Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Both the Star-Phoenix and CBC cover an important study from the Human Early Learning Partnership pointing out the difficulties facing today's Saskatchewan families compared to the standard of living a generation ago.

- No, neither NAFTA nor any other trade agreement will ever actually protect us from the whims of the U.S. when it comes to market access. But we can look forward to the Cons continuing to insist we have absolutely no choice but to sign whatever additional agreements cross the Prime Minister's desk because shut up.

- Aaron Wherry documents what may be one of the saddest moments in politics I've heard in some time:

“One practical step that could be taken to deal with the lack of progressivity in the tax system, which, by the way, was referred to yesterday by the Minister of Finance as a big plus for Canada, would be to make the non-refundable tax credits refundable,” he ventured. “Those tax credits apply to kids who are taking piano lessons, kids who are on the margins. Their parents are so poor that they cannot pay taxes. Why will the Prime Minister not change the bill before the House and make sure that those kids can get those benefits?”

On this there was mostly laughter about how silly the Liberals are.

- Lynn Parramore points out that the international vilification of Greece omits a rather important part of the story: a huge part of the problem behind the country's crushing debt has been a lack of payment for exceptionally high levels of work by its citizens who are now being asked to take further massive pay cuts to benefit the financial industry.

- Finally, Dene Moore reports on the embarrassing conditions facing First Nations students across the country as documented by the National Panel on First Nations Elementary and Secondary Education - with one of the major problems being funding of only half that available for other Canadian students. Clearly this is just one more reason why sharing resource wealth with First Nations is inconceivable.

Buy Canadian is the end of the world! It's an affront to all that is good and Free Market Holy! It's...

...current federal policy in the shipbuilding sector!

In an e-mail, Mr. MacKay's office said that any shipbuilding projects to stimulate the economy were already announced in the Canada First defence strategy a year ago. "The government believes that the Buy Canada Policy will return enormous economic benefits," spokesman Jay Paxton said. That policy, which requires federal vessels be built in Canada, has been in place under Liberal and Tory governments.

Mind you, the shipbuilding example isn't exactly an example of a successful policy when the Cons aren't following through on their promised spending in the sector. But that's more a symptom of the Cons' continued inability to find their own ass with a map and a flashlight than an indictment of the concept of making sure that purchasing by the federal government benefits Canadian industry.