Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Norman Farrell highlights how following the reversal of the HST transition, B.C. businesses haven't given up on their goal of making sure that only individuals pay consumption taxes.

- Jordan Press and Lee Berthiaume report on the lack of any recent effort to ensure that federal government buildings don't jeopardize health and safety - which fits all too well with areas such as federal and provincial pipeline regulation as examples of short-term cost savings virtually certain to produce long-term disasters.

- David Suzuki argues that it's time to press the Trudeau Libs toward action on climate change (based in no small part on the recognition that they'll never bother of their own volition).

- Sheldon Whitehouse and Elizabeth Warren comment on how big oil has rigged the U.S.' political system to prevent anybody from even asking questions about its longtime climate fraud, while Greg Russell points out that oil operators seem set to abandon their offshore wells and cleanup responsibilities. And David Climenhaga examines how Enron suckered the Alberta PCs into the laughably unfair power deal which the NDP is now trying to reverse.

- Finally, John Conway discusses the many dark clouds looming over Brad Wall's tenure as premier. And Murray Mandryk notes that the summer's events have called most of the Saskatchewan Party's core identity into question. 

New column day

Here, on how Brad Wall looks to face plenty of new political challenges now that he can't rely on an Alberta PC dynasty to do much of his dirty work for him.

For further reading...
- I briefly addressed the same issue with a particular focus on privatized MRIs in this post.
- Wall's history of relying on Alberta donors (with PC help) is discussed here, here and here among other places.
- Finally, Dave Cournoyer wonders what will become of the Alberta PCs' remaining patronage appointments. And David Climenhaga discusses the limited future of the PCAA - with Trevor Harrison's quote that it became "captive to the corporate sector and its rural (anti-tax) base" sounding much like the future awaiting the Saskatchewan Party.

On rebuilding projects

I'll have plenty more to say about last night's resounding Alberta NDP election victory in posts to come. But for now, here's a quick take on what comes next for the PCs.

I had earlier wondered whether the PCs might effectively take a majority-or-bust position in contrast to the other parties.

Going into last night, the NDP and Wildrose Party each had reason to draw something positive out of winning, say, 20 seats and/or a role as the Official Opposition. And that may have implied some willingness to put resources into achieving those outcomes even if it meant falling short of winning power.

But having started with a majority government, the PCs spent the entire campaign sending the message both that nothing less would do, and that they were close to achieving that result no matter what the polls said. And they seem to have campaigned accordingly - making no pleas to save the furniture or offer a platform for rebuilding.

What's more, they did prove the polls wrong to some extent - coming in second in the popular vote where the last wave of projections saw them plummeting below the Wildrose. But that wasn't enough to save more than a handful of seats - a disconnect which might be explained if the PCs directed proportionally more of their efforts toward losing battles in seats which might have represented the margin between forming government and not.

Obviously, the end result didn't make for a situation which Jim Prentice wanted to bother facing. But it's an open question whether other Alberta PCs share his disdain for the work of building in opposition - and the answer will likely determine the identity of the NDP's main opponent in election cycles to come.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Lynne Fernandez properly labels the Cons' federal budget as the "inequality budget". Andrew Jackson discusses how we've ended up in a new Gilded Age in Canada, and what we can do to extricate ourselves from it. And BC BookLook reviews Andrew MacLeod's new book on inequality by pointing out some of the important facts which seldom seem to surface elsewhere.

- Speaking of which, Andrew Nikiforuk exposes how the Alberta PCs handed the oil industry $13 billion in free money by failing to correct a miscalculation as to how royalties would change with time. (Feel free to insert quotation marks and/or pause for laughter in the general vicinity of the term "miscalculation".)

- And Michael Prince writes that a compassionate care benefit is following the Cons' typical pattern of handing plenty of money to those who need it least, while offering nothing at all for the people doing the most to help others.

- PressProgress highlights how the Cons' past funding for transit has been left unused, meaning that there's no reason to take seriously the promise of new money years down the road in the federal budget. And Jim Stanford duly slams the Cons' auto strategy of handing car makers massive amounts of money to produce vehicles elsewhere.

- Craig Forcese follows up on the problems with C-51 by pointing out that it wrongly sees all Charter rights as being both conditional and subject to destruction at the mere mention of national security. Open Media offers a new and hand primer on the Cons' terror bill. The Globe and Mail notes that the U.S. is moving to make its no-fly list more sensible and fair even as the Cons make ours more draconian. And Andrew Mitrovica explains why "just trust us" isn't sufficient accountability from anybody when it comes to national security powers:

So here’s what we’re getting by way of reassurance. C-51 looks “frightening” but it isn’t really — not when viewed from Fadden’s altitude in the security sphere. The security services will never use the vast new powers being granted by the bill to cross the line on Canadians’ civil liberties because Richard Fadden won’t let them. And besides, CSIS is beholden to the Public Safety minister — and we all know how seriously Steven Blaney takes his job.

What a crock. Ever since its inception in 1984, Conservative and Liberal ministers responsible for the agency have said repeatedly, both in and outside the House of Commons, that they do not and cannot get involved in the day-to-day operations of CSIS. And we’re supposed to believe Blaney, the guy who was making Holocaust comparisons during his own committee appearance on the bill, is going to be the one to break that streak?
...

One of the more disturbing aspects of Fadden’s performance before the committee was how myopic it was. He made pointed reference to terrorist attacks against “Western interests” and Canada’s “allies” in Paris, Madrid and London. He claimed that Canada’s “priorities” in combatting terror only changed after the Americans were attacked on 9/11.

At no point during his testimony did he mention the largest mass murder in Canadian history — the 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182. Most of the 329 victims aboard that flight were Canadians; 86 were children. It was a terrorist attack that made the European attacks cited by Fadden seem subtle. So why didn’t he bring it up?

Because it didn’t fit the narrative. The Air India affair was a black eye for Canadian security and law enforcement. CSIS and the RCMP — the agencies Fadden never tires of describing as “second to none” — were so incompetent and preoccupied with turf wars that they failed, despite ample warning, to stop the terrorist attack, even though they had the tools to do so. And the Air India terror plot was engineered and executed in Canada; its intended victims were Canadians who hailed from every province, save P.E.I.
...
Air India was and remains a shining example of security service incompetence at its absolute worst. C-51 wouldn’t have prevented it. So while the bill will most certainly pass, the government’s arguments in its favour stand convicted of their own faulty logic. Unless, however, we’re all willing to just trust the Harper government — and Richard Fadden.

On relative popularity

Jim Prentice is warning Albertans that they should vote for him lest they be governed by somebody like Tom Mulcair.

Jim Prentice's approval rating in Alberta is 22%.

Tom Mulcair's approval rating in Alberta is 42%.

Which means, shorter Jim Prentice:

You may think you're getting an exquisitely prepared filet mignon when you vote NDP, but what if you only get a juicy hamburger? Therefore, vote for gruel!

Failures of imagination and arithmetic

Colby Cosh's latest includes this explanation as to why he wants to write off the party which holds a strong lead in Alberta's polls:

The province-wide NDP numbers, whichever set you prefer, are conceptually hard to translate into large numbers of seats outside Edmonton. Former Calgary alderman Joe Ceci, running for the NDP, is thought to be strong in his old stomping ground of Calgary-Fort, as is Shannon Phillips in university-influenced Lethbridge West. There is bound to be a third name on this list—a name no one knows yet. Some shrewd, hard-working NDP candidate is knocking on the last door in his riding right now, scarcely suspecting he is about to beat some country-fried PC cabinet minister who got careless.

Alberta New Democrats’ dreams are much wilder than this. They envision a chaotic “wave” election: a butterfly farts in Banff and they unexpectedly quadruple or quintuple their support, as they would need to, in seats outside Edmonton. But unless things have changed very dramatically in places like Cold Lake or Drumheller, the New Democrat ceiling is a couple of dozen seats. That would leave the overall outcome to be decided by 60-plus PC-Wildrose fights in Calgary and the hinterland.

Needless to say, this type of analysis is rather familiar: in 2011, more than a few pollsters and pundits looked at the NDP's commanding lead in Quebec polls, then declared based on past results that the party couldn't hope to win more than five to ten seats in the province. This line of analysis did not prove prescient.

Granted, Cosh allows for the theoretical possibility of a "wave" while simultaneously writing it off. But in so doing, he misses the point that what he considers to be dramatic change is already playing out in the polls.

No, it's not preposterous - nor even unexpected - for a party to quadruple or quintuple its previous support when current polls already show more than that gain. The NDP's 2012 support by region included results ranging from 5% in Calgary and 5-8% in rural Alberta; the most recent polling shows the NDP in the 25-30% and 30-35% range, respectively. So if the right standard is to ask whether the NDP can increase its 2012 vote by five times or more, the answer is that it's already there or further across much of the province.

That said, looking at the NDP's historical vote is probably the wrong way of approaching the question.

It's doubtful that anybody can claim to have a clear, riding-by-riding picture as to how votes will shift. But the regional polls consistently show a tight three-party race in Calgary and "rest of Alberta", including some with the NDP running ahead in those regions.

Which brings us back to the Quebec problem: how can any reasonable observer look at a party which projects to win as many votes as its opponents over a substantial number of seats, and default to a presumption that it will win none of those individual seats (nor indeed contend for any of them)?

I'd argue that absent some coherent explanation as to how a region can be split up into a series of two-way races which render the three-party numbers unreliable, the best assumption has to be that the distribution of seats will be broadly similar to the distribution of votes (subject to distortion by the first-past-the-post system). And even that type of theory can't be based on Cosh's assumption that the NDP will simply be out of the picture over a set of ridings where its vote share is similar to that of the PCs and Wildrose.

That means the fundamentals of the Alberta race boil down to this: the NDP has a significant head start based on its whopping lead in Edmonton, while the rest of the province is a dead heat where any of the three parties could win a large number of seats, but the best baseline assumption is a relatively even split.

Of course, it's theoretically possible that a party could manage to lose dozens of ridings by small margins to two competitors without managing to get over the top in a single one. (In principle, that could even result in the party winning the most votes without taking a seat. Thanks, FPTP!) But surely that outcome should be seen as a remote possibility, not a baseline expectation.

Similarly, a small shift at the end of the campaign could easily change the three-party dynamic in many different directions. But here too, there's no obvious reason to think a shift can only operate in one direction: surely the NDP is at least as likely as its competitors to be the one to nose ahead at the end, particularly since it's been the only party consistently improving its popular perception throughout the campaign.

To be clear, it's entirely possible that Cosh's assumed outcome might come to pass - and that risk will hopefully serve as motivation for NDP activists as the campaign draws to a close. But that doesn't mean there's any reason for Cosh or anybody else to write off the very strong possibility that the NDP can win as matters stand now.

Update: As Cosh notes, the column was written before this weekend's polls strengthened the evidence as to the NDP's position across Alberta. So readers may want to look to the projections and polls as they stood earlier in evaluating it.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Hegemony or bust

Earlier this week, I mused thusly:

And I'm particularly curious as to whether the PCAA will bet heavily on a high-variance strategy, preferring to exhaust every hope of maintaining hegemony over Alberta politics rather than making any substantial effort to rebuild from the opposition benches.

Suffice it to say that we have our answer, in the form of the declaration "keep us in power or the children's hospital gets it!" - which might marginally increase the possibility of scaring voters into the PC camp compared to a less hostage-based message, while carrying a far stronger chance of highlighting exactly why Albertans can't stand more of the same.

But it's also worth looking at the bigger picture. If Jim Prentice and company have gone out of their way to ensure that Alberta lacks the public resources to build essential health infrastructure without going begging to the corporate sector, isn't that all the more reason to want a more effective government?

Swing batta swing

Needless to say, the range of potential outcomes in the Alberta election (along with the continued flow of news battering the Prentice PCs as they try to regain some type of footing) has made for a fascinating campaign. But it's worth pointing out that single polls and seat projections may miss important parts of the picture - meaning that the actual state of the race is far less certain than it might appear at first glance.

Take for example this important explanation of Election Almanac's methodology:

Election Almanac uses a proportional swing model for its projections based on the latest election poll results. For example, if a poll gives a party a greater (multiplied by a factor greater than 1) share of the vote than they received in the last election, the projector assumes the party’s vote has gone up by the same proportion in every seat. Conversely, if a poll gives a party a smaller (multiplied by a factor less than 1) share of the vote than they received in the last election, the projector assumes the party’s vote has gone down by the same proportion in every seat. No projection model is 100% accurate. 

Now, a presumption that all seats will see identical swings between parties might make for a useful initial assumption. But the last Alberta election was based on a radically different set of party strategies and goals.

In 2012, the Redford PCs veered left in order to paint themselves as a relatively moderate alternative to a perceived Wildrose government-in-waiting - so most of the province's seats were decided by the allocation of a two-way split among 78% of Alberta voters. Meanwhile, the NDP's primary focus was on holding onto beachheads rather than expanding its support throughout the province.

Today, we can say with some certainty that the situation has changed. Rather than fighting primarily in the few most friendly Edmonton ridings, the NDP is looking to sweep the city, while the PCs are turning to the right and chasing a larger share of right-wing voters to try to stop the orange wave. And the rest of the campaign will determine which seats actually are the swing ridings - with surprises likely to pop up along the way.

For all the news in the headline poll numbers, though, there's relatively little means for the public to figure out exactly how those will translate into seats. And that goes doubly in a three-way race where (for example) ThreeHundredEight's seat projection sees the PCs' seat count potentially ranging from 5 to 31 based on a swing of under four points in popular support.

In theory, it might be possible to try to use more sophisticated means to generate seat projections - for example, by also comparing regional and seat-based polling to the 2011 results to test the assumption of a uniform swing. But increased complexity is no guarantee of greater accuracy, especially when subtle shifts (particular in the last-minute choices of undecided voters) can swamp the effect of any further adjustment.

Meanwhile, it's also worth keeping on eye on the parties' plans, since they'll likely have the best information as to which seats are close. But the parties themselves face a range of goals which may include maximizing votes, maximizing seat totals, and maximizing the possibility of a plurality or majority government. And I'm particularly curious as to whether the PCAA will bet heavily on a high-variance strategy, preferring to exhaust every hope of maintaining hegemony over Alberta politics rather than making any substantial effort to rebuild from the opposition benches.

To summarize, we should be hesitant to draw overly precise conclusions from the poll results generated so far: while it seems safe to say the order in party support is currently NDP 1, Wildrose 2 and PC 3, the noise far outweighs the signal when it comes to projecting the seats which will ultimately determine who forms government. And so no party should be resting on its laurels as the campaign draws to a close.

New column day

Here, on how the sudden disappearance of Danielle Smith and her fellow Wildrose Party defectors offers a case in point of the dangers of forgetting that politicians ultimately answer to the public.

For further reading...
- CBC reported on the actual deal between Smith and Jim Prentice here, while Darren Krause reported on Smith's nomination defeat. And CBC examines Wildrose's bounce back in the polls as it elected a new leader.
- Don Braid notes that Smith was warned about some of the dangers of crossing the floor at the time, while Andrew Coyne sees a bait and switch in the promises Smith got from the PCs. 
- And finally, Brian Topp explores some of the lessons we can draw from the Smith-Prentice deal, while recognizing that they shouldn't be taken as reason not to work across partisan lines.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Jordan Brennan examines the close links between strong organized labour and improved wages for all types of workers:

U.S. scholars have found that higher rates of state-level unionization help reduce working poverty in unionized and non-unionized households and that the effects of unionization are larger than macro performance and social policies in those states. Research shows that the decline of U.S. unions between 1973 and 2007 explains one-fifth to one-third of the growth in U.S. wage inequality—a magnitude comparable to the growing stratification of wages by education. A 2010 study used data from 14,000 respondents in 14 countries and found that life satisfaction is directly related to the level of unionization and that union members report higher life satisfaction than non-union members.

Given the foregoing, ‘unionization’ provides an answer to two questions: ‘What drives income inequality?’ and ‘What can we do about it?’

Union renewal will be difficult in the current political climate, given the hostility governments currently express to the very idea of collective bargaining. The optimistic assessment is that governments are attacking unions despite the fact that unions play a progressive role in middle class formation. The more cynical assessment is that governments are attacking unions (cheered on by factions in the corporate sector) because they understand the role that unions play in building a shared prosperity.

In either case, if unions are going to continue their historic role as elevators of working conditions and lifters of living standards, governments must cease their attacks. But the absence of government hostility will not be enough for unions to flourish in the future. Instead, a supportive policy environment where union security is not only tolerated but nurtured is a crucial ingredient in union renewal.

- Meanwhile, David Dayen notes that U.S. incomes are still increasing only at the very top - and that the result figures to be a burgeoning social movement reviving the concept of forcing change through collective action.

- The Alberta Federation of Labour points out how negligent enforcement of rules governing temporary foreign workers has been putting Alberta at risk. And Bill Tieleman's commentary on the B.C. Libs' school shutdown points out that the teacher's union is simply fighting for class size and composition standards which ultimately benefit students.

- William Marsden reports that Canada's growing list of international embarrassments includes the title of greatest destroyer of natural forests on the planet since 2000. Andrea Germanos discusses a U.S. court's decision on liability for BP's massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill - just in time for oil giants to start drilling in Canada's Arctic region with lax spill response standards. And PressProgress reveals that the oil sector is far from finished demanding that Canada's laws be rewritten to place its interests ahead of the environment (and all other considerations).

- Finally, Denise Balkissoon writes about the need to actively change politics as part of a functioning democratic system, rather than merely complaining about them as something inflicted from outside. And Don Braid's take on Alberta's PC leadership race looks to offer a truly sad example of what happens when all policies and ideals are purged from an electoral process.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Mike Konczal and Bryce Covert write that an effective solution to wealth inequality shouldn't be limited to redistributing individual income or assets, but should also include the development of a commonwealth which benefits everybody:

Instead of just giving people more purchasing power, we should be taking basic needs off the market altogether.

Consider Social Security, a wildly popular program that doesn’t count toward individual wealth. If Social Security were replaced with a private savings account, individuals would have more “wealth” (because they would have their own financial account) but less actual security. The elderly would have to spin the financial-markets roulette wheel and suffer destitution if they were unlucky. This is why social-wealth programs like Social Security combat inequality more powerfully than any privatized, individualized wealth-building “solution.”

Public programs like universal healthcare and free education function the same way, providing social wealth directly instead of hoping to boost people’s savings enough to allow them to afford either. Rather than requiring people to struggle with a byzantine system of private health insurance, universal healthcare would be available to cover the costs of genuine health needs. Similarly, broadly accessible higher education would allow people to thrive without taking on massive student loans and hoping that their “human capital” investment helps them hit the jackpot.

We already know how to create social wealth using taxes on private wealth and capital. Consider inheritance taxes: in addition to creating revenue, they motivate the wealthy to donate to nonprofits and other organs of civil society. Inheritance taxes direct private wealth to public ends.

Bringing wealth under democratic accountability—rather than making everyone a tiny capitalist—has to be an essential part of any equality agenda.

- Meanwhile, Trish Hennessy documents the high (and soaring) costs of university tuition and child care after decades of planning based on user-pay principles. Canada Without Poverty offers 10 reasons to eliminate poverty in Canada. And PressProgress highlights how a living wage is better for the economy at large.

- Matthew Yglesias discusses the relationship between the pursuit of equality and open-door immigration policies:

Reagan-era conservatives could be for welfare state rollback and broadly pro-immigration because they promised a rising tide that would lift all boats. Now that we're decades into an era of wage stagnation, those kind of easy promises ring hollow. So for Cameron and the reformicons, a tilt against immigrants is the new answer. On this view, the big problem with trickle-down economics is that the bucket is too leaky. Let the rich get richer, but prevent them from hiring maids from Latin America, and soon enough wages for native-born maids will rise.

The moral math whereby this policy becomes more attractive than the win/win/win alternative of broadly freer movement of people paired with progressive taxation and more provision of public services has always escaped me somewhat. It appears to involve putting a negative value on the interests of foreign-born people. But it is a real movement. But it's a movement on the right of politics in the United States and other English-speaking countries. Progressives, rightly, see no need to chose between equality and cosmopolitanism.

- And the Star laments that the Cons are matching the Republicans' antipathy toward anybody who doesn't share our luck in being born within a wealthy country's borders:

Last week, the federal government made a small change to Canada’s immigration rules, lowering the maximum age of a “dependant child” and eliminating any recourse for immigrant or refugee parents seeking an exception to the new definition. It’s a subtle shift, to be sure, but its subtlety belies the cruelty of its future impact and the utter lack of human feeling that underlies it and so much of our recent immigration policy.

Until this month, any unmarried child of 21 or younger could qualify as a dependant under Canada’s immigration rules and be automatically accepted along with his or her parents. Accommodations could be made, too, for full-time students older than 21 who were financially dependent on their family. But as of Aug. 1, the federal government lowered the maximum age to 18 and eliminated all exceptions.
...
From a human perspective...it’s appalling. As Ashley Chapman of Citizens for Public Justice pointed out in a recent Star opinion piece, “the changes go against one of the official objectives of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act — to reunite families.” The government estimates that roughly 7,000 young adults – some 800 children of refugees among them – will no longer be eligible to immigrate along with their families as dependants this year.

To abandon these youths, often in dangerous countries, without the financial or psychological support of their parents, is morally backwards. The children of those fleeing persecution are known to be at higher risk of violence themselves, especially without the protection of their family. As the Canadian Council for Refugees has pointed out, the dangers are particularly grave and abundant for isolated young women.
...
And so we have closed the door a little further, become yet a little less welcoming and a little less caring. And all this because of a foolish and dangerous abstraction: the fallacious idea, ever more central to our immigration policy, that people can be reduced to mere economic units.

- Finally, Colin Freeze reports on CSEC's refusal to let Canadians know how long it's storing their private data - offering a compelling signal that privacy rights are being given absolutely no weight whatsoever as massive amounts of personal information are collected without approval or effective public oversight. But lest we think complete unaccountability is an exception rather than the rule, Bob Weber finds a similar response from Alberta's government after asking for an explanation as to who's being included and excluded in energy development hearings.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Linda McQuaig discusses how a burgeoning wealth gap is particularly obvious when it comes to retirement security:

Quaint as it now seems, not long ago this was considered a good basic plan: Work hard all your life and then retire with a comfortable pension.

In recent times, a new plan has replaced it: Work hard all your life and then all bets are off.

The notion of retirement security in exchange for a lifetime of hard work — a central element in the implicit social contract between capital and labour in the postwar years — has been effectively tossed aside, as corporations have become more insatiable in their demands and governments have increasingly abandoned workers.
...
In what amounts to a radical overhaul, [the Con government] announced last April that it intends to change long-standing legislation governing workplace pensions in ways that would allow employers (private sector and Crown corporations) to walk away from pension commitments they made to employees, even after those employees have paid into the plans throughout their working years.
...
Workplace pensions were always expected to be a key part of that retirement security. Unlike many European countries, where public pensions were generous enough to serve as the centerpiece of a retiree’s income, the Canadian government kept public pension benefits low and encouraged workers to rely on workplace pensions.

That worked fine for those who were able to negotiate workplace pensions with an employer — generally those who had a union to represent them. In such cases, both the employer and the employees typically contributed to the plan, under terms that specified what benefits would be paid out to employees in their retirement.

Employers now want to be able to fundamentally rewrite the terms of those workplace pension deals so that, if the market plunges and the pension fund declines, the pay-outs will be less — in effect, shifting the risk from the company to the retiree.
...
It’s striking, however, that a bold embrace of risk is only expected of those in the lower echelons of the corporate world. At the top, executives cling to old-world notions — like securing comfortable retirements.

- And Regina civic workers are taking action to make sure the city keeps its pension promises - rather than either demanding concessions now, or changing the rules so it can unilaterally slash benefits later.

- Brian Iler suggests that the Cons' charity crackdown could have been avoided if Canada adopted a definition of charity work which included promoting public debate on political issues. But while that change might have given current charities more confidence as to the result of the current round of government-directed audits, it wouldn't have done much to avoid the needless expense of going through the audit process in the first place.

- Meanwhile, Kaylie Tiessen is hopeful that Ontario is ready for a serious conversation about the need for more revenue to fund public services.

- Kayle Hatt studies the federal government's cuts to summer student programs. And CBC reports that Calgary's decision to outsource park maintenance work has led to temporary foreign workers taking the place of students who would otherwise be able to use a summer income to fund their education.

- Finally, the Ottawa Citizen identifies one of the surest signs of an ethically bankrupt government - while noting that the Harper Cons and Alberta's PCs are just two of the governing parties who seem to be treating that lack of ethics as a goal to be pursued:

There seems to be an epidemic in Canada of rogue staffers doing unethical things their political bosses would never, ever sanction.

The most famous is Nigel Wright, the former chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who wrote a large cheque to a sitting senator. Then there’s the OPP search-warrant document alleging that David Livingston, the chief of staff for former Premier Dalton McGuinty, hired someone to purge emails during the transition to Kathleen Wynne’s premiership. There is the ongoing mystery about the voter-suppression phone calls in several federal ridings in 2011 “by a person or persons currently unknown to this court,” in the words of Federal Court Judge Richard G. Mosley.

Now there is a leaked, draft auditor’s report about former Alberta Premier Alison Redford, suggesting her staff manipulated airplane bookings so that she could treat the planes as personal limos.
...
An ethical organization does not build plausible deniability into its hierarchies and relationships; it does not have any reason to. The fact that it seems to be built in to Canadian political culture, in more than one party, in more than one province, is sickening.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Stuart Trew fleshes out the Cons' new(-ly explicit) Corporate Cronies Action Plan - and it goes even further in entrenching corporate control over policy than one might have expected at first glance:

- The makeup of the advisory panel that consulted with Trade Minister Fast skews the new Action Plan in favour energy- and water-intensive agricultural export sectors, multinational business represented by the CCCE, and the energy sector. There was no worker representation on the advisory committee. And the involvement of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business is arguably more of a cover for Harper than a sign that Canada's trade policy is designed to help small- and medium-sized companies the most. The Action Plan says SMEs are the "backbone" of the Canadian economy and yet only 41,000 of 1.09 million companies are engaged in external trade. That is a very domestically oriented backbone.

- This corporate advisory committee will become, under the Action Plan, a permanent "advisory council" that "will include two standing subcommittees, one on emerging markets and the other on established markets. Comprising business and industry leaders, experts in international business and key representatives from the SME community, the subcommittees will bring together the voices of all businesses, big and small. They will provide strategic insight, advice and real-world perspectives on how to keep the market access plans relevant to Canadian business needs." Will the meetings be private, like Minister Flaherty's corporate summer retreats in Wakefield? The advisory council meetings were (see below).

- The government-business merger will work both ways. The Harper government will place "embedded Government of Canada personnel within key industry associations in order to gain better insight into sectoral needs and ensure these are reflected in services provided." Why spend money to hire a lobbyist in Ottawa when you can have the government spending the public's money to attending your meetings?

- Meanwhile, CBC reports that the Cons are breaking yet another promise to regulate oil-sector greenhouse gas emissions. And the most they've learned after constantly scrapping their promised timelines is not to bother offering any more commitments.

- David Climenhaga writes that Alison Redford's PCs are attacking precisely the voters who allowed them to hold onto power by imposing draconian wage freezes on public-sector workers. But I'm not sure it's fair to be surprised that an anti-social party is imposing anti-social policy - and indeed the more important lesson may be one about the dangers of settling for a "lesser of the evils" government which will gleefully turn against workers when it sees an opportunity to do so.

- The Star again laments Canada's utter failure to live up to its 1989 commitment to end child poverty, while Carol Goar similarly criticizes the right's attacks on unemployment benefits. And Tim Harford recognizes the case for a guaranteed annual income - which would go a long way toward ending poverty in general.

- Finally, Keith Reynolds discusses what happens when P3s and offshore tax avoidance intersect - with a B.C. hospital serving as a clear example:

Partnerships BC considers the taxes paid by the private P3 partner when it is deciding whether or not to choose the public-private partnership method of project development. Partnerships BC claims these private sector taxes as an advantage of P3s, but what happens if the project is moved to a tax haven and taxes paid decline dramatically?
...
So how is B.C. reacting to this? What are they doing about the possibility the tax revenues they projected from P3s are disappearing into tax havens like Luxembourg? As it turns out, absolutely nothing. An earlier blog post found the Ministry of Finance in response to a Freedom of Information request asking about the impact of tax havens and P3s said "although a thorough search was conducted, no responsive records were located. Your file is now closed."

Partnerships BC provided 75 pages of material in response to the same request. None of it dealt with the tax impact to government if a project moved to a tax haven.

Now one more B.C. public-private partnership has seen its ownership move to Luxembourg. What is the cost to taxpayers? Nobody knows and the results from FOI requests suggest the government isn't looking.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Frances Russell rightly asks whose freedom is supposed to be protected by free trade agreements such as CETA:

Once Canada signs CETA (the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) with Europe, federal, provincial and municipal governments will suddenly find their hands and feet tied. Suddenly, they will experience real push-back from foreign multinationals should they try to use their historic right to maintain civic, provincial and national autonomy in governmental decision making.

Simultaneously, Canada’s sub-national governments will suddenly discover they have lost the ability to protect the environment, create well-paying, long-term jobs and assist their marginalized citizens unless they are prepared to pay a hefty profit to some private corporation through what is now known as public-private partnerships.
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CETA — and indeed all “free” trade deals being crafted in this era of global corporate rule, neo-conservatism and privatization — are, in the famous words of Canada’s leading humanitarian thinker, Sen Eugene Forsey “the greatest ever romp of the rich to skin the poor in history.”

As the details of what Prime Minister Stephen Harper signed off on last week start to trickle out, Canadians should be appalled and angry.

- And William Amos and Carissa Wong discuss the importance of putting the public interest ahead of the profit motive when it comes to Canadian water.

- CBC reports that Alberta isn't interested in applying its own law to allow First Nations to speak about tar sands developments which may contaminate their traditional land and water. And Martin Lukacs takes note of the Elsipogtog fracking protests as the front line of a growing movement, while Daniel Wilson looks at the roots of the protest.

- Of course, your corporate overlords aren't taking too kindly to First Nations' efforts to assert their rights. Which is why the Cons are siding with abusers to sweep aside records detailing the horrific mistreatment of First Nations children and ensure that the Truth and Reconciliation commission can't achieve either of its nominal purposes - while the Sask Party ignores continued calls to stop their racist attack ads.

- But in an all-too-rare piece of good news, Lori Culbert reports that B.C.' Therapeutics Initiative will survive the corporate tag team of Christy Clark and big pharma - at least for now.

- Finally, Klint Finley discusses the Madison Project's effort to move away from the opaque, top-down governance style epitomized by the Cons and Sask Party through open, participatory drafting of legislation.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Debbie Chachra discusses why an effective government is a necessary element of civilization - and why charity can't fill in the gap:

Taxes aren't the only way to pay for civilization, of course: community groups, charities, and churches also contribute. But I consider myself a fairly prudent consumer, and I want my money to be used well.

Even excellent charities are inefficient. Take food banks. We have a distribution system that goes from farms to warehouses to grocery stores. Food banks then set up more warehouses and pick-up sites to get sustenance out to those in need, often food that's already gone down the first chain. It's far more efficient to give people the means to use the retail distribution network than to create and have them use an alternate system.

Charity is also ad hoc: it's difficult to get help to people who need it in a systematic way that makes sure no one falls through the cracks. And charities, especially ones that do take on the challenge of large-scale issues, need to spend much of their income asking people like me to help.
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(W)hile I regularly donate to charities and I believe they play an important role in society, I don't want them in lieu of more efficient systems. I don't want to go to fundraisers to pay the medical bills of artists; I want them to have health insurance. I want to be able to go to meetings on the other side of the country and buy chicken for dinner without worrying about my safety. And I want programs like WIC to provide services that reduce the need for more expensive interventions. 

- Barbara Kermode-Scott writes that big pharma's move to trash British Columbia's Therapeutics Initiative is being met with some international response from doctors who want more information about drugs than what manufacturers put in their promotional materials.

- CBC's series on offshore tax evasion continues with a look at the role Barbados plays in concealing large amounts of wealth siphoned out of Canada. 

- Graham Thomson writes that the Redford PCs' response to a judicial finding that they've deliberately and wrongfully shut the community out of environmental review processes has been to operate in denial that the decision was ever made.

- And Aaron Wherry surveys how Canadian courts have rejected the Cons' mandatory minimum sentence approach to criminal justice.

- Finally, Glen Pearson's takedown of backroom power brokerage is well worth reading (and applying as a test to all political parties):

For whatever reason, these former kingmakers, having had their day, refuse to ride quietly over the horizon. But for all their expertise and experience, their veiled arrogance hints of the kind of political class thinking that increasingly repels the average citizen. The brutality of their language sounds exactly like the regular partisan rants that emanate from the House of Commons on any given day of the week. It is the old politics that sees voters turning away from the political space in droves.
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There is a new democracy [slowly] emerging to fight such shadows, not only in Canada, but in other nations at present that is calling for increased respect, an instinct for cooperation, that is commensurate with the significant challenges faced by communities and reacts with revulsion to those who play at politics while unemployment rises, jobs grow more scarce, our infrastructure deficit runs in the billions, and our middle class facing the greatest challenges in a generation. In such a world, the playground of former kingmakers appears not only out of place, but downright maddening.

The new democracy is more about citizen activism than backroom shenanigans and pressing for transparency than secret dealings. It ultimately opts for cooperation over contention, public policy over punishing partisanship, and a sense of the integration of power over its ideology. This is the politics more and more Canadians are requesting, but it's all fluff and airy ideals to the likes of Reid and Kinsella. They prefer the smell of the trenches over the messy work of the grassroots. Elections are their game, not engagement.

Ironically, our public fate in Canada depends on the outcome of the war between these two practices of democracy. How can citizens possibly win out over such courtiers, when power itself prefers the secret corridors over the public thoroughfares? Well, it's slowly happening regardless of the backroom boys. Activism in our communities is inevitably filling the vacuum left by an increasingly vacuous hunt for political power for its own sake. But this doesn't suit the power players, who show little interest in our daily struggles and who, ironically, are guilty of the same trait they accused Michael Ignatieff of: they're just visiting.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- David Olive writes that the dangerous effects of long-term unemployment (caused in no small part by gratuitous austerity) are just as much a problem in Canada as in the U.S.:

With our persistent high levels of long-term unemployment, Canada is at risk of creating a new permanent underclass. The world’s economic policymaking elite, Ottawa’s included, hasn’t grasped that its enslavement to the “austerity chic” of severe cutbacks in government’s contribution to the economy is retarding the recovery it claims to be promoting. It’s like watching a grainy newsreel of Herbert Hoover’s lectures on the paramount virtue of balanced budgets, while banks, farms and barber shops go bust and the jobless rate soars above 30 per cent.

Long-term unemployment is an affliction for more than a quarter million Canadians who have been out of work for longer than 27 weeks. A great many of these 250,000-plus Canadians have spouses, and children and elderly parents to care for. So the total number of Canadians suffering the hardship of long-term unemployment is far higher than a quarter-million people.
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With a low debt-to-GDP ratio that is the envy of our G-7 peers, Canada can comfortably afford to rebuild the country and prevent the emergence of a new permanent economic underclass.

It needn’t be repeated that decisions on austerity and stimulus have consequences. Or perhaps it does, since by our silent assent to faddish government austerity we are accepting “unnecessary human misery,” not in some faraway land but in our very midst. 

- David Climenhaga traces Alberta's 2011 labour code rewrite directly to corporate influence. And while Bob Weber reports on the province finally laying charges related to an oil spill from the same year, he also notes that the PCs' first response was to try to suppress the truth:

The Greenpeace report outlines examples which it says demonstrates how officials were more concerned with protecting the image of a besieged industry than protecting the public.

It points out the board's own reviewers recommended on Sept. 13, 2011, that a public inquiry into the spill be held — a recommendation that was squelched by the board's chief operating officer three weeks later.

The environmental group also suggests that the board misrepresented air-quality data from the Little Buffalo school, quoting a board statement that "based on the current data, there is no evidence that the air quality poses risk of long-term health impact at this time."
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Greenpeace also pointed out contradictions between the board's report and what Energy Minister Ken Hughes was told privately. While the board concluded "contaminated water was not migrating off site," a May 6, 2011, briefing note to Hughes said "there are some exceedances of hydrocarbons downstream from the wetlands."

Finally, Greenpeace quotes a May 31, 2011, briefing note to then-premier Ed Stelmach that the group says contradicts assurances given to the public: "Full restoration of the localized area is unlikely," the briefing note says.

- Meanwhile, Dave Sims points out that Saskatchewan's regulatory system is in rather rough shape too - with no information available as to what injuries and deaths have taken place at which rural and northern sites for employers with a head office in a city.

- Travis Lupick notes that Christy Clark's parting smash-and-grab of British Columbia includes the destruction of a pharmaceutical watchdog which ensured better prices and outcomes for the province's health care system (at the expense of allowing big pharma's marketing to go unquestioned).

- Finally, Erin Weir suggests that most Canadian provinces are arriving by consensus at a 12% floor for corporate tax rates.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- Timothy Noah writes that since Republicans haven't been able to convince the American public that inequality is desirable or acceptable, they're taking another angle: engaging in inequality denialism to try to pretend a growing problem doesn't exist.

- Tim Harper discusses the importance of Kevin Page's attempts to get accurate fiscal information out of the Con government. And Andrew Coyne points out that the federal government's budget bears little relationship to the estimates which are supposed to keep MPs and the public informed as to what's going on - with even government ministers having little idea how their (nominal) decisions actually affect Canada's finances.

- Meanwhile, Don Lenihan provides an overview of the arguments to suggest Canada's democracy is in crisis. And Michael Den Tandt adds his voice to the mix.

- Finally, Don Braid writes about the revelation that Daryl Katz' massive donations to the Alberta PCs at the end of the last provincial election - and notes that the Katz story is merely a by-product of lax donation laws. Needless to say, this should give us reason to ask questions about whether Saskatchewan's elections rules should be changed to prevent similar (or worse) abuses - and whether Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party intends to preserve a flawed system for its own benefit.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Yesterday's Alberta election certainly proved somewhat of a shocker - producing about the best possible result short of a minority scenario that would have allowed the NDP to exercise the balance of power, as the slightly-less-right party won even as its most notorious ideologue went down in flames. But I'd still think it's a wide open question as to whether the PCs will actually govern consistently with the wishes of the progressive voters who offered strategic support (as suggested by Sheila Pratt), or whether they'll instead veer right in order to win back some of the mass of Wildrose voters - meaning that even a majority government provides virtually no certainty as to what comes next.

- Keith Beardsley points out a massive opening for the NDP to make ethics and accountability into a decisive issue in the next federal election, while Lawrence Martin has some suggestions as to reach that result. Meanwhile, a new CROP poll shows the NDP with a commanding lead in Quebec.

- Brian Topp is back writing for the Globe and Mail online after the NDP's leadership campaign - and his take on the first phase of France's presidential election is well worth a read.

- Finally, Stephen Gordon breaks down the types of taxes collected by the OECD countries.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Susan Riley highlights the fact that we'll only move past the narrow view of politics that's dominated Canada's federal scene for too long if the media is willing to play its part:

'This is going to change so many things," veteran New Democrat Libby Davies said in the aftermath of her party's breakthrough on election night. "I think it's a whole new ball game. It's going to be a whole new kind of politics."

That could be true (please let it be true), but a number of things have to change radically, starting with the way the media leap on every unscripted comment, from every politician, declare it a gaffe, then set about finding other politicians to denounce it.
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The most distressing element of the just-ended campaign was the reluctance of so many candidates (including talented newcomers such as former diplomat Chris Alexander, now a Conservative MP) to appear at all-candidates meetings, talk to the media or stray even slightly from the careful banalities of the official platform.

No wonder politics is boring to so many people. No wonder the turnout (61.4 per cent) is still distressingly low. You also wonder why accomplished individuals, such as Alexander, submit to the intellectual editing.
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To recap, what would Davies' "new kind of politics" look like? Interesting, sometimes outrageous, sometimes offensive, ideas from ordinary MPs. Opposition leaders (including Rae and the estimable Elizabeth May) focused on issues, not insults. A more relaxed prime minister. And many bright newcomers to challenge, not succumb to, the deadening cynicism of our politics.

As for a more responsible, less excitable media? OK, that will be harder.

- But the Globe and Mail offers at least one example worth following in defending the NDP's wide range of new Quebec MPs:

The election to Parliament of students and twentysomethings has been a source of bemusement for some political elites. Not all of these accidental NDP MPs expected to win. But to hold them up to ridicule, before they have exercised any of their public duties, is to be contemptuous of democracy itself.
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No one is entitled to public office, and why should students be taken any less seriously than, say, rookie MPs whose background is in farming or medicine? Voters were drawn to the NDP (particularly in Quebec), and so they elected NDP candidates, disappointing many – including “star” candidates of many partisan stripes, assured of success by the party brass, and those aspirants, old and young, who have plotted every phase of their political careers. That’s the magic of representative democracy.

Quebec’s new NDP MPs are not there just to represent the young. Yet the voices of young people should be heard. And we should heed both youth issues – the fiscal and environmental deficits they will inherit; the quality of the educational system – and the manner in which youth raise them. The most skilled among them will bring suppleness, strength and new ways of communicating to the Commons, reinvigorating a chamber that the public clearly thought could use some new energy. So rather than heaping scorn on these new MPs, let us wish them well.

- Erica Alini points out an OECD report showing that inequality has been worsening around the world, with at least one of the mooted causes figuring to be relatively easily remedied if there's the political will to do so:

(c) Across the board, governments have been withdrawing from the markets, leading to lower minimum wages compared to average wages, sinking union membership, and fewer state-owned enterprises. Though these changes raised employment levels, they also likely weakened the redistributive mechanisms that used to restrain the gap between rich and poor.

- Finally, Sheila Pratt shines a spotlight on the Alberta PCs' cone of silence. And it's not hard to find evidence of that type of refusal to listen to anybody who doesn't cheerlead for a governing party being imposed in Saskatchewan as well.