Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Monica Curtis offers a reminder that even from the standpoint of a blinkered fixation on limiting costs, we're better off working to avert a climate breakdown rather than suffering its effects. Kenza Bryan reports on Swiss Re's warning that large areas are becoming uninsurable. And Jeff Goodell discusses the impending heat and other extreme conditions which keep climate scientists up at night even as they're blithely disregarded by petropoliticians.  

- Meanwhile, Sam Meredith reports on the IEA's projections showing an imminent decline in fossil fuel demand. And Oliver Vardakoulias and Giulia Nardi highlight how handouts to the oil sector don't produce the intended results for anybody but oil barons.  

- John Michael McGrath discusses how planning processes which don't recognize the importance of meeting the right to housing represent one of the main barriers to any attempt to give effect to that right. And Samantha Beattie reports on the nine-figure liabilities left over from Ontario landlords who turned large investments into personal benefits.  

- Finally, Jess Reia discusses the biases which result when the definition of "disorder" is set by the wealthy and privileged. And Crawford Kilian points out that there are plenty of sources of disinformation and foreign interference in Canadian politics beyond the ones investigated by Parliament's national security committee. 

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Jeremy Warren reports on the origins of the Idle No More movement - recognizing it as an ideal example of how a few people resolving to take action can have a massive impact on public discussions. And Tim Harper notes that Stephen Harper may be forced to revise his 2013 agenda to address the movement's concerns:

It has moved beyond the angry flare sparked by the bill and has grown, fuelled by young aboriginals deftly using social media, to represent the latest iteration of the festering conflict that has marked the Harper government — its determination to economically exploit resources over the objections of environmentalists and aboriginals who believe this regime is running roughshod over its ancestral lands.

But there is more, something even more fundamental, because movement leaders count 14 pieces of legislation — dealing with everything from education to water quality to financial accountability — that they believe are the laws of an adversary.

“The government of Canada has not upheld nor fulfilled its responsibilities to First Nations, as committed to by the Crown including at the Crown-First Nations gathering of January, 2012,” said Shawn Atleo, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, in an open letter to Harper and Gov.-Gen. David Johnston.

Atleo, until now, has been the calm face of an increasingly angry aboriginal population. But last month he told Harper and Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan that any goodwill and spirit of co-operation from last January’s summit has been squandered.

Idle No More spokeswoman Pam Palmater says there must be a “fundamental shift” in the relationship between Canada and First Nations.

“The treaty relationship was about mutual prosperity and sharing of the wealth,” she says. “Only one treaty partner has been wealthy and prospered.’’

- Meanwhile, Andrew Hanon writes that care workers whose benefits are being siphoned off by for-profit employers may prove to be the new face of organized labour in Alberta:

Employees at Monterey place are among the lowest paid in the continuing care industry in Alberta. Most are classified as part-time so they don't qualify for health benefits. There is no retirement plan at all.

The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, which began representing them in 2011, says there's no excuse for that. Alberta Health Services funds private operators for nursing staff wages and benefits at government rates, but Triple A is among a handful of companies that pay less and pocket the difference.

When the Monterey workers dug in their heels and demanded to be treated fairly, Triple A locked them out. Nearly five months later, they're still being kept from their jobs.
...
For many immigrants, especially women, the industry offers an opportunity to enter the workforce. Often, they start out in the kitchen or housekeeping and then advance to the nursing staff as health-care aides and licensed practical nurses.

However, this also offers some employers another opportunity to make their businesses even more profitable -- a workforce that can be exploited because of factors like weak language skills, lack of understanding of labour standards or even ignorance of fundamental Canadian rights.

For some bad actors in the industry, it's not enough to build a business model based on taxpayer handouts. They also have to pick the pockets of their own employees, hoping the workers won't know any better or be too intimidated to speak up.

That ruthless greed is why private seniors care is one of the fastest growing sectors becoming organized in the Alberta labour union movement. Turns out, this workforce of mostly kind, polite, family-oriented women is refusing to stand back and allow their bosses to take advantage of them, just like the miners and textile workers pushed back a century ago.

- But then, one might see the exploitation of care workers as just another example of how management theory has gone off the rails. Which brings us to Simon Caulkin's take:

The irony is that we know what makes companies prosper in the long term. They manage themselves as whole systems, look after their people, use targets and incentives with extreme caution, keep pay differentials narrow (we really are in this together) and treat profits as the score rather than the game. And it's a given that in the long term companies can't thrive unless they have society's interests at heart along with their own.

So why do so many boards and managers, supported by politicians, systematically do the opposite – run companies as top-down dictatorships, pursue growth by merger, destroy teamwork with runaway incentives, attack employment rights and conditions, outsource customer service, treat their stakeholders as resources to be exploited, and refuse wider responsibilities to society?

The answer is that management in the 1980s was subject to an ideological hijack by Chicago economics that put at the heart of governance a reductive "economic man" view of human nature needing to be bribed or whipped to do their exclusive job of maximising shareholder returns. Embedded in the codes, these assumptions now have the status of unchallenged truths.

The consequences of the hijack have been momentous. The first was to align managers' interests not with their own organisations but with financial outsiders – shareholders. That triggered a senior management pay explosion that continues to this day. The second was that managers abandoned their previous policy of retaining and reinvesting profits in favour of large dividend and share buyback payouts to shareholders.
...
Over the last decades, misconceived ideologically based governance has recreated management as a new imperium in which shareholders and managers rule and the real world dances to finance's tune. A worthier anniversary to celebrate is the death seven years ago this month, on 11 November, of Peter Drucker, one of the architects of pre-code management, which he insisted was a "liberal art". Austrian by birth, Drucker was a cultured humanist one of whose distinctions was having his books burned by the Nazis. In The Practice of Management in 1954 he wrote: "Free enterprise cannot be justified as being good for business. It can be justified only as being good for society".

- Finally, Don Lenihan compares the positions of Conrad Black and Andrew Coyne on foreign investment, and concludes that it only makes sense to recognize the limitations of Coyne's purely libertarian view of capital ownership while also establishing clear criteria as to when public intervention is required.

#skndpldr Roundup

With official forums on hold until January but the holiday lull not quite yet here, Saskatchewan's NDP leadership candidates have been fairly active over the last little while. So let's take a look at the latest developments.

- The latest fund-raising numbers are available here, and charted by Alice below:

What looks most noteworthy from November is a push by Ryan Meili in both fund-raising and expenditures. While his campaign has trumpeted its continued lead in donations, Meili also outspent his competitors substantially for the latest month, leaving him as the only candidate to end November with less cash on hand than at the start.

As with Trent Wotherspoon's early expenses that put his campaign into a deficit position, it will be worth watching whether Meili's spending produces measurable results. And if it doesn't, then Cam Broten may be in the best financial position for the second half of the campaign based on his lead in net revenue along with his large amount of spending room.

- Meanwhile, Meili also received a poetic endorsement from Lon Borgerson. But I do have to wonder whether it's too late in the campaign to move beyond poetry slams into the realm of epic rap battles.

- On the policy front, Meili unveiled his policy proposals on the environment, which notably goes beyond relying on SaskPower as driver of power conservation, and includes the observation that industrial users should be included in conservation efforts by being required to pay their fair share for power use. And Erin Weir's pension proposal includes a move at the provincial level to reverse the federal Cons' attacks on Old Age Security.

- Finally, Weir also offered another timely suggestion, responding to CNOOC's takeover of Nexen by noting that our royalty regulations should avoid allowing businesses to reduce Saskatchewan's royalty share by manipulating prices.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Frances Russell discusses how the Harper Cons have capitalized on the general public's lack of familiarity with how our parliamentary system is supposed to work - and the conventional checks and balances which have been overridden at every turn by a governing party which isn't interested in preserving a functional system of accountability:

Paul Thomas, professor emeritus of politics at the University of Manitoba, calls the debasement of Canada’s Parliament under the Harper Conservatives “stark.” He cites such recent developments as: the government forcing committees to meet in secret and muzzling opposition MPs from revealing anything that occurred to protect the government; drafting 400-page omnibus budget bills and ramming them through Parliament in marathon sittings allowing little or no debate; compelling opposition MPs to appear before committee to be interrogated because they offended the government; and controlling and managing the parliamentary press gallery.

Our system is based on the assumption that prime ministers and cabinets will respect constitutional traditions and unwritten conventions — not to mention democratic norms — and agree to be bound by them, Thomas said.

“So there’s always a presumption of a certain amount of restraint on the part of the prime minister. He has, not all the power, but most of the power, and he can make a lot of things happen and prevent other things from happening and if he’s bound and determined like Harper is, then you get someone who is more systematic, sweeping and more consistently controlling.”

Thomas said the government is determined to dominate the agenda, to engage in news management and to prevent unforeseen events from arising through Parliament. “It’s more systematic and across the board. They don’t see Parliament as a useful part of the governing process. They see it as a nuisance.”

- Meanwhile, Jordan Brennan points to corporate control as another source of conflict between citizens' interests and the actions of Canadian governments:

It turns out that there is a stunning historical relationship between relative firm size (corporate concentration) and the income share of the richest Canadians (inequality). In 1950, an average firm within the top 60 was five times larger than an average firm on the TSX. This ratio would slowly decline to three by 1977 and then, just as the Canadian state began to embrace ‘Chicago School’ principles, gradually rise to six by 1989 before surging to 23 in 2008 (see enclosed figure). What’s more, the pattern of this ratio is closely shadowed by the income share of the richest 0.1 per cent of Canadians.

The reasons for the growing concentration of income and corporate power aren’t hard to discern. After all, Adam Smith grounded his advocacy for laissez-faire in two counteracting principles: self-interest and competition. His ‘system of perfect liberty’ would optimize social welfare and enlarge human freedom so long as self-interest was always kept in check by the disciplining effects of intense competition between many small firms. Smith also believed that laissez-faire would entail a ‘perfectly equal’ distribution of income or conditions ‘continually trending to equality’.
...
Other effects of growing corporate concentration can be inferred, if we care to look. Despite extreme inequality, three decades of wage stagnation and a two decade-long decline in union density, politicians at all levels of government — cheered on by corporations — are attacking unions. Unions give a voice to ordinary people in the workplace and, historically, have strengthened middle class formation by ensuring that gains from growth are widely shared among lower income brackets. Their erosion is closely tied to the concentration of corporate power and increasing income inequality.

What does this have to do with democracy? Detractors will answer ‘nothing’ on the basis that the governing party is subject to elections. But as Josiah Ober — the Stanford professor of classics — makes clear, for the ancient Athenians who invented it democracy did not mean majority rule, nor did it hinge on elections. Democracy meant a regime of empowered citizens with the ability to effect change in the public realm. It was centred on the capacity of an ordinary citizen to do good things in the life of the community.

This means that democracy is not a condition Canadians have realized, it is an ideal we pursue. Democracy is weakened when important decisions about our collective future are removed from the public realm and put in the hands of the few. It is severely impaired when a small faction in the polity, in this case corporate Canada, exercises control over the levers of the state.

 - Andrew Coyne discusses the Cons' F-35 abuses as a prominent example of the breakdown of democratic accountability.

- And finally, Greg Weston, Jenny Uechi and Andrew Nikiforuk all criticize the Cons' nonsensical explanation for approving CNOOC's takeover of Nexen.

On sad traditions

I haven't commented much on the latest out of the federal Libs' camp. But I'll quickly expand on the similarities noted by Paul Wells between Justin Trudeau and some of his predecessors - who did so much to alienate progressive Canadians during their stay in power:

The other reason I think Pierre Trudeau would have recognized a familiar style in Justin Trudeau’s announcement is that the older man was hardly immune to taking stances that might alienate the drowsiest elements of his electoral base. He didn’t win three majorities on debating-club points. Take his decision in 1983 to allow Ronald Reagan to test cruise missiles over Canada. (If you take this walk down memory lane, stick around long enough to hear NDP foreign-affairs critic Pauline Jewett’s magnificent rant in rebuttal. “Isn’t this typical? Parliament’s not in session, six o’clock on a Friday afternoon they make the announcement hoping you’re not around either.” Plus ça change.)

Nor indeed does one need to make connections to Pierre Trudeau to see that Justin Trudeau’s stance has roots in solid, if lately undernourished, Liberal traditions. Winning Liberals have often been natural-resource Liberals. Here’s Chrétien this year at the world’s biggest mining conference in Toronto; he subsidized the oil sands up the wazoo and made an Edmontonian his natural-resources minister.

Of course, at the same time, Chretien paid lip service to fighting climate change without ever figuring out what he planned to do about it, pushed alarmist deficit-fighting and tax cuts ahead of any interest in social programs, and worked to slash the social safety net. And all this after rising to power on a relatively progressive platform - which of course went out the window after it had served its purpose of helping the Libs to win power.

Now, there's a case to be made that the Libs's most plausible path to put themselves into contention for government in 2015 involves digging the 1993 songbook out of the attic with Trudeau as the new frontman, while concurrently trying to make up a fund-raising gap by echoing the Cons' rhetoric in the hope that the resource sector will want to take them over as a hedge against Con losses.

But as is often the case, there's a massive difference between what's best for the Libs and what's best for progressive politics in Canada. And Trudeau's choice to push the idea that we should see ourselves as a "grocery store" eager to hand over whatever anybody will pay for might make for the most obvious conflict between the two yet.

If the Libs and their presumptive leader in fact plan to compete with the Cons for the title of the most resource-obsessed party while pulling in legacy voters in the process, they'll all too likely succeed only in muddying the waters of a choice between social and corporate values where the progressive side can win - while also raising the likelihood that the next non-Con government will follow the Cons' myopic focus on resource exploitation. And Canadian progressives should take care not to get trapped in that worst of all possible worlds - both in voting in tomorrow's by-elections, and in their choice of focus over the next few years.

On precedence

There's not much doubt that Canada's debates over the FNOOC/Nexen takeover bid and FIPPA investor privilege treaty with China have become intertwined. But it's worth noting that some observers seem to be misreading how the two will relate to each other - and we should be wary of confusion on both fronts.

Let's take for example Michael Den Tandt:

There are legitimate questions, as I have noted before, about both the detail of the FIPA, and the CNOOC-Nexen deal. The Harper government should have addressed these up front. Instead, it has played catch up. Its likeliest way forward now is to approve the takeover, but with stringent conditions. Bloomberg News reported Tuesday that CNOOC has accepted a requirement that the acquired company have 50 per cent Canadian representation on its board and in management.

If true, that is fascinating: Article 7 of the Canada-China FIPA says that “a contracting party may not require that an enterprise of that Party ... appoint individuals of any particular nationality to senior management positions.” The agreement allows that a majority of a board of directors be “of a particular nationality or resident of the territory of the Contracting Party,” but only if that does not “materially impair the ability of the investor to exercise control over its investment.”

For CNOOC to accept a 50-50 board and executive-suite split, therefore, would denote appreciable flexibility in the interpretation of the FIPA, to Canada’s benefit — perhaps driven by knowledge on both sides that the deal has become a hot potato.

Apparently, Den Tandt assumes that CNOOC's agreement to accept restrictions on its board and management will supersede the terms of the FIPPA. But there's another possibility as well: that CNOOC is perfectly willing to publicly accept a restriction which won't actually be effective.

After all, FIPPA contains no exception for restrictions on board and management entered into by agreement - only for ones already in place by the time the FIPPA enters into force. And so CNOOC may well be happy to go along with the Cons' desire to draw out the approval process, push to have the FIPPA approved first, then avoid any public commitment through the operation of a treaty which supersedes its promise.

Of course, there's a separate issue that a one-time restriction will do nothing to affect the interpretation of the FIPPA once it's put in place. And as Don Davies has noted, any ability to further monitor CNOOC's operations will be lost as soon as a one-time takeover is approved.

But while it's bad enough that we're being told yet again to accept one-time assurances in exchange for long-term fetters on public policy, there's a real risk we we'll end up getting neither.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- David Olive comments on the world food crisis, making the point that what we're lacking is some link between more-than-sufficient productive capacity and the nutritional needs of less wealthy people around the globe:

(A) permanently higher price for oil spurred successful innovation to reduce our reliance on petroleum products in realms outside of transportation and energy, along with a determined effort to find new sources of oil in increasingly remote places.

The global food crisis, by contrast, has not made us think differently about how we produce and use the fruit of the land. We have no national or global strategies for food-security or for nutrition. Speculators have not been reined in with limits on betting. And the powerful ethanol lobby hasn’t been shown the door, even though the production of ethanol consumes more energy than it returns as fuel.

And, conspicuously in the West, too much crop production goes into highly processed food drained of nutrients and fibre, accounting for a North American epidemic in obesity and diabetes.

- So naturally, your friendly neighbourhood wingnuts are focused on demolishing the few mechanisms left to ensure that mere workers have some say in the allocation of resources and the functioning of our economy.

- Michael Harris' latest column discusses how Canada's premiers are looking for the federal government to actually show some national leadership, rather than retreating as far as possible from the services most important to Canadians.

- Finally, Bruce Johnstone sees the proposed Nexen takeover as a litmus test in the application of the "net benefit" standard for foreign takeovers. And Erin Weir notes that whatever benefit Alberta may receive from a head-office promise, Saskatchewan looks to do nothing but lose out if the sale is approved.

Parliament in Review - March 29, 2012

There's been much ado about the NDP's position on trade agreements based on the Cons' recent publicly-funded cheerleading for free trade at any price. But for anybody looking for the NDP's actual view on trade, the House of Commons debates from March 29 offer a rather thorough indication.

The Big Issue

That's thanks to a Parliamentary debate on the Cons' legislation to implement a free trade agreement with Panama. And the NDP made clear that it's willing to reasonably review and support trade agreements in general - but that it won't be bullied into backing deals that give preferential treatment to tax havens and serve to attack international labour rights.

Hoang Mai and Laurin Liu emphasized the former concern when it came to Panama. Helene Laverdiere focused on the Cons' refusal to insist on a tax information exchange agreement as part of the package, while noting that the NDP didn't have similar concerns about a deal with Jordan. (Incidentally, Con MP Mike Wallace recognized that distinction as well - which only shows how dishonest the Cons have been in their recent push to claim the NDP opposes trade of any kind.) And Jinny Sims rightly pointed out that if we're interested in doing anything about tax havens, we need to incorporate that concern into a free trade agreement at the outset - rather than rewarding a bad actor with preferential treatment then hoping for something to change without our doing anything.

On the labour side, Lois Brown pointed to a checklist of as labour rights attached as an unenforceable schedule as justifying pushing through the deal without any further review. But Chris Charlton rightly shot back that a statement of principles isn't the same thing as the binding investor rights forced into the agreement. Jean Crowder pointed out that workers in both countries stand to suffer from the deal, while Dennis Bevington lamented the Cons' determination to lead a race to the bottom.

But the best overall statement of the NDP's position came from Don Davies:

Trade allows goods and services that are within the productive capacity or local expertise or resources of one country to be exchanged with those of another. That is why I can say certainly on behalf of the New Democrats that we believe trade is good. We believe it is desirable. We believe it is critical to our economy.

 

The question that should be raised with respect to any trade deal is the terms on which that trade ought to be conducted. Are there any principles, policies or rules that should be applied when Canadians consider the exchange of goods and services out of our country and the entrance of goods and services into our country?

...

(W)e believe that we should have a policy that pursues well-managed trade, not free trade, not a closed approach to trade, but fair trade. That is the approach to trade this party has taken every since the free trade debates opened up in this country some decades ago.


Why do we take this position? We believe that Canadians do not want goods and services that use child labour to enter Canada. We do not want goods and services that are the product of destructive environmental practices to enter this country. Canadians do not want goods coming to this country from countries that have very poor human rights records. Canadians do not want goods and services to enter this country when those goods and services come from an economy that is so fundamentally different from ours, with such lower standards that it actually hurts Canadian employers' ability to compete.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth May noted that the Panama deal figured to influence only a minimal amount of trade, then commented on the dangers of investor-state provisions which allow wealthy corporations to dictate government policy. Megan Leslie wondered whether the dealings between Canada and Panama would set up an exploitative relationship. Pat Martin observed that to the extent there is a disparity in influence, Canada's clout should allow it to help to elevate conditions in the smaller country rather than accepting that our employers will have to compete with Panama's wages and living conditions. Mathieu Ravignat noted that some Canadian companies have exploited workers and countries around the world, and that there's no value in defending the indefensible based on misplaced patriotism. Crowder criticized the Cons' secrecy in negotiating free trade agreements generally. Sims proposed a focus on multilateral rather than bilateral trade agreements. And Chris Charlton neatly summed up the Cons' position as "having espoused the principles of...robber barons".

In Brief

The other legislation debated on the day was the Cons' military justice bill. Jack Harris pointed out that the Cons had once again shredded agreements reached between multiple parties in the previous Parliament in order to dictate the terms of the legislation, while Chris Alexander then had the nerve to demand that the NDP approve the unilaterally-dictated legislation without debate. And Raymond Cote raised a concern about summary trials for minor offences resulting in a criminal record, while the Cons' "dumb on crime" posturing - including a refusal to distinguish between military and civilian crimes - apparently took precedence over "support the troops" when it came to their position on the rights of military defendants.

Meanwhile, Sean Casey rendered Steven Blaney redundant by anticipating his talking points to try to excuse repeated violations of veterans' privacy. Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe and Wayne Marston both noted that the OECD, the PBO and the Government of Canada's chief actuary had all rejected the Cons' spin that there was any need at all to cut Old Age Security, and asked why the Cons would plunge seniors into poverty by choice. In light of the Cons' plans to push through a pipeline owned by PetroChina, May asked when we could expect a national security test for foreign investment. Joe Comartin's Thursday question nicely framed a few of the bills which hadn't found their way before Parliament for some time. And finally, while Jim Flaherty's budget speech received plenty of attention, his attempt to excuse OAS cuts based on their being "far away" rather than, say, remotely justifiable as a matter of public policy looks to have deserved a bit more.

Parliament In Review: October 21, 2011

Friday, October 21 saw another day of debate focused largely on the Cons' anti-consumer copyright legislation.

The Big Issue

Once again, copyright was the largest issue, with Tyrone Benskin summing up what's wrong with the Cons' bill in its current form:

In its present form, Bill C-11 is an unequivocal failure. It outright fails to satisfy the two most important benchmarks we as parliamentarians use for evaluation. It fails to establish clear universally understood rules for consumers. It also fails to ensure equitable enforceable compensation rules for those people who dedicate their lives to the creative enterprise.

Meanwhile, the NDP also pushed back strongly against the Cons' "Ipod tax" spin, as Benskin, Joe Comartin and Sylvain Chicoine pointed out the difference between a tax and compensation for services. Robert Aubin noted that consumers generally have every reason to want to see creators compensated for their work, while Megan Leslie highlighted the fact that the lone beneficiary of the Cons' bill would be the corporate media. Leslie and Raymond Cote questioned the bill's massive penalties for what can be a positive action in finding ways around digital locks, while Comartin tied those penalties into the Cons' general philosophy of swamping Canada's courts and prisons with newly-declared offenders.

But for those looking to buy the Cons' spin about opposition obstruction, C-11 actually provides a rather important counterexample - as the NDP made clear its intention to have the bill considered and amended in committee rather than putting roadblocks in the way of better legislation.

In Brief

Hoang Mai cited the Canadian Index of Wellbeing in pointing out how growing inequality is making life worse for Canadian families. Scott Brison asked whether the Cons would demonstrate their supposed commitment to the "It Gets Better" campaign by reversing their malicious cuts to pride funding. Dennis Bevington pointed out a rather glaring contradiction in the Cons' spin about CanNor (with Stephen Harper declaring everything fixed even as the minister responsible said it was too early to know what had gone wrong), and noted that CanNor looks to have joined Tony Clement's G8 porkfest as an example of funding decisions being made at the political level rather than by non-partisan civil servants. Jean Crowder questioned the Cons' move to slam the door on family reunification by pointing out the importance of extended families in picking up the slack in areas like child care where the Cons have stifled any public programs. Finally, Claude Gravelle introduced a bill to ensure that the undertakings of foreign investors (given as a condition of their authorization to take over Canadian businesses based on a national interest test) be made public, while Ryan Cleary spoke to his bill seeking an inquiry into the Newfoundland cod fishery.

Saturday Afternoon Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- For those looking to paint foreign investment as a panacea for economic development, Paul Krugman offers up (via Kash Mansori) what should be a chilling correlation between capital imbalances and economic disaster in Europe. But of course, we know the actual response will merely be a declaration that the countries now suffering for buying into the corporatist mantra really just needed to go even further in that direction.

- The NDP is rightly focusing attention on the latest developments in Tony Clement's G8 scandal, as Clement looks to have influenced one of the mayors in the thick of the patronage into hiring a Clement acquaintance on request.

- Meanwhile, the Cons' claims not to have paid a ransom to kidnappers to free two diplomats in West Africa looks to have been entirely false. But have no fear: as far as Canadians are concerned, nothing happened which the Cons are prepared to discuss:

A spokesman for Mr. Harper’s office said on Friday that the government does not comment on leaked documents.

- Finally, Bruce Johnstone questions why the Cons are in such a hurry to demolish the Canadian Wheat Board:

Another huge issue is the fate of producer car loading sites - railroad sidings where farmers can load their own grain into railcars, bypassing the grain companies. From 700 sites 10 years ago, there are only 300 today, but they handle 12,000 railcars a year - four times as many as a decade ago. For farmers, those producer cars mean savings of about $1,200 per railcar.

Without the CWB handling producer car logistics for farmers, who will? The grain companies? The railways? Not on your life.

There are a host of issues that hinge on the single desk: the fate of the Port of Churchill and the Canadian International Grains Institute, to name two. One farm group said "the elimination of the single desk may well be the biggest change to agriculture on the Prairies in over 100 years."

So why is the federal government rushing into such a momentous change with its ideological blinkers on?

Parliament In Review: September 22, 2011

Thursday was another fairly short day of debate in the House of Commons due to the visit by UK Prime Minister David Cameron. But that doesn't mean there was any lack of perfectly telling content as MPs continued to debate the Cons' omnibus crime bill.

The Big Issue...

...was once again the Cons' crime bill. And one of the main opposition critiques discussed at several points yesterday looks to be one with some legs, particularly since it nicely parries the Cons' excuse for slashing the federal government.

Here's the concise form from Don Davies (which was followed by the extended version from Paul Dewar):

I hear the Minister of Finance repeatedly attack the Liberals about downloading costs to the provinces in the nineties. That is exactly what the current bills will do as well. They will download costs to the provinces because many of the people who go to jail will be in provincial institutions.

Of course, the fact that the costs of the Cons' crime bills will be borne largely by the provinces isn't exactly news. But it's still a point well worth emphasizing - particularly when it figures to mean lining up all but the most sycophantic of provinces on the right side of the issue.

Meanwhile, Vic Toews offered a couple of memorable if painful interventions - not only taking responsibility for the return of the "unreported crime" canard, but making the stunning statement that we should be concerned rather than proud about having more a humane prison system than the U.S.' mess (where Toews delights in inmates serving "real time").

And yet, somehow Toews managed to avoid contributing the most jaw-dropping statement from a Con MP. That honour goes to Joyce Bateman - who contributed this gem in response to Kirsty Duncan's mention of a study by the Canadian Paediatric Society criticizing (that's *criticizing*) the bill:

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague a question on her comments.

I understand from her comments that the Canadian Paediatric Society has approved our bill, the bill that is front of the House as we speak. I am very concerned that she is worried about that, because these are the front-line doctors. These are the people who see children hurt. These are the people who see the ravages of abuse. They see the ravages of sexual abuse on young children.

I am thrilled that the Canadian Paediatric Society is supportive of this bill, because their members are the first line and are able to see that.

Could my hon. colleague please explain why she is concerned with their support?

Now, it seems fairly obvious that Bateman must have mis-heard Duncan's statement. But surely anybody with a modicum of sense would have at least considered whether it made any sense for Duncan to contort her speech into a criticism of the Canadian Paediatric Society before choosing to ask a question focused on the point. And once again, all indications are that anything of the sort has long since been drummed out of the Cons.

In Brief

Peter Julian slammed the Cons for failing to enforce the terms of approval for foreign takeover deals, using Stelco as a prime example. Peggy Nash pointed out that the waste of two million unemployed Canadians is making our economic picture worse for everybody. And Christine Moore chose the occasion of David Cameron's visit to ask why the Cons won't follow his lead in taking commercial flights rather than using personal jets and helicopters.

Friday Morning Links

- I've pointed out the glaring problems with the Libs' pension policies before, with the most obvious being the fact that it's utterly useless for anybody who doesn't already have spare money that they don't know what to do with. But their White Paper adds into the mix the radical idea of...holding a meeting. Which will surely have retirees sleeping more soundly at night.

- The CCPA has produced a handy list of claims made under NAFTA. But while its focus is on the number of claims, it's also worth highlighting just how broad a scope of government action has been challenged.

Many of the claims involve environmental issues, ranging from conservation measures to limit the number of caribou hunted and salmon fished, to bans on dumping garbage in lakes, to laws prohibiting bulk water exports. But the scope of NAFTA chill also includes the laws that serve to protect a publicly-funded health care system, the decision to close the income trust tax loophole, and the operation of Canada Post - and there's no telling how many ideas have been squelched in the meantime due to fear of similar claims.

- Andrew Jackson offers his take on the ongoing potash issue:

It is easy to cast the Conservative decision as pure politics, and surely Harper and Clement were pushed into this against their will. But the fact remains that a major crack and division has opened up within the ranks of the conventionally wise, and that a welcome precedent has been set. If a take-over serves only the needs of investors and does not serve the national economic interest, then it should be rejected.

We can and should build on this decision to push for transparent public interest reviews of takeovers, and effective enforcement of any conditions imposed. Some foreign investments do make sense, but most come at a cost - the loss of head office and supplier jobs; the weakening of local economic linkages; loss of corporate tax revenue as higher corporate debt is taken on to finance the transaction; and, often, direct job losses and a deterioration in industrial relations as operations are squeezed to pay for the often excessive take-over premium.

- And finally, we can add another $300 million to the pile of money frittered away by the Cons with nothing of value to show for it.

Well said

Murray Mandryk on the most important lesson learned from the potash debate so far:

(T)he most positive outcome has been the reawakening of western passion for our resources.

Whether the right-wing business community and business media opposing Saskatchewan's position realized it or not, their arguments were remarkably similar to what westerners heard in 1981 from those in the east promoting Pierre Trudeau's National Energy Program.

We were treated to condescending lecture after condescending lecture about how Wall's position was somehow bad for a nation that must abide (at all costs) by free-market principles. Much of what we heard was nonsensical hyperbole -- fear-mongering that we'd somehow instantly turn into Albania if Investment Canada rejected (gasp!) the second of some 1,600 foreign takeovers it has approved in nearly a quarter of a century.

Overnight, we would become protectionists and anti-free traders incapable of ever again raising foreign capital. Obviously, the world would flock to safer investment havens of Russia, China and Venezuela.

Well, so horrific was Wednesday's decision that PotashCorp. shares fell $4.78 to $141.43, meaning that shares are now only $30 more than they were when the takeover bid was announced. Meanwhile, the TSX rose 207.7 points.

Clearly, the sky hasn't fallen.

So perhaps the biggest winner emerging out of Wednesday's announcement will be a nation that finally comes to the realization we shouldn't be so damn scared about safeguarding what is already ours.

The Decision, Part 1

A couple of brief notes on some potash decision or other that was made yesterday.

First off, it's worth being careful not to read too much into the 30-day response period provided to BHP Billiton to submit a reply. That period isn't an indulgence being granted by Tony Clement, but is instead required by section 23(1) of the Investment Canada Act.

Mind you, it says plenty about how our current legislation is set up that an applicant whose bid is rejected is automatically entitled to a do-over, while there's no formal mechanism to challenge a decision to approve a takeover. But at least for now, Clement hasn't done anything more in BHP Billiton's favour than he's required to by law.

Which isn't to say matters can't change in the next 30 days. And I'd keep a closer eye on these numbers than these ones in figuring out whether the Cons will figure it's safe to revert back to their apparent instincts on the bid - meaning that Kory Teneycke may be in for a busy month.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted weekend reading...

- The NDP's foreign investment plan looks to make for a noteworthy statement of the need to better consider the public's interest in trade decisions - and it only helps that it's in an area of particular expertise for Jack Layton:

The NDP Leader – who did his doctoral thesis on foreign investment – argued the Investment Canada review process is too secretive and has failed to ensure incoming direct investment is, in fact, in the interest of Canadian workers.

His motion would make explicit in the Act that the government would approve only foreign investment that brings new capital, creates jobs, transfers new technology into the country and contributes to sustainable development and improves the (lives) of Canadians.

Of course, it'll take support from other parties to actually get the changes made in law. But the principles set out by Layton look to be rather difficult to dispute - making the issue one which has serious potential to focus public attention on the gap between what's seen as good for foreign investors and what's actually best for Canada.

- While the Cons still seem to see themselves as having some hope of turning political party funding into an electoral winner, they're surely undermining their own case in whining about a "responsibility" to use tens of millions of dollars to flood Canadian mailboxes and airwaves with propaganda at public expense.

- No straight-talkin', Tea Party-like campaign would be complete without at least some dose of blatant deception. But I'm still surprised the truth about Rob Ford's campaign has come out this quickly - as any honeymoon he might otherwise have enjoyed as mayor surely has to be limited by the revelations about his campaign.

- Finally, Gerald Caplan is on a roll in his continued criticism of the Cons' attempts to brand themselves as competent economic managers in the face of all available evidence:

Who needs research, evidence, empirical analysis? All are seen as bothersome distractions Stephen Harper's Ottawa. That’s why the scientists who work for government agencies on critical issues of water and air quality, or toy safety, or food safety, or travel safety, are consistently ignored in favour of “research” done by private-sector interests on their own sector.

That’s why the government so blithely spends billions on dubious fighter planes, prisons, summits and the like (and I naively thought Conservatives loathed wasteful governments), goes ahead with billions in corporate tax cuts, and promises to balance the budget. One more Harper re-election, and there goes services and benefits.

Can a government that has forfeited all claims to credibility actually sell itself as the best economic managers for Canada? Can Canadians really be so forgetful, so credulous, so gullible? Is Rob Ford just the beginning?

On failed strategies

[EDIT: Post removed by request.]

Point-counterpoint

Robert Silver displays his depth of understanding of the foreign investment review process associated with BHP Billiton's potash takeover bid:

This is just the latest example of the one-way street that is now Canadian federalism. If a Canadian prime minister has anything to say about what any province is doing in provincial jurisdiction, he is a centralizer who doesn’t understand the Constitution and is jeopardizing national unity – all really bad things. A Canadian premier interferes in federal jurisdiction – and I have never heard an argument that approving foreign investment is anything other than federal responsibility – and said premier is just standing up for his province.

The Investment Canada Act, in sections not revised since 1995, begs to differ with the assertion that provinces shouldn't have any say in a foreign investment review:

19. The Director shall refer to the Minister, for the purposes of section 21, any of the following material received by the Director in the course of the review of an investment under this Part:
...
(d) any representations submitted to the Director by a province that is likely to be significantly affected by the investment.
...
20. For the purposes of section 21, the factors to be taken into account, where relevant, are
...
(e) the compatibility of the investment with national industrial, economic and cultural policies, taking into consideration industrial, economic and cultural policy objectives enunciated by the government or legislature of any province likely to be significantly affected by the investment;

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content for your holiday reading...

- John Moore points out why expertise shouldn't be considered a bad thing:

I don’t know about you but I like specialized knowledge. I like people with a mastery of their trade flying my planes, performing my surgery and designing my bridges. Experts are people who know stuff. They use their specialized knowledge to plan urban transportation strategies, establish the acceptable level of poison in our food and draw up plans for things like nuclear plant meltdowns.

It doesn’t mean the experts are right about everything, nor that we have to lie down and take everything government dishes out, but when a career statistician says a voluntary long form census is useless, I tend to put that advice ahead of the “gut feeling” and “mother instinct” so prized by the Tea Partiers.

Of course I know that by writing this column, I’m just part of the problem. That’s the caprice of populism; it’s buttressed by a form of epistemological closure. Anyone who dares question the new anti-snobbery is merely trying to protect his sinecure and privilege.

But as American senator Sam Rayburn once said, “Any jackass can kick a barn down. It takes a carpenter to build one.”

- Though sometimes it is worth noting when an expert's self-interest can lead to counterproductive results. And Bruce Livesey makes much that point in picking up on the harms of financialization in Canada's steel industry:

In a paper he co-wrote earlier this year, Lazonick says “financialization” is where corporate executives are obsessed with distributing value to shareholders at the expense of investment in innovation and jobs. He says it’s having a pernicious affect on the North American economy facing aggressive challenges from Asia, especially China. “In the 2000s the financialization of the US business corporation undermined the innovative potential of marketization and globalization, thus not only exacerbating inequity and instability but also restricting the potential for economic growth,” writes Lazonick. “Despite the financial meltdown of 2008, there are scant signs in the 2010s of institutional changes that will constrain the destructive behavior of financialized corporations.”

One of the results of the aggressive invasion of hedge funds and investment funds into the Canadian steel industry was its demise as a nationally-owned industry. Between 2005 and 2007, the entire Canadian steel industry was sold off to foreign corporations.

At the very time that Canada’s industrial base is in such dire straits, one of our essential industries was bartered away. And finance capital had a lot to do with it.

- Don Boudria and other Libs are up in arms over the addition of MPs to the list of "public office holders" for the purpose of lobbying registration. But while I'm sympathetic to the argument, wouldn't it sound a lot more plausible if the Libs weren't so eagerly giving away far more fundamental elements of Parliamentary privilege?

- Finally, pogge is entirely right in noting that by negotiating (however meager) wage increases while refusing to even consider actually funding their cost, the Cons are effectively enlisting civil servants in the destruction of their own departments.