Monday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Alistair Alexander discusses how AI has been turned into a multi-trillion-dollar collapse machine, while Benjamin Lopez Steven and Kate McKenna report on the Carney Libs' plans to tie Canada's economy and public service into that collapse as it happens. And Jason Koebler reports on the latest comical failure of AI to handle even menial chatbot functions, as hackers were able to take over major Instagram accounts just by asking Meta AI to let them do so. 

- Bill McKibben points out that the Trump regime's attacks on climate scientists are entirely in keeping with decades of Republican anti-fact policy. And Steve Akehurst discusses how the oil industry's investment in climate denialism has undercut what was previously a policy consensus in the UK.   

- Stephan Bisaha reports on new research from the Brookings Institution showing that American workers are falling further behind in covering basic expenses. And Sebastien Martinez Hickey offers an FAQ about the effects of increasing the minimum wage - highlighting how improved wage floors produce immense social benefits at no real cost. 

- Finally, Courtney Martin writes about the need to treat care for aging residents as a social priority and program, rather than forcing individual families to bear unmanageable costs on their own. But of course, there's always somebody - most recently Grady Munro and Jake Fuss - ready to send seniors off on ice floes in order to leave more fiscal capacity for top-end wealth hoarding. 

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Rita Bhowmick writes about the importance of care services both in keeping people healthy and ensuring equitable work opportunities. And Steven Lewis examines the dishonesty and gaslighting behind the destruction of public Medicare in by the UCP, while Kaylene Duttchen and Paul Parks point out the consistent body of evidence showing that private and for-profit medicine only draws resources away from the care people actually need.  

- Runting Li et al. study (PDF) the connection between the proliferation of microplastics and nanoplastics, and the proliferation of brain tumours. 

- Donal Gill offers a warning about the dangers of making political and social decisions to serve the interests of tech giants pushing AI propaganda rather than people. Jessica Winter highlights the community efforts to keep AI from take over education systems. And Nilay Patel discusses how "software brain" is causing immense changes without people recognizing what's happening. 

- The New York Times' editorial board rightly warns that the return of measles presages far worse diseases making a comeback due to the anti-science attack on vaccinations. And the Boston Globe reports on the growing number of Americans suffering from long COVID. 

- Finally, Heather Scoffield reports on the false promise of Canada's disability tax credit which (along with associated supports) has been designed to be unavailable to most people who actually qualify.  

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- John Ganz discusses how a number of tech tycoons chose to support Donald Trump as part of a broader distaste for democracy and popular empowerment. And Oliver Darcy discusses how the Los Angeles Times (like other major media outlets) has been converted into a propaganda arm of the business oligopoly after falling under billionaire control.  

- Jesse Drucker examines how the U.S.' estate tax has been undermined, resulting in stagnant public revenues even in the face of systematic concentration of wealth. And Margit Schratzenstaller examines how the rich respond to inheritance taxes - finding far more evidence of evasion and avoidance than of any real moves to avoid paying a fair share. 

- Marcela Garcia reports on the takeover of veterinary medicine by private capital, resulting in corporate control over both consumers and veterinarians.

- Anna Merlan reports on the rise of one prominent climate denial account on X thanks to active support from numerous members of the Trump regime. And Adamo Anthony Donovan writes about the misinformation campaign against bike infrastructure. 

- Joel Bourne discusses the climate and environmental effects of a global food system based on fragile monocultures in stressed ecosystems. And Kiley Price examines how the climate breakdown is both increasing the need for vaccines, and interfering with their availability. 

- Finally, Lise Courteau points out the need to recognize and value unpaid work in order to promote equality and safety for women - even as dangerous political forces are attempting to push in the opposite direction. 

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Ian Urquhart writes that while it's well and good to insist that the oil and gas industry stop attempting to greenwash its contribution to climate destruction, Canada also needs to reckon with its own unsupported claims to climate progress. Alienor Rougeot and Stephen Thomas discuss how Canada is falling behind the rest of the world in building clean energy capacity (while subsidizing continued fossil fuel emissions). And Marc Lee offers a reminder that British Columbia's carbon tax system is set up to favour polluting businesses over the public.  

- Gabriel Zucman writes that it's both feasible and necessary to make sure the rich pay their fair share. And Linda McQuaig calls out how the Fraser Institute and the Cons are teaming up to misrepresent how Canada's tax system works to ensure that never happens.  

- Gaby Hinsliff discusses how shrunken public services only end up imposing ever-more-unmanageable burdens on people to provide health and social care for relatives and loved ones. 

- Finally, Cory Doctorow points out that when private equity sets out to extract wealth from an existing business, its marks include the people who invest their money based on the false promise that there's any plan to operate more efficiently (or at all) in the long term. Danyaal Raza and Karen Palmer write about the particular dangers of letting private equity take over health care services. And Audrey Guay highlights just a few examples of how privatization has undermined the public health care system while doing nothing to sustainably reduce waiting lists. 

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Jess Thomson points out a new NASA video showing the movement of carbon pollution in our atmosphere, while Oliver Milman reports on new research showing that methane emissions are rising at the fastest rate in decades. Peter Prebble calls out the Moe government's insistence on fighting any action to combat the climate crisis. And Amy Westervelt et al. weigh in on the fossil fuel sector's dishonesty and mendacity in painting carbon capture and storage as a panacea demanding massive public investment when it's never offered a viable pathway to meaningful emission reduction. 

- Christopher Holcroft writes that the wildfires which tore through Jasper (and continue to threaten it) represent a compelling example of climate denialism made policy. Andrew Nikiforuk discusses the difficulty in responding to the increasingly imminent and widespread threat posed by global warming-fueled forest fires. And the Associated Press reports on new research suggesting that wildfire smoke may be even more harmful to our health (particularly our brains) than other forms of air pollution. 

- Jason Hickel and Dylan Sullivan examine the relationship between material production and existing human needs, and find that we have plenty of global output to meet a desirable standard of living for every human on the planet if it were properly planned and fairly distributed. Christopher Ketcham exposes how billionaires are funding a statistics institute intended to equate high-end wealth accumulation with human progress. And Cory Doctorow writes about the warped definition of property which makes consumer purchases of goods subordinate to corporate interests in controlling their use.

- Meanwhile, Hickel, Morena Hanbury Lemos and Felix Barbour find that similar work is subject to gross variances in pay around the globe. And Joan Westenberg calls out hustle culture which tries to blame individual workers for the intolerable systemic demands placed on them. 

- Finally, Adam King discusses the need for improved social supports to enable people (and disproportionately women) to meet the unpaid care demands being foisted on them. 

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Ian Welsh discusses how institutions under the thrall of neoliberal ideology are incapable of achieving any end other than the further enrichment of the wealthy. And Clement Nocos writes that affordability is ultimately an issue because of corporate price gouging and a lack of working-class organization to rein in business excesses.  

- Yushu Zhu, Hanan Ali, Meg Holden and Natasha Mhuriro examine the contributions that community housing can make which can never be replicated by for-profit developers. And Jessica Burgess reports on the particularly egregious example of a landlord who evicted vulnerable tenants to turn units into AirBNB profit generators even while putting on a show of hosting a charity event to combat homelessness. 

- Andre Picard writes about the snowballing crisis in caregiving - and the right-wing governments who are looking to hide the problem or turn it into a corporate cash cow. 

- But while the UCP for one neglects its own responsibilities, Dave Cournoyer examines how Danielle Smith is determined to micromanage every other institution in Alberta to prevent them from acting in the public interest. 

- Finally, Osita Nwanevu discusses how student protestors tend to have the most reliable moral compasses around - even if they can count on being treated with reactions ranging from dismissal to violent repression in their own time. 

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Dr. Christopher Applewhaite, Kerri Coombs, Dr. Susan Kuo and Protect Our Province BC respond to the reckless attempt to declare "back to normal" in the midst of an ongoing pandemic (with other severe illnesses also circulating at dangerous levels). And Lori Culbert reports on the difficulty health providers are having in trying to treat patients' long COVID symptoms, while Qiangru Huang et al. find that long COVID symptoms tend to become an ongoing issue after the first month rather than getting better with time.

- Katherine Scott discusses the crisis in a care economy where workers are facing increasing demands, constant illness and government-imposed wage cuts from what was already a starting point of austerity.  And Peter Friedrichsen writes about the ongoing collapse of Saskatchewan's health care system under a government operating in deliberate ignorance of people's suffering.

- Gregory Beatty discusses how Scott Moe and Danielle Smith are insisting on driving their respective provinces off a cliff. And Don Braid notes that Smith in particular has made it alarmingly clear how she intends to abuse power based on the positions she's promoted when given the platform of a radio show. 

- Finally, Clare Watson writes about the difficulty of calling out greenwashing in a country where giveaways and excuses for fossil fuel barons are taken as normal by those in power.

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Rob Stein discusses the CDC's recognition that new, more evasive COVID strains are becoming dominant in the U.S. Megan Ogilvie and Kenyon Wallace report on the growing calls for a return to preventative masking in Ontario, while Aline Schnake-Mahl et al. examine the connection between sick leave and other stronger public health policies, and higher vaccination rates. And Arianna Spatola et al. study the causes of long COVID, with an immune response to multiple viruses representing a key risk factor. 

- Bob Weber reports on new assessments showing that Canada is emitting far more methane pollution than it's bothering to document and regulate, while Peter Milne writes about the continuing waste of time and resources that is carbon capture and storage. Greg Jericho discusses how Australian gas companies are raking in windfall profits while contributing nothing more back to public coffers. And Ruth Michaelson reports on the influx of fossil fuel lobbyists at #COP27 attempting to stall meaningful climate action. 

- Meanwhile, Jacques Poitras and Frederic Zalac report on the revelations from the Paradise Papers showing that Irving Oil raked in a quarter of a billion dollars in profit while securing provincial and municipal tax handouts. 

- Alan Drummond writes about the crisis in Canada's emergency rooms. And Jeremy Corbyn makes the case for a national care service, even as the UK Cons instead plan to hand over the existing public health care system (including the private medical records of unconsenting patients) to the sketchiest corporate operators they can enrich. 

- Finally, Max Fawcett discusses how Canadians have already suffered from the right's obsession with cryptocurrency over any activity which would actually benefit people. 

Thursday Evening Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Claire Sibonney talks to Colin Furness about the cell dysregulation which looks to produce many of the most dangerous effects of long COVID. Sabrina Moreno discusses the connection between COVID-19 and a rising number of maternal deaths. And Betsy Ladyzhets offers suggestions for people looking for the most useful information still available about the risks around them, while Phil Tank rightly calls out Scott Moe and the Sask Party for keeping Saskatchewan's people in the dark (and thereby facilitating another COVID wave). 

- Meanwhile, Creeden Martell reports on CanAge's research showing the Moe government also lacks any plan to either limit avoidable cases of dementia, or address its consequences for care providers. And Steven Lewis points out that the growing cost and duration of health care education creates a barrier to filling the large (and growing) number of vacancies in the health care system. 

- Lindsay Ellis reports on the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's long-overdue recognition that toxic workplaces represent a needless danger to physical and mental health. 

- Finally, Kat Exner reports on a study from the Daily Bread Food Bank showing that most food bank users face deep poverty alongside their lack of food security and other risk factors. 

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- John Donne Potter discusses how an increase in reinfections is exacerbating the risk of long COVID. And Mark Kekatos reports that numerous U.S. cities are looking at reimplementing mask mandates as their case loads spiral out of control in the course of the BA.5 COVID wave. 

- Meanwhile, Zak Vescera reports that the Saskatchewan Party is once again focused on turning health care into a profit centre for its donors rather than a vital service for people, this time by doubling down on their failed attempt to address surgical backlogs with private clinics. 

- Alistair Steele reports on the labour shortage arising out of the demographic shift which has been foreseeable for decades, but never dealt with meaningful plans for succession. And Sarah O'Connor discusses how the UK is choosing to exploit migrant labour to fill care positions rather than creating viable working conditions for its own workforce - which is of course a familiar phenomenon in Saskatchewan as well. 

- Umair Irfan discusses how the EU's devastating heat wave is merely a hint of what's to come. And Umair Haque writes that our political leaders have no plan other than to tell people to learn for themselves to live with an apocalypse. 

- Finally, Wayne Poole notes that the end of the combustion engine vehicle is in sight - but that's not stopping the car industry from looking to push the largest polluters they can in the meantime. 

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- David Shield reports on the development of a new COVID-19 variant which is becoming dominant in Saskatchewan, while Zak Vescera highlights how public health experts are refuting the Moe government's spin about not being provided reasonable options to limit the catastrophic fourth wave. And Shannon Proudfoot discusses how the pandemic (and the decision to treat it as over for the purposes of people without real family responsibilities) has been breaking parents left to navigate it on their own. 

- Bruce Arthur writes that booster shots will help the effort to contain COVID, but won't represent a panacea any more than the first round of vaccinations. And Vidya Krishnan reminds us of the need to stop prioritizing big pharma's profits over global access to vaccines if we want to get the pandemic under control. 

- Mary Annaïse Heglar and Amy Westervelt write that climate activists have been waiting politely and playing nice far too long while rapacious fossil fuel barons and their political lackeys set our planet on fire. Kate Aronoff responds to Barack Obama as he tries to put the onus for climate action on the activists he ignored - or even implicitly treated as his adversaries - while in power. Yanis Varoufakis argues that the Glasgow climate summit has failed due to a focus on distant and empty "net zero" targets. 

- Karl Nerenberg reports on Oxfam's push to tax the rich in the interest of both economic and environmental justice. 

- Armine Yalnizyan, Laurell Ritchie, Marjorie Griffin Cohen and Pat Armstrong discuss the work that needs to be done at the federal level to build a functional and effective care economy. And the CCPA's alternative federal budget reminds us again how the federal government could develop a just and equitable society if it wanted to make the effort. 

- Finally, Anastasia French, Craig Pickthorne and Christine Saulnier write that a living wage is an essential element of any genuine economic recovery. 

#Elxn44 Roundup

The latest from Canada's federal election campaign.

- Khalden Dhatsenpa and Gavin Armitage-Ackerman write about the need to treat housing as a human right rather than a commodity. 

- PressProgress reports on an internal Health Canada report showing how the NDP's plan for dental coverage would remove crucial barriers to access to dental care while also reducing health costs.  

- Andrea Perrella and Brian Tanguay make the case to follow through on ending the first-past-the-post electoral system in favour of a proportional system. 

- Markham Hislop highlights the parties' positions on a just transition to a clean economy - with particular attention paid to the failure of either the Libs or the Cons to make anything of the sort a priority at what may be the best possible time to plan the transition. And David Climenhaga reports on the Alberta Oil War Room's apparent breaches of election financing requirements in demanding indefinite fossil fuel production and data mining for Conservative-connected groups. 

- The Care Economy offers a fact sheet on care issues in the election, as well as questions worth raising with candidates. 

- Finally, Leyland Cecco writes about Jagmeet Singh's growing appeal - along with the NDP's ability to influence policy in another likely minority Parliament. And Nick Taylor-Vaisey examines where the parties stand after last week's debate - with Singh emerging as the victor in public perceptions. 

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Graham Thomson discusses how the UCP has put politics over public well-being in choosing to let COVID run rampant (while now seeking to fund-raise off of opposition to even the most basic measures to let people reduce their own risk). And Carrie Tait discusses how Alberta parents are scrambling in the face of a new policy to refuse to inform people of positive cases in schools.

- Raiyan Chowdhury offers an ICU doctor's voice in speaking to the unvaccinated people who have made the choice to pose a danger to themselves and others. And Karen Howlett reports on Saskatchewan's choice to follow Alberta in putting essential surgeries and other medical treatment on hold to make room for preventable COVID cases.

- Armine Yalnizayan writes about the need to focus on the care economy, particularly as its workforce faces both a wave of retirements and massive burnout.

- Stephanie Hughes reports on new research showing the different faces of financial precarity in Canada - with homeowners generally carry larger debts, but renters being twice as likely to be unable to keep afloat.

- Finally, Matt Stoller discusses how predatory capitalism has undermined the supply chains necessary to ensure people actually have access to the goods they need. And Michelle Cyca interviews JB MacKinnon about the problems with consumption for its own sake.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Robert Reich offers some lessons we need to draw from the coronavirus pandemic - including the recognition that while billionaires won't save us from collective action problems, effective government can.

- Renju Jose reports on Melbourne's instant reaction to community spread of the particularly dangerous B.1.6172 variant. And Matt Elliott rightly praises young Ontarians for wasting no time in getting vaccinated. 

- But Bartley Kives calls out Brian Pallister for being more interested in casting shade than doing anything to ameliorate Manitoba's ugly third wave. Paige Parsons reports on a call from Alberta doctors to avoid reckless reopening, while Andre Picard makes a similar plea more generally. And Justin McCurry reports on the International Olympics Committee's appalling call for people to make public health sacrifices in order to ensure that a sports exhibition can proceed.

- Kenyon Wallace reports on the abuse and neglect of residents of Ontario's long-term care homes. And Tamara Daly, Ivy Lynn Bourgeault and Katie Aubrecht call for a shift toward a virtuous cycle of care - rather than the current vicious cycle squeezing any ethic of care out in order to maximize short-term profits.

- Finally, Jordan Barab and David Michaels note that we shouldn't take the CDC's vague phrasing about lifting masking requirements as an excuse to put workers in further danger. Hayes Brown points out that what corporate lobbyists are attempting to spin as a "labour shortage" amounts to nothing more than employers' refusal to offer acceptable wages and working conditions. And Alex Press writes about the increased exploitation of workers into taking intolerable hours for insufficient pay - and the need to reshape the balance of power to reverse course.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Peter Lozinski discusses the confusing and conflicting messages from Scott Moe which are making it difficult for well-intentioned residents to know what exactly they're supposed to do. Christo Aivalis weighs in on Doug Ford's choice to attack civil rights rather than taking any action which could possibly slow the spread of the coronavirus. David Rider offers a reminder that Ford's PCs (like other right-wing governments) had planned deeper cuts to the public health units responsible for responding to a pandemic. And Anne Huang comments that our handling of the third wave of COVID-19 are make it painfully clear which lives our current governments don't value.

- Daniel Hoyer examines how the federal budget can secure needed revenue from the wealthiest few to fund a just recovery. And Pat Armstrong, Marjorie Cohen, Laurell Ritchie, Leah Vosko and Armine Yalnizyan highlight the need for investment in our care economy as a focal point for the impending budget and our future planning.

- Janyce McGregor reports that foreign workers were relegated to unsafe housing after being recruited to work in Kingston. David Milstead discusses how for-profit long-term care home operators have handed their executives "attaboys" and and bonuses after being responsible for the deaths of large numbers of residents in the course of the pandemic. And Norm Farrell points out how the fines associated with harm to people's health or the environment are all too often treated as an expected cost of doing business to be paid out of corporations' petty cash.

- Amanda Connolly reports on the Libs' (and Bloc's) choice to shut down a defence committee study of sexual misconduct. And Robert Hiltz discusses what that default toward cover-ups and surface investigations says about our system of government more generally.

- Finally, Seth Klein discusses how the Trudeau Libs are failing to develop an effective response to the climate crisis due to their refusal to build any meaningful case for strong collective action. And Grace Blakely offers a reminder as to how ineffective and uncaring centrism as the "left" alternative has stoked the fires of right-wing fascism.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Armine Yalnizyan highlights how our failure to put adequate resources into the caring sector stands in the way of both a COVID recovery and sustainable longer-term economic development.

- Jessica Wildfire writes that our economy has been set up to be unaffordable for nearly everybody in order to allow profits to be skimmed off the top of everything we do. And Bob Lord discusses how a fair and progressive tax system is a must to avoid the toxic concentration of wealth in the hands of a greedy few.

- Joe Nocera comments on the importance of seizing a moment in which workers and unions are rightly seen as a necessary collective counterweight to corporate control.

- John Clarke writes about the need to develop class solidarity across international borders, rather than presuming that the fate of individual politicians or states represents an acceptable proxy for the public interest. And Lachlan Markey notes that the U.S. is seeing a concerted effort to push the Biden administration leftward. 

- Finally, Aaron Wherry discusses Erin O'Toole's failed attempt to have the Cons pay so much as lip service to the climate crisis. And Gillian Steward points out how the Cons have chosen to render themselves irrelevant to discussion around one of the most important issues we face - particularly as the implausible attempt to undermine even modest action through the courts has failed.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- PressProgress examines the strong public support for the ability for all workers - including gig workers - to be able to engage in collective action to improve their pay and benefits. And Anthony Forsyth notes that the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the importance of unions as a voice for workers. But Alec Stromdahl writes that far too many governments (including the federal Libs) are instead focused on using the power of the state to undermine workers' ability to stand up to employers - even as Kevin Carmichael writes about Galen Weston's refusal to pay fair wages unless governments force him to.

- Alexandra Mae Jones reports on the additional care work burden - and resulting anxiety - forced on women in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. And Julie Bosman reports on the WHO's warnings that we're entering another extremely dangerous phase in dealing with the coronavirus, even as far too many right-wing governments try to pretend that any risk has passed. 

- Jeff Berardelli reports on the unprecedently hot temperatures in Siberia - including the first-ever 100 Faherenheit temperatures ever measured north of the Arctic Circle. And Emily Eaton examines some of the steps Regina can take to transition fully to renewable energy.

- Thomas Wiedmann, Manfred Lenzen, Lorenz T. Keyber and Julia K. Steinberger find that a disproportionate amount of damage to our climate is being done by the discretionary spending of the wealthy few.

- Finally, Lisa Van Dusen discusses the similarities between denial of systemic racism and climate denialism - particular in their common goal of delaying any meaningful action. And in another important parallel, Patrick Sharkey writes about the deliberate choices to impose racist structures which are now perpetuated largely thanks to the perception that it's too much work to transition to less harmful policies.

Friday Evening Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- George Monbiot writes that the UK Cons are using their own botched Brexit as an excuse to set up a disaster capitalist's paradise.

- Canadians for Tax Fairness discusses how the Libs' inclination to attach draconian penalties to their pandemic income benefit signals the gap in treatment between the wealthy and the rest of us. And the Tax Justice Network takes note of the modest progress that's been made in so much as registering the beneficial ownership of wealth.

- Kim Siever discusses two of the most important problems in relying on billionaires' charity rather than taxes to fund social priorities.

- Alex Bozikovic wonders why Toronto is refusing to take a golden opportunity to build more affordable housing. And Jolson Lim discusses the risk of a wave of homelessness if the protections set up as COVID-19 first spread are allowed to expire.

- Finally, Meagan Day discusses the connection between ending mass incarceration and strengthening the labour movement. Ratna Omidvar and Leslie Seidle offer their take as to the changes needed to support migrant workers, while Kathleen Harris reports on the employer abuse and risk of disease which represent the status quo. And Allison Hurst examines the diminished wages and working conditions for long-term care workers in British Columbia.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Yaryna Serkez highlights how COVID-19 has both exploited and exacerbated the U.S.' existing inequalities. And Alexander Panetta writes about the perpetuation of racial inequality in the U.S. for upwards of five decades after civil rights legislation was supposed to establish a nominally equal footing.

- Cornel West discusses the militarized boot crushing the neck of U.S. democracy. And Poppy Noor examines how the U.S. has treated the media as a target in order to try to suppress reporting on both police violence and the strong public response.

- Meanwhile, Tom Nolan points out how militarized police forces result in the labeling of peaceful activists as an enemy to be combated. And Sandy Hudson discusses how the defunding and demilitarization of police would save the lives of Black and Indigenous people in Canada.

- Steven Chase and Robert Fife report on the Trudeau Libs' choice to fund the Saudi purchase of armoured vehicles - signalling the emptiness of their two main excuses for proceeding with arming the Saudis, including both the supposed sanctity of contract and the desire to have other countries pay for our exported products.

- Eleonore Fournier-Tombs writes about the need to rethink our expectations for care work as we reshape our economy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

- Finally, PressProgress exposes James Pattinson's laughable claim that he's powerless to change the slashing of hazard pay for workers at Save-on-Foods.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Linda McQuaig writes about the policies which were needed to sustain us through the COVID-19 crisis so far - but whose success can lay the groundwork for a fair and inclusive economy for the future:

For years, we’ve submitted to the economic orthodoxy dictated by Bay Street: that governments must deliver balanced budgets and low spending or economic disaster will follow — as surely as gravity will bring a heavy object plunging to the ground.

Then along came the pandemic. Suddenly the Bank of Canada is creating vast amounts of money, which the federal government is distributing to Canadians across the country. 

Nobody told us we could do that!

...

...Now that we see how it can be done, one is tempted to ask: could this be a way to pay for increased government spending on future things we truly need — like building hospitals and public transit and investing in renewable energy?

This is the sort of dangerous thinking that a phalanx of powerful interests — from the Fraser Institute to the financial press — are keen to crush, realizing it could spread more easily than coronavirus at a crowded, maskless beach party.

But, as economist Jim Stanford suggests, “the genie is out of the bottle.”

- Meanwhile, as part of Policy Response's comparison between the 2008 and 2020 crises, Angella MacEwen highlights the importance of investing in the care economy, David Macdonald emphasizes the work done to put money into people's pockets quickly, and Alex Himelfarb notes that we can deal with any fiscal impact by ensuring an increasingly wealthy elite pays its fair share.

- Joy Thomas writes that the pandemic offers a golden opportunity to ensure corporate transparency and crack down on money laundering.

- Sam Gindin points out the need to move beyond merely praising care workers to ensuring fair wages and working conditions, while CBC News reports on Scott Moe's continued failure to do anything of the sort. And Adam Carter reports on the mocking attitude of one private long-term care executive who carelessly let her contempt for residents and their families get heard by the people affected.

- Finally, Jim Storrie discusses how both the U.S. and Canada have been built on foundations of racial injustice. Peter Donolo calls out the Canadian leaders - including Justin Trudeau - who are unwilling to speak out against the U.S. deliberate violent repression of civil rights activists. And Rinaldo Walcott writes about the importance of fighting to abolish racial inequality once and for all.