Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Noah Smith writes that for all the recognition of poverty and precarity in the U.S., it may be home to even more material insecurity than normally presumed:

Imagine a 55-year-old single woman with diabetes working a part-time job making close to minimum wage. Thanks to government assistance, her total income is $15,000 a year. But if she loses her job or has a medical emergency — both of which, as Matthew Desmond’s book “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City” illustrates, are sadly common — she will probably become homeless. That in turn will make it very hard to get a new job, or to pay for her future health-care needs. In short, her situation is very precarious.

As Maslow would predict, this kind of insecurity causes extreme stress. And this precariousness exists along several dimensions — housing, health care, income, the risk of violence — which makes it hard to capture in a single measure. Still, there are some existing measures that could be used to help create a composite picture of security-based poverty.

For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture tracks food insecurity, a survey-based measure of how worried people are that their food will run out. Economists track income volatility, which measures swings in earnings from year to year. This kind of risk has been on the rise in the U.S...

A reasonable, common-sense definition of poverty should include not just an absolute measure of material deprivation and a relative gauge of a person’s situation compared to the rest of society. It should also strive to measure how secure people feel — in their homes, their health, and their jobs.

This new measure might well show that poverty in the U.S. is worse than the current statistics say. But an accurate view of a problem is the first step toward addressing it. And eliminating poverty should be a priority of any wealthy society.

- Meanwhile, Molly Moss notes that austerity in the UK has disproportionately withdrawn public funding from the struggling northern region.

- In the wake of failed charges in British Columbia, Barrie McKenna points out how Canada continues to be used as a money-laundering haven.

- Bronwen Tucker makes the case for Alberta's oil production cuts to serve as a first step toward our needed transition to clean energy. And Dennis Gruending reviews Tony Clarke's new book offering a road map to get there.

- Finally, Matthew D'Ancona discusses how the UK's Brexit fiasco is the result of bigotry. And Keith Kahn-Harris writes that the essence of white supremacy is a belief in an entitlement to treat others without respect or moral constraints.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Linda Tirado writes that whatever the language used as an excuse for turning public benefits into private profits, we should know better than to consider it credible:

Given how much I had heard my whole life about British dignity, and the fact that there is a thing here called the House of Lords, I had assumed I would find something like comity and refinement among the people charged with running the place. Instead, I found Boris Johnson.

I began to feel at home immediately. Then I heard the term “skivers and strivers”. It felt familiar – in America we say “makers and takers”. If you listen, you can’t help but hear US-style campaigning creeping into the British political system. It’s not only the rhyming phrases meant to boil an incredibly nuanced issue down to a simple cops v robbers scenario. It’s the exact same arguments.
...
There is only so much variation you can put on one school of political thought, and both men are fairly mainstream-to-right with occasional forays into ideological counterproductivity. Both want to pare government spending to the bone, ostensibly to cut the debt and/or deficit depending on which we are very concerned with this week. In the end, you’ll wind up with some pretty sizeable tax cuts to the wealthy either way.

But can two countries with very different approaches to shared sacrifice and benefit have the same economic strategies? Given that a British citizen thinks it their right to see a doctor, and an American citizen may or may not think that the very idea is the reddest of Soviet plots, can privatising healthcare really solve the woes of both nations’ systems? It seems unlikely, given that the US still has an incredible number of people who are uninsured and the system is largely still run by private companies, that the solution will resemble what’s needed in the NHS.

- Jeremy Nuttall weighs in on the growth of food bank use in Canada. Miles Corak takes a look at income inequality, pointing out that a Working Income Tax Benefit which didn't wither away to nothing for the vast majority of workers would represent a good start in developing a more fair economic system. And Lars Osberg points out that there's plenty of room to increase how much high-end income goes to fund needed social benefits, while Carol Goar offers a few more suggestions as to how to pay for the Libs' campaign promises.

- CBC reports on the Canadian Institute for Health Information's latest study on the persistence - and in some case expansion - of health inequalities in Canada. And Canadian Doctors for Medicare calls for the federal government to step in and ensure that access to health care doesn't become a privilege reserved for the rich.

- Yves Engler writes that the Trans-Pacific Partnership is all about corporate control rather than free trade. And Michael Geist points out how the TPP is particularly flawed in its restrictions on digital policy.

- Barrie McKenna reports that the Libs are dropping at least one of the Cons' most gratuitous corporate giveaways by eliminating a mandatory P3 screen for infrastructure funding.

- Finally, the New York Times rightly argues that mass surveillance is neither necessary nor particularly helpful in trying to keep the public safe.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Christopher Majka reviews Henry Mintzberg's Rebalancing Society as a noteworthy discussion of the need for balance between the public, private and "plural" sectors. And David Madland is pleased to see the U.S.' Democrats finally fighting back against the view that the corporate sector is the only one worth favouring through government.

- But there's far more to be done in putting the public back in public policy - particularly when, as Bill Tieleman points out, we're being asked to accept more and more strict "trade" agreements designed to ensure that democracy can't overcome corporate interests.

- Barrie McKenna writes about the absurdity of using public money to generate profits for private sports teams.

- Anne Kingston reports on a bizarre new set of conflict of interest rules the Cons have imposed on employees of Natural Resources Canada - where employees with such risk factors as friends in the workplace or an academic background are apparently seen as more of a priority for targeting than those actively lobbying for the oil industry. And the Vancouver Observer exposes the "delusional" Enbridge argument that First Nations are prepared to abandon their territories to the ravages of the Northern Gateway pipeline.

- Trevor Timm wonders whether the "tough on crime" theme has run its course in the U.S. - though once again if the rest of the world is headed toward policy aimed at achieving results rather than designating and bashing political enemies, the Cons will be the last to acknowledge the change.

- Finally, Dan Taekema and the CP each report on a much-needed court challenge to Bill C-51. And the CP also notes that by the RCMP's own account, the establishment of a secret police force may make us less safe.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Barrie McKenna takes a look at how the Cons are pushing serious liabilities onto future generations in order to hand out short-term tax baubles within a supposedly-balanced budget, while Jennifer Robson highlights the complete lack of policy merit behind those giveaways. And Ian McGugan writes that even as they're trumpeted as attempts to improve saving none of the Cons' plans have anything to do with actually improving retirement security, especially for the people who need it most:

Our reliance on private savings to fund our retirements makes Canada an outlier among developed countries. Public transfers – programs such as Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security – account for less than 39 per cent of seniors’ incomes compared to 59 per cent on average among OECD members.

Women are most at risk, especially if they are divorced or separated. “Higher poverty among older women reflects lower wages, more part-time work and career gaps during women’s working lives, as well as the effect of longer female life expectancy,” the OECD notes.

These are problems that Ottawa should be addressing, but isn’t. Instead, it’s bending its efforts to ensuring that those who already have substantial retirement nest eggs can live even better.
...
To make matters worse, the TFSA system narrows the tax base. As wealth builds up in those tax-sheltered accounts over the years to come, Ottawa will have to push more of the tax burden on to the remainder of the population – in effect, shifting the load from affluent, older Canadians onto younger, poorer Canadians.

There are ways to fix the problem while still maintaining all the good parts of the TFSA program. Armine Yalnizyan, senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, recommends instituting a lifetime cap of $150,000 on contributions to TFSAs, as well as a lifetime tax-exempt limit of $450,000 on each TFSA holder. That would allow typical Canadians to amass a substantial nest egg without subsidizing million-dollar-plus portfolios for the affluent.

- Zach Carter reports that at least some U.S. Democrats are rightly challenging the position that free trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership should be drafted entirely by corporate interests without any public accountability, then accepted without question. And Paul Krugman responds to the trade-at-all-costs crowd by pointing out that there's little reason to think the TPP will do much to encourage trade in general - as opposed to locking in monopolies - in the first place.

- Jim Coyle reports on George Lakoff's advice for progressives in framing our vision for Canada. And Susan Delacourt observes that there may be a natural disincentive for parties to try out new or different messages even if they otherwise wanted to.

- But lest anybody presume that political courage will never be rewarded, Ryan Donnelly comments on Tom Mulcair's opposition to the Cons' terror bill - which was once seen as a political risk, but has proven to be a boon instead.

- Finally, Michael Harris points out that Mike Duffy's trial may represent the only opportunity to seek honest answers from Stephen Harper about his appointment of ineligible senators.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Kate McInturff and David Macdonald address the need for an adult discussion about how federal policies affect Canadian families. And Kevin Campbell writes about the importance of child care as a social investment. 

- Vincenzo Bove and Georgios Efthyvoulou study how public policy is shaped by political budget cycles - with more popular social spending getting emphasized around election time, only to face a threat as soon as the vote is held. And Scott Clark and Peter DeVries identify a distinct increase in the smoke and mirrors being used by the Cons to hide Canada's true budget picture in an election year:

Since the fall — when the prime minister promised tax cuts he hadn’t paid for — everything on the fiscal front has changed, except this: The budget remains the key document in the run-up to the election. Except now, the budget won’t be saying what Harper wanted it to. He wanted it to tell the story of his steady management of the economy since the 2008 recession. Instead, it’ll be about convincing Canadians the government had a plan B all along. Since the furor over Kenney’s comments strongly suggests a government at war with itself, that could turn out to be a tall order.

The PM has never liked budgets. He never saw them as a means to articulate a vision of the economy and the country. To Harper, a budget is a PR document — and a Trojan horse for pushing through legislative changes that have nothing at all to do with the budget.
...
It’s this kind of economic outlook that makes Canadians nervous — and they’re right to be. They need facts, not slogans. They need a budget that provides an honest, realistic assessment of our economic and fiscal prospects. They need to know that the government is taking a serious look at its fiscal policy and asking how it can be adjusted now to strengthen growth and job creation, while maintaining a sustainable fiscal structure over the medium term.

That’s what they need. Here’s what they’re likely to get: More slogans, more shallow optics and the spectacle of a Department of Finance tying itself in knots to at least show a balanced budget in 2015-16.

- Desmond Cole examines the Cons' dismal treatment of immigrant detainees. And the CP reports on their disregard for court rulings finding refugee health funding cuts to be unconstitutional.

- At the same time, Barrie McKenna writes that the Cons are once again going out of their way to support corporate corruption - this time by relaxing rules for businesses which have committed crimes abroad. 

- Finally, Ralph Surette discusses why it's time to end the Cons' reign - while suggesting #ThrowTheRascalsOut as an appropriate campaign hashtag.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Barrie McKenna comments on how far too many governments have bought into the P3 myth with our public money:

Governments in Canada have become seduced by the wonders of private-public partnerships – so-called P3s – and blind to their potentially costly flaws. In a typical P3 project, the government pays a private sector group to build, finance and operate everything from transit lines to hospitals, sometimes over decades.

These projects almost always cost significantly more than if governments just put up the money themselves and hired contractors to build the same infrastructure, under conventional contracts. Ontario Auditor-General Bonnie Lysyk found that the province may have overpaid to the tune of $8-billion for 74 major infrastructure projects, dating back nine years.

A key factor is financing. Private-sector companies can’t borrow as cheaply as governments can, adding significantly to the cost, especially on contracts that may run for decades.

Other transaction costs, including lawyers and consultants, are also typically higher with P3s. But the biggest variable is the substantial price tag put on the risk shifted from governments to the private sector. Ontario is convinced the risks of cost overruns, delays, design flaws and the like are substantially lower with public-private partnerships, and it’s willing to pay a premium for that peace of mind.

Unfortunately, the government has struggled to accurately price that risk, relying on the murky and potentially inflated calculations of outside consultants. As Ontario Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid sheepishly admitted: “It is a bit of an art, identifying risk, as much as a science.”

Ontario’s Auditor-General is blunter, suggesting the government’s so-called “value assessments” are little more than junk science.
...
The allure may have a lot more to do with politics, than sound financial management. These projects give governments the ability to push spending down the road, with ribbon cuttings today and most of the bills due later.

They also allow governments to duck the inconvenient responsibility when things go terribly wrong. No politician, or bureaucrat, wants to have to explain why a high-profile project is late or over budget.

Taxpayers may have a very different perspective on the responsibilities of public officials, and a few good suggestions on what to do with an extra $8-billion.

- And James Bagnall notes that it's also a regular practice for the Cons and other governments to write the rules of supposedly neutral competitions to favour their preferred bidders.

- Jim Tankersley reports on the devaluation of the American worker over the past few decades. And David Climenhaga finds that Jim Prentice's idea of getting input about the needs of workers is to gather seven executives in a closed-door "blue ribbon" panel.

- Allan Maki interviews Ted Clugston about Medicine Hat's success in eradicating homelessness - though the most important lesson to be drawn from the story may be that we shouldn't let naysayers (which Clugston once was) stand in the way of vital public policies. And Cory Weinberg discusses San Francisco's push to make sure that underused public land directed toward meeting housing needs, while David Ball reports on a creative effort to make home ownership more affordable in Calgary.

- Finally, Gerald Caplan explains what he'd tell Stephen Harper if given the chance. But in light of the tiny odds of Harper having interest in a word of it, I suspect we're better off making the same statements to the general public.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Daniel Tencer reports on a couple of important recent warnings that Canada is in danger of following the U.S. down the path of extreme corporatism and inequality:

Speaking at a fundraiser for the left-leaning Broadbent Institute, Reich said Canada is facing the same inequality-growing “structural problems” that the rest of the developed world is facing. Those two structural problems are globalization and automation, he said.

He noted that businesses in the digital era require far fewer employees, citing the example of WhatsApp, the messaging app bought by Facebook. At the time it was purchased for $19 billion, it had 450 million users and just 55 employees.

“This is the new economy,” Reich said.

A new report from TD Bank cites the same two factors as being causes of growing inequality, but also notes that Canada used to do a better job of equalization through taxation.

“Although Canadians take pride in the country’s more equitable outcomes [than the U.S.], Canada does less income redistribution than many think. Canada’s ranking on income equality falls from 9th place in the OECD on the basis of [income before taxes] to 19th place on the basis of after-tax and transfer income.”

- Meanwhile, Tim Harper follows up on Stephen Lewis' blistering criticism of the state of Canadian politics under the Harper Cons. And they've only added to the list of jaw-droppingly callous actions lately by refusing consent on the NDP's renewed motion to end child poverty, as well as by voting against a UN motion against glorifying Nazism and neo-Nazism.

- Barrie McKenna finds that the Cons' own supposed priorities are once again all spin and no action, as a much-ballyhooed manufacturing fund has funded exactly zero projects since it was introduced a year and a half ago.

- Diane Cardwell reports on the falling cost of solar and wind energy, as renewables have reached a price level similar to that of dirty fossil fuels. And Geoff Dembick reports on Unifor's work in highlighting the fact that environmentally responsible development and good jobs are entirely compatible goals.

- Finally, Paul Rosenberg interviews George Lakoff about the lessons progressives still need to learn in framing public policy debates.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Barrie McKenna looks to Norway as an example of how an oil-rich country can both ensure long-term benefits from its non-renewable resources, and be far more environmentally responsible than Canada has been to date.

- Michal Rozworski discusses how the devaluing of work is a largely political phenomenon. And Paul Mason wonders what it will take for workers who now see themselves as disenfranchised to fight back again a system that's rigged against them. 

- Speaking of which, Brendan James discusses a new study suggesting that the U.S. is past the point of being a democracy in any meaningful sense of the word. Paul Buchhelt comments on the disappearance of middle-class wealth. And John Stapleton studies (PDF) how lower-income citizens are both excluded and exploited by our financial system, while Arturo Garcia highlights Matt Taibbi's continued observation that absolutely nobody has been held responsible for financial-sector criminality even when it's crashed the economy.

- Jim Bronskill reports on Suzanne Legault's efforts to save access to information from Con cutbacks. The Star slams Tony Clement's Orwellian definition of "open government", while Sean Holman writes that even in opposition the Libs' plans don't seem to be much of an improvement. And Dan Leger writes about the spread of deliberately-cultivated ignorance among citizens across the developed world:

Here are some facts to illuminate your day: violent crime is getting worse, the country is overrun with immigrants, there’s an epidemic of teenage pregnancies and we’ve become a nation of geriatrics.

And that’s not all: 20 percent of Canadians are Muslim while the Christian population shrinks. Unemployment stalks the land.

No wonder people think we need to crack down on crime, choke off border access, enforce morality on teenagers and encourage Christian family values.

The problem is, the statements aren’t facts. They are widely held but entirely incorrect perceptions and they are common across the western world.
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(G)overning from the gut by capitalizing on fear of crime, economic disruption or terrorism is a Conservative stock in trade under Stephen Harper. He’s been in power since 2006, so it works pretty well.

Of course the alternative to perception-driven politics is reliable public information; the kind you would get, say, from the mandatory long-form census. The Conservatives cancelled that in 2010.

Perhaps Canada would have better environmental policies if people were fully informed about pollution and climate change? The current government forbids scientists from telling the public about their work.

- Finally, Michael Harris notes that even as the Cons publicly claimed to have backed off their longstanding public push to buy F-35s which are ill-suited to Canada's purposes, they're in fact barging ahead with a plan to take delivery in the next couple of years.

[Edit: added link.]

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Joe Cressy argues that we need to take strong progressive positions to highlight the kinds of public investment which need to be made, rather than buying into right-wing spin about slashing taxes and eliminating public institutions:

Public investment is about social justice, taking care of people and making sure our communities have affordable housing, public transit, child care, clean air to breathe and water to drink.

Now, when progressive candidates talk about investing in communities, we are often labeled as ‘tax-and-spenders,’ as if that were something to be ashamed of.

The reality is that taxing, spending, and regulating are the core functions of government, no matter who holds office. The difference lies in how you prioritize spending.

Instead of running from the word ‘tax,’ we need to look at what we are actually doing with our resources. Are we taxing fairly, and are we investing in things that will make life better? That should be the ‘bottom line.’

- Which fits nicely with Ken Neumann's view that we should demand better in the next federal election (and in our political system generally), not just settle for any alternative.

- Meanwhile, Celia Carr laments the stigmatization of people living in poverty. And Danielle Kurtzleben notes that based on our actual standards of fairness, we should instead be far more critical of CEOs who extract massive amounts of wealth at the expense of workers.

- Jason Fekete reports on the Cons' obscene expenditures on media monitoring and communications

- Finally, Barrie McKenna discusses how the fetishization of small business leads to our spending billions on programs which don't accomplish anything of value. And I'll note that we shouldn't merely be drawing distinctions between small and large businesses either, as we'd do far better to highlight the importance of public services - as Janet Newbury does:

We don't have to choose between supporting the public sector and economic prosperity: investing in the public sector is good for our economy.

A good jobs plan for B.C. would enhance the public sector -- particularly supporting jobs in health and human services. It would replace the current trend towards temporary, resource-dependent jobs with a commitment to maintaining stable, permanent jobs that contribute to societal well-being. Creating and maintaining public sector jobs can foster our social and economic well-being by ensuring the quality of vital gap-reducing social services, and by building a strong and stable workforce in B.C.

New column day

Here, looking at one of Thomas Piketty's findings about the self-propagation of wealth which has received relatively little attention - and pointing out how the a pattern of greater wealth grabbing higher returns can both be managed in order to reduce undue concentration of wealth, and even turned to the public's advantage through pools of social capital.

For further reading...
- Piketty's discussion of inequality in returns on capital starts at page 430 of the English translation of Capital in the Twenty-First Century - with his study of university endowment funds at page 447 serving as a particularly useful illustration of the point. 
- Matt Bruenig draws the link between the greater returns to large pools of capital and the value of sovereign wealth funds here. 
- Finally, the Mowat Centre's study on corporate taxation is here. And Barrie McKenna connected it to Piketty's overall discussion of inequality here.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Michael Hiltzik points out new research showing that business-focused policies do nothing at all to encourage any positive economic outcomes: in fact, a higher rating from ALEC for low-tax, low-regulation government correlates to less economic growth. But Kevin Drum highlights what the corporate agenda is really intended to accomplish:

(A)lthough a high ALEC-Laffer ranking may not stimulate any actual growth,...it does correspond to reduced taxes on the wealthy and slashed spending on state services that benefit the poor and working class. In other words, it may not affect growth, but it sure is a good deal for the rich. And that's what counts, isn't it?

- Meanwhile, the corporate lobby seems to have long since decided that truth and falsehood are irrelevant as long as one can afford to drown out competing voices. On that front, Donald Gutstein discusses how former tobacco shills are now being funded by the Fraser Institute to shout down any effort to encourage healthy eating and combat obesity - and receiving nothing but free, unquestioning publicity from the media for their efforts. Similarly, Barrie McKenna dutifully transcribes the request of the big three telecoms to avoid the type of competition which provides consumers with a fair deal in selecting phone and wireless service.

- Fortunately, at least one media outlet is a bit more questioning of corporate choices, as CBC's Don Pittis lists a few of the reasons why business interests are standing in the way of meaningful action on climate change.

- Richard Eskow wonders why more political voices aren't fighting to protect public services and the workers who provide them:

The facts are these: Given the growth of the population, stagnating wages, persistent long-term unemployment, and a host of other factors, we should be adding twice as many jobs per month as we are currently seeing. Instead, government – the one area of our economic life over which politicians have direct control – is shedding jobs instead of adding them. This worsens the overall economy while depriving the public of much-needed government services.

What’s more, the American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated that it will take $3.6 trillion to restore our nation’s infrastructure. We need the jobs, and the infrastructure needs repair. The president and his party should be hammering the message home every day: we need government jobs, and we need them now.

President Obama should be fighting to preserve current public-sector jobs and create new ones. Instead he’s given to repeatedly boasting, as he does in his latest budget proposal, about the fact that under his proposal “discretionary spending will fall to its lowest level as a share of the economy in more than 50 years.”

That’s nothing to brag about – and it’s the wrong message at the wrong time.

- Carol Goar writes that a higher-cost, lower-service Canada Post is receiving a chilly reception from businesses and citizens alike - again raising the question of why the Cons insisted on that approach rather than allowing a postal bank to provide more for less.

- Finally, Andrew Coyne writes that debates should be given a far more prominent - and legally-entrenched - place in election campaigns.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Laura Ryckewaert looks in more detail at the continued lack of any privacy protection in the Unfair Elections Act. And Murray Dobbin is hopeful that the Cons' blatant attempt to suppress voting rights will instead lead to a backlash among those who are intended to be excluded:

(W)hatever the outcome, perhaps the best possible response of democracy activists would be to treat this loathsome piece of legislation as a useful crisis. This is exactly what leaders of the African-American and Latino communities have done in their fight against the blatant voter suppression efforts in the U.S. -- where individual states determine voting procedures for federal elections. "A Center for Social Inclusion report entitled "Citizens Denied: The Impact of Photo ID Laws on Senior Citizens of Color" warned that nearly half of black voters over age 65 and one in three Latino senior voters would have a more difficult time registering and voting on election day due to photo ID laws passed in some 33 states."

In at least some cases efforts at voter suppression in the U.S. have backfired because the attack on black and Latino communities has galvanized them to get out the vote. The government of Florida reduced the early voting period which prompted black churches "to conduct a two-day 'souls to the polls' marathon. And even as election day turned into a late election night, and with the race in Ohio, and thus for the 270 votes needed to win the presidency, called by 11 p.m., black voters remained in line in Miami-Dade and Broward, two heavily Democrat counties in Florida, where black voters broke turnout records even compared to 2008."

Efforts to suppress the vote in civic elections in North Carolina and Texas also backfired, resulting in record turn-outs of the people targeted by Republican party controlled board of elections.

With young people, the homeless and First Nations voters at the low end of the turn-out numbers, the Harper government's crude effort to suppress their votes even more can and should be used to galvanize the vote from those communities.

Student organizations, anti-poverty groups, the Idle No More movement and senior's groups are well placed to take up the challenge, with help from groups like Democracy Watch and perhaps the NDP.

While many in those communities have found little reason to go to the polls given the slim likelihood of any change in their lives, no one likes to be told what they can and can't do -- especially when it comes to rights. For the people targeted by Harper for disenfranchisement, the 2015 election could be purely about democracy itself.

- Dave Seglins reports on even more rail safety incidents which were left unreported by the railways involved. And Wendy Gillis notes that Transport Canada and MMA are refusing to release the details of the safety plan whose failure caused the Lac-Mégantic disaster - effectively declaring that so far as they're concerned, the plans approved by the government as being sufficient to keep the public safe are none of the public's business.

- Don Lenihan looks at the military procurement process, and highlights the problem with governments allowing contractors to dictate public procurement goals.

- Donald Gutstein tests Andrew Coyne's fudged numbers used to argue against the need for public revenue. But Coyne's figures look downright healthy compared to those being spun by the CCCE - who are trying to claim income taxes and other taxes merely remitted by big business on behalf of others as part of their calculation of what the corporate sector contributes.

- Finally, Barrie McKenna comments on Thomas Piketty's observations about the link between growing inequality, and the corporatist goal of promoting capital returns over broad-based growth:

Prof. Piketty challenges one of the underpinnings of modern democracies – namely, that growth and productivity make each generation better off than the previous one. With hard work and education, conventional thinking goes, anyone can achieve upward mobility, and live the Canadian (or American) dream.

Prof. Piketty warns instead that global economic growth will limp along at just 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent for the rest of this century – roughly half the pace of the past century. The spoils will flow increasingly to the wealthy – entrepreneurs, owners of capital and those fortunate enough to inherit wealth, he argues. Workers will fall further behind.

Think of Prof. Piketty’s world as the antithesis of free-market champion Milton Friedman’s mantra that capitalism spreads the “fruits of economic progress among all people.”

Without radical intervention, the result will be growing inequality and social strife, Prof. Piketty argues.
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Just as controversial as his dissection of the problem is his recommended solution – a global tax on wealth. Prof. Piketty would slap an annual graduated tax on stocks, bonds and property, which are typically not taxed until they are sold (capital gains). The tax would thwart the concentration of wealth and limit the flow of income to capital.

To be effective, it would have to be applied not just in one country, but virtually everywhere.

Pavlov's lapdog

Shorter Barrie McKenna:

We must respond to all tax policy developments anywhere in the world by slashing corporate tax rates. And I've just lowered the bar on what constitutes a "tax policy development" to include the idle posturing of a U.S. party which can't pass anything.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- Robert Reich comments on the concerted effort by the U.S.' rich to exacerbate inequality - and points out how it's warped their worldview. And Dean Baker criticizes the spread of inequality by design:

And then there is the financial sector where Mankiw tells us that the extraordinary pay is compensation for the volatility of paychecks. That's interesting, except the vast majority of comparably talented and hardworking people would be happy to get the pay the finance folks get in the bad years. Much of the big money on Wall Street stems from highly leveraged bets that beat the market by seconds or even milliseconds. This provides as much value to the economy as insider trading, which it in fact it resembles closely.

It would be interesting to see what would happen to the big fortunes in the financial sector if it had to pay a small transaction fee, effectively subjecting it to the same sort of sales tax that is paid in almost every other sector of the economy. It would also be interesting to see what would happen to the private equity folks if they lost the opportunity for the tax gaming that is their bread and butter.

I could go on (read my non-copyright protected book on the topic), but the point should be clear. If the 1 percent are able to extract vast sums from the economy it is because we have structured the economy for this purpose. It could easily be structured differently, but the 1 percent and its defenders aren't interested in changing things. And the 1 percent and its defenders have a great deal of influence on the direction of economic policy.

- And Kathleen Raven discusses how children in particular suffer from the spread and entrenchment of poverty and inequality:

Researchers looked at data on 3,142 U.S. counties between 2005 and 2009. They found that rates of child maltreatment ranged widely, from 0.2 percent to 3.1 percent of children.

Using statistical methods to gauge income inequality, they found a steep rise in the rate of child maltreatment with rising inequality. The relationship held after researchers adjusted for poverty itself, and other factors such as the racial and ethnic makeup of regions, education levels and the number of people receiving public assistance income.

Where inequalities are most extreme, communities may become more polarized, with the affluent group influencing where public aid money goes, or what programs are made available in the community, said Dr. Ruth Gilbert, a clinical epidemiologist at University College London in the UK.

"Where the state or federal government is a key provider of services, such as day care and education," Gilbert said, "then you may have situations where poorer children mingle with middle-class kids and this helps create a better understanding between the two classes."

- Unfortunately, the needed end to the Cons' income-splitting scheme seems to have given rise to plenty of talk about how to develop the next-most-destructive option to destroy the federal government's fiscal capacity. Maria Babbage surveys a range of policies from the reasonable (child care and targeted benefits to lower-income parents) to the thoroughly top-weighted (general income tax cuts), while Barrie McKenna has little apparent interest in anything but the latter. And Dennis Howlett notes that there's precious little evidence to suggest a fair tax system is on the Cons' radar.

- Finally, Simon Enoch takes a look at the track record of prison food privatization in the U.S.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Paul Wells and Dan Lett offer roundups of today's federal by-elections, while Chantal Hebert offers some advice to the candidates (whether or not they're elected to Parliament today). And Murray Dobbin explains why there's only one true progressive choice in Toronto Centre in particular:

McQuaig's Liberal opponent in the riding is Chrystia Freeland, a parachute candidate who is being touted as a progressive with deep concerns about inequality. Trudeau has tried to boost her profile by stating that he wants her in his "inner circle."

The problem is that there is nothing to suggest that the Liberal Party or their star candidate give a damn about inequality let alone have any intention of doing anything about it. Trudeau's hero is Paul Martin, who as finance minister did more than any other politician in Canada to undermine equality and reduce the power of ordinary workers. His "labour flexibility" policies devastated Canadian working people and large swaths of the middle class. He slashed Unemployment Insurance, ended the Canada Assistance Plan (the federal funding program that forced provinces to have half-decent social assistance programs), deliberately kept unemployment at high levels through the 1990s to weaken labour and generally abandoned policies that protected employees. He gave huge tax cuts to the wealthy, exacerbating inequality, and cancelled Canada's social housing program. Even Brian Mulroney paled in comparison in his policies.

Neither Justin Trudeau nor Chrystia Freeland have said anything about reversing these socially destructive policies. Yet these are precisely the policies that have created much of the inequality Freeland talks about.

McQuaig, on the other hand, has consistently made the case that growing inequality is the direct result of an ideology that has dominated government policy and media discourse since the 1980s. McQuaig actually talks about solutions -- advocating for strengthened social supports, rebuilding public programs, empowering labour and creating a more progressive tax system. The NDP has historically stood for these things, too, and if McQuaig wins she will be a strong voice to continue with these policies.

 - Of course, by-elections also offer an opportunity to field-test ideas which haven't yet been used in general elections - making the Libs' use of "shame" tactics in Toronto Centre something worth watching. And Tim Harper discusses how the Broadbent Institute looks to be adopting some of the more successful strategies of the Centre for American Progress.

- Michael Harris discusses why Stephen Harper should be as good as gone if last week's revelations about the Senate bribery scandal are true. And Dan Leger comments on the Cons' Senate corruption and cover-up as an example of central command gone awry.

- Daniel Tencer reports on how the Libs and Cons alike have handed massive tax giveaways to the corporate sector and the rich - while nickel-and-diming working Canadians to partially make up for the shortfall.

- Finally, Barrie McKenna notes that Canada should be learning lessons from the misuse of NAFTA's arbitral mechanisms to attack all kinds of government policies through a perpetually-expanding definition of "investment". And Ian Welsh writes that free trade reflects elites selling out their own populations - though it's probably fair to say that many of the corporatist advocates pushing for free trade have built a far stronger sense of kinship with fellow mercenaries than with anybody originating from the same place:

Internally, free trade is used to create betrayals.  Trade deals do not allow environmental protections, do not allow high wages, do not allow workers to be treated well, or you aren’t competitive and the usual remedies, like tariffs and subsidies are not allowed by those same trade deal.  This allows oligarchs in every country involved in the deal to put downward pressure on wages, regulations, benefits and even standards of humane treatment, in the name of “competitiveness.”

A wise society, including a global society, takes certain types of behavior “off the table”, by just forbidding them. Absent that, they make it so that those who do such things are not rewarded.  Fail to do either of these things, and you find yourself in a race to the bottom.

Note, again, that this is in oligarchs best interest EVEN if their country loses.  Greek oligarchs, post-crash, are doing just fine.  African potentates walk away with multi-million dollar bank accounts even as their own citizens starve to death.  Business owners want to push down wages and costs, no matter where they are.  This devastates countries, and even the citizenry of many of the winning countries (like the US), but it benefits of the few a great deal in relative terms.  They’d be better off, as a class, in absolute terms if they took this behaviour off the table, but they wouldn’t be as rich relative to everyone else, or as powerful, and they value that relative wealth and power more than absolute wealth and power.  It isn’t enough that they win, their own populations must be poor and weak, too.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Brendan Haley discusses how the role of government should include both a concerted effort to innovate, and a proper share of the benefits when that innovation proves successful:

To reinforce her argument, Mazzucato provides detailed histories of some of our most important innovations. She finds that throughout modern history, government has been integrally involved in directing the economy, undertaking basic research, and nurturing new technologies into the market when the private sector found it too risky to touch them. Only after governments have subsumed much of the risk do private entrepreneurs do their bit, though they often take all the credit and make off with most of the money. The most entertaining example of this practice is her review of the state's integral role in the development of the information technologies that Apple later packaged into the iPod, iPad, and iPhone.

Mazzucato worries that the current relationship between public and private entrepreneurship is a parasitic one, whereby the private sector captures the benefits of public sector work, and the public sector becomes captured by private interests. This makes it difficult for the state to play its socially valuable role of kicking off new rounds of innovation. She calls for a symbiotic innovation relationship where private entrepreneurs can continue to play their important role in commercializing innovative technologies. The place of the state, she argues, must also be recognized and given its due. Thus Mazzucato advocates for mechanisms to ensure the state receives a share of the financial awards from the innovations it helps create.
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Today, there is a special need for the Canadian government to play a more activist role. First, because the private sector is having difficulties finding the new technologies that will direct the next stages of economic progress. Corporations are holding onto hordes of money instead of undertaking new investments (the "dead money" problem), and heavily indebted consumers precariously support economic growth. The second reason we need a more activist government is because, as Mazzucato argues, the state has always been involved in leading important structural shifts in the economy. Such a structural shift is required to introduce the green technologies needed to dramatically reduce carbon emissions.

- But of course, our current slate of right-wing governments is going out of its way to try to sell their own incompetence as evidence that government can't serve the public interest - with the Cons' jobs grant debacle apparently offering a prime example.

- And both Katie Hyslop and Vaughn Palmer comment on Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond's report which found tens of millions of dollars spent on child and family services structures without actually serving children or families.

- OPSEU provides some answer as to what we should instead be pursuing (in the course of discussing the role of income as a key determinant of health):

Social inequality on this scale not only denies kids considerable opportunity in life, but leaves society worse off by denying capable individuals the ability to contribute at a much higher level.

Dunn says by the age of four the average child from a low socioeconomic background has heard 32 million fewer words than children born to professional parents. That makes a big difference in early childhood development.

Canada lags behind other countries in addressing these significant inequalities. The good news is we can learn from those who have gone before us.

Dunn says the solution lies in more inclusionary housing, more affordable housing, wrap-around cross-sectoral care, and more dense urban design that can accommodate better public amenities – including transit.

 - And finally, Barrie McKenna also takes note of the corrosive effect of inequality in Canada:

Large swaths of the country are missing out as well. There is now evidence of growing regional and postal code disparity, exacerbated by the disproportionate growth of financial services, commodities and real estate. More than half of the rising share of income that flowed to the top 1 per cent between 1982 and 2010 went to just two cities – Calgary and Toronto – according to a newly released study by economists Brian Murphy of Statistics Canada and Michael Veall of McMaster University.

The two cities are home to just 20 per cent of Canadian taxpayers. And unlike many other wealthy countries, tax policies have become less effective at reducing inequality in Canada over the past two decades, according to the OECD. That’s due to lower marginal tax rates, fewer tax credits for low-income workers and enhanced savings incentives that go mainly to higher income earners, including RRSPs and tax breaks that favour capital gains over earned income.

In the workplace, many workers have less bargaining power now than at any time in their careers, a consequence of declining unionization, persistent labour surpluses and increased foreign competition.
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Why should Canadians care? It isn’t just a question of fairness. It’s about the long-term health of the economy, and society.
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(G)reater inequality may make financial crises more likely as lower income-earners borrow more and save less in a race to keep up with the lifestyles of those at the top. The massive run-up in Canadians’ ratio of household debt to income in recent years suggests many families are chasing a dream they can’t afford.

Inequality is also linked to poorer health outcomes and higher rates of crime and social unrest. Even in Canada, low-income earners are less likely to have a family doctor and to seek early treatment for medical problems.

The result: poorer health for those at the bottom of the income scale – a trend that can exact a heavy economic toll through lost productivity and higher health care bills.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Barrie McKenna discusses the cost of public-private partnerships:

Disturbing new research highlights some serious flaws in how governments tally the benefits of public-private partnerships versus conventional projects. Too little is known about how these contracts work, who benefits and who pays.

This week, public-private partnerships will take centre stage when the House of Commons operations committee resumes a series of hearings on P3s, stacked with witnesses who like them.

A P3 works essentially like leasing a car or TV, rather than paying cash up front. At the end of the day, governments pay substantially more, but if something goes wrong, someone else is responsible.
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Based on a new study of 28 Ontario P3 projects worth more than $7-billion, University of Toronto assistant professor Matti Siemiatycki and researcher Naeem Farooqi found that public-private partnerships cost an average of 16 per cent more than conventional tendered contracts. That’s mainly because private borrowers typically pay higher interest rates than governments. Transaction costs for lawyers and consultants also add about 3 per cent to the final bill.
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Without putting a fair price on risk, taxpayers will never know whether P3s are any cheaper than building things the conventional way.

Set the value too high, and P3s become vehicles for governments to subsidize inflated profits of powerful and well-connected contractors and financial institutions.

Notwithstanding these red flags, Ottawa and the provinces continue to embrace the public-private model. P3 Canada Inc., Ottawa’s $1.24-billion P3 fund, has sunk more than $300-million into various projects since the summer, including a GO Transit maintenance yard in Whitby, Ont., an airport in Iqaluit and Edmonton’s ring-road. This week’s hearings are likely aimed at building a case for spending even more in the next budget.

Lost in the fog is the real risk that current and future taxpayers are paying way too much for vital public infrastructure.

And even McKenna's concerns miss another obvious weakness in nominally transferring risk to a private party.

It's well and good to say that a third party is responsible for completing a project, but that party may well see it as efficient to breach the contract if costs prove higher than expected. Which means that while P3s add to the price tag up front and provide a ready source of privatized profits if everything goes as planned, they don't guarantee for a second that the public won't be on the hook to complete a project.

- Meanwhile, False Positive rightly rebuts the dubious claim that the failure to outlaw for-profit health care in the Canada Health Act somehow serves as reason to prefer private to public delivery.

- Following up on last week's column, we shouldn't be too surprised to learn that the Koch brothers are pushing the boundaries in eliminating employees' civil rights - not only through forced indoctrination and speech suppression, but also through more straightforward abuses such as kidnapping. But I'm sure it's all in the interest of limiting the heavy hand of the state.

- Finally, pogge offers up the right answer as to how regulators should deal with businesses who play games rather than showing any willingness to consider public health and safety.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Dave Coles writes that the Harper Cons are using their power to protect the privacy of international arms dealers, while at the same time demanding stringent reporting requirements for labour unions and their members:

Labour unions are among the few institutions that can and do provide a counterbalance to the power of corporations. Yet the Conservatives are not requiring companies that bargain with trade unions to file detailed reports to the Canada Revenue Agency on their salary, political or lobbying spending. Additionally, they are not requiring other professional associations that collect fees or dues from their members, such as the Canadian Medical Association for example, to follow the terms of Bill C-377.

They are only requiring the institutions created to represent the interests of millions of workers across the country to file these detailed records. There is no other way to interpret this than as an attempt to disarm a political opponent.

Much like what Habib Massoud was hinting at when talking about those involved in the arms trade, the detailed reporting required by Bill C-377 will be burdensome, costly and threaten the privacy rights of many individuals, companies and organizations that work with unions. Incredibly, under the proposed legislation, labour-associated pension and benefit plans will be required to publicly disclose “the name and address” and a “description” of benefits paid to individuals greater than $5,000. This could include personal medical information.

- Barrie McKenna notes that Jim Flaherty is once again using the power of the federal government to let banks do whatever they want without consequences. And unfortunately Canada's government is far from the only one which is utterly failing in its obligation to defend the public interest in dealing with banks.

- And indeed, the U.K. is standing out in its emphasis on corporate "property", going so far as to make the names of seasons off limits for anybody other than Olympic sponsors:

Wearing purple caps and tops, the experts in trading and advertising working for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) are heading the biggest brand protection operation staged in the UK. Under legislation specially introduced for the London Games, they have the right to enter shops and offices and bring court action with fines of up to £20,000.

Olympics organisers have warned businesses that during London 2012 their advertising should not include a list of banned words, including "gold", "silver" and "bronze", "summer", "sponsors" and "London".

- Finally, Erin Weir contrasts the Wall government's willingness to put public money into a new stadium in Regina against its missed opportunity to invest in renewable power. And the Globe and Mail points out the coincidence that the federal Cons are funding attacks on wind power while refusing to acknowledge massive health, safety and environmental risks associated with non-renewable resource extraction.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Jim Stanford neatly sums up how the Cons' obsession with selling off both natural resources and natural resource producers affects other industries:

There is no doubting the statistical correlation between oil prices and the loonie. Econometric analysis indicates that since the turn of the century, oil prices explain 86 per cent of the dollar’s rise. The precise reasons for this correlation are unclear. It certainly is not due to a strong trade balance. In fact, Canada has experienced a deepening international payments deficit in recent years, because non-petroleum exports are falling faster than our energy exports surge (see graph). My own research suggests it is foreign takeovers of petroleum companies and reserves, not current production and export of the stuff, that is driving the loonie up.

It is equally clear that the Canadian dollar is overvalued, relative to both historical averages and economic fundamentals. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the current “fair value” for the Canadian dollar (based on purchasing power parity analysis) is about 81 cents U.S. Anything higher and Canadian-made products and services look disproportionately expensive (including manufacturing, services, tourism — and even Big Macs, according to the Economist’s famous hamburger index).

...

In my books, the best way to short-circuit the damaging link between oil prices and the loonie would be to carefully regulate foreign takeovers of resource companies. That’s a worthwhile policy to consider for many reasons (not just for avoiding Dutch Disease). And this hardly implies bombing Alberta’s economy back to the stone age; if anything, a more careful and strategic approach to managing this non-renewable resource would allow Albertans, too, to capture more lasting benefits than the current what-me-worry strategy can ever deliver.

Methinks the bitumen boosters doth protest too much, with their loud attempt to suppress any debate over the potential downsides of Canada’s current energy strategy — which consists of scraping as much bitumen, as quickly as possible, and exporting it raw. Are there important national spinoff benefits generated by the petroleum boom in Alberta? Absolutely. But are there also important costs and risks associated with this economic strategy based on the unregulated extraction and export of a non-renewable resource? Certainly. Could we do a better job of managing those costs and risks? Undoubtedly … unless we continue pretending they don’t exist.

Stanford then decries the tar-sands McCarthyism of the Cons and their petro-state allies. And Erin points out Michael Den Tandt as an example of a commentator completely contradicting himself from one column to the next in order to try to attack Thomas Mulcair.

- Meanwhile, Bea Vongdouangchanh reports on the Cons' abdication of any responsibility for Canada's environment. And Tim Harper suggests that as a result, Alison Redford may have to be the one to implement an environmental plan covering the oil sands.

- Barrie McKenna unloads on the Cons' secrecy and misdirection in trying to make it as difficult as possible for anybody to figure out exactly what's being cut in their budget:

Last week, Mr. Clement’s office released its annual “reports on plans and priorities,” which converts the estimates into detailed spending plans for all 97 federal departments and agencies. Typically, these also reflect changes in the budget.

Not this year. Mr. Clement, the Prince of Darkness, specifically directed departments to exclude the budget cuts, even though they have been known for more than a month.
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Is the department shrinking or growing? Damned if anyone outside government knows. And that, in the bizarro world of federal accounting, just might be the intent.

If Ottawa Inc. were a public company, regulators would probably delist its shares.

Federal financial reporting has become so murky, inconsistent and retrospective that no outsider has a clear picture of what is actually being spent, or cut. Multiple and overlapping reports are produced using different accounting methodologies. Money not spent in one year is quietly shifted into another, conveniently creating moveable baselines for advertised “cuts.”

- And Don Lenihan points out yet another ruling from Andrew Scheer which will serve to insulate the Cons from any accountability whatsoever for lying to Parliament and the public - this one a requirement that anybody seeking to challenge a false statement be able to prove a direct intention to mislead. As Lenihan notes, that ruling fits nicely into the Cons' general preference for one-way "comms" over meaningful debate.

- Finally, Bruce Cheadle reports on the growing doubt about Senate elections from many of the parties and figures who previously pushed the model. But the point most worth highlighting (particularly given the prospect of a Con Senate majority holding at least theoretical power to utterly stymie the efforts of an NDP government in 2015) is the recognition that the Senate can't legitimately interfere with the decisions of elected representatives now.

[Edit: fixed formatting.]

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- When even free-trade warrior Barrie McKenna can only respond incredulously to a message campaign on behalf of the wealthy, you know it's gone too far. So here's McKenna answering the contrived outrage over the NDP's proposal for a slight increase in income tax on the wealthiest Ontarians:

The vast majority of Canadians agree with Ms. Horwath. More that 80 per cent approve the idea of a tax on the wealthy and two-thirds are ready to take a personal tax hit, according to a new poll of 2,000 people by Environics for the Broadbent Institute, a left-leaning think tank. Seventy-seven per cent worry that the growing income gap is “a big problem” for society.

The unease felt by many Canadians is rooted in an uncomfortable reality. Recent work by economists Mike Veall of McMaster University and Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley show “an explosion in the earnings of the top 1 per cent” in Canada from the early 1980s to 2007. The top 1 per cent of Canadians pocketed nearly 14 per cent of all income in 2007, compared with 8 per cent in 1982.
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Governments everywhere are in austerity mode. The middle class is being squeezed by stagnant incomes, pension clawbacks and the steady erosion of government entitlements, such as Old Age Security.

Basic fairness suggests all segments of society should share the burden.

- Meanwhile, Karen Foster notes that concerns about fairness across generational lines may reflect the need for more equitable wealth distribution in all age groups:

The middle class is shrinking. In the top income bracket and the class it represents, there are fewer people too, but they have more money. These changes are partly due to economic restructuring - toward service sector and knowledge jobs and away from manufacturing, for example - as well as to the expansion of finance (derivatives, etc.) as a wealth-generating but exclusive enterprise.

But the changing structure and impact of class is also tied to how we redistribute wealth in this country, and how we go about covering the costs of the social programs we believe we should all have access to. Setting aside market conditions for a moment, each of the so-called generations, when they stepped into the world of work, did so in the context of fundamentally different social welfare states.

Since the pivotal 1970s era, the governing ideology around social programs and wealth redistribution has shifted. It has moved away from collectivizing costs toward individualizing fiscal responsibility; from spreading prosperity around toward ensuring one's earnings only go to the causes one deems worthy. Once our government answered to citizens; now it caters to "taxpayers." Where economic policy once revolved around the question of how we might take better care of each other, today it is driven by the belief that no one should be made to take care of anyone else. The crumbling social welfare regime induced tectonic shifts in the moving intersection of class and generation.

Thus, it's not that generation doesn't matter in the context of the changes outlined here. It's that generation can't be considered apart from its context, nor can it be made meaningful without the other categories with which it intersects.

While the question of which generation is more selfish than the other is captivating, it might be time to ask when and why selfishness became the foundation for Canadian economic policy, and what can be done to change it.

- David Frum explores how Lyndon Johnson managed to push through many of the progressive policies which are now under attack by the Republicans' hard right wing.

- Mia Rabson is the latest to point out that the Cons' process in slashing federal jobs has seemingly designed to maximize the resulting pain and uncertainty for Canada's civil servants. But then, Mike de Souza reports that the Cons have never been interested in good advice - such as the utterly neglected suggestion that they not cheerlead for the tar sands.

- Finally, while the Charter has been in the news over the past few days as it reaches its 30th anniversary, it's particularly noteworthy that the Canadian public is still solidly behind its underlying values even as the Cons push for total surveillance and indiscriminate lock-'em-up policies on both crime and immigration.