Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Morris Pearl and Pramila Jayapal make the case for raising more revenue from the people with the most to contribute. And Jayati Ghosh notes that a minimum effective corporate tax rate would go a long way toward avoiding the offshore sheltering of corporate wealth.

- Dan Traficonte and Ian Wells write about the need for public research and planning to support a Green New Deal. And Ellen Brown examines the potential for public banking to both better address underserved communities, and ensure that investment serves the common good.

- Meanwhile, Michael Leger points out how SNC Lavalin fits into the legacy of corporate and political cronyism reinforced by the Trudeau Libs - though I'd hope there's little doubt that we should expect more from our leaders than to accept self-serving spin about the economy depending on lawless corporatists never being held accountable for their actions. And Laila Yuile writes the SNC Lavalin is now trying to manipulate public opinion the way it's already pulled the strings in Trudeau's PMO.

- Dorothy Woodend interviews Phyllis Ellis about the hidden dangers lurking in poorly-regulated cosmetic and personal care products. And Sigal Samuel offers a reminder of the gender data gap resulting from the default assumption that consumers and patients are men.

- Finally, Omar Mosleh discusses the spread of violent white supremacy which is causing significant fear in Edmonton's minority communities. And Antonia Zerbisias highlights the need to fight the normalization of reactionary conservatism.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Jordan Brennan details (and expands on) how corporate tax cuts have served solely to further enrich the people and businesses who already had the most:

(F)ar from improving economic outcomes, there is evidence to suggest that corporate income tax reductions depressed Canadian GDP growth. I present a detailed explanation of why that's the case in a forthcoming study to be published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Given the election debate around raising the CIT rate, I thought it worthwhile to summarize my findings.

In my study I contrast three Canadian corporate income tax rates -- the effective federal CIT rate, the combined Canadian statutory CIT rate, and the weighted average effective rate on the top 60 Canadian-based firms -- with five growth variables: investment in fixed assets, employment, GDP per capita, labour compensation and productivity. Based on the findings, I conclude that there is no empirical or statistically significant relationship between CIT regime and growth. Business investment is a key determinant of GDP growth, employment and labour compensation, but over the long-term it is unresponsive to changes in the statutory or effective CIT rate.
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Canadian CIT rate reductions not only failed to lead to faster growth, there is evidence to suggest that CIT rate reductions contributed to slower growth. By reducing CIT rates, Canadian governments contributed to the increased income position of large firms. Instead of investing their enlarged earnings into growth-expanding industrial projects, Canada's corporate sector -- especially its largest firms -- have increasingly stockpiled cash on their balance sheet. This "dead money," as former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney called it, is one ingredient in the heightened stagnation of recent times.

As the leading firms claim a larger share of national income through enhanced size and market power, their capacity to stockpile cash increases. By hoarding cash these firms stabilize dividend payments, thus reducing risk, and this leaves them with more liquidity for acquisition activities and to hedge against market downturn. One consequence of the stockpiling of cash, then, is that a smaller share of national income is deployed to expand employment and industrial capacity.

- Andrew Perez wonders whether Canadians will wind up voting strategically, while noting that it would be for the best if we can move past it (which, fortunately, is an option). And it's worth noting that the seemingly large pool of Canadians inclined mostly to vote for change in the identity of the Prime Minister should improve the chances of bringing at least that much about due to likelihood that late deciders will reach relatively similar conclusions as to the best option based on their observations of the same campaign.

- But then, as Jamey Heath points out, we should be demanding more than the same policies with different branding - making the NDP the better choice as a matter of principle as well as strategy.

- Jorge Barrera reports on the revelation (pointed out by Robert Jago) that the Cons saw the federal government's apology for residential schools as an "attempt to kill the story" rather than a means of rather than an actual expression of contrition. And Faisal Kutty calls out the Cons' Muslim-bashing.

- Finally, Michael Harris writes that the Cons have finally and permanently lost any benefit of the doubt from the Canadian public. And Antonio Zerbisias concludes that the refugee crisis has exposed the compassion gap between the Cons and Canadians, while Tim Harper is the latest to weigh in on Stephen Harper's crumbling campaign.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Michael Hiltzik discusses how corporate apologists are trying (but failing) to minimize the existence and importance of income inequality. Lawrence Martin notes that the rest of Canada's economic indicators are similarly signalling that Conservative dogma is of absolutely no use in the real world. And Michael Geist observes that among the new "caretaker" rules is a provision allowing the Cons to keep trying to inflict the TPP as their parting shot at Canada even if their election plans are going nowhere.

- Michael Harris points out just a few of the whoppers which Stephen Harper will have to try to sell over the course of the federal election campaign. And it's well worth noting that Harper will need to do so while being trusted by virtually nobody outside his party's core supporters.

- In contrast, Antonia Zerbisias comments that Thomas Mulcair's has seemed impervious to attacks so far. (Though there's no doubt that he'll be tested more during the campaign than he has been yet.)

- Judy Shum comments on the progress made by the Housing First program in providing a secure base for previously-homeless Saskatoon residents.

- Finally, Hugh MacKenzie counters the Fraser Institute's latest attempt to pitch retirement only for the few. Noralou Roos and Evelyn Forget make the case for a guaranteed annual income to make sure everybody enjoys enough security to make choices. And CBC reports that university students in Newfoundland and Labrador are set to start receiving grants rather than being buried under a lifetime of student loan debt.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Barbara Tasch writes about the IMF's latest research on growing inequality in developing and developed countries alike. And Michael Krassa and Benjamin Radcliff study the impact an improved minimum wage can have on economic well-being:

Simply stated, as the minimum wage increases, the economic wellbeing of the national population rises. Statistically speaking this relationship is a strong one, significant at the .001 level.
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Here’s the bottom line: Regardless of the size of a country's economy, its current economic situation, or the time frame chosen, people lead better lives as the minimum wage increases.

Although correlation does not prove causation, the evidence we have assembled strongly suggests that higher minimum wages do indeed work to the financial betterment of society as a whole. Even if some low-wage jobs disappear as minimum wages rise, the end result is greater economic security and prosperity overall for people who live and work in countries with the higher minimums.

- Daniel Angster points out Barack Obama's efforts to make sure that big money in U.S. politics can be traced back to its origins. But David Cay Johnston discusses how Koch-funded judges are going out of their way to prevent any investigation into Scott Walker's illegal coordination with corporate actors. And the CP reports that corporations which made illegal donations to Con Peter Penashue are being let off without meaningful consequences.

- Meanwhile, Matt McClure exposes the massive amounts of corporate taxes left uncollected in Alberta before the business-dominated PCs finally lost power.

- Stephanie Levitz reports that the Cons' cuts have resulted in Canada breaking its promises to accept refugees. And Antonia Zerbisias writes that neither newly-arrived immigrants nor life-long Canadians can feel safe in due to the introduction of two-tiered citizenship.

- Finally, Paul Mason offers an intriguing look at how our economy may shift away from our current model of corporate-dominated capitalism to a model where shared information and abundance serves as a platform for increased individual freedom.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Joseph Stiglitz laments the corporate takeover of policy-making processes, including by imposing trade rules which impede democratic decision-making:

The real intent of [investor protection] provisions is to impede health, environmental, safety, and, yes, even financial regulations meant to protect America’s own economy and citizens. Companies can sue governments for full compensation for any reduction in their future expected profits resulting from regulatory changes. 

This is not just a theoretical possibility. Philip Morris is suing Uruguay and Australia for requiring warning labels on cigarettes. Admittedly, both countries went a little further than the US, mandating the inclusion of graphic images showing the consequences of cigarette smoking. 

The labeling is working. It is discouraging smoking. So now Philip Morris is demanding to be compensated for lost profits. 

In the future, if we discover that some other product causes health problems (think of asbestos), rather than facing lawsuits for the costs imposed on us, the manufacturer could sue governments for restraining them from killing more people. The same thing could happen if our governments impose more stringent regulations to protect us from the impact of greenhouse-gas emissions.

- Meanwhile, Joe Oliver provides a prime example by demanding that the U.S. abandon what little regulation it has over the financial sector under threat of a NAFTA suit. And Cory Doctorow writes that the secrecy surrounding the TPP includes having security staff keep even U.S. Senators from so much as making notes on the deal - because heaven forfend an elected official should be able to remember details of what closed-door corporate meetings have produced.

- Arloc Sherman and Danilo Trisi note that even the U.S.' frayed social safety net may be doing a better job of reducing poverty than it receives credit for. But we can never take those social supports for granted - and Lori Culbert reports on a new B.C. Ombudsman study showing how that province's welfare system is designed to discriminate against the people who most need help.

- Dennis Hiebert makes the case for charities to be able to comment on the areas of their expertise rather than being silenced by the Cons. And Elizabeth Thompson reports on Jean-Pierre Kingsley's proposal that government advertising be limited in the lead up to an election campaign.

- Finally, Antonia Zerbisias is hopeful that the Harper Cons' electoral strategy will fall apart as thoroughly as their policy plans. And Paul Orlowski theorizes that orange waves could be the new normal in Canadian politics.

Saturday Morning Links

This and that to start your long weekend.

- Antonia Zerbisias and Thomas Walkom both discuss the connection between organized labour and the very existence of a substantial middle class. And Janice Kennedy worries about the all-too-prevalent trend toward worker-bashing.

- But Andrew Jackson nicely points out why attempts to undermine unions have nothing at all to do with general economic development, and everything to do with distancing a small elite from the rest of the population:

Further to my earlier post on the “own goal” scored by the Fraser Institute report on North American labour markets, the Table below shows the rankings of the Canadian provinces – out of 60 states and provinces – for (1) labour market performance, 2007-11 and (2) the unionization rate. (I have reversed the Fraser ranking for the latter indicator so that a rank of 1 rather than 60 is given to the jurisdiction with the highest unionization rate.)

The provinces all score relatively well in terms of labour market performance, with 4 in the top 10, and only Nova Scotia not in the top 20. (This indicator is based on job creation, unemployment and productivity growth.)

Provinces make up 9 of the top 10 jurisdictions by unionization. (New York and Alaska have higher unionization rates than Alberta which ranks 12 in North America.)

Obviously a lot of factors are at play in terms of job creation- but, if the data show anything, it is that high unionization is associated with better rather than worse labour market performance.

- Of course, that type of readily-available example might have something to do with the right's desire to ensure we don't have access to facts about where we stand as a society. And Statistics Canada is rightly challenging the most egregious Canadian example by pushing the Cons to reverse at least part of their choice to undermine Canada's census.

- Pat Atkinson notes that Saskatchewan's children stand to lose out from the loss of full-day kindergarten and other forms of early childhood development in the province.

- Finally, George Monbiot highlights the increasingly alarming connection between climate change which far exceeds even the estimates which should have driven us to global action decades ago, and policy-makers either denying or neglecting the problem.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- There's been plenty of followup on Robocon, with columns from Andrew Coyne and Thomas Walkom on the Cons' increasingly unethical culture, along with followup reporting from Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor on live voter fraud and Steve Rennie and Bruce Cheadle on Elections Canada's willingness to give the Cons the benefit of the doubt before the scheme proved quite so systematic ranking at the top of the list of must-reads. But for those with time, there's more from the CBC, pogge, and @ethicalls.

- Meanwhile, the Cons' unique definition of ethics and accountability is also getting nicely exposed by Peter MacKay, who's running and hiding from the revelation that he used military personnel for political purposes.

- Gerald Caplan highlights how even compelling proof that rigging our economic system toward top-heavy growth is doomed to failure has done nothing to stem the tide of shock doctrine opportunism:

(E)verything that’s happened in the past several years has gone to further empower and enrich the 1 per cent (or maybe the 5 per cent) at the expense of the rest of us. Look anywhere you want. What else does the universal demand for austerity programs mean? What else does the sudden concerted attack on public sector workers mean? What else does the intransigent line taken by multinational corporations against their unions mean? What else does the demand for “right-to-work” laws mean? What else does the widespread attack on seniors’ pensions mean?
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Throughout, economists like Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, whose forecasts have repeatedly been borne out, assured the few who would listen this was a guaranteed recipe for exacerbating Greece’s economic woes. It meant, after all, instead of growth, a guaranteed contraction of the economy. Which is exactly what happened. But apparently these critics, while correct about the consequences of enforced austerity, were wrong about the proper solution. The punishment, it seems, had not been crushing enough. Now a new and improved package of pain will be inflicted, a condition for the country receiving bailout funds at sky-high borrowing costs. For the vast majority of them, it’s a Greek tragedy.

At least 21 per cent of Greeks are unemployed. Yet the thumbscrews are to be tightened once again: more austerity, more spending cuts, eliminating another 20 per cent of all government jobs and slashing the minimum wage by another 22 per cent. All this, in a country in its fifth year of recession.

Spain is not far behind, collapsing under the same burden of salvation. The economy’s contracting, unemployment has soared; 350,000 newly out of work, giving a jobless rate of 22.8 per cent, including almost half of all young Spaniards. These are staggering figures. In Britain too, David Cameron’s punishing economic strategy had led to a shrinking economy.

How exactly ordinary Greeks and Spaniards and Brits will endure, get by, pay for their rent or groceries or transportation, or offer their kids a hopeful life – this has become the greatest question of the early 21st century.

- Similarly, Linda McQuaig laments how the prospect of revenue increases - particularly to close the deliberate deficits set up by the Cons - has been a no-go zone for most observers despite widespread public support.

- Finally, Antonia Zerbisias' latest fits nicely with the developing rift between the Cons' strategy of favouring western resource sectors and the Ontario voters who have the most to lose from that choice.

Sunday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your long weekend.

- I'll agree with pogge that Tabatha Southey's latest is well worth a read. But while it's worth recognizing the differences between the respective priorities involved in managing a country as opposed to a family, there's one point hinted at by Southey which should be seen more as a similarity than it actually is:

(W)hile living within one's means is a noble goal, few people, and very few businesses, balance their budgets on a year-to-year basis. They have mortgages, for example, or loans taken out to expand investment, or because of unforeseen strife.

But then they also have assets. So debt is also investment.

It's easy to alarm people over a deficit. It's a high number and people are forever being told that it's theirs and their children's debt and specifically how much of it is theirs, per capita.

But no one ever tells them how much highway they own, per capita, or what section of the Grand Canyon is theirs. It's a very one-sided, frequently opportunistic way of expressing the situation.

Of course, part of the problem is that parties on the right tend to be averse to public ownership in the first place. But for the rest of us, it's well worth keeping in mind the value of owning assets publicly - and ensuring that value isn't lost to corporate-focused P3 or privatization schemes in deciding what to do with public resources.

- Antonia Zerbisias points out that we can't take a safesupply of water for granted. Sadly, Regina offers a case in point.

- The Cons make up poor excuses for their decision to prevent NDP MP Ryan Cleary from visiting the 9 Wing Gander air base. CC calls BS.

- Finally, Origins of Politics points out how Sun Media is giving far more reach and exposure to bigotry on the Canadian political scene.

On valid questions

Antonia Zerbisias may not be so restrained in her own take on the issue. But let's point out that her example (drawn from Sault Ste. Marie police chief Bob Davies) as to the role the gun registry can play in cases of domestic abuse is exactly the kind of area where there may be some rational discussion to be had in contrast to the "'you want to lock up Uncle Joe on the farm'/'you want to kill women and children!'" quality of rhetoric that seems to be characterizing the issue these days:

Most often, the registry is used when domestic assaults go to court. If an accused appears likely to reoffend, police will request the Crown attorney ask for weapons to be surrendered while the person is on bail.

"They won't volunteer that information," said Davies.

"Without the registry we wouldn't know if they had firearms."

Now, I'm not inclined to simply take that without question. But rather than simply dismissing it out of hand as the Con side of the debate is looking to do, let's actually ask the questions that can determine whether the long gun registry will serve a particularly valuable purpose in cases of domestic assaults.

Does the long gun registry provide information beyond any licensing that takes place for gun owners and sales that allows the court to determine what weapons an accused might own in such situations?

And in the wake of the Con-imposed amnesty, is it reliable enough to serve a useful purpose beyond requiring self-reporting backed by appropriate searches at the time an accused is released on bail?

If the answer to both is demonstrably "yes" (keeping in mind that the mere fact that the long gun registry is currently used for those purposes isn't a full answer absent reason to think that alternatives aren't available), then that's the kind of use for the long gun registry which might well shift the debate. So let's start the discussion on both sides for this and other similar examples.

Saturday Morning Links

A few links for a rainy Saturday...

- The National Statistics Council has learned the hard way what should be obvious to anybody who's paid attention for the past four years: any attempt at evenhandedness in even the most obvious condemnation of the Harper Cons will be spun as unconditional support. So just to be on the safe side, it's best to be scathing at all times.

- Take for example Antonia Zerbisias, who goes into detail about the contents of the long-form census along with the comparable means of collecting information in the countries being wrong-headedly pointed to by the Cons as not having a census at all:

(C)arrying anything more than a driver’s license in Canada is never necessary, and even if you do have to turn yours over to a police officer who stops you, it reveals nothing more than the fact that you need glasses to drive and that you have unpaid parking tickets.

Which is why Canadians can go about their business confident that nobody’s minding it.

Not so in many other countries, including Nordic European nations where census taking has been abandoned for the collection of personal information through “administrative data.” In Finland, everybody gets an ID code and electronic chip card. Not only does its national Population Registry require citizens to inform the government of every change of address, the card must be used in bank transactions and the payment of wages.

In Sweden, it’s the tax authorities who maintain population data which include marital and family relationships as well as other personal data.

That’s far more invasive of citizen privacy than Canada’s mandatory long-form census which, until 2006, was sent to one in five households.

But the minority Conservative government intends to do away with it, claiming that its 53 questions are too “intrusive” because, among them, are queries on how many bedrooms your dwelling has and who pays the hydro bill.

That despite how no census form can be linked to any citizen — unlike how, in Finland and Sweden, a person’s identity code reveals everything.

- Meanwhile, datalibre's compilation of voices for and against the Cons' decision to gut the census is worth a look. But the 295-9 margin of "organizations" opposing the change versus those for it actually manages to underestimate the gap: after all, if Con MP Earl Dreeshen has managed to get listed on the "pro" side, then aren't there a number of opposition MPs who should be similarly included?

- Finally, a couple of columns on public opinion about Afghanistan are worth pointing out: a surprisingly reasonable piece from David Bercuson to the effect that countries shouldn't be kept at war by their elites when the general public isn't onside, and the one I'd have expected Bercuson to write from Laurent Le Pierres whining that citizens at large haven't fallen for the right's attempt to pitch an indefinite war footing.

Devalued

With most of the talk about the census focused on the long form as a whole, there hasn't yet been a lot of discussion about why the specific questions are essential to an accurate picture of Canadian society. But a couple of recent stories highlight the direct impact that eliminating the long-form census - and other choices made by the Cons - will have on the valuation of unpaid work.

First up, there's Jeremy Warren's article following up with Carol Lees, who just a decade and a half ago fought successfully to have unpaid work included in the census:

In 1990, Carol Lees, a mother of three in Saskatoon, began a five-year battle — which eventually brought together Canadian women's groups and feminist icon Gloria Steinem — to get unpaid housework onto the census so that the unrecognized social and economic effects of stay-at-home parents could be measured for future policy decisions.

Lees and a national network of women's groups successfully persuaded the federal government to include unpaid housework in the 1996 census. Fourteen years later, the question is gone, along with the mandatory long-form census the Harper government has dumped in favour of a voluntary National Household Survey.
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After the 1996 census, Lees developed diabetes and decided to leave behind her activist work within the loose network that formed around her cause.

But over the next decade she noticed that governments increased support for people providing child and elderly care at home.

Lees believed that an accurate measurement of unpaid housework would have health and social policy implications, perhaps improving childcare programs and pensions.

"We were voiceless and invisible," Lees said.

"If you are considered unoccupied and unproductive, which we were in government documents, you do not deserve a voice and nor deserve to have any policies put in place to support you because you aren't doing anything."

Of course, it's not hard to see a connection between the policies which Lees sees as having sprung from the gathering of information about unpaid work, and the exact types of programs which the Cons are seeking to axe in favour of more spending in the fear sector along with tax giveaways to the wealthy. And that means that it shouldn't be much surprise that the damage doesn't stop at gutting the long form as a whole.

While Warren's article seems to focus on the elimination of the long-form census as a whole, Antonia Zerbisias goes into more detail about the Cons' choice to eliminate any recognition of unpaid work even from their voluntary survey:

All but lost in the controversy over the Conservatives’ impending elimination of the mandatory long-form census is how, in the proposed $30 million dollar replacement — the voluntary National Household Survey — Question 33 from the long form has been cut.

Question 33 (let’s call it Q.33) is a three-part query that has been in place since Canada made commitments at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing. The question gathered data on how much time people spent on unpaid work: domestic chores, child care and attending to the needs of elderly relatives and friends. It helped make Canada a world leader in “time-use” data.
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Oddly, Q.33 has nothing to do with the level of “intrusiveness’’ that Industry Minister Tony Clement repeatedly says disturbs Canadians. What’s more, according to Lahey’s analysis, StatsCan’s own documentation shows that, during a 2007 consultation on the 2011 census, there was really no substantial evidence that Canadians want the question eliminated.

Interestingly, the new optional survey maintains queries about unpaid work performed by spouses and partners in family-owned business such as farms. This leads Lahey to conclude that the Harper government is preparing the political ground to introduce income-splitting for farm and small business couples. This would benefit higher income earners more than those who make less.

“From the perspective of women, income splitting is the ultimate incentive to economic dependency,” she wrote in a recent paper on the subject. “At the same time, it would be extremely costly, endanger funding available for existing and future social programs and would also exclude single individuals as well as any couples not falling within the terms of the provision.”

Now, there's an obvious parallel between the Cons' preservation of information about some limited sectors (recognizing unpaid contributions to farms and businesses) and their decision to keep the collection of farm information mandatory while electing not to do so for information from Canadians in general.

But the more significant distinction looks to be that between the treatment of work which contributes to some type of profit motive which the Cons consider to be important, and that based on caring for family or other non-profit-related goals which the Cons consider to be beneath even asking about. And if its track record weren't enough evidence already, that choice as to what information to collect speaks volumes about the Harper government's relative valuation of the two.

On consolidation

Antonia Zerbisias and Charlie Angus are once again right on top of the latest from the CRTC. But while there's some silver lining in that there should some real public consultation on media consolidation later this year, it looks like several mergers will be rubber-stamped before the CRTC actually deals with that issue:

Yesterday, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) either caved to public pressure or saw reason – or both – and decided to postpone its hearings on media concentration until next fall.

That gives the public more time to participate than the 35 calendar days the federal broadcast regulator had originally allowed when it announced hearings for April 29 just two weeks ago. What's more, the CRTC had originally set its hearings on "diversity of voices" to occur concomitant with its proceedings on the $1.365 billion mega takeover by CTVglobemedia of CHUM.

Which, for all intents and purposes, suggested that the merger was a mere rubber stamp away from regulatory approval.

So, the good news is, the CRTC has seen the error of its ways and recognized that the alarming rate of media concentration in Canada – arguably the most vigorous in the democratic world – merits full, fair and open public debate.

"The current wave of consolidation in the Canadian broadcasting industry, and the possibility of more major transactions in the future, raises important questions relating to the diversity of voices in Canada," Konrad von Finckenstein, the CRTC's newly appointed chair, said in a statement. "Holding a public hearing in the fall will allow us to give these issues the thorough and in-depth study they deserve. This exercise will result in clearly articulated policy guidelines that will further the evolution of the Canadian broadcasting system from that point forward."

All very noble but, deeper in the news release, comes this paragraph:

"Regarding the major ownership transactions that have been filed or publicly announced as of this date, the commission is of the view that procedural fairness demands that such applications be heard in a timely manner and pursuant to the rules in force when the transactions were announced."

Which means that, not only does the CTVglobemedia-CHUM deal slip in under the wire, so do the recently announced takeover of Alliance Atlantis by CanWest Global and New York investment bank Goldman Sachs, and Astral Media's acquisition of Standard Broadcasting.

"That's very convenient," said NDP heritage critic Charlie Angus yesterday in an interview, noting that these are among the largest media deals in Canadian history.

As Zerbisias points out, there's no apparent reason why any mergers should be allowed to proceed on the basis that there's no real problem with the current lack of media diversity - particularly when that position seems unlikely to survive the broader review. And while it's a plus that Canadians will rightfully receive at least some chance to be heard, it's all too clear that until that happens, the interests of corporate broadcasters will continue to be given precedence over the public interest.

Update: See also Angus' take here.