Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Heesu Lee reports on Greenpeace's estimate that air pollution costs the world nearly $3 trillion every year. And Damien Cave writes that this year's wildfires have permanently changed Australia as people knew it.

- Meanwhile, Alice Bell warns against trusting oil barons when it comes to developing policy to combat climate breakdown. Ian Austen talks to Christopher Flavelle about divestment - including the fear people have of speaking out due to the petronationalism emanating from Alberta and elsewhere. And Paul Dechene traces how Regina managed to invite a climate denialist to keynote a sustainability conference.

- Alex Boyd recognizes the historical significance in Indigenous protests in support of Wet’suwet’en sovereignty over its land targeting railways across the country. And Doug Cuthand weighs in on the importance of First Nations standing up for their land.

- Owen Jones writes about the dangers of treating a university education as a commodity to be delivered by the most precarious workforce possible.

- Rod Myer discusses how the rise of the gig economy is endangering the very concept of retirement, while Euan Black notes that older workers are facing consistent age discrimination even as they're told retirement isn't an option. And Omar Mosleh wonders whether the job action at Co-op's Regina refinery will represent a watershed moment for Canada's labour movement.

- Finally, Joel Lexchin writes that among the other compelling reasons to develop a national pharmacare program, it may be necessary merely to counterbalance the increases in drug costs arising out of the Libs' trade concessions.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Lana Payne points out the options to make life genuinely affordable for Canadians - while noting that the Cons' usual tax baubles don't make the list. And PressProgress both reveals Doug Ford's plans to slash Ontario's already-insufficient housing supports, and lists Brian Pallister's steps to take money away from Manitoba workers.

- Carl Meyer reports on Imperial Oil's use of a gala at which it funded every participant's attendance as an opportunity to lobby Andrew Scheer. But David Climenhaga offers a reminder (based on Jim Stanford's observations) that no amount of lobbying or denial can avoid the reality that dirty fossil fuels are a dying industry.

- Andy Blatchford reports that even the businesses which supposedly stand to benefit from corporate trade deals like the CETA neither know nor care about their terms - signalling just how few conglomerates are actually benefiting from trade rules biased toward the corporate sector.

- Richard McAlexander notes that the only connection between immigration and terrorism arises from the violence of domestic right-wing terrorists. Brennan MacDonald and Vassy Kapelos report on Justin Trudeau's appalling willingness to accept Donald Trump's abusive concentration camps (and general contempt for the concept of immigration and refugee status in any form) as "safe" for the purposes of asylum claims. And Emerald Bensadoun offers a wake-up call as to the long-term detention of immigrants in Canada.

- Finally, Laura Dale writes that decriminalization represents a proven means of reducing the harm and social cost caused by drug use and addiction.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Tracy Smith-Carrier comments on the importance of addressing poverty as an issue of human rights rather than charity:

It is not a matter of being down on your luck or misfortunate, as if people are somehow fated to live a life of poverty. It is the building blocks of society that reproduce poverty. Work conditions, unequal social relationships and the economy are all part of the problem: Some groups have historically been subject to racism, discrimination and inferior treatment while others have been accorded wealth and privilege.

For example, dynamics in the economy and labour market cause poverty. How many jobs are available, the nature and quality of those jobs, the availability of child care, the accessibility of advanced education and training, the affordability of housing, the extension of appropriate accommodations in the workplace, the accessibility of transportation systems, the ability for certain groups to climb the social ladder, the extension of income-security programs to buffer people in times of crisis: These are all factors that influence people’s slide into poverty and their ability to move out of it.

The decisions people make are ultimately shaped by these larger systemic forces. People might reduce their hours of work as they cannot find quality child care, or they might be reluctant to pursue post-secondary education with the prospect of crushing debt. These decisions are ultimately shaped by a lack of opportunities, not by personal deficiency. And then there is the psychological toll poverty takes: Mental-health issues can develop in the face of lingering unemployment.
...
Charity – the primary solution in place to address poverty through breakfast programs, soup kitchens, food banks, community gardens, and the like – can only provide some measure of emergency relief. It cannot eradicate poverty. No one gets out of poverty by using charitable programs. The fundamental problem – a lack of financial resources – remains unchanged.

It is time to shift away from the charitable model to a rights-based approach, guaranteeing people the right to food. People must have access to an adequate income that allows them to obtain their own food, and do so “in normal and socially acceptable ways,” ensuring personal dignity and choice. The perpetuation of food banks ensures the charitable-food model is preserved, and people remain hungry.

- David Leonhard argues that our current mean of measuring the economy tend to focus on the concentration of wealth rather than economic security for most people.

- Jedediah Purdy points out how the U.S. has turned the principle of freedom of speech into a mechanism to ensure most people are drowned out by the privileged few who can afford to dominate the media. And Adam Federman reports on the private surveillance of environmental activists in Canada as a similar example of money infringing on basic freedoms.

- Michael Harris offers a reminder that Canada is far better off holding off on any NAFTA deal than signing onto Donald Trump's plan to further enrich the American corporate class. And Janyce McGregor reports that like so many corporate trade deals, the CETA has fallen far short of its supposed economic promise.

- Finally, Colleen Flood, Bryan Thomas, Asad Ali Moten and Patrick Fafard examine some of the options available to establish a national universal pharmacare system.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Martin Wolf reviews Mariana Mazzucato's The Value of Everything, including its distinction between value creation and value extraction. And Yvonne Roberts points out how millenial workers are being left with little but large debts as a result of inequality between classes and generations.

- Matthew Yglesias discusses the significance of a jobs guarantee as a matter of values, while noting that its goals may best be met indirectly. But Ian Welsh argues that we should instead work on ensuring a more fair allocation of resources by challenging the claim that people's worth is limited to what they can get paid through a job.

- Meanwhile, Hassan Yussuff writes that nobody should have to put up with harassment or violence as the price of keeping a job.

- The Council of Canadians, Sierra Club U.S. and Greenpeace Mexico jointly review the effects of NAFTA in limiting climate policy across North America. And Raisa Patel reports on the parliamentary budget officer's study showing that CETA's giveaways to the pharmaceutical industry will cost Canadians more than $500 million ever year.

- Finally, Joan Bryden reports on the warning of the acting chief electoral officer that the Libs have left any change to Stephen Harper's unfair election rules too late for matters to improve in time for the 2019 federal election.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Rupert Neate reports on a new study showing that the world's 1,500-odd billionaires between them control over $6 trillion in wealth.

- Stuart Trew sets out Canada's choice between corporate-oriented trade deals such as the CETA, or sustainable and fairly-distributed economic development. And Laurie Monsebraaten writes about the need for political action to rein in inequality among minority groups.

- Kate Aronoff discusses how U.S. Democrats are wasting an essential opportunity to respond to climate change. And Martin Lukacs highlights how the oil industry gets sweetheart deals which result in it pay far less royalties in Canada than nearly anywhere else, while Carl Meyer exposes how the Libs have pushed any discussion of fossil fuel subsidies behind closed doors.

- The Conference Board of Canada examines the massive return on an investment in child care - with each dollar funded leading to six in social and economic benefits. And Iglika Ivanova offers a step-by-step plan toward a universal child care system in B.C., while pointing out how Quebec's system has dramatically improved labour force participation for women with children.

- Finally, Chris Vanderbreekel reports on Jagmeet Singh's plan to provide federal funding to revive the Saskatchewan Transportation Company.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Michael Rozworski discusses the importance of workers exercising power over how our economy functions. Robert Booth reports on a forthcoming UK study showing the desperate need for improved quality of work and life among low-income individuals. And Lana Payne writes that a strong labour movement is essential to fair and sustainable economic development:

(W)hile bankers bemoan “soft wage data,” in the real world workers can tell you exactly why wages are stuck. Too much of the gross domestic product — the economic pie — continues to be hoarded by the rich and corporations, creating unprecedented inequality. And workers have had less power to demand a share of that pie.

It is this inequality and its impact on economic growth that has finally pushed central bankers to re-examine their book of conventional economic “wisdom.”

To solve the issue of stagnant wages, government must fix the rules, including by empowering unions that can make a difference on the wage front. After 30 years of attacking them, governments should let unions do what they do best — raise people up, improve living and working conditions and share the pie.

Unions don’t just bargain better wages, they negotiate better jobs.

- Trevor Nunn discusses the growth of the gap between the rich and the rest of us. And Pedro da Costa makes it abundantly clear that the most important divide is between the extremely rich who have seen soaring incomes, and everybody from the 99th percentile downward:

- Eric Reguly discusses the emergence of corporate fascism. And Alan Freeman examines Sears' move to strip pension benefits away from its former employees as an example of how the consequences of corporate failures are visited primarily on workers. 

- Andrew Jackson makes the case for an increased minimum wage. And Jon Thompson reports on Ontario's basic income pilot program and its anticipated effect on people facing poverty and homelessness in Thunder Bay.

- Finally, Justin Ling highlights the absurdity of the Trudeau Libs' choice to cover up the details of their own transparency plan. Jeremy Nuttall interviews Harry Leslie Smith about the glaring gap between appearance and reality when it comes to the Libs' choices in office. And Murray Dobbin writes that Trudeau's push for corporatized free trade will be particularly damaging to Canada's cities.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Sarah O'Connor examines the inconsistent relationship between job quantity and quality as another example of how it's misleading to think of policy choices solely in terms of the number of jobs generated. Angela Monaghan discusses how wages continue to stagnate in the UK despite a low unemployment rate. And Patrick Butler writes about the "relentless financial tightrope" which keeps far too many households from ever avoiding the stress of imminent ruin:

Low-income families are going without beds, cookers, meals, new clothes and other essential items as they struggle to cope with huge debts run up to pay domestic bills, according to a survey highlighting the cost-of-living crisis experienced by the UK’s poorest households.

Clients of the debt charity Christians Against Poverty (CAP) had run up an average of £4,500 in debts on rent or utility bills, forcing them on to what the charity described as a “relentless financial tightrope” juggling repayments and basic living costs, leaving many acutely stressed and in deteriorating health.

The pressure of coping with low income and debt frequently triggered mental illness or exacerbated existing conditions, with more than a third of clients reporting that they had considered suicide and three-quarters visiting a GP for debt-related problems. More than half were subsequently prescribed medication or therapy.
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There are widespread concerns about rising pressure on living standards for low-income households as wages fall, working-age social security benefits remain frozen and inflation rises. The survey’s findings indicate that households are increasingly turning to high-cost credit to stay afloat, which CAP said was “an unsustainable solution”.

Nearly seven out of 10 clients helped by CAP in 2016 had fallen behind with payments for gas, electricity and rent, and 90% had taken out loans, run up overdrafts or used credit cards to meet domestic bills. There was a year-on-year increase in the proportion of clients using credit cards stay afloat, from 49% to 64%.

Damon Gibbons, director of the Centre for Responsible Credit, said: “Once again this report lays bare the human costs associated with debt problems. Debt affects health, including mental health; contributes to relationship breakdown; makes it harder to get back into and sustain employment, and has a host of negative impacts for children.

“With the continuing squeeze on household incomes and the failure of the Financial Conduct Authority to curb irresponsible lending resulting in greater indebtedness, we desperately need a national strategy to raise wages, restore the welfare safety net and provide better debt solutions.”

- G. Elijah Dann implores Canadians not to be taken in by Justin Trudeau's public relations schemes when they're being used in support of Trumpian policy. And Bob Baldwin and Richard Shillington examine how the Libs' retirement income changes may do nothing - or even be outright damaging - for low-income earners in particular.

- Brent Patterson highlights how the Libs are insisting on including corporate-biased dispute resolution provisions in trade deals even as our trading partners seek more balanced options. And Dean Beeby reports on Canada's role in facilitating tax evasion through lax disclosure requirements, while Canadians for Tax Fairness highlights how the federal government is rewarding tax haven users with public contracts.

- Meanwhile, Michael Hiltzik examines the role of tax cheating in exacerbating inequality. Annette Alstadsæter, Niels Johannesen and Gabriel Zucman discuss how global inequality is even worse than has previously been assumed once hidden wealth is included in the picture. And Robert E. Litan and Ian Hathaway comment on the U.S.' growing tendency toward rent-seeking rather than productive entrepreneurship.

- Finally, Andrew Sheng writes that our political and social systems have failed to keep up with an increasingly complex world.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Barbara Ellen questions the positive spin the right tries to put on poverty and precarity, and writes that we're all worse off forcing people to just barely get by:

In recent times, there has been a lot said about those people who are “just managing”. They are neither rich nor poor, but usually working in low- to medium-income jobs, scratching a living, surviving from one month, week, day, or minute to another.

A narrative has emerged of plucky, cheerful sorts who soldier on, just about making ends meet, but “can’t complain, guv”, which has the effect of rebranding a permanent grinding state of poverty as something really plucky, gutsy and wonderfully, quintessentially British. Those just managing types, what sports they are about being poor. Gawd bless ’em! Back in the real world, maybe the just managing can and do complain, but nobody wants to listen?
...
If people are regularly reduced to borrowing just to keep a roof over their head, then they’re evidently not managing. Since when was this defined by stacking up dangerous amounts of debt just to avoid being made homeless? At what point did it become normal for people to drown in repayments just to keep up with basic utilities?

It could be that a lot of these people are not remotely managing – they’re being ground down by debt in a way that’s either ignored, normalised or, increasingly, sanitised.

- Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan write about dental care as a glaring example of the disparity in treatment based on wealth. And Rory Carroll highlights LAX's new, exclusive terminal - featuring an opportunity for the rich to entertain themselves with the comparative discomfort of everybody else.

- Elizabeth McSheffrey points out how pipeline backers largely took over the Libs' much-trumpeted consultations with First Nations. Michael Geist discusses the PBO's conclusion that the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with Europe will cost Canada hundreds of millions of dollars in royalty giveaways to big pharma. And Garfield Mahood and Brian Iler suggest that it's time to name and shame the individual executives behind tobacco-related diseases and deaths - which would seem a sensible plan for any corporation which puts the public's well-being at risk to serve its own ends.

- Marshall Steinbaum notes that Thomas Piketty's work in identifying and challenging inequality and economic unfairness is being papered over within the field of economics.

- Finally, Alan Freeman discusses the lack of long-term preparation and planning that results in floods (and other disasters) doing far more damage than they should. 

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- James Wilt argues that the labour movement should be putting its weight behind green housing which will produce both social and environmental benefits along with jobs:

Workers need affordable homes. Workers also need stable and properly compensated jobs, especially those transitioning from work in oil, gas and coal production. And those homes will have to be built in ways that reduce heat loss, cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for dramatically increased weather-related damages from flooding, winds and hail.

Sure, existing homes and buildings can easily be retrofitted with improved insulation, windows, furnaces, appliances and hot-water heaters; most jurisdictions have programs in place to provide subsidies or rebates for such upgrades. 

There are lots of good jobs in that field too: the One Million Climate Jobs — a collaboration between the CLC, Green Economy Network and Climate Action Network — estimates it could account for the creation of over 400,000 “person job years.”

But unions can and should be far more ambitious than this. After all, Canada is in the midst of a massive affordable housing crisis, a crisis that will only be resolved by the construction of thousands of new homes that the aforementioned retrofit programs won’t apply to. 

...

Millions of Canadian workers are in desperate need of truly affordable housing that is sustainable and prepared for the looming dangers of climate change. Many resource and construction workers are in need of jobs as well, which such a push could help facilitate.

 

To leave such conversations to the federal government, an entity which is clearly uninterested in the needs of the working class, would be deeply counterproductive and a huge missed opportunity for unions looking to attract new members and build militancy.

- Tanara Yelland reports on a call by anti-poverty groups for a maximum wage in Ontario. And Rupert Neale points out how extreme high-end wealth leads even people within the top 1% of the income distribution to face relative disadvantages.

- Ben Parfitt discusses how Christy Clark's B.C. Libs have allowed fossil fuel giants to skip any environmental assessment process before building substantial dams.

- Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood examines the Parliamentary Budget Officer's less-than-glowing review of the effect of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with Europe. And in what's surely unrelated news, Andy Blatchford reports on the Trudeau Libs' efforts to limit the PBO's ability to report on anything without government approval.

- Finally, Chantal Hebert highlights how Justin Trudeau's ways are now anything but sunny. And John Ivison writes about the return of cash-for-access fund-raising at the federal level following the briefest of interruptions.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- The Star's editorial board calls for an end to regressive federal tax breaks. And Dennis Howlett asks why the tax evaders who used KPMG's illegal offshoring schemes are being offered secrecy and amnesty for their attempts to siphon revenue away from the Canadian public.

- Michael Butler discusses how the Libs' insistence on continuing the Harper Cons' health funding model through bilateral agreements looks to undermine the universal Medicare we value so highly. And James MacLeod points out another predictable Trudeau broken promise, as the government which insists on pushing corporate-driven "free trade" agreements is reneging on promised transitional funding.

- Martha Friendly examines the sadly stalled state of child care in Canada, while calling for a national child-care program as one of the most important steps that can be taken toward greater gender equality.

- And finally, Guy Caron outlines the significance of his basic income plan as part of the Ottawa Citizen's series on the launch of the NDP's leadership campaign:

When you’re worried about putting food on the table, it’s hard to think about anything else. Planning for a better future for your family is next to impossible when you’re focused on making rent. That’s why I believe it’s time to introduce a basic income for all Canadians: to ensure that everyone is able enjoy a standard of living worthy of our great country.

A basic income policy is not only the right thing to do, it will also save us money. Less poverty means less stress on health care and public safety authorities. The evidence on this is clear. When people aren’t fighting to simply scrape by, they thrive. Despite what we’ve been led to believe, poverty and inequality are not inevitable.
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A basic income is good public policy, since investing in Canadians gives them the tools to participate fully in society, access better opportunities, and achieve financial independence. It will not only reduce costs for the government in the long run, but also result in greater economic growth and productivity, helping many Canadians to achieve their full potential. As one of the world’s wealthiest democracies, we have the means to tackle this challenge in a meaningful way.

Saturday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading.

- David Giles reports on the increasing cost of living in Saskatchewan. And Barbara Ehrenreich writes about the future of the U.S.' working class - including the reality that its major recent success has involved improving minimum wage levels:

Now when politicians invoke “the working class,” they are likely to gesture, anachronistically, to an abandoned factory. They might more accurately use a hospital or a fast-food restaurant as a prop. The new working class contains many of the traditional blue-collar occupations — truck driver, electrician, plumber — but by and large its members are more likely to wield mops than hammers, and bedpans rather than trowels. Demographically, too, the working class has evolved from the heavily white male grouping that used to assemble at my house in the 1980s; black and Hispanic people have long been a big, if unacknowledged, part of the working class, and now it’s more female and contains many more immigrants as well. If the stereotype of the old working class was a man in a hard hat, the new one is better represented as a woman chanting, “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!” (The people united will never be defeated!)

The old jobs aren’t coming back, but there is another way to address the crisis brought about by deindustrialization: Pay all workers better. The big labor innovation of the 21st century has been campaigns seeking to raise local or state minimum wages. Activists have succeeded in passing living-wage laws in more than a hundred counties and municipalities since 1994 by appealing to a simple sense of justice: Why should someone work full time, year-round, and not make enough to pay for rent and other basics? Surveys found large majorities favoring an increase in the minimum wage; college students, church members and unions rallied to local campaigns. Unions started taking on formerly neglected constituencies like janitors, home health aides and day laborers. And where the unions have faltered, entirely new kinds of organizations sprang up...

- Meanwhile, Christopher Pollon, Christopher Cheung and Chris Wood point out the tax policy roots of the growing wealth gap between people who can afford to own homes, and people who are stuck in the rental market.

- Craig Wong reports that the Canada Revenue Agency expects to identify $400 million in taxes owed this year - and more in future years - by cracking down on tax havens. But the Department of Finance's study on tax expenditures highlights the fact that there's an awful lot more potential revenue being left on the table (and often for questionable returns).

- Finally, Scott McAnsh and Amir Attaran discuss how investor-state dispute settlement provisions such as those in the CETA can be disastrous for the environment:

Bilcon’s win (so far) in the NAFTA tribunal sends a chill over environmental policy in Canada. The Joint Review Panel put weight on socio-economic factors as part of the environmental assessment, but got into trouble for it. This is highly likely to make future panels shy away from socio-economic considerations in their assessments. It may also make the federal government cautious about including a consideration of socio-economic impacts in any new environmental assessment legislation — a review of which is currently ongoing.

If every negative environmental assessment risks hundreds of millions of dollars under an ISDS system run amok, how many environmental assessments will governments allow to be negative, and what does that mean for the future of environmental protection?

New column day

Here, on how Justin Trudeau is about the least plausible possible advocate as to the importance of building trust in leaders and public institutions.

For further reading...
- The text of Trudeau's Hamburg speech is here. And both Paul Wells and Susan Delacourt wonder whether it signals a shift in the Libs' plans, though the more plausible reading looks to be that it merely reflects the gap between their rhetoric and actions.
- Daniel Tencer rightly argues that if Trudeau was serious about empowering the public, the last thing he'd be doing is pushing the CETA and other trade deals designed to give businesses a veto over public policy.
- And Duncan Cameron also addresses the Libs' predictable choice to govern from the corporate right, no matter how much progressive posturing they offer on the stump (or when they're spouting empty words).

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Daniel Tencer reports on Pierre Kohler and Servaas Storm's study showing that the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement figures to cost jobs and wages in Canada and across Europe. 

- Jim Tankersley explains the initial rise of the stock market since November's U.S. election, while offering reason to doubt that any boost will last. And Robert Reich points out that Donald Trump's actual plans are only likely to cause economic harm in the long run.

- Joseph Stiglitz writes that the only way to ride out Trump's stay in office will be to stay alert and resist.

- Molly Worthen tries to offer some places to find hope during Trump's tenure - though she conspicuously doesn't include any particular reason to include Canada on the list. And Andrew Mitrovica reminds us that we're far from free of bigoted demagogues, while Laurel Russwurm notes that Justin Trudeau has chosen to preserve an electoral system which favours them.

- Lauren Heuser makes a case for electoral reform based on the U.S.' cautionary tale as to the limitations of a duopoly. And Rick Smith points out that the Libs' refusal to work on a more fair electoral system in Canada seems to be based primarily on their desire to foment right-wing extremism to give them something to run against.

- Finally, Sonia Sodha examines the returns so far from Finland's experiment with a basic income.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Jordy Cummings exposes the shady side of Justin Trudeau's shin persona. Dimitri Lascaris interviews Nora Loreto about Canada's relationship with the U.S. And Michal Rozworski challenges Trudeau's decision to serve as a prop for Donald Trump rather than defending Canadian values:

The point to remember is that there would be intense pressure from within the US business world to prevent a trade war in the first place. Given today’s highly integrated supply chains, even a proportionately small volume of trade can still be crucial. It matters less that trade with Canada accounts for just 5% of GDP if some of that 5% is specialized parts and inputs that can cripple production. And it’s not that easy to replace Canadian-made goods in this case: doing so would require long-term investments with considerable fixed costs in plant and equipment. It could be done, but it won’t be the result of one critical statement.

Nevertheless, Trudeau acts as if that’s a real risk. Even if there might be no personal love lost between our cosmopolitan neoliberal leader and his nativist protectionist counterpart, officially this week it was all smiles and handshakes. Trudeau ducked questions from reporters at his joint press conference, stating, “The last thing Canadians expect is for me to come down and lecture another country on how they chose to govern themselves.” This condescension misses the fact that a majority thinks that even worsening trade relationships would be a price worth paying for standing up to Trump—nevermind that fears of a worsening are overblown. Past prime ministers have been willing to stand up to US presidents over smaller things despite the trading relationship.

Trudeau has to be aware of Canada’s unequal standing in its relationship with the US but he doesn’t have to cower in the corner waiting for a strike from the bully that may never come. Being in less powerful in a trading relationship doesn’t equate to moral paralysis in other spheres. Economic disruption cannot be a cover for lack of spine. My hunch is that Trudeau knows this—that his failure to stand up to Trump is cowardice that has its source in political calculation not economic necessity.

- Brent Patterson comments on the need for Canada to seriously evaluate the dangers of the CETA and other corporate control agreements. And Stuart Trew and Scott Sinclair map out the road ahead as CETA undergoes scrutiny from the EU's member states.

- Alex Hemingway and Iglika Ivanova examine how the B.C. Libs have gone out of their way to impose a regressive tax system. And Marco Chown Oved reports on the Conference Board of Canada's study showing that Canada may be missing out on up to $50 billion every year in uncollected taxes.

- Meanwhile, the Economist notes that one of Trump's first major moves has been to facilitate bribery and corruption by allowing resource giants to conceal payments to foreign governments.

- Finally, Dan Durcan and Faiza Shaheen take a look at the realities of work in the U.K., where reasonable surface numbers of jobs are outweighed by the fact that the new work is generally low-quality and precarious.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Bruce Campbell points out how Donald Trump's blind hatred toward any type of regulation can impose costs in Canada and elsewhere to the extent we're bound by trade deals which make "harmonization" an expected standard. And Pia Eberhardt recognizes that there's no point in locking ourselves into the CETA as a response to Trump's view of trade - though that excuse should ring particularly hollow given that the same voices pushing it were demanding exactly the same corporate privileges when Barack Obama was setting the U.S.' trade policy.

- Meanwhile, the Tax Justice Network highlights the latest revelations from the Panama Papers showing that thousands of U.K. intermediaries have been facilitating offshore tax evasion.

- Sheila Block examines the effects of Ontario's increased taxes on the 1%, and concludes that they substantially increased public revenues without doing anything to affect gross incomes.

- The Star's editorial board makes the case for Canada to suspend its "safe third party" agreement with the U.S. until there's some reason to think refugees are actually going to receive a fair hearing under the Trump administration.

- Finally, Tom Parkin writes that Justin Trudeau's broken promise of electoral reform was exactly what made him seem different from his failed predecessors. And Laurin Liu calls out Trudeau for using women as political cover for his most dubious choices.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Vincent Bevins interviews Branko Milanovic about the economic roots of the working-class revolt against neoliberalism, while pointing out that there's nothing inevitable about globalization harming large numbers of people in the developed world:

Let’s start with the obvious question. Does the elephant graph explain Brexit and Trump? 

Yes, I think that it largely does explain Brexit and Trump. Why? Because it shows in very stark terms that people in the lower parts of rich countries’ income distributions have seen fewer benefits of globalization compared both to the people in Asia against whom they often compete in global supply chains and compared to the people in their own countries’ tops of the distributions. You just cannot undo these two facts.
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Rich world governments, in say the US and Western Europe, failed to “mop up” globalization’s mess. What could they have done differently?

Perhaps it is easy to say it with hindsight, but they could have argued for trade pacts that would pay more attention to workers’ standards rather than to the protection of intellectual property rights and patents.

Rich countries, and especially the US, could have paid more attention to the quality of education and tried to not only equalize access to the best schools but make public schools’ quality similar to the quality of private schools. You may say that it is a generally desirable policy that has little to do with globalization: I agree, but I also think that it would have reduced the number of “losers” because it would have enabled larger swaths of the population to successfully compete globally.

- George Monbiot discusses how celebrity culture has facilitated the corporate takeover of our social sphere. Katrina vanden Heuvel notes that Donald Trump's false populism has given way to pure plutocracy in the naming of nothing but corporate elites to his cabinet. And Polly Toynbee reflects on a miserable 2016 for far too many people, while highlighting the need to fight against the trends toward corporatism and austerity in the year to come.

- Malcolm Buchanan writes that the CETA is yet another bad trade deal being sold as an inevitability in the face of serious concerns.

- PressProgress points out that a million Canadian retail workers are making do with less than a living wage while catering to holiday shoppers.

- Finally, Heidi Garrett-Peltier discusses how renewable energy stands to create far more jobs than fossil fuels. And CBC reports that both Canada and the U.S. have taken some steps to rein in oil drilling in sensitive Arctic waters.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Stephen Hawking discusses the urgent need to address inequality and environmental destruction as people are both more fearful for their futures, and more aware of what's being taken away from them:

(T)he lives of the richest people in the most prosperous parts of the world are agonisingly visible to anyone, however poor, who has access to a phone. And since there are now more people with a telephone than access to clean water in sub-Saharan Africa, this will shortly mean nearly everyone on our increasingly crowded planet will not be able to escape the inequality.

The consequences of this are plain to see: the rural poor flock to cities, to shanty towns, driven by hope. And then often, finding that the Instagram nirvana is not available there, they seek it overseas, joining the ever greater numbers of economic migrants in search of a better life. These migrants in turn place new demands on the infrastructures and economies of the countries in which they arrive, undermining tolerance and further fuelling political populism.

For me, the really concerning aspect of this is that now, more than at any time in our history, our species needs to work together. We face awesome environmental challenges: climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans.

Together, they are a reminder that we are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity. We now have the technology to destroy the planet on which we live, but have not yet developed the ability to escape it. Perhaps in a few hundred years, we will have established human colonies amid the stars, but right now we only have one planet, and we need to work together to protect it.

To do that, we need to break down, not build up, barriers within and between nations. If we are to stand a chance of doing that, the world’s leaders need to acknowledge that they have failed and are failing the many. With resources increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, we are going to have to learn to share far more than at present.

- Adnan Al-Daini discusses how market dogmatism is affecting every facet of our society. And Noah Smith reminds us that some the economic theories used have been entirely falsified by real-world evidence.

- Roderick Benns highlights how a well-designed basic income could substantially improve the personal security of the people now at the most risk. But John Clarke warns against settling for an austerian model which treats an insufficient basic income as a substitute for fair wages and needed social supports.

- Bruce Cheadle reports on the International Institute for Sustainable Development's new research showing that Canada's economy is grossly overreliant on fossil fuels, as nearly all of our development has been oriented toward extracting dirty and limited resources rather than developing and applying human capital.

- Finally, Janyce McGregor reports on how the CETA and other trade agreements are designed to increase prescription drug costs - without any effort being made to assess what the price tag will be. But Kelly Crowe and Darryl Hol do note that without much fanfare, Parliament is studying a national pharmacare plan which could both reduce direct drug costs, and significantly improve health outcomes.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Lana Payne comments on the importance of the labour movement in ensuring that economic growth translates into benefits for workers:

The findings of a study released this month by the Canadian Centre for Study of Living Standards, an Ottawa-based think-tank, reinforces why there is a “pervasive sense among Canadians” in the so-called middle class that they are not getting ahead.

And the data supports this stagnation of the middle.

The study notes that while Canadians are more productive than ever, those productivity gains are not being shared. Indeed, median real hourly earnings grew by a measly 0.09 per cent a year between 1976 and 2014, while labour productivity grew by 1.12 per cent a year.

Yet workers were promised they would share in those gains if they worked harder, worked longer, worked faster, worked leaner. And so they did that.
...
The study found the gap in earnings and productivity was because of three key factors: rising inequality (more share going to the top), the rising costs of consumer goods and a decline in workers’ share of the national income while the corporate or capital share is getting bigger and bigger.

The authors, economists James Uguccioni, Andrew Sharpe and Alexander Murray, note that “economic history and economic theory suggest that labour productivity growth should generate rising living standards for workers over time, so the gap between annual labour productivity growth and annual median wage growth is puzzling.”
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The authors conclude: “the most plausible explanations for both the ‘hollowing out of the middle’ of the earnings distribution and the decline of labour’s share of income are globalization, technological change and institutional change.”

By institutional change they mean declining unionization. More and more economic research has been noting that the inability of workers to join unions, often because of regressive labour laws, is impacting not just how the economic pie gets shared, but economic growth and rising inequality.

A U.S. study by the Economic Policy Institute found that declining unionization resulted in lower wages for non-union workers. This isn’t a surprise, as unions often lift the floor for everyone.

- R.A. Washington notes that laissez-faire economic theory tends to miss the mark in describing reality due to its hand-waving away the significance of the consent of the governed when neoliberal governments implement policies designed to serve the market rather than the citizenry. And Rupert Neate highlights the inevitable result of allowing the populist right to get the upper hand, as a U.S. election decided largely by working-class insecurity figures to only further benefit the extremely wealthy at everybody else's expense.

- Daniela Vincenti reports on a study showing how CETA's environmental provisions are utterly ineffective, while its impact on democratic governance could be massive.

- D.C. Fraser, Pamela Cowan and Erin Petrow report on Brad Wall's decision to make a bad economic situation worse by treating a deficit as an excuse to cut already-suffering core programs in health, education and social services. Ashley Martin writes about the latest study showing that a quarter of Saskatchewan children already live in party even before the Saskatchewan Party takes an axe to existing supports. And the CP and CBC both report on the alarming vacancies in social work positions in northern Saskatchewan.

- Finally, Jonathan Freedland wonders whether the rise of the extreme right can be traced in part to the centre-left showing undue respect across the spectrum which is never reciprocated.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- John McDonnell outlines a progressive alternative to neoliberal economic policy:

The increasing automation of jobs, reduced dependence on carbon fuels, artificial intelligence and the so-called gig economy have provoked understandable anger among many workers whose jobs are under threat. More generally, concerns about the effect on the labour market are widespread: either threatening mass unemployment or a significant shift towards low-productivity, low-paid jobs.

This need not be the case. In a society where the benefits of technological advancement are shared, productivity gains can be made to work for the benefit of all. It requires original thinking – one possibility is a universal basic income – to suggest how we can make a society with less demand for medium-skilled labour become wealthier and less polarised.
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(I)f we are to meet the needs of those who need health care, pensions and social security, we will need to find ways to tax wealth more effectively. Not just because it is fairer than taxing labour, but because our tax base has shrunk. And as more of the economy now goes to capital owners, taxing a fair share of this is essential to affording the public services that we want.

Finally, none of this is sustainable in the [long term] unless we change the ownership of this capital. Through new forms of democratic and small-scale ownership, such as employee-owned firms, and by sharing the ownership of society’s assets more broadly, we can reduce the need for redistributive intervention, while increasing society’s power to choose the future direction of our economy and address the urgent demands of climate change.

- Meanwhile, Amy Wood and Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood highlight why the modification of CETA's dispute resolution provisions does little to address the fundamental flaws with the deal. 

- Laura Neidhart writes about the spread of precarity and poverty for younger workers. And Jessica Wynne Lockhart discusses the hidden poverty growing (with little public attention) in the suburbs of Toronto and other cities.

- Cory Collins comments on the regression in Atlantic Canada's labour legislation in recent decades - which, it should be noted, can't be seen as having had any economic effect other than to redistribute income and wealth upward. And Lynn Parramore compares our expectations for vacation time today to that of medieval peasants - concluding that despite centuries of productivity gains which were supposed to allow for increased leisure time, we're actually getting by with significantly less.

- Finally, Evan Balgord highlights new research from the Pembina Institute showing that the Saskatchewan Party's version of carbon capture and storage does nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as any carbon captured is matched by what's released by resulting oil production and consumption. 

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Branko Milanovic highlights the futility of pretending that market mechanisms will produce anything other than profit-oriented outcomes - and the observation represents an obvious reason not to put public services in corporate hands. And David Sloan Wilson (in introducing an interview with Sigrun Aasland) points out how Norway's active government has produced better social and economic outcomes than business-focused policies elsewhere:

Modern society requires an extensive infrastructure, which does not emerge bottom-up from unregulated markets. This has always been the case, in America as elsewhere, as my recent interview with Daron Acemoglu attests. One reason that the Nordic nations work well might be because they have not—yet—succumbed to the siren’s song of free market fundamentalism.

A strong state capable of building infrastructure is not enough. It must also be an inclusive state that works for the benefit of everyone, as opposed to an extractive state that works only for the benefit of an elite few, as my interview with Acemoglu also makes clear. Inclusiveness requires a balance of power among the various sectors of the society. Perhaps the Nordic nations work well for this reason also—strong states working collaboratively with a strong private sector, strong labor unions, and a strong, well-informed, and trusting electorate.

Even this is only necessary and not sufficient. A national economy that works well is a complex adaptive system, like an automobile with many interdependent parts. Even a strong and inclusive state won’t work well if it doesn’t put the parts of its economy together in the right way, which is not an easy matter for any complex system.

- Nick Dearden discusses how the CETA is nothing more than a ticking time bomb for citizens. But fortunately, Scott Sinclair and Stuart Trew note that there will still be some opportunities to ensure it doesn't get ratified.

- David Macdonald offers a preview as to what to expect in the federal government's latest fiscal update. And Louis-Philippe Rochon reminds us not to obsess over deficit numbers when we have urgent needs going unmet.

- Ian MacLeod reports that the Libs are breaking another election promise by abandoning any pretense of providing for real-time oversight of Canada's security state. And Tom Parkin weighs in on Justin Trudeau's gross failure to improve the health and welfare of First Nations communities.

- Finally, Courtney Howard and Ryan Meili argue that a price on pollution will go a long way toward improving public health.