Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Armine Yalnizyan points out how inequality is bad for everybody - including those at the top who are fighting to exacerbate it:

Say the word "inequality," and many people automatically assume you're talking about the poor. But a mounting body of research shows that, left unchecked, a growing income gap affects the rich, the poor and everyone in between.

Economic growth used to be touted as the surest ticket to broad-based prosperity. But during the strongest period of economic growth in the past 30 years, between 1997 and 2007, a third of all income gains went to the richest 1% of Canadian tax filers.

Think that's normal? In the 1960s, the most recent comparable period of sustained growth, the richest 1% took only 8% of the gains from growth.

Not since 1920, when Ottawa began to collect income data, have Canada's elites pocketed a larger share of the income gains from economic growth. Top marginal tax rates for millionaires also are at rates last seen in 1920.
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No matter your political leanings, most people understand that endless concentration of income, wealth and power is bad for the economy. After all, businesses rely on rising purchasing power of the many, not the few, to deliver growth and profits.
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It's the promise of their own upward mobility that has many Canadians willing to brush aside the handsome gains enjoyed by the rich in the past 20 years. But rising inequality, in good times and bad, makes it increasingly feel like the game is rigged, destabilizing foundational values and expectations.
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A system that lets a small group gain more while the majority is forced to settle for less, despite ever-greater effort, is a prescription for trouble. No one knows the tipping point, but lock enough people out of the promise of gains and at some point, instead of stability and growth, you get social unrest.
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History has shown us, time and again: When too much is controlled by too few, something has to give. Continuously rising inequality is unsustainable.

Everyone has a stake in fixing this. And the fix has no political colour. It is about the future of Canada and where we're heading as an economy, a society, a democracy. That's why even conservatives are worrying about Canada's rising income gap.

- Susan Delacourt digs into the use of the phrase "if it matters, measure it" - and notes that it fits neatly with the Cons' efforts to stop measuring anything to do with social or environmental issues in an attempt to pretend they don't matter.

- Meanwhile, Aaron Wherry notes that Jim Flaherty and the Cons seem to have finally developed some tolerance for listening to expert opinions - as long as it involves excuses to slash the public sector.

- James Wood reports on the number of aboriginal candidates in this fall's Saskatchewan provincial election - with the NDP's total (11 candidates out of 54 nominated so far) looking particular noteworthy in exceeding the aboriginal proportion of the province's population.

- Finally, Murray Mandryk points out the Wall government's stunning achievement in managing to run deficits in two out of the last three years even with nearly every possible economic factor working in its favour.

New column day

Here, on how the Saskatchewan Party's actions speak far louder than the pundits' words as to whether or not there's a real chance for change in the November election.

For further reading:
- James Wood has nicely covered the Sask Party's anti-whistleblower legislation and its attack on First Nations voters.
- Murray Mandryk noted the political games involved in the Sask Party's North Battleford hospital announcement - particularly to the real funding and non-election timing of the NDP's previous plans which were axed by Wall after he took power.
- And naturally, similar questions have to be asked about the Sask Party's Moose Jaw hospital announcement.

Saturday Afternoon Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- In case we didn't already have enough examples of the Wall government's contempt for voting, James Wood notes that it's dragging its heels on authorizing any enumeration before the official writ period. That figures to work wonders in making it more difficult to accurately identify voters - but raises the question of why a government which is supposed to be able to coast to re-election feels the need to throw as many wrenches into the works as possible.

- We shouldn't be surprised to find out that most corporatist spin is based on blind belief in mythical concepts ranging from confidence fairies to magical wealth creators. But Sixth Estate highlights a particularly egregious example, as Stephane Dion's newest buddies are declaring that we can wish natural resources into existence.

- Meanwhile, in the real world, the consequences of that type of blind faith in markets can be readily observed - even as the Cons double down in their fervour:

As in many other countries, Canada is witnessing a phenomenon in which the most wealthy are enjoying stunning increases in their income while the rest of society stagnates. It’s something that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is likely to hear about in no uncertain terms in the parliamentary debate following the tabling of the budget on June 6.

The trend (long summarized as “the rich get richer while the poor get poorer”) is so pronounced globally that Angel Gurria, head of the industrialized world’s main think tank, is warning that income equality is becoming a “serious threat.”
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In a 2008 study of 30 OECD countries, Canada was singled out as one of the member nations that has witnessed the worst widening of the wealth gap.

Inequality and poverty declined in Canada for 20 years before the late 1990s, the OECD study said, but since have gotten much worse.
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And some analysts say the economic strategies being pursued by a re-elected Harper will only make matters worse, leading to a further expansion of the income gap between the very rich and others in Canada.

The crux of the issue concerns the Conservatives’ plan to continue implementing corporate income tax cuts and to eventually bring in other tax breaks, such as expanding deposits in Tax-Free Savings Accounts and allowing two-income couples with children younger than 18 to split their income for federal tax purposes.

While these measures have been promoted as ways of creating jobs or helping average Canadians, some economists say the benefits to the rich from these tax breaks will far outweigh anything seen by other members of society.

- Finally, Don Martin points out one noteworthy consequences of the NDP's surge:

Funny thing, but the more...under-30 MPs you meet, all of them unexpectedly elected in the orange wave of the NDP surge, the more you sense they will be a future asset, not a long-term liability, to leader Jack Layton.

They talk beyond their years, think quickly and most have an academic grounding in what federal politics is all about.
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I'm only met half a dozen or so, but I suspect it'll be great fun watching them spring in parliamentary action next week.

Thanks to them, the average age of Canada's 308 MPs has dipped below 50 for the first time in history.

Granted, that still leaves the average age in the House of Commons somewhat higher than in the general population. But as with other measures such as womens' representation, the NDP can at least claim proudly to have made Parliament more representative of Canada's population than ever - and hopefully the result will be a political conversation that better reflects the concerns of the general public.

On weak explanations

One more item from James Wood's notes today deserves a post of its own, as the Sask Party's followup to its bizarre claim that Saskatchewan would produce a fifth of the world's natural resources doesn't make any more sense than its initial assertion:

"With more than 20 per cent of the world supply of natural resources coming directly from Saskatchewan, we know this increase will likely continue," the release quotes Draude as saying.

Alas, these newfound resources proved to be as ephemeral as last year's budget projections of potash revenue.

On Friday, the government issued a correction saying the minister was incorrectly quoted. (The notebook isn't quite sure how that happens in the government's own news release, but never mind.)

So much to learn

Sure, we anonymous wannabe opinion makers may have been the ones who publicly reported the recent committee meetings where Bill Boyd and Rod Gantefoer demonstrated that they lack the slightest clue about issues for which they're directly responsible as Sask Party cabinet ministers.

That said, though, CanWest's superior news-gathering resources and insider access still count for something. And it apparently took James Wood to report that Boyd also whispered the word "bastards" under his breath at the same meeting which he singlehandedly turned into a farce with his lack of knowledge about the subject involved. So clearly we bloggers have a long way to go in matching the corporate media's ability to cover what's really important.