Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Leslie McCall and Jennifer Richeson offer another look at what happens when Americans are properly informed about the level of inequality in their country:

What effect did this information have? First, more respondents came to believe that “coming from a wealthy family” and “having well educated parents” were essential or very important to “getting ahead” (43 percent, compared with 27 percent among those who did not get the information).

Conversely, fewer respondents who saw information about inequality said that individual factors, such as “having ambition” and “hard work,” were essential or very important (81 percent vs. 90 percent).

In short, being told about rising inequality made Americans a bit less likely to believe that economic success was about individual effort and much more likely to think it was about luck.

Information about rising inequality also changed people’s views of economic policy. In particular, we asked separate questions about whether “the government ought to reduce the income gap between the rich and the poor” and “major companies ought to reduce the pay gap between employees with high pay and those with low pay.” Respondents could answer on a scale of 1 to 7, ranging from strong opposition to strong support. Among the people who read about inequality, 53 percent indicated some degree of support for government efforts to reduce the income gap, compared with 43 percent among those who did not read about inequality. Similarly, people became more likely to support efforts by major companies to reduce pay gaps (58 percent vs. 51 percent).
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(I)nforming Americans about the extent of economic inequality, or simply making the issue salient, can change attitudes about economic opportunity by foregrounding the role of luck in getting ahead — and that in turn tends to increase support for policies designed to reduce inequality. For this reason, the instinct to focus on economic opportunity instead of inequality seems misplaced. In the minds of Americans, the two can be linked quite readily.

- Matt Bruenig examines who is poor in the U.S. and why - with the lack of an adequate welfare state serving as the overwhelming cause of poverty. Luke Williams writes about the connection between low incomes, precarious work and suicide. And Leslie Young notes that Canada's latest census shows 1.2 million children living below the poverty line, while Roderick Benns offers a look at poverty in action while asking why we continue to put up with it.

- Mark Suzman reviews how greater financial equality for women leads to overall economic and social progress. And Lizzie Buchan reports on a push by UK unions to punish employers for perpetuating pay inequity.

- Michael Harris warns Justin Trudeau and his entourage that they are supposed to be accountable public servants, not royalty to be catered to at public expense. And Stephen Maher writes that Dean Del Mastro is now in jail due in large part to his bringing political hubris to his defence for election law violations.

- Finally, Brent Patterson points out how Trudeau is falling short on his promises to rebuild Canada's environmental regulatory structure. And Helena Bottemiller Evich discusses how soaring greenhouse gas emissions are making our food less healthy.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- The Globe and Mail reminds us why we should demand the restoration of an effective census, while Evidence for Democracy is making a public push toward that goal. And Tavia Grant discusses how the destruction of effective data collection is affecting Canadian workplace:

Reliable, complete and up-to-date labour market data is a crucial component of government policy, influencing everything from educational priorities to immigration.

Yet, fallout from faulty or missing labour market information has made headlines on a number of issues this year alone. It’s been hard to pinpoint the size of the temporary foreign worker program (The Globe and Mail has reported that some employers say the tally for their organizations is miscounted).

Some TFWs are working on First Nations reserves with high unemployment rates – but it is unclear just how high jobless rates are on reserves. And earlier this year, the Finance Department had to correct its estimates of job vacancies when it emerged it was relying on a software program that was skewed by including Kijiji listings.

Statscan itself has faced budget cuts and staff reductions, while a memo has shown Employment and Social Development Canada has cut spending on labour market information by more than 20 per cent over the past two years.

- PressProgress documents a week in the life of the Fraser Institute's corporate shilling. And Stephen Leahy comments on big oil's dirty war against our planet and the people who seek to protect it:

(W)e already know how to make the low-carbon transition because it is "hardly rocket science," said Bob Watson, former chair of the IPCC.

To reiterate the steps: big increases in energy efficiency, massive roll outs of renewable energy, shutting down most coal plants, a carbon price, etc. There are dozens of studies on how to do this with no new technology. All of this can be achieved with very little extra cost to the global economy, according to The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate.

These studies end up concluding that what's missing in a shift to low-carbon living is political will or political courage. Left unsaid is the incredibly powerful and influential fossil fuel industry, their bankers, investors, lawyers, public relations consultants, unions and others all fighting desperately to keep humanity addicted to their products.

That means opposing low-carbon alternatives and branding grandparents who worry about their grandchildren's future as "green radicals."

"Think of this as an endless war," public relations consultant Richard Berman told oil and gas industry executives last June in Colorado.

It's a dirty war against environmental organizations and their supporters. Industry executives must be willing to exploit emotions like fear, greed and anger of the public against green groups and individuals...

- Roberto Ferdman discusses how disparities in income are reflected in infant nutritional health - which then tends to produce habits which last a lifetime.

- Alison examines the connections between the Cons' pension board appointees and the use of offshore tax havens.

- Finally, Michael Harris notes that Stephen Harper's support for, and promotion of, convicted election fraudster Dean Del Mastro is entirely consistent with his judgment in managing his party and Canada's government. And Thomas Walkom notes that Chris Alexander is just the latest MP to be put to work trying to trash vulnerable people and their supporters.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Chris Matthews takes note of the gross growth of inequality in the U.S. Dean Baker notes that much of the wealth built on what's branded as "innovation" reflects little more than successful attempts to evade health, safety and consumer protection laws. And Mike De Souza explores how the notorious ALEC pushes climate denial and other anti-social policies with an alarming amount of support from businesses who (once challenged) claim not to know who they're funding.

- Meanwhile, Digby points out that the corporatist right is downright eager to work people to the point where they have to focus on bare survival rather than improving their lot in life. And Lana Payne warns us that the Cons are turning retirement into a luxury good rather than a reasonable expectation for most workers:

More and more Canadians believe they will never be able to retire, giving whole new meaning to the phrase “work till you drop.”
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(A) full 60 per cent (of Canadians) do not believe they have saved enough to retire in comfort. Not surprisingly, women and lower-income earners were even less likely to have saved enough.

Shockingly, one in five Canadians reported that they will never retire. In addition, nearly one-third of those surveyed said they didn’t know when they’d be able to retire. Stagnant wages are coming home to roost.

The survey also found that over 40 per cent of employers surveyed said their employees are overly optimistic with respect to their assessment of when they will be able to retire.

That is rather astonishing, considering the dreary outlook so many Canadians seem to hold about their ability to retire in comfort. Yet even Canadians’ low expectations about retirement are considered optimistic.
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CARP, the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, also supports enhancing CPP and notes the majority of Canadians agree. Indeed, the vast majority of CARP members see it as a ballot box question.

“We need federal and provincial governments willing to work together on a national solution to the national retirement savings problem,” CARP said in a statement.

It is clear that this won’t happen as long as the Harper Conservatives are in power.

We may as well add retirement income crisis to their legacy of neglect. Harper has been quoted as saying we won’t recognize Canada when he is done.

But damage can be undone, just as a new federal government can address the looming retirement crisis.

- But of course, the Cons are instead more interested in handing free money to families wealthy enough that they can already afford to have a parent stay home voluntarily. And even the Cons aren't pretending that income splitting could possibly offer meaningful help to households without a high-income worker - using that fact as an excuse to avoid offering any similar advantage for single-parent families.

- Mitch Jones points out that privatized water markets figure to do nothing but damage as we try to ensure the continued availability of a vital (and increasingly scarce) resource.

- Andrew Jackson reminds us that commodity markets are inevitably boom-and-bust - while recognizing that the Cons' obsession with pushing an oil-only economy has exposed Canada to dangerous risks as prices drop. And Mychaylo Prystupa reports that Kinder Morgan is SLAPPing Burnaby residents concerned about the effect of a pipeline expansion on their community.

- Finally, the Telegram slams the Cons for their continued contempt for election law - as well as their refusal to take responsibility for what's now a consistent, multiple-election pattern of illegality in their party. And Gerald Caplan writes that we should distinguish between mere members of Parliament and those who earn the title of "parliamentarian".

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Simon Lewchuk makes the case for genuine participatory budgeting in contrast to the little-known and unduly-narrow means for Canadians to even make suggestions for our country's public spending priorities:

Operating under the guise of “consultation,” in June the federal finance committee announced its annual pre-budget process (don’t worry if you missed it, most Canadians did too). People were invited to “share their priorities for the 2014 budget” via an online form but, with an Aug. 5 deadline, it was unlikely that many Canadians were able to take the committee up on its offer (even if they were aware of it).

The parameters of the pre-budget consultation process are becoming increasingly narrow. In 2011, for example, respondents were asked to provide their views on how to “create quality, sustainable jobs, ensure relatively low rates of taxation and achieve a balanced budget.” To start from the premise that low taxes are non-negotiable doesn’t leave much room for an honest, frank discussion.
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Not that the real decision-making power rests with the finance committee: our current government has been criticized for shrouding the budget process in secrecy, something they explicitly campaigned against in 2006. Budget decisions are being made behind closed doors and forced through the House of Commons as part of massive omnibus legislation.

It all leaves one seriously doubting the value and integrity of the current budget consultation process.

What we do with our money — as families, communities or countries — reflects our priorities, commitments and vision of the sort of world we want to live in. Budget decisions demand a broad, inclusive decision-making process.

- Sarah Frank highlights the consequences of a budgeting process utterly disconnected from representatives and citizens alike, finding Dean Del Mastro telling the City of Peterborough to apply for funding under a program which his own government eliminated last year. But considering the Cons' well-established practice of bombarding Canada's airwaves with advertising for programs past, future or outright imaginary, I'm only surprised their MPs haven't been caught more often doing the same in person.

- Susan Delacourt discusses housing as a matter of public policy - with particular reference to the Cons' lack of interest in acknowledging the importance of rental housing even as they make home ownership less affordable.

- Jody Porter reports that the Cons aren't the least bit sorry for the use of hungry First Nations children as involuntary test subjects.

- Meanwhile, the Hupacasath First Nation is rightly challenging the Cons' disregard for Canada's duty to consult in negotiating the FIPA.

- Finally, Graham Thomson discusses the effect the Cold Lake blowout is bound to have on attempts to greenwash the tar sands:

For the last three months, 7,300 barrels of bitumen have uncontrollably bubbled to the surface from deep underground and seeped into muskeg and water on four sites at the company’s operations, creating an ecological mess, killing wildlife and damaging the reputation of CNRL in particular and the oilsands industry in general.

The company has cut down trees, hauled away tons of oily muskeg and put containment booms on a contaminated lake. But the bitumen keeps coming, seeping out of the ground through long, narrow fissures. Not only has CNRL been unable to stop it, the company doesn’t know for sure why it keeps coming.

The Pembina Institute based in Calgary disturbingly describes the leak as an “uncontrolled blowout in an oil reservoir deep underground.”
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There remains the possibility the problem was the result of a crack in the overlying cap rock created by the high-pressure steaming process. That would be a much larger problem for CNRL. It’s one thing for the company to plug up an old cracked well bore, but quite another to deal with cracks in a geological formation.

It would also be a much larger problem for the oilsands industry that is moving away from open pit mining to in situ methods designed to be less environmentally disruptive. The CNRL incident is raising troubling questions and providing ammunition for environmental groups to once again attack the industry.

Also troubling is the fact this is the second CNRL leak in the same area. In 2009, 5,600 barrels seeped into the environment. A cause was never conclusively reached, but the provincial regulator said “geological weakness, in combination with stress induced by high pressure steam injection” may have contributed to the incident.
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It doesn’t matter if you call it a leak or a spill or an underground blowout — we need to know what caused it and what it means to the integrity of the oilsands industry.

And it's of course always worth a reminder that the Cons have gone out of their way to make sure that Cold Lake-style disasters can happen without any warning or mitigation strategies - having excluded in situ steam injection projects (geological implications and all) from any environmental assessment.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Murray Dobbin writes about the significance of Idle No More as a shift away from the presumption that First Nations' interests are represented solely by elected officials:

There are some fascinating similarities between the Idle No More phenomenon and the Occupy movement. Both reflect a political dualism: they are focused on the lack of democracy, justice and equality for ordinary people and they are implicitly (and with Idle No More explicitly) telling conventional movement organizations that are supposed to speak for them that they have failed. And it should come as no surprise that most members of the leadership of Idle No More are women.

By the late 1980s government funding had established a mutually beneficial relationship between governments and aboriginal leaders. Into this status quo of continued poverty came native women's organizations which were genuinely radical (they had no big salaries to lose) and often critical of the totally male dominated aboriginal groups. They were the voices of aboriginal communities -- but lack of resources and bullying by the government-funded "official" organizations eventually prevailed. That they are back in leadership roles is one of the most important and positive aspects of the movement.

Idle No More is the most exciting development in aboriginal politics in two generations. It has rightfully scared the hell out of the entire First Nations leadership -- from Shawn Atleo down to the hundreds of chiefs, too many of whom do in fact live high on the hog while their band members suffer. And it has got the attention of Stephen Harper, a man who has dedicated his political career to the interests of the oil and other resource industries threatened by Idle No More. Remember that he cancelled the Kelowna Accord soon after he became prime minister. The only reason Harper met with First Nations leaders is because his intelligence gathering told him this could be real trouble. Let's hope it is.

- Meanwhile, Aaron Wherry interviews Romeo Saganash about his own path toward federal politics:

I had a mission in life and that was to help building bridges between my people and the rest of Quebec and Canadian society. My whole purpose was that over the last 30 years. When Jack first approached me in 2006 to run for the NDP, there was still a lot of unfinished business with the Cree at that time, so I preferred to continue to work with the Cree until 2011 when I thought was the timing was great for me. The campaign slogan was travaillons ensemble and that was me over the years.

The intent at that time was for me to run in Quebec City. I had worked from Quebec City for the grand council, my work base was in Quebec City and I had been there for 20 years, so I knew practically everybody in Quebec City. But Jack, and that was probably the only thing that he refused from me, said to me, no, my friend, you’re going back home. And I always loved the way that he explained his refusal to me. He said, look at this way: all of the challenges, the global challenges that we have today, the environment, climate change, relations with aboriginal peoples, the future of aboriginal peoples, resource development, the future of the north, the new geopolitical realities of the Arctic, you name them, they’re all in that riding. And he said, who better than you can represent that riding? And in a sense I’d never thought about it, because it’s so diverse in terms of population. There are Cree in my riding, there are Inuit in my riding, there are Algonquins in my riding, there are forestry workers in my riding, there are mining workers in my riding. More than half the province gets its electricity from that territory. It’s a huge riding, it’s the second largest in the country. And I know the riding very well. It’s a riding where the James Bay-Northern Quebec agreement, first model treaty, applies as well, more than half of the riding is covered by this constitutional arrangement. And I know that treaty very, very well. And I think Jack was right. And I’m certainly glad that he insisted.

- Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher report on the continued investigation against Dean Del Mastro's 2008 campaign for breaking Canadian electoral law. And Jim Bronskill points out Jim Flaherty's misuse of his ministerial title and resources to try to influence CRTC licensing decisions.

- Finally, Michael Geist discusses how the Cons' anti-spam legislation remains in limbo after being passed years ago - and has given way to pro-spam regulations at the behest of businesses who don't want to have to justify loading up Canadians' inboxes with unwanted ads.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your long weekend reading.

- Jim Stanford highlights how anti-labour "right to work" policy is spreading from the U.S. into multiple Canadian provinces:

It’s clear we’re going to have to gear up our arguments on right-to-work laws, dues check-off, the Rand Formula, etc. In the last year three mainstream parties have introduced proposals for right-to-work style legal changes in Canada (Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party, the Wild Rose Alliance, and now yesterday Tim Hudak’s Ontario PCs).  This used to be terrain solely inhabited by the Fraser Institute and similar extremist camps, but no longer.  Clearly the postwar mainstream consensus that unionization was something to be at least tolerated (or, initially, actively supported) as a mechanism for managing income distribution and workplace relations is long defunct. 
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Some of the obvious conceptual points to counter Hudak and Co. would include:
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* There’s a strong anology to taxes: citizens make democratic majority decisions in elections for their government, which then levies taxes to pay for agreed programs.  If taxes were “voluntary” then we’d have no schools, hospitals, or roads, and society would collapse.  The true goal of right-to-work advocates is precisely that: to cause unions to collapse.
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* The link between declining unionization and growing inequality is strong and well-documented.  If we are concerned with inequality, then we should be working to strengthen collective bargaining relationships (as Newfoundland is doing, for example, with last week’s modest labour law reforms), not to destroy them.

- And Andrew Jackson notes that the most inclusive and democratic unions are also the most socially active.

- But kirbycairo points out that the "let's make things worse to make them better!" line of reasoning is a regular staple of apologists for an insular upper class - especially at the moment where their overreach becomes most obvious:

What conservatives consistently fail to understand are the basic social and economic relations of capitalism. Corporations seek to maximize profit and they do so primarily by reducing the cost of labor. Therefore capitalist enterprise seeks to minimize the number of people they employ while at the same time maximizing the number of products they sell. One needn't be an expert in algebraic equations to understand that there is a problem here. They are simultaneously reducing the very consumers that they need to have. Now, in a non-globalized context this process of capitalism can work moderately effectively for quite a while. But in a globalized context it is increasingly problematic. Furthermore, in a context of high levels of technology in which entrance to production can be exceptionally expensive, this problem deepens considerably.

As I have said before, as the revolution in France neared, the aristocracy attempted to entrench their power, to extract more wealth from the peasants, and it became fashionable to build ever larger, more elaborate carriages to show off their wealth. The results were predictable to anyone who had any sense. Today the results are equally predictable. Take away people's hope in the future, make them work evermore unstable and miserable jobs, while in the meantime the elite have ever greater amounts of wealth - and you'd have to be stupid not to be able to see what is coming.

- Finally, Dean Del Mastro is facing both photographic evidence and a growing number of witnesses refuting his claim to have had no idea about illegal campaign contributions and expenses.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- I wouldn't want to take Dan Gardner's conclusion as to the effects of power as an immutable truth - as he himself notes in pointing out means of minimizing its risks. But it's certainly an apt description of what's happened since the Harper Cons took power:

The government could have responded by making a show of listening to the opposition and Conservative backbenchers, picking a few innocuous amendments, and passing them. Doing that would have cost the government essentially nothing. But it may have softened the complaints a little. And, at a minimum, it would have taken away the inevitable opposition attack line of “They wouldn’t change so much as a comma! They’re treating Parliament like a rubber stamp!”

But they didn’t do that. Instead, they methodically and relentlessly voted down every single one of hundreds of proposed amendments, no matter how modest or reasonable they may be — making themselves look immodest and unreasonable and seeming to confirm that they do, indeed, expect Parliament to rubber stamp legislation.

Strictly from the perspective of the government’s self-interest, this was astonishingly dumb.

And there’s been a lot of that lately.
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(If a) powerful person lives in a bubble, insulated from criticism, surrounded by bobbleheads and bootlickers, his judgment will only get worse. And worse. Until he is making decisions like, hey, let’s announce a plan to make ordinary people work longer to receive Old Age Security in a speech to an audience of billionaires at a Swiss resort! Or, let’s announce changes to Employment Insurance without making so much as a single phone call to the premiers whose provinces will be most affected! Or, let’s automatically reject any amendment suggested by the opposition and ram the bill through even though it would seem to confirm the nasty accusations being levelled at us! 

Power corrupts. And it makes the powerful stupid.

Smart leaders know that, of course. It’s why they disperse and decentralize power, and create checks and balances. It’s why they seek out contrary views and dissonant information, why they consult, negotiate, and compromise.

- And Errol Mendes also comments on the Harper Cons' aversion to checks, balances and accountability.

- Meanwhile, it's certainly worth noting that Dean Del Mastro's denials of any knowledge of Elections Canada's investigation aren't any more plausible than most Con spin. But the part I find most interesting is the Harper-esque relationship between the financial agent who's actually responsible for campaign finances, and the candidate who denied any knowledge whatsoever of what was happening:

Ritchie’s affidavit describes how he and another Elections Canada investigator, Al Mathews, went to Peterborough to interview Daniel Rosborough, the financial agent of Del Mastro’s electoral district association.

According to Ritchie’s sworn statement, Rosborough told them “He had contacted Dean Del Mastro after I had called him and that he was advised by Dean Del Mastro that he (Dean Del Mastro) would handle the matter with Elections Canada.”

And, Ritchie said, Rosborough told them, “He (Daniel Rosborough) would not provide access to the EDA’s records or be interviewed unless authorized to do so by Dean Del Mastro.”

The two men had arranged to interview Rosborough about the association’s finances two weeks in advance of their Dec. 15 meeting, but when they got to his Peterborough office, he refused to be interviewed and told them to talk to Del Mastro directly.

- Robert Skidelsky points out that the long-promised link between corporate-owned technology capable of replacing difficult work and greater leisure time has never materialized.

- Finally, Jonathan Douglas discusses the link between library services and poverty alleviation in the UK - a particularly important connection at a time when appointees who don't seem to have any interest in the latter are showing their lack of interest in the former:

Libraries have always had a bias to the poor. It sat at the heart of their founding vision. In the past fifteen years this has been rediscovered in the context of social inclusion policy. The challenge is to put this into practice at a time when libraries’ resources themselves are being savagely cut in many places.

However the prize is great: If libraries can effectively work with individuals and the communities most at risk of poverty, they can turn lives round, boost relative social mobility and even stop the newly enlarged poverty footprint in the UK becoming intergenerational. They will also demonstrate their indispensible role in UK policy. They will demonstrate that their statutory role is no whim, but recognition of how libraries make society fairer and richer, in every sense.

The evidence  for libraries’ impact on poverty is compelling,  particularly in combating the inequalities associated with child poverty.  The Effective Provision of Preschool Education research and more recently the Avon Longitudinal  Study of Parents and Children have demonstrated the power of libraries in closing the one year gap in school readiness that exists between rich and poor children and which lays the foundations for many later inequalities.

However the effectiveness of libraries against the poverty agenda is dependent on the extent to which they commit to this audience as a priority, and the extent to which they provide services which  tackle poverty. Learning and literacy need to be at the heart of this approach.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Bruce Johnstone and the Star-Phoenix editorial board both join the voices decrying the Cons' decision to throw parliamentary democracy under their omnibus budget bill. And Gerald Caplan points out the Harper Cons' more general tendency to silence dissenting views:

(T)here’s little doubt the government was deliberately crippling many of Canada’s best and brightest, including many groups who upheld the country’s good reputation abroad that the Harper government was cavalierly undermining. In any event, the groups weren’t targeted because of their actual achievements, which were often exemplary.

Something entirely different was going on here. In the words of Amnesty International Canada’s Alex Neve, this was part of the government’s systematic “campaign against advocacy and dissent,” a campaign that has only deepened since last year’s majority election. And the message Stephen Harper was sending home from Europe was that there’s more to come. Your government is after dissidents, folks.
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There is a fundamental issue of democracy here. There should be no illusions about the almost unlimited power of a majority government in Canada. Barack Obama, the most powerful man in the world, has nothing like the unilateral power of Stephen Harper. It may have taken a little longer for the Prime Minister to pass his omnibus “budget” than he liked, but pass it will, as will everything else he wants to do. None of the defunded organizations will get their money back. None of the silenced watchdogs will get their voices back. Environmental groups will soon feel the full wrath of this petrol-fixated government.

- In keeping with this week's theme of recognizing the consequences of reckless resource development, Nicholas Kusnetz reports on the damage a poorly-regulated oil sector is inflicting on North Dakota:

According to data obtained by ProPublica, oil companies in North Dakota reported more than 1,000 accidental releases of oil, drilling wastewater or other fluids in 2011, about as many as in the previous two years combined. Many more illicit releases went unreported, state regulators acknowledge, when companies dumped truckloads of toxic fluid along the road or drained waste pits illegally.

- It's certainly interesting to see a few leading proponents of sabermetrics speaking out about how the philosophy can be applied to politics. But the most important point to be made is likely that there's more at stake in political strategy than one-time wins and losses:

James likened the idea of trying to win an election through get-out-the-vote drives as "analogous to trying to win a pennant race by doing better in the close games." A team that won 75 games and lost 87 over the course of a season could get to 90 wins if they changed their win-loss record in one-run games from 26-29 to 41-14.

"It can happen," James said. "But it's a lousy strategy."

"When people disagree with you, what you ultimately have to do is persuade people to agree with you -- period," he added. "You can't ultimately dodge defeat by winning close elections."

- Finally, pogge notes that the Cons' strategy of devolving power away from Parliament toward ministers' office hasn't given them quite as much room to govern without accountability as they seem to have hoped. And Dean Del Mastro, Con ethics spokesperson, is in yet more trouble.

Thursday Evening Links

Assorted content to end your day.

- Thomas Walkom highlights why we should be nothing but dubious about the austerians' call to slash public supports:

The Harper Conservatives are scaling back spending on national parks to save about $20 million. But at the same time they are planning to spend $25 billion on 65 new fighter jets.

My guess is that most Canadians would make do with one less jet in order to fund parks properly. But in this, as in so many decisions, the voters — once they have elected a majority government — get no choice.

In Europe, restraint means disaster. Spanish government restraint has put about 24 per cent of the country’s labour force out of work. Even this week’s decision by other European nations to bail out Spanish banks won’t solve that problem.

Indeed, by putting pressure on Madrid to accelerate its restraint measures, the bailout may make matters worse.

- Apparently Dean Del Mastro's campaign misdeeds include submitting a false invoice to Elections Canada - making for a particularly problematic development for the Cons' point spokesflack on ethics and election fraud.

- But if only everybody would just accept their orders to stop pointing out what the Cons do wrong, such trifles wouldn't create the slightest problem.

- Finally, Don Braid floats the theory that the Calgary Centre by-election may be far more competitive than most of us tend to think, particularly if the Cons nominate a particularly extreme reactionary as their candidate.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- The OECD is the latest independent observer to confirm Thomas Mulcair's point that dutch disease is a real problem for Canadian manufacturing. And Marc Lee calls for a green industrial revolution as a better path toward economic development and environmental responsibility than the Cons' focus on resource extraction alone.

- Andrew Coyne sees the ongoing opposition resistance to the Cons' omnibus anti-environment bill as a battle for the very soul of democracy:

This is how it happens. This is how it has happened: the more powers government acquires at the expense of Parliament, the harder it is for Parliament to resist still further encroachments, or even to recall why it might. And if somebody doesn't stop it, somewhere, this is how it will continue.

So this is just a start. As gratifying as it is to find, notwithstanding an earlier column, that Parliament still has some fight in it, it can't end here. The opposition must be prepared to bloody the government's nose again, and again, and go on doing so, for as long as these abuses continue. It must be prepared to do so, what is more, in the face of public indifference or even hostility. It cannot count on appealing to public sentiment. It has to teach the public to care. It has to teach them why it matters.

It's an oddly appropriate way to protest: by voting, repeatedly, futilely, endlessly. It has become a somewhat degrading ritual — could there be a better symbol of how ruthlessly all parties, not just the Conservatives, whip nearly every vote than the sight of MPs in obedient little rows, standing up and sitting down when they are told? But it can mean something real again.

- I haven't posted yet about Dean Del Mastro's personal election financing scandal, largely because it seems like a relative trifle in comparison to the electoral fraud carried out across the country. But Saskboy points out there may be a connection between the pollster which received $21,000 in unexplained cheques and the Cons' wider efforts to use public resources for partisan gain.

- Finally, Jennifer Britton makes the case for Saskatchewan to actually build on its strength in the Crown sector, rather than settling for having our Crowns left to wither or used as ATMs for private-sector operators. And Linda Cuell shares many of my concerns with the Sask Party's plans to attack the province's workers yet again. [Edit: fixed link.]

On rush jobs

Not surprisingly, the Cons are making up excuses as to why their dumpster bill should go unchallenged. But let's see just how well the excuse holds up to scrutiny.

Here's the Cons' spokesflack explaining why nobody should bother looking at 880 pages worth of Harper-driven legislative amendments, many of which have nothing to do with the budget they're tied to:

“The all-party House of Commons Finance Committee has scrutinized C-9 and passed it without amendment,” Mr. Chisholm noted.

So what actually happened at the Finance Committee, which covered those 880 pages in a grand total of seven meetings? Let's take a look to see if anybody can reasonably claim that concerns about the bill were actually given proper scrutiny.

The first meeting to study C-9 took place on April 22. On that day, the Finance Committee received approximately 80 minutes to ask questions about the first three parts of C-9, covering 97 sections of statutory changes. And Finance Committee Chair James Rajotte helpfully described the workload associated with the bill as follows:

Okay, it looks like we've finished 3 of 24 parts today.

I do want to very much thank the witness for being here.

Colleagues, you may want to hear this. We have 21 parts left of the bill. We have 62 witnesses who have been requested on this bill. There are some time sensitive issues here that need to be done, at least in the government's view, by June.

Not surprisingly, at least some opposition members were somewhat concerned with having to jam that many witnesses in along with the sheer size of the bill. But when NDP MP Pat Martin suggested splitting up the bill, here's what he was told:

Mr. Pat Martin:
My only observation, on the NDP's part, is that you could always split the bill as a third option. You didn't have to stuff in all of these controversial things that have really nothing to do with the budget, like the environmental assessment review, etc.

Break out the time-sensitive parts of this bill and I think it would pass speedily, and leave the controversial stuff for further analysis later on.

The Chair:
I appreciate that, but as you know from reading your O'Brien and Bosc book, a committee has to deal with a bill as sent to it by the House of Commons. So we have no choice as a committee other than to deal with the bill in its present form.

So in case there's any doubt as to whether the fact that the bill wasn't split up at the Finance Committee level means that anybody actually approved of having it rammed through all at once, the answer is a flat "no".

The Finance Committee's April 27 meeting, which lasted two and a half hours (including a forty-five minute break for a vote in the House of Commons), finished off only two parts of the bill. But since one of those parts was the massive Part 5 dealing with customs tariffs, the meeting made for MPs' lone opportunity to deal with a grand total of 1,548 sections of C-9. So shall we ask if anybody honestly believes that an average of four seconds of scrutiny per section is plenty of time to evaluate the Cons' budget legislation?

Thanks in large part to Rajotte's admonitions that MPs "be as brief as possible in our questions" and "try to get through...as many parts as we can today" as well as a decision to limit questioning to five-minute rounds, the Finance Committee's two-hour meeting on April 29 managed to breeze through parts 6 through 14 of the bill, covering 136 sections. (And they'd have made it further if the Vice Chair's attempt to simply declare five parts dealt with without any questions had succeeded.) As part of their effort to give the budget implementation proper scrutiny, MPs received helpful answers such as these ones dealing with the Cons' claim to have saved a bundle of money by eliminating positions which didn't actually cost anything:

Mr. Robert Carrier:
At how much do you estimate the real savings from the elimination of these positions?

Ms. Claudette Lévesque:
We did not evaluate that... It was not just a computing exercise, it was an exercise to try to evaluate the efficiency of the various boards and to ensure the best governance. If all 245 positions had been filled, we estimate that the costs — this is a very rough estimate that we did with Treasury Board — including the per diems, the honorariums, travel costs and everything associated with these boards, would be $1,000,000 to $1,250,000 for the 245 positions.

Mr. Robert Carrier:
That is assuming these positions would be filled. Is that a realistic assumption? Could these positions, even though 90% of them are presently vacant, be potentially filled or are these rather useless positions that you want to eliminate in the interest of efficiency?

Ms. Claudette Lévesque:
I am unable to comment. Obviously, these positions are filled by Governor in Council appointments. So this would be on the advice of the minister in charge of that portfolio. I could not say regarding any given position whether it could have been filled, but as a result of the assessment it was decided that they were no longer necessary.

At the Finance Committee's next meeting on May 4, Rajotte helpfully signalled that he wanted to be done dealing with the bill by the end of that week. The two-hour meeting dealt with Parts 15-19 of C-9 (266 sections in total), including the thorny issues of Canada Post and AECL.

Along the way, the Cons decided that any information about what effect the amendments might actually have on Canada Post had to be withheld from the MPs assessing the bill:

Mr. Thomas Mulcair:
As an elected member, I want to see those analyses that have been done by your department. Can I have them?

Ms. Katherine Moynihan:
I imagine the studies will be subject to the Cabinet confidence policy.
...

Mr. Thomas Mulcair:
The thing is, the Cabinet in question is asking us to vote for or against a bill, based on information we don't have. It is a great pleasure to meet you this afternoon, Ms. Moynihan, but you are giving me nothing that clarifies it for me and enables me to make that decision.

Mr. Ted Menzies:
I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Go ahead.

Mr. Ted Menzies: Having been a minister, Mr. Mulcair would know that there is cabinet confidentiality.

If you wish that information, rather than asking this witness, I would suggest that you ask the minister—
...
Mr. Thomas Mulcair:
We've just been told that studies and scenarios and modelling have been done as to the potential costs. The member of Parliament who is sitting in the corner over there decided that he knows that they're cabinet documents. We have no such information. If he has been given access to cabinet documents, we should be given the same access, because he's just a member of Parliament, as we are.

The Chair:
As the chair, I will make the request that if there are any documents that can be made available to the committee, please make them available to the clerk and they will be made available to all members.

The May 5 meeting began with Rajotte declaring his intention to complete the committee's review of the five remaining parts of the bill, including Part 20 dealing with environmental assessments, Part 21 making changes to the Canada Labour Code, and Part 23 amending Canada's telecommunications ownership laws. The committee didn't quite make it to the end, but managed to skim over Parts 20-23 (32 total sections) in two hours.

The two-hour May 6 meeting covered Part 24, then got started with the first six organizations on the committee's witness list. On May 11, a three-hour meeting dealt with 11 organizations' views on the environmental assessment and nuclear issues. On May 12, a 95-minute meeting dealt with a panel of six organizations on a grab bag of issues within C-9.

Finally, the May 13 meeting raced through votes on all sections of the bill in under half an hour - with a number of provisions passing thanks only to the chair breaking a tie in the absence of a full Lib slate. A statement by NDP MP Pat Martin made for the only substantive discussion - but it led to this response from Dean Del Mastro:

(A)s the member would well know, bills are often brought before the House. We don't presuppose at committee whether a bill would pass or not; that's why we have standing votes in the House of Commons.

The member presupposes that the absence of a given member is in fact determining whether these clauses or this bill would succeed or fail. I'd suggest that it's not fair to project onto anyone whether something would pass or fail if the membership were in fact somewhat different.

So in committee, the Cons told the NDP that it shouldn't worry too much about what happened there since the House would have its say. But now that the bill has passed committee, they're claiming that the House has no business doing just that.

To sum up, then, the 2208 sections of C-9 were dealt with in committee for a total of roughly 18 hours - meaning that on average 122 sections were dealt with per hour, or over two per minute of committee time. That amount includes questions to officials, outside organizations' presentations and comments from the MPs involved. And needless to say, the breakneck pace came due thanks in large part to the Cons' constant demands that the process be sped up and the level of detail pared down - and with the usual obstacles put in the way of other parties' attempts to gather information.

So the only available conclusion is that the Cons have been working at all turns to make sure that C-9 doesn't receive the type of scrutiny it deserves. And the fact that they managed to strongarm the Libs at a previous point in the process most certainly doesn't entitle them to declare that there's no point in changing that reality now.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

Ever cooperative

Shorter Dean Del Mastro, as the Cons' apparent spokesflack on prorogation:

We'll give you the truth about the Afghanistan torture coverup when you pry it from our cold, dead hands.

On political violence

So let's get this straight: in the course of the last day:
- Con MP Dean Del Mastro has not only thrown around the word "traitor" repeatedly, but attempted to defend doing so even when called out on it; and
- at least some Con MPs have explicitly approved of vandalism against their political opponents.

And all this without a word of disagreement or concern from anybody else within the Cons.

Now, I've been suspicious for awhile as to the Cons' message that they'll do "anything legal" to cling to power, which based on their tendency for spin could easily be taken to allow for the encouragement of illegal acts by party supporters as long as the caucus itself stays in the grey area between merely hinting and outright inciting crime. (Of course, they've already incorporated seemingly criminal acts in their effort with a "let the courts decide" attitude.)

But we would seem now to have a perfect test case. If anybody who stated their agreement with the firebombing of Nathan Cullen's sign isn't booted out of the Cons' caucus immediately, then we can confirm that the Cons have no qualms about encouraging criminal activity from their own supporters. And that should only create all the more urgency in getting the Harper-created crisis dealt with immediately, rather than allowing it to fester.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

Setting the stage

For those who haven't yet seen Kady O'Malley's live-blogging of today's Ethics Committee hearings, it's of course a must-read. But I have to wonder whether Kady missed a major story in the making from this morning's session:

11:23:49 AM
Dean del Mastro takes over questioning, and starts out by rather selflessly stating that he doesn’t see why candidates need a sixty percent rebate for expenses in the first place — I’d love to have seen Doug Finley’s face at that point...

Now, Kady seems to assume that Doug Finley and other members of the Cons' braintrust would disagree with the prospect of eliminating candidate rebates (and potentially other related funding for federal parties). And on a first glance, it might seem that the Cons wouldn't be interested in giving up a significant source of income for their party.

But as I've noted before, the Cons may well have a strong incentive to do just that. True, they'd certainly lose some resources in absolute terms - but their relative position compared to every other federal party would be strengthened significantly if the other parties lost funding which makes for a far larger part of their current operational budget.

Given that choice, I have to figure the Cons would gladly give up a few party staff positions and ad campaigns in the short term if it'll significantly increase their chances of holding power until something dramatic changes in the fund-raising race.

From that starting point, Del Mastro's statement looks to me to be not so much an off-the-cuff remark as part of the groundwork to slash federal party funding. And that could set the Cons up with both a surefire path to an election this fall (since the line between the Libs and bankruptcy is probably the one which even Dion won't cross in order to delay a trip to the polls), and a way of portraying themselves as anti-Ottawa outsiders even after two and a half years in power.