Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Paul Krugman writes that the U.S. is now the world's foremost petrostate - with disastrous results for it and for the world at large (with the exception of the group of countries including China who are leading the charge toward electrification). 

- Mary Stuart and Geoff Dembicki map out Gwyn Morgan's multimillion-dollar fossil fuel propaganda empire. And Amanda Bryant points out how the UCP has made a mockery of yet another supposed agreement with the Carney government by taking federal forbearance as an invitation toward unregulation methane pollution. 

- Niigaan Sinclair writes that spying on Indigenous peoples (invariably in the service of resource extraction) represents an intolerable threat to everybody's civil rights. 

- Katie Jagielnicka examines the misogyny behind the alt-right's relentless attacks on intellectualism. And Hanna Horvath writes that ubiquitous gambling is a demonstrable source of both intimate partner violence and social breakdown.  

- Finally, Victor Tangarmann examines the dangers of cognitive surrender in the face of authoritative-sounding-but-wrong directions from artificial intelligence. 

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Jonathan Watts reports on a new Oxfam report finding that the carbon emissions of the wealthiest few result directly in increased hunger and poverty for those less lucky. 

- Colin Bogle writes about the damage caused in Texas by a Republican party focused on corruption and climate denial at the expense of the basic functions of government. Geoff Dembicki reports on Gwyn Morgan's large donations to the development of a similar culture of ignorance north of the border. 

- Drew Anderson weighs in on what Saskatchewan can expect from another term of extractivist government. And Oliver Milman writes about some of the global environmental risks arising from the prospect of another Trump presidency, while Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood focuses on the potential fallout for Canada in particular. 

- Paul Willcocks discusses what the BC NDP's narrow election win (in the face of a concerted attempt by the corporate sector to install an alt-right party in power) means for the province. And Max Fawcett discusses how the spread of anti-democracy truthers following the election bodes ill for Canada's political system generally. 

- Finally, Chris Osuh reports on a new study showing that beyond the obvious social harms, the UK's social stratification also produces economic costs in the tens of billions of pounds per year. 

Wednesday Evening Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Scott Clark and Peter DeVries criticize the Cons' choice to prioritize right-wing dogma over sound economic management:

What should Canada do? For starters, the passive approach isn’t working. In the face of global economic uncertainty and a secular decline in growth, Canadian policy makers need to get at the levers that can strengthen growth at home.

...Of course we have options — they just happen to be ones that clash with the Conservatives’ hands-off economic orthodoxy. The Harper government is committed to lower taxes, lower spending, balanced budgets and smaller government. But why should Canadians accept these as the only options? There’s nothing inevitable in this climate about years of sluggish growth. It’s a choice — a political choice.

So with its energies directed at the coming election, the Harper government finds itself stuck in a dilemma of its own making. It wants to run on a record of good economic management but it wants to define that record as narrowly as possible — as simply eliminating the deficit. In fact, as we argued last week, the government could kill the deficit this year, one year ahead of their political schedule. But getting rid of a deficit you created doesn’t make you a good economic manager. Healthy economies grow at a healthy rate. Ours isn’t.
...
Why not stabilize the debt ratio at 30 per cent of GDP? Why shouldn’t a government borrow to make new investments when ten-year, thirty-year, and fifty-year interest rates are at historically low levels? Surely that’s what future generations would want us to do.

- And Stephen Kimber reminds us of the yawning gap between Harper and the Canadian public - while recognizing that it's also worth demanding that a new government actually improve on the Cons' attitude toward what brings us together as a country:

What are Canadians most proud of? Well, start with medicare, followed by international peacekeeping and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Not to forget multiculturalism, bilingualism and the Canadarm.
...
But...there is a jangling disconnect between what Canadians say they believe in and the values Stephen Harper has enshrined in Canada's laws and practices since his party won the majority of seats in the 2011 election.
...
[Harper has] cut the netting from under our social safety net, slashed public services, done a 180-degree foreign-affairs pirouette from global honest broker to ideological barking dog, glorified the military while denigrating veterans, stealthily imposed a new unilateral medicare funding formula to eviscerate national health-care standards and download costs on to the provinces, imposed tough-on-crime legislation and mandatory minimum sentences despite evidence they don't work, attacked the courts, eliminated the long-form census, muzzled scientists, destroyed important data, emasculated environmental protections, audited charities and environmental critics, cut taxes for the rich while leaving gaping loopholes for offshore tax cheats, gutted the CBC, passed Orwellian legislation like the Fair Elections Act to make elections anything but…

The list goes on. When I asked on Facebook recently "what a post-Harper government would need to do to undo Harper's disastrous re-making of Canada," I got close to 100 responses with at least three dozen different specific suggestions.

All of this means the scheduled 2015 federal election should not simply be another rascal-changing exercise.

The 60 per cent of us who didn't vote to radically change our country's laws and values must now ask those who would seek to replace Stephen Harper not simply what they will do for our country but what they will undo to give us back our country.

- Meanwhile, Tavia Grant reports on the financial squeeze facing far too many Canadians. Frances Woolley discusses the gender politics of taxation. And Carol Goar notes that the Ontario Libs' spin about addressing poverty isn't being matched with actions:

Anti-poverty advocates have learned to welcome crumbs from the Ontario Liberals.

That is what they got in the five-year poverty reduction strategy unveiled by Deputy Premier Deb Matthews last week. The 56-page blueprint consisted of recycled promises, long-term goals, soothing language and self-congratulations (despite the fact she fell far short of her last five-year target.)

But social activists lauded the government for its good intentions, its comprehensive framework and its long-sought acknowledgement that homelessness is a provincial responsibility. They politely overlooked the fact that the minister did not raise welfare rates, did not provide a nutrition allowance, did not address the shortage of child care spaces and did not offer rent supplements.

Do these advocates really speak for people living in poverty?

It seems unlikely. Good intentions don’t fill empty stomachs or pay the rent. Families in need don’t care which government does what.

Does easy praise encourage the government to aim low?

That seems highly probable. As long as Matthews can win public plaudits for saying what “stakeholders” want to hear, she needn’t risk bold action. As long as those who claim to represent the poor are onside, she needn’t back up her words with money.

- Rank and File documents the Honour Our Deal movement which is looking to preserve the pensions earned by municipal workers in and around Regina. And Brigitte Noel reports on the heinous conditions faced by a temporary foreign worker who has since died on the job.

- Finally, PressProgress duly mocks Gwyn Morgan - not long ago one of the key figures behind one of the world's most corrupt businesses - for complaining that he and his ilk have managed to give corporations a bad name.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Pierre Brochu and David Green study the effect of minimum wage rates, and find a connection between a higher minimum wage and greater employment stability. But if there's a choice between stable, well-paying work and precarious employment where job churn and wage reductions are seen as the norm, far too many policy-makers are choosing the latter - as Annie Lowrey notes that U.S. states are actively slashing benefits for unemployed workers to force them to grab desperately at whatever is available.

- Meanwhile, Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato and Owen Zidar offer reason to doubt the theory that corporate tax giveaways have any redeeming social value. And Toby Sanger calls out Gwyn Morgan for attacking workers' pensions as being too lavish while collecting millions each year himself (plus enjoying preferential tax treatment on his stock options).

- Martha Rosenberg looks at six examples of drugs which were approved and mass-marketed in the face of massive risks and side effects - as big pharma chased down immediate profits at the expense of unwitting patients. And Scott Stelmaschuk highlights the lack of real choice for consumers - not to mention the lack of investment in the public interest - where a few well-connected corporate entities control most of the major goods and services people need.

- Sticking to the subject of illusions of choice, Thomas Walkom reminds us of the Libs' track record in federal government - featuring their simultaneously taking credit for both introducing and slashing the public programs which once did more to mitigate against corporate domination.

- Finally, Deborah Campbell interviews Ron Diebert about the dangers of mass surveillance. And Nafeez Ahmed provides a prime example of the type of excuse being used to brand large numbers of citizens as potential threats, noting that mere opposition to fracking has resulted in activists being labeled as terrorists.

Friday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to end your week.

- Tim Harper suggests that the Cons are running out of options to try to push the Gateway pipeline on a thoroughly-opposed public in British Columbia. But in keeping with the Cons' general view of the world as nothing but a public relations problem to be shouted down for financial gain, James Moore and Gwyn Morgan are sure they have the answer: more high-priced spin from Enbridge and other tar-sands operators. And pogge rightly notes that part of the anti-environment strategy figures to include an effort to paint all environmental activism and advocacy as "terrorism".

- Carol Goar comments on the continuing efforts of Canadian doctors to save health care for refugees from the Cons' cuts:

Rashid, a family physician, is one of the founders of Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care, which has vowed to track and report cases of death or serious harm resulting from Kenney’s $20-million-a-year cutback.

It took effect a month ago. But reports already are coming in: a 7-year-old epileptic boy in Hamilton was hospitalized for a severe seizure because he could not get medicine; a woman who had endured multiple rapes after she was sold into the sex trade couldn’t get an ultrasound for the fetus she was carrying; a Colombian man is desperately fundraising to pay Toronto General Hospital for life-saving abdominal surgery; two refugee claimants in Ottawa — one Peruvian, the other El Salvadoran — have stopped taking their post-traumatic stress medications.

By fall, the doctors hope to have a compendium of cases from across the country. A local delegation of medical workers will show up every time a cabinet minister makes an announcement, the government calls a news conference or Parliament holds public hearings to highlight specific cases. “None of us wants to disrupt meetings, but we really feel we have no choice,” said Tim O’Shea of McMaster University, who works as a medical consultant at the Shelter Health Network in Hamilton.

Since April, the doctors have been asking Kenney for a meeting on this issue. So far he has refused.

- Meanwhile, the Star rightly points out that the Cons' thoroughly-discredited finger-pointing over Attawapiskat did nothing to help the underlying housing crisis.

- Finally, the Star-Phoenix weighs in on the need for some answers about Robocon:

It is rare for Elections Canada officials to speak out about investigations before they are concluded, and the agency receives dozens of complaints after every election. Often it takes years to clear these files.

But the allegations that voters in some ridings received socalled robocalls misdirecting them to wrong voter stations, or calls from people alleging to be from particular parties who acted in an obnoxious or insulting manner in an apparent attempt to discourage their votes, is a little more serious than candidates complaining their signs have been defaced.

If these allegations are true, it strikes to the heart of Canada's electoral system. For a democratic system to function properly the electoral process must be considered trustworthy. And for a democratic government to rule with authority, the public must have confidence it legitimately came to power.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Janet Bagnall neatly dissects the Cons' plan for dismantling public services:

The Harper government is nothing if not predictable in how it goes about dismantling a program or service. It starts by denigrating the program and the program’s beneficiaries, and telling Canadians that they’ve been played for fools by the beneficiaries. Once that message has been drilled home, and the government judges that the moment is right and Canadians’ attitudes changed, it proceeds to get rid of the offending program – no matter how impractical, immoral or ultimately costly the exercise might prove to be.

- Dan Leger discusses Gwyn Morgan's efforts to poison Canada's political discourse in service to the Harper Cons.

- Heather Mallick is the latest to weigh in on the Republican-style anti-labour attitude of the Canadian right. And the Globe and Mail does its best Conservadem impression by declaring that teachers' unions should accept massive cuts from a Lib party which is at best pretending to play nice as the price of avoiding Tim Hudak's overt hatred and contempt.

- Finally, Alice takes a look at party spending in the 2011 federal election. And perhaps the most interesting note is that both the Libs (at the national level) and the Bloc (at the riding level) managed to increase their spending over 2008 in a losing battle to hold their previous ground.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Andrew Coyne is rightly alarmed at the Cons' move to short-circuit any debate about major policy changes through an omnibus budget bill. And Bea Vongdoaungchanh reports that the biggest of those changes is to set our environmental laws back by half a century.

- David Macdonald highlights the $114 billion bailout which was necessary to keep Canada's banks afloat. And while it might be fair to say the potential price was worth it to avoid unnecessary disruption, I'd defy anybody to justify the Cons' being so generous with the banks while looking for excuses to push mere workers underwater.

- Andrew MacLeod reports on how the Cons are refusing to allow provinces to discuss the terms of a free trade pact with Europe - even when they're the ones who may end up on the hook for billions of dollars in drug costs and other negative effects.

- pogge duly slams the Globe and Mail for giving Gwyn Morgan a free pass to baselessly attack solar energy without disclosing any of his personal interest in shutting down renewable development.

- Finally, Ken Norman, Mary Eberts and Alex Neve criticize the Sask Party's regressive take on human rights in Saskatchewan.

Villainous but familiar

There's little reason to argue with Kady's take on the Cons' reported plans for the CRTC - including pushing aside all independent voices in order to put Pierre Karl Péladeau's right hand man in charge of evaluating Péladeau's application to force Canadians to fund Fox News North.

But while it's right to see the mooted elevation of Luc Lavoie as "cartoon villain-like", I wouldn't think the mindset should be seen as anything new. After all, can the idea of Lavoie in charge of the CRTC really be seen as any more galling or flagrantly partisan than, say, the nomination of longtime Con bagman Gwyn Morgan to be responsible for making public appointments non-partisan?

Interconnected

There's plenty of material worth reading about the Cons' shady dealings in Saanich-Gulf Islands which may have made the difference in Gary Lunn's reelection. But one part of the story seems to have received surprisingly little mention given how it ties the riding's shenanigans into the Cons' government as a whole.

Here's the background to one of the contacts listed for one of the astroturf groups set up to advertise for Lunn (see second link above):

Until September, (Patricia) Trottier was a director of CV Technologies, the company that promotes the controversial Cold-FX remedy championed by Don Cherry.

Her husband is Gwyn Morgan, the former president and CEO of EnCana Corporation and a former fundraiser for the Canadian Alliance and Conservative parties.

Together Morgan and Trottier own Victoria's eighth most expensive home and sit on the board of the C2C Journal along with other right wing luminaries like former Reform Party leader Preston Manning, the Fraser Institute's Michael Walker and Calgary professor and Harper adviser Tom Flanagan. Morgan and Trottier gave $1 million last year to the Fraser Institute Foundation, the right-wing advocacy group.

Oddly, the Tyee leaves out what may be the most important piece of Morgan's background. Presumably due in large part to his well-documented Con connections, he was Harper's idea of a chair for a non-partisan public appointments commission. And it was in response to his rejection by the opposition parties that Harper threw a tantrum and refused to set up the commission.

Now, there's no indication that Morgan had direct ties to the Lunn ad buys. But Trottier's link to Morgan would seem to add another reason for serious skepticism about the groups involved. And Morgan's continued involvement as a benefactor for the right-wing noise machine can only confirm that the opposition parties were right to reject his appointment rather than allowing somebody so closely tied to the Cons and their ideological allies to set the parameters for hiring within the public service.