Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Olivia Bowden and May Warren discuss the importance of continuing to wear masks even when it's no longer mandated. And Lisa Schick reports on the recognition (if sorely lacking in Saskatchewan's political class) that long COVID is itself developing into a severe public health crisis.

- Courtenay Brown examines the changes to the U.S.' labour market in the wake of the pandemic - which includes the continued loss of nearly half of the public-sector jobs eliminated over the past two years, even as the private sector has mostly returned to its previous employment level. 

- The Council of Canadians highlights the effort to press Canada to work toward waiving intellectual property restrictions which are preventing the developing world from having access to COVID vaccines. And Global Justice Now points out the similar effort on an international basis as the WTO meets for a conference which could address the issue.

- Dylan Penner discusses why we can't rely on private capital to drive the needed transition to a low-emission economy. Tiffanie Turnbull reports on the glaring underreporting of methane emissions in Australia's coal industry.

- And finally Andrew Freedman reports on another stark consequence of climate change, as much of the southwest U.S. is facing an extremely dangerous heat wave.

New column day

Here, on how Justin Trudeau has gone from counterweight to lapdog in dealing with the Trump administration.

For further reading...
- Teresa Wright reported on the crackdown on refugees in the Libs' omnibus budget bill. And Karl Nerenberg called out Trudeau's pandering to anti-refugee prejudice.
- Kelly Crowe reports on Canada's role among the countries trying to suppress accurate information about pharmaceutical profits.
- Janice McGregor examines the fine print of the much-ballyhooed - but little-scrutinized - deal to temporarily remove tariffs on steel and aluminum.
- Peter Zimonjic and Katie Simpson report on the Libs' fast-tracking of Trump's version of a revised NAFTA.
- Finally, the Council of Canadians expresses its own concern about Trudeau's willingness to do Trump's bidding.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- David Roberts highlights the trillions of dollars in global benefits to transitioning to sustainable energy over the next decade-plus - as well as the political choices keeping us from achieving them. Orville Schell and David Hochschild note that California and China are putting their combined economic clout behind global climate action. And Ryan Rumboldt reports on the hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to Canada's Prairies from extreme weather this summer.

- Patrick Condon discusses how a tax on low-density housing could both raise revenue and encourage the development of more liveable cities. But that would require a willingness to ensure that the wealthiest are required to pay their fair share, rather than being catered to by distorted tax systems - and Tom Harper reports that the UK (like Canada) regularly allows its richest residents to avoid consequences for breaching their social obligations.

- And the Council of Canadians points out that that Donald Trump isn't the only bully in the ongoing NAFTA negotiations, as any earlier hints about addressing labour and environmental issues have been thrown out the window by the Trudeau Libs in favour of corporate interests.

- Rohan Ghatage reviews Annie Lowrey's Give People Money as an effective argument for a basic income. And Caroline Hartnell discusses the importance of ensuring people living in poverty have enough power to improve their circumstances.  

- Finally, Doug Cuthand points out how coverage of protests such as the Justice for our Stolen Children camp is all too often slanted toward process issues rather than the real injustices which give rise to compelling activism.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- The Council of Canadians sets out the key numbers in the Libs' all-talk, no-action federal budget, while David Macdonald highlights its ultimate lack of ambition even when there's plenty of fiscal room to work with. David Reevely focuses on the grand total of zero dollars allocated to the headline issue of pharmacase. Angella MacEwen questions the framing of the budget as a meaningful step toward gender parity when it utterly ignores child care and other necessary steps toward equity. Jeremy Nuttall writes that the Libs are doing little to ameliorate poverty. And Josh Wingrove notes that the infrastructure funding which Justin Trudeau made the economic centerpiece of his 2015 campaign has been relegated to campaign promise status again for 2019.

- Neil Macdonald discusses how the Libs' real actions as a government are systematically far more gloomy than their PR. And the Canadian Press notes that the federal government's gap between promises and actions on climate change has only been getting worse under Trudeau, while Marc Lee is the latest to note the false assumptions behind pushes for fossil fuel expansion in the face of climate disaster.

- Meanwhile, Jeff Goodell takes a look at the impending wave of climate migration as one of the readily-foreseeable consequences of climate change. And Jonathan Watts writes about the unprecedented Arctic winter melt which suggests some of the most dire climate projections may be coming true decades sooner than anticipated.

- Finally, Steven Chase and Robert Fife report on the fallout from Anbang's takeover of B.C. retirement homes now that it's been taken over by the Chinese government. And Paul Willcocks discusses how seniors stand to lose out when their needs and interests are treated as secondary to those of international capital.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- George Eaton discusses how some U.S. state governments are taking steps to fight inequality with taxes at the top of the income scale.

- The Canadian Coalition for Tax Fairness is coming together to push for a tax system where everybody pays their fair share (including changes far beyond those put on the table by the Trudeau Libs), while the Council of Canadians lends its support to the effort. And R. Sacha Bhatia suggests that if doctors prefer being salaried employees to being paid fees for services under a tax system without massive loopholes, that move may be best for everybody involved.

- Shannon Daub and Zoe Yunker highlight how the B.C. Libs outsourced the writing of their climate change policy to the Calgary oil sector. And that history of corporate ownership of government is exactly why the NDP's move to replace big money with public investment in politics figures to be so important.

- Meanwhile, Laurie Monsebraaten reports on the challenge of getting people to believe that a basic income actually comes without strings attached after decades of welfare scolding.

- Barrie McKenna responds to the Calgary Flames' demand for a publicly-funded arena to funnel profits into Murray Edwards' hands by pointing out the lack of any public benefit to doing so.

- Finally, Fay Faraday writes that due to pay inequity, Canadian women are effectively working for free for the balance of the calendar year.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Naomi Klein offers her take on why we need to talk about climate change when its effects are most visible:

(E)very time we act as if an unprecedented weather event is hitting us out of the blue, as some sort of Act of God that no one foresaw, reporters are making a highly political decision. It’s a decision to spare feelings and avoid controversy at the expense of telling the truth, however difficult. Because the truth is that these events have long been predicted by climate scientists. Warmer oceans throw up more powerful storms. Higher sea levels mean those storms surge into places they never reached before. Hotter weather leads to extremes of precipitation: long dry periods interrupted by massive snow or rain dumps, rather than the steadier predictable patterns most of us grew up with.

The records being broken year after year — whether for drought, storm surges, wildfires, or just heat — are happening because the planet is markedly warmer than it has been since record-keeping began. Covering events like Harvey while ignoring those facts, failing to provide a platform to climate scientists who can make them plain, all while never mentioning President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accords, fails in the most basic duty of journalism: to provide important facts and relevant context. It leaves the public with the false impression that these are disasters without root causes, which also means that nothing could have been done to prevent them (and that nothing can be done now to prevent them from getting much worse in the future).
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(T)he right will waste no time exploiting Harvey, and any other disaster like it, to peddle ruinous false solutions, such as militarized police, more oil and gas infrastructure, and privatized services. Which means there is a moral imperative for informed, caring people to name the real root causes behind this crisis — connecting the dots between climate pollution, systemic racism, underfunding of social services, and overfunding of police. We also need to seize the moment to lay out intersectional solutions, ones that dramatically lower emissions while battling all forms of inequality and injustice (something we have tried to lay out at The Leap and which groups, such as the Climate Justice Alliance, have been advancing for a long time.)

And it has to happen right now – precisely when the enormous human and economic costs of inaction are on full public display. If we fail, if we hesitate out of some misguided idea of what is and is not appropriate during a crisis, it leaves the door wide open for ruthless actors to exploit this disaster for predictable and nefarious ends.

- Noah Smith examines how the uneven ownership of assets - and particularly the concentration of stocks in the hands of the rich - exacerbates income and wealth inequality.

- Kevin Milligan examines the anticipated effects of closing tax loopholes for small businesses. And Michael Wolfson points out the problems with any attempt to paint equal taxation of money held in private corporations as an attack on doctors. 

- The Council of Canadians reveals the overwhelming public response in opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

-  Amarnath Amarasingam and Ryan Scrivens discuss the need to acknowledge and respond to the rise of right-wing hate groups in Canada. And James Wilt calls out the corporate media for legitimizing an outlet dedicated to nothing else. 

- Finally, Robert Jago writes that John A. MacDonald's legacy is amply captured by the continuing discrimination facing Indigenous people in Canada - and that we should focus more on the action necessary to bring about reconciliation for the present and future.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Joachim Hubmer, Per Krusell and Anthony A. Smith, Jr. study the causes of wealth inequality in the U.S. and find one clear explanation for the stratification between the rich and the rest:

There is one main finding: by far the most important driver is the significant drop in tax progressivity that started in the late 1970s, intensified during the Reagan years, and then subsequently flattened out, with only a minor bounce back. The sharp observed increases in earnings inequality, the falling labor share over the recent decades, and potential mechanisms underlying changes in the gap between the interest rate and the growth rate (Piketty's r-g story) all fall far short of accounting for the data.

- Meanwhile, Jared Bernstein charts the lack of any correlation between tax giveaways to the rich and economic development (as measured by GDP and employment).

- Alan Pyke reports on Bloomberg's estimate that the world's richest 500 people increased their personal wealth by a combined $237 billion this past year alone. And Hugh MacKenzie reminds us that Canada's CEOs rake in more money in a single morning than most workers will earn all year.

- Ben Judah highlights how London's real estate market (like that of other cities) has been inflated by kleptocrats from around the globe.

- Thomas Homer-Dixon discusses the need for Canada to step up the fight against climate change. And Chris Mooney offers another reminder that actual data shows that we're doing even more damage to our planet than has long been feared - which may explain why the Wall government is going out of its way to undermine even basic scientific knowledge and education in Saskatchewan.

- And finally, the Council of Canadians shares Maude Barlow's laudable national vision for 2017.

Saturday Morning Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Sarah Anderson, Marc Bayard, John Cavanagh, Chuck Collins, Josh Hoxie and Sam Pizzigati offer an outline as to how to fight back against growing inequality:

§ We need to see inequality as a deep systemic problem. Piecemeal interventions have not helped slow or reverse the pace of wealth concentration. We’ve now hit inequality warp speed. Inequality grew steadily between the 1970s and the early years of the 21st century, with the rules that govern our economy encouraging both wage stagnation and wealth updraft. But since the economic meltdown of 2008, even larger swaths of income and wealth gains have flowed to the top 1 percent.

§ We need to concentrate more on wealth concentration. Most of our national discourse on fighting inequality has involved income inequality. But the even deeper problem involves the maldistribution of our national and global wealth. We need to address both wage and asset inequality.

§ We need to go beyond “good government” reforms. Real democracy can never flourish alongside massive personal and business fortunes. As long as wealthy individuals and giant corporations can buy elections and dictate policy, we will never reverse extreme inequality.
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§ Most of all, we need game changers. If you’re playing in a game where the rules turn out to be rigged, you need to change the game.

- Andrew Jackson makes the case for fiscal policy to promote growth (rather than to slash public activity). And Sean McElwee points out that at least in the U.S., there's no need to be shy about discussing austerity, as one of the major fault lines within the Republican Party is between an upper class which endorses it and the broader base which knows better.

- Meanwhile, Canadians for Tax Fairness proposes a set of relatively simple changes which could result in a far more progressive tax system, along with a healthy boost in public revenue. And Forum finds growing public support for a basic income as one obvious destination for an increase in tax revenue.

- The Cape Breton Post writes about the desperate need for a stronger system of retirement security. And Lana Payne is optimistic that we'll see an improved Canada Pension Plan before too long.

- Finally, the Council of Canadians offers its support to the idea of postal banking.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Matthew Yglesias writes that The Big Short and other stories focused on the financial aspects of the 2008 economic meltdown miss by far the most important part of the picture in the real economic destruction wrought by irresponsible banksters. And David Dayen notes that U.S. mortgage lenders are now laughably pointing fingers at regulators who have made lending forms more understandable for the fact they aren't lending as easily as they were during the housing bubble.

- Martin Boucher discusses the urgent need for a shift to a low-carbon economy in Saskatchewan. And Seth Klein argues that it's time to move past pipe dreams like Christy Clark's liquid natural gas get-rich-quick scheme.

- Robin Sears sets out three crucial tests for Justin Trudeau - and while one can quibble with his order of difficulty, there's no doubt that major advances on climate change, electoral reform and First Nations relations would represent a first-term agenda worth pursuing.

- But it's also worth noting how the Libs may be tying their own hands on those among other issues - and the fact that they seem to consider a single e-mail address to be enough consultation on the Trans-Pacific Partnership doesn't bode well.

- Finally, Andre Picard highlights the dangers of a culture which pushes employees to work when they're sick - with the inflexible requirement for sick notes to excuse any absence serving as a particularly counterproductive policy.

New column day

Here, on how we should take Germany's rightful concern over investor-state dispute settlement provisions as an opportunity to reevaluate what we expect to accomplish through trade and investment agreements such as CETA.

For further reading...
- Peter Clark, Michael Geist and Scott Sinclair discuss Germany's objections to new trade agreements with Canada and the U.S. in particular, while reminding us why we should be wary of handing undue power to the corporate sector as well. And Nathalie Bernasconi-Osterwalder and Rhea Tamara Hoffmann discuss (PDF) Germany's past experience with ISDS in detail.
- Meanwhile, Patricia Ranald notes that similar issues are developing as Australia debates an agreement with South Korea.
- Finally, Thomas Walkom and Jim Stanford weigh in with their own concerns about CETA, while the Council of Canadians applauds Germany's stance.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Justin Ling reports on the federal government's covert surveillance of Idle No More:

Sitting in her teepee on Ottawa’s Victoria Island in December 2012, Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence was officially starting her hunger strike, breathing fire into the Idle No More movement and setting off a chain reaction that would eventually force Ottawa into talks on the nature of Canada’s relationship with First Nations. Meanwhile, five blocks away as the crow flies, the federal government’s security and emergency nervous system was ramping up its efforts to keep tabs on the movement. Just how extensive, and often ham-handed, the surveillance was is only now coming to light with the release of thousands of new documents.
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At one point, a group of developers created an Idle No More app that allowed activists to share information and plan protests, flash mobs and round dances. Deputy Minister of Aboriginal Affairs Michael Wernick contacted his communications director to see if the office could surreptitiously piggyback on the app to get its own message across. “Is it in any way feasible to get our backgrounders into the flow of this app without the appearance of [government] ringers calling into an open-line show?” he asks in one document.
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Media lines from the department stress that the federal government does not operate as Big Brother to First Nations: “[Aboriginal Affairs] does not perform any type of ‘surveillance’ of any individuals, groups, or communities,” says one communiqué. Palmater scoffs at that, citing the case of Cindy Blackstock, a First Nations child rights advocate who was under surveillance by the government’s own admission. With Idle No More, it’s snooping, not spying; still, “I don’t think they should be treating us like domestic terrorists,” says Palmater.

- But of course, the Cons see transparency as a one-way street - as evidenced by the fact that they've stopped the flow of decades-old documents which would normally be declassified.

- And the Council of Canadians offers another example of secrecy trumping basic rights of public participation, as the Northwest Territories are allowing fracking operations to proceed without even disclosing the nature of the toxic chemicals they're pumping into the ground.

- In an interview with Olivier Pascal-Moussellard,Thomas Piketty suggests that modest capital taxes on high net worth households might offer the solution to growing inequality.

- Finally, Peter Hamby's paper (PDF) on media coverage of the U.S.' 2012 presidential campaign is well worth a read - particularly in the lessons to be drawn by media outlets in deciding whether their resources are better directed toward bodies on a bus, or deeper analysis of the campaign as a whole.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Murray Mandryk and Bruce Johnstone both thoroughly slam Gerry Ritz and the Cons for their food-safety negligence. But Johnstone hints at the larger issue:

Ritz, for all his faults, is not the cause of this latest debacle. He's merely a symptom of a bigger problem with the Harper government: specifically, it's (sic) ideological fixation on smaller government, it's (sic) blind faith in self-regulation and its tendency to micromanage every aspect of government policy.

- And Lana Payne reminds us why we should know better than to think there's any merit to anti-regulatory corporatism:

The latest food safety scandal begs the question: does anyone sitting in the federal Conservative caucus remember the lessons of Walkerton?

It was, after all, just a little over a decade ago that Canada’s worst outbreak of E. coli in the water supply of the small Ontario community of Walkerton took place, killing seven people. Another 2,300 residents fell ill in the same tainted water scandal.

The deaths and the subsequent outrage forced then Conservative premier Mike Harris to call a judicial inquiry — an inquiry he, as premier, was also compelled to testify at.

Certainly federal ministers Jim Flaherty and Tony Clement should remember the lessons of Walkerton. After all, they were part of the Harris government that ravaged public services, privatized important safety tests and gutted regulations.

Justice Dennis O’Connor, in his January 2002 report into the Walkerton tainted water scandal, concluded that had funding at the Department of Environment not been slashed, the worst-outbreak of E. coli could have been avoided. In other words, government cutbacks were partly to blame for the death of seven Ontarians.

And here we are again.

Some of the faces are the same. Certainly the ideology is. Hacking and slashing government jobs, programs and services without a mind or a thought to how those cuts will impact or hurt Canadians.

- Meanwhile, Stephen Maher reports that the Cons aren't exactly escaping responsibility for drinking their own Kool-Aid in other areas - as MPs are now on the hook for costs after a dismally-failed attempt to put roadblocks in the way of the Council of Canadians' challenge to Robocon-influenced election results.

- Finally, Susan Riley points out that we shouldn't be too quick to assume that younger politicians will offer up new ideas - especially if relative inexperience make a younger leader more easily captured by party insiders.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor report that the Council of Canadians is leading the charge in challenging election results which may have been influenced by Robocon. And perhaps the most noteworthy point as to how the move may shine a spotlight on the Cons' black ops is this:

The organization hopes that it can use its lawsuit to discover the volume of deceptive or fraudulent calls in other ridings, by convincing a judge to order phone carriers to turn over records showing how many calls were placed into each riding from numbers associated with suspicious calls.

- Chantal Hebert concludes that Thomas Mulcair is off to a great start as NDP leader.

- And a stream of news about the Cons' utter incompetence isn't hurting matters - as CBC reports Harper and company have known for years that the F-35s they insist on buying don't actually meet the needs of Canada's military, while Pauline Tam notes that they did nothing in the face of four years advance warning of the prescription drug shortages now hitting Canadians directly. All of which should offer all the more reason for suspicion about the Cons' latest plans to gut public protection against ill-advised corporate plans.

- Finally, Paul Krugman writes about the American Legislative Exchange Council and its efforts to take over the normal role of legislators by substituting hard-right boilerplate laws.

On trade-offs

Unfortunately, it wasn't much of an issue during the federal election campaign. But word is getting out that a new wave of trade agreements and regulatory "harmonization" to further handcuff all levels of Canadian government will likely be a top priority for the Harper Cons.

Fortunately, we do now have an Official Opposition which can credibly question whether such agreements actually serve anybody's interests other than those of businesses looking to shift all governments to the lowest possible standards. And while it's not hard to see how Harper might view the issue as a priority in reaching his goal of a neutered state, the issue may also serve to help unite Canada's progressive forces in short order.

Well done

It still looks far too likely that the combination of support from the Cons and Libs will result in the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement becoming law despite Colombia's notorious record of union oppression.

But at the very least, the Tweet-in organized by the Council of Canadians to prevent a closure motion from being pushed forward in committee today looks to have been a resounding success. And hopefully the momentum generated by today's effort will build to convince one party or the other that official favouritism toward a notorious human rights abuser isn't consistent with Canadian values.