Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Mary O'Hara reviews Daniel Hatcher's new book on the U.S.' poverty industry which seeks to exploit public supports for private gain:

(A) new book published last week by law professor and advocate Daniel L Hatcher, The Poverty Industry: The Exploitation of America’s Most Vulnerable Citizens, exposes a largely unrecognised yet deeply disturbing additional dimension to the issue: the vast scale of disadvantaged people being fleeced for profit. In this meticulously researched book Hatcher, who has represented vulnerable people in court for years, including children in foster care, lifts the lid on a system that rather than helping the needy, systematically turns them into “a source of revenue”.

His summary of what he has coined the “poverty industry” is: “the private sector partnering with the state and local governments to use the vulnerable as a resource for extracting funds … strip-mining billions in federal aid and other funds from impoverished families, abused and neglected children, the disabled and elderly poor”.
...
(T)the book cites multiple incidences of children in care and older people in care homes, as well as young people in juvenile detention, being drugged to save money in staffing costs. In one state, 40% of all foster children were sedated using psychotropic drugs.

The resurgence of debtors’ prisons in some states, which trap the poor in a cycle of debt, is also featured. “Low-income defendants are first saddled with unmanageable court fines and fees, then the courts hire private collection agencies, probation companies … all tacking on more and more fees to the debts of the poor,” Hatcher says. One judge in Alabama told litigants to sell their blood to pay fines, or end up in jail.

As the book so clearly points out, if there wasn’t money to be made from the poor, there wouldn’t be so many companies vying for contracts and lobbying for a piece of the pie.

Hatcher’s analysis is a cautionary tale. Some companies chasing lucrative contracts in the US do the same in the UK. Private does not equal better, or more efficient. The only thing that matters is the welfare of the most vulnerable.

- And Ryan Moore points out that the Harper Cons' dumb-on-crime policies continue to push marginalized populations into a vicious and costly cycle - and there's little apparent indication that the Libs plan to change course.

- Louis-Philippe Rochon sees the Brexit vote as a working-class response to being neglected by governments of multiple political configurations, while the Resolution Foundation notes that most of the British public is facing at best a stagnant standard of living. And Mariana Mazzucato observes that austerity is the main culprit in limiting opportunities for all but the privileged few.

- Brent Patterson makes a case against selling off Canada's commonwealth - whether or not under some new label such as "asset recycling".

- Finally, Stefani Langenegger reports on the massive cost of the Saskatchewan Party's carbon capture and storage schemes compared to other forms of power. And David Suzuki examines the broken records linked to our climate crisis - as new highs in renewable energy development are still falling far short of what's needed to slow the rise of equally unprecedented climate conditions.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Christopher Majka reviews Henry Mintzberg's Rebalancing Society as a noteworthy discussion of the need for balance between the public, private and "plural" sectors. And David Madland is pleased to see the U.S.' Democrats finally fighting back against the view that the corporate sector is the only one worth favouring through government.

- But there's far more to be done in putting the public back in public policy - particularly when, as Bill Tieleman points out, we're being asked to accept more and more strict "trade" agreements designed to ensure that democracy can't overcome corporate interests.

- Barrie McKenna writes about the absurdity of using public money to generate profits for private sports teams.

- Anne Kingston reports on a bizarre new set of conflict of interest rules the Cons have imposed on employees of Natural Resources Canada - where employees with such risk factors as friends in the workplace or an academic background are apparently seen as more of a priority for targeting than those actively lobbying for the oil industry. And the Vancouver Observer exposes the "delusional" Enbridge argument that First Nations are prepared to abandon their territories to the ravages of the Northern Gateway pipeline.

- Trevor Timm wonders whether the "tough on crime" theme has run its course in the U.S. - though once again if the rest of the world is headed toward policy aimed at achieving results rather than designating and bashing political enemies, the Cons will be the last to acknowledge the change.

- Finally, Dan Taekema and the CP each report on a much-needed court challenge to Bill C-51. And the CP also notes that by the RCMP's own account, the establishment of a secret police force may make us less safe.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Michael Schwartz and Kevin Young make the case for a greater focus on influencing corporations and other institutions first and foremost - with the expectation that more fair public policy will be possible if a dominant business sector doesn't stand in the way. David Wessel points out that many states' tax systems are set up to exacerbate inequality. And Matthew Yglesias notes that a typical set of slap-on-the-wrist fines against banks for massive market manipulations call into question whether the U.S.' current regulatory structure is anywhere close to sufficient to protect the public interest.

- Meanwhile, David Dayen points out that part of the Obama administration's embarrassing attempt to push the Trans-Pacific Partnership includes a willingness to cut Medicare to slightly compensate some of the affected workers.

- Michael Harris tears into the Cons for their Orwellian war on dissent, while Steve Sullivan rightly notes that Stephen Harper's usual reaction to an imminent loss is to try to rig the game in his own favour. Canadians for Tax Fairness raises the question of whether we want to see massive amounts of public money spent on the Cons' self-promotion - with ministerial vanity videos serving as just the latest example.

- Vanessa Lu reports on the bizarre excuses being used for refusing to let Canadians know how the public reacted to the Cons' plan to end door-to-door mail delivery. And Mary Campbell discusses yet another example of dumb-on-crime legislation, this time featuring utterly pointless attacks on foreign offenders.

- Finally, PressProgress highlights OpenMedia's report (PDF) into the plummeting public willingness to put up with the Cons' terror bill. Toby Mendel offers another review (PDF) of the problems with C-51. And Noah Richler writes that the Cons' current message doesn't involve anything more than trying to stoke paranoia.

Monday Evening Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Sara Mojtehedzadeh highlights how Ontario employers are exploiting temporary workers rather than making any effort to offer jobs which can support a life:

Under Ontario’s antiquated Employment Standards Act, which is currently under review, there is no limit on how long a company can employ a worker as temporary before giving him or her a permanent job.

There is nothing to stop employers from paying temp workers less than their permanent counterparts, nothing to prevent them from hiring their entire workforce on a “temporary” basis if they so choose.

“If the employer knows that they can hire you and they don’t have to give you benefits, they don’t have to give you a pension, they can hire you for a lot less, there’s no incentive for them to hire permanently. Why would they?” says Deena Ladd, who heads the Toronto-based labour rights group the Workers’ Action Centre.

“The biggest issue is the lack of respect and dignity in (temporary) work. Nobody is seeing them for who they are and the work that they’re doing. They are completely invisible.”

In Toronto, their ranks are growing, with temporary workers outpacing permanent ones at twice the rate, their wages significantly lower.

- Meanwhile, Ben Spurr notes that unaffordable child care is preventing many parents from pursuing work which might be available. And Roderick Benns expands on Naheed Nenshi's commitment to work on a guaranteed annual income.

- Steven Lewis writes that the Wall government's determination to push privately-funded MRIs figures to do far more harm than good both for the public purse and Saskatchewan's health care system.

- Jeffrey Simpson discusses how the U.S. has learned better than to push the Cons' dumb-on-crime agenda.

- Finally, Andrew Mitrovica questions Stephen Harper's reasons for staging an Iraq photo op even aside from his choice to destroy the cover of Canadian troops.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Jeffrey Simpson lambastes the Cons' determination to slash taxes and hand out baubles to the rich for the sole purpose of undermining the fiscal capacity of government to help Canadians. And Jeremy Nuttall highlights how a cuts to the CRA are allowing tax cheats to escape paying their fair share with little prospect of detection.

- Jacquie Maund makes the case to include dental care as part of a full public health system. And Carolyn Shimmin discusses the connection between childhood poverty and poor health which can impose burdens lasting a lifetime:

2. There is a direct link between socioeconomic status and health status. Robust evidence shows that people in the lowest socioeconomic group carry the greatest burden of illness. This social gradient in health runs from top to bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum. If you were to look at, for example, cardiovascular disease mortality according to income group in Canada, mortality is highest among those in the poorest income group and, as income increases, mortality rate decreases. The same can be found for conditions such as cancer, diabetes and mental illness.

3. Poverty in childhood is associated with a number of health conditions in adulthood. More than one in seven Canadian children live in poverty. This places Canada 15th out of 17 similar developed countries, and being at the bottom of this list is not where we want to be. Children who live in poverty are more likely to have low birth weights, asthma, type 2 diabetes, poorer oral health and suffer from malnutrition. But also children who grow up in poverty are, as adults, more likely to experience addictions, mental health difficulties, physical disabilities and premature death. Children who experience poverty are also less likely to graduate from high school and more likely to live in poverty as adults.

- Michael Spratt writes that the Cons' posturing on crime isn't intended to produce legislation which is viable from a policy standpoint or even constitutionally valid, serving instead to generate a steady stream of grievances to rile up their base.

- Craig Forcese debunks the spin that the Cons' terror bill has anything to with matching international standards rather than racing to the bottom when it comes to civil rights. Dr. Dawg reminds us that even before C-51, we have dangerous laws on the books allowing Canadians to be detained or to have freedoms severely restricted based on nothing but speculation. And Andrew Mitrovica notes that due to the Cons, even the federal government is less able to exercise oversight over CSIS than it was before.

- Finally, Ryan Meili interviews George Lakoff about some of the ways progressives can better challenge political messaging from the right. And Cass Sunstein highlights new research on the values which motivate voters of different political persuasions.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- Jason Warick reports on how the Cons' decison to gut federal environmental assessments will have a particularly acute effect on Saskatchewan:

The federal government has cancelled nearly 700 environmental assessments in Saskatchewan for oil wells and pipelines, sewage lagoons, hydro projects, a major uranium tailings facility and other operations.

Saskatchewan is by far the province most affected by the cancellation of nearly 3,000 assessments nationwide.

“It’s extremely significant,” said Bram Noble, a University of Saskatchewan geography professor who has years of experience teaching and conducting national environmental assessments.

“It’s a lot to be concerned about. It’s the only tool we have.”

Noble called the decision to scrap the assessments “unprecedented” and “a step backward.”

- Meanwhile, Edward Greenspan and Anthony Doob duly call out the Cons for a dumb-on-crime mindset that's focused solely on marketing rather than public safety or crime reduction. 

- In the wake of Neil Armstrong's passing this weekend, David Atkins contrasts the mindset behind the moon landing against today's utter lack of a sense of greater common purpose:

His walk on the moon was the result of thousands of individuals working tirelessly to bring the impossible to fruition, and the result of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars (in today's money) to make one of humanity's oldest dreams come true. For that reason, we can all share in Neil's accomplishment even if only by proxy. Or at least, those of us who were alive at the time can do so. Of my generation I'm not so certain, though I would state emphatically the blame does not lie with us.

Neil's was an accomplishment undertaken at a time when we still believed we were capable of great things. A time when the common good and furtherance of the human spirit were more important than personal greed. A time when a President could utter the phrase "Ask not what your Country can do for you, but what you can do for your Country" and not be mocked for his optimism.

It was a time before Reagan. Before "Greed is Good." It was a time when a President could truly declare a "War on Poverty" without ridicule. Before the drabness of "Welfare Reform" became the sort of meager and churlish thing the press would hail as forward-thinking and bold.

It was a time when the health and wealth of the nation was seen as bound up in the heights to which our science, learning, and social justice could aspire. It was a time before we allowed our collective health and wealth to be measured by as meaningless, lackluster and empty a symbol as the the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

...
My generational cohorts and I know nothing but this. This all too petty, all too drab, all too villainous smallness of being. It is time for moral and spiritual rebirth.

So rest in peace, Neil Armstrong. And may my generation begin the process of rebuilding the greatness that took you to such exalted heights, and repairing the damage wrought by the Reagan Devolution. 

- Finally, Ta-Nehisi Coates' commentary on the state of race relations in the U.S. is well worth the (relatively lengthy) read.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- On the anniversary of Jack Layton's death, Tim Harper points out how far the NDP has come in just a year, while Brian Topp highlights where the party still needs to go:

(W)hat to do about the federal government’s crisis of relevance? Recent Liberal and Conservative governments have worked together on a common agenda to make Canada’s national government largely irrelevant to the daily lives of most Canadians. Today’s federal government is a Parliament, it is a public service, it is an army and police force, and it is a largely unconditional bank machine for provinces.

Small wonder that Canadians increasing tune federal politics out. Small wonder Parliament in recent times has been about embarrassing squabbles over trivia. What else was there to talk about? Here is the fundamental mission of the New Democrats: to demonstrate that the Liberal/Conservatives are wrong, and that there are indeed important projects and priorities that Canadians can and should work on together. Not symbolic issues, designed to get us angry and to divide us from each other. The real stuff: Equality. Jobs. Health care. Economic security. The environment. Reclaiming our good name in in the world.

New Democrats need to find a way to give Canadians hope that we are more than the sum of our parts, and that there is much we can do together to make a good country a much better one – carefully and prudently, one practical step at a time, without reigniting the old federal-provincial wars that separatists and conservatives build on, each in their own special way

Meanwhile, John Ibbitson has a rather smaller vision for the NDP, suggesting that it should do nothing but accept the top-down, consumerist political style that's turned off so many voters. Ryan Cleary offers his own tribute, and Cityslikr challenges anybody who claims to respectfully disagree with Layton's proposals for greater generosity and equality to suggest some alternate means of building a better society.

- Mia Rabson rightly questions Elections Canada's lack of interest in prosecuting attempts at foreign influence on Canadian elections. And Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher report that even as Elections Canada directly intervenes to provide evidence useful to Ted Opitz's argument over Etobicoke Centre, it's withholding information which might be relevant to the Council of Canadians' challenges in seven other ridings.

- Edward Greenspan and Anthony Doob are almost entirely right in criticizing the Cons' attitude toward criminal law. But it's worth adding a proviso to the headline: the Cons' view is more along the lines of "once a criminal, always a criminal unless a Conservative", as the party is quick to offer absolution to anybody who's seen as politically useful.

- Finally, Matt Miller neatly sums up the mentality of "drawbridge Republicans":

(W)e’ve never had two wealthy candidates on a national ticket whose top priority is to reduce already low taxes on the well-to-do while raising taxes on everyone else — even as they propose to slash programs that serve the poor, or that (like college aid) create chances for the lowly born to rise.

Call them the Drawbridge Republicans. As the moniker implies, these are wealthy Republicans who have no qualms about pulling up the drawbridge behind them.
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Most rich Republicans who champion regressive tax plans find it necessary to at least pretend they’re doing something to help average folks. John McCain, who’s lived large for decades thanks to his wife’s inheritance, famously had trouble keeping track of how many homes he owned — but McCain also tried bravely to create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. George W. Bush campaigned as a “compassionate conservative,” and touted education initiatives that made this claim plausible.

Today’s Drawbridge Republicans can’t be bothered. Yes, when their political back is to the wall — as Romney’s increasingly is — they’ll slap together a page of bullet points and dub it “a plan for the middle class.” But this is only under duress. The rest of the time they seem blissfully unaware of how off-key they sound.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- Michael Harris neatly sums up the Harper Cons' legacy:

In many ways, the Harper legacy will come down to this: how much can he get away with? Incumbency furnishes a speedy getaway car. From a legislative perspective, Harper might as well be King Tut. He can do whatever he wants for the next three years or so. Bill C-38, which makes the War Measures Act look like a piece of legislation declaring a public holiday, demonstrates just how aware this PM is of the total power vested in him. And how oblivious he is to Canada’s institutional integrity. One-third of C-38′s monstrous abuse of process is dedicated to dismantling environmental legislation that was never mentioned in the 2011 Tory master plan.

Harper gets it. It’s now or never, baby.
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Stephen Harper’s gamble comes down to this — do Canadians give a hoot about the fact that their democracy is now a mere formality. Do they accept the Nixonian proposition that when your leader does something wrong, it’s actually right because he’s your leader? In other words, do we, like the wall-eyed People of the Corn in the Republican Party south of the border, believe that the office sanctifies the man?

Harper has concluded that with the proper balance of fear, marketing, and suppression of dissent, he can successfully argue that a small pox scar is really a dimple. Look what climate change deniers have done with a handful of zealots and scads of money from people like the Koch brothers.

But there is only so much fear you can put into people, just so much, and no more. And when people stop fearing you, that dimple starts looking like a small pox scar after all.

- But Brian Topp offers some rather important perspective: while the Cons are looking to make politics as small and substance-free as possible, a real debate in values is developing thanks to the NDP's strength as a progressive opposition. And Bruce Campbell notes that there's plenty of room for discussion as to how we want to develop our economy for the decades to come.

- For the most part, we know not to take any of the Cons' constant and fact-free boasting too seriously. But every now and then it's worth testing some of their claims - and John Geddes' post comparing the environmental progress under several previous governments to the total lack of action  under the current one nicely highlights the gap between spin and reality.

- Finally, Dan Gardner comments on how logic is Canada's most regular victim of crime thanks to the Cons:

(T)here’s plenty of fear in Toronto now. Stephen Harper failed. He betrayed the city.

Or at least that’s what I would write if I were as ruthless as the boys in the PMO.

But I try to set the bar at least a little higher. So I’ll write this, instead: The efficacy of a policy cannot be proven or disproven by a single incident. Or even a series of incidents. We should not let the passions of the moment, or lazy assumptions, or tired dogma, cloud our judgment. We should base our conclusions about the efficacy of tougher sentences on properly designed and carefully conducted research.

And that research says it doesn’t work.
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Just as it doesn’t matter that Fantino’s claim about the Eaton Centre shooting and tough sentences — Our approach failed, which proves it’s critical! — is so bizarre it’s hard not to suspect the man was tripping on LSD.

Evidence and logic are irrelevant to Conservative crime policy. As Justice Minister Rob Nicholson famously observed, “we’ve made it very clear that we don’t govern on the basis of statistics.”

No, for Stephen Harper and company, crime policy is about nothing but dogma and politics.

 [Edit: fixed formatting.]

Saturday Afternoon Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Doug Saunders points out that we have a relatively simple choice between seeking to exact revenge on criminal offenders and actually reducing crime:

We know exactly why Norway has such lower recidivism numbers. Prisoners, being under constant observation, are very easy to study, and they’ve been studied like mad. Cambridge University criminologist Friedrich Lösel recently compared scores of studies in a dozen countries and found they reached almost identical conclusions.

He found that what causes prisoners to reoffend at lower rates, everywhere, is basic education, vocational and employability programs, anger management and therapy while behind bars (or, in Norway, no bars). On the other hand, things that cause prisoners to reoffend more after release include longer sentences, strict discipline, deterrent “shock incarceration” programs and regular sanctions (such as withdrawal of privileges).

In other words, we have a stark choice: We can punish people more, or we can reduce crime more. One cancels out the other. Sadly, though, it is a sense of anger and vengeance that motivates policy decisions in most countries these days.

- Gerald Caplan observes that there are indeed radical foreigners spending large amounts of money to silence Canadian voices when it comes to the oilsands by highlighting both the ownership interests and the propaganda factory funding of the Koch brothers.

- Tim Kiladze writes that economic bubbles tend to develop as a matter of herd behaviour even when participants have perfect information about what investments are really worth - making it all the more dangerous to have corporatist governments eager to play into the hype of indefinite, single-industry growth.

- John Moore nicely sums up how Quebec's protesting students are only seeking a fair shake compared to the system which allowed their parents an affordable education. But I'll particularly highlight his point as to how those quickest to demand sacrifices from young people (and others) are typically the most privileged themselves:

We hear a great deal these days about how we have to be reasonable about the times we live in. Corporate officers pulling in massive salaries and bonuses even as their companies lose money say average working men and women have to understand that the age of job security, pensions and even a middle-class wage are behind us. Have any of them offered to take the lead by surrendering even a fraction of their benefits? Are Federal Labour Minister Lisa Rait and Quebec Premier Jean Charest prepared to trim their gold-plated pensions to set an example to the students and workers they condescendingly lecture about the “new reality”?

Today’s youth face a grim future not of their own making. Is it any wonder that they’re angry about it? What they are asking for is what previous generations so eagerly gobbled up for themselves. If those generations now believe their entitlements were too generous, then, perhaps, in the spirit of sharing the burden, they might want to give some of them back.

 - Finally, while I don't agree with all of Chris Selley's take on the Quebec protests, he's at least right in pointing out that activism is a natural outcome when people have reason to doubt that democratic outcomes will reflect their concerns:

It is often said that if young people want to make a difference, they ought to vote. The hackneyed nature of the observation belies the gobsmacking truth of it – assuming, that is, that governments are actually capable and willing to give voters what they want. In the May 2011 federal election, for example, just 39% of eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 24 cast a ballot. That likely represents something like two million unused votes. Add in 25-to-34-year-olds, who voted at a 45% clip, and you’re up to about four million votes, or roughly a quarter of the total ballots cast. Young people would not have to vote monolithically to increase their clout hugely. But if they voted predominantly left-wing, they might change the political and policy landscape at a stroke. Presumably tuition fees would then increase at a slower rate, if at all – again, assuming political parties actually respond to their supporters.

So, what are young Quebecers’ options in this regard? Well, Mr. Charest and his Liberals are the enemy, tired and perhaps more than a bit corrupt – we shall see what Justice France Charbonneau’s inquiry finds. There is the separatist Pauline Marois and her Parti Québécois, which backs the protesters. But then, 15 years ago, as education minister in Lucien Bouchard’s PQ government, she was the one proposing tuition hikes. You don’t have to be very cynical to suspect she’s being a bit cynical. François Legault, leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec, urges the students to compromise. Why not just spit in their faces?

Parliament in Review - April 23, 2012

Monday, April 23 was the first day back in the House of Commons following the Easter break. And it featured some of the most lively and telling discussion we've seen yet on the Cons' anti-refugee legislation as the second-reading debate reached its end.

The Big Issue

As part of the refugee bill debate, Craig Scott made his first speech as the NDP's MP for Toronto-Danforth. And he wasted no time in showing what he'll add to the NDP's caucus:

One huge difference is that the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act requires that a person be a permanent resident before the person is able to sponsor family members, such as the person's spouse, children, or parents, to immigrate to Canada. Thus, under Bill C-31 irregular refugees would have no hope of reuniting with family in Canada for at least five years.

 

Currently, family class applications in this country are often processed at a snail's pace. It is not uncommon for it to take three years for a child or a spouse to be admitted and sometimes up to six years for parents. It is no stretch to say that a refugee who started out as a designated foreign national may have to wait 10 years for family members to join him or her.

 

If that is not enough, a designated foreign national refugee will not even be able to travel outside Canada to spend time with family, for example, in a country other than the country of origin which the refugee fears going back to. Why is that? Bill C-31 decrees that such a refugee will not be given travel documents until he or she becomes a permanent resident, that is, until at least five years have passed, despite the fact that the refugee convention requires that travel documents be issued to refugees once they are “lawfully staying” in the host country. Fortress Canada thus becomes prison Canada for the designated foreign national refugee. If he were still alive, Kafka could not have written Bill C-31 better if he tried.

Other speakers including Kevin Lamoureux also questioned why the Cons are so determined to keep families apart for a period of up to a decade. Kirsty Duncan pointed out how quickly patterns of human rights abuse can emerge and render obsolete the "safe country" designations the Cons want to use to attack refugees' rights. Guy Caron and Andrew Cash criticized the Cons' pattern of placing large amounts of power over individual rights in the hands of unaccountable ministers. Caron also lamented the politicization of refugee claims. Libby Davies highlighted the fact that organizations familiar with refugee issues were lining up against C-31, then observed that the bill would allow the Cons to retroactively attack refugee status if circumstances changed in a new immigrant's country of origin. Elizabeth May asked about the cost of locking up refugees rather than allowing them to contribute to Canadian society. Jinny Sims queried how refugees would take the Cons' admonition to play by the rules seriously when the 300,000 who did so in the current skilled worker program queue are being arbitrarily deleted. Anne Minh-Thu Quach and Massimo Pacetti pointed out that there's plenty of reason why refugees can't be expected to meet the ridiculous requirements placed on them by the Cons.

Meanwhile, for the Cons, Jason Kenney took umbrage at any suggestion that his party wanted to get tough on refugees - only to admit that part of the bill's purpose is deterrence to keep them from coming to Canada. And while Patrick Brown offered a boilerplate defence of a plan to require biometric information from new immigrants, Dan Harris rightly criticized the fact that the Cons were refusing to hear from a committee already assessing the use of biometrics.

But as tends to be the case, the Cons simply decided to ignore every valid criticism of their legislation, and voted down the NDP's proposed amendment before forcing the bill through.
 Pop Quiz

Caron received a response to his order paper question (#489) as to the criteria used to decide to close a processing centre in Rimouski and set one up for the primary benefit of Christian Paradis in Thetford Mines and the reason why the change was made. Your challenge: spot anything in the answer that amounts to an explanation of the decision beyond "because we damn well said so, that's why".

In Brief

Merv Tweed spoke to his bill to prevent Canada Post from hiking rates on books delivered between rural libraries. And the idea received multi-party support - though it's worth asking how Tweed's initial can be reconciled with the Cons' constant demand that Crowns be run as revenue-maximizing businesses or sold off to be turned into just that.

Meanwhile, Malcolm Allen offered a statement on cuts to food inspections through both the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Canada Border Services Agency, then followed up in question period. Francoise Boivin served notice that the NDP won't hesitate to defend a woman's right to choice. Megan Leslie wondered about the minders being sent to accompany civil servants to a conference and report on their activities. Irene Mathyssen's question about how much money was being cut out of OAS was met with Diane Finley's response that her government's attacks on seniors' standard of living have nothing to do with deficit reduction. Carolyn Bennett slammed Leona Aglukkaq for singling out aboriginal health for massive cuts. And Caron asked adjournment questions about the Cons' lack of a realistic plan to foster research and development in Canada, while Jack Harris wondered what exactly the Cons plan to do with the influx of prisoners created by their dumb-on-crime strategy (especially as they indicated they planned to close some facilities).

No tough choice

Back here, I discussed how ridiculous the Cons' "tough on crime" model would look if applied to any other area of policy - and used that comparison to question why we'd handle criminal justice any differently. But after a minority government period where the Cons mostly limited their shows of faux bravado to attacking unsympathetic figures, it's now becoming clear that they're entirely eager to apply the same principles in places where they're obviously inappropriate.

Most of us might learn of a friend or neighbour who has lost a job and think our political leaders should be looking for ways to help. Instead, Jim Flaherty's message is that we should get tough on those seeking work - finding new ways to kick the unemployed while they're down.

Most of us might hear about the plight of a refugee seeking to escape repression and figure we should offer a reasonable opportunity to build a new life in Canada. Instead, Jason Kenney is pushing the line that we should get tough on refugees in order to dissuade them from seeking to join Canadian society.

And most of us might think of the work of environmental groups and other charities as something to be encouraged. But the Cons are insisting that we meet their idealism with tough punishment to keep them from inconveniencing corporate polluters.

Now, it could be that the Cons figure that building toughness as a brand is at worst a wash politically - that it at least appeals to a certain authority-seeking base while serving to silence what might otherwise be strong critics of an uncaring government.

But I'd think there's a strong case to be made that the Cons have gone a bridge too far in directing the message of punishment, retribution and deterrence toward people and groups who most Canadians rightly see as deserving respect and assistance. And it should be exceedingly easy to see what the political consequences will be if we can make that case to voters.

A Healthy Society - Chapter 5 Discussion

Chapter 5 of Ryan Meili's A Healthy Society deals with our justice system. And once again while there's little to dispute in Meili's broader point, it's worth noting just how much distance there is between Canada's current governing philosophy, and anything which could possible be expected to produce healthy outcomes.

Here's Meili:

(Our prison system) is analogous to a medical system that is curative rather than preventive. The results are the same: more expense, less effect. The people who need help are met late in the progression of their illness, or their criminal behaviour, too late to make real change. How much easier, and more effective, is it to keep people from smoking than getting them to stop? How much wiser to keep people out of jail than to try to rehabilitate them once they’re in.
...
If we want to improve health outcomes, we need to address the root causes of illness. Similarly, if we want to decrease crime, we need to address its root causes as well. What is fortunate is that they are the same things. While the justice system hasn’t usually been described as one of the major factors in determining health (the numbers of people in prison are still small enough that it doesn’t have the same statistical impact as the other factors to which all are exposed), it’s clear that incarceration has a substantial impact on health status.

Another way of looking at this is to see it as a companion indicator of social health: the determinants of health are the determinants of involvement in criminal behaviour. Rising or falling crime rates are clear indicators of whether or not we have been successful in producing a safe society, not through intimidation and deterrence, but through an appropriate distribution of opportunity and the common wealth. This is important to consider when designing policy responses to try to make Canada a safer country: are more prisons and tougher sentences the right answer? It depends on what you’re trying to achieve.

There are three potential reasons to punish someone. The first is retribution: looking to exact a repayment for damage done. The second is risk management: seeking to protect others from the actions of someone who does not respect the law. The third is rehabilitation: seeking to correct the behaviour and teach the offender a better way.

In our private lives, in our own homes and families, we discourage revenge as a motivator. Most of us can think back to hear a parent admonishing a fighting child, “I don’t care who started it, you have to stop it.” While it is very tempting to get back at someone who has hurt us, upon sober reflection it is easy to see the ways in which that perpetuates conflict and justifies aggression. Is it not odd, then, that our judicial system, thought to represent the balanced wisdom of the best legal minds, focuses almost entirely on punishment? There is very little in the way of crime prevention, and not nearly enough rehabilitation.

Now, the case for dumb-on-crime policies has been based almost entirely on a combination of the first two of Meili's potential reasons for punishment. And the Harper Cons' vilification of any opposition has mostly focused on their portrayal of any offender without Conrad Black's personal fortune as a sub-human monster undeserving of any consideration - going beyond any possible sense of mere retribution into outright demonization.

But having spent as much time as I have combing through debates in Parliament and political coverage, I'll note that particularly when they're challenged on the barbarism of their worldview, the Cons have also regularly fallen back on a risk management model (albeit one without evidence) as their basis for a lock-'em-up policy. As the argument goes, as long a person is incarcerated, that person can't be committing crimes against the public at large.

From that starting point, it's worth drawing a link between that argument and a theoretical conception of a health-care system operating on the same principles. What if, instead of having reasonable triage and evidence-based disease control, we simply assumed the worst about any possible contagious diseases - preferring to confine people away from anybody besides other potentially-diseased individuals immediately based on even the slightest possibility that having them locked up at the right time might prevent some damage to others? And what if we had a government which vilified the sick, suggesting that anybody who spoke up for the interests of unclean people was on the side of disease against the healthy portion of the population?

Of course, in the health care example the retribution or demonization theory would be patently absurd. But the risk management theory would be almost exactly the same as that presented by the Cons when it comes to crime. And I'm sure we can all recognize how appalling the theory of isolating large numbers of people without any particular expectation of improved results as a matter of risk management would be if detached from the desire for retribution which is rightly questioned by Meili.

Thursday Evening Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- In the last couple of days' worth of developments on Robocon, the Cons defaulted to their standard setting of admitting nothing and misleading about everything - though it's hard to see that strategy working out well given the amount of information that's already coming to light. Dan Arnold and Michael Harris considered the necessary ingredients to make the electoral fraud into a lasting scandal. Trish Hennessy ran some numbers on vote suppression. Andrew Coyne lamented the state of Canada's institutional accountability, while Chantal Hebert hopes Elections Canada can get to the bottom of the fraud. While the Cons' latest spin is that their national party (which is of course already an admitted electoral cheater) had nothing to do with the scheme, Harold Albrecht has already acknowledged otherwise when it came to false calls in his own riding. And Sixth Estate identifies the various parts of the Cons' vote suppression organization while rightly suggesting that we focus on full disclosure and investigation rather than getting caught up the prospect of by-elections.

- Meanwhile, Helene Buzzetti exposes a new incarnation of Conadscam, as Quebec ridings once again plowed tens of thousands of dollars of claimed election spending into they-can't-explain-what in an apparent effort to shift expenses down from the national level.

- Barbara Yaffe compares the Cons' no-price-is-too-high attitude toward prison spending with their miserly attitude toward Canadian seniors. Which is surely the kind of unflattering comparison the Cons want to shut down by hiding the books from Parliament and the public alike.

- If we were lacking for reasons to doubt the spin of corporate tax-slashers, Erin provides them with a particular focus on an attempt to keep racing to the bottom ahead of the United States.

- Finally, the main difference between Richard Evans and a good chunk of the right-wing noise machine is that he's foolish enough to connect the dots in combining eliminationist rhetoric with hatred for anybody who isn't in the tank for the oil industry. But it's well worth highlighting just what happens when the dirty truth manages to seep out.

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- In the surest sign yet that the Robocon scandal involved a calculated decision by political operatives rather than having anything to do with mere overzealous volunteers, the Star reports that call centre staff hired by the Cons to perform live calling actually tried to correct the false information supplied to them by the party. [Update: And Susan Delacourt rightly zeroes in on the script as a major piece of the puzzle.] Meanwhile, Exigenomicon distinguishes between the two scams at play; Scott wonders whether there's any prospect of outright dismissing Stephen Harper from office; the Star, John Ibbitson and Michael Den Tandt all say that however much Harper tried to insulate himself from the fraud itself, he'll bear full responsibility if he tries in the slightest to cover up or deflect from the scandal; and Lawrence Martin fits the electoral fraud in with the Cons' pattern of behaviour.

- Meanwhile, the revelation that the Cons may not have won a valid mandate in the first place should surely lead to far more question about their legitimacy in trying to ram harmful legislation through Parliament. And Danny Graham suggests that their omnibus dumb-on-crime bill would be a great place to start with some serious debate.

- Michael Geist points out that online surveillance involves some intersection between a government which wants to be able to intrude on citizens' privacy without accountability, and private-sector profiteers who see the potential to make money off of state-mandated snooping. Which is just one more reason we should be glad to know the Cons are running scared on the issue.

- Finally, Michael Marin and Anouk Dey note that greater equality serves as an important part of encouraging the education and innovation that all parties see as necessary to our future economic development. And Ricardo Fernholz and Robert Fernholz contemplate the need for ongoing equalization to counteract a natural tendency toward the concentration of wealth.

Parliament in Review: December 9, 2011

Friday, December 9 saw the final day of debate at second reading on the Cons' seat allocation bill. And as usual, plenty of valid questions went entirely unanswered.

The Big Issue

Marc-Andre Morin rightly questioned the Cons' trumped-up sense of urgency in dealing with seat allocations while they do nothing but put off citizens' genuinely pressing concerns, while Denis Blanchette noted that any seat allocations would have to wait for updated census figures anyway. Linda Duncan worried (correctly) that the Cons would try to pair an increased number of MPs with cutbacks in resources for current elected representatives. Tarek Brahmi highlighted how the need to take into account factors beyond mere population is applied to Prince Edward Island's seat allocation, and wondered why similar principles couldn't apply to Quebec. And Peter Stoffer described the Cons' seat reallocation as lazy and hurried compared to the consultation that should be carried out as to what type of representation Canadians expect.

Pop Quiz

Guess which MP said this:

I want to point out one other unassailable fact. In Canada, we pride ourselves for being one of the most progressive democracies in the world.

You're probably wrong - and it's worth watching who's trying to take over the term "progressive" for his party's cause.

In Brief

Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet highlighted the problem of homelessness and called on the Cons to do more than keep their eyes averted. Raymond Cote pointed to the example of White Birch Paper as a case of investors getting rich off the work of employees, then refusing to hold up their end of the bargain. Robert Aubin pointed out that the Cons' promised committee to study workplace language rights seemed to have evaporated as quickly as it was made up as a distraction. Helene Laverdiere questioned the billions in tax freebies being handed to banks while so many Canadians are in need. In response to a particular ill-advised bit of spin, Ryan Cleary wondered just how routine it is for Peter MacKay to take a helicopter from one destination to another. Christine Moore offered up John McCain's take on the rising costs of F-35s, but predictably couldn't get a straight answer out of Chris Alexander. Justin Trudeau challenged the Cons with a $19 billion cost estimate for their dumb-on-crime bill. Francoise Boivin lambasted the Harper government for its disrespect for the rule of law. Jamie Nicholls questioned what rural services are on the chopping block as Jim Flaherty goes into selloff mode. David Christopherson raised doubts as to how elected senators could be "accountable" if by design they'll never face an election after taking office. Peter Stoffer proposed the creation of a ministry of state for education. And Kellie Leitch spoke to a private member's bill on breast cancer awareness, only to have Rathika Sitsabaiesan respond that awareness is only a small first step if the federal government isn't properly funding a system to deal with health issues once they're discovered.

Parliament in Review: December 8, 2011

Thursday, December 8 saw debate on four separate bills - though once again, the Harper Cons were most conspicuous by their silence on a bill they were in the process of ramming through Parliament.

The Big Issue

That would be the Senate patch job which was being debated at second reading. And once again, the governing party decided to stay silent rather than bothering to speak to its own legislation.

Pat Martin asked rhetorically whether there's any reason for public policy to originate with an unelected and unaccountable body, while both he and Francois Lapointe raised the obvious problem of the Senate's ability to nullify the decisions of actual elected officials. On the specifics of the Cons bill, Anne Minh-Thu Quach and Dany Morin offered up reminders that the Cons' plan is to make sure senators are never accountable to voters for their actions, Anne-Marie Day highlighted that the Cons' own bill contemplates the possibility that an election could be ignored and the result nullified after six years, and Bruce Hyer noted that the Cons' scheme discriminates against independent candidates. Jean-Francois Fortin reiterated the Bloc's agreement with the NDP that the Senate should be abolished, while Justin Trudeau suggested the position held by the two most popular federal parties in the province somehow reflects a failure to defend Quebec's interests. Jinny Sims discussed the gap between MPs whose work is based on public service and senators whose role is defined by patronage, while Isabelle Morin offered a reminder of Harper's propensity for appointing candidates who failed at the former into the latter role instead.

Marc-Andre Morin offered to rename the Cons' bill:

Mr. Speaker, to the title “An Act respecting the selection of senators”, I would add “to ensure that the Senate resembles the bar scene in Star Wars”, as my colleague said. Senators appointed for life, senators elected through some crazy, vague process, all at the provinces' expense, people who lost elections, friends: the Senate is a gold mine for comedians.

And finally, Martin delivered some justified outrage for the ages:

There has never been a prime minister who has so abused the Senate and taken partisan advantage as the current Prime Minister, with 32 appointments. After being the one who agreed that the Senate was an outdated and obsolete institution, he has been stacking the Senate for purely partisan reasons.

Let me give an example of this. The president of the Conservative Party, the campaign manager of the Conservative Party, the chief fundraiser of the Conservative Party, the director of communications for the Conservative Party, the entire Conservative war room is now sitting in the Senate, pulling down $130,000 a year of taxpayers money, with staff, travel privileges and resources.

Who was the campaign manager in the last provincial election in my home province of Manitoba? The Conservative Senator from Manitoba, and I do not know if I am allowed to use his name. The former president of the Conservative Party was power shooted into Manitoba on the taxpayer nickel to work full time in partisan activities. He never has to stand for an election because he is there for life to act as an agent of the Conservative Party, not as the chamber of sober second thought, and is salaried, staffed and paid for in a direct subsidy by the taxpayers of Canada. It is appalling and it is atrocious. The senate should be abolished. It is a disgrace that we are using up time in our chamber to even re-arrange the deckchairs on that ridiculous institution.

There must be some old Reformers who have a hard time looking at themselves in the mirror, considering the things they used to say about the Senate. Now they are one. They have become what they used to most criticize. They have tossed overboard every principle on which they were founded in the interest of political expediency. They have been jettisoned over side. It is a disgrace.

Bank Shots

The other bill up for debate was the Cons' campaign loan legislation. Tim Uppal lamented the influence of wealthy individuals through loans to leadership candidates, but didn't have much to say about a concern raised by Stephane Dion and Ted Hsu about giving banks a privileged role in deciding who they deem worthy of funding. David Christopherson questioned how the new requirements might apply at the riding level, and noted that a system which prevents parties from funding elections would be just as undemocratic as one which allows for big-money influence. And in response to a question from Uppal, Christopherson then implored the Cons to actually listen to other parties rather than dictating yet again that they wouldn't accept a single comma's worth of change to their bill.

In Brief

Fin Donnelly introduced a bill to prohibit the importation of shark fins, while Peggy Nash proposed to make the office of the parliamentary budget officer truly independent. Joe Comartin criticized the Cons' contempt for the rule of law, with their defiance of the Federal Court's Wheat Board decision as just the latest example (as also noted by Frank Valeriote in a question of privilege). An NDP question period strategy of asking for basic information was met with the Cons' usual stonewalling, as Nycole Turmel's question on a U.S. trade agreement along with Christine Moore and Matthew Kellway's questions about the cost of using helicopters were all met with equally glaring non-responses. Charlie Angus noted that the Cons' had managed to make matters worse in Attawapiskat by sticking the band with the $300,000 tab for a government-imposed manager. Alexandre Boulerice followed up on the transfer of money out of a green infrastructure fund into whatever the Cons thought would buy votes that week. Francoise Boivin highlighted the costs of the Cons' dumb-on-crime policy, while Andrew Cash questioned whether prisons are the Cons' only housing strategy. Alice Wong answered questions from Irene Mathyssen and Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe on seniors' poverty by claiming poor seniors should be satisfied knowing that their wealthy betters are paying less tax. And Ryan Cleary closed debate on his bill calling for an inquiry into Newfoundland's cod fishery, while Kirsty Duncan spoke to her bill on CCSVI treatment for multiple sclerosis.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Mike de Souza's report on the Cons' attempts to hide both the oil industry's involvement and its own lack of credibility is well worth a read in full. But let's focus on a more basic revelation: Harper has set up a publicly-funded lobbying team to make sure that tar sands operators - who of course have billions in reserves sitting around to let them fund their own lobbying - get their way in any free trade negotiations.

- Meanwhile, the Cons continue to face difficulty defending their evidence-free policy in the courts - this time as Justice Anne Molly declared a mandatory minimum sentence to be unconstitutional.

- The National Post weighs in against the Cons' plans for warrantless online surveillance:

(T)he government will force Internet service providers to install costly monitoring equipment on their networks. Taxpayers will likely be forced to foot part of the bill, but the rest of the cost will be borne by private industry. Smaller providers could be driven out of what is already an uncompetitive market. The law would also make it much easier for police to force telecommunication companies to retain information on their customers and to enable tracking devices on mobile phones.

This type of legislation brings us one step closer to George Orwell's dystopian vision of a totalitarian state that keeps its citizens under constant surveillance. Yet there is no evidence the new law will achieve its public policy objectives.

Law enforcement agencies have been unable to come up with a single investigation that has been hampered by the limits of the laws currently on the books. Even the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police could not find a "sufficient quantity of credible examples" to support the additional powers the lawful access legislation would grant them, according to a series of internal e-mails obtained by the Vancouver-based group Open Media. Postmedia News has also obtained government documents, in which officials from within Public Safety Canada object to some of the key arguments the Minister has used to justify the bill.

- But the Cons do believe some things should be kept secret - like public policy discussion. Fortunately, the NDP is fighting them every step of the way.

- Finally, Stewart Webb and Michael Byers tear into the Cons' faith-based defence procurement policy:

Thanks to the introduction of faith-based procurement, the Harper government can now ignore the complexities and inefficiencies of design specifications, equipment testing, contract tendering, specified industrial regional benefits, etc.

From now on, decisions on new equipment for the Canadian Forces will be divinely ordained, and channelled to Canadians through Mr. Fantino’s divine connections.
...
Instead of engaging with our analysis, Mr. Fantino told the House of Commons that we are “critical of everything that is holy and decent” about the government’s defence procurement efforts.

As the quotation at the beginning of this article illustrates, this is the second time that Mr. Fantino has referred publicly and explicitly to the divine nature of his new portfolio.

God’s interest in fighter jets was, to say the least, an unexpected revelation for us.

Parliament in Review: December 2, 2011

Friday, December 2 saw the final day of debate in Parliament on the Cons' omnibus crime bill. And for at least a moment, the proceedings took a perhaps surprising turn.

The Big Issue

As debate wound down on C-10, Irene Mathyssen questioned why the Cons insisted on delaying the passage of greater sentences for child abusers in order to keep them tied to other, less explicable parts of the bill. Francoise Boivin pointed out that the Cons' campaign of fear hadn't actually managed to keep Canadians from feeling safe in their communities - meaning that the supposed need for the bill was entirely lacking. Boivin and Irwin Cotler then compared notes on the Cons' stubborn refusal to so much as listen to opposition amendments, a theme discussed as well by Guy Caron in the final speech on the bill. In a lovely example of translation, Con MP Robert Goguen was quoted calling for a "more repressive justice system". And Gordon O'Connor claimed that the Cons have no control whatsoever over what Stephen Harper's Senate toadies might do to amend the bill.

But the passage of the day came from Alain Giguere in pointing out that the Cons had also been rather selective in their omnibus legislation by focusing on low-level individuals rather than systemic problems:

(T)his omnibus bill always makes me think of the late Italian anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone. Before he died, he said that there were three kinds of policies: those that work for the Mafia, those that work against the Mafia and—the most dangerous of all—those that let the Mafia be.

There are a lot of measures in Bill C-10, but there are a lot of things missing too. It does not address the serious crime of money laundering. Where are the regulations against money laundering in this bill? Is there special punishment for people who import cocaine in containers? Will police officers be assigned to the fight against serious crime? The bill does not talk about that.

The government is increasing prison sentences for petty criminals, for people who sell drugs. We all agree that criminals must be punished. But we should start by going after organized crime, after the people who commit crimes, who bring in containers and order assassinations. I would like to know this will affect organized crime, when we know that any small-time drug dealer is easily replaced.

When all was said and done, a voice vote on the bill led Andrew Scheer to conclude...that the "nays" had it, as the opposition parties were apparently more fired up to oppose the bill than the Cons were to voice their approval. And so matters stood - at least until the inevitable recorded vote.

In Brief

Annick Papillon highlighted the positive example of transit in Quebec City, while Jose Nunez-Melo noted the urgent need for much more similar development with federal support. Jonathan Genest-Jourdain asked whether the Cons had bothered following up in the slightest on departmental visits to Attawapiskat. Caron and Philip Toone pointed out the climbing unemployment rate even as the Cons try to take credit for implementing their vision for Canada's economy. Laurin Liu mentioned a lament from one of Nelson Mandela's cabinet ministers about hardly recognizing Canada under Stephen Harper; while nothing on the record reflects Rob Anders responding with a hearty "filthy commie!", we can only assume it was said. Djaouida Sellah demanded answers as to whether CETA will indeed result in billions in giveaways to big pharma. Rodger Cuzner compared the standard 85% occupancy for a properly-managed call centre with the appalling 99% level at Service Canada (which the Cons only want to exacerbate by further slashing jobs). Manon Perrault wondered whether yet another international commitment - this time the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - would ever be followed by action. Glenn Thibeault proposed a bill to require the development of a universal charger for cell phones. And Jean Rousseau, Thibeault and Manon Perreault spoke to the NDP's seat redistribution bill at second reading

Parliament in Review: December 1, 2011

In the midst of a week of acrimonious debate over both the substance of the Cons' dumb-on-crime legislation and the government's procedural maneuvers to prevent even improvements which it recognized as necessary, December 1 served as a comparative beacon of cooperation (as noted specifically by Don Davies).

The Big Issue

That's because the government bill under discussion was C-26 on self-defence - which largely paralleled Olivia Chow's private member's bill from the previous Parliament by allowing for citizen's arrests in circumstances other than the moment when a crime was being committed.

Which isn't to say there weren't some noteworthy points of concern and clarification. Jack Harris wondered why the new provision would allow for a proportionality element only in defence of people rather than property - a question which was finally answered by Kerry-Lynne Findlay in a rare moment of Con recognition as to which ought to be treated as a more important priority:

In the case of self-defence or defence of another, these defences allow for the use of intentional deadly force, depending on the circumstances. This is because it is a life that is being threatened. It is only reasonable for individuals who face a serious threat from another person to protect themselves. If the nature of the threat is such that it is reasonable to counter that threat with deadly force, that may be acceptable, depending on the circumstances.

Threats to property are not the same. Human life always outweighs our interest in property. So when the situation is one where damage or destruction of property must be balanced against the determination of human life, the property interest must give way to the greater interest in human life.

Libby Davies expressed concern that the citizen's arrest power would be disproportionately applied to rid stores of targeted individuals. Helene Leblanc noted that in the Lucky Moose case cited as the impetus for the legislation, it was a reasonable judicial decision that resulted in a fair outcome - signalling the need to respect the judiciary rather than box it in as the Cons have so often done with mandatory minimum sentences in particular. Malcolm Allen discussed the importance of community policing generally. Tyrone Benskin worried that the bill might encourage vigilantism. And Sean Casey questioned the Cons' obsession with crime even while signalling his general support for the bill.

Unfortunately, the Cons did manage to fit in one example of jaw-dropping callousness. In raising a question after Irwin Cotler's speech, Blaine Calkins had the gall to joke about Cotler's impending retirement - turning his own party's unconscionable false robocalls into Cotler's riding into a matter of personal amusement.

Name That Party

An MP offered a member's statement about environmental concerns surrounding a project in his riding. Guess who had this to say about the need for a serious environmental review:

Mr. Speaker, the Highland Companies group, backed by a Boston-based hedge fund, proposes to dig a 2,300-acre limestone quarry on prime farmland in Melancthon Township in my riding....

The company wants to dig down 200 feet, well below the water table. The end result is that 600 million litres of water per day, enough for over one million (people), would have to be pumped out, treated, stored and injected back into the local aquifers. The project proponents say this procedure would pose no risk to the local environment.

(The area) is home to the headwaters of four major river systems flowing in all directions. To claim that there would be no effect on the headwaters and beyond stretches the realm of possibility.

I call upon the Minister of the Environment to order that the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency conduct a full environmental assessment. The residents of my riding and of Canada deserve no less.

Naturally, the MP expressing that entirely valid concern was...Con David Tilson. And it'll be well worth watching whether he has any interest in similar concerns nationally as his government seeks to short-circuit environmental review processes for oil pipelines which could have far more severe consequences than a single local quarry.

In Brief

Marie-Claude Morin highlighted the gap in life expectancy based on income as an example of inequality which demands action. Guy Caron expanded on the list of Con-connected appointees to the Immigration and Refugee Board, while Don Davies noted that even the screening committee was worryingly Con-heavy. Nycole Turmel slammed the Cons for sending auditors to Attawapiskat instead of actual help, then pointed out that a 50% gap in social program funding ($9,000 per person on the reserve compared to $18,000 nationally) figures to be one of the main explanations for the community's difficulties. Peter Julian criticized the Cons' lack of cooperation with B.C. in developing a process to remove the HST after citizens voted it down. Mark Eyking and Anne Minh-Thu Quach wondered when the Cons' promises on AIDS funding would result in their actually sending a dime. John McCallum pointedly questioned why the Cons had shifted money out of green infrastructure funding to other departments without authorization, only to be told by Denis Lebel that Industry Canada's 2011-12 Report on Plans and Priorities was authority enough. Irene Mathyssen noted that hundreds of thousands of seniors aren't receiving benefits to which they're entitled. Roxanne James spoke to her private member's bill to limit complaints by prisoners - only to be told by Candice Hoeppner on behalf of her own party that it didn't go far enough in silencing anybody who raised concerns about prison conditions, even as Sylvain Chicoine pointed out that there's a good reason why a large number of complaints might originate with a few relatively well-educated inmates. And finally, Glenn Thibeault wondered why the Cons' promises to create a real code of conduct for credit cart providers had come to nothing.