Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Ryan Meili discusses how we should define Canada as a country through an ethic of care - rather than through opposition to any foreign actor. Matthew Mendelsohn examines how we can respond to the U.S.' defection from any good faith action, while Jim Stanford discusses how we can build a stronger and more independent society (though Geoff Dixon notes that complete self-reliance isn't a a practical option). And Charlemagne makes the case for Canada to join the European Union. 

- But Yves Engler writes that Canada's corporate oligarchs are eager to funnel resources into guns rather than necessities of life. And Craig Renney warns us not to make the same mistake as New Zealand in voting for right-wing populism which inevitably fails even on its own terms. 

- James Tapper reports on a new poll showing that a strong majority of Britons see the rich as having too much influence in politics. Nicolas Shaxson laments that the Starmer government is only making matters worse by stifling regulators in the name of growth, while George Monbiot notes that a developer-driven housing policy will do nothing to help people in need of an affordable and accessible home. 

- Finally, Brian Beutler discusses the importance of fighting for democracy in the face of actors who are eager to demolish it. 

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Cherise Seucharan interviews Andrew MacLeod about his new book on the health benefits of investing in income, housing and education. And Kyle Edwards discusses the unconscionable number of Indigenous children being put in foster care.

- Ben Smee reports on the UK's parliamentary inquiry into franchising - including evidence that franchisees have been advised to use wage theft and exploitation of vulnerable workers as regular business strategies. And Jeffry Bartash examines new U.S. data showing that an unusually high number of employees are seeing no raises despite a supposedly tight job market.

- Meanwhile, Jude Kirton-Darling and Agnes Jongerius report on a new EU law - fought tooth and nail by the UK's Cons - intended to ensure that the free movement of workers doesn't serve to undercut wages and employment standards.

- Robert Benzie reports on the Ontario NDP's plan for a rent registry for transparency in housing pricing (and as a safeguard against "renovictions").

- Finally, Kevin Taft comments that the Trans Mountain buyoff and expansion look to be symptoms of a continued addiction to fossil fuels. And James Wilt interviews Peter Erickson about the long-term ramifications of those choices today.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Tom Parkin writes about the growing opposition to a Lib infrastructure bank designed to turn public needs into private profits at our expense:

Paying higher fares, fees and tolls because of a political decision to use more expensive private capital would be a “massive transfer of wealth to the wealthy,” says [Guy] Caron.

Now the chorus of think-tanks voicing concern includes the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Broadbent Institute, C.D. Howe Institute and the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy, which is headed by former Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page.

The idea for the Bank followed a curious path. The Liberal-appointed advisory council which recommended a private Infrastructure Bank included executives whose investment funds stand to profit from it. That process is now subject of a conflict of interest complaint by Democracy Watch.
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As more Canadians see the Infrastructure Bank as an inside job to drain their wallets and enrich the rich, the sharpness of opposition attacks continues to grow.

Perhaps Trudeau thought an Infrastructure Bank would hitch his star to powerful people. Maybe he’s anchored himself to a sinking sack of cement.

- And Randall Bartlett asks why Trudeau is so eager to privatize profits while forcing the public to bear the risks and costs of projects. 

- Meanwhile, Don Braid examines how Rachel Notley's NDP is establishing desperately-needed consumer protections in areas ranging from payday lending to homebuilding - and being challenged every step of the way by businesses who had grown accustomed to being able to exploit the public. And Rachel Reeves argues that now is the time for the financial transactions tax on offer from the UK's Labour Party.

- Claire Cain Miller discusses how motherhood contributes to the persistent pay gap between women and men. And Jordan Press reports on the wealth-based gap in access to child care outside Quebec, while Andrea Gordon points out how Ontario students (particularly in rural areas) are losing access to music programs due to austerity budgeting.

- Finally, Ian Bremner warns against treating the defeat of a couple of far-right leaders as an indication that we can afford to accept business as usual.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Nora Loreto slams the Wynne Libs' "red tape" gimmick, while highlighting the need for people to claim a voice in rules largely intended to protect them as workers and consumers:

One person's red tape is another person's health and safety, but Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne hopes that workers won't make this connection.

Wynne's government has ripped off an initiative from the U.K. called the (cut the) Red Tape Challenge. It seeks input into how to get rid of regulations and save money in all aspects of Ontario's economy.

When the initiative was launched in March, Wynne was reported to have said this: "One of the conditions of success is to free up businesses from unnecessary paper work, inspections and reporting....This will give owners and employees more time to focus on growing their company's productivity and competitiveness and growing their business."

No word on whether or not the inspections that showed how widespread Employment Standards Act abuses are, are in Wynne's crosshairs.
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If any unions have involved themselves in this process, or are actively boycotting it in protest, their communications has been buried by the communications of the Ontario government, because there doesn't seem to be anything out there. A crowdsourced campaign can be cheap and even fun to derail, and considering what's riding on the process's outcome, it's concerning that the Ontario Federation of Labour and other Ontario unions don't seem to have made this "challenge" a priority.

In Britain, union leaders called the Red Tape Challenge a red herring and a sham, and it seems nearly certain that the Ontario process deserves such labels too. For any money to be put into this dog and pony show is an outrage, especially one that has the potential to undermine workplace regulations that labour activists have fought for over generations.

- And Jeff Spross points out that the most lucrative crime in the U.S. is wage theft which seldom gives rise to meaningful punishment.

- Meanwhile, for those actually interested in making government more effective rather than merely reversing any attempt to protect the public interest, the Mowat Centre offers some useful ideas on how to improve public employment supports. And Sarah Tranum and Alia Weston suggest a few ways to better fit our social safety net to a precarious-work economy.

- Matt Phillips interviews Joseph Stiglitz about the failings of the Eurozone - and particularly the consequences of austerity being imposed by a foreign central bank with little apparent regard for any impact on citizens.

- Finally, the Star's editorial board rightly argues that any reasonable child protection system should aim to provide resources needed within a family, rather than taking children away from parents merely because they live in poverty. And Jordon Cooper weighs in on how the Saskatchewan Party's cuts to disability income serve little purpose other than to prevent vulnerable people from living with dignity.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- John Milloy discusses the difference between trade and corporate control - while noting that recent "trade agreements" have tended to favour the latter without being the subject of meaningful public debate:

For far too long, elites have characterized trade discussions as too complicated for the general public to understand. It’s time we engaged ordinary citizens. My only plea is that we don’t ignore the growing power and influence that multinationals and foreign investors are gaining through these agreements.

Modern-day trade agreements are not simply about country to country relations. Most also contain something known as Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions. These allow foreign investors and corporations to challenge a government’s policies, actions or decisions if they believe they will hurt their bottom line. To make matters worse, these matters are not dealt with through a country’s regular judicial system but instead by special trade tribunals that lack the same procedural protections as a court.

Not only is the process questionable, but it also allows corporations to challenge matters such as environmental, health and labour protections that they feel hurt their business. Under NAFTA, for example, corporations have challenged Canadian laws designed to prohibit the export of PCB waste; ban gasoline additives suspected of being neurotoxins; restrict fracking; and stop development in environmentally sensitive areas. In 1994 the tobacco giant Philip Morris International threatened a NAFTA suit if the federal government went ahead with plain packaging rules for cigarettes.
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As the frequency of these challenges increases, are we going to start to see the erosion of vital programs — like public healthcare – as companies challenge the lack of private competition in these areas? Reminiscent to what happened in Canada, Philip Morris recently brought a claim against the Australian government’s plain-packaging laws for cigarette packs. Although unsuccessful, it does demonstrate the steps that corporations will take to challenge domestic policies.
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It is worth questioning, however, the constraints being placed on us as we negotiate more and more trade agreements.  Sadly, few Canadians are even aware of them.  It took European complaints rather than Canadian ones, for example, to force changes to the Canadian European free trade agreement to provide greater protection for governments against foreign corporations.

As a nation we may decide that these infringements on our freedom of action are worth it, but let’s have the discussion.  Trade brings many benefits but isn’t it time we wake up to the full costs.

- And Deirdre Fulton notes that substantial public opposition has forced the European Union to give countries a say in whether to push forward with CETA.

- CBC reports on the provincial auditor's report (PDF) examining the Wall government's gross mishandling of land acquisitions for the Global Transportation Hub. And Tammy Robert thoroughly excoriates the Saskatchewan Party for its dishonesty and incompetence in dealing with carbon capture and storage.

- Mike de Souza exposes the veil of secrecy over pipelines which are found to be "ticking time bombs" by the National Energy Board. And Charles Pierce notes that the U.S. doesn't even have that level of monitoring of its own pipelines.

- Finally, Tom Stafford examines the underlying elements of trust - and finds that expertise tends to rank well below affinity in determining what people are willing to consider credible.

New column day

Here, on the Brexit vote as both a dangerous step toward an even more business-biased system of international relations, and a cautionary tale about basing votes on frustration.

For further reading...
- John Hilary highlights the trade negotiations likely to follow from the Brexit vote. And Jamie Doward takes a look at the "passport" issue for UK banks.
- As another reminder beyond the column that not all trade structures are alike, Roland Smith points out the difference between the World Trade Organization's relatively limited role addressing tariffs and the far more limiting provisions of other trade deals (though I'd disagree with his presumption that we should favour the latter).
- Andrew Coyne argues that the concept of open borders should be presented to the public for approval rather than being foisted on an unknowing populace - which would at least avoid the type of backlash seen in the Brexit vote. And Evan Solomon wonders how much longer the current trend toward corporate-focused globalization can last.
- Finally, Armine Yalnizyan rightly notes that Brexit and other maneuverings around trade deals won't change the general movement toward a more connected world. But we still have every reason to be interested in the rules governing our international connections.

[Edit: updated link.]

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Jeremy Smith argues that the Brexit vote result should serve as a compelling reminder of the dangers of neoliberalism. John Hood focuses on inequality in particular as a driving force behind the willingness of voters to leave the European Union, while Mike Carter points out the connection between economic and industrial decay and the vote.

- The Economist highlights the value of pre-school funding in ensuring that children from all economic backgrounds are able to fulfill their potential. 

- Reema Patel discusses the need to give citizens a direct role in setting economic policy - as well as one project designed to achieve that goal.

- Tom Parkin points out the vital role the labour movement played in fighting to strengthen the Canada Pension Plan. And Lana Payne comments that younger workers will gain the most from the CPP expansion.

- Bruce Campbell writes that rail safety is still in desperate need of improvement three years after the Lac-Mégantic disaster.

- Finally, John Anderson questions why Netflix, YouTube and other online media platforms are being exempted from the obligations of other media entities operating in Canada.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- In the wake of yesterday's Brexit vote, David Dayen points out how the failure of technocratic policy left many voters believing they had nothing to lose in abandoning the European Union. Dawn Foster highlights the role Conservative-driven austerity played on that front. And Owen Jones comments on what comes next:

(W)hile much of the blame must be attributed to Cameron, far greater social forces are at play. From Donald Trump to Bernie Sanders, from Syriza in Greece to Podemos in Spain, from the Austrian far-right to the rise of the Scottish independence movement, this is an era of seething resentment against elites. That frustration is spilling out in all sorts of directions: new left movements, civic nationalism, anti-immigrant populism.

Many of the nearly half of the British people who voted remain now feel scared and angry, ready to lash out at their fellow citizens. But this will make things worse. Many of the leavers already felt marginalised, ignored and hated. The contempt – and sometimes snobbery – now being shown about leavers on social media was already felt by these communities, and contributed to this verdict. Millions of Britons feel that a metropolitan elite rules the roost which not only doesn’t understand their values and lives, but actively hates them. If Britain is to have a future, this escalating culture war has to be stopped. The people of Britain have spoken. That is democracy, and we now have to make the country’s verdict work.

If the left has a future in Britain, it must confront its own cultural and political disconnect with the lives and communities of working-class people. It must prepare for how it responds to a renewed offensive by an ascendant Tory right. On the continent, movements championing a more democratic and just Europe are more important than ever. None of this is easy – but it is necessary. Grieve now if you must, but prepare for the great challenges ahead.

- Steve Burgess discusses the difficulty in placing strong views on free trade at any single point on the political spectrum. And Branko Milanovic discusses the different underlying issues giving rise to populist movements around the globe.

- The Associated Press reports on the IMF's recommendation that the U.S. catch up to the world on minimum wage, social benefits and tax policy.

- Charles Mandel writes about Canada's failing fisheries. And Jason MacLean notes that our environmental laws as a whole need to be brought back up to par following their gutting by the Cons.

- Finally, Alex Boutilier reports on Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien's rightful concerns that Canadian privacy law is also decades out of date.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Paul de Grauwe points out that the European push to force Greece into continued austerity is the most important factor holding back a recovery, as the country would be fully solvent if it were being allowed to borrow money on anything but the most draconian of terms. And Paul Mason criticizes the war that's been declared against the Greek public for trying to pursue democratic governance - while noting that the public's justified dissatisfaction isn't going away regardless of the result of the impending referendum.

- Sherif Alsayed-Ali responds to the news that the UK's intelligence agencies have been conducting illegal spying against Amnesty International - and it's worth noting that Bill C-51 will make Canada's sweeping powers and lack of oversight even worse than the UK's:

Our concerns about mass surveillance are not limited to human rights organizations, although this is already very worrying. Mass surveillance is invasive and a dangerous overreach of government power into our private lives and freedom of expression. In specific circumstances it can also put lives at risk, be used to discredit people or interfere with investigations into human rights violations by governments.

We have good reasons to believe that the British government is interested in our work. Over the past few years we have investigated possible war crimes by UK and US forces in Iraq, Western government involvement in the CIA's torture scheme known as the extraordinary rendition programme, and the callous killing of civilians in US drone strikes in Pakistan: it was recently revealed that GCHQ may have provided assistance for US drone attacks.

The obfuscation, secrecy and determination to avoid any meaningful oversight is worthy of a tin-pot dictatorship. It is time for serious public scrutiny of the behaviour of the British government. We need to know what surveillance programmes the government is operating, what spying they consider to be fair game, and why.

- Andrew Cohen sees the Cons' "Memorial to the Victims of Communism" as a monument to crass and destructive politics.

- Finally, Robin Sears highlights why the Cons' division and narrowcasting are doomed to fail as a strategy for building a natural governing party. And Thomas Walkom writes that the cult of personality around Stephen Harper is leading the Cons to shut out natural allies in the name of worshiping their leader.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Mark Anderson reports on the Change Readiness Index' findings that the growing concentration and inequality of wealth is making it more and more difficult for countries to deal with foreseeable disasters. But Jon Queally points out that a concerted effort to quit abusing fossil fuels could do a world in making our world both more fair and more sustainable.

- James Galbraith suggests that the EU is guilty of gross malpractice in how it continues to treat Greece in the face of overwhelming public opposition to austerity. But as David Dayen points out, the course of treatment makes a lot more sense if the goal of creditors is to make the patient suffer as a warning to others.

- Andrew Nikiforuk interviews Gus Van Harten about the pernicious effects of the Cons' FIPA trade deal with China:

Just how lopsided is this investment deal with China?

I have followed these treaties for a long time and reviewed hundreds of them. One thing that stands out for me in the deal with China is the unequal rights of market access. In the FIPA -- and I've never seen this before -- the Harper government gave Chinese investors a right of access to Canada's economy, but did not get the same right for Canadian investors in China. That was an extraordinary concession to China.

So, the FIPA requires Canada to open its economy and resources to Chinese companies in general, but it lets China keep a closed economy. China can also keep favouring its own companies at home, in areas like intellectual property, approvals and tax levels. The FIPA is clearly more about giving Chinese investors the freedom to buy what they want in Canada than it is about protecting Canadian investors in China.

How else is the FIPA lopsided? It lets Canada and China block specific investments, but is lopsided on this issue, again in favour of China. China has belts and suspenders to keep unwanted Canadian investors out. Canada has given up the belt and kept a thinner pair of suspenders to keep Chinese investors out.

Treaties like the FIPA are also lopsided in favour of foreign investors, who get far more powerful protection than anyone else does in international law. That comes at a cost to taxpayers and voters. With the FIPA, this part of the deal also favours China simply because the Chinese own more in Canada than Canadians do in China.

- Don Braid writes that Rachel Notley's NDP government is not only challenging corporatist dogma in Alberta, but also building a new coalition of previously-marginalized voters who figure to benefit from more progressive governance. And Laurie Monsebraaten reports on Toronto's new - if still somewhat vague - plan to fight poverty in Canada's largest city.

- Finally, tcnorris offers a roadmap for an NDP government in working to abolish the Senate.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Polly Toynbee looks at how the UK is now treating children in need as investment opportunities to be exploited by investors, rather than people to be assisted. And Mark Taliano writes that privatization is a problem rather than a solution when it comes to providing public services.

- Geoff Leo uncovers still more stories about the abuse of temporary foreign workers. And David Climenhaga looks behind the business lobby's insistence on being granted a low-wage, no-rights pool of disposable foreign labour to replace Canadians who may expect to have lives outside of work rather than devoting their every moment and thought to serving a corporate master:

(W)hen they feel comfortable enough to slip outside their message box, a great many of them disparage their fellow Canadians, especially the young people who traditionally fill food service jobs in this country, because Canadian workers sometimes stand up for their rights and demand fair treatment.

Consider this unguarded commentary by a restaurant owner in my community, St. Albert, Alberta, sympathetically reported by the local bi-weekly.

"After years of struggling to retain full-time staff," the paper's reporter wrote, the local fast-food restaurant operator "resorted to hiring two foreign workers…" The reason, the reporter uncritically explained, was that the restaurateur found Canadian employees didn't show up for work, "showed a lack of commitment" or -- quelle horreur! -- wanted to change their schedules.
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(T)alking points notwithstanding, the alleged labour shortage, the claimed skills shortage, the purported high cost of foreign workers and the desire to protect Canadian jobs aren't any of them the real issue -- it's the attitude of Canadian employees.

And remember, the Canadian employees were talking about are people like our own children!

This is a dirty little secret of many small businesses in communities all over Canada. All the government, Chamber of Commerce and trade association talking points in the world can't disguise it: The reason so many Canadian fast food employers love temporary foreign workers is not because Canadians are lousy workers, and certainly not because there's a genuine shortage of Canadians who could do the work, but because TFWs have no rights and are easy to exploit.

Uppity Canadians too readily stand up for their rights.

 - Meanwhile, Jacqueline Nelson reports on the latest protests among fast food workers (this time spanning the globe).

- Rick Salutin rightly slams Tim Hudak's fear-based economic policy. And Josh Mandryk offers some reason for hope in making the case for a stronger fair wage policy on government contracts.

- Finally, Seumas Milne looks at the state of European politics and concludes that a strong populist movement on the left is needed not only for its own sake, but also to ensure that genuine frustrations about the status quo can find some other outlet besides the prejudice and xenophobia of the far right:

(T)he council of ministers and commission will go on calling the shots in cahoots with the corporate interests that wield the real power at the heart of the EU. It is the ever-growing grip of banks and corporations on the Brussels machinery – reflected in the 30,000 lobbyists who feed off its work – that has shaped each new regulation, commission proposal and court ruling.

The result is a system that has given a failed economic model the force of treaty, entrenching deregulation and privatisation while corporate power is privileged over employment and social rights. It's an approach being played out in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership deal being negotiated between the EU and US – that would allow companies to bypass the courts to enforce business-drafted regulations over elected public authorities.

The result has been an erosion of the modest social protections built into the single market: growing restrictions on public intervention and investment in the name of competition, and the exploitation of migrant workers to undercut existing employees in the name of free movement of services.
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So long as Europe's establishment remains locked in this Brussels orthodoxy, the only antidote to the growth of the far right is a populism of the left: one that targets class and corporate power instead of foreigners. In different ways, that has been the approach of Syriza, now leading the polls in Greece, and the Dutch Socialist party, expected to overtake Labour for the first time. Without it the rise of the racists and xenophobes will go on.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Edward Robinson laments the willingness of European centre-left parties to abandon any attempt to argue against austerity even when the evidence shows that's the right position to take:

Centre-left parties in Europe appear to have completely lost the argument for pragmatic fiscal policy, much in the way that US Democrats seemed to lose their own case precisely at the moment when stimulus was working. Consider again how little financial commitment it would have taken to have shored-up confidence in Greek sovereign debt via Eurobonds. Greek debt in 2010 represented only 3.6% of Eurozone GDP. François Hollande’s government was supposed to be making the case for Eurobonds.

What is worse, the centre-left now appears to have let the very explanation of (or blame for) the crisis slip away from them into the hands of neoliberals. Instead of constantly reminding voters and markets that sovereign debt-to-GDP ratios were falling in the Eurozone (and the UK) before the crisis, they have given up. Voters seem to have forgotten that the massive public debts accrued since 2008 had been private debts before then.

From this analysis flows austerity’s legitimacy. To social democrats, it seems profoundly misguided to be prescribing supply-side medicine to a problem which was fundamentally caused by a huge uptick in private-sector debt, necessitated by steadily falling effective demand for 30 years. Of course, there is always inefficiency or corruption, but these were not the primary causes of the crisis. Nonetheless, centre-left parties are assenting.
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While elections are on the table we must campaign hard, both within our respective national parties and within the broader argument at European level. But if that cannot shift the balance, then genuine social democrats will soon need to decide whether or not to stand by the fading hope of a return to economic pragmatism in the Eurozone or whether to throw their lot in with those calling for the tried and tested routes out of chronic indebtedness.

Choose the former and we risk being permanently subsumed into European austerity elites, choose the latter and we find ourselves, against the European project, with some unattractive intellectual companions and just as much uncertainty. It is a real dilemma.

But surely the status quo of never-ending internal devaluation is politically unacceptable, damaging to the ideal of a united Europe and harmful to democracy and economic development.

- Meanwhile, Matthew O'Brien writes that plenty of U.S. families with relatively high gross incomes are nonetheless living paycheque to paycheque - meaning that precarious financial situations aren't limited to the lower end of the income scale. And while workers across the board are struggling to get by, Paul Krugman highlights how the right is pushing for ever more giveaways to people who live off of wealth rather than labour:

In my last post I tried to document the extent to which modern Republican rhetoric has already adopted the values of “patrimonial capitalism”, even though America’s top one percent still owes its high incomes largely to compensation rather than wealth. On reflection, I thought I should also document the extent to which the GOP has put its money — or, actually, taxpayers’ money — where its mouth is, with concrete policies that favor wealth over work.

Consider, as Exhibit A, the Bush tax cuts. Bush did cut the top tax rate on earned income from 39.6 to 35 percent, a 12 percent reduction. But he cut the rate on capital gains from 21 to 15, a 28 percent reduction; he cut the rate on dividends from 39.6 (because dividends were previously taxed as ordinary income) to 15, a reduction of more than 60 percent. And he put the estate tax on a path toward zero — a 100 percent reduction.

The estate tax made a partial comeback thanks to the awkward fact that a Democrat was in the White House, and there have been some tax hikes on capital income. The point, however, was that Bush tried to give people living off wealth, inherited wealth in particular, much bigger tax cuts than he gave high earners.

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Even now, 6 of the 10 wealthiest Americans are heirs rather than self-made entrepreneurs — the Koch brothers plus a bunch of Waltons. There’s every reason to believe that the role of inheritance will only grow over time.

And if it does, half our political system will be cheering it on and offering the ever-more-empowered heirs as much assistance as possible.

- And Alison highlights how the Kochs in particular have used their money to warp Canadian politics in favour of their own interests.

- Mariana Mazzucato reminds us that public policy can set a necessary foundation for innovation, while pointing out that the Cons have preferred to hand free money to entrenched corporate interests and resource extractors rather than encouraging the development of new ideas.

- Finally, Don Lenihan offers a useful set of criteria for open government - while highlighting how far we are from the ideal.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Nick Pearce offers an interesting discussion of conception of equality that should be placed at the core of social-democratic thinking - with one goal in particular standing out as demanding further attention:

(S)social democrats would be more self-consciously political in pursuit of their goals, eschewing some (if not all) of the preference for legally-enshrined social policy targets that characterised the New Labour project. Instead, greater weight would be placed on building durable coalitions of support for political ambitions, widening the ground on which to advance their policies and drawing energy from new social movements. Driven by ideological rethinking and future fiscal limits towards a so-called ‘pre-distribution’ agenda, Labour is already opening up – albeit tentatively – new territory in economic policy for fresh ideas and practical coalitions. It should extend that logic more widely into social policy and political reform, thinking through how it can gain the popular support it currently lacks for tackling poverty, reforming the welfare state, and creating more integrated communities. In each of these areas, it has to find ways of converting political weakness into strength, anchoring its ambitions in new institutions, identities and practices, and in political alliances that are oriented towards the future, not given to defence of the crumbling bastions of the past.

- Meanwhile, Ian Welsh's post on how to properly define an economy offers some hints as to the types of institutions and movements which might form key parts of a progressive coalition. But the Cons are going out of their way to show they value an "economy" measured solely in terms of profit and GDP rather than the needs of Canadians.

- Yves Engler writes that CETA is best seen as attacking democratic decision-making for the benefit of monopolist rent-seekers, while Stuart Trew wonders whether the Harper Cons are legally required to make the deal public (notwithstanding their obvious preference to keep it hidden). And David Martin notes a similar corporatist bent in an impending deal between the US and the EU.

- Finally, the Globe and Mail's interactive discussion of inequality in Canada is well worth a look. But I do note that the proposed solutions are rather limited in scope - with a basic annual income for everybody (as distinct from benefits for the working poor and/or workers in precarious jobs) left off the table altogether.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- The Economist takes a look at the effect of a "lean in" philosophy toward work - and finds that we'd get better results encouraging creative development rather than needless busy work:

All this “leaning in” is producing an epidemic of overwork, particularly in the United States. Americans now toil for eight-and-a-half hours a week more than they did in 1979. A survey last year by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that almost a third of working adults get six hours or less of sleep a night. Another survey last year by Good Technology, a provider of secure mobile systems for businesses, found that more than 80% of respondents continue to work after leaving the office, 69% cannot go to bed without checking their inbox and 38% routinely check their work e-mails at the dinner table.

This activity is making it harder to focus on real work as opposed to make-work. Teresa Amabile of Harvard Business School, who has been conducting a huge study of work and creativity, reports that workers are generally more creative on low-pressure days than on high-pressure days when they are confronted with a flurry of unpredictable demands. In 2012 Gloria Mark of the University of California, Irvine, and two colleagues deprived 13 people in the IT business of e-mail for five days and studied them intensively. They found that people without it concentrated on tasks for longer and experienced less stress.

It is high time that we tried a different strategy—not “leaning in” but “leaning back”.

- Natalie Brender makes the case for an immigration system which recognizes the importance of family and community, rather than following the Cons' focus on short-term employer interests alone.

- John McKay hopes to see a greater emphasis on corporate social responsibility. But for those thinking our current business leaders have any interest in the concept, Theresa Riley interviews Chris Taylor to give us a look at the anti-social gluttony of the corporate-funded ALEC:

One guy I was talking to, who was from one of these right wing think tanks was saying we need to curb Obama’s reckless power with these administrative regulations, and he wanted a federal constitutional amendment saying Congress has to approve federal regulations. I said, I don’t think most people are going to want to amend the Constitution for that. I don’t think that ignites people. Maybe it does on the far right, but most people don’t really care about that. And he said, “Oh, well, you really don’t need people to do this. You just need control over the legislature and you need money, and we have both.”

That sentiment was underscored so many times to me, that they don’t want people involved in the political process, or in the policy process. And that seems to be the intent in a lot of ways: You have a think tank in every state and all they do is come up with these very, very regressive policies, you have corporations who are going to benefit so they fund it all, and then you have the legislators as your foot soldiers to carry out the tasks.

- Finally, Kenneth Thomas calculates the damage being done by European austerity:

We can see, then, that austerity is sinking all boats. Greece has passed Spain in unemployment and is producing barely 3/4 what it did in 2008. Ireland’s reduction in unemployment is a mirage based on emigration. The same is true in Latvia and Lithuania, by the way, which the Irish Times reports have lost 7.6% and 10.1% of their population between 2007 and 2012. As the paper notes, “If Spain and Italy had lost the same proportion, it would have been 11 million.”

Yet the drumbeat for austerity continues. The sequester goes on. And millions suffer needlessly.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Ethan Cox discusses how the Lac-Mégantic tragedy was a predictable - if not inevitable - outcome of a self-regulated (or un-regulated) rail system:

Prior to, during, and after the process of deregulating railroads, there were strident warnings issued by the most credible and well-positioned experts and organizations in Canada. Their dire predictions fell on deaf ears, and yet not a single story in the mainstream media has made the link between the deregulation of the rail industry and its inevitable consequences.

Instead, those who dare make the commonsensical connection between deregulation, cuts to regulation and inspection, and an increased frequency of accidents, are pilloried for politicizing a tragedy.

I wonder, if now is not the time to discuss the reasons why this disaster occurred, when is?

- Bruce Campion-Smith reports that the Cons specifically approved some of the operating procedures which may have contributed to the explosion, while Bruce Cheadle notes that nobody seems to have seen a problem leaving a train unattended and unlocked in the absence of a regulation to the contrary. And Paul Schneiderfeit takes a more general look at some of the causes of the disaster, while Jennifer Delgado and Kim Geiger point out the rail operator's anti-union history.

- Meanwhile, the rubber-stamping of oil developments with disastrous effects on the environment continues at the Cons' usual breakneck pace.

- And while Jason Sattler hopes that the insurance industry's concern about climate change will serve to shift right-wing opinions, I'd worry the legislative response will simply be to absolve the corporate sector of responsibility for the damage caused by its actions.

- Corporate Europe Observatory highlights some of the areas for concern in an anticipated free trade agreement between the EU and the US. And in what should be a familiar theme in the establishment of separate, corporate-friendly legal systems, there seems to be precious little evidence of any need to impose strict limits on democratic action:

MEPs have repeatedly asked the Commission to provide evidence of access to local courts being denied in Canada. The Commission gave two weak examples where companies did not even try to go to local courts. Asked specifically about problems faced by European investors, it admitted: “There is little publicly available information available in this context”. Neither has the Commission given any proof of discrimination against foreign firms in US courts.

On the other hand, the Commission remains completely silent on the rampant corporate bias and vested interests at play in private investment arbitration tribunals. Last year, our Profiting from Injustice report uncovered how a small club of lawyers riddled with conflicts of interest is securing investor-friendly interpretations of the law and sustains a continuous flow of multi-million dollar lawsuits.

So, while the Commission has yet to prove that there is anti-foreign-investor behaviour in US courts, there is an enormous weight of evidence of the corporate bias in the parallel legal system it is proposing instead.

...

In its factsheet, the Commission explains that the investor rights which it wants to incorporate in the EU’s future international investment agreements “are not necessarily incorporated into the domestic system” of the signatory states. The investor needs a parallel legal system – investment arbitration – to enforce these rights. Thus the need for investor state dispute settlement.

Finally some honesty! This is exactly what the Commission’s corporate agenda is about: granting multinationals far greater property rights than any domestic firm, any community, any individual is granted by any constitution in the world. And creating an overreaching legal system by which these superior rights can be enforced.

- Finally, Jared Milne's series of posts about Canadian First Nations and the "reserve paradox" is well worth a read.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Karl Nerenberg reports on the House Finance Committee's hearings into income inequality in Canada, featuring a few familiar themes which we should hear far more often from our policy-makers:

"I would make all tax credits refundable, including the current non-refundable ones," Boadway recommended, and then went further, "I would condition many of them to income, the way we condition the GST credit. I would enhance disability tax credits and make them available to all provincial disability recipients."

On tax breaks for upper income Canadians and corporations, Boadway prescribed tough medicine: "I would eliminate the dividend tax credit and make the taxation of dividends, capital gains, and interest more even. I would rationalize the corporate tax to make it distortion-free and making it a tax on supernormal profits or so-called rents."
...
Corak would also expand the use of EI to support parental leave, based on the notion that family life, especially for those with precarious and low incomes, is under great stress these days.

And, like Boadway, Corak advocates for an expanded tax base, in particular targeting income from capital. He even suggested to the Committee that it might be the time to consider an inheritance tax in Canada.
...
The CMA President started by saying that the effectiveness of the health care system together with biology and heredity only account for about half of the totality of health outcomes -- outcomes which are measured by such indicators as incidence of disease, life expectancy, and rate of use of the health system.

"Having a much greater impact," Reid said, "Are factors such as the state of a person's housing, whether people get enough to eat, how educated they are and what kind of experiences they had in their early childhood."

These social determinants of health, she explained, account for fully half of health outcomes and "the most influential of these determinants is income."

- But while our representatives are just starting to discuss the harm done by inequality, the corporate sector is looking to ensure that democratic decision-making does nothing to reduce it.

- Phil Plait takes note of the Cons' belief that science is worthless except to the extent it can be exploited for a profit. And Sixth Estate discusses why a mass-production market model looks to be utterly useless in addressing the steady evolution of bacteria.

- Finally, Lawrence Martin writes about the Broadbent Institute's work to provide a focal point for progressive organizing. But I do hope it's aiming higher than the Manning Centre for World Domination in terms of actually wanting to improve public engagement, rather than serving as a means of central control over activists, media and politicians alike.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- Zoe Williams questions when being poor became grounds for deliberate discrimination and ritual public humiliation (h/t to Mound of Sound):

What I cannot help noticing is a failure of normal human respect for the people at the bottom of the heap – Tuesday's ruling in favour of Cait Reilly and Jamieson Wilson has had its bones picked over for what it does or doesn't say about slavery, and yet the judges were clear: these people were treated dishonestly. They were treated as though, being unemployed, they could be parcelled about at the whim of the secretary of state.

A similar belief pervades the suggestion that those on benefits need to be ritually humiliated every time they go into a shop; or those on low wages, by dint of their low status, need to be monitored like criminals. Across the piece, having a low financial status is now elided, by politicians and by corporations, with being untrustworthy. 

- Meanwhile, Claire Davenport writes that gratuitous austerity is pushing an entire generation of European citizens toward economic ruin. And Yves Smith discusses how inequality has continued to grow since the 2008-2009 crash - with the top 1% taking massive income gains while the bottom 99% have actually lost ground.

- David Climenhaga points out that Alberta's latest budget only confirms what Stephen Harper, Brad Wall and other spokesflacks for the tar sands have tried to deny: both overdependence on resource royalties and a petrodollar have negative impacts for the province's finances. But Climenhaga is even more in point in recognizing how Alison Redford's "bitumen bubble" complaint seems calculated to distract Albertans from the massive social problems being blithely ignored - including the wealthiest city in Canada slashing school service for lack of funding, and refugee-camp conditions in the province's capital.

- Which isn't to say Alberta is alone in its utterly warped priorities: Simon Enoch writes about the City of Regina's obsession with costly P3 projects, while Brian Banks and Paul Gingrich observe that a Sask Party promise to address poverty has produced no substantive plan.

- Finally, Sid Ryan explains why the Cons are so determined to attack union finances:

In his decision, Rand explained that unions also need adequate resources in order to "redress the balance of what is called social justice." This is because, then as now, corporations have all the power in a workplace -- they can hire, fire, discipline and discharge any individual employee. Workers only have leverage if they work together and they should always have the right to do so.

This bargaining table principle applies equally to the halls of government. Concerned about Canada's growing inequality, individual workers recognize the need to work together to counteract well-heeled corporate lobbyists and convince politicians of every stripe to promote the livelihoods of working people and their families. For that reason, workers have increasingly given their unions a mandate to launch campaigns to defend public services, good jobs, the environment, and many other public priorities.

However, when it comes to influencing public policy, workers are again at a great disadvantage. In stark contrast to the paltry five per cent of election financing that came from unions between 2004 and 2011, corporate Canada contributed a whopping 40 percent of all election funds, including $26 million to the Conservative Party.

And what did Canada's corporate elite get in exchange for their generous support for the Harper government? Well, among other things, the passage of a new law allowing employers to pay migrant workers 15 per cent less than the going rate and another forcing employment insurance claimants to compete for lower wages.

It is no wonder that working people across the country are working together to stop Canada's race to the bottom. For every worker in Canada, the Rand Formula is the basis of their democratic rights and promotes fairness in their workplaces. As much as Tories may try to dress up their anti-worker policies as "freedom of choice," they are only offering Canadian workers one choice: lower wages.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Jeffrey Simpson rightly notes that Alberta (like other resource-heavy jurisdictions) should be trying to diversify its revenue sources and economic development instead of relying on the one-time sale of publicly-owned resources to pay the bills. And Robyn Allan points out why we shouldn't let oil barons pretend they need yet more concessions when it comes to pipeline construction:

U.S. consumers are not benefiting at our expense. A benefit from lower-priced Western Canadian crude oil at the refinery gate in the U.S. is not passed onto U.S. consumers in the form of lower prices for gasoline, jet fuel or diesel. U.S. consumers in the Midwest are price gouged.

It's the refining sector that sees the benefit of lower priced WCS in the form of windfall profits from low feedstock costs. To the extent U.S.-based refineries are owned by companies producing oil in Canada, there are no losses -- real or imaginary. Cenovus is one of those companies. After claiming a huge hit for the industry, and by implication, Cenovus, five minutes later Ferguson told his audience, "we are substantially benefiting (from the wide differentials) at our refinery in Wood River" where 130,000 barrels a day -- the majority of crude Cenovus produces -- is delivered.

So Ferguson's company is not suffering. And any other integrated oil company with refinery interests is not suffering.

- Michel Barnier, the EU's Internal Markets Commissioner, makes the case for a financial transactions tax as both a source of revenue and a check on rampant speculative trading:

"The financial crisis ... broke the back of growth and after all we helped out the financial sector, it's perfectly right and fair that it should give something back," he said.

The controversial tax on trading in stocks, bonds and derivatives came a step closer on Tuesday when European Union finance ministers allowed some member states to proceed with the plan, intended to reap billions of euros for struggling European nations.

Barnier said the tax was "perfectly bearable," and could be "applied fairly easily in technical terms."

Barnier acknowledged the fact the tax would be limited to Europe was a weakness.

"I would prefer it of course if this tax were a worldwide tax," he said. "I would prefer it if the UK and even the U.S. were on board."

- Mark Kennedy and Jason Fekete report that Stephen Harper doesn't consider Canada's First Nations to rate even a mention in his discussion with the Con caucus. But even the fact that's hardly the most hostile response the aboriginal movement has seen from Harper and his party just this week seems to fall short of capturing the Cons' wilful neglect of First Nations: instead, the Cons seem to have decided that they've heard more out of the Idle No More movement in the past few months than they expect to have to address in their entire stay in office, and are working to sever any remaining lines of communication so they can get back to their trained seal routine.

- Finally, the Star Phoenix weighs in on how Saskatchewan's new electoral boundaries finally bring us closer to nationally-recognized standards for communities of interest. But naturally, the Cons have laid the groundwork to preserve artificial divisions which serve their electoral purposes.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Dan Gardner draws some parallels between the Cons' attacks on Europe and the well-worn (and entirely false) Reagan-era "welfare queen" line of spin. But I wonder whether the Cons are making matters somewhat more difficult for themselves by trying to negotiate a free trade agreement with exactly the enemy they're otherwise trying to vilify.

- Mia Rabson and Tim Harper both wonder how efforts to unite against the Harper Cons might play into the Libs' leadership race. But I wonder whether the question of how a "natural governing party" reacts to falling to third place may in fact demand more than a single candidate seeking to cooperate.

Instead, I'd figure that the Libs' contenders will need to supplement the usual leadership questions of "who are you?" and "what is your vision for Canada?" with another core form of definition: "why do you think a Liberal party is needed to achieve your vision?". And if nobody offers a sufficiently compelling answer to the third question, then it won't much matter who runs for or against cooperation.

- Adam Radwanski expands on my theory that Tim Hudak has been let off far too easy for his complete lack of principle.

- Finally, Nathan Vanderklippe and Carrie Tait report on the latest pipeline spill - this one from Enbridge as it seeks carte blanche to decide what protections are needed for a Gateway pipeline. But as David Suzuki notes, the news of a spill really just means it's a day ending in "y".

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your Saturday.

- Susan Delacourt's mention of "likeonomics" as a branding strategy offers an interesting reference point for Canadian politics (particularly since our political scene has been radically reshaped by one obvious example of it in the 2011 election). But I'm not sure there's much new in the Cons' division of labour between Stephen Harper's attempt to portray himself as above political debate, and his designated attack dogs who work tirelessly at dumping partisan muck on any and all opponents. And David Climenhaga documents a few glaring examples of how "when in doubt, make it up" seems to be a consistent order from Harper to his lackeys.

- Meanwhile, Bruce Johnstone nicely points out that Harper has no business lecturing Europe on fiscal or economic management given that he's been a failure on both fronts.

- The Star criticizes the Cons' decision to pack dozens of major and unrelated policy changes into C-38, and challenges them to allow the debate that we should be able to expect.

- Dr. Dawg highlights another stunning change that the Cons have introduced with no apparent notice - a plan to set up military bases around the world which makes absolutely no sense given Canada's historical role in the world, but fits fairly nicely with Harper's apparent wish to be Canada's first Republican President.

- Finally, it's great to see that the federal civil service is joining the list of groups that's had enough of simply taking the Harper Cons' abuses without comment.