Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- If there's a more accurate description of the Cons' entire political strategy than "taking advantage of the prejudice that’s already there", I haven't heard it yet. And Chris Lawson is rightly frustrated that Canadian politics are being dominated by such cynical and destructive motives - though I'd argue that we should be less concerned with the Gerry Nicholls of the world who are willing to call it by name than the Harper Cons who try to pretend their minority-bashing is somehow based on the national interest.

- No, we shouldn't be surprised to see a National Post discussion on pensions devolve into a debate as to whether seniors in general or public employees in particular should be attacked first in the name of tax slashing. But it's worth pointing out that we've had plenty of opportunity to test whether throwing the federal government's fiscal capacity into tax cuts and investment incentives for the wealthy would produce the virtuous cycle of magical retirement freedom that all the Post's pundits seem to take as a given - and the fact that Canadians are less secure now than they were a decade ago would seem like rather compelling evidence to the contrary for anybody willing to look at such a thing.

- Which suggests that maybe it's time to take some advice from Seth Klein in dealing with inequality for all age groups:

(R)ising inequality hasn’t been driven by low incomes. Rather, as the Occupy movement rightly highlighted, the growing gap has been driven by the runaway-rich; the wealthiest 10% of households, and especially the wealthiest 1%, have been breaking away from the rest of us (as outlined in this CCPA report a year ago).

So if we are going to reduce inequality, we need to revisit our top tax brackets.
...
I’d argue that the BC government should not restrict itself to adjustments to the top rate alone. I think there is room to modestly increase the 3rd and 4th brackets as well (which kick in at incomes of about $73K and $84K respectively; again only impacting a small minority of taxpayers). As I noted in a blog post a couple years ago, I find my personal income tax rate to be remarkably low, given what we receive in public services, and the scope of unmet social and environmental needs.

If you too think that our upper tax brackets should be increased, may I recommend that you let our political leaders know. Too often our leaders are overly cautious, and presume we will not abide such increases. If we really want action on inequality, we need to tell them otherwise.

- Meanwhile, Emily Dee worries that the Cons have set up a ticking time bomb with their giveaways to Canadian banks.

- And finally, Jason Warick highlights how First Nations students are being shortchanged in Saskatchewan.

On mutual interests

As a general rule it's fairly safe to say Gerry Nicholls' advice to left-wing parties is based on something other than a desire to see them succeed - and his latest is no exception. But it's worth pointing out one entirely valid observation behind his attempt to wrongfoot the NDP.

Indeed, I've pointed out before that any candidate interested in winning the leadership of a party that's set to form government will need to work on keeping the positive attributes that led the NDP to this year's historic gains. And it's entirely true to note - as Nicholls does - that the Cons will be waiting to pounce on any development that can serve to undermine the NDP's position.

But where Nicholls seeks to lead the NDP's contenders astray is in his suggestion as to what that means for the leadership campaign. Contrary to Nicholls' advice, the spectre of a Con operative with a camera is all the more reason to talk about genuine policy ideas rather than mere personality politics.

After all, surely neither Nicholls nor any other observer who's paid the slightest bit of attention to Stephen Harper's political strategy would pretend that the Cons will do anything but distort and distract when it comes to their depiction of the NDP's actual policies. And so any effort to talk like a right-winger in order to appease the genuine article is doomed to failure - while a strong progressive discussion in the course of the leadership campaign will open more political space for whoever wins the leadership in the years to come.

Meanwhile, one of the most obvious areas where the NDP needs to grow is in developing a movement of volunteers and donors to match the one which has given the Cons a huge resource advantage over its competitors - including having enough spare cash sitting around to allow for multi-million-dollar attack ad buys against any opposing leader. And a campaign that runs away from the NDP's base will be sure to make matters all the worse on that front.

As a result, there's no reason for leadership candidates to soft-pedal policy discussions based on the fear that the Cons will do what they'll do in any event. But there is reason to be cautious when it comes to the factor that's allowed the Cons to avoid answering for their policies at all.

It shouldn't be any great secret that the strategy of trying to attach a negative narrative to the leader of the opposition is now a fixture in Canadian politics - with the Libs' recent history (particularly the use of Michael Ignatieff clips against Stephane Dion) showing exactly what happens when leadership rivals fail to think past the immediate campaign. And there's little any candidate or operative can do to help the Cons more in the long run than to gift-wrap negative statements about the eventual winner for use in future Con ads.

So the real takeaway from Nicholls' warning is this: any negative campaigning in the leadership race only figures to make it much harder for any candidate to achieve the party's ultimate goals once the leadership campaign is over. And that should make for all the more reason for candidates to talk about policy ideas that will get people interested in joining the NDP, rather than fighting a war of attrition that serves only to help its adversaries.

On disciplinary problems

Come to think of it, this can probably be summarized in "shorter" form. So here's shorter Gerry Nicholls, Age 10:

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!! Mr. Mayrand gave me detention for starting fights again! But it's not my fault. He only hates me 'cuz I call him Mr. Doodyhead!!! No fair!

On projection

Gerry Nicholls' latest most certainly demonstrates a pattern of interaction between Elections Canada and right-wing organizations. But it's the exact opposite of what Nicholls is trying to pretend.

Here's the sum total of Nicholls' evidence of a supposed "vendetta" by Elections Canada against Stephen Harper and the NCC:

Now before you write me off as paranoid, consider the background. Before the charge was laid against us, the NCC had long been a vocal opponent of Elections Canada's attempts to impose free-speech stifling third-party advertising laws on the country. We called them election gag laws.

In fact, in 2000, our president at the time -who happens to be current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper -went so far as to publicly call the then head of Elections Canada, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, a "jackass."

More to the point, the NCC also frustrated Kingsley by ceaselessly fighting his gag laws in the courts at every turn, delaying their implementation for years.

Now, it shouldn't take a particularly close examination of that "background" to notice that it involves absolutely no wrongdoing by Elections Canada.

In fact, the obvious conclusion is that the NCC went out of its way to attack Elections Canada at every opportunity, through both legal means and personal insults. And Elections Canada didn't take the bait: instead of sinking to the NCC's level, it chose only to work on enforcing the law as it stood. Which would seemingly be exactly what one would want out of an independent regulator.

But as far as Nicholls is concerned, his own side's jackassery (to apply the term where it actually belongs) somehow serves as evidence of wrongdoing on Elections Canada's part. Because apparently as soon as somebody is on the receiving end of enough baseless cheap shots, it can't actually do its job without been seen as harboring a vendetta.

Needless to say, there is indeed a parallel between that case and the Cons' in-and-out scandal. But the connection is that in both cases, Stephen Harper has tried to pre-emptively attack an independent regulator which can't return fire in the hope of avoiding being subject to the law - apparently keeping in reserve the ludicrous argument that his own unwarranted attacks could somehow be used to smear Elections Canada, rather than serving as evidence of his own bad faith.

Under those circumstances, the hard-earned "terrible news coverage" arising out of the Cons having brazenly broken the law is still far better than the Cons deserve.

Their words, not mine

For those wondering whether the right-wing focus on slashing taxes and the public service is even intended to result in economic benefits rather than simply being a matter of anti-government ideology, I'm not sure one could ask for a more decisive statement than Gerry Nicholls' latest commentary on the National Citizens Coalition:

Here's what (Paul Tuns) wrote about the NCC's response to the federal budget:
...

I'm just saying that the messaging from the NCC would have been clearer five or ten years ago; the NCC isn't supposed to be worried about job creation except as a talking point about lower taxes and less government.

Paul's comment reflects the weakness with the current NCC leadership. They have no clear understanding of true conservatism.

An unwanted suggestion

Shorter Gerry Nicholls:
If the Libs were smart, they'd set liberalism back 200 years.

(Edit: fixed label.)

A top five unemployed political mind

Shorter Gerry Nichols:
Will make Stephen Harper look like a Marxist revolutionary for food.

(Edit: fixed label.)