New column day

Here, contrasting the NDP's hard-fought Regina nomination elections against the stories of Paul Manly, Chris Rendell, and the apparent trend of federal and provincial NDP candidates being disqualified from seeking nominations for entirely insufficient reasons.

For further reading...
- The Leader-Post reported on the nomination victories by Erin Weir in Regina-Lewvan and Nial Kuyek in Regina-Qu'Appelle here. And for a couple of examples of Weir in particular making important points which don't entirely match the NDP's party line both provincially and federally, see his challenge to the cult of small business and his disclaimer-laden Commonwealth commentary on resource royalties and employment in Saskatchewan.
- Manly told his story here, while his past comments seeking the safe return of his father and challenging the NDP to do more in the effort are available here and here. [Update: And there's some response from party officials in Susana Mas' report, though the question of whether the NDP has rejected some candidates in the past on stronger grounds has little to do with whether it was justified in doing so with Manly.]
- Finally, CBC reports on Rendell's rejection alongside the recruitment of Bev Harrison here.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday.

- Heather Mallick nicely sums up much of the philosophy behind the Cons' train wreck of a pension proposal:

Flaherty seems to regard the CPP as communism. It isn’t. It’s brilliant in a sensible Canadian sort of way. Hard-right governments — American, British and Canadian — are always droning out about “financial literacy.” CAW economist Jim Stanford, who is a director of the Canadian Foundation for Economic Education, points out that this drive, while helpful, also places a greater burden of blame on consumers whose investments tanked recently. It wasn’t the stock market being run like a casino, it was the fault of the dopey investor. Don’t expect the government to help, Flaherty is saying. You’re on your own. (The American Republican phrase is “no government interference.” The British call it “the Big Society.”)

But of course, it's worth keeping in mind the flip side that the financial sector can always count on a giveaway.

- Meanwhile, Michael Shapcott points out reason for concern that a business-first mindset is having a toxic effect on charities which are forced to move outside their intended purposes in the hope of chasing down funding.

- After an election that saw about as solid a showing as was possible without winning a seat, the New Brunswick NDP has a leadership race on its hands. And it'll be particularly interesting to see how the candidates can do in building on the party's positive profile from this year's election campaign.

- And finally, it's certainly progress that the first charges have been laid related to police actions at the G20. But we'll have to wait and see whether the charges against Constable Babak Andalib-Goortani prove to be anything more than an attempt to charge somebody to avoid a more thorough examination of responsibility for the trampling of civil rights in Canada's largest city.