Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Errol Mendes points out that any commitment to securing human rights in our foreign policy is currently limited by the lack of any systematic attempt to see how those rights are being treated. And Rick Mercer rants about the Libs' gall in misleading Canadians about the sales of arms to tyrants (though his recollection of the election campaign is somewhat off):


- Meanwhile, David Boyd points out that climate change is just another area where an obsession with corporate interests above all else is leading to fundamental values being compromised.

- Daniel Dale documents the callous disregard Michigan's Republican administration has shown toward the people it's poisoned in Flint. And Kristi Tanner takes a look at the devastating long-term public health impacts of a single austerian decision.

- Doug Cuthand points out how Brad Wall is playing politics at the expense of First Nations - though it's worth keeping in mind that voters get the final say in whether that calculation works or not.

- Finally, Dani Rodrik writes about the need to bring public investment back into our discussion about how to build an economy that works for everybody:

The idea that public investment in infrastructure – roads, dams, power plants, and so forth – is an indispensable driver of economic growth has always held powerful sway over the minds of policymakers in poor countries. It also lay behind early development assistance programs following World War II, when the World Bank and bilateral donors funneled resources to newly independent countries to finance large-scale projects. And it motivates the new China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which aims to fill the region’s supposed $8 trillion infrastructure gap.

But this kind of public-investment-driven growth model – often derisively called “capital fundamentalism” – has long been out of fashion among development experts. Since the 1970s, economists have been advising policymakers to de-emphasize the public sector, physical capital, and infrastructure, and to prioritize private markets, human capital (skills and training), and reforms in governance and institutions. From all appearances, development strategies have been transformed wholesale as a result.

It may be time to reconsider that change. If one looks at the countries that, despite strengthening global economic headwinds, are still growing very rapidly, one will find public investment is doing a lot of the work.

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Public investment can enhance an economy’s productivity for a substantial period of time, even a decade or more, as it clearly has done in Ethiopia. It can also catalyze private investment, and there is some evidence that this has happened in India in recent years.

The potential benefits of public investment are not limited to developing countries. In fact, today it may be the advanced economies of North America and Western Europe that stand to gain the most from ramping up domestic public investment. In the aftermath of the great recession, there are many ways in which these economies could put additional public spending to good use: to increase demand and employment, restore crumbling infrastructure, and boost research and development, particularly in green technologies.

Such arguments are typically countered in policy debates by objections related to fiscal balance and macroeconomic stability. But public investment is different from other types of official outlays, such as expenditures on public-sector wages or social transfers. Public investment serves to accumulate assets, rather than consume them. So long as the return on those assets exceeds the cost of funds, public investment in fact strengthens the government’s balance sheet.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Lana Payne points out that even some of the world's wealthiest individuals are highlighting the need for governments to step up in addressing major collective action problems such as climate change and inequality. And Angella MacEwen offers one important example of that principle being put into practice, writing that Quebec's family-friendly parental leave policies have made a major impact in improving both social and economic outcomes.

- Duncan Weldon observes that wages will face conflicting pressures in the years to come, as increased replacement of work with new technology is weighed against a demographic crunch in the supply of labour.

- Carol Linnitt exposes some of the cynicism and denial from the corporations who have all too often been able to dictate the terms of climate change conversations, while David Climenhaga notes that the Cons' more overt obstructionism did little but to get the world to tune Canada out entirely. And PressProgress offers some good reasons for Alberta (and other jurisdictions) to move past coal power to cleaner, renewable alternatives.

- Nathan Raine discusses the futility of "tough on crime" policies which do nothing to address the social factors which actually cause criminal behaviour.

- Finally, Errol Mendes points out why we shouldn't be satisfied with the results of an election where xenophobia managed to have a significant impact on the outcome - even if the parties pushing it weren't the ones who benefited most. And Samantha Ponting charts just a few of the corporate connections of the Libs' new cabinet.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- PressProgress points out that neither the public nor a group of the world's leading economists sees the slightest value in balanced-budget gimmicks which override sound public decision-making. And Paul Krugman observes that the entire conservative economic strategy is based on overinflating bubbles, then letting somebody else clean up the resulting mess.

- Matthew Weaver highlights the use of "poshness tests" to screen out working-class applicants seeking work with key UK employers as a particularly stark example of how prestige and wealth have less and less to do with individual achievement. And Anna Mehler Paperny reports on the spread of precarious work which has made so many other jobs into traps for the unwary.

- Meanwhile, Molly McCracken rightly slams Manitoba's PCs for trying to privatize child care and other social services when that only produces worse working conditions as a means to create a profit stream. And Warren Bell examines the far-reaching implications of the Doctors of B.C. run-off election due to the presence of corporate-health zealot Brian Day.

- Mike Blanchfield reports on a new study from Voices-Voix documenting the Cons' stifling of dissenting voices. Kim Covert writes about the Cons' decision to create lower tiers of citizenship. And Errol Mendes argues that we need a Magna Carta moment to ensure that our federal government uses its power in the public interest, rather than using public resources solely to increase its own power.

- Finally, the Parkland Institute makes the case to end corporate and union donations to political parties in Alberta.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- The CP reports on the Canadian applicants rejected by HD Mining as it chose instead to staff its Murray River coal project solely with low-rights temporary immigrant workers:

The unions, which are more broadly seeking a judicial review of Ottawa's decision to issue permits to the workers in the first place, say their findings justify the legal challenge.

They filed documents to the Federal Court late Friday outlining some of the qualifications found within the tossed resumes.

One applicant had more than 30 years of wide-ranging and extensive experience in all aspects of underground mining, while another had 20 years of experience, including three as an underground operations supervisor, according to their submission.

Other sample applicants had six years experience, including three in an underground coal mine, while another had completed an "underground miner hard rock common core" certificate. At least three more had three years and experience installing ventilation, operating equipment and specializing in construction, diamond drilling and production.

"(There was) a full gamut of obviously qualified people," Cochrane argued.

But he said he's still unclear as to why the company would have found the applicants unemployable.

"That part is hard to determine from my perspective. It just looks like the Canadian applicants were discounted."

And it surely can't escape notice that it's taken a persistent effort by unions to bring the truth to light, even as HD Mining and the Harper Cons teamed up to keep Canadian workers out of the Murray River jobs.

- Errol Mendes wonders whether the Cons' omnibus environmental deregulation might be an attempt to escape the federal government's constitutional duty to consult with First Nations. And Bruce Cheadle reports that the Cons' advertising spending continues to balloon long after any actual productive stimulus has come to an end.

- Kim MacKrael discusses the effect of strict party discipline in the House of Commons, while Murray Mandryk notes that the Sask Party is following the Cons' pattern of having backbenchers do nothing but read a script prepared by the party's central command.

- Meanwhile, the Leader-Post offers its support to the new federal boundaries developed by Saskatchewan's boundary commission.

- Finally, the Broadbent Institute has unveiled a new introduction page for its Equality Project.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Paul Boothe discusses the dangers of giving in to resource-boom hype rather than planning for sustainable development:

The resource roller coaster and the crazy things it causes us to do are not new. Remember the federal government's 1980 National Energy Program? It grew out of a forecast that Alberta's oil royalties were likely to grow so large that they would fatally destabilize the Canadian federation. Remember Alberta's 1992 deficit that reached almost one-quarter of total revenues? It resulted from a forecast that natural gas prices would rise and bring on another royalty bonanza.

Resource economies grow faster on average, so what is wrong with riding the boom-and-bust roller coaster? Economists happily assume that workers can glide costlessly from one place to another in search of their next job. The reality is quite different.

Boom-and-bust economies are enormously disruptive to families and destructive of social capital. Travelling back and forth across the country searching for work means more children raised by single parents, fewer people checking in on the stay-at-home elderly, fewer minor hockey and soccer coaches. These things are the glue that binds our communities together.

Are there ways of avoiding repeating the boom-and-bust errors of the past? Yes. We can choose not to put all of our economic eggs in the natural resource basket. We can stop listening to those who proclaim the promise of the current boom and ignore the volatility that is part and parcel of staking our future primarily on natural resources. Developing our natural resources in an environmentally and socially sustainable way makes good sense. Betting the farm on them does not.

- Naturally, the obvious merit to a broader view explains why the Cons' strategy is to "lie and lie again" to distract from their reckless gamble on resource prices - and Craig McInnes is just the latest columnist to call them out on their deliberate and brazen dishonesty.

- Paul Wells summarizes the massive scope of the latest draft version of the CETA, while Heather Scoffield focuses on the EU's demand that investors take precedence over health, safety, the environment and all other considerations.

- Michael Wolfson takes aim at the lack of social mobility in Canada, along with the Fraser Institute's sad attempt to pretend there's no issues to be dealt with:

If the analysis had been done fairly, looking at relative mobility as it claims, it would have used income groups for the specific population being studied – younger earners. Then, for every person moving up a relative position on the income ladder (e.g. from the the bottom 20 per cent to the top 20 per cent, as in the Fraser analysis), someone else must have moved down, there being a fixed number of rungs (or 20 per cent income groups in this case).

Fortunately, there is an analysis of the question of income mobility in Canada based on a more careful methodology which I co-authored a few years ago, using exactly the same income tax data base. Our results lead to quite different conclusions.
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(T)he top 1 per cent and even the top 0.01 per cent had incomes that bounced around less than the incomes of the 25 per cent at the poorest end of the income ladder. A major reason: low earnings are often the result of “precarious” jobs which not only pay low wages, but are unstable.

Life at the top may be risky, but the real risks in life lie at the bottom of the income spectrum..

This reality of precarious jobs amongst the poor, and current research standards for unbiased analysis of income mobility, are ignored by the Fraser Institute as it tries to perpetuate the Horatio Alger, ‘rags to riches’ myth.

 - Finally, Errol Mendes wonders whatever happened to the Stephen Harper who once fought against omnibus bills and top-down control.

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.

- Gerald Caplan skewers the tendency of right-wingers - most recently expressed by the federal minister responsible - to see child care as some kind of bizarre conspiracy:

What deeply distressed these callers was the fear that ECE, sanctioned by the Ontario Ministry of Education, organized by your local school board, conducted by highly qualified staff, was a diabolical plot to do something terrible, unspeakable, to their children’s minds. To steal them away from their families. Some explicitly declared that the purpose was to turn their children into Communists, even though the Soviet Union had dissolved four years earlier. Others insisted that the state intended to brainwash children in any number of unknown ways for malevolent purposes. Though what these could possibly be no one could ever say.

There was no plausible rebuttal to these delusions. This was a matter of deep superstition, not reason or science. This was the very antithesis of commonsense. I wondered how these parents could ever trust the school system, since the same provincial governments and school boards who would offer ECE were responsible for the next 15 years of their kids’ schooling.

But there was no answer, not even an attempt at one. Many Conservatives – including those who seem to win elections in Canada – simply have an irrational hatred of ECE, a delusional certainty that its purpose is evil, and a paranoid fear of its impact on their children.

The consequences of this blind conviction is to severely penalize millions of Canadians desperate for assistance with childcare, with the worst penalties as always being paid by those already struggling to get by, and especially – as always – by the mothers.

- In case there were any points left standing in the usual spin about slashing corporate taxes as a matter of competing with other countries, Erin highlights the fact that the carefully chosen comparison relies on giving full weight to less-developed, new OECD countries rather than looking at economies even remotely similar to Canada's.

- I'll grant that there isn't much directly linking the personal requests about Errol Mendes and Amir Attaran with the federal Cons directly. But particularly given the news from the U.S. showing disturbing coordination between government and private-sector power brokers in attacking dissenting voices (by fraud and/or extortion if necessary), we shouldn't get distracted by the semantic question of who submitted a particular request in pointing out how it fits with the intimidation tactics we've come to expect from the Cons and their allies.

- Finally, some may find the news that some Cons reject any action on climate change based on the belief that it isn't part of God's will. But let's not miss the upside to the Cons holding faith-based beliefs: shouldn't it be possible to encourage them to be equally uninterested in most other areas of policy by asking who they are to try to override the will of a divine being?

Wednesday Morning Links - Coalition Edition

- Angus Reid releases its latest poll results featuring Canadians' view of the country's federal leaders. And predictably, the terms most associated with Stephen Harper are..."Secretive (38%), arrogant (36%), dishonest (36%), out of touch (33%), uncaring (31%)" - making for a seemingly ideal contrast with an open, caring, attentive coalition if anybody notices the opportunity.

- Meanwhile, Jeffrey Simpson eviscerates the Cons' latest set of talking points, including those relating to coalitions. But in doing so, he also highlights why the opposition parties should take another angle: does anybody think it'll accomplish more to spend the entire lead-up to the next election trying to explain why...

the Bloc was never part of the ill-fated “coalition” between the Liberals and the NDP almost two years ago. The Bloc said it would support the other two parties, but not enter an agreement with them.

...rather than to pitch a simple, understandable message of "cooperation = good"?

- And finally, Postmedia looks at the potential role of the Governor General after the next federal election. But I'd take issue with one point raised by Errol Mendes:

Moreover, if Harper continues to publicly deliver those warnings after an election, said Mendes, Johnston will have to deal with the issue "with great finesse and diplomacy."

"At a certain stage, he may have to debunk the standard rhetoric of the Harper government that all coalitions are evil."

Simply put, there doesn't seem to be any reason why the GG would take on the job of debunking the Harper government's spin if other actors haven't already done so. Which is why it's so important that commentators set the record straight now, as the Cons are all too obviously willing to lie to the public in an effort to cling to power.

The reviews just keep on coming

Murray Mandryk:

(W)hat we're witnessing from Harper takes contempt for democratic principles to a whole new level. Actually it may be worse. He is using public cynicism as a blunt hammer to pound in the detour sign that allows him to get around the last bastion of true accountability for his PMO.

And that truly separates Harper from his predecessors.

By proroguing Parliament again -- this time for no better reason than the political convenience of sidestepping an increasingly troublesome Afghanistan debate while carefully positioning his government for what he hopes will be the afterglow of the Vancouver Olympics and a possible gold medal hockey win -- Harper is abusing tradition like no other recent PM.
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What's truly loathsome is that he announced the prorogation through an unelected communication functionary between Christmas and New Year's, as if it were no more important than the local Queen's Counsel appointments.

Maddeningly, Harper is simply banking on Canadians' abysmal understanding of British parliamentary practice and counting on a cynical public to see this as nothing more than another bit of gamesmanship in a minority Parliament. And he's counting on the wealth of the Conservative party coffers and the friendlies on talk radio and elsewhere to spin this to his advantage.

Canadians should know what's at issue is far more nefarious.

At a time when the country needs to have meaningful debate about vital issues such as defence policy and our role in the longest war Canadians have ever engaged in, the prime minister is silencing the very institution -- perhaps the only institution -- capable of holding his office accountable.

Lawrence Martin:

We won’t know for sure until some polls come in, but there are indications the prorogue gambit is backfiring on (Stephen Harper). The reaction has been demonstrably negative. Media comment boards have lit up in protest. The Globe and Mail went to the unusual extent of running a front page editorial. Conservative newspapers, normally in the prime minister’s stable, have condemned the move. The Facebook group, Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament, already has 15,000 signed up.

It’s become a question of how many times the people will let a leader bend a democratic system to his will before they fight back. If the prime minister doesn’t take a hit in the polls on this, he will feel the sting in other ways. The opposition to his methods is hardening. People are angry. When they get angry, they mobilize.

This prorogation story, which comes on top of his defying the will of Parliament by refusing to turn over documents on the Afghan detainees affair, is different from some of the other abuse-of-power stories. This one has legs. Every day the Parliament’s doors remain closed will serve as a reminder of what the supreme ruler did.

The Edmonton Journal:

There is no looming emergency, no threat of a non-confidence vote, no plausible reason other than blatant political gamesmanship to support suspension of the people's business for more than two months.

Using the Olympics as a foil is preposterous, as if opposition parties would do anything to embarrass the nation while the spotlight is on Canada.

The excuse that the government needed time to readjust given the changing Senate scene is also specious, since Parliament wasn't set to return until Jan. 25 anyway, allowing a decent interval.

Once again the Conservatives under Harper, formerly outspoken on the need for greater accountability and reforming the murky, partisan nature of Canadian politics under successive Liberal regimes, have shown a predilection for more of the same -- even when they don't have to resort to trickery. Indeed, the only thing transparent about this cessation of open government is its obvious motivation.

The Hamilton Spectator:

There is no doubt the Stephen Harper government's strategic move to prorogue Parliament until after the Olympics is nothing short of self-serving. It is not about what is good for Canada, for democracy, or even for the Olympics. It is only about what Harper has decided is good for his federal Tories. Even sober second thought cannot cast a positive light on his decision to interfere with democracy.
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In the days since Harper opted to side-step the democracy of the House of Commons, it has become increasingly clear the prime minister has established a nasty habit of shutting down the system when he wants to avoid controversy and hard questions.

The Tories shut down Parliament in late 2008 when they faced almost certain defeat by a minority coalition on a key vote. They have shut down Parliament in early 2010, ostensibly so we can all watch the Vancouver Olympics without the distractions of democracy. It also allows the Tory government to duck the substantial heat churned up by the sensitive issue of Afghanistan prisoner abuse, as well as the high level of criticism resulting from Canada's less-than-stellar performance in the Copenhagen climate change talks.

It is both unseemly and disturbing that the Tories' cynical move played out quickly, without debate and, apparently, with automatic acceptance by the Governor General.

Harper knows most Canadians aren't overly concerned about it -- close to half don't care whether Parliament resumes now or after the February games. A sizeable slice of the population probably doesn't care whether Parliament resumes at all.

But that apparent indifference doesn't make the erosion of democratic accountability good or acceptable. It is a frightening abuse of the democratic process. It not what prorogation was intended for. And it further clarifies the government's intention to minimize the role Parliament plays in Canadian democracy.

And of course, Errol Mendes:

Apart from the doomed attempts of Charles I to prorogue the British parliament in the 17th century, there was no precedent in any parliamentary democracy anywhere in the world where a democratic parliament was shut down to hide from a vote of confidence. It opened the door for other abuses of the rights and privileges of the majority of Members of Parliament elected by Canadians. Harper has gone through that door once again.

This time, the insult to Canadian democracy, while less spectacular, is no less disturbing. The Governor General did not even merit a personal visit to be told to shut down Parliament until early March. Respect, even for the Queen's representative, by this Prime Minister is in short supply.

This behaviour by the Prime Minister is another piece of evidence of a major shift in Canadian constitutional democracy taking shape. First, there is the unconstitutional behaviour of the Harper government to deny the committee uncensored documents despite a motion of the House of Commons. Second, there is the boycott of the committee by the Conservative MPs at the committee. Third, we have seen the sandbagging of the Military Police Complaints Commission and the "yanking" of its chair, Peter Tinsley. This commission, a quasi-judicial tribunal has been stymied in its attempt to determine the truth over the detainee transfer issue. Finally, there is the unprecedented slamming of Richard Colvin for just doing his job of speaking truth to power and then accusing anybody who supports him of either being Taliban dupes or undermining our brave Canadian military heroes.

These are serious examples of abuse of executive power over Parliament, the Governor General, the public service and ultimately the Canadian voters who elected MPs to make Parliament work.
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Some Canadians may not pay much attention to archaic constitutional terms such as prorogation of Parliament or even to the fate of Afghan detainees transferred to torture. Other Canadians will care greatly about both these issues. But all Canadians must care about a minority government that undermines the fundamental democratic institutions of this country while also manipulating quasi-judicial tribunals and intimidating the public service from speaking truth to power. This abuse of executive power is tilting toward totalitarian government and away from the foundations of democracy and the rule of law on which this country was founded.