Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Thomas Walkom writes that the Harper Cons' much-hyped economic record in fact offers ample reason to demand a change in government:

The Conservatives insist that the economy is their strong suit. And for a while it was. In 2011, voters bought Harper’s pitch.

But voter patience can last only so long. For too many Canadians, life is not improving. Income gaps are becoming more blatant. Wages are sluggish. Students are taking on massive debts to prepare themselves for jobs that, in the end, fail to materialize.

Those lucky enough to have jobs — even good jobs — too often find their work being sent offshore to low-wage countries.

Other Canadians find themselves in competition with the tens of thousands of temporary foreign workers let in by Ottawa.

Latest immigration department figures show that, to date, more temporary foreign workers entered the country in 2013 than during the same period of 2012 — itself a record year for importing cheap labour.

These are the things that should worry Harper.

- But then, Michael Harris discusses how ethics issues - led by the combination of bribery and cover-ups in the Senate - will likely prove the undoing of Stephen Harper and his government. John Ivison recognizes that the Cons are flailing for a political lifeline as Thomas Mulcair gets the better of Harper in the House of Commons on a daily basis - though I'm at a loss as to how a Senate referendum would help their cause when it's the NDP that's decried patronage and corruption under Lib and Con governments alike. And Jeffrey Simpson points out that nothing in the Cons' latest string of scandals and missteps is anything new.

- And lest anybody think the elected Cons are any more ethical than the unelected versions, pogge highlights the latest revelations about Dean Del Mastro's attempt to cover up illegal election expenses.

- Stephen Leahy is rightly outraged that the Cons are trying to claim a complete failure to meet Canada's Copenhagen greenhouse gas emission targets as progress. And Stuart Trew criticizes the continued lack of transparency on CETA - as the Cons try to claim victory without allowing Canadians to see what's actually happened on the field.

- Finally, Don Lenihan sees more open government as the needed solution to citizen disengagement.

Sunday Evening Links

Miscellaneous material to end your weekend.

- Floyd Norris' column on the gap between stagnant wages and soaring corporate profits. But let's add Digby's take as to what we can expect if the corporate sector gets its way:

"I've never seen labor markets this weak in 35 years of research," says Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University. Wages and salaries accounted for just 1 percent of economic growth in the first 18 months after economists declared that the recession had ended in June 2009, according to Sum and other Northeastern researchers.In the same period after the 2001 recession, wages and salaries accounted for 15 percent. They were 50 percent after the 1991-92 recession and 25 percent after the 1981-82 recession.

Corporate profits, by contrast, accounted for an unprecedented 88 percent of economic growth during those first 18 months. That's compared with 53 percent after the 2001 recession, nothing after the 1991-92 recession and 28 percent after the 1981-82 recession.

(J)udging from the claptrap these CEOs are babbling every chance they get (read the article), they are planning to squeeze more than just their workers --- they want to use this situation to blackmail the government into cutting their taxes and deregulating them even more than they already are. It doesn't make sense, of course. They are sitting on a ton of capital, it's not like they don't have the money to invest. It's sheer opportunism and they'll probably get away with it.
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(I)t's not as if their profits are being being put to work at all. They just aren't being put to work in the US. And if the political establishment has its way, they'll be doing even more. Free trade deals are on the top of both parties' "jobs agenda." If all goes well, they'll end up with a few high profile loopholes temporarily closed in exchange for lower tax rates forever and some sweetheart trade deals. With any luck they won't even have to give up the loopholes.

- Erin is among many to point out how Standard & Poor's was determined to downgrade the U.S.' credit rating even when its entire factual basis for doing so was proven wrong.

- Sixth Estate adds a few more names and numbers to the Harper Cons' patronage list.

- The National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy concludes that the Cons' already sad excuse for a climate-change program is double-counting any expected emission reductions.

- Finally, Alison's latest comic - on the Cons' loyalty testing - is well worth a look.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted and environmentally-themed content to end your week.

- Lloyd Alter highlights the Cons' contrasting treatment of environmental scientists (who are being fired in droves) and oil lobbyists (who figure never to lack for work).

- And allies around the world are starting to take notice of the Cons' dirty reputation.

- Fortunately, though, the oil lobby's advantage in money seems to be compensated for in creativity. While the tar sands lobby engages in clumsy manipulations to try to sell its case publicly, the Yes Men managed a slick PR move to smoke out the difference between anybody concerned with truly "ethical oil" and those who just want to paper over the entire industry's abuses.

- And finally, Susan Riley notes that we've managed to make strides on at least some environmental issues such as smog:

There is another factor at play, although it is often downplayed: the cumulative impact of government regulation. Starting in 1991, with the signature of a Canada-U.S. acid rain accord, there has been a steady decline in various pollutants in central Canadian air, not only those linked to acidification of lakes.

Last March, on the 20th anniversary of the pact signed by Brian Mulroney and Ronald Reagan, Environment Canada released an update, trumpeting a one-third reduction in smog-related pollutants and elimination of 50 per cent of sulphur dioxide since the accord was signed, along with declines in nitrous oxide and particulate emissions.
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We have, figuratively and literally, breathing space this summer. But clean air shouldn't depend on prevailing winds. It will also take politicians blessed with the foresight of their predecessors - including their conservative predecessors.

Spot the pattern

Yes, the individual stories have been covered by plenty of others. But it's well worth taking a step back and noting the consistent theme coming out of Wikileaks' revelations about the Harper Cons as seen through the eyes of our closest international ally.

When it came to Copenhagen, Harper and company claimed both that the outcome was a major step in addressing climate change, and that they'd had some significant role in its coming to pass. But behind closed doors, Harper didn't want to be there at all (and didn't do much while he was).

When it came to Afghanistan, Harper continued to pretend through most of 2010 that he planned to stick to the promised 2011 pullout date. But behind closed doors, he promised NATO that his Canadian positioning was a lie - and indeed committed to a training extension as soon as the Libs gave him an opening. [Update: And at other times, even an extension to a combat mission was on the table even as Harper pretended otherwise.]

And when it came to Arctic relations, Harper has constantly pointed to Canadian sovereignty as an excuse for all kinds of military spending and posturing, particularly his government's stubborn insistence on buying F-35s no matter how implausible their price promises look. But behind closed doors, Harper made clear that he doesn't see defending our sovereignty as a serious issue.

So Harper has spent the better part of his time in office providing one message to Canadians in public, and another one to the international community in private. And all indications are that we're the ones getting played for fools when the truth comes out.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted weekend reading...

- Gerald Caplan delivers a stinging critique of military jingoism that's linked to deliberate attempts to avoid recognizing and sharing the real costs of war:

The truth is that for most of us, whether we support or oppose Canadian participation, the Afghan war is a remote abstraction. Except for the tiny number who have enlisted and their families, the war touches no Canadian directly. Despite the extra costs of waging war, no extra contributions are asked of us, including those among us who keep getting richer and richer even as the war and recession continue. Imagine the heartfelt sacrifice Defence Minister Peter MacKay seems about to make on behalf of his boys and girls if, following Jim Prentice, he too jumps to Bay Street.

Not a single business person has stood up and offered to share the sacrifices of those noble soldiers they all support so patriotically. None is offering to take home a less staggering amount in earnings. Those powerful lobbies representing business interests have not demanded higher taxes from their members to help the government provide jobs and training and scholarships and homes and proper treatment for returning troops. In fact, as everyone knows, they very publicly demand the very opposite.

Not only do our vets sacrifice alone, when they return home their sacrifices are somehow forgotten. Somehow, we’re more committed to honouring them than to helping them. A Progressive Conservative member of the Ontario Legislature wants to honour our troops even more by giving the rest of us a statutory holiday every Remembrance Day. Hey, more time for shopping! But how does it honour wounded or traumatized returnees if they can’t get the support they need and have earned?

- I don't entirely agree with Doug Saunders' efforts to downplay the effects of inequality at all income levels. But his concern about the dangers of social exclusion is definitely worth a look:

There is a terrible danger that the solutions to the financial crisis, whether domestic fiscal policies or international trade and currency measures, will create walls that will prevent people and nations from improving their lot when growth resumes.
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At core is a problem of inequality: While a minority of people, and countries, will have the wherewithal to get themselves going again, a much larger group are increasingly unable to participate.

I live in a country where there are 10 million working adults who earn less than $24,000 a year (and stuff is expensive here), but policies are aimed at the 400,000 who make more than $160,000. Postsecondary education has become prohibitively expensive, as has living in the regions where quality jobs and entrepreneurial activities exist.

This is what the economist Will Hutton – an adviser to the Cameron government on its public-sector wage policy – calls, in his new book Them and Us, “a disastrous social geography,” in which “the poor and disadvantaged live in ever more concentrated wards that are blighted by run-down social housing and over-stretched schools.” Indeed, life expectancy for Britain’s wealthy is 14 years more than for the poor. The economic bubble, he writes, “fostered social polarization” in many countries.
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If we manage to bring back growth at the expense of equal opportunity, it will be, as the mayor suggests, a time of social cleansing and lasting impoverishment and division. The consequences of that would be far more serious than a mere recession.

- Not that the Cons likely needed more excuses to throw a monkey wrench in the works at last year's Copenhagen climate change talks. But it shouldn't be much surprise if they were happy to accept the claim that if we just ignore what's actually happening, nobody will be able to ask for help in fixing it.

- Finally, Catherine Porter points out what's really at stake as we decide what to do about the treatment of G20 protesters (not to mention the unrelated civilians caught up in the security apparatus):

Twice, I heard the sad statement, “I wasn’t even protesting.” A businessman was so frightened by what he saw on the streets that weekend he didn’t want to be photographed at the hearing. He worried police were watching him.

It reminded me of that slippery slope and a line from Auden’s Refugee Blues: “Once we had a country and we thought it fair.”

First it was the anarchists, who deserved the draconian measures. Then the protesters. Then anyone wearing black. Then anyone on Queen Street. Then anyone in a cab who casually said something nice to a police officer.

Rights are not easily gained. Nor should they be easily withdrawn, for a weekend, for an evening, for a moment.

Our faith in our police was effortlessly broken. It will take careful effort and months of hard work to rebuild it.

The reviews are in

It shouldn't be news that the Harper Cons have no interest whatsoever in being anything but an obstacle to any action on climate change. But it's not such a bad thing that Jeffrey Simpson has noticed:

According to the government’s own numbers, actual emissions will grow in absolute terms in every year from 2009 to 2012. All the government’s many and expensive policies will have done is to slow the increase, and then only slightly – by 10 million tonnes in 2012, against countrywide emissions of more than 700 million tonnes. At this rate, Canada will not achieve even the Harper government’s modest reduction target: a 17-per-cent drop in absolute reductions by 2020 based on 2005 emissions, a softer target than the 20-per-cent drop the government had previously promised.

The numbers show how useless and expensive are some of the government’s policies. For example, Ottawa is going to throw $1.5-billion into biofuels, largely ethanol, over the next nine years without a significant decline in emissions, because, as is obvious, the biofuels program is an agricultural subsidy program rather than a serious measure against emissions.

Or how about the absurdity of the transit tax credit, announced in an election campaign as a climate-change-fighting program? That all-politics-all-the-time program is estimated to reduce emissions by just over a risible 3,000 tonnes. And then comes the big Clean Energy Fund and Clean Air and Climate Change Trust Fund, together worth $2.5-billion, which the government admits “are not expected to result in quantifiable reductions by 2012.”

Maybe these funds will produce some reductions later, but then that would be entirely in keeping with the Harper government’s leisurely approach to climate change, an approach best summed up in the document’s statement that the government focuses on “long-term results.” As students of governments know, when they say everything is focused on “long-term results,” it usually means the government in question is not serious.

On cumulative effects

Most reporting on the civil service's advice to Jim Prentice is focusing on the seemingly obvious point that the world's best scientific information on climate change remains so no matter how loud the shrieking from denialists. But there's another piece of the multidepartmental message to Prentice which deserves far more attention as Canada sets its climate policy in the years to come:

The memo also advises the government to consider cumulative emissions over the years when it sets an individual target for a given year, since carbon dioxide emissions stay in the atmosphere for decades and will continue to warm the planet, regardless of whether there are reductions in pollution in the future.

That recommendation stands in stark contrast to the Cons' determination to set no targets whatsoever until 2020 (presumably to be put off further if by some chance they're still in power as that date draws near). But given that the effect of CO2 emissions is no less an issue in the time period before those targets come into play, it only makes sense that any increases in the meantime should be taken into account in determining what kind of cuts are needed in the longer term. And for a responsible governing party, that should provide some impetus to put serious work into reducing Canada's emissions in the near term to help us meet our longer-term targets.

Of course, we can't expect the Cons themselves to offer up anything but delay and denial. But for those parties who actually see preventing catastrophic climate change as a priority, the suggestion is well worth taking into account in developing plans on the subject. And hopefully that will help highlight the gap between a government determined to ignore the best advice available to it, and an alternative which actually takes the issue seriously.

Lying. It's what they do.

Michael Geist:

Within days of the Yes Men incident, both Environment Canada and the Canadian Cyber Incident Response Centre, which is part of Public Safety Canada, wrote to the hosting ISP to ask that it shut down the fake websites. While officials understandably pointed to trademark and copyright concerns (the sites were designed to look confusingly similar to actual government websites), those claims alone would not have been enough for most Internet providers to act.

Instead, officials used both the persuasive power of an official government request combined with inaccurate claims that the sites were engaged in phishing to escalate the issue. One email to the hosting company noted the request was sent on behalf of the Minister of the Environment to demand prompt deletion and removal of the hosted sites. The same email claimed the sites were involved in phishing, leading the German-based Internet provider to promptly shut them down.
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While the sites were obviously an embarrassment, there were several avenues to address the issue. Officials could have filed a complaint with the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, which manages the dot-ca domain (both sites used dot-ca addresses). Alternatively, they could have turned to the courts for an order to either shut down the sites or suspend the domain name registrations. Instead, the phishing claim effectively substituted one hoax for another and, in the process, undermined the trust in a global system designed to guard against identity theft.

What I wonder is what consequences might result if it's possible to prove the Cons had no reasonable basis for alleging that phishing was involved. It could be that a government department doesn't face either possible obstruction-of-justice style criminal charges (and it may be that the report was only made to the ISP in the first place rather than any government body), but at the very least one would think the sites which were wrongfully taken down would have a case for punitive damages for a claim made in bad faith. And it's surely an embarrassment for Canadians in general that our good name has been used in a fraud on the international community.

Sounds about right

Mound of Sound:

In case you haven't figured that out, what Harper said (in Copenhagen) was code for, "I'm off the hook, I can scam this for years to come and that's exactly what I'm fixing to do." Harper can say that because he can get away with it. No one has the guts to stand up to him and call him a fraud.

So, after having been invited to shred Harper's blustering, what does the Liberal Party's Michael Ignatieff have to say? He responds with this: “We cannot allow Canadian environmental policy to be entirely dependent on American politics. We need an aggressive, made in Canada climate-change plan now. And we're willing to work with Mr. Harper on this if his government brings forward a serious plan that treats our provinces fairly and includes pollution reductions for all sectors.”

That's it? That's what we get for letting Iggy put Dion down? That's leadership? Does this guy not know how to go on the attack? Is he running scared of Harper? Shouldn't he be off somewhere writing a book or something?

Why doesn't he attack Harper when the scoundrel is vulnerable? Why let the guy off the hook with vague arguments over emission reductions that will never materialize while Harper has the key to 24 Sussex Drive anyway? Why not turn to this Tory jerk's abject refusal to recognize the change that's already happening and already enroute, his refusal to institute adaptation policies the far north and both coasts will need in the near future? Harper won't do that. He can't, because that would acknowledge the gravity of the threat and leave him having to explain why he's doing Sweet Fanny Adams about it.

If Iggy can't grasp how to kick Harper straight to the curb on this issue then he's worse than useless as leader of the Liberal Party. Don't give us bullshit about "working with Harper on a serious plan" when, unless you're brain dead, you have to realize Harper has no intention of doing anything remotely like that. Harper will eat Ignatieff's lunch if he goes that route. Look how he played the Liberal leader for a sucker on the Pinata Budget.

I'm sorry but Michael Ignatieff is but a meandering political disaster. You don't get moments like this all that often and, entirely true to course, he blew it.

On common interests

Shorter Chrysotile Institute:

It's not as if we necessarily agree with the climate change denialists we're promoting with federal money; it's just that their beliefs are similar enough to our own that we're perfectly comfortable throwing in our lot with them.

More sad than funny

Sure, the spoof press release claiming that Canada had put forward serious greenhouse gas emission reductions made fot a nice enough topic of conversation.

But isn't it usually a sound rule that proper satire has to have at least some basis in reality? And isn't the prospect of the Cons actually offering up the spoof targets somewhere in the range of "alien invasion causes recession and Tiger Woods' infidelity" on the plausibility spectrum?

Update: And this is why I need to remember to read CC before posting snark.

On destructive engagement

Impolitical is rightly skeptical about the Cons' attempt to pretend they're not the leading obstacle to a global climate agreement at Copenhagen. But let's remember that it's hardly new for the Cons to pretend to care about reaching an agreement while doing everything in their power to sabotage any effort to develop one.

Here's what the Cons said publicly all the way back in 2007:

Environment Minister John Baird says Canada will head to a UN climate change conference in Bali with a "solid" plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions and will push for a "constructive" agreement with other countries to encourage global reductions.
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Shortly before leaving for Bali, Baird told CBC News on Sunday that "we'll be arriving at this conference with a solid … plan to cut emissions here in Canada by 20 per cent by 2020 … and we want to work to get a constructive agreement, and such an agreement has to have countries, like the United States, China and India — all the big emitters — in order to be successful in this battle against climate change."

Yet here's what the Cons were found to be doing in the time since they shed crocodile tears over the lack of results in Bali:

The Harper government recognized last year that its plan to tackle greenhouse gas emissions was extremely weak compared to other developed countries. As such, government documents show it devised a strategy that included trying to split European Union members and tying assistance to developing countries to binding emission reduction targets as part of a bid to influence international talks.
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The Harper government's approach to international climate change negotiations has long revolved around two important positions.

The first is that any new framework and commitments post-2012 must include major emitters, especially emerging economies like India, China and Brazil. The government states that any agreement will be ineffective without major emitters, while there are concerns over the competitive advantage emerging economies will have if they don't need to reduce emissions.

Secondly, the EU and other developed countries have agreed to reduce emissions by 25-40 per cent from 1990 levels. In contrast, Canada has made much lower commitments, which the documents admit will have ramifications going forward.

"Canada's negotiating challenge is compounded by the fact that our domestic goal for 2020 is a reduction of 20 per cent from 2006 levels (this is equivalent to roughly two per cent below the 1990 levels)," read several documents.

They also include talking points for Canadian officials warning their counterparts not to expect too much in negotiations for a post-Kyoto framework by the end of 2009.
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Those were not the only messages prepared for Canadian officials and intended for officials from specific European countries. In fact, a great deal of the briefing notes dealt with trying to identify allies within the European Union who would press the bloc to require developing countries like India, Brazil and China commit to greenhouse gas emission targets along with developed countries.

Needless to say, nothing the Cons have done since then suggests that they've shifted from their long-held position of pairing a public facade of caring about climate change with desperate behind-the-scenes efforts to block any agreement. And if the Cons and their allies once again manage to put roadblocks in front of the global effort to reach a deal, then Harper should be at the top of the list when it comes time to dole out the blame.

What Paul said

Here. (Unless we're prepared to rewrite history so that the real villains of Watergate were the Democrats for having a hotel room worth breaking into.)

(Edit: fixed typo.)

On battle strategies

Shorter Stephen Harper:

On second thought, I'm all about the socialist schemes to suck money out of rich countries - just as long as they buy us out of having to agree to emission reduction targets.

In order of priority

The Globe and Mail's report that Stephen Harper plans on staying as far away as possible from the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen obviously doesn't come as a huge surprise. But it does signal one interesting shift in Harper's list of priorities: after trying desperately to link himself to Barack Obama earlier this year, Harper now seems to have signalled that his desire to avoid wearing well-deserved blame for standing in the way of progress on climate change exceeds his desire for more Obama photo opportunities.

Update: Apparently when it was put that way, Harper changed his mind.

On false measurements

Shorter Jim Prentice:

It's preposterous to suggest there's any connection between domestic greenhouse gas emission policies and the international negotiations which we've used repeatedly as an excuse for not developing domestic greenhouse gas emission policies. (And by the way, our years of promising a "Made in Canada solution" never happened.)

The reviews are in

John Geddes:

Environment Minister Jim Prentice’s remarks today to the effect that it will be years—years!—before the Canadian government implements regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions have to be crushingly discouraging for anyone who regards climate change as an urgent problem.
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It’s fair enough to point out that Canada is part of a big, complicated world. But what’s stopping the Canadian government from proposing decisive measures on the international stage, even implementing some bold ones at home, to prove its seriousness? Instead, the tone of the Conservative government is passive to the point of being inert.

In the run-up to next month’s global climate change summit in Copenhagen, Prentice continues to repeat the government’s pledge to cut emissions by 20 per cent from 2006 levels by 2020. But what does that commitment (tepid as it is by world standards) mean if all the details around how to achieve it are left to the leadership of other countries?

I'll quibble only with the description of the Cons' policy as "passive" or "inert" rather than actively obstructionist. But it seems beyond doubt that while three consecutive ballyhooed environment ministers have claimed to want to deal with greenhouse gas emissions, the Cons' track record looks far more like that of a party run by climate change denialists than that of a government which saw a problem worth solving. And it's only getting worse as time goes by.

Winning the race to the bottom

Congratulations are in order to Con Environment Minister Jim Prentice. I didn't think anybody would be able to make his party's legacy of "wait 'til next year" for greenhouse gas emission regulations look good in comparison, but his "wait 'til global unanimity (which we're preventing)" definitely does the job.

On priorities

When it comes to diplomats performing their duties trying to build Canada's reputation and make connections abroad, the Cons apparently aren't the least bit interested in making sure they have enough resources to do their jobs. So if a Canadian embassy is reduced to begging for food to promote Canada in the world's most populous country (and all for want of less than $10 million in slashed program money), that's entirely in keeping with the Harper government's view of diplomacy.

But that's not to say at least some of Stephen Harper's international priorities won't be thoroughly funded. Turn the discussion to the international community's desire to cooperate to fight climate change, and the Cons apparently have unlimited resources to dedicate to throwing wrenches into the works (and deflecting any PR fallout from that course of action).

So cooperation and reputation-building are beneath the Cons' funding, while blatant obstructionism is seen as worth whatever public money the Cons can think to throw at it. And while there's unfortunately been far too much return on the latter expense as the Cons seem to have succeeded in spreading the view that the potential for a new climate change deal in Copenhagen will go unrealized, it's certainly worth asking whether many Canadians actually share Harper's choice of priorities.

h/t to impolitical.

Compare and contrast

A couple more Shorters from the Con government's adventures abroad. First, their stance on climate change:

The U.S.' overwhelming dominance makes it pointless for us to even try to take a separate position. So we'll do exactly what they force us to, and no more.
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But it's a different shorter story when it comes to corporate interests in attacking Buy American policies:

All we need to do is work together with our international allies, and we're sure we can convince the U.S. to see the light!