and Canadians in general who recognize that stimulus might be needed again.

- Boris recognizes yet more reason for hope in Jack Layton's farewell to Canada:

If Jack Layton's inheritors are smart, they will use (his) final quote as the party motto and set the country on fire. If they're wise, they will embody this in who they are and how they act.

It could work. The comment stands as white light against the darkness of today's politics. Just observe the contrast between the sentiments contained within the letter and expressed by well-wishers and the the impropriety coming from the other side of the aisle.

There is morality at work in Canadian politics now well beyond the simple ideological or technical differences over economics or social policy. Prisons, exported torture, tar sands, expeditionary wars, asbestos exports, are all built on unkindness by people who at best do not recognise shared humanity, or at worst find it uncomfortable.

This amorality and misanthropy cannot compete with the sentiment in Mr. Layton's farewell. There's a momentum in the emotion generated by his passing that must be put to good use in the coming years. I'm not sure I agree that Harper benefits most from Layton's passing. Harper's brand of attack politics works only on the living. and as the reaction the Blatchford column suggests, speaking ill of the dead earns you few votes.

The one-trick pony Conservatives may well find themselves facing a significantly empowered opposition operating from a clearly defined and incontestable moral position. And that, my friends, is reason to hope.

- And Paul Dewar writes about Layton's foreign policy legacy:

Jack's contribution to politics was never about mere opposition. He was in Ottawa to advance his propositions. In 2005 he was presented with a rare opportunity to rewrite a Liberal government budget. He cancelled billions of dollars in corporate tax cuts and invested the funds in priority areas including a major boost to Canada's official development assistance.

In fact, Jack's NDP is the only party in Canada that remains committed to former prime minister Lester Pearson's aspiration of dedicating 0.7 per cent of our gross national income to development funding.

Afghanistan was the primary foreign affairs file during Jack's leadership. One of his most courageous political propositions came in the summer of 2006 when he called for an end to the war in Afghanistan and recommended entering into negotiations for ceasefire and peace-building with the different warring factions in the country.

Today, his plan is accepted in capitals the world over as the only workable approach to the Afghan conflict. But in 2006 Jack faced a massive backlash from the conservative establishment in Ottawa. He was derided with accusations of naiveté at best and treason at worst. He was not deterred.
...
We have lost, as Canadians and as social democrats globally, a man from a rare breed of political leaders who truly believed in the concept of the human family. He saw the suffering of a human being anywhere in the world as an equally important political problem. He understood the global nature of the threats against our collective existence and looked to global cooperation to address the immense challenges before us.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Naomi Klein points out in the wake of London's riots that there's one kind of socially destructive looting that's been rewarded rather than punished:

They are just about lawless kids taking advantage of a situation to take what isn't theirs. And British society, Cameron tells us, abhors that kind of behaviour.

This is said in all seriousness. As if the massive bank bailouts never happened, followed by the defiant record bonuses. Followed by the emergency G8 and G20 meetings, when the leaders decided, collectively, not to do anything to punish the bankers for any of this, nor to do anything serious to prevent a similar crisis from happening again. Instead they would all go home to their respective countries and force sacrifices on the most vulnerable. They would do this by firing public sector workers, scapegoating teachers, closing libraries, upping tuition fees, rolling back union contracts, creating rush privatisations of public assets and decreasing pensions – mix the cocktail for where you live. And who is on television lecturing about the need to give up these "entitlements"? The bankers and hedge-fund managers, of course.

This is the global saqueo, a time of great taking. Fuelled by a pathological sense of entitlement, this looting has all been done with the lights on, as if there was nothing at all to hide.
...
Of course London's riots weren't a political protest. But the people committing night-time robbery sure as hell know that their elites have been committing daytime robbery. Saqueos are contagious. The Tories are right when they say the rioting is not about the cuts. But it has a great deal to do with what those cuts represent: being cut off. Locked away in a ballooning underclass with the few escape routes previously offered – a union job, a good affordable education – being rapidly sealed off. The cuts are a message. They are saying to whole sectors of society: you are stuck where you are, much like the migrants and refugees we turn away at our increasingly fortressed borders.

- And Brian Topp highlights the continued hold-ups that right-wing governments are looking to force on younger workers:

Again and again, in almost every conceivable regional accent across North America (Louisiana, Quebec, New Jersey, B.C., Chicago, etc.) speakers noted that employers were bargaining, mercilessly and relentlessly, to strip pay, health coverage (a big issue in the United States) and pensions from new – read “young” – workers. It’s creating two-tier workplaces, and gross inequities aimed squarely at young workers entering the workplace.

This was frank talk about another aspect of the great inter-generational theft being implemented in the United States and across the industrial world in recent years. Mounting public debt to pay for tax cuts for rich people being the central element.

Delegates urged young workers to step up to the defence of their rights. “Stand up, fight back.” A daunting challenge, in this environment. But as Mr. Gerard said at the convention in a familiar quote: “If not us, who? If not now, when?”

- Lawrence Martin notes that Tony Clement's G8 patronage looks like an even more glaring example of the type of political pork-barrelling that the Cons once claimed to abhor.

- Finally, Abacus is the latest pollster to show the NDP holding its own (and indeed gaining slightly) since May's election.

On continued momentum

In case there's any doubt, the usual caveats about paying too much attention to polling are probably all the more important now that any federal election is more than four years away. But with that caution out of the way, it's certainly worth watching whether the response of voters to a transformational election is to keep moving in the same direction, or to revert to previous patterns.

On that front, at least the first indications suggest that we're looking at the former - with the NDP holding onto its election-day vote share in Quebec, and actually gaining ground in the rest of Canada. And the more NDP support comes to be the new normal among voters who changed their minds over the course of the election campaign, the better the chances of the party being able to build on that base for years to come.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday.

- Pogge rightly notes that the cover-up coalition of the Cons, Libs and Bloc has successfully managed to ensure that the Afghanistan documents ordered to be produced by Parliament remain safely buried - and points out whose position is looking more and more astute as a result:

May I once again commend Jack Layton and the New Democrats for walking away from this bit of political theatre. After the supposedly historic ruling by the Speaker in support of parliamentary supremacy, the Libs and the Bloc have joined with the Conservatives in turning the whole thing into a farce.

- Abacus' latest message poll looks to provide yet more evidence that the Cons' party line is sounding less and less plausible among the general public.

- Presumably the Cons' MPs are under even an even tighter muzzle than usual (to the extent that's possible). But if a story is going to be based on nothing but finding "signs of rattled nerves" in the absence of any evidence, would it really be that tough to get somebody to talk about defending a vulnerable Con seat as well rather than referring only to opposition parties?

- Finally, the Cons' decision to respond to public pressure by declaring that the CRTC's decision to allow large ISPs to impose usage-based billing on their competitors will be overturned is undoubtedly for the best. But before the issue fades away, it's well worth noting the hilarity in seeing supposed free marketeers like the National Post editorial board claim without a trace of irony that the fact that large companies have traditionally billed in a certain way should serve as evidence that no other options should be available.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

On incomplete perceptions

With much of today's political discussion focusing on Abacus' political party wordles, let's note a couple of major issues with the word clouds presented so far. While the clouds presented offer some useful information for each party discussed, the current story doesn't indicate which words are actually associated with each other within a single response (other than in some of the associated commentary) - leaving a glaring hole in any attempt to interpret how the leaders or parties are perceived.

In theory, that leaves the Libs with a chance to trumpet the fact that "leader" and "leadership" are technically their two leading responses - with no direct indication as to what other terms (positive or negative) actually get linked to those concepts. And there's equally no indication that negative terms such as "not" are taken into account rather than being cut out of the data set as "commonly used words".

So while the wordles may offer some hint as to the terms most commonly identified with Canada's political parties and the relative prominence of party leaders, they leave out important information about how the parties can work with those commonly-named concepts. And that should serve as reason for caution in drawing any particularly strong conclusions.