Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.


- Simon Enoch examines Scott Moe's bait-and-switch when it comes to carbon taxes, including his utter refusal to offer any other plan for province-wide emission reductions as a substitute for consumer-based carbon pricing. And Aaron Wherry points out how any carbon tax falls far short of the actual social cost of carbon. 

- Alissa Quart offers a reminder that the perceived necessity of second jobs and side gigs is a sign of a broken economic system which makes unfair demands of workers. And the Economist charts the pessimism many Americans have about the course of the next few decades when it comes to their standard of living, their health and their environment.

- Fay Faraday argues that Canada needs to stop exploiting migrant workers. But Bill Curry writes that the Libs are instead following the Trump/Scheer plan to strip rights and protections away from immigrants, including by slipping a blanket denial of refugee claims into an omnibus budget bill.

- Finally, Geoff Dembicki discusses Jason Kenney's choice to make his UCP into a breeding ground for bigotry. And Hugh MacKenzie studies the effect of the UCP's platform (or Kenney's even more austerian promises), concluding that its anti-social cuts would lead to the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Hugh MacKenzie comments on the continued need for an adult conversation about public revenue, including the importance of bringing in enough in taxes to fund the services which serve everybody's best interests:

The disconnect between public services and the taxes we pay to provide them that has dominated the Canadian political narrative for the past quarter-century isn’t just quirk of politics that we can just file under the heading “lies our politicians keep telling us.” That disconnect matters. It invites us to vote for a property tax freeze, a sales tax cut, an income-tax cut — even if it doesn’t benefit us much. It invites us to disregard the reality that governments have a responsibility to ensure the ability to pay for the public services that we depend on.
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None of the tax cutters ever has the guts to be honest with people about the impact of reduced revenue on public services. But the pattern has been repeated over and over again across Canada.
In 1992, the five-year average of total government expenditures as a share of GDP was 48.6 per cent. In 2016, the five-year average was 40.1 per cent — in the context of today’s $2 trillion economy, that’s worth $170 billion in lost spending on public services.

We see clear crisis indicators of decline everywhere we look:

• Crumbling public infrastructure. 
• An elementary and secondary education system whose funding cannot meet the needs of today’s students. 
• Post-secondary tuition that is now more than triple what it was 25 years ago. 
• The lack [of] affordable housing and the rise in homelessness. 
• A public health insurance system that excludes the fastest growing component of health care costs (pharmaceutical drugs) and that is straining to meet the needs of an aging population.

And now, in Ontario, here we go again, with a clear denial of the link between taxes and public services “no dollar is better spent — than the dollar that is left in the pockets of the taxpayer” elevated from meaningless political rhetoric to a line in the official Throne Speech of the new provincial government.

Nine years on, the report card on the adult conversation we need to have about taxes and public services can be summed up in two phrases: missing in action; and still badly needed.

- Meagan Day discusses the gap between CEOs and the rest of us as highlighted by Bernie Sanders' town hall on work and inequality. Debbie Weingarten notes that the vacations taken for granted by many aren't available to people scraping by in precarious work situations. And Maham Abedi writes about the personal stress caused by poverty.

- M.H. Miller writes about the crushing effect of personal debt on U.S. workers. And Hailie Salvian reports on Saskatchewan's number of mortgages in arrears which is disturbingly high both in historical context, and in comparison to every other Canadian province.

- Finally, Nicholas Keung reports on an audit showing how Canada's treatment of immigrants is already biased toward arbitrary long-term detention, while Nora Loreto fully expects matters to get worse with Bill Blair having been put in charge of a new anti-immigrant portfolio due to his lock-'em-up track record. Lana Payne calls out the Cons for stoking xenophobia as a matter of cynical political calculation. And Dan Zakreski reports on the attack on Abu Sheikh as yet another example of the violence being perpetrated in the name of bigotry.

[Edit: added link.]

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Hugh Mackenzie writes that the biggest problem with the Libs' closing tax loopholes for private corporations was the failure to push for far more tax fairness:

Any tax reform that isn’t just a give away creates winners and losers. If the goal is to make the tax system fairer, the majority of Canadians win—especially if the result in increased capacity to pay for public services. But, almost inevitably, the gains look pretty small and remote to most individual Canadians because they are spread out amongst so many of us.

The losers, on the other hand, are inevitably a concentrated group who know exactly who they are, who know exactly what they have at stake, and have the resources to fight back. That is, the rich and the powerful.
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Any serious attempt to shift the course of the system towards fairness will generate ferocious opposition from vested interests. The corporate lobby’s wildly disproportionate response to what amounts to tinkering with the small business tax system at the margins should teach us that the opposition is never calibrated to the ambitiousness of the initiative.

If anything we do is going to generate hysteria from the concentrated few with vested interests, why not do something meaningful and take the debate head on with real energy and with stakes that are actually meaningful to the vast majority of Canadians who stand to benefit from a fairer tax system.

The risk in this debate is that the lesson learned is don’t mess with small business. The lesson should be go big or go home. If tax fairness for the majority is what you want, be prepared to fight for it.

- Meanwhile, Andrew Jackson examines how the passive investment loophole for Canadian corporations is enabling a small number of extremely wealthy people to avoid contributing their fair share. And Nicholas Shaxson points out that it's impossible for a country to achieve inclusive development if its only ambition is to be a tax haven.

- George Monbiot writes about a P3 arrangement which is resulting in the UK city of Sheffield having its trees massacred due to a road maintenance contract. And Jathan Sadowski offers a warning against allowing the corporate sector to take over even more governing functions (as a Google subsidiary is being allowed to do in one Toronto district).

- Joseph Stiglitz weighs in on the U.S.' growing problem of corporate monopolies which limit the choices and standard of living for citizens.

- And finally, Alexander Hart theorizes that a message of making life less complicated and stressful may offer a rallying point for progressives.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Alison Crawford reports on the Libs' failure to pass any new legislation to allow collective bargaining for RCMP members - leaving them with even less than the system which was already found to be unconstitutional. And Jake Johnson discusses the consequences of the U.S. corporate sector's war on unions:

In a climate of intense insecurity, cultivated by both the hostile corporate setting and the wider economic context of the United States in the 21st century, workers hesitate to speak out against their employers for fear of losing their jobs. "Lives depend on these wages," the report notes. "Usually, there are few other options in the area, and these options likely pay lower wages."

Outrage sparked by horrendous working conditions is thus overshadowed by intense shame and, ultimately, resignation. "Workers clearly get the message that they if they want to keep their job, they need to endure what happens inside the plant — or, in the words of many, 'allí está la puerta' ('there’s the door')."

This sense of helplessness is felt across many industries and is largely the result of a ruthless, decades-long effort by highly class-conscious elites to dismantle unions and undercut potential threats to the accumulation of profit.
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(E)ven as profits soar, the most vulnerable workers remain stuck in an untenable scenario — horrified by their conditions but lacking an outlet through which they can voice their discontent.

There is a reason, then, that economic elites are waging unabashed class war: They understand that organized labor is a threat to corporate power. Unions are a redistributive force, one that endangers the ingrained paradigm of concentrated wealth.

- Meanwhile, Hugh MacKenzie calls out the financial sector's attempts to divert any discussion of pensions toward schemes to skim ever-increasing management fees off of Canadians' retirement savings. And Dwayne Winseck points out the inevitable effects of Bell's planned takeover of MTS as an example of corporate oligopoly at its worst.

- Jim Bronskill reports that the Libs seem inclined to pair any increase in the authority of the Information Commissioner with an unaccountable ministerial veto - which might actually make it even more difficult for Canadians to get access to the records which matter most.

- Finally, the Star calls for the Libs to reverse the Cons' gratuitously-punitive changes to the pardon system.

New column day

Here, on what the Trudeau Libs' first budget tells us about the difficulty turning around a government - and how Saskatchewan voters should take the lesson to heart in deciding whether to settle for four more years of an anti-government governing party.

For further reading...
- I linked to plenty of reviews of the Libs' budget here. And to add a few more to the list, see Paul Wells on the Libs' half-measures and incomplete tasks, John Geddes on their deferred promises in general, Pam Palmater on the especially galling broken promises to First Nations, and Hugh Mackenzie on how the budget backtracks on a promise to close the stock option loophole.
- Meanwhile, we're into the home stretch of the Saskatchewan election after last night's leaders' debate. And I'll have more to say about the debate and how it fits into the broader campaign in a future post.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Jan-Emmanuel De Neve and Nick Powdthavee discuss how the rise of an exclusive class of the rich increases stress and decreases well-being for everybody else.

Using data from the World Top Incomes Database and the Gallup World Poll, we compared the share of taxable income held by the top 1% in each country with reported levels of life satisfaction over the last 30 years. We found that a 1% increase in the share of taxable income held by the top 1% hurts life satisfaction as much as a 1.4% increase in the country-level unemployment rate.

This is a stark reminder that it’s not just about how much you have, nor even how much you have relative to everyone else, but also how much the top 1% has. With that level of income accumulation, even if you are a member of the relatively well-to-do middle class some things start getting priced beyond your reach, such as housing.

In addition, there may be psychological reasons driving the correlation between rising top incomes and decreased average wellbeing: a rise in the share of income held by the richest 1% could make you feel as if your chance of moving up the ladder is growing increasingly beyond your reach.

This is particularly true for certain groups of people. We found that people who are young, less educated or on low incomes tend to suffer more as the richest get richer.

- Meanwhile, the CP finds that nearly half of Canadians are barely averting insolvency. Gary Mason points out how British Columbia's latest budget sprays cash at everybody except the people who actually need it. And Sean Swan comments on the need to address class economics in order to deal with inequality.

- Terri Coles writes about the growing political movement for a basic income in Canada, while Jonathan Brun makes the case for Quebec to lead the way. And Jonathan Sher reports on the push from London's top public health official for a living wage.

- Charlie Angus reminds us of Canada's chronic underfunding of First Nations. And Anna Mehler Paperny reports on the appalling mortality rates for young children in Canada's North, together with their obvious social causes.

- Finally, Hugh MacKenzie discusses the advantages of ensuring secure public pensions, rather than counting on millions of retirees to save for themselves (with the financial services sector taking its substantial cut off the top).

Friday Evening Links

This and that to end your week.

- Serina Sandhu writes that everybody is worse off when inequality is allowed to run rampant. And Danny Dorling highlights the principles we'll need to follow in order to reverse the trend in that direction:

There was a time when hardly anyone was roofless in the UK, when you never met a beggar and when those with least were not that different from those in the middle, when those with least had enough to be included in society. I was young then. As I age it becomes harder to remember when I first saw teenagers having to sleep rough, or was first asked for ‘the price of a cup of tea’, or first realized that because I could make some choices whereas others couldn’t, that they were no longer free.

Luckily you don’t have to rely on the memories of the old to know that a more equal world is possible, a world where the 1% take a far smaller share of the cake. The 1%, by definition, will always be those taking the largest slice, but not always such a great fat slice, leaving slithers for the rest. Question those who say that it can only be this way. Try to question them kindly rather than with incredulity. A society based on merit would be remarkably equitable compared with what we face today. No one is worth 3000 times another person. The three-thousand fold inequalities within the 1% are just as indefensible as those between them and the other 99%.
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Gross inequality creates a lack of respect for the other group – people who are not like us. There is a lack of respect among the rich for the poor, and that will be the same among the poor for the rich. Lack of respect breeds cruelty and hate. Lack of respect is not new and has grown between groups many times before, over religion, race, nationality, social class, sex and sexuality. These older divisions all remain and can be easily reignited, resulting in cruelty and hate, fear, suffering and despair. However, nowadays it is financial inequality both globally and in the UK that is the greatest source of our separation from each other.

What is needed is understanding and generosity, hope and perseverance, but above all kindness. Kindness is patient, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not self-seeking (1 Corinthians 13, verses 4-8). All is worthwhile when we have been kind.

- Meanwhile, Jonathan Heller connects race and poverty as related contributing causes of health disparities. But Robert Rogers finds that it's income which plays a larger role than any other factor in childhood obesity.

- Ben Norton comments on the U.S.' disappearing middle class, as the majority of the population doesn't have enough savings to handle even a $1,000 emergency expense.

- Hugh Mackenzie responds to a particularly inept defence of labour inequality by pointing out that even if CEOs were worth their weight in gold, they'd still be overpaid. And Adnan Al-Daini discusses how everybody else is subsidizing the increasingly absurd amounts being paid to the lucky few.

- Finally, Michael Harris delivers a well-deserved retort to Kevin O'Leary in response to his attempt to become Canada's Donald Trump:

Using O’Leary’s standards, the guy with the biggest bank account is the smartest dude. Which means that Norway wins because it both got North Sea oil developed, and it exacted the public’s fair share, which it refused to merge into general revenues. Alberta and Canada caved in to energy investment at any price, blew the windfall, and now have to face the music. With oil dipping below $30 a barrel, it might be a dirge.

So let’s not forget the real authors of this mess. O’Leary would have you believe that Alberta now has catastrophic political leadership. What he actually means is the free lunch for Big Business is over.

The NDP might have delivered a $5 billion deficit budget, replete with new taxes — but it was past Conservative governments which made both the deficit and the tax hikes inevitable. They were put in charge of massive amounts of money and mismanaged it tragically.

It’s ludicrous for O’Leary to now complain that Rachel Notley is the wrong steward for what he calls Canada’s most important resource. The only people who believe that are the ones whose heads are “for rent, unfurnished”, as the saying goes.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Joseph Stiglitz comments on how the Trans-Pacific Partnership looks to make democracy subordinate to corporate interests:

The US concluded secret negotiations on what may turn out to be the worst trade agreement in decades, the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and now faces an uphill battle for ratification, as all the leading Democratic presidential candidates and many of the Republicans have weighed in against it. The problem is not so much with the agreement’s trade provisions, but with the “investment” chapter, which severely constrains environmental, health, and safety regulation, and even financial regulations with significant macroeconomic impacts. 

In particular, the chapter gives foreign investors the right to sue governments in private international tribunals when they believe government regulations contravene the TPP’s terms (inscribed on more than 6,000 pages). In the past, such tribunals have interpreted the requirement that foreign investors receive “fair and equitable treatment” as grounds for striking down new government regulations – even if they are non-discriminatory and are adopted simply to protect citizens from newly discovered egregious harms. 

While the language is complex – inviting costly lawsuits pitting powerful corporations against poorly financed governments – even regulations protecting the planet from greenhouse-gas emissions are vulnerable. The only regulations that appear safe are those involving cigarettes (lawsuits filed against Uruguay and Australia for requiring modest labeling about health hazards had drawn too much negative attention). But there remain a host of questions about the possibility of lawsuits in myriad other areas. 

Furthermore, a “most favored nation” provision ensures that corporations can claim the best treatment offered in any of a host country’s treaties. That sets up a race to the bottom – exactly the opposite of what US President Barack Obama promised.

...

Those seeking closer economic integration have a special responsibility to be strong advocates of global governance reforms: If authority over domestic policies is ceded to supranational bodies, then the drafting, implementation, and enforcement of the rules and regulations has to be particularly sensitive to democratic concerns. Unfortunately, that was not always the case in 2015. 

In 2016, we should hope for the TPP’s defeat and the beginning of a new era of trade agreements that don’t reward the powerful and punish the weak. The Paris climate agreement may be a harbinger of the spirit and mindset needed to sustain genuine global cooperation.

- Ben Norton writes about the potential effects of TransCanada's NAFTA litigation over the Keystone XL pipeline, while Ethan Cox and Erin Seatter summarize the Chapter 11 process which allows big business to attack decisions made in the public interest. PressProgress reminds us that Canada too has faced corporate attacks on its environmental policies. And for those wondering who Brad Wall really serves, Saskatchewan's premier is cheerleading for the claim even though its primary outcome would be a transfer of U.S. public money to a single corporation.

- Charles Mandel points out in the wake of a massive California methane leak that the same could easily happen in Canada as well. And Paul Hanley calls for Saskatchewan to join the rest of the world in phasing out coal power, rather than insisting on being a dirty-energy outlier. 

- Finally, Hugh MacKenzie offers some suggestions to rein in excessive executive pay. And Michael Massing provides a primer to the media on covering self-interested "philanthropy".

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Hugh MacKenzie reminds us how quickly Canada's richest CEOs will exceed the income of the average Canadian worker on the year's first work day. And James Surowiecki takes a look at how the U.S.' corporate sector is fleeing any social obligations by sending profits offshore. 

- Stephen Kimber rightly slams the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies for demanding austerity which will only make a stagnant economy even worse.

- Roderick Benns suggests that Canada take the lead in developing a basic income to combat inequality at home and set an example for the rest of the world.

- Eric Doherty points out that any new infrastructure program will have significant consequences for our ability to rein in climate change - and there's reason to worry the Libs will focus on projects which make matters worse. And Evan Herrnstadt and Erich Muehlegger study (PDF) a connection between air pollution and violent crime.

- Finally, Scott Gilmore highlights the rarity of terrorist violence compared to far more significant risks:

In France, cervical cancer is seven times more lethal than terrorism, but Hollande would be ridiculed for convening a special session of parliament to address that threat. In the U.S., you are 28 times more likely to be shot by a policeman than by a terrorist. But that’s a problem the Republican primaries won’t be debating. And the murder rate in Edmonton is almost twice that in Paris. Although I suspect the pitiable school trustees lack the math skills required to decipher “homicides per 100,000 people per annum,” or the common sense to know what to do with that information.
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In the New Year, learn to ignore the primal fears in your brain and relax. Remind yourself that you’re safe; safer than you were last year and every year before that. But remember that others, people in the Middle East and Africa, aren’t. And don’t let your politicians go on about how they’re going to protect us; demand to know what they’re doing to protect those less fortunate than us. Also, please check in with your doctor. Cancer is several thousand times more likely to kill you than a suicide bomber.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Michael Hiltzik discusses how corporate apologists are trying (but failing) to minimize the existence and importance of income inequality. Lawrence Martin notes that the rest of Canada's economic indicators are similarly signalling that Conservative dogma is of absolutely no use in the real world. And Michael Geist observes that among the new "caretaker" rules is a provision allowing the Cons to keep trying to inflict the TPP as their parting shot at Canada even if their election plans are going nowhere.

- Michael Harris points out just a few of the whoppers which Stephen Harper will have to try to sell over the course of the federal election campaign. And it's well worth noting that Harper will need to do so while being trusted by virtually nobody outside his party's core supporters.

- In contrast, Antonia Zerbisias comments that Thomas Mulcair's has seemed impervious to attacks so far. (Though there's no doubt that he'll be tested more during the campaign than he has been yet.)

- Judy Shum comments on the progress made by the Housing First program in providing a secure base for previously-homeless Saskatoon residents.

- Finally, Hugh MacKenzie counters the Fraser Institute's latest attempt to pitch retirement only for the few. Noralou Roos and Evelyn Forget make the case for a guaranteed annual income to make sure everybody enjoys enough security to make choices. And CBC reports that university students in Newfoundland and Labrador are set to start receiving grants rather than being buried under a lifetime of student loan debt.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Mitchell Anderson compares the results of corporate-friendly Thatcherism to the alternative of public resource ownership and development in the interest of citizens - and finds far better results arising from the latter:

Thirty-five years after she swept to power as British prime minister, it is ironic that socialist Norway now has $830 billion in the bank and enjoys fully funded social programs that most of us can only dream of. Meanwhile the U.K. is enduring another round of wrenching austerity and owes over £1.3 trillion -- about US$2.2 trillion. That massive debt grows by about $3.8 billion each week, while every seven days Norway adds another billion dollars to their bank account.

What happened? Both countries were in dire economic straights in early 1970s. Both countries came into the financial windfall of North Sea oil around the same time, exploiting the same resource -- sometimes from the same drill rig. How could they have ended up in such vastly different places?

Rarely in history has there been such a clear-cut opportunity to explore the real world success or failure of competing world-views. Thatcherism has gone on to become an economic school of thought with true believers in positions of power around the world. The doctrine of cutting taxes, privatizing government assets and embracing deregulation continues apace around the globe to this day. But does it work?
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Wealth flows from resources, and the North Sea oil represented $8 trillion of public money. Realistic governments see resource development as a hard-nosed negotiation with their private business partners. They aggressively fight for their taxpayers against outside interests who naturally want to keep as much of that money as they can for themselves. Norway did a far more competent job managing their oil wealth than the naive ideologues in the U.K. The numbers speak for themselves.

- But Alison points out that Canada is instead heading toward increasing domination by private-sector oil barons - with the Cons passing the oil lobby's wishlist without even a hint of public interest entering into the discussion, and Justin Trudeau joining Stephen Harper in putting oil lobbyists at the core of his political team.

- Meanwhile, Hugh Mackenzie studies the retirement options available to Canadians, and finds that the CPP provides a far more secure source of income without upwards of a third of one's savings being siphoned off by the financial sector. And PressProgress nicely summarizes Mackenzie's findings.

- A group of political science experts writes to suggest that the Cons not ram through their Unfair Elections Act without considering the public interest - both in making voting more rather than less accessible, and in thoroughly considering the effect of unnecessary, partisan-driven changes. And the Star's editorial board agrees.

- Finally, David Beers interviews Kevin Page about the Cons' "grotesquely wrong" priorities:

Some scientists say federal libraries and other valuable infrastructure for making decisions is being unnecessarily destroyed in the name of budget cutting, but the real goal is to silence sources of environmental criticism. The Tyee has followed the story closely, for example here. Do you think the Harper government has used budget cutting as an excuse to achieve other political aims including undercutting the work of scientists whose findings could be cited by critics of the government's policies?

"I am deeply concerned about the lack of transparency, analysis and debate on the choices and impact of government programs and operations that are being eliminated and scaled back in the name deficit reduction. This includes reductions in spending to support information and knowledge at Environment Canada, Statistics Canada and elsewhere. The government created a structural deficit problem when it cut the GST and corporate income taxes too deeply with respect to our fiscal structure and long-term economic and demographic fundamentals. It is now trying to reduce a structural deficit while our economy continues to operate below its potential. It launched an austerity program in Budget 2012 without a plan for Parliament to scrutinize.

"PBO tried to get information on the cuts in advance of decisions to scale back science and veterans support etc. but were told by the public service and cabinet ministers that we were exceeding our legislative mandate. PBO sought a reference opinion at the Federal Court on this issue. There should be a plan in place to explain to Parliament and Canadians the choices and impact analysis on the cuts. This plan does not exist. The system is broken. MPs are voting on departmental spending plans without the information they need to assess austerity impacts. We are closing veterans offices in the name of efficiency but spending more on recreation trails. MPs should debate these issues.

"One of my favourite writers, Martin Wolf of the Financial Times, wrote a piece a few weeks ago about the state of leadership. He said we 'have high quality people but weak leadership.' He said we have an implicit pact with our elites. We want them to do their best and at least get things 'partly right,' not 'grotesquely wrong.' I fear that on the management of our institutions and on the long-term issue of climate change our elites are grotesquely wrong. We should be increasing investments in environmental research, not decreasing."

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Nora Loreto offers an important reminder as to why we contribute taxes to social well-being:

(T)axes still pay for things we need. Everyone benefits from a universal system of healthcare. Everyone is touched by the birth of someone and nearly everyone will rely on the system in the moments that precede their death. These moments are expensive.
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User fees exchanged for public services limits access; those who can pay are separated from those who cannot. The introduction of every new user fee will result in fewer people able to afford to access that service. No system can be designed intelligently enough to gear these fees to income such that people aren’t left behind, regardless of what some economists argue.

Instead, we have the progressive tax system. It saves lives, lifts people out of poverty and cuts down the wealth of the intensely greedy. Or, it’s supposed to.

Canadians who believe in the principle of universal access to public services know that poorer people suffer when the system is financially starved populist politicians. We need to continuously remind others about why we pay taxes and that we’ll defend our public services when they’re under attack.

But these acts aren’t enough. We also have to hold politicians accountable when they make cynical decisions meant to create crisis conditions that alienate and disenfranchise people.

Surely, it shouldn’t take a brush with a hospital’s intensive care unit to remind us of the importance of taxes.

- Meanwhile, Mark Lemstra discusses the Sask Party's failing and costly attempt to turn Saskatchewan's health care system into an assembly line.

- And Hugh Mackenzie calls for an adult conversation about what services Ontario wants to fund and how - rather than an election campaign fought on budgetary assumptions which nobody believes to be even remotely plausible.

- Embassy reports on the Canadian Government Operations Centre's inexplicable surveillance and suspicion of an Idle No More protest about the plight of bees. But then, it's possible to take plenty of power away from anybody trying to stigmatize public participation by wearing resistance as a badge of honour - as First Nations activists are now doing with their blue dot campaign.

- Alison nicely sums up the intentions behind the Cons' elections legislation. 

- Finally, Dean Beeby reports that Canadians are tuning out the Cons' publicly-funded propaganda. But more importantly, voters are also ruling out the Cons as an option in droves - with only 36% of respondents even seeing them as a possibility in Nanos' latest poll.

Saturday Morning Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- The Star offers an editorial on the continued increase in wage inequality in Canada, highlighting the complete lack of any connection between accomplishment and executive compensation:

(T)he country’s economic performance has changed dramatically. In 2007, when Mackenzie began, the Canadian economy was growing by leaps and bounds, leading some economists to predict that the business cycle could only improve.

Then the 2008 recession hit. Today, the economy is limping along; a growing proportion of the population needs two or three low-wage jobs to survive; and families are cutting back on everything from groceries to heating costs.

Yet there is no sign of restraint at the top. The 100 highest-paid chief executives took home between $3.9 million and $49.5 million in total compensation, for an average of $7.96 million, in 2012 (the latest year for which Mackenzie could get figures). The average Canadian earned $46,634.

“Five years after a global recession knocked the wind out of Canada’s labour market, throwing tens of thousands of workers onto the unemployment line and sidelining a generation of young workers, the compensation of Canada’s CEO elite continues to sail along,” Mackenzie said. What’s more, he added, “there is no clear relationship between CEO compensation and any measure of corporate performance.”

- Meanwhile, Matthew Hutson discusses the dangers of believing that wealth and social status result solely from inherent personal superiority - as well as the efforts of right-wing politicians to cultivate exactly that belief. Paul Krugman notes that the only way to pretend inequality isn't a serious issue is to mangle income data beyond all recognition. And Bruce Livesey eviscerates Thomas Watson's attempt to claim that all corporate fraud and abuse are the fault of the people victimized by a predatory financial system.

- Owen Jones muses about the prospect of more effective left-wing populism to counter the corporatist message:

It was starting to look like the Tories were going to get away with all this, building a Little England, seething with bile and fear, of booming profits and crashing living standards. Labour appeared to have decided: “Sod this for a game of soldiers, providing a semblance of opposition is way too much hassle, let’s have a lie-in until May 2015.” But then Ed Miliband realised that the populism of the Right could only be confronted with populism from the Left.

Every time Labour indulges in bashing immigrants and unemployed people, it just allows the Tories to set the terms of debate, driving issues up the national agenda that ensure the Right thrives. Labour will never win at being trusted to kick foreigners or poor people most, and should file for moral bankruptcy if it did. Similarly, the Tories cannot win on the “cost of living crisis”, as it’s been christened, and realised they have to change the subject, and quickly.

So 2014 has to be the year when left-wing populism flourishes. That means learning from the Right: simple messages that are repeated ad infinitum, hammered into the electorate’s skulls, constantly forcing opponents on to the defensive. Why are we, the taxpayer, subsidising the poverty wages of the likes of Tesco and Sainsbury’s, to the tune of tens of billions of pounds each year? Instead, let’s have a deficit-reducing living wage, which would inject a healthy dose of demand into the economy and, according to one economist, create 58,000 jobs. Why are landlords allowed to fleece the taxpayer with rents that need topping up with state benefits when we should both control rents and give councils the power to build homes, bringing down the social security bill, creating skilled jobs and sorting out the housing crisis?

- And finally, Dylan Matthews interviews Benjamin Radcliff about the link between a more robust government and happier citizens - with a particular focus on decommodification as a precondition to greater well-being.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Costas Lapavitsas discusses the disproportionate hold finance has over the global economy:

Financialisation represents a historic and deep-seated transformation of mature capitalism. Big businesses have become "financialised" as they have ample profits to finance investment, rely less on banks for loans and play financial games with available funds. Big banks, in turn, have become more distant from big businesses, turning to profits from trading in open financial markets and from lending to households. Households have become "financialised" too, as public provision in housing, education, health, pensions and other vital areas has been partly replaced by private provision, access to which is mediated by the financial system. Not surprisingly, households have accumulated a tremendous volume of financial assets and liabilities over the past four decades.
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Financialised capitalism is, thus, a deeply unequal system, prone to bubbles and crises – none greater than that of 2007-09. What can be done about it? The most important point in this respect is that financialisation does not represent an advance for humanity, and very little of it ought to be preserved. Financial markets are, for instance, able to mobilise advanced technology employing some of the best-trained physicists in the world to rebalance prices across the globe in milliseconds. This "progress" allows financiers to earn vast profits; but where is the commensurate benefit to society from committing such expensive resources to these tasks?

Financialisation ought to be reversed. Yet such an entrenched system will never be reversed by regulation alone. Its reversal also requires the creation of public banking that would operate with a new spirit of public service. It also needs effective controls to be applied to private banking as well as to international flows of capital. Not least, it requires new methods of meeting the financial requirements of households, as well as of small and medium enterprises. There is an urgent need for communal and associational ways to provide housing, education, health and other basic goods and services for working people, breaking the hold of finance on everyday life.

 - Hugh Mackenzie takes a look at the latest figures on CEO compensation - showing that Canada's wealthiest executives will make more by 1:11 today than the average worker will all year. And that represents yet another move toward increased concentration of income and wealth - as last year's figure is included in Trish Hennessy's review of 2013.

- Peter Jones criticizes the Cons' narrow-minded foreign policy:

A predictable world order where things like trade and security play out according to rules (admittedly something observed more in the breach in many parts of the world) is a world in which smaller countries have a better chance of advancing their interests. This is quiet, patient, painstaking work that rarely generates headlines. Progress is incremental and measured in years. It is less emotionally satisfying to some than yelling at the world from the rooftops. But it makes a contribution, over time, to creating a world that serves Canada’s interests.

The Conservatives have stood this on its head. In making foreign policy a reflection of their domestic approach to governance – finding wedge issues with which to detach segments of the population and play to their fears and angers – the Conservatives have given us a bitter, small-minded foreign policy. There are a few notable exceptions, such as the promotion of gay rights internationally, but most of the Conservative approach is centred on angry assertions of simplistic moral absolutes that play well to certain domestic constituencies, but contribute nothing to the world or to unifying Canadians behind a positive vision of their place in it.
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Ironically, all of this undercuts what the Conservatives should recognize as an overriding foreign policy objective: good relations with the United States. For example, President Barack Obama’s administration currently has a tough job trying to both find a nuclear deal with Iran and promote compromise between Israelis and Palestinians. Both issues are key to avoiding wars in the Middle East in the next decade. The administration needs friends and allies who will quietly roll up their sleeves and help look for answers. What it gets from Canada is bluster and intransigence...

- Finally, Paul Bernal's observations about privilege are well worth a read:

When I read about Boris’s speech, and when I think about all the patronising, elitist, offensive stuff that this government and pretty much every government I can remember have said, it makes me angry. Things like accusing poor people of not knowing how to budget, how to cook, how to feed their kids, how to make good decisions, or of being lazy, stupid etc. Suggestions from ministers that they could easily live on the amounts people get in benefits. Suggestions that people don’t try hard enough to get jobs. Suggestions that they don’t work hard enough. They all make me angry – and they make it clear to me that most of those speaking don’t know how privileged they are – and what the consequences of that privilege are.

For me, there are a few things that I try to remember. The first is the most obvious – that I’m deeply privileged and deeply lucky. The second is that I still don’t know quite how privileged and lucky I am – because so much of the privilege is hidden and built into the system, so much that those who are privileged can’t see it...

There’s an old saying: ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. There’s a degree to which it’s true, and it certainly seems that the current lot of powerful people are thoroughly irresponsible. I’d like to add another – though it’s deeply wishful thinking. With great privilege should come great humility. Those of us who are privileged – like me, and like Boris – should be able to find that humility. To know that we really don’t know what it’s like to live without our privilege. We can try to imagine – but we’ll never really succeed. And we should know that we’ll never really succeed – and be far, far more willing to listen properly to those who do know it. Most of all, though, we should know when not to talk as though we had all the answers. We should know when to shut up.

New column day

Here, on Regina's wastewater referendum as just the first step in encouraging regular citizen engagement in the decisions that affect us all.

For further reading...
- Again, Hugh Mackenzie's analysis of the cost of private financing is here (PDF). And Barrie McKenna's take on the hidden price of P3s is here.
- The Star Phoenix' editorial board points to Regina's wastewater options as a prime example of higher levels of government limiting the freedom of action of municipalities.
- The City's information on the sewage treatment plant is here - with no indication that the referendum is about to change the use of public resources to present what amounts to the "no" side.
- Finally, CBC documents Regina's past votes on infrastructure projects. And it's particularly worth noting the contrast between consistent citizen engagement over a period of over 50 years, and the complete absence of any votes since 1988.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- In addition to providing my latest tagline, Alex Himelfarb takes aim at the austerians who seem happy to attack social well-being and economic development alike in the name of government-slashing:

(A)usterity had never been driven by fiscal policy or economics or evidence.  It was driven by ideology.  Market fundamentalism.  A desire to make government much smaller, eliminate or reduce, as much as politics allowed, so-called entitlements, create a “pro-business” climate of less regulation, less government, and, above all, lower taxes.

Think about the irony of this: that the huge recession-induced deficits that were largely the result of tax cuts and deregulation were now the justification to renew the commitment to that same failed ideology. Deficits were a gift – cover to do what many had wanted to do all along.  Cut government down to size.  Cut services. Cut. It seems that every failure of this neoconservative approach is used by its advocates to justify doing more of the same. That’s kind of nuts.

How about Canada? I left the Privy Council and Canada for a few years in 2006. At that time Canada had a $16 billion surplus. That’s a real problem for those who might share Cameron’s ideology because without big deficits it’s harder to argue for the urgency to cut programs, reduce government. Instead, the decision was made to cut taxes, for example, taking two cents out of GST. Today those two cents cost the federal government about $14 billion annually. That’s on top of continuing the corporate tax cuts the Liberals had already launched and on top of numerous “boutique tax cuts” and on top of Liberal tax cuts in 2000 that were the biggest in Canadian history.

Imagine none of that had happened.  Imagine that the federal government had at least a good portion of the revenue that they gave up over the last dozen years. They would have had enough money to be far more resilient in the face of recession, to help provinces that were in trouble, to invest in science, education, in a greener, cleaner economy and to begin to transform our health and social programs so they would be there for future generations.

Instead, we’re now talking about austerity as though it’s inevitable, as though we have no choice. (When our leaders tell us that there is no alternative, it is a safe bet to assume that there is indeed an alternative and one that we would prefer were it on offer.)

- Meanwhile, Chrystia Freeland points out that many of the world's wealthiest tycoons gathered in Davos are trying to perpetuate an obsession with deficits rather than well-being. But Paul Krugman has some hope that deficit hawks are rightly being marginalized in Washington.

- At home, Kevin Page's latest report features two obvious indications that deficit talk is just as empty here as elsewhere: the CP points out that the Cons' attacks on the civil service have resulted in a shift away from providing useful services without actually saving any money.

- And finally, Hugh MacKenzie reminds us that we should be concerned about a $145 billion backlog of infrastructure neglect rather than limiting our focus to cuts and tax baubles.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- Pam Palmater explains the historical background to Idle No More:

(M)ost Canadians are not used to the kind of sustained, co-ordinated, national effort that we have seen in the last few weeks — at least not since 1969. 1969 was the last time the federal government put forward an assimilation plan for First Nations. It was defeated then by fierce native opposition, and it looks like Harper’s aggressive legislative assimilation plan will be met with even fiercer resistance.

In order to understand what this movement is about, it is necessary to understand how our history is connected to the present-day situation of First Nations. While a great many injustices were inflicted upon the indigenous peoples in the name of colonization, indigenous peoples were never “conquered.” The creation of Canada was only possible through the negotiation of treaties between the Crown and indigenous nations. While the wording of the treaties varies from the peace and friendship treaties in the east to the numbered treaties in the west, most are based on the core treaty promise that we would all live together peacefully and share the wealth of this land. The problem is that only one treaty partner has seen any prosperity.

The failure of Canada to share the lands and resources as promised in the treaties has placed First Nations at the bottom of all socio-economic indicators — health, lifespan, education levels and employment opportunities. While indigenous lands and resources are used to subsidize the wealth and prosperity of Canada as a state and the high-quality programs and services enjoyed by Canadians, First Nations have been subjected to purposeful, chronic underfunding of all their basic human services like water, sanitation, housing, and education. This has led to the many First Nations being subjected to multiple, overlapping crises like the housing crisis in Attawapiskat, the water crisis in Kashechewan and the suicide crisis in Pikangikum.

Part of the problem is that federal “Indian” policy still has, as its main objective, to get rid of the “Indian problem.” Instead of working toward the stated mandate of Indian Affairs “to improve the social well-being and economic prosperity of First Nations,” Harper is trying, through an aggressive legislative agenda, to do what the White Paper failed to do — get rid of the Indian problem once and for all.

- And Native Writes Now notes that Christie Blatchford for one isn't shy about saying that she considers the project of eradicating any distinct First Nations culture to be complete:

What Christie Blatchford wrote is offensive to the highest degree; but it should be remembered as the most honest interpretation in a national journal of the ultimate goal of the last 150 years of cultural genocide. Once Native Peoples no longer have any of the characteristics of a nation their claim to any Aboriginal Rights and Titles no longer exist. Christie Blatchford is laying claim to the success of the Canadian governments policy of cultural genocide through assimilation.

They haven't won, but we cannot deny that they are winning. We have to acknowledge Christie Blatchford for publicly announcing the motive. We have another battle and that is the one within our communities, our homes and our minds and spirits. It is our responsibility as Native people to remain idle no more in reclaiming, protecting and preserving our identity by learning and sharing our languages, cultures, traditions, rights and history. This is where most of the battle lies, this is the victory that cannot be taken away. This is it. This is the line in the sand. Idle no more.

- Meanwhile, Naomi Wolf writes about how the previous movement which rallied significant numbers of people in pursuit of a fairer and more equal society was systematically dismantled through collaboration between governments and the corporate sector.

- But Hugh Mackenzie points out that the right-wing propaganda mills seeking to declare inequality a dead issue don't have any basis in fact for doing so:

One of the hallmarks of liberal democracies post-Second World War has been the shared sense that we are all in this together. The breadth of the middle class meant that while there are differences in the way people live, people could still remain connected to one another in fluid social relationships. The middle class has been the glue that binds.

As income inequality worsens, Canadians have become increasingly polarized. We’re divided between a tiny but immensely powerful elite that consumes a wildly disproportionate share of society’s resources and the rest of us.

We are losing that connectedness. We tend not to live in the same neighbourhoods, and when we do, figurative and literal gates that separate us mean that we might as well be living on different planets.
Our kids don’t go to the same schools. They don’t study the same things in college or university. They move into the workforce with wildly disparate life expectations and graduate with wildly different debt burdens.
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There has also been a dramatic shift in the share of those costs borne by different social groups: Elite Canadians are paying less at the same time they are castigating our public programs. They also happen to be largely insulated from the impact of the decline of public service in Canada. They don’t feel our pain.

Most Canadians, however, are affected by reduced investments in education, which has long been cast as the ticket to income mobility. The majority are affected by inflation in tuition. But those at the top of the income scale have choices. They can pay the higher fees. They can avoid the consequences of under-investment by sending their kids to private schools or to private universities in the United States.

The rest of us have to live with the consequences.

And the richest of the rich have the ultimate social choice. They can choose what society to be part of.

Thanks to global economic integration and the greater mobility that goes with it, those with means can choose which country to live in, which country to earn their living in, which country to send their children to school in, and which country to pay their taxes in, and there is no need for those countries to be the same. They have similar options in terms of gated communities and private programs tailored to those with deep pockets.

This matters at an individual level, because it says to the 99 per cent that the system isn’t fair. The physical and social infrastructure that makes our society work depends on everyone contributing their fair share of the cost, so that the majority benefits from this collective investment in one another.

- And Jordan Brennan and Jim Stanford also argue that broad-based prosperity makes for a better result for everybody than a society that exacerbates the gaps between social classes:

(T)he growing gap in income distribution — and the myriad costs it imposes on society and our governments — is not inevitable. It reflects changes in economic and political power among the different stakeholders in society. Measures that limit the power and wealth of those at the top, and reinforce the structural bargaining position of those at the bottom, can ensure a broader distribution of incomes and wealth, and allow us to capture an important economic and fiscal “equality dividend.”

Inequality need not be a partisan, left-right issue. If we learn from the scientific evidence regarding the multi-dimensional costs of inequality, we will realize that creating a shared prosperity benefits all sectors of society (not just poor people). And then policy-makers from both ends of the political spectrum can join in building a more balanced and efficient society.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher uncover an apparently-fictitious employee listed as one of Con contractor RackNine's key contacts - nicely paralleling the obvious coverup behind "Pierre Poutine". And Dr. Dawg places the latest revelations in context with the rest of the Cons' misdirections and coverups.

- Meanwhile, the Cons are applying their theory that "the less anybody knows, the better" on the international stage as well.

- Hugh Mackenzie deconstructs the questionable assumptions used in Don Drummond's report to try to foist massive cuts onto the province without any real assessment of the value of public services.

- Finally, Craig Scott's by-election victory in Toronto-Danforth may not come as much surprise. But the fact that Scott was able to hold not only the seat but also the vote share of the most popular party leader in Canadian politics - even with at least one other party pouring its every effort into the seat (unlike in the general election) - surely signals that there's ample room for the NDP to grow in Toronto.