Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your weekend.

- Lana Payne highlights the Harper Cons' culture of hate with just a few recent examples:

Veterans. Informed-debate. People’s right to a union and free collective bargaining. Voting rights. These are all under threat in Harper’s Canada.

This really is a government that hates; hates anyone that disagrees with them. Hates unions and the ability of people to work collectively to get a fair share of the economic pie. Hates democracy. Hates people who vote for other parties. Just plain hates.

This is not healthy for our country, our society. This is no way to govern. This is no way to build an inclusive nation where fairness prevails. This is just simply nastiness and hate. And we should call it out for what it really is.

- And kirbycairo comments on the Cons' distaste for basic principles of governance (h/t to Boris):

Good governance requires certain basic elements - commitment to the fundamental principles of democracy, the desire to foster dialogue, a basic commitment to an effective civil-service and the good programs that they need to deliver, a commitment to giving a voice to the voiceless and providing care and protection for society's most vulnerable, a strong commitment to the constitution, a respect for fairness and the democratic traditions of the House of Commons, a respect for the judicial arm of government and the necessary (role) it plays, and a commitment to protecting the environment for future generations. Our government has no commitment to any of these. In fact, it actively undermines all of them. There is not a single element of good governance to which this government is committed.
...
It is difficult to live in a society which is inching gradually toward autocracy as many of the citizens seem to blithely ignore the coming danger. There is a certain nonchalant attitude taken by many to the dangerous and insidious actions of a government that is falling into fascism. They have trouble believing that it "can happen here" or that our traditions can be subverted and perverted by a bunch of men dressed in suits. But not every coup is a violent one and sometimes what is best in a society is lost in a (quiet) war of attrition.

- Meanwhile, Karl Nerenberg looks at the particularly glaring gap between the Cons' eletion-rigging legislation and the principles they agreed to just last year when their election fraud scandal was in the front pages. And the CP reports on the NDP's efforts to give the public some voice in the rules governing elections - even as the Cons insist that nobody but themselves should have any say in determining what constitutes a fair electoral process.

- The CP also reports on a new study showing the link between tar sands tailings ponds and groundwater contamination. But the most noteworthy part of the story is the joint industry/government position that new development must be allowed to barge ahead without environmental reviews, while any regulation (or even tracing of projects' contributions to groundwater damage) should be put off until we're absolutely sure the development is causing irreversible damage.

- Finally, Paul Wells notes that Justin Trudeau has taken sole and full ownership of the Libs' historic self-image, while J.J. McCullough sees Trudeau as prioritizing high status over any connection with the public. Needless to say, these theses seem fully compatible.

Telling it like it is

Kudos to the CP's Bruce Cheadle in meeting the Cons' attempt to turn the Canada Revenue Agency into part of their advertising structure with the right response:

In response to written questions about why tax changes from 2006 were linked to the 2009 budget for an ad running in 2011, the ostensibly non-partisan revenue agency provided bullet-point responses that began with boilerplate boosterism:

"The Government of Canada is focused on the economy and is putting the needs of Canadians first."

The agency said "a number of tax measures" were introduced in 2009, and provided a link to the action plan web site. Of the CRA ad campaign's several stated priorities, just one measure — a first-time homebuyers tax credit — came about as part of the recession-fighting budget.

Nicely done

I seldom hesitate to criticize media outlets which are too eager to report Con spin as news even when there's no reason to think it has any basis in reality. So full credit to the CP for treating the Cons' unsupported assertions about their website rule-breaking with due skepticism:

The Harper government claims a senior bureaucrat gave it the go-ahead to avoid the rules governing the look and feel of its Economic Action Plan website.

But the Conservatives are declining to provide documentary evidence of the exemption, which does not appear among hundreds of pages of memos, drafts and emails obtained by The Canadian Press under an Access to Information Act request that took more than a year to process.
...
Day's office and the Prime Minister's Office did not respond to requests Wednesday and Thursday to produce the d'Auray document.

Without documentary evidence, the government assertion falls into the same category as previous claims that Statistics Canada bureaucrats recommended the abolition of the mandatory long-form census last spring. The head of StatsCan subsequently resigned in protest, and the "recommendation" proved to be merely a non-preferred option.

(Edit: fixed typo.)

On journalistic negligence

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has released a study highlighting the value of infrastructure spending as a means of boosting Canada's economy. But it would have a far better chance of having the needed impact if the Canadian Press could be bothered to report what the FCM actually said.

Here's the FCM's message about the delays to date:

Because of administrative delays, the cost-shared $8.8 billion federal Building Canada Fund (BCF), announced in the 2007 budget, has, so far, financed very few projects leaving close to $3 billion in unspent federal money...

“What is needed now is the political will to cut red tape and ensure that the money budgeted for these projects in 2007 and 2008 gets spent immediately.”

Now, the FCM is remarkably willing to avoid casting any blame for the delays, given that it's the federal government which insisted on the agreement process, then failed to get anything done. But given the FCM's relative neutrality, one could understand if coverage merely omitted that detail.

What doesn't make any sense, though, is to try to turn the FCM's message into a one-sided slam at the provinces. And that's exactly what the CP report does:

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities says there are hundreds of municipal projects ready to go that can be financed by existing funding. But it says the provinces are taking too long to sign spending agreements with Ottawa.

And then there are the potential effects of infrastructure spending. The FCM rightly points out that it would actually be far more effective than tax cuts in stimulating the economy:

The study, conducted last June and updated in October, looks at the economic impact of accelerated infrastructure investments. It compares the stimulus impact of $1 billion in tax cuts (personal and excise tax) to the same amount in accelerated infrastructure investment.

The study shows that even a combined $2-billion tax reduction would produce fewer jobs and a lower economic stimulus than $1 billion dollars spent upgrading roads, bridges and water mains.

Which the CP somehow manages to turn into something else entirely:

The reports says accelerating $1 billion in infrastructure spending would have the same impact as a $1-billion tax cut.

So who might stand to benefit from an interpretation which absolves the federal government of any responsibility for delays in funding, while wrongly pretending that tax cuts would serve the same purpose just as effectively?

Pop Quiz

A quick test of your knowledge about the upcoming Toronto Centre by-election - and how it compares to the national media covering the contest.

1. Which federal party was the Libs' closest competition in the riding in 2006, and in three of the past four general elections?

2. Which federal party has had a highly-qualified candidate in place for months, rather than recently appointing a dubious second-choice candidate because its original nominee was too concerned with issues affecting the riding?

3. Based on your answers to 1 and 2, which federal party would logically be mentioned as the main competition to the Liberal candidate in the March by-election?

If you answered "NDP", "NDP" and "Conservative", respectively, then you'd fit right in at both the CP and CanWest.

(Edit: typo.)

On coziness

Steve has a thorough discussion of the CP's bizarre decision to voluntarily publish an article whose sole purpose seems to be to test a Con talking point that environmental groups are "too cosy" with the Libs. But let's fill in a couple of additional gaps.

First, it's no secret that environmental groups have also been involved in helping to formulate both policy and strategy for other parties who care enough to include them in their discussions. It's been publicly noted that the NDP enlisted the input of environmental groups both in developing some of their past policies, and in the course of this spring's Parliamentary negotiations - and it would be shocking if the Greens and Bloc weren't making some effort to interact with the environmental movement as well.

And as Steve notes, that's not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. Instead, it's simply a matter of parties seeking the input of groups who know the issue best - and it's the Cons who deserve scorn for refusing to engage with such groups, not the other parties for listening to them.

Second, let's note that while the efforts of the other parties can be far more plausibly seen as merely talking to groups known for both a genuine interest and knowledge of a key issue, the Cons themselves have a far more dubious link to a group which seems to want to present itself as "environmental" despite being plainly a self-interested creation.

After all, the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association has taken on a far higher profile than ever before, featuring numerous co-announcements with the Cons, ever since Deceivin' Stephen took office. And its cooperation with the government has without a doubt been based in large part on its Con connections, including its head (former Reform and Con insider Kory Tenycke) and a registered lobbyist (Harper confidant Ken Boessenkool).

Of course, the Cons probably would assume that the rules which they seek to apply to everybody else have no application to some of their own. But the CP has no excuse for neglecting to mention both the fact that the Cons are the ones isolated in their refusal to speak substantively to environmental groups, and the fact that the Cons have far more problematic links to other interest groups who have obviously had the government's ear.