Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Benjamin Radcliff discusses the proven connection between progressive policies and a higher quality of life across all levels of income:

Happier people live in countries with a generous social safety net, or, more generally, countries whose governments "tax and spend" at higher rates, reflecting the greater range of services and protections offered by the state. (These findings come from analysis of data from the World Values Surveys for the 21 Western industrial democracies from 1981 to 2007 for my book "The Political Economy of Human Happiness." Similar findings have been reported in peer-reviewed journals like "Social Research" and the "Social Indicators Research.")

The relationship could not be stronger or clearer: However much it may pain conservatives to hear it, the "nanny state," as they disparagingly call it, works. Across the Western world, the quality of human life increases as the size of the state increases. It turns out that having a "nanny" makes life better for people. This is borne out by the U.N. 2013 "World Happiness Report," which found Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Sweden the top five happiest nations.

 

The answer is simple and unequivocal: Happier people live in countries with a generous social safety net. Conservatives may be equally troubled to learn that labor unions have a similar effect. Not only are workers who belong to unions happier, but the overall rate of happiness for everyone -- members and nonmembers -- increases dramatically as the percentage of workers who belong to unions grows, reflecting the louder political voice that organization gives to ordinary citizens.

All this remains true when controlling for the many other things that might also affect quality of life, such as income, age, gender, marital status, or their country's culture, history, or level of economic development. Critically, "big government" and labor unions also promote happiness not merely for those toward the bottom or middle of the income distribution, but for everyone, rich and poor, men and women, conservatives and liberals.

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The reasons the progressive agenda promotes happiness are complex, but stated simply, the more we supplement the cold efficiency of the market with interventions that reduce poverty, insecurity, and inequality, the more we improve quality of life for everyone.

- And in a similar vein, Carol Goar discusses the damaging effects of deprivation and scarcity, while offering a few public policy suggestions:

[Eldar Shafir] outlined to an auditorium full of academics, policy-makers and non-profit leaders how scarcity — of food, income, time, sleep, security, friendship — impairs people's judgment and locks them into patterns of behaviour that compound their misery. And he showed how simple changes in the way they organize their lives can set them on a healthier path.
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With just 12 minutes onstage, Shafir couldn't elaborate on the policy implications of his research, but some are obvious:

•Blaming people for their poverty is wrong-headed. Chronic deprivation hijacks individuals' brains, reducing their ability to make good choices, cope with their constraints and extricate themselves from their condition.

•Inundating people who need help with forms to fill out, documents to gather, calculations to make and signatures to get overwhelms them and reduces their ability to manage their lives.

•Exhorting people to say no — to purchases they cannot afford, loans they cannot repay, deadlines they cannot meet or commitments they cannot keep — doesn't work. They need structures in their lives to prevent them from falling into to temptation and buffers to limit the harm when they do.

- Guy Giorno surprisingly adds his name to the list of people calling for a far more effective federal access-to-information system than the one he and the Harper government have abused over the past few years.

- Sheila Pratt reports on a push by oil barons to disband the lone tar sands monitoring agency which actually gives a voice to First Nations and environmental groups - preferring an industry-dominated structure instead.

- Which signals that there's plenty of work to be done in reversing the corporatist trend encouraged by Libs and Cons alike - and called out by Tom Mulcair in discussing the Cons' impending throne speech:

For decades, health, safety and environmental protections have been chipped away at in the name of economic progress. Both Liberal and Conservative governments have dismantled rules meant to protect the public and imposed industry self-regulation instead.
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This attack on basic health, safety and environmental protections was sold to the voting public on the promise that it would pave our path to prosperity. In the greatest irony of all, it was exactly this sort of unfettered deregulation that led to the greatest global economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Here in Canada, the failure of both Liberal and Conservative governments to address the impact of climate change now threatens our economic relationship with the United States — so much so that the Obama administration is now under intense pressure to block projects like Keystone XL that would boost production from the Canadian oilsands. Rather than heed the warnings of scientists, economists and First Nations, Conservatives have instead pushed ahead with legislation to gut environmental assessments and eliminate protections for fish habitat and navigable waters.

Where governments once took a leadership role in protecting the public interest, now they protect only private interests. In doing so, they have sacrificed our long-term prosperity for their short-sighted political gain. This has to end.

- Finally, Doug Elliott comments on what the Cons' shredding of the census will do to anybody trying to analyze data in the public interest:

Elliott says that the only solution is to restore the mandatory long-term census before any future damage is done. If it isn’t restored, he says he plans to retire.

“There won’t be anything to analyze,” he says.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content for your pre-debate reading.

- Dave connects a few more dots as to who's behind Robocon. Guy Giorno helpfully acknowledges that the Cons were supposed to have business-style processes to avoid the exact kind of electoral fraud that's been discovered across Canada - signalling both that they're indeed on the hook for any illegality in their midst, and that they seem to have followed the familiar corporate pattern of prioritizing immediate profit over mere trifles such as legality or human decency. Susan Riley wonders whether Robocon will have much staying power, but I tend to think Warren Kinsella is right in theorizing that it will - particularly as the Cons desperately try to cover up facts which are bound to come to light as the next federal election approaches even when a bit more willingness to acknowledge reality might serve both they and the country better in the long run.

- Erin points out some good economic news which shows that matters are getting somewhat better despite corporate tax slashing rather than because of it. And Paul Krugman continues to expose the completely contradictory claims about corporate taxes which are alternately used by corporate apologists to suggest either that the wealthiest already pay their fair share, or that the brunt of any taxes is felt entirely by workers.

- Which leads nicely to Marc Zwelling's commentary as to how we need to reframe discussion of taxes:

The correct way to talk about taxes is to tie them to the services taxes deliver and the outcomes they generate. Say taxes and services in the same breath. For instance:

* In a Vector Poll™ in 2010, 57 percent favoured more government spending for health care "even if it means higher taxes."

* 56 percent in an Angus Reid Public Opinion survey this year agreed that "even if it means increasing taxes" the federal government "has an important role to play to redistribute the wealth and intervene in the economy." Some 36 percent disagreed, and 8 percent were unsure.

* Despite the Right's 30 years of anti-tax rhetoric, six in 10 people (63 percent) in a 2010 Vector Poll™ say they would rather have good public services even if it costs more in taxes, not lower taxes "if public services are not as good" (37 percent).

Arch-conservatives will continue shrieking about taxes the way the Puritans talked about the Salem witches. But there's no excuse for progressive people to help the Right with burning at the stake.

- Finally, Martin Regg Cohn nicely highlights the absurdity of Alison Redford demanding that Ontario take its side in promoting the tar sands over any other economic development. And that pressure combined with the Cons' service to the oil industry in refusing to work with anybody who might raise concerns about pipeline construction and oil tanker traffic (even with donated money) only amplifies Bruce Livesey's concern that petrotyranny isn't far down the road.

On privileged access

It's somewhat surprising to see one of the architects of a PMO noted for an obsessive aversion to transparency pushing for a lobbying registry in Saskatchewan.

But I have to wonder whether the pitch has something to do with the flaws in the Harper Cons' federal scheme that I've pointed out before. Could it be that the federal Cons have concluded that imposing compliance costs on anybody trying to bring outside perspectives to politicians while providing accountability-free access for friendly groups offers such a large political advantage that any associated provincial government would be crazy not to follow suit?

Friday Morning Links

A few light reads to end your week...

- Yep, this census thingy will blow over any day now for the Harper Cons. Just as soon as those freeloading public health officials stop complaining that "social determinants of health" might be important for their work...

- Meanwhile, to the extent there was any doubt that Guy Giorno would officially be declared responsible for the census debacle among other Con failings, his departure from the PMO should seal the deal.

- Paul Wells' comparison between Stephen Harper and Glenn Beck only seems to be off base in missing the fact that Harper's "politics of venom" is carefully planned rather than delivered in random outbursts. But Wells' discussion of the implications for our political scene dovetails nicely with my take on base motivation:

Throughout that period, writes Perlstein, “America was engulfed in a pitched battle between the forces of darkness and the forces of light. The only thing was: Americans disagreed radically over which side was which.”

And so it is today in our own politics. Whether it’s the long-form census, the long-gun registry, criminal justice or Canada’s role in the Middle East, our politics has become nasty and hotly accusatory. One noteworthy feature of the acrimony is that each side blames the other for all the ugliness. Another is that, thanks to websites and broadcasts that preach to the converted with pinpoint accuracy (Huffington Post, Beck’s The Blaze), the possibility of consensus collapses further because neither side even hears what the other is talking about.

This is useful to Harper and disorienting to the federal Liberals. The Prime Minister is content with a polarized debate, first because it suits his personality, but also because the Conservatives get all of one side and the Liberals have to fight the Bloc and the NDP for the rest. The Liberals, meanwhile, still hope to straddle a centre that’s increasingly hard even to find.

And instead of recognizing that there's some need to counter Harper's narrowcasting and turnout suppression, the Libs seem to be playing into his hands by painting Canadian politics as a choice in tent colour rather than a subject worth getting fired up about.

- Finally, Chantal Hebert's column on the impending federal by-elections contains one rather surprising statement:

In Quebec, the pattern since 2006 has been that the Conservatives have fared better in by-elections than in general elections.

Local rather than national issues typically dominate by-election campaigns. The benefits of electing a member with the inside track on government largesse are easier to highlight in that context than in a general election.

Let's leave aside the recent pattern in Quebec (where the Bloc doesn't seem to be as successful when it can't get the entire province riled up at once). I'd always thought the conventional wisdom was to the opposite effect: that in the absence of any prospect of changing governments, by-election voters tend to be more willing to cast protest votes - but is there reason to think the opposite holds true other than in the case of the Bloc?

- Update: Let's add Avaaz' sharp response to a few obviously false names included in its petition to uphold the CRTC's decision not to give special status to Fox News North:

There is evidence of a deliberate and illegal effort designed to discredit Avaaz and violate an important form of democratic expression for Canadian citizens. If this is confirmed we will request a full investigation, and help to bring the perpetrators to justice.
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It's deeply disturbing that in all Avaaz's years of campaigns against US President George Bush, Burmese, Zimbabwean and Sudanese dictators, irresponsible multinational corporations and corrupt politicians, no one has ever yet stooped to this kind of tactic to undermine our members' right to express their views.

We do not yet have all the facts, but it appears to speak to the poisonous political climate and deeply deceptive tactics that have been bred by the radical right in Canada and its progenitor in the US. It is precisely this kind of bare-knuckled, brazenly deceptive and often hateful political climate that Sun TV's "Fox News North" appears keen to promote.

Of course, it's worth noting that while Avaaz may not yet have encountered these kinds of tactics, the "discrediting by fraud" angle is all too familiar to other progressive organizations south of the border. And the prospect of major Canadian media space being devoted to similar lies in the service of reactionary politics should provide all the more incentive to sign Avaaz' petition.

More reviews are in

Might the Cons be hoping for their gutting of the census to simply fade into the background as an issue? If so, they may want to read...

Haroon Siddiqui:

Instead of Munir Sheikh resigning as head of Statistics Canada, Tony Clement should have quit the cabinet. It was his dishonest suggestion — that he had the agency’s support in replacing the compulsory long census form with a voluntary one — that prompted Sheikh to depart.
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It was heartening to hear such principled civil servants.

By contrast, Tory politicians have been reprehensible. Harper has been mute, while his minions put up lame defences.
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It is a measure of Harper’s intransigence that he has dug in his heels despite the four-week-long non-partisan national uproar during the summer holiday season when Canadians normally have better things to do than pay much attention to politics.

The forms for the census in May next year must go to the printers within days. Yet Harper is holding the census hostage to his ideology, while also leaving Statistics Canada leaderless and rudderless.

James Travers:

Behind closed doors and without meaningful consultation, Harper and his cabinet rubber-stamped a pre-conceived conclusion. They are now characteristically defending it by grotesquely distorting facts.

Tony Clement’s fear-mongering about census scofflaws dragged away in chains and Stockwell Day’s bizarre suggestion that it’s really about discovering if your neighbour is Jewish would be funny if not so frightening. After making the wrong decision in the wrong way for the wrong reasons, Conservatives are resorting to the Big Lie in hopes of being mistaken for defenders of the little people.
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Harper’s government climbs opinion polls when Canadians are content that the country is being competently managed. It slides down them when ideology and incompetence disturb the national reverie of political indifference.

Jarred into wakefulness by the sound of summer gunfire, Canadians are confronted by the spectacle of a wounded prime minister leading a gang that can’t shoot straight.

Lawrence Martin, albeit with the inevitable "blame Giorno" attempt to salvage Harper's personal reputation as a strategist:

In addition to several other control-freak eruptions, social conservatism came to the fore with abortion funding left out of the maternal health initiative, funding cuts for Toronto’s Gay Pride day, a planned employment equity review and, most important, the decision on ending the long-form census.

The upshot has been no change in the government’s image and zero improvement in its popularity numbers. Unable to score through these times, Tories must be wondering whether they can ever score.

When he became PM, Mr. Harper wanted to gradually enlarge the Conservative tent. That required his having a team that could curb his raw appetites and fashion an appeal to the mainstream. He had people like that initially. But then the yes chorus came, the ideological shackles tightened, and the tent got smaller.

And the Chronicle-Herald editorial board:

(T)o anyone with a sense of proportion, the Tories’ heroic self-image of saving Canadians from oppression by making the "intrusive" long-form census voluntary just doesn’t square with reality.

But Industry Minister Tony Clement isn’t conceding the non-existence of incarcerated census objectors. Testifying at a Commons committee Tuesday, Mr. Clement repeatedly evaded the question when asked if anyone has been jailed. Retired chief statistician Ivan Fellegi later did supply a factual answer: No.
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The Tories’ indulgence in this melodrama shows we have more cause to worry about the ninny state than the nanny state.

Mr. Clement wants to spend $30 million to convince people to voluntarily answer questions that he and other ministers have spent weeks trashing as silly and invasive, often in misleading terms.
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So let’s take the advice of the cool heads on this issue. Scrap the unused and over-the-top jail sanction, set reasonable fines, ensure every question has a valid purpose (and tell people what it is). But protect the quality of the data by keeping the long form mandatory.

And spare us the melodrama. The Bastille is empty and the emperor has no clothes.

Update: Scott rightly notes that C.E.S. Franks should be added to the list:

In his letter announcing his resignation as Canada’s chief statistician, Munir Sheikh said he wanted to take the opportunity to comment on “a technical statistical issue” that had become a subject of media discussion. The question was whether a voluntary survey can become a substitute for a mandatory census. The answer: “It can not.”

Five days earlier, Mr. Sheikh’s minister, Tony Clement, had told the press that he asked Statistics Canada if they were confident they could do their job with a voluntary survey, and their answer had been that, provided extra steps were taken in advertising and enlarging the sample size, “Yes, we can do our job.”

These two statements fundamentally contradict each other. There are only two possibilities for explaining the difference: Either someone is not telling the truth, or Mr. Sheikh’s and Statistics Canada’s views on the usefulness of a voluntary survey have changed.

Mr. Sheikh’s and Statistics Canada’s views and advice to the government on the usefulness of a voluntary survey did not change.
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Quite likely, Mr. Sheikh discussed his resignation and the contents of his public letter with the clerk. Perhaps they agreed on his description of a major policy change as a technical issue in order to allow Statistics Canada’s views to be made public. But if a deputy minister is compelled to resign every time a minister misrepresents the advice given by the public service, Canada would soon run out of competent and independent-thinking senior public servants. Something stinks in this entire affair, and it is not Mr. Sheikh or Statistics Canada.

The reviews are in

Don Martin finds Guy Giorno's committee appearance today to have made for an implausible performance of a tired script:

In a startling display of bad timing, Mr. Giorno faced his tormentors an hour after Access to Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault attacked the Harper government for obstruction and stonewalling.

It set up an interesting clash between a parliamentary officer giving the Harper government a severe tongue-lashing for blocking public data and a chief of staff who proclaims himself a true believer in public access to information.

Mr. Giorno was to be admired for delivering a charming imitation of a sand-buried ostrich head, refusing to acknowledge he was even in a hot seat and declaring with repetitive gusto that an effective information-release process was in place.

The way he argued it, political staff do not have the right to slow down or stop public information from being released and besides, it’s all about ministerial responsibility that has nothing to do with his PMO.

Of course nobody believed a word of the argument that this government has a hands-off policy when it comes to closely supervising the release of bad-news information.
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Naturally, the official opposition parties were frustrated by Mr. Giorno’s selective hearing impediment to their questions and a brain loaded only with his own talking points. In the end, they engaged in a pointless search for insight from a guy who patiently and politely revealed only what he wanted to say and not a syllable more.