Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Tim Wu writes that the U.S.' political system is serving to allow a privileged few to ignore the policy preferences and interests of the vast majority of citizens:

About 75 percent of Americans favor higher taxes for the ultrawealthy. The idea of a federal law that would guarantee paid maternity leave attracts 67 percent support. Eighty-three percent favor strong net neutrality rules for broadband, and more than 60 percent want stronger privacy laws. Seventy-one percent think we should be able to buy drugs imported from Canada, and 92 percent want Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. The list goes on.

The defining political fact of our time is not polarization. It’s the inability of even large bipartisan majorities to get what they want on issues like these. Call it the oppression of the supermajority. Ignoring what most of the country wants — as much as demagogy and political divisiveness — is what is making the public so angry.
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In our era, it is primarily Congress that prevents popular laws from being passed or getting serious consideration. (Holding an occasional hearing does not count as “doing something.”) Entire categories of public policy options are effectively off-limits because of the combined influence of industry groups and donor interests. There is no principled defense of this state of affairs — and indeed, no one attempts to offer such a justification. Instead, legislative stagnation is cynically defended by those who benefit from it with an unconvincing invocation of the rigors of our system of checks and balances.
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As the United States begins the process of choosing the next president and Congress, we need to talk more openly about which candidates are most likely to deliver the economic policies that the supermajority wants. Yes, the people can be wrong about things, but so too can experts, embedded industry groups and divisive political factions. It is not a concession to populism, but rather a respect for democracy, to suggest that two-thirds of the population should usually get what they ask for.

- Meanwhile, Jen Gerson discusses how the SNC Lavalin scandal shows the corruption underlying far too much of Canadian politics. Andrew Coyne comments on the Libs' attempt to exercise political control while insisting Jody Wilson-Raybould was free to decide - as long as she did so in favour of their donors and political allies. And Craig Scott highlights the dangers of normalizing political interference in prosecutorial discretion as the Libs are now trying to do.

- David Climenhaga points out how the Libs' attempt to change the channel with an announcement on prescription drugs fell short of an actual pharmacare program. And indeed, Kelly Grant notes that the distraction tactic didn't include any meaningful details.

- Damian Carrington points out new research showing the wide reach of the unintended spread of microplastics. And Tiffany Lizee reports on the role fracking is playing in causing earthquakes in Alberta.

- Finally, John Cassidy discusses how the principles behind the Green New Deal can be met with technology that's already readily available - as long as petropolitics don't stand in the way.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Chris Jackson presents a new Ipsos survey showing that the majority of American workers face stress issues at work. And Arthur White-Crumley reports on a spate of injuries at Evraz' Regina steel mill.

- Rob Ferguson reports on Doug Ford's attempt to ram through major health care restructuring (including a focus on privatization) without allowing the public a chance to fight back. And Elianna Lev talks to Danyaal Raza about the predictable harm from privatizing health care services.

- Meanwhile, Sherri Brown weighs in on Ford's appalling decision to limit per-child funding for autism based on the expectation that nobody deserves more of a chance than will fit into an arbitrary spending cap.

- Naomi Klein discusses the battle lines between advocates for a Green New Deal, and defenders of polluting the planet for the sake of further enriching present-day fossil fuel investors. And Marc Lee examines the future of carbon pricing in Canada.

- Finally, Craig Scott highlights how "trust us" is nowhere close to a sufficient response from Justin Trudeau as his government covers up its attempts to protect SNC-Lavalin from prosecution. And Adam Hunter reports on Ryan Meili's push for a review of Saskatchewan's dealings with SNC-Lavalin.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Lana Payne writes that there's no reason to turn Donald Trump's giveaway to the rich into an excuse for similarly destructive policies in Canada:

If tax policy levers need adjusting, there is a more effective and sophisticated approach that can be taken, rather than a swinging a machete through the corporate tax rate. Walmart doesn’t need a tax break.

For example, targeting tax incentives to those who need the support in order to invest in machinery, productivity and wages makes for smarter policy. It’s ironic how those who argue against universal social programs have no problem supporting universal tax cuts for corporations. No matter the problem, it’s their panacea.

Why give tax cuts to corporations stockpiling cash on their balance sheets? Why give them to corporations socking away billions in global tax havens rather than investing the capital in Canadian jobs and wages? Why give them to companies who are going to make certain investments anyway?

It is bad policy and it depletes much needed revenues to invest in priorities like child care, more affordable or free post-secondary education, better health care and green transit.

And it is leading to a place where researchers predict in the next 10 to 20 years, corporate taxes will be a thing of the past unless massive collective action is taken. That’s how effective corporations have been at convincing governments to do their bidding.

- David Climenhaga argues that progressive governments need to begin acting at least as decisively as conservative counterparts, rather than allowing policy to drift in the wrong direction. And Ian Bailey reports on some of the worker-friendly developments in British Columbia under John Horgan's NDP government.

- J.W. Mason's review of Quinn Slobodian's Globalists discusses the history of neoliberalism as a philosophy favouring the use of state power to reinforce existing inequalities in income and wealth.  And Drew Brown notes that if anything has changed in the relationship of the uber-rich to the rest of us, it's their explicit intention to disengage from humanity as a whole.

- Jason Furman discusses how work requirements and other access barriers to basic social programs serve solely to hurt poor families without accomplishing anything positive.

- Craig Scott writes that Doug Ford's trampling of municipal democracy in Toronto might well violate fundamental constitutional principles.

- Finally, Andre Picard comments on Canada's Epipen shortage, while noting that it fits into a larger pattern of essential medical products having fragile supply chains which leave public health at risk.

Saturday Afternoon #ERRE Links

A bit of electoral reform material for your weekend reading.

- Nathan Cullen points out how the Special Committee on Electoral Reform's report (PDF) serves as an effective road map to make every vote count in Canada.

- PressProgress highlights how the Libs are attacking their own campaign promises in order to preserve an unfair electoral system, while Jonathan Sas compares the Libs' scorched-earth approach and incoherent response to the remarkable level of consensus and success achieved by members of all parties on the committee.

- Craig Scott generously calls the Libs' approach one of "noble failure" - and that may have been the intention initially. 

- But the "noble" part seems to have been sorely lacking, as Michael Stewart calls out the Libs' mockery of both the MPs who worked on a broad consultation process, and the tens of thousands of Canadians who participated in it. Althia Raj notes that the Trudeau government's insults are particularly egregious since they're directed at people trying to fulfil their own promises - while also reporting that Trudeau and his inner circle would likely have been happy to accept a committee recommendation for a ranked ballot which was rejected by all parties. And Ryan Maloney points out the Libs' aversion to inconvenient math when it would help to achieve improved representation.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Wolfgang Munchau writes that the rise of right-wing insurrectionism can be traced largely to "centre-left" parties who have focused most of their attention on imposing austerity and catering to the corporate sector while offering little to citizens, while Naomi Klein comments on the role of neoliberal politics in laying the groundwork for Donald Trump's election. Owen Jones discusses the need for a new populist movement on the left - with particular emphasis on the importance of including working-class citizens. And Craig Scott and Nora Loreto each off some lessons we should learn from Trump's election, while David Cay Johnston makes clear that Trump will only make matters worse for the people who saw him as an agent of poorly-defined change.

- Emmanuel Saez examines (PDF) the results of the U.S.' 2013 top-end tax increase, and finds that aside from temporary tax avoidance at the point of the change it's proven to be a highly efficient and progressive way to raise revenue. 

- Stephen Tapp assesses the Trudeau Libs' fall economic statement, and notes that their massive infrastructure privatization scheme merely echoes a failed Con plan to the same effect. Jeff Spross notes that the promise of having private operators pay for infrastructure projects in exchange for turning public services into profit centres is just as empty coming from Trump. And Donald Cohen points out how past privatization is already responsible for the growth of inequality.

- Ted Bruce and David Peters discuss the potentially massive gains to be made by investing in population health - while noting that research in the area is all too often treated as an afterthought. And Jim Bender reports on new recommendations from Winnipeg's Social Planning Council as to how to develop and implement a poverty reduction strategy.

- Finally, Micheal Vonn offers some reasons for skepticism about the Libs' plans to hand still more surveillance mechanisms to the state, particularly given how regularly existing powers have been abused.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Michael Bader argues that a cynical view of politics represents the most important barrier to progressive victories:

Cynicism is a corrosive force in our politics and culture, but one that is invisible to us because it seems so normal. My patients feel the same way. They keep repeating patters that are familiar and experience deviations from these scripts as anxiety provoking. It’s my job to help them see, through education and by creating new corrective experiences in which they are encouraged to freely choose a healthier way to be, that their emotional reality and distress are not something hardwired and inevitable. My underlying message is that transformational change is possible.

Progressives need to convey this same message in the broader political arena. The problem we face is that political cynicism of the sort that suffocates us today masquerades as realism, a realism that warns us that transformational change is a pipe dream and that aspiring to what we really want is a recipe for disappointment. When a patient conveys this belief, I see it as a symptom of an emotional injury rather than objective reality and I seek to change it, not surrender to its inevitability.

That's what a progressive movement should be doing on a social level; challenging cynicism and drawing people to our cause because our cause is big and grand and mirrors their own buried wish to be part of something that big and grand. We need leaders who can present such a vision and fight the realists who want us to be afraid of our own deepest longings.

- And on the subject of visionary policies which are too often dismissed based solely on questionable assertions as to feasibility, Jeff Krimmel points out how a basic income offers important benefits across the income spectrum.

- Craig Scott sees this week's federal budget as an all-too-familiar example of the gap between the Libs' campaign rhetoric and their actions while in power, while Kate McInturff writes that the Libs' budget falls far short of expectations for women in particular.  And Alan Freeman discusses how the CFIB was one of the groups which saw campaign commitments abandoned in the budget - though he rightly notes that the group's past willingness to be used by the Harper Cons may represent part of the explanation.

- Elena Holodny writes about the increasing number and cost of extreme weather events as the most readily visible symptom of climate change.

- Finally, Rose Hackman examines the effects of pervasive and groundless surveillance on a minority population.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- David Ball talks to Joseph Stiglitz about inequality and its causes - including the spread of corporate control through trade agreements:

What would you say is the dominant cause [of growing inequality]?

The weak economy, partly associated with austerity, has led to a weak labour market. The official unemployment rates don't indicate the real weaknesses. In the U.S. there's a huge amount of disguised unemployment -- people who have dropped out of the labour force or are working part time. That's why wages have stagnated.

You saw that so vividly in the three years at the beginning of our so-called "recovery," from 2009 to 2012, when 91 per cent of all the gains went to the top one per cent. That's obviously a huge increase in inequality... African-Americans, Hispanics, low-income Americans, and high school graduates have not recovered. You might say it's been a lopsided recovery.

The recession was really bad for the poor. They lost their jobs and lost their homes. But even before that, you saw really significant increases in inequality in an economy that was supposedly performing very well. So [the cause of inequality] is beyond just austerity.
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A number of trade deals passed by Canada -- the TPP and the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) with China that we're locked into for 31 years, for example -- are seen in traditional economics as the gold standard.

The TPP is a very bad agreement that will increase inequality. Inequality isn't just about income -- it's also about standards of living. There are several [worrying] provisions. The worst is the investment agreement provision, which effectively restricts the ability [of states] to regulate and protect health, safety, the environment, even economic regulations important for stability. These are things that are particularly important to ordinary citizens. The regulations are meant to protect our society.

- And Blayne Haggart notes that the intellectual property provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership represent a new - and particularly dangerous - form of protectionism in favour of the businesses who already have the most.

- Marc Lee offers his twelve-point plan for a federal government wanting to get serious about climate change.

- Craig Scott discusses both the opportunity we have to push for meaningful electoral reform, and the danger that the Libs will see fit to gum up the works to protect the system which led to their own false majority. And Elizabeth Thompson reports on just one more of the many absurdities of handing over unfettered executive power based on a modest minority of votes, as the Cons were able to lock in a large number of long-term patronage appointments which will last for multiple terms of government to come.

- Finally, Susana Mas reports on the NDP's work to make sure the Libs don't turn away refugees in the name of political convenience and a false claim to security concerns. But unfortunately, the Libs haven't taken long in backtracking from even their core promises.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Marc Lee writes that British Columbia has learned nothing about the dangers of staple economics. But Christy Clark has certainly learned something from her predecessor's playbook: one term after Gordon Campbell's promise not to impose an HST fell by the wayside immediately after he'd secured another four years in office, Clark is abandoning her supposed concern for the environment in order to facilitate wholesale shipment of oil products by pipeline, rail and tanker.

- Meanwhile, Dallas MacQuarrie discusses the heavy-handed RCMP response to peaceful protestors challenging fracking on First Nations land in Rexton, New Brunswick.

-Bea Vongdouangchanh reports on the Cons' continued delays in presenting election legislation. But while Craig Scott is concerned about the possibility the Cons won't present anything that can be implemented in time for 2015, I'd be even more worried about the risk they'll offer up yet another agenda of three parts voter suppression and one part Senate posturing (with precisely zero extra authority or resources for Elections Canada) - then ram it through without debate or amendments by claiming it's too late for thoughtful discussion.

- Scott Sinclair asks and answers ten key questions about the CETA.

- Finally, Marina Adshade observes that a lack of child care combined with a need for two breadwinners per family results in limited choice for actual and potential parents - and that in the absence of that choice, more and more middle-class women are rationally deciding to have fewer and fewer children:

The relationship between family size and the cost of child care is now starting to show up in the data in another, surprising way.

In recent history, family size was negatively correlated with income. The lowest-earning households had the most children and the highest-earning household had the fewest.

But today, specifically among women in the cohort now in their early 40s, those living in households with income above $150,000 had an average of 2.1 children. That’s more children than women in any other income group, and significantly more than women in middle-income households, who raised an average of 1.8 children.

To me, this is the long-run implication of not having access to affordable daycare. In this economic environment, having large families is a luxury to be afforded only by high-income households, which either can afford childcare or don’t require two parents in the workforce, and low-income households, which are more likely to include family members who aren’t working.

On priorities

In addition to its eminently sensible proposal to give effect to the rights of indigenous Canadians, the NDP also introduced another bill yesterday - and one which looks to raise a few more questions.

Lest there be any doubt, that question doesn't have to do with whether Craig Scott's bill setting ground rules for a future referendum is an improvement on current Canadian law. The "go ahead and hold the vote, then we'll tell you whether it counted" philosophy underlying the Clarity Act has always been bizarre at best, and the framework set out by the NDP replaces that indecision-as-policy approach with genuinely clear standards and processes.

But I do think it's worth asking whether Thomas Mulcair was closer to the mark in his initial response to the Bloc's usual crisis-mongering than in the announcement of the bill:

Monsieur le Président, j’aurais aimé me lever aujourd’hui pour parler d’économie, d’emploi, de pauvreté, à savoir des enjeux qui préoccupent vraiment les gens. Cependant, ce n’est pas ce dont le Bloc veut nous parler aujourd’hui. Pour le Bloc, il vaut mieux ranimer les vieux débats du passé.

Il faut croire que le Bloc n’a pas reçu le message envoyé par les Québécois lors de la dernière élection. C’est une élection où, je le rappelle, le NPD a reçu un appui record et un mandat historique à Ottawa. Le soir du 2 mai 2011, quatre millions et demi de Canadiens ont voté pour la vision rassembleuse mise en avant par mon ami, Jack Layton. C’est une vision d’un Canada plus inclusif, plus vert, plus prospère et qui respecte le Québec.

Now, I'm in full agreement that Quebec voters have consistently sent the message that they're long past tired of being badgered about hypothetical referenda rather than real issues - and that the NDP's success can be traced largely to its appreciation of that reality. But if Mulcair is right in recognizing that the only way to win a game of "Let's Bloviate About A Referendum!" is not to play - as I think he is - then it's worth wondering why he's choosing to take a turn at it.

Of course, there may be other strategic thoughts behind the introduction of Scott's bill. Maybe the hope is to lead the Libs' leadership candidates even further down the same path to allow Mulcair to frame them as remaining out of touch (in which case, mission accomplished). Or perhaps the intention is to present a single bill now as a marker to point to when the subject is raised later, while planning to turn attention back to more substantive issues at the first available opportunity.

Even if so, I'd still have some timing questions as to why that's being done right this minute, rather than after NDP members have had a chance to shape the party's direction under Mulcair. But more importantly, while the NDP certainly needs to think about how to position itself compared to its competitors, it also needs to keep its own priorities in order - meaning that the true test for Mulcair may be whether he keeps the NDP's focus on the issues he knows to be more important.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher uncover an apparently-fictitious employee listed as one of Con contractor RackNine's key contacts - nicely paralleling the obvious coverup behind "Pierre Poutine". And Dr. Dawg places the latest revelations in context with the rest of the Cons' misdirections and coverups.

- Meanwhile, the Cons are applying their theory that "the less anybody knows, the better" on the international stage as well.

- Hugh Mackenzie deconstructs the questionable assumptions used in Don Drummond's report to try to foist massive cuts onto the province without any real assessment of the value of public services.

- Finally, Craig Scott's by-election victory in Toronto-Danforth may not come as much surprise. But the fact that Scott was able to hold not only the seat but also the vote share of the most popular party leader in Canadian politics - even with at least one other party pouring its every effort into the seat (unlike in the general election) - surely signals that there's ample room for the NDP to grow in Toronto.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Stephen Maher and Barbara Yaffe have learned to be duly skeptical of the Cons' motives when it comes to Senate patronage. But John Ibbitson still has a ways to go - as he's apparently still buying Con spin about new provinces holding Senate elections which has long since been overtaken by events.

- Meanwhile, Yaffe notes that the Cons' direct attacks on anybody who doesn't want to make oil industry profits the chief goal of public policy will only call into question the validity of their own public assessment processes. And Dr. Dawg replies to Joe Oliver's shilling for the tar sands by testing who actually makes decisions based on blind faith rather than any willingness to consider reality.

- Paul Krugman points out that the U.S.' inequality crisis is just as obvious when it comes to opportunity as to condition:

Americans are much more likely than citizens of other nations to believe that they live in a meritocracy. But this self-image is a fantasy: as a report in The Times last week pointed out, America actually stands out as the advanced country in which it matters most who your parents were, the country in which those born on one of society’s lower rungs have the least chance of climbing to the top or even to the middle.

And if you ask why America is more class-bound in practice than the rest of the Western world, a large part of the reason is that our government falls down on the job of creating equal opportunity.

The failure starts early: in America, the holes in the social safety net mean that both low-income mothers and their children are all too likely to suffer from poor nutrition and receive inadequate health care. It continues once children reach school age, where they encounter a system in which the affluent send their kids to good, well-financed public schools or, if they choose, to private schools, while less-advantaged children get a far worse education.

Once they reach college age, those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds are far less likely to go to college — and vastly less likely to go to a top-tier school — than those luckier in their parentage. At the most selective, “Tier 1” schools, 74 percent of the entering class comes from the quarter of households that have the highest “socioeconomic status”; only 3 percent comes from the bottom quarter.

And if children from our society’s lower rungs do manage to make it into a good college, the lack of financial support makes them far more likely to drop out than the children of the affluent, even if they have as much or more native ability. One long-term study by the Department of Education found that students with high test scores but low-income parents were less likely to complete college than students with low scores but affluent parents — loosely speaking, that smart poor kids are less likely than dumb rich kids to get a degree.
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(S)omeone who really wanted equal opportunity would be very concerned about the inequality of our current system. He would support more nutritional aid for low-income mothers-to-be and young children. He would try to improve the quality of public schools. He would support aid to low-income college students. And he would support what every other advanced country has, a universal health care system, so that nobody need worry about untreated illness or crushing medical bills.

- Finally, congratulations to Craig Scott for earning the NDP's nomination in Toronto-Danforth.