Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Claire Pomeroy writes that the establishment's refusal to stop the transmission of COVID-19 has created a desperate need to account for the widespread disability it's causing. But Brody Langager reports that in Saskatchewan, a non-profit's website is instead serving as the closest patients have to a central source of information as the Moe government continues not to care about public health.

- Carol Hughes makes the case for a windfall tax on grocery profits which have been extracted by self-serving oligarchs under the false cover of claimed inflation. And D.T. Cochrane notes that the Competition Bureau's recent report only strengthens the argument.

- Sheila Block and Grace-Edward Galabuzi highlight how shifts in Ontario's workforce have exacerbated racial inequalities.

- Erika Shaker calls out the dog-whistle of "parental choice" as an excuse to reinforce inequalities of privilege and power. And Noah Fry warns that Blaine Higgs is using a bland public image to divert attention from an anti-social agenda no less extreme than that of Danielle Smith.

- Finally, Luke Savage discusses how Toronto's election of Olivia Chow as mayor provided a needed rebuke to the austerian corporate forces which had previously dominated the city.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Tom Mills challenges the Cons to show any job creation whatsoever as a result of their non-stop corporate tax slashing:

The thing is, if corporate tax cuts really do create jobs, Flaherty should be able to demonstrate it by now with something a little more substantial than theories.

Canada's corporate tax rate has dropped incrementally from 22.1% in 2005-06 to 16.5% today. The government should be able to track what jobs this has created.

Show us the jobs, I'd say. And show us full-time industrial jobs, not part-time service ones. Private sector, not civil service.

Otherwise, maybe we should give trickle-up economics a try.

- After a week of party operatives and media sources outside Quebec begging every NDP supporter they can find for some evidence of internal dissent angle to keep Nycole Turmel in the headlines, the big "gotcha" is...Adrian Dix' continued support for Turmel.

- Meanwhile, Carol Hughes rightly points out that two NDP opposition day motions passed unanimously in the House of Commons - meaning that there's every reason to put pressure on the Cons to translate their support in principle into real policy changes.

- Finally, I'll look at a couple of Alice's observations in more detail later. But for now, her post includes plenty of noteworthy tidbits on where Canada's political parties were in 2010, as well as where they're going in the years to come.

Tuesday Morning Riding Links

With #elxn41 in full swing, let's take a quick look at a few noteworthy developments at the riding level.

- First, the sudden retirement of Lib MP Raymonde Folco may result in a fascinating riding battle in Laval-Les Îles - a seat which was nearly won by the Bloc in 2006, and saw substantial improvements for the NDP and Cons in 2008. With the Libs starting from scratch in the middle of a campaign (and the Cons also apparently without a listed candidate), the Bloc might be a slight favourite to start - but it's not hard to envision a true four-way race which leaves all parties guessing until election day.

- There's much less doubt who's in contention in Palliser. And it's worth noting that Jack Layton's Regina and Moose Jaw stops yesterday were both in the riding - signalling that it's rightly at the top of the NDP's list of Con seats which can be won with a strong local effort.

- Meanwhile, the Cons' attempt to target Linda Duncan in Edmonton Strathcona has taken a turn for the embarrassing, as disgraced former staffer Sebastien Togneri is taking a break from being the subject of an RCMP investigation to lend his services to Ryan Hastman's campaign. I only hope we'll also get to see Hastman live-tweet about door-knocking with Bruce Carson.

- Finally, just in case we needed a reminder as to whose side the Cons are actually on, it shouldn't pass without comment that the Cons are apparently entirely happy to recruit a military procurement lobbyist to carry their banner against NDP MP Carol Hughes in Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing.

On dereliction of duty

While I tend toward the view that the high-profile portions of question period are covered to death, there's still sometimes room for some highly noteworthy questions and answers to slip through the cracks. Take for example what this exchange between NDP MP Carol Hughes and Con Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq says about the Cons' view of their federal responsibility for Canada's First Nations:

Mrs. Carol Hughes (Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, last week's throne speech indicated that we will improve the conditions of aboriginal women in Canada.

When it comes to HIV-AIDS, the infection rate for aboriginal women is running ahead of Canadian averages and is increasing. Aboriginal women are overrepresented in the Canadian epidemic. To bring this number down requires money and political will.

Will the government commit necessary funding to bring the HIV-AIDS infection rate down among aboriginal women?

Hon. Leona Aglukkaq (Minister of Health, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, we continue to increase the transfers of funding to provinces and territories. Again this year we are increasing the transfers by six per cent. We will continue to work with the provinces and the territories to deal with health issues.

Now, if one wants to be generous, one could note that it's possible that working with provinces and territories could conceivably have some impact on the spread of AIDS. But the fact that Aglukkaq doesn't even mention the word herself seems to speak volumes about the Cons' actual lack of interest in having anything to do with the issue. Indeed, Aglukkaq says nothing more than that the other levels of government will have money to work with when it comes to general health spending which they can choose to apply to the problem.

More importantly, though, there's still a gaping hole in Aglukkaq's response. After all, it's the federal government alone which is directly responsible for health and other government issues on First Nations reserves. So money sent to the provinces wouldn't have any conceivable effect on programs for hundreds of thousands of First Nations people.

Of course, one can simply view Aglukkaq's answer as a default response to all issues dealing with health - and I'm sure the Cons would come with additional spin if the issue gets pressed. But it's still striking that the Harper government's first line of talking points is to both ignore AIDS as a separate issue, and to feign ignorance of its responsibility for the well-being of on-reserve First Nations.