Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Rebecca Solnit discusses the importance of accurately describing Donald Trump's attempted coup, rather than euphemizing a violent attack against democracy. Enzo DiMatteo highlights the similarities between Trump's playbook and that of the federal Cons. Murray Mandryk writes that the U.S.' experience with authoritarian demagoguery should result in our recognizing the need to strengthen our own political systems against similar threats, while David Climenhaga warns conservatives that de-Trumpification is coming to Canada. And Christina Warner notes that part of the process of strengthening our defence against political violence is to use our collective power and wealth to ensure nobody is left out from the essentials of social and political life. 

- Arthur White-Crummey exposes how the Sask Party was fully aware of the imminent risk of a COVID spike even as it hemmed and hawed about new public health measures following last fall's election. Bruce Arthur points out the need for something far more than desperation to lead a province to safer terrain. And Andrew Nikiforuk examines Yaneer Bar-Yam's work trying to get us to aim for zero COVID, rather than accepting needless sickness and death.

- Michael Johansson, Talia M. Quandelacy, Sarah Kada et al. study how much COVID transmission has been asymptomatic - concluding that over half of spread is from people who aren't yet experiencing, or never will experience, symptoms to provide any warning. And Amanda Follett Hosgood reports on the justified concerns that limitations on industrial work camps fall short of what's needed to avoid spread through particularly vulnerable northern communities. 

- Elizabeth Payne reports on the risks posed by personal support workers who are so underpaid in their high-risk jobs as to have to rely on homeless shelters to sleep at night. And Christopher Curtis writes about the crisis in Montreal's homeless shelters as a curfew decrees that people stay at home whether or not they actually have one.

- Finally, PressProgress talks to health care workers about their reaction to the politicians who have seen a pandemic as an opportunity for a beach vacation, rather than a time to share in sacrifices for the common good. And Elizabeth Thompson points out how Conservative Senator Don Plett ranks high on the list of offenders after signing a directive barring international travel and admonishing people to stay home - only to take his own personal jaunt to Mexico.

No coincidence

Is there much doubt that the attitude of entitlement and unaccountability from Stephen Harper's Senate cronies such as Larry Smith and Don Plett has something to do with this?

Canadian senators were already under scrutiny on their first day back from winter break, with the results of a new poll indicating one-third of Canadians want to see the Senate abolished -- an increase of about 27 per cent since 2007, the last time the question was asked.

Even more shocking

Unaccountable partisan hacks proclaim their entitlement to continue unaccountable partisan hackery on your dime:

Senators have given themselves the right to pepper the country with mailings attacking opposition parties as long as they refrain from attacking each other, QMI Agency has learned.
...
“This is insane," NDP MP Peter Stoffer said. “They are unaccountable and unelected and they can use taxpayers dollars to attack … (NDP Leader) Jack Layton?”

The House of Commons stopped MPs last spring from sending highly partisan “garbage” to other MPs’ ridings and the Senate should do the same, Stoffer urged.
...
The Conservative-dominated Senate committee clarified the rules around mailings after receiving complaints Tory senators Bob Runciman and Don Plett had sent newsletters to Liberal ridings in their home province attacking the party for being soft on crime.

Now, it's somewhat surprising that Stephen Harper's patronage-laden majority bothered to hold the vote rather than simply daring anybody to stop them. But can there be a more definitive statement that the Cons are determined to abuse their publicly-funded sinecures in the Senate as thoroughly as possible?

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted material for your weekend reading.

- Stephen Harper's closest confidants say he'll veer right if he gets the chance with a majority. But it's of course beyond the pale for anybody else to make the point where it might be seen as a criticism.

- Doug Saunders rightly points out that inequality is an even more serious issue on a global scale than a national one. And it's long past time for some concerted effort to counter the class that's fighting to increase it on both levels.

- Which naturally means that some renewed recognition of the value of organized labour in representing the interests of non-elites is in order.

- Finally, Harper patronage Senate appointee Don Plett is going for the yuks:

Former Conservative party president Don Plett, now a Tory senator, rejects the notion that the power of the party has become too concentrated in the hands of a few individuals in Ottawa.

He points to the fact that national councillors and the party president are still elected, that riding associations can vote to turf incumbent candidates and that policies are still voted on by members on the convention floor.

That's right: apparently Plett's best examples of the democracy allowed for by the Cons include a rigged process which ensured that not a single incumbent MP actually faced the type of vote which Plett is bragging about.

Your money. Their junk mail.

I stand corrected: it isn't just Con MPs who have apparently been told to take every possible opportunity to use public money for the party's political gain. Instead, the unelected, unaccountable Senate is also being converted into a Con distribution centre:

Conservative Senators are quietly using taxpayer-funded literature to target opposition ridings with a partisan crime message as the party gears up for the next election, the Toronto Star has learned.

And at least one of the Senators sent the mailers out at the direction of the Conservative Party of Canada’s national campaign office.

That Senator was Bob Runciman (Ontario). It is not clear whether Senator Don Plett (Manitoba), who distributed almost identical material, did so at the behest of the party.
...
By using the Senators to send out this kind of literature, the Conservative Party gets around the prohibition on MPs using tax dollars to send partisan messages to other ridings, which the House of Commons agreed must stop.

Deep thought

Of course it's entirely democratic to count non-votes as votes in one's favour. Which is why based on last election's 59% turnout rate, whoever claims the absent voters first actually won a majority government.

On sore losers

Others have pointed out Rahim Jaffer's refusal to accept defeat in Edmonton-Strathcona. But it's worth noting that he's not the only Con trying to kick and scream his way out of unfavourable election results, as the Cons' Manitoba president is trying to attack Jim Maloway's 1,700-vote victory in Elmwood-Transcona with a laundry list of complaints which wouldn't have any realistic chance of affecting a substantial number of votes.

From that starting point, I'll be curious to see how many more challenges emerge - and particularly how many of those originate with the party which would seem to have the least reason to want to undermine the election results.

While one would think a remotely competent government would have more important matters to deal with, I wouldn't be surprised if there are indeed more attacks on the election to come. After all, the Elmwood-Transcona challenge in particular seems to be aimed at developing a Republican-style culture of belief that the Cons are entitled to whatever seats they target, such that any loss makes for irrefutable proof of somebody else's wrongdoing. Which would in turn provide the Cons with both an excuse to clamp down even more on access to the polls to try to lower opposition turnout, and a way to motivate their base by claiming to have lost unfairly.

And if the cost is to undermine not only the perception of fairness in Canada's elections, but also the reality of it as Elections Canada is drawn into more and more political attacks - well, the Cons have shown over the past couple of years just how much concern they have for that.

In contrast, for those looking for an example of how to accept defeat graciously, here's Nettie Wiebe's reaction to her painfully close loss in Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar:

"I'm afraid I won't have the great privilege of representing this great constituency in Ottawa," said Wiebe, who also ran a tight race in the 2006 election, but came up short to Conservative Carol Skelton.

"We ran a proud and vigorous campaign (but) it looks like it was not quite enough."

While NDP supporters nibbled on fingernails and cheered at every incoming poll that gave Wiebe the edge, the candidate herself said she calmly watched the numbers come across the television screen.

"I am a deeply committed democrat and on election day I give that decision over to the people," Wiebe said. "That doesn't mean I think it's the right result."

Parallel offences

Shorter Conservative Party president Don Plett:
Of course there's some difference between a Conservative candidate who's charged for smuggling drugs and one whose main offence is that of exercising independent thought. After all, you can be pardoned for smuggling.