Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Ian Welsh discusses the nature of prosperity - and the illusion that it means nothing more than increased economic activity:

All other things being equal more productive capacity is better. The more stuff we can make, in theory, the better off we’ll be. But in practice, it doesn’t always work that way.

Part of the problem is due to hierarchies and inequality. Inequality is undeniably bad for us. The more unequal your society is, the lower the median lifespan. The more unequal the society, the sicker, in general. More heart attacks, much more stress. The more unequal, the more crime. These links are robust.

The links run two ways. On the one hand, humans find inequality stressful. The human body, if subject to long term stress, becomes unhealthy and far more likely to be sick. People who feel unequal act less capable than those who feel equal. This is true for the rich and powerful in unequal societies and the poor. Everyone suffers. Though the poor and weak do suffer more, even the rich and powerful would be healthier and live longer in equal societies, most likely simply due to the stress effect.

The second part is distribution, or rather, the question of who gets to decide the distribution. The more unequal a society, the less stuff the poor and middle class have, comparatively. Some technologies tend to lead to more inequality, some tend to lead to more equality.  ...
Increases in productive capacity and technological advancement do not always lead to welfare and when they do, it do not have to do so immediately. The industrial revolution certainly did lead to increased human welfare, but if you were of the generations thrown off the land and made to work in the early factories, often 6 1/2 days a week, in horrible conditions, you would not have thought so. You were in virtually every way worse off than before being thrown off the land, and so were your children. A few industrialists and the people around them certainly did very well, but that is not prosperity, nor is it affluence.

Prosperity, in the end, is as much about power and politics as it is about technology and productive ability. The ability to make more does not ensure we are making the right things, or that the people who need them, get them. Productive capacity which is not shared is not prosperity.

- Meanwhile, PressProgress highlights the Cons' latest efforts to make sure workers don't share in any benefit from corporate operations.

- Keith Stewart writes that the oil sector's interest in fostering dependence on its product runs contrary to the social interest in generating clean and renewable energy, while Andrew Gage explains the NEB's choice not to take seriously the most obvious risks involved in the Gateway pipeline and tanker project. And Erin Weir offers up PCS' minimal royalty projections as the latest example of how Saskatchewan's dependence on corporate potash production is producing little return for the province's resources.

- Finally, Greg Weston reports on CSEC's illegal intrusion into the online activity of travellers at Canadian airports:

The latest Snowden document indicates the spy service was provided with information captured from unsuspecting travellers' wireless devices by the airport's free Wi-Fi system over a two-week period.

Experts say that probably included many Canadians whose smartphone and laptop signals were intercepted without their knowledge as they passed through the terminal.

The document shows the federal intelligence agency was then able to track the travellers for a week or more as they — and their wireless devices — showed up in other Wi-Fi "hot spots" in cities across Canada and even at U.S. airports.

That included people visiting other airports, hotels, coffee shops and restaurants, libraries, ground transportation hubs, and any number of places among the literally thousands with public wireless internet access.

The document shows CSEC had so much data it could even track the travellers back in time through the days leading up to their arrival at the airport, these experts say.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Damian Carrington reports on the Harper Cons' sad efforts to prevent the European Union from accurately accounting for greenhouse gas emissions from the tar sands, offering in particular a look at how Canada's actions look to our global neighbours who don't operate from the Cons' petro-state starting point:

Darek Urbaniak, at Friends of the Earth Europe, which obtained the new documents, said: "These letters are further evidence of Canadian government and industry lobbying, which continuously undermines efforts to combat climate change. We find it unacceptable that the Canadian government now openly uses direct threats at the highest political levels to derail crucial EU climate legislation."

The unveiling of Canada's threats is the latest in a series of recent embarrassing revelations. On 12 February, the occurrence of a secret strategy "retreat" in London in 2011 was discovered. High-level officials discussed the "critical" issue of winning the tar sands argument in the EU, to "mitigate the impact on the Canadian brand" and to protect the "huge investments from the likes of Shell, BP, Total and Statoil". Representatives of Shell, Total and Statoil attended the meeting alongside the UK's state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

In December, the Guardian revealed the secret high-level help given to the Canada by the UK government, which included David Cameron discussing the issue with his counterpart Stephen Harper during a visit to Canada, and stating privately that the UK wanted "to work with Canada on finding a way forward". Canada's minister for natural resources, Joe Oliver, stated: "[The British] have been very, very helpful."

The UK proposed an alternative "banded" approach to ascribing carbon emissions to different fuel types, which does not single out tar sands. But environmentalists dismiss it as a delaying tactic and the Guardian understands that the UK has failed to present its proposal formally or provide supporting evidence.

- Meanwhile, Greg Weston notes that the Cons' pathetic excuse for a mining complaint agency (designed to do absolutely nothing without the consent of the corporations whose actions might be challenged) has burned over a million public dollars while proving as useless as expected.

- Erin points out Ontario's corporate capital tax giveaway - which slashed public revenue without having any positive economic impact.

- Kennedy Stewart's motion to allow public petitions to require a response in Parliament looks like a great step in promoting direct democracy.

- Finally, T.C. Norris rightly questions how media outlets often misreport on polling by both cutting out the multiple sides to the story actually told by poll results, and misinterpreting the context of a given set of results.

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Jack Knox comments on how the rest of the world sees Canada under the Harper Cons:

A week after bleating about foreign radicals slowing the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal, you have to figure Joe Oliver just wishes he had kept his cakehole corked.

Instead of turning public opinion against the interference of well-heeled American environmentalists, Stephen Harper's natural resources minister succeeded mainly in A) awakening Canadians to the growing extent of Asian influence in the Alberta oil patch and B) alerting the rest of the world that the Canadian cowboy now wears a black hat.

When did the Americans sell us to China, Canadians asked.

When did Canada become a global bad boy, asked the foreign media.

- In "mostly competent government!" news, Jeffrey Simpson notes that the Cons are paying more "information officers" to release as little information as possible. Greg Weston questions the ongoing funding being thrown into supporting a public appointments commission which doesn't actually exist. And most importantly, the Cons are just now backtracking on months of assurances that they didn't need to think about alternatives to spending tens of billions of dollars on F-35s.

- Which is to say that Susan Riley is exactly right in observing that Harper's electoral success looks to be based largely on voters getting lulled to sleep.

- Stuart Trew updates us on the latest developments surrounding the CETA.

- Finally, Christine McLaughlin discusses the dangers of the Cons' bill to criminalize anonymous protesting.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Greg Weston nicely chronicles Peter MacKay's flat-out lies about how he came to take a $30,000 helicopter ride. And while Weston despairs about the likelihood that MacKay will pay any price, he does point out why we shouldn't accept anything less:

Few things corrode the effectiveness of our democratic system more than dishonesty among those elected, appointed or hired to serve the public.

As much as honest politics may seem oxymoronic to many Canadians, feeding the public a crock is not a victimless offence.

What is the impact on the morale of the dedicated men and women of Canada's armed forces when their defence minister claims his misuse of a military helicopter as a personal taxi was merely participating in a search-and-rescue demonstration?

What message are Canada's more than 250,000 federal public servants supposed to take away from MacKay's example as they go about their jobs spending taxpayers' money?

If politicians lie about the small stuff, why would ordinary Canadians believe anything the government says on matters of grave importance?

- Meanwhile, Kelly McParland notes that the Cons are using every dirty Nixonian trick they can think of in trying to tear down any semblance of opposition.

- Patricia Pearson points out how federal intervention has created massive problems for remote First Nations. And Bob Lovelace worries that the Cons are planning to use their own failings as an excuse to push First Nations out of their home communities.

- The Economist weighs in against the Cons' dumb-on-crime legislation.

- Finally, John Geddes' wish list for 2012 includes a hope that we'll see an end to disingenuous attempts to reform the Senate, with a genuine push toward abolition in their place.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your afternoon reading.

- Paul Dechene is duly scathing in comparing the City of Regina's tax giveaways to big business (which are of course added on top of hundreds of millions in provincial tax abatements) to its utter refusal to provide any benefits to non-profit organizations:

Been thinking about building an office tower downtown but not sure if you can afford it? As reported earlier on the Dog Blog, there’s good news on the horizon for you! Executive Committee is meeting this very day — at this very moment, in fact — to help make your office tower more affordable!

They’re voting on an “economic development incentive for construction of downtown office space” to help stimulate the market. The property tax exemption will amount to a 20 per cent discount for three years for new “Class A” and “Class B” (henceforth referred to as “Super Fancy” and “Pretty Darn Fancy”, respectively) office space.
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Now, I know what you’re thinking… A 20 per cent discount?? That’s peanuts. That isn’t nearly enough to get me to build a swank, Fancy Nancy Approved tower downtown!

But what if I told you that that 20 per cent is just the tip of the property tax exemption iceberg? If you can attract some head offices into your new building, they’ll be eligible for some pretty significant exemptions as well.

Remember Mosaic, for instance? We wrote about them last December. You know how much property tax is being paid on their portion of the soon-to-be-built Hill Tower III?

Zip! Nada! Nothing!

They got a full one hundred per cent property tax discount — even though at the time they only qualified for an already-hefty 75 per cent discount — because council likes them so much. Now that deal seems to have been cut kind of on the fly, so who knows what kind of sweet deals you and your tenants will be offered.

That is, unless they’re a non-corporate, non-head-office kind of tenant. Those guys can’t count on anything. As we mentioned in the Mosaic piece from December, Souls Harbour sought a tax exemption on some property of theirs but were turned down because no one is even contemplating a tax exemption for their type of work. And more recently, (at the Nov 8 council meeting in fact) the Saskatchewan Abilities Council — a registered charity that helps people with disabilities — requested a tax exemption on some property they own but were turned down for lack of a specific program to grant such an exemption.

But lack of a specific program at the time didn’t stop council from giving Mosaic an extra 25 per cent off their property tax bill, amirite?

I mean, it’s not like non-profits and all their do-goodery contribute anything to the community in the form of dollars and cents.

- Greg Weston points out that Canada has much more to lose than supply management by participating in the Trans-Pacific Partnership - including the few points it refused to concede to the U.S. through NAFTA.

- And as Michael Den Tandt notes, those apparent concessions - sold as being the result of our lacking any bargaining power - are utterly unnecessary given Canada's importance for the U.S.' economy.

- Finally, it's great to see Canadians are fairly skeptical of political advertising. But I'd be curious to see how ads affect viewers in ways they may not appreciate at the time - particularly in the case of long-term negative campaigns which seem to be depressingly effective at branding leaders even when their content isn't seen as accurate or reasonable.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- I'd think it's long past the time where any informed observer could cling to hope that the Harper Cons see good government as a goal worth pursuing. But Dan Gardner points out the role that Parliament should play if they actually did have some interest in that result:

Of course one may complain about the hypocrisy of Stephen Harper and other senior Conservatives who furiously denounced the Chrétien government when it did precisely what they are doing now. (Well, not "precisely." Harper has imposed time limits at a much higher rate than Chrétien did, even at his most imperious, and he is on track to set an all-time record. But let's not get distracted by trivia, as the PMO flack would say.)

Or one may complain that it's undemocratic. And contemptuous. One may note that almost one-third of MPs have never debated these issues in the House of Commons and, if Parliament is to be something more than a fig leaf covering the prime minister's naughty bits, parliamentarians must have the right to stand up and debate as long as they damned well want.

But these arguments are based on principle and respect for parliamentary tradition. Think that's going to wash with the Harperites? You might as well make your case by quoting the Koran.

There is, however, another reason for thinking this is a terrible mistake. It's one that even Conservatives may care about.
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(I)t is not reassuring that the minister intends to change something whose existence he and his staff were unaware of until critics forced them to see it given that the government is determined to push heaps of complex legislation through Parliament with little opportunity for other critics to find other concerns that other ministers need to know about.

And, no, this isn't just about catching drafting errors. It's about different perspectives, new ideas, reconsiderations, modifications, additions. It's about all the reasons why we have a Parliament, and why the name of that institution comes from the Old French "Parlement," meaning a place to talk.

It's about good government. Conservatives are in favour of that, right?

- Greg Weston has some important questions for Tony Clement on his G8 scandal. But given the Cons' anti-CBC paranoia, I'm sure the fact that Weston has raised them will result in a new set of talking points as to how they're utterly illegitimate.

- No, it's not surprising that the Saskatchewan Party has more attacks in store for the province's workers. Instead, the only surprise is that Brad Wall allowed part of that reality to slip out before the election - in contrast to 2007, when he claimed no interest in imposing an essential services law before making it one of the first acts of his new government.

- Finally, Andrew Jackson points out that after decades of calculated wage suppression by business and government alike, higher wages may be a necessity as part of an economic recovery.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Frances Russell comments on how the Cons' war mentality is leading them to shut down any inconvenient opposition using unprecedented procedural tricks:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper won his coveted majority by convincing Canadians his radical days were behind him. So what are Canadians to make of the Conservatives' recent conduct?

They are using their majority on parliamentary committees to block investigations of politically embarrassing issues by going in camera, where MPs are bound by secrecy and can be found in contempt of Parliament if they talk.
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University of Manitoba political scientist Paul Thomas says going behind closed doors in parliamentary committees is part of the standing orders. Traditionally, however, it is restricted to personnel or national-security issues.

He notes, however, that "even when they were in minority, the Conservatives produced a 100-page instruction manual for their MPs on how to frustrate the committee process." He laments the injection of fierce partisanship into committees. Historically, committees were the one venue where parties could cross party lines and do bi-partisan inquiry.

"The Conservatives seem prepared to frustrate the standing committees from doing any serious work probing into government performance," Thomas continued in an interview. Value for money investigations "have become a joke. It's depressing, really."

If the issue before the committee is sufficiently serious, opposition MPs might consider risking the consequences, taking off their gags and alerting the public, Thomas says. What would the consequences be? Likely sanction by the Speaker and suspension from Parliament.

Asked if this smacks of authoritarianism, Thomas replied "Yes, there's a real aura about it."

- Tim Harper muses about some reasons for reduced voter turnout:

While it is too much to expect that more inspiring politicians and more inspiring campaigns would spark a stampede to the polls, votes that do not promise change are votes that do not create excitement.

The year of the incumbent also means the year of voter suppression — not in the sinister, underhanded way the term implies — but a year of governing parties happy to keep turnout low because, historically, low turnout means advantage to the incumbent.

It also explains why any radical overhaul of the voting system is met with such indifference by incumbent governments, which have just benefited from an existing system that lets the sleeping voter lie.

These factors ride shotgun with a lack of anger in this country in 2011.

Whether this contentment is misplaced or not is certainly a matter for debate, but a lack of anger plays to the collective shrug we are seeing during successive campaigns this year.

- Greg Weston digs into how Harper insider Bruce Carson used (and misused) federal green energy funding after being hired to head the Canada School of Energy and Environment.

- Finally, the Sask Party spent years citing SaskTel's subsidiary Navigata as their poster case as to why Crowns shouldn't do any business outside the province. Now, SOS Crowns makes it clear exactly how responsible they were in disposing of the province's investment:

Following the adoption of the Sask First policy, the Brad Wall government began the process to divest of a number of Crown Corporation subsidiaries including Navigata in 2009...(T)he organization including their physical assets was sold for only $1.25 million. At that time, the purchase price was minuscule compared to the estimated value for all of the physical assets and infrastructure.

Even though Ken Cheveldayoff, former Minister of Crown Corporations, insisted at the time that subsidiaries would not be sold off at fire sale prices, the truth is now being revealed.

Recently, SOS Crowns learned that the new owner of Navigata has chosen to redirect the core focus of the company, resulting in the sale of their microwave communication towers for $18 million.

Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Andrew Jackson points out and sums up a Statistics Canada study showing how much possible revenue is lost to the underground economy:

Statscan have produced interesting and important new estimates of the upper bound size of the “underground” or “non observed” economy, putting it at a seemingly modest 2.2% of GDP in 2008. (Some of this is already included in GDP which is adjusted to take into account some hidden and unreported economic activity.)
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Overall, Statscan estimates that corporations made as much as $17 Billion on underground activity in 2008, about half of which was in the construction sector.

Unincorporated businesses make up a much smaller share of the economy but are much more likely to skim and not report income. The estimated maximum is $10 Billion, about one half of which comes from skimming. Underground construction and contraband sales of alcohol and tobacco also loom large for this sector.

Not to make too one-sided a moral story of it, consumers are clearly complicit in a great deal of underground economy activity, getting goods and services at lower prices than in the formal, taxed economy. The underground economy is strongest in construction and in sales of tobacco, alcohol, and domestic and child care services.

Still, you can’t help but think that more stringent auditing of businesses by the tax authorities could turn up quite a useful amount of extra revenue if there is up to $27 Billion of under and unreported business income sitting on the table.

- Greg Weston sums up the Cons' AECL giveaway:

The federal government's long-awaited deal to sell off its money-losing nuclear reactor business is more like a perpetual partnership than a sale, leaving Canadian taxpayers stuck with the fiscal fall-out for years to come.

The government-owned Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. has announced it has finally reached a tentative deal to sell its commercial reactor development and repair division to Quebec-based engineering giant SNC-Lavalin.

The Montreal-based company was the only suitor in the world left at the negotiating table, a fact that helps to explain why the government is effectively paying SNC-Lavalin to take over the Crown corporation.

Under the deal, SNC will pay a paltry $15 million for AECL's nuclear reactor division, plus some as yet undisclosed "royalties" on future reactor sales.

In return, the government will give SNC up to $75 million toward the development of the next generation of AECL's once internationally successful Candu reactors.

In other words, Canadian taxpayers are giving the Quebec company $60 million to take AECL off their hands.
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Most of AECL's massive past liabilities and a lot of the financial risks going forward will remain exactly where they have always been — on taxpayers.

For instance, SNC-Lavalin will complete the current refurbishments of four reactor projects, but only "through subcontract service agreements with the government of Canada."

Translation: SNC-Lavalin will get paid for doing the work, but taxpayers will likely be on the hook for massive cost overruns and potential lawsuits that could run into the billions of dollars.
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AECL's commercial partner in (the Chalk River) snafu, MDS Nordion, is now suing the federal agency for $1.6 billion in damages.

Of course, if putting AECL under private-sector management successfully turns the nuclear reactor company into a commercial powerhouse, the federal government could ultimately reap a windfall in royalties from the sales of CANDU nukes the world over.

The fact the deal was announced by the government on the eve of summer doldrums suggests even the new owners of AECL aren't exactly overwhelmed with optimism.

- Dan runs the numbers on how a merged NDP/Liberal party might have affected this year's election - with the results showing that even under highly optimistic assumptions, the result would have been little different from the actual outcome. Which should offer reason for both parties to agree that they're best off using their time and energy to challenge the Cons, not to try to fuse two substantially different party formations.

- And finally: lest there was any doubt, no, a declaration that the Cons might eventually release notice of future regulations which could someday be adapted to apply to oil sands production isn't a departure from their usual plan to delay, distract and do nothing on climate change.

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Plenty of observers have noted the Cons' complete lack of a reasonable explanation for standing in the way of a global consensus to at least ensure that asbestos is accurately labeled as a hazardous substance. But you'll find the best examples of sheer, evidence-free spin documented by Sarah Schmidt (on the media side) and Nathan Cullen (on the parliamentary side).

- And Susan Riley discusses how the Cons' asbestos stance conflicts with their self-image when it comes to foreign policy:

(T)here is ample evidence developing countries, like India, pay no heed to safety, and that Indian workers, like the young Chuck Strahl, are being directly compromised. But Harper seems to imply it isn't our concern.

His indifference is strangely at odds with his moral, even moralistic, approach to foreign policy generally. He famously refused to remain silent on China's human rights abuses despite potential trade repercussions, yet is prepared to isolate Canada internationally to prop up a dying industry.
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Two Conservative MPs - Mark Warawa and Patricia Davidson - have also been discreetly questioning asbestos exports, which suggests the Harper decision isn't resting easily on every Conservative conscience. Even federal Liberals are belatedly opposed.

Unlike the seal hunt, which harms no one but the seals, or the tarsands, which are environmentally damaging but economically important, there is no justification - moral, political or economic - for continued federal support for the asbestos industry.

But we should never discount one man's stubbornness.

- Terry Milewski points out that as part of its role in helping the Cons to cover up the facts, the now-defunct Afghanistan torture documents panel managed to redact information which was already on the public record. And Greg Weston notes that such an outcome fits perfectly with the Cons' normal modus operandi.

- And finally, while the Cons try to avoid any actual analysis as to how neutering the Canadian Wheat Board will affect farmers and others, the groups who stand to lose out are starting to go public - with the town of Churchill looking like one of the major victims if the Cons decide to push ahead.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Arash Azizi argues that the NDP's youthful caucus should be seen as a plus in better representing a wider range of voices:

That the New Democratic Party has fought to challenge (the) status quo should come as no surprise. After all, when Tommy Douglas founded its predecessor, the CCF, the political fable of “Mouseland” was his guiding principle. He thought mice should stop electing “a government made up of big, fat cats” and fight for a government of themselves, by themselves, for themselves. His was to be the party of “mice,” the party of the common folk.

The battle Douglas began has just reached a whole new stage. For the first time, the party of common folk has emerged as the official opposition. Why then should it come as a surprise that a large part of its new caucus is comprised not of political players but of youth, students, waitresses and single parents?
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The mainstream media have raised a hue and cry in targeting the humble origins of all these new NDP Members of Parliament. After all the earlier fuss about low voter turnout, especially among youth, pundits now seem unhappy that young people actually have been elected to Parliament.

Our new MPs in Quebec are under attack every day because of their age, their “inexperience” and their humble origins. Often the $157,731 salary of a MP is mentioned in a condescending way as if they were not talking about our elected representatives but some kid who has just hit the jackpot in a casino!

Young New Democrats in Ontario and around the country welcome this new swath of MPs who are much more of an “exact portrait” of us and the working people of this country.

It is our fervent hope that after the hours of bureaucratic “preparation” they are currently undergoing they will not forget the sense of purpose and guiding principles that led them to join the NDP.

- Yes, Greg Weston's story about the Chretien Libs' duplicity on Iraq calls into doubt what had been one of the few examples of his government supposedly paying heed to progressive Canadians. But there's another side of the story that's even more significant in defining where we should go from here:

(A)fter all the fuss, the Americans didn't seem to care whether Canada contributed a lot of military might to the Iraq mission.

A former senior Canadian bureaucrat said: "The Americans knew we were stretched to the limit on the military side, and they really just wanted a political endorsement of their plan to go into Iraq."

Former U.S. ambassador Cellucci concurred: "We were looking for moral support. That's all we were looking for.… We were looking for 'we support the Americans.'"

Which raises an obvious question: after five years where Canada has been an obstacle to action on climate change and a surrogate for Republican Party messaging, would anybody value Canada's moral support on any international issue as much as the Bush administration did back then? (Here's one strong hint.)

- Barrie McKenna tears into the Cons' politically-motivated tax giveaways:

In the case of the Conservatives’ proposed family tax cut, the benefits would flow mainly to wealthier Canadians. A family headed by someone in the top 2011 income bracket ($128,800) would save more than $6,000. Working families in which the top earner makes less than $41,544 wouldn’t get anything. Nor would single people, including divorced parents.

The plan would also tilt the tax system in favour of single-income families, including childless ones, which are typically better off than other Canadians.

The families most in need are headed by single parents with children. But there’s no break coming for them.

- Finally, Richard Wolff points out the necessary alternatives to having an economy based on meeting the every whim of the corporate sector:

there are always two possible responses to any and all threats. One is to cave in, to be intimidated. That has often been the dominant "policy choice" of the US government. That's why so many corporate tax loopholes exist, why the government does so little to limit price increases, why government does not constrain corporate relocation decisions, etc. No surprise there, since corporations have spent lavishly to support the political careers of so many current leaders. They expect those politicians to do what their corporate sponsors want. Just as important, they also expect those politicians to persuade people that its "best for us all" to cave in when corporations threaten us.

What about the other possible response to threats? Government could make a different policy choice, define differently what is "best for us all". In other words, it could persevere in the face of business threats, and to do so, it could counter-threaten the corporations. When major corporations threaten to cut or relocate production abroad in response to changes in their taxes and subsidies, or demands to cut their prices or serious enforcement of environmental protection rules, the US government could promise retaliation. Here's a brief and partial list of how it might do that (with illustrative examples for the energy and pharmaceutical industries):

• Inform such threatening businesses that the US government will shift its purchases to other enterprises.
• Inform them that top officials will tour the US to urge citizens to follow the government's example and shift their purchases as well.
• Inform them that the government will proceed to finance and organise state-operated companies to compete directly with threatening businesses.
• Immediately and strictly enforce all applicable rules governing health and safety conditions for workers, environmental protection laws, equal employment and advancement opportunity, etc.
• Present and promote passage of new laws governing enterprise relocation (giving local, regional and national authorities power of veto over corporate relocation decisions).
• Purchase energy and pharmaceutical outputs in bulk for mass resale to the US public, passing on all the savings from bulk purchases.
• Seize assets of enterprises that seek to evade or frustrate increased taxes or reduced subsidies.
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Of course, a much better basis than threat and counter-threat is available for sharing the costs of government between individuals and businesses.
...
Corporations have used repeated threats (to cut or move production) as means to prevent tax increases and to secure tax reductions. Likewise, they have made the same threats to secure desired spending from the federal government (military expenditures, federal road and port building projects, subsidies, financial supports and so on). In effect, corporate boards of directors and major shareholders seek to shift tax burdens onto employees. Their success over the last half-century is clear. Tax receipts of the US government have increasingly come, first, from individual rather than corporate income taxes and, second, from middle and lower individual income groups rather than from the rich.

In worker-directed enterprises, the incentive for such shifts would vanish – because the people who would be paying enterprise taxes are the same people who would be paying individual income taxes. Taxation would finally become genuinely democratic. The people would collectively decide how to distribute taxes on what would genuinely be their own businesses and their own individual incomes.

On overkill

Greg Weston looks at the numbers behind the Cons' plan for a unilateral Afghanistan extension. And all indications are that there's absolutely no need for the number of troops Stephen Harper has chosen to promise for training purposes:

According to the Department of National Defence, 325 of the 2,750 Canadian military personnel in Afghanistan are currently engaged in "instructing, training and mentoring" members of the Afghan army and police.

The department won't say exactly where all the "training and mentoring" of Afghans is happening. But it does acknowledge that fewer than 125 Canadian soldiers are assigned to various training centres, headquarters and other relatively safe areas.
...
So, what does the Harper government's plan really mean?

The number of Canadian military personnel involved in classroom training would increase from fewer than 125 to perhaps 1,000, while Canada's currently onerous contribution to actual in-field combat training would be eliminated.

But NATO documents indicate the alliance only needs another 750 trainers from among the entire 42 countries with forces in Afghanistan. The vast majority of those trainers would be involved potentially in live combat.

So at best, either Harper's claim about keeping troops "behind the wire" and out of combat after 2011 is absolute nonsense, or the extension involves sending hundreds more troops than are actually needed to carry out the role they've been assigned.

But then, the more likely answer is "both of the above": by sending more personnel than could possibly be useful for actual training at secure facilities, Harper will position himself to say he has no choice but to reluctantly authorize the extra troops to go into combat whenever he figures he can get the Libs to go along with it. And so will the quagmire continue.

(H/t to Audrey.)

Deep thought

Something like this might have been worth mentioning before the Cons blew through billions in infrastructure spending on anything they could find to take credit for.

The reviews are in

Greg Weston:

For more than two years, Stephen Harper's government has been sitting on more than 1,000 pages of potentially key evidence in the widening fiasco over the alleged torture of Afghan prisoners.

The documents are the official results of Canadian military police investigations in Afghanistan, dating back to 2006, and go straight to the heart of the controversy gripping Parliament.

But like other documentary evidence surrounding this murky chapter in Canada's war effort, the military police reports remain under government lock and key.

All of which raises the obvious question: What is the government trying to hide?
...
(T)he justice department declared all of Colvin's memos to be matters of "national security" protected by secrecy laws and threatened to have him arrested if any leaked out.

The same "secret" stamp has also been slapped on the 2006 military police reports and on virtually every other shred of paper related to the Afghan detainee issue.

The feds are even trying to put a "national security" designation on a letter from Colvin's lawyer complaining about government secrecy and intimidation. Go figure.
...
One thing is already clear.

The Afghan prisoner fiasco is either an insidious government cover-up of official lies and misdeeds or the Harper administration is going to extraordinary lengths to hide the truth about nothing.

The reviews are in

Greg Weston:

Canadians who fear their hard-earned tax money is disappearing down a black hole will no doubt be relieved to learn they are actually investing in government mismanagement on a grand scale.

Auditor general Sheila Fraser's latest compendium of federal misdeeds calls into question the basic competence of a Conservative government already under fire over stimulus squander and the current flu-shot fiasco.

Surprising only to those awaking from a long coma, Fraser concluded that Stephen Harper's government of big cardboard cheques is far better at making announcements than actually implementing them.

Some of Fraser's findings would be worthy of a comedic spoof were the consequences not so dire.

The reviews are in

Greg Weston:

In the world according to federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, the national deficit will disappear when the Conservatives stop printing those big cardboard cheques for roads, sewers and new door knobs.

The finance minister's recent economic report went so far as to promise the country would "return to budgetary balance" without raising taxes, or cutting support to seniors or families.

Canada will be back in the black, Flaherty promised, without reducing employment insurance benefits or funding to the provinces for health care, social services or regional equalization.

Instead, the author of federal budgets lucky to get the page numbering right would have us believe that when the recession ends, the deficit will too.

Or not. A closer look at what is actually driving the government $55 billion into the red this year shows much of the shortfall is the result of permanent Conservative tax measures and other factors that won't simply vanish in an economic recovery.

The reviews are in

Greg Weston:

In the past year, (Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin) Page has been at odds with the Harper government on just about every major economic prognostication, from the size of the projected deficit to the anticipated depth of the recession.

So far, he seems to be batting a thousand, while the Conservatives are proving no more honest with their numbers than the Liberals were.

Clearly, the PM and his control freaks could not allow this sorry state of integrity to continue.

While any successful attempt to stifle Page would be the public's loss, there is something far more dire and dangerous at play here.

Fact is, the meddlesome budget office is only the latest target in a sustained and systematic assault on dissent, led by a prime minister who brooks no criticism from within government.

On dubious honours

There's been plenty written about the Cons' transit tax credit debacle. But one of the more interesting implications doesn't yet seem to have been pointed out.

Here are Greg Weston's observations on what the program's revised projections mean in the cost to reduce emissions:

(T)he Harper government opted for the transit pass tax credit, which the finance department estimated at the time would cost taxpayers about $2,000 to $3,000 per tonne of greenhouse gas eliminated.

Today, that's probably closer to $10,000 a tonne.

To put that in perspective, paying someone 10 grand to park the family clunker for about three months would have the same environmental impact. Where do we sign?

Now, I'm not sure if Weston's math is precisely on target. After all, the Finance Department's original projections were already based on an estimated emissions impact of half that assumed by Environment. Which means that the further revision makes the outcome only three times worse than Finance had estimated, pushing it to the $6,000-$9,000/tonne range.

But that gap is still enough to restore a dubious honour to the program. For awhile, it looked like the Cons' car purchase tax credit had beaten out the transit pass credit as the world's least effective emissions reduction measure. But the new numbers would appear to push the transit tax credit back into the lead - at least until the car purchase credit undergoes a similar review.

Of course, the bigger question is why we're still stuck with a government which has gone to such lengths to lead the world in the waste department. And the fact that they've managed to fall short of even the lowest expectations on the environment (which was of course the top political issue at the time) can only offer more reason to doubt that Con-managed stimulus spending will accomplish anything useful.

On limitations

One of the main Con talking points surrounding Tom Lukiwski's anti-gay remarks has been to ask whether any "statute of limitations" should apply in determining the appropriate response to the video. With that in mind, I'll take a moment to point out a couple of the principles behind actual statutes of limitations - and why neither the Lukiwski example nor other examples of seemingly old news about Con actions would give rise to a legitimate limitations defence.

First off, it's worth noting that virtually all statutes of limitations are subject to the principle of discoverability. In weighing the relative interests of a defendant who wants to be able to move on from past actions and a plaintiff who deserves the opportunity to seek redress for a wrong, courts have understandably concluded that most limitation periods won't operate where the plaintiff couldn't reasonably determine that any claim existed.

Needless to say, if the discoverability principle were applied to Lukiwski's comments, there would be no basis for a limitation defence. Indeed, nobody could possibly have known that a wrong was committed without either crashing the Devine Cons' after-debate party, or breaking into the opposition offices at the legislature to track down the videotape. Which means that a fresh limitation period would apply from the time the tape could have been (and was) found.

Mind you, a recent development in limitations law has provided for "ultimate limitation periods" which may bar a claim which has not yet been discovered after what's determined to be a sufficiently large amount of time - normally in the range of 15-20 years. But even then, a defendant can't take advantage of the ultimate limitation period to the extent the defendant deliberately conceals the fact that there's any claim to be made.

In Lukiwski's case, it's far from clear that such a principle would be in play. (Though the great unanswered questions so far include just who knew the tape existed, and what if anything was done with it after the post-debate party.)

But it's worth turning to the Cons' general practices in government while keeping in mind the rules which apply in a civil context. Greg Weston notes today that the Cons have made a habit of concealing information requested by the public, with the result that it's awfully difficult to determine just what Deceivin' Stephen and his gang have been up to. And Weston expressed concern that by the time any potentially damaging news comes out, it's seen as old enough to be of little value.

I'd argue that as in the case of limitation periods, the mere passage of time doesn't make grievances about the Cons' hidden actions any less legitimate. If anything, the fact that the Cons have managed to keep something under wraps only amplifies the wrong: not only is there the initial action to criticize, but also the subsequent cover-up. And as in the case of a civil actor who successfully hides the existence of a claim, it should be clear that stories about the Cons' actions in office are just as newsworthy and relevant when they actually come out as they would have been when they should have been disclosed in the first place.