Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Fiona Harvey reports on the UN's warning that fossil fuel propagandists are engaged in a massive disinformation campaign to keep us spewing carbon pollution, while Petra Stock discusses new research showing how false denialism is seen as more credible the more often it's repeated. And John Woodside reports that Canada's oil and gas sector is predictably trying to suppress any reporting and sharing of accurate information about greenhouse gas emissions. 

- Meanwhile, Carl Meyer reports on the constant contact between pseudo-populist Pierre Poilievre and fossil fuel lobbyists. And Matt Simmons and Mike de Souza report on TC Energy's attempt to work political channels within the B.C. premier's office after a report emerged on its multiple environmental violations. 

- Climate Central examines how the effects of a warming planet include dangerously high nighttime temperatures. And Michelle Gamage discusses how poverty more than doubles one's risk of dying from extreme heat - though it's worth noting the converse that relative wealth doesn't bestow immunity either. 

- Michael Phillis reports on the Environmental Protection Agency's emergency order against the use of a pesticide which harms fetal development. And the Canadian Press reports on research showing that ultrafine air pollution particles were responsible for 1,100 deaths in Toronto and Montreal alone over a 15-year span. 

- Diane Taylor discusses how truth is the antidote to racist violence. But Luke LeBrun highlights how Pierre Poilievre is deeply committed to lying in order to preserve potential support on the lunatic fringe. And Joan Westenberg writes that there's no more sure path to to far-reaching platforms and consistent income than to claim  have been "canceled" for one's bigotry. 

- Finally, Kevin Watkins reports on the prospect that the G20 could lead the way in eliminating hunger and extreme poverty - though there's reason to be concerned that international discussions won't be matched by budgetary resources. 

On preferential treatment

Chris Selley's thread trying to justify a fully effective anti-COVID strategy does manage to make an extremely strong statement. But it's not the one he means to - and it speaks volumes about Canada's warped priorities if we accept his examples and reasoning in the context of the violent law enforcement that we have been told to accept for far less valid purposes. 

The core of Selley's argument is this:

I used to think the simplest explanation of how the Australian model was inconceivable in Canada was to imagine (a) rich people not being allowed to go to the cottage; and (b) police actually enforcing that rule.

— Chris Selley (@cselley) December 14, 2020

But another good one is this: imagine a Canada in which police dispersed protesters for salubrious causes like Black Lives Matter, and arrested the organizers, and mass-arrested people protesting for insalubrious causes like anti-masking.

— Chris Selley (@cselley) December 14, 2020

So let's unpack the problems with this line of thinking.

The first issue is the assumption that any excessive enforcement action taken by Australian police is a necessary component of a full lockdown strategy. And that's a readily disputable point.

Some of us don't see a contradiction between recognizing the harmful excesses and wrongful choices associated with the pursuit of a necessary cause - least of all to the point of abandoning the latter in the bare hope of avoiding the former.

By way of analogy, Canada has rightly apologized for the heinous internment of Japanese-Canadians during World War II. But that wrongful treatment of people in the name of an underlying conflict doesn't serve on its own as anything approaching a full answer to the question of whether that conflict as a whole was worth pursuing. And indeed, most of us would rightly be ashamed of the former while recognizing the justification for the latter. 

That said, Selley is also glaringly wrong in assuming that the tactics he decries don't surface in Canada. And it's telling when they're actually used, and what consequences tend to result.

There are plenty of more recent instances of protesters being dispersed and mass-arrested, often in a violent manner, for the exercise of free speech rights, most of them fitting into the same pattern described below. 

But let's remind ourselves of perhaps the most prominent example in the past few decades: the mass arrest and kettling of 1,100 people protesting the 2010 G20 summit in Toronto.

So what devastating consequences were there for the architects of that calculated assault on civil rights? Well, a single officer ended up facing some loss of paid vacation days. And the chief in charge saw his career derailed to the point of finding his way into the federal cabinet with responsibility for public safety. 

Of course, those were mass arrests in the interest of protecting powerful and privileged people from being exposed to the existence of dissent. Which brings us to the question actually raised by Selley's examples. 

Is it the case that we're willing to grant a superpriority to the convenience of the wealthy and powerful in all circumstances - both in allowing for the use of force to insulate them from criticism, and in rejecting any law enforcement which might ensure they don't blithely endanger the entire population with their disregard for public health?

Or do we have enough of a sense of social cohesion to recognize that even the richest may have to face some change to the life they normally purchase when the common good is at stake?

Selley may well be right as to where the lines are currently drawn. But if so, that speaks to a desperate need to redraw them - not to a reason to claim we can't do what Australia has already done.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Alexander Panetta reports on the G20's agreement on the need to crack down on tax evasion - as well as the steps Canada needs to take to get our own house in order:

The final communique warned of actions against countries that don't agree within a year to adopt bank-reporting standards being promoted by international agencies.
...
One section of the G20 communique applies to more countries, including Canada. It says countries must do a better job of tracking down the true owners of companies, specifically those who might be hiding behind strawmen.

Dennis Howlett says Canada is currently in non-compliance with that provision. The executive director of Canadians for Tax Fairness says oversight is especially weak in some provinces.

"Canada has a lot of work to do to comply with the international standards on transparency of beneficial ownership," he said.
...
A recent report by the group Transparency International said Canada runs afoul of multiple internationally-agreed standards set by the G20. It says Canadian law doesn't properly define beneficial ownership — the true identity of people drawing profit from a company. It also says authorities aren't required to track their identity, nor can they easily access their identity.

- Steven Chase confirms that the Libs' choice to approve a massive arms deal with Saudi Arabia came long after they were aware of increasing human rights abuses. And Susana Mas highlights the Libs' limited and selective disclosure of the facts they're willing to share publicly even now.

- Raul Aldaz reviews Gianluca Passarelli's study of the presidentialization of political parties around the world. And in what looks to offer a prime example, Tim Naumetz points out Justin Trudeau's plan to take any remaining policy-making levers out of the hands of the Libs' membership.

- Duff Conacher suggests that we can look to Quebec for an example in taking big money out of party politics.

- Finally, Trish Kahle discusses the need and opportunity for the labour and environmental movements to develop shared goals, rather than allowing cynical corporate interests to pit them against each other:

Environmental politics must become generalized in the labor movement, and vice versa. The language of climate justice has already begun to infuse a sense of class politics into environmentalism, and green groups’ support for recent labor struggles is a promising step forward. Initiatives like the Labor Network for Sustainability, Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, and the BlueGreen Alliance are helping to connect the dots. But environmentalists must go further, acknowledging that there can be no real solution to the energy crisis without the input and leadership of the people who already do the work. Understanding the climate crisis as part of neoliberalism’s larger attack on public welfare and democracy (with the impacts, like all social failings in the United States, experienced more acutely by people of color and particularly by African Americans) can help expand the terrain on which both unions and climate activists struggle.

Ultimately, we live in the world we build. That world is both social and ecological, constantly made and remade through what sociologist Jason Moore has described as “the web of life.” If organized labor—and the climate—are to have a fighting chance, unions must offer real alternatives to the world of “shared sacrifice” and dead zones, of poisoning by austerity, of cheap fuels and cheap lives. What would it take for today’s coal-belt communities, channeling the Miners for Democracy, to fight not against EPA regulations but for jobs restoring lands destroyed by mountaintop removal mining? What would it take for union activists to have a meaningful say at the next international climate talks?

This work is just beginning. But with a shared vision to guide it, labor environmentalism can take us far. Its core demand is simple: to build a world that all of us, not just the rich or white, can actually live in.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Joseph Stiglitz notes that the recent stock market turmoil may be most important for its effect in highlighting far more important economic weaknesses. And Richard McCormack discusses the link between stock buybacks, inequality and economic stagnation - meaning that a plan to eliminate loopholes for stock options may also have positive spillover effects for the economy as a whole.

- Barry Schwartz writes about the meaning of work, while noting that a focus on theoretical efficiency by eliminating all satisfaction from a work day may be leading to worse results for employers and employees alike:

(W)hen given the chance to make their work meaningful and engaging, employees jump at it, even if it means that they have to work harder. Such cases should serve to remind us there is a human cost to routinizing and depersonalizing work. Too often, instead of being able to take pride in what they do, and derive satisfaction from doing it well, workers have little to show for their efforts aside from their pay.
...
In the face of longstanding evidence that routinization and an overemphasis on pay lead to worse performance in the workplace, why have we continued to tolerate and even embrace that approach to work?

The answer, I think, is that the ideas of Adam Smith have become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy: They gave rise to a world of work in which his gloomy assumptions about human beings became true. When you take all opportunities for meaning and engagement out of the work that people do, why would they work, except for the wage? What Smith and his descendants failed to realize is that rather than exploiting a fact about human nature, they were creating a fact about human nature.

The transformation I have in mind goes something like this: You enter an occupation with a variety of aspirations aside from receiving your pay. But then you discover that your work is structured so that most of those aspirations will be unmet. Maybe you’re a call center employee who wants to help customers solve their problems — but you find out that all that matters is how quickly you terminate each call. Or you’re a teacher who wants to educate kids — but you discover that only their test scores matter. Or you’re a corporate lawyer who wants to serve his client with care and professionalism — but you learn that racking up billable hours is all that really counts.

Pretty soon, you lose your lofty aspirations. And over time, later generations don’t even develop the lofty aspirations in the first place. Compensation becomes the measure of all that is possible from work. When employees negotiate, they negotiate for improved compensation, since nothing else is on the table. And when this goes on long enough, we become just the kind of creatures that Adam Smith thought we always were.
...
To be sure, people should be adequately compensated for their work. Recent efforts across the country to achieve a significant increase in the minimum wage represent real social progress. But in securing such victories for working people, we should not lose sight of the aspiration to make work the kind of activity people embrace, rather than the kind of activity they shun.

- Tana Ganeva exposes how some of the lucky few most insulated from homelessness and poverty demean the people who struggle to face those obstacles every day. And Jeffrey Simpson theorizes that our politics are lacking for big ideas and generosity.

- Edward Keenan writes that the most disturbing aspect of the G20 police abuses was the eagerness with which the people responsible for maintaining social order abandoned any attempt to preserve democratic rights.

- Finally, Aaron Wherry discusses the "snowflake" organizational model which is developing as the alternative to top-down messaging. And that model may make for an interesting contrast against the Cons' most limited broadcasting structure yet, as candidates are being told not to engage with media, public debates or any other format which could possibly deviate from central messaging.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- The Star's editorial board writes that five years after police committed serious human rights violations at Toronto's G20 summit, nobody seems to have learned any lessons from the abuses. And David Lavallee tells his story of being interrogated for a "precursor to terrorist behaviour" based solely on his having filmed a pipeline for a documentary.

- Ian Gill argues that the impending federal election will may represent a last opportunity to take Canada off of a path toward environmental destruction. And Brian Kahn notes that the rest of the world is predictably shifting toward cleaner energy whether we're on board or not.

- Gillian Steward reports on Rachel Notley's precedent-setting participation in the UN's next climate-change conference (in contrast to past Alberta premiers who tried to fight climate action). And Dennis Howlett points out that to the extent there was any doubt, Saskatchewan is now Canada's worst climate laggard.

- Sara Mojtehedzadeh reports on widespread wage theft in Ontario, along with the distinct lack of enforcement mechanisms to reliably recoup what workers are owed.

- Finally, Robyn Benson highlights how the Cons had to break every rule in the book to force Bill C-377 through the Senate. And Bill Tieleman writes that the result is to impose exactly the type of useless red tape the Cons claim to oppose everywhere else on Canada's labour movement.

On inevitable abuses

Justice James Stribopoulos sees the G20 human rights abuses as highlighting the problems with handing over poorly-defined powers to law enforcement:

In an essay published in a new book on policing during the summit, Justice James Stribopoulos blames the abuses that took place on an absence of specific legislation to “confine, structure and check police discretion” during large events, which he says is “long overdue.”

“Unfortunately, without that, the legal framework that helped facilitate the civil liberties abuses that marked the G20 Summit in Toronto will persist,” he writes in Putting the State on Trial. “And that, I fear, will make a repeat appearance somewhat inevitable.”

And surely the need for checks and balances is even more obvious when it comes to secret police. So let's see how the terror bill passed by the Cons and the Libs does on that front (emphasis added):

Bill C-51 erodes the distinction between CSIS’s traditional intelligence gathering role by giving it broad new powers to engage in law enforcement–type activities. Under Bill C-51, CSIS would be able to take “measures” to reduce threats to the security of Canada. For example, s. 12.1(1) of the proposed act states,

If there are reasonable grounds to believe that a particular activity constitutes a threat to the security of Canada, the Service may take measures, within or outside Canada, to reduce the threat. 

The power under s. 12.1 is broadly defined, giving CSIS virtually unfettered authority to conduct any operation it thinks is in the interest of Canadian security. The definitions are so broad that they could apply to almost anything...

Of course, it may take far more time for any "measures" to become known given that they can be carried out in secret. But we can safely say that C-51 is based on exactly the same philosophy of unfettered authoritarianism that led to the G20 abuses - and it's entirely foreseeable that we'll see the same results.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Tom Bergin reports on a predictable corporate attack on the very idea of government sovereignty - as tax evaders are insisting that their own demand for "certainty" in the availability of tax havens should trump the ability of tax authorities to assess where revenue should be taxed:

The companies said the existing practice of recognizing inter-company transactions gave business greater certainty and encouraged trade by helping ensure the same profits were not taxed more than once.

Business groups were also cool on a proposal tabled in June by the Group of Eight (G8) leading developed economies, that companies should provide information to tax authorities on their earnings and tax payments on a country-by-country basis.

- And we can probably count on the Cons for one being highly sympathetic to the view that institutional cover-ups are more important than factual and fair policy - as the firing of EI whistleblower Sylvie Therrien confirms.

- Karl Nerenberg points out Thomas Mulcair's neat skewering of Stephen Harper when it comes to Harper's loud proclamation that he personally reviewed and approved Pamela Wallin's expenses. Andrew Coyne wonders why the Cons dedicated a shady, party-wide cover-up operation to something as mundane as Senate expenses, while Lawrence Martin documents Harper's relationship (or lack thereof) with the truth.And Tim Harper observes that the Senate has made an airtight case for its own abolition.

- Kathryn May reports on the latest anti-worker legislation slipped into the Cons' omnibus budget bill. And Thomas Walkom sees the union-bashing as a distraction from the Cons' Senate corruption.

- Finally, Fraser Harland and Mark Dance discuss how the Cons have harmed Canada's federal government for decades to come:

Could there be a more politically awkward and unpopular case for a future finance minister to try to make than that deficits are not always bad and that one’s own government need not be kept on such a short leash?

This is not the first time that the Harper Conservatives have set out to pin their successors to the wall.

The death of the long-form census undermines the ability of future governments to pursue smart and informed social policy, the equivalent to covering up the eyes and ears of the public service. Broken threads of data have guaranteed the illegibility of long-term trends, enfeebling the capacity of governments to make smart choices for future generations.

The same strategy is at play on the government’s fiscal flank. The cuts to the GST were roundly criticized by policy experts for blowing a hole in government coffers while doing little to alleviate the financial burden of individual Canadians. Once again, though, reversing this policy decision would require a serious expenditure of political capital by a future government from which it could be difficult to recover.
...
Taken together though, these measures show themselves to be more than just short-term vote grabs. Rather, they are political and legislative ropes around the wrists of future governments as well as blindfolds over their eyes. To the extent that reversal of these measures is possible, it would in many cases involve complex and counterintuitive policy explanations to voters, likely to devastate their champions in the polls.

Calling Harper a visionless incrementalist is currently a popular trope for the opposition parties and liberal pundits. However, they should not lose sight of the fact that Harper’s goal could be to handcuff and constrain government far beyond his own tenure. In that respect, he may turn out to be a visionary after all.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Duncan Cameron discusses how the G20 is dancing around the problem of corporate tax evasion. The Economist issues a call to action against offshoring. And David Atkins points out what's more likely needed to deal with a global problem which can be exacerbated by just a few defectors:

What is needed are global treaties with negative enforcement mechanisms, including but not limited to potential tariffs and sanctions, for nations that refuse to put rules in place to curb corporate theft and malfeasance. Nations that allow corporations conduct the worst forms of corporate tax evasion and arbitrage should be made pariahs as surely as those who harbor terrorists and violate the most basic human rights. Like most white collar crime, the cause and effect between harm done and suffering received is indirect, so it lacks the same emotional stigma. But the removal of trillions of dollars from the world economy into corporate tax havens that could have gone to education, infrastructure, climate change abatement and poverty alleviation directly damages and even destroys the lives of hundreds of millions of people, just so that a few can live the most opulent lives of any creature on the planet in its entire history.

The world doesn't currently have such international protocols. But it should. And in time, it will. When it does, our age will have seemed quite barbaric indeed.

- Laurel Rothman and Andrew Lynk comment on the link between health and poverty in Canada. CBC highlights Canada's place at the bottom of the list of comparable OECD countries when it comes to funding early childhood education. And while I don't fully agree with his concerns about social programs, Jordon Cooper discusses how the difficulty of surviving poverty makes it far more difficult to build a life in the longer term:

A study entitled Some Consequences of Having Too Little was published last year, in which researchers considered how the scarcity of resources changed behaviours. When you have nothing, your focus is on acquiring that basic need, which uses up your good decisions and distracts your brain from its ability to make good decisions in other areas. Those constant survival needs take up a lot of time and energy that should be used in other areas.

Of course this leads to poor decisions, because our focus is on what we don't have, not on what it needs to get ahead. Our desire to deal with the stress leads to impulsive decisions. The immediate gratification helps in the short term, but causes problems later if rent money is used or if money is borrowed.
...
A wide-scale study in Britain showed that the longer people were homeless and in shelters, the worse off they were and the less they were able to cope. It's why "housing first" programs are so important. Margins and security allow you to go on to tackle other issues such as employment or health. Those margins are helped by having savings and money, but our social services system now barely keeps people alive. No wonder it is so hard to escape the cycle.

- In contrast, Andrew Coyne figures all we really need to do in order to claim victory over poverty is move the goalposts - preferably to ground level around the 20-yard line compared to the once-agreed standard of eradicating child poverty altogether.

- Mike Hudema discusses the Cons' failures when it comes to rail safety. And Leslie Young reports on Alberta's pitiful enforcement of environmental laws.

- But lest we worry that the Petro Party won't tolerate any accountability at all, we can rest assured that whistleblowers will continue to be subject to severe repercussions.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Justin Ling writes that the Cons' aversion to accountability isn't limited to their own government, as they're one of the few holdouts against transparency in resource-sector reporting of payments to governments abroad.

- Meanwhile, Stuart Trew discusses an international citizens' initiative to keep the Trans-Pacific Partnership from imposing harmful copyright rules:

A coalition website, launched this week as a 17th round of TPP negotiations gets underway in Lima, Peru, calls on TPP negotiators to "reject copyright proposals that restrict open Internet, access to knowledge, economic opportunity and fundamental rights." The website gives people an opportunity to send the same message and receive regular updates on Fair Deal campaign actions and successes.

"A fair deal on copyright in the TPP takes into account the interests of Internet users, libraries and archives, those with disabilities, educators and business innovators as well as creators," says Susan Chalmers from InternetNZ, one of 30 founding members of the new campaign. "We're all part of the Internet economy. The Fair Deal coalition is promoting fair copyright standards for the TPP that reflect the needs of the broadest cross-section of society."

These beliefs are shared by many TPP participating countries. Peru's chief negotiator, Rodrigo Contreras, wrote in a popular Peruvian magazine this week that the country should avoid limits on access to knowledge online and the over-extension of copyright protection terms for books, movies or music, that limit their availability in libraries and schools, and that would make it more expensive for lower income people.

- Paul Krugman looks at Ireland as a prime example of gross economic numbers bearing no particular relationship to the actual strength of an economy - as profits moved there out of convenience are doing nothing whatsoever to reduce 14% unemployment. (Needless to say, it's always a good time for a reminder that's exactly the model the Saskatchewan Party wants to inflict on the province.)

- And Leif Larsen reports that still more Irish workers who have lost their jobs to corporatist mismanagement are being used to hurt workers in Canada - this time to avoid the possibility that workers on Manitoba construction sites might attempt to unionize.

- Jessica Bruno writes that the Cons' cuts to research extend to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada,

- Finally, Rosie DiManno rightly criticizes the gall of Toronto's police in rewarding themselves for the civil rights abuses perpetrated at Toronto's 2010 G20 meeting.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Plenty of commentators are rightly speaking out against the Cons' anti-democratic omnibus bill, including Tim Harper and the Star-Phoenix and Vancouver Sun editorial boards. And even John Ivison can't muster much more than "but the Libs did it too!" in defence of the Harper government's abuses.

- Rachel Mendleson reports on new research confirming the connection between inequality and worse health outcomes.

- Nobody should be particularly surprised that the Cons listed PR as one of the main reasons to suppress dissent when holding G8 and G20 meetings. But is "embarrassment" the right word to describe a government that's been training for ages to be incapable of shame or self-awareness?

- Finally, Hassan Arif nicely describes the need for long-term thinking that takes environmental concerns into account (rather than the Cons' "drill baby drill" level of economic planning):

Properly accounting for the ecological side of the equation can bring great monetary and quality of life benefits. An example that is relevant, even though not directly related to the tar sands, is the Greenbelt in Ontario where urban and suburban development is restricted in the greenbelt zone around Greater Toronto and the urbanized "Golden Horseshoe" along the western shores of Lake Ontario.

The purpose of this greenbelt is to protect forests, natural areas, and farm land from suburban sprawl. A report by the David Suzuki Foundation has estimated the monetary benefits of this green belt as being at $1-billion per year. In particular, watersheds protected by the greenbelt absorb and filter pollutants from waterways and drinking water sources as well as control the flow of water during storms.

Additionally, in curbing sprawl, the greenbelt promotes more sustainable urban development where there is less strain on infrastructure such as hydro and transportation where costs can become prohibitive with more spread out developments.
...
There needs to be a proper debate around economic development, and overall an approach to economic development that factors in ecological, public health, and quality of life aspects. However, this approach does not conform to the narrow and myopic world view of the Harper Conservatives. That they would not only ignore dissenting voices in this regard, but demonize and even suppress them, is especially worrying for our country as a whole.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your long weekend reading.

- While some of us may recognize that there's little reason to lend much credence to the talking points spewed out by any Con spokespuppet, others have tried to give the benefit of the doubt as long as possible. But Lawrence Martin notes that even by those standards, John Baird is losing any pretense of credibility. And Susan Delacourt notes that the Cons - while never known for maturity or reasonableness - are getting more childish by the day.

- Doug Saunders offers a look at what a Canada of 100 million people might look like. But let's recognize as well that we're far less likely to reach that point following the Cons' path of preferring disposable temporary foreign labour to an immigration policy that actually allows families to settle in Canada.

- Bruce Johnstone laments the fact that he's being proven right as to the harmful effects of eliminating the single-desk Canadian Wheat Board on western agriculture. 

- David Climenhaga classifies Dutch disease alongside climate change as areas where the Cons and their oil-sector allies are trying to shout down inconvenient truths.

- Finally, Tabatha Southey comments on the G20 report from Ontario's Independent Police Review Director:

(T)he G20 was a weekend of excess in every way. It seemed as if too much money had been spent on the whole affair. I was reminded of parties I once attended in the mostly unfurnished, newly rented homes of freshly successful film directors. Sometimes I’d think, “What is it that does this to people? A man earns some decent money and all of a sudden there’s an ice swan on the table.” A 30-year-old guy starts making $2-million a year, and suddenly he’s throwing his 50th wedding anniversary party. He forgets himself. He forgets the demographic he will be serving that weekend.

Close to $1-billion was spent on security for the G20 gathering. It was as if the officials won policing a summit in a lottery. Ostentatious displays of policing were everywhere – hundreds of riot-gear-clad officers charging repeatedly through peaceful crowds, banging their massive riot shields like so many big-screen TVs ordered in bulk for the guest bathroom.

Like the ice swan, these expenditures bore almost no relation to the events at hand. 

...

The G20 was the result of an unparalleled level of co-operation between federal, provincial & municipal governments. This would be inspiring had it not been three levels of government working together to deprive Canadians of their rights.

Some senior Toronto police commanders are expected to be charged shortly for a variety of misconduct offences. Currently 28 front-line officers face disciplinary hearings on complaints including unlawful arrests and use of excessive or unnecessary force.

We owe it to the protesters who marched peacefully, holding up signs with which I frequently did not agree, to get answers. Those protesters are placeholders for the time when a cause moves me, or anyone else, to demonstrate. I am grateful to them.

We also owe those answers to the many decent police officers who realize that the role of the police is never, as one officer interpreted his directions from superiors that weekend, to “own the streets.”

Parliament in Review: November 2, 2011

Wednesday, November 2 saw the House of Commons debate two bills dealing with democratic reform. And the result was a remarkable gap between the values the Harper Cons presented in justifying their party's policy orders, and the ones they actually apply in practice.

The Big Issue

The bill which received the most public attention - due to the Cons' decision to ram it through Parliament - was the government's new seat allocation legislation. And it was on November 2 that the Cons served notice of their intention to shut down debate - even as they complained about the unfairness of locking new MPs into the deliberations of a previous Parliament when that served as an excuse to scrap potentially-critical committee reports.

But perhaps more interesting was the debate on Mathieu Ravignat's anti-floor-crossing legislation. After all, I'm not sure anybody can remember the last time a Harper Con dared to speak out publicly against his or her leader's actual efforts to suppress any independent thought by individual MPs. And yet, here's what Michelle Rempel had to say as to the dangers of a bill preventing floor-crossing:

This bill would seriously undermine the independence of members of this House and I do not think that is something we should encourage or support.

This bill would have some practical negative consequences. The bill would impose restrictions upon members who wish to express a different position than the one endorsed by a majority of their caucus. This bill would also impede members of Parliament in representing the interests of their constituents, which is one of the fundamental duties under our Constitution.
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(T)he roles, rights and obligations of individual members of Parliament are well established in Canada's legislation whereby members of Parliament are central actors in our Westminster system of government. Practically, the caucus system in our Parliament is joined with, but distinct from, the registered party system.

Bill C-306 would go against existing rules and traditions by allowing the party machinery to take precedence over individual rights and responsibilities of each member of Parliament and their caucus choices. This does not correspond to our system of government. As I stated earlier, I believe Bill C-306 would have negative and undesirable consequences on the roles of members of Parliament.

And Scott Reid was similarly concerned with some theoretical MP independence which was wrung out of his own party long ago - without suggesting for a second that he or his party's majority caucus might have any interest in reversing the trend toward total top-down control.

Meanwhile, Ravignat discussed the need to build trust in elected officials. Peter Stoffer pointed out that the Cons had a rather different take on the legitimacy of floor-crossing when it was Belinda Stronach exercising what she saw as her individual prerogative to jump between parties. Kevin Lamoureux rightly noted that Manitoba's NDP government passed a bill based on the same principle. And David Christopherson cited the example of David Emerson as an affront to the ability of voters to make informed and meaningful choices:

If we accept that (party identification) is a legitimate, rationale, understandable and important reason for people to think about voting for a candidate, the platform or the party, if one then bails out, as did Mr. Emerson, which is the richest example, and I do not like to personalize, it takes one's breath away.

I do not think the writs were even returned. The ink was hardly dry on the ballots, and this man was already trotting across the floor to join another party. He believed that was the right thing to do, for him, but what about all those constituents who had a reason to believe that once elected, the member would actually go about enacting the platform and policies of the party that member belonged to?

By crossing the floor, in many cases a member is throwing away what he or she believed in to join a party that is 180 degrees in the other direction. How do we think constituents feel? They would sit there wondering what happened. Constituents went out and voted in good faith, as did all their friends, and they expected that the money they donated to that campaign and the sign that they posted were all to help get enough seats on a particular platform so that the way the constituent would have liked to have seen Canada shaped on a particular issue would have actually happened. Now that would be gone, because the member could just cross the floor in order to remain a cabinet minister. It really is problematic.

Withholding Consent

It was well reported that MPs from the Bloc Quebecois and Greens were denied unanimous consent to make a statement in honour of Canadian veterans. But somewhat less attention was paid to a bevy of motions on other topics which were also denied, including:
- Alexandre Boulerice's motion to introduce the materials he had referred to in noting concerns about money handed to the Perimeter Institute without proper allocation;
- Tom Lukiwski's motion to allow an NDP member to speak first to a government bill;
- Frank Valeriote's motion for committee study into the Canadian Wheat Board; and
- Sean Casey's motion on travel by the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs.

And while it's not clear which of those MPs (if any) had reason to think other parties would agree to their requests, it's not hard to see how the Cons' tough line on statements by the Bloc and Greens may have set an unfortunate precedent.

In Brief

Tyrone Benskin both celebrated the 75th birthday of the CBC, and worried about the Cons' witch-hunt against it. Andrew Cash demanded answers as to the lack of accountability for police abuses at the G20 in Toronto. Jean Crowder pointed out the absurdity of saying "get a job!" as an answer to poverty when a significant number of food bank users are children, while Linda Duncan highlighted the problem of poverty for First Nations in particular. Nycole Turmel raised the concerns of Quebec, Ontario and B.C. alike at being stuck with the bill for the Cons' dumb-on-crime policies. Mylene Freeman questioned the Cons about Canada's poor performance in pay equity, only to be told by Tony Clement he's proud that women receive 73 cents on the dollar. Scott Simms introduced a private member's bill to remove the GST and HST from funeral expenses. James Moore's answer to a question seeking information about cuts to Canadian Heritage "broken down by employee status, by title, and by program activity" helpfully identified cuts of 578 jobs with no further information about what had actually been slashed. Yvon Godin pointed out that the Cons' job posting for the Auditor General position actually failed to include any aptitude in French as even a preference (let alone a requirement). And Brian Masse questioned the Cons' cuts to border communications at the same time they were funnelling what was supposed to be border funding into Tony Clement's pork-barrel projects.

Weapons of mass economic destruction

Shorter Stephen Harper:

Unless the beatings intensify, morale will never improve.

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Following up on yesterday's post, the Hill Times reports that even the first set of cuts from the Harper Cons' majority looks to have a serious effect on our federal government's ability to function for itself rather than relying on self-interested corporations to make decisions:

The 46 axed positions were occupied by term employees with the Adaptation Impact Research Section, the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, the Climate Chemistry Measurements and Research and Climate Data and Analysis teams. Most of them are located in Toronto, Ont. though some are in Victoria, B.C.

The Public Works cuts will affect the real property services division, and Auditing Services Canada. Eighty-one per cent of these jobs are located in the National Capital Region, said Mr. Gordon.

The work performed by Audit Services Canada will be contracted out to a private firm.

Mr. Gordon said he is at a loss to understand how the government thinks these cuts (which will save the government a reported $172.2-million over three years) will actually result in long-term savings.

He said that the government already contracts out 95 per cent of its work, such as construction or consulting, and that now those who oversee the contracts are being cut.

"They need expertise within government so that they understand what they need. You don't go to a company and say 'We want you to do this kind of work' without writing up a whole proposal and having people who understand precisely what it is you need," said Mr. Gordon.

- Meanwhile, Derek DeCloet notes that it isn't just government that's figuring to get much less efficient thanks to the Harper Cons. Instead, even the much-vaunted oil and gas sector may itself be facing a massive gap between the perception of growth and the reality that it's serving more as a money magnet than an actual source of production - with the Cons' corporate tax slashing only serving to exacerbate the problem.

- While pointing out that nobody but the peaceful protesters against Stephen Harper should be taking any pride in the Cons' G8/G20 fiasco, Gerald Caplan also laments the fact that a few violent acts managed to largely suppress their message.

- On the bright side, Charles Dobson nicely summarizes the best way to get citizens involved in our political system. And I'll add that while social media offers some additional ways to connect people, the importance of face-to-face interaction is likely no less great now than it has been in the past.

- Finally, Bruce Livesey ponders what we can expect as more and more people are left out of the gains from an increasingly inequitable economic system:

how can one suggest that capitalism is terminally ill? Especially since people have been predicting its demise since Adam Smith’s day.

I am not suggesting it’s going anywhere anytime soon.

What I am saying is that evidence is mounting that capitalism is failing the vast majority of people. It is failing to provide working people with jobs, a decent standard of living, security and stability. The Great Recession grinds on with job growth either anemic or even falling, wages are declining, personal and government debts are climbing, food and gasoline prices are soaring, and the income gap continues to worsen. With the exception of a handful of countries, Europe is an economic disaster zone, the US economy is flailing, and Japan’s economy is in deep trouble. The middle classes and unionized working classes are going the way of the dodo. And governments are about to make matters worse by imposing austerity measures and laying off millions of public servants around the world.
...
Even if the forces of socialism fail to re-emerge, capitalism is facing a period of unrelenting instability. As larger portions of the world’s population are driven into penury, you will see greater social unrest, more violence, more social problems, more despair. And that’s entirely because too many desperate people, unable to make ends meet, unable to find jobs, will turn to increasingly desperate measures – either via protests and acts of rebellion, or entering the underground economy of organized crime – in order to seek alternatives to the current order.

In the past, when capitalists have faced rebellion, they have either embraced fascistic parties and authoritarian measures to launch crack downs, or they’ve made concessions – allowed wages to rise and workers to garner more rights. But in an era of globalization and free trade, the ability of capital to give workers higher wages is limited. And cracking down on dissent and becoming more authoritarian, has its limits too, as Syria and Egypt and Libya demonstrate.

Capitalism might not be overthrown, but it will likely be facing a period where its very foundations are undermined because it continues to exclude too many people from the opportunities they want and deserve.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- John Allemang's profile of Jack Layton is well worth a read in full. But after a campaign where any show of support can easily be written off as a matter of party scripting, it's well worth noting the spontaneous reaction Layton continues to generate even now that the election is over:

Jack Layton and his partner in life and politics, Olivia Chow, were hardly the most recognizable faces at the benefit for the Stephen Lewis Foundation: Alicia Keys, Rufus Wainwright, K'naan and Harry Belafonte were among the celebrities at the AIDS fundraiser, drawing more than 3,000 people. It should have been easy for a couple of downtown politicians to blend into the crowd.

The crowd wouldn't let them.

Mr. Layton, 60, was moving slowly, still showing the effects of his hip surgery. Maybe his measured pace drew attention to his presence. “People were clapping, and at first I wasn't sure what it was for,” Ms. Chow says. “And then I realized it was for Jack.”

What had started as a typical evening of socially aware partying for the New Democratic Party leader suddenly turned into a celebration of the hopes his electoral achievement had raised: People cheered, shouted encouragement, even teared up as they rose in a standing ovation.

“It was very special, actually,” Mr. Layton recalls. “There was a wonderfully warm, spontaneous reaction. … I'm sure not everybody there voted for us, but there was a good feeling about what happened in the campaign.”
...
He's on his way to Ottawa. He's a politician. That's his job, his purpose and, more and more, his life.

But when the people stand up and applaud, it's for something else entirely.

- Which means that strong appeals like this one are all the more likely to resonate:

Asked what he can do to help the people, Layton said: “I’ll tell you one thing, I wouldn’t tell the army to go home as the flood waters are rising.

“It seems every time the flood waters rise, the federal government pulls back. It should be the opposite.

“And the idea that they don’t want to interfere with the private sector ... what is this? You want to promote the private sector to make money off the misery of people.

“What kind of an attitude is that? Is that the beginning of the attitude we’re going to see on the privatization of health care and the privatization of all kinds of things which should be done by the government?

“That, I think, should worry every Canadian."

- And the message that people need to pay attention to the gap between their priorities and the Cons' focus on profit should encourage plenty more organization on both the citizen and labour fronts.

- But then, pogge is absolutely right in pointing out that the most damaging end result of the Toronto G20 abuses may be to create disincentives for people to get involved:

There are the individual stories of abuse, injury and injustice, some of which continue to receive attention. But beyond that there is the story of a security establishment — including both law enforcement and the justice system — flexing its muscles and showing the citizenry who's boss, whether it was done consciously or it was just a reflex, an authoritarian impulse looking for an outlet and seeing an opportunity.

And so far efforts to bring that security establishment to heel and remind it that it's the citizens who are actually supposed to be in charge haven't gotten very far. It seems the last thing the powers that be want is an inquiry that would encourage a broader look and a serious discussion.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday.

- Sure, it may not be a surprise that the Star is calling for a G20 inquiry:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Premier Dalton McGuinty have refused to hold the independent inquiry that could get beyond the stories, subpoena officials — both police and their political bosses — and find out how things got so out of hand.

Queen’s Park and Ottawa are hoping to ignore the calls for a public inquiry until they go away. The citizens’ report shows, yet again, why that should not be allowed to happen.

- But can there be much doubt that one is sorely needed when even the National Post joins in?

The new report from the CCLA and NUPGE, entitled Breach of the Peace, claims that rather than a few dozen officers removing their name bars to prevent being identified while using force to subdue protestors, the total was actually in the hundreds. Who told them to employ this trick? Was it senior officers on the ground or did the call come from higher up; Toronto’s chief of police, senior Mounties or perhaps even politicians in the Ontario or federal government?

The report argues, with justification, that overall police strategy could not have been devised by frontline officers. So who told them to round up protestors, some in advance of the protestors even committing any acts of violence or vandalism? Who ordered officers to hold protestors and journalists (including two working for this newspaper) for hours — occasionally in inhumane conditions and without medical treatment?
...
If nothing else, a public inquiry might — given the proper mandate — help police and security bureaucrats devise better methods to distinguish between real threats to public safety and garden-variety demonstrators at future summits. In an ideal world, police would be able to learn such lessons based on their own internal investigations. But so far, all signs from the Toronto police are that the organization is more concerned with circling the wagons and protecting its own than getting to the truth of what happened last June.

No doubt, many activists would use such an inquiry as a platform to criticize the police in scathing terms. But holding our police to account is an exercise in which all Canadians have an interest — especially those conservatives who embrace the principles of limited government and civil liberties. It is on this basis that we endorse the call for a G20 public inquiry.

- But while it's well worth some time and resources to ensure an accountable and effective justice system, the Globe and Mail rightly notes that the return on investment isn't there when it comes to the Cons' dumb on crime posturing:

Canadians don’t trust the courts to get it right on crime. Many would like a tougher approach. But they also don’t see crime or justice as a spending priority. Perhaps this explains the Conservative government’s silence on the costs of their law-and-order agenda.

Since 1994, the Focus Canada poll done by Environics has measured Canadian attitudes toward government spending. In 2010, justice was seen as the second last of 21 priorities, a sharp drop from 15th in 2008. Only 24 per cent said more money should be spent on the justice system. That was the lowest figure recorded since 1994, when just 20 per cent wanted more spent. Getting tough is one thing, paying for it another.
...
But even if the public would like tougher sentences, there appears to be no wish to pay a tab in the billions each year (in combined federal and provincial costs). The federal corrections budget alone is set to rise by $861-million, or 36 per cent, by 2012-13 over 2009-10. The provincial costs will probably rise by at least that much, because of federal sentencing changes.

Ottawa’s position is either that Canadians want a get-tough approach at any cost, or that they aren’t entitled to know what the cost will be. The government should reveal all the costs of the changes, and allow for a reasoned debate on where this country’s real spending needs lie.

- Finally, the NDP's motion on a Senate referendum is well worth some further discussion. But for now, it's particularly worth noting the Cons' actions in switching an opposition day without warning to limit debate on the issue.

Presumably part of the lesson they've taken from their past prorogation fiascos is that they can only afford to delay for so long in order to prevent a countermovement from building. But it still looks highly irresponsible for them to start raising similar issues of silencing opposition voices in Parliament with an election campaign looming in the near future - and if the NDP can direct the result toward a need for better representation in both chambers, then an election on democracy could produce some highly positive results.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday.

- Heather Mallick nicely sums up much of the philosophy behind the Cons' train wreck of a pension proposal:

Flaherty seems to regard the CPP as communism. It isn’t. It’s brilliant in a sensible Canadian sort of way. Hard-right governments — American, British and Canadian — are always droning out about “financial literacy.” CAW economist Jim Stanford, who is a director of the Canadian Foundation for Economic Education, points out that this drive, while helpful, also places a greater burden of blame on consumers whose investments tanked recently. It wasn’t the stock market being run like a casino, it was the fault of the dopey investor. Don’t expect the government to help, Flaherty is saying. You’re on your own. (The American Republican phrase is “no government interference.” The British call it “the Big Society.”)

But of course, it's worth keeping in mind the flip side that the financial sector can always count on a giveaway.

- Meanwhile, Michael Shapcott points out reason for concern that a business-first mindset is having a toxic effect on charities which are forced to move outside their intended purposes in the hope of chasing down funding.

- After an election that saw about as solid a showing as was possible without winning a seat, the New Brunswick NDP has a leadership race on its hands. And it'll be particularly interesting to see how the candidates can do in building on the party's positive profile from this year's election campaign.

- And finally, it's certainly progress that the first charges have been laid related to police actions at the G20. But we'll have to wait and see whether the charges against Constable Babak Andalib-Goortani prove to be anything more than an attempt to charge somebody to avoid a more thorough examination of responsibility for the trampling of civil rights in Canada's largest city.

So much to look forward to

In case anybody thought any substantial lessons had been learned from the big-money, zero-rights G20 debacle in Toronto, the McGuinty government's response to a scathing ombudsman's report about says it all:

In his report, Mr. Marin finds the province shouldn't have passed the regulation in the first place - that it was, in his opinion, illegal and unconstitutional to do so. But he adds that even had it been valid, “the government should have handled its passage better. ... It gave police powers that are unfamiliar in a free and democratic society. Steps should have been taken to ensure that the Toronto Police Service understood what they were getting.

“More importantly, the passage of the regulation should have been aggressively publicized.”

Premier Dalton McGuinty declined to comment on the report Tuesday, saying he hasn't yet read it. In a letter, Community Safety Minister Jim Bradley said he appreciates the concerns Mr. Marin identified.

“The ministry could have, and should have, handled the enactment of Regulation 233/10 better,” he wrote. “In future, we will take greater care to ensure that the Ontario public is given more adequate notice of regulation changes of this nature.”

So the McGuinty government has interpreted the issue to be solely one of publicity - not one of whether massive civil rights violations were justified in the first place. Which presumably means that we can look forward to a nice, glossy Rabble Suppression Action Plan (TM) next time Canada is supposedly showcased to the world.

[Edit: corrected Marin's title.]

Sunday Morning Links

For those looking to pass the time until the Grey Cup...

- Remember the Cons' glossy, big-money emergency preparedness campaign last year? Just wondering, since we now have confirmation that the much-trumpeted "get prepared" slogan indeed includes the explanation "because we can't be bothered":

(W)hen the magnitude-5.0 earthquake actually happened on June 23, those best laid plans fell apart.

The Earthquakes Canada website crashed within minutes. So did phone lines to the government seismologists. The Government Operations Centre, a federal nerve centre for disasters, was reduced to regurgitating news lifted from media websites.

Natural Resources Canada media staff saw their buildings evacuated — a sensible step, but one that slowed their ability to answer questions.

Worse, the chain of command snarled. Media staffers were forbidden to answer questions. When they set up a conference call for media hours later, it had to be approved by the Privy Council Office, effectively stalling the flow of information into the evening.

About 2,500 pages of emails from the 24 hours after the quake show that the experts, trying to get the message out, were hamstrung by dead technology and the demands of senior management.

- The Star weighs in on the findings of the Special Investigations Unit which reviewed police abuses at the G20:

The SIU can’t be blamed for failing to collect enough evidence to lay charges. The officers involved in the incidents it investigated wore dark helmets and indistinguishable uniforms. The protesters couldn’t see their faces. Their fellow officers chose not to reveal their identities. Investigators were thwarted.

To prevent this from happening again, it would be useful to emblazon officers’ badge numbers on their helmets.

But that is a poor answer to demonstrators who sought to hold police officers accountable for their injuries and Torontonians who watched the ugly spectacle on their streets in shocked dismay.

- I'm sure the suspicions of bribery in Quebec's health care system will be spun to death to the effect that fully privatized medicine is inevitable. But if there is indeed a widespread recognition that (a) the current system is short of capacity and (b) it's worth putting in more money to alleviate the effects of that shortage, then I'd think it should also serve as reason to question just how true it is that we have no choice but to pare back public health budgets.

- Finally, Paul Krugman nicely sums up how free-market dogmatism led to the 2008 crash - and seems certain to do the same again absent some significant changes:

(Monetarism) worked for a while – roughly speaking from 1985 to 2007, the era of the Great Moderation. It worked in part because the political insulation of central banks also gave them more than a bit of intellectual insulation, too. If we’re living in a Dark Age of macroeconomics, central banks have been its monasteries, hoarding and studying the ancient texts lost to the rest of the world. Even as the real business cycle people took over the professional journals, to the point where it became very hard to publish models in which monetary policy, let alone fiscal policy, matters, the research departments of the Fed system continued to study counter-cyclical policy in a relatively realistic way.

But this, too, was unstable. For one thing, there was bound to be a shock, sooner or later, too big for the central bankers to handle without help from broader fiscal policy. Also, sooner or later the barbarians were going to go after the monasteries too; and as the current furor over quantitative easing shows, the invading hordes have arrived.

Last but not least, the very success of central-bank-led stabilization, combined with financial deregulation – itself a by-product of the revival of free-market fundamentalism – set the stage for a crisis too big for the central bankers to handle. This is Minskyism: the long period of relative stability led to greater risk-taking, greater leverage, and, finally, a huge deleveraging shock. And Milton Friedman was wrong: in the face of a really big shock, which pushes the economy into a liquidity trap, the central bank can’t prevent a depression.

And by the time that big shock arrived, the descent into an intellectual Dark Age combined with the rejection of policy activism on political grounds had left us unable to agree on a wider response.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted material for your end-of-week reading.

- Chris Selley points out just how odd it is that Michael Ignatieff is serving as an apologist for arbitrary security measures:

Michael Ignatieff was asked on Wednesday if he’d endured the new indignities being foisted upon air travellers, which are the subject of an ongoing backlash on both sides of the border. “I’ve long ceased worrying about these issues,” he responded. “We have to keep this country safe and the people I feel strongly in support of are the hardworking security scanners.”

In other words: Everything Transport Canada approves must be designed to keep us safe, right? Why else would they do it?

This seems an oddly credulous thing for any leader of the opposition to say — his duty being, in part, to oppose the government. It’s odder still for an ostensibly liberal leader of the opposition. And it’s downright bizarre for a leader of the opposition who was once celebrated as a human-rights brainbox. We’re talking about the needless, hideously expensive violation of basic privacies Westerners used to take for granted.

- Sometimes, the system doesn't work - and the G20 example looks to be glaring enough to raise questions about whether it was ever intended to. After all, even if it's difficult for an outsider to determine which police were responsible for which abuses, shouldn't it be possible to do so, presumably at least some of the officers at the scene would have some idea who had done what - making the lack of any answers look highly suspicious.

- Just when you thought the HST was nearly done with as an issue, it looks to be back on the front burner in Quebec. And if the Bloc indeed sides with the Quebec government (which doesn't seem like a sure thing to be given that harmonization would result in an unpopular federalist government ceding authority to Ottawa), then the NDP's efforts on the issue in Ontario and B.C. should put it in perfect position to capitalize.

- Finally, I don't entirely disagree with Norman Spector's theory that the NDP can do more to build and shape a protest movement on Afghanistan among other issues. But one would think Spector should take the time to at least check, say a simple Twitter feed to see what NDP MPs are doing across the country before pretending that they're nowhere other than in Ottawa.