Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Doug Saunders discusses how Trump has made "anti-woke" messaging toxic around the globe by demonstrating how evil and destructive it is in practice - even as Pierre Poilievre insists on trying to peddle it in Canada. And Leyland Cecco reports on the increasingly pervasive and sophisticated misinformation being disseminated in the course of Canada's election campaign.

- Jorge Barrera reports on the unsubtle and unconscionable stunts from Ezra Levant and company in spreading misinformation and disrupting the leadership debate scrums for Poilievre's benefit. And Taylor Noakes points out how Poilievre functions as a useful idiot for the oil sector. 

- Joe Vipond and Seth Klein lament the lack of discussion of climate change in the course of an election campaign which is supposed to involve charting Canada's course in the world for decades to come. Clean Energy Canada highlights the massive opportunities available if we joint our non-U.S. trading partners in focusing on building a renewable energy economy. And the 89 Percent Project is set to launch some much-needed coverage as to how the vast majority of people support climate action which is being held back only by a few greedy fossil fuel tycoons and their political puppets. 

- Nick Pearce discusses the possibility of establishing social democratic zones as a counter to the perpetual corporate push for non-democratic areas. 

- Finally, Erin Reed rightly argues that countries need to be prepared to accept transgender refugees from the U.S. in the face of a regime which treats their existence as a crime. 

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Owen Jones points out Portugal's example as a demonstration that that there is indeed an alternative to austerity - and that it's better for public finances as well as for social progress:

During the years of cuts, charities warned of a “social emergency”. Now the Portuguese government can offer itself as a model to the rest of the continent. “Europe chose the line of austerity and had much worse results,” declared the economy minister Manuel Caldeira Cabral. “What we are showing is that with a policy that restitutes income to the people in a moderate way, people get more confidence and investment returns.”

Portugal has increased public investment, reduced the deficit, slashed unemployment and sustained economic growth. We were told this was impossible and, frankly, delusional. And so British workers endured the longest squeeze in wages since the 19th century, while the coalition did not even come close to meeting its commitment to eradicate the deficit by 2015. Why? In part, because low pay means workers paying less tax, receiving more in-work benefits, and spending less money. Portugal is increasing demand; the Tories suppressed it.

Portugal’s success is both inspiring and frustrating. All that human misery in Europe – and for what? What of Greece, where over half of young people languished in unemployment, where health services were decimated, where infant mortality and suicide increased? What of Spain, where hundreds of thousands were evicted from their homes? What of France, where economic insecurity fuelled the rise of the far right?
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Europe’s austerity has been justified with the mantra “there is no alternative”, intended to push the population into submission: we have to be grownups, and live in the real world, after all.

Portugal offers a powerful rebuke. Europe’s left should use the Portuguese experience to reshape the European Union and bring austerity across the eurozone to a halt. In Britain, Labour can feel more emboldened in breaking with the Tories’ economic order.

Throughout Europe’s lost decade, millions of us held that there was indeed an alternative. Now we have the proof.

- Meanwhile, Sharon Murphy discusses the growth of inequality in Canada as a result of deliberate policy choices favouring the wealthy over the rest of us.

- Lindsey Rose Bullinger and Kerri Raissian study how a higher minimum wage reduces the incidence of child neglect. And Dawn Foster highlights how precarious and low-paying jobs increase stress and create health problems.

- Emily Mathieu offers a look at Toronto through the eyes of some of its homeless residents.

- Finally, Jeremy Nuttall discusses the alt-right problem of Canadian conservatives who have nurtured a movement of hate. And Tabatha Southey rightly asks why it took so long for politicians to acknowledge and denounce it.

Thursday Evening Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Michael Lewis writes a fascinating piece on Barack Obama's life as president. And I'd think it's particularly noteworthy to consider Obama's self-discipline both as a model for self-improvement in theory, and as a risk factor in opening up a perception gap between a leader and his citizens:

“I want to play that game again,” I said. “Assume that in 30 minutes you will stop being president. I will take your place. Prepare me. Teach me how to be president.”

This was the third time I’d put the question to him, in one form or another. The first time, a month earlier in this same cabin, he’d had a lot of trouble getting his mind around the idea that I, not he, was president. He’d started by saying something he knew to be dull and expected but that—he insisted—was nevertheless perfectly true. “Here is what I would tell you,” he’d said. “I would say that your first and principal task is to think about the hopes and dreams the American people invested in you. Everything you are doing has to be viewed through this prism. And I tell you what every president … I actually think every president understands this responsibility. I don’t know George Bush well. I know Bill Clinton better. But I think they both approached the job in that spirit.” Then he added that the world thinks he spends a lot more time worrying about political angles than he actually does.

This time he covered a lot more ground and was willing to talk about the mundane details of presidential existence. “You have to exercise,” he said, for instance. “Or at some point you’ll just break down.” You also need to remove from your life the day-to-day problems that absorb most people for meaningful parts of their day. “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” he said. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.” He mentioned research that shows the simple act of making decisions degrades one’s ability to make further decisions. It’s why shopping is so exhausting. “You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.”

- I very much hope I'm right in suspecting that Ezra Levant's attempts to foment hatred against Roma Canadians will fall flat based on their sheer absurdity. But Karl Nerenberg and Dr. Dawg are right to make sure Levant's attacks don't go unanswered.

- Meanwhile, Bob Hepburn notes the sad irony in a Prime Minister winning an award for "democracy, freedom and human rights" while fighting each of those principles tooth and nail at home and abroad.

- And Laurel Sutherlin points out how the Trans-Pacific Partnership being pushed by Harper among others looks to leave a gaping hole in the democratic department:

The TPP is called a ‘trade agreement,’ but in actuality it is a long-dreamed-of template for implementing a binding system of global corporate governance as bold as anything the world’s wealthiest elite has attempted before. Of the 26 chapters under negotiation, only a few have to do directly with trade. The other chapters enshrine new rights and privileges for major corporations while weakening the power of nation states to oppose them. The TPP essentially proposes to establish a parallel system of justice where companies can sue countries in a tribunal of judges composed of unaccountable international trade lawyers with little to no process for appeal.

This wild bastardization of the concept of justice endangers everything from affordable medicines, internet freedoms and intellectual property rights to democratically enacted labor laws and environmental protections. And that’s not to mention the massive outsourcing of middle class jobs from the US to countries like Vietnam and Brunei.

This isn’t just a bad trade agreement, it’s a wish list of the 1%—a worldwide corporate power grab of enormous proportions. 

 - Finally, Andrew Jackson rightly challenges the theory that handouts to the corporate sector pay for themselves - at least for anybody who doesn't see increases in untaxed corporate income with no associated social benefits as an unbridled good.

Monday Evening Links

Assorted content to end your day.

- Yes, it's blasphemy to point out the obvious returns on public investments. But let's point out a couple more examples: Andrew Jackson wonders why we're not looking to lock in low interest rates, while Paul Krugman points out that infrastructure investments will offer even more bang for the buck than usual during an economic slump.

- But don't worry: at least our CEOs are doing just fine. So if the rest of us keep falling behind, well, what exactly is the problem again?

- Andrew Coyne gives away a few secrets to success in the field of punditry.

- Finally, Dr. Dawg shreds an Ezra Levant attack on Naheed Nenshi, and rightly questions whether there's any possible motive other than an excuse for ritual Muslim-bashing.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Canada's Prime Minister is openly advocating for the use of soldiers over mere books or arguments as a means of persuasion. Which of course means it's time to start making jokes about Thomas Mulcair.

- Speaking of whom, Mulcair's much-discussed comments also include one point which should speak nicely to the NDP's goal of continuing to build across Canada rather than looking for shortcuts:

Mulcair says he appreciates what Martin is saying, but he won't support a merger.

"He's doing a great job of putting an important idea out there, but I'm categorical," he said. "The reason we did so well in Quebec in particular, is the fact that we aren't the Liberals."

- Deep Climate posts a superb expose of the Ethical Oil Institute. [Update: And see also James Laxer on the myth that it's possible to build a sustainable economy primarily on volatile resource industries.]

- Finally, remember back when any comparisons between Jack Layton and Barack Obama were met with haughty dismissals to the effect that Layton could never match Obama's appeal? Just wondering.

Wednesday Morning Links

Assorted material for your mid-week reading.

- The Globe and Mail is the latest source to analyze whether corporate tax cuts have produced the promised returns over the past decade. And the result should come as no surprise:

(A)n analysis of Statistics Canada figures by The Globe and Mail reveals that the rate of investment in machinery and equipment has declined in lockstep with falling corporate tax rates over the past decade. At the same time, the analysis shows, businesses have added $83-billion to their cash reserves since the onset of the recession in 2008.
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In 2000, the combined federal-provincial tax rate was just over 42 per cent, ranking Canada near the top among industrialized nations. The combined rate has since fallen to 28 per cent, placing the country in the middle of the pack, and Conservative Leader Stephen Harper’s goal is to reduce it to 25 per cent by fiscal 2013.

Businesses were widely expected to use the extra money from successive rounds of tax cuts to build factories and offices and buy new machinery and equipment. At one time, they did just that. From 1960 until the early 1990s, corporations invested almost every penny of their after-tax cash flow back into the business.

But the tax cuts appear to have reversed decades of tradition. Investment in equipment and machinery has fallen to 5.5 per cent in 2010 as a share of Canada’s total economic output from 6.8 per cent in 2005 and 7.7 per cent in 2000, The Globe analysis shows.

- Which explains why Marc Lee's call for some Robin Hood tax policy figures to be just as beneficial on the economic front as the social one:

Unemployment is still just under 8%, which is good compared to the double-digit unemployment of the early 1990s, but not great compared to the expansions of the late 1990s and 2000s. Too much of the employment gains that have come are in part-time jobs, so added to the 1.5 million unemployed are another half-million or so who are under-employed.

That is not good for businesses in Canada. Nor is the fact that one-third of the gains in income over the past decade have gone to the top 1% of households. The super-rich use this income as a means of keeping score, but it is not spent in the real economy. Canada’s wealthiest could have $100,000 fall out of the trunk of their Porches and not even notice. Yet, further down the income ladder, we see record levels of household debt that are contraining spending.

Again, not good for business. A good business climate is one in which demand is strong, where people have good incomes are spending them on good(s) and services...

(A) little Robin Hood in our economic planning would do a lot of good, and as the economy rises so the deficit would fall. Adding in some new tax brackets for very high incomes, as the AFB has recommended, would be even better. Remember that corporate income tax cuts are tax cuts for the richest Canadians. Our economic policies should be judged by whether they increase inequality or not. We know that lower levels of inequality are better not just in stronger demand, but also in terms of broader health and social outcomes. A simple test: does this policy further enrich the already wealthy? If so, it must be rejected.

- Meanwhile, the Cons' caricature of a threat to the economy is no more accurate than their spin as to what's supposed to improve it:

Contrary to federal election campaign rhetoric, neither a minority nor coalition government would necessarily be a detriment to the Canadian economy, economists and political science experts say.

In fact, many argue that deficit reduction will have more lasting impact on the economy that than corporate tax cuts and other short-term spending decisions.
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“No matter who is in power we feel there is a consensus in Canada among the major political parties that deficit reduction is desirable. For us the bottom line is that reduction and elimination of the deficit over the next several years will be the goal of no matter which government is there.”

Federal debt ballooned to nearly 70 per cent of GDP. But that fell to 29 per cent by the end of 2008. It currently stands at about 34 per cent.

Any new budget introduced after the election is likely to show a similar path toward eliminating the budget deficit by 2016, which would be positive for the country’s credit rating, according to Moody’s.

- For those wondering whose side is worth listening to in Fox News North's latest attempt to pick a fight with a more reputable news source, Andrew Potter provides the quote of the day:

It’s amazing what sort of character assassination you can get away through chickenshit use of question marks (in Levant’s case). Or in Lilley’s case, through the deliberate withholding of facts. As Peter Loewen himself told Lilley when Lilley interviewed him for his March 31 story, Loewen did the same sort of work for Harper in 2004 that he later did for Ignatieff. Loewen was also a staffer for a Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative leadership candidate in 2005. And he once donated money to Pierre Poilievre’s nomination campaign.

This information was available to Brian Lilley, his editor, and to Ezra Levant. It is thoroughly despicable that it was not included in the stories that were published. What is going on here? In yesterday’s Globe and Mail, Simon Houpt suggests that Loewen just got caught up in a broader anti-CBC campaign by Sun Media, as it prepares to launch its new television station.

If so, that’s disgraceful enough. But I actually think something more basic is at work here: Intellectual prostitutes like Brian Lilley and Ezra Levant are so used to selling their brains on the cheap in journalism’s back alleys, they find it literally incredible that everyone else’s intellect is not similarly for sale.

- And finally, Dan Gardner reminds us how we got into a federal election campaign, and why the Cons' contempt of Parliament matters.

How indeed

I've already provided a partial answer. But it's still worth highlighting Dan Gardner's pointed questions on the disturbing turn taken by politicians on both sides of the border over the past decade:

How is it possible that in this most civilized of nations, in 2010, a member of Parliament felt the need to raise (the question of murder as a matter of policy)? And while we’re asking rhetorical questions that would not need to be asked in a sane world, how is it possible that the Republican party has so completely embraced aggression and brutality that almost all its leading figures feel the near-drowning of suspects is a valid interrogation technique and imprisonment without charge or trial is a legitimate practice that should be expanded? Why is it that most people in the United States and elsewhere are not disturbed in the slightest that, despite abundant evidence, American officials who apparently committed heinous crimes in the war on terror will not be investigated and held to account, while Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who apparently did nothing illegal this week, is hunted to the ends of the Earth? And how in hell is it possible that when a former president of the United States of America admits he authorized the commission of torture — which is to say, he admits he committed a major crime — the international media and political classes express not a fraction of the anger they are now directing at the man who leaked the secrets of that president’s administration?

I marvel at that paragraph. It would have been inconceivable even 10 years ago. Murder treated as a legitimate option in political discourse? Torture as acceptable government policy? No, impossible. A decade ago, it would have been satire too crude to be funny.

And yet, here we are.

Juxtaposition

Sun Media, apparently recognizing that some of Ezra Levant's baseless attacks carry serious long-term costs:

On September 5, 2010, a column by Ezra Levant contained false statements about George Soros and his conduct as a young teenager in Nazi-occupied Hungary.
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The management of Sun Media wishes to state that there is no basis for the statements in the column and they should not have been made.

Chris Selley, who apparently wants to see a far lower standard of shenanigan than even Sun Media is prepared to defend:

Sun Media made the smart move of bringing in former Calgary Sun columnist Ezra Levant, who’s become the company’s most prominent opinionated face.
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Leave the shenanigans to Mr. Levant. He’s good at it.

What thwap said

I'll add only that it's obvious enough why the likes of Ezra Levant don't have trouble "supporting themselves with their ignorant ravings", particularly based on the sheer number of dollars behind the industry he's shilling for in his latest. But otherwise...go read.

Dumbing down

A belated shorter John Doyle:

A conscience. An interest in accuracy. A sense of shame. These are the weaknesses which the Cons have long since eliminated in order to better posture on behalf of their party and ideology. And I salute them for it.

Inhuman

Most of the time, I try to avoid saying anything about Ezra Levant that can be avoided. But his latest column for Canadian Lawyer is one which otherwise seems far too likely to slip through the cracks - so I'll make an exception to point out just how eager Levant is to try to label somebody - anybody! - as less than human in order to attack the fundamental underpinnings of human rights:

In 1830, British ship HMS Falcon, with 30 crew, seized a pirate ship with 250 men. One report said: “the little crew was in no small difficulty, after the capture of their disproportioned antagonist, what to do with their prisoners, who, as soon as they had an opportunity, showed symptoms of an attempt to overpower them.”

When they reached Ascension Island, the pirates were hanged in batches of 20, with only the pirate captain and first mate spared, to be taken to Bermuda to be tried — all completely lawful, given the exigencies of the case.

Pirates are a special legal class: hostis humani generis, or enemies of all mankind. They are legally similar to terrorists under the Geneva Convention — literally outlaws. We tend to think of the word “outlaw” to mean someone who himself ignores the law. It actually means the opposite: someone who is beyond the pale so far that the law will provide him no protection, and vigilantes, mercenaries, and anyone else who hunts him will be unstopped by the law.
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Canada shouldn’t be playing the pirates’ game. We should be taking a page from the old HMS Falcon.

Now, I'd like to think that most readers would recognize that the developed world has learned a thing or two about the dangers of putting the power of summary execution into anybody's hands over the past couple of centuries. And one would expect that to go doubly for somebody who apparently spends the vast majority of his waking hours shrieking "tyranny! jackbooted thugs! Nazis!" at an administrative tribunal for daring to do its democratically-assigned job of trying to protect human rights.

But naturally, Levant's concern about the dangers of unfettered government power seems to end at exactly the point where he ceases to perceive any potential for it to be directed against him personally. When it comes to somebody who he figures he can safely label as "other", Levant goes several steps further than the Cons' apparent desire to start moving back toward capital punishment. Indeed, he's ready to start lumping together a group of sub-people who in his view shouldn't be protected by any principle of law (including any due process to determine whether they actually fall into the categories to which Levant is so eager to assign them).

So summary execution? Unbridled mercenary vigilantism? All fine for Levant - as long as the victim can be labeled as a "pirate". Or, by Levant's own connection, a "terrorist".

Of course, those terms are already in the process of being extended to apply to a wide swath of the population - with the act of downloading artistic content routinely classified as piracy by corporate copyright holders, and concern about the fate of innocent civilians in several parts of the world regularly labeled as support for terrorism by the same movement which provides Levant with his financial backing. And indeed, in some cases there are even concerted efforts afoot to drive people into exactly the type of activities which Levant thinks should strip them of their humanity.

Which presumably suits Levant and his ilk just fine, as anybody who follows his advice figures to offer another example for his next column as to who else should be tossed on the pile for summary disposal. But anybody who thinks that humanity (with its associated human rights) is inherent rather than being defined based on the whims of a society's most reactionary elements should pay attention to the fact that Levant is actively trying to convince people otherwise - and devalue his assertions elsewhere accordingly.

For the sake of consistency...

...it's surely only a matter of time before Jonathan Kay comments that the "day Ezra Levant had anything defensible to say about politics and world events seems to have come to an end", while a National Post headline writer describes Levant as "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's one-man fan club". Right?

Just wondering...

I've generally avoided wading into the Levant/Martin attempt to remove speech issues from the Canadian Human Rights Act. But let's test just how serious that position is.

Since I haven't yet seen anybody argue that the CHRA should be wiped out altogether, it seems there's some recognition that the Canadian Human Rights Commission is needed to ensure that federally-regulated businesses don't discriminate based on prohibited grounds. Or practically speaking, if a federally-regulated business puts up a notice on its website saying "we don't serve (insert group name here)", everybody seems to agree that's deserving of investigation and, if necessary, sanction.

Can anybody then explain why a similar notice on the same site which merely removes the "we" should be such a radically different issue as to be removed completely from the Human Rights Commission's jurisdiction?