#Elxn44 Roundup

News and notes from Canada's federal election campaign.

- Doug Nesbitt calls out Erin O'Toole's bait-and-switch scheme toward the working class. And PressProgress highlights how the Cons' policy planks for gig workers were actually written by Uber lobbyists to entrench permanent underclass status in law. 

- Meanwhile, D.T. Cochrane examines the Libs' platform from the standpoint of tax fairness and finds that it conspicuously avoids going far in that direction. And Paul Wells notes that incompleteness and incoherence are the main messages to be found in the platform of the party which controlled the timing of the election. 

- David Moscrop writes that the only meaningful answer to a worsening housing crisis is to build large numbers of non-market homes. 

- Bernie Farber argues that hate crimes should be an important issue for voters. But in case anybody was under the illusion that greater police authority is an answer, Stewart Bell reports on a newly-released intelligence report showing that extremist groups are actively recruiting members of Canada's military and police forces. 

- David Coletto offers up Abacus' polling on the "ownership" of issues - finding both a variety of top issues for voters, and plenty of room for movement in determining which party is seen as best equipped to address them. 

- Finally, Heather Scoffield writes that the common problem with the Libs' and Cons' plans is their dependence on implausible assumptions about what our economy will look like. 

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Jerusalem Demsas discusses the strong popular support for affordable social housing even as governments continually fail to provide it. Daphne Bramham rightly asks why we haven't seen far more of a move toward the Housing First models (including both secure housing and the availability of associated supports) which have consistently proven effective at assisting people facing addictions and homelessness. And Richard Warnica weighs in on the death toll from Ontario's reliance on for-profit long-term care homes. 

- Moira Wyton reports on the outcome of British Columbia's panel on a basic income - which found that more targeted income and basic services would represent a better use of public resources. And Heather Scoffield offers her take on why a basic income isn't the right option to try to eliminate poverty. 

- Timothy Bond, Jillian Carr, Analisa Packham and Jonathan Smith study how the timing of food benefits directly affects students' scores on tests which affect their future.

- Bill Blaikie puts some of the forces behind the U.S.' Trumpist insurrection into historical context. And Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan write about the needed push from social movements for change as the Biden/Harris administration begins its tenure.

- Meanwhile, Scott Harold Payne wonders whether the relentless flow of corruption and incompetence from the UCP will lead to the end of Alberta conservatism as we know it.

- Finally, Kendall Latimer reports on Saskatchewan's long-overdue end to the use of birth alerts - while also noting the need to make up for the damage they've done already.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Heather Scoffield writes that contrary to the spin from corporate mouthpieces, workers have been eager to find work when it's been available in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. And John Cartwright comments on the need for a recovery to be just and equitable for everybody.

- Instead, Anand Giridharidas highlights how it's billionaires who have taken advantage of the coronavirus to line their pockets with unprecedented fortunes, while Oxfam examines how COVID-19 has exacerbated inequality and allowed employers to put even more extreme pressure on workers. And Ed Yong writes about the U.S.' coronavirus death spiral.

- Paul Vallely discusses how philanthropy serves the wealthiest few, rather than the people who are supposed to benefit from charitable contributions.

- George Monbiot discusses how the UK is relying on little more than corruption for its political and economic foundation. And Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean points out how the model of "fiscal conservatism" at the base of Western Canada's right-wing parties involves brutal austerity for the people who can least afford it, but extremely loose spending when it comes to political friends and donors.

- Finally, Dan Fumano reports on the successes of British Columbia's new regulator which has been taking long-needed steps to improve the condition of rental housing since the province finally elected a government interested in the public's well-being. And Jordan Press reports on the push from municipalities to ensure that available housing is made affordable for people who need it, rather than turning into a cash cow for already-wealthy property managers.

Tuesday Evening Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- James Galbraith offers a reality check to anybody counting on an immediate U.S. economic bounceback in the midst of an ongoing pandemic:

(P)eople do distinguish between needs and wants. Americans need to eat, but they mostly don’t need to eat out. They don’t need to travel. Restaurant owners and airlines therefore have two problems: they can’t cover costs while their capacity is limited for public-health reasons, and demand would be down even if the coronavirus disappeared. This explains why many businesses are not reopening even though they legally can. Others are reopening, but fear they cannot hold out for long. And the many millions of workers in America’s vast services sector are realizing that their jobs are simply not essential.

Meanwhile, US household debts – rent, mortgage, and utility arrears, as well as interest on education and car loans – have continued to mount. True, stimulus checks have helped: defaults have so far been modest, and many landlords have been accommodating. But as people face long periods with lower incomes, they will continue to hoard funds to ensure that they can repay their fixed debts. As if all this were not enough, falling sales- and income-tax revenues are prompting US state and local governments to cut spending, compounding the loss of jobs and incomes.

America’s economic plight is structural. It is not simply the consequence of Trump’s incompetence or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s poor political strategy. It reflects systemic changes over 50 years that have created an economy based on global demand for advanced goods, consumer demand for frills, and ever-growing household and business debts. This economy was in many ways prosperous, and it provided jobs and incomes to many millions. Yet it was a house of cards, and COVID-19 has blown it down.

 “Reopen America” is therefore an economic and political fantasy. Incumbent politicians crave a cheery growth rebound, and the depth of the collapse makes possible some attractive short-term numbers. But taking them seriously will merely set the stage for a new round of disillusion. As nationwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality show, disillusion is America’s one big growth sector right now.

- Armine Yalnizyan and Laurell Richie discuss why cancelling the CERB would figure to prove disastrous (and it's hardly to the Libs' credit that they've kicked the can down the road only another couple of months). And Heather Scoffield rebuts the arguments against a secure income in a time of crisis.

- Michael Grabell, Claire Perlman and Bernice Yeung expose the lobbying carried out by U.S. meatpackers looking to keep their employees' lives at risk. And Michael Corkery and David Yaffe-Bellany report that loud warnings about domestic meat shortages were in fact used to goose pork exports to China.

- Alice Walton reports on new research showing how face masks may be the key to controlling the spread of COVID-19 while allowing for somewhat more social interaction.

- Finally, Alex Hemingway writes that a wealth tax on the ultra-rich is within reach (and would result in plenty of beneficial outcomes). And Karl Nerenberg looks at some of the many ways to ensure the wealthy pay their fair share toward relief and recovery efforts.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Jim Stanford points out that any "bitumen bubble" will only get worse if the Cons and their provincial cousins get their way in shifting the Canadian economy even further toward immediate tar sands extraction:

(I)f the problem exists because we’re pumping out raw bitumen faster than markets can absorb it, will it really help to pump it out even faster? Few analysts believe the Keystone pipeline to the United States would solve the problem, even if it does get built; at best, it would displace downward price pressure from Oklahoma southward to Louisiana. Pipelines through British Columbia are unlikely to be built, for environmental reasons. And even if Canadian oil could reach Asia, remember that there are similar price risks there – including alternative supplies, conservation and environmental constraints. In sum, the inherent limitations of an economic strategy rooted in the extraction and export of raw resources cannot be overcome by simply finding another foreigner to sell to.

The sheer waste and irrationality of the Canadian discount should be addressed with alternative measures. Instead of extracting and exporting raw commodities, we should strive to add more value to our resources right here in Canada. Upstream, we could use far more Canadian-made equipment in resource projects. Downstream, we could upgrade and refine the resource instead of saturating export markets with raw output. Even better would be to use Canadian petroleum refined at home to displace the expensive crude currently imported from Britain and Algeria.

Yes, this would mean slowing the pace of bitumen expansion, since there’s not enough demand in Canada, to absorb all the new bitumen the industry wants to pump. But we would extract much more value from each barrel. And we’d stop cheapening the value of our own non-renewable resources with this mad rush to export.

- Meanwhile, Stephen Leahy takes note of the Cons' effort to brand environmentalists as terrorists in order to silence dissent from the oil-at-all-costs extraction policy. Saskboy reacts with due outrage here at home.

- And Heather Scoffield reports that the Cons' supposed commitment to monitoring the environmental impacts of the tar sands has led to precisely zero public reporting so far - while any future reporting will be based less on the neutral and accurate presentation of actual results than a concerted effort to fit any result into the party line:

The hope is to start releasing data through a publicly accessible portal soon — perhaps by the end of the month, although no date has been made final.

Some types of data would be streamed continuously as scientists produce it. Other data would be released at periodic intervals of three or six months. And other categories would be released more holistically, presented in a way that would prevent analysts from coming to spurious conclusions based on a partial picture, Dodds said.

- Finally, speaking of complete failures, Amy Minsky and Mike Le Couteur took the time to check on the Cons' spin about reviewing ministerial expenses - and found that eight out of nine departments who responded (including Bev Oda's) featured absolutely no effort to determine whether expenses claimed were actually legitimate.