New column day

Here, on how RBC's survey about continued parental funding for adult children demonstrates the need for improved social supports to assist young adults who lack the same family resources.

For further reading...
-  George Lakoff set out the distinction between "strict father" and "nurturant parent" worldviews in the context of the rise of Donald Trump. And he discussed the "eighteen and out" portion of the strict father model in his interview with Hayward Alker here (PDF).
- Responding to the RBC survey, Laura Hensley points out how family supports are a two-way street, with many parents also requiring assistance from working-age children.
- Finally, while the column doesn't get into policy prescriptions as to how income supports might be set up, I'll note that the amount of parental support normal among parents in RBC's survey (a median amount of just under $6,000 per year for younger adults and $4,000 for those in their thirties) would fit into a modest basic income model.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Damian Carrington reports on new research showing that it's possible to stop climate change in its tracks - but only by beginning to phase out fossil fuel infrastructure immediately. And Ryan Cooper comments on the problems in responding to an immediate crisis with mushy centrism rather than a determination to act:

America can't afford another eight years of a moderate party fiddling while the climate burns, or even making things worse, which is exactly what happened during the Obama years. Democrats in those days failed to pass a climate bill that wasn't even that great, and it took the administration five years after that to put out an executive order that was just as inadequate. In the meantime, the Obama administration ushered in a massive expansion of American oil and gas drilling that has made the U.S. the biggest producer of both oil and natural gas in the world. Part of the motivation was that natural gas is cleaner fuel than coal climate-wise, but methane (the main component of natural gas) itself is much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and it turns out leaks more than cancel out the relative climate benefit. Whoops!

If they are to take the moral responsibilities of governing the United States seriously, moderates can't just hide behind "better than Trump." The scientists say we have about a decade to cut our emissions by 45 percent. If lefty ideas like a Green New Deal are too radical for moderates, then by God they better come up with something that achieves the same objective.

- George Lakoff discusses the need to counter the language of hate which underlies Donald Trump's demand for a wall (along with so much other right-wing political strategy internationally).

- Meanwhile, Tanya Talaga notes that Justin Trudeau's cabinet shuffle is an ominous sign for Indigenous peoples. And Susan Delacourt points out that it will also likely serve as an excuse to delay any national pharmacare program.

- Finally, Natalie Mehra warns Doug Ford against following through on his apparent plans to privatize Ontario health care.

Book Review: Politics Without Stories

David Ricci's Politics Without Stories was released in the midst of an election campaign which upended many assumptions about U.S. politics. But it nonetheless offers a plausible explanation for much of the U.S.' political environment as it's continued to evolve - while leaving open what strike me as interesting questions as to whether what he observes is merely a U.S. phenomenon, or whether it applies more broadly.

As his basis for comparison, Ricci notes that U.S. conservatives have generally united around a few "alpha stories" of traditional values, free enterprise and small government. He then takes the position that there's no comparable set of dominant liberal narratives to provide a durable reference point for voters, asserts that this represents an important electoral handicap for U.S. Democrats compared to Republicans, and sets out to explain the discrepancy.

In the process, Ricci first questions whether leading liberal writers and politicians have made a meaningful effort to tie their subject-specific stories into themes, and points out the "list syndrome" as the frequent basis of policy development.

More importantly, Ricci questions whether even an ideal "alpha story" would actually appeal to a liberal audience. He theorizes that a left-wing audience is likely to be less receptive to overarching narratives than one on the right - for reasons including "pragmatic" disenchantment, as well as a focus on smaller outrages and incremental policy proposals over broader themes.

In particular, Ricci identifies each of Naomi Klein's main works as offering useful alpha stories - yet notes that they have failed to become as dominant as the right's primary messages due to the failure of liberals to adopt and repeat them.

On some points, Ricci's assertion of meaningful differences between left and right seems to be somewhat forced. It's not as if conservatism lacks its own single-issue thinkers or laundry-list policy prescriptions: most campaigns of any partisan stripe include a combination of historical themes which at least somewhat fit the "alpha story" model, and proposals aimed toward immediate issues. And the implicit argument that Democratic voices are more fixated on small outrages than their Republican counterparts is thoroughly implausible (see: "but her e-mails!"). (Though to be fair, one might see a parallel to the "alpha story" issue in the comparative willingness of Republican surrogates to repeat, and audiences to accept, small stories with their associated political messages.)

Meanwhile, to the extent there is an identifiable difference between both the politicians and the audiences in the U.S., it seems odd that Ricci spends little time engaging with George Lakoff's work - which offers both a parallel explanation as to the core differences between the liberal and conservative mindset at present, and a more promising set of alternatives than Ricci is willing to propose.

That said, the most interesting part of Ricci's argument from my standpoint is the postscript comparing Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign to Bernie Sanders' - particularly to the extent it's echoed in Canada's divide between the Liberals and the NDP.

Ricci views Sanders as having succeeded in offering a compelling story at least on a temporary basis - which he views as potentially being the best U.S. liberals can expect to achieve. In contrast, he views Clinton (and the party establishment which rallied behind her) as the epitome of the type of story-less politics which creates an inherent disadvantage for the Democratic Party. And the results of the 2016 presidential campaign don't suggest otherwise, particularly when compared to the electoral rise of Sanders' UK analogue in Jeremy Corbyn.

But Canada's experience shows that it is possible for a natural governing party to be built almost entirely on politics of convenience rather than consistent narratives - and indeed to force competitors on both sides to feel compelled to adopt a similar posture. And it's worth both considering and challenging Ricci's view of a political culture which inevitably spills across the border in working to develop and tell the stories which might best serve the goal of building progressive politics in Canada.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Nick Falvo lists ten things to know about social programs in Canada. And Mike Crawley offers a painful example of Ontario's social safety net and employment law both falling short, as injured workers are forced to go to work even when ill or injured in the absence of paid sick leave.

- David Cay Johnston writes that while corporate tax slashing won't do anything to boost the U.S.' economy, it may do plenty to undercut businesses who have planned based on tax rates as they stand.

- Make Votes Matter makes the case for UK Labour to push for proportional representation - including by pointing out how it leads to a more fair and equal society. And Fair Vote Canada is pushing for an NDP-Green agreement on electoral reform in British Columbia.

- Meanwhile, Ethan Cox discusses what should an obvious choice facing B.C.'s Greens in deciding between giving voters the change they want, and owning another term of Christy Clark's corporatism as usual. And Vaughn Palmer notes that Clark is the most important loser from yesterday's election.

- Finally, Daphne White interviews George Lakoff about the importance of fitting political messages into frames which will resonate with voters.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Branko Milanovic offers his take on how the U.S.' version of liberalism paved the way for Donald Trump and his ilk both by buying into corporatist assumptions about success, and by treating electoralism as the basis for political organization:

In economics, liberalism espoused “neo-liberalism” which was the replacement economic ideology for social-democracy. It championed, especially under the Clinton-Blair duo, financial liberalization, much smaller welfare state, and so-called “meritocracy” which essentially meant the ability of the rich to place their kids into the best schools out of which 90% would graduate and thus “meritocratically” claim later in life huge wage premiums. Free trade agreement privileged, as Dean Baker has written, the interests of the rich in advanced economies through protection of patents and intellectual property rights and with scant or no attention to labor rights.
...

Corruption.  A corollary of this hyper-economicism in ordinary life was the corruption of the elites who espoused the same yardstick of success as everybody else: enrichment by all means. Avner Offer documents this shift in his analysis of where social-democracy went astray with “New Labor” and “New Democrats”. The corruption of the political class, not only in the West but in the entire world, had a deeply corrosive and demoralizing effect on the electorates everywhere.  Being politician became increasingly seen as a way to acquire personal riches, a career like any other, divorced from any real desire either to do “public service” or to try to promote own values and provide leadership. “Electoralism”, that is doing anything to be elected, was liberalism’s political credo. In that it presaged the populists.

...

Pensée unique. Liberalism introduced a dogmatic set of principles, “the only politically correct way of thinking” characterized by identity politics and “horizontal equality” (no differences, on average, in wages between men and women, different races or religions) which left actual inequality go unchecked. A tacit hierarchy was introduced, where the acceptance of these watered-down principles of equality combined with economic success, was the requirement to be “non-deplorable”. Others, those who did not do well economically or did not adhere to all the tenets of the mainstream thinking, were not only failures but morally inferior.

- John Cavanagh points out that free trade negotiations ultimately have far less to do with the relative bargaining power of the countries at the table, than with generally stacking the deck for businesses against people in all jurisdictions involved.

- Sarah Kendzior discusses the fallout of Trump's election, with even employees within the national park service being turned into enemies of the state for failing to devote themselves solely to the promotion of the president.

- Dylan Matthews writes about the cruelty which forms the animating principle behind Trump's refugee ban, while Benjamin Wittes is struck by the combination of malevolence and incompetence.  And Stephen Smith reports on a call for Canada to do the least it ought to - which is to end an agreement which bars refugees merely because they've set foot in what's supposed to be the safe haven of the U.S.

- And finally, George Lakoff offers one example as to how to start reframing the choices we face: rather than accepting a corporate-focused assumption that regulations represent "red tape" to be trashed at the first opportunity, we should treat them as essential protections from corporate misdeeds.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Will McMartin highlights the fact that constant corporate tax slashing has done nothing other than hand ever-larger piles of money to businesses who have no idea what to do with it. But Josh Wingrove reports that Justin Trudeau is looking for excuses to keep up the handouts to the corporate sector.

- Joseph Stiglitz offers (PDF) a thorough review of our options in lessening corporate hegemony, while Elizabeth Warren and Rosa Delauro ask why citizens should accept trade agreements being written in secret by and for the corporate sector. And David Dayen lists some of the lies being told to try to push the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
 
- Meanwhile, James Fitz-Morris discusses the top-heavy giveaway arising out of the Cons' tax-free savings account scheme. And Stephen Tapp writes that an ill-advised balanced-budget law is aimed at a problem far less significant than the ones it will create.

- George Lakoff offers some messaging suggestions for progressives. And Luke Savage challenges the rhetoric of "aspiration" as a substitute for fairness:

The “aspirational middle class” is a soundbite engineered to be maximally inclusive and minimally concrete. It is Britain’s post-Thatcherite/New Labour analogue to “the American Dream” – that mythical journey of growth, personal prosperity, and self-creation which is theoretically open to all and practically open to few. The superficial elegance of this vision is that we all ostensibly have access to it, if we choose. The reality is that people belong to different classes, both social and economic, and aren’t more or less “aspirational” because of it (at least not in the commonly understood meaning of the word). Conceptualizing social disparities and economic structures in terms of personal aspiration is a convenient and very deliberate way of ignoring how these structures benefit some and constrain others. The built-in myth of self-sufficiency, in which the individual is always solely and completely responsible for her own outcome, also very deliberately neglects the inherently social nature of our lives: the schools which give us education, the libraries which give us books, the communities in which we are raised, the parents and others who give us care, the roads and transport networks on which we travel.
...
(I)t bears worth asking why we should privilege a particular kind of personal aspiration which mostly or wholly aspires to make and keep a small number of people extremely wealthy and which elevates the acquisition of personal wealth to the status of cardinal social value.

- Finally, Dennis Raphael discusses how Canada's choice to shred its social safety net decades ago is producing harmful health outcomes today - and asks that we be pay more attention to the future effects of our actions.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Michael Kraus, Shai Davidai and A. David Nussbaum discuss the myth of social mobility in the U.S. And Nicholas Kristof writes that inequality is a choice rather than an inevitability:

Yet while we broadly lament inequality, we treat it as some natural disaster imposed upon us. That’s absurd. The roots of inequality are complex and, to some extent, reflect global forces, but they also reflect our policy choices.

In his new book, “The Great Divide,” Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, includes two chapters whose titles sum it up: “Inequality Is Not Inevitable” and “Inequality Is a Choice.”

“I overheard one billionaire — who had gotten his start in life by inheriting a fortune — discuss with another the problem of lazy Americans who were trying to free ride on the rest,” Stiglitz writes. “Soon thereafter, they seamlessly transitioned into a discussion of tax shelters.”

Say what?

We as a nation have chosen to prioritize tax shelters over minimum wages, subsidies for private jets over robust services for children to break the cycle of poverty. And the political conversation is often not about free rides by corporations, but about free rides by the impoverished.

- Sean Illing duly calls out David Brooks' attempt to paint the effects of systemic poverty as personal moral failings. And Jason Silverstein notes that racial health disparities have everything to do with social conditions rather than genetics.

- Anita Burke comments that we should be embarrassed by the pathetic response to the English Bay oil spill and resulting environmental damage. But Stanley Tromp reports that the spill didn't tell the U.S. anything it didn't know, as it's been concerned about the Cons' neglect of the possible effects of marine oil spills for years.

- Meanwhile, Dean Beeby reports that the Sierra Club is just the latest environmental group coming under attack by the CRA.

- Adrian Morrow reports on polling showing that Ontarians want nothing to do with the Wynne Libs' privatization schemes. And rightly not, given how a similar plan to shuffle funding into corporate profits rather than the public interest is harming public transportation safety in Ontario and Saskatchewan alike.

- Finally, Jonathan Goldsbie offers another take on George Lakoff's advice to progressives in framing political messages.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Barrie McKenna takes a look at how the Cons are pushing serious liabilities onto future generations in order to hand out short-term tax baubles within a supposedly-balanced budget, while Jennifer Robson highlights the complete lack of policy merit behind those giveaways. And Ian McGugan writes that even as they're trumpeted as attempts to improve saving none of the Cons' plans have anything to do with actually improving retirement security, especially for the people who need it most:

Our reliance on private savings to fund our retirements makes Canada an outlier among developed countries. Public transfers – programs such as Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security – account for less than 39 per cent of seniors’ incomes compared to 59 per cent on average among OECD members.

Women are most at risk, especially if they are divorced or separated. “Higher poverty among older women reflects lower wages, more part-time work and career gaps during women’s working lives, as well as the effect of longer female life expectancy,” the OECD notes.

These are problems that Ottawa should be addressing, but isn’t. Instead, it’s bending its efforts to ensuring that those who already have substantial retirement nest eggs can live even better.
...
To make matters worse, the TFSA system narrows the tax base. As wealth builds up in those tax-sheltered accounts over the years to come, Ottawa will have to push more of the tax burden on to the remainder of the population – in effect, shifting the load from affluent, older Canadians onto younger, poorer Canadians.

There are ways to fix the problem while still maintaining all the good parts of the TFSA program. Armine Yalnizyan, senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, recommends instituting a lifetime cap of $150,000 on contributions to TFSAs, as well as a lifetime tax-exempt limit of $450,000 on each TFSA holder. That would allow typical Canadians to amass a substantial nest egg without subsidizing million-dollar-plus portfolios for the affluent.

- Zach Carter reports that at least some U.S. Democrats are rightly challenging the position that free trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership should be drafted entirely by corporate interests without any public accountability, then accepted without question. And Paul Krugman responds to the trade-at-all-costs crowd by pointing out that there's little reason to think the TPP will do much to encourage trade in general - as opposed to locking in monopolies - in the first place.

- Jim Coyle reports on George Lakoff's advice for progressives in framing our vision for Canada. And Susan Delacourt observes that there may be a natural disincentive for parties to try out new or different messages even if they otherwise wanted to.

- But lest anybody presume that political courage will never be rewarded, Ryan Donnelly comments on Tom Mulcair's opposition to the Cons' terror bill - which was once seen as a political risk, but has proven to be a boon instead.

- Finally, Michael Harris points out that Mike Duffy's trial may represent the only opportunity to seek honest answers from Stephen Harper about his appointment of ineligible senators.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Jeffrey Simpson lambastes the Cons' determination to slash taxes and hand out baubles to the rich for the sole purpose of undermining the fiscal capacity of government to help Canadians. And Jeremy Nuttall highlights how a cuts to the CRA are allowing tax cheats to escape paying their fair share with little prospect of detection.

- Jacquie Maund makes the case to include dental care as part of a full public health system. And Carolyn Shimmin discusses the connection between childhood poverty and poor health which can impose burdens lasting a lifetime:

2. There is a direct link between socioeconomic status and health status. Robust evidence shows that people in the lowest socioeconomic group carry the greatest burden of illness. This social gradient in health runs from top to bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum. If you were to look at, for example, cardiovascular disease mortality according to income group in Canada, mortality is highest among those in the poorest income group and, as income increases, mortality rate decreases. The same can be found for conditions such as cancer, diabetes and mental illness.

3. Poverty in childhood is associated with a number of health conditions in adulthood. More than one in seven Canadian children live in poverty. This places Canada 15th out of 17 similar developed countries, and being at the bottom of this list is not where we want to be. Children who live in poverty are more likely to have low birth weights, asthma, type 2 diabetes, poorer oral health and suffer from malnutrition. But also children who grow up in poverty are, as adults, more likely to experience addictions, mental health difficulties, physical disabilities and premature death. Children who experience poverty are also less likely to graduate from high school and more likely to live in poverty as adults.

- Michael Spratt writes that the Cons' posturing on crime isn't intended to produce legislation which is viable from a policy standpoint or even constitutionally valid, serving instead to generate a steady stream of grievances to rile up their base.

- Craig Forcese debunks the spin that the Cons' terror bill has anything to with matching international standards rather than racing to the bottom when it comes to civil rights. Dr. Dawg reminds us that even before C-51, we have dangerous laws on the books allowing Canadians to be detained or to have freedoms severely restricted based on nothing but speculation. And Andrew Mitrovica notes that due to the Cons, even the federal government is less able to exercise oversight over CSIS than it was before.

- Finally, Ryan Meili interviews George Lakoff about some of the ways progressives can better challenge political messaging from the right. And Cass Sunstein highlights new research on the values which motivate voters of different political persuasions.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Daniel Tencer reports on a couple of important recent warnings that Canada is in danger of following the U.S. down the path of extreme corporatism and inequality:

Speaking at a fundraiser for the left-leaning Broadbent Institute, Reich said Canada is facing the same inequality-growing “structural problems” that the rest of the developed world is facing. Those two structural problems are globalization and automation, he said.

He noted that businesses in the digital era require far fewer employees, citing the example of WhatsApp, the messaging app bought by Facebook. At the time it was purchased for $19 billion, it had 450 million users and just 55 employees.

“This is the new economy,” Reich said.

A new report from TD Bank cites the same two factors as being causes of growing inequality, but also notes that Canada used to do a better job of equalization through taxation.

“Although Canadians take pride in the country’s more equitable outcomes [than the U.S.], Canada does less income redistribution than many think. Canada’s ranking on income equality falls from 9th place in the OECD on the basis of [income before taxes] to 19th place on the basis of after-tax and transfer income.”

- Meanwhile, Tim Harper follows up on Stephen Lewis' blistering criticism of the state of Canadian politics under the Harper Cons. And they've only added to the list of jaw-droppingly callous actions lately by refusing consent on the NDP's renewed motion to end child poverty, as well as by voting against a UN motion against glorifying Nazism and neo-Nazism.

- Barrie McKenna finds that the Cons' own supposed priorities are once again all spin and no action, as a much-ballyhooed manufacturing fund has funded exactly zero projects since it was introduced a year and a half ago.

- Diane Cardwell reports on the falling cost of solar and wind energy, as renewables have reached a price level similar to that of dirty fossil fuels. And Geoff Dembick reports on Unifor's work in highlighting the fact that environmentally responsible development and good jobs are entirely compatible goals.

- Finally, Paul Rosenberg interviews George Lakoff about the lessons progressives still need to learn in framing public policy debates.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- Zoe Williams interviews George Lakoff about the need for progressive activists and parties to work on changing minds rather than merely pursuing an elusive (and illusory) middle ground:

(T)he left, he argues, is losing the political argument – every year, it cedes more ground to the right, under the mistaken impression that this will bring everything closer to the centre. In fact, there is no centre: the more progressives capitulate, the more boldly the conservatives express their vision, and the further to the right the mainstream moves. The reason is that conservatives speak from an authentic moral position, and appeal to voters' values. Liberals try to argue against them using evidence; they are embarrassed by emotionality. They think that if you can just demonstrate to voters how their self-interest is served by a socially egalitarian position, that will work, and everyone will vote for them and the debate will be over. In fact, Lakoff asserts, voters don't vote for bald self-interest; self-interest fails to ignite, it inspires nothing – progressives, of all people, ought to understand this.

When he talks about the collapse of the left, he clearly doesn't mean that those parties have disintegrated: they could be in government, as the Democrats are in the US. But their vision of progressive politics is compromised and weak. So in the UK there have been racist "Go home" vans and there is an immigration bill going through parliament, unopposed, that mandates doctors, the DVLA, banks and landlords to interrogate the immigration status of us all; Hungary has vigilante groups attacking Roma, and its government recently tried to criminalise homelessness; the leaders of the Golden Dawn in Greece have only just been arrested, having been flirting with fascism since the collapse of the eurozone. We see, time and again, people in need being dehumanised, in a way that seems like a throwback to 60 or 70 years ago. Nobody could say the left was winning.
...
Lakoff's work on the conceptual systems around morals and politics (and how they show up in language) has yielded two-dozen metaphors for morality, most of them universal across cultures. Of those, the two key frames informing political judgment involve the idea of government as a family: the strict-father model (conservative) versus the nurturant-parent model (progressive).
...
If the two systems are poised in pure opposition, if they are each as moral, as metaphorical, as anciently rooted, as solidly grounded as the other, then why is one winning? "Progressives want to follow the polls … Conservatives don't follow the polls; they want to change them. Political ground is gained not when you successfully inhabit the middle ground, but when you successfully impose your framing as the 'common-sense' position."

- And Sean Holman highlights USA Today's challenge to its readers as to why they focus more on celebrity gossip than substantive news.

- The CCPA takes a look at the cost of living in Regina - and finds that a living wage for a family with two working adults would be $16.36 per hour.

- Alison cuts through some of CSEC's spin about its tracking travellers passing through Canadian airports. And Ron Diebert asks what we can do now that we know about CSEC's belief that it can spy on Canadians with impunity:

The CSEC presentation describes ubiquitous surveillance programs clearly directed at Canadians, involving data associated with Canadian airports, hotels, wi-fi cafes, enterprises and other domestic locations. The presentation outlines the challenges of discerning specific internet addresses and IDs associated with users within the universe of bulk data, paying special attention to challenges involving the movement of people through airports. It outlines results of experiments undertaken at a medium-sized city airport, which could possibly mean Calgary or Halifax, and which includes observations at “other domestic airports,” “hotels in many cities” and “mobile gateways in many cities.” Observations are made with detailed graphs of specific patterns of communications, noting differences as to how individuals communicate upon arrival and during departure, how long they spend in transit lounges, wi-fi cafes, hotel visits and even places of work. The objectives, the presentation says, are to separate the “needle from the haystack” – the haystack being, of course, all of us.

The presentation specifies that at least some of the bulk data from these locations was obtained through the cooperation of what’s only described as a “Canadian Special Source,” which is likely a Canadian telecommunications provider. If so, such revelations would make a mockery of Canadian carriers advertising their services as a “safe haven” from the snooping U.S. National Security Agency. From an accountability and oversight point of view, moving data hosting from the United States to Canada is like moving from a dimly lit cave to a pitch-black tunnel at the back of the cave.

What’s this mean for Canadians? When you go to the airport and flip open your phone to get your flight status, the government could have a record. When you check into your hotel and log on to the Internet, there’s another data point that could be collected. When you surf the Web at the local cafe hotspot, the spies could be watching. Even if you’re just going about your usual routine at your place of work, they may be following your communications trail.

Ingenious? Yes. Audacious? Yes. Unlawful? Time for the courts to decide...
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The revelations require an immediate response. They throw into sharp relief the obvious inadequacy of the existing “oversight” mechanism, which operates entirely within the security tent. They cast into doubt all government statements made about the limits of such programs. They raise the alarming prospect that Canada’s intelligence agencies may be routinely obtaining data on Canadian citizens from private companies – which includes revealing personal data – on the basis of a unilateral and highly dubious definition of “metadata” (the information sent by cellphones and mobile devices describing their location, numbers called and so on) as somehow not being “communications.” Such operations go well beyond invasions of privacy; the potential for the abuse of unchecked power contained here is practically limitless.

- Tabatha Southey suggests that the solution to Julian Fantino's contempt for Canadian veterans should be a fairly simple one if the Cons were willing to listen to reality. But then, the Cons and their provincial counterparts don't tend to fit that bill - as Murray Mandryk points out in discussing the Sask Party's vehement refusal to conduct a fair evaluation of P3s compared to public alternatives.

- Finally, Paul McLeod reports that the Cons have effectively eliminated federal anti-smoking programs in Canada - replacing the public health priority of reducing smoking with an industry-favoured push against contraband cigarettes alone.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Carol Goar comments on the CEP/CAW plan to merge and work toward a far more active type of unionism:

Both the CAW and the CEP — of which I am a member — gobbled up smaller unions to reach their current size. But neither achieved the critical mass to keep growing or to revitalize the labour movement.

This time they’ve come up with a more ambitious — but much riskier — formula. They aim to create a new union unlike anything labour activists or the public have seen in the past.
 • It would be “a fighting force for all workers,” not just its own members.
 • Its reach would extend beyond traditional workplaces. It would organize temp workers, contract employees, immigrants in precarious jobs, the self-employed and the unemployed.
 • It would be open to all “who share the vision of a stronger, larger Canadian social union,” including artists, entrepreneurs, homemakers, community activists and seniors.
 • It would offer support and services to non-members engaged in disputes with their employers.
 • It would inspire — embarrass if necessary — umbrella bodies such as the Canadian Labour Congress and the Ontario Federation of Labour to be bolder, more active and more forceful.

For those curious, I tend to agree with Goar that a more ambitious, higher-stakes push is a necessary step in ensuring the relevance and effectiveness of the labour movement. With the basic social contract which allowed unions to focus more narrowly on securing their positions within large unionized workplaces now under vigorous attacks from the Cons, their cronies and the corporate sector, it looks to me to be a losing strategy to cling to shrinking fiefdoms rather than engaging a greater range of workers to again shape a broader social agenda. And it's by showing the benefit of collective action for its members that unions can help make the case to apply similar principles in society at large.

- Meanwhile, George Lakoff sounds a warning against using frustration with "low-information voters" as an excuse for failing to effectively frame and promote progressive values.

- Janyce McGregor discusses the conflicting pressures on the Cons in deciding whether or not to force through the Gateway pipeline. Meanwhile, Calvin Sandborn asks whether the Cons plan to learn anything from Enbridge's track records of major spills and pathetic responses, while Iain Hunter highlights the steps they've taken to avoid doing anything of the sort.

- Finally, Peter Wilby comments on how strict intellectual property laws (which of course the Cons only want to make worse) are creating perverse incentives for businesses to innovate only in the field of contrived rent-seeking schemes rather than actual product improvement:

The US drugs industry, say Light and Lexchin, spends only 1.3% of revenues (excluding taxpayer subsidies) on basic research to discover molecules that could lead to genuinely new medicines. It spends far more on maintaining profits – among the highest of any industry, after tax – and on PR, marketing and lobbying. There is an innovation crisis, but largely of the companies' own making.

For years nearly all original drugs brought to market have been based on research either at taxpayer-funded institutions, mainly universities, or in small biotechnology companies. Big companies, such as Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline (recently fined $3bn by US regulators for aggressive and misleading marketing), are essentially rent-seekers. They do not create wealth and add social benefit, but enrich themselves through control of resources, as landowners have done for generations. And what has happened in "big pharma" – long marked down by the left, and some on the right, as an unacceptable face of capitalism – mirrors what has happened across the British and US economies. The innovation crisis is not confined to the drugs industry.
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Technologists tweak vegetables and fruits to make them last longer, look better and travel more easily, without regard to flavour. Bankers develop new trading "products" that, however you cut it, are still about borrowing and lending. We have digital radio and high-definition TV, though not everybody thinks either improves on what existed before. For many companies, skilful marketing of products that aren't significantly different from what preceded them has replaced innovation. It's cheaper and less risky to convince customers that something is ground-breaking, even when it isn't, than develop something truly innovatory.

In short, rent-seeking is now far more lucrative than innovation that delivers social benefits. The big rewards go to directors and executives of large companies – and financial traders, the ultimate rent-seekers who impose an unproductive tax on invention, investment and hard work across the world.

A Healthy Society - Chapter 9 Discussion

In his conclusion to A Healthy Society, Ryan Meili sums up his overall message about how health can serve as the central theme for political organization, and notes that the message holds plenty of public appeal already (with further room to grow as people learn about the impact of policy on the broad definition of health):

The core idea of this book is not just that health should guide our policy decisions; it should also be the language of our politics. Because people care about health, they are more likely to respond to political messages that reflect that concern. This is about framing, not in a manipulative way, but in a way that connects diverse and complex issues to a core concern. It’s not an approach to advance the marketing success of one party, it’s a means of rehabilitating a sick political system. A focus on health, demanded by an increasingly aware population, can force every party to reconsider its decisions and positions in relation to the determinants. It can establish an environment in which, rather than bombarded shoppers in the marketplace of clashing ideas and conflicting priorities, people can see themselves as part of a common project, as working together toward the goal of a healthier society.
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(P)eople 1) understand to a degree the role of the social determinants of health, 2) believe that large inequalities in health outcomes are unacceptable, and 3) think that something can and should be done about it. Despite this understanding and concern, for some reason the determinants of health and health inequality are not visible in much of the discourse of public policy.
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If people want a healthy society they must identify that as their goal, and take the steps needed to make it happen. This means connecting with those who are engaged in civil society and social movements. It means jumping off from the starting point of this book to deeper learning and understanding. It means joining — or forming! — a political party and advocating from within that structure for greater accountability and democracy. It also means the difficult task of talking to those who don’t agree with you, of raising the uncomfortable issues of poverty and inequality and seeking common ground to address them. The idea of a healthy society, particularly one with greater equality, will certainly run up against many detractors. People will come up with all kinds of reasons why change is not possible, why we must only react to the economically inevitable, why citizens can’t be trusted to make wise decisions, why we’re stuck.

We’re not stuck. There is a lot that can be done, and successful examples abound. We need to first see that we are all in this together.

Following up on the quoted passage, though, I'll raise a few questions as to whether health is indeed the right core principle to define what we want to achieve in building a political future.

We certainly don't have a lack of competing alternatives: from the nurturing/empathetic model for progressive discourse favoured by George Lakoff to themes like equality, sustainability, security, liberty, collectivism and inclusion which regularly form the basis for political arguments against conservative counterparts. So I'll encourage readers to consider a few points for the above as well as other available central themes:

• How consistent is the theme with both our innate understanding of the world, and our current cultural background?
• Is the theme seen positively enough serve as a broadly unifying principle and focus for organization - both within a single party and in the general political scene?
• Conversely, is the theme well enough defined that it gives rise to a coherent certain course of action? (Put another way, is it meaningful enough to pass Susan Delacourt's platitude test?)

My initial thought is that the "healthy" theme compares well to the other options on the first two points for the reasons pointed out by Meili.

That said, it may carry some weaknesses on the third. We'd rightly see it as absurd for any politician to argue against a healthier society - but that very lack of controversy also makes the term vulnerable to being co-opted (I presume the Healthy Oil Institute is being incorporated as you read this), rather than serving as a stable frame for organization and discussion. And there may be more work to be done in defining what we mean by a broad conception of "health", how we can measure it and how to contrast it against competing values before we can consider it a clearly superior organizing theme.

I'll close by thanking Ryan for allowing me the opportunity to review and discuss his book. And while I've found a few points to quibble with in my chapter reviews, there's plenty within A Healthy Society that should serve as a focus for progressive discussion in Saskatchewan and beyond.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- J. David Hulchanski identifies the most important common theme within the Occupy movement:

One thing the “Occupy” movement does not lack is a clear message: the system is broken and the folks who broke it are not the ones who will fix it. There is no doubt in the minds of many that the economy is rigged in favour of the very few, and that most politicians act on behalf of those few. Why? To quote Jessie James, because that’s where the money is.

Living in an affluent society like Canada is not very pleasant if one senses no opportunity to continue to be — or ever to be — economically comfortable, let alone affluent. A huge percentage of jobs are now precarious: low wages, few benefits, no pension, usually no future. More become that way every day.

Who benefits from a labour market based on precarious employment at low wages with no benefits? Is that how we build a just, cohesive, democratic society, where the majority feels included and fairly treated?

- Meanwhile, Trish Hennessy points to George Lakoff's take on the importance of framing for Occupiers:

I see OWS as a patriotic movement, based on a deep and abiding love of country — a patriotism that it is not just about the self-interests of individuals, but about what the country is and is to be. Do Americans care about other citizens, or mainly just about themselves? That’s what love of America is about.

I therefore think it is important to be positive, to be clear about loving America, seeing it in need of fixing, and not just being willing to fix it, but being willing to take to the streets to fix it. A populist movement starts with the people seeing that they are all in the same boat and being ready to come together to fix the leaks.

- We can add Joseph Stiglitz to the list of Nobel laureates gobsmacked at the sheer stupidity of continuing to cater to the ideology of the creditor class when the result is economic disaster for that group as much as anybody else.

- And finally, I'm sure Edmonton will agree that it's a good thing we have such a strong, stable majority government so we don't end up with major federally-funded projects getting cancelled willy-nilly without explanation.

Defining Progressivism

As promised, let's start looking at what exactly it is that Canadian progressives should be striving for. I'll start by noting a few current theories which seem to have some useful points to contribute, but which on their own look to fall short of a fully satisfactory explanation.

First off, Paul Rosenberg offers a rough definition that may find particular appeal as a Conservative government takes a wrecking ball to the most reliable source of information about Canadians:

I think that the primary difference between conservatives and progressives is that:

Conservatives believe in tribally-shared narrative myths that comfort them in perpetuating a world of inequality, while

Progressives believe in a universalist, critical-empirical approach to creating a world that works for everyone.

One can say that Rosenberg's definition makes for a useful inversion of the comedic trope that reality has a liberal (progressive) bias: can we get anywhere in making that true by definition by framing progressivism as the desire for policy based on empirical fact?

Not surprisingly, Rosenberg himself recognizes that this division doesn't tell the whole story. But I'd go a step further and note that it leaves the most important work undone: the question of how to define "a world that works for everyone" has to be the most important step in discussing progressive values. And indeed one of the greatest failures of the past few decades seems to me to have been progressives' willingness to accept conservative-friendly definitions of overall goals based on the availability of simple measuring sticks (e.g. prosperity defined in terms of total GDP) that's driven public policy in the wrong direction.

Which segues nicely into Alex Himelfarb's initial post on the nature of progressivism:

(M)y sense nonetheless is that the notion of “progressive” does have meaning, if only a belief that government’s role is not just to stop bad things from happening or to correct them when they do, but to help make good thinks happen, to promote human dignity, solidarity in diversity, and equality of opportunity, and to help ordinary people manage change in the face of broad global forces we don’t control. Progressives also give greater focus to government’s role in “correcting” the market, particularly with respect to the environment and poverty, and generally harnessing the market for people’s well-being, and are internationalists in the pursuit of Canada’s interests and committed to fulfilling our responsibilities as global citizens.

Unfortunately, Himelfarb is probably dead on target in trying to describe how progressivism is perceived. But there are two problems with the definition as a matter of setting out durable progressive ideals.

First off, there's the acceptance of global market trends as primary and all other matters - including democratic government - as being merely a means of tinkering around the margins to mitigate its worst excesses. That strikes me as conceding far too much in theory to the notion that citizens lack power to chart their own course, both individually and collectively. But perhaps more importantly (particularly to the extent it's intended as a response to what is rather than a definition of what might be), Himelfarb's definition also seems to present a rather weak defence of government, and a nonexistent defence of other forces needed as a matter of political realism to counterbalance the massive corporate power that actually does exist.

Second, there's the incrementalist nature of Himelfarb's definition which leaves out any particular end goals. If the nature of progressivism is to be slightly more concerned with the environment, poverty and other issues than the alternative, what exactly do we hope to accomplish on those points? (And I consider this more than just a theoretical exercise: in order to actually inspire public support, I'd argue that we need to be able to set out a long-term vision as to where we want to end up, not limit ourselves to fighting defensively on the current political landscape.)

A third effort at framing the political ideal (and last one I'll deal with in this post) is that of George Lakoff, contrasting a "strict father" conservative worldview with a "nurturing mother" progressive one. And there isn't much doubt that Lakoff's language looks to be a useful tool in linking progressive ends to familiar concepts.

But while Lakoff's framing is valuable in putting together talking points to discuss progressive policies, it looks to fall somewhat short in defining what those policies ought to be.

Again, part of that stems from the lack of specificity in Lakoff's framework. "Nurturing" is as much a means as an end, and like Rosenberg's focus on empiricism Lakoff's frame leaves open the question of what ends we're supposed to be pursuing. But there's also some conflict between Lakoff's and Rosenberg's respective priorities where the former would seem to lose out to the latter in a way that illustrates the limits of the "nurturing" model where the state is concerned.

For example, while I'd think it can safely be said that progressives don't agree with the gratuitous incarceration of criminals where the cost to society outweighs the benefit in doing so, I'd think it's equally fair to say that we want our levels of law enforcement and punishment to be based on evidence as to how to balance the costs and benefits of incarceration, not an overarching principle of attachment to the convicted individual as might be associated with an actual "nurturing mother". In effect, even if we see "nurturing" as a plus generally, the state can't be expected to develop and administer the level of attachment with each of its citizens that a mother would with her child - and that limitation needs to be considered when we decide how far to take the theme in defining ourselves as progressives.

So if it isn't enough to classify progressives as skeptical, nurturing incrementalists, what more do we need to add or take away from that picture to get to the right definition? Stay tuned...